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I am just curious if any other player group out there have this issue as our group has with the Daily abilities/powers/spells. Especially now with less spells /day. What have happened a couple of times now is that our spell casters when playing use up their spells rather early into the game session and then they feel pretty useless with only cantrips or low to hit weapon attacks. They just dont have a fun time.
This also make them all to often want to hide out and rest and to continue first again when they have gotten their spells back. Same goes for when the party lose all their healing and are afraid to continue because of that. Or worse use all spells up in a inferno of Power and then get back to base and lay low untill they can go out again.
Here I would like to discuss if the former encounter powers from 4th ed and short rest power from 5th ed D&D could be a better option for many reasons and getting rid of the Daily Powers/spells all together.
Encounter Powers would make the game more fun and take away the need of constant need for rest as well that you wouldnt need to keep track of the spells over all day. It also could take away the need for keeping track of buffs time.
Now with the spells nerfed as well as having less spells a change to encounter power ONLY could be that all spell casters got their spells back after each encounter instead.
Make the really strong spells cost 3 actions to cast.
Might be need of taking away 1 spell slot/encounter?
Make the spells into attack spells, buff spells and utiliy spells.
Attack spell could be used once/encounter unless cantrips.
Buff spells when cast was valid the entire encounter or untill dispelled or lost concentration if a spell needed that.
Utility spells is spells used under encounters for tactical benefits like moves similiar or could be used out of combat.
It would get rid of the need of hunkering down taking rest all time untill all Daily Powers was back but it would also make the encounters more intresting and more fluid I feel.
A short rest catching your breath 1min (or 5min) during no combat would get you the encounters Powers/spells back.
What you guys Think of this?
Sorry if this has been discussed Before. Just putting my 2cent in here
You've got there a pretty sound argument.
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The fundamental design of the game is supposed to be that you have to choose carefully whether or not to use your high-level spells now or save them for later. Want to use magic to Fly past the obstacle? You can, but it'll cost you combat ability later. Casters use up all their spells early? It's probably their own fault!
Abandoning this paradigm would be a pretty drastic step. Personally I'd be open to trying it, but I think a lot of Pathfinder players would reject it; it smells like D&D 4e, and Pathfinder was founded as an alternative to D&D 4e.
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The curr2nt spells are balanced to be a daily resource. If you make them more common then that they will just get nerfed even further.
A better argument is whether or not they have been nerfed too far
Also healing shouldn't be as much of an issue with 1.3 update which has treat deadly wounds.
I'm not sure it would work moving everything to encounter, but there could be some interesting ways to do this on a more limited scale. Like maybe "You can spend 10 minutes to regain a spell slot of X levels lower than the highest spell you can cast. You may do this only once per hour" or something like that (maybe Spell Points could also work/work better). I do like the dynamic provided with some limited per-encounter abilities, as it allows for some sustained gas in the tank, so to speak, while not being too easy to trivialize days with a low number of encounters or other spell-necessitating tasks.
I fear, however, given 4e's use of them, it would cause some backlash, even if unearned. 4e's problem, at least for me, wasn't that it used the AEDU system, or even that every class used AEDU, but that the structure was too focused on "this is an ability which is an attack that does X damage and Y effect" for every ability. But to some it seems that it's hard to separate the mechanics or conventions 4e used with the reasons those mechanics or conventions provided a poor experience, so I'm not sure it'd be accepted positively. Maybe in 10 years when PF3e comes out, it'll have been long enough that it won't be a contentious issue.
simple rule proposal
First time you perform a "short rest" you gain back all your dailies.
Second rest, you gain back 3/4
Third rest, you gain up to 1/2
Fourth rest, you gain back up to 1/4
After that, you need a long rest to recover resources.
If you spend 1 hero point you can use one spent daily ability again even if you haven0t rested yet.
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I'm a fan of removing dailies. They've already done so for stunning fist & rage, with different tradeoffs as balance (2 actions for 1 attack and fatigue respectively). Especially because of this problem:
Want to use magic to Fly past the obstacle? You can, but it'll cost you combat ability later.
