An idea about Per Encounter and Daily Powers

[K]

So, I've been concepting out an RPG and toying with ideas. I don't like 4e's per encounter or dailies simply because it feels very mechanical and weird, especially for fighting characters, and it encourages people to Nova at the beginning of a battle and use their best abilities(especially if that ability grants a status effect or something).

So here is what I was thinking:

-Using a daily or per encounter ability does it's thingm but inflicts a penalty on you. It might an stat penalty or a status effect.

-You lose the penalty by resting. Ten minutes cures a per encounter penalty, and 8 hours of rest cures a daily penalty.

-Otherwise, all abilities are at will. Overusing a daily or per encounter makes for stacking penalties and longer rest periods.

Effect:
Players are penalized for using coup de grace powers early by the penalties, and resource management becomes an issue even though you can use powers essentially at will.

You should get more dramatic combats.

Criticisms?

[Manxome]

Sounds kind of similar to fatigue/exhaustion in Perilous, though less complicated.

Observations:

Being able to correctly guess how many HP the boss has left is now tactically important, and giving the fight another "phase" or bringing in sudden reinforcements is likely to severely hurt the players. Don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

There will be some number of times that you want to use your sacrificial omega strike at the end of a major battle, depending on how large the penalty is relative to the benefit. That number may not be one. Again, don't know whether that's good or bad.

Limited-use abilities that inflict status effects on the target are now hard to balance, because if the status inflicted on the target is worse than the penalty inflicted on the user, it may well be worth using at the start of the fight, and if it's not, it may well not be worth using ever.

You've also lost the simple reason to use a variety of limited-use powers. In 4th Ed (if I understand it correctly), you might as well use both encounter power A and encounter power B because they're both (theoretically) better than at-will and using less of one doesn't grant you any more of the other. Under your system, it sounds like players would be much more likely to user power A twice.

There may also be some trickiness in figuring out a good penalty. If it's a defensive penalty, then anyone who can avoid being attacked (e.g. because they're out of range, hiding, have a meat shield in front of them, etc.) can spam their encounter powers with little drawback. If it's an offensive penalty, then battles where people misjudge their timing and use their powers early may drag on interminably as both sides' damage potential diminishes. In either case, there may be situations where it's worthwhile for one player to spam powerful abilities to put his side at an advantage and then run away while his allies continue to fight. This should be solvable, but may require making your penalties more complicated than one would otherwise envision.

[Harlune]

I don't see why using your best abilities at the start of a fight is such a problem, at least in the current 4e where there's only a handful of instant win powers and big fights last too long anyway.

Besides thematics, does it really make a difference if the monster is killed by an at-will power that the warlock's been spamming for the last 60 rounds of combat because he already blew all his big stuff in the first two rounds, or if it's killed by a daily that the lock saved up for 60 rounds just so he could use it as a big, flashy finisher?

We already make jokes about 4e being weaboo... do we really need to add magical girl style save-your-ultimate-stock-footage-magic-attack-untill the-very-end of-the-fight-so-the-monster-has-more-time-to-molest-you battle tactics?

[Username17]

The 3d6 Damage test we were discussing earlier also inherently favors holding use limited abilities in reserve if those abilities have a damage test bonus, real or virtual. Especially if it's a virtual bonus.

For example: let's say that you had the spell Petrify. It does a normal Slow progression, but it has a +4 bonus to the damage test only for the purpose of seeing if you get a Tier 4 effect (which turns them to Stone, dropping them from combat). This is not really worth dropping at the beginning of combat with a major opponent because you'd still need a 16+ on 3d6 to Stone them and otherwise you just wasted a use limited death spell. On the flip side, if the target has already been beaten down, you can toss a Petrify to help end it all. Taking things from a 13+ to a 9+ is a big chunk of the bell curve.

-Username17

[K]

The 3d6 Damage test we were discussing earlier also inherently favors holding use limited abilities in reserve if those abilities have a damage test bonus, real or virtual. Especially if it's a virtual bonus.

For example: let's say that you had the spell Petrify. It does a normal Slow progression, but it has a +4 bonus to the damage test only for the purpose of seeing if you get a Tier 4 effect (which turns them to Stone, dropping them from combat). This is not really worth dropping at the beginning of combat with a major opponent because you'd still need a 16+ on 3d6 to Stone them and otherwise you just wasted a use limited death spell. On the flip side, if the target has already been beaten down, you can toss a Petrify to help end it all. Taking things from a 13+ to a 9+ is a big chunk of the bell curve.

-Username17

There is no part of that discussion where I knew what was going on.

[K]

I don't see why using your best abilities at the start of a fight is such a problem, at least in the current 4e where there's only a handful of instant win powers and big fights last too long anyway.

Besides thematics, does it really make a difference if the monster is killed by an at-will power that the warlock's been spamming for the last 60 rounds of combat because he already blew all his big stuff in the first two rounds, or if it's killed by a daily that the lock saved up for 60 rounds just so he could use it as a big, flashy finisher?

