Why is it so important?

[Victim]

Exactly.

The only fantasy fiction the current Wizard imitates is Jack Vance. It doesn't do most of the other systems Raven mentioned AT ALL.

It's not Tolkien magic, and it's DEFINITELY not Hyborian magic (which involves making deals with devils and taking drugs to cast spells, then hybernating while your mind recovers for months sometimes- sound like D&D to you?)

The Wizard class is also not well balanced at low levels (1-5) or high levels (16-20).

So it really only emulates one fantasy author, and it's unbalanced half the character's lifespan.

I see no reason not to try and improve on THAT.

Actually, it doesn't even do Vance. Not even all of his Dying Earth stories use the same memorization magic (Rhialto stories didn't). Plus, while extremely limited, DE prepped magic was pretty much guaranteed to succeed when used, which is unlike DnD magic. Finally, if you can write a spell name in lower case, it's not Vancian.

 

[F4NBOY]

Smart metagamers don't rest when they reach 80% or 50% or 25% of thier maximum resources. They rest as soon as they drop below 100% of thier maximum resources. If I'm metagaming in a vacuum (for example, assume a non-timed dungeon exploration without a proactive opponent, 'Descent into the Forgotten Catacombs' for example), I don't rest when I think I have to. I rest after every encounter. If I metagaming, I'm not motivated by whether it seems silly to rest after 5 minutes of actual adventuring. I'm motivated by the desire to 'win'. And the best strategy is to rest, even if I only lost 4 hit points.

That's not metagaming. That's just making obvious smart and reasonable choices. If the character can rest and become 100% after every encounter, why shouldn't he? It would be silly not doing it.
If that's mategaming, then what's the opposite of that? Roleplaying? If the "roleplayer" keeps going on even when he is with 50% of his resources, for the sakes of story and cinematics, than he is being a bad roleplayer, because his character and even himself would not do it IRL without a pretty good reason.

 

[ruleslawyer]

Without going back and writing an outline for everything I just posted, it is the natural assumption which falls out from the magic system implied by what's posted so far. Namely, that 4e wizards will look like a combination of at will abiltiies (my guess is that this is mostly warlock like 'blast abilities'), per encounter abilities, and per day abilities. We know this to be true from quotes that tell us a wizard that uses 'all of his spells per day' will still be at about 80% power.

Thus, he'll be missing about 20% of his effectiveness. At high levels, without an extraordinary revamping of the system in other areas, at least some of that effectiveness will be deemed to be 'critical'. Thus, the smart party will, absent other factors, always choose to rest so as to never go into an encounter at less than 100%. Since some of the Wizard's spells are still 'per day', this means resting for the day.

I guess that my issue is with the difference between "critical" abilities and "all" abilities. The entire point of making some abilities per day, at least in Monte Cook's view, was to limit the "big booms" to particular dramatic moments. Things like the stuff you mentioned are, in the game's current incarnation, essential (or critical) defenses or buffs. I highly doubt those will reside in the per-day category, and thus, unless you have a group of gamers that insists at being at 100% capacity even in non-critical areas, I don't see how per-encounter design fails at mitigating the "five minutes a day of adventuring time" problem.

 

[Treebore]

IME metagaming has evil connotations. IMO resting when you're below 100% resources in a potential life-or-death situation is what sensible people do IRL and in most stories. It makes no sense, even entirely within character, to continue to press on in the "Catacombs of Mystery" when there is no compelling reason to do so unless you're playing Captain Ahab/insane.

Yes, very true. That is verisimilitude.

 

[Celebrim]

IME metagaming has evil connotations. IMO resting when you're below 100% resources in a potential life-or-death situation is what sensible people do IRL and in most stories. It makes no sense, even entirely within character, to continue to press on in the "Catacombs of Mystery" when there is no compelling reason to do so unless you're playing Captain Ahab/insane.

Bingo.

I certainly did not mean to imply that players only did this because of something negative. Principally, they do it because it is tactically and often even strategically sound. I only meant to imply that RPers aren't always motivated by the desire to play thier characters in the way that is most tactically sound. Some players might push on out of a desire to create or recreate a certain sort of story even if it wasn't tactically the most sound decision.

What I think you are seeing here is different players hoping that you can create a set of utopian mechanics wherein those things that are most tactically sound are also the things which create the most interesting narratives.

 

[Celebrim]

That's not metagaming. That's just making obvious smart and reasonable choices. If the character can rest and become 100% after every encounter, why shouldn't he? It would be silly not doing it.
If that's mategaming, then what's the opposite of that? Roleplaying? If the "roleplayer" keeps going on even when he is with 50% of his resources, for the sakes of story and cinematics, than he is being a bad roleplayer, because his character and even himself would not do it IRL without a pretty good reason.

