Community

*Sighs*


If this is the design philosphy of MM and Co. moving forward then it looks like D&D Next will not be the game for me.


For the record, I've always dealt with the "5 Min Workday" by simply telling my groups that they get to recover their spells, etc (extended rest in 4E) when I allow it and not before. There have been times that no rests were granted for 3+ sessions.

The reason I'm concerned is reading between the lines about what this means for the classes and their options and choices.

Wizards and Clerics will get multiple options via their spells (play test materials suggest a Vancian style magic system)

Fighter and Rogue - here are your flat sets of bonuses and themes, no new toys required.


Until I see something different in the new play test materials suggesting otherwise all hope I had for a game that blended the "good stuff" from all editions is gone.


Huzzah to the grognards - the day is yours.


Hmm - maybe I can get into the next 13th age play test.

Balance cannot happen in a vacuum. You must start with a baseline from which you assess balance between options. That is all this article is dealing with, what is the baseline assumption used to balance options. It is a pretty good one actually, since you always want the baseline to envelope all options. An encounter based baseline fails to properly account for daily powers, leading to a 5-minute workday (5-MWD). It can work, if you impose an artificial limit on when you can take an extended rest, but without that bit of hard control, it can devolve into the 5-MWD.

So using an adventure day as your baseline avoids the need for any artificial limiting of the periods you failed to cover, since you cover all options in that timeframe (assuming there are no new class of powers called "Milestone" powers which only recharge when the DM says you reach a Milestone, which could be after several adventure days).

However it does mean that your balance act becomes more complex. An encounter based design only needs consider encounter and at-will powers primarily, with daily powers being the "wild card" that cannot really be balanced for as well since they lay outside the timeframe. But an adventure day based design, while accounting for daily powers, now has to deal with daily, encounter and at-will powers. Furthermore, if encounter powers are still used, there needs to be a new baseline for how long a typical encounter should last, just like they have one for how long (or how many mob level-rounds) adventure days last. Otherwise they will run into unbalanced encounter powers vs. at-wills and dailies. 

This means that whatever they assume as the baseline, the DM will know and can take into account changes he makes for his runs and adjust knowingly. If fighters are "surfers" that is, they rule when waves of mobs come at you, not all at once, and wizards are "blasters" who rule with mobs bundle up for them all at once, then you as the DM can know that wizards will shine in rush encounters and fighters in wave encounters. You can balance the two to make sure all have their time in the sun.

Think of modern combined arms tactics. Infantry, Armor, and Airpower each have their role. Each are good and poor at certain things. They must be used together and in the right combination to achieve success. So groups need to use combined arms tactics as well, with fighters and wizards covering each other's weak spots. Wizards need to be sure not to blow their wad too soon, or they will not perform when a rush hits them group, having wasted their power when it was not ideal to use it.

Not sure how this baseline will stop extended rests from happening before the adventure day is up, that was not described, and it is the key to it all. If they do not make it somehow part of the powers themselves, it will just end up being an artificial limit imposed on the PCs, which is a way to do it, but it would be more pleasing to somehow make it a natural outcome from the way the powers work inherently. For example, a cool-down mechanic could achieve this, so a daily power has a long cool-down time, or not the power itself, but the user I should say. So a wizard can cast say 2-3 daily type spells before using up his reserves. Those would replenish overtime, slowly, faster when resting perhaps, with the balance being you recover fully after 24 hours (or whatever time is decided). Some daily powers use up more of these reserves than others. This is like the power point system, or mana system, you just need to balance it so the points come back when you think they should. If they come back so that the wizard might case another daily or 2 without sleeping due to just the normal non-resting recovery rate, after depleting himself previously, then you need to account for that in your balance. 

Encounter type powers might not use mana in this case, which would represent deep reserves of great power. Encounter powers could draw on shallow reserves, giving less power, but much faster recovery. So you would have a long term tracking for mana, but short term for this other power source, say no recharge rate even needed for it, just say it recharges when you "take 5". Maybe a wizard could choose to weaken himself in the mana side for more encounter side strength, or the other way around. If they balance it well, this can help DMs know how things work and if they diverge from it for certain cases, trying to achieve it overall in average, they know the distortions it will produce. If those are limited, allowing certain choices to shine but then other choices to shine later on, it should work. 

Jul 15, 2012 -- 9:38PM, Mournblade94 wrote:

Jul 15, 2012 -- 9:19PM, AJGibson wrote:

Summary: if the day is too short, casters shine, if it is too long, non-casters shine, so Next will provide tools for the DM to handle this problem.

The article starts by bringing up the point that characters will want to rest after the first fight, and then talks about guidelines for DMs. If players want to rest after the first fight, how will the DM stop them? That's what I want to know. Is the DM supposed to brow beat them into multiple encounters per day? What is the DM's plot doesn't call for multiple encounters per day

I have always managed to control the five minute workday by making time meaningful.  Things in my campaign are USUALly time sensitive.  This may be one reason why I never had a problem with fighter/wizard disparity. 

I didn't even have to try to make the day long.  Making time meaningful in the campaign is the first step in squashing a five minute work day.

And if you have the 5 minute workday problem, there is simply the case that the body does not function with 5 minutes of activity and 8 hours of rest.  Sleep deprivation will still kick in. 

The 5 minute workday is a metagame element that is very easy to avoid, and always has been.

Do your players ever make train noises at you or roll their eyes with same old tired approach?