D&D 5E Players Only: How Often Should Your Character Be Able to "Go Nova"?

[Ancalagon]

I think it depends on the "strength" of the nova. For a fighter, going nova is action surge. For a paladin it's smite. At higher level, the paladin can have a much bigger nova than a fighter, buuuut not as often. So that balances out.

 

[Lanefan]

How about never? Using all of your resources should take a significant amount of time. You shouldn't be able to expend them all at once.

Agreed. "Never" would have got my vote had it been an option.

As it is, the poll assumes all abilities are going to refresh at the same time, with the only variable being the amount of time between refreshes. This may be a faulty assumption, in that not everything has to refresh at the same rate and IMO it makes for more interesting design and-or player choices when it doesn't.

For example, hit points might only refresh fractionally on an overnight rest (e.g. you get back x% of your total rather than all of them). Spells might only refresh to a certain number of slots per level; to refresh the rest you have to wait till tomorrow. Meanwhile some martial maneuvers and stunts might refresh every hour.

 

[Tonguez]

I voted on a long rest as one of the balancing drawbacks I put on Giant NPCx is that those over 12ft tall need 12 hours of rest (those over 20 ft need 20 hrs of rest) - it explained why in folklore giants are so often slain while theyre sleeping

 

[CleverNickName]

once per short rest i think, if i had to pick ONE for everyone it would be by short rests, but i would probably be lowering the bar for how much damage/control/healing/whatever each individual nova gets you,

Once per encounter. Trying to force resources to last across multiple encounters break any chance of balance in the game.

Remember, the assumption in the first post is that the game would be balanced according to whatever you chose. How? I have no idea, but for the purpose of this discussion we will assume it is, and to the satisfaction of all.


I ended up changing my vote. I think that assuming the game would be balanced according to my preference, I'd prefer to have all of my character's resources reset at the beginning of each gaming session. Why?

• The five-minute workday goes away. No begging for naps, no DM-imposed time pressure, the story stays on-track because no matter how many times we go back to town, no matter how many midday naps we get, no matter how many snack breaks we take...everyone's resource pools remain unchanged.
• Easier bookkeeping. No recalculating everything several times across the gaming session, no need to drop everything and reset a half-dozen numbers because That One Player begged for a nap or dragged their feet for 24 game-hours.
• Better cliffhangers and grand finales. Since your resources are all going to reset at the next gaming session, you really have no incentive to hoard them...so as the evening draws to a close, we trigger-happy players will be itching to burn them before we declare the session is over. The final hour of every gaming session will end with a bang--if anyone is going to choose the nuclear option, THIS would be the time for it.

 

[CleverNickName]

How about never? Using all of your resources should take a significant amount of time. You shouldn't be able to expend them all at once.

Not a bad idea either.

 

[overgeeked]

Remember, the assumption in the first post is that the game would be balanced according to whatever you chose.

And that's the problem. The game literally cannot be balanced around one recharge for multiple encounters. Because then you cannot avoid the five-minute workday, or whatever new variant pops up. Gamers will wheedle their way into whatever recharge they can to get as much of their resources back as they can before every single fight. That's just what gamers do. Any time period longer than per encounter will inevitably result in the gamers at the table trying to...well...game the system. Hell, even with a per encounter recharge they'll probably try to run away and disengage so they can get a "new encounter" when they re-engage the same enemy.

I ended up changing my vote. I think that assuming the game would be balanced according to my preference, I'd prefer to have all of my character's resources reset at the beginning of each gaming session. Why?

• The five-minute workday goes away. No begging for naps, no DM-imposed time pressure, the story stays on-track because no matter how many times we go back to town, no matter how many midday naps we get, no matter how many snack breaks we take...everyone's resource pools stay the same for the whole night.
• Easier bookkeeping. No recalculating everything several times across the gaming session, no need to drop everything and reset a half-dozen numbers because That One Player begged for a nap, or dragged their feet for 24 game-hours.
• Better cliffhangers and grand finales. Since your resources are all going to reset at the next gaming session, you really have no incentive to hoard them...so as the evening draws to a close, we trigger-happy players will be itching to burn them before we declare the session is over. The final hour of every gaming session will end with a bang.

