Bring Back Verisimilitude, add in More Excitement!

[Ahnehnois]

So take the second thing i suggested. Why does this not fit your narrative approach. In books, comics, games and classic dnd, a raging barbarian is always winded or tired afterwards.

Why is a per encounter until adequate rest limitation not suitable? Either that or a reduction into the overall power of Rage.

Try it the other way around. A barbarian rages, and at the end of his rage, he is fatigued. If already fatigued, he becomes exhausted. If already exhausted, he passes out. If the barbarian has time and desires, he can rest to remove the fatigue, because that's what resting does.

What does grafting a rage per day mechanic on top of that contribute? Why was the fatigue alone insufficient?

 

[DonTadow]

I agree, the encounter as a counter rocks. Though I think that a distiction should be made betweeen a combat encounter, social encounter etc in the next version.

Regardless, the reason why this makes sense is, because during an entire encounter your adrenaline is pumping more than normal. (see lots of stories of people doing absurd things when their backs are against the wall).

Speaking of which, you could always make it hp triggered, but then your'e calculating percentage of hit points every level.

 

[Felon]

Comments removed.

 

[DonTadow]

Wow, six pages so far for a rambling, eclectic, stream-of-consciousness wish list consisting mostly of rough sentence fragments. I'm trying too hard.

I have 4 posts in this, face it, i'm bored and its a slow work day and I don't feel like reading more what is module threads until tomorrow.

Try it the other way around. A barbarian rages, and at the end of his rage, he is fatigued. If already fatigued, he becomes exhausted. If already exhausted, he passes out. If the barbarian has time and desires, he can rest to remove the fatigue, because that's what resting does.

What does grafting a rage per day mechanic on top of that contribute? Why was the fatigue alone insufficient?

Fatigue has definite standards in the game so it won't work. Else you will be even more mad because now your barbarian wont be able to do rage again for a day until he can remove fatigue.

Now, if fatigue was a resource everyone had (cough cough spell points) then they'd have an equivalent system to balance evertyhing for that has a realistic reason

 

[Herschel]

Try it the other way around. A barbarian rages, and at the end of his rage, he is fatigued. If already fatigued, he becomes exhausted. If already exhausted, he passes out. If the barbarian has time and desires, he can rest to remove the fatigue, because that's what resting does.

What does grafting a rage per day mechanic on top of that contribute? Why was the fatigue alone insufficient?

The fatigue mechanic is still there, just more streamlined. At the end of a combat encounter, you generally take a short rest. This is where you "cool down", bind/splint/bandage any wounds and gather your thoughts, gear and loot. The "Daily" power of rages is there to simulate that as you gain experience, your better able to control your rages in order to harness the power more often and better. They're also pretty nifty and can be character points.

In Heroes of the Feywild we see a little different twist on this (and pretty close to what you're asking) with the Berserker where the character is basically a light-armored fighter until he uses one of his primal (or rage-inducing) attacks. His defenses then go down and he gets a damage kicker until the end of that combat and he takes a short rest and comes back to his "happy place".

 

[Ahnehnois]

Fatigue has definite standards in the game so it won't work. Else you will be even more mad because now your barbarian wont be able to do rage again for a day until he can remove fatigue.

You can still rage when fatigued (in my proposal), but you get more tired until you collapse. When you're unconscious from extreme overexertion, then you can't rage.

Now, if fatigue was a resource everyone had (cough cough spell points) then they'd have an equivalent system to balance evertyhing for that has a realistic reason

A more detailed fatigue system? That everyone used? Perhaps tied in with a vitality/wound concept or the equivalent of subdual damage? That would be fine, even better than the existing rules maybe.

 

[nnms]

The Encounter as a discrete measurement of time may be 4e's most important contribution to the game. I can only hope it is retained and expanded upon going forward.

I actually think it's one of the worst things about 4E. It creates all sorts of refresh and reward cycle problems and accentuates the jarring nature of game mode changes from non combat to combat. I feel that it takes the game in a completely different direction than I want.

I'd much rather have the duration of events be linked to the passage of time in the fiction.

I suspect that D&D Next having an encounter as a unit of time in the game system is going to be a deal breaker for many people on both sides of the issue. Many won't touch the game if it does have it and many won't touch the game if it doesn't.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I actually think it's one of the worst things about 4E. It creates all sorts of refresh and reward cycle problems and accentuates the jarring nature of game mode changes from non combat to combat. I feel that it takes the game in a completely different direction than I want.

I'd much rather have the duration of events be linked to the passage of time in the fiction.

Change "encounter" to "scene" (and "daily" to "adventure"), and half the problems disappear immediately. I think the other half could be finessed, though I might be wrong.

 

[nnms]

Change "encounter" to "scene" (and "daily" to "adventure"), and half the problems disappear immediately. I think the other half could be finessed, though I might be wrong.

It certainly broadens the appeal of the game from just those who like game play to those who like to think in dramatic or story terms to think about scenes and scene framing and whatnot.

I don't think that solves it though, for people who are into the trad continuous narrative verisimilitude approach though. When mechanical things reference meta constructs like game constructs or directoral/creative units rather than the passage of time in the shared fiction, it kind of breaks down for some approaches to the game.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

It certainly broadens the appeal of the game from just those who like game play to those who like to think in dramatic or story terms to think about scenes and scene framing and whatnot.

I don't think that solves it though, for people who are into the trad continuous narrative verisimilitude approach though. When mechanical things reference meta constructs like game constructs or directoral/creative units rather than the passage of time in the shared fiction, it kind of breaks down for some approaches to the game.

Sure. But they don't like passage of time options all the time, either. Why can my wizard only cast fireball once per day? Oh, I know, let's change it to spell slots. And off we go. Let's be clear here. When people mean "passage of time" in the shared fiction for a given thing, they really mean "passage of time that I think X should have, and everyone else can go hang."

You can try tricks, such as the "indoor/outdoor" differences in turn tracking in AD&D, to try to obscure this problem, but none of that really solves anything.

So no matter what you pick, someone will be unhappy. But it is easier, I think, to swap "scene" into either game or simulation units, than the other way around. For example, if you want sim mode, and you know the kind of game you are running is kind of leisurely, maybe one fight one day, no fights the next style--you define "scene" as "1 day" or "3 days" or whatever works for you, and forget about it. If you are running more of a dungeon crawl, but still going for a mix of operational gamist play and heavy sim within that, you can define it as "1 hour" or similar. If you want heavier emphasis on the game side, go with "1 encounter" or "1 related set of encounters".