D&D 5E Are Per Rest Resources a Hindrance?

[James Gasik]

There are ways to explain it, the way I always did was to point out that you actually make many attacks, feints, and parries during a turn of combat, the attack rolls are for those few which have the opportunity to bypass the opponent's defenses. Thus, limited use attack abilities require very specific openings to use, which is why you can't reliably use them more than X times per encounter or diem.

Combat has always been ambiguous and arbitrary, so getting hung upon this point has more to do with how people visualize combat. For example, recently, in another thread, I had to point out that "misses" in combat do not necessarily mean you completely missed, but more likely, that your attack was parried, blocked, or had the damage negated by your armor.

Despite this, many people still visualize missed attacks as just that.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Just because people use 'immersion' and bloody-minded Discworld citizen level literalism as a shield against narrativism doesn't mean there aren't reasons. Immersion is right up there with verisimilitude in terms of hollow arguments for 'I don't like it'.

You can't use certain abilities all the time because they require different non-mechanical circumstances and set-up to pull off and in the meta, because you don't use cool moves every second in a story because it would get repetitive.

This is why I said, it felt boring.
For me it broke down, because I stopped looking at the story and DnD became just a game where in any combat situation I asked myself when to use which power, when to use which quick action and when which reaction ability. It did not help that powers had only fluffy names with no actual meaning and restrictions that were just there for balance reasons... (like different kinds of two weapon attacks where you have to split them up or focus on one target)... but I am derailing...

my maint point is: if you want to implement a ADE system, you should try to avoid 1/anything abilities. Instead prof bonus per day (or encounter) per ability or a shared pool for abilities that that recharges after a short breather (like warlock spells or battlemaster dice).
Then don't use thounsands of abilities that differ from each other in unmeaningful ways but instead have something like a spell list for maneuvers and you end up with a system that takes the best of both worlds.
You can draw from your different ressources and never feel like if you use the wrong one, you won't have it afterwards anymore.

In my ideal 6e, it would work like that. Every class would get a per short rest ressource. Fighters get battlemaster dice and a few prof bonus per day abilities (second wind for example) , bards get inspiration. Wizards would get a few signature spells. Sorcerery points would recharge on a short rest. Monks would get less ki points but also abilities that are per day.

Edit: i regret not having it tried out in 4e to combine AEDU abilities in X uses of A, E and U per day/encounter.

 

[Vaalingrade]

This is why I said, it felt boring.

The other direction, where you have daily uses and at the end of the day, you're out of gas and only get to vanilla attack, is far worse.

With enough encounter abilities and decent at-wills, you won't ever use the same set of them in an encounter. Encounters rarely go over 4-6 rounds, so it's not a lot you have to fill with good, flavorful encounter powers.

Proficiency per day combined with the low number of actual abilities in 5e is just going to feed the 5-minute work day as you nova your daily uses early, then suck to play in the back half of the day without a long rest. Maybe if the Long rest was the ridiculously long 1 hour short rest.

 

[delericho]

You can't use certain abilities all the time because they require different non-mechanical circumstances and set-up to pull off and in the meta, because you don't use cool moves every second in a story because it would get repetitive.

The problem there being that many 4e combats did feel very repetitive, because there was a tendency to unload all the encounter powers in order, and then possibly finish it off with a Daily. And seeing those same few powers every time got old.

That's definitely improved with 5e's superiority dice concept, where PCs have a number of options to choose from and a number of uses, and can mix and match between them.

 

[James Gasik]

Compared to, just making a basic attack with a melee weapon turn after turn?

 

[Mort]

Compared to, just making a basic attack with a melee weapon turn after turn?

I know this is in response to 4e powers but:

5e actually has quite a bit more the warrior can do than just basic attack (even without spells or superiority dice). You can Push back, you can trip, you can grapple etc an many combinations thereof.

The issue of course is the DM (and many modules) designing fights where "just attacking" is the, by far, most optimal option - and that is a real problem.

 

[payn]

Compared to, just making a basic attack with a melee weapon turn after turn?

They come out the same in the wash.

 

[billd91]

Combat has always been ambiguous and arbitrary, so getting hung upon this point has more to do with how people visualize combat. For example, recently, in another thread, I had to point out that "misses" in combat do not necessarily mean you completely missed, but more likely, that your attack was parried, blocked, or had the damage negated by your armor.

Despite this, many people still visualize missed attacks as just that.

And sometimes, they should visualize a missed attack as just that because it should be in the realm of possibility. All of those options, from parries to the armor/shield absorbing the blow to ducking and stepping aside, should be in the lexicon of describing why an attack failed to make progress in defeating an opponent.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

The other direction, where you have daily uses and at the end of the day, you're out of gas and only get to vanilla attack, is far worse.

Not for me. It is part of the fun.
This is why my statement was pesrsonally not an absolute.

 

[delericho]

Compared to, just making a basic attack with a melee weapon turn after turn?

It's an issue that's been festering for a long time - in early editions it frequently felt that making those basic attacks was more or less all the Fighter did much of the time, which isn't great.

3e tried to fix that by having Trip, and Disarm, and Sunder, and other options. But that failed because Fighters ended up picking one, throwing every resource at that, and then using it to the exclusion of all else, which got old really fast.

4e tried to fix it with AEDU powers, which was a little better again. But, alas, the result all too often was a cycle of the same few options (E), followed by an encounter-ender (D).

For my money 5e's superiority dice is the best approach thus far.

Though as @Mort says, much of the ultimate solution is actually to build more dynamic combat scenes, where "just attacking" isn't the optimal approach.

Edit to add: one other thing that could help is if the list of options that Fighters has itself varies as the situation adjusts. Perhaps they start with 3 reasonably basic options, but when they make their first kill they unlock a "demoralising blow" option. Or if they push an enemy to the edge of a barrier "over you go" unlocks, or things like that. Though that may be best handled by encounter building - add (and publicise!) some additional, and powerful, uses of Superiority dice depending on terrain?