Don Durito
Hero
You guys are do a good job of convincing me to go back to 13th Age for my next game.
Yes it requires active DM fidgeting... instead of happening naturally and it requires a hmmm let us call it "self conscious" DM to notice it is happening limits which a more encounter driven design does not have. Additionally I do not have to adjust back and forth if the natural story pacing changes .... ie if your story results few encounters characters for a protracted time lots of exploration you think should I adjust and then a war story pacing sets in later. Protracted periods where its one way with no certainty that it might adjust and become the opposite. And its artificial feeling to me.Only if you as the DM let them.
One of the Core books (the DMG) contains actual rules and guidance for adjusting the length of the adventuring day to fit your own games pacing.
Yes it requires active DM fidgeting... instead of happening naturally and it requires a hmmm let us call it "self conscious" DM to notice it is happening limits which a more encounter driven design does not have. Additionally I do not have to adjust back and forth if the natural story pacing changes
A metric ton of work even to get monsters interesting all ready the 5e DM might as well hang up his day job.5E actively encourages active DM fidgeting.
you say encourages I say requires itIt repeatedly says as much
LOL you have different experiences of DMs than me ones who are not aware of the impact of things like pacing or "low" magic where that really meant mages get lots of spells but fighters got crap for magic weapons were very common back in the day as another example.And how can you be a non 'self conscious' DM? How can that even exist?
Yes three months from now MAYBE it fluxuates into a war scene but who knows? What a great solution like AD&D where you had to go half a dozen levels being a wallflower because it would eventually even out right?Not that it needs to be adjusted back and forth either. Some adventuring days (the arbitrary amount of time between long rest resources refreshing) can be longer (favouring short rest classes) and some can be shorter (favouring long rest classes). That moves the spotlight and gives everyone at the table a chance to shine regardless of the class they're playing.
and what I call poor explanations about the implications of many of those rules or why they might work better in combination with other ones or the implications on play or goals they might achieve, just not finding many of them seem that well presented or thought out.in the Dungeon Masters Guide, and then provides you with literally hundreds of optional rules as suggestions to tweak your own campaigns to your style.
How does a party with no healer keep up with the expected number of encounters per day? Hit dice are not enough, and as you well know, feats are supposed to be optional (and aren't available before 4th level in general anyway). How does the non-caster party do that? That's why I said "indispensible."There is absolutely nothing which a spellcaster can bring to the table that is indispensable. At all. There never has been. There is always a mundane solution to every problem (short of specific world-building issues, where the DM fiat declares that magic is the only option).
Given that fact, and the truth that fighters can (and do, and have always been able to) demonstrate sufficient steady-state power, the obvious solution is to hold spellcasters accountable. Don't let spellcasters voluntarily opt out of their shortcomings. Remove mid-adventure spell recovery as an option.
Quite easily. People who have power and experience and think they know what's best, and don't care what anyone else thinks. I've known a large number of such people, though I have been lucky enough to avoid having any of them as my DM. (My dad is one such person, for example. It doesn't matter that he has no training as an electrician; he claims "ten years studying" from reading about it. And will not listen to anyone saying anything else, no matter how illogical it might be.)And how can you be a non 'self conscious' DM? How can that even exist?
I'm not sure if it's intentional or accidental, but as I said at the start of the thread, having powers be short rest rathrn than encounter does serve a useful purpose. It breaks up the approach of characters across encounters. In 4E it wasn't unsual to see the Figher start every encounter with "Come and get it". After a while the approach to an encounter became somewhat predictable. (You can break that up with a well designed set piece that prevents players from using their favoured strategies - but that assumes both the ability to design one - and the kind of game where a set piece of that sort is doable.)On topic truer encounter powers make even more sense than the short rest ones in my opinion. Literal short rest ties them to "resting" and its a boring thing. My druid requires a scene change so the environment stops resisting the spell I cast.(its a new environment). My fighters trick is crappy when used against an enemy that just seen it. My priest must perform a one minute purification ritual to restore that miraculous ability. My old vancian mage has to spend a minute studying this spell since "amnesia" etc. CAN be much more flavorful.