I want to do something cool Every Round!!!

[Berandor]

As long as a character is alive and conscious, he is only as useless as its player allows him to be.

Amen. I hate it when players lose all interest because their specialty is suddenly not in demand. A rogue grows sullen when you fight undead or he can't flank, a wizard that leaves the room when you face a golem, etc. (Yes, these things have happened).

 

[satori01]

That's just... too much stuff going on. When everyone has a source of limitless power that produces a predictable range of effects constantly, it leaves the grounding of plausibility so far behind that it turns D&D into Wuxia Theater, where something absolutely fantastic is going on every minute, and this is so far removed from reality that it creates a lack of a frame of reference for me.

I tend to think that is more of a self impossed mental limitation. Most people have no problems with primary spell casters slinging a spell every round, why are the feats of arms that are maneuvers any different?

Every time that 24 strength Meleeist in the party, swings his sword, we have something beyond the realm of possibility, something fantastic. Of course stat modifiers quickly lose their thrill and become accounting markers. Every Dodge bonus, every Cloak of Elvenkind, is something giganticaly fantastic, only they never quite feel that way.

As many posters on the board report, 3-4 encounters than resting is a very common tactic. When Leomund's Secure shelter and Rope Trick are essential spells ....is there a problem?

I like One time per Encounter balancing. A player still has to decide, is now the time to use this power. I think minor to medium powers should be on an Encounter timer, whilst more powerful abilities should be once per day.

 

[Kheti sa-Menik]

As long as a character is alive and conscious, he is only as useless as its player allows him to be.

Quoted for utter truth.

Any wizard that relies on his spells to the exclusion of all else is stupid and he deserves to die horribly in the field.
One trick ponies do not make good adventurers.
I don't think I've ever gamed with players who had wizard PCs that suddenly became useless simply because they had used up their spells for the day.
Some had scrolls, ranged weapons, thrown weapons like acid, potions, or *gasp* they engaged in combat.

It's about being versatile.

 

[Henry]

I tend to think that is more of a self impossed mental limitation. Most people have no problems with primary spell casters slinging a spell every round, why are the feats of arms that are maneuvers any different?

They're not slinging every round; they're usually saving up power and conservatively estimating whether spell power is needed now or later, in my experience. The caster who blows his stores of spells every combat can get in real trouble later if trouble comes knocking before they rest.

Every time that 24 strength Meleeist in the party, swings his sword, we have something beyond the realm of possibility, something fantastic. Of course stat modifiers quickly lose their thrill and become accounting markers. Every Dodge bonus, every Cloak of Elvenkind, is something giganticaly fantastic, only they never quite feel that way.

To a certain extent, they do to me, too. Only exception is the "24 STR meleeist swining his sword" - it's no more unrealistic than a Conan or Gimli the Dwarf moment in a novel. However, I seriously contend there's a difference between a Conan tale and, say, Crouching tiger/Hidden dragon, where people with only martial training are walking on willow stalks, dodging a million and two poison darts, walking up walls, and running on arrows, and doing it again five minutes later. It's so much of the fantastic, that it leaves people like me cold on the REALLY fantastic.

As many posters on the board report, 3-4 encounters than resting is a very common tactic. When Leomund's Secure shelter and Rope Trick are essential spells ....is there a problem?

I like One time per Encounter balancing. A player still has to decide, is now the time to use this power. I think minor to medium powers should be on an Encounter timer, whilst more powerful abilities should be once per day.

Problem is, most encounters I see only last anywhere from 3 to 10 rounds; I don't see that as a hard decision! Blow the strongest thing you have, RIGHT NOW, followed by the next strongest, etc. so that the enemy won't be alive on his turn to do ANYTHING. Why worry? You'll get it back within 1 minute, anyway, just in time for the next creature to attack; there's no choice anymore, other than suboptimal choices from someone who wants to roleplay a different type of encounter.

And I've never seen a problem with resting, because resting itself is a resource management. How many days are you willing to commit to downtime until the Evil Forces finish their plan? Every day you give them is a day that they are stronger, too. If you're fresh as a daisy five minutes after every combat ends, then it reduces that element of suspense, planning, and the unknown, because you AND the enemy will be just as fresh as if you fight now, in 10 minutes, or in 10 years.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I see WHY the deisgn philosophy wants something cool to do every round. However, I can't help but feel that the unlimited rescources make it somewhat hollow.

