Matt James
Game Developer
Daily powers already have miss effects. Making all daily powers reliable would be very unbalancing. The game already favors the players.
Would It Break The Game If...: All Daily Attack Powers Were Reliable?
- Thread starter airwalkrr
- Start date
mach1.9pants
Hero
When I ran 4E I used this rule, but only proper reliable powers were able to be used again that encounter. If it has an effect or miss effect it would expend the power if you decided to implement that effect. So if you wanted to keep that power for later you just used a (normally standard) action for totally no result in the game rules. Worked well.
We were running 4 PCs in standard 5 PC encounters in the 1st 3 WotC modules. I had bumped up the attacks of all the enemies but bumped the HP down to speed the fights (still took too long though
.
We were running 4 PCs in standard 5 PC encounters in the 1st 3 WotC modules. I had bumped up the attacks of all the enemies but bumped the HP down to speed the fights (still took too long though
.
Matt James
Game Developer
You always get something for expending a daily power. If you don't in the effect line, then it is a reliable power
I would not want to see daily powers come to define the class. They should be rare remarkable bouts of power that do really neat things.
wedgeski
Adventurer
I'm not sure it would break the game, but I don't think it would improve it.
Stacking to-hit bonuses prior to unloading Dailies is for me one of the fundamental strategic elements of group play under 4E. Sure, you can't mitigate against rolling a 1 on the d20, but you can do a lot to improve your chances.
Stacking to-hit bonuses prior to unloading Dailies is for me one of the fundamental strategic elements of group play under 4E. Sure, you can't mitigate against rolling a 1 on the d20, but you can do a lot to improve your chances.
Blue
Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal
In addition to all of the powers that it would mess up the balance of, I think it would also mess up the balance between classes. Take for instance the warden guardian forms or barbarian rages, who have dailies designed to be used one per encounter and have encounter-long buffs attached, hit or miss. Being able to recover for just missing would be exceedingly powerful. Not being able while other classes can recover would weaken the classes compared to everyone else.
Pretty much all daily powers are already either Reliable, or have a result on a Miss, or have an Effect that goes off regardless.
Now, you could replace the Effects and Miss properties with being Reliable... and make most powers worse. Truth is, Reliable is usually worse than just dealing half damage with your daily and then using an At-Will the next round.
If you kept the miss effects and made powers reliable anyway, then yeah, that would break the balance of the game.
Now, you could replace the Effects and Miss properties with being Reliable... and make most powers worse. Truth is, Reliable is usually worse than just dealing half damage with your daily and then using an At-Will the next round.
If you kept the miss effects and made powers reliable anyway, then yeah, that would break the balance of the game.
Blue
Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal
Another point - there are a number of feats that go off on use of a daily, not just a hit with a daily.
It sounds like you've have to muck with a lot - miss lines, effects lines, and then ones that have neither and aren't reliable.
Could you design it with all Dailies reliable? Sure. Will retrofitting it onto the huge mass of existing powers be a lot of work to keep things reasonably balanced - also true. For me the simplification payoff wouldn't be worth it.
It sounds like you've have to muck with a lot - miss lines, effects lines, and then ones that have neither and aren't reliable.
Could you design it with all Dailies reliable? Sure. Will retrofitting it onto the huge mass of existing powers be a lot of work to keep things reasonably balanced - also true. For me the simplification payoff wouldn't be worth it.
Crazy Jerome
First Post
Daily powers are both about the game, getting the hit/miss/effect--and about pacing, when the player controls the narrative flow by pulling out a slick, effective move. Making them reliable (or some of them reliable), affects both things. It tampers with the game side with questionable results, though some of the variants above effectively address those issues. It tampers with the narrative side by saying that, essentially, every day the character can not only try each fancy move, but eventually pull it off. This is a little too pat for me, even like player narrative control as much as I do.
To make daily powers whiff marginally less on average, but still preserve existing game and narrative balance, what I'd do instead is something like this: Each time you miss with a daily power, you get a +2 bonus to future daily attempts. This stacks. As soon as you hit with a daily power, it resets. Or, if you don't mind the extra book keeping, as soon as you hit with a daily power, it goes down by 2. This counter does not otherwise reset, ever.
I prefer the simpler option of complete reset on a hit, because the moving counter (lower by 2 on a hit) somewhat marginalizes parties that work hard for teamwork bonuses. However, this is largely a question of what you want at the table.
And of course, once you've gone to the trouble that I've outlined above, you can probably do something a bit similar but easier to track by being a trifle more generous with action points, and allowing APs to restore a missed, no effect daily.
To make daily powers whiff marginally less on average, but still preserve existing game and narrative balance, what I'd do instead is something like this: Each time you miss with a daily power, you get a +2 bonus to future daily attempts. This stacks. As soon as you hit with a daily power, it resets. Or, if you don't mind the extra book keeping, as soon as you hit with a daily power, it goes down by 2. This counter does not otherwise reset, ever.
I prefer the simpler option of complete reset on a hit, because the moving counter (lower by 2 on a hit) somewhat marginalizes parties that work hard for teamwork bonuses. However, this is largely a question of what you want at the table.
And of course, once you've gone to the trouble that I've outlined above, you can probably do something a bit similar but easier to track by being a trifle more generous with action points, and allowing APs to restore a missed, no effect daily.
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