I don't think it would play out like you hope. Because that requires the gamers at the table to not game the system. That's what gamers do. So they'll hoard their resources until they get to the first fight, nova during that fight, then spend the rest of the session doing whatever they can to not get into another encounter. It might dramatically increase the amount the players actually roleplay, because they'll spend the next three hours roleplaying with every shopkeeper and random NPC they can find...even each other.

To be clear, anything that doesn't take into account the gamers desire to min-max won't work because the gamers will inevitably min-max. Whatever the recharge is, they'll want one full recharge for every fight. At least. Anything less and they'll game whatever that mechanic is to get it.

 

[CleverNickName]

And that's the problem. The game literally cannot be balanced around one recharge for multiple encounters.

It's not just a problem, it's a fixation....there are already several threads about balancing rests and resources, and they always end up in the same place. I'm trying to focus on the fun and creative parts.

We all know it's futile. But just this once, and just for the sake of discussion, how would you prefer resource management to work in your game, if balance would be perfect no matter what you chose?

I don't think it would play out like you hope. Because that requires the gamers at the table to not game the system. That's what gamers do. So they'll hoard their resources until they get to the first fight, nova during that fight, then spend the rest of the session doing whatever they can to not get into another encounter. It might dramatically increase the amount the players actually roleplay, because they'll spend the next three hours roleplaying with every shopkeeper and random NPC they can find...even each other.

Probably not, but I'd sure like to try (if only for the parts you mentioned, that I underlined.)

 

[Vaalingrade]

Encounter based design is most based design.

 

[Lanefan]

Remember, the assumption in the first post is that the game would be balanced according to whatever you chose. How? I have no idea, but for the purpose of this discussion we will assume it is, and to the satisfaction of all.


I ended up changing my vote. I think that assuming the game would be balanced according to my preference, I'd prefer to have all of my character's resources reset at the beginning of each gaming session. Why?

• The five-minute workday goes away. No begging for naps, no DM-imposed time pressure, the story stays on-track because no matter how many times we go back to town, no matter how many midday naps we get, no matter how many snack breaks we take...everyone's resource pools remain unchanged.
• Easier bookkeeping. No recalculating everything several times across the gaming session, no need to drop everything and reset a half-dozen numbers because That One Player begged for a nap or dragged their feet for 24 game-hours.
• Better cliffhangers and grand finales. Since your resources are all going to reset at the next gaming session, you really have no incentive to hoard them...so as the evening draws to a close, we trigger-happy players will be itching to burn them before we declare the session is over. The final hour of every gaming session will end with a bang--if anyone is going to choose the nuclear option, THIS would be the time for it.

All far too meta for my liking. The length of the real-world session should have no impact whatsoever on what the characters are doing - or are able to do - in the fiction.

 

[Minigiant]

this is something i think is desirable, being able to nova while at the same time not being mechanically able to drop absolutely all your resources in one go, but i picked short rests in the interest of not making your best abilities something you use every battle and diminishing their percieved value as a result

My preference would be close to something like the 4e Barbarian.

As a reminder: The 4e Barbarian had 3 rages per day.
Because Rage is a buff, you can't stack them and normally can't use 2 rages in an encounter. So you can't go full nova like everyone else. You can lesser nova 3 times a day.

Except you can. Barbarians get Rage Strike which lets you burn a rage to nova to deal bonus damage while raging. You can do this twice, once for each additional rage.

My preference would be that you can only do this in 5e but once per rage. Effectively you can nova equall to half your rages. Which comes out to be 2-3 times a day.


@CleverNickName which option is Twice/Thrice per day?