It's a challenging design question. Person X has a 1/day ability....the entire day may pass without them using it because they are affraid they'll need it in the next combat or the combat after that. For all intents and purposes, they don't even have the ability, since they aren't using it. Person Z has a 1/encounter ability...chances are they will use it right away since they will not be without it in their next encounter. For all intents and purposes, they have the ability CONSTANTLY, since they will never not use it.

There's a middle ground that gives thema LOT of rescources, still having them use it, but depending upon how many you give them, it can fit anywhere between always having the ability and never having the ability. A wand with 50 charges is almost unlimited -- how long, how many combats, does it take the wizard to get 50 turns, anyway? -- while a 2/day or 3/day ability still means that people will rest and recouperate fairly soon rather than continue the adventure and save the day. If, after all, your most powerful wad is blown, you won't want to adventure until it's replenished if you can avoid it (and not every mission can have a time limit, I'm affraid).

The challenge is to cram more than 20 minutes of fun into 4 hours of gaming, after all. Resting eats up time that could be spent doing things that are fun and exciting...however, doing those fun and exciting things is no long as fun and exciting if your character doesn't exhaust some limited rescource to do it.

My own personal solution is to give them things that recover those abilities that are not inherent to the character. Drink a potion, get a spell back. Find a talisman, get to rage again today. Eat a steak, your 1/day feat becomes 2/day. I think D&D could greatly benefit from rescource replenishment that ISN'T tied to spending 8 hours doing jack nothing. This way, finding treasure and completing quests increases their ability to continue doing it.

 

[Rel]

Just to inject a slightly different perspective on this, I'm currently playing Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying. In WFRP, the Wizard CAN do "something cool" (if by something cool you mean casting a spell) every round. His resources are theoretically unlimited. There are only two drawbacks to using them.

First, success is not assured. He's VERY likely to successfully cast that low level "Magic Dart" spell that does about the same damage as a mediocre fighter swinging a sword or shooting a bow. But his odds of casting the super badass spell are rather poor. He can up them by making a skill check and expending a focus (that might be rare or costly) but he's still probably only got about a 50% chance of doing his coolest thing.

Second, he could possibly go insane or be corrupted by Chaos. Those are generally considered to be "bad things".

I like the dilemma it presents. It means that, if he's willing to take some chances and press his luck, the Wizard can tap that limitless power if he really feels the need is there. But is it worth the risk he's taking? Maybe not.

It's not "resource management". It's "risk management"!

 

[Gundark]

Yes, hitting autoattack and going to the kitchen was much better than requiring players of an MMORPG to actually play the game.


I'm sorry, but you find that M&M isn't sufficiently realistic to known superhero physics? Is that your complaint?

LMAO Thanks I needed that.

I'm totally on board with the idea. In my Age of Worms game the wizard often sits there and does nothing for the combat as he's saving his spells for the "big combats". We make a joke about how he's giving the party moral support "yeah good hit!!! good job everybody!!!"

 

[Gundark]

actually we had a discussion similiar to this a while back. Monte Cook wrote an article before he left detailing an idea such as this. He suggested a wizard should have things he could do every round (arcane blast or something) this ability had no limit. The wizard would still have spells that he could cast a limited amount per day.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

oops. Dupe.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

actually we had a discussion similiar to this a while back. Monte Cook wrote an article before he left detailing an idea such as this. He suggested a wizard should have things he could do every round (arcane blast or something) this ability had no limit. The wizard would still have spells that he could cast a limited amount per day.

That's functionally no different than the wizard whipping out the crossbow when he's low/out of spells.

I'm totally on board with the idea. In my Age of Worms game the wizard often sits there and does nothing for the combat as he's saving his spells for the "big combats". We make a joke about how he's giving the party moral support "yeah good hit!!! good job everybody!!!"

That's a player issue, not a game problem. I've yet to see a wizard run out of spells once they got past the first few levels, much less a sorceror.