Mostly great, but . . . rounds per day?

[Voadam]

I don't like the rounds per day mechanics (rage/bard song).

I like a lot of the rage powers, but I didn't want barbarians to go more mechanically fiddly. With raging per round resource management decisions are now on a round to round basis instead of a binary rage/don't rage basis. Plus you can have three sets of modifiers going in three rounds now (round 1 normal, round 2 raged, round 3 fatigued). When I want to play someone who shouts a war cry and dives into combat swinging an axe I personally don't want to stop and consider number allocations and do mechanical recalculations round to round.

Round per day mechanics means you now get to consider not just how many encounters you expect in a day, but the number of rounds you expect each of them to last. And the classes with round/day stuff get less effective the longer the fights go on.

I expect fights to go from few rounds to signficantly long with plenty of variation. Our end fight prepped assault at the end of a module against a prepared and defended theurge vampire went on for more than 30 rounds. Others are over in three or less rounds.

I'll do the math comparison later and see if there are just as many rounds of raging and bard song now as in 3e, maybe it will work out to the same total duration per day with fewer lost rounds due to fights ending earlier than power durations. Maybe that was their goal with that mechanic.

I can see the sim appeal of having fatigue coming after rage and using it as a mechanical balancing factor plus turning the decisions of when to rage as well as when to stop raging (which incurs the immediate double duration fatigue) into significant tactical decisions. I just prefer a more mechanically and tactically simple model for playing the barbarian warrior concept in D&D.

I would have preferred to see bards at least go to songs lasting fully per encounter and for barbarians to not be so mechanically number fiddly.

 

[Papa-DRB]

My guys are in the middle of Rise of the Rune Lords (near end of 3rd book) and one of them is a Bard. They were warned last year when the BETA came out and they made characters that they would be converting to the final rules this year.

So my plans are to finish this book under BETA rules, and convert to the Final rules starting with the next book. After at least one book's worth of playing, I may or may not go back to rounds per day, at least as for the Bard. Till someone plays a Barbarian, I am leaving the mechanic as is...

But I do see your point, which is why the further "playtestl"... Good points.

-- david
Papa.DRB

 

[Anguish]

I hear some of what you're saying but have a thought. If you're playing a barb, stop worrying about how many rounds you've got. Temper, temper. Just nova any time it seems appropriate. Don't try to game the system calculating how many encounters per day you're going to see because the barb never could rage every encounter. I think the PF barb just needs to be played a little more... accurately. <Grin>

The bard might be another story.

 

[Wicht]

Just a contrary opinion - too often when my wife played a bard (especially at first level) she would be afraid to use her ability to boost the others because she had only one shot at it and the fight might not last very long. Now she can decide to use the ability at a crucial moment or three at first level.

 

[kitsune9]

I don't like the rounds per day mechanics (rage/bard song).

I like a lot of the rage powers, but I didn't want barbarians to go more mechanically fiddly. With raging per round resource management decisions are now on a round to round basis instead of a binary rage/don't rage basis. Plus you can have three sets of modifiers going in three rounds now (round 1 normal, round 2 raged, round 3 fatigued). When I want to play someone who shouts a war cry and dives into combat swinging an axe I personally don't want to stop and consider number allocations and do mechanical recalculations round to round.

Round per day mechanics means you now get to consider not just how many encounters you expect in a day, but the number of rounds you expect each of them to last. And the classes with round/day stuff get less effective the longer the fights go on.

I expect fights to go from few rounds to signficantly long with plenty of variation. Our end fight prepped assault at the end of a module against a prepared and defended theurge vampire went on for more than 30 rounds. Others are over in three or less rounds.

I'll do the math comparison later and see if there are just as many rounds of raging and bard song now as in 3e, maybe it will work out to the same total duration per day with fewer lost rounds due to fights ending earlier than power durations. Maybe that was their goal with that mechanic.

I can see the sim appeal of having fatigue coming after rage and using it as a mechanical balancing factor plus turning the decisions of when to rage as well as when to stop raging (which incurs the immediate double duration fatigue) into significant tactical decisions. I just prefer a more mechanically and tactically simple model for playing the barbarian warrior concept in D&D.

I would have preferred to see bards at least go to songs lasting fully per encounter and for barbarians to not be so mechanically number fiddly.

This will be interesting to see how it plays out. I was kind of surprised to barbarians getting round management. My initial gut reaction is that shortened his raging time down, but I've yet to play it out. I'll see...

 

[Voadam]

This will be interesting to see how it plays out. I was kind of surprised to barbarians getting round management. My initial gut reaction is that shortened his raging time down, but I've yet to play it out. I'll see...

Rage was 3+ con rounds before in 3.5 at 1st level, now it is 4+ con at 1st in PF.

at 4th it was 6+ conx2 in 3.5 versus PF 10+ Con.

Every four levels the 3.5 barbarian got 3+ con versus the pathfinder one getting 8 rounds.

Extra rage used to give 2 or 3 extra rages per day (depending on what WotC or OGC source you used) which was 6+ 2Con or 9 +3Con rounds long versus pathfinder's 6 extra rounds.

3.5 also had a non core extended rage feat which would be duplicative of PFs extra rage.

Most levels and con ranges the PF barbarian gets more rounds with a smoother progression and not short changed in lost rage rounds.

3.5 ones with big cons gain an edge in certain level ranges and get more benefits from feats like extra rage and the (not available in PF) extended rage.

 

[Broccli_Head]

In game...

It seems to be better to have the points/rounds mechanic. During the assault on the Shadow Tower in Rise of the Runelords #2, the barbarian was able to rage three times as opposed to 2 at that same level. This included one time where they had to partially fight the big boss (where the barbarian really needed to be fully buffed to hit it), turn around and fight it again within a few rounds. (Lesser Restoration used to remove fatigue).

in my experience, barbarians would never rage in 3.5 because they were afraid it would be too soon. Now they rage left and right. I like the feel of it better

 

[Synchronicity]

I like the rounds per day mechanic. As far as I can see, it's pretty much a straight improvement for barbarians; the extra flexibility to grants outweighs the slightly reduced number of rounds that they get at any given level. For bards, I'm more on the fence. I like that for both classes it discourages hoarding of their precious uses, the mentality of never wanting to bust it out for fear of a nastier encounter round the corner. I also like that it kills the (fortunately rare) stupidity of the ever-singing bard, who starts using bardic music in the first encounter of the day and then just never stops, operatically sweeping their way through the dungeon just so they don't have to burn any more uses. And I think in the long run it will benefit the bard, as they'll have to ration their uses a little more, and by necessity become more than a walking mp3 player. But we'll have to see.

 

[ruemere]

We have BETA Barbarian with Rage/rounds version for some time now. The player is pretty satisfied with being able to micromanage his Hulk smash moments.

Personally, as a GM, I find it also pretty easy to handle for groups of Barbarian NPCs.

Regards,
Ruemere

 

[jaerdaph]

And I think in the long run it will benefit the bard, as they'll have to ration their uses a little more, and by necessity become more than a walking mp3 player.

I was just thinking - in the 90s, bards would have been a walking Discman. In the 80s, a walking Walkman!