Why is it so important?

[TwoSix]

Have you read what I've written thus far? Did you read the point-by-point analysis I made? If you had, you will know that I clearly accept that "Something can be significant based solely on how it impacts the CURRENT encounter." In fact, this point is crucial to what I am saying (as AFAICT, what Gizmo33 is saying as well).

Yes, if there is a significant chance of death/defeat during an encounter, then the encounter is consequential. Therefore, whatever is used in the encounter is consequential.

If per-day resources are used during the encounter, then the encounter is consequential, because you no longer have those resources for later encounters.

As the odds are very good that you will use per-day resources only in those encounters where you believe there is a significant chance of death/defeat, that makes it likely that we are largely talking about the same group of encounters.

Moreover, as Grog points out (and as Gizmo33, Celebrim, myself, and others pointed out earlier), if you use your per-day resources, the next encounter becomes much more deadly, because you only have per-encounter and at-will resources. Therefore, if you can, you are likely to rest in order to regain your per-day resources.

Which is, AFAICT, the point Gizmo33, Celebrim, et al were making in the first place.

"Per encounter" resources were stated in Wyatt's blog to be designed to remove the 9-9:15 adventuring day. However, the "per encounter" design means that encounters that use only "per encounter" or "at will" abilities become insignificant (4 goblins vs. 10th level fighter) once the players understand the new paradigm.

Thus, in order to provide challenge, the DM must make every encounter able to use up per-day resources (so that, as Grog puts it, a "A PC who uses his per-encounter resources too soon or in an inefficient manner could easily find himself in trouble very quickly").

Which in turn means that, once per-day resources have been used, as Grog again puts it, "Death or defeat could be a serious risk there, but obviously the PCs won't be using per-day resources because they don't have any per-day resources available to use."

Which in turn leads the PCs to rest to regain said resources.

Which means that the problem the new paradigm is intended to resolve.....isn't resolved.

I think the difference between the per-day resources between editions isn't a matter of presence/absence, it's a matter of degree. It's been stated in one of the blogs or articles that a wizard will still have 80% of his resources available when he expends his per-day abilities. In all previous editions, a wizard out of spells has less than 10% of his overall effectiveness available. And a cleric out of spells means that the characters can easily die if they misjudge an encounter.

By lowering the overall power per-day resources contribute, they allow the party to continue forward with a greater margin of error. That's the difference. Even in a 3e game, most characters don't start begging for heals when their hit points are at 80%...it's just not that big of a deal. But when they get down to 20%, everyone wants a heal.

 

[Imaro]

I couldn't find a good post to quote this question directly to, so I'll have to post without referring to a specific quote:

One argument against encounter-based resource management I saw was that it would force each encounter to be a deadly and life-threatening encounter to be of significance at all (at least assuming there are no virgins to be freed from the altar of sacrifice).
But is this really different from the daily resource management paradigm?

Why does a wizard or cleric cast spells in an encounter that is not life-threatening?
Possible Answers:
1) He casts them because he wants to do something in the encounter at all?
2) He casts them because otherwise the encounter would end deadly.
3) He casts them because the encounter ends quicker.

Well, 1) indicates that not casting spells is "unfun" for the player of the wizard or cleric in question. 2) indicates that the encounter was life-threatening, contradicting our assumption.
3) either indicates 2) (the encounter might become deadly if it lasts longer) or that the spellcaster in question didn't enjoy the encounter where he didn't get to much spellcasting and wanted to put a stop to it.

Maybe others find a grave flaw in my argumentation, but if this is true, then essentially, even in the daily resource management paradigmn, encounters are either dangerous or only enjoyable for some players.

The difference between the per-encounter and per-day resources, IMHO, in this situation are as follows. Every encounter in a per-day model is "significant" because the total effect they have upon a character must always be considered. In other words even casting a low-level spell must be considered against whether that spell may be useful, or even necessary in the next encounter or the third or fourth. This makes every encounter significant in the fact that it carries consequences that must be accounted for besides what is best right here and rigt now.

