Why is it so important?

[gizmo33]

Basically, the flaw in your argument (to me) is this: You assume there is no meaningful choice during the encounter which resources to deploy. That would indeed lead to a "novaing"-like approach with little meaning. But I guess the designers noticed that, too (in fact, I think one of the blogs notes that they had a game situation where this was the case, and they found a way to fix it. I think the post was made with a title like "button pressing")

I believe you're referring to the blog post of James Wyatt's (not the first one, but one linked later on in this thread). As I recall he *did* talk about the way to fix it, and that was was *per day resources*. The "button pressing" title referred to the rather mindless way that per-encounter resources were used in his WoW game - a sentiment that directly contradicts the idea that per-encounter situations can always (or even frequently) contain some really compelling events of tactical interest and yet somehow not be deadly at the same time.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Assume you also have a Dispel Magic spell, and also a powerful magic missile spell (deals more damage than a fireball, but only to a single target).
So, now you have a tactical challenging decision:

It is absolutely true, especially as one grows used to a new system (i.e., the aforementioned "shine" period) that a player might not know, within a given circumstance, which of his powers is most significant. If you believe that, after playing the game for a year or so, players will not know which powers are most significant in any normal circumstance, then, yes, this is a valid criticism of my position.

In 1e, there were a few module encounters that nerfed obvious spells so that it wasn't obvious which powers were significant within that encounter. 4e could go this way.

However, I do not assume there can be no meaningful choice during the encounter, within the context of the encounter.

I do assume that the average player, however, in any given situation is automatically going to choose whichever resource seems most significant within that context, except as using that resource has repercussions.

"Imagine in any given encounter, you could only use one or two of these abilities, not all? Which one is the better choice?" is a repercussion. Repercussions are, IMHO, a good thing. It is perfectly possible to have repercussions within a given encounter; the effects of Haste in 1e are a good example of this. However, nothnig I have seen from WotC yet indicates that "repercussions = fun" is in their lexicon.

My argument, at its basic level, is that preventing a 15-minute adventuring day is a function of repercussions for using resources indiscriminately. The per-day/per-encounter paradigm will not solve it without significant repercussions, and AFAICT, actually removes existing repercussions from play.

Players act carefully when there are repercussions to not acting carefully. Win/lose situations have repercussions. Spells that might turn on you have repercussions. Resource attrition is a repercussion.

I also assume that, while individual encounters might be fun, the context of those encounters lends them a large part of their meaning.

This is, again, analogous to my "land on property in Monopoly" mini-game. If every time you landed on owned property in Monopoly, the rules called for you to play a game of chess before paying up, I doubt very many people would have included this aspect of the game within their own play for long. Chess is a wonderfully tactical game, and is by itself interesting to play. However, because the chess game doesn't impact the Monopoly game, it is much ado about nothing. Most players are sitting at the table, IMHO, to play the overarching Monopoly.

If, OTOH, a quick game of scissors/rock/paper determined whether or not you had to pay, more people would include that in their game. It is less tactically challenging, but far more relevant to the overarching game.

I feel that it is self-evident that actions that are relevant to the overarching game are inherently more interesting than actions that are not. Indeed, if this was not the case, the game might as well be DDM, where you stage various skirmishes that are unrelated -- or tangentially related -- to each other.

I find it rather telling that, while you might have to make the same sort of decisions fighting 4 goblins at 10th level as you do fighting something that can hurt you, a great many people suggest that the 4 goblins should be handwaved, while the other fight should not. And I find it rather telling that, although this parallel has been brought up again and again, it hasn't exactly been addressed by those claiming that fights which have tactical decisions, but no repercussions beyond the encounter, are as interesting as those which have both.

RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

Honestly, I don't. While I greatly appreciate your willingness to discuss this within the context of a single encounter, I am not certain if this is really an adequate cross-section of abilities available to a reaslitic game.

Make up your own schedule of abilities, then.

Remember that the purpose is illustrative only. You do not need (and in all likelihood, cannot obtain!) a 1:1 map of what 4e will be. All you need is something illustrative of the types of choices that are possible. We will look at that schedule of abilities, then, as a subset of possible designs, not to be conflated with the actual design.

My attempt was to make something that was both simple enough to understand/see clearly, while allowing for some complexity of choices.

