Getting around the obsolete ability clogging problem.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Okay, so, if you're designing a system that has a rapid power effect scaling system, hands a variety of powers, and the powers are substantially different from each other, it makes good sense to limit the number of powers that someone has access to at any one point in time out of their total set. 3E D&D clerics and druids don't work and frankly 3E wizards stopped working for most people by the halfway point of the game.

The problem with this is that people get mortally offended if you tell them that magic missile is now off limits, even if you tell them that they have the consolation prizes of at-will teleport and cloudkill. You could let them use magic missile again, but then you have the problem of potentially allowing people to look through dozens of obsolete game effects during downtime or even during combat; if you have a mandate that only certain abilities can be prepped at once this doesn't solve the problem. People still get offended that they can't cast magic missile if it's on their character sheet, you run the risk of certain folk trying to prepare magic missile anyway, and you still introduce option paralysis during downtime.

Even though the power system is the clearest example of this effect, this problem exists in other subsystems, too. Such as the magical item system. Frankly having people care about more than 8 or so magical items is unmanageable, but players can accumulate much more than that by the halfway point of the game.

Suggestions for this problem?

[John Magnum]

One possibility is to decrease the number of abilities that scale with level. If they get OBVIOUSLY obsolete faster, then even if they're still nominally selectable and on your character sheet, they're so blatantly crappy choices that nobody will prepare them. It doesn't contribute to table-time option paralysis, just character sheet bloat, which isn't that terrible. And it's not offensive to people to choose a high-powered cloudkill over a magic missile that hasn't improved since you got it.

Tie this in with Frank's idea for a fixed number of level-independent slots that you buy stuff into, and you have a system where obsolete options are still on your character sheet and are still theoretically possible to slot in, but they're so obviously bad that you don't spend a lot of time and mental effort deciding not to use them.

[hyzmarca]

If you were designing a system from scratch I'd say don't have a huge variety of powers and spells that do the same thing in slightly different ways.

You don't need a magic missile and a fireball and a fire bolt and a fire wall and a lightning bolt and an ice cone and a sonic burst and a melfing acid arrow and all of those countless other damage-dealing spells.

You just need one scaling damage spell that lets you tack on elements and area and shapes as you go up in level. You can accomplish with one spell and a manageable set of options what D&D tries to do with umpteen bazillion separate but not equal blaster spells.

Teleport Without Error and Plane Shift can simply be upgrades to the basic Teleport. They can even be automatic upgrades if you're feeling generous.

Of course, that requires complete rebalancing of the spell system, which is a bit much for most GMs.

In the absence of a spell system overhaul, just use a timer. If the options are paralyzing, then make them choose quickly. Everyone gets a certain amount of time to declare their move or its forfieted. The GM is not exempt from this so it's all fair. Most people will default to the most obvious option in such a situation. That isn't always optimal, but it keeps the game moving.

The magic item problem can be solved in a similar way. Be stingy, but give them useful, powerful, and versatile stuff when you do hand items out.

Ideally, your magic items shouldn't just be a source of + or a way for the wizard to get extra castings of spells that he already knows. They should do unique things that are utterly impossible without them. They should be awesome.

And if they don't inspire awe, then they should be common enough that the players can afford to dispose of them, same as other basic adventuring equipment.

[Username17]

Honestly, I don't care if people can slog through two dozen powers during down time. It's down time. They can do what they want. The Cleric and Druid are problematic because their downtime list gets too long, but it's a seriously huge list before that happens.

The "downtime" list can afford to be much longer than the "in combat" list. And it should be longer. People should have a lot more choices of magical arrows to buy than choices of magical arrows in their actual quiver.

-Username17

[Lago PARANOIA]

If they get OBVIOUSLY obsolete faster, then even if they're still nominally selectable and on your character sheet, they're so blatantly crappy choices that nobody will prepare them.

Well, the problem is that if the abilities are different enough from each other it's really hard to reach a point where something goes completely and totally obsolete. At-Will Silent Image becomes forever obsolete when you get At-Will Major Image, but At-Will Magic Missile may always have some obscure use that is better than every other option.

The thing is, I feel that humans will agonize over the usefulness of At-Will Magic Missile and other powers when they're level 11 much longer than the decision warrants.

If you were designing a system from scratch I'd say don't have a huge variety of powers and spells that do the same thing in slightly different ways.