We already make jokes about 4e being weaboo... do we really need to add magical girl style save-your-ultimate-stock-footage-magic-attack-untill the-very-end of-the-fight-so-the-monster-has-more-time-to-molest-you battle tactics?

I'd like to see more enemies go down to a stoning effect or death magic without that happening on round one and ruining everyone's fun. It doesn't need to be weeabo for that; it just needs to to be more tactically sound than spamming an at-will ability.

[Username17]

There is no part of that discussion where I knew what was going on.

Short version: last suggestion was similar to Mutants and Masterminds damage save except that it's rolled across 3d6 instead of a d20 so that it operates on a bell curve instead of a flat curve. This means that damage has expected results and damage modifiers make a bigger difference the more of them you have. Hopefully should involve less M&M scenarios where people go:

• Meh
  Meh
  Meh
  *explode*

If you want I'll draw you a diagram, take a picture of it and put it on Flikr.

-Username17

[Harlune]

I'd like to see more enemies go down to a stoning effect or death magic without that happening on round one and ruining everyone's fun. It doesn't need to be weeabo for that; it just needs to to be more tactically sound than spamming an at-will ability.

Something like changing some of the daily/encounters powers to have an additional effect if the target is bloodied or worse? Like say Disintegrate which sucks balls in 4e, would still do it's normal damage if you use it on a target with full hp, but if you waited till it was at half health, the spell could outright vaporize it instead.

[RandomCasualty2]

I like this design idea. I think it has real potential.

[Username17]

Limited-use abilities that inflict status effects on the target are now hard to balance, because if the status inflicted on the target is worse than the penalty inflicted on the user, it may well be worth using at the start of the fight, and if it's not, it may well not be worth using ever.

This could be tied into a whole sympathetic magic thing where you inflicted the conditions on yourself to inflict them on enemies.

-Username17

[Neeeek]

Something like changing some of the daily/encounters powers to have an additional effect if the target is bloodied or worse? Like say Disintegrate which sucks balls in 4e, would still do it's normal damage if you use it on a target with full hp, but if you waited till it was at half health, the spell could outright vaporize it instead.

While that would also be a possibility, simply having instakill effect work more often as the target gets weaker does wonders for increasing tactical complexity.

It allows interesting non-damage effects to be tied to basic damage in a real way. One of the problems in 3.X was that SOS/SOD effects were completely independent of how hurt the target was, so waiting for a good moment to use them was sort of silly: You want them down now and are just as likely to get them on the first shot as the fourth.

It also adds a measure of protection to the players. I've had enough characters die to a first-round SOD that I'd love to be able to see it coming a round or two ahead of time and be able to adjust my tactics to protect myself.

[Amra]

Sounds good. It would certainly add a measure of tactical complexity and interest if PC's and bad guys alike were wary of letting their hit points fall too low for fear of the one awesome effect coming out that would blow them to shrapnel.

I like the thought of a PC trying to make the choice between spending an action that will probably get the bad guy down to a point where the party's SoD effect will work, versus spending an action on a healing surge so he's not susceptible to the bad guy's SoD that you just know he's saving up.

You could have some really good dramatic PC martyrdom moments in that fashion; someone really could make a decision to sacrifice their own chance at survival to make damn sure the bad guys don't get away. I like that a lot, as it puts the tension back into the dice rolls without resorting to rocket tag from the off.

How exact would we try to make it though?

I guess what I'm asking is: do you envision a scenario in which, for instance:

1) % chance of succumbing to Extra Big Damage/SoD = % of hit points lost?
2) EBD/additional SoD effect only comes off if target is bloodied?
3) Somewhere in-between with additional conditions of damage specified which correlate with the SoD success chance, e.g. "Healthy" (5% SoD success), "Injured" (25%), "Bloodied" (50%) and "Hurt" (75%) - additional granularity without too much extra math?

[Username17]

The method I'm currently playing around with is this:

• When you hit someone with an attack, any attack, you make a damage test. This damage test is rolled on 3d6, with various pluses and minuses according to the attack, the target, relative strength, and this is the important one: how damaged your opponent is.
• If you hit the magic number, you knock your opponent out. Chop them in half with your great sword, turn them into a statue with your mighty magic, whatever.
• If you don't hit the magic number, you damage your opponent and don't knock them out. But here's the deal: "damage" isn't an arbitrary total against some bizarre number of hit points, it's just a condition. A condition that gives people a bonus to subsequent damage tests (thus bringing them closer to death).
• And because you've got an inherent condition infliction system going on, you can easily enough have attacks like entangle that simply inflict a different set of conditions (entangled rather than injured).

The advantages of such a system are scalability, cumulativity, and simplicity. Scalability is important. It means that if for some reason it becomes necessary for the game to model terriers killing rats it can do so by just having very small numbers compare themselves without making retarded situations like Creeping Doom that does 1000 points of damage because every stinging insect does at least a point. Cumulativity is important. It means that people can run around with a flaming sword and not feel like a raging jackass every time they dish out a third of an enemy's hit points and the wizard vaporizes "all" of its hit points in one go. And of course, simplicity is important as well: I don't want to dish out 37 points of damage against an opponent who has 1360 hit points ever.

