Sleepsintraffic suggested supplies could be a solution, and, it sorta maybe can be in some cases. (It seems like an opportunity to use tensors floating disk instead of a real challenge). But notice that it isn't a solution in my case, since we're walking overland 2 weeks to visit the shining city one way or another. I guess, for those who track arrows and have a all ranger party, you could use arrows(supplies) as a milestone like refresh - no more arrows till you cross the marsh. I guess in an all ranger party without a magic quiver, that could work.
Supplies are just a big piece in the tapestry of motivations...no single thing in the story is going to work ya gotta have a few.
Also I think you're confusing something. When we talk about milestones we are reffering to a system that someone suggested where the players could not get back their resources till they went through a specific number of combat encounters of a certain strength. Doesn't matter if your utility mage is entirely tapped before the first combat of the sequence, because he was doing his job and there wasn't a combat till after all the utility usage was needed, he still wouldn't be able to reprep until after the 4th or 5th fight. it is literally divorced entirely from the story.
Actually when we are talking about mile stone points we are talking about the one where you gain one mile stone point for surviving an easy encounter, two for surviving a normal encounter, and three for surviving a hard encounter. Then they can use these points to reduce the amount of time it takes to memorize a spell from a set time, the suggestion said 10 minutes per level but that is too low, so that a rest of 10 minutes can net the players extra spells. Then they combined the idea with shrines and libraries where a divine caster could reduce the time to memorize spells if they were at a shrine down to an extremely low amount, the suggestion said 1 minute but that time may be off, combined with full mile stone points this would mean an hour or two for a high level character to regain all spells. The DM could place shrines and libraries where they want the players to have an easy time to recover and all other times the players would have to rest for extremely long amounts of time to recover spells. Such a long time that even the random encounters would be an almost certainty.
Of course this still doesn't work for long trips through the wilderness. You rest 8 hours each day so even with no mile stone points and no shrines or libraries available you are still going to be able to memorize most of your spells each day.
So I think there has been some revisions since last I got a clear look at the system...A fault of having to discuss the same topic in about 4 or 5 different threads...that system is very different from the proposals I'd been hearing and is agreeable to me because it doesn't take the option of regaining spells away from the group entirely it just makes it less of an awesome option. Pair this with responsible spell design and it works better. 10 mintutes per spell level sounds like a good idea I mean for the level 10 character to prep a full list that is stil 5 hours. I do assume this is in addition to the 8 hour charge of a rest making the total resting time 13 hours, and you can only do it once per 24 hour period anyways. At 20th level your non shrine no points prep time is 15 hours (on top of the assumed 6-8 hour rest and this is basically impossible durring a journey). The "shrines" as 1 minute per spell level sound like a good idea. that makes it a half hour for a 10th level character (yet again assumed to be on top of the normal 6-8 hour requirement) I'd still reflavor the heck out of this because basically as a story writing subsystem this works better if the defined reasons for the quicker recharge should be somewhat variable to match the story. Though suggestions of libraries, shrines, labs, leylines, sacred places, holy ground stuff like that works. No need to tie any one specific thing to any one specific class. I still kinda dislike the milestones themselves it just feels forced, like trying to find an in game explanation for why killing things makes you reprep your magic more quickly just doesn't sit right with me but it isn't too bad. Like maybe if your some kind of blood caster...I think the explanation I would have to use is that fresh monster parts speed up the preperation process for any spell. Now how do milestone points effect prep time.
I do apologize for railing against this so hard if this fix to it has been in the proposal for an extended period of time...having to jump threads and respond to a bunch of people saying a bunch of crap that wasn't just, "how about we change the system we proposed to make it more agreeable to you", made it difficult to see your revisions to the sub system. Sorry if they have been there for a while.
Thanks you. See if people read things, the last 1000 posts wouldn't have happened...
Rather a problem with rope trick, than with the core?
A problem with any safe haven spell that allows you to rest. An extended mass, sanctuary spell cast by a druid that lasted 24 hours would have the same effect except they could camp right in the middle of the goblins while they were dining and nothing would happen.
I don't know if that would work for 24 hours. It allows a save by each target which if even a single one succeeds means the jig is up...
