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1 year ago ::
Mar 22, 2012 - 11:45AM
#21
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Date Joined:
Feb 12, 2009
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Try dailies for anybody, Gnarl. It's an obvious problem of daily resources meant to be utilized over the course of a day that in a game where fewer encounters per day take place than the designer benchmark, the daily resources will be used more frequently than intended and make the encounters easier. The single-encounter day is just the most extreme end of this. In fact, dailies for only some would make it even worse, as those without dailies would be left completely unable to respond to the greater threat (as Slayers are, for instance) and making the fight an appropriate challenge for everyone would be even harder.
The only really effective way to solve this problem is to limit how much of a daily resource can be burned per encounter. Healing surges are the obvious example, as are action points. Healing surges create a system by which your daily stock of hit points can be worn down over time without reducing how many hit points you'll actually enter a fight with. This means waves of grunts can still wear you down over time, and also gives you a limit on how much punishment you can talke within the span of a single fight before you drop.
Action points, meanwhile, are in my view the superior dailies. Action points give you an incredibly valuable ability, the ability to take an extra action on your turn. This allows you to pull off combos, spike your damage output, administer a potion, or otherwise do something great at a critical moment. You can stock them, getting them back at a slower rate than if you used one a fight, but you can only burn one per encounter. This means you have to manage your supply carefully and save one for when you really need it, but it doesn't give you an ability that changes what you're doing outright the way nearly any daily power does.
A system well-designed to allow for single encounter days would focus almost all of its attention on encounter-based resources for all classes, with a slowly-replenishing daily resource that spikes rather than novas. A system well-designed to allow for varying encounter lengths would then also allow for those encounter resources to be replenished during a fight at some cost. Tome of Battle and the homebrew supplement Codex of Spellshaping are as close to perfection in this regard as any D&D products have ever gotten, but I believe you've heard me talk about that before.
If you were insistent on some classes getting daily resources, you would need to put in a hard cap on how many of those resources could be used in a single encounter. "A wizard knows X spells per day and can cast Y per encounter." The fact that this is really clunky and breaks a lot of everyone's everything means it's an inferior option, but you could do it.
Less than putting a hard cap on the number of daily resources people are allowed to use in a fight make it entirely unatractive to use more than a certain ammount of daily resources in a single fight.
TheMormegil actually had a design for this that made dailies even more awesome but you would never use more than one per encounter because you couldn't get the full benefit of the daily if you cast another one instead of just maintaining the first daily you cast. Or more apropriately by using the attacks starting up the daily allowed you to make for the rest of the encounter. I'll see if I can get him to give you guys the examples he gave me.
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1 year ago ::
Mar 22, 2012 - 12:27PM
#22
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Date Joined:
Jan 26, 2010
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The only thing that will be difficult in 5e arises because they will be decoupling magic items from progression. Keeping a system like 4e's that works will require magic items to become a part of the equation and not an expected portion of characters of a certain level. It may be an extra step of the equation where you need to figure out what the item scores are (or something to this effect) so you can properly attain an exp budget and difficulty rating for you encounters. Hopefully this isn't to messy.
I sincerely hope they can decouple magic items from the math. I have wanted to have a no-magic-item-required DnD system that doesnt require me to rewrite the entire system with inherent bonuses to compensate.
However, and I know TheMormegil will back me up on this, they need to make it so that designing challenging single fights is less of a fine line to walk. Currently in 4e it's really easy to design multiple encounter days, but designing single encounter days that can't be trivialized will almost always come close to wiping the party. You can do it with wave fights but that does pigeon hole the writing a little bit.
