D&D 5E 2/25/2013 L&L: This Week in D&D

[Libramarian]

I would like [MENTION=697]mearls[/MENTION] to explain why he favors such an incredibly fast healing rate. They must have some reason for this to keep pushing for it in the face of all the people who want much slower healing. Just explain what it is and maybe you will sell us on it. Is it the asymmetry between the recovery of spells vs. hp? If so maybe I want to slow down the recovery of spells too.

 

[Texicles]

...will or won't ingame time be a resource?

Maybe I'm just not getting it. Doesn't the onus of placing value on time fall on the DM? Hasn't it always?

If your game involves strolling through a dungeon for fun and profit, I can't think of a way to make time a critical resource, nor can I think of a need to do so.

If, on the other hand, you have to toss a big bad ring into a big bad volcano to stop a big bad guy from monkey-stomping you and your pals, then the story dictates that time is of the essence.

Either way, story and DMing drive the availability of time, and a strict codification of time as a resource, while useful for striking a perfect class balance, would take power out of the story that ran counter to its assumptions.

But, I may be way off base and missing the gist of what you're concerned about, so if that's the case, mea culpa.

 

[D'karr]

Oh, wait, you're serious.

Simple mechanics that just work are genius.

Still causing arguments 40 years later....hardly indicative of "genius" in mechanics.

Only arguments from those that want to make them something they were never meant to be. Doesn't bother me, because I've come to understand they are abstract, and always have been. They're abstract for a reason.

 

[pemerton]

Maybe I'm just not getting it. Doesn't the onus of placing value on time fall on the DM? Hasn't it always?

Not always. For instance, in D&D combat there has always been some form of action economy that makes ingame time a resource regardless of GM force.

If your game involves strolling through a dungeon for fun and profit, I can't think of a way to make time a critical resource, nor can I think of a need to do so.

<snip>

a strict codification of time as a resource, while useful for striking a perfect class balance, would take power out of the story that ran counter to its assumptions.

Well, that's the problem, isn't it!

4e avoids this problem by putting all PCs on a common rsource recharge schedule. So whether strolling through dungeons or running up against a clock, there are minimal issues of intraparty balance.

A completely different way to handle it would be to have a rule which says you can only recharge once per level (ie separate recharging from ingame time altogether). So whether strolling or rushing, you have the same resources available to earn that level's worth of XP. (And this approach would work well for assymetric classes like Next's.)

There are things to be said for both approaches; and there are further approaches again (eg Marvel Heroic RP, which allows recovery only during GM-designated Transition Scenes). I'm not wedded to any particular way of handling the issue. But I think it's poor design to just ignore it.

 

[Ratskinner]

There are things to be said for both approaches; and there are further approaches again (eg Marvel Heroic RP, which allows recovery only during GM-designated Transition Scenes).

I suspect that their thinking is along the lines of approach. That is, the DM determines not only how fast HP recharge, but when you actually get that opportunity (through not-so-wandering monster attacks and the like.) It may not be great thinking, but I wouldn't be surprised by it.

 

[sr123]

One thing that may have been pointed out earlier: as long as there is a "Heal" skill, there needs to be some reason to use it over magic/potions.

Suggested module: "Cure" may invigorate testosterone and stop bleeding in a fight, but you still have gashes, bruises, and fractures when you get out. All HP from Cure spells and potions could be temporary barring a Heal attempt or two to suture/ice/set wounds after battle before the effect wears off.

By blanketing all magical healing as temporary, along with surges, there is further motivation to roleplay actual physical damage: a finger dangling by a wad of skin, a punctured lung that bubbles blood out the hole on every exhale, a detached earlobe (literally). Finally, it makes every character a potential healbot, since the cleric's cures are no longer as essential to any multi-ig-day crawl.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Second, we get the fanfare over the power of modularity - as if a 4e group couldn't change extended rests from "6 hours" to "6 days" at the stroke of a pen, if that's what they wanted.

Third, we get the continued failure of WotC designers to speak openly about the metagame features of these design decisions. They talk about it as if all the stakes are ingame ("How long will it take for my guy to get better?") whereas the design issue is almost entirely metagame.

I'm still unimpressed by the general lack of awareness on what really makes something modular in a technical sense. It doesn't mean solely "swappable," but that seems to be the approach thus far (with a handful of exceptions).

If some of the things proposed thus far as modules were translated directly into kitchen appliances, you'd need a different size, shape, and power electric outlet for every appliance--on the grounds that you could always run down to the hardware store for parts, flip the breaker, and then rewire the outlet each time you wanted to do toast bread or run a blender.

The real work of design here is finding the proper place and manner to allow something to swap. The real art of design here is making that proper place and manner fit the feel of D&D.

 

[sheadunne]

Not always. For instance, in D&D combat there has always been some form of action economy that makes ingame time a resource regardless of GM force.

Well, that's the problem, isn't it!

4e avoids this problem by putting all PCs on a common rsource recharge schedule. So whether strolling through dungeons or running up against a clock, there are minimal issues of intraparty balance.

A completely different way to handle it would be to have a rule which says you can only recharge once per level (ie separate recharging from ingame time altogether). So whether strolling or rushing, you have the same resources available to earn that level's worth of XP. (And this approach would work well for assymetric classes like Next's.)

There are things to be said for both approaches; and there are further approaches again (eg Marvel Heroic RP, which allows recovery only during GM-designated Transition Scenes). I'm not wedded to any particular way of handling the issue. But I think it's poor design to just ignore it.

