There's a lot of hullabaloo going around these days about daily powers in RPGs. Now, of course, this is focused on D&D Next, but it really has a broader impact than that. Its hard to say if the hatred for daily powers is even a matter of play style or simulation versus narration, because what does a daily power represent? This is the whole five minute work day issue, but also ties into the quadratic wizards, linear fighters issue. I'll try to focus here on the five-minute workday though. I think the issue is slightly odd day-based game-design in a game where days aren't the right time frame. I've talked about this before, but mostly in the context of healing. I want to focus on daily powers here.
First, Daily powers have a long history in D&D. The magic system, of course, has daily re-charges. But the paladin, monk, and many classes from Oriental Adventures all use the game day as a unit of rest. Daily power refreshing is a stable of D&D, but does it have to be? Does a daily refresh lead to a five-minute workday?
Even in the early days of D&D, spells weren't quite "daily". There was an extensive spell memorization requirement. It took 15 minutes per spell level to memorize a spell. So a low level magic user might study her spell book for an hour or two, but a high level magic user might literally take days to memorize her full allotment of spells. To be precise, that's six hours for a seventh level magic user to memorize all her spells, sixteen and a half hours for a 12th level magic user, and almost 35 hours of study for a 20th level magic user. Surely if you followed these rules in first edition, a party can't just "go nova", rest for a day, and then return to cast its way through the next level of the dungeon. Five minute work day? Not exactly.
But another question is about game design. Are daily powers lazy design? Here, I tend to say yes. A daily mechanic like spell slots doesn't have to be, but it looks like there's an over reliance on it, particularly when you look at modern versions of D&D. Gone are the earlier requirements that spells can be slow or difficult to cast and time-consuming in their memorization. Third edition really mucked this up with the scribe scroll feat, as wizards no longer needed to memorize any low-level utility spells: it was much more efficient to sacrifice a pittance of XP and gold to create scrolls of any first or second level utility spells one might need. Spells really become a once-per-day resource.
Beyond the fact that spells have become truly once-per-day, we see a growing number of other daily powers attached to classes, particularly in Pathfinder. Wizards, Clerics, and Sorcerers now have a number of 3+/day cantrips, plus maybe other daily powers from their class or prestige class. 4e clearly has daily powers hardwired into its math.
Why is the day a good time frame though? The only real reason is that its rooted in some kind of intuitive notion of the refresh. You sleep and you're ready to tackle all your problems again. But we're talking about magic here, why does it have to be this way?
Other games (and systems in D&D) have non-daily power pools. AD&D Psionics had points that didn't necessarily refresh at a daily rate, though sleep replenished many of them. Non-D&D games like Fading Suns (A long favorite of mine, though the mechanics are a little odd) have magic points refresh during sleep but perhaps not all of them. Both incarnations of White Wolf's Vampire have one lose power each day: refreshing your blood pool takes active hunting and has story implications, unless you're abandoning the theme and mood for a superheroes-with-fangs type of game.
This sort of not-quite-daily magic system seems like a much better compromise to me between a speedy refresh, making time believable, and making time meaningful. How would I do it in D&D though?
First, I'd make spellcasting an actual class feature, and ditch most of the non-spell daily powers. Turning Undead or Wildshaping could easily be spells for clerics and druids, there's little reason to tack on an additional system there. Martial-focused classes don't need daily powers, because that's generally seen as one of the breaking points for them. A luck pool, or willpower pool might have a daily refresh, but not ass-kicking per se. Daily mechanics could include fatigue perhaps.
Second, not everything needs a simple daily refresh. Spell pools, if done well, might not completely refresh overnight. Just like Hit points, luck, willpower, etc. Its definitely a little more mathy, but I think the benefits outweigh the hindrance of addition and rolling some dice. If a wizard only regains, say, half his spell slots (or 1d4+half his level, whatever) then a rest isn't a guarantee. That's really part of the five-minute workday issue.