Is the party going to be in combat "later" (without opportunity to rest)? And how hard will that combat be? Will fly in that combat be a slight bonus or absolutely necessary? Or is fly in a slot that a more combat oriented spell could be cast from? Will lacking that slot actually be a limit, or does the caster have enout other spells that there wasn't really a loss by casting fly now?
Daily resources ask the party to make decisions based on information they (probably) don't have. You could argue for scouting with the rogue or using scry, but that also eats up table time, potentially a lot of it. And you don't know if scouting will be a useful use of time or if you can brute force your way through the encounters.
If a player is making a decision without relevant information, it's not a meaningful decision. It's a guess.
I am just curious if any other player group out there have this issue as our group has with the Daily abilities/powers/spells. Especially now with less spells /day. What have happened a couple of times now is that our spell casters when playing use up their spells rather early into the game session and then they feel pretty useless with only cantrips or low to hit weapon attacks. They just dont have a fun time.
This also make them all to often want to hide out and rest and to continue first again when they have gotten their spells back. Same goes for when the party lose all their healing and are afraid to continue because of that. Or worse use all spells up in a inferno of Power and then get back to base and lay low untill they can go out again.
Here I would like to discuss if the former encounter powers from 4th ed and short rest power from 5th ed D&D could be a better option for many reasons and getting rid of the Daily Powers/spells all together.
Encounter Powers would make the game more fun and take away the need of constant need for rest as well that you wouldnt need to keep track of the spells over all day. It also could take away the need for keeping track of buffs time.
Now with the spells nerfed as well as having less spells a change to encounter power ONLY could be that all spell casters got their spells back after each encounter instead.
Make the really strong spells cost 3 actions to cast.
Might be need of taking away 1 spell slot/encounter?Make the spells into attack spells, buff spells and utiliy spells.
Attack spell could be used once/encounter unless cantrips.
Buff spells when cast was valid the entire encounter or untill dispelled or lost concentration if a spell needed that.
Utility spells is spells used under encounters for tactical benefits like moves similiar or could be used out of combat.It would get rid of the need of hunkering down taking rest all time untill all Daily Powers was back but it would also make the encounters more intresting and more fluid I
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I realise this is a rather long step towards what has been and also that it make people think of 4th edition that many didnt like for various reasons.
However this really has nothing to do with 4th edition but instead it is all about getting a more fluid and fun play for all involved as well as making the game more easily handled for both experienced as new players and important it also makes it a LOT easier for the GM to handle game balance in encounters since you know what the players have in terms of power, something that now many times become a issue.
As a spell caster you would still need to think carefully when and where you use your spells because they are limited in every encounter but you would have strong impact in all situations and not as it is now limited in many situations.
You could of course as some suggested keep the really powerfull spells as dailys but then you would be back toward having to keep track of those and again the main problem with people not wanting to continue because they dont have their best spells avaiable any more.
This is the point of this suggestion to get rid of Daily Powers and the bottleneck of people not wanting to go on.
I think if you just actually consider the proposal without putting any substance of what has been and what is right you could come to like this idea for its simplicity for game issues and for its handling of lack of resources towards future encounter. In part it has already been tried in some limited cases like the warlock in 5th ed but on a more complex way and that worked well.
Just my 2cents.
A counterargument would be that PF2 smells like 4e so much already, those who disliked it won't play it. So why not go the whole hog?The fundamental design of the game is supposed to be that you have to choose carefully whether or not to use your high-level spells now or save them for later. Want to use magic to Fly past the obstacle? You can, but it'll cost you combat ability later. Casters use up all their spells early? It's probably their own fault!
Abandoning this paradigm would be a pretty drastic step. Personally I'd be open to trying it, but I think a lot of Pathfinder players would reject it; it smells like D&D 4e, and Pathfinder was founded as an alternative to D&D 4e.
