Why is it so important?

[Imaro]

Again, it's never been that way in the past. It might be that way in 4th edition, but making the assumption that because wizards are at 80% when they use up all their per day abilities means that ALL classes will be at 80% when THEY use up all their per day abilities is likely to be a false assumption. (IMO) Assuming it as FACT when trying to make an argument leads to a bad argument.

I find it much more likely that classes will have a mix of effectiveness with their abilities, some having more powerful 'At Will' abilities with less powerful Per Day/Per Encounter abilities, and others going the other way around. Much like current and previous versions of the game.

It's never been that way because total resource expenditure was controlled by the players, so it was on them and their decisions how powerful they were in any given encounter after the first.

Let me put it this way...if you give me a choice between a character who will be at 80% or a character who will be at 30% after using their per-day abiltity, I would be stupid to pick the 30% character and creating such an imbalance is bad game design. A per-day ability can only be used in any encounter one time, so as long as I don't use it Im effectively fighting at 30% and in the one fight where I use it I'm 100% and then 30% after that until I rest.

Now with the other character I'm at 80% until I use my per-day ability, which then I hit 100% and drop bac k down to 80%...This would be a huge imbalance and once again bad game design where the first character(30%) will still end up causing the second(80%) to rest after expending his per-day ability.

I could see a minor discrepancy(at most 5%) so every character is between 75-85% effectiveness, but ultimately it has to be close or you won't be able to continue as has been stated as a benefit to this style, and encounters will be wildly imbalanced vs. certain character types. Thus it's safe to assume an 80% as baseline.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Here's a prediction, though, and we'll see whether I am right or wrong. Within the first year after 4.0 is released, we'll start hearing about the 9-9:15 adventuring day problem again. They might call it the 9-10 adventuring day, but it will be the same problem.
RC

Sometimes I get th feeling we are discussing to many things at once.

If resources were purely encounter (and round) based, there is no need for a 9-9:15 adventuring day. The only reason to rest the group is because you are out of resoruces and the only way to replenish them is resting.
If that is no longer the case, the party only rests if it feels like it. Which might mean never.

This in turn would obviously lead to other problems (the "boy, do you remember 8 o'clock when we were just 1st level?"), but that's not related to the 9-9:15 business.

Now, what will a mixed system lead to, as D&D 4 will apparently be?
Well, we will see for certain next year, but what can we guesstimate?

It still depends a lot on play style. For some players, being at 80 % of their resources might be enough to get into the next fight. Some might still feel that's to little, so they rest anyway. Well, you can't help them.

How will encouners change? There will be less need and less desire for encounters that serve only to "steal" some resources (like hitpoints, cure spells or magic missiles) from the player. Which might lead to more encounters being "tougher" and the average "death risk" being higher, because there is no point in easy encounters (except to allow the players to show off). But it might make it easier to have a flexible flow through each adventure.

How will balance change? Well, if spellcasters and fighters are more balanced according to the "per encounter" scheme, they will remain similar power, regardless of how many encounters are thrown on them per day. If the group is out of resources, all of them probably are, so no one is complaining that it's just the spellcasters that are forcing the group to rest.

What I think is important to keep in mind is that the designers claim that the system is pretty tightly integrated and builds on each other (which might not be great for those that want to tinker with subsets of the system). If that is the case, the fears and worries we might have have been noticeable by the designers, too, and they designed other subsystems of the game to take these into account.

For me, the fun is speculating how they might have pulled it off. But maybe I am overtly optimistic. But every once and then a post, blog entry or article from the designers make me think that the are pretty clever and that my optimismn is justified.

 

[gizmo33]

Yes. You were so close to recognising the fundamental point, namely the conspicuous lack of a 4-encounters-per-day paradigm in all of these.

That's the fundemental point? The point I was responding to was "heroes fight all of the time and never rest". Stalker0 never said what you're saying here.

(LotR is basically a whole bunch of days where nothing happens in terms of "encounters", with a few days where there's one fight, and then one or two massive, all-day set-piece battles. As was pointed out by Karinsdad, IIRC.)

Last time in 3E that a whole bunch of days passed when nothing happens I said "a whole bunch of days pass, and nothing happens". Are you suggesting that 4 encounters per day is a minimum?

 

[gizmo33]

Oh. Well, someone else claimed that you had suggested this, and you didn't contradict the post, so I thought you had accepted it. But maybe you just didn't see the post.

