Why is it so important?

[Merlion]

I have trouble with the use of the word "difficulty" in this context.
Situation One: roll a 1 on a d20 or your imaginary character dies
Situation Two: roll a 1 on a d4 or your imaginary character dies

Is one situation really more "difficult" than the other? Of course no combat situation is this simple, and perhaps you're thinking that tactical considerations mean the players have to think, like chess, and that's tough.

But I find it contrived and uncomfortable to think that I'm going to have to design each combat encounter to feature rope bridges over pits of fire and random explosions and other battlefield and tactical nuisances, and use them to a level that such tactical thinking would be a significant part of the outcome of the battle. For the most part IME with DnD the encounter is won or lost on the basic strengths of the opponents.

Fighting an enemy that you can kill with a single swordstroke is very easy.

Fighting 4 such enemies, is less easy.

Fighting 2 enemies that each take at least 3 or 4 attacks to kill is more difficult than either.

Then there is fighting a single enemy that is immune to all but your most powerful forms of attack. Or fighting an enemy which is relatively vulnerable to your attacks, but who has an attack that will paralyse or kill you out right.

Your thinking of "difficulty" in terms of either resource management, or death. Please stop. there is more too it than that.

Now granted, this is a matter of degree. Given PCs *more* encounter level resources may extend the time they spend in the dungeon. But really I don't find "9:00 to 9:15" to be an exaggeration since it represents 150 rounds, and I really doubt a PC party can fight for even a modest fraction of that before being completely out of powers. So "extending" the capabilities of the PCs by even *multiples* of the current still gets you to a "9:00 to 9:45" problem - hardly worth the effort.

Here are my thoughts on that mess.

A group who insists on being at 100% for every encounter, is going to do what they have to to do that, regardless.

In the current system, parties that WOULD NOT DO THAT often do so anyway because, among probably other reasons, certain characters have already run out of, or at least are well below everyone else in terms of resources at this point.

Having more tiers of resources simply means more options. For the "must be at 100% at all times" groups it isnt going to matter. For many other styles of groups, it will prevent them from feeling forced into courses of action they would rather not take. Now your probably going to say, "well the resting is just handwaved anyway," but some groups may not want to do that. Some groups may not handwave that time...or they may not want to, but want to be able to press on, or at least press on with the group at a more even level of resource depletion.

 

[gizmo33]

Can you give me an example of an encounter-level resource in the core 3.X rules? I know that Bo9S has them, but I'm having trouble thinking of any in the core rules.

Only things that you wouldn't want to do in the middle of combat but that you would want to do and could safely do once combat is over. Any spell with a casting time of over one round has properties similar to encounter-level resources in that you would prepare it and cast it before combat, and then that's basically it until the battle is safely over. (Granted, there's a daily aspect to it as well.) Otherwise I'm stumped, but I'm not sure that changes the overall calculation because wouldn't at-will resources just be encounter level resources with a high enough usage count?

Oh - allowing people to recharge daily resources by just going outside the dungeon and camping and then going back into the dungeon with no apparent change to the environment or consequences for camping is an example of an "encounter-level" resource.

And I wouldn't call the fighter's ability to swing his sword a "resource" at all. He can do it every round, as often as he wants to, all day long.

Actually he's limited to swinging the sword a set number of times per round, and he has to do it to the exclusion of other abilities. Oh, and you can think of it as him "recharging" his ability each round. What I've been asserting is that you don't consider it a resource because the recharge times and costs of usage are pretty low (in fact, non-existent) This IMO will be the perception of any encounter-level resource usage one minute after the last swing in a 4E battle.

The main thing I see is that it doesn't matter - you pretty much just fire off your encounter-level resource. You've got to survive the encounter, and the usage of the resource has no further effect than that, so the only consideration is not in the costs of it's use, but ONLY perhaps that another resource would be better to use that round. That's not the same thing at all to a daily resource such as fireball - whose use against a pair of kobolds would certainly be effective but not well advised because of the consequences for use of daily resources that largely don't exist for encounter-level resources.

