WoTC Rodney: Economy of actions

[Hella_Tellah]

But then it is still a polymorph spell, not a summon spell - but yes, this would be a great addition to a spell list.

That's just semantics, man. If everyone at the table describes the spell as a summoning, then it's a summoning. In my D&D game based on Shinto, every divine spell is described in terms of summoning--"I summon Ebisu, kami of fishermen, to provide me water breathing." "I call on the spirit of the stone wall to move for me as I cast shape stone." A summoning spell doesn't have to add an additional figure on the battlemat unless you want it to.

 

[I'm A Banana]

And I think you could use these frameworks to allow for temporary assistance of many kinds from a number of flavors of allies. For hirelings, I'd just keep them as they have been before: taking a share of treasure and experience.

Good ideas, HT!

None of those give the PC any extra actions, though. They're all basically "spell effects with different fluff."

That's one way to do it, but it seems a bit weaksauce to me, and the less fantastic they are, the more weaksauce they seem. The idea that one of my best compatriots, as a Warlord, will stand beside me and increase my AC, but won't whack that goblin that keeps poking me in the ribs, is a bit problematic.

It gets less problematic the less you are concerned with a believable context, because from a mechanics standpoint, it works. It'd definately work well enough for a videogame, or a purely gamist approach similar to that, but to steal a line from another thread, in D&D, I can target the floor.

 

[DM_Blake]

Yeah, that's what the fighter thinks. The fighter's player though, wonders if he'll have a chance to go out and grab a smoke in the time it'll take the menagerie character to figure out what creature he's gonna summon this round, take all the actions for his other summonees, animal companion, etc. Then when the fighter gets his turn, he rolls two attacks and damage and then goes back outside for another 45 minutes. The number of minutes each player gets to spend doing stuff per hour is a zero sum game. Every minute another player takes doing stuff is a minute less that everyone else can't spend playing.

Why isn't this player more engaged in the game? Why is he only engaged when he is rolling dice for his own character? Can he not find enjoyment by observing the actions of his fellow players, sharing his observations and suggestions, maybe even offering to handle part of that menagerie so the "menagerie character" doesn't have such a workload?

Is his only option to go outside until it's his turn?

Isn't that kind of self-centered? "Oh, golly, it's not my turn, so now I'm bored and it's time for me to take my marbles and go home."

Yes, I see your point about mintes being a zero-sum game. But that's only true if each player sees them as "my minutes are cool, your minutes are wasting my time".

As for me, when other players are taking their turn, I'm offering suggestions "hey, why don't you pull a Legolas and go jump on the troll's back?" Maybe it's to be comical, maybe it's to make a real suggestion in case that player hadn't thought of it. Maybe my comments contribute to the specific encounter, or to the game, and maybe it's just goofing around. But regardless, my involvement is contributing to my fun all the time. And the other players in my group do the same thing. We're all having fun, even if it's currently some other player's minutes that are taking away from my own minutes.

In this case, it's not a zero-sum game. It's a 60-sum game: Every hour has 60 minutes of fun, and every player is enjoying all 60 them.

I hate to say it, but if any player's personal world view is that "when my friend is having fun, but I am not rolling dice at this exact moment, then he is stealing my fun", then that player might want to adjust that world view.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I hate to say it, but if your personal world view is that "when my friend is having fun, but I am not rolling dice at this exact moment, then he is stealing my fun", then you might want to adjust that world view.

Any tabletop RPG would be better recieved, I think, in helping people have fun within their pre-existing worldview. Leave the life lessons for the sermons, the philosophers, and the family elders. D&D just needs to worry about amusing me.

Yeah, I guess that's self-centered. But the point of the game is to have fun, and if I'm not having fun, for whatever reason, then I won't be playing the game.

It's a player psychology issue. It's the same issue that plagues clerics throughout earlier editions. D&D won't change your psychology, so it's better off working within it.

It's pretty safe to say that I'd rather be making decisions, rather than armchair quarterbacking on other peoples' choices.

