Once per day non-magical effects destroy suspension of disbelief

[vagabundo]

I view Dailies (and encounter powers) as a mathematical abstraction.

For the daily to work a number of circumstances have to come together, luck, skill and training all play a part; but on average you will only be able to pull of your "Death by Smashy Blows" once a day.

Now, in a realistic RPG, you could construct mechanics that show the variation. Some days you'll get two or even three and once in a great while five "Smashy Blows" in the one encounter. However, in this realistic 4e game (in an alt dimension), there are days when you get no "Smashy Blows". But on average it works out as once per day.

So 4e went with the abstraction that these are daily powers. It makes them easier to track, kudos, my game is easier to run. But how to I explain them?

Well the character, in-game, is always trying to end things quick and will be trying to set-up "Smashy Blows" every encounter if they are appropriate.

So now your player has some Narrative Control to say when these circumstances come together, if you try and see this with your 3e eyes (or gurps oe other less abstracted RPGs) it will look wonky.

So you need to grow a pair of 4e eyes, they are more abstracted than your 3e set.


^^^^ My take on it, may not be offical WotC policy

 

[Plane Sailing]

Allow me to vent this and then share your opinion if you wish.

I detest, I hate with the fiery fury of 1000 suns, 1/day non-magical powers because there is NO rationale whatsoever ...

Quick question - how did you feel about barbarian rage in 3e? That was a 1/day non-magical power after all.

Or the rogue "defensive roll" special ability? That was a 1/day non-magical power.

This is a serious question BTW, I'm not poking fun at you.



Originally I felt that "daily" martial powers were rocking my sense of reasonableness, but the suggestion that someone made which helped me with rationalising it is that the daily power doesn't reflect something that the PC has trained to do; rather it represents the Players ability to gain enough narrative control over the situation to say "*now* is the perfect time to land a brute strike". If the PC could, he would spam off his best attacks all the time. As it is, he can only use them when the circumstances come together perfectly for it - and the player gets to choose when those circumstances exist. When that 'once per day' chance actually comes up.

This might not work for you, but I find it a more compelling argument than I ever hand for the barbarian and rogue abilities mentioned above - and even those I just learned to accept in the end.

Cheers

 

[GnomeWorks]

*sigh*

Guess I'll post in this thread again...

Quick question - how did you feel about barbarian rage in 3e? That was a 1/day non-magical power after all.

Could we please quit touting this as a valid response to the argument? Because it's not.

As you gain levels, you can use the rage more often. This implies that the ability is not static; you improve in your ability to use it. It increases in power, duration, and the side-effects decrease.

The real problem is that a good number of martial dailies are nonsensical in the sense that they never improve. You can never get better at using it; it is a static ability.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

Yeah what Plane Sailing said is dead on how I view it as well... I think actually a large majority of people atleast on ENWorld, who like the Power-System also use that view.

 

[Ydars]

I prefer to think of martial daily powers as something like a meditative state that the fighter has to enter into in order to execute the power and that this state is powered by a burst of energy from the unconscious mind. This primal state allows conscious control of heart-rate, muscle and tendon tone/metabolism and a complete connection between the conscious and
unconscious mind. It also involves huge bursts of adrenalin into the system.

Tapping into this "primal action" more than once in 24 hours could be very harmful, possibly fatal to the person using it, and might cause permanent brain damage and/or muscle damage, because of the superhuman forces involved.

To reflect this, I am thinking of instituting a house rule in my game that allows a player to use any daily more than once per day but with a 50% chance of a permanent loss of 1 point in an ability score everytime this is attempted.

In this view, sleep is essential to re-charge this unconscious power and so it can only be safely used after SLEEPING = long rest= daily power.

 

[Zurai]

Could we please quit touting this as a valid response to the argument? Because it's not.

As you gain levels, you can use the rage more often.

But you can never increase in the number of daily uses of Defensive Roll, so the point is still plenty valid.

 

[hong]

The real problem is that a good number of martial dailies are nonsensical in the sense that they never improve. You can never get better at using it; it is a static ability.

You most definitely get better at using martial dailies. Notice the use of an attack roll to see if you connect.

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

*sigh*

Guess I'll post in this thread again...

Could we please quit touting this as a valid response to the argument? Because it's not.

As you gain levels, you can use the rage more often. This implies that the ability is not static; you improve in your ability to use it. It increases in power, duration, and the side-effects decrease.

The real problem is that a good number of martial dailies are nonsensical in the sense that they never improve. You can never get better at using it; it is a static ability.

But as you gain levels, you will be retraining your Daily powers and selecting more powerful ones - therefore you are improving this ability. What starts out as a 1/day triple damage attack eventually becomes a 1/day seven-times-damage attack - a massive improvement.

Sadly, this is just one of those abstractions that either you like, or not. My group didn't have the slightest problem with it - YMMV.

 

[GnomeWorks]

The uses/day increasing was the important part.

But you can never increase in the number of daily uses of Defensive Roll, so the point is still plenty valid.

Defensive roll is also a higher-level ability, and has conditionals. The conditionals make a good argument for being able to use it only once a day.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

The uses/day increasing was the important part.



Defensive roll is also a higher-level ability, and has conditionals. The conditionals make a good argument for being able to use it only once a day.

So it comes down to where you draw the line?

If the given "explanations" don't work, they just won't work. I might also not understand why a spellcaster never learns to _not_ forget his spell after he cast it. I mean, he has cast it dozens if not hundreds of time, and he still can't retain Magic Missile in his memory more then once?

Well, I guess, it's okay because it is magic. So, just define "Martial is a kind of magic", and you're done (either with 4E, because you _must_ have an entirely non-magical class, or with the problem, because this explanations works for you )