I am glad to hear that I wasn't the only DM with this concern. I have never brought it up in other posts/debates because I thought that my year and half playing/DMing 4th was insuficient to say that the phenomenon existed. I had problems balancing encounters to get the required level of threat (my groups like the threat level at the maximum barely survived by the skin of your teeth kind of feel) without resulting in TPK. When we first started 4th edition we thought it was too easily. Characters easily bounced back and there wasn't any feeling of danger for the players. We immediately bumped up the encounter difficultly with more mobs and stronger mobs. Unfortunately, we quickly discovered that there was a dangerous cascading effect. If we set the encounter difficulty level so that the party felt threatened then there there was the risk that when the leader or defender fell that the entire party fell apart and died en masse. What I had to do was constantly fudge the monster's rolls. We would create the encounters at high difficulty and when I rolled for the mobs behind the DM screen if the mobs was going to drop a player too early (and TPK) I would adjust that roll for a miss.
I know that not everyone is intersted in that level of danger in their game but I am curious on how groups made it work with their 4th edition game (if they operated on the high danger mode.
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1 year ago ::
Mar 22, 2012 - 12:36PM
#23
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Date Joined:
Aug 19, 2007
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TheMormegil actually had a design for this that made dailies even more awesome but you would never use more than one per encounter because you couldn't get the full benefit of the daily if you cast another one instead of just maintaining the first daily you cast. Or more apropriately by using the attacks starting up the daily allowed you to make for the rest of the encounter. I'll see if I can get him to give you guys the examples he gave me.
The idea was to have daily powers that were cool, strong, and actually gave you something to do. If you need multiple actions to gain all the benefits from your daily power, then you most likely won't be using more than one per encounter. And if you do, you won't gain as many benefits, reducing the nova effect. I took the idea from someone else and expanded upon it IIRC. However, here are some examples to clarify this stuff a bit.
Wall of Fire
Create a wall of fire. It deals some damage to people inside it and slows down people as usual. But then you have:
Move Action: move one end of the wall by 10'.
Minor Action: a creature inside the wall takes the damage again.
Standard Action: a fire sprout comes out of the wall and a creature within 20' of the wall is attacked for larger than normal damage.
Or maybe:
Meteor Swarm
Int vs Ref, 8d6 + Int damage on a target. Then until the end of the encounter you can rain meteors on your foes:
Standard Action: you make an Int vs Ref attack for 8d6+Int damage on a target, plus spread damage.
Standard Action: you make an Int vs Ref attack against three targets (three meteors). You can use this attack three times before the end of the encounter.
Standard Action: after you have finished the uses of the spell above you can end the spell attacking every enemy within 60' of you with meteors.
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Reflavoring: the change of flavor without changing any mechanical part of the game, no matter how small, in order to fit the mechanics to an otherwise unsupported concept.
Retexturing: the change of flavor (with at most minor mechanical adaptations) in order to effortlessly create support for a concept without inventing anything new.
Houseruling: the change, either minor or major, of the mechanics in order to better reflect a certain aspect of the game, including adapting the rules to fit an otherwise unsupported concept.
Homebrewing: the complete invention of something new that fits within the system in order to reflect an unsupported concept. Ideas for 5ESpoiler:
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1 year ago ::
Mar 22, 2012 - 12:38PM
#24
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Date Joined:
Aug 19, 2007
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I am glad to hear that I wasn't the only DM with this concern. I have never brought it up in other posts/debates because I thought that my year and half playing/DMing 4th was insuficient to say that the phenomenon existed. I had problems balancing encounters to get the required level of threat (my groups like the threat level at the maximum barely survived by the skin of your teeth kind of feel) without resulting in TPK. When we first started 4th edition we thought it was too easily. Characters easily bounced back and there wasn't any feeling of danger for the players. We immediately bumped up the encounter difficultly with more mobs and stronger mobs. Unfortunately, we quickly discovered that there was a dangerous cascading effect. If we set the encounter difficulty level so that the party felt threatened then there there was the risk that when the leader or defender fell that the entire party fell apart and died en masse. What I had to do was constantly fudge the monster's rolls. We would create the encounters at high difficulty and when I rolled for the mobs behind the DM screen if the mobs was going to drop a player too early (and TPK) I would adjust that roll for a miss.
