Essentials' "Give Backs"

[I'm A Banana]

So, their at-wills are stronger than other classes' dailies?! 3[W] at-wills?! That's insane!

Read a Slayer thread on WotC's CharOp forum. They aren't weaker without dailies by any stretch of the imagination.

 

[Nichwee]

From what I have heard of CharOp boards they look at DPR only.
On DPR the Slayer is great - he is built to have a solid consistant damage that knocks a few rounds off combats on average.

Where the Slayer falls down is the "We need that thing dead NOW!!!!!" situation, where the use of a strong Daily, AP, another strong Daily can be a novablast of damage and the fight in question is shortened by 4 rounds or so.

Does a Slayer work well? Yes.
Does he have the guns for a true "Kill it NOW or die trying"? No. He has to stick to chipping away (tho he chips harder than most, he can't "Cleave it in two." - which is what Dailies were designed to represent)

Some prefer the steady erosion, some prefer the big boom approach. Both work, and now both exist, so it's all good.


BTW I posted in another thread that I can imagine a martial daily power very easily - I use one a lot:
I fence, and I have bad knees.
Fencing normally uses a low stance and a lunge to attack.
I can't do this, my knees give out.
So I am known for 'not lunging'.
However I sometimes do a mini lunge to catch peeps offguard but can't do it too often (they are Encounters) and once in a blue moon I do a 'full lunge' with some type of stab or parry/riposte attempt - and if I do that more than about 3 times a night (about the typical number of dailies you get) I am unable to walk properly as the pain in my knees takes me out - but I am fine in every other respect and if I hadn't overexerted my knees by doing my 'Dailies' too much I would have barely noticed the problem until I had been fencing for 5 or 6 hours by which time my Healing Surges (if I had them) would be depleted I'm sure.

Thus Dailies can simply be "big moves" that strain the body to breaking point but don't pass it, unless you do them too much at which point the cumulative effect pushes you past the point of no return and you will be "dead on your feet". A good fighter knows the limits he/she can push to and thus stops before crippling him/herself.
And for the "But why not get to do the same move 3 or 4 times rather than 3/4 different ones?" Well the exact choice of a given Daily can be limited by oppertunity and minor strains that can limit each one ("I try that full lunge with backwards lean under his blade again and I think my back will give out if my knees don't") or they can be how each attempt at a similar "big move" turns out.

This is of course just justifying the way things are in the game with possible IC fluff, but then many peeps say the notion of Martial Dailies breaks "suspension of disbelief" so I figured I'd try justifying them in a way that may make the disbelief hang more freely where needed.

 

[TerraDave]

Ya, dailies for all clearly made balancing the game easier. The wotcies are now saying "we have the knowledge, don't worry about balance". OK.

But dailies also mean that someone, besides the wizard, can suddenly turn a loosing situation into a winning one.

 

[Lord Ernie]

From what I have heard of CharOp boards they look at DPR only.
On DPR the Slayer is great - he is built to have a solid consistant damage that knocks a few rounds off combats on average.

Where the Slayer falls down is the "We need that thing dead NOW!!!!!" situation, where the use of a strong Daily, AP, another strong Daily can be a novablast of damage and the fight in question is shortened by 4 rounds or so.

Read closer . Getting the correct PP with a good encounter power, or simply using Reserve Maneuver (usually for Rain of Blows) gives them all the nova-potential they need. Of course, that's by poaching encounter-powers anyway, but the discussion is about lack of daily resources.

Either way, I suspect most of this will be solved when the book with extra rules (hybrid, multiclassing, and probably getting encounter powers from the main class) for the Essentials classes comes out.

Ya, dailies for all clearly made balancing the game easier. The wotcies are now saying "we have the knowledge, don't worry about balance". OK.

But dailies also mean that someone, besides the wizard, can suddenly turn a loosing situation into a winning one.

In my experience, it's usually the leader classes who turn a fight on its head, not the controllers, and that is with or without daily powers.

 

[TerraDave]

Well, I was thinking in terms of past editions (when a fireball was a fireball).

But in 4E it could even be the rogue! And that is different.

 

[Prestidigitalis]

For one thing, we have exmples of "one & done" casting of magic spells from Jack Vance...but also other writers as well, like Michael Moorcock, Fritz Lieber and Larry Niven to name a few.

You are remiss to leave out Roger Zelazny, beginning with his book Trumps of Doom, featuring Merlin, son of Corwin. Most of the princes and princesses of Amber don't even bother with spells, because they are so much trouble to prepare.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Nope, not me.

The great ones may change the game at any moment: track down video of matchups between 2 elite teams and you're likely to see one team have plays that would crush the spirit of lesser team...only to be matched time & time again by the other team's performance. I've seen games like that, where a team overcomes a 35 point deficit; where the lead changes 4 times in 3 minutes as the opposing offenses explode for a combined 5 touchdowns; where a single player refuses to let his team lose and scores multiple touchdowns on special teams...and ads one on offense.

There's a reason some players get nicknames like "The Human Highlight Reel" or "The Human Joystick".

So, no, no dailies in my narrativist football RPG.

So, no, no dailies in my narrativist football RPG.

