Per day or per session?

[MoogleEmpMog]

Okay... what constitutes an "encounter"? Unlike D&D (much to my chagrin), what happens outside of combat can be very important, and many of those "per session" balanced abilities that I spoke of are all about what happens between encounters.

Spycraft is a bit of an odd fish in this, because of its unusual method of handling time; all of the Dramatic Conflicts are sterling examples of what I would expect from a sophisticated encounter-based design, but the fact they (rightly) don't occur on a unified timescale makes things more complex.

I can *almost* see using per session mechanics in light of this - but IMO, Spycraft actually demonstrates a better way right within its own pages, in the form of the various options for each Dramatic Conflict.

D&D, in any case, has a much more focused encounter scale. I can't imagine a D&D encounter that would have each round be an hour or a day, and the 6-second-scale Dramatic Conflicts would work just as well with per encounter or per day systems.

It should be noted that Action dice aren't just a per-session resource. The GM is supposed to award 2-3 per hour. But moving on...

Since the players generally hoarded them, and in such a large group (12 average) had fewer chances to show off to get them, this didn't work out as often as by the rules.

See, I'm thinking "feature". Players like to do something really cool once in a while, and not have to bank on a natural 20.

Except that I'm talking about players going "wait, we're wrapping up for the session? May as well throw all my action dice into a, um... somebody find something I could do with my dice!" The players didn't just go hog-wild on a skill check that really mattered to them, they hoarded their dice or just spent a bit here and a bit there and then realized they might as well use them on something they didn't really care about when the session was about to end.

It would be highly dependent upon how the game washes out, but up front, I'm not seeing this "balance" concern of yours. You give the players a resource; they use them. The fact that it's based on table time instead of in-game time just means it's balanced differently. This certainly has different implications, but as already mentioned, I consider those largely positive.

Because 'per day' has at least some in-game component that can be driven, if not completely accounted for, at the time of adventure writing. 'Per session' is dependent on a huge number of metagame factors unique to individual groups - if not individual game sessions. As such, I do not consider it appropriate for an RPG with a heavy Gamist bent, such as D&D.

 

[Li Shenron]

To me, it's not, because the party would run out of power long before. Not so with the power being renewable with every encounter. Fight a group, run and hide for a minute, fight another group, hide a minute with those renewed spells, rise and repeat until Nosnra/Grugnur/Snurre are belly-up in their own blood. The cleric gets his cures back, the wizard gets his spell-power back, and the party is either at or near full strength all the time, hit points and all.

The mental block for me is that "per minute" thing. even having to rest for an hour I could see, but it's all too easy for a party to get a break of a minute's time in a dungeon, fortress, etc. That's why I'm waiting to see how they DO do it -- I'm very curious.

I have similar concerns.

Most often it's easy to separate encounters enough, but we often some highly-packed adventures where 2-4 encounters come quickly one after the other. At some point, there must be a definition of what an encounter is... I know this is maybe a silly worry, but I'm wondering whether stopping counting initiative is going to be enough for saying that the encounter is over. Or will it require some specific pause time?

 

[Li Shenron]

BTW, I don't like the idea of per-session abilities.

They sound easier to use, since you can easily remember how many times you've used them today (or write down marks on a scrap of paper), while traditional per-day abilities require some bookkeeping, unless you always manage to end a session when the characters rest (which I think it happens for us 3/4 of the times, but I guess it depends on the player's habits).

But still these per-session abilities would be too metagaming for my own tastes. I'm not sure yet if I like the per-encounter idea, but that is certainly way better for me and just as easy as per-session to keep track of.

 

[Jhaelen]

Most often it's easy to separate encounters enough, but we often some highly-packed adventures where 2-4 encounters come quickly one after the other. At some point, there must be a definition of what an encounter is...

One has to assume there will be a clear definition of what constitutes an encounter in 4th.ed. I was particularly worried about non-combat encounters until I read about the social interaction encounters. So, I'm pretty confident the rules will cover this just fine.

 

[Mouseferatu]

The main problem I have with "per encounter" is that I can easily visualize a party going into Undermountain at first level, and emerging in about 6 hours of in-game time as 10th level characters. Unless the XP awards are decoupled from "encounters", and hitched to accomplishing an overall mission, then level advancement is REALLY going to fly too fast.

I also don't like the loss of "attrition" adventures, which are a cool part of the genre as a whole.

Well, with the obvious caveat (which you've already stated ) that we don't actually know how they're handling these sorts of things, I can see a number of possible options.

1) Even if only a small portion of encounters are tough enough to require the "per day" abilities, having a handful of them scattered throughout a dungeon is going to give the PCs pause.

2) Healing magics could be divvied up in such a way that there's a limit to what you can do with the "per encounter" heals. For instance (pulling an example out of a hat), maybe clerics can only heal someone up to half their total HP with a "per encounter cure" (sort of like the dragon shaman's aura in 3E), and only their "per day cures" can do better than that.

3) There's also still the matter of mundane exhaustion. The game may or may not have hard and fast rules that state "Hey, guys, you gotta sleep at some point," but I know that I--and any DM worth his salt--would insist on it.