In the context of these discussions, "resources" usually mean things that can be expended. And encounter-level resources can be expended just as easily as per-day resources can, so they have to be tracked by the players just as per-day resources do (at least for the duration of the encounter).

I've argued previously in this post that daily resources and encounter resources are qualitatively different. Basically it stems from the fact that daily resources are recovered over a fixed time, whereas encounter level resources are recovered based on the danger being over with an a very small amount of fixed time afterwards. These difference are significant are belied by the terminology that calls them both "X-level" resources.

The presence of these per-encounter resources represents a fundamental difference from previous editions of D&D.

I think it at least represents a fundemental addition to the game and in of itself does nothing to affect the "9:00 to 9:15" problem either way. But it does add an interesting additional set of capabilities and I hope to see the mechanic in 4E. It's with the replacing of daily resources with encounter resources that I have concerns. To the degree that it doesn't affect the overall structure of the game, it doesn't bother me, but also unfortunately doesn't solve Wyatt's problem either. One of us is going to be disappointed unless Wyatt learns to DM differently, or I do, or there's some other solution we haven't thought of.

 

[gizmo33]

Your thinking of "difficulty" in terms of either resource management, or death. Please stop. there is more too it than that.

"Please stop" does not constitute reasoning and so I continue to not see how your definition of "difficult" makes any sense to me. I see your snarkiness and raise you one: rolling dice is not difficult for me no matter what numbers you tell me to look for. Maybe it's all the weight lifting. :\

(edit - "Please stop" also assumes that my lack of understanding is a matter of will, which implies that I'm not raising these objections in good faith but instead just being argumentative when, if I really tried, I'd see things the way you do. This probably makes sense in terms of frustration, but is not IMO true at all.)

 

[WhimsyTheFae]

I believe that taking Wyatt's design goals to their logical conclusion does not necessitate that hit points/ammunition/etc. are also going to be on a per-encounter basis. I believe that the key is that certain class abilities, without which the character's abilities are greatly reduced, are what are being targetted for the per-encounter treatment.

We already know, from every edition of D&D, that depleted hit points do not greatly reduce a characters effectiveness (his longevity, yes, but not his effectiveness). Having to fall back on his crossbow/daggers/staff/etc. (while admirable) does greatly reduce a wizards effectiveness. This still may be a bit too much for some of you, but I believe that this is the actual goal of Wyatt's blog entry.

Of course, it does make for a more provocative post to say, "I snap my fingers after a minute and I'm back to 100%".

 

[Imaro]

Fighting an enemy that you can kill with a single swordstroke is very easy.

Fighting 4 such enemies, is less easy.

Fighting 2 enemies that each take at least 3 or 4 attacks to kill is more difficult than either.

Then there is fighting a single enemy that is immune to all but your most powerful forms of attack. Or fighting an enemy which is relatively vulnerable to your attacks, but who has an attack that will paralyse or kill you out right.

Your thinking of "difficulty" in terms of either resource management, or death. Please stop. there is more too it than that.

But even in this example resource management does come into play...

Fighting an enemy you can kill in a single swordstroke is easy

Fighting 4 such enemies is only less easy if you have to sacrifice something(hp's/spells/etc.) to do it otherwise it is no harder than the above encounter, just takes more dice rolls.

Fighting 2 enemies that take 3-4 attks to kill is again only less easy in how they affect your resources, if it's neligible then it is again as easy as encounter one and just takes longer to resolve.

Now fighting an enemy that is immune to all but your most powerful forms of attack. Or fighting an enemy which is relatively vulnerable to your attacks, but who has an attack that will paralyse or kill you out right.

Both of these examples take away your at-will or per encounter resources(either by being immune to anything but your most powerful or paralysing you) or take all your resources by auto-killing you. thus yes it is more difficult than the first. Yet we again went from breeze encounter(with varying lengths) to a supreme danger situation. Either everything has to be able to neutralize your resources in one encounter or you will beat it with no consequences since they will recharge.

 

[pemerton]

I think you're summary of the thread thus far was interesting and it did a good job of capturing my thoughts, at least.

