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Loremaster - Extended Rests & Daily Powers - Matt James's Thoughts on 4e Vacations

    • Extended Rests & Daily Powers - Matt James's Thoughts on 4e Vacations

      by
      Matt James
      Published on 09-07-2011 09:47 AM  Number of Views: 2078  
      8 Comments Comments
      There has been a lot of discussion about the game mechanics that surround the extended rest in Dungeon & Dragons 4e. Most of the chatter revolves around the resources associated with its completion (Daily powers, magic items, Surge replenishment). In my home games, I have so many bastardizations of RAW that I sometimes find it difficult to empathize with the plights I read about. I have recently gone back and I decided to give you some ideas that you might include in your own games. As with all things, take what I scribe with a grain of salt. What works for me, might not work for you. And for the love of GODS, don't fraking have an aneurism from analysis paralysis.
      Daily Powers
      There are numerous threads on other sites that tell tale of the dreaded Daily power. Many believe these superior attacks, utilities, and other effect, should be more usable to the character more than once per day. Aside from story that is written about Daily powers (not explicitly written in the Compendium), I'll yield to this for the purposes of this article and offer suggestions.
      • Turn your Daily powers into condition-based effects. This means, instead of giving your Daily power a once-per-day usage, apply a condition that must be met in order for it to be used. This will open the power up to the player if certain requirements are met. As an example, if your player wants to use UBER DAILY POWER OF SAUCY AWESOME, let them do so but only under certain circumstances where conditions are met. Maybe they need to have already done X amount damage? Or, maybe they need to attack from an elevated position? It all depends on the description of the attack, or however you wish to handle it as the DM.
      • Just turn all Daily powers into Encounter powers. Sure, this is a cop-out, but it can work. You will need to adjust the monsters (and quantity) you toss at the group, but this option can work. Note that there are some Utility Daily powers that will cause issues--such as the Cure Wounds powers of the Cleric class. Even so, there are ways you can adjust the tactics of your monsters in order to overcome this. "Hey, that dude keeps healing those other dudes. Let's kick the crap out of him!"
      Magic Items
      Magic items are tricky. You might end up opening a whole new slew of issues by messing too much with the mechanics of the game. I cannot emphasis enough the necessity of not messing with this system as presented. But, because this is an article, I will give you some options to work with. You were warned, however.
      • Just as the Daily power suggestion--make the Daily item power usage conditions-based. This is a bit more to work out, and harder to define within the game, but it is an option none the less.
      • Make the power of the item more potent, yet it will not recharge/renew until a certain criteria is met. Example: Maybe the PCs need to sacrifice a kitten in order to get the power of the weapon back. Brutal? Absolutely. But it can help you mitigate hard-core abuse. If you're all about hard-core system abuse. By all means, proceed!
      Healing Surges
      The original title of this article was going to be Extended Rests & Daily Powers - Matt James's Thoughts on 4e Vacations. Extended rests are the biggest, craziest thing that I see people go nuts over. In my games, extended rests represent vacations. You are not sleeping for 8 hours on some cold dungeon floor. You have COMPLETELY left your profession for some much needed R&R. This means, of course, that I had to apply some of the suggestions above, in addition to some other things.
      • Surges can be regained through inspiration. This means that if a PC does something extraordinary (not necessarily through a fraking dice roll), they might inspire those around them. The party might regain 1d4 Healing Surges.
      • Potions. Simple, elegant, and mighty tasty. I have rare potions that grant Surges.
      Conclussion
      Dungeons & Dragons has always had some form of resource management built in. It is important to find what works best for your group. Nothing in the rulebooks state that the world will end if you break from what is written. In fact, it encourages it if it makes sense for you and your group. The game is yours, Dungeon Masters, and you should feel compelled to change anything you do not like. This goes for any game, let alone the 4th Edition release of Dungeon & Dragons.

