Essentials' "Give Backs"

[AbdulAlhazred]

I think what it really brings up is that the whole argument is not meaningful in the context of what 4e is trying to do. Daily powers (and other limited use mechanics for that matter) are PLOT COUPONS. The players agree to sit down at the table and be bound by a particular set of rules which allows them to create a narrative. Each player makes decisions which provide them with a defined role in the narrative and a defined set of limited use resources which give them the ability to affect the narrative in various ways, that's all. That is CLEARLY the mindset of the game.

There is no 'logic' that needs to be invoked in order to 'explain' daily powers. Their dailiness or encounteriness or whatever is purely in the service of constructing a better narrative. It would be boring if Gul Rockcrusher, Dwarf Hammermaster got to smush the head of a goblin flat EVERY time he swings his hammer. Instead the player gets to choose an opportune moment when it will have the greatest dramatic impact for that to happen, and use his Brute Strike daily power. That's his big chance (as a 1st level dwarf fighter) to have a big dramatic impact on the story. The rest of the time the player uses some lesser power and dukes it out with the goblins, trading ordinary blows with them.

You don't have to look at ANY of the fighter's powers as being "trying to do a specific thing", they are just "what happens". In the GAME WORLD there is no meta-gamey anything. Gul Rockcrusher ALWAYS aims to slay his foe. He may use various ploys and techniques and general tactics to make himself as effective as possible, but he's always swinging away with that hammer.

From the PLAYER'S perspective it is all just part and parcel of creating the story of the adventure. Now and then (once a day) Gul's player gets to have a more than usually large effect on the narrative by deploying his plot coupon, Brute Strike. He may have other plot coupons, certainly he'll have one he can use every encounter that is a bit less spectacular. He may have one from an item too. He may be able to pull off extra special ones with stunts as well, which are kind of like freebie plot coupons you can generate if you're willing to submit to the luck of the dice a bit extra.

Honestly, it makes pretty good sense to me. "Spells" really aren't much different, except you would assume that with those the character was going after a specific effect from the start. Again, the characters aren't walking around going "Hmmm, I have one use of Fireball today." Instead the Wizard knows that when the flow of magic is right or whatever that his Fireball will work, and the player gets ONE plot coupon for being a level 5 Wizard that lets him say when that is.

4e is not AT ALL a simulationist game at its heart. It is a tool that provides a structure for a procedure to create a narrative story where everyone gets to participate in roughly the same manner. THAT is why the classes have the same power structure, because everyone at the table should have equal access to the NARRATIVE. It isn't about equal balanced characters except incidentally.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I'd like to hear a good argument why training in the Arcane is different from Martial training. In other words....why do daily powers make sense for one and not the other?

It really depends on how willing you are to accept the idea that "magical energy" is distinct from physical prowess.

Magic is weird. There's all sorts of odd rules and guidelines and justifications, and they can pretty much be accepted at face value, because, hey, it's magic. If you want the ability to conjure fire at your fingertips, an "artificial" limit on how often you can do that makes about as much sense as the ability itself does in the first place.

Physical ability, however, is pretty well-recognized and well documented. I can't have an "artificial" limit on how often I can swing a sword, because I could literally go outside and swing the sword more than that.

Even if I swing my sword really hard, and I need a few seconds to recover that I don't have during a pitched scrum (Encounter powers).

For better or for worse, all "martial" powers are variations on "I swing my sword LIKE THIS."

It's sort of like how doctors sometimes can't watch medical dramas. They can't suspend disbelief enough to make sense of it.

Only in this case, real people can't suspend disbelief enough to make sense of abilities that, while mythically and epically heroic, are ostensibly grounded in going outside and swinging your sword.

They need to kind of be on the same continuum.

Magic of any sort can be on an entirely different continuum.

 

[Greg Benage]

I guess I agree with Abdul, in that I interpreted the "daily" limitation in terms of opportunity -- not ability. What physical action can't a trained athlete do more than once a day? Hit the game-winning homerun or throw the game-winning touchdown.

As written, this is very "narrativist" in that it puts the decision in the hands of the player. The opportunity opens up when the player says it does. Still, there are ways to make it more "simulationist." For example, the DM is the master of the game environment -- it's right there in the name. So it would be perfectly "simulationist" to have the DM tell the player when the opportunity is right and he can use a specific daily. As another poster suggested, the DM could even do this randomly. The player could choose to seize the opportunity or wait for another one, but he can be sure he'll only be able to seize the opportunity once per day (barring reliability).

