Raven Crowking
First Post
And, for those of you who say "Resource attrition isn't important; we do without it fine in Game X" I'd like to ask, "What is the market share of Game X"?
Why is it so important?
- Thread starter Treebore
- Start date
Who doesn't? I believe you missed my point.Raven Crowking said:
Relying on operational level resource management depends on a relatively static set of challenges. The best example I can think of it an old-school dungeon crawl. Opponents rarely 'bust down the door' to threaten PC's. Most, if not all, of the danger is neatly compartmentalized, and gets encountered when the players decide to. 'Do we go one more room or not?'.
The less predictable the threats are, the more difficult operational level resource management becomes. Since I like an relatively unpredictable threat environment (in my games, 'friend or foe' usually isn't determined until halfway through an encounter), a move towards per-encounter looks like it'll fit my style better.
I just don't understand this. How can a system based on every X numbered encounter being significant not affect encounter design?
Raven Crowking
First Post
Mallus said:
It cannot; but a resource-attrition system doesn't have to be based on X number of encounters, as 1e and 2e demonstrated amply.
3.x is designed on an X number of encounters model because of changes made to the mechanical threshold of significance of encounters. Because a wider range of encounters could either not affect the party, or would result in an instant TPK, the range of effects that an encounter could have on a party's resources shrank by a very large factor.
One result of this was the need for the CR/EL system, to tell you what % of resources an encounter should use. It also meant creating encounters that seemed more tactically challenging than were needed before, resulting in the high death rate in 3.X compared to earlier editions......while at the same time, the reduced need for cleverness to save resources and use them effectively made the game seem simpler. Being able to die more easily due to bad luck on die rolls doesn't make a game more challenging.
This, in turn, created the "15 minute adventuring day" problem, where parties would use significant resources on every encounter, rest, rinse, and repeat. It was the simplest way to hedge against bad die rolls. The arrival of Action Points was another hedge against bad die rolls, an attempt to put a patch on the proble created when a reduced range of encounters became significant.
That the system is designed around X number of encounters is a relic of the same changes that led to the 9-9:15 adventuring day -- namely, numbers bloat. In 1e, for example, there was a limit on AC. No AC could be better than -10. Using the THAC0 system, one can determine that AC -10 is equivilent to AC 30 now. It is easy enough to imagine how capping AC at 30 would suddenly make many low-level threats significant at higher levels.
In addition, hit point acquisition was, while not capped, greatly reduced after name level. Again, although monsters did less damage overall, they were doing that damage against a smaller number of hit points. Couple this with the ability to hit more often, and it is easy to see how a 10th level fighter in 1e could see a threat as significant, where the same threat wouldn't be significant to a 6th level fighter in 3e.
So, the problem you ascribe to resource attrition isn't really a problem of that model. It is, rather, a problem with the way resources are handled in 3e. In fact, as one of the stated merits of 4e will be a flattening of the number-creep curve, and another is that a threat will remain viable over a larger range of levels, it seems that the designers are well aware of the source of this problem.
What I have yet to see, however, is any sign of a solution that seems reasonably likely to work.
YMMV......And time will tell.
RC
My main problem is that resource attrition is too dependent on static, player-revealed/initiated encounters. Can you address that? I am willing to admit that I might have missed something.Raven Crowking said:
BTW, I realize this was the case in the earlier editions, and you're right, there were particulars in 1e and 2e that served to mitigate the problem, but that doesn't mean that resource attrition represents a universal model for arranging challenges in D&D. At least in terms if what I want out of the game.
IanArgent
First Post
Raven Crowking said:
In this case, that's like asking "how much market share does Apple have." Elegance alone doesn't buy market share.
At any rate, my arguement isn't so much that "if we don't have per-encounter abilities, our characters suck for much of the game" (though it is true - this isn't Sourcerer, where the most powerful magic is the magic you don't use), but rather, if you only have per-day resource management for the leaders and controllers, but not for the strikers and defenders; the second 2 roles end up not performing their roles in every battle. Each role should have something they can do in every battle that is related to their role. At the same time, their most powerful abilities should be limited in much the same fashion.
In the end, the answer to the 9:00 - 9:15 adventuring day is that once you have per-encounter and at-will abilities, you can say to your players "no, you don't get to rest to refresh your per-day abilities after going nova. You're still at 80% capability, so quit whining". Plus, if everyone has per-day abilities that they expend at roughly the same rate and have roughly the same effect on battles, then the party stops when everyone in the party feels they need to rest & recover, not because the caster is out of casting.
No matter how you slice it, with pure per-day resource management for some classes but not others, at some point the characters whose classes have pure per-day management sit the fight out as far as their class abilities go - either because they're out, or because they're saving for the next fight. Not fun.
Let's turn around the OPs question - should warriors have per-day abilities? Outside of minor abilities, they don't right now. Because that's the corollary to "every class has a mix of at-will, per-encounter, and per-day abilities".
Jackelope King
First Post
#2 only to Dungeons & Dragons, actually.Raven Crowking said:
And if you look at the top 5 selling RPGs in the second quarter, only one of them features per-day resource attrition.
In fact, only D&D bucks this trend. Does D&D's place at the top have anything to do with the almost-universal correlation most of the public (gaming and non-gaming alike) has between D&D and RPG, or is entirely attributeable to D&D design? And assuming for a moment that the brand name has nothing to do with its market share and D&D really stands entirely on its own merrits in terms of design, is the per-day resource attrition system really such a cornerstone that people think of it right when they think of classes, levels, funny-sided dice, armor class, and hit points?
Sorry, RC. This was one of your weaker arguments in this thread.
Raven Crowking
First Post
Mallus said:
Are you seriously contending that, as a DM, you could not initiate encounters in any edition of the game?!?
Raven Crowking
First Post
IanArgent said:
That's sort of what I said, pages and pages back.
I am amazed at the idea that per-day resources cause the 9-9:15 problem, which somehow managed to avoid cropping up in either 1e or 2e, when spellcasters had fewer resources than now.
Right now, fighters have hit points as their sole per-day resource, AFAICT, and in return they have less (read, no) control over how the per-day resources of their party is spent. As a meta-game concern, the ability of fighters to fight at almost any time, as opposed to that of spellcasters to cast spells, is one of the few mechanics that contributes to a lower-magic feel in any edition of D&D. IOW, spellcasters gain "phenomenal cosmic power" at the cost of "itty bitty living space".
Where it is easy enough to create a magic system that includes "per day" resources, it becomes more difficult as well to create mundane actions that can only be done once per day. So, either the fighter becomes more "magical" or restrictions are placed which are, and feel, schlocky. Imagine, for example, a 5-foot step as a per-day resource.
I am certainly not of the opinion that "per encounter" abilities are bad in and of themselves. Rather, I am of the opinion that (A) expecting them to solve the 9-9:15 adventuring day problem is wishful thinking at best, and (B) removing the overarching operational game from D&D is a mistake. Of course, (B) depends very much on how you sort out abilities, but it seems to me that the designers are going heavily in this direction.
Also, although it might not seem immediately obvious, strengthening one side of an equation is going to require you to strengthen the other side or unbalance the whole. So, if wizards get more power, the designers will have to give more power to fighters as well. Already in 3.X we've hit the point where the fighter is considered by some to be underpowered, due to the raise in power of the other classes in respect to it.
The above isn't really a good answer to your question, although I hope it illustrates my feelings on the matter to some degree.
What sort of per-day ability would a warrior have?
RC
Raven Crowking said:
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