Daily Powers are Great

[AbdulAlhazred]

I don't dislike Daily powers.

Often, however, I just find myself wishing that I had more Encounter powers.* The reason is that sometimes I find power combos that work well together; one power sets up the other. But if one is a Daily and the other an Encounter power, that Encounter power may not be worth much if the Daily doesn't hit or isn't available...and there isn't another Encounter power that plays well with the

For instance, my current PC has an Encounter power that damages the target and gives it a penalty to Will, and a Daily that does likewise. There aren't many powers for the next few levels that target Will for this class, so right now, if the combo fails, that's it. Heck, I'm not sure if there is another PC in the party with an attack that targets Will. I'd LOVE for there to be a way for my PC or his partymates to continue to press this advantage, but there isn't one for the foreseeable future.

* OK, in all honesty, I simply find myself wanting more powers period. I'd gladly burn feats to gain more powers. I much prefer the Vancian model of resource management where I have lots of options and must settle on a few for the short term rather than settle on picking one power per level. And no, retraining doesn't do it for me.

Sounds like you really want to play a wizard I think there is a way even for a warlock to get some minor flexibility here at higher levels, but its like 1 encounter power you can swap out or something. Martial classes have a couple swap at a rest feats too. Honestly you don't find its super useful for most characters because you generally put together specific routines that work.

One of the answers of course is you aren't supposed to combo with yourself. Those will debuff powers I've noticed are kind of an issue with our starlock too. It is a rarely targeted defense. The wizard though can pick up a couple vs will powers, you just have to do a more party-wide optimization and make sure you both know what each other's powers are going to be so you can set up stuff between you.

On the subject of daily martial powers I think the best way to look at it is to stop thinking of powers as something the PCs have. They are a GAME construct. What the game does for you is gives you as a player a specific number of chances to muck with the narrative of the story. Its like having turns, its an abstraction that the system creates, not a simulation of what your character is. Now and then you can be the big hero and blow off a really good trick, but the game doesn't just hand that to you all the time. Besides, any PC over 4th level has 2 daily powers, so its not like you aren't pulling cool tricks all the time. By 9th level you can use a daily 3 out of 5 encounters. Many of them are similar as well, so if there's a particular type of trick you like to pull you can do pretty close to the same thing several times a day, it just works a tiny bit different each time.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Sounds like you really want to play a wizard I think there is a way even for a warlock to get some minor flexibility here at higher levels, but its like 1 encounter power you can swap out or something. Martial classes have a couple swap at a rest feats too. Honestly you don't find its super useful for most characters because you generally put together specific routines that work.

Nah- I got what you're saying, but it has nothing to do with playing a Wizard. I just don't like:

1. having only one power per level with no way to increase that amount (besides certain MC feats).
2. limited ability to pick powers that synergize well

And that goes across all classes.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Nah- I got what you're saying, but it has nothing to do with playing a Wizard. I just don't like:

1. having only one power per level with no way to increase that amount (besides certain MC feats).
2. limited ability to pick powers that synergize well

And that goes across all classes.

Yeah, they really expect you to build those synergies between characters mostly. That being said there are quite a few synergies. Barbarians have a bunch centered around charging for instance. Its not so much pure power-power synergy as it is feat X, power Y, and wield item Z (and maybe item A at the same time). For example with the warlock you can get the feat that gives you a couple points of damage on a target when you curse it and the rod that lets you spread your curse. There's an obvious synergy there... Or things like frost cheese where you leverage a certain type of damage and 2 feats. The easy way to dig these combos up of course is to go delve into the optimization guides. Someone has figured out every little tricky combo.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

After 30+ years in the hobby, I can char-op pretty well myself...when I choose to do so.

Like I said about my current PC, though, its amazing to me that you can find a power/power synergy...and the class' structure itself gives it only limited support.

And- not unique to 4Ed by any means- some of the powers just seem NUTS to me. There is one for Starlocks in DMA that is an INT based attack. That makes it (AFAIK) the only Int based attack in the class. Sure, its beefy, but its based on a stat that is, at best, the PC's 2nd or 3rd highest.

Some might look at that and start crying "CHARACTER-BUILDING TRAP!" Me? I just shake my head and sigh. I'd take that power...if I had access to other powers of that level from which to choose in a given combat.

