Once, Twice, Three times a Daily

[Jeff Carlsen]

When I first read the 4E Player's Handbook, I almost immediately saw a missed opportunity for a unified stamina pool. Healing Surges, powers, and even magic items could all benefit from it.

I still hold that to be true. Each character has a certain number of stamina points. Using a daily power uses one. Being healed or using a second wind uses one. Heck, even using an action point might use one.

Now how exactly such a thing should tie into 5E isn't as clear. But here are a few ideas based on what is known or rumored.

• Short Rest: Any time after using a stamina point, you may take a short rest. During that rest you may either recover a single stamina point or a few hit points.
• Medium Rest: Taking a long break with a meal allows you to recover three stamina points. You cannot take a long rest within four hours of a meal.
• Long Rest: A full eight hours sleep causes you to recover all of your stamina.
• Stamina Casting: An entire form of magic could be based on spending stamina to cast spells.
• Dangerous spells: Some spells might cost some or all of your stamina to cast.
• Rage and other per day abilities would be directly tied to spending stamina.
• Some abilities might not cost stamina but instead require that you have a certain number of points remaining.

The downside, for some, is that it's something to track. The advantage, though, is that it's the only thing that you have to track and it grounds abilities in something related to reality.

 

[1Mac]

There's a very big difference between sacred cows that have been done away with by changing the way the system's math works (the classic 5 Saving Throws, or descending AC, for example) and those which represent something fundamental about D&D.

Is there? That seems like an arbitrary distinction.

Most of what gets changed from edition to edition is something fiddly - like how skills work, or which (non-core) classes are in the game, or how a particular spell works.

Not only is it arbitrary, your examples don't follow from it. Class availability doesn't have anything to do with fiddly math. Neither do skills vs. NWPs, really. Vancian casting, on the other hand, is the ultimate in fiddly RPG math. It's one of many reasons I'm so disposed against it.

By contrast, Vancian magic ranks right up there with the arcane/divine magic divide as sacred cows go.... it just wouldn't have that "D&D feel" for a large number of people if you take them out.

But I know that can be, at best, an option, because to some, Vancian spellcasting and the arcane/divine magic divide are true "sacred cows" - NECESSARY components for maintaining that "D&D feel" for a large number of people.

I get that, even though I don't agree with their sentiment. But there's an equally large number of people for whom Vancian casting is at best a kludgy albatross to be endured. It's controversial. Even in this thread, the people who are defending it are saying "I'd personally like to see the end of Vancian casting, but I know people who would cry havoc."

If the audience for DnD is more or less split between those who think Vancian casting is essential and those who think it's a travesty, then we really ought to be talking about the gameplay merits of including the system. And nostalgic inertia is not a merit.

 

[NewJeffCT]

When I first read the 4E Player's Handbook, I almost immediately saw a missed opportunity for a unified stamina pool. Healing Surges, powers, and even magic items could all benefit from it.

I still hold that to be true. Each character has a certain number of stamina points. Using a daily power uses one. Being healed or using a second wind uses one. Heck, even using an action point might use one.

Now how exactly such a thing should tie into 5E isn't as clear. But here are a few ideas based on what is known or rumored.

• Short Rest: Any time after using a stamina point, you may take a short rest. During that rest you may either recover a single stamina point or a few hit points.
• Medium Rest: Taking a long break with a meal allows you to recover three stamina points. You cannot take a long rest within four hours of a meal.
• Long Rest: A full eight hours sleep causes you to recover all of your stamina.
• Stamina Casting: An entire form of magic could be based on spending stamina to cast spells.
• Dangerous spells: Some spells might cost some or all of your stamina to cast.
• Rage and other per day abilities would be directly tied to spending stamina.
• Some abilities might not cost stamina but instead require that you have a certain number of points remaining.

The downside, for some, is that it's something to track. The advantage, though, is that it's the only thing that you have to track and it grounds abilities in something related to reality.

Interesting idea - I'd XP you for it, but I've used up my allotment for the day.

 

[FireLance]

In the later days of 3e, before the announcement of 4e, I was playing around with a spell slot system inspired by the maneuvers in the Book of Nine Swords. Essentially, spellcasters had access to a small number of slots which they could use to store prepared spells. Casters could automatically refill all their spells slots between encounters, or could make an attempt to re-fill one spell slot during an encounter by spending a standard action and making a successful skill check. Because spellcasters could regain spells so easily, the key limitations on them were a much smaller pool of spells known and spell slots available at any one time.