When you have something you are comfortable with, let me know. We can continue from there.

RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

It's only "when" if "when=which encounter". There is less emphasis on "which round".

Why do you think that is?

 

[gizmo33]

So? The action is over. The PCs had their exciting encounter, where they had to manage resources to be successful. If there isn't another encounter in the day, or the only other encounter is 4 goblins versus a 10th level fighter, or the only other encounter is something else that doesn't consume resources, what does it matter how many per-day resources were consumed? The encounter was exciting, and the game moved forward.

Most of what you're saying here is circular AFAICT because it assumes as a premise the very things that we're debating. For example you say that it was an "exciting encounter" with no foundation - since we disagree on which elements would need to be present to be an exciting encounter. Clearly if I felt that every encounter were an exciting one automatically, then I wouldn't have an issue. IMO PCs don't have to manage resources with any great effort unless one of two things is true: the encounter poses a significant chance of killing a PC, or, there are long time-period (per-day, for example) ramifications for using a resource. All of the other considerations (like what you need in order to stop a bandit from retreating) are tactical or story-related, and not resource, considerations and exist under either system.

If, on the other hand, you only have 1 fireball per encounter, the decision of when to use it is very significant. You seem to disagree that the decision of "when" is an important decision, and instead insist that it is only "if" that should be focused on. I disagree.

As I already said, the "when" (IIRC you mean the tactical question) issue isn't any different between the two systems (and since a lack of resources at a particular moment is a possibility that exists in either system, your earlier objection IMO is unfounded).

Appendum: you spend resources because you are facing a significant chance of defeat.

This is not the only possibility. You spend resources also to minimize the loss of other resources. Saving your fireball and killing the goblins by hand might not risk you death, but you'll lose more hitpoints and it will cost you more spells in healing from that decision.

The parameters of each encounter define what "defeat" means,

Only because you say they do. In the "per-day" paradigm, the parameters that detrmine "defeat" actually extend over the entire adventure. Like in real life, I may very well "win the battle but lose the war", a situation that's not possible in the per-encounter situation because there is no distinction between battles and wars because there is no operational aspect to the game other than those that are story-related.

If the players care about the outcome of the encounter, and they run a risk of suffering defeat, then they are more than likely concerned about how they're expending resources.

So how is this not another example of the argument coming back to the idea that every encounter in a per-encounter resource situation has to be deadly in order to keep the players interested in how they are spending resources?

But yes, nova-ing works very well, and it illustrates the disparity in power between casters and non-casters that comes with getting a deep bag of resources.

? No, wizard's don't have a *deep* bag of resources - remember the 9:00-9:15 adventuring problem?

In my experience, they're less cautious in a per-day scenario because, quite frankly, people are bad at planning for the unknown.

This, strictly speaking, is a matter of interpretation and not experience. You're assessment of cause and effect is not a matter of experience by definition. IME I've observed a correlation between things that are hard and people being cautious while doing them.

When they do start to plan long term, they tend to be sacrificing their enjoyment for the current encounter for a later one that might not even happen. It's like passing up a slice of cake after dinner because you don't want to be full just in case someone decides to serve brownies later in the evening, and you have no real idea whether or not anyone even brought brownies this time.

Yes, it would not be fun for me to go to dinner expecting dessert and then have to wonder whether or not I'm going to have any. On the other hand, it's not fun for me to play DnD and have no doubt that I will be victorious in all matters. Therefore I find your analogy very hard to apply because certain success is part of what I expect from dessert but not from DnD.

Because it doesn't. It merely requires that a DM who wants an encounter to feel significant to the group makes sure the PCs are invested in being victorious, which could mean any number of things.

I find your language vague here and in many places. A 20th level fighter is certainly *invested* in being victorious over a lone goblin. That, in itself, does not ensure than the encounter is interesting.

It's arbitrary because there is no logical reason why the system is based on the idea that the average encounter consumes 25% of your resources,

I don't understand the significance of this idea. There's no logical reason why fireball is 3rd level and cone of cold is 5th level other than their spell effects were arbitrarily chosen to be a match for those levels. The foundation of the DnD system assumes a per-day resource expenditure. There's no logical reason for any rule in DnD other than those based on real life issues, and since we're talking about magic that's not a possibility. Since *any* magic system you propose will have limitations, even a per-encounter one, your system will have as many arbitrary limitations as any other.

