Why did they say Vancian magic would be gone?

[fuzzlewump]

Yours does. Not quite the same.
...
That the two have little to do with each other. My players rest when it's night, or when they are completely exhausted of healing surges.

I agree that it's not a problem for all players, but I also agree that dailies do not fit as they are. I think the point is not whether a party should or should not rest, or does or does not rest, but that there is clear incentive to rest after every encounter. Yes, this will be counterbalanced by very clear disincentives, such as hostile environments or time limits. But the question is, why are there more incentives to rest beyond healing surges?

To be sure, I don't see anything inherently wrong with resting after every encounter, but daily powers were not intended, at least as far as I can tell based on the intent of lengthening the fifteen minute workday, to give incentive to rest frequently. But they do, and if there were nothing to counter it, then parties would rest after every encounter to recharge dailies and healing surges. Nothing as in, no time limit, characters without a strong drive for adventuring, in unhostile environments. Given, all of those together are unlikely, but the incentive remains nonetheless.

So, I believe that daily powers don't fit in quite right with the rest of 4th edition. I think I'll be houseruling in my next game that dailies recharge every four combats, regardless of taking an extended rest. As an exception, an extended rest, then a day of rest (no encounters) then another extended rest will recharge dailies.

EDIT: Right, the house rule doesn't necessarily fix the problem of the incentive to rest, I was actually going for making the timing of daily powers more concrete than they are currently. Characters don't know how many encounters they will have in a day, so dailies are too much guesswork for my taste. Given the proposed house rule, while they still don't know if there will be at least 4 in a day, they know that if there is their dailies will recharge and that they should be used no later than the fourth encounter. This meshes better with the concreteness of encounter powers, where generally players can make a good guess that it will end with the slaying of the last monster and use their encounters before that point.

 

[Nightson]

Dailies are resource management, there are two scenarios where players will use dailies

1) They think they need to. You threw a hard encounter at them or one just went bad. Yes they will have more incentive to rest after this. They just got out of a tough fight in which they expended resources, they should have incentive to rest. A character without dailies is one whose a bit more tired then one who still has them.

2) They think they can get away with leaving and resting so they can come back and nova again. If this is continually cropping up then it's bad, and it's not the systems fault. The consequences for withdrawing need to be balanced so that players can't do it with impunity. It should be a tough decisions required by lack of resources, not players gaming the system so that they can show up to every fight at 100%

 

[Roger]

It most clearly is not.

I'm not sure we're all on the same page when it comes to what "Vancian magic" is.

Which Jack Vance books in particular have you read? That might help us clarify things.



Cheers,
Roger

 

[CapnZapp]

I'm not sure we're all on the same page when it comes to what "Vancian magic" is.

Which Jack Vance books in particular have you read? That might help us clarify things.

You know perfectly well that for rpg discussions, "vancian magic" refers to the fire and forget method so closely associated with past editions of D&D.

Jack Vance literature got nothing (or at least "very little") to do with this term. Doesn't change the way how it's used.

 

[Asmor]

You know perfectly well that for rpg discussions, "vancian magic" refers to the fire and forget method so closely associated with past editions of D&D.

Jack Vance literature got nothing (or at least "very little") to do with this term. Doesn't change the way how it's used.

Whoa, what?

Speaking as someone who knows nothing about Jack Vance's work, my understanding of Vancian Magic has been that it specifically pertains to the idea of memorizing specific spells, which has always been a D&D sacred cow not yet fully-slaughtered (wizards still choose which dailies to memorize...).

Of course, using that understanding I'm of the mind that the OP has completely misused or misunderstood the concept.

Back on topic, I've come to realize that my players rest if... they get the opportunity to, basically. If there's no reason for them to fight two encounters in a row without an extended rest, then it's actually foolish of them to.

Judicious application of tactical and temporal pressures are quite handy in managing the PCs' resting. That is, they won't rest if they simply can't remain unmolested for the many hours required, and if they're limited on time (explicitly or implicitly, i.e. 'We need to kill all the bandits before the festival in 3 days' or 'We need to get the antidote from the wizard ASAP'), they have to be careful with when they rest.

 

[Wormwood]

We rest when healing surges are mostly gone. Dailies rarely determine when we reswt.

This. Healing surges are the new Hit Points. I like it better that way.

But what does any of that have to do with Vancian magic? The thread title and the thread are not aligned properly.

This too.

 

[Ourph]

Dailies don't factor into our group's decision to rest at all. Heck, adventuring days go by when some PC's don't use them at all (like my paladin... his one big Daily is a ranged attack and he's often too embroiled in melee to set it off).

Healing Surges on the other hand...

This has been exactly my experience as well.

 

[jdrakeh]

You know perfectly well that for rpg discussions, "vancian magic" refers to the fire and forget method so closely associated with past editions of D&D.

Which was largely lifted verbatim from Jack Vance's literature (specifically his Dying Earth novels). At any rate, the OP's post (as Crothian and Wormwood point out) really has nothing to do with "Vancian Magic" either as it was implemented in past editions of D&D or as it appears in Vance's fiction.

 

[ExploderWizard]

I have quite a few issues with 4E in general but needing to rest after using daily powers isn't one of them.

 

[Thasmodious]

I'll add another voice to the throng here. Dailies have next to nothing to do with resting. Healing surges, which last quite a while unless the party just takes an insane beating in a single fight, are the thing that most often determines the need to rest. Heck, later mechanics and magic items trigger or get better off of milestones.