 

[Dausuul]

Yes. Sometimes.

But defense won't win the battle. Summoning a wall to stand there and take all your actions while the wall gets beat down only means that once that wall is breached, the enemy will be in your face again and nothing will have changed.

This is why you have fellow party members. To quote LogicNinja, "When a good mage wants something damaged, he tells the fighter to go hit it. If it's hard to hurt, he buffs the fighter first." (Granted, direct damage will hopefully not be teh suck anymore in 4E, but you get the point.)

Agreed - but it can cause balance issues. The 'inherent' aspect escaped the 3.x designers to the extent that these spells/abilities/effects were as notoriously problematic as summonings (and for the same reasons). Even trying to read through the Errata'd rules for these abilities (conveniently spread between the PHB and MM books & Errata for each) can give one a headache.

Actually, the balance issues of shapechanging were different from the problems of most summons. With the exception of gate and the planar binding line, the trouble with summon spells usually stemmed from economy-of-actions issues and slowing down the game. Shapechanging spells had problems because they were "encyclopedia" spells--when you cast one, you get to pull out your whole encyclopedia of sourcebooks and go looking for the one creature that's utterly broken when you polymorph into it.

Why isn't this player more engaged in the game? Why is he only engaged when he is rolling dice for his own character? Can he not find enjoyment by observing the actions of his fellow players, sharing his observations and suggestions, maybe even offering to handle part of that menagerie so the "menagerie character" doesn't have such a workload?

Is his only option to go outside until it's his turn?

Isn't that kind of self-centered? "Oh, golly, it's not my turn, so now I'm bored and it's time for me to take my marbles and go home."

Yes, I see your point about mintes being a zero-sum game. But that's only true if each player sees them as "my minutes are cool, your minutes are wasting my time".

As for me, when other players are taking their turn, I'm offering suggestions "hey, why don't you pull a Legolas and go jump on the troll's back?" Maybe it's to be comical, maybe it's to make a real suggestion in case that player hadn't thought of it. Maybe my comments contribute to the specific encounter, or to the game, and maybe it's just goofing around. But regardless, my involvement is contributing to my fun all the time. And the other players in my group do the same thing. We're all having fun, even if it's currently some other player's minutes that are taking away from my own minutes.

I'm engaged during other people's turns... up to a point. But ultimately there's only so much interest I have in helping to play someone else's character. I want to play my character too.

The one solution I've found workable in 3.X is to let other players control some of your critters. My group did this once when I was playing a dread necromancer and had a menagerie of skeletons and zombies; I made up stat sheets for each undead and handed them around to other players to control on their turns. Since the whole group was built around a "captains of the undead horde" theme, it worked out fairly well. But if I'd insisted on controlling all of them, round after round, I think the other players would have hung me out to dry, and I wouldn't blame them one bit for doing so.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Exactly.

The problem is not a "realism" issue, it is a fun issue. If one of my players is taking 75% of hte actions is a given round and making everyone else wait and deprive them of their fun, I am more than willing to ignore any "realism" issues that arise when the problem is fixed.

As a player, I have more fun playing *my character*, not watching the druid perform an intricate interpretive dance with her summons and companions and cohorts. As a GM, I can watch people losing interest as the time between their actions grows longer.

Taking away options is not a good solution in my mind, so summons and animal companions have a place in the game. However, making sure that the player has to decide on their character's "action budget" keeps the game moving for everyone... a good solution for me.

I've always been of the opinion that people make a bigger deal out of this than is actually warranted. How long, exactly, does it take to tell your bear to maul the bad guys, and resolve that action? No more than a minute, I wager. And if you're doing more than that, because your cohort has complicated actions, you should be simplifying the cohort.

Now, if people were really serious about this, they should be up in arms about the standard number of monsters per encounter going from 1 to 4 or 5. Obviously the DM is sucking up everyone's fun by taking more than one turn each round, and so 4E is destroying everything, hell on earth, sky falling, dragon spellcasting, etc.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I think you've got a point. In 4e, with everything going so swift, a few extra actions here or there might be easier to take.