That said, the Essentials approach works for me, too.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

By way of correcting myself, multiple sequential or extra long marathons are "Ultramarathons"- iron man competitions contain multiple endurance events, but only one leg could be called a marathon by any stretch of the imagination.

KM post#82 this thread: I agree 100%.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I guess I agree with Abdul, in that I interpreted the "daily" limitation in terms of opportunity -- not ability. What physical action can't a trained athlete do more than once a day? Hit the game-winning homerun or throw the game-winning touchdown.

As written, this is very "narrativist" in that it puts the decision in the hands of the player. The opportunity opens up when the player says it does. Still, there are ways to make it more "simulationist." For example, the DM is the master of the game environment -- it's right there in the name. So it would be perfectly "simulationist" to have the DM tell the player when the opportunity is right and he can use a specific daily. As another poster suggested, the DM could even do this randomly. The player could choose to seize the opportunity or wait for another one, but he can be sure he'll only be able to seize the opportunity once per day (barring reliability).

That said, the Essentials approach works for me, too.

As Greg says, we can think of an encounter a lot like a sporting event. If we were going to make say an RPG about being a football player we'd probably want the character to be able to run, pass, block, tackle, etc depending on his position. Maybe the game would have some tactical element where different actions would be appropriate for that character. The quarterback for example could throw a long touchdown pass, but at any decent level of abstraction you'd almost inevitably want to have those things be limited possibilities.

Now, if your football playing RPG was rather narrativist in its approach, you might well give the players something pretty much analogous to a daily power. An ability to try to pull off a special game changing play once in a while. It might actually look a heck of a lot like the 4e AEDU power system.

From a standpoint of creating a story, generating a collaborative fictional narrative of an adventure (or a football game) plot coupons really seem very logical and apropos. Certainly now and then the players may ask "gosh, my guy is about to die and he's already pulled off his big move, might he not do that again?". The answer might be "yes, but you had your chance to affect the plot, now your beaten, that's the narrative at this point." or the answer might well be "OK, come up with a really good story about how your character gritted his teeth and kicked butt TWICE in the same day!" I mean DMs DO have this prerogative. Power uses and other such things are game constructs, not world constructs. If it serves the story and its fun then it can happen. Or the player can push his luck far out on a limb and try some crazy stunt that might just win the day.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Now, if your football playing RPG was rather narrativist in its approach, you might well give the players something pretty much analogous to a daily power. An ability to try to pull off a special game changing play once in a while. It might actually look a heck of a lot like the 4e AEDU power system.

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.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I think what it really brings up is that the whole argument is not meaningful in the context of what 4e is trying to do. Daily powers (and other limited use mechanics for that matter) are PLOT COUPONS. The players agree to sit down at the table and be bound by a particular set of rules which allows them to create a narrative. Each player makes decisions which provide them with a defined role in the narrative and a defined set of limited use resources which give them the ability to affect the narrative in various ways, that's all. That is CLEARLY the mindset of the game.

Yep, and it worked very well.

Another aspect of the at-will/Encounter/Daily distinction is that more-limitted dailies can be more powerful that less-limitted encounters that can be more powerful than unlimitted at-wills.

So, whatever rationale someone cooks up for why they want to disallow martial characters from possessing dailies, the bottom line remains that they want to deny that power source the most potent, highest-impact options in the game.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

So, whatever rationale someone cooks up for why they want to disallow martial characters from possessing dailies, the bottom line remains that they want to deny that power source the most potent, highest-impact options in the game.

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.

 

[I'm A Banana]

So, whatever rationale someone cooks up for why they want to disallow martial characters from possessing dailies, the bottom line remains that they want to deny that power source the most potent, highest-impact options in the game.

I see we have an internet psychic here, ladies and gentemen! Reading true thoughts from across hundreds and thousands of miles of tubes by mere text and supposition!

MAGIC!

Ridiculousness aside, look at the Essentials Slayer or Thief. Able to dish out more damage than any other character there, entirely without the use of dailies.

They have the highest impact and the most potent damage-dealing effects around.

They lack dalies.

Or the Knight, able to protect any friends who stand near her, entirely without dalies.

You don't NEED daily abilities to be powerful, or to have a high impact.

In fact, I wouldn't be sad if every class got rid of Daily powers, but I grok that they're a little iconic for D&D, so I'm okay with them, as long as they don't break my suspension of disbelief.

 

[Infiniti2000]

They have the highest impact and the most potent damage-dealing effects around.

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