      ---

      Matt James is a game designer that lives in the Washington, DC area. His works include Soldiers of Fortune, Monster Vault: Threats to the Nentir Vale, Lair Assault: Attack of the Tyrantclaw, and numerous articles in Dragon, Dungeon, and Kobold Quarterly magazines. When not designing content DUNGEONS & DRAGONS®, Matt is chained to his desk working endlessly on developing new and fun games.
      You can also follow Matt James's gaming insights at www.loremaster.org or on Twitter @matt_james_rpg
      Comments 8 Comments
      1. gaming tonic's Avatar
        gaming tonic - 09-07-2011, 11:22 AM
        I have always thought of previous editions and the pain staking care we would take when we rested to make sure we were safe. I encourage my players to push on and do not make it easy with a huge neon sign saying "REST NOW". If you work off a milestone reward system then this can really keep the tension and pace of the game. Perhaps one surge recovered for every milestone would keep the work day trucking along a bit more. With essentials builds the issue of the extended rest is even less. I have never understood why people sit around and wait for you Matt, or any of the designers to say it is okay to do something before they adjust THEIR game to the tastes of the DM and players.
      1. Matt James's Avatar
        Matt James - 09-07-2011, 11:49 AM
        I can understand and appreciate their concerns, and I don't want to come off as uncaring, but I agree. Perhaps there needs to be more focus on training people to think outside of the box. In earlier edition, such as 2e, it was almost mandatory. Many of us cut our teeth in the game by just coming up with stuff on the spot. This grew into more. I never recall RAW being such an important aspect of the game until around 3.5. I would be interested in investigating the social and cultural reasons on why it became so prominent.
      1. Rev. Lazaro's Avatar
        Rev. Lazaro - 09-07-2011, 12:30 PM
        Quote Originally Posted by Matt James View Post
        I would be interested in investigating the social and cultural reasons on why it became so prominent.
        That would be a good topic to sling around.
      1. gaming tonic's Avatar
        gaming tonic - 09-08-2011, 11:08 AM
        Their was a stark shift with the release of 3rd Edition to a game where options where laid out for the players in overwhelming abundance from this is a basic guideline now have at it feel of earlier editions of the game. I think the focus of companies was primarily on designing adventures since I don't remember an overwhelming number of supplements. I think supplements that increase character options and expand their power(s) sell. So newer players to the game and even some of the veteran ones feel that they must follow the guidelines and wait for someone to create a rule instead of just trying out things until you find something that clicks for your group.
      1. Frylock's Avatar
        Frylock - 09-10-2011, 05:46 PM
        In re the reason for RAW emphasis, I can't speak for 2.0 at all, but 3.5 took players inside the black box much more deeply than 1.0 did. Exactly how things work, and the math governing it, becomes the player's responsibility, and that leads to player input and disagreement. This isn't to say the problem is system-based only, though. In Gamma World, I haven't experienced this problem. Granted, the rule on cover and concealment is simply, "Your GM determines whether you have cover or concealment," which helps, but the goofiness of the setting seems to contribute to player's just going with it. In re the healing surge issue, this is something that D'Karr and I have discussed ad nauseum, and many of us have addressed from time to time. I published an article here with my solution (appropriate within a particular context), and Matt presents one here with a bit more general an application. What's strange to me is that if 1) we're all talking about it, and 2) there are lots of ideas out there, why hasn't WotC released at least an Unearthed Arcana article with some ideas? There's just too much of a concern among the player base (in my anecdotal experience) to believe they aren't aware of the issue, but they've completely ignored it AFAIK. Perhaps they're relying on Loremaster posts and articles. :-)
      1. Darth Jerod's Avatar
        Darth Jerod - 09-28-2011, 07:05 AM
        My group must be special because I have never had to worry about these issues. Honestly they look at the usage of dailies and ask me, what time of day it is. If it is late and they have been going all day they tend to unleash the powers of the dailies and go crazy. Sometimes they count encounters but I toss it up some and throw in some exploration inbetween them and maybe some downtime so it throws things up a bit. You know some of that DM illusionary magic. As far as Daily magic item useage, I thought they did away with that with the Rules Compendium, if not it is a rule I do not use and it really does not have much bearing on my game as I try not to hand out magic items with daily powers on them. - Stingy DM here.
      1. gaming tonic's Avatar
        gaming tonic - 09-28-2011, 12:33 PM
        Quote Originally Posted by Darth Jerod View Post
        My group must be special because I have never had to worry about these issues. Honestly they look at the usage of dailies and ask me, what time of day it is. If it is late and they have been going all day they tend to unleash the powers of the dailies and go crazy. Sometimes they count encounters but I toss it up some and throw in some exploration inbetween them and maybe some downtime so it throws things up a bit. You know some of that DM illusionary magic. As far as Daily magic item useage, I thought they did away with that with the Rules Compendium, if not it is a rule I do not use and it really does not have much bearing on my game as I try not to hand out magic items with daily powers on them. - Stingy DM here.
        I am fortunate that my players are typically not to big on counting encounters unless it is in the direction of "we are so bad ass because we got through seven encounters without a rest." That sort of encounter counting is fine with me. I typically use the inherent bonus option in my games so I can lay out magic as I see fit and I am stingy with the magic as well. I give out items that are more than the average magic item, making them something you don't want to melt down for magic dust in a few levels. I just don't give a lot of magic items out to the players. As far as dailies go in magic items I hated them as a player are glad to see them go and would always rather have just had a property that was constant.
      1. Darth Jerod's Avatar
        Darth Jerod - 09-29-2011, 10:50 AM
        I think my players count encounters to get the extra action points. To them those are very important. Since I also use fate points they can typically use those to refresh a power it does limit their need for extended rests.