Forked Thread: Once per day non-magical effects destroy suspension of disbelief

[IanArgent]

If your complaint is the one-liner descriptions don't make sense in the context of once-a-day powers that's a separate argument. I am not thrilled with the fluff for these powers myself. But descriptions are not rules. If you don't like the description, change it. I will be doing it for my artificer character whne I get to play him, and also in the game I run. I am not planning on defending some of the descriptive sentences, just the mechanics.

Even if you like the descriptions, try adding "and it has an additional effect" to the end of the the descriptor sentence.

 

[Fenes]

Bo9S offers "decisive powers" - just you need to set them up right, usually, using terrain and movement (for example, to get the Inferno Blade/Swooping Dragon Strike working.) 4E's dailies look rather weak compared to those moves.

With the caveat of not having played 4E yet, I do think there are too few of the "do big damage now" powers there. "Controlling a fight" may be decisive, but it's far more subtle than smashing a foe down, and often less satisfying.

 

[mmadsen]

If you are not prepared to make the steps required to understand certain meta-game situations (Martial Is Not Mundane, A Once Per Day action is only possible in a Once Per Day situation), all that means is that you have not taken those steps.

Do you sincerely believe that anyone who doesn't like the meta-game elements of 4E has failed to understand them?

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Bo9S offers "decisive powers" - just you need to set them up right, usually, using terrain and movement (for example, to get the Inferno Blade/Swooping Dragon Strike working.)

An interesting "reversal" in paradigm - Bo9S powers require you to be in the right position to use a power. 4E rewards you for using the power when in the right position. The net effect is still the same - using the right power in the right situation is always better. But the latter gives you more ways to experiment with a power.

But this also with a caveat:
But it has been some time since I read the Bo9S - is this actually an accurate description? Because I actually do not remember powers with specific situational prerequisites. I thought they were just like 4E powers - use them at any time, but you better figure the best time.

 

[lutecius]

One thing I noticed with power pools for spellcasting in 3.x was that spellcasters tended to focus only on high level / effecient spells over all others. By limiting big bang powers to 1/day you prevent this sort of powergaming as you have to rely on your normal powers most of the time and occasionally ie 1/day can pull off something amazing.

If the math is done correctly, high level powers may be so costly that, in effect, you can only use them once a day. What a power pool allows is to trade them for multiple lower level powers.

Even if a player managed to use a big bang power twice by burning all his points, he would then be helpless for the day. Not something an experienced player would do lightly, but giving everything you've got in the final battle or some "life or TPK" situations makes sense. This is ressource management.

The other way to rationalize dailies that I have seen put forward is that only rarely in the ebb and flow of combat does your character get the opportunity to pull off one of these special moves - while in reality the PCs can decide when these moments occur.

Yes, the "narrativist" approach. It works a little better for encounter powers than dailies.

But I don't like it either because the end result is the same. If you look at the "story" in the end, every power was still used exactly once per day or encounter. Too artificial for me.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

But I don't like it either because the end result is the same. If you look at the "story" in the end, every power was still used exactly once per day or encounter. Too artificial for me.

Only if you always narrate the power the same way, and never narrate other powers (or "non-powers") this way. For example, if you describe a brute strike as armor shattering blow, and later describe a basic opportunity attack against a minion as an armor shattering blow (killing him in the process), no one can count how often you actually used the ability.

 

[mmadsen]

And I would consider narrative control to be one of the intents of abstract game rules, rather than a definition of the nature of those rules. For one thing, such a statement makes no sense: narrative control is a quality, not a description.

I have no idea what you're trying to say here.

I would not say that narrative control is the intent of abstract rules. All rules are abstract to some degree, and we make rules more abstract to make them easier to use, to make them model more situations without adding rules, etc. Naturally we fill in the gaps in the abstraction with our own narration, but those are the details the rules don't address.

Yes, because saying that you don't share the designer's goals is not synonymous with saying that the game is badly designed.

I'd say that's a semantic quibble. I'm willing to say that Super Mario Bros. is a terrible fantasy RPG, even if it's an excellent game of another sort.

Some might argue that 4E makes a terrific fantasy skirmish game, but not a good role-playing game. I'm not sure if I'm there yet, but I wouldn't dismiss anyone who dislikes the jarring meta-game elements.

 

[Malisteen]

The at will/encounter/daily split doesn't fit with my experience of reality, but it does jive with my understanding of narrative, and the latter is more what I'm looking for with D&D anyway.

Sadly for those who want their game rules to be based primarily on the rules of reality instead of narrative, the current edition of D&D fails, and they'll probably want to find another game. At the same time, I'm not sure this is all that much more true for 4e then it was for any previous edition of D&D.

Most of the people I talk to irl who accuse martial powers of breaking their suspension of disbelief have no problem with level based advancement, turn based combat, armor class, or hit points, all of which also fail to emulate reality, and all have been relatively core to the experience of D&D for some time. Rather then basing their threshold of belief on reality, or on narrative structure, they're basing it on the game as they know it already. If that's how you derive the limits of what you are willing to believe, then simply playing 4e for a while will make the powers structure seem completely natural to you.

Of course, it still might be the wrong game for you.

 

[Fifth Element]

Some might argue that 4E makes a terrific fantasy skirmish game, but not a good role-playing game.

Some might also point out the edition wars are off-limits right now, and that "4E is not an RPG" clearly falls into that category.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I have no idea what you're trying to say here.

I would not say that narrative control is the intent of abstract rules.

It's (usually) not the intent, but it is a side effect you can utilize.

All rules are abstract to some degree, and we make rules more abstract to make them easier to use, to make them model more situations without adding rules, etc. Naturally we fill in the gaps in the abstraction with our own narration, but those are the details the rules don't address.

Exactly.

I'd say that's a semantic quibble. I'm willing to say that Super Mario Bros. is a terrible fantasy RPG, even if it's an excellent game of another sort.

Some might argue that 4E makes a terrific fantasy skirmish game, but not a good role-playing game. I'm not sure if I'm there yet, but I wouldn't dismiss anyone who dislikes the jarring meta-game elements.

I wouldn't dismiss anyone disliking meta-game elements, but I dismiss anyone saying that this makes it a bad RPG or "just" a skirmish game.

Some might also point out the edition wars are off-limits right now, and that "4E is not an RPG" clearly falls into that category.

And that, of course, too.