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2 years ago ::
Jun 02, 2011 - 5:29AM
#41
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Date Joined:
Oct 28, 2010
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I wonder if a better question is how many resources should an encounter eat?
As far as I can tell, the resources a PC expends in a battle is:
- Hit points/healing surges
- Daily Powers
- Item Powers
- Consumable Items
Am I missing any?
So a battle's difficulty can be measured in how many of these resources are expended. Hmm... I wonder if you could create an overall resource mechanic -- possibly healing surges -- from which all of these flowed. Spend a surge to use a daily, invoke a consumable, or a daily item power. This could, however, usher back in the five-minute adventuring day, so we'd have compensate for folks who try to nova. That said, this wouldn't be bad. Combats can be measured in the surges we expect to burn. Instead of a XP budget, you'd make a surge budget.
Encounter one: two surge/PC
Encounter two: one surge/PC
Skill Challenge: 3 surges/PC
Boss Fight: 5 surges/PC
Something to think about, anyway.
I think it's quite difficult to even consider instituting a surge-based XP-analogue, given the tremendous variance in surge availability. A Rogue could potentially use half his surges just to use his Dailies under a scheme like this, where a Paladin might only use 1/5 of his surges. It would be wildly unbalancing to base a system on something so variable.
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2 years ago ::
Jun 02, 2011 - 10:44AM
#42
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Date Joined:
Sep 26, 2001
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I wonder if a better question is how many resources should an encounter eat?
As far as I can tell, the resources a PC expends in a battle is:
- Hit points/healing surges
- Daily Powers
- Item Powers
- Consumable Items
Am I missing any?
Action points and item daily uses (pre-E), though milestones add these back. I suppose ritual components count as consumables.
You could even simplify it to:
Surges
Daily powers (PC or item)
GP (items, ritual components, etc)
So a battle's difficulty can be measured in how many of these resources are expended. Hmm... I wonder if you could create an overall resource mechanic -- possibly healing surges -- from which all of these flowed.
Healing surges are pretty big chunks, and I'd think you'd need at least one mechanic for PC-abilities and another for items and consumables (magical or normal).
To get back to the question of how many resources an encounter should use up...
It's hard to answer, because use of one resource can change consumption of another. An encounter where a couple of daily powers get used will probably consume fewer surges than the same combat without use of those dailies. An encounter that does a /lot/ of hp damage will probably lead to consumables (healing potions of the apropriate tier) being used up as well as surges being burned through. Combat encounters tend to use up dailies, action points, and hps. Non-combat skill challenges tend to inflict the odd surge, maybe use up ritual components or even actual gp in the form of bribes or other expenses.
Obviously, one rule of thumb would be that if you're planning a 5-encounter day for your party, each should burn through about a 5th their resources.
Love 4e? Concerned about its future? Join the Old Guard of 4e"You want The Tooth? You can't handle The Tooth!" - Dahlver-Nar. "If magic is unrestrained in the campaign, D&D quickly degenerates into a weird wizard show where players get bored quickly" - E. Gary Gygax
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2 years ago ::
Jun 02, 2011 - 12:44PM
#43
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Date Joined:
Dec 16, 2007
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Obviously, one rule of thumb would be that if you're planning a 5-encounter day for your party, each should burn through about a 5th their resources.
The problem being that 1/5 of most character's healing surges in a fight means they were in no danger in the fight. At all. Leader couldn't be bothered to heal sort of danger. Why run a fight that is the equivalent of kicking puppies?
Things are much better with unlimited surges. Fights are about being heroic, not kicking puppies. No one fight per day nonsense when you give the party actual challenging and fun fights.
I don't make the rules, I just think them up and write them down. - Eric Cartman
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2 years ago ::
Jun 02, 2011 - 2:10PM
#44
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Date Joined:
Sep 26, 2001
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Obviously, one rule of thumb would be that if you're planning a 5-encounter day for your party, each should burn through about a 5th their resources.
The problem being that 1/5 of most character's healing surges in a fight means they were in no danger in the fight.
Again, surges aren't the only resource.
Love 4e? Concerned about its future? Join the Old Guard of 4e"You want The Tooth? You can't handle The Tooth!" - Dahlver-Nar. "If magic is unrestrained in the campaign, D&D quickly degenerates into a weird wizard show where players get bored quickly" - E. Gary Gygax
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2 years ago ::
Jun 02, 2011 - 2:44PM
#45
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Obviously, one rule of thumb would be that if you're planning a 5-encounter day for your party, each should burn through about a 5th their resources.
The problem being that 1/5 of most character's healing surges in a fight means they were in no danger in the fight. At all. Leader couldn't be bothered to heal sort of danger. Why run a fight that is the equivalent of kicking puppies?
Things are much better with unlimited surges. Fights are about being heroic, not kicking puppies. No one fight per day nonsense when you give the party actual challenging and fun fights.
Because there is a meta-game that revolves around resource allocation over the course of the whole day? An encounter which drops each PC by one surge is indeed unlikely to present a threat of death in and of itself, but you may well want that surge in the next fight. You might also need to consider the tradeoff of resources. Is it better to blow an AP now and finish this guy off before he inflicts some damage, or save it for the next fight? Likewise with daily powers in particular. Which daily is it better to use now vs save for later?