You don't need a magic missile and a fireball and a fire bolt and a fire wall and a lightning bolt and an ice cone and a sonic burst and a melfing acid arrow and all of those countless other damage-dealing spells.

Your proposal makes this issue worse. A fire mage will not spend much time fiddling around with his slots if his 'best' power is Fire Seeds and his reserve list is filled with crap like Ice Seeds or Fireball, but if it's filled with Silent Image or Magic Missile they will be agonizing over choice.

The "downtime" list can afford to be much longer than the "in combat" list. And it should be longer. People should have a lot more choices of magical arrows to buy than choices of magical arrows in their actual quiver.

-Username17

The thing is, I'm thinking that people will get hysterical and butthurt over the fact that their epic-level wizard who slots in weird and gate won't be able to cast magic-missile because it's on their character sheet. Even if you explain to them that if they wanted to use it in combat they should've slotted it in, players will still snivel that it feels 'intuitive' for a person who throws out building-leveling force blasts should be able to throw out a magic missile.

Hey, I'm starting to realize why Psionics is so popular even though it's a pile of donkey dongs.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Also, if the downtime list and the in-combat lists are discrete, wouldn't that lead to people declaring that all of the tier 1-3 spells for the Fire Mage are now filled non-Fire Mage bullshit (to increase downtime versatility) while their tier 4 and 5 spells are pure undiluted Fire Mage goodness?

[John Magnum]

Why does the Fire Mage have a bunch of non-Fire Mage bullshit to begin with?

The downtime list being larger than your in-combat list is just the equivalent of a 3.x wizard having more spells in his spellbook than he has prepared. At any given moment, you can only have so many abilities ready to fire. Even though if you'd made different choices that morning, you could have chosen a DIFFERENT set of abilities. Your downtime list is still constrained by class and stuff, it's not "every ability in the game".

It's not "list of abilities your character has access to during downtime", it's "List of abilities you sort through during downtime to pick which abilities you activate".

[Lago PARANOIA]

Why does the Fire Mage have a bunch of non-Fire Mage bullshit to begin with?

Multiclassing, kits, prestige classes, etc..

Unless you're planning to put the Fire Mage strictly on the thematic rails (which isn't a bad idea, just not something most games do), they're probably going to pick up some game effects not directly related to the burning of people.

It's not "list of abilities your character has access to during downtime", it's "List of abilities you sort through during downtime to pick which abilities you activate".

I know how it's supposed to work. I'm concerned that a lot of players will reject how it's supposed to work because it doesn't 'feel' right. Or if you think I'm exaggerating, remember all of the complaints about martial-types being put on spell charges? You are going to have assholes who think that because they have Thousand Mirror Slice Dance prepared and Double Slash on the backburner they should be able to use Double Slash this one time and whine that it feels artificial when you tell them no.

[hyzmarca]

If you were designing a system from scratch I'd say don't have a huge variety of powers and spells that do the same thing in slightly different ways.

You don't need a magic missile and a fireball and a fire bolt and a fire wall and a lightning bolt and an ice cone and a sonic burst and a melfing acid arrow and all of those countless other damage-dealing spells.

Your proposal makes this issue worse. A fire mage will not spend much time fiddling around with his slots if his 'best' power is Fire Seeds and his reserve list is filled with crap like Ice Seeds or Fireball, but if it's filled with Silent Image or Magic Missile they will be agonizing over choice.

I think you're misunderstanding my proposal.

I propose that magic missile is the only blasting spell that the fire mage gets, ever. At level 1 he also gets the fire element. Every time he casts magic missile he can choose to turn it into a fire missile instead. When he levels up he can buy cone, which lets him turn his magic missiles into magic cones or fire cones as he wishes. You're spending one spell slot and getting to tack on effects depending on the situation, thus there is no agonizing You merely choose the element and shape that is most aproperiate for the tactical situation. You're burning the same resource no matter what you choose so you might as well Fire Cone the frost giant hoard and Magic Missile the lone Fire Elemental.


But as I said, that requires re-balancing the entire magic system.

[hogarth]

The "downtime" list can afford to be much longer than the "in combat" list. And it should be longer. People should have a lot more choices of magical arrows to buy than choices of magical arrows in their actual quiver.

The thing is, I'm thinking that people will get hysterical and butthurt over the fact that their epic-level wizard who slots in weird and gate won't be able to cast magic-missile because it's on their character sheet.

That would be a strange situation to be in -- a player who's savvy enough to know that D&D wizards can cast Weird, Gate and Magic Missile, but who's clueless enough not to understand how prepared casting works in D&D.