That's pretty much my thoughts on the issue. I'm arguing against it obviously. But if Paizo is going to go ahead with the entire edition largely as shown in the playtest then they might as well crib the remaining good elements of 4e and make PF2e a revised 4e and appeal to those who enjoyed that edition.
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I am just curious if any other player group out there have this issue as our group has with the Daily abilities/powers/spells. Especially now with less spells /day. What have happened a couple of times now is that our spell casters when playing use up their spells rather early into the game session and then they feel pretty useless with only cantrips or low to hit weapon attacks. They just dont have a fun time.
This also make them all to often want to hide out and rest and to continue first again when they have gotten their spells back. Same goes for when the party lose all their healing and are afraid to continue because of that. Or worse use all spells up in a inferno of Power and then get back to base and lay low untill they can go out again.
Here I would like to discuss if the former encounter powers from 4th ed and short rest power from 5th ed D&D could be a better option for many reasons and getting rid of the Daily Powers/spells all together.
Encounter Powers would make the game more fun and take away the need of constant need for rest as well that you wouldnt need to keep track of the spells over all day. It also could take away the need for keeping track of buffs time.
Now with the spells nerfed as well as having less spells a change to encounter power ONLY could be that all spell casters got their spells back after each encounter instead.
Make the really strong spells cost 3 actions to cast.
Might be need of taking away 1 spell slot/encounter?Make the spells into attack spells, buff spells and utiliy spells.
Attack spell could be used once/encounter unless cantrips.
Buff spells when cast was valid the entire encounter or untill dispelled or lost concentration if a spell needed that.
Utility spells is spells used under encounters for tactical benefits like moves similiar or could be used out of combat.It would get rid of the need of hunkering down taking rest all time untill all Daily Powers was back but it would also make the encounters more intresting and more fluid I
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If that's the mentality of your spellcasters, then I'd have to say that they need better spell management. Not every fight should be "throw your absolute strongest spells," because in real life a person may not be comfortable with burning everything on one item unless they compulsively feel the need to do so, and if they do, they should at least realize the risks of doing so and weighing the importance of those risks in relation to the decisions they make. For example, if a Level 1 Goblin tickles me for 2 nonlethal damage, I shouldn't be burning my Level 8 Heal spell on it.
While it is true that spellcasters do have less overall spells to sling, the viability of cantrips being usable everyday across all levels of combat means that spellcasters should not have as much of a need to sling their stronger spells at every turn. It also means that selecting cantrips is more important as well, since their contributing factor has increased in this edition, but that's a side point; the main concept is that spells are more impactful both because of their rarity, but also because of them requiring more temperance in their usage.
As far as "encounter powers," that's a highly unrealistic approach that I get spells back only whenever I approach a combat (which certain encounters of this game may not in fact lead to combat). If I have back-to-back encounters, it seems unrealistic that I all-of-a-sudden have the ability to do X again so soon compared to if I have combats more spread out through the adventuring day. Furthermore, it allows metagaming.
"Hey, I'm out of powers, let's get into a scuffle with RP and then I'll have my powers back for future fights!" Doesn't that sound like the lamest thing ever? It's about as lame as that Arcanist power that gave you Arcane Reservoir by fondling somebody with an alien tendril.
Sure, "because magic" is an argument, but "because magic" is also the same argument for why it functions the way it functions now. It's an Ex Machina, and it works both ways; it just so happens that Paizo wants it to work this way, and not the other way.
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I'm a fan of removing dailies. They've already done so for stunning fist & rage, with different tradeoffs as balance (2 actions for 1 attack and fatigue respectively). Especially because of this problem:
Want to use magic to Fly past the obstacle? You can, but it'll cost you combat ability later.Is the party going to be in combat "later" (without opportunity to rest)? And how hard will that combat be? Will fly in that combat be a slight bonus or absolutely necessary? Or is fly in a slot that a more combat oriented spell could be cast from? Will lacking that slot actually be a limit, or does the caster have enout other spells that there wasn't really a loss by casting fly now?
