Ovinomancer
No flips for you!
No, I just dislike communicating in long, multi quote posts.
That's okay, I don't like responding to broken up posts.
No, I just dislike communicating in long, multi quote posts.
Sure - but if you have a hard-reset between encounters, like the last ed of Gamma World did - then events might unfold a little oddly, too. If your recent experiences & challenges make no impression on you, at all, that's likely to be at odds with some those (or other) elements, too, no?From my point of view, the contrast is this: if the unit of balance is the encounter (scene), then it is possible to allow events to unfold as they do in accordance with the logic of play, complications, framing, etc, without this having any implications for mechanical balance across PCs (which is a feature of a mechanically heavy system like D&D).
True, it's a constraining approach, but it does allow for some tension between urgency & preparation.If the unit of balance is the adventuring day which is understood to include multiple encounters (eg 6 to 8 in 5e), then the dynamic becomes different. The GM has to have sketched out a sequence of events in advance, or at least maintain the "threat" of such, in order to constrain the use of resources by players whose PCs are on a longer rather than shorter recharge cycle. As well as this implication for pacing and expectations around pacing/framing, there is also another consequence: players who withhold the use of resources out of concern for subsequent encounters which don't occur don't get to use those resources, which leaves those elements of the player archetype unrealised.
I'm assuming you mean abilities that have limited in encounter usages that would then recharge daily rather than by encounter. You could, but then you'd be placing a strong incentive on daily encounter design to only have that many encounters a day, which would then pretty much be encounter balanced despite the daily recharge.
I am talking about how 1e and 2E balances classes over the campaign Magic Users started out weak, but had some truly powerful abilities later, when they reached higher levels. Classes even advanced at different rates. That is all about balance over the campaign.
You wouldn't need to provide the same number of encounters in a given day. All you need to do is occasionally have that many encounters. Players won't nova it all away and risk a TPK if they know that sometimes a day will be encounter heavy. They will self-limit during the days with fewer encounters.
This isn't sufficient for your conclusion. There are games that use encounter framing that have huge disparities in character mechanical balance (Buffy, frex, where one character is vastly superior in many ways to others, such that some encounters can be trivialized by their mere presence in the scene). Encounter balanced games doesn't have to have character balance at all. 4e does. Most Story Now games do, but that's mostly because it's a design goal of the game in addition to encounter based ability balance.From my point of view, the contrast is this: if the unit of balance is the encounter (scene), then it is possible to allow events to unfold as they do in accordance with the logic of play, complications, framing, etc, without this having any implications for mechanical balance across PCs (which is a feature of a mechanically heavy system like D&D).
Well sure, he was Gandalf at that point.5th level. Once a wizard hit 5th level he was gold, .
Games can be like the proverbial stopped clock that's right twice per day, sure. Instead of trying to fix one, you can make best use of it.. I think there's a lot of value in looking at how games govern character ability recovery, as this gives strong indications as to what kinds of play that game is well suited for.
To be fair, 3e made some very significant changes that deviated from the DM-dominated/mediated dynamic in which the classic game was most nearly functional. A major one was shifting magic items from arbitrary DM mcguffins to systematic player build resources - heck the 3.x functional mode of play pretty much was the build mera-game, so much had the emphasis shifted from DM to player - one particularly notorious example being wands, the make/buy pricing of which radically changed some dynamics, such as...D&D through 3rd used daily recovery almost exclusively, and the style of play best supported is the more traditional, strategically focused play.
... between-combat healing: you could drain a wand and heal 275 hps in, coincidentally, 5 min. And, as you leveled, the cost of one became increasingly trivial, so hps became a de-facto encounter resource in 3e. 4e pulled /back/ from that, by basing most healing (even potions) on a daily resource, surges, managed by the recipient, and virtually all non-surge healing on other daily resources, like utility powers.4e shifted to a strong encounter based recovery mechanism (hp recharged per encounter with short rests,
4e also added in-combat second wind, also using daily surges, action points that re-carged on milestones, at-will powers, and yeah, encounter powers. A first level character had one of them, to go with his two at-wills and one daily. Not exactly 'most' of his abilities.4e shifted to a strong encounter based recovery mechanism...
most abilities recharged per encounter, etc.)
