Why did they say Vancian magic would be gone?

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I think the major difference between the "traditional" Vancian magic and the 4E approach is that it hits everyone equally.

If you had a campaign or adventure that, for whatever reasons, allowed you to run only very few combats per day (or even forced you - imagine a campaign with a lot of travel times), anyone that relied mostly on daily resources was more desirable to have then the one with fewer. Moreover so because these daily resources really packed a punch that those with only "at-will" powers (melee and ranged attacks with weapons or unarmed) couldn't compete with if used in any given encounter.

If your campaign didn't allow such rests, things looked differently. The spellcasters with their daily resources had to manage their spell resources well. This often lead to the "crossbow wielding wizard" problem that some (many/enough to be heard by WotC) players found frustrating. There was also a further factor - the moment you don't need many (or any) spell slots form a caster to beat a combat encounter, you could very easily go on "forever" - the moment you allowed and gave easy/reliable access to resources like Wands of Cure Light Wounds. This can lead to a feeling of "boring" encounters - you strike down your opponent, curestick yourself to full health. Both the encounter based and the daily challenge aspect were minimized under such circumstances.


4E removes these differences. That means that everyone is hurt equally if they don't get to rest. Moreover, it is easier to balance combats without losing the challenge aspect.

If the scenario makes it easy to rest a lot (there are no hard consequences for it, no rituals that need to be stopped for midnight, no monster bands reorganizing their defenses), you can use harder encounters that _require_ the (smart) use of daily powers. (e.g. you have to think when and where to use the power)

If the scenario makes it hard to rest a lot (there are negative consequences for resting - the BBEG might complete his plan in time, the monsters move away or reorganize), you use easier encounters that, if played "smart", don't require the use of daily powers, and you use dailies only if they will be very effective in any given situation. (For example, using a powerful Daily on an Elite or Solo monster, or using it when there are a lot of minions).


In either scenario, players of any class will be challenged equally and contribute equally. There is no scenario where all the responsibility lies on the Wizard, or scenarios where all the responsibility lie on the Fighter. (At least none that are based on the difficulty of the individual encounters or encounters per day - in other contexts, some roles might be more important or more useful.)

 

[Obryn]

My group has been very good with their rest management. Most often, they try to go 4 encounters or so... Nobody is too loose on their dailies, and their 2 defenders end up soaking more than half of the damage every single fight. Also, their Barbarian has Meliorating Chain, so he loves pressing on and watching his AC ramp up.

I can only think of one time in recent memory where they have rested after just 2 fights - and that was very recently, with a few way-more-difficult-than-their-levels-would-indicate battles more or less back to back. (In Pyramid of Shadows,

Spoiler

it was the Charnel Lord, wherein they got their butts kicked by the room, immediately followed by Camnor and the insanely tenacious Plant Terror. Since 80% of the party is melee, the whole Threatening Reach + Every square around the Terror is Difficult Terrain + Slides one on its basic melee attack meant that closing with the beast was ... rough.

)

-O

 

[Rel]

I would rather have my characters die in a world where my choices mattered than survive in one where they didn't.

Oooh! That's pretty sig-worthy stuff right there!

 

[billd91]

What happens when you've announced one of these reasons with much fanfare, and then the group has a stroke of bad luck and one or more characters run out of healing surges?

That's when you find out which players want to play heroes and which ones want to play plundering bandits who will only attack from relative strength.

Really, this is one of the weaknesses of 4e. If there's time pressure but the PCs have had a run of bad luck, it's harder to introduce external healing in a plausible way. You could drop in some Keoghtum's Ointment and hope they haven't burned their alotment of magic item daily uses yet. Or I suppose you could find a way for them to conveniently encounter a paladin who will lay on hands with his own heaing surges, but depending on where they are, that could stretch credibility a bit.
If items like healing potions didn't burn a PCs own healing surges they'd work. But they don't.

 

[TwoSix]

Although I love 4e, I think the implementation of dailies could have been improved upon.

The current system has these pros and cons to taking your extended rest, as opposed to pushing on.

Pro:
-Regain dailies.
-Regain healing surges.
-Reset to 1 daily use magic item power.

Con:
-Reset of action points.
-Possible loss of narrative/scenario fulfillment .