And casters get the amount of resources that they do because they're expected to ration them evenly over the course of a day. When they don't problems arise.

Yea, just a like a problem arises if you are hit by three criticals in a row. A couple of ogres attacking the PCs is also a "problem". AFAICT You're conflating the use of the word "problem" to indicate that a problem/challenge facing the players automatically means that there is a problem with the game system.

If the ticking time bomb is the last encounter, then I can't expect the PCs to be at full power during the fight, so I can't amek it a particularly challenging encounter, or they'll be wiped out.

There is a spectrum of possiblities here that you're ignoring. Instead you seem to be arguing that either the PCs are at 100% resources, or they'll be wiped out. There's actually a whole range of other possiblities in the per-day system.

Under a per-day system, I have to factor in the attrition from earlier encounter when designing these sorts of encounters, or the encounter won't be as exciting. I have to be familiar with how my group functions at each tier of resource attrition to be able to make sure encounters are appropriate.

You actually can just create the encounter and let them figure it out. Designing dungeons from a global perspective is the way to deal with this. Think of a dungeon as a single large encounter and the available resources as "per-encounter" because it would be the same consideration in your system. The thing that makes the situation harder is when you're trying to micromanage each encounter and situation, it's true that the DM cannot predict the circumstances of every encounter in the adventure, but in my DMing style I don't want to - and my players expect to have to think about what they're doing rather than just slogging forward until they die or kill everything.

Alternative, I can just say to splick with that, make encounters however I like, and let the PCs figure out for themselves when they should run away and when they should fight.

The PCs do get to choose this

But that leads to a lot of unsatisfying encounters, especially if victory and defeat carry with them significance within the context of the game-world itself.

You seem to repeatedly equate failure with "unfun" - which contradicts alot of what you say earlier is the motivation for being interested in a per-encounter situation. Yes, the fact that defeat has game-world significance is what makes it worth trying to being with. To be "unsatisfied" by defeat is to basically say that the game should always be about winning.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I believe you're referring to the blog post of James Wyatt's (not the first one, but one linked later on in this thread). As I recall he *did* talk about the way to fix it, and that was was *per day resources*. The "button pressing" title referred to the rather mindless way that per-encounter resources were used in his WoW game - a sentiment that directly contradicts the idea that per-encounter situations can always (or even frequently) contain some really compelling events of tactical interest and yet somehow not be deadly at the same time.

Hmm. I think we are both referring to the same quote, but I didn't understand (or remember) the solution as you describe it.
If it turns out to be just injecting the D&D <4 rules into the game, I might actually be disappointed. I'll guess I have to go back and reread it precisely. (another time, though)

I think it would be worth our while to confine, for the moment, our enquiry within the space of a single encounter.

Imagine, if you will, a party of four PCs, each of whom has 30 hit points. Despite their class, the each have a mixed bag of at-will, per-encounter, and per-day powers. Despite the fluff, each of these powers is roughly equal:

At-will: Needs an attack roll, hitting roughly 25% of the time on an APL encounter, does an average of 6 hp damage to a single target (analagous to the use of sword, bow, etc.).

Per-encounter 1: Special attack that does not require an attack roll, can do an average of 24 points of damage to a single target, or 6 points to 4 targets.

Per-encounter 2: Special abilitiy that allows you to use your at-will ability, and also heal all comrades 6 hp damage.

Per-encounter 3: Special ability that allows you to use your at-will ability, and also heal yourself 24 points damage.

Per-day 1: Special ability that allows you to do an average 50 points of damage to a single target. Using it also means that you can no longer use per-encounter ability 1.

Per-day 2: Special ability that allows you to do an average 25 points of damage to two targets. Using it also means that you can no longer use per-encounter ability 2.

