6E Theory Theory Craft: Should Nova Abilities Be Cut?

[Zardnaar]

Ahh, but, you have the Essentials classes, which, IIRC, removed all the dailies. Or at least most of them.

Not familiar enough with them.

 

[Zardnaar]

because then it would be at-will powers

My bad wasnt clear. Always available to be used in the encounter. Recharges start of combat vs 5 or 1 minute or 1 hour rest.

 

[Toe Knee Nose]

4E had massive HP bloat that made combat inherently sloggy, a lower to-hit rate than 5E, far fewer "no actually I hit" buttons, a smaller number average of powers per character, and only three saving throws. It's not a super useful comparison here.

The HP bloat was fixed fairly quickly. And, a lower hit rate than 5e? How do you figure? The basic math had PC's succeeding 66% of the time on most attacks. Sure, it might get shifted up or down situationally, but, by and large, they hit 66% of the time. And how do 3 saving throws matter? Since we're removing nova powers, the majority of saving throw effects are gone too. I thought the point of this exercise was to strip out nova powers which, in 5e terms, strips out 4/5th of the classes in the game. All the full casters are nothing but nova powers. Even the half-casters are still pretty loaded with nova powers - Paladins, Warlocks are both pretty nova heavy. Even something like a Battlemaster Fighter runs out of Mastery Dice pretty quickly.

If we're talking about 4e on release? Sure, I'd buy these arguments. But, there's no reason to limit ourselves to a single book.

Compared to the examples in the OP, the 4e classes are just about right for numbers of powers. Particularly the Essentials classes. But even the base classes with Dailies aren't like Dailies in 5e. To give you an idea, a 5th level Wizard Daily (PHB 1 only) - Fireball - deals 3d6 damage. Compare that to a 5e fireball which deals 8d6.

 

[Zardnaar]

The HP bloat was fixed fairly quickly. And, a lower hit rate than 5e? How do you figure? The basic math had PC's succeeding 66% of the time on most attacks. Sure, it might get shifted up or down situationally, but, by and large, they hit 66% of the time. And how do 3 saving throws matter? Since we're removing nova powers, the majority of saving throw effects are gone too. I thought the point of this exercise was to strip out nova powers which, in 5e terms, strips out 4/5th of the classes in the game. All the full casters are nothing but nova powers. Even the half-casters are still pretty loaded with nova powers - Paladins, Warlocks are both pretty nova heavy. Even something like a Battlemaster Fighter runs out of Mastery Dice pretty quickly.

If we're talking about 4e on release? Sure, I'd buy these arguments. But, there's no reason to limit ourselves to a single book.

Compared to the examples in the OP, the 4e classes are just about right for numbers of powers. Particularly the Essentials classes. But even the base classes with Dailies aren't like Dailies in 5e. To give you an idea, a 5th level Wizard Daily (PHB 1 only) - Fireball - deals 3d6 damage. Compare that to a 5e fireball which deals 8d6.

Most of us didnt hang around for later 4E books. Anything after phb/dmg/mm falls into technically correct territory.

4E phb is fairly useless these days. Not bad to mine though.

 

[Toe Knee Nose]

Most of us didnt hang around for later 4E books. Anything after phb/dmg/mm falls into technically correct territory.

4E phb is fairly useless these days. Not bad to mine though.

Well, the only thing that you really need to change is the monster HP. Everything else is fine. The 4e PHB doesn't have any major problems. It was the 4e Monster Manual that needed fixing and the 4e DMG with Skill challenges that needed work as well. But the PHB? Naw, it's good.

And, I'd point out, the easy way around 4e doing nova damage is just limit characters to dailies that don't deal damage. Every class had them. Limit dailies to stuff that's either purely defensive or utility. Solves that problem. I mean, a 4e character only has 3 dailies from class up to 20th level. It's not a big deal.

 

[Zardnaar]

Well, the only thing that you really need to change is the monster HP. Everything else is fine. The 4e PHB doesn't have any major problems. It was the 4e Monster Manual that needed fixing and the 4e DMG with Skill challenges that needed work as well. But the PHB? Naw, it's good.

And, I'd point out, the easy way around 4e doing nova damage is just limit characters to dailies that don't deal damage. Every class had them. Limit dailies to stuff that's either purely defensive or utility. Solves that problem. I mean, a 4e character only has 3 dailies from class up to 20th level. It's not a big deal.

Nova existing makes monster math hard. 5E bloated hp but high damage.

4E bloated hp low damage.

3E might be about right for modern D&D. 3.5 had more than 3.0. 3.0 monsters were glass cannons.

4E big problems the playstyle alot of it caused by its speed even the "fixed" version.

You notice it a lot when you play pre 3E and OSR.
4E-5.5 all have bloated hp so your nova abilities aren't doing that much relatively Just making the game more complicated, more math and taking longer.

