Because resource management is part of the fun of D&D. While the Vancian system took this to an extreme that many (including myself) don't like, having per day, per encounter, and minor at will abilities preserves the tactical richness of resource management, without leaving people standing around, missing with their crossbow round after round.
Per Encounter vs. Unlimited
- Thread starter ShadowX
- Start date
Lord Zardoz
Explorer
ShadowX said:
Consider Fireball, and an Encounter with 341 Orcs.
If Fireball is once per Encounter, you can take out about 20 or so Orcs when you use it. That leaves you with 321 Orcs to deal with, and you are now limited to using your other spells / abilities to kill them.
If Fireball is at Will, you are essentially able to decimate the army if you can maintain a reasonable distance without ever having to use any other feat or ability.
For balance reasons, it makes sense to have low impact abilities as At Will, your 'standard option' abilities have a Per Encounter limit, and to have your Best Option with a per day limit.
For an analog to 3rd edition options, consider the following abilities. The following is based on my opinion, and is entirely subjective.
Ok as At Will abilities:
Standard Melee Attack
Any Cantrip
Evasion
Uncanny Dodge
Ok as Per Encounter Abilities:
Barbarian Rage
Bard Song
Stunning Fist
Scorching Ray
Buff Spells
An Automatic Critical Hit (declared before an attack roll)
An Automatic non Critical hit (skip attack roll, just roll damage, no critical possible)
Guaranteed Sneak Attack (declared before attack roll, target takes sneak attack damage even if not flatfooted or flanked, absent uncanny dodge)
"Do Over". (make an attack that hit become a miss, or make a save you just failed)
Ok as Per Day Abilities
Heal Spell
Wish Spell
Automatic Coup-de-Grace (even if target not helpless, declared before attack roll)
An All Day Buff Spell
Teleport type spells
Instant 20 (take 20 on non combat roll as an instant / standard action rather than taking hours)
Free Meta Magic (apply a meta magic feat to an otherwise normal spell)
Tis But a Scratch (Fight normally until -20 hp)
Not Quite Dead (restore all hp as a full round action)
To put it more simply:
Any ability that cannot really decide the outcome of a level appropriate fight by its self at the present level: At Will
Any ability that is a 'no brainer' to use, even if not super powerful: Per Encounter
Any save or 'screwed' (as in may as well be dead, such as Hold Person): Per Encounter
Any ability that can render the user effectively unkillable if used without limit: Per Day
Any ability that the player would want to use first thing in every encounter if possible: Per Day
END COMMUNICATION
Li Shenron
Legend
Lord Zardoz said:
It makes sense, but they should not just be addressed one by one, but also altogether.
I mean, if all save-or-screwed are per encounter, but the character has X of them, then he effectively has "save-or-screwed" at will if an encounter rarely lasts more than X rounds.
I disagree. As far as I'm concerned, nothing but noncombat, and maybe very situational abilites should be per day.Lord Zardoz said:
Simply because, if you put the more powerful abilites at per day, characters will still often use them in their first combat and then rest a day, and you will have the five minute adventuring day all over again.
To make sure that combats don't all play out the same, you "simply" need to make sure that the abilities and enemies are different enough that there is no single optimal sequence of abilites against every enemy.
Li Shenron
Legend
Anthtriel said:
That doesn't happen unless you have a fundamentally flawed DM that allows you to enter a dungeon or an enemy castle, wipe out the first room, and then quitely say goodbye see you tomorrow to the rest of the enemies.
Or better put: it can happen only if the DM allows the players to completely decide the shape of the adventures, instead of interacting with them.
Mustrum_Ridcully
Legend
Maybe that's what "siloing" is for...Li Shenron said:
Ah, the guesswork...
ShadowX said:
What fantasy is that? Does any have a clear idea what Gandalf's resource issues were in LotR? Was it fatiguing to cast spells? Why did he use lightning against the Ringwraiths on Weathertop and not use it in Moria? I guess he was hoping Frodo would die so he could get his magic items. Can you even begin to compare a ruleset that must survive interaction/manipulation by players with a novel? I can't show up to Tolkien's game session and say "hey, I have Gandalf lightning bolt the watcher in the water, what happens?"
The premise that fantasy novel/literature magic is capable of being simulated, IMO is highly dubious. I need more information. AFAICT people say this sort of thing on the board without example. Otherwise it just seems to me like the "fantasy magic" being talked about here is a mostly circular concept, as in "fantasy magic is magic of the type that I imagine".
Also, assuming that a lack of discussion of limits of fantasy magic means there are no limits in the author's mind? That's like assuming that if the author doesn't describe the character's eating 3 meals/day, that the author assumes they never do. All of the nuts and bolts necessary to run a game don't make for good narrative, so IMO that needs to be considered as well.
JohnSnow
Hero
gizmo33 said:
I've said this before on this board with examples - lots of examples. However, in case you were missing during those discussions...
One must begin with the notion that the only books worth discussing are those where the main character (or one of several) is a spellcaster of some sort. Stories like The Lord of the Rings, where the spellcasters are plot points rather than characters, need to be ignored because, as you correctly point out, there's no way of knowing the limits of a deus ex machina character. That said, I'll pull up a few examples, off the top of my head.
Dilvish in Roger Zelazny's The Changing Land and Dilvish the Damned
The Aes Sedai in Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time
The Witches in Kate Forsythe's The Witches of Eileanan
Harry Potter in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter novels,
Harry Dresden in Jim Butcher's The Dresden Files
The last 2 are modern characters, but I mention them both because their respective authors devote a considerable amount of time to explaining how magic works in their worlds. Dresden is especially good, for reasons I'll go into below.