Every encounter need not be a threat by itself. In fact I would venture to say that pacing the story would tend to dictate that some should be relatively trivial, maybe even contributing little at all to the party's resource use. There are also story considerations. I might simply want to introduce a new monster or demonstrate the nature of the threat the PCs face. That doesn't always require beating them to an inch of their lives.
That is not dead which may eternal lie
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2 years ago ::
Jun 02, 2011 - 3:03PM
#46
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During a fight the important resource is actually how many times you can spend a healing surge. There are circumstances where a lethal fight only leads to the loss of 1/5th of the groups healing surges while still nearly killing one PC... (or two as might be the case when the encounter was all about getting away and the darn thing grabbed and swallowed whole opponents).
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2 years ago ::
Jun 02, 2011 - 3:06PM
#47
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Date Joined:
Dec 16, 2007
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Because there is a meta-game that revolves around resource allocation over the course of the whole day? An encounter which drops each PC by one surge is indeed unlikely to present a threat of death in and of itself, but you may well want that surge in the next fight. You might also need to consider the tradeoff of resources. Is it better to blow an AP now and finish this guy off before he inflicts some damage, or save it for the next fight? Likewise with daily powers in particular. Which daily is it better to use now vs save for later?
That arguement doesn't work. There is no real support for that sort of fine tuning of multiple encounters in the game. There is also good evidence that it isn't supposed to work that way, one of the prime functions of the leader role is to provide healing. Fights of such trivial difficulty render a defining portion of the leader's role as irrelevant for most fights. They're called heroic, paragon and epic tiers, not the "mostly inconsequential", "usually irrelevant", and "best feat is durable as resources are the most important consideration" tiers.
Every encounter need not be a threat by itself.
Then why do it?
In fact I would venture to say that pacing the story would tend to dictate that some should be relatively trivial, maybe even contributing little at all to the party's resource use.
You don't tell a story by rolling a d20. If your idea of pacing is to interrupt the story for half an hour to do an inconsequential fight whose only purpose is to determine if the party spent zero or one healing surges while they fought their way down the stairs, then you have a pretty god aweful story going there.
There are also story considerations. I might simply want to introduce a new monster or demonstrate the nature of the threat the PCs face. That doesn't always require beating them to an inch of their lives.
Again, introducing a threat and having the players micromanage resources are not the same thing. The one detracts GREATLY from the other.
I don't make the rules, I just think them up and write them down. - Eric Cartman
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2 years ago ::
Jun 02, 2011 - 4:34PM
#48
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Date Joined:
Aug 13, 2006
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I wrote in that I prefered 5 rounds, but looking at the responses I can see that what I meant was 3-5 rounds.
Generally, if the DM can do his monsters in a minute a piece and the 5 pc's can do theirs in 1 minute a piece then your total IRL time will be about 45 minutes for a standard encounter, but by no means is that going to be the way things work out, but that neither here nor there.
When I dm I houserule away healing surges as we know them, essential i eliminate the long term Resource management, which I understand isn't for everyone. In any case what this allows me to do is have fights either be hard or easy based upon what suites the story I wish to tell.
I do want to respond to FFSAA's post (#10) in a few parts
Every encounter need not be a threat... then why do it?
Well possible answers are varied, but I'll list a few.
1. Some people find Non- threatening combat fun every now and again. It's fun for a number of reasons - Blowing off steam, making characters seem awesome, That's enough reason right there but I'll continue.
2. It can heighten suspense. If the DM pulls it off, (hard but not impossible) and leaves the players wanting the story more then the action, then the action becomes a pressure cooker for the story. It frustrates them, tantalizes them and makes the finding the last bit of information even more satifying because of it. Do you want a threatening fight right on the cusp of finding out who really shot JFK, or would your rather have a throw away appetiser before the big reveil? Tastes may vary and depending on other factors (the over all flow of intensity whatev)
3. Making the bad guy seem like he/she has alot of dudes to throw at the PC's. When the PC's are fighting Trug Thuk the orcen Warlord of the thousand fold army, well, there should be a lot of corpses being left in the PC's wake.
The essential theme song-
Get a little bit a fluff da' fluff, get a little bit a fluff da' fluff! (ooh yeah) Repeat
Unless noted otherwise every thing I post is my opinion, and probably should be taken as tongue in cheek any way.
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2 years ago ::
Jun 03, 2011 - 3:18AM
#49
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Date Joined:
Mar 25, 2007
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I voted for six rounds. And I have to say the number of 4e combats that have finished in 6 rounds that I've played can be counted on one hand (after 2.5 yrs of playing). Our combats tend to go 10 rounds+
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2 years ago ::
Jun 03, 2011 - 4:01AM
#50
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Date Joined:
Jan 15, 2009
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I voted for six rounds. And I have to say the number of 4e combats that have finished in 6 rounds that I've played can be counted on one hand (after 2.5 yrs of playing). Our combats tend to go 10 rounds+
So if your characters say never missed you would have it just right.... 
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