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

[Dannyalcatraz]

I am not talking about letting you use the daily power again. I am only talking about letting you re-use the "flavor"/narration of the power again.

And that's a problem. Actually, that's THE problem.

The flavor/narration of the powers contain no hook to hang the 1/day limitation upon.

Look, I'm not arguing this for the sake of arguing- this is a real problem.

When I showed the 4Ed PHB to the guys in my 2 game groups, they couldn't understand why something like Villain's Menace couldn't be used more than 1/day. As far as they could see, there was no justification besides "that is the way they designed the game."

That kind of stuff bugs the !#@$^†¥ out of people- obviously, not everyone, but a significant number.

 

[Steely Dan]

1.) What on earth are you talking about?

2.) I'm replying directly to the question you raised in the OP.

3.) Do you not remember the subject on which you started this thread?

1.) Don't be silly, you heard me.

2.) No you’re not, you're just regurgitating stale material we have already covered.

3.) Nice try, cute, but don't bother, I'm better at this than you are.


Okay, as I prophesized earlier this week that this thread might drift into the arena of the unwell, and now it has simply become vile and petty, moderators, please close/lock?

 

[FireLance]

But even if there is something supernatural going on- which I'm not conceding for the exploits, BTW- you should expect that as a character's mastery of the "supernatural" increases, things that were once a terrible strain become almost casually easy.

The young Skywalker needed to concentrate on the Force to help him hit a target of a size he routinely hit in casual target practice because he was in a combat situation.

Judging by the abilities of other Jedi in the series, an experienced Jedi could have made that shot with enough ease that he wouldn't be flying down the Death Star's channel with his eyes closed trying to gain his focus.

And could do so repeatedly.

Even buying into that argument, Fighters gain a lot of these daily powers as they advance, most described as hitting someone extra hard or skillfuly. Yet each one exhausts the PC in a unique way? That seems a bit of a stretch.

Wouldn't it make more sense to say that the Fighter has a pool of rarely usable abilities that he can use, as a group, X times per day? Lets assume a PC with 2 4Ed martial "dailies," meaning he can use each one once. In the alternative just proposed, he could do just that, or he could use one 2 times, and the other not at all. When he gets up to 3 dalies, he could use one 3 times and the others not at all, one 2 times and another once, or each 1 time per day.

It's not a bad approach, but balance-wise, you'd probably want to keep a fighter from using his highest-level (and presumably most powerful) daily all the time. So, you'll probably need to level those daily slots, so that a 15th-level fighter (say) gets one 15th-level slot, one 9th-level slot and one 5th-level slot. So, he can use his 5th-level exploit three times per day, or his 9th-level exploit twice and his 5th-level exploit once, or his 15th-level exploit once, his 9th-level exploit once and his 5th-level exploit once (the default). Such a system would certainly be more flexible, but it would be slightly more complicated. For the record, I wouldn't mind using it, but I'd be equally fine with the standard each exploit 1/day system, too.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

And that's a problem. Actually, that's THE problem.

The flavor/narration of the powers contain no hook to hang the 1/day limitation upon.

Look, I'm not arguing this for the sake of arguing- this is a real problem.

When I showed the 4Ed PHB to the guys in my 2 game groups, they couldn't understand why something like Villain's Menace couldn't be used more than 1/day. As far as they could see, there was no justification besides "that is the way they designed the game."

That kind of stuff bugs the !#@$^†¥ out of people- obviously, not everyone, but a significant number.

I can only say that it absolutely does not bother me. It used to bother me, when feats or class abilities were made up that suddenly implied what I had narrated before could suddenly only be done if I have the right feat/spell/power. But since those days, I've learned not to care about this any more.


If you want, you can change the narration when using the power successful to show off how much better your specific round-house kicked work then usual. So, a regular round-house kick attempt barely makes contact, or you are a little off-balance, giving the enemy enough time to recover. But if you use the round-house kick power successfully, you _really_ hit hard, the enemy hits the ground, and staggers hard to get up, while you are standing in perfect shape and balance above him...


For the high level Jedi example:
A high level Jedi can make the shot 9 out of times, because he simply has a higher attack bonus - that's why he doesn't need to rely on an extra boost from the force - his innate training and connection to the Force is just so much stronger then that of our young, pre-Jedi force sensitive Skywalker. Of course, there are now even smaller or otherwise harder targets now for our experienced Jedi, where he still needs an extra kick of power to hit something...

