Why is it so important?

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Here's a question for you: Why do your players lead with their mean-and-potatoes abilities?

Within the encounter: We don't know who the real threat is. Using the more powerful ability (that might be available only once per day) early might mean that I waste it on the wrong target.

Over multiple encounters: I don't know if this encounter will contain threats significant enough so that the usage of the most powerful powers is necessary, or if it will be the next. Or whether I or other players will make grave tactical mistakes or just have a string of bad rolls in a later encounter that will require a more decisive power to aid in the player sides success or at least their survival.

Now, in a system with a fair amount of at will and per encounter abilities, these will be the "meat and potatoes" abilities. The abilities I will use sparingly are those that are only available a limited amount per day.

A difference between 3rd (and previous) editions and the 4th seems to be that both the "meat and potatoes" abilities and the more powerful ones are all limited per day. This means you will run out of "meat and potatoes" abilities (a 9th level spellcaster running out of Magic Missiles and Scorching Rays), and either have to choose the more powerful ones, or choose to retreat. If I expect that retreating/resting will not be without its own dangers, the chances for an early retreat are increasing.

 

[Jackelope King]

double post

 

[wgreen]

Just thought I'd poke my head in and suggest a related reason for the 15-minute adventuring day problem -- buffs, which, I believe, the designers have mentioned working on.

-Will

 

[IanArgent]

It seems clear to me that, in these passages, you are equating "challenging for PCs" with "challenging for players", "powerful PC ability" with "powerful player ability", "loss for the PC" with "loss for the player", etc. In 4e I doubt that these equations will hold.

Thank you for articulating one of the things I've been trying to get at - characters != players.

And I still maintain the test of a GMs skill is not in killing the characters, it's not killing the characters. Anyone can achieve TPK with little effort. It's challenging the players that the GM should aspire to.

 

[Jackelope King]

Here's a question for you: Why do your players lead with their mean-and-potatoes abilities?

My appologies for missing this earlier post, RC.

Since I've actually been a player (in addition to GM) with my D&D group, I have a fair knowledge of the process they go through to decide how to expend resources (and I'll try to stay to the terminology you've used with resources).

1. Understand that ideally, a player wants to utilize the minimum amount of resources to reduce an opponent to a helpless (usually -1 HP) condition in the minimum amount of time possible. If it would always result in this outcome, player would be happiest if they could just use a single magic missile on each enemy they fought to minimize resource expenditure.

2. The reason player want to minimize their resource expenditure is because they percieve that they may be at greater risk at a later time without the less plentiful ("more expensive") resource. To them, it's silly to "waste" the extra damage from a greater resource if a lesser resource would've gotten the same job done. To use an example which has been tossed around, if faced with a single standard kobold, a 20th level wizard isn't going to break out Gate or Meteor Swarm, especially not when a Magic Missile will do the same job at the same speed.

3. However, players also don't want to waste a turn. They usually get disappointed when they try something and nothing beneficial happens. This is why there is usually a minimum theshold of effectiveness for resources, and why you'll often see players using mid-level spells (for example) instead of being extremely conservative and just using very low-level spells. Mid-level spells strike an acceptable balance for most players between cost (in that they are fairly plentiful) and effectiveness (in that they will have an acceptable level of effect on most enemies).

4. As I learned from my players speculating on their actions for a round by asking, "What's everyone's HP at?", players factor another resource into this calculation: hit points. Ideally, players want to minimize damage to themselves to avoid vulnerability.

5. Remember that hit point damage is a sort of "reactive resource" in that it can be negated by healing magic. Different types of healing have different costs.

6. In a round-about way, players tend to measure the cost to their group to spend a resource in the hopes of ending a fight more quickly versus the resource cost the group with accrue latter in the cost of healing magic restoring them of the damage that the characters will take on a subsequent round. Many times, I'll hear players rationalize saving a charge on their wand of fireball when someone points out that, "This guy is only doing like 8 damage, and we've got a wand of cure light wounds anyway.[/i]" The cost of using sufficient healing magic is below the cost of using the most effective means of destroying an enemy, so the party will err on the side of using a less-costly resource.

Now would I expect my players to be able to vocalize this logic? Probably not. But I've seen it enough, and the differences in their perceptions/actions based on whether or not they have access to magical healing to know that they tend to assign value to resources mentally in such a way.

I think that the "lead with your best resource" mentality comes about if the value of offensive resources (such as your most-damaging spell) comes to be seen as lower than healing magic, which could be explained by noting that "my level-9 spell will just come back after we rest anyway". If it can be regained quickly, in such a way to minimize the possibility that a player will be left without that resource in a later encounter, then the value of resources might indeed be lowered.

It's all a matter of minimizing the cost in resources-per-encounter. Sometimes it's more acceptable to allow an enemy to injure you for three rounds rather than end the fight in one simply because the means to recover from those injuries is less costly than the means to end the fight in one round.