Part of the problem of cohorts and the like in 3e could have been the time it sometimes took to resolve unorthodox methods in 3e.

 

[Hella_Tellah]

It gets less problematic the less you are concerned with a believable context, because from a mechanics standpoint, it works. It'd definately work well enough for a videogame, or a purely gamist approach similar to that, but to steal a line from another thread, in D&D, I can target the floor.

I'm done with Simulationist play forever and ever, so that's fine by me, but just because the ability's description doesn't explicitly allow something doesn't mean my group can't ad-lib a ruling that lets us do what we want. I mean, I'm a "say yes" kind of DM, so if the Rogue wants to use his Daily power to have an ally show up and help him open a lock or disarm a trap, I'll just say yes. If his idea makes the game lamer for everyone, I'll say no, but I can count on one hand the number of times one of my players has had an idea so lame that I've flat out denied it.

To more formally address that idea of allowing some flexibility with these ally summoning powers, the rulebook that introduces them ought to have some text that advises the DM on how to allow it. "Players whose characters have powers that call in allies or summon help may come up with new, creative ways to put those allies to work. If the idea is fun and about as useful as the normal ability, let them do it. If the idea would make the power a great deal more useful, allow the idea's basic concept, but curtail its effects such that the ability doesn't outshine other players at the table. If at all possible, avoid situations where, as a result of allies, one player has more time in the spotlight or influence over the game's proceedings. Summoning spells and allies should be a fun thing for everyone at the table, not just the player controlling the effect."

 

[malraux]

Why isn't this player more engaged in the game? Why is he only engaged when he is rolling dice for his own character? Can he not find enjoyment by observing the actions of his fellow players, sharing his observations and suggestions, maybe even offering to handle part of that menagerie so the "menagerie character" doesn't have such a workload?

Is his only option to go outside until it's his turn?

Isn't that kind of self-centered? "Oh, golly, it's not my turn, so now I'm bored and it's time for me to take my marbles and go home."

Yes, I see your point about mintes being a zero-sum game. But that's only true if each player sees them as "my minutes are cool, your minutes are wasting my time".

As for me, when other players are taking their turn, I'm offering suggestions "hey, why don't you pull a Legolas and go jump on the troll's back?" Maybe it's to be comical, maybe it's to make a real suggestion in case that player hadn't thought of it. Maybe my comments contribute to the specific encounter, or to the game, and maybe it's just goofing around. But regardless, my involvement is contributing to my fun all the time. And the other players in my group do the same thing. We're all having fun, even if it's currently some other player's minutes that are taking away from my own minutes.

In this case, it's not a zero-sum game. It's a 60-sum game: Every hour has 60 minutes of fun, and every player is enjoying all 60 them.

I hate to say it, but if any player's personal world view is that "when my friend is having fun, but I am not rolling dice at this exact moment, then he is stealing my fun", then that player might want to adjust that world view.

I'll agree that it would great if that could work. Unfortunately, it often doesn't. If the menagerie character is well prepared and has all his creatures' stats ready with all relevant templates applied, and reasonably familiar with all relevant rules and strategies, then his turn won't take long and can be interesting. But if a creature isn't prepped and has to be stated on the fly, or the player takes a while to decide, etc. his turn drags on. And sure I can help out by offering commentary or advice or general humor, but that can often turn to a side conversation, delaying the game even more. If there were no other option, then that would be acceptable, but clearly there are other ways of doing it.

 

[Wormwood]

I've always been of the opinion that people make a bigger deal out of this than is actually warranted.

I'm sure we do.

Waiting for the druid's bear and his woodland friends to wander about and attack isn't the end of the world.

But it's one more minute in a combat system already full of speedbumps. It's one more annyoing thing in a game full of little annoying things to keep track of.

You don't mind it? Mazeltov.

I do mind, and it looks like I won't have to deal with it until PHB2. Yay me.