I know that not everyone is intersted in that level of danger in their game but I am curious on how groups made it work with their 4th edition game (if they operated on the high danger mode.
This exists, and is one of the reasons I'm looking forward to D&D Next. In order to properly challenge a high level party, you need to have multiple encounters per day. If you have only one, chances are it's going to be either easy or TPK.
Are you interested in an online 4E game on Sunday? Contact me with a PM! Spoiler:
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Reflavoring: the change of flavor without changing any mechanical part of the game, no matter how small, in order to fit the mechanics to an otherwise unsupported concept.
Retexturing: the change of flavor (with at most minor mechanical adaptations) in order to effortlessly create support for a concept without inventing anything new.
Houseruling: the change, either minor or major, of the mechanics in order to better reflect a certain aspect of the game, including adapting the rules to fit an otherwise unsupported concept.
Homebrewing: the complete invention of something new that fits within the system in order to reflect an unsupported concept. Ideas for 5ESpoiler:
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1 year ago ::
Mar 22, 2012 - 12:55PM
#25
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Date Joined:
Aug 31, 2007
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I sincerely hope they can decouple magic items from the math. I have wanted to have a no-magic-item-required DnD system that doesnt require me to rewrite the entire system with inherent bonuses to compensate.
If the magic items do anything then the power level increase for the default set of magic items has to be built into the math. The real solution is to decouple party level and combat effectiveness, so that the no-magic party is facing less powerful foes but still getting the same XP becuase it is the same relative threat.
I am glad to hear that I wasn't the only DM with this concern. I have never brought it up in other posts/debates because I thought that my year and half playing/DMing 4th was insuficient to say that the phenomenon existed. I had problems balancing encounters to get the required level of threat (my groups like the threat level at the maximum barely survived by the skin of your teeth kind of feel) without resulting in TPK.
It is a persistant problem in 4e, it is pretty tighly bound to the 3-5 encounters per day model. The number of daily powers in a party as a whole means you actually get more of a nova then you often would in 3e when the party knows they can blow all of their daily powers in one shot. I avoid that problem by keeping the guessing constantly about the number of fights they face in a day and when the main boss will show up. Fights per day could be anything from 1 to 20+, and the main boss might be hidden at the start, or arrive with the reinforcments half way through the fight. This forces the party to be careful with their daily powers, which lets me ramp down the enemies a bit while still keeping the actual danger level up.
The idea was to have daily powers that were cool, strong, and actually gave you something to do. If you need multiple actions to gain all the benefits from your daily power, then you most likely won't be using more than one per encounter. And if you do, you won't gain as many benefits, reducing the nova effect. I took the idea from someone else and expanded upon it IIRC. However, here are some examples to clarify this stuff a bit.
Neat idea, but how would you balance it for defensive or party buffing powers? Using up standard actions for these powers makes them worthless or annoying, but if you don't then somebody can easily stack a minor with an offensive daily power.
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1 year ago ::
Mar 22, 2012 - 1:05PM
#26
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Date Joined:
Aug 19, 2007
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The idea was to have daily powers that were cool, strong, and actually gave you something to do. If you need multiple actions to gain all the benefits from your daily power, then you most likely won't be using more than one per encounter. And if you do, you won't gain as many benefits, reducing the nova effect. I took the idea from someone else and expanded upon it IIRC. However, here are some examples to clarify this stuff a bit.
Neat idea, but how would you balance it for defensive or party buffing powers? Using up standard actions for these powers makes them worthless or annoying, but if you don't then somebody can easily stack a minor with an offensive daily power.
Hmmm, well the system does suppose there's non-daily resources. For instance, Fireball under this system would most likely be an encounter power.
Defensive powers would still have an active attack action that's superior to your at-will, but inferior to strictly offensive spells. For instance, if you have a Daily spell that's supposed to be Mage Armor, you instead get Dancing Blades Armor, which grants defensive bonuses and can be used to attack too.