In a per-encounter model, the only concern in using one's abilities is what is effective in the here and now. You need not consider, as long as you use only per-encounter or at-will abilities...what the ramifications of holding in reserve or unleashing full blast will cause. Instead it makes sense to always unleash since they will come back. In other words there is no consideration for long term consequences only short term.

I think of it like this...

Per-day abilities are more like chess in that a move you made 15 minutes ago will affect your capabilities later in the game...in fact all the way to the end.

Per-encounter abilities are like a fighting game(Tekken or Soul Calibur) they take strategy at the moment of the combat, but if you make bad decisions in the first round and loose, you still start at full power in the next round(though there are certain games where loosing the first round causes you to start with less life in the next round, and IMHO, it's a superior style of play.)

The other difference I see is that with a game that promotes long-term strategy, you have time to recognize the mistakes you've made and adjust your strategy to those mistakes outside of combat. In confining strategy to the moment of combat, it does tend to promote a live or die(just like the fighting game) type of encounter.

It might also be interesting to see how per encounter based resources can still give you the feeling of "resource attrition". If we are assuming the typical dungeon environment, traditionally we have many rooms, several of whom include monsters. Often enough DMs or adventure designers put some restraints on how many monsters are alerted by a fight in a nearby room.
Let's assume the players are fighting such a fight in a room, and this time, a few adjacent guards are alerted - in a few rounds, they will be there (the players might be unaware of this dynamic). Somewhere during the fight, maybe even shortly after the last monster in the current room has been disabled, but before the "per encounter" resources are replenished, the other monsters arrive. The players might be out of some their per encounter resources - if they used their resources carefully, they can spend them now, finishing the encounter more easily as if they had already spend their resources.
It is absolutely possible to have the same scenario with the current system.

But the aftermath of this encounter is different:
- In the encounter based resource paradigm, the group can choose to press on and have a reasonable chance to take on a few further encounters. This can be pretty nice if there is some time constraint involved.
- Int he daily resource paradigm, the group will certainly want to make camp, unless they know that there is not much to do next. If the plot demands it, they will press on, but their survival chances are considerably lower...

The second half of this I already addressed in my example where the adventure puts a major encounter in the middle after which the players are still forced to go on. But the resource attrition within the encounter-based scheme is different.

Essentially, you can make more dynamic encounters without forcing your PCs to rest after each such dynamic encounter (which would probably destroy the dynamic feel again) as it is today.

Okay a few problems I see with your example...the sending wave after wave without letting them recover per-encounter abilities. This is not the same as the per-day abilities resource management(it's not just about attrition). You've in effect taken the characters from 100% capacity and stuck them in a fight at 20% capacity...This means that at this point they use their per-day abilities, and if they are enough...they survive. If not they die. The player's didn't manage their resources over a long period of time(Unless they are aware there will be more fights in the same "encounter"), you surprised them with an encounter and the resources they have left is based on random factors(how hard the earlier fight was, if they were throwing abilities for "fun", how dangerous the second fight will be, etc.). Basically it's promoting one playstyle and then doing the switcheroo on your players without warning. It's more likely to get them killed than to promote any type of long-term considerations.

To take the fighting videogame example above...it would be like playing that and one player being aware that depending on how much you use your abilities affects your power level and life in the next round, but the other player doesn't. I guarantee player 1 and player 2 are going to approach that first combat in totally different ways. And my money would be on player 2.

