D&D 4E 4th Edition and the 'Adventuring Day'

[Dannyalcatraz]

We played 4Ed for a while. I enjoyed playing it, but had ZERO interest in running it as it existed. My take on it was:

1) it would have been better as a non-D&D FRPG or classless system as opposed to trying to shoehorn it in to D&D conceptual constraints.

2) I really liked the 4Ed take on the Warlock. IMHO, it was the best version of it.

3) Our overall playstyle didn’t really change for 4Ed- we never saw the 15 minute workday.

4) Biggest complaint for us was slow combat. The source of that in our experience was twofold:

4a) First, none of the PC abilities were as potentially inordinately powerful as some were in prior editions, so it was rare for a PC to be able to significantly shorten or simply end a combat encounter with 1-2 actions.

4b) Second, the vast majority of buff or debuff effects were VERY short-lived. In prior editions, something that gave you +N Att/Dam (for example) might last several rounds or even hours or more. Essentially, once a PC got a modifier, they rarely had to recalibrate their combat rolls for one or more combats. In contrast, modifiers granted by many similar 4Ed powers might last only 1-2 rounds, or for a single attack. You were constantly recalculating whether you hit or missed, or how much damage you did, etc.

 

[pemerton]

Yeah, it's kind of baffling to me that 4e went with (what looks like) attritional combat balance rather than encounter-based balance. Non-combat attrition seems like a common workaround.

4e doesn't use attritional combat balance, so I'm a bit puzzled by this post.

As a general rule, each PC starts a combat with full hit points (due to surge expenditure during a short rest) and with full encounter powers. The change in power between full dailies and no dailies is not trivial but it's hard to design a combat that will be fatal but for the use of dailies, or that will be a walkover if dailies are used but will otherwise be a significant challenge.

I don't know how other tables handled long rests, but I used various devices as GM to restrict them, and thus to oblige the players to make decisions about daily use and surge expenditure. The point of this isn't to make otherwise uninteresting combats interesting (because they consume resources), but to introduce an additional dimension of decision-making. Trying to make it through a particular encounter without using many (or any) dailies while not needlessly squandering surges is an interesting challenge in itself, on top of whatever else is happening in the combat.

 

[gorice]

4e doesn't use attritional combat balance, so I'm a bit puzzled by this post.

As a general rule, each PC starts a combat with full hit points (due to surge expenditure during a short rest) and with full encounter powers. The change in power between full dailies and no dailies is not trivial but it's hard to design a combat that will be fatal but for the use of dailies, or that will be a walkover if dailies are used but will otherwise be a significant challenge.

Well, that answers my question! The whole idea of daily powers suggests that there were intended to be occasions when those powers weren't available, so I'm trying to get a handle on how and why.

 

[Kariotis]

Well, that answers my question! The whole idea of daily powers suggests that there were intended to be occasions when those powers weren't available, so I'm trying to get a handle on how and why.

They were, for example, really good as "spotlight" tools for a single PC to shine, especially if the player or GM was good at narrating the effects. Limiting them while ensuring that everyone had some dailies also made sure everybody got their moment from time to time.

Within the fiction they were often problem-solvers that were pulled when you knew (or realized) a specific encounter or enemy would be exceptionally tough. The "it's time for the nitro" moments.

So apart from being an interesting additional element of resource management, they could be utilized both within the game and at the table to great effect.

One thing that hasn't been mentioned, I think, is that the use system of magical items was rolled into the players' action economy. So the use of items (as long as they weren't consumables) was also At-will, Encounter and Daily and would regenerate accordingly. Which was elegant design, intuitive, and worked well.

 

[pemerton]

Well, that answers my question! The whole idea of daily powers suggests that there were intended to be occasions when those powers weren't available, so I'm trying to get a handle on how and why.

I think probably two main reasons:

(1) It's fun to introduce that extra dimension of challenge/reasoning, as per my post.

(2) Dailies create a type of "failsafe" which is one element of the extreme resilience of 4e PCs (especially past Heroic tier).

I guess there's a third reason too, but it's more of an explanation than a justification: dailies are a legacy of D&D design.

And there's a way that (1) and (2) can interact which maybe creates another reason worth calling out: there's something exciting, in a 4e combat, about looking at the situation and realising that deploying a particular daily right here and now will be the way to get someone out of a jam, or to really turn the tide.

I never played the 4e Gamma World variant, which has no dailies. I do remember reading some posts that commented on that lack of "oomph" for moments of crisis that dailies provide.

In our 4e play we always meticulously recorded resources spent, so that it was easy to carry PCs from session to session without an extended rest. I suspect that many tables treat "start of session" = "long rest taken". In that case, the ready availability of dailies will mean that all encounters become a bit easier, at least from upper Heroic where the number of dailies gets to 3+ per PC.. Whether that would require stepping up encounters (say by a level or so) to keep them challenging would be something to work out on a trial-and-error basis, with a particular group.

