D&D 4E [4e Clone] Eliminating the 5MWD without APs?

[I'm A Banana]

Though I've never thought that 5MWD was a significant problem, even in 3e, I'm fond of the way your conception of dailies as kind of "always on" abilities. For the goal of motivating PC's to continue on, though, this doesn't work very well at early levels, when they only have one daily ability, and it doesn't work THAT well even when they have more: "I have to use this limited ability!" isn't a reason to keep going. It prevents a nova, but it doesn't give them any reason to keep going: yeah, they're not out of juice totally, but why not rest and recover your abilities, even if you're not totally out of them?

In order to keep the PC's moving forward, you want to use positive and negative reinforcement: incentives that awesome things come to them if they forgo a rest, and consequences for taking a rest that they'd like to avoid. The AP serves as the former, and if you'd like to get rid of that, you'd have to dangle some other carrot out for them: what do they GET, if they keep pressing forward?

Since this is a meta-game problem, you can probably successfully address it in the meta-game: bigger rewards (more GP or XP) for continuing on, for instance.

 

[C4]

In fact I think AP should be a encounter resource.

As it happens, they will be!

One of my 4e house rules that I'll be carrying over to PoL is this: PCs don't get the RAW start-of-day AP, but they get 1 AP after each and every encounter afterward. Oh, and APs are a use-it-or-lose-it resource; you can only spend 1 per encounter. This makes it much easier to remember how many APs everyone has from real-world-week to real-world-week, and cuts down on analysis paralysis.

It also creates a carrot that players will absolutely lose if they stop for a long nap. (In fact I still wonder why the dev team decided that everyone should get an AP at the start of each day -- it's yet another incentive to whip out the bedrolls...)

 

[C4]

Alright, the consensus seems to be "No, C4, this all-stance idea is not the best thing since spaghetti," so I'm dropping it.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Alright, the consensus seems to be "No, C4, this all-stance idea is not the best thing since spaghetti," so I'm dropping it.

Wait, Spaghetti? I thought the benchmark was sliced bread? Do we need to re-evaluate?

 

[C4]

Wait, Spaghetti? I thought the benchmark was sliced bread? Do we need to re-evaluate?

Sliced bread? Ridiculous! Bread can be eaten by the chunk, but there's no substitute for spaghetti!

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Though I've never thought that 5MWD was a significant problem, even in 3e, I'm fond of the way your conception of dailies as kind of "always on" abilities. For the goal of motivating PC's to continue on, though, this doesn't work very well at early levels, when they only have one daily ability, and it doesn't work THAT well even when they have more: "I have to use this limited ability!" isn't a reason to keep going. It prevents a nova, but it doesn't give them any reason to keep going: yeah, they're not out of juice totally, but why not rest and recover your abilities, even if you're not totally out of them?

In order to keep the PC's moving forward, you want to use positive and negative reinforcement: incentives that awesome things come to them if they forgo a rest, and consequences for taking a rest that they'd like to avoid. The AP serves as the former, and if you'd like to get rid of that, you'd have to dangle some other carrot out for them: what do they GET, if they keep pressing forward?

Since this is a meta-game problem, you can probably successfully address it in the meta-game: bigger rewards (more GP or XP) for continuing on, for instance.

Good points. Though I am not sure GP count really as metagame, they have an in-game representation, XP does generally not.

One thing I always wanted (but never have) to experiment was to add some kind of "injury" subsystem to the game - a form of lasting drawbacks due to damage, that are mostly decoupled from hit points, except they are of course triggered by hitpoint loss. Something like "if you go down to 0 hp, you suffer an injury, and if you're bloodied, that injury causes you a drawback".

Injuries could be a mechanic that motivates rest, since rest would the the only thing that heals injuries. (We can also cheat logic a bit for better verisimilitude a by introducing rituals and special magical items that heal even nasty injuries over night - but require downtime to be used.)

Dailies* and Action Points could be a mechanic that encourage to fight on:
- Action Points start at 0 after an extended rest and you gain 1 action point after each encounter.
- You can use one Daily per Encounter, if you want additional ones, you either need to spend an AP or sacrifice an encounter power.
- If you start and end an encounter without any Dailies, you refresh them all.
- After an extended rest, you can choose to lose any dailies you had and recover half of them. You don't have to (you might want to rely on the full refresh after a daily-power free encounter.)
Hit Points would be more or less neutral for this. They simply recover every encounter. If we want to keep healing surges:
- After a rest, you have half your healing surges (round down)
- After each encounter, you gain half your healing surges (round up).



*) we really need a better word for them when they are no longer Daily at all

 

[D'karr]

One thing I always wanted (but never have) to experiment was to add some kind of "injury" subsystem to the game - a form of lasting drawbacks due to damage, that are mostly decoupled from hit points, except they are of course triggered by hitpoint loss. Something like "if you go down to 0 hp, you suffer an injury, and if you're bloodied, that injury causes you a drawback".

Injuries could be a mechanic that motivates rest, since rest would the the only thing that heals injuries. (We can also cheat logic a bit for better verisimilitude a by introducing rituals and special magical items that heal even nasty injuries over night - but require downtime to be used.)

I've toyed with this in many different iterations. Here's something I wrote almost 2 years ago when I was working on it. Part 1 and 2 are background information that works out how and why the 4e systems works the way it does. Part 3 has the injury mechanics.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Hope this inspires you to use it if you've been looking for a way to do injuries.

 

[MoutonRustique]

I think the concensus is more along the lines of : cool idea, I like it/I'm ok with it/I'm concerned about the implementation and what it will cost with regards to certain builds or classes that are currently enjoyable.

From what I'm reading, I'd not throw it out - also I, personnaly, really like it. (so, it's not like I'm not skewing anything with my personnal agenda or anything... I'd NEVER do that... ok, maybe, but possibly not; eh, who am I kidding, I'm pushing it as hard as the guy his sister into the pool in the popular vine compilation.)

There is, however the fact (as [MENTION=2067]Kamikaze Midget[/MENTION] pointed out) that it does little for 5MWD - especially at lower levels. It's still a very cool idea !

For the 5MWD, other cool things the players could get : temp hp (could increase with number of encounters or not depending on book-keeping load desired), bonus to damage (see previous), in-combat recharge of limited use power, the chance of in-combat recharge of limited use power with increasing probability (heavier book-keeping), higher crit chance (same as previous), bonus hp on HS use (significant - so that each is worth more and more), a limited use power becomes reliable, out of juice...

 

[Warbringer]

[MENTION=93857]C4[/MENTION] When I ran 4e (briefly) and in my home-brew, its assumed the character is always looking for the best opportunity, just can't find one so the attack is somewhat blocked (ie a lesser power).

Now if you want to use a mechanic to reflect that rational I'd steal the escalation die and say:

after 4 rounds let the player recharge or use a daily at the cost of an encounter power,
at round 6 recharge an encounter in place of an at will,
at round 8 recharge or use a daily,
etc ....

Prevents grind, prevents nova (mostly) and s essentially a recharge mechanic

 

[fjw70]

P.S. best part is that Fireball and Brute Strike _are_ encounter powers if you look carefully enough.

Okay, what am I missing here?