 

[hong]

Its perfectly clear and meaningful- in this case, electing to use a non-reliable daily exploit.

Nobody is ever going to stop you using a non-reliable daily exploit against minions. This doesn't change the fact that the mapping from metagame rules to in-game outcomes is not one-to-one.

No, what I want is logical connections between particular, defined game mechanics and descriptions that map to their results. In this instance, I want to be able to read a class ability- again, here, the daily exploits- and agree that this is something that should always be limited to a single daily use.

Yes, it should always be limited to a single, daily use because the metagame implications of that use are of greater import than the metagame results of other ways to describe your in-game actions.

See above.

Non-reliable daily exploits fail this criterion.

Not really.

 

[Ginnel]

That's all well and good if your DM plays that way.

If your DM is the RAW sort (and there are many), and you (running your 8th lvl Fighter) claim, "I want to use Villain's Menace against this 2nd level Wizard we're facing," then later ask to do the same against a similarly helpless opponent later that "game day", you are out of luck.

DM handwavium is wonderful, but its not in infinite supply. Thus, we discuss the rules.

And the way I see it, by description, the dailies don't model anything that ought to be limited to one use per day.

I believe what they were trying to describe to you is that you can detail how your character is doing an uber mega daily attack but instead you actualy use an at-will or encounter power, If your DM doesn't let you describe your at-wills as dailies he is very stubborn and poor at his role in my opinion (I would describe alternative visions of attacks anyway just make them short and sweet time consumed is likely the DM's main fear)

I can even describe trying to set this up a daily "my character attempts to harry and press the villian (just like villians menace) however he thwarts every blow with his shield, my character decides to try using strength over skill and with a distracting strike barges forwards with his shield (tide of iron)"

look at my post on page 1, shows how I think dailies can be explained, the exact circumstances aren't available/you pull it off but its blocked totally, you can use these explanations after you've mechanically pulled off your daily as well.

Done.

 

[LostSoul]

And that's a problem. Actually, that's THE problem.

The flavor/narration of the powers contain no hook to hang the 1/day limitation upon.

There's no hook for it to only happen 1/day - okay, I agree.

There's no reason you can't ignore that it only happens 1/day.

Don't have your Fighter, sitting by the campfire, say, "Hey guys, have you noticed that I can only do that move once per day? What is up with that?" Instead, have him try to use that move, and fail. Have him try to use that move - against a minion - and succeed; but since the minion dies, you don't have to spend a daily to use it, it can just be an at-will in game mechanics/metagame terms.

If that doesn't work for you, that's fine, but it can be done that way if you want it to.

edit: Or what hong said.

 

[lutecius]

Now, if your argument is that the fighter's abilities could be balanced in other ways apart from imposing a hard limit of once per day, I'd agree with you. However, if your argument is that there is no explanation for a once per day limit apart from game balance, then I disagree and have presented an alternative explanation.

Which one? The one where each power strains a particular muscle independently of any other (doesn’t make much sense to me) or the one where martial powers are actually regulated by some weird vancian-ish force (hardly "non-magical")?

Not to belabour the point, but do you find this to be a problem with specific martial dailies, or with the concept of martial dailies in the first place?

The problem is that no effort whatsoever was made to design martial daily powers that make sense as dailies. Balance was the only concern.

 

[LostSoul]

The problem is that no effort whatsoever was made to design martial daily powers that make sense as dailies. Balance was the only concern.

I'd rather the desginers balanced the powers - something that seems hard to do - instead of taking the time to have them "make sense." I can do that much better than they can. It's my game and my taste, after all; I know what makes sense to me, and I will go with that.

 

[ST]

It's my game and my taste, after all; I know what makes sense to me, and I will go with that.

That's exactly how I feel about it. If they'd written detailed, very specific flavor text for these moves, people would feel like they're stuck with that one description. Since the rules tell you you're free to describe your power usages in any way that makes sense... then it seems reasonable to describe them in a way that makes sense to the folks at the table.

This requires accepting the premise that power usage limits are arbitrary from a mechanical standpoint, but aren't arbitrary or really even visible in the game fiction. I think that's reasonable, but some folks don't. But it's definately how the system works, since mechanical results have a lot of leeway in how they're represented in the fiction in 4e.