Is Resource Management “Fun?”

[Sabathius42]

Earlier in the thread someone was saying tracking every arrow or infinite arrows were the only two choices.

Here is an alternative.

Quiver Rules (made up in 2 minutes just now)

1. When a 1 rolled for a ranged weapon attack the attacker becomes low on that weapons ammunition.

2. When using a weapon that has low ammunition the weapons damage die is lowered one step.

3. Low ammunition can apply more than once if additional 1s are rolled. The step below d4 is 1. 1 is as low as the damage can go.

4. When outside of combat a character can return to normal damage by expending one quiver of the appropriate ammunition.

There you have a system that encourages players to remain stocked up on on quivers but only requires bookkeeping 1/20th of the time individual narrow tracking does.


Quiver Rules Alternate

1. At the beginning of combat a character can expend one quiver of ammunition.

2. If they choose to do so they may add 1 to their damage rolls for any weapon that can use the ammunition expended for the duration of that combat.

3. Quivers now cost 10gp (or some appropriate amount for your campaign)

Here you treat ammo as a consumable that gives a slight edge. Requires no bookkeeping for normal combats.

 

[Lanefan]

What loverdrive said, and yes, spell failure is annoying; I know people who would refuse to cast spells with even a 5% chance of failure (such as due to old school magic resistance).

As to whether or not everyone would use magic...well, yeah. Why wouldn't they? In fact, the better question is why don't they now, since 5e gives no reason whatsoever for people not to use magic.

People complain all over the place about how casters are too powerful, even in 5e.

And yet when given an easy means of reining them in* you won't use it, instead suggesting everyone should play a caster.

I've neither sympathy nor time for those who won't cast spells if there's a risk of failure.

* - and maybe also giving them back some power in the actual spells.

Don't get me wrong, magic does need to be contained, but lowering it's power would be better than having a greater chance of spells to fail (since some already require attack rolls, allow saving throws or both) or worse, turning everyone into a wild magic sorcerer, where the party is constantly wondering if today is the day they will be engulfed in a miscast fireball.

Casting times and interruptability are your friend, my friend; with interruption risking a wild surge. WotC-era D&D has screwed up awfully on this.

I don't mind spells being powerful - I don't want to see the spells nerfed, I'd rather just make them less reliable to cast and riskier for all involved. In other words: high risk, high reward.

 

[John Dallman]

That's something else I haven't seen in nearly forever: a party using pack animals. For anything.

Both the fantasy campaigns I'm playing do that.

One rides everywhere, and often uses either pack animals or a cart. Our cavalier has a squire who looks after the horses when we aren't on them, and the paladin's fully sapient horse helps too. We sometime have to collect them when they've run from a night attack: we don't tether them too tightly, so that they can run.

The other party walks, but took a pack-mule on the current expedition, which started with a long journey. We did have to worry about keeping it alive as we explored the scenario area. Before heading into the valley full of tombstones we tethered it in a quiet area with a lot of grass; we expect it will have got free by the time we get back.

 

[John Dallman]

Quiver Rules (made up in 2 minutes just now)

1. When a 1 rolled for a ranged weapon attack the attacker becomes low on that weapons ammunition.

That's a bit too random. It's perfectly possible to roll a 1 on the first ranged weapon attack after re-stocking in a town.

2. When using a weapon that has low ammunition the weapons damage die is lowered one step.

3. Low ammunition can apply more than once if additional 1s are rolled. The step below d4 is 1. 1 is as low as the damage can go.

What does this mean in terms of the underlying game reality? You can't shoot 0.8 of an arrow.

 

[loverdrive]

What does this mean in terms of the underlying game reality? You can't shoot 0.8 of an arrow.

For example, your character shoots only one arrow where normally they would make two or three shots in a quick succession. Or maybe they use subpar ammunition they avoided using before. Or maybe they are so worried about expending the last few rounds that their hands are shaking slightly.

Narrarive justifications are a dime a dozen.