Buffing powers would be rare as daily, but I guess they'd work like this: you get the overall benefit for spending the daily, then you can "direct" the spell in some way. For instance, take Righteous Wrath of the Faithful: static bonus for everybody, plus you can grant a target a bonus to his next damage roll within the next turn roughly equal to 1.2*your damage output. That way you can choose between non gaining the +0.2 to your damage output (plus added benefit of making someone else attack, buffed) if you want to attack normally. You can, you can even spend another offensive daily to attack yourself for, say, 1.4x damage, but you're losing out on part of the efficiency of the power that way.
Are you interested in an online 4E game on Sunday? Contact me with a PM! Spoiler:
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Reflavoring: the change of flavor without changing any mechanical part of the game, no matter how small, in order to fit the mechanics to an otherwise unsupported concept.
Retexturing: the change of flavor (with at most minor mechanical adaptations) in order to effortlessly create support for a concept without inventing anything new.
Houseruling: the change, either minor or major, of the mechanics in order to better reflect a certain aspect of the game, including adapting the rules to fit an otherwise unsupported concept.
Homebrewing: the complete invention of something new that fits within the system in order to reflect an unsupported concept. Ideas for 5ESpoiler:
Show
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1 year ago ::
Mar 22, 2012 - 1:13PM
#27
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Date Joined:
Jan 26, 2010
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TheMormegil actually had a design for this that made dailies even more awesome but you would never use more than one per encounter because you couldn't get the full benefit of the daily if you cast another one instead of just maintaining the first daily you cast. Or more apropriately by using the attacks starting up the daily allowed you to make for the rest of the encounter. I'll see if I can get him to give you guys the examples he gave me.
The idea was to have daily powers that were cool, strong, and actually gave you something to do. If you need multiple actions to gain all the benefits from your daily power, then you most likely won't be using more than one per encounter. And if you do, you won't gain as many benefits, reducing the nova effect. I took the idea from someone else and expanded upon it IIRC. However, here are some examples to clarify this stuff a bit.
Wall of Fire
Create a wall of fire. It deals some damage to people inside it and slows down people as usual. But then you have:
Move Action: move one end of the wall by 10'.
Minor Action: a creature inside the wall takes the damage again.
Standard Action: a fire sprout comes out of the wall and a creature within 20' of the wall is attacked for larger than normal damage.
Or maybe:
Meteor Swarm
Int vs Ref, 8d6 + Int damage on a target. Then until the end of the encounter you can rain meteors on your foes:
Standard Action: you make an Int vs Ref attack for 8d6+Int damage on a target, plus spread damage.
Standard Action: you make an Int vs Ref attack against three targets (three meteors). You can use this attack three times before the end of the encounter.
Standard Action: after you have finished the uses of the spell above you can end the spell attacking every enemy within 60' of you with meteors.
Nice stuff!!
Brilliant fix for the problems with dailies. I personally love daily resources for the decision making the people have to make in terms of using them (and to give them flexibility and variabilty so each encounter isn't the same exact series of encounter and at will powers). Your system preserves the choices, strategy and "Wow that's a cool power!" factor that makes daily powers desirable while reducing the likelihood of a nova (one of the biggest problems with daily power). Very nice!
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1 year ago ::
Mar 22, 2012 - 2:00PM
#28
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Date Joined:
Feb 12, 2009
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TheMormegil actually had a design for this that made dailies even more awesome but you would never use more than one per encounter because you couldn't get the full benefit of the daily if you cast another one instead of just maintaining the first daily you cast. Or more apropriately by using the attacks starting up the daily allowed you to make for the rest of the encounter. I'll see if I can get him to give you guys the examples he gave me.
The idea was to have daily powers that were cool, strong, and actually gave you something to do. If you need multiple actions to gain all the benefits from your daily power, then you most likely won't be using more than one per encounter. And if you do, you won't gain as many benefits, reducing the nova effect. I took the idea from someone else and expanded upon it IIRC. However, here are some examples to clarify this stuff a bit.