Opposite implies a binary here. I'm not at all implying that there is a binary. There might be more than one alternative motivation.

Do you see all these mentions of 'source material' when we get into this discussion? Every time someone talks about 'per encounter' abilities, they start bringing up works of fantasy literature.

Not all people you lump in the 'role playing' end of your arbitrary single axis description are motivated by a desire to play the character in a 'gritty', 'how does my character feel', role-playing as empathy exploration way. Alot of 'roleplayers' are attempting to create or recreate a certain dramatic experience through the medium of role-playing. That is to say, they don't want to be in a game where people do things as they would "do it IRL", but rather they want to be in a game where people do things as they would do it in the fiction of Tolkien or whoever fascinates them. These players aren't motivated by either the thought, "What's the best way to win" or "How would this fiction character react if this fictional world was real?" They are thinking, "What would Conan do?"

 

[Grog]

Grog. We've fought this fight before. You didn't listen to me then, and you aren't listening to me now.

Smart metagamers don't rest when they reach 80% or 50% or 25% of thier maximum resources. They rest as soon as they drop below 100% of thier maximum resources.

No, you're the one who's not listening to me.

I'm not talking about how often the party is allowed to rest. That will obviously be the same in 4E as it is in 3E. I'm talking about how often the party is required to rest. There's a difference.

 

[gizmo33]

What I think you are seeing here is different players hoping that you can create a set of utopian mechanics wherein those things that are most tactically sound are also the things which create the most interesting narratives.

Yea, that's what I would hope for too. The problem I have with some of things I've read is that people seem to be equating "interesting narrative" with how things are in the books. And I think fantasy books do very little to explain how magic works. Stories also don't have to deal with the fact that the protagonists are people other than the author that are trying to be successful at what they're doing, rather than doing whatever makes for an exciting story.

And IMO it's not bad roleplaying to try to be successful. IME players usually define their character by what they want to achieve rather than how to achieve it. That means the tactically sound options are the ones exercised by the vast majority of characters regardless of what their personality is. It would take a pretty extreme character personality for a fighter to eschew weapons and armor for a dagger and loincloth for example. The character of Captain Ahab is noted for his maniacal obsession and disregard for resource management - I don't really think that players should have to act that way in order to be good roleplayers.

(BTW - I'm not countering the things you're saying here, nor I wasn't disagreeing with you on your post, I was citing it for context because I had seen metagaming come up a number of times in the thread and I was concerned that the implication was "if you don't metagame, the situation fixes itself" which I thought was a non-answer if one does not consider sensible resource management to be metagaming. AFAICT we're in agreement on this issue.)

 

[Celebrim]

I guess that my issue is with the difference between "critical" abilities and "all" abilities. The entire point of making some abilities per day, at least in Monte Cook's view, was to limit the "big booms" to particular dramatic moments. Things like the stuff you mentioned are, in the game's current incarnation, essential (or critical) defenses or buffs. I highly doubt those will reside in the per-day category, and thus, unless you have a group of gamers that insists at being at 100% capacity even in non-critical areas, I don't see how per-encounter design fails at mitigating the "five minutes a day of adventuring time" problem.

You just said how it fails. You wrote: "Things like the stuff you mentioned are, in the game's current incarnation, essential (or critical) defenses or buffs."

Fixing the problem involves changing that element of play. If I change that element of play, then the problem goes away regardless of whether I remain with a 'per day' design. If I don't change that element of play, then the problem doesn't go away even if I go to a per encounter design unless as I already mentioned you turn all resources into per encounter ones. But that has its own problems.

Look at it this way. Imagine that they don't change "the stuff mentioned" and all that remains essential or critical defences. Then you are essentially asking for is always on hero's feast, death ward, mind blank, freedom of movement and so forth. You don't see how that won't carry its own problems which are at least as great as those you are trying to fix? On the other hand, if I change the game where "the stuff mentioned" is no longer critical, then a 'per encounter' system no longer is needed to fix the problem of resource management.

What I've yet to show (and attempt to show in this thread) is that the per encounter system carries a potential cost/risk which makes me skeptical of it. All I'm trying to say at the moment is that it won't fix what most people who support it say that it will fix.

 

[Celebrim]

I'm not talking about how often the party is allowed to rest. That will obviously be the same in 4E as it is in 3E. I'm talking about how often the party is required to rest. There's a difference.

Where in the quoted passage by me, or in any of my argument, did you see the words allowed or required? So what makes you think I'm talking about either allowed or required?