But again, this is entirely a matter of the level of abstraction of the game. Not only that but the 'big plays' aren't necessarily the QB having a whole bunch of dailies. They can easily represent different situations where different players have big effects. The Lineman makes his big play and blows a huge hole in the defense and the Fullback trots on through. The Halfback puts on a super burst of speed and pulls off a big end-around. The Wide Receiver beats out the Split End cold, pulls in a dump pass and heads for the end zone. You're fixating too much on one way of looking at the game. I think personally your issues with the way 4e AEDU works is a result of looking at it from a mindset that is different from what is intended.

Again, no.

First of all, my suggested revision had as one- indeed, the first- option a synergistic effect: increased efficacy of chained encounter powers as the first sets up the foe to drop his defenses at the wrong time. IOW, like how a feint low may open up a strike high, or like a videogame combo strike.

Second, being able to reuse or boost encounter powers- as depicted in several proffered alternatives- within the same encounter could prove to be just as devastating to a given foe...especially if the daily you're comparing it to wouldn't be particularly effective against your foe of the moment. (In a sense, it's not unlike the 3.x debate over which was better, a higher crit threat range or a higher multiplier.)

Different from dailies? Yes. Less powerful? Maybe yes, maybe no. Intentional gimping of martial PCs? Not at all.

My comment is why go through all of this rigamarole? Just give the character a daily power plot coupon and be done with it. It is just plain more robust from a rules standpoint, easier to run, and produces basically the same results. You can invent all sorts of elaborate and complex rules to avoid the common sense simple approach or you can just do it the straightforward way. Having designed several games I can tell you that unless there is some sort of specific mechanical reason to make something complex you are always much better off with a simpler and more direct approach. The best games really are designed using a few simple elements, and 4e is in that respect a pretty strong system. All these tricky mechanics just aren't needed, the end result is going to be pretty much the same.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

It has nothing to do with level of abstraction- I really don't agree at all that the a/e/d/u model represents in any way what I see in sports contests. Simply put, I have seen too many stunning individual performances in team sports to think otherwise. It's a poor model, IMHO.

So again, no, I would never use it for a sports RPG- see below for more.

My comment is why go through all of this rigamarole?

Because as I've said multiple times, I find martial daily powers to be nonsense- they yank me out of the immersive RPG experience by destroying my willing suspension of disbelief.

Or to put it another way, my narrative experience gets stabbed in the heart by a glaringly artificial mechanic.

Beefed-up encounter powers, OTOH, don't have that effect on my roleplaying experience.

Having designed several games I can tell you that unless there is some sort of specific mechanical reason to make something complex you are always much better off with a simpler and more direct approach.

Better for whom?

Having played somewhere around a hundred different RPG systems, including a couple playtests, I can tell you that sometimes simple and straightforward design leads to other issues, such as your intended audience being of the opinion that your design doesn't model what you think it does- ESPECIALLY when they have a prior edition to compare it to.

Which is why I've recently (as in, sometime around July 2010) come to the conclusion that 4Ed's success could have been bigger and better (long term) divorced from legacy issues. Using "A new generation RPG from the makers of D&D!" kind of marketing to leverage the brand name without shackling the game to legacy issues, you'd be giving it a larger space to grow into; room to create it's own unique mythology.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Ya, dailies for all clearly made balancing the game easier. The wotcies are now saying "we have the knowledge, don't worry about balance". OK.

But dailies also mean that someone, besides the wizard, can suddenly turn a loosing situation into a winning one.

That's fair, and something that hasn't been talked about much in this discussion.

There's a play experience concern in the "spike damage" vs. "consistent damage" category, and spike damage can, indeed, be much more dramatic than high consistent damage.

So you have the cleric or the wizard who, over 5 rounds, does damage (or healing) like this: 5, 5, 30, 5, 5.

Then you have the fighter or rogue, who, over 5 rounds, does damage like this: 10, 10, 10, 10, 10.

In a given combat, the total damage is the same, but, because you remember exceptions more, you remember the cleric or the wizard more, so, they have the bigger psychological impact. The fighter or rogue starts to feel left out, even if they're doing just as much damage, simply because they don't get a big dramatic SPIKE. They're consistent, which is tactically good, but not exciting (this is a little related to grind and monster issues in 4e, too: a lower swinginess means lower tension).

4e's solution (and I think it's a pretty good one) is to give everyone a spike. Now everyone does 5, 5, 30, 5, 5.

But a spike can be replicated well in an encounter power. One big blast that changes the course of battle for better or worse. Something that changes the tide of combat. That's an encounter power.

So what of the dailies?

Well, D&D historically has LTRs (long term resources), too. There's an element of that that's part of the D&D Experience: slowly dwindling resources that force your party to retreat at a certain point and come back later to raid the dungeon. It's what is managed between encounters, and it's an appealing, in-genre, in-narrative thing to want to achieve.

Here's where we run into sort of an issue: Daily Powers are an LTR that affect a short-term system. They're not well siloed. They influence at a scale different then the scale they are spent at. They're unnecessary in combat for all classes, but they're important to the overall span of the game.

