Five-Minute Workday Article

[Zustiur]

I do not think we can avoid 15 minute adventure days all the time. I think we can avoid that 15 minute adventure days imbalance the game towards those that have the most resources to regain from a rest.

This ties in with what I said in the other thread. If the issue is the balance between classes, why aren't we looking at the balance between classes? Throwing in gamist rules to prevent 15MAD isn't actually going to fix the balance...

"OK, who are we fighting today?"
"Those hobgoblins who summoned the gelugons are still holding the village down the river hostage."
"Let's fix that. Check if they're still there."
*Scry*
"Yep, still there."
"Ok, let's get ready."
*Mass Energy Resistance (cold)*
*Superior Resistance*
*Invisibility* on everyone
*Mirror Image*
*Fly* on everyone
*Haste*
*Righteous Wrath of the Faithful*
*Teleport*
Scout while flying and invisible, locate enemies.
*Dispel Magic* on the area around the enemy cluster.
Drop in for the attack.
Crush everyone, focusing on enemy spellcasters. If something bad happens, regroup, *teleport* to base.

You know what that example makes me think?
It makes me think that spell durations are too long.

A big part of the ability to nova comes from being able to cast spells well in advance of the actual combat. Perhaps that is one of the appropriate steps to look at in preventing/reducing the nova?

A question for all: If it was literally impossible to nova, would we still see the 15MAD?

 

[TwoSix]

A question for all: If it was literally impossible to nova, would we still see the 15MAD?

Absolutely not.

It isn't daily resources that cause 15MWD, it's the fact those resources make you so much more effective in combat. If the wizard at-wills were magic missile, fireball, and Evard's black tentacles, and the dailies were hold portal, sepia snake sigil and amaneunsis, who would bother to rest?

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

This ties in with what I said in the other thread. If the issue is the balance between classes, why aren't we looking at the balance between classes? Throwing in gamist rules to prevent 15MAD isn't actually going to fix the balance...

It takes a lot of time to get this into people's head, I think. Most are still thinking about how they can force players to not have a 15 minute adventuring day. The real issue for me is definitely the class balance, but it's difficult to reach everyone in the discussion to recognize that. Which is understandeable, since the thread title is all about the abonimation of 15 minute adventuring day, not the abonimation that only spellcasters have strong but expendable resources and benefit the most from a short adventuring day.

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A long way could be done if spells in general were weaker. No more Fireball for 5d6 damage in a 20ft radius, but a Scorching Burst for 1d6+INT in a 10 ft radius.

Or by giving Fighter's and Rogue's equally powerful daily abilities (but the problem is: Daily is unpopular since only magic can work as daily, mudane people daily resources other than hit points). Stuff like "If you hit, you can declare the attack to be a death strike - the target dies if it fails a save, otherwise it takes triple damage". Or "Dark Wanderer: You travel for 24 hours through hidden passages, little known paths, weaknesses in the dimensional fabric, and end up at any location you know on any plane".

 

[JamesonCourage]

A question for all: If it was literally impossible to nova, would we still see the 15MAD?

Absolutely not.

It isn't daily resources that cause 15MWD, it's the fact those resources make you so much more effective in combat.

Your own reasoning is why I disagree with your conclusion. As long as HP is a resource you have to manage, it can/will cause the 15 MWD. Send a 5e party into the caves of chaos, have them hit a string of kobolds or whatever who keep running for help, and see if they want to keep going at the end of it even if the Wizard has been using magic missile each round, and has his Sleep spell. If they're low on HP, they'll still stop.

If the wizard at-wills were magic missile, fireball, and Evard's black tentacles, and the dailies were hold portal, sepia snake sigil and amaneunsis, who would bother to rest?

This will help mitigate the 15 MWD, but it may produce a style of play that many won't like (and HP as a resource can/will cause the 15 MWD). At high enough level, I'm okay with at-will Fireballs and whatnot, so I'm split on it. But, while my preferred magic system uses spell slots, it is definitely not Vancian, nor do I favor the AED power structure. So, I'm also not aligned with any real majority crowd, I don't think.

At any rate, I do think the 15 MWD can be mitigated, but this requires less long-term resource management (more at-wills, HP lasting longer [healing surges], etc.), but this approach obviously has its share of detractors, because of how important long-term resource management has been a vital part of D&D strategy.

