Reworking Dailies into something more Inspired

[Garthanos]

D&D has Daily abilities which jar in a quite old fashioned sort of way for those who are playing spell casters they seem just something from previous edition But for others at least myself they grate a little as weird or just weirdly predictable restrictions on those who's power source isn't ummmm quite so arbitrarily defined. The fact is the renewal of Dailies could and maybe should be more abstract and less wedded to time. One possibility I have seen was allowing "Dailies" a 50 percent? chance to be recovered whenever you reach a "milestone"... Just calling them "Inspired Actions" and doing this improves them considerably flavor wise for me anyway.

Yes I am trolling for house rules in this category.

I am also interested in what people may be doing with the item daily.

 

[Blue]

Allowing dailies to recharge would change the balance of them. This isn't a bad thing, but is something to be considered.

I often see many characters with "standard" dailies keep a hefty number of them for hard fights, which commonly come near the end of an adventure. If dailies recharged, there would be a lot more early use of them, hoping to get two or more uses out of each daily.

I say "standard" dailies because some classes like the warden (guardian forms), barbarian (rages, though less so with rage strike) and such have dailies that work until end of encounter and only work one at a time, naturally speading daily usage. This different usage pattern would mean recharging would have a different effect on them. Many classes have this to a lesser extent as well, with stances, polymorphs, or other one-at-a-time powers.

This isn't saying "don't do it" at all - I'm saying go into it with your eyes open and see how it works out.

To get back to the "weirdly predicatable" part of this, another possible direction would be not to replace dailies at paragon and epic levels, but still keep the number of dailies per extended rest. So you have more choices, but same number of uses and a daily still can only be used once. It's minor power creep - allows taking more situational dailies, but it breaks up the "these are what I do every day".

I had a lot of conceptual issues with one use per day of powers from martial and other sources when 4e first came out. A friend told me not to think of them as "this is what my character can do", but "this is a dramatic moment that'll come up only once in a day, and you'll know how to take advantage of it". Same exact mechanical result, but helps justify powers mentally as daily and encounter.

 

[Zinovia]

For item dailies, I allow the use of 1/2/3 daily item powers per encounter for heroic/ paragon/ epic tiers respectively. Each item can still only be used once per day.

That change went a long way to encourage people to use their daily power items, which previously they had been hoarding until the time was right (and often past it, so they never got used). I also found a problem with utility items that are daily such as the instant campsite. Nice item for flavor purposes, but it used up someone's daily item use! When I found the group giving it to the one guy who had an encounter property on his weapon, so they could use their own single daily item per day, I realized that things had to change. I want the group to be free to use fun items like that without worrying about it. My houserule has worked fine, and helped items with daily powers be more desirable compared to those with active properties than they were under RAW.

As for daily powers, I will be adding an aspect and fate point system like that from FATE/SotC, and one of the uses of fate points will be that one can be spent to recharge an encounter power, or two can be spent to recharge a daily. That usage was mentioned in the "Purple index card" thread, and I'm stealing it entirely. I am hoping that introducing this system will encourage more roleplaying, and add some options for the characters to get their fun powers back if the dice are running a bit cold and some of their good stuff goes to waste early in the fight.

Some dailies have pretty weak "Miss" effects compared to others, and I think the players would rather just miss the turn sometimes, so long as they can somehow get that power back.

Your idea of a chance to recharge after a milestone is good, but I'm not sure if the percentage is at the right point. Maybe 1/3 (recharge 5, 6) would be appropriate?

How about this:
After reaching a milestone you gain one pip on a d6 recharge die for an expended daily power (recharge 6). Roll one time when that happens. If you make the recharge roll or take an extended rest, the recharge number is reset back to 0. If you fail to make the recharge roll, you can add another pip to the die after your next milestone (recharge 5,6). Keep adding pips to the recharge die after each milestone until you regain the use of that daily, or take an extended rest.

This lets you do something for each milestone, and helps encourage longer adventuring days since each milestone increases their chance to get back their daily power. You could implement this for one daily at a time only, or for all of them that were used, although that involves more bookkeeping.

 

[Garthanos]

"this is a dramatic moment that'll come up only once in a day, and you'll know how to take advantage of it". .

I like the idea of how making it "this is a dramatic moment that will come up every so often"

I am also presuming that extended rests do no restore them just milestones., and only maybe. It targets the predictability not the potency... but if you dont use them then you cant recover them or risk not recovering them when you need them.

 

[Garthanos]

For item dailies, I allow the use of 1/2/3 daily item powers per encounter for heroic/ paragon/ epic tiers respectively. Each item can still only be used once per day.

That change went a long way to encourage people to use their daily power items, which previously they had been hoarding until the time was right (and often past it, so they never got used). I also found a problem with utility items that are daily such as the instant campsite. Nice item for flavor purposes, but it used up someone's daily item use! When I found the group giving it to the one guy who had an encounter property on his weapon, so they could use their own single daily item per day, I realized that things had to change. I want the group to be free to use fun items like that without worrying about it. My houserule has worked fine, and helped items with daily powers be more desirable compared to those with active properties than they were under RAW.

I understand that they want the hero more important than his toys...

As for daily powers, I will be adding an aspect and fate point system like that from FATE/SotC, and one of the uses of fate points will be that one can be spent to recharge an encounter power, or two can be spent to recharge a daily. That usage was mentioned in the "Purple index card" thread, and I'm stealing it entirely. I am hoping that introducing this system will encourage more roleplaying, and add some options for the characters to get their fun powers back if the dice are running a bit cold and some of their good stuff goes to waste early in the fight.

