A Discussion in Game Design: The 15 minute work day.

[Doug McCrae]

I've been playing a PC game called King's Bounty and it has some interesting mechanics - Rage and Mana. Both can be spent to cast spells. Rage is generated by fighting and declines when you're out of combat. Mana mostly only regenerates out of combat. So Mana encourages you to rest between fights (like Vancian magic) whereas Rage encourages you to press on.

It shows that, purely thru mechanical means, a system can encourage the 'press on' or '15-minute day' styles of play. D&D has mostly had a Mana type of mechanic. Any encouragement to press on, or conserve resources, does not come from the system, but from the DM/world/consequences.

4e has something like a Rage mechanic in Action Points, but they probably need to be strengthened a bit before one would see the end of the 15-minute day.

One could even imagine a D&D where there was no Mana-type mechanic, only Rage. Every fight makes you better and better, like the Incredible Hulk. It would need something to prevent such a process getting out of hand. But such a mechanic, if sufficiently strong, would certainly spell the end of the 15-minute day.

World of Warcraft also has Rage and Mana tho they are the preserve of different classes, leading to an interesting contrast of styles. Warriors have Rage and are thus incentivised to press on. Several caster classes have mana and are thus incentivised to rest.

D&D - Not videogame-y enough!

 

[Doug McCrae]

I tried talking to the other guys about this, but the general opinion seemed to be that fights below PL weren't interesting (to the DM running the adventure). Only "challenging" encounters were worth the effort. And the general consensus was that the DMG idea of "challenging" (that is, EL = PL) was not strong enough. Only ELs of PL +2 and more were actually challenging to the PCs -- "challenging" in this case, meaning balls-to-the-wall, use all our resources to survive and overcome.

This is my view as well. I find the non-challenging fights to be dull.

4e seems to have managed a cunning trick by making PC hit points relatively low so it's quite likely a PC will drop every fight. It makes them feel challenging even tho I don't think they really are.

 

[Silvercat Moonpaw]

Personally, I prefer to run games like I see TV series and novels: one or two plot-significant combats at most, and only once in a blue moon will we throw in a plot-non-significant combat, usually to add some flavor or show how bad-ass the PCs are.

Exactly the same here. I think fights should be plot points, not the whole reason for the story.

Of course I realize D&D wasn't designed for that, and that it would have to be pretty heavily retooled to fit that idea. But I'll ask anyway.

 

[Skyscraper]

I don't like the milestone resource - I find it makes things unnecessarily complex and adds book keeping that I'd rather not have. We've ditched that resource entirely in our games (e.g. use of an action point is an encounter power).

Consequently, I'm not too fond of a rule based on milestones.

I would rather see some press-on incentives that pick off on existing rules.

Someone suggested an incremental XP multiplier: that sounds like a neat idea (though not for me, I've ditched XPs too. We've kept everything else if you're wondering ).

One idea would be to give the PCs a bonus after every encounter. For example, each PC could choose one of the following bonuses after each encounter: +1 to AC, non-AC defenses, attack rolls or damage rolls or +1d6 to crits, without possibility to get the same bonus twice until you've had each bonus at least once (i.e. to get +2 to attack rolls, you need to first get through at least 5 encounters; and to get +3 to attack rolls you need to get through at least 10 encounters). This would beaf up the PCs though and would also increase book keeping, so I don't know that I would want this mechanic. Well, 15-minute work day is not a problem in any group I play, so the question is moot for me anyway, I'm just participating to the brainstorming here.

Sky

 

[Bullgrit]

I think fights should be plot points, not the whole reason for the story.

I see the fights as the framework for the story -- any story comes out of the series of fights. I play D&D to battle monsters and discover treasure. "Story" is the icing on the cake.

4e seems to have managed a cunning trick by making PC hit points relatively low so it's quite likely a PC will drop every fight. It makes them feel challenging even tho I don't think they really are.

Huh? I have to ask about this. I don't play 4e, so maybe I've misunderstood the numbers I've seen, but aren't 4e hit points higher than they've ever been? I mean, like 25 hp at first level, and up from there?

Bullgrit

 

[Dausuul]

Huh? I have to ask about this. I don't play 4e, so maybe I've misunderstood the numbers I've seen, but aren't 4e hit points higher than they've ever been? I mean, like 25 hp at first level, and up from there?

Yeah, I blinked a little at that. It does seem to be the case that 4E characters go negative more often than in previous editions, but teasing out why is difficult. As you say, hit points (and more importantly, hit point to damage ratios) have gone up, not down, in 4E*.

I think the main reason is the way negative hit points work. Before 4E, going negative was a seriously dangerous business. If you were playing by the rules as written, there was only a narrow buffer zone between "unconscious" and "dead." Even at first level, a solid crit could slam you down to -10 in one shot, and as you leveled up and damage output increased, that buffer zone narrowed to a sliver. So when PCs went negative, there was a fair likelihood they wouldn't get back up. A campaign that sent PCs into negative hit points frequently was going to see a pretty high casualty rate, and there was a strong incentive to do whatever was necessary to avoid it.