Dilvish can cast any spell he knows, but some of the big boom effects are tiring or deadly if he screws up. Often he can only manage them once before resting. Some "little effects" are complicated (like opening locks). There are, however, many abilities he can use "periodically" with some rest (per encounter), and others he can basically use whenever (at will). He certainly doesn't prepare spells.
Aes Sedai have favored elements - they just don't know some spells, and in some cases can't learn them. More powerful spells are more tiring, but with rest, they can usually recover. To the extent there's a failing with them in 4e, it's that they don't have any spells that are, strictly speaking "per day." They also can't know a spell one day, and not have it handy the next.
Forsythe's Witches work almost identically to Jordan's Aes Sedai. They also deal with the 5 elements (Air, Earth, Fire, Water and Spirit) but different powers seem to have different classifications. Forsythe's witches also use implements, which, for the most part, the Aes Sedai do not.
Harry Potter uses a wand, chants incantations in pseudo-latin, and provides for the possibility of wizards developing abilities that are inherent (like becoming an animagus). Not all wizards are equally skilled at all the arts. They can cast spells straight out of a book, but there's still no form of "spell preparation" except in the sense of making a potion. Harry's abilities tend to be tiring and take an act of will. Mostly, they seem usable either at-will (most), periodically (many), or once with a great deal of effort, after which they need to rest (very few).
Finally we come to Harry Dresden. Harry is a wizard, complete with staff, blasting rod, shield bracelet, pentacle, duster of protection, potions, rings that store energy, handkerchief foci, summoning spells, calling spells, and so on. Since the books are first person narrative, we get to hear Harry describe how his magic works in pretty exacting detail. He also interacts with mundanes, so he occasionally has to describe it to people who don't have the foggiest idea how magic works. This makes these books VERY helpful for our purposes.
Dresden's primary magic tool is evocation, or as he puts it "magic that makes things go boom." Harry is exceptionally good at evocation - it's his forte. For the most part, Harry can throw evocations whenever he wants but they're a little tiring. Occasionally, when he's been throwing lots of flashy evocations, he gets too tired to continue, and has to back off for a while. It's a lot easier for him to throw evocations if he has one of his foci - like his staff, or his blasting rod. They help him control his magic better - which is otherwise less refined and more desperate.
Then there's thaumaturgy. What happens small happens big. Harry's not supergood at thaumaturgy, but uses it quite effectively (and humorously) in the first book when he takes care of some enchanted giant scorpions with a broom and a housecleaning spell he'd almost forgotten about (I doubt he "prepped" that one). He's pretty worn out at that point, so a minor spell is about all he's got.
Magic that enhances himself has to come in the form of potions or external foci (belts that allow the wearer to turn into a wolf). The duster I mentioned above is imbued with a number of spells that shed various "bad" things - like fire and the like.
Summoning spells require the drawing of circles, bargaining with entities, and the like. Except for creatures that can gate or teleport (demons basically), summoning spells don't make creatures pop into being out of thin air. If the creature is local, it shows up under its own power. To summon a creature such as a faerie (for example), you have to know its true name. Then there's a process for containing it, which again involves circles.
Wards can be set up, but beyond short term shield type stuff, most wards require the construction of a circle that then has to be activated with will (and magical mojo). Essentially a containment circle is an inverted ward designed to keep something IN rather than out.
There's also: divinations, which allow him to track things but need focus items and take a fair amount of time to cast; minor illusions, such as glamours (which change how something looks) or veils (which conceal something from sight); enchantments, which might charm or compel someone to act in a certain way; and necromancy, which can make the dead walk. As an aside, necromancy is kinda cool because the power of the undead summoned depends on the intelligence and age of the remains. Recently dead animals make weak undead, whereas humans who've been dead for a century or so can make for some pretty powerful spirits. Of course, as Harry demonstrates at one point, enough age can make up nicely for low intelligence.
The energy to cast spells comes from the physical energy of the caster, his emotional energy and his will. However, certain natural phenomena (like storms) can also be tapped. Harry can't keep going forever, but he can use love, rage, fear, and various other emotions to fuel his magic when he's physically exhausted. Some black magicians in the series use rituals to tap into the lust or fear of others for the same purpose. Again, he can't go "forever" but that's mostly a fatigue issue.
Magic has limits though. It's not great at handling physical objects. Only evocation works against those. So Harry can enchant his duster to stop fire, but against bullets, it's pretty shoddy. His shield (and all of his foci) improve as the series progresses and he becomes more experienced. Very often, an inexperienced caster can throw up a shield that will stop magic, but will be broken if it's penetrated by a nonmagical object (even something lame - like a thrown film canister). Or they might make one that's impervious to projectiles, but won't stop fire. More experienced casters learn to overcome this problem.
So yeah, I think D&D's focus on strictly "per day" has traditionally done a poor job of modelling the magic of THIS type of fiction. I can pull up other examples, but I think the point is made.
However, from what they've divulged so far, it looks like 4e's magic system will only need minor tweaking to model magic similarly to the way it's done in The Dresden Files. To the extent that it falls short, I imagine it'll be because they use "per day" and "per encounter" rather than some form of escalating fatigue system. It won't be because it allows for "per encounter" and "at-will" abilities - both of which, barring extreme fatigue, Harry has in spades.
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