Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Crazy Jerome" data-source="post: 5986976" data-attributes="member: 54877">Daily powers in D&amp;D are somewhat analogous to democracy--the worst form of government except for all the others one ever tried. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile&nbsp; &nbsp; :)"&nbsp; data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> There's a certain &quot;least common denominator&quot; aspect of daily powers that works &quot;well enough&quot; across a wide variety of playstyles and preferences, but rarely sings in any of them.&nbsp; Most of the benefits are in ease and simplicity of handling, though, not simulation, gamist, or narrative concerns.&nbsp;Whereas things like spell points or fatigue points or the like are more like the theoretical &quot;philosopher king&quot; or &quot;benevolent dictator&quot;. Yep, you absolutely can get more done smoothly in certain cases under one of those, but it's not like it doesn't have its own major risks and drawbacks. It's merely that people get fed up with daily powers and see more benefit than drawback in those other methods. Try to make those other methods standard, and those drawbacks become a lot more important under some scenarios. That is, there is a &quot;grass is always greener&quot; effect going on here, that is compounded by the simple fact that if you work hard at one of the carefully chosen alternatives, the grass probably is greener--for you.&nbsp;Besides that, there is the flat issue of the time period itself. Daily makes far more sense and has far less issues as the &quot;big gun, long recharge&quot; option when you are doing dungeon crawls in AD&amp;D 1E with 10 minute &quot;turns&quot;--even when that adventure takes several days. Change the scope of the adventure to a city, or weeks long wilderness trek, or the like, and it simply doesn't hold up as well in that &quot;big gun, long recharge&quot; capacity. &nbsp;Finally, supporting TwoSix (can't XP yet), there is nothing saying that the &quot;long recharge&quot; part can't be made to work independently of the rest of the system. For example, you could have Vancian slots that operate exactly as they do now as far as casting goes, but recharge on a curve. They recharge pretty fast in a given time frame/cost once, but rapidly escalate from there. A 1st level slot might take one night of rest, 5 minutes of preparation, and simple components costing 1 sp to recharge--if this is the first time you've done it since some longer time frame, costly ritual, big event, very long rest, time in your tower, etc. Then it goes up rapidly from there. Then modest and normal use of such abilities takes a steady but very minor cut of treasure found, while heavier use eats into treasure in a hurry--not so much that you'd avoid it in a pinch, but enough that you don't do it routinely just because.&nbsp;That is, part of the problem with &quot;dailies&quot; in D&amp;D is not merely that you can do them only zero to 1 times per day, but that you get them back so effortlessly. That doesn't fit the original &quot;big gun, long recharge&quot; purpose.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Crazy Jerome, post: 5986976, member: 54877"] Daily powers in D&D are somewhat analogous to democracy--the worst form of government except for all the others one ever tried. :) There's a certain "least common denominator" aspect of daily powers that works "well enough" across a wide variety of playstyles and preferences, but rarely sings in any of them. Most of the benefits are in ease and simplicity of handling, though, not simulation, gamist, or narrative concerns. Whereas things like spell points or fatigue points or the like are more like the theoretical "philosopher king" or "benevolent dictator". Yep, you absolutely can get more done smoothly in certain cases under one of those, but it's not like it doesn't have its own major risks and drawbacks. It's merely that people get fed up with daily powers and see more benefit than drawback in those other methods. Try to make those other methods standard, and those drawbacks become a lot more important under some scenarios. That is, there is a "grass is always greener" effect going on here, that is compounded by the simple fact that if you work hard at one of the carefully chosen alternatives, the grass probably is greener--for you. Besides that, there is the flat issue of the time period itself. Daily makes far more sense and has far less issues as the "big gun, long recharge" option when you are doing dungeon crawls in AD&D 1E with 10 minute "turns"--even when that adventure takes several days. Change the scope of the adventure to a city, or weeks long wilderness trek, or the like, and it simply doesn't hold up as well in that "big gun, long recharge" capacity. Finally, supporting TwoSix (can't XP yet), there is nothing saying that the "long recharge" part can't be made to work independently of the rest of the system. For example, you could have Vancian slots that operate exactly as they do now as far as casting goes, but recharge on a curve. They recharge pretty fast in a given time frame/cost once, but rapidly escalate from there. A 1st level slot might take one night of rest, 5 minutes of preparation, and simple components costing 1 sp to recharge--if this is the first time you've done it since some longer time frame, costly ritual, big event, very long rest, time in your tower, etc. Then it goes up rapidly from there. Then modest and normal use of such abilities takes a steady but very minor cut of treasure found, while heavier use eats into treasure in a hurry--not so much that you'd avoid it in a pinch, but enough that you don't do it routinely just because. That is, part of the problem with "dailies" in D&D is not merely that you can do them only zero to 1 times per day, but that you get them back so effortlessly. That doesn't fit the original "big gun, long recharge" purpose. [/QUOTE]

Verification