5e did not go all the way back to that extreme, but it did greatly increase daily spell resources, and give fewer classes encounter resources, at all. I don't think that's exactly incoherent, even by Force definitions, it's just innately imbalancing outside of the theoretical pacing target. That's limiting in a lot of ways, but, along with the many other DM -Empowerment measures the edition takes, does bring back the DM-led play dynamics of the classic game...5e has moved the needle back towards a blend, with both kinds of balance discussed so far in evidence. This has led to some incoherence in daily encounter balancing, depending on party make-up,
By the same token, D&D doesn't have a lock on the dungeon, even some story-now indy game could go into one, if that's where the players took it. It just wouldn't /have/ to be the same kind of exercise in paranoia ...Blades would be absolute pants at trying to do a dungeon crawl.
I suppose you can conveniently dismiss this opinion as purist-for-system, but what you can do with a system expands the better-balanced it is, because more of what it presents remains meaningful & viable. It's true that, like the stopped clock an imbalanced game can do a few specific things relatively well, in that doing anything else turns non-viable. You don't/need/ that to support a style, though.Looking at games in this way is useful, and doesn't say that a game is bad -- games cannot be everything to everyone, so choices limiting some playstyles and play objectives are to be expected and welcomed, not dismissed. There's a lot of dismissal going on, and defensive thinking.
I'm not sure who you are positing this as an ideal for - a designer? a game publisher? an individual table, or GM?Ideally, depending on exactly what you're going for, you'd want the potential for tension in pacing, so pacing has a meaningful, but not overwheliming impact on difficulty, for instance, without the worry of significant imbalances among the PCs, as well.
I think the issue of lingering consequences is different from the issue of class mechanical balance on a per-encounter (short rest) or per-day (extended rest) basis. For instance, Cortex+ Heroic and HeroQuest revised both have lingering consequences although they have no "per day" mechanic at all.if you have a hard-reset between encounters, like the last ed of Gamma World did - then events might unfold a little oddly, too. If your recent experiences & challenges make no impression on you, at all, that's likely to be at odds with some those (or other) elements, too, no?
I am not saying that "per encounter" balance is a sufficient condition of mechanical balance between classes. (How could it be?)This isn't sufficient for your conclusion. There are games that use encounter framing that have huge disparities in character mechanical balance (Buffy, frex, where one character is vastly superior in many ways to others, such that some encounters can be trivialized by their mere presence in the scene). Encounter balanced games doesn't have to have character balance at all. 4e does. Most Story Now games do, but that's mostly because it's a design goal of the game in addition to encounter based ability balance.pemerton said:From my point of view, the contrast is this: if the unit of balance is the encounter (scene), then it is possible to allow events to unfold as they do in accordance with the logic of play, complications, framing, etc, without this having any implications for mechanical balance across PCs (which is a feature of a mechanically heavy system like D&D).
Where did the word "failing", or any synonym, appear in the post of mine that you quoted? I identified a contrast that is, from my point of view, salient. Since when did identifying a salient contrast - which is not utterly at odds with a contrast you have been drawing for the past page or two - become a (purported) identification of a failing in a ruleset?Again, you're analyzing using the same play objective for both styles. A play objective to get through the session maximizing the strategic use of your abilities isn't well served by encounter balanced play, but it is by daily balanced play. Matching play objectives with game mechanics is important. That a given play objective, no matter how much it's important to you, isn't well served by a ruleset isn't automatically indicative of a failing of that ruleset. Only if the ruleset fails to deliver it's promised play objectives is it a failure.pemerton said:If the unit of balance is the adventuring day which is understood to include multiple encounters (eg 6 to 8 in 5e), then the dynamic becomes different. The GM has to have sketched out a sequence of events in advance, or at least maintain the "threat" of such, in order to constrain the use of resources by players whose PCs are on a longer rather than shorter recharge cycle. As well as this implication for pacing and expectations around pacing/framing, there is also another consequence: players who withhold the use of resources out of concern for subsequent encounters which don't occur don't get to use those resources, which leaves those elements of the player archetype unrealised.