Sleepsintraffic suggested supplies could be a solution, and, it sorta maybe can be in some cases. (It seems like an opportunity to use tensors floating disk instead of a real challenge). But notice that it isn't a solution in my case, since we're walking overland 2 weeks to visit the shining city one way or another. I guess, for those who track arrows and have a all ranger party, you could use arrows(supplies) as a milestone like refresh - no more arrows till you cross the marsh. I guess in an all ranger party without a magic quiver, that could work.
Supplies are just a big piece in the tapestry of motivations...no single thing in the story is going to work ya gotta have a few.
Also I think you're confusing something. When we talk about milestones we are reffering to a system that someone suggested where the players could not get back their resources till they went through a specific number of combat encounters of a certain strength. Doesn't matter if your utility mage is entirely tapped before the first combat of the sequence, because he was doing his job and there wasn't a combat till after all the utility usage was needed, he still wouldn't be able to reprep until after the 4th or 5th fight. it is literally divorced entirely from the story.
Actually when we are talking about mile stone points we are talking about the one where you gain one mile stone point for surviving an easy encounter, two for surviving a normal encounter, and three for surviving a hard encounter. Then they can use these points to reduce the amount of time it takes to memorize a spell from a set time, the suggestion said 10 minutes per level but that is too low, so that a rest of 10 minutes can net the players extra spells. Then they combined the idea with shrines and libraries where a divine caster could reduce the time to memorize spells if they were at a shrine down to an extremely low amount, the suggestion said 1 minute but that time may be off, combined with full mile stone points this would mean an hour or two for a high level character to regain all spells. The DM could place shrines and libraries where they want the players to have an easy time to recover and all other times the players would have to rest for extremely long amounts of time to recover spells. Such a long time that even the random encounters would be an almost certainty.
Of course this still doesn't work for long trips through the wilderness. You rest 8 hours each day so even with no mile stone points and no shrines or libraries available you are still going to be able to memorize most of your spells each day.
So I think there has been some revisions since last I got a clear look at the system...A fault of having to discuss the same topic in about 4 or 5 different threads...that system is very different from the proposals I'd been hearing and is agreeable to me because it doesn't take the option of regaining spells away from the group entirely it just makes it less of an awesome option. Pair this with responsible spell design and it works better. 10 mintutes per spell level sounds like a good idea I mean for the level 10 character to prep a full list that is stil 5 hours. I do assume this is in addition to the 8 hour charge of a rest making the total resting time 13 hours, and you can only do it once per 24 hour period anyways. At 20th level your non shrine no points prep time is 15 hours (on top of the assumed 6-8 hour rest and this is basically impossible durring a journey). The "shrines" as 1 minute per spell level sound like a good idea. that makes it a half hour for a 10th level character (yet again assumed to be on top of the normal 6-8 hour requirement) I'd still reflavor the heck out of this because basically as a story writing subsystem this works better if the defined reasons for the quicker recharge should be somewhat variable to match the story. Though suggestions of libraries, shrines, labs, leylines, sacred places, holy ground stuff like that works. No need to tie any one specific thing to any one specific class. I still kinda dislike the milestones themselves it just feels forced, like trying to find an in game explanation for why killing things makes you reprep your magic more quickly just doesn't sit right with me but it isn't too bad. Like maybe if your some kind of blood caster...I think the explanation I would have to use is that fresh monster parts speed up the preperation process for any spell. Now how do milestone points effect prep time.
I do apologize for railing against this so hard if this fix to it has been in the proposal for an extended period of time...having to jump threads and respond to a bunch of people saying a bunch of crap that wasn't just, "how about we change the system we proposed to make it more agreeable to you", made it difficult to see your revisions to the sub system. Sorry if they have been there for a while.
Thanks you. See if people read things, the last 1000 posts wouldn't have happened...
Yeah, and when someone asks for a link and it takes ten or so requests and is told to check the three other existing threads, that helps to keep stuff on track. There's a word for it... I just can't remember what it is...
Sleepsintraffic suggested supplies could be a solution, and, it sorta maybe can be in some cases. (It seems like an opportunity to use tensors floating disk instead of a real challenge). But notice that it isn't a solution in my case, since we're walking overland 2 weeks to visit the shining city one way or another. I guess, for those who track arrows and have a all ranger party, you could use arrows(supplies) as a milestone like refresh - no more arrows till you cross the marsh. I guess in an all ranger party without a magic quiver, that could work.
Supplies are just a big piece in the tapestry of motivations...no single thing in the story is going to work ya gotta have a few.