Daily resources ask the party to make decisions based on information they (probably) don't have. You could argue for scouting with the rogue or using scry, but that also eats up table time, potentially a lot of it. And you don't know if scouting will be a useful use of time or if you can brute force your way through the encounters.
If a player is making a decision without relevant information, it's not a meaningful decision. It's a guess.
Stunning Fist is largely a steaming pile that requires absolute perfect circumstances to make it worthwhile and live up to its name. It completely sucks nuts otherwise, and Rage is very wishy-washy, and doesn't mesh well whatsoever with the problems of combat lasting longer than 3 rounds. That interim between the 3rd and 4th round is very scary, and bound to lead to dead Barbarians, even with the temporary HP boost (which is likely gone by that point). The factor we didn't have a dead Barbarian at 4th level is a practical miracle, truth be told. Saying they are worthwhile mechanics is something that the above begs to question.
That example is a hyperbole that makes no sense, since that would require a Fly spell for every character (party assumes 4, not including Familiars or Animal Companions), so 4 instances of Fly spell is not viable under most any level unless multiple sources granting it are available (maybe a wand, but that's 4 or so Resonance Points, and 4 charges on said wand). Based on that information alone, the "fly" tactic won't work or be a valid avenue of solving the apparent encounter, since the apparent ability to apply it isn't practical in the slightest, and even if it was, did have its own hefty cost. Even then, not everything in adventuring requires absolute knowledge in order for choices related to it to be a meaningful decision or not. Using an Anarchic Weapon property for an apparent Evil Outsider may have ramifications depending on if the enemy is a Devil or a Demon, or even some other kind of outsider. You won't know until either A. you take steps to gain that knowledge, or B. take the chance. Both have an important impact on your adventuring day, and depending on which choice you take can make that difference.
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If a player is making a decision without relevant information, it's not a meaningful decision. It's a guess.
It is, but it's an educated guess. We know the game pushes us to fight around four battles a day. We know we'll be better off with more spell slots.
If we take away the Daily limit, what do we replace it with? Can we now cast Fly and Teleport unlimited times per day if we can cast them at all?
That example is a hyperbole that makes no sense, since that would require a Fly spell for every character (party assumes 4, not including Familiars or Animal Companions), so 4 instances of Fly spell is not viable under most any level unless multiple sources granting it are available (maybe a wand, but that's 4 or so Resonance Points, and 4 charges on said wand). Based on that information alone, the "fly" tactic won't work or be a valid avenue of solving the apparent encounter, since the apparent ability to apply it isn't practical in the slightest, and even if it was, did have its own hefty cost.
It's a situation I've seen in the past. A high-level Sorcerer can usually afford four slots for Fly. The Cleric can cast Air Walk to save you a slot. Or cast it on the strongest PC and have him carry everyone else (admittedly, this is a lot harder if the duration is 1 minute). Or fly there with rope and then everyone else can climb.
This is just a suggestion so no need to get defensive about it or taking it to the extreme. Its allright if you like it or if dont like it, I am just trying a different approach from what has been in the past.
Its not about the spell casters always cast all their spells nor that they dont understand the need of keeping spells to end of the day in case needed. But sometimes especially in lower level, some bad luck in a normally easy encounter forces players hand and also sometimes players guess wrong in how many encounters there will be before rest.
But most of all in lower levels where you only have some 2-6 spells a day its not really fun, just going around using cantrips all the time.
My suggestion with encounter spells/powers instead of dailys makes them easier to keep track for both GM and players.
It makes an early bad luck less hurtful and most important it makes the balancing of encounter for the GM a lot easier, since no need to consider what will happen in end fight if players dont have a Power left. It is just a matter of game flow rather than a logical view.
As far as "encounter Powers being a highly unrealistic approach compared to Daily Powers I dont agree at all with this.