Thanks. And thanks for your response. I should say upfront that I'm not necessarily a 4e advocate, in the sense that I'm not sure it's the game for me. But I do think that it reflects a reasonably considered approach to design. It's just that that approach is quite different from the more traditional D&D approach.

Experience adventurers who have survived numerous conflict are probably no longer operating at a level of impetuousness as does a noob.

<snip>

The suggestion (and I've seen it several times from folks advocating this 4E style) is that somehow players put aside rationality and start acting according to extreme personality stereotypes.

<snip>

Possibly. Gygax was a wargamer. War has a tendency to be treated as a science by folks (Sun Tzu and all of that). Most field manuals on war don't advise you to tap into your "heroic passions" for anything.

I don't dispute your characterisation of modern soldiers. But it's not true of all armed interpersonal conflict - for example, the duelling culture of early modern Europe was driven by non-rational considerations, such as honour.

I agree that 1st ed essentially rewards play that emulates a military operational approach. But there are other possible approaches to RPGing. What I am interested in is what mechanics will be introduced in 4e (if any) to support those other approaches (eg will there be anything like TRoS's Spiritual Attributes). Without those sorts of mechanics it will be hard to avoid the game reverting to rational resource management.

If it devolves into a series of superficial encounters I'm not sure what RPGs would have to offer.

<snip>

This, literally, is the opposite of open-ended. Perhaps the expression is unfamiliar.

<snip>

Why is it interesting? Part of the assumption that the 4E style of play makes is that adversity=un-fun. Given that the outcomes are pre-determined, and there's a shrinking list of strategically interesting options for the game, it's just a matter of time IMO before players realize their on a story-telling treadmill. IMO this is only successful in the short-run because story-telling games rely on a spirit of the game established by wargamers - the only reason people think they can die in such games is because they read something about Gygax's game which described someone dying. Sooner or later they'll catch on, and the story-telling game will have to sink or swim on it's own merits and not because it diguises itself as the type of game with variable outcomes.

The open-endedness that I had in mind was (i) the sequence of events prior to the climax is not pre-determined (unlike, for example, the typical 1st ed module, in which the dungeon is fairly linear) and (ii) the thematic signifcance of the climax may not be pre-determined (an example of this would be Keith Baker's Penumbra module "The Ebon Mirror").

As Hong has pointed out, open-endedness type (i) is supported by a move to per-encounter and a dropping of operational considerations. And open-endedness type (ii) is the answer to your question "What does the game have to offer?" It offers the potential for the exploration of themes. In that sense, the outcome is not pre-deterined.

Unfortunately, I suspect that 4e won't emphasise thematic exploration (and I suspect that it may not have mechanics like Spiritual Attributes). Rather, I think it will emphasise "playing my guy and his/her cool powers". And I think you're right that that may not stay interesting for very long; and the game probably won't support resource-management play in the way earlier editions have. But then 5e will arrive to keep the game alive!

Like I said, I'm not necessarily defending 4e. I'm just trying to explain it as somewhat rational, on its own terms.

Someone on this board told me recently (and emphatically) that the "status quo" style of adventure was discussed in the 3E DMG and discussed an adventure that was designed according to what I've been calling versimilitude. Why would that be there if it was Monte's design goal to exclude it. Do you have a link where he's quoted on this topic?

The link is the one I gave in my post, namely, his column on spellcasters.

Hey! That's a 30 year long nightmare called "Dungeons and Dragons" AFAICT.

Sure, but ever since 2E it's been changing. 2E emphasised "grand narrative" much more (Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, Dark Sun) but didn't really provide the mechanics to support it. 3E changed direction more, and 4e is continuing the transition.

I think WoTC feel that there is simply not the demand, any more, for wargaming-style operational play. Like Hong, I think they're probably right. Whether this will lead to the death of the hobby I don't know. I'm not sure I agree with you that wargamer-types are the indispensible core of the hobby. I think that the world may have moved on. But that's realy just speculation on my part.

 

[wgreen]

It occurs to me that someone who has played with Unearthed Arcana's spell recharge variant magic system might be able to provide us with valuable descriptions of their experiences. Anyone?