Also I think you're confusing something. When we talk about milestones we are reffering to a system that someone suggested where the players could not get back their resources till they went through a specific number of combat encounters of a certain strength. Doesn't matter if your utility mage is entirely tapped before the first combat of the sequence, because he was doing his job and there wasn't a combat till after all the utility usage was needed, he still wouldn't be able to reprep until after the 4th or 5th fight. it is literally divorced entirely from the story.
Actually when we are talking about mile stone points we are talking about the one where you gain one mile stone point for surviving an easy encounter, two for surviving a normal encounter, and three for surviving a hard encounter. Then they can use these points to reduce the amount of time it takes to memorize a spell from a set time, the suggestion said 10 minutes per level but that is too low, so that a rest of 10 minutes can net the players extra spells. Then they combined the idea with shrines and libraries where a divine caster could reduce the time to memorize spells if they were at a shrine down to an extremely low amount, the suggestion said 1 minute but that time may be off, combined with full mile stone points this would mean an hour or two for a high level character to regain all spells. The DM could place shrines and libraries where they want the players to have an easy time to recover and all other times the players would have to rest for extremely long amounts of time to recover spells. Such a long time that even the random encounters would be an almost certainty.
Of course this still doesn't work for long trips through the wilderness. You rest 8 hours each day so even with no mile stone points and no shrines or libraries available you are still going to be able to memorize most of your spells each day.
So I think there has been some revisions since last I got a clear look at the system...A fault of having to discuss the same topic in about 4 or 5 different threads...that system is very different from the proposals I'd been hearing and is agreeable to me because it doesn't take the option of regaining spells away from the group entirely it just makes it less of an awesome option. Pair this with responsible spell design and it works better. 10 mintutes per spell level sounds like a good idea I mean for the level 10 character to prep a full list that is stil 5 hours. I do assume this is in addition to the 8 hour charge of a rest making the total resting time 13 hours, and you can only do it once per 24 hour period anyways. At 20th level your non shrine no points prep time is 15 hours (on top of the assumed 6-8 hour rest and this is basically impossible durring a journey). The "shrines" as 1 minute per spell level sound like a good idea. that makes it a half hour for a 10th level character (yet again assumed to be on top of the normal 6-8 hour requirement) I'd still reflavor the heck out of this because basically as a story writing subsystem this works better if the defined reasons for the quicker recharge should be somewhat variable to match the story. Though suggestions of libraries, shrines, labs, leylines, sacred places, holy ground stuff like that works. No need to tie any one specific thing to any one specific class. I still kinda dislike the milestones themselves it just feels forced, like trying to find an in game explanation for why killing things makes you reprep your magic more quickly just doesn't sit right with me but it isn't too bad. Like maybe if your some kind of blood caster...I think the explanation I would have to use is that fresh monster parts speed up the preperation process for any spell. Now how do milestone points effect prep time.
I do apologize for railing against this so hard if this fix to it has been in the proposal for an extended period of time...having to jump threads and respond to a bunch of people saying a bunch of crap that wasn't just, "how about we change the system we proposed to make it more agreeable to you", made it difficult to see your revisions to the sub system. Sorry if they have been there for a while.
It has been out there for awhile, but to be fair it was in the Mechanical Solutions thread.
It still has the problem of long trips, but they could just say that they aren't waiting around for 4-6 hours while the casters memorize and that they can't memorize while sleeping 6-8 hours.
Oh I will admit I totally missed this. I'm gunna entirely blame people that kept trying to argue a point this system has already conceded to and then fixed the actual problem with (with a fix I had agreed to/helped suggest long ago no less). Heck if you wanted to make it a tad harsher you could just straight limit the number of spell levels a caster can prep per day kinda like if you're using alternative HP recouperation rules you can only get a certain ammount of health back per day(only seems fair and is entirely sensible).
On the topic of travel adventures I personally have less of a problem with that...to me the 1 off attacks on the road are the time to show that everyone's powerful. I always feel bad for the attacking highwaymen you'd think they know how to spot someone they shouldn't rob better than that (just a joke I'm aware othe stuff attacks too). Especially if the attacks have nothing to do with any kind of over arching campagin or anything or are only barely connected (killin off mooks). Though tips in the encounter design sections on how to design encounters so that mundanes can shine along side casters would be required (it is possible without drilling a bunch of combats into one day but only barely). Also nothing stops a mini adventure from taking place along the way (where you do have full up days).
