Why is it so important?

[Raven Crowking]

Because I chose the wizard class.

I am not asking you to describe what classes you like, or what problems might exist within those classes. I am merely attempting to identify the cause(s) of requiring rest.

Therefore, I have an unpalatable choice to make. I can either conserve my resources by "shooting my crossbow" (which violates my "Do something wizardly" precept) or expend my resources (which results in me running out of them very quickly compared to the other characters, which forces the 9:00 to 9:15 adventuring day).

If I understand you, you are saying that the 15 minute adventuring day problem happens because you use your best resources very quickly, and then need to rest to recover them. You also seem to imply that the problem is that your best resources are limited in their usage per day, and that you simply do not want to conserve them. Is this correct?

You also have another concern in that your remaining resources don't feel "wizardy" to you. Again, is this correct?

RC

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Obviously the PC hit points matter. The level of danger the PCs face in a given encounter cannot be gagued without some clue as to what they can sustain.

RC

Okay. For "ease of use" I put all posts together. I adjusted some numbers and added a few abilities to make it (seemingly at the first glance at least) consistent.

ABILITIES
---------
Attack: At Will 1: Deal 20 points of damage to a single target at range
Attack: At Will 2: Deal 20 points of damage to a touched target and heal half the amount of damage (heal up to half your max hit points). (Excess) Healing can be transfered to a second touched character.
Attack: At Will 3: Your attack in the next round against the chosen enemy deals +30 points of damage if using At Will 1 or 2
Defense: At Will 4: Activate a Shield that grants +4 deflection to AC for 2 rounds (=> -20 % damage while active) or as long as you concentrate
Defense: At Will 5:: If you have an active shield, its bonus increases to +4 (=> -40% damage while active)
Utility: At Will 6: Clear rubble from a 2x2 squares area to allow unhampered movement for one round for anyone passing through
Utility: At Will 7: Detect Magical Auras

Attack: 1/Encounter 1: Deal 15 points of damage in a 4 square radius at range
Attack: 1/Encounter 2: Deal 80 points of damage to a single foe at range
Attack: 1/Encounter : Deal 80 points of damage to touched foe and heal yourself half damage. Excess hit points become temporary and last till the ability is refreshed. Can be transferred to a second touched character.
Utility: 1/Encounter 4: Fly Speed 120 ft
Utility: 1/Encounter 5: Climb Walls for the duration of the encounter
Utility: 1/Encounter 6: Write a arcane mark
Defense: 1/Encounter 7: Erect a Shield that grants a +4 deflection bonus to AC for all allies. (=> -20 % damage for all allies)
Defense: 1/Encounter 8: Dispel all magical effects on a single target or suppress its next magical attack
Defense: Negate a normally successful attack as immediate action.

Attack: 1/Day 1: Deal 40 points of damage in a 4 square radius at range
Utility: 1/Day 2: Teleport yourself and all allies you touch to the next Teleportation Portal, City Centre or place you inscribed an Arcane Mark on
Defense: 1/Day 3: All allies enjoy a +2 resistance bonus to all defenses for the remainder of the day

Note: Attack, Defense and Utility designate "silos". In each encounter, you may use only one ability per silo (and only use it once)

MONSTERS
----------
Minion (used in group size three to four times the party size): 10-20 hp, Average Damage 5 per round
Average Monster (used in group size equal to party size): 60-100 hp, Average Damage 10 per round
"Boss" Monster (used alone, possible augmented by a few minions): 400+ hp, Average Damage 20 per round

PCs
----
Typical Characters Hit Points: 80 (average, range probably 60-100 like typical monsters)

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

I am not asking you to describe what classes you like

I'm wondering if the absolutely rude tone of voice I'm reading this in is, based on your previous responses to me and others, intentional or my own addition. Care to clarify?

I am merely attempting to identify the cause(s) of requiring rest.

Since that's tied intimately in with the wizard class mechanics in the current edition of the rules, the two are not inseparable.

If I understand you, you are saying that the 15 minute adventuring day problem happens because you use your best resources very quickly, and then need to rest to recover them.

Not even "your best resources," but "All of your wizardly resources."

A Wizard 5, assuming he memorizes nothing but combat spells and casts a spell every other round, can last somewhere around 26 total rounds of combat. 8 of those rounds are taken up by 0-level spells.

If he casts a spell every round, that's 13 total rounds of combat.

In actual play, the wizard's nominal endurance will be much shorter because several of those spells will not be available for use in combat; they're either long-term buffs (mage armor, etc.) or utility (knock, detect magic).

You can, of course, increase your magical endurance by spreading those spells farther apart, but that violates the "Do Something Wizardly" precept (and, in conjunction, the "Play a part in the majority of encounters" and "Play a part in the majority of the rounds of each combat encounter" precepts).

[This, of course, completely sets aside the Wizard 1 who gets, at most 10 rounds of combat in before the bell.]

You also have another concern in that your remaining resources don't feel "wizardy" to you. Again, is this correct?

That is correct. "Shooting a crossbow" is not particularly wizardly. It fits very well into the sniper rogue idiom, or the heavy-armored arballasteer idiom, or the "shoot them once then draw and charge" warrior idiom.

