Game Balance - D&D Essentials and the Adventuring Day

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

With the release of the D&D Essentials we see a signficant change in the "resource" model for different player characters. Specifically, the loss of Daily Powers for martial classes.

But how does this affect the game balance between classes, over the course of an "adventuring day".

For me, a big topic during the time until D&D 4 was encounter balance and the "average adventuring day".

A problem in 3E (and earlier editions) was that only a subset of classes had access to daily powers. These powers were strong (Scorcing Ray, Fireball, Heal, Destruction, Feeblemind) on their own or were considered important party "buffs" (Bull Strength, Death Ward, Haste, Mass Bear's Endurance, Polymorph). The ability of group to beat encounters above their encounter level primarly hinged on the availability of such spells. The "safe" way to play the game - absent of any other in-game-world time limits was to adventure for like 15 minute (exaggeration of course), burning through these powers and then (with a safe reserve for emergency cases) find a safe spot and rest. This alone might not have been always satisfactory, but provided no direct balance issue.
The balance issue was that these powers overshadowed the abilities of those that didn't have them, and in the 15 minute adventure day paradigm, the non-casters (actually not just non-casters. Warlocks were technically casters but they didn't have much daily resources) felt irrelevant. On the other hand, if you didn't use the 15 minute adventure day paradigm, you might end up with a lot of easy encounters where the people with access to such daily powers didn't contribute much.

This wasn't satisfying for many.

In the wake of the announcement of the 4E release WotC described the new balance "encounter based". This was, as we eventually found out, achieved by giving everyone access to encounter and daily resources.
The daily resources for everyone were a significant change that removed the imbalances between classes in relation to the length of the adventuring day. It didn't remove the option for 15 minute adventure days, but even if you did that, everyone would get to shine by blowing through his dailies. And if you do want to go through encounters per day, you can even do that, and everyone can contribute equally and spend his daily resources strategically.

But Essentials is changing this. Knights, Slayers and other martial classes no longer have access to daily powers. And this seems to be re-creating the pre-4E balance concerns.
I personally do not like that. But I wonder if I am wrong? Maybe there is something "between the lines" that actually avoids this issue?
To me, it looks the reality of D&D 4 "Essentials" is that the classes without daily powers get special abiltiies that make them stronger without using daily powers - but they can never go "over" that baseline. Classes with Daily powers are weaker than that baseline but can get higher when using Dailies. There is a certain degree of balance achieved, but only if we were to assume a certain standard number of encounters per day, e.g. if we assume a standard adventuring day length.

But am I missing something? A thing to consider in my model is that I neglect healing, for example. The (at least theoreticaly) easy access to effectively limitless healing in 3E increased its balance problems and indirectly fueled the 15 minute adventure day. In 3E, Cure Light Wound Wands were cheap and easily obtainable. So a 3.x Fighter that went through a lot of easy encounter that typically would cost only some of his hit points but not all could fully recover after the fight. This means that a lot of lower level encounters felt unchallenging overall, since they never could amount to something harder. So harder encounters were needed to feel challenging, and this also required the daily resources.

In 4E, healing is never infinite. You have only so many healing surges. Even if a single encounter deals only a quarter of your hit points, it automatically cost you one of your daily resources. So even when having long adventuring days, classes without daily powers are spending daily resources, and so in the end, everyone is equally taxed and challenged.

If that actually works out... Well, I guess I might have to reconsider my "verdict" on Essentials (basically - nice to get some of the old guard back and to give new, lapsed and current players different options on complexity, bad for the balance of the game and the "purity" of its design).

 

[igniz13]

Probably won't have time to post a full response... basically, you're wrong.

There is a requisite amount of output for each battle which is balanced against the output of the enemy.

As long as a non Daily user can put out that base output, they're fine. Also, the better the base output, the less other resources (like healing surges) are used, allowing the party to function for longer.

Daily powers can miss, be unuseful in an encounter or even be overkill, it is possible to get through a day and never need or use a Daily attack power, at which point the advantage of having one isn't necessary.

There's also some other considerations.

The non daily users have encounters which work on a hit, therefore their encounter output is also above the average daily user output who's encounters can fail to no effect.

The number of non-daily users in a party may not be significant. The classes which lack Daily powers are classes which often only had straight forward dailies, there were no Fighter CB20 Stuns or such.

TLDR: You're wrong.

 

[Prestidigitalis]

igniz13: I'm not sure how the OP can really be "wrong", because the post doesn't contain any particularly strong assertions -- it's more about pondering the situation.

Personally, I love the new Essentials Thief, but notice that it doesn't have any way to set up a Nova round. A round with Backstab will do about 25% more damage, but that's about it. That's okay, I prefer sustained consistent damage over Nova damage, but I'm sure there will be some who feel differently.

 

[samursus]

I agree with your last thought, that the inclusion of Healing Surges forestalls some of the issues with balance that a lack of Dailies might cause.

Igniz also has some good points... I think you can safely reconsider your verdict.
Btter yet, try a game with an Essentials char or 2 and let us know what happens.

 

[the Jester]

I don't think it's a problem. A group of 4e pcs can handle many encounters just fine without resorting to daily powers. The real limit on your adventuring day now, as pointed out in the OP, is healing surges. That's the real resource that 4e characters need to call it a day over, not their daily powers.

 

[Riastlin]

As others have pointed out, the real resource that matters is the healing surges, not the dailies. A party might have all of their dailies but if they have no healing surges left, they probably need to call it a day or risk losing a party member or two. Meanwhile, the same party might be completely out of dailies but if they have most of their surges left they are likely good for another couple of encounters, even if said encounters are above their level.

