Any inherent conflict between per-encounter and per-day abilities?

[Tuft]

As I understand it, abilities (spells, combat maneuvers, etc) will have durations and frequencies such as "once per encounter, lasts one round" and "once per day, lasts an encounter".

That makes me wonder: How well-defined do you think the conditions that end one encounter and starts the next will be? How much will the players be able to manipulate those conditions?

Let's say player Able has a powerful ability he really likes that lasts for an entire encounter, but is only usable once per day. Player Baker's pet ability, in contrast, only lasts for a single round, but renews each encounter. Thus Able wants a single large encounter each day, while Baker wants many small ones.

Will Able be able to stretch out encounters by doing things like opening the door to the next dungeon room before the battle ends in the first one? (And how do you think Baker will react to that? )

The reason I am curious about this, is that I've seen behavior that's not that far off in other gaming systems, for example:

• In a system where dice pools renewed each gaming session, players started to filibuster when they ran out of pool dice, so that they would have fresh pools in a fresh session when they met the next tricky situation.
• When using a magic-deflecting dance that was written as a per-battle thing, one character kept dancing for an entire day whenever she made a good roll on the deflection strength roll.

And looking at once-per-day abilities versus once-per-encounter powers, it would probably be very tempting to "balance" these by making once-per-day abilities more powerful than once-per-encounter. If so, will that be the return of the "five-minute mage"? With the five-minute mage it was the spellcaster blowing all his spells during a single encounter, and then waiting for a new day and new spells; with the one-encounter party, it is all the party members that simply pick once-per-day abilities over once-per-encounter ones, and then use them all during the first encounter of the day, refusing to do more after that. Is such a party possible? Probable?

Anybody care to speculate?

 

[Engilbrand]

You seem to have misunderstood per-day and per-encounter abilities. All characters will have abilities from each of these pools. But, the per-day abilities don't last for an encounter. They're just bigger and more powerful. Imagine a per-day Fireball compared to a per-encounter Fireball. The per-encounter might only do 50 damage, but the per-day would do 150. That's what we're looking at when it comes to these abilities for the most part. While, I suppose, some of them will last longer than one round, most are just different sorts of powers, with per-days just being more powerful.

 

[Victim]

I'm not sure that power selection will work on that level - it seems likely that per encounter powers and per day powers might be in different 'silos' of picks.

 

[Cadfan]

That makes me wonder: How well-defined do you think the conditions that end one encounter and starts the next will be? How much will the players be able to manipulate those conditions?

Should be fine. I don't know how they'll define it in the rules, but here's an easy option: If you have a full minute to rest with no one trying to kill you, the encounter is over.

Will Able be able to stretch out encounters by doing things like opening the door to the next dungeon room before the battle ends in the first one? (And how do you think Baker will react to that? )

This won't be possible, because the monsters will have already opened the door on their own, and eaten both Able and Baker.

And looking at once-per-day abilities versus once-per-encounter powers, it would probably be very tempting to "balance" these by making once-per-day abilities more powerful than once-per-encounter. If so, will that be the return of the "five-minute mage"? With the five-minute mage it was the spellcaster blowing all his spells during a single encounter, and then waiting for a new day and new spells; with the one-encounter party, it is all the party members that simply pick once-per-day abilities over once-per-encounter ones, and then use them all during the first encounter of the day, refusing to do more after that. Is such a party possible? Probable?

Its possible, but less likely. If you have a consumable resource that refreshes, it is in the interest of the party to consume the resource and refresh as often as possible. BUT! Just HOW MUCH it is in their interest to do so depends on how important the resource is, and what other options they have. The 15 minute workday affect occurred because there are entire classes in 3e who's only worthwhile abilities are per day. The idea for 4e seems to be to make it so that every class has per encounter and per day abilities, and that the per day abilities, while good, do not completely overshadow the per encounter abilities. This lower differential between a character with their per day abilities, and a character who has used them up, reduces the need to run home and sleep quite so often.

 

[Tuft]

You seem to have misunderstood per-day and per-encounter abilities. All characters will have abilities from each of these pools. But, the per-day abilities don't last for an encounter. They're just bigger and more powerful. Imagine a per-day Fireball compared to a per-encounter Fireball. The per-encounter might only do 50 damage, but the per-day would do 150. That's what we're looking at when it comes to these abilities for the most part. While, I suppose, some of them will last longer than one round, most are just different sorts of powers, with per-days just being more powerful.

