D&D 5E Tedium for balance. Should we balance powerful effects with bookkeeping?

[Micah Sweet]

agreed, but then we are back to it mostly being tedious the way D&D does it, at least to me. What percentage of people do you think track them and what percentage just flat out ignores them?

Is a rule that is supposed to limit something and gets ignored by a significant part of the audience any good as a rule? My answer to that is no, which is why I would prefer other methods

Like I said, feel free to change the rules, but if it changes the fiction we need to accept (and hopefully acknowledge in the text) that, as @Scribe said, D&D is mostly nonsense now.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I disagree. Gating somethng behind resources a party doesn't have means you get two adventures for the price of one: the quest to find and-or obtain that missing resource, followed by the original adventure they needed it for.

Do Wizards even get Planeshift? I thought it was a Cleric spell.....

They do, and I do not have an issue with needing to first fetch a mcguffin to access the real adventure but as an adventure design issue not as the default for a spell.

 

[aco175]

I wonder how many DMs track these things for their bad guys? I know that I do not and it bit me one time years ago when the player was smart enough to ask me about components since the bad guy was casting all these spells and he walked out with an extra 1,000 gp treasure

 

[Asisreo]

The poll is a bit loaded in that bookkeeping is consistently described as "tedious", when such is not always the case.

For components, I handwave any component that doesn't have a g.p. cost listed in the spell write-up (unless the caster has somehow lost a bunch of other gear); but if there's a cost listed then that cost has to be paid and the component has to be tracked.

The most common example IME is the 100+g.p. pearl required for casting Identify. They're always looking for pearls.

Also, things like this are a bit of a money sink, which it sounds like 5e in particular could use.

I intended the poll to mention specifically "Tedius Bookkeeping," because the if players don't mind it, then it isn't really a negative at all.

It should be something requiring patience, accurate tracking of events, and nothing especially stimulating or fun. Basically, making using the effect a chore.

 

[Asisreo]

I wonder how many DMs track these things for their bad guys? I know that I do not and it bit me one time years ago when the player was smart enough to ask me about components since the bad guy was casting all these spells and he walked out with an extra 1,000 gp treasure

By RAW, that's actually how it works. The Monster Manual says that if a creature needs a material component for a spell they need to cast, you can just assume they have it.

 

[Umbran]

Do you think a tedious amount of bookkeeping, even if the tedium is light, is a valid way to balance effects?

For example, if an effect could revive the dead, but only after at least 30 full moons has passed since the last usage otherwise it destroys itself, would this be a bad way of balancing this?

Its not particularly difficult to use by a skill standpoint, but it requires tallying the number of full moons which can be annoying for the player and a DM that doesn't have a calendar prepared.

So, I get the question, but I don't think this is a great example of it.

In effect, I think that in the field, this particular restriction wouldn't often get tracked in tedious detail - it'd fall to the GM saying, "Hm, has it been two and a half years yet?" And if you track time strictly, many campaigns (like, most of WotC's published adventures) take less than that in game-time, so it becomes "once per campaign" which isn't all that hard to track. It then becomes a pretty simple rate limit. Heck, at that point I'd probably just replace it with a one-use item for the players to find.

But, to address the underlying question - making players do unfun things is not a suitable balance. If the restriction is entertaining for the player, that's fine. If the restriction is tedium for the player, I'm likely to replace it.

 

[Stormonu]

Y'know, I'm trying to wrack my brain, but I don't think I've run across any other RPG beyond the AD&D series where spell components are even mentioned. Even really crunchy games like Rolemaster.

 

[nevin]

Y'know, I'm trying to wrack my brain, but I don't think I've run across any other RPG beyond the AD&D series where spell components are even mentioned. Even really crunchy games like Rolemaster.

I suspect it was an idea that sounded cooler than it was. Spell components could then be treasure. But I've never in all my years of DM'ing ever had a character get excited about a spell component unless it was something story related like a large diamond for ressurection or finally getting a source of diamond dust for your stoneskin spells, or is there was some special component DM required for a Wish spell. Other than that it was roll eyes and look at the real treasure. Kind've hard to get excited about finding some leaves and bat guanno.

 

[Micah Sweet]

They do, and I do not have an issue with needing to first fetch a mcguffin to access the real adventure but as an adventure design issue not as the default for a spell.

I would say getting the Mcguffin is no less real than anything else the party is doing.

 

[nevin]

I would say getting the Mcguffin is no less real than anything else the party is doing.

in fact more than one party of mine has hijacked parts of the story because the McGuffin became their central focus. It was more real than anything else they were "pretending".