 

[Jackelope King]

And I think that this is important to address the point pemerton made about being able to challenge the player, even if the characters themselves aren't particularly at-risk. A non-mechanical example of this would be a puzzle like the riddle at the entrance to Moria in Fellowship. In a roleplaying game, you could say that the characters in the Fellowship were at little mechanical risk in this challenge, but it still served as a challenge for their players. In more-mechanical examples, something like a chase (with actual chase rules, which include different options for catching/evading) where the PCs must capture an enemy before he gets out of the city. Odds are, the PCs are in very little mechanical risk in such an encounter, but it can still be a very exciting challenge to the players, who need to plan their chase carefully if they want to aprehend their target.

Another version of this would be "social combat". I ran something very much like this in an New X-Men/Academy X M&M game, where the PCs were trying to convince a young mutant to come to Xavier's while Magneto tried to coerce the young mutant into joining his side. The PCs were at zero mechanical risk in this encounter, as this was more of a "charming revolutionary" Magneto than a "psychopathic mass-murderer" Magneto. The worst case scenario would not result in any sort of mechanical risk to the PCs: they'd only lose a story-based resource in the form of a new student to their enemy. Each side attempted opposed checks (mostly Diplomacy, but also Bluffing and Intimidating at times) to persuade the boy to join them. This challenged the players to come up with arguments for why a child should come to Xavier's instead of joining Magneto without any mechanical risk whatsoever to the characters.

It's certainly possible to challenge the players without necessarily risking the PCs.

 

[Raven Crowking]

1. Understand that ideally, a player wants to utilize the minimum amount of resources to reduce an opponent to a helpless (usually -1 HP) condition in the minimum amount of time possible.

<snip>

2. The reason player want to minimize their resource expenditure is because they percieve that they may be at greater risk at a later time without the less plentiful ("more expensive") resource.

So, if they don't have to worry about being at greater risk at a later time, then they don't worry about minimizing their resource expenditure?

Indeed, if

3. However, players also don't want to waste a turn. They usually get disappointed when they try something and nothing beneficial happens. This is why there is usually a minimum theshold of effectiveness for resources

is true, then if you remove the fear of greater risk at a later time, then isn't using your best resource the easiest way to ensure that you are not disappointed? Is it not also the easiest way to keep the combat short, and thereby

minimize damage to themselves to avoid vulnerability.

It would certainly seem so to me. After all,

players tend to measure the cost to their group to spend a resource in the hopes of ending a fight more quickly versus the resource cost the group with accrue latter in the cost of healing magic restoring them of the damage that the characters will take on a subsequent round.

So, it makes sense that you'll

hear players rationalize saving a charge on their wand of fireball when someone points out that, "This guy is only doing like 8 damage, and we've got a wand of cure light wounds anyway.[/i]"

because the wand of fireball is a non-renewing resource. But do they do the same thing with renewable resources? For example, if I could cast that fireball in every encounter, would the players rather use the wand of cure light wounds?

Because the reality is that if I can use my offensive resources in every encounter, the value of offensive resources is as low or lower than healing magic, which can be achieved by noting that "my level-9 spell will just come back after we rest anyway".

As you say,

If it can be regained quickly, in such a way to minimize the possibility that a player will be left without that resource in a later encounter, then the value of resources might indeed be lowered.

If I can rest and recover all spells, but do not recover all hit points, as in 3.X, and I can do it without difficulty or worry between every encounter, then it is never less costly to recover from injury than to recover offensive resources.

Moreover, within the context of a single round in a hit point system, I will never die because I used all of my offensive resources as a direct cause, but I will die because I lost all my hit points as a direct cause. Where resources are recoverable between encounters, failure to use a resource within a given encounter is far more likely to kill you than doing maximum damage every round, starting with highest damage potential to lowest.

IOW, for it to be true that

Sometimes it's more acceptable to allow an enemy to injure you for three rounds rather than end the fight in one simply because the means to recover from those injuries is less costly than the means to end the fight in one round.

there must first be a cost to ending the fight in one round.


RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

It's certainly possible to challenge the players without necessarily risking the PCs.

Yes, but we are discussing game mechanics, and their effects on a specific problem.

It is also possible to photograph penguins in Antarctica.


RC

 

[Jackelope King]

<snip>

I'm sorry, but as you wrote this, it's borderline incomprehensible. You seem to be saying that you can always regain an offensive ability but not always regain damage, so every single offensive ability (even the most powerful ones) are less valuable than any healing ability. That doesn't make any sense.

Yes, but we are discussing game mechanics, and their effects on a specific problem.

It is also possible to photograph penguins in Antarctica.


RC

I guess it never occured to you that those examples (the chase example and the social combat example) were resolved mechanically then.

 

[IanArgent]

Yes, but we are discussing game mechanics, and their effects on a specific problem.

It is also possible to photograph penguins in Antarctica.


RC

That may be part of the misunderstanding. I'm discussing game design, not game mechanics. Mechanics are part of game design, to be sure, but not the alpha and omega of it.