I don't get the more "dynamic" encounter argument. In D&D 3e you can do the same thing and with a finer grain of accuracy. An encounter can again be challenging in and of itself without the risk of death or even major depletion of resources because the management of the resources itself is dynamic. It gives a raneg of resource depletion that the DM can use to shape how long the PC's can go on, which IMHO is a good thing since the DM is the one who must be prepared for the encounters they will experience. Only got 2 to 3 hours for play well then have three major encounters, each of which should deplete 30% of the characters resources. Got 6hrs to play make up 4 encounters that deplete 10% of their resources each, then one balanced for 20% of their resources and a Big Bad who takes 30%. I'm not seeing how these are any less dynamic than the per-encounter abilities.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Unless you run every single encounter, preset every single challenge in your entire game in complete vaccuum from one another, where what you do in one room of the dungeon has absolutely no impact on another other than what happens to the PCs, then my anaylsis is not "irrelevant", RC.

You have Problem A using System 3. I say that I can cure Problem A by using System 4. It therefore follows that I believe that the differences between Systems 3 and 4 can resolve Problem A.

In order to determine whether or not this claim is likely to be true, we need to examine the factors that are known to be different between Systems 3 and 4. Factors that remain the same between both systems are not relevant to such an analysis. They may be very, very relevant to other aspects of gameplay, but not to such an analysis.

Earlier on, both Gizmo33 and I said that nerfing the means to avoid encounters, while making encounters a possible consequence of resting, would deal with the "9-9:30 adventuring day" problem. IOW, we both made a strong claim that a solution to the problem exists within the current ruleset, merely by changing the expectations of those playing the game who are experiencing this problem.

Your additions to my analysis, along with Hong's statement that there is more than one way to have fun in an encounter, are both strong claims that a solution to the problem exists within the current ruleset, merely by changing the expectations of those playing the game who are experiencing this problem. However, unless there is something I missed in your analysis is not present in the current model, your additions to my analysis (1) are indicative of methods in any model that could resolve the problem, and (2) are not indicative of any effects that the changing model has over the current model.

In order to determine whether Wyatt's claim is correct, therefore, they are irrelevant. Not irrelevant to the game, or good DMing, or anything else. My statement that you could use wandering monsters and nerf Rope Trick and Teleport are also relevant to solving the "9-9:15 adventuring day" problem, but not relevant to the discussion of whether or not Wyatt's claim re: per-encounter abilities in 4e will, in fact, solve this problem.

Relevance is based on context.


RC

 

[Plane Sailing]

(1) Each battle either does or does not use up per-day resources. I will consider PC death as a per-day resource.

(1a) If a battle does not use up per-day resources, nothing is lost in engaging in that battle. This means:

(1ai) The PCs can engage in an effectively endless number of these battles.

(1aii) The only significant impact of these battles can be the opportunity to give the PCs stuff.

(1b) If a battle doe use up per-day resources, the PCs will be at less than full capacity. This means:

(1bi) These battles are automatically much more important than the other battles.

(1bii) The PCs can only engage in a limited number of these battles per day.

(1biii) This impact of these battles is to make the PCs less able to deal with future events.

To my mind, these things together lead to several conclusions:

1. In the event of a battle that has no chance to require expending per-day resources, there is no reason to have the battle. It becomes the "4 goblins agains a 10th level fighter" scenario. We have been told for a very long time, "if it doesn't impact the game, it's better to handwave it."

I think you have some flaws (omissions) in your original premise.

Flaw 1:

PCs are very likely to have expendable items (ammunition, potions) which can only be used once ever. They are not per-day items, you don't get them back by resting, but they are very likely to be used up during encounters that don't require use of a per-day resource. The archer PC *will* deplete his stock of arrows, even against relatively insignificant foes. Missing this out from (1) means that (1a) is false, since something significant *can* be lost.

Conclusion (1) is thus also false.

(treating PC death as a per-day resource seems like a major, major oversimplification BTW. At best it can't be treated as such until Raise Dead etc. come on the scene, so it isn't available for pretty much half the possible adventuring life! For most of the resource usage here you are considering the players choice in what they use up. 20%-25% resources used up in a fight doesn't have to mean that the resource usage is spread equally between all participants, and a nasty critical hit can dramatically reduce available party resources by killing a PC in a fight that otherwise should have been OK ("who woulda thought that both orcs got a critical hit with the power-attacking greataxes, killing the 8th level rogue outright?"). Loss of hit points as resource usage? or healing spells as resource usage? The latter seems to fit better with the model you are describing, as the PC gets the choice of whether to expend them or not.

