No dailies, but also no healing surges? Would D&D be a better game this way?

[Gort]

This is inspired in part by the rumours surrounding daily powers in the new Essentials series, but I recognise that we know little about it so far:

I think that anyone who's GMed has occasionally had the problem where you've got a great long stretch of time, and it only really makes sense to have a single encounter in it - after all, it's not a great deal of fun to have constant encounters with lions and bandits and so forth when you're just trying to get from A to B.

One problem is that players who know or even just guess that they're not going to have many encounters can go "nova", blowing all of their daily powers in that one encounter, completely decimating it. Alternatively they take a long rest between every encounter, allowing them to do this constantly. Healing surges are a similar problem - it's very possible to build a party with appropriate gear and powers that can blow a vast number of healing surges every encounter, which again inflates the power of the party above and beyond what's assumed by the level system.

Now, there are ways to fight back against this - time limits preventing long rests, healing surge draining beasties, and so forth. But might it be simpler, if we were considering a rewrite of the current edition, to do away with daily powers and healing surges? Treat every encounter as an island, if you will, so that you can have one encounter in a section of play, or a dozen. Naturally daily magic item powers would have to go too.

It might also bring back to the fold those players who found it difficult to countenance being able to fire two arrows at a time only once per day - I was not one of these, but it was a complaint I heard.

I would suppose a downside might be that it would remove a layer of resource management from the game, but as I've mentioned earlier, it's a rather easily-solved management puzzle, and DMs kind of struggle with it at times.

 

[ggroy]

Wouldn't this be like going back to previous editions of D&D/AD&D, but with a non-Vancian spellcasting system?

 

[Aulirophile]

Never struggled with it as a DM, so.. no.

 

[Saeviomagy]

But might it be simpler, if we were considering a rewrite of the current edition, to do away with daily powers and healing surges? Treat every encounter as an island, if you will, so that you can have one encounter in a section of play, or a dozen. Naturally daily magic item powers would have to go too.

By doing what? Are you just going to say that after every combat everyone returns to full? Or are you going to have no individual-combat risk and merely death by grind?

 

[Gort]

By doing what? Are you just going to say that after every combat everyone returns to full? Or are you going to have no individual-combat risk and merely death by grind?

The former - everyone returns to full after every combat. Each encounter is an island. Effectively you would be removing the "attrition" idea from D&D as far as powers and hitpoints are concerned.

Naturally you could still use debilitations such as injuries (broken arm, for example) and diseases and suchlike which would carry over, you just wouldn't run out of healing surges and the like.

 

[Gort]

Wouldn't this be like going back to previous editions of D&D/AD&D, but with a non-Vancian spellcasting system?

Well, in earlier versions of D&D "resting" was a lot less powerful at removing damage - 3rd ed parties would carry around wands of cure light wounds which basically had the same effect as 4th ed resting, and 2nd ed parties wouldn't be caught dead without a divine healer character.

And the "but with a non-Vancian spellcasting system" would be a huge change from earlier versions of D&D.

 

[darkadelphia]

I see the 3-4 encounter day as a good thing. With some roleplaying and bookkeeping, it's roughly a session. If the dm plans his adventures around 3-4 encounter clumps, it makes for nice framing and natural quitting points for sessions. The one encounter with bandits on the road has always been a boring speedbump, imo. If the bandits are really interesting enough to have an encounter with, make it a 3-4 encounter side quest on the road (possibly finding their lair, recovering stolen goods, investigating a connection to a recurring antagonist, etc.)

 

[DEFCON 1]

Personally, my solution to the problem is even simpler. I just change the word 'Daily' to 'Adventure'.

Rather than using the arbitrary decision of in-game nightfall as the determiner when surges and daily powers refresh... I use the conclusion of the particular adventure my party is on. This way... I can have as many encounters over as many in-game days as I want, while maintaining the game balance of a certain number of encounters before an "extended rest". And the "extended rest" is not just an arbitrary decision of when the party has six in-game hours free to sleep uninterrupted... it's a group decision to voluntarily "pull themselves out of the adventure" for a period of time to recharge.

So the party might have a single encounter a day for eight days straight. But because in-game nightfall is not my determiner for when "extended rests" happen... the party is still all within the same single 'adventure' and thus their dailies and surges do not come back. It's only when the party makes the decision to pull themselves away from the adventure they are on that they can take an "extended rest". And at that point, depending on where in the adventure they are at... it will determine what (if any) consequences they get for "resting" when they did.

 

[Verision]

I would like to see a "no daily power" version of 4e, since my PCs seem to be like yours; when they know they are going to take an extended rest soon, they go nova.
And if they go nova, they are going to find a way to take an extended rest; they will arcane lock doors, lay out traps, etc etc. It's really annoying, since I hate throwing more encounters at the party when they want to rest; the encounters are long and boring when the PCs don't have any Dailies left. 10 rounds of At-Wills does not an interesting encounter make.

Still, you would need a 4.5 edition to take away dailies, and that would really anger some people (myself included).

 

[the Jester]

The former - everyone returns to full after every combat. Each encounter is an island. Effectively you would be removing the "attrition" idea from D&D as far as powers and hitpoints are concerned.

Oh HELL no.

I mean, it's fine for some groups I suppose... but for me? HELL no.

The resource management part of D&D is one that I like. Do you have enough arrows? Do you have enough food to make your trek across 200 miles to the Tower of Doom and back? How are you carrying all that? Do you have a donkeyhorse loadbearer? You're going into a desert- do you have water?

Likewise, before you go through that next door or down those stairs to the next level of the dungeon, consider: do you have enough supplies? How are your hit points or surges (depending on edition)? Are you out of spells/dailies (depending on edition)?

I don't have anything against anyone playing in a way that's fun to them, of course- if you think it enhances the game to gloss over this stuff, that's perfectly valid. It isn't badwrongfun; just not MY style.