-Username17

[Amra]

OK, it sounds great as a principle. How would a combat play out though, in terms of actual damage conditions inflicted? I'm having trouble envisioning how to differentiate between different degrees of physical or magical attack power in the absence of a hit-point-like model. I'm going to think 'aloud' for a minute or two, so bear with me...

I wonder how easy it would be to design for, given that there's to all intents and purposes a 'bonus-cubed' law in effect for the power of bonuses and modifiers to that 3d6. Are we saying that in the absence of any pre-existing status conditions, situational modifiers or differences in level, the 'magic number' for the damage test is 18, for a not-gonna-count-on-it 1:216 chance? How are you going to have bonuses that don't stack in an exponential way, or does it not matter if they do?

It's entirely likely that my years away from anything resembling proper math has rotted away my brain, but I believe it's the case under this system where a +4 bonus to the 3d6 roll isn't 4 times better than a +1 bonus but nearly 12 times better. A +6 bonus to the roll is 27 times better. On an otherwise 'flat' roll, you go from a 1.4% chance of hitting 18 (with +1) to a 16.2% chance (+4) to a 37.5% chance (+6) respectively, don't you?

Let's say Thok the Mighty (level 10) hits Erithel Moonblade (level 1) with his Axe of Totally Ruining Your Weekend. How do you see the actual mechanics working to a) work out what his modifiers to the magic number roll will be and b) do damage to Erithel if Thok doesn't roll high enough?

Not being awkward or deliberately obtuse, I'm really interested

[Username17]

An incomplete example set of mechanics can be found Here (not a Rick Roll).

-Username17

[NoDot]

Amra, two things:

!) The magic number is actually 20 from a 3d6. The first three tiers each inflict a cumulative +1 to effects against.

2) I don't think Frank wants any +1 to CAN "in general" permanent (of effectively so) effects. He said that to bonuses to the to hit roll, and I think the sentiment extends to the Effect Roll.

Thok the Mighty hitting Erithel Moonblade with his Axe of Totally Ruining Your Weekend is an Attack Roll of 1d20+bonuses and-if he hits; the arms race of AC vs BAB was abandoned-he rolls 3d6+9 (level)+other bonuses to determine the effect.

[edit] Beaten to the punch by the man himself.

[norms29]

uh... Frank, can I ask what that chart has to do with any of this?

[NoDot]

I'd like to know that, too.

(Did he link to the wrong image?)

[Neeeek]

[*] If you don't hit the magic number, you damage your opponent and don't knock them out. But here's the deal: "damage" isn't an arbitrary total against some bizarre number of hit points, it's just a condition. A condition that gives people a bonus to subsequent damage tests (thus bringing them closer to death).

[*] And because you've got an inherent condition infliction system going on, you can easily enough have attacks like entangle that simply inflict a different set of conditions (entangled rather than injured).[/list]

Are you putting different conditions on different tracks here?

By that I mean:

Hero A smacks Badguy 1 for X Damage. Hero A misses on the ultimate effect (death in this case).

Hero B decides to try to entangle Badguy 1. Does Hero B rolls based on the already started damage track or a new "entangle condition" track?

I think you are doing the second. I assume that less lethal effects will have (generally) better chances of working.

[NoDot]

Hero A smacks Badguy 1 for X Damage.

Not possible, as there is no "damage." There are "effects." The default effects each provide +1 to CAN (the Effect Roll).

There are also no tracks. The opponent accumulates effects (and removes from him/her/its-self) until someone takes the opponent out of the fight. Each of the Tiers' effects are individual.

[JonSetanta]

K, I believe that such an idea would work better if you begin with a numeric-penalty "fatigue" mechanic, and THEN concern about setting up the abilities that cause fatigue.

Ability score penalties are outright shit. They make me do a BAWWW face at the game sessions just out of the extra math required.
If anything, make Fatigue a universal penalty similar to Negative Levels but far easier to recover from.

[Koumei]

uh... Frank, can I ask what that chart has to do with any of this?

He Rickrolled you. With a chart.

[Username17]

If you had fatigue points that you spent and when they were all gone you suffered a penalty until you took actions to rest, then people would inherently want to use a super move every X turns because they would run out of fatigue anyway and they may as well do it in style.

-Username17

[Amra]

Um.... I went to look up Basic Dice Rolling, and... well, lets just say that the page has clearly been defaced and leave it at that, eh? You may want to fix that.

I'm having a trawl through the mechanics now to see if I can bring myself up to speed before asking any more unecessarily daft questions

[NoDot]

You're better off reading through all of the TNE threads instead, as most of the material on the wiki hasn't been updated yet.

PS, how do we calculate an appropriate encounter for a party?