As with the recent "movie" post - it's not uncommon for folks to wade in and make unsubstantiated claims (I mean that literally, not as in claims without merit, but those with simply no supporting information). I can't respond to everything like that, sometimes I don't even know where to begin. I'm having some of that trouble here:

In any case, if you don't think that wandering monsters are a cure to the short adventuring day problem, then we are in agreement on that point.

This is not a completely accurate summary of what I was trying to say on the point of wandering monsters. Basically, in framing the "4-a-day" problem, people where characterizing things a certain way that I disagreed had to be that way. Wandering monsters were given as an example of something that happens that makes resting potentially something other than uneventful. The implication that I was countering was that resting had no meaning to the game, and there was no significance to the decision other than just taking up time. It's hard now to reconstruct the context that developed. Hopefully this will at least hint at an explanation: if I don't see the same problems as you do, I would hardly be proposing a solution to the same set of problems.

 

[gizmo33]

Your last sentence is true. Thus, operational considerations will not get in the way of other dimensions of interest. This is not an absurd design goal.

Did I say it was? I specifically try to avoid using the word "absurd" because IMO it gets overused in this forum and used improperly on top of it. I don't agree with some of the design changes that we're debating, but I don't think of them as absurd.

 

[D.Shaffer]

Let me put it this way...if you give me a choice between a character who will be at 80% or a character who will be at 30% after using their per-day abiltity, I would be stupid to pick the 30% character and creating such an imbalance is bad game design. A per-day ability can only be used in any encounter one time, so as long as I don't use it Im effectively fighting at 30% and in the one fight where I use it I'm 100% and then 30% after that until I rest.

...You realise you just described EVERY version of the wizard that we've currently had, correct? The reason it was, supposedly, balanced is that the per X abilities arent the only resources they need to keep track of. 4th Ed will likely follow a similar mix of resource tracking of various sorts.

 

[gizmo33]

So, even with your anecdotes, it is pretty safe to say, that the majority of folks on this board disagree with you. I would even go so far as to say most of the folks who play D&D would disagree with you -- but we could argue that for another 10+ pages.

Maybe you could substantiate these claims. Doesn't anybody on this thread feel the need to do this anymore? (I'm still waiting for a movie example!) Is there some poll somewhere that you're referencing? I'll stop now before I waste another 10 pages asking obvious questions. If you guys don't care enough about what you're saying to provide examples and/or evidence, why should I?

 

[Raven Crowking]

For me, the fun is speculating how they might have pulled it off. But maybe I am overtly optimistic. But every once and then a post, blog entry or article from the designers make me think that the are pretty clever and that my optimismn is justified.

So, does this mean that you are laying odds that I am wrong, or laying odds that I am right, or refusing to lay odds?

Because the new D&D will be fully operational in less than a year. After a year's play (or less) I expect that same old complaint to resurface if, as Wyatt's blog implies, the change in resource management is how the designers tackled the 9-9:15 adventuring day problem. I certainly agree that the problem could be tackled in other ways; just not this way.

RC

 

[Imaro]

...You realise you just described EVERY version of the wizard that we've currently had, correct? The reason it was, supposedly, balanced is that the per X abilities arent the only resources they need to keep track of. 4th Ed will likely follow a similar mix of resource tracking of various sorts.

What? What're you talking about. In D&D 3e a wizard decides what percentage he's at for the next encounter, just like evryone else. If the party stumbles upon 4 goblins and the wizard chooses to use a flask of acid or crossbow in this encounter then next encounter he's still at 100% or maybe less if he took damage. What exactly are you saying?

 

[D.Shaffer]

What? What're you talking about. In D&D 3e a wizard decides what percentage he's at for the next encounter, just like evryone else. If the party stumbles upon 4 goblins and the wizard chooses to use a flask of acid or crossbow in this encounter then next encounter he's still at 100% or maybe less if he took damage. What exactly are you saying?

What I'm saying is that the per X (day, encounter, round, whatever) abilities arent the only resources that the classes have to balance. The wizard, in 3rd edition terms and previously, was the very definition of your 'badly designed 30%'. You said it would be stupid to ever play the 30% you described previously.

Again, here's what you said.

Let me put it this way...if you give me a choice between a character who will be at 80% or a character who will be at 30% after using their per-day abiltity, I would be stupid to pick the 30% character and creating such an imbalance is bad game design. A per-day ability can only be used in any encounter one time, so as long as I don't use it Im effectively fighting at 30% and in the one fight where I use it I'm 100% and then 30% after that until I rest.

How does a 3rd edition wizard NOT fit this criteria? And yet people played wizards all the time. Why? they have other means and other resources that (in theory) balance them with the other classes. I see no reason this wont continue in future editions, just with less 'per day' abilities.