Gold Roger
First Post
This is no 4th edition speculation, rather it's an idea I'd like to put forward considering the general future of the game.
The new way of rescource handling
This is an idea I've been considering for some time now, born from some thoughts of my own and looking at the warlock class, as well as Monte Cooks recent suggestion of semi-vancian spellcasters that also have some warlock like at will stuff, the "I want to do something cool every round" thread and the blog entry that spawned said thread.
I'm in high support of a system like Monte suggested. Spellcasters generally retain a bit of their recource management aspect by still having spellslots, in fact fever spell slots than now, but they also gain at-will abilities to compensate for those times they don't have a spell to sling.
I've begun to wonder where buffs play into such a system as well as on Buffs in general.
Critique on Buffs
Buffs are often seen with little favor, especially by those discontent with the current edition.
1) Duration:
There's basically three durations for buffs in the game:
1 hour/level buffs hold for the whole adventuring part of a day. The only trouble is choosing when to cast one, adding a small bit of annoying micro management in between the gaming session. Other than that, they might just as well hold all day.
1 second/level buffs can be cast for one encounter and will from then hold for exactly that one encounter. Unless you play low level they just can be cast before a battle instead of during it.
1 minute/level buffs are the real doozies. They are also some of the most major buffs of the game. Why are they so troublesome? They need to be cast at a point when you know you'll need them. They hold longer than one encounter, but not much longer. Once these things have been cast it becomes a mad rush to get as much out of them as possible. They are a pain to keep track of. I don't want to look how many rounds you need to get from a) to b) for your buffs if it would be completely irrellevant otherwhise.
2) The power difference between a buffed and unbuffed group is huge:
Especially at high levels, a fully buffed grouped can completely smear a unbuffed group of the otherwise exactly same powerlevel. And because you have to know exactly when to cast you buffs, it's easy to be caught in such a situation (all haters of scry-buff-teleport will tell so much-though I'm not even one of them). And such smearings tend not to be fun when they happen all the time.
Further this power difference means that buffing up becomes pretty much mandatory. Which in turn means, once the buffs have run out, the group needs to rest up again.
3) Buffing drains up many recources, before there even is a combat:
The mere process of buffing up before engaging an enemy can easily drain half or more of a spellcasters significant spells before a combat even beginns. Then during that one combat, the others spells can be burned away quickly as well. And then you have the problem of a group that has to rest after every combat.
4) Buffing is one of the most complicated thing to keep track of:
How long do Bob's Bulls Strength, Protection from Evil, Cat's Grace and Haste each hold till they run out. How many rounds does the BBEG have to cast his buffs. How long will each keep up. What stacks with what?
The DM can't keep up with everything. He can delegate it to his players, but then he constantly has to tell them how many round, minutes etc went by since x. The players will make mistakes stacking things up and tracking time, wittingly or unwittingly.
5) Buffing disrupts the flow of the game:
Buffing takes time out of game. But it isn't done at a dramatical high, it happens right before the action. I don't like breaking my games at their most dramatic points for a bunch of rule looking and accounting.
6) Buffs get around the natural cost of one action for a spell:
Generally, I'd say spells are balanced with the condition in mind that every spell you cast in combat essentialy means you can't do something else that round. But most buffs can be cast at least just before the next combat, essentially removing that cost for power ratio.
7) Buffing is anticlimatic:
This isn't true for all buffs. Haste and Righteous might are flashy and dramatic.
However, the pure act of buffing is very anticlimatic.
I mean, a priest that, when hard pressed calls out to his god and becomes a frikkin big killing machine is just darn cool. A cleric that does so relaxed before every combat, then shrinks back after combat and says, sorry, can't fight anymore before tomorrow, I lost my righteous might, is definitely not climatic.
And most buffs are plain booring boni. Add Strength, add AC, add DR, add HP, add AB, add damage. Most don't even come with any flashy visuals, and even if, it becomes stale after it happens every day. And "Bob becomes really strong", just isn't as cool as "the fire explodes among the orcs, badly singing their leaders and litterally blasting their lesser warriors appart". Even after you heard both a thousand times.