Here's a possible solution:
[sblock=Power Surges and Heroic Skills]
Power Surges and Heroic Skills.

Nix daily powers for all classes. Everyone has At-Wills and Encounters. Everyone does 5, 5, 30, 5, 5.

Instead of daily powers, characters gain Power Surges, which can be spent to re-charge your Encounter powers in combat (like healing surges replenish your HP).

Power Surges can also be spent on Heroic Skills. Heroic Skills consist of skill checks that are semi-pseudo-magical, but available to anyone with the skill. Anyone with Stealth can do an Invisibility ritual. Anyone with Athletics can do Spiderclimb. Diplomacy might give you Charm Person. Even a martial character has Power Surges, and so can conjure up that little bit of innate heroism and achieve a magical effect (just as they would conjure it up in combat to REALLY KICK BUTT). They don't cast a spell, but the effect is as if they did, because they are just that damn charming (or stealthy or athletic). Any sufficiently badass skill use is indistinguishable from magic.

Heroic Skills might even affect combat. Maybe you know the Invisibility heroic skill, and, if you spend the Power Surges, you can gain it during combat for a round or so. It's about as effective as, say, an Encounter Utility.

Because they cost Power Surges, they can be balanced against encounter powers (which is what you're giving up to get them).

Your Wizard can now, Vance-like assign their Power Surges to given spells before they go out for the day ("multiple castings" of a single "slot").

PS: This is also the fix for Rituals and the fix for noncombat powers.

For Rituals, Power Surges can replace GP cost, making them worthwhile to do, with a cost that isn't trivial.

For Noncombat Powers, Heroic Skills can suffice. Now, in a skill challenge, instead of "roll your best skill against an arbitrary DC," you can say "My fighter uses Athletics to Spiderclimb out of there!" or "My bard uses Diplomacy to Charm the guard!", and have it reflect a real expenditure of a resource: going through the Skill Challenge always costs Power Surges, in the same way that going through a combat always costs Healing Surges.

You're welcome.
[/sblock]

I think dailies were basically retained because there does need to be an LTR management subgame to D&D, but 4e doesn't pay a lot of attention to that in general, so I'm not too surprised that the Daily powers muck it all up. It's possible to pay better attention to it.

And...I'm kind of enamored of my solution right now....

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

It has nothing to do with level of abstraction- I really don't agree at all that the a/e/d/u model represents in any way what I see in sports contests. Simply put, I have seen too many stunning individual performances in team sports to think otherwise. It's a poor model, IMHO.

Again, this is entirely two issues. One is the level of abstraction of the system. If our hypothetical sports game is modeled at a certain level of abstraction then single-use "powers" make perfectly good sense. Related to that is that it IS a game. Games have to draw SOME line between what they will and won't accurately model about whatever their subject matter is. Secondly it is still a matter of perception of what powers ARE. As plot coupons there simply IS no 'realism' argument. And of course I can respond with the inevitable comment that it seems vastly puzzling to me how a game that abstracts combat effects to a pool of hit points doesn't bother you, but modeling a burst of extra effort etc as a daily power does.

[/quote]So again, no, I would never use it for a sports RPG- see below for more.

And I would wager you would be perfectly happy with it and it would be an excellent mechanic in the context of some game designs. It could even be quite simulationist in the right context.

Or to put it another way, my narrative experience gets stabbed in the heart by a glaringly artificial mechanic.

What is artificial about it? Really look at it. Surely in a given adventuring day there will come a point in time where a character will expend his maximum effort for that day. Surely allowing the player to determine when that moment is is FAR from "a glaringly artificial mechanic". Again, come on, you can swallow hit points but you can't swallow this? I don't really honestly think the issue is the mechanic, I think the issue really at its heart comes down to 4e slew the sacred cow of fighters not having daily powers.

Beefed-up encounter powers, OTOH, don't have that effect on my roleplaying experience.

Why not?!! Really, advance an argument that makes sense and doesn't also apply to encounter powers.

Having played somewhere around a hundred different RPG systems, including a couple playtests, I can tell you that sometimes simple and straightforward design leads to other issues, such as your intended audience being of the opinion that your design doesn't model what you think it does- ESPECIALLY when they have a prior edition to compare it to.

Like I say, the issue for 4e is almost purely a matter of people don't like the way it slew various sacred cows.

Which is why I've recently (as in, sometime around July 2010) come to the conclusion that 4Ed's success could have been bigger and better (long term) divorced from legacy issues. Using "A new generation RPG from the makers of D&D!" kind of marketing to leverage the brand name without shackling the game to legacy issues, you'd be giving it a larger space to grow into; room to create it's own unique mythology.

Yeah, except it would be competing against PF, which would then REALLY and truly be D&D. They couldn't have done that. It is simply unrealistic. Besides, I don't really think they felt very shackled to legacy anything. They extracted much of the best design features of previous editions and ruthlessly changed things when it suited them. We can see how fond people are of that already. Sure, they COULD have gone further. No doubt about it. Seems to me what people are complaining about is how far they DID go. No doubt a few more slayings could probably make an even better set of mechanics, but they've already gotten 85% of the way there, so I don't think it is that big a deal personally.