Design & Development: Warlord Article UP!

[Spatula]

Except that allotments of divine and arcane power have always been rationalized.

I was responding to KarinsDad's statements, in case that was not clear.

Granted, divine powers can make some sense as dailies because the Gods only permit one per day (in a "the deities control resources" fantasy model), but this is a bit forced as well.

Arcane makes even less sense (but one could still extrapolate an arcane exhaution of capability model)

No previous edition has ever tried to explain how the fighter can only make 'five attacks per two rounds' once a day, because that would have been silly.

Of course, fighters are not the only "martial" class, even in previous editions. Monks, barbarians, and possibly cavaliers (I no longer have UA to check) have all had "martial" powers usable only on a daily (or weekly in the case of quivering palm) basis.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Arcane makes even less sense (but one could still extrapolate an arcane exhaution of capability model)

I think it would be possible to model the martial per encounter / per day mechanic via a "exhaustion" system (maybe combined with a random element for per day) - or something like the Token system from Iron Heroes. But any such system is usually a lot more fiddly and I believe it's also a lot easier to abuse.