I am not certain that even these specifics match what I would expect from a good "per encounter" system (though I am not refuting that this is how it could work )

Here is another take, only focussing on the wizard (assuming a fixed level and eliminating dice):

At Will 1: Deal 20 points of damage to a single target
At Will 2: Your attack in the next round against the chosen enemy deals +30 points of damage if using At Will 1
At Will 3: Activate a Shield that grants +4 deflection to AC for 2 rounds
1/Encounter 1: Deal 15 points of damage in a 4 square radius
1/Encounter 2: Deal 80 points of damage to a single foe
1/Encounter 3: Fly up to 120 ft
1/Encounter 4: Climb Walls for the duration of the encounter
1/Encounter 4: Erect a Shield that grants a +4 deflection bonus to AC for all allies.
1/Encounter 5: Dispel all magical effects on a single target or suppress its next magical attack
1/Day 1: Deal 40 points of damage in a 4 square radius
1/Day 2: Teleport yourself and all allies you touch to the next Teleportation Portal or City Centre
1/Day 3: All allies enjoy a +2 resistance bonus to all defenses for the remainder of he day

You can use each encounter based ability only once per encounter. In addition, you can only use a maximum ability 1 or 2 not both, and the same for ability 3 and 4 or 5 and 6, respectively. You might have made an additional decision which of these ability pairs you got the day.
There are alternative abilities you could have taken the day for Day 1, Day2, and Day 3 abilities each, but you can't take ability one twice (at the expense of ability 2 and 3)

 

[Felon]

I am curious as to why people like the idea of having "per encounter" abilities and such.

I personally like the challenge of selecting the best spells, and the challenge of not biting off more than we can chew, and having to back up and rest. Plus knowing when you should back up and rest.

Personally, I always found the art of preparing spells to be pretty enoyable, but I think the answer's pretty obvious. Many people are sloppy and impulsive. Give them a big gun with three bullets, and four rounds into the first battle they'll be screaming for everyone to retreat until they can find more bullets.

The discipline it takes to pace oneself, to plan ahead, just isn't there. It's been deemed "unfun". This is a change in playstyle from the gygaxian days when frequently the price for impatience was one character sheet.

 

[gizmo33]

Hmm. I think we are both referring to the same quote, but I didn't understand (or remember) the solution as you describe it.
If it turns out to be just injecting the D&D <4 rules into the game, I might actually be disappointed. I'll guess I have to go back and reread it precisely. (another time, though)

http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=906388 (search the page for 'button mashing' I think)

Here Wyatt identifies the problem. He makes some vague comments about good power design. AFAICT He doesn't rule out a mix of per-day and per-encounter abilities that are balanced in a better way.

Here, Monte Cook does the same thing:
http://www.montecook.com/cgi-bin/page.cgi?otherd20_Spellcasters

Setting aside their reasoning about cause and effect, there are plenty of counter examples in their raw experiences to some of the generalizations being used to support an all per-encounter design. For instance, why is Wyatt locked into a "button mashing" mode in a game of all per-encounter resources? What happened to the claim that the tactical issues in such a game would be interesting enough to warrant the design?

 

[Raven Crowking]

Here is another take, only focussing on the wizard (assuming a fixed level and eliminating dice):

At Will 1: Deal 20 points of damage to a single target
At Will 2: Your attack in the next round against the chosen enemy deals +30 points of damage if using At Will 1
At Will 3: Activate a Shield that grants +4 deflection to AC for 2 rounds
1/Encounter 1: Deal 15 points of damage in a 4 square radius
1/Encounter 2: Deal 80 points of damage to a single foe
1/Encounter 3: Fly up to 120 ft
1/Encounter 4: Climb Walls for the duration of the encounter
1/Encounter 4: Erect a Shield that grants a +4 deflection bonus to AC for all allies.
1/Encounter 5: Dispel all magical effects on a single target or suppress its next magical attack
1/Day 1: Deal 40 points of damage in a 4 square radius
1/Day 2: Teleport yourself and all allies you touch to the next Teleportation Portal or City Centre
1/Day 3: All allies enjoy a +2 resistance bonus to all defenses for the remainder of he day

You can use each encounter based ability only once per encounter. In addition, you can only use a maximum ability 1 or 2 not both, and the same for ability 3 and 4 or 5 and 6, respectively. You might have made an additional decision which of these ability pairs you got the day.
There are alternative abilities you could have taken the day for Day 1, Day2, and Day 3 abilities each, but you can't take ability one twice (at the expense of ability 2 and 3)

You need to state how many hit points the PCs have in this system, and then I'll be happy to use it for further discussion.

JK, does this work for you?

 

[Raven Crowking]

BTW, does this (http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=207912) sound like encounter design that will be encouraging win/lose scenarios to you?