Being a "normal" approach with dailys doesnt make it more realistic. We are talking magic here after all.
Just because the game untill now has been using Daily Power doesnt per see make that more logical. This is a second edition where we are to find new ways to make the game more streamlined and fun, and I Think this would make it more fun and easier for both GM and players.
As for Encounter power rather than Daily power you could well state a spellcaster has a limited power to handle and controll power during a fixed amount of time before the need to rest shortly to regain said power. Like a drain as for example shadowrun uses.
Experience would increase their ability to cast more spells and more often. It not more unrealistic than being able to cast 30 spells a day where you can cast the same spell over and over.
And as in regard to metagaming it actually hinders that with Daily Powers, now you would have the encounters power you have and can not use all your Daily spells at once and then require you need a Daily rest before you can continue. Being out of spells/Powers make people metagame to avoid need go further Before they have rested. It makes for a slower game with less fun being in situations with no heal or spells because then players will do their best to avoid continue.
"Ok guys I am out of heal spells here and I have no fireballs left, lets take a rest shall we"
Not very fun but seen all to often.
That as you say "it just so happens that Paizo wants it to work this way, and not the other way" does not mean that they can not change how they want it to work. Thats after all the whole Point of a new edition,and us playtesting the game. They want changes that work better than before.The game will change! Hopefully into something more fun!
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The chief problem with introducing encounter powers is the need to ensure that abilities all have the same effective value. Normally you could vary the impact of an ability by modifying how often it could be used, or how long it took to use it, but tying everything to encounters you only have one value available. Maybe it's not a problem for some people, but if everything is interchangeable, I'll get bored with how unimportant most choices are.
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It is starting to become a really common line of thinking that anything that inconveniences players/characters is bad because inconvenience is subset of frustration and thus inherently negative emotion. If we can get rid of all negative emotions in the game, surely we will have just net more Good Fun and the game would be Better.
But these little things give the game friction. Rulesets ought to push back at at player desires every now and then. That is why we have dice involved in skill checks, instead of deciding expertise by binary numerical check. We could just ask players to have X amount of skill points to pass this challenge. But we do not, because the game wants to disobey the player.
Okay so we increase the pace by making things per-encounter. That means removing the attrition idea from the encounters. So each encounter has to be individually dangerous rather than maybe dangerous as a collective. So then we create encounters where you are assumed to have all your best spells, so we make every encounter very dangerous. On a road with no friction, only way to slow down is a sudden stop.
Ruleset with zero disobedience stops being a roleplaying game and just becomes a novel. The adventure becomes determined.
The chief problem with introducing encounter powers is the need to ensure that abilities all have the same effective value. Normally you could vary the impact of an ability by modifying how often it could be used, or how long it took to use it, but tying everything to encounters you only have one value available.
You could still vary how long it takes to use; just because it's once per encounter doesn't mean it's a single action.
And there aren't many abilities that are balanced against one another by Uses Per Day. Spells of the same level aren't balanced that way. Basic martial powers are mostly unlimited use.
My main problem with 'once per Encounter' is that an Encounter is a vague and artificial construct. If I create a magic wall in the middle of the room that blocks off one my enemies until we've dealt with the other, is that two encounters? If a second group of enemies turns up towards the end of the battle because I made too much noise, is it still only one?
'Can be used once per short rest' (or 'x times per day') is clearer to me, and makes more sense for abilities that can be used out of combat.
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It would also be fine for powers to last for 1 to 5 minutes and take 10 to fifteen minutes to re-prepare.
But D&D is pretty married to its daily mechanics. Personally, I think that if things like spells per day and spell power points per day continue to exist, it would be nice for those to have a more direct tie in to a narrative element: something like the rising of the sun or the moon.
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It is starting to become a really common line of thinking that anything that inconveniences players/characters is bad because inconvenience is subset of frustration and thus inherently negative emotion. If we can get rid of all negative emotions in the game, surely we will have just net more Good Fun and the game would be Better.