Frank's basically right (at least as far as D&D goes); as long as you're not slowing things down in the middle of a game session, there isn't a problem with a huge number of options.

[RobbyPants]

The problem with this is that people get mortally offended if you tell them that magic missile is now off limits, even if you tell them that they have the consolation prizes of at-will teleport and cloudkill.

...

Suggestions for this problem?

The quickest thing I can see in this case would be to not have Magic Missile turn into Cloudkill, and instead turn into Magic Missile Storm (or whatever). Then, they still have their Magic Missile like they did before, and they have the ability to kill a bunch of mooks in an area with no save for 1 round/level.

This might be a pain in the ass for certain types of very unique spells or effects, but if you're writing something from scratch, this is the quickest way I can see toward having my cake and eating it too.

[Blicero]

The "downtime" list can afford to be much longer than the "in combat" list. And it should be longer. People should have a lot more choices of magical arrows to buy than choices of magical arrows in their actual quiver.

The thing is, I'm thinking that people will get hysterical and butthurt over the fact that their epic-level wizard who slots in weird and gate won't be able to cast magic-missile because it's on their character sheet.

That would be a strange situation to be in -- a player who's savvy enough to know that D&D wizards can cast Weird, Gate and Magic Missile, but who's clueless enough not to understand how prepared casting works in D&D.

Frank's basically right (at least as far as D&D goes); as long as you're not slowing things down in the middle of a game session, there isn't a problem with a huge number of options.

A decent but mildly cumbersome solution would just be to give a spellcaster a number of weak atwill slots as he gets more powerful. In D&D parlance, if level 6 or 7+ casters had unlimited access to cantrips or even level 1 spells, no one is going to flip a shit.

And having unlimited access to shit like message, prestidigitation, and mending I think can only help the narrative sense of a game. And, as hogarth says, anyone who chooses to cast MM over weird is ricockulously stupid.

[JonSetanta]

A decent but mildly cumbersome solution would just be to give a spellcaster a number of weak atwill slots as he gets more powerful. In D&D parlance, if level 6 or 7+ casters had unlimited access to cantrips or even level 1 spells, no one is going to flip a shit.

And having unlimited access to shit like message, prestidigitation, and mending I think can only help the narrative sense of a game. And, as hogarth says, anyone who chooses to cast MM over weird is ricockulously stupid.

I did this with a classless D&D variant I made last year.
Spell slots 2 spell levels lower than a caster's best are free, since using those spells in combat is usually a suboptimal choice (compared to using your highest)

I've been porting the concept into class-based designs to see what people think of it, but IMO it works best with a shrunken spell selection and non-Vancian casting.

[shadzar]

maybe i just dont understand the problem because i see it feasible that you cant use everything all the time, you have to pick what you use when.

[John Magnum]

Apparently people are MORTALLY OFFENDED by anything that's on their character sheet that's not at-will.

[JonSetanta]

Apparently people are MORTALLY OFFENDED by anything that's on their character sheet that's not at-will.

Only when it all runs out and the DM throws a series of encounters at you while you're trying to take an 8 hour nap or at least run away.

[Blicero]

Apparently people are MORTALLY OFFENDED by anything that's on their character sheet that's not at-will.

Yeah, this thread is mostly just typical Lago exaggeration. But I still think it's a nice idea to have some basic abilities that started out limited in use but, as they shift from character defining schticks to just extra flavor bits, they become atwill.

[Lago PARANOIA]

That would be a strange situation to be in -- a player who's savvy enough to know that D&D wizards can cast Weird, Gate and Magic Missile, but who's clueless enough not to understand how prepared casting works in D&D.

Apparently people are MORTALLY OFFENDED by anything that's on their character sheet that's not at-will.

If you give someone 10 minutes to raid a moderately stocked treasure vault as a prize (giving them enough time to get everything) and give another person 5 minutes to raid a heavily stocked vault (meaning that they had to leave a lot of it behind), even if they have an equal money haul the first person is going to be more satisfied. Peoples' eyes are bigger than their stomachs.

[hogarth]

That would be a strange situation to be in -- a player who's savvy enough to know that D&D wizards can cast Weird, Gate and Magic Missile, but who's clueless enough not to understand how prepared casting works in D&D.

