Encounter-based Design: The only smart elephant in the room

[DEFCON 1]

What is the point of making a new edition of D&D if it doesn't attempt to solve the problems of older editions?

Because every single rule in D&D is a problem to somebody. So its impossible to make a game that would solve all of them. So all they can do is make a game that solves a majority of them for a majority of players, and accept that some will just never find any new system better than the one they are currently playing. That's really all they can do.

 

[BobTheNob]

snip
4E took a step in the right direction with the AEDU and surges vs. HP model
snip

Wow. Thats a pretty bold statement given how much debate there has been regarding AEDU and surges. You might want to think about wording that more like "I believe that..." and not write such controversial statements as if you position reflects the communities position.

The 15 minute adventuring day is a playstyle issue. People will complain about it, but the power to fix the issue lies with them - and pretty much only with them..

And therein lies the truth as I have experienced it.

We played 4e, and my players kept pushing time and again for the 15 minute day just because dailies packed more punch. It took a good many months to fix it, but eventually we established a suite of fair houserules (basically a little cheese to motivate players away from it) to keep play moving and stop the 15 minute day.

In the end AEDU and surge's did NOT stop the 15 minute day...we (i.e. my group) did.

 

[Doug McCrae]

The biggest problem with the whole system is daily resources, yet many who complain about "We usually only have one combat per adventuring day and edition x doesn't fit our style very well" or "We often have 8-14 combats per adventuring day and edition x doesn't fit our playstyle very well" also insist on the very resource type that makes it impossible to have a game that fits both styles.
...

Simply put, the only way to make a game that can fit all the playstyles is to have a core with no daily resources.

How about making a day of indeterminate length?

For those who have 12 fights in 24hrs, a day is 8 hours. For those who have 1, a day is 96 hours.

To avoid confusion, we stop calling it a day. It's a period between long rests, a spell recharge period, an adventure, or a session.

 

[KidSnide]

Part of the problem with daily and encounter resources is that they are seeking to measure separate issues. We need to distinguish between:

* encounters that threaten to exceed a party's "nova" capability;
* a series of encounters that threaten to exceed a party's "daily" capabilities; and
* encounters that threaten defeat, without necessarily threatening destruction (e.g. "can you kill the enemy before he finishes the ritual" or "can you prevent the enemy from escaping").

If the DM guidelines provide useful answers to gauging and adjusting the difficulty of those three types of threats, we should be ok. Personally, I would be ok with only at-will and daily resources, particularly if there is a good modular mechanism for allowing characters to regenerate a subset of their daily resources on a per-encounter basis.

-KS

 

[I'm A Banana]

Hahahahaha, no, I'm pretty sure I disagree. Let me break it down.

First, if you base your design on encounters, this means your encounters must be balanced. This creates the problem we saw in 4e of "microbalance," of ruling out elements of the game such as flight, instant death attacks, teleportation, etc., because such things are not balanced for the encounter. They let you bypass the encounter or dominate the encounter. They are, at the encounter level, wildly unbalanced.

Yet, for D&D, for many folks, they are essential. It is true that they are not essential for everyone, but it is NOT true that they are optional if what you're looking for is the "Core D&D Experience." That experience includes instant death, and it includes flight, and it includes teleportation.

It is also true that "microbalance" works in the opposite direction, it elevates things that were never designed to be encounter challenges into encounter challenges, in order to balance them for the encounter. This leads to the elevation of things like Rust Monsters and Nymphs and Dryads and Gelatinous Cubes into needlessly complex and dangerous creatures, capable of enduring an entire combat, and focused on the five rounds in which they will be alive before being killed, and reconcepted as combat-centric creatures.

Yet, for D&D, for many folks, these creatures are not necessarily there to be fought, or at least not to be fought in anything like a "balanced encounter."

So for those reasons to begin with, encounter-based design fails to create the play experience I want at the table, and it fails to create the quintessential D&D play experience that is identified with the brand.

That's a tremendously problematic way to form a brand.

Still, it is possible within the context of a broader based design to have well-balanced encounters, if you'd like. Only, it doesn't mandate them as a core game design principle. It allows for more variety and more options and an experience closer to the binary logic of myths and legends and less like a series of minis skirmishes.

That variety is worth holding onto. And the fact that it doesn't necessarily take away good encounter design is why you probably don't need to worry about it making everything suck all of a sudden.

You've played the 5e playtest, yes? What happens?

 

[Herschel]

Wow. Thats a pretty bold statement given how much debate there has been regarding AEDU and surges. You might want to think about wording that more like "I believe that..." and not write such controversial statements as if you position reflects the communities position.