Boom spells similar idea. Fireball 8d6 damage. CR 2 45-68 hp.

 

[Toe Knee Nose]

Oh, hey, you'll get no argument from me about the initial monster HP. But, again, if you stick to the revised HP, where monsters were nowhere near as bloated, and stick to the actual encounter design guidelines where your base units are skirmishers (ie, very low HP and low defenses, but highly mobile), all those problems go away.

When we played 4e, we were routinely going through 3-6 encounters per 3 hour session even into double digit levels.

3e is nova city. Everything is nova because the encounters typically only last 3 rounds. There just wasn't enough time for anything else.

1e or 2e? Yeah, very little nova because outside of MU's, nobody had dailies that did damage particularly. Clerics had virtually no direct damage spells until 4th or 5th level spells. So, yeah, nova wasn't a problem typically. IME, what tended to dictate the pace of the game was the cleric running out of healing. When the cure light wounds ran out, the day was over.

 

[Zardnaar]

Oh, hey, you'll get no argument from me about the initial monster HP. But, again, if you stick to the revised HP, where monsters were nowhere near as bloated, and stick to the actual encounter design guidelines where your base units are skirmishers (ie, very low HP and low defenses, but highly mobile), all those problems go away.

When we played 4e, we were routinely going through 3-6 encounters per 3 hour session even into double digit levels.

3e is nova city. Everything is nova because the encounters typically only last 3 rounds. There just wasn't enough time for anything else.

1e or 2e? Yeah, very little nova because outside of MU's, nobody had dailies that did damage particularly. Clerics had virtually no direct damage spells until 4th or 5th level spells. So, yeah, nova wasn't a problem typically. IME, what tended to dictate the pace of the game was the cleric running out of healing. When the cure light wounds ran out, the day was over.

Yeah cleric runs out we're done. For us healers run out no hit dice or close to it. In a Dungeon anyway. Ymmv of course.

Late 4E did you guys play strikers with veteran players? I remember seeing 5 players but 3 striker type parties online. No idea how widespread that was.

Pkder D&D you coukd do the 6-8 encounters thing per session.

We got through 6 2024 playing 2024. That was C&C basically AD&D 3E.

Late 5.5 can chug in complicated encounters. By chug 40 minutes.

We did have a 2 hour battle in 2E. I think that was over 100 units/beings/pets/summons/followers in a 27 hour session at 5am. fighter/mages battlemages, preists summoned crocodiles and a pet flying elephant named Clive. Animal sphere for the win.

 

[Vrindlevine]

We did have a 2 hour battle in 2E. I think that was over 100 units/beings/pets/summons/followers in a 27 hour session at 5am. fighter/mages battlemages, preists summoned crocodiles and a pet flying elephant named Clive. Animal sphere for the win.

A 2 hour combat as part of a 27 hour session? We should all be so lucky...

In my current game I have had a few multi-session combats, but its that sort of campaign, very tactical and inspired by Fire Emblem.

In that game I have been using a system that falls between 4e and 5eand I can say Nova as a strategy has not been super helpful. I dont typically allow for constant resting and it basically always comes with some sort of consequence when done mid-mission at least for now, most of my players build for attrition.

 

[Willie the Duck]

A purely tactical, non‑attrition, non‑nova model collapses the game into a single decision layer, moment to moment positioning and DPR throughput, which only serves tactically focused players. Because encounter difficulty becomes the sole axis of challenge, the system becomes hypersensitive to GM calibration

While not universally true, I've certainly seen my fair share of such things. Games like GURPS, Traveller, Cyberpunk, etc. tend to have very few things equivalent to Daily or Encounter powers. As such the toggles tend to be who is on each side of the combat (numbers, plus potentially how powerful they are, etc.), the specific tactical layout (cover, surprise, etc.), actual tactical decisions (sometimes only in theory, depending on system*), or which side has/becomes willing to start lobbing 'grenades**.'
*or, similar to running mysteries, this has potential for "DM thinks their very obtuse solution is blessedly obvious" situations.
**any expensive and expendable resource that doesn't recharge, be it actual grenades, magic items that get used up, story favors, or the like.

This raises a good point/question -- if you get rid of/tamp down on Novas, what do you use to 1) vary the combats/combat outcomes, and 2) signal that it is time to move to avoiding combat/leave the dungeon/look for a safe place to recuperate? To the later, obviously something like 'everyone is down to half hp' works, but even in TSR-era D&D (with fewer novas and reliance thereon) it tended to work best when it was 'everyone down to half hp, and the casters were low on useful spells*.'
*as well as the decision being influence by 'grenades' in that some healing potions and a wand of fireballs (maybe 'if we really need them').