Wall of Fire
Create a wall of fire. It deals some damage to people inside it and slows down people as usual. But then you have:
Move Action: move one end of the wall by 10'.
Minor Action: a creature inside the wall takes the damage again.
Standard Action: a fire sprout comes out of the wall and a creature within 20' of the wall is attacked for larger than normal damage.
Or maybe:
Meteor Swarm
Int vs Ref, 8d6 + Int damage on a target. Then until the end of the encounter you can rain meteors on your foes:
Standard Action: you make an Int vs Ref attack for 8d6+Int damage on a target, plus spread damage.
Standard Action: you make an Int vs Ref attack against three targets (three meteors). You can use this attack three times before the end of the encounter.
Standard Action: after you have finished the uses of the spell above you can end the spell attacking every enemy within 60' of you with meteors.
Nice stuff!!
Brilliant fix for the problems with dailies. I personally love daily resources for the decision making the people have to make in terms of using them (and to give them flexibility and variabilty so each encounter isn't the same exact series of encounter and at will powers). Your system preserves the choices, strategy and "Wow that's a cool power!" factor that makes daily powers desirable while reducing the likelihood of a nova (one of the biggest problems with daily power). Very nice!
Like I told him it is one of the best suggestions I have seen on the boards. I just wish I could ensure that the devs see it.
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1 year ago ::
Mar 22, 2012 - 2:35PM
#29
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Date Joined:
Oct 19, 2008
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I think of all the things that 4e did, ease of using monsters was the best (particularly the format of the stat blocks).
My only complaint (and it's quite minor) in this area is I wish that the "Elite" balance (not necessarily implementation) was the standard setting of monsters presented.
I'm not fond of having nearly as many characters to manage in combat as there are PC's. And I think the idea of the typical monster being individually more powerful than the typical PC is more exciting.
And none of my groups find it interesting to deal with "trash mobs" in any combat that takes longer than 5 minutes maybe.
See, I have easily mentioned that shifting to X elite monsters instead of Y standard monsters is rather easy. To make the aproximate of XP budget aloted for a certain level, you create or pick 2 elites of a level above the party. Meaning that 2 level 2 elities is about equal to a level 1 encounter (for 5 people), 2 level 3s is about a level 2 encounter, etc. Knowing this makes it quite easy to shift the balance, while still allowing the "average" game player to be able to handle the simpleness of minions and standards with the occasional elite and solo.
"I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody." --Bill Cosby (1937- )Vanador: OK. You ripped a gateway to Hell, killed half the town, and raised the dead as feral zombies. We're going to kill you. But it can go two ways. We want you to run as fast as you possibly can toward the south of the town to draw the Zombies to you, and right before they catch you, I'll put an arrow through your head to end it instantly. If you don't agree to do this, we'll tie you this building and let the Zombies rip you apart slowly. Dimitry: God I love being Neutral. 4th edition is dead, long live 4th edition.Salla: opinionated, but commonly right. fun quotes
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If you can't understand how someone yelling at another person would make them fight harder and longer, then you need to look at the forums a bit closer.
quote author=56832398 post=519321747]Considering DnD is a game wouldn't all styles be gamist?
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1 year ago ::
Mar 22, 2012 - 11:46PM
#30
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See, I have easily mentioned that shifting to X elite monsters instead of Y standard monsters is rather easy. To make the aproximate of XP budget aloted for a certain level, you create or pick 2 elites of a level above the party. Meaning that 2 level 2 elities is about equal to a level 1 encounter (for 5 people), 2 level 3s is about a level 2 encounter, etc. Knowing this makes it quite easy to shift the balance, while still allowing the "average" game player to be able to handle the simpleness of minions and standards with the occasional elite and solo.
It's not that I can't do it, Kalnuar. It's that I want the vast majority of monsters in the MM's to be constructed as Elites. Because I want a larger set of pre-built monsters to select from. That's my primary criticism of monsters in 4e.
Somnia, the Evanescent Plane -- A 3-set Block
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