The boards show that a whole bunch of people want or like something along that vein, even if they didn't like the implementation for whatever reason. Even people who didn't like 4E saw problems and are suggesting similar ideas for correcting it. So no, it's not a "bold statement" it's factual they took steps to resolve issues people saw, and in a general direction that we see many people actually wanted but didn't like the final implementation. The old saying is "don't throw the baby out with the bath water".

We played 4e, and my players kept pushing time and again for the 15 minute day just because dailies packed more punch.

It took a good many months to fix it, but eventually we established a suite of fair houserules (basically a little cheese to motivate players away from it) to keep play moving and stop the 15 minute day.

In the end AEDU and surge's did NOT stop the 15 minute day...we (i.e. my group) did.

Then your group was, quite frankly, pretty lousy at picking powers that truly packed the most punch. Most of the best Wizard dailies, for example, require sustaining and make using multiples in an encounter really a tough (and outright bad) choice. Then again, I noticed in multiple groups and public play there was a learning curve from people who played previous editions for a long time to not look at immediate and self damage and see the bigger picture. My Warlord, for example, using Encounter Powers in concert with another ranged attacker using only at-wills does a lot more aggregate damage than both of us using "selfish" Dailies.

It isn't the perfect solution, and I've had a group try the old 15-minute work day but once they got a better understanding of the system they found out that really weren't making very good choices.

 

[Herschel]

Hahahahaha, no, I'm pretty sure I disagree. Let me break it down.

First, if you base your design on encounters, this means your encounters must be balanced. This creates the problem we saw in 4e of "microbalance," of ruling out elements of the game such as flight, instant death attacks, teleportation, etc., because such things are not balanced for the encounter. They let you bypass the encounter or dominate the encounter. They are, at the encounter level, wildly unbalanced.

What?!?!?! How does Encounter design rule out flight, instant death attacks and teleportation? That makes absolutely no sense. The closest would probably be instant death attacks, but those should in no way be core anyway because a number of fans of all editions don't like them.

Yet, for D&D, for many folks, these creatures are not necessarily there to be fought, or at least not to be fought in anything like a "balanced encounter."

And yet even in 4E I've thrown Dryads and the like out and teh group doesn't fight them either.

So for those reasons to begin with, encounter-based design fails to create the play experience I want at the table, and it fails to create the quintessential D&D play experience that is identified with the brand.

BS, that's just "one true way"ism.

Still, it is possible within the context of a broader based design to have well-balanced encounters, if you'd like. Only, it doesn't mandate them as a core game design principle. It allows for more variety and more options and an experience closer to the binary logic of myths and legends and less like a series of minis skirmishes.

I think you have it backwards. It's easy to add elements to throw balance off, it's not easy to add elements to make an unbalanced system balanced. But you're also missing the real point.

You start with Encounter-based design. The modules then take you whichever direction you want. You add Daily powers (or even Encounter powers, if you want them), you pick a health system, etc. Then you can contour the game to whichever style you like, be it one-and-done doozies or long, drawn-out infiltrations or no fights at all.

That variety is worth holding onto. And the fact that it doesn't necessarily take away good encounter design is why you probably don't need to worry about it making everything suck all of a sudden.

You've played the 5e playtest, yes? What happens?

It's (so far) a major disappointment. The variety is lessened, the chaotic elements aren't as fun and the basic numbers/math is way off. Things like the "Deck of Many Things" and "Wands of Wonder" are fun chaos because you go in knowing that it's 50/50 going to go awry yet there's a good chance you'll still recover and if you're thinking quickly a negative can even be a positive. That's good swingy because it's put in as wanted and are just add-ons.

That's a lot different than Kobolds tearing you up and you roll a 1 on a HD recovery roll or getting hit for instant death. That's bad swingy.

 

[Herschel]

How about making a day of indeterminate length?

For those who have 12 fights in 24hrs, a day is 8 hours. For those who have 1, a day is 96 hours.

To avoid confusion, we stop calling it a day. It's a period between long rests, a spell recharge period, an adventure, or a session.

I like that idea too, but it appears too many are set on the actual passage/usage of "day" being that magic time period.

 

[CleverNickName]

I like that idea too, but it appears too many are set on the actual passage/usage of "day" being that magic time period.

And it looks like these measurements of time are going to be even more important, if we are going to have "short" and "long" rests to track as well.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Already impossible since we know DDN will have vancian wizards.

Meh. They could re-memorize a cast spell between encounters, but still change out spell selection only as dailies. They'd just need fewer spell slots.