I'm not a fan of any of these approaches because they're not traditionally the way D&D has handled it. These are only solutions if you think there is a need for balance at all, which I do not. I'm not looking for a fixed "recharge" schedule that's not directly tied to ingame time, whether or not ingame time has any other effect. I don't use XP in my games, haven't for decades. It's a poor way to measure progress in a game.

The tension created between continue or rest I find enjoyable in games. Do we rest because the Wiz is out of spells? Do we rest because the Cleric can't heal anymore today and the fighter is down HP? Do we rest because half the party is out of resources? These conflicts add to the dynamics of the game and make the game interesting for me. If everyone is on the same schedule it becomes boring. I want discussion and planning at the table. I want resource management to matter and I want it to matter to players in different ways reflected by classes and how players play those classes.

Some people have a problem with it and resolve the issue with a 15 minute adventuring day. Those players/groups are a different type of player than myself, who has never experienced the 15 minutes adventuring day. It isn't logical to rest when everyone's perfectly healthy and ready to go, just because a few characters are out of spells. Just be more careful and plan. That's fun. That's exciting. That's why I play D&D instead of other games where it's not an issue.

It isn't poor design, it's a deliberate conflict of priorities and it's a wonderful thing in an RPG. Which is also why I favor classes using different an unique mechanics. I'm all for an AEDU designed class to adventure alongside a daily recharging caster and an swing the sword endless fighter. As long as the conflict of priorities exist to create tension within the story, I'm good with it. Balancing is the issue across classes but not using a single fixed mechanic that affects all classes.

 

[pemerton]

I'm still unimpressed by the general lack of awareness on what really makes something modular in a technical sense.

I'm as guilty of that as anyone - I don't have any grasp of the technical notion of modularity.

All I know is that scaling rates of healing up and down, in a context in which the passage of time within the gameworld is not itself any sort of resource drain, (i) seems not very profound, and (ii) seems merely a change in colour.

 

[pemerton]

I suspect that their thinking is along the lines of approach. That is, the DM determines not only how fast HP recharge, but when you actually get that opportunity (through not-so-wandering monster attacks and the like.) It may not be great thinking, but I wouldn't be surprised by it.

That can work - I use a version of it in my 4e game, for instance - but it helps to be explicit about it, so GMs know what they have to do to make the game work!

The good thing about 4e in this respect, though, is that it's not on any sort of knife-edge - the PCs are resilient enough that it's hard to kill them by pushing too hard, and the intraparty balance (due to roughly symmetrical resource payloads) is such that if I'm too relaxed no one is systematically disadvantaged (though the player who horded dailies on that particular occasion might feel a bit ripped off).

The other thing is that 4e lacks, at least as routine elements of play (some rituals push this envelope a little bit), the teleport/rope trick sort of stuff that makes it hard for the GM to exercise this sort of authority consistently with the rules of the game. So far, D&Dnext doesn't seem to be adopting such a strict approach.

The tension created between continue or rest I find enjoyable in games. Do we rest because the Wiz is out of spells? Do we rest because the Cleric can't heal anymore today and the fighter is down HP? Do we rest because half the party is out of resources? These conflicts add to the dynamics of the game and make the game interesting for me. If everyone is on the same schedule it becomes boring. I want discussion and planning at the table. I want resource management to matter and I want it to matter to players in different ways reflected by classes and how players play those classes.

Two things.

First, having every PC on the same recharge scheule with the same resource load out doesn't eleminate the need for resource management or operational decision-making. I've GMed all-thief parties in AD&D. They use their abilties on the same cycle (at-will) and regain their hit points on the same cycle (per day). And there can be disagreements and decisions to be made (eg PC A is at full health, PC B has lost 5 hit points: do we rest or do we go on?). I have GMed all-caster parties in Rolemaster. They are all on a daily cycle for spell point recovery, but it can come about that one has used all his/her points when another has points left. And in my 4e game, PCs routinely have differing numbers of surges, daily powers etc remaining.

My reason for preferring a common recharge cycle isn't that it produces uniformity and a lack of operational decision-making - as I've just illustrated, it doesn't. It's that I, as the GM, am not introducing systematic advantage for one player or another by departing from a systemically-presupposed "adventuring day".

Second, what is the source of tension between resting or going on? In a system that relies on GM force, I don't see it. If you rest, the GM can decide to keep up the pressure by having "wandering" mosters disturb you. If you go on, the GM can decide to release the pressure by having all the monsters be sleepign when you go past them.

I think it's worth noting that Gyagxian D&D doesn't leave this up to GM force - there are regular wandering monster rolls, reaction rolls, rolls to see if a dragon is aslep, etc. Gygaxian D&D, as spelled out in the AD&D DMG, also makes ingame time a resource via the rule that one real world day equals one ingame day - I can't say I completely follow the way Gygax was running his game, but it seems that if you sent your PC on a long trip or spent a long time healing, you might be at a disadvantage relative to other players in the same gameworld, who would form a party and loot all the best dungeons in the meantime.

Games like Runequest and Burning Wheel make time into a resource in a different way, by allowing you to spend it training (thus improving skills), or earning money.

As I said, I don't particularly care what approach the designers take, but I would like them to be deliberate, clear, and to spell out how they intend their game to work, and what responsibilities (if any) the GM has to make it work properly.