In 4E, however, the buffer zone grows as you level up, and there aren't nearly as many attacks that can take you all the way to negative bloodied in one go. In addition, you always have at least three rounds before dying, thanks to the death saves rule. As a result, going negative is a much less risky proposition. PCs are more willing to court it, and DMs can crank up the difficulty high enough to make it happen frequently without risk of a TPK.

Moreover, the "count up from zero" rule means that there is even an incentive to go negative. (For those not familiar with 4E, when you use a healing effect on a character at 0 or less hit points, all negative hit points are erased and then the healing effect is applied; you count up from zero, hence the name.) I have often seen leaders deliberately hold their healing powers until somebody drops, because you get more bang for your healing buck that way--positive hit points cost money, but negative hit points are free.

All that said, a 4E DM who wants to put the fear back into negative hit points has the tools to do so. All that's required is monsters willing to take an extra round and coup de grace fallen PCs. But the DMG actively discourages that, urging DMs to avoid attacking unconscious characters. It's emphatic enough that a novice DM of my acquaintance thought it was an actual rule.

[size=-2]*Well, not entirely. In absolute terms, high-level 3E tanks have more hit points than their 4E equivalents. Take a 10th-level fighter with a base Con of 14. In 3E, that fighter will likely have at least +2 Con from items, and will average 90 hit points or so. In 4E, the same fighter will have 73 hit points. However, the 3E fighter will also be dishing out multiple attacks per round with damage likely in the 15-20 range per hit, while the 4E fighter gets only one attack for the same amount.[/size]

 

[Raven Crowking]

Good analysis, Dausuul. Sorry I can't XP you for it right now.

4e seems to have managed a cunning trick by making PC hit points relatively low so it's quite likely a PC will drop every fight. It makes them feel challenging even tho I don't think they really are.

I guess that is part of my problem with 4e; I see easily through that "cunning trick" and I find non-challenging fights to be dull when they last over half an hour!



RC

 

[Doug McCrae]

Huh? I have to ask about this. I don't play 4e, so maybe I've misunderstood the numbers I've seen, but aren't 4e hit points higher than they've ever been? I mean, like 25 hp at first level, and up from there?

Yes. About 25 hp at first level then most classes get 5 hp for every level thereafter. So a level 10 PC will have about 70, level 20 120 and level 30 170. That's probably a bit higher than previous editions, but it's low compared to 4e monsters. The typical normal monster will have its level times 8 in hp, plus Con plus 8. So a level 10 monster will have about 100, level 20 180 and level 30 260. Elite and boss monsters have twice or four times that amount.

PC damage output seems to be a bit higher than that of the monsters however, which balances things, plus they have healing, dailies, action points and other resources like healing potions that they can spend when they have to. And, unlike the monsters, they don't die at zero. The last one is probably the key factor.

In the most recent game I ran, the fights were with roughly equal level monsters and in two out of three, one PC dropped to negatives. I've not run 4e very much, this was only my third session as a DM of it, but I thoroughly enjoyed these combats. Somehow they felt tense, without being particularly deadly. PCs are supposed to be able to handle tougher fights, up to party level +4 of equal numbers of monsters, but they are expected to exhaust dailies to do this. A level +4 would be a typical BBEG encounter. The final encounter in Keep on the Shadowfell, for levels 1-3, is level 6. Orcus in MM1 is a level 33 solo, Demogorgon (MM2) is 34 and Lolth is 35 (MM3).

Check the power creep!

 

[Sylrae]

As mentioned by a few people early in this thread, it's a matter of playstyle. When I GM, or most of my friends GM, there is rarely the opportunity to rest after 1 fight.

However one of the things I like most from anime, is that as characters get more desperate and are forced to press on, their resolve to not give up helps them do better. they may get stronger, may force themselves to get up and then their accuracy goes up, or they get tougher (depending on the character). I think I like the idea of both rewarding the players for pressing on, and the idea for making really important moments more epic.

 

[pemerton]

4e seems to have managed a cunning trick by making PC hit points relatively low so it's quite likely a PC will drop every fight. It makes them feel challenging even tho I don't think they really are.

I guess that is part of my problem with 4e; I see easily through that "cunning trick" and I find non-challenging fights to be dull when they last over half an hour!

I thoroughly enjoyed these combats. Somehow they felt tense, without being particularly deadly.

My experience is closer to Doug's than RC's.

I remember some of the long threads debating this issue back before 4e was released, and the same issue came up then. My experience playing 4e has borne out my own predictions about how it would play - that the combats are not particularly deadly, provided that they are played well by the players. The challenge, then, consists in playing well. It's a type of collective puzzle-solving endeavour for the players - for any encounter of party level + 4 or less there is a solution (or multiple solutions) available, and the challenge for the players is to identify and deploy that solution as the encounter unfolds at the table.

I can fully understand that this type of play may be unappealing to some. But it works very well for my group. We've come over from Rolemaster, and RM also involves this sort of play (because every round melee combat requires the player to call an OB/DB split, and every spell cast involves optimising for effect versus power point cost versus failure chance).

Those who prefer games where the tactics are less metagamey, less along the lines of a semi-mathematical optimisation of the party both individually and collectively in the two dimensions of maximising their impact on the combat while keeping themselves safe, are probably less likely to enjoy 4e. I would put games like RuneQuest, and at least some sorts of AD&D and 3E play, in this category.