Wilderness adventures were always an issue for me in 4e. I felt like having no encounters during travel was a let-down for players, but including them was a waste of time. In this sort of system, wilderness adventures might still tax a party, since you aren't guaranteed to be back at full strength after one wandering monster attack. Encounters while travelling don't need to be beefed up to spend an entire day's worth of challenge.
Will D&D Next make something like this work? From the playtests, its looking doubtful. HP and powers recharge fairly quickly. They say there's an "Adventure" time span, but its not clear if the math of "adventure" will take days into account. It could though: you could add in an additional charge for the minimum number of days it would take, knowing that, on average, a rest will recover 1/4 (for example) of your resources (HP, spells, etc).
Then, combine the adventure math (taking days into account) with in-game repurcussions. A good DM can put time limits on adventures (race to save the prince, etc) but in-game repurcussions could happen in other ways. The half-defeated Orc band might regroup, hire Troll mercenaries, or simply flee. Enemies might move to take power while the adventurers spend a week clearing out a dungeon that should have taken two days. If the math is done well, their XP might suffer too since they're hardly learning much more form their pray-then-slay strategy.
Now, my bias here is that I'd probably prefer something a little grittier, and this system surely would be. But I think it gives a bit of a believable mechanic back to daily powers and will help avoid the issue of the five-minute workday. The problem: it needs designs that are a little better thought out than "You can lay on hands a number of times per day equal to your wisdom modifier". I think you could do it by focusing on the spell and healing mechanics, but it could extend to others (A rogue's luck pool, etc).
First, Daily powers have a long history in D&D. The magic system, of course, has daily re-charges. But the paladin, monk, and many classes from Oriental Adventures all use the game day as a unit of rest. Daily power refreshing is a stable of D&D, but does it have to be? Does a daily refresh lead to a five-minute workday?
Even in the early days of D&D, spells weren't quite "daily". There was an extensive spell memorization requirement. It took 15 minutes per spell level to memorize a spell. So a low level magic user might study her spell book for an hour or two, but a high level magic user might literally take days to memorize her full allotment of spells. To be precise, that's six hours for a seventh level magic user to memorize all her spells, sixteen and a half hours for a 12th level magic user, and almost 35 hours of study for a 20th level magic user. Surely if you followed these rules in first edition, a party can't just "go nova", rest for a day, and then return to cast its way through the next level of the dungeon. Five minute work day? Not exactly.
But another question is about game design. Are daily powers lazy design? Here, I tend to say yes. A daily mechanic like spell slots doesn't have to be, but it looks like there's an over reliance on it, particularly when you look at modern versions of D&D. Gone are the earlier requirements that spells can be slow or difficult to cast and time-consuming in their memorization. Third edition really mucked this up with the scribe scroll feat, as wizards no longer needed to memorize any low-level utility spells: it was much more efficient to sacrifice a pittance of XP and gold to create scrolls of any first or second level utility spells one might need. Spells really become a once-per-day resource.
Beyond the fact that spells have become truly once-per-day, we see a growing number of other daily powers attached to classes, particularly in Pathfinder. Wizards, Clerics, and Sorcerers now have a number of 3+/day cantrips, plus maybe other daily powers from their class or prestige class. 4e clearly has daily powers hardwired into its math.
Why is the day a good time frame though? The only real reason is that its rooted in some kind of intuitive notion of the refresh. You sleep and you're ready to tackle all your problems again. But we're talking about magic here, why does it have to be this way?
Other games (and systems in D&D) have non-daily power pools. AD&D Psionics had points that didn't necessarily refresh at a daily rate, though sleep replenished many of them. Non-D&D games like Fading Suns (A long favorite of mine, though the mechanics are a little odd) have magic points refresh during sleep but perhaps not all of them. Both incarnations of White Wolf's Vampire have one lose power each day: refreshing your blood pool takes active hunting and has story implications, unless you're abandoning the theme and mood for a superheroes-with-fangs type of game.
This sort of not-quite-daily magic system seems like a much better compromise to me between a speedy refresh, making time believable, and making time meaningful. How would I do it in D&D though?