Well, we know that some powers last for an entire encounter. From the cleric section on http://www.enworld.org/index.php?page=4e , and ultimately Races&Classes: "Most short-term buffs will last until the end of the encounter. That's it. It's simple, it's clear and the effects are more powerful since the duration is shorter. " What happens if the most powerful such buffs are per-day?


And, if we take your fireball example: Why continue for the rest of the day after using your 150-HP per-day fireball? With Vancian magic, you could carefully portion out your daily spells over the day - but most simply blew them as quickly as possible, and then retreated for the rest of the day. Why wont they do the same with per-day abilities?

 

[Hussar]

Well, we know that some powers last for an entire encounter. From the cleric section on http://www.enworld.org/index.php?page=4e , and ultimately Races&Classes: "Most short-term buffs will last until the end of the encounter. That's it. It's simple, it's clear and the effects are more powerful since the duration is shorter. " What happens if the most powerful such buffs are per-day?


And, if we take your fireball example: Why continue for the rest of the day after using your 150-HP per-day fireball? With Vancian magic, you could carefully portion out your daily spells over the day - but most simply blew them as quickly as possible, and then retreated for the rest of the day. Why wont they do the same with per-day abilities?

For several reasons.

1. The situation won't allow it. This is perhaps the simplest fix to the issue. Time based adventures suddenly become a viable option when healing is a per encounter resource.

2. Player peer pressure. Less likely, but, still a force. It's likely that if only one player has blown his per day ability (or abilities as the case may be) that the other players will wish to continue, rather than wait.

3. Per Day abilities may not be directly tied to combat. Take the Binder as a perfect example. We know that the warlock is similar to the binder, but, not how similar. A binder's per day ability is his choice of vestige. Once he chooses that vestige, he has access to a given suite of at will and per encounter abilities. However, his choice (barring certain feats and magic items) of vestige locks him into THAT suite for the day. So, unless he has chosen incredibly poorly, there will be no reason to stop.

4. At will and per encounter abilities will be effective enough to deal with many problems that the party can expect to face. So, blowing your per day ability on that mook goblin is just overkill. Why bother using the 150 point fireball when the 50 point one will do? Since at will and per encounter abilities take up about 75% of the PC's choices of combat goodies, using the per day ability makes a later encounter possibly more difficult, but, not impossible. Previously, if you blew your spells, you went from effective to wholly ineffective (barring wands). Now, you go from very effective to effective enough.

That's why this works. It's no longer an either/or situation where the PC is either completely in control, or the PC is warming the pines. A wizard with no attack spells can shoot his crossbow in combat. Woo hoo. d8 damage with a poor attack bonus, and, likely penalties for shooting into combat. That's just die rolling for the sake of die rolling, it's not actually doing anything.

Now, your wizard will never run out of his basic attack spell. He can always do something that scales with his level, that will always do something in the fight.

 

[catsclaw]

With Vancian magic, you could carefully portion out your daily spells over the day - but most simply blew them as quickly as possible, and then retreated for the rest of the day. Why wont they do the same with per-day abilities?

If the power level between the per-day and per-encounter abilities is significant but not overwhelming, there's going to be an incentive to push on to a "natural" stopping point story-wise. I mean, even now you could retreat and rest after clearing every room in a dungeon, thus having all your spells available for the next room. People don't.

If anything, the groups I play with usually err on the side of exploring too much, not too little. Fighters and rogues are built for that. Wizards and clerics, not so much. It'll be nice to have a system where everybody's resources erode at the same rate.

 

[Doug McCrae]

If so, will that be the return of the "five-minute mage"?

To some extent, but it won't be as bad as it used to be.

The problem is per day resources. They suck, because there's no measure of how many encounters you get per day. Per encounter resources are good. They work. Corner cases can be adjudicated by the DM. If a player tries to get a per encounter resource to last for multiple encounters then he's playing the game wrong. The DM (and other players) need to say no. F-ck any simulationist excuse as to why it should last longer. Gamism > simulationism.

But per day is broken, as evidenced by, as you say, the five minute mage. It should be changed to per adventure or per X encounter resources. What's the game world justification for per adventure resources you ask? I don't give a toss. It doesn't matter. What matters is whether D&D works as a game.

 

[hong]

I suspect per-day stuff will be where powerful _noncombat_ abilities end up. Stuff like teleport, resurrect, plane shift, speak with dead and so on.

 

[Doug McCrae]

The other issue is, as Engilbrand says, all classes will have the same types of resources. Everyone will have some at will, some per encounter and some per day resources. So the eternal conflict between the Vancian characters, who want to stop once they've blown their spells, and the non-Vancian who, thanks to wands of CLW, never need to stop will be a thing of the past.