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So the basic gripe with 5MW is how it encourages you to go nova instead of spending your daily resources evenly among the (assumed) 4 encounters.

What if the real problem is not the mere presence of daily resource in the mechanic but the assumed number of encounters?
I don't know about you but unless I'm DMing a pure dungeon crawl (which I, like, almost never do) or the party is travelling trough seriously dangerous area (more likely to happen, but not common) then I almost never have more than 1 or 2 meaningful fights in a day, and usually it's 1 meaningful encounter in a couple of days (and the party is exploring, roleplaying, traveling or recovering in the meantime). That's how my campaigns tend to work. Now if the designers assume 4 encounters (or similar) in their design then obviously for my campaigns all the balancing based around it will be way out of whack.

To put it another way I don't have problem with a "5MWorkday" as such, because I expect my party to have one fairly important (but not necessairly very long) fight which would either make them run or win at a steep cost, and the fight would probably last less than 5 minutes (in-character time) and then I actually expect them to be too spent to continue (fighting, nothing stopping them from advancing plot trough other means). What I have problem with is that the system assumes I will have 4 fights a day and I either have to comply and make my campaigns combat grindfests* or the class balancing falls apart.

What are your preffered/usual number of combats/encounters per day in campaigns?

Any other thoughts on this?


*not trying to offend anybody, if you like a lot and a lot of fighting then by all means have fun with it.

5E is trying to solve this by having a daily XP pool. For those who want to have 1 fight a day, then the only way for it to be balanced is to make it tough. Very tough. At low levels, everyone's going to be scraping the barrel for HP at the end of it. At higher levels, someone might be dead.

If you want to have many fights, they're going to be easy. But with Bounded Accuracy, players are going to take some damage unless the Wizard gets off a timely spell (like putting to sleep 8 kobolds with one sleep spell). That damage is going to add up.

I'm not sure I like this paradigm, but it is sort of the one that D&D has opperated on forever. I like encounter resources over daily resources, but something tells me I'm in the minority based on just my own gaming group.

I like the 3 to 5 encounters in a day, but I started DMing with 3E so I kind of grew up with it. But that's only during dungeons and other high combat situations. 1 big fight a day is something I often use in tamer situations. 

Jul 19, 2012 -- 6:54PM, cobaltbluenight wrote:

To me, this means the Wizard and Cleric either needs more spells per day, or an at least limited way to recover them throughout the day.  Or perhaps a way to cast directly from your spellbook, or pray directly to your God.

Perhaps a Wizard can try to cast a spell from his spellbook by making an intelligence check first, and taking some small amount of damage if he fails, arcane feedback.  A Cleric could do the same by praying as a Wisdom check.  And if he fails, he invokes the wrath of his God for his selfish ways and takes some small amount of damage.

This could work. Or Wizards could casts (some?) spells directly from the book but then the casting time gets doubled-tripled. Or some combination of these.

Jul 19, 2012 -- 6:58PM, Emerikol wrote:

 if your the type of DM who likes to control the difficulty a bit more then you could also make some waves optional.  Thats not for me but hey it would work for some.

 

Nah, I'm also not too hung up on control. I like when the story takes me into unexpected places, even if I'm the DM. 

Jul 19, 2012 -- 10:27PM, edwin_su wrote:

Jul 19, 2012 -- 7:01PM, Rejnwyrd wrote:

Jul 19, 2012 -- 6:54PM, cobaltbluenight wrote:

To me, this means the Wizard and Cleric either needs more spells per day, or an at least limited way to recover them throughout the day.  Or perhaps a way to cast directly from your spellbook, or pray directly to your God.

Perhaps a Wizard can try to cast a spell from his spellbook by making an intelligence check first, and taking some small amount of damage if he fails, arcane feedback.  A Cleric could do the same by praying as a Wisdom check.  And if he fails, he invokes the wrath of his God for his selfish ways and takes some small amount of damage.

This could work. Or Wizards could casts (some?) spells directly from the book but then the casting time gets doubled-tripled. Or some combination of these.

isen't that exactly what the spells that can be cast as ritual do ?

Its obviously a question of degree.. multiround casting relates to rituals... but the rogue who spends a round gaining advantage for his stealthy strike.. and the spell caster who spends a round concentrating to boost his spell... ahem well they arent really that similar to ritual casting.