[edition neutral] No more dailies?

[Aberzanzorax]

I notice people's complaints about the 15 minute adventuring day, players hoarding daily powers, issues about balance (power versus rarity), combat grind etc. (not to mention the dissapointment of saving your daily power for a "big bang" and having it miss).

It's an edition neutral issue, I think...3e has magic items with daily uses, feats with daily uses (e.g. the "sudden metamagic" feats), and so on.


I wonder if the game would be improved or not with the removal or exchange of daily powers for lower level powers. For example: in 4e remove all dailies and give 1 encounter power and one at will whenever a player would have received a daily. In 3e, drop a once per day power for a lower level 3x per day power.


I think this might help remove the "going nova effect" from both games...as well as perhaps make each individual combat more interesting. What do you all think? Good idea? Bad idea? Effects or side effects I haven't thought of?

 

[jasonbostwick]

It's a pretty interesting idea. In my 'fantasy heartbreaker' I ran for the year or so before 4E came out I used a variant of recharge magic and did away with most daily limitations. It pretty much did away with attrition (I didn't have a healing surge mechanism, so a wand of cure light wounds allowed infinite healing) and let me run very high-action story-focused games, which is what I was interested in at the time.


Recently I've been playing a bit of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 3E (and hope to play it a lot more starting this summer). All of the powers in the game work on a recharge system, with longer recharges for more potent attacks. The game still retains a lot of attrition through fatigue, stress, and wounds, which are difficult to recover without rest.

Unlimited healing is probably the biggest side effect of removing daily power/item/spell use in D&D. 4E dealt with this with healing surges, and a similar solution would probably work for 3.5 and older editions. I think Monte Cook dealt with this in the Book of Experimental Might somehow, but I can't remember off the top of my head and don't have the book handy.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

IME, the 15 min adventuring day never happens, it's only something I hear about on the internet. So I see no reason to get rid of daily resources.

As far as unlimited healing...the common 3E solution to such abilities was to cap it off at half max hp, such as with Touch of Healing or the Vigor aura of Dragon Shamans.

 

[Crothian]

People complain about a lot of things in game but if they don't happen in yours then I wouldn't worry about them.

 

[Smoss]

This was a big question when I was crafting my own system. In the end I left daily abilities in, but they are rare and difficult to get. People mostly do what they can at will (Which is pretty huge, including healing!)

Of course, I did have to put limits in due to the at will nature of the game. Like you cannot boost an attribute by more than 50% - And magic healing only works on the same body once per day (Unless you buy a talent and its prerequisites to boost that to 2x per day).

It has worked out well - Especially with the large amount of things a person can do at will. One could certainly have a fun time with no daily-type abilities in a game. Just remember a limit on stacking of boosts to rolls/attributes/healing. Should be fine!
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Smoss
Doulairen (Doulairen)
Or directly to the fun system bits:
RPG System (Doulairen)

 

[Umbran]

In my experience (which admittedly isn't huge) the daily powers are not "going nova" - they are better than at wills and encounter powers, but not that much. People often judge things not based on an honest assessment of the expected value, but on the highest potential value.

For example - say you have a rare old Magic: the Gathering card. Say it might sell for anywhere from $10 to $500, depending on the condition of the card. A person will tend to think of the $500 end, rather than the $100 or lower probable sale price.

If folks figured in the misses into their assessment of the Daily's value, the value drops precipitously, as does the need to horde it.

 

[Nifft]

IME, the 15 min adventuring day never happens, it's only something I hear about on the internet. So I see no reason to get rid of daily resources.

I saw my group creeping towards it, organically, in 3.5e from levels 10 to 16.

They went for the biggest spells first, because if they didn't, they risked eating multiple spells of the same potency -- and that potency is usually "save or die", with a sprinkling of "just die".

It's real.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Nahat Anoj]

I would be quite happy to see Daily effects go the way of the dinosaur. This means daily powers *and* healing surges. If healing surges must remain, then give PCs fewer of them make them refresh at the end of the encounter.

IMO, the Dragon Age video game does it best - after a fight, your hps just go back up to full. If some kind of resource management is required, PCs could have a few "stamina points," again similar to how Dragon Age does it (although I wouldn't force PCs to spend stamina to wear armor, although I like the idea of "committing" stamina for powerful sustained abilities)

I've seen the 15 minute adventuring day problem crop up in a few of my games. But more problematic to me is that I just don't feel I can model cinematic reality as easily with powers that are a on a time-based refresh (dailies) compared to those that are on a scene-based refresh (encounters).

 

[Ahnehnois]

IME, the 15 min adventuring day never happens, it's only something I hear about on the internet. So I see no reason to get rid of daily resources.

I agree, it's way overblown. I find it somewhat rare that a party would face two challenging combat encounters in the same day, and if they do, I don't have a problem with them being worn down after the first one.

The Trailblazer rule though, is worth mentioning. Basically, it takes every "per day" resource and makes it "per rest". A 15-minute rest heals hp, recovers spells, etc. For anyone who does have this problem that's an easy (and again edition-neutral) fix.

 

[Ourph]

I've seen the 15 minute adventuring day problem crop up in a few of my games. But more problematic to me is that I just don't feel I can model cinematic reality as easily with powers that are a on a time-based refresh (dailies) compared to those that are on a scene-based refresh (encounters).

I feel much the same way and have been considering having dailies and healing surges refresh after every 2nd milestone (i.e. every 4 encounters) rather than at extended rests.