We know from several posters that for many parties, the urge to regain healing surges is enough to force a extended rest, while the need to recharge daily powers is not enough. For others, recharging of daily powers is the break point. I think the mostly widely agreed upon "ideal" scenario is that healing surges serves as the arbiter of when to stop for the day. Therefore, it makes sense that daily use should be enhanced by the party not stopping, to give further incentive for the party to continue, and in fact, give a game mechanic tension between combat effectiveness (continuing on gives better access to dailies) and greater risk (lack of healing surges).

Here's how I would house rule this:

1) Dailies become encounter powers with a special cost: 1 Action Point.
2) Action point generation is increased. 1 AP per encounter, possibly more if the encounter is more challenging (2 APs for a level +2 encounter, 3 APs for a level +4.)
3) Item dailies also cost action points.

 

[twilsemail]

To echo pretty much everyone else, my experience has been resting based upon Healing Surges not Dailies.

In the game I play in, we tend to guage our resting based on the Rogue's Healing surges. My Warden has yet to run out (though I've come close). The only time we rested based on our dalies was when we were mostly drained anyhow and it was pretty evident that we were about to stumble upon the BBEG. When we did so, the BBEG was better prepared for us than he otherwise would have been.

In the game that I run, the players have a habit of resting inside dungeons. They tend to stock up on Nails of Sealing. They rest for 8 hours (4 PCs, 2 hour watches, watch doesn't count towards rest, but I allow them to get their 6 split up). I roll a d10 and let it sit. Each PC rolls a d10 for each hour they're on watch. If anyone rolld the same number I did, there's a patrol that's found them. (I know there was something somewhere about a 10% chance of a patrol while resting within a dungeon, but I'll be damed if I can find it now...)

I think a big part of keeping the game moving is reminding the players that stuff happens outside of their bubble of influence. That can mean as much or as little as you want. From nothing, to adding minions to the BBEG fight (calling in reserves/summoning more zombies), to there being no BBEG fight as he got word of their approach and got away.

 

[Storminator]

Usually the party averages about two dailies per fight -- more if it's a difficult encounter. We usually push on ahead even when we're running low on dailies, but when someone runs out of healing surges, that's a full stop.

In our group it has to be half the party is out of surges. If one PC is out, just go the back and be less effective. Or drop after some damage and hope you don't die.

We are very aggressive. Maybe this will change later, but right literally every player has another great character idea they'll try out if their current PC dies. So we push and push hard. "Let's risk a TPK" is practically our motto.

We play once a month, and we aren't spending that time resting.

PS

 

[Xris Robin]

I don't understand resting after every combat. Even if the adventure doesn't have a built in time constraint, do other people's parties really want to spend 16 hours doing nothing?

You can only rest every 12 hours, and the rest itself is 6. So after an encounter, you'd have to sit and wait until you can rest again. Who does that? That's not a system problem, that's a player problem.

And while Dailies are useful, if you really need Stinking Cloud to win in every combat, you have a problem.

 

[TheWyrd]

Here's how I would house rule this:

1) Dailies become encounter powers with a special cost: 1 Action Point.
2) Action point generation is increased. 1 AP per encounter, possibly more if the encounter is more challenging (2 APs for a level +2 encounter, 3 APs for a level +4.)
3) Item dailies also cost action points.

Oh, I like this a lot. Next 4e game I run, please consider it stolen. The only other thing I would add is some method of regaining surges. Maybe spend an action point to get another one or just hand a surge out at the end of every one or two encounters.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Here's how I would house rule this:

1) Dailies become encounter powers with a special cost: 1 Action Point.
2) Action point generation is increased. 1 AP per encounter, possibly more if the encounter is more challenging (2 APs for a level +2 encounter, 3 APs for a level +4.)
3) Item dailies also cost action points.

3 Drawbacks:
1) Healing Surge are not covered by this. The PCs still want to rest because they are out of healing surges.
2) This means that you cannot run a very hard fight at the beginning of the encounter day.
3) If Daily powers are encounter powers + action points, you will notice that the lower daily powers will be rarely used.

Overall, you basically force yourself to run multiple combats per day and reduce the relevance of lower level dailies.
The only upshot might be that "successful" play (where players manage to hoard action points) would allow players to run through a lot of encounters and make one final "killer combat" in the end, where they have Action Points to blow all their dailies. But strictly speaking, the wouldn't be using their powers with best effect (you get more bang for your buck when you spend APs on high level dailies).
And furthermore - you can already do this in the current system. The initial encounters have to be encounters that can be won without using dailies, and the final encounter can be hard and require those dailies.