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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ahnehnois" data-source="post: 5986714" data-attributes="member: 17106">Sure. I absolutely despise the idea that you can "run out" of something that isn't part of the game reality. Nothing takes you out of the game quicker than trying to fly into a berserk rage and realizing that because you are playing a 3rd level barbarian, you can get angry only once per day. I can't think of any fantasy where a character presents a holy symbol to an undead creature and has to track how many turning attempts he has left; it either works or it doesn't. Even magic is usually more fluid; casting it is tough and draining (or natural and effortless or it uses up resources that aren't automatically in a 5 gp spell component pouch), but it's strange to think of a wizard "running out" of magic while still feeling fine, even though it's a D&D trope. You can come up with an explanation if you try hard enough (if you try hard enough, you can justify just about anything), but the notion of "running out" of some intangible resource (as opposed to becoming fatigued or passing out from blood loss) takes me out of the game, and thus is antithetical to the "roleplaying" part of rpgs.The thing is, it's not much better for the "game" side. Daily limitations are not an effective balancing tool at all. Assumptions about what a PC can and should face before resting vary so widely that trying to balance anything around a day is meaningless. Most typically, the players either face challenges only once in a day, or can retreat and rest if their resources are depleted, meaning that the per day limitations are really per encounter. In this case, the characters with more powerful, but daily limited abilities are at an advantage (which has led some people to rather bizarrely conclude that everyone should have these ridiculous limitations so things will be "balanced").On the occasion that daily resources do become depleted, characters become vulnerable. Despite the fact that they might feel fine, they're out of "mojo" and can't fight effectively, leading to frustrating gameplay experiences where they either act unheroically to avoid dying or face unreasonable difficulty from challenges that feel like they should be easy.Tracking the resources is also a major, major bookeeping headache; which is why I went to spell points over spell slots. Frequently, people just lose track of these things, but even if they don't, it pushes players into a resource management minigame where they try to guess how many of their abilities they will need before they can next rest and whether the current challenge is tough enough that it is "worth it" to use them now, a metagame distraction that takes away from truly engaging tactical gameplay.***I effectively banned nonmagical daily abilities a long time ago, changed the hit point system and the recovery rate to make it less "daily", created a spell point system in which not all points are recovered overnight, and made most of the daily abilities into at-wills, adding meaningful in-game situational restrictions, fatigue or "real" resource depletion or simply increasing their power by making them unlimited. The game plays so much better, I would never think of going back (let alone add in more of those restrictions!). People think about the in-game choices, not the metagame ones, and the game plays much faster.***Adapting Green Ronin's Psychics Handbook to a PF-ish vibe was a very informative experience for me. The system itself was built on a fatigue model, but every time I built a class, I automatically thought of per-day abilities. You can see the future? Add your wis mod to something X times a day. Haste? You can use it for 1 round per day per level. Healing surges? Definitely uses per-day.As I revised and revised the designs, I realized that this was just lazy. The seer's ability to see the future became an improved version of readying an action, improved off-turn dodging and blocking, flat saving throw and AC bonuses, and at 20th level, the foresight spell automatically on at all times. The character dodging with preternatural quickness is far better represented.Haste became a skill that works under the fatigue model, rather than a needless exception to it.Healing became at-will applications of temporary hit points, healing of vitality (but not wound) damage, or improved use of existing skills, again falling under the fatigue model.Other abilities simply used up more in-combat time or imposed penalties or had situational limitations, as appropriate.It took a lot of thought.  A lot. But the bottom line is the solutions that I came up with work. I have a complete magical system with no per-day, per-encounter, per-hour, or anything other than per-round. I also reconceived a variety of core classes and added power on a situational or at-will basis, redefining the fighter, barbarian, rogue, and so on without a hint of rage points, ki points, or any stupid per-day abilities, but making them more powerful, more open-ended , and more able to fulfill the concept. I sure wish I hadn't had to fix all those things, and I don't plan on doing it again.So when I see professional writers putting a "per day" extra action on the fighter, I see it for what it is: lazy, inept design. And I ask myself, why would I put down money for the product of someone else's laziness?</blockquote>

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