4) Ditto the issue of simple supplies like food and water. I don't normally bother tracking them, but if the party is planning to spend days or weeks underground, I'd certainly start.

So yeah, I can see where the concern comes from, and I do think it's an issue that needs to be addressed. But I think it's an issue that will be addressed, since there are quite a few ways to do so.

 

[Mouseferatu]

IME, they work better than per day and MUCH BETTER than per encounter.

Hey, Psion? I know you're not fond of "per encounter" abilities. (We've talked about it briefly in threads regarding Bo9S.)

But I don't recall seeing you explain why. (Which doesn't mean you didn't, just that I missed it. ) Mind giving me a rundown of your objections?

 

[Veril]

I have been running a game with a couple of Once Per Session abilities for the past couple of years and it works really well. I have printed out, laminated cards (Heroic Action Cards), and when the players use their abilities they pass the cards over to me.

It gives players a boost ability (extra move, extra attack, extra spell, change memorised spell, make a save, take 20 on a skill) that they can use once a session. My players really like it. It let me mix things up. It works for my game - the PC's are heroes and go beyong the normal limits

Named "significant" villans also get this benefit. Sometimes the villians have more than 1 Heroic Action (although still limited to 1/round).

In long sessions (more than 3-4 hours) I can give back the "Heroic Action Cards" at a suitable point to the players.

 

[Falling Icicle]

No offense intended to the original poster, but I don't think per session abilities are a good idea at all. At least a day is a fixed period of time. Different groups play for different amounts of time, and this would make the value of these abilities fluctuate too much. And the amount of game time that occurs over a session also fluctuates greatly. I've had game sessions that spanned a day or less, and others that spanned weeks of in-game time (not real life time, obviously). And as has already been mentioned, the DM can easily adjust things to give the players a break for the rest of the day when he wants to. Having abilities on a per session basis ties his hands too much. It also makes things too much based on metagame stuff rather than what the characters are experiencing, imho.

The quote about a Wizard being at 80% power after expending all of his prepared spells makes me think that Wizards will be alot like Warlocks in 4th edition, with alot of "at will" core abilities, while the spells are the bigger guns and rituals that are used less frequently. Sounds pretty cool to me.

 

[Psion]

Since the players generally hoarded them, and in such a large group (12 average) had fewer chances to show off to get them, this didn't work out as often as by the rules.

Except that I'm talking about players going "wait, we're wrapping up for the session? May as well throw all my action dice into a, um... somebody find something I could do with my dice!" The players didn't just go hog-wild on a skill check that really mattered to them, they hoarded their dice or just spent a bit here and a bit there and then realized they might as well use them on something they didn't really care about when the session was about to end.

I could see how having 12 players in a group might be exceptional as it is.

Some players would like to hoard AD. Sometimes, I find that some players really use up their AD rather early in the session, just because they are in the spotlight.

And that's fine. I like the idea of "cash" that players can spend to keep things as expected. When they perceive important rolls early, they will spend them early.

Anyways, I'm not especially concerned about end of session spending. It means that they are spending them as a matter of convenience than a matter of necessity, which means they really didn't need them as much and they aren't impacting the game as much.

Because 'per day' has at least some in-game component that can be driven, if not completely accounted for, at the time of adventure writing. 'Per session' is dependent on a huge number of metagame factors unique to individual groups - if not individual game sessions. As such, I do not consider it appropriate for an RPG with a heavy Gamist bent, such as D&D.

I fail to see how per session is more work plan around. Quite the contrary. I can pretty well predict that an encounter or obstacle will take about an hour to resolve. Per day or per time period spending seems more vulnerable to variations in the flow of the game (to include metagaming) to me, not less. Players can stall for time, camp whenever only mildly down on resources, etc. Whereas with per session, the gravitas is getting on with the game, because you have all the resources you are going to get. And for games like D&D that have a resource management bent, I think that's perfectly appropriate.

 

[Psion]

Hey, Psion? I know you're not fond of "per encounter" abilities. (We've talked about it briefly in threads regarding Bo9S.)

But I don't recall seeing you explain why. (Which doesn't mean you didn't, just that I missed it. ) Mind giving me a rundown of your objections?

I thought I hit on this pretty heavy, but it might have been over at RPGnet.

Basically, I don't mind if some characters/roles have per-encounter resources. I just don't want all of them that way. I think having longer per-session or per-time period based abilities creates another axis to differentiate player roles and give everyone some spotlight time. A PC who can achieve a lot but only occasionally will have a different time to shine than a PC who can consistently deliver round after round, combat after combat. They will each have their own time to shine.

Moving to a strictly per-encounter based balancing models strips you of an important role-balancing tool. Doing so gives you less room to give the players "wow" powers that you don't want showing up all the time (whether for balance reasons or for fear of it becoming too ordinary), and the differences between different roles become more cosmetic. I really don't want my wizard to be the functional equivalent of an archer with different flavor text.

Edit: Side note, you slacker, Joe Browning said you brushed by our table at the Buca last week and didn't say hi!