If you give someone 10 minutes to raid a moderately stocked treasure vault as a prize (giving them enough time to get everything) and give another person 5 minutes to raid a heavily stocked vault (meaning that they had to leave a lot of it behind), even if they have an equal money haul the first person is going to be more satisfied. Peoples' eyes are bigger than their stomachs.

I have no idea what any of that has to do with a weirdly hypothetical D&D player who knows lots and nothing about playing a wizard at the same time.

[Blicero]

I have no idea what any of that has to do with a weirdly hypothetical D&D player who knows lots and nothing about playing a wizard at the same time.

This.


Seriously Lago, you've gotten to the point where you're just spouting out a bunch of bizarre platitudes that don't actually mean anything.

[tussock]

Suggestions for the original problem.

[*]Chunking for decisions. A lot of spell levels breaks up your choices into easier sets at higher levels. Body slots break up item choices.
[*]Outcomes that are different. So Charm Monster isn't just Charm Person with more targets, it's shorter duration and range with different effects too. That makes the decisions easier.
[*]Don't make the low level stuff useless at high level. Decisions are easier if they matter, it lets you apply more of your brain power without falling asleep.
[*]Memorable and true names. Sleep makes things go to sleep, Charm Person charms a person, Fireball makes a ball of fire. This makes decisions much simpler.
[*]Don't use different names for the same basic effect.


But mostly you want to cut each class (or sub-class, god, speciality) to a tiny spell list, or each character via the old max spells known per level mechanic. Also cut items down so each class can only use a subset of them.

At high level you just need to accentuate all that, so there's very few 9th level spells at all and maybe only 1 per character, because you've already got enough interesting choices; and it needs to be a unique thing with a true name that's different to Fireball because Fireball still works just fine.

[Josh_Kablack]

Apparently people are MORTALLY OFFENDED by anything that's on their character sheet that's not at-will.

Yes.

Anything other than at-will powers adds complexity to the game, and complexity is only worthwhile if it helps some other aspect of the game.

[Dean]

What if you created a discouraging psychological barrier to people's old spells. Lets say that Wizards have 9 spell slots. 3 top level spells, 3 top level-1 spells and 3 top level-2 spells. It might be feasible to just say "You have access to every non-ritual spell of lower than your top level-3". By "non-ritual" I would mean any standard action casting spell, and then I would redefine the good out of combat spells as "Ritual Spells" and they would possess a lengthy casting time. Things like Animate Dead and whatnot.

This way if you wanted to use magic missile as a 10th level Wizard you could but you'd just have to remember it specifically. Seeing exactly what 1st level spells you have would necessitate opening the book to look through the spells that have all been totally obviated to you. This might be enough discouragement to make people stick with just their sweet high level spells most of the time.

Admittedly if this doesn't work you have people dumpster diving in the book. And that isn't good.

[Username17]

Apparently people are MORTALLY OFFENDED by anything that's on their character sheet that's not at-will.

Yes.

Anything other than at-will powers adds complexity to the game, and complexity is only worthwhile if it helps some other aspect of the game.

Well, when ability lists get really long, at-will just doesn't work at all. It's bad enough watching a Cleric prepare spells, if I had to watch the player flipping through books to decide whether he wanted to cast ice axe or knife spray on a round-by-round basis I would kill someone. Maybe the player, maybe the designer, maybe myself - I don't think I'd be picky at that point.

While spell preparation may add complexity to the game, it sure takes a metric ass tonne of complexity out of the turn. And that is an unalloyed good.

-Username17

[Lago PARANOIA]

Seriously Lago, you've gotten to the point where you're just spouting out a bunch of bizarre platitudes that don't actually mean anything.

Is it really that hard to understand that people are more satisfied with acquiring/using things if they get to do so with all of it than having a big list of stuff that they only have marginal use out of?

I posit to you that just having Magic Missile or a Rod of Wonder on your character sheet that you don't get to/choose to use that often for whatever reason, it's less satisfying than not having it at all.

That is, I'm going a step further than FrankTrollman and saying that even though there's little-to-no chance of Magic Missile or Rod of Wonders being put into an 'active' slot, the fact that it's there to be scanned over at all by peoples' eyeballs with no hope of being used is a bad. That is, the sheer act of people -- during combat or downtime -- going over options that have a non-zero but extremely tiny chance of being useful dismotivates people. Not a game-breaking amount, but nonetheless a finite amount of dismotivation. And the only way to avoid this is to either put all of the other options in your trunk (like MTG/YGO does) or to actively shield people from the existence of marginal options.