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*Dungeons & Dragons
5e System Redesign through New Classes and Setting. A Thought Experiment.
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<blockquote data-quote="FrogReaver" data-source="post: 9777819" data-attributes="member: 6795602"><p>I'm not following you well here. I get the relative values, but when you start talking about 2 actions per turn at level 5 I'm completely lost. </p><p></p><p>Here's the thing. It doesn't matter how much better actual encounter powers are than at-wills. You get that same allotment every encounter. Your encounter powers + your at wills produces your floor. Your ceiling would then be adding your one daily power to it. So in your example for a 4 round encounter (assuming that's what you are designing for) using 1x for at will, 2x for encounter and 5x for daily. Then it looks something like:</p><p></p><p>Floor = 2x+2x+1x+1x = 6x</p><p>Ceiling = 5x+2x+2x+1x = 10x</p><p></p><p>*Note: In practice this would allow the encounter to be over in 2 rounds as 7x>6x and 6x ended the encounter in 4 rounds. Having your abilities take a 4 round encounter down to a 2 seems like the exact kind of 5 MWD problem we want to avoid. </p><p></p><p>However, I think you also previously said you'd give more daily power uses per day (limited to once per encounter) than there would be likely encounters. If that's the case then:</p><p></p><p>Floor & Ceiling = 5x+2x+2x+1x = 10x. There's no variance here (other than built in die rolls for damage and attack and possibly powers that are slightly better/worse in some situations than others).</p><p></p><p>This tightens up the game balance drastically, but also means if anything goes wrong, DM miscalibrates encounter difficulty, low player die rolls, high monster die rolls, unfavorable terrain not accounted for, etc then the players lack any levers they can pull to equalize to the encounter difficulty given these factors. </p><p></p><p>The first seeming solution that's really a non-solution is to just make the encounters easier to deal with the potential dice variance and ignore DM miscalibration. Assuming no DM miscalibration then you've likely made most encounters much to easy. It's only the ones where the dice variance swings badly for the players that the encounter gets to your initially desired difficulty. Essentially you've built in cakewalk mode to the games math.</p><p></p><p>Then consider what happens if the DM does actually miscalibrate. If you've not previously made the game easy cakewalk mode by accounting for dice variance then DM miscalibration is highly likely to lead to very bad player results and while such miscalibration can happen in any game, in this one the balance is so tight that it's much easier to cause negative effects.</p><p></p><p>As such I'd recommend</p><ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">The planned encounter floor for your designed number of rounds must be meaningfully lower than the potential ceiling</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">That being able to spend resources to achieve near double output for some encounters is too much of a spike. Double output means encounter length gets cut in half. A more reasonable value might 3x daily. That would be 3x+2x+2x+1x=8x vs 6x (and also showing the encounter can be ended in 3 rounds due to 3x+2x+2x=7x>6x).</li> </ol><p></p><p>If your using base 5e spells I'd say that's probably too much as an every encounter thing. If it's 2 per 1 hour long short rest that's more reasonable, but then you've contributed to the floor and ceiling problem.</p><p></p><p>Sure, it was just an idea. </p><p></p><p>Np, and thanks.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="FrogReaver, post: 9777819, member: 6795602"] I'm not following you well here. I get the relative values, but when you start talking about 2 actions per turn at level 5 I'm completely lost. Here's the thing. It doesn't matter how much better actual encounter powers are than at-wills. You get that same allotment every encounter. Your encounter powers + your at wills produces your floor. Your ceiling would then be adding your one daily power to it. So in your example for a 4 round encounter (assuming that's what you are designing for) using 1x for at will, 2x for encounter and 5x for daily. Then it looks something like: Floor = 2x+2x+1x+1x = 6x Ceiling = 5x+2x+2x+1x = 10x *Note: In practice this would allow the encounter to be over in 2 rounds as 7x>6x and 6x ended the encounter in 4 rounds. Having your abilities take a 4 round encounter down to a 2 seems like the exact kind of 5 MWD problem we want to avoid. However, I think you also previously said you'd give more daily power uses per day (limited to once per encounter) than there would be likely encounters. If that's the case then: Floor & Ceiling = 5x+2x+2x+1x = 10x. There's no variance here (other than built in die rolls for damage and attack and possibly powers that are slightly better/worse in some situations than others). This tightens up the game balance drastically, but also means if anything goes wrong, DM miscalibrates encounter difficulty, low player die rolls, high monster die rolls, unfavorable terrain not accounted for, etc then the players lack any levers they can pull to equalize to the encounter difficulty given these factors. The first seeming solution that's really a non-solution is to just make the encounters easier to deal with the potential dice variance and ignore DM miscalibration. Assuming no DM miscalibration then you've likely made most encounters much to easy. It's only the ones where the dice variance swings badly for the players that the encounter gets to your initially desired difficulty. Essentially you've built in cakewalk mode to the games math. Then consider what happens if the DM does actually miscalibrate. If you've not previously made the game easy cakewalk mode by accounting for dice variance then DM miscalibration is highly likely to lead to very bad player results and while such miscalibration can happen in any game, in this one the balance is so tight that it's much easier to cause negative effects. As such I'd recommend [LIST=1] [*]The planned encounter floor for your designed number of rounds must be meaningfully lower than the potential ceiling [*]That being able to spend resources to achieve near double output for some encounters is too much of a spike. Double output means encounter length gets cut in half. A more reasonable value might 3x daily. That would be 3x+2x+2x+1x=8x vs 6x (and also showing the encounter can be ended in 3 rounds due to 3x+2x+2x=7x>6x). [/LIST] If your using base 5e spells I'd say that's probably too much as an every encounter thing. If it's 2 per 1 hour long short rest that's more reasonable, but then you've contributed to the floor and ceiling problem. Sure, it was just an idea. Np, and thanks. [/QUOTE]
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