I do think it does help that in travel adventures supplies and feed become things that should be tracked. If you're travelling for 10 days straight before your next possible resupply gathering supplies is an important task, and considering those supplies are not infinite one should not expect to be able to take however long they like on the road. Although the smart adventurer plans for at least 3-4 extra days on the road, for whatever reasons that could arise to slow them down. At that point you could think of the supplies as a mechanical note. Every time they pass a certain period of time ( maybe 4 hours) check off a box in the supplies section. Buying a days worth of supplies gets you maybe 6 boxes in the supplies section (maybe change those numbers a bit). This is just a rough idea.
Quick question do they always have to reprepare their whole list every day or do spells already prepared last through sleeping.
We could have the dial, but people like me wouldn't use it so any benefit from the 5MWD would be lost on me...
Sleepsintraffic suggested supplies could be a solution, and, it sorta maybe can be in some cases. (It seems like an opportunity to use tensors floating disk instead of a real challenge). But notice that it isn't a solution in my case, since we're walking overland 2 weeks to visit the shining city one way or another. I guess, for those who track arrows and have a all ranger party, you could use arrows(supplies) as a milestone like refresh - no more arrows till you cross the marsh. I guess in an all ranger party without a magic quiver, that could work.
Supplies are just a big piece in the tapestry of motivations...no single thing in the story is going to work ya gotta have a few.
Also I think you're confusing something. When we talk about milestones we are reffering to a system that someone suggested where the players could not get back their resources till they went through a specific number of combat encounters of a certain strength. Doesn't matter if your utility mage is entirely tapped before the first combat of the sequence, because he was doing his job and there wasn't a combat till after all the utility usage was needed, he still wouldn't be able to reprep until after the 4th or 5th fight. it is literally divorced entirely from the story.
Actually when we are talking about mile stone points we are talking about the one where you gain one mile stone point for surviving an easy encounter, two for surviving a normal encounter, and three for surviving a hard encounter. Then they can use these points to reduce the amount of time it takes to memorize a spell from a set time, the suggestion said 10 minutes per level but that is too low, so that a rest of 10 minutes can net the players extra spells. Then they combined the idea with shrines and libraries where a divine caster could reduce the time to memorize spells if they were at a shrine down to an extremely low amount, the suggestion said 1 minute but that time may be off, combined with full mile stone points this would mean an hour or two for a high level character to regain all spells. The DM could place shrines and libraries where they want the players to have an easy time to recover and all other times the players would have to rest for extremely long amounts of time to recover spells. Such a long time that even the random encounters would be an almost certainty.
Of course this still doesn't work for long trips through the wilderness. You rest 8 hours each day so even with no mile stone points and no shrines or libraries available you are still going to be able to memorize most of your spells each day.
So I think there has been some revisions since last I got a clear look at the system...A fault of having to discuss the same topic in about 4 or 5 different threads...that system is very different from the proposals I'd been hearing and is agreeable to me because it doesn't take the option of regaining spells away from the group entirely it just makes it less of an awesome option. Pair this with responsible spell design and it works better. 10 mintutes per spell level sounds like a good idea I mean for the level 10 character to prep a full list that is stil 5 hours. I do assume this is in addition to the 8 hour charge of a rest making the total resting time 13 hours, and you can only do it once per 24 hour period anyways. At 20th level your non shrine no points prep time is 15 hours (on top of the assumed 6-8 hour rest and this is basically impossible durring a journey). The "shrines" as 1 minute per spell level sound like a good idea. that makes it a half hour for a 10th level character (yet again assumed to be on top of the normal 6-8 hour requirement) I'd still reflavor the heck out of this because basically as a story writing subsystem this works better if the defined reasons for the quicker recharge should be somewhat variable to match the story. Though suggestions of libraries, shrines, labs, leylines, sacred places, holy ground stuff like that works. No need to tie any one specific thing to any one specific class. I still kinda dislike the milestones themselves it just feels forced, like trying to find an in game explanation for why killing things makes you reprep your magic more quickly just doesn't sit right with me but it isn't too bad. Like maybe if your some kind of blood caster...I think the explanation I would have to use is that fresh monster parts speed up the preperation process for any spell. Now how do milestone points effect prep time.