Which means, they aren't even worth much of the hassle, beside the almost mandatory streight power-up.
8) Buffing, as it is, has little traditional fantasy or even D&D gaming precedence:
Usually, when someone comes along and complains that D&D isn't LotR or doesn't emulate classic fantasy genres well, I'll be the first to point out that D&D is pretty much a genre of its own.
But buffing, as it is, is carrying it to far, even for me, a person that doesn't give much for traditional fantasy. It's propably because the current buffing is so darn bland. It doesn't evoke much of a feel. It's simply a power-up suit that isn't even appropiate of the "medieval superheroes" high level groups tend to become.
Don't misunderstand me. Buffing isn't destroying my game. In fact, I personally had little problem with buffing so far. But I think buffing as a whole can be vastly improved to say the least.
Idea on improving buffs
Now, one could simply remove buffs from the game. But I think that would take away something that has the potential to improve the game. It would pretty much destroy the transmutation school. Besides, magic should be able to do pretty much everything, including making people stronger, tougher, hasting them or making clerics into large paragons.
I think I've come uppon a cobination of two kinds of buffs that pretty much could solve most of these problems, fit the above original idea of a vancian/incantation hybrid and have them all still as spells.
The one kind of these buffs are Wardings. I have little reference in fantasy literature, but I think sentences like "Beware, these mages have powerfull wardings upon them." are rather usual.
Wardings are continual buffs that stay mostly in the background, but an opponent with wardings is considerably tougher than one without. A Warding can't be waited out, the only way to get rid of a Warding is dispelling it.
In technical terms a warding is a buff with a 24 hour duration. Basically you exchange one of your spell slots for a continous power-up. Wardings should generally be a bit lower on power than current buffs and many should be only personal as well (though not all).
Wardings move the accounting part of buffing to the post-rest phase of the game, where there is a general action low and a slowdown in the pacing anyway. It removes some of the accounting, because there isn't a thousand different durations to keep track of anymore.
Surprise attacks loose some of their punch. You don't have to guess when to buff anymore. There isn't such a big power difference between buffed and unbuffed anymore, since the mages (not the most intimidating direct combatants) are carrying most wardings and the buffs aren't that powerfull anymore.
As an added bonus, the fighter/mage archtype gets quite a boost because he can cast a slew of personal Wardings (other fighters couldn't benefit from) before strapping on his armor.
Last, but not least, Wardings last all day, remove a bit the need to rest after every fight.
The other type is Boosts. Boosts are flashy spells you can use in a pinch to give you, your group or one of you companions a temporary powerup. Boosts are spells like haste, righteous might or improved invisibility.
Boosts give boni as high as current buffs, in fact even better, but they have super short durations, like three, two, one or 1d4 rounds that don't key of caster level. Instead the Power up increases with a higher caster level.
Boosts are flashy affairs you don't need all the time, but that can really turn the tables, but don't last. They are more like desintegrate or fireball than bulls strength.
Boosts are far more in line with evocative fantasy imagery. The priest doesn't do some praying before teleporting into the evil ones throne room and suddenly is really big- when assaulting said throneroom and becoming constricted by a horrible snakemonster he calls on his god in righteous wrath, suddenly expands on the divine power that fills him, overtakes the grapple and smites the beast into oblivion (yes, I'd make righteous might-the boost a swift action).
One thing that is further advantegous about these suggestion is that they can be templated. For those not familiar with the term in general game design, templating is the practise of putting certain mechanics under reference name for easier collective use and reference. Examples for templating in D&D are spell schools, creature types and conditions.
By templating them, you'd see right in the type of the spell how it basically works and you can put restrictions into the rules like "No character can benefit from more than five Wardings" or "a character can only ever be affected by one Boost at the same time".
So with:
Bulls Strength
Transmutation(Warding)
Everyone reading the spell immediatly knows it last 24 hours. Further he'd know that this spell can be combined with up to 4 other Wardings.
Now, I'll be happy for your comments. This is far from a finalised idea, but a suggestion I'd like some feedback on.
I appologize for any typo's and grammatical errors that might have slipped by. Long post, non-native speaker, self editing, bad with spelling bla-bla jadda-jadda, you get the point.