It is certainly a change for the better from previous editions (where it was "Throw a dart"), but that doesn't mean it cannot be further improved upon.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Patryn,

I was ready to drop this argument and simply wait to see whether or not the same problem cropped up a year after 4e's release. That, to me, would be evidenciary that the redesign didn't solve the problem. After all, endlessly spinning one's wheels is absolutely a waste of time. IMHO, of course. This is the Interweb, where endless wheel spinning is a competition sport.

But that wasn't good enough, apparently. I had obviously forgotten that, in addition to argument by endless wheel spinning, misrepresentation of others' viewpoints is also an Interweb sport, especially in the event that they've cleared the field. Of course, it isn't always easy to tell when someone is doing so intentionally or not; I have been accused of the same. It is enough, though, to make me take one last foray into the ring.

So I am doing my best to avoid Endless Wheel Spinning Syndrome. It seems clear that this can be done by taking the following steps, in order:

(1) Identify cause(s) of the problem.
(2) Determine whether or not proposed solution(s) address the cause(s) of the problem.
(3) Where proposed solution(s) addresses the cause(s) of the problem, determine if they do so sufficiently to resolve the problem to a reasonable degree.

When I did my analysis, this is the order that I followed. I have received many responses that attempt to suggest that my version of (2) or (3) are flawed, based upon a different (1) that remains undeclared.

Until and unless we can agree upon an identified cause of the problem (15-minute adventuring day), there is no point in attempting to analyze any solution. IMHO, of course. Therefore, I have no interest at this point in examining (2) or (3) until (1) is resolved.

If this is "absolutely rude" then I pray your indulgence. Or, if you are unable to indulge me in this, your understanding that I am not going to address (2) or (3) until (1) is resolved, whether you (or anyone else) feels like examining (1) or not.

Which is also, BTW, why I am trying to narrow down your response into something that can be examined in light of the question "What is the cause(s) of the 15-minute adventuring day problem?" The more concise and clear the answer you give is, the easier it is to examine it to see if, indeed, it is the (or one of the) cause(s).

Not even "your best resources," but "All of your wizardly resources."

So, is it fair to say that you posit that the 15 minute adventuring day problem happens because you use your best (wizardly) resources very quickly, and then need to rest to recover them, coupled with the perception that your remaining resources don't feel "wizardy" to you.

Again, is this correct?

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

So, is it fair to say that you posit that the 15 minute adventuring day problem happens because you use your best (wizardly) resources very quickly, and then need to rest to recover them, coupled with the perception that your remaining resources don't feel "wizardy" to you.

It is correct that I believe that this is a relatively good summation of one of the [primary] causes of the 15 minute adventuring day.

I would not go so far to say, however, that it is the only cause (as there are at least two others in my head).

But let's limit the discussion to this for awhile.

 

[pemerton]

What you're saying in the "so that the PCs survive the encounter" statement demonstrates to me AFAICT, as has been the case time and time again, that the real fall-back position for this per-encounter design is to really make each encounter have a significant chance of PC death.

<snip>

There's that basic idea again: manage your resources well (ie. non-trivial, and thus possibily unsuccessful) or die.

Gizmo33, I'll just pick up on these parts of your post because they seem to me to be the crux of our disagreement - or at least one thereof.

Consider a 1st level Orc warrior against a 10th level PC fighter, in 3E. Is the PC in danger?

Well, if the PC does nothing, the Orc will kill him/her. After all , the Orc hits on a natural 20 (with a like chance of a crit) and delivers damage with each such hit.

However, the player of the PC can make a choice which eliminates the threat posed by the Orc, namely, s/he can declare an attack. One round will probably do for a 10th level fighter to kill the Orc.

Presumably, then, we would not describe this as a "dangerous" or "threatening" or "win/lose" encounter - because, through sensible choices, the player can eliminate the threat.

Conversely, the same PC against (let' say) a Stone Giant is in a "win/lose" encounter, because it has a good chance of hitting each round whatever the fighter does, and delivers about 3 or so hit dice worth of damage per round.

What I have in mind is that, with a more complex set of mechanics - giving players more choices as to how the encounter plays out - a greater range of encounters can be ones which (like the Orc) can be rendered non-win/lose through good play, but without the choices being so tedious or obvious, but equally without becoming like the encounter with the Stone Giant, in which no range of choices can eliminate the significant risk of death posed by the encounter.

Because the choices would be non-trivial, the encounter would (in round 1, before effective choices have been made by the players) be one in which a significant threat is posed to the PCs. But unlike the Stone Giant encounter, the threat would be not simply one of raw probability.

This is a type of threat which the mechanics of core 3E do not really allow to be posed. It is similar in some respects to the sort of threat that people have in mind when they talk about Kobolds with their traps and narrow passages, and to the sort of threat that (at least a certain style of) 1st ed AD&D play aims at. The difference I have in mind from these other examples, however, is that in 1st ed AD&D the players have to meet the threat through ingenuity that has nothing to do with game mechanics (because their really aren't any) - I'm thinking here of White Plume Mountain, perhaps Tomb of Horrors, and the like. In 4e, on the other hand, the players will be succeeding by mastering the mechanics.