But these little things give the game friction. Rulesets ought to push back at at player desires every now and then. That is why we have dice involved in skill checks, instead of deciding expertise by binary numerical check. We could just ask players to have X amount of skill points to pass this challenge. But we do not, because the game wants to disobey the player.
Okay so we increase the pace by making things per-encounter. That means removing the attrition idea from the encounters. So each encounter has to be individually dangerous rather than maybe dangerous as a collective. So then we create encounters where you are assumed to have all your best spells, so we make every encounter very dangerous. On a road with no friction, only way to slow down is a sudden stop.
Ruleset with zero disobedience stops being a roleplaying game and just becomes a novel. The adventure becomes determined.
This.
I proposed one possible solution for spell slot attrition in a new thread here
This tries to avoid 'we run and sleep' happening too often, while still having an investment (time) in the refresh, and leaving some slots very valuable and unable to refresh (top 2 levels).
Ruleset with zero disobedience stops being a roleplaying game and just becomes a novel. The adventure becomes determined.
It would become a roleplaying game focused on player expression rather than challenge. The adventure would become completely undetermined, because the players could derail the intended story as they pleased.
It would probably get boring fast, but I doubt it would much resemble a novel.
...in doing so, they effectively remove much of the resource management aspect of the game...
There are several ways to get around that but it certainly can be an issue. That's why I was hoping to see something more along the lines of Spheres of Power. Base abilities you can use all day everyday, with a limited ability to enhance or change their effects.
A significant proportion of the Pathfinder player base are the people who found (over-)powerful characters to be what made the game fun for them: Fantasy, empowerment, agency.
It's a solution to a problem, but it's also a problem.
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Overly powerful characters can (and should) still get challenged, though, because that is a big draw to the game; overcoming challenges sent forth to your character. It's not like they are the only people who can (or do) excel at certain aspects of their field; adventurers are everywhere, and some just are outright better than others at certain tasks, which is fine, but that shouldn't mean adventurers are outright invincible and can't ever be touched.
It would become a roleplaying game focused on player expression rather than challenge. The adventure would become completely undetermined, because the players could derail the intended story as they pleased.
It would probably get boring fast, but I doubt it would much resemble a novel.
Well you could still have challenge. The challenge is what numbers you demand your players reach. They might reach it, or they might not, but it would be certain success or failure.
Better word than novel is screenplay. The players enter as actors and play their role. They see which checks they can make and which they cannot make and know the proper lines based on this information. Of course this is all talking about this imaginary game even more extremely determined than just encounter-based spells. A roleplaying system that works more like a visual novel, critical story paths have branches that are unlocked with different attributes. But I digress.
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I'm a fan of removing dailies. They've already done so for stunning fist & rage, with different tradeoffs as balance (2 actions for 1 attack and fatigue respectively). Especially because of this problem:
Want to use magic to Fly past the obstacle? You can, but it'll cost you combat ability later.Is the party going to be in combat "later" (without opportunity to rest)? And how hard will that combat be? Will fly in that combat be a slight bonus or absolutely necessary? Or is fly in a slot that a more combat oriented spell could be cast from? Will lacking that slot actually be a limit, or does the caster have enout other spells that there wasn't really a loss by casting fly now?
Daily resources ask the party to make decisions based on information they (probably) don't have. You could argue for scouting with the rogue or using scry, but that also eats up table time, potentially a lot of it. And you don't know if scouting will be a useful use of time or if you can brute force your way through the encounters.
If a player is making a decision without relevant information, it's not a meaningful decision. It's a guess.
It's the 'elixir paradox' that will be familiar to any old school Final Fantasy player. Elixir were the most powerful healing item in the game, and you only found a limited amount. Because they were both powerful and limited people usually saved them, but when situations came up where they'd be useful, people were still reluctant to use them because they worried a worse situation might arise in a later battle. The most common result is that they would end the game with a stockpile of elixir they never used for worry of needing it more later. This is neither fun nor good design.