Can someoone explain the "Daily Hate" for me?

[JRRNeiklot]

Actually it was conceived of as a video game but as home computers had not been invented in the 1970s they had to make do with toy soldiers bits of paper & odd japanese plastic monsters.

Actually, I had a Trash-80 in 1977. The Apple II predates that, I believe.

 

[keterys]

Curiously enough, the design of video games largely precluded such abilities until video games tried to imitate D&D... and suddenly abilities which you got back from resting or every X minutes started to become more common. Almost ubiquitous.

My favorite is still when someone complained that D&D's magic missile was a rip off of World of Warcraft's Arcane Mage's Arcane Missiles. *wince*

Anyhow, "Too videogamey" is one of those not very sensible complaints. You're almost always better off trying to say what you mean in another way. "This method requires too much tracking and breaks my immersion in the story" or whatever.

 

[Steely_Dan]

Daily abilities aren't in themselves terrible, but it's hard to balance classes with daily abilities against classes without them and a lot of people hate martial daily abilities, so I wouldn't object to going the other way and ditching daily abilities for everyone.

I've said it before, I think in 4th Ed they should have gone whole-hog: dailies are Encounter, and Encounters are Recharge or what-have-you.

Towards the end of DMing 4th Ed I implemented that (fine, no catastrophic fallout).

 

[Libramarian]

I hate Daily used as a noun.


"How many Dailies do you have left?"

"I'm gonna blow a Daily!"

it's just awful language.

 

[Yora]

Ever played Settlers? "I trade you two clay for three wood." ^^

That's how technical terms are used.

 

[Steely_Dan]

I hate Daily used as a noun.


"How many Dailies do you have left?"

"I'm gonna blow a Daily!"

it's just awful language.

Total: the Rogue to the Fighter: "Have you blown your daily yet?"

"No, just gonna work through these Encounters."

 

[Yora]

But that's an entirely different problem. No matter how you call it or how you formulate such questions and answers, it's still asking if you have yet used your sword swing that you can only use once per day.

 

[Grydan]

So...why/what is it about have abilities of any kind limited to uses per day that gets everyone so annoyed or resistant if not outright "dealbreakery/I won't play if..."?

I don't get it. 'Splain, please.
--SD

I can only speak for myself, so my explanations may not help to answer your question.

I don't hate daily abilities. They are not dealbreakers, in and of themselves, for me.

I do, however, have issues with them. How many issues, I don't know, but it's definitely plural.

Some of the issues overlap with each other, and may even in some people's eyes be merely different ways of phrasing the same thing.

Some of the issues don't really come into play unless the ability is a potent one. I mean, it really isn't going to make a difference to me whether or not you have the ability "X times per day you can make yourself go cross-eyed", unless we're in some odd campaign where the ability to go cross-eyed is something that really needs a limit.

All of that preliminary stuff out of the way, here we go.

n times per day is not a meaningful limit to the player unless the DM is forced to structure things such that you need to do it n+1 or more times per day.
Why is something being limited in usage at all? Presumably because if you could use it at-will, it would be too potent.

But on any day where you don't need to use Ability X at least n+1 times, it effectively is an at-will ability.

So in effect, the limitation isn't being placed on the player or their character, but upon their DM. The DM is now obligated to create scenarios in which you need to use Ability X n+1 times or more on any day in which you need it at all. On any other day, the limit is purely theoretical.

In combination with the above,
It encourages railroading.
No, really, I mean it.

Look, the player (and the character, if the fiction is such that the character is aware of the limit) has every incentive to avoid scenarios in which a given ability is needed more times per day than they can actually use it.

Therefore, in campaigns where the PCs have the freedom to avoid such scenarios, the limit on their use of the ability remains illusionary.

So now the DM, who is already being asked to insert additional scenarios needing the use of that ability into the campaign, is tasked with making sure that the player cannot avoid such scenarios. Either that or structure things so that such avoidance leads to consequences at least as undesirable to the PC as the scenario they're trying to avoid in the first place.

It doesn't mesh with my genre expectations.
Perhaps it's because fantasy novels and films (and I supposed television) shaped my views long before I ever first rolled a die for an RPG, never mind D&D, but daily abilities don't quite click for me.

