Limitless abilities without meta-abilities or magic targets

[K]

After listening to the Penny Arcades podcast, I really don't like their "at will" set up of you having only a few at wills. It seriously is magic missile, magic missile, magic missile....

That being said, we know that the Warlock proves that having unlimited uses of all your stuff is actually not much of a problem.

So here is the idea:

What if there was no meta-abilities that alter what your abilities do or allow discrete targeting?

The example of meta-abilities is the metamagics that alter what spells already do, but the DnD feat and abilities system basically makes you try to stack things up asymetrically.

Magic targeting is the "three enemies within a blah blah".

So, for example, people will still use burning hands because it's the only way to affect a single square next to you and if you tried to use a fireball it would center on the guy next to you and blast you as well.

Basically, as long as you make damage scale to level, you can have limitless uses of all abilities because weaker abilities would still be used because they'd still have tactical use.

[SphereOfFeetMan]

The example of meta-abilities is the metamagics that alter what spells already do, but the DnD feat and abilities system basically makes you try to stack things up asymetrically.

I agree that the meta-ability framework in Dnd isn't good. But I am not so sure that it isn't salvageable in another form.

For example, lets say some abilities have a tag which indicates it is alterable. Lets use Burning Hands as the base. So Burning Hands is the base ability which is customized to each caster, and another ability is layered on top of it. So some possible additional choices might be:
-knocked prone
-set on fire
-blinded for a round
-ground boils and is made difficult terrain
-etc

Obviously this adds complexity to the base ability, so it should be used sparingly. But if the game assumed that most casters would have and use iconic at-will attacks like Burning Hands (BH) or Fireball, you could make themed lists. So the telekinetic Mage would have the "knocked prone" option preselected for his BH, and something like Explosive Spell for his Fireball.

The difficult part would be to make the base ability more complex, and the layered abilities short and easily applied. I think the payoff could be worth it, if the base abilities were widely used at-will powers.

These templated abilities could also be layered on the base abilities as you go up in level. I think it would be boring if your Necromancer used BH unchanged from levels 1-20. It would be much more interesting if: at mid levels you caused a shaken effect, or at high levels those killed by your BH became animated Zombies the next round.

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...or allow discrete targeting?
...
...and if you tried to use a fireball it would center on the guy next to you and blast you as well.

I'm not seeing the benefit here. This just seems ham-fisted. I think we can come up with a better reason why you would want to use BH on the guys standing next to you, instead of a well placed Fireball.

[schpeelah]

For example, lets say some abilities have a tag which indicates it is alterable. Lets use Burning Hands as the base. So Burning Hands is the base ability which is customized to each caster, and another ability is layered on top of it. So some possible additional choices might be:
-knocked prone
-set on fire
-blinded for a round
-ground boils and is made difficult terrain
-etc

You mean, like, psionics?

[Username17]

The thing is that your "customizable" abilities aren't really customizable in that instance - they are stand alone player abilities that are partially player designed. The Shocking Grasp of Hurling Dudes Away and the Burning Hands of Knockback are unique standalone abilities. If you procedurally give out players adjacent range electrical and fire attacks and allow them to stick a kicker ability on that which may be knockback, that's really no different from writing out all the permutations.

Writing out permutations and leaving it up to players to assemble themselves has pros and cons. If you let players assemble things themselves you can have a lot more material: 5 basic attacks and 5 secondary effects to mix and match together gives you 25 abilities in 10 entries. Double the number of entries and you quadruple the number of abilities. But you also leave it so that selecting abilities is more work - you have to run through combinatorials in your mind just to figure out what ability choices you can have. Also you end up having material in the game which will be procedurally generated but hasn't been yet when you go to press - and there's no guaranty that some of the combinations aren't over or under powered. A melee blast that inflicts secondary afflictions on everything adjacent to the target is pretty lame, while a long range bolt that slows enemy movement is disturbingly synergistic.

But what K is railing about here is the idea of having abilities which increase other abilities. That is, if one person's at-will is burning hands, another person's at-will probably shouldn't be burning hands that also knocks enemies prone and blinds them.

-Username17

-Username17

[Bigode]

Also you end up having material in the game which will be procedurally generated but hasn't been yet when you go to press - and there's no guaranty that some of the combinations aren't over or under powered.

I'm not sure I understand that - I could write a program to write them all for me, and with some naming clarity, reading the list would go a really long way towards weeding out abuse (for example, it'd catch what you mention - something like "slowing rocket" would appear on the list, and someone who knows the synergy involved would be able to do what's needed about it).

[SphereOfFeetMan]

You mean, like, psionics?

I hope not. I don't know that much about psionics, but the only common trait seems to be modifying an ability. Not the power points, nova problems, etc.

If you procedurally give out players adjacent range electrical and fire attacks and allow them to stick a kicker ability on that which may be knockback, that's really no different from writing out all the permutations.

True. In that instance it might only be useful to save space in a book.

But what K is railing about here is the idea of having abilities which increase other abilities. That is, if one person's at-will is burning hands, another person's at-will probably shouldn't be burning hands that also knocks enemies prone and blinds them.

There still might be value in applying bonus abilities as you level up, with the intent of keeping low level abilities relevant and interesting. This is in addition to doing appropriate damage.