Making daily powers semi-reliable

[CapnZapp]

Forked from: Making daily powers reliable

In one game I play in the DM (Rechan on the enworld.org forums) has a house rule like this: if you miss with a daily you recover it at the end of a short rest rather than an extended rest. I think this is a nice compromise position since you can't spam it during an encounter until you hit but you don't completely waste it on a miss.

Interesting. Now the remaining question is what to do about powers that actually are Reliable.

The simplest solution is to use the same rule for Reliable powers too. You hit, the power is used up. You miss, you get to use it the next encounter (but Reliable kicks in to let you try the next round too).

However, this does cause something of a counter-intuitive situation:

A Fighter would probably want to miss the first time.
Effectively, for the price of one round's action, he gets to use his Daily one extra time that day.

 

[mach1.9pants]

The biggest problem I can see, and I am intendign onintroducing something like this, is dailies that target multiple targets. e.g. fireball, you toss one of those at 5 guys, how do you define a miss?
All miss,
Most miss,
One miss?

I need to put some thought into it, but the 'preciousness' of dailies (and some shoddy rolling) has oft put a damper on the combat. Yeah I know it should be 'suck it up, princess' but, hey, we are here to have fun!

 

[Mengu]

I can already see some sillyness: "First attack of every encounter, my Avenger closes his eyes and tries to kick someone with Aspect of Might, so that's -5 to my attack roll, and I don't get proficiency bonus. Oh and this guy is not my oath of enmity yet so I don't reroll. Ok, I miss so I do half damage, and get +2 damage rest of the encounter."

There are quite a few powers that would be too good as an encounter power with just their miss or effect line.

There are also dailies that don't even have an attack roll but have a constant benefit, thre would need to be an exception for those.

 

[DanmarLOK]

Marginally related but I'm going to be trying this in my games -

Second Wind: Standard Action
Spend a healing surge and gain your choice of one of the following two sets of benefits -

• Healing/Defense - Regain hits points as normal for spending a healing surge and gain +2 to all defenses until the start of your next turn.
• Attack/Offense - Recover an expended Encounter power and gain +2 untyped bonus to this attack until the end of your next turn or until its used whichever comes sooner for this recovered Encounter attack only or recover an non-reliable Daily power that doesn't have a miss or effect line.

Addendum - The Improved Second Wind feat provides the following adjustments -

• Healing/Defense - Gain an additional +5 health with excess health recovered being used as temporary hit points.
• Attack/Offense - Gain an additional untyped +1 for the recovered power.

 

[weem]

I haven't put any thought into this other than a quick read, but maybe the player could choose (on a miss) to forgo any effects (that trigger on a miss) in order to make it available after a short rest...

so,

EX:

Miss - "I'll let the 'miss' effect trigger, and wave the ability to use this Daily later today"

or

Miss - "I don't want the 'miss' effect to trigger - instead i want to save it as a possibility for the next encounter"

(not that you would need to say all that out loud, I'm just illustrating the point of course)

 

[keterys]

I'd considered a reliable-ish approach like:

'When using a daily power, after rolling all attacks you may choose to have instead _not used the power at all_. The action is still lost, but the power is not spent and nothing happens as a result of the power.'

 

[mach1.9pants]

I'd considered a reliable-ish approach like:

'When using a daily power, after rolling all attacks you may choose to have instead _not used the power at all_. The action is still lost, but the power is not spent and nothing happens as a result of the power.'

nice

 

[Rechan]

Since it's my houserule that started all this (thanks, Ppaladin, for steering me this way), I figure I should weigh in too.

My intention of the houserule is to make the use of daily powers not an All or Nothing, because when you miss, it really sucks. I wanted to take the sting out of that, and also to encourage players to not hoard their dailies. If there's a chance "If it doesn't work, I still have it in my back pocket for later today", they're more willing to part with it.

I still allow "On a miss" effects to happen, because usually they're so weak they don't really impact things all that much. Obvious, open broken-ness of what Mengu suggests is stuff that I would strike down with the angry fist of the DM, because I consider that playstyle to be not one bit cute. The houserule is for reducing player frustration; when my good will is abused, SEE MY WRATH.

As far as a Reliable keyword power becoming available in the next encounter, I wouldn't let a Reliable-keyword power work that way. The Reliable power is going to hit in that encounter, so it will get used successfully.

The multiple-attack point, however, is a good point that I hadn't considered.

I do like Keterys suggestion, although that might cause some On-the-spot paralysis of "Do I want to take it back or not?" The other drawback is that it makes powers with a Miss effect less desirable; if the "miss" effect never takes effect, than those powers become weaker (since they were balanced with their miss effects).

 

[CapnZapp]

The biggest problem I can see, and I am intendign onintroducing something like this, is dailies that target multiple targets. e.g. fireball, you toss one of those at 5 guys, how do you define a miss?
All miss,
Most miss,
One miss?

I'd go for the (errataed) Reliable definition: if you get even a single hit, it isn't a miss.

However, I like Keterys suggestion even better.

(That is, if you want your Power back, you need to accept your action was completely wasted. Neatly gets rid of a whole tray of cheese!)

And Dailies with a miss effect won't suck, because you can still elect to have these effects apply. You just don't get the power back next encounter. Remember, sometimes you know there won't be a next encounter (perhaps because this is the big bad BBEG fight) and sometimes you don't want to give up those Miss effects simply because there might not even be a next encounter (such as when battling a wandering monster on the way to home base). And sometimes those Miss effects might save you or your buddy from death right now, so saving the power isn't an option.

 

[CapnZapp]

The houserule is for reducing player frustration; when my good will is abused, SEE MY WRATH.

As the one who kidnapped your houserule out of context: fair enough!

However, my aim with this thread is to see if we can whip your idea into shape fit for public consumption. And for general D&D rules DM arbitration does not and can not apply.