The new way of rescource handling
This is an idea I've been considering for some time now, born from some thoughts of my own and looking at the warlock class, as well as Monte Cooks recent suggestion of semi-vancian spellcasters that also have some warlock like at will stuff, the "I want to do something cool every round" thread and the blog entry that spawned said thread.
I'm in high support of a system like Monte suggested. Spellcasters generally retain a bit of their recource management aspect by still having spellslots, in fact fever spell slots than now, but they also gain at-will abilities to compensate for those times they don't have a spell to sling.
I've begun to wonder where buffs play into such a system as well as on Buffs in general.
Critique on Buffs
Buffs are often seen with little favor, especially by those discontent with the current edition.
1) Duration:
There's basically three durations for buffs in the game:
1 hour/level buffs hold for the whole adventuring part of a day. The only trouble is choosing when to cast one, adding a small bit of annoying micro management in between the gaming session. Other than that, they might just as well hold all day.
1 second/level buffs can be cast for one encounter and will from then hold for exactly that one encounter. Unless you play low level they just can be cast before a battle instead of during it.
1 minute/level buffs are the real doozies. They are also some of the most major buffs of the game. Why are they so troublesome? They need to be cast at a point when you know you'll need them. They hold longer than one encounter, but not much longer. Once these things have been cast it becomes a mad rush to get as much out of them as possible. They are a pain to keep track of. I don't want to look how many rounds you need to get from a) to b) for your buffs if it would be completely irrellevant otherwhise.
2) The power difference between a buffed and unbuffed group is huge:
Especially at high levels, a fully buffed grouped can completely smear a unbuffed group of the otherwise exactly same powerlevel. And because you have to know exactly when to cast you buffs, it's easy to be caught in such a situation (all haters of scry-buff-teleport will tell so much-though I'm not even one of them). And such smearings tend not to be fun when they happen all the time.
Further this power difference means that buffing up becomes pretty much mandatory. Which in turn means, once the buffs have run out, the group needs to rest up again.
3) Buffing drains up many recources, before there even is a combat:
The mere process of buffing up before engaging an enemy can easily drain half or more of a spellcasters significant spells before a combat even beginns. Then during that one combat, the others spells can be burned away quickly as well. And then you have the problem of a group that has to rest after every combat.
4) Buffing is one of the most complicated thing to keep track of:
How long do Bob's Bulls Strength, Protection from Evil, Cat's Grace and Haste each hold till they run out. How many rounds does the BBEG have to cast his buffs. How long will each keep up. What stacks with what?
The DM can't keep up with everything. He can delegate it to his players, but then he constantly has to tell them how many round, minutes etc went by since x. The players will make mistakes stacking things up and tracking time, wittingly or unwittingly.
5) Buffing disrupts the flow of the game:
Buffing takes time out of game. But it isn't done at a dramatical high, it happens right before the action. I don't like breaking my games at their most dramatic points for a bunch of rule looking and accounting.
6) Buffs get around the natural cost of one action for a spell:
Generally, I'd say spells are balanced with the condition in mind that every spell you cast in combat essentialy means you can't do something else that round. But most buffs can be cast at least just before the next combat, essentially removing that cost for power ratio.
7) Buffing is anticlimatic:
This isn't true for all buffs. Haste and Righteous might are flashy and dramatic.
However, the pure act of buffing is very anticlimatic.
I mean, a priest that, when hard pressed calls out to his god and becomes a frikkin big killing machine is just darn cool. A cleric that does so relaxed before every combat, then shrinks back after combat and says, sorry, can't fight anymore before tomorrow, I lost my righteous might, is definitely not climatic.
And most buffs are plain booring boni. Add Strength, add AC, add DR, add HP, add AB, add damage. Most don't even come with any flashy visuals, and even if, it becomes stale after it happens every day. And "Bob becomes really strong", just isn't as cool as "the fire explodes among the orcs, badly singing their leaders and litterally blasting their lesser warriors appart". Even after you heard both a thousand times.
Which means, they aren't even worth much of the hassle, beside the almost mandatory streight power-up.