 

[Stalker0]

To me, it makes little sense for martial characters to have dailies.

Which is probably the biggest reason they may try to make daily less classes.

Some people want to play a fighter with that one critical move once per day. Others want to play a fighter that is just generally good throughout the day. Both have merit, both have audiences.

My only concern with adjustment in the resource system is it brings back the concern 4e was trying to get away from, the division in the party between the near ending engines and the novaers.


In 3e, if resting is frequent wizards are strong and fighters weak. If resting is rare fighters are strong and wizards are weak. This is because fighters focus on at will attacks while wizards use dailies.

If 4e returns to that model in some form the issue comes up, though I doubt it will ever be a problem to the degree it was in 3rd...mainly because the degree of resource seperation in 4th won't ever be as high.

 

[Falling Icicle]

I'd rather they get rid of Dailies, personally. They are the whole cause of the "15 minute adventuring day", except in 4e, it now applies to EVERY class, not just spellcasters.

If a power wouldn't unblance an encounter, then why not let it be avaialble in every encounter? The existence of daily powers either leads to one of two conclusions: either the player is overpowered in an encounter when he uses them, or he is underpowered in an encounter in which he conserves them. In either case, making the players manage resources on a daily basis is a poor game design decision, IMO. I think it's odd that of all the sacred cows that were slaughtered in 4e, they chose instead to nurture that one.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

In 3e, if resting is frequent wizards are strong and fighters weak. If resting is rare fighters are strong and wizards are weak. This is because fighters focus on at will attacks while wizards use dailies.

Well put...and one of the reasons I was expecting 4Ed to include more Reserve Metamagic- possibly as class features- instead of the "everyone gets powers" model.

 

[KarinsDad]

I'd rather they get rid of Dailies, personally. They are the whole cause of the "15 minute adventuring day", except in 4e, it now applies to EVERY class, not just spellcasters.

No, healing surges are the cause of the "15 minute adventuring day".


I just started with a new group last night and we had a discussion about Dailies. I said to them, it's ok to use a Daily in every encounter by someone in the group. The PCs are 10th level with 15 total Dailies, not including magic items. Even if we burn one Daily per encounter, we are not going to run into 15 encounters. So, go ahead and use a Daily once in a while. We all have 3 Dailies, so even if one PC is low, the other PCs will have some. Also, go ahead and use an action point once in a while. In a 7 encounter day, we'll have 20 action points. We can easily afford to have the group burn 2+ action points per encounter.

The idea is to take foes out quicker so that we use less healing surges so that we can get more encounters in per day. One doesn't want to go nuts over it and blow 5 or more Dailies and 5 action points in an encounter unless it is a really tough encounter, but it's ok in every encounter to burn through a few by a few PCs in the group.

But, the limit isn't Daily powers, it's healing surges. If the group wasn't limited by healing surges and hence, 5 to 8 encounters per day, this is not the advice I would have given them.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I'd rather they get rid of Dailies, personally. They are the whole cause of the "15 minute adventuring day", except in 4e, it now applies to EVERY class, not just spellcasters.

As discussed ad nauseam on ENWorld, my experience is that the "15 minute adventuring day" is an artifact of DM permission & playstyle, not the game's mechanics.

I've never seen it happen in any group I've played with in 30+ years. 4Ed is no different.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Well put...and one of the reasons I was expecting 4Ed to include more Reserve Metamagic- possibly as class features- instead of the "everyone gets powers" model.

Meta-magic never leads to good things. Every single meta-magic spell that has ever existed in any edition of D&D was either horribly flat out broken or worthless, there is just no middle ground. At best (worst?) you get something that is BOTH worthless AND horribly broken. Meta-magic always sounds like a wonderful theory, and it would be possible for it to work in a game that was totally centered on using it (Ars Magica perhaps?) but it just doesn't work in a game like D&D.

And I agree that Fury of Gibbeth is a rather odd power (probably the only one in the game that uses a purely secondary stat to attack) but notice it does get a +2. In any case it is a very strange power that flat out should just be rewritten. Typical of early Dragon 4e stuff they were obviously not sure exactly what powers should do and what stuff wouldn't work. Nothing that wonky has been published in a while.