A recent playtest report on the Wizards site talked about the complexity of 4e for players, and how they are looking at ways to deal with that. This is far from conclusive evidence that the designers are thinking about this in the same way that I am - but it is consistent with it.

Does this make any sense?

 

[pemerton]

I am doing my best to avoid Endless Wheel Spinning Syndrome. It seems clear that this can be done by taking the following steps, in order:

(1) Identify cause(s) of the problem.
(2) Determine whether or not proposed solution(s) address the cause(s) of the problem.
(3) Where proposed solution(s) addresses the cause(s) of the problem, determine if they do so sufficiently to resolve the problem to a reasonable degree.

When I did my analysis, this is the order that I followed. I have received many responses that attempt to suggest that my version of (2) or (3) are flawed, based upon a different (1) that remains undeclared.

I have given my analysis of the problem, including its causes, plus various solutions based on various mixes of resource-types, in post #1118. So far you haven't responded.

Until and unless we can agree upon an identified cause of the problem (15-minute adventuring day), there is no point in attempting to analyze any solution.

This is too pessimistic, because agreement on the cause of the problem is unlikely. For example, you appear to think that it is a result of rational play in the absence of constraints on resting like wandering monsters, whereas I agree with Patryn of Elvenshae (and I think with the 4e designers) that it is primarily a result of players of wizards wanting to do things, and having nothing to do but have their PCs go nova. In the absence of a detailed survey of player preferences and corresponding playstyles (which I assume WoTC has, and is taking account of in its design of 4e), it will be hard to reach agreement on this matter.

What I think can be done is to determine what set of solutions is likely to work for a given set of posited causes of the problem. That is what I have tried to do.

I think Pmertons is probably being optimistic as I really think the scenario 9/10 times is going to be unleash your big per-encounter guns first (or basically it will be the same set of tactics in most every encounter). On the other hand reading many of Pmertons posts he (she) does have a nice grasp of game mechanics from several systems so he might have some insight i don't.

Thanks. And you may be right that I'm being optimistic. In a reply to Gizmo33 (and also here, though with a slightly different foucs), and in some much earlier posts in reply to RC (#572 and #828), I agreed that if non-mechanical thresholds of signifance are not present in play, then the introduction of per-encounter resources may not solve the problem of the 15 minute day, because players will have no reason to conserve per-day resources, no reason not to rest if those resources are used, and may not have the context that helps make the playing out of mechanically challenging, but non-win/lose encounters, a worthwhile game pursuit.

I say "may", because a certain proportion of game players get pleasure simply from playing the game well, even if there is nothing else (theme, plot, PC survival, resource conservation) at stake in the encounter. But I don't know what proportion of D&D players this is true of.

I think his idea of action tokens though is probably a good way to balance and bring more diversity to tactics, as actions have become the most valuable commodity in combat.

That was actually Jackelope King's example, and the game is Iron Heroes, designed by Mike Mearls, who is now one of those working on 4e.

 

[gizmo33]

Because the choices would be non-trivial, the encounter would (in round 1, before effective choices have been made by the players) be one in which a significant threat is posed to the PCs. But unlike the Stone Giant encounter, the threat would be not simply one of raw probability.

If I stand a chance of making a wrong tactical decision, and a wrong tactical decision stands a chance of getting me killed, then IMO it is logical and obvious that the situation stands a chance of getting me killed. I just think it's logically impossible to have a situation where you are making important, challenging decisions and yet never facing a noticable chance of failure. "Raw probability" in this case is not fundementally different in the situation where you are rolling dice, and the situation where you are making a choice where you don't know all of the facts or mistakes in reasoning are possible. Any non-trivial choice is going to carry with it a noticable chance of failure - even if there are no dice involved.

 

[IanArgent]

Hey - I've been explicitly for the change in resource management because it will both allow primary spellcasters to cast spells in every round of combat, and require that primary martial characters have to ration their most powerful abilities.

Anyone want to claim that is not a good thing?

 

[pemerton]

If I stand a chance of making a wrong tactical decision, and a wrong tactical decision stands a chance of getting me killed, then IMO it is logical and obvious that the situation stands a chance of getting me killed. I just think it's logically impossible to have a situation where you are making important, challenging decisions and yet never facing a noticable chance of failure. "Raw probability" in this case is not fundementally different in the situation where you are rolling dice, and the situation where you are making a choice where you don't know all of the facts or mistakes in reasoning are possible. Any non-trivial choice is going to carry with it a noticable chance of failure - even if there are no dice involved.

Fair enough. But in this sense of "threat of being killed", per-encounter seems to be no different from operational play - because in operational play I might make a mistake in encounter N (because the resource-rationing decisions are non-trivial), and then find myself in trouble as a result in encounter N+1. Both the 1st ed DMG and the 1st ed PHB emphasise that every encounter is a threat in this sense, and therefore has to be played with care.

It's just that (as Jackelope King has been emphasising) once per-encounter resources are introduced the timeframe in which one discovers if one made a mistake is the encounter itself, rather than the encounter sequence.

Or have I missed something?