 

[CreamCloud0]

extended casting durations are i thing i think ought to make a return, sure you can have your action/bonus action/reaction spells that you cast immediately but also have 'end of round' and 'next turn' spells where you have to wait until, like the names imply, the end of the round or your next turn before your character actually finishes casting them and their effects pop off, so that the spellcaster players have to consider 'by the time i actually finish casting this fireball will all the enemies i'm currently targeting take their turns and move out of it's AoE and i hit precisely nobody with it?'

 

[Panzeh]

The magic thing is kinda interesting to me because i do play a system that lets you handle it in a lot of different ways. Personally, if my world has it, people who want to play magic-users want to actually cast spells and use them regularly and not just be 'a scholar who has the thaumatology and occult skill so they could do a spell if they took a bunch of time and effort or whatever'. It's just the fantasy of being the wizard, which I respect. I've not met a person who would be satisfied if they asked for a mage and i gave them a scholar who can't cast spells but can understand magical runes and rituals.

If i'm playing a game with d&d's conceits, where the wizard is just a highly intelligent (which doesn't count for much) person who can't do much but has these big, beefy spell slots they can use once per moon, i'd feel a bit miffed if i had a chance to fail- that's all this character can do, otherwise they're an awful crossbowman. I think tacking on further limitations to it doesn't really help much, unless they're totally not onerous, in which case they're just a memory check on the player to go to the store to buy the crap they need to cast their spells, more of an annoying than an interesting restriction.

 

[Jface]

Not sure if anyone addressed this, and just throwing in my own experience, but my favorite resource management in an TTRPG was probably Band of Blades. I liked having the resource management tied to the entire mercenary company, and the idea that we as a group were the heads of that company. That was a nice design that seemed to blend game play and feel really nicely

 

[Micah Sweet]

What loverdrive said, and yes, spell failure is annoying; I know people who would refuse to cast spells with even a 5% chance of failure (such as due to old school magic resistance).

As to whether or not everyone would use magic...well, yeah. Why wouldn't they? In fact, the better question is why don't they now, since 5e gives no reason whatsoever for people not to use magic.

Don't get me wrong, magic does need to be contained, but lowering it's power would be better than having a greater chance of spells to fail (since some already require attack rolls, allow saving throws or both) or worse, turning everyone into a wild magic sorcerer, where the party is constantly wondering if today is the day they will be engulfed in a miscast fireball.

I would rather my spells not always work the way I want than just be less effective across the board. DCC does unreliable magic and it's fun as all get out. So does Warhammer Fantasy.

 

[Micah Sweet]

That's a bit too random. It's perfectly possible to roll a 1 on the first ranged weapon attack after re-stocking in a town.

What does this mean in terms of the underlying game reality? You can't shoot 0.8 of an arrow.

I think this rule assumes less importance on an underlying game reality. Which is very much not for me.

 

[James Gasik]

I guess one advantage to random, chaotic magic is you wouldn't have to have "Vancian-esque" spell slots to track anymore.

 

[Sabathius42]

For example, your character shoots only one arrow where normally they would make two or three shots in a quick succession. Or maybe they use subpar ammunition they avoided using before. Or maybe they are so worried about expending the last few rounds that their hands are shaking slightly.

Narrarive justifications are a dime a dozen.

Using those not so well made or slightly damaged arrows was what I had in mind but you hit the nail on the head.....one can find a narrative answer if one wants to.

 

[Panzeh]

Using those not so well made or slightly damaged arrows was what I had in mind but you hit the nail on the head.....one can find a narrative answer if one wants to.

Interestingly enough, that's how ammunition is modeled in tactical wargames like Advanced Squad Leader- there's a chance any heavy weapon used in an attack 'breaks', which is considered running out of ammo as well as literal mechanical malfunction. It's more just a thing that happens than an actual resource management task.