I do apologize for railing against this so hard if this fix to it has been in the proposal for an extended period of time...having to jump threads and respond to a bunch of people saying a bunch of crap that wasn't just, "how about we change the system we proposed to make it more agreeable to you", made it difficult to see your revisions to the sub system. Sorry if they have been there for a while.
It has been out there for awhile, but to be fair it was in the Mechanical Solutions thread.
It still has the problem of long trips, but they could just say that they aren't waiting around for 4-6 hours while the casters memorize and that they can't memorize while sleeping 6-8 hours.
Oh I will admit I totally missed this. I'm gunna entirely blame people that kept trying to argue a point this system has already conceded to and then fixed the actual problem with (with a fix I had agreed to/helped suggest long ago no less). Heck if you wanted to make it a tad harsher you could just straight limit the number of spell levels a caster can prep per day kinda like if you're using alternative HP recouperation rules you can only get a certain ammount of health back per day(only seems fair and is entirely sensible).
On the topic of travel adventures I personally have less of a problem with that...to me the 1 off attacks on the road are the time to show that everyone's powerful. I always feel bad for the attacking highwaymen you'd think they know how to spot someone they shouldn't rob better than that (just a joke I'm aware othe stuff attacks too). Especially if the attacks have nothing to do with any kind of over arching campagin or anything or are only barely connected (killin off mooks). Though tips in the encounter design sections on how to design encounters so that mundanes can shine along side casters would be required (it is possible without drilling a bunch of combats into one day but only barely). Also nothing stops a mini adventure from taking place along the way (where you do have full up days).
I do think it does help that in travel adventures supplies and feed become things that should be tracked. If you're travelling for 10 days straight before your next possible resupply gathering supplies is an important task, and considering those supplies are not infinite one should not expect to be able to take however long they like on the road. Although the smart adventurer plans for at least 3-4 extra days on the road, for whatever reasons that could arise to slow them down. At that point you could think of the supplies as a mechanical note. Every time they pass a certain period of time ( maybe 4 hours) check off a box in the supplies section. Buying a days worth of supplies gets you maybe 6 boxes in the supplies section (maybe change those numbers a bit). This is just a rough idea.
Quick question do they always have to reprepare their whole list every day or do spells already prepared last through sleeping.
I don't think they answered that, but I would assume they stay.
In all respects my suggested mile stone points and shrines and studies works just like the game works now with only the changes listed in the suggestion, so you retain the spells you have memorized...
That would only be an issue if the party was able to totally guarantee that they were able to hide where they cast their rope trick spell. I would say that a simple dog would be able to successfully track the party to where they were resting and canceling the rope trick is just a simple dispel magic away. Surprise!
Possibly, but now you're talking about opposition that has both a tracker and someone capable of casting detect magic and dispel magic. You're limiting the possibilities for what adventures qualify as valid.
It's everything I hated about running 3E, you had this giant checklist like: Must be able to detect invisibility, must be able to counter flight, must be able to cast dispel magic, must be able to track, must counter teleportation, and so on.
You ended up with a giant laundry list of stuff, the higher in level you got, and eventually all your adventures started to look more or less the same. The villain was always some powerful high-level spellcaster. His minions had a set makeup of stuff, and you always had to stick to that cookie-cutter mold or the adventure just didn't work all that well. And if you got into stuff liek Shivering touch and including cold immune monsters, that subset of adventures you can run got smaller and smaller. Your creativity was just stifled and suffocated by an overbearing checklist of prerequisites for every adventure.
And it sucked. I never want to go back to that. I want to be able to tell more stories, not less. I'm sick of trying to act as a crutch for bad game design. I have better things to do as a DM.
And yet, I am supposed to believe that the 1 encounter per day is a valid tactic in a world that should expect that very thing. Its just not logical.
Well, the problem is that the world by default doesn't, because it makes for boring storytelling. It's not the kind of game you want to be running, despite being logical. Now the goal there is pretty much get the mechanics to conform to the way you want the adventure to look, as opposed to vice versa. I mean yeah, we could turn every dungeon into simply a hole where monsters flood from until they're all dead. It'd be boring as hell, but we could do it.
But if the mechanics encourage a setting we don't want, we should change the mechanics, not the setting. Otherwise we end up running a story we don't want to run, and what's the point of that?