Some dailies have pretty weak "Miss" effects compared to others, and I think the players would rather just miss the turn sometimes, so long as they can somehow get that power back.

Your idea of a chance to recharge after a milestone is good, but I'm not sure if the percentage is at the right point. Maybe 1/3 (recharge 5, 6) would be appropriate?

How about this:
After reaching a milestone you gain one pip on a d6 recharge die for an expended daily power (recharge 6). Roll one time when that happens. If you make the recharge roll or take an extended rest, the recharge number is reset back to 0. If you fail to make the recharge roll, you can add another pip to the die after your next milestone (recharge 5,6). Keep adding pips to the recharge die after each milestone until you regain the use of that daily, or take an extended rest.

This lets you do something for each milestone, and helps encourage longer adventuring days since each milestone increases their chance to get back their daily power. You could implement this for one daily at a time only, or for all of them that were used, although that involves more bookkeeping.

roll d6 for each used daily when you reach a milestone.... you are talking about making recovery chances progress... (too much bookkeeping).

A milestone just means a set of encounters so we could make it each encounter with sufficiently low chance of recovery.

A full stop rest might increase the chances of a recovery or allow 1 extra chance of recovering an inspired power.

I definitely want to start using Fate points in our game... and I can definitely see how they might connect up with inspired powers.

Zinovia you got me wanting to do rules hijinx how far is Colorado to Nebraska (you might be one of the closer Enworlders on here). Ah I gues that was NMcoy that brought up the Fate points (but Tacoma Wa sounds uber far.)

 

[Blue]

A quick question about using milestones. Daily attack powers and the majority of daily utility powers are primarily useful only in combat. Milestone count any encounter, skill challenges as well. So combat, combat, combat, SC, SC will have had one milestone to recharge, while combat, SC, combat, SC, combat would have had two.

 

[Garthanos]

A quick question about using milestones. Daily attack powers and the majority of daily utility powers are primarily useful only in combat. Milestone count any encounter, skill challenges as well. So combat, combat, combat, SC, SC will have had one milestone to recharge, while combat, SC, combat, SC, combat would have had two.

Subtlety of the Green Wyrm popped immediately in to mind...a daily that is very useful during a SC.

Note Tied to time has a sumilar issue... some people don't necessarily have combat encounters per time period X and others have a lot. So some can pretty much always use there dailies without worry and others have to be more strategic.

I get the point though it needs to be considered.

 

[eriktheguy]

You could put 'resting points' in your adventures. These are places where rest is easy to take. When you take a short rest at a resting point, roll a d6 for each daily power, and recharge on a (I don't know? 5?). You cannot use the same resting point in this way again until you take an extended rest.

Resting points can be any sort of place where rest is obviously safer and more comfortable than 'chilling in the dungeon for 5 minutes'. A pleasant freshwater spring surrounded in edible fungi in the filthy underdark, a quiet pub in a dangerous city, a vacant cottage in the haunted forest.

Resting points can be spontaneous (after you noticed the players taking their time talking and enjoying themselves in a pub, you inform them that they gain the benefits of a resting point) or the players can search for them intentionally (23 on your nature check? "You find a peaceful grove well guarded by tall trees", or, "You track down a kill a fat hog, and prepare a meal of mouthwatering bacon for the party. 18 on your streetwise check? "You know a place in town where the drinks are to die for and the chat is good too".)
These sorts of resting points add to the campaign because they encourage players to role-play in normally low-action zones, develop characters by socializing, or use their skills to benefit the party.
Another advantage is that you can control when they get to recharge dailies. ("Nah, they're stalking through the desert, they should know to conserve their Dailies!")

Holy $h!^! I've got to write this down somewhere!

You could also drop potions of 'recover a daily'. This is less of a fix because it encourages spamming their best daily and they will always be hesitant to use the potion. You could drop potions of 'roll d6 for each daily, recharge on x'. I would make potions rare and time-limited ("The priestess blesses several vials of water and hands one to each of you, saying that the magic will bolster your spirits and renew your strength, but will fade after one fortnight").

Edit: Resting points could replace milestones for action point recharge

 

[eriktheguy]

Sorry. I liked my idea so much that I had to make it. Self gratification at 80% and rising. Hey, you said you wanted house rules!
View attachment Resting Points.pdf

 

[Garthanos]

Sorry. I liked my idea so much that I had to make it. Self gratification at 80% and rising. Hey, you said you wanted house rules!
View attachment 43035

Definitely got some interesting elements going on.
Hmmmmm resting... not sure about the term ;-) even though the implementation sounds interesting.

Spontaneous (aka dm controlled) Inspirational Places and Occurances... Could mix in elements of the Fate Aspect idea... individuals have things which are personally inspiring ... watching the climax of a storm for instance.... for that one character the event may act as inspirational occurrence but not necessarily everyone else there aspects are how they tell the DM, this is something personally defining for this character.

How about inspiring performances (ie the inspiration - recovery check could be triggered by rituals).
A ritual could be a Bardic Performance or Martial Speach or Religious Rite which triggers 1 or more recovery rolls of inspired abilities (formally known as dailies). The Eladrin Trance... I treat as a ritual that you could learn too ... it becomes sleep replacement so if extended rest allows a recovery check too this is just more of the same.