Flaw 2:
(1aii) There are *lots* of other significant impacts that can occur from such battles. They may have used up nonrenewable resources (as above). They may have delayed the party on adventures when the 'timer is running'. They may delay the party so that BBEG can escape. They may make sufficient noise that an alarm is raised, mobilising enemy forces. They may reveal PC tactics and resources to watching spies.

Cheers

 

[hong]

In order to determine whether or not this claim is likely to be true, we need to examine the factors that are known to be different between Systems 3 and 4. Factors that remain the same between both systems are not relevant to such an analysis. They may be very, very relevant to other aspects of gameplay, but not to such an analysis.

... which implies your analysis is irrelevant.

 

[gizmo33]

The metagame goal is "have fun". There is more than one way to derive fun from a fight.

The difference is that it assumes players will go through the motions of N not-fun fights before getting to that last fight.

So which is it? If there is more than one way to derive fun from a fight then doesn't that have a bearing on Wyatt's whole premise?

 

[Imaro]

Very clear derivation of your conclusions.

I think, however, that in principle (1aii) is false. A battle can have a thematic impact without having either a resource-attrition or resource-enhancement impact. If the aim of the game is to explore thematic content, then such impacts can be significant and rewarding at the metagame level.

I am not sure that 4e embraces this metagame goal, however.

If it does not, and if the only reward of these non-resource-impacting batles is the thrill of "playing my guy and using all those nifty abilities", then I think your prediction about the evolution of play has a reasonable degree of plausibility.

You know I want to address this as well, and I think the fighting game metaphor is a good analogy.

It's like saying if I bet money on the fighting game it will address the issues I have with gameplay by making the game have more impact. This reasoning falls apart when you get to the heart of the matter however. I haven't increased my enjoyment of gameplay or satisfaction with the controls of the game, I've created a purely artificial solution to address a problem that still exsists.

In your example majority of battles have to have a far-reaching or "thematic" purpose in order to produce impact. If this arrives naturally through gameplay then that's great...but I shouldn't have to institute melodrama(this sounds mighty close to railaoading) in every encounter for it to have impact.

 

[Raven Crowking]

By lowering the overall power per-day resources contribute, they allow the party to continue forward with a greater margin of error. That's the difference. Even in a 3e game, most characters don't start begging for heals when their hit points are at 80%...it's just not that big of a deal. But when they get down to 20%, everyone wants a heal.

Lets discuss the "threshold of significance" problem for a moment.

If you examine Jackalope King's addendums to my arguments, you can see that one could easily make an argument on their basis that an encounter with four goblins could be made significant for a 10th level fighter. Now, I personally agree with that, and I have suggested on other threads that much-lower CR creatures can still be significant in relation to higher level characters. When I have said this, though, the overwhelming response has been that this is untrue and that such encounters should be handwaved.

This is because the threshold of significance is different in terms of mechanical and non-mechanical aspects of the adventure. There is certainly some overlap; if those four goblins bang a gong that summons the Tarrasque, for example. However, I have heard it argued that rust monsters ought to be a hazard rather than a monster. In this particular case, the effect of the goblins is that of a hazard as well. (One of the reasons that I argued against the rust monster as mere hazard is that it can be used in other ways; certainly, however, a monster can be used effectively as a hazard.)

The reason that the four goblins get handwaved (or dropped out) so often is that they fall below the mechanical threshold of significance for the game system. It is basically my argument that, if you can have any number of encounters X, and at the end of those encounters you are at 80% resources, then an encounter that leaves you at 80% resources without a significant chance of loss of permanent resources falls below the mechanical threshold of significance.