Although I was focused on traditional fire-and-forget magic, I thought the spell slot system could also be used to limit the number of active spells any one spellcaster could maintain simultaneously by requiring any spell that had a duration to occupy a spell slot until the spell was terminated.

A slot system could also be used for what Andor calls focus abilities: those that grant a small bonus (like a spell with a duration) until they are expended to create a more significant effect (like a fire-and-forget spell), and the small bonus is lost until the slot is re-filled.

You could even generalize a slot system to represent more than spells. A fighter's precision strike stance which grants a +1 bonus to attack rolls could occupy a slot. A barbarian's fury could grant him a +2 bonus to damage rolls until he expends it to gain a +2d6 bonus to the damage roll of a single attack.

Mind you, in my view, a slot system like what I mentioned is pretty much a backdoor encounter power system, and those who dislike encounter powers, for whatever reason, may not like it on that basis alone.

 

[1Mac]

Although I was focused on traditional fire-and-forget magic, I thought the spell slot system could also be used to limit the number of active spells any one spellcaster could maintain simultaneously by requiring any spell that had a duration to occupy a spell slot until the spell was terminated.

A slot system could also be used for what Andor calls focus abilities: those that grant a small bonus (like a spell with a duration) until they are expended to create a more significant effect (like a fire-and-forget spell), and the small bonus is lost until the slot is re-filled.

I like this and have been noodling something similar. You don't even need to call them slots: just say you can have so many effects active, depending on your level.

Mind you, in my view, a slot system like what I mentioned is pretty much a backdoor encounter power system,...

Not necessarily, if you leave the durations up to the caster and don't worry about recharge times (or make the recharge times very brief, like a full-round or so).

 

[GunbladeKnight]

The biggest thing I disliked about the AEDU system was the encounter powers. I wished they were more like the Binder's abilities from Tome of Magic, usable once every five rounds. Sure, they may end up being once an encounter anyways, but that fifty round encounter where you used up your big guns early won't drag out to at-will sluggish pace in the later rounds.

 

[BobTheNob]

I sometimes wondered if action economy was an option. For instance, yea, you can use "Ball of ultimate destruction" but it will use your standard AND move actions.

Then throw in incurred penalties like "and after using it you are dazed until your next action". Or something like that.

Just spit-balling.

 

[FireLance]

The biggest thing I disliked about the AEDU system was the encounter powers. I wished they were more like the Binder's abilities from Tome of Magic, usable once every five rounds.

I don't think this would go down well with the "videogamey cooldown bad!" segment of the gamer population. There are already a number of people who don't like encounter powers because this is the way they think they work.

 

[KarinsDad]

I don't think this would go down well with the "videogamey cooldown bad!" segment of the gamer population. There are already a number of people who don't like encounter powers because this is the way they think they work.

Another problem with a 5 round cooldown is the additional bookkeeping that is required. Not so bad for a single power, but a pain for multiple powers. Plus, there will be encounters where the player is doing the bookkeeping, but the encounter ends before the cooldown finishes. This will often occur if such a power is used later in an encounter, or if used a second time. This seems like unnecessary bookkeeping.

A preferable system is what 4E already does for recharge. Roll a dice to determine if the power is recharged. Any system that minimizes bookkeeping and replaces it with a quick die roll (like 4E saving throws) tends to be preferable.

This type of roll (without modifiers) to replace bookkeeping goes back to an old house rule system of keeping track of charges. For a "50 charge wand" in 3E, roll a D100 after each use and on a 1 or 2, the wand runs out of charges. That way, the player doesn't ever have to keep track of charges. Ditto for recharge.

 

[FireLance]

Another problem with a 5 round cooldown is the additional bookkeeping that is required. Not so bad for a single power, but a pain for multiple powers. Plus, there will be encounters where the player is doing the bookkeeping, but the encounter ends before the cooldown finishes. This will often occur if such a power is used later in an encounter, or if used a second time. This seems like unnecessary bookkeeping.

A preferable system is what 4E already does for recharge. Roll a dice to determine if the power is recharged. Any system that minimizes bookkeeping and replaces it with a quick die roll (like 4E saving throws) tends to be preferable.

This type of roll (without modifiers) to replace bookkeeping goes back to an old house rule system of keeping track of charges. For a "50 charge wand" in 3E, roll a D100 after each use and on a 1 or 2, the wand runs out of charges. That way, the player doesn't ever have to keep track of charges. Ditto for recharge.

I think this would work better with one refinement: one recharge roll per round, or roll to recharge all expended powers if the character doesn't attack. Otherwise, the time saved in terms of bookkeeping will be spent rolling dice.