First, I'd make spellcasting an actual class feature, and ditch most of the non-spell daily powers. Turning Undead or Wildshaping could easily be spells for clerics and druids, there's little reason to tack on an additional system there. Martial-focused classes don't need daily powers, because that's generally seen as one of the breaking points for them. A luck pool, or willpower pool might have a daily refresh, but not ass-kicking per se. Daily mechanics could include fatigue perhaps.
Second, not everything needs a simple daily refresh. Spell pools, if done well, might not completely refresh overnight. Just like Hit points, luck, willpower, etc. Its definitely a little more mathy, but I think the benefits outweigh the hindrance of addition and rolling some dice. If a wizard only regains, say, half his spell slots (or 1d4+half his level, whatever) then a rest isn't a guarantee. That's really part of the five-minute workday issue.
Wilderness adventures were always an issue for me in 4e. I felt like having no encounters during travel was a let-down for players, but including them was a waste of time. In this sort of system, wilderness adventures might still tax a party, since you aren't guaranteed to be back at full strength after one wandering monster attack. Encounters while travelling don't need to be beefed up to spend an entire day's worth of challenge.
Will D&D Next make something like this work? From the playtests, its looking doubtful. HP and powers recharge fairly quickly. They say there's an "Adventure" time span, but its not clear if the math of "adventure" will take days into account. It could though: you could add in an additional charge for the minimum number of days it would take, knowing that, on average, a rest will recover 1/4 (for example) of your resources (HP, spells, etc).
Then, combine the adventure math (taking days into account) with in-game repurcussions. A good DM can put time limits on adventures (race to save the prince, etc) but in-game repurcussions could happen in other ways. The half-defeated Orc band might regroup, hire Troll mercenaries, or simply flee. Enemies might move to take power while the adventurers spend a week clearing out a dungeon that should have taken two days. If the math is done well, their XP might suffer too since they're hardly learning much more form their pray-then-slay strategy.
Now, my bias here is that I'd probably prefer something a little grittier, and this system surely would be. But I think it gives a bit of a believable mechanic back to daily powers and will help avoid the issue of the five-minute workday. The problem: it needs designs that are a little better thought out than "You can lay on hands a number of times per day equal to your wisdom modifier". I think you could do it by focusing on the spell and healing mechanics, but it could extend to others (A rogue's luck pool, etc).
I agree that the intuitive feel of the daily sleep refresh provides the very thin excuse that allows it to be used as a mechanic. I don't know that I want a grittier power refresh system as much as I'd like one with flavor.
ReplyDeleteI'd like Druids to have to commune with nature to regain their powers, if you're a druid stuck in a three day long city adventure tracking were-rats through sewers, maybe you ration your powers a little more. Wizards studying spells should be completely intent on their spell book and more susceptible to surprise attacks by enemies, martial characters could need a certain amount of practice time to keep their maneuvers sharp or need to spend equipment maintenance time keeping their swords sharp and their armor from rusting. Divine characters would need to break out their travel altar, idol or some incense and pray.
I think adding those flavor requirements would make mid-dungeon or mid-adventure rests more dangerous. Another thing I'd like to see, though, is power refreshes as rewards. If you're a druid and you vanquish a truly unnatural foe, a certified perversion of nature, why wouldn't you be able to draw some power from that victory? If you're a cleric doing the work of your deity, couldn't your deity give you a little extra oomph when it counts?
That's a good point. In my musings on regaining hit points, I figured that a "luxurious" rest might be more potent, so a Wizard who can spend time studying, a priest praying, or whatnot... Why not let thse restore things quicker as well? It would be simple to add another d4, roll the die twice, add in a stat bonus, or whathaveyou.
DeleteAs for the mid-adventure regains, that could happen too. In a system with luck, willpower, or action points, that seems like those might be a more appropriate place to put mid-adventure refreshes. But mostly because you'd want each class/character type to have that option. Unless it were a specific thing for classes like the Druid, Shaman, Cleric, or Warlock where they have more cosmic-level goals. I've actually been musing about a way to have the Second Wind represent this dramatic moment, and that could be an interesting feature for some of these caster-classes to use that since they might not need a HP refresh. So I could get behind it in some way, shape, or form.