In essence, mitigating the 15 MWD with these methods may be best used in a module (or vice versa). I'm not sure how they'd do that (since they'd need to do it across a wide range of areas that could involve resource management including HP, class abilities, spells, equipment, etc.), but that's also because I'm not heavily involved in creating the game. We'll see what they do, but the 15 MWD doesn't solely rely on the "nova" aspect of gameplay. As always, play what you like

 

[TwoSix]

Your own reasoning is why I disagree with your conclusion. As long as HP is a resource you have to manage, it can/will cause the 15 MWD. Send a 5e party into the caves of chaos, have them hit a string of kobolds or whatever who keep running for help, and see if they want to keep going at the end of it even if the Wizard has been using magic missile each round, and has his Sleep spell. If they're low on HP, they'll still stop

Fair enough. It's been a long time since I played in a game where hit points were an actual out-of-combat resource to worry about. (Thank you, wands of lesser vigor!)

 

[keterys]

The 5e party has wand of lesser vigor equivalents, they're just called healing potions.

With enough gold, they can go forever.

 

[JamesonCourage]

The 5e party has wand of lesser vigor equivalents, they're just called healing potions.

With enough gold, they can go forever.

I think the issue itself is having the gold, but the healing potions from the Herbalist stuff is definitely going to do what you're saying it will once they get that gold. As always, play what you like

 

[pemerton]

Your own reasoning is why I disagree with your conclusion. As long as HP is a resource you have to manage, it can/will cause the 15 MWD.

But once the classes are balanced, then the 15 minute day is purely an aesthetic issue (ie it can come across as somewhat inane). But it is no longer an issue about balance of effectiveness between classes, and hence some players dominating play at the expense of other players.

It takes a lot of time to get this into people's head, I think. Most are still thinking about how they can force players to not have a 15 minute adventuring day. The real issue for me is definitely the class balance, but it's difficult to reach everyone in the discussion to recognize that.

Yes, it is difficult and seems to take an inordinately long time.

It isn't daily resources that cause 15MWD, it's the fact those resources make you so much more effective in combat. If the wizard at-wills were magic missile, fireball, and Evard's black tentacles, and the dailies were hold portal, sepia snake sigil and amaneunsis, who would bother to rest?

Agreed.

A long way could be done if spells in general were weaker.

In the Rolemaster game I was running before 4e, this is in effect what we did - took out the bulk of the overpowerd spells, so that nova-ing casters were comparable in effectiveness to non-magical warriors.

"Dark Wanderer: You travel for 24 hours through hidden passages, little known paths, weaknesses in the dimensional fabric, and end up at any location you know on any plane".

Hey, that's my example!

 

[JamesonCourage]

But once the classes are balanced, then the 15 minute day is purely an aesthetic issue (ie it can come across as somewhat inane). But it is no longer an issue about balance of effectiveness between classes, and hence some players dominating play at the expense of other players.

To me, the 15 MWD has always been more of a pacing issue than a balance issue. And, since HP plays a big part in that pacing issue, the 15 MWD can/will still occur once HP runs out (unless HP isn't a long term resource). But, as I also like class balance, I don't see anything here to argue with. As always, play what you like

 

[Hussar]

To me, the 15 MWD has always been more of a pacing issue than a balance issue. And, since HP plays a big part in that pacing issue, the 15 MWD can/will still occur once HP runs out (unless HP isn't a long term resource). But, as I also like class balance, I don't see anything here to argue with. As always, play what you like

True, but the HP issue is a fairly simple fix. Just make the PC's more durable/harder to hit. AD&D didn't have the HP issue as often simply because it was quite possible to have an entire encounter where PC's didn't lose any HP. The monsters did such low amounts of damage generally, that it was fairly reasonable to push on. Virtually no monsters could whack a PC in a single round - presuming fairly standard encounters of course. Sure, an Ancient Huge dragon can smoke a 3rd level PC. But, I'm talking about the average encounters.

3e boosted the baddies to a huge degree. 4e kinda kept the 3e boosted monters, but gave oodles of HP to the PC's. And, with the HP recovery mechanics in 4e, lots of people didn't like the result. So, perhaps 5e, with its much flatter math, could look back at how AD&D does it. Monsters can miss regularly again.

An EL par 3e encounter was supposed to burn 20 (ish) per cent of the party resources. If you drop that to, say, 10 per cent, then you don't have the cleric having such a huge impact on pacing.