8) Buffing, as it is, has little traditional fantasy or even D&D gaming precedence:
Usually, when someone comes along and complains that D&D isn't LotR or doesn't emulate classic fantasy genres well, I'll be the first to point out that D&D is pretty much a genre of its own.
But buffing, as it is, is carrying it to far, even for me, a person that doesn't give much for traditional fantasy. It's propably because the current buffing is so darn bland. It doesn't evoke much of a feel. It's simply a power-up suit that isn't even appropiate of the "medieval superheroes" high level groups tend to become.
Don't misunderstand me. Buffing isn't destroying my game. In fact, I personally had little problem with buffing so far. But I think buffing as a whole can be vastly improved to say the least.
Idea on improving buffs
Now, one could simply remove buffs from the game. But I think that would take away something that has the potential to improve the game. It would pretty much destroy the transmutation school. Besides, magic should be able to do pretty much everything, including making people stronger, tougher, hasting them or making clerics into large paragons.
I think I've come uppon a cobination of two kinds of buffs that pretty much could solve most of these problems, fit the above original idea of a vancian/incantation hybrid and have them all still as spells.
The one kind of these buffs are Wardings. I have little reference in fantasy literature, but I think sentences like "Beware, these mages have powerfull wardings upon them." are rather usual.
Wardings are continual buffs that stay mostly in the background, but an opponent with wardings is considerably tougher than one without. A Warding can't be waited out, the only way to get rid of a Warding is dispelling it.
In technical terms a warding is a buff with a 24 hour duration. Basically you exchange one of your spell slots for a continous power-up. Wardings should generally be a bit lower on power than current buffs and many should be only personal as well (though not all).
Wardings move the accounting part of buffing to the post-rest phase of the game, where there is a general action low and a slowdown in the pacing anyway. It removes some of the accounting, because there isn't a thousand different durations to keep track of anymore.
Surprise attacks loose some of their punch. You don't have to guess when to buff anymore. There isn't such a big power difference between buffed and unbuffed anymore, since the mages (not the most intimidating direct combatants) are carrying most wardings and the buffs aren't that powerfull anymore.
As an added bonus, the fighter/mage archtype gets quite a boost because he can cast a slew of personal Wardings (other fighters couldn't benefit from) before strapping on his armor.
Last, but not least, Wardings last all day, remove a bit the need to rest after every fight.
The other type is Boosts. Boosts are flashy spells you can use in a pinch to give you, your group or one of you companions a temporary powerup. Boosts are spells like haste, righteous might or improved invisibility.
Boosts give boni as high as current buffs, in fact even better, but they have super short durations, like three, two, one or 1d4 rounds that don't key of caster level. Instead the Power up increases with a higher caster level.
Boosts are flashy affairs you don't need all the time, but that can really turn the tables, but don't last. They are more like desintegrate or fireball than bulls strength.
Boosts are far more in line with evocative fantasy imagery. The priest doesn't do some praying before teleporting into the evil ones throne room and suddenly is really big- when assaulting said throneroom and becoming constricted by a horrible snakemonster he calls on his god in righteous wrath, suddenly expands on the divine power that fills him, overtakes the grapple and smites the beast into oblivion (yes, I'd make righteous might-the boost a swift action).
One thing that is further advantegous about these suggestion is that they can be templated. For those not familiar with the term in general game design, templating is the practise of putting certain mechanics under reference name for easier collective use and reference. Examples for templating in D&D are spell schools, creature types and conditions.
By templating them, you'd see right in the type of the spell how it basically works and you can put restrictions into the rules like "No character can benefit from more than five Wardings" or "a character can only ever be affected by one Boost at the same time".
So with:
Bulls Strength
Transmutation(Warding)
Everyone reading the spell immediatly knows it last 24 hours. Further he'd know that this spell can be combined with up to 4 other Wardings.
Now, I'll be happy for your comments. This is far from a finalised idea, but a suggestion I'd like some feedback on.
I appologize for any typo's and grammatical errors that might have slipped by. Long post, non-native speaker, self editing, bad with spelling bla-bla jadda-jadda, you get the point.