I freely admit I've never read Jack Vance, whose work inspired the basic set-up of D&D magic, and from whose name the term Vancian is derived.

Outside of licensed D&D novels, I don't recall ever encountering a daily limit in any of my fantasy reading or viewing. Even within that subset of books, I can't off the top of my head recall any where the limit was in any way plot relevant. That could be a failure of memory rather than lack of actual examples, however.

My genre expectations don't mesh with the need for n+1 or more scenarios requiring Ability X.
Gameplay experience on both sides of the DM screen has taught me to expect situations where a typical adventuring day involves multiple combats, followed by a rest, followed by another day much like the one before it, and so on.

My genre expectations, however, still treat this as anomalous.

It's certainly not Lord of the Rings: Chase scene, weeks of walking, chase scene, tense face-off, weeks of walking, one combat, chase scene, weeks of walking, MASS COMBAT!, more walking...

It's not Wheel of Time. It's not A Song of Ice and Fire. It's not The Belgariad. It's not The Name of the Wind.

It's not any of the novels, films, comics, webcomics, tv shows, or other genre inspirations that come to mind.

Heck, The Order of the Stick is out-and-out inspired by D&D, and the characters rarely get into multiple combats per day.

Jack Bauer has fewer fights per day than D&D seems to expect you to have.

Yes, yes, it's a game. It's not a novel, or tv show, a film or a comic. Concessions must be made. I'm not sure that "Every adventuring day needs to have this much something", regardless of what that something is, is one of the necessary concessions, though.

---

I could probably go on, but it's late, and I've apparently reached my daily limit of remotely coherent thoughts.

 

[Falling Icicle]

I think the 3.5 Warlock class did a great job of demonstrating that spells can be at-will and still be very well balanced. Some spells can be overpowered if they can be used over and over again, but there are other, better ways of balacing them to prevent abuse.

Let's take save-or-suck type spells for example. It would be pretty unfair if you could just keep using Charm spells on someone until they fail their saving throw, for example. This can be balanced by either making it so that if the target makes its save you can't attempt to charm it again for a certain period of time (say 24 hours, for the sake of example). A similar solution is to grant the target a cumulative, stacking bonus to its saves each time, so that it quickly becomes pointless to keep trying.

Other spells could also get out of hand if you could just cast them over and over. Let's use wall of fire for example. This one is also easy to balance. Just only let the caster have one instance of the spell in existence at a time. If the caster casts wall of fire again while the previous one is still in effect, the previous casting ends.

Other types of spells have been balanced with things like requiring concentration, expensive components, xp costs, long casting times, exhausting the caster, etc. Those are all still valid ways of preventing abuse of powerful magic that still matter even if there are no daily limits on spells. Daily limits, spell points and similar gimicks really aren't necessary at all.

 

[ForeverSlayer]

I think the 3.5 Warlock class did a great job of demonstrating that spells can be at-will and still be very well balanced. Some spells can be overpowered if they can be used over and over again, but there are other, better ways of balacing them to prevent abuse.

Let's take save-or-suck type spells for example. It would be pretty unfair if you could just keep using Charm spells on someone until they fail their saving throw, for example. This can be balanced by either making it so that if the target makes its save you can't attempt to charm it again for a certain period of time (say 24 hours, for the sake of example). A similar solution is to grant the target a cumulative, stacking bonus to its saves each time, so that it quickly becomes pointless to keep trying.

Other spells could also get out of hand if you could just cast them over and over. Let's use wall of fire for example. This one is also easy to balance. Just only let the caster have one instance of the spell in existence at a time. If the caster casts wall of fire again while the previous one is still in effect, the previous casting ends.

Other types of spells have been balanced with things like requiring concentration, expensive components, xp costs, long casting times, exhausting the caster, etc. Those are all still valid ways of preventing abuse of powerful magic that still matter even if there are no daily limits on spells. Daily limits, spell points and similar gimicks really aren't necessary at all.

Charm Person: Certain amount of times per day it can be cast + saving throws + limitations in the spell's description.

That's three limitations right there for that spell that worked just fine.