The story we want to tell is a multi-room dungeon that PCs gradually explore and go deeper in. It's not an oriface on the surface of the gameworld that spewes an endless horde to attack the PCs. So why the hell don't we make mechanics that suit the style we want, instead of the other way around?
however reviewing detect magic I'm not sure who's right. I think I am leaning in the you are right direction. I just don't want to admit it because that is total garbage. The point of detect magic is so you can sense the magic in an area including invisible stuff. That was actually one of the best things you could use it for. It didn't make it not invisible nor did it make it any easier to find it just let you know something near you was invisible. I mean if your interpretation is correct that means detect magic doesn't pierce disguise self (a 0 level spell) or any illusion spell used to conceal things. Heck If I use minor illusion to create a wall for people to hide behind technically detect magic won't be able to detect it because it is being used to conceal creatures.
I am not sure which version of Detect Magic you are going off, but a Disguise Self spell would definitely register as a faint aura of Illusion.
Which is why the ability Disguise is still useful.
That would only be an issue if the party was able to totally guarantee that they were able to hide where they cast their rope trick spell. I would say that a simple dog would be able to successfully track the party to where they were resting and canceling the rope trick is just a simple dispel magic away. Surprise!
Possibly, but now you're talking about opposition that has both a tracker and someone capable of casting detect magic and dispel magic. You're limiting the possibilities for what adventures qualify as valid.
It's everything I hated about running 3E, you had this giant checklist like: Must be able to detect invisibility, must be able to counter flight, must be able to cast dispel magic, must be able to track, must counter teleportation, and so on.
You ended up with a giant laundry list of stuff, the higher in level you got, and eventually all your adventures started to look more or less the same. The villain was always some powerful high-level spellcaster. His minions had a set makeup of stuff, and you always had to stick to that cookie-cutter mold or the adventure just didn't work all that well. And if you got into stuff liek Shivering touch and including cold immune monsters, that subset of adventures you can run got smaller and smaller. Your creativity was just stifled and suffocated by an overbearing checklist of prerequisites for every adventure.
And it sucked. I never want to go back to that. I want to be able to tell more stories, not less. I'm sick of trying to act as a crutch for bad game design. I have better things to do as a DM.
I can identify with that feeling. For me it was the the hour long grinding battles in 4e that just sucked the fun out of the game, so I am hoping that DnD Next will learn from the mistakes of that bad game design
And yet, I am supposed to believe that the 1 encounter per day is a valid tactic in a world that should expect that very thing. Its just not logical.
Well, the problem is that the world by default doesn't, because it makes for boring storytelling. It's not the kind of game you want to be running, despite being logical. Now the goal there is pretty much get the mechanics to conform to the way you want the adventure to look, as opposed to vice versa. I mean yeah, we could turn every dungeon into simply a hole where monsters flood from until they're all dead. It'd be boring as hell, but we could do it.
But if the mechanics encourage a setting we don't want, we should change the mechanics, not the setting. Otherwise we end up running a story we don't want to run, and what's the point of that?
The story we want to tell is a multi-room dungeon that PCs gradually explore and go deeper in. It's not an oriface on the surface of the gameworld that spewes an endless horde to attack the PCs. So why the hell don't we make mechanics that suit the style we want, instead of the other way around?
I am not sure what type of game would work well for this type of adventure, but certainly any mechanics set up for a dungeon crawl game are going to bite hard when we play something else.
Sleeps - I don't think you got my scenario - the point was we were trying to give the beleaguered party a choice - push on and explore the ruins (knowing it will deplete their resources and make the rest of the travel through the swamp more risky), or bypass it and play it safe. If the trip through the swamp is multi-day, and no special dm rule prevents thedaily users from refreshing, then the ruins have no impact on the swamp - it may be dangerous, but they'll rest and recuperate all spells, hp, etc by the next day. As you say, the players don't know if the ruins is dangerous, so, maybe some parties will decide not to seek treasure. I guess. But, it doesn't capture the danger than a multi-day milestone system can provide effectively.
As for milestones only being combat related, I dont see why the system proposed must onlydeal with combat. No recent system (4e, fate) limited milestones to combat only. It's true that the example linked to talked about combat, but I see that as an oversight, not a requirement. As you point out, linking milestones only to combat undervalues non combat actors. However, if it makes your point, I conceed I was confused and hereby recommend milestone systems include non-combat as a recommendation.