Encounters that fall below all thresholds of significance are boring. The mechanical theshold of significance is the easiest and most obvious threshold of significance for a DM to achieve. It therefore follows, to me, that DMs will raise the mechanical challenge of their encounters beyond the threshold of significance.

Moreover, since this change is hailed as solving the "9-9:15 adventuring day" problem, and since DMs who target other, non-mechanical, thresholds of significance are unlikely to have this problem in the first place (since it is derived from the mechanical threshold of significance), the DMs this is intended as a solution for are the ones least likely to continue using encounters that fall below the mechanical theshold of significance.

Now, let's say that when your per-day resources are used, you are still at 80%. Simply targetting per-day resources no longer raises the mechanical challenge beyond the threshold of significance. You need either to target long-term resources (possibly ability damage) or permanent resources (such as character life).

In turn, this means that DMs design challenges where, at 80% of your resources, things could go sour very quickly.

In turn, this means that when you've lost 20% of your resources, you should do something about it if you can.

In turn, this means that the "9-9:15 adventuring day" problem hasn't been solved, but it may have gotten worse.

RC

 

[Imaro]

I think you have some flaws (omissions) in your original premise.

Flaw 1:

PCs are very likely to have expendable items (ammunition, potions) which can only be used once ever. They are not per-day items, you don't get them back by resting, but they are very likely to be used up during encounters that don't require use of a per-day resource. The archer PC *will* deplete his stock of arrows, even against relatively insignificant foes. Missing this out from (1) means that (1a) is false, since something significant *can* be lost.

Conclusion (1) is thus also false.

(treating PC death as a per-day resource seems like a major, major oversimplification BTW. At best it can't be treated as such until Raise Dead etc. come on the scene, so it isn't available for pretty much half the possible adventuring life! For most of the resource usage here you are considering the players choice in what they use up. 20%-25% resources used up in a fight doesn't have to mean that the resource usage is spread equally between all participants, and a nasty critical hit can dramatically reduce available party resources by killing a PC in a fight that otherwise should have been OK ("who woulda thought that both orcs got a critical hit with the power-attacking greataxes, killing the 8th level rogue outright?"). Loss of hit points as resource usage? or healing spells as resource usage? The latter seems to fit better with the model you are describing, as the PC gets the choice of whether to expend them or not.

Flaw 2:
(1aii) There are *lots* of other significant impacts that can occur from such battles. They may have used up nonrenewable resources (as above). They may have delayed the party on adventures when the 'timer is running'. They may delay the party so that BBEG can escape. They may make sufficient noise that an alarm is raised, mobilising enemy forces. They may reveal PC tactics and resources to watching spies.

Cheers

Your comments on 1a don't make sense. The base assumption, as stated by the designer's, is that characters will be at about 80% capability after every encounter. We cannot assume that characters will make the mistake of not buying enough amunition, as it is a variable that suggests non-competent players(I can't see a competent player playing an archer and not buying enough arrows to take down an army).

Second the realm of one-use magic items does not factor because all they do is bring the PC above 80% so by using the 80% or above baseline they are allready factored in.


And again you use thematic resources, which are not in and of themselves a part of gameplay, but instead a consideration of the DM and his playstyle. An artificial band-aid to the problem that makes the DM have to fix the problem and is just like the time-constraint pushing done in 3e.

 

[hong]

So which is it? If there is more than one way to derive fun from a fight then doesn't that have a bearing on Wyatt's whole premise?

There is more than one way to derive fun from a fight, if you object to the notion that every fight has to be risky. Which was what you were complaining about, if you might recall.

Further, in terms of adventure organisation, the fact that there is more than one way to have fun from a fight is entirely irrelevant to how those fights should be structured. Just because I can have fun showboating for 3 non-risky foes before the big showdown is no reason to build that structure into the game's philosophy. Sometimes I might want to do nothing but showboat. Other times I might want 6 life-or-death showdowns before lunch. Etcetera.