-Will

 

[pemerton]

To me, the whole discussion of playstyles is mostly irrelevent. People are going to play the game how they want to play it, regardless. I am discussing primarily the nature of the proposed mechanical changes, and there effect on combat and class balance within combat.

Merlion, I've agreed with a lot of your posts on this and other 4e threads. But here I have to disagree. Different mechanics support different playstyles, and I think it is quite important to discuss these issues.

The quote from James Wyatt itself refers to issues of playstyle, because it assumes that a purely resource-depletion/resource-management encounter is not interesting. Thus, mechanical changes are being made to eliminate such encounters. The new mechanics will therefore not support the play of those who do enjoy purely resource-depletion encounters.

While it is possible to play a game in a style that its mechanics do not support, it is likely to be less satisfying then playing it in a style that the mechanics do support.

 

[Grog]

Otherwise I'm stumped, but I'm not sure that changes the overall calculation because wouldn't at-will resources just be encounter level resources with a high enough usage count?

No. At-will resources are fundamentally different from per-encounter resources (unless your encounters always last only one round). With an at-will resource, the only thing you have to decide is whether it's better to use that resource or do something else in any given round. With a resource that's usable once per encounter, not only do you have to decide whether it's better to use it or do something else, but you also have to decide if that particular round is the best time to use it, or if it might be better to wait. That's a different calculus.

Oh - allowing people to recharge daily resources by just going outside the dungeon and camping and then going back into the dungeon with no apparent change to the environment or consequences for camping is an example of an "encounter-level" resource.

No, they're still per-day resources, it's just that the players and the DM have decided to have only one encounter per day. From a design point of view, in 3E, these abilities weren't supposed to be used in every encounter. 3E wizards, for example, aren't balanced against the assumption that they'll be able to cast all their most powerful spells in every encounter.

Actually he's limited to swinging the sword a set number of times per round, and he has to do it to the exclusion of other abilities. Oh, and you can think of it as him "recharging" his ability each round. What I've been asserting is that you don't consider it a resource because the recharge times and costs of usage are pretty low (in fact, non-existent) This IMO will be the perception of any encounter-level resource usage one minute after the last swing in a 4E battle.

But the important time frame is not after the battle, it's during the battle. If you're in the middle of a difficult fight, choosing when and how to use your encounter-level resources is critically important. You want to get the most bang for your buck, so to speak. And as someone else pointed out, per-encounter resources are still limited (which is what makes them fundamentally different from "at-will" abilities). For example, if you have a 1/encounter fireball, is it better to use it right at the beginning of the fight, or wait and hope your friends can maneuver the enemies closer together?

The main thing I see is that it doesn't matter - you pretty much just fire off your encounter-level resource. You've got to survive the encounter, and the usage of the resource has no further effect than that, so the only consideration is not in the costs of it's use, but ONLY perhaps that another resource would be better to use that round. That's not the same thing at all to a daily resource such as fireball - whose use against a pair of kobolds would certainly be effective but not well advised because of the consequences for use of daily resources that largely don't exist for encounter-level resources.

The designers have said that 4E is going to feature more monsters per encounter. I agree, if you come across two kobolds in the middle of an open field, you would just fire off your 1/encounter fireball and move on. But if you're facing a couple dozen kobolds, swarming in from several different directions, with the possibility of more behind them - well, then the choice to use your 1/encounter fireball isn't quite such a no-brainer, is it? There are still plenty of interesting and relevant choices players can make with per-encounter abilities - it's not just the "ho-hum, I'll use everything and then recharge" situation you're making it out to be.

 

[Merlion]

Thus, mechanical changes are being made to eliminate such encounters. The new mechanics will therefore not support the play of those who do enjoy purely resource-depletion encounters.

I don't think we know enough to know that for sure. Its certainly reasonble to think its possible, and it is likely that it won't be as supported, but I dont think it will be totally unsupported. I think strong elements of it will remain.

Also, theres an issue of degree and numbers. Resource depletion is right now mainly an issue for spellcasters...and most of all an issue for wizards. The hardest hit will be the subset of wizard players who are really into the threat of depleted resources. But my experience both in real life and on these boards is that thats a very small subset.