As to the magic discussion, the baseline of GURPS Magic (used in its d&d-like variation, Dungeon Fantasy) does have a miscast chance, and a series of miscast tables (17-18 on 3d6 for most casters) and then spells use fatigue points as the resource, but you can know as many spells as you want- they're bought like skills. There are weaknesses in this approach, but it's definitely a step up from Vancian, IMO.

 

[Lanefan]

extended casting durations are i thing i think ought to make a return, sure you can have your action/bonus action/reaction spells that you cast immediately but also have 'end of round' and 'next turn' spells where you have to wait until, like the names imply, the end of the round or your next turn before your character actually finishes casting them and their effects pop off, so that the spellcaster players have to consider 'by the time i actually finish casting this fireball will all the enemies i'm currently targeting take their turns and move out of it's AoE and i hit precisely nobody with it?'

Why would the caster have to target the spell before it resolves? Unless by "AoE" you mean "range", of course, which would be a consideration.

Bigger consideration would be the movements of your own allies in the meantime, and not hitting them.

 

[James Gasik]

Oh man, just had flashbacks of my DM requiring me to make an Intelligence check to precisely avoid targeting my own allies with a fireball...

 

[Lanefan]

Oh man, just had flashbacks of my DM requiring me to make an Intelligence check to precisely avoid targeting my own allies with a fireball...

I make casters roll to aim or place every AoE spell. Most of the time even a low roll is good enough unless what's being tried involves some real precision e.g. trying to put a fireball through a 4-inch-wide arrow slit in a castle wall from 50 feet away or trying to stop the lightning bolt just short of an ally while still hitting that ally's foe, at which point aiming becomes a lot more challenging.

And once in a while they fumble...

 

[CreamCloud0]

Why would the caster have to target the spell before it resolves? Unless by "AoE" you mean "range", of course, which would be a consideration.

Bigger consideration would be the movements of your own allies in the meantime, and not hitting them.

i didn't reply to any previous messages but it was a suggestion towards making magic a little more reined in without the chances of wild magic backfires, commiting to where you intend to cast a spell when you start casting it, be that a certain spot on the map or at a specific creature when you initially start casting seemed like a reasonable restriction.

 

[Lanefan]

i didn't reply to any previous messages but it was a suggestion towards making magic a little more reined in without the chances of wild magic backfires, commiting to where you intend to cast a spell when you start casting it, be that a certain spot on the map or at a specific creature when you initially start casting seemed like a reasonable restriction.

Ah, got it.

 

[Staffan]

Earlier in the thread someone was saying tracking every arrow or infinite arrows were the only two choices.

Here is an alternative.

Quiver Rules (made up in 2 minutes just now)

Reminds me a little of the ammo rules in the version of Gamma World that was based on 4e. If you had a high-tech weapon, you'd have some ammo for it. If you were conservative with ammo use, you could fire the weapon once per encounter, and you'd never run out. Or you could go all out and fire it as much as you wanted for one encounter, but after that you'd be out of ammo.

 

[bloodtide]

Earlier in the thread someone was saying tracking every arrow or infinite arrows were the only two choices.

Here is an alternative.

I really don't get why the so called "alternative" is Infinite Arrows with a pointless for show "downside". I get that it takes no effort to keep track of arrows when you will just roll some dice to see if you have infinite arrows. And guess you can reduce the damage, but does it matter with infinite arrows?

And I'm a bit unclear, does the character have infinite quivers?

I guess you will go through some bunch of abstract rules until you somehow decide the character has run out of arrows and can't access the infinite arrows anymore, for no reason.
Or, well, you could just count he arrows. It's much simpler.

People complain all over the place about how casters are too powerful, even in 5e.

And yet when given an easy means of reining them in* you won't use it,

This has always been hilariously true.

The vast majority of Gamers-"Spellcasters in D&D are too powerful and broken!"

The Lone DM- "Um, you know there are Official rules, right here in the books to address and take care of that?"

All the Other Gamers- "Oh, we don't use any of those rules."