My suggestion is not limited to combat encounters. It is limited to anything that can be considered an encounter. Basically anything that uses resources and has risks associated with it. And please no bags of rats comments, they will be ignored just as they were in 3.xE...
Sleepsintraffic suggested supplies could be a solution, and, it sorta maybe can be in some cases. (It seems like an opportunity to use tensors floating disk instead of a real challenge). But notice that it isn't a solution in my case, since we're walking overland 2 weeks to visit the shining city one way or another. I guess, for those who track arrows and have a all ranger party, you could use arrows(supplies) as a milestone like refresh - no more arrows till you cross the marsh. I guess in an all ranger party without a magic quiver, that could work.
Supplies are just a big piece in the tapestry of motivations...no single thing in the story is going to work ya gotta have a few.
Also I think you're confusing something. When we talk about milestones we are reffering to a system that someone suggested where the players could not get back their resources till they went through a specific number of combat encounters of a certain strength. Doesn't matter if your utility mage is entirely tapped before the first combat of the sequence, because he was doing his job and there wasn't a combat till after all the utility usage was needed, he still wouldn't be able to reprep until after the 4th or 5th fight. it is literally divorced entirely from the story.
Actually when we are talking about mile stone points we are talking about the one where you gain one mile stone point for surviving an easy encounter, two for surviving a normal encounter, and three for surviving a hard encounter. Then they can use these points to reduce the amount of time it takes to memorize a spell from a set time, the suggestion said 10 minutes per level but that is too low, so that a rest of 10 minutes can net the players extra spells. Then they combined the idea with shrines and libraries where a divine caster could reduce the time to memorize spells if they were at a shrine down to an extremely low amount, the suggestion said 1 minute but that time may be off, combined with full mile stone points this would mean an hour or two for a high level character to regain all spells. The DM could place shrines and libraries where they want the players to have an easy time to recover and all other times the players would have to rest for extremely long amounts of time to recover spells. Such a long time that even the random encounters would be an almost certainty.
Of course this still doesn't work for long trips through the wilderness. You rest 8 hours each day so even with no mile stone points and no shrines or libraries available you are still going to be able to memorize most of your spells each day.
So I think there has been some revisions since last I got a clear look at the system...A fault of having to discuss the same topic in about 4 or 5 different threads...that system is very different from the proposals I'd been hearing and is agreeable to me because it doesn't take the option of regaining spells away from the group entirely it just makes it less of an awesome option. Pair this with responsible spell design and it works better. 10 mintutes per spell level sounds like a good idea I mean for the level 10 character to prep a full list that is stil 5 hours. I do assume this is in addition to the 8 hour charge of a rest making the total resting time 13 hours, and you can only do it once per 24 hour period anyways. At 20th level your non shrine no points prep time is 15 hours (on top of the assumed 6-8 hour rest and this is basically impossible durring a journey). The "shrines" as 1 minute per spell level sound like a good idea. that makes it a half hour for a 10th level character (yet again assumed to be on top of the normal 6-8 hour requirement) I'd still reflavor the heck out of this because basically as a story writing subsystem this works better if the defined reasons for the quicker recharge should be somewhat variable to match the story. Though suggestions of libraries, shrines, labs, leylines, sacred places, holy ground stuff like that works. No need to tie any one specific thing to any one specific class. I still kinda dislike the milestones themselves it just feels forced, like trying to find an in game explanation for why killing things makes you reprep your magic more quickly just doesn't sit right with me but it isn't too bad. Like maybe if your some kind of blood caster...I think the explanation I would have to use is that fresh monster parts speed up the preperation process for any spell. Now how do milestone points effect prep time.
I do apologize for railing against this so hard if this fix to it has been in the proposal for an extended period of time...having to jump threads and respond to a bunch of people saying a bunch of crap that wasn't just, "how about we change the system we proposed to make it more agreeable to you", made it difficult to see your revisions to the sub system. Sorry if they have been there for a while.
Thanks you. See if people read things, the last 1000 posts wouldn't have happened...
Yeah, and when someone asks for a link and it takes ten or so requests and is told to check the three other existing threads, that helps to keep stuff on track. There's a word for it... I just can't remember what it is...
The sad thing is all of these threads could be pared down to about five hundred posts if they didn't go in circles so much.
There's a word for it... I just can't remember what it is...