Here's a mid-paragon example of encounters between extended rests:

Recently, the PCs in my game took on the following sequence of encounters without an extended rest:

*Comp 2 L14 skill challenge (as a result of which each PC lost one encounter power until their next extended rest);

*L17 combat;

*L15 combat;

*L7 combat;

*L13 combat;

*L15 combat;

*Comp 1 L14 skill challenge;

*L16 combat;

*L14 combat;

*L13 combat;

*Comp 1 L15 skill challenge;

*L16 combat (the L15 solo was defeated by being pushed over a bridge down a waterfall);

*L15 combat (the solo returned later in the night, having survived the fall and climbed back up).​

The PCs started this day at 14th level, and finished it at 15th.

Admittedly some of the encounters involved waves/split opposition rather than a unified force; but equally, in some of the encounter the PCs were split and couldn't bring all their power to bear simultaneously or in a co-ordinated fashion.

EDIT: @Kariotis's post makes some of the same points as this one - especially about "it's time for the nitro".

 

[Randomthoughts]

A question for people who are knowledgeable about 4th Ed., from one who isn't: how did attrition work in 4th, if at all? Were combats completely discrete set-pieces, or was there some expectation that you chain them together in order to grind down PCs' resources?

If the latter: how did you actually do this in play? We all know the problems with getting attrition to work outside dungeons in 5th, so I'm interested to see how the black sheep edition managed it.

So, I ran a 4e Dark Sun campaign to early Paragon and a few Nentir Vale one-shots and a short campaign.

I mainly ran complicated set pieces b/c 4e was awesome about that (including phased boss fights). I played around with different attrition models until I settled on a certain method, which worked for me (for the most part).

It started with 4e having everyone on the same "track" in terms of Powers (At Will/Encounter/Daily, with Utility powers sometimes being A/E/D). At Wills and Encounters needed no changes; they are available every fight (scene/encounter/whatever). I changed Dailies to (lack of a better word) Signature Powers or something like that where you could only use them once in a fictional unit I first called Milestones. Since that term was already used in 4e, I called them a few things but ended up IIRC at "Story Point" (don't laugh).

This allowed some flexibility. The trek from town A to town B is one Story Point (regardless of distance though I adjusted based on that). So Dailies could only be used once. As you can see, folks fudge with this now in 5e so it's nothing new. Sometimes, my group would meet only once/3-4 weeks, so a single session was a Story Point. Or a dungeon could include two Story Points at locations C and D.

(You get the idea)

I did have varying battles (they all weren't Deadly set pieces) but I definitely avoided the attrition grind.

Another thing I did was "Battle Challenges", which were "Skill Challenges" but using Powers where an attack was the skill roll in question (in addition to using any skill, Ritual, magic item, whatever you could think of). It was resolved loosely and TotM (like all my SCs). Using a Daily/Signature Power was an auto success, and sometimes two. Failures would result in loss of healing surges - but eventually I just rolled damage (that would require HS).

Set piece battles is where 4e really shined and it avoided the combat grind that 4e unfortunately was known for. That's one of the reasons 4e remains my fave edition.

 

[glass]

In 4e all of the classes (pre-Essentials) had the exact same amount of at-will, encounter, and daily powers. (With the exception of some Utility powers, but that's a different story.)

Just as a note, this is not true. The number of at-wills, encounters, and dailies (even aside from utilities) will always be broadly similar pre-PHB3, but it is not identical even in the first PHB. I do not think Blue meant it in an edition-warry way, but it is a common edition-warrior talking point so it needs correcting IMO.

Was there some expectation as to how often long rests were possible?

Not really. Dailies are nice to have, but they are not that much stronger than encounter powers.

Well, that answers my question! The whole idea of daily powers suggests that there were intended to be occasions when those powers weren't available, so I'm trying to get a handle on how and why.

The "why" is pretty simple; to make the fights more different from each other. Since you get your encounter powers back every fight, a lot of fights would look very similar: Go down the list of encounter powers from strongest to weakest, then start using your best at-will if the fight's still going on.

There will be some variation in which powers are best, based on what defences they target and what rider effects are most useful (for example, push effects get a lot more useful if you are fighting on top of a cliff). But not as much as with dailies in the mix also.

 

[Voadam]

Just as a note, this is not true. The number of at-wills, encounters, and dailies (even aside from utilities) will always be broadly similar pre-PHB3, but it is not identical even in the first PHB. I do not think Blue meant it in an edition-warry way, but it is a common edition-warrior talking point so it needs correcting IMO.

Can you give some examples?

Page 29 of the 4e PH has the tiers chart that applies to all classes for example:

 

[pemerton]

@Voadam

I assume that @glass has in mind things like Dragonborn and Half-Elves having an extra encounter attack power, humans having three at-will powers, Clerics having an extra attack power against Undead, etc.

 

[Voadam]

@Voadam

I assume that @glass has in mind things like Dragonborn and Half-Elves having an extra encounter attack power, humans having three at-will powers, Clerics having an extra attack power against Undead, etc.

I had thought about racial and feat powers that can vary a character's total, but Glass was saying that Blue's quoted statement was untrue. Blue's statement was that "In 4e all of the classes (pre-Essentials) had the exact same amount of at-will, encounter, and daily powers."

Not sure if they are talking about class features or something else that can vary or what.