 

[OnlineDM]

I don't think it's a problem. A group of 4e pcs can handle many encounters just fine without resorting to daily powers. The real limit on your adventuring day now, as pointed out in the OP, is healing surges. That's the real resource that 4e characters need to call it a day over, not their daily powers.

Agreed. 4th Edition characters have a few different pools of resources that determine when it's time to call it a day:

• Healing surges
• Daily powers (attacks and utilities)
• Daily magic item powers

Personally, I like to play in (and run) games where the party treats healing surges as the resource that determines when it's time to make camp and take a long rest. That feels more "realistic" (as much as a fantasy game can be) than saying, "Well, I'm still in good shape physically, but if we end up fighting anything nasty I can't call on phenomenal cosmic power to smite it." If I'm an adventurer and I'm in danger and I have a quest I want to complete, I'm pressing on as long as I can keep fighting.

Now, if the party knows that they're about to go fight something huge - the epic battle that they've been building up to for a while - then sure, it's reasonable to say, "We need to rest up so that we can give this big baddie everything we've got." But in general, if everyone is out of daily powers but still has several surges left, fight on!

 

[Shin Okada]

Well, in my experience, even before the release of essentials, importance (or significance) of daily powers varied much between each characters.

Also, for all of those characters, and more importantly, for all of the parties, daily powers are not as significant resources as spells in the previous editions, especially after, say, med Heroic Tier. Dailies are just slightly stronger than encounters. And at Epic tire, often At-wills are main weapons. And, as you have already pointed out, powers are not the only resources the PCs have. There are action points (which basically doubles DPR for one turn, and gained per milestone) and more importantly, healing surges per day.

Yeah, in 4e, that is healing surges per day which dominates a party's "adventuring day". Even before Essentials, we tend to retreat or take a long rest when someone's healing surges per day is becoming empty, because the next combat encounter will certainly become very dangerous one to him (by the way, thus, Artificer is wonderful). Not when dailies are depleted.

So, some classes don't having dailies should not change the situation much IMHO.

If "adventuring day" drastically changes, it will be when something about healing surges per day (and maybe action point) is changed much.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I agree with your last thought, that the inclusion of Healing Surges forestalls some of the issues with balance that a lack of Dailies might cause.

Igniz also has some good points... I think you can safely reconsider your verdict.
Btter yet, try a game with an Essentials char or 2 and let us know what happens.

I am not sure I really count our Online Red Box experiences as that, as we were only 3 players + DM. The adventure in the Red Box was murder for us. But it didn't seem related to the Essentials stuff. I think what we missed most was a Leader, and that was not the Red Box' or Essentials' fault. Anyway, even with a fourth player playing a healer, some of the encounters seemed to hard. It's Irontooth all over again.

I can say that in our experience, we typically managed to do (using mostly WotC adventures) a lot of encounters in a single adventuring day if the group uses one to two dailies per encounter.

I think daily powers are particularly important the less in-combat healing you have available. You need that extra damage output, control and healing.
Having healing surges is great for the day, but if you got only your Second Wind and one healing power, it doesn't cut it for harder encounters, sometimes not even for weaker ones. And while some powers seem more impressive (and maybe are), a fighters innocent reliable 2[W] power that allows him to spend a healing surge is a significant resource. Not as flashy as a sphere of fire, but it means he can take 1 or 2 extra hits or possibly last 1 or 2 extra rounds.

I am now siding more with the verdict that Essentials will overall retain the game balance in regards to the game balance, but that an Essential character is just to simple for my tastes - and, to be frank, I think everyone in my group.

But I see it as an excellent option to use for the campaigns were we add up secondary characters to the party because we don't have enough player to cover all 4 roles. Adding an Essentials Martial character would be excellent for that. All we need now is a martial leader without dailies. I guess it's time to reactive my House Rule Creation part of my brain.

 

[TheClone]

I am now siding more with the verdict that Essentials will overall retain the game balance in regards to the game balance, but that an Essential character is just to simple for my tastes - and, to be frank, I think everyone in my group.

Hey hey. Hopefully you're talking about the "real world" group and not your other group which play online. If not, I have to say

You're wrong

because I love² the Essentials rogue. It seemply is so much fun to run around on the battlefield (got ambush and tactical trick) and stab people where they don't expect it. It is simpler as the average pre-essentials 4e character, but for me it's complex enough. But remeber, Mustrum, when we played 3e or Shadowrun. You were always the guy to play mages and wizards and all those complex characters in terms of rules. Is the essentials mage also too simple? I guess not. And that's what it is. Not every class is suited for everybody but among all classes there is one for anybody. Me, I love the rogue and might love the slayer, too. You can go for mages with different specializations or with the warpriest.

I know the 15 min adventure day, but it's a matter of playstil. In my current group (no Mustrum in there) we never had a 15 min adventure day because we play more story focused with less combats. So this might also differ from group to group.

Playing the red box, I didn't feel less important without dailies. I as a thief had my damage output where I could shine. Each and every round except the mage's dailies or even encounters hit. The knight was holding the first line. In one encounter the enemies were actually swarming him, but it didn't matter much to him. I was delivering backstabs until the changeling knocked me out of my boot and the mage was sending his spells right over the swarming masses and driving the enemies away to give the knight some more air to breath. I can't help but I can't feel anything unbalanced.

Essentials builds differ more from each other as the traditional pre-essentials ones. I guess this alone leaves room for anybody to shine in combat. And the 15 in adventure day will no happen because of healing surges as stated before. Even the power of a wizard or cleric relies only partly on dailies. Both may do enough damage and help with encounters and at-will, so having blown through all of your dailies does reduce your battle capabilites a lot less than having lost half of your spells including the important ones and "breakfast buffs" in 3e did.