This is one of the reasons I’m really not happy with DND. I just don’t want to play a resource management game. I want to do cool stuff.
There are lots of games that aren’t built around resource management and attrition, but unfortunately DND is so popular it sucks all the air out of the room.
NGL if you take out what’s left of the resources in 5e you’ll reduce the game to exclusively standing in front of the enemy taking turns hitting each other, instead of just mostly.
The truth is if you want a resourceless game you’re gonna have to play a different system, and if you’re gonna play a different system you’re gonna have to run it. Luckily, it’s very easy to get groups for new systems, because you just tell the 5e players it’s D&D and they probably won’t even notice the rules changed.
I’d love to play other systems. My weekly group finally agreed to try other things on the regular, and so far everyone has really enjoyed it. I think the core engine is called Year Zero? Honestly the guy running it maybe did a smart thing by giving the group a short Google doc with the rules summarized instead of the actual rule book. Getting players to read is embarrassing difficult.
Also, are you me? Because I have often half jokingly said that you could just change from 5e to another system and the average player wouldn’t notice because they’re so bad at the rules anyway.
I’m slightly joking, but it’s a lot less than half. My respect for 5e players took a massive nosedive after I actually played it, so I have run a few oneshots that have started with “oh by the way we’re using Pathfinder 2e tonight” because I just told the 5e players we were playing “D&D”.
Most abilities should be either “per round/turn” or “per encounter”.
Abilities that are too powerful for that should either not exist or require significant preparation (enough for the opposition to have a chance to discover and interrupt it).
Abilities that fall in the second category should automatically come with a less powerful variant in the first category.
Maybe as a middle ground some player abilities could use the “roll for recharge” mechanic from powerful monster abilities.
Then you have casters blowing max slot every fight and trivializing them.
Abilities that are too powerful for that should either not exist or require significant preparation
I like the idea of having a few OP abilities, but having them require non-trivial preparation within an encounter. E.g. “charging” for several turns without moving or taking damage.
That sounds nice in theory, but actually charging stuff for several rounds while the encounter is already ongoing practically just means one player is doing nothing for most of the encounter. Not ideal.
I was thinking more along the lines of preparation before the actual encounter even starts, e.g. setting up an ambush or the magical equivalent of building a trebuchet during a siege.
I kinda disagree with all of this. Big abilities that come with in-universe complications are the bread and butter of RPGs. E.G. Connection: Mafia: You know a guy in the mafia you can ask for help, but he might want a favor later…
Or think of things like Wish, etc.
It kinda sounds like you want a wargame with a bit of story connecting the battles. Which is fine, but then just play a wargame I guess?
I think we don’t actually disagree and I was just not precise enough in my original post.
What I described above applies to abilities that are relevant in combat and any other type of encounter that the respective system mechanically treats as a conflict similar to combat. That absolutely does not mean other abilities should not exist, just that they should not be practically usable during an ongoing combat-like short term conflict.
Also: Abilities that are useful in short term combat-like conflicts and abilities that are not should not compete for mechanical resources of any kind, that is never fun.
You can play fighter or warlock. Dnd limits extreme power with spell slots and charges. Otherwise they’d have to nerf the upper power level. Can’t have people casting fire storm every few minutes. It’d ruin balance AND ensure you had to cast that every time to deal with increased threats.
Yes, but someone is probably going to play a long rest class and force the entire game to center around that cadence. And the long rest cadence kind of sucks for me.
There are other ways to do game balance.
How do you do long rests that makes it annoying? Usually it’s:
Party: We would like to take a long rest.
DM: Sounds good, you are now rested.
I do feel that slowly, edition by edition, D&D is moving closer to it’s recourse management being tied to it’s round based action economy which I actually enjoy.
As a player, it’s already pretty easy to play this way, before counting subclasses, the rogue has literally no abilities that are limited by anything but once per turn, and if you pick some fun narrative spells as warlock and rely on invocations and eldritch blast, you can be totally effective without any resource management. Both of these exclude hitpoints of course but that is a pretty reasonable resource for a combat focussed fantasy game.
My understanding is that OneDnd was moving more towards per-long-rest instead of anything else. I haven’t been following it for a few months though.
I would vastly prefer if powers were based on something more granular than long rest.
Sounds like you want to be a thief, a fighter, or a warlock that casts Eldridtch Blast all day.
Someone else said similar in here, but as I said to them: that wouldn’t really solve the problem. Someone’s probably going to play a long-rest class, and the game will still have to be centered on that cadence.
Though a game of no long rest classes does sound pretty good. Fighter, rogue, warlock… different warlock? Pinning everything to short rests I think would work much better for how people actually want to play.
That aside, there’s a whole universe of other ways to balance games than per-rest. DND mostly just has the one and frankly I don’t enjoy it.
Yeah, I hate that DnD is such a resource management game too. (More so that is is the ONLY game my group will consider playing.)
I tend to horde any limited resource. TTRPG or video game.
Is this group of mooks big enough to justify using power/spell/item X? Is there a bigger group around the corner? Is this just a lieutenant or the BBEG? Oh, this guy is monologueing, he must be the BBEG. But does his fight have multiple phases? OR is he just a puppet and the real BBEG is waiting for us to blow all our abilities.
Doesn’t matter how narratively I’m engaged in the plot. I’ve got a tactically aware mind and these thoughts are always there.
Same.
In my last DND game, where the wizard was extremely fast and loose with his spell slots, the DM gave him a free long rest in the middle of the final boss fight. It kind of sort of made sense for story reasons but not really. I was honestly kind of pissed. Like on the one hand the wizard was having fun. On the other like what’s the point if we’re going to do that. I’ve been here doing the tactical “this is how we can solve this problem with the fewest resources spent” and no one else is, and he gets this? Ugh.
Even Baldur’s gate 3 betrayed me like this. There’s a lengthy sequence that I did with like no resources spent. It was slow and cautious but I knew there was a big boss at the end of it. And then they put a fucking full-rest fountain right before the boss fight. I could’ve been fireballing everything instead of playing smart!
When it was my turn to DM, before the scene I just complained about, that wizard was practically begging for a long rest. No sir. You get multiple hard encounters and a race against enemies. Maybe don’t blow Hold Person on the fleeing civilian when the rogue has expertise and is ready to grapple next time.
I’m much happier now that we’re playing a different system.
Unpopularly, me and my friends actually enjoyed 4e and I’ll probably start up a campaign again sometime soon… But I can see how it could be perceived as more of a boardgame-resource-managing type of game.
But oh well if we enjoy ourselves, why not?
We played like 3 sessions and didn’t like it, but I’ve been thinking about trying it again soon to give it another try. The trick is to find players who want to play with me who aren’t like “Eewww 4th edition”.
I once made a sorcerer that used nothing but Prestidigitation along with a super high deception skill to be like the Chris Angel of Faerun because it’s a cantrip and I never run out of casts for it like I would with real spells.
“I cast prestidigitation as I shout ‘fireball’ and turn my wand into a sparkler.”
“The kobolds piss themselves and run away.”
In my current 5e game, I have some items that have soft limits on how often you can use them, in that each time you use them you make a con save or gain a level of exhaustion, and the dc increases as you use them more, and the dc resets when you finish a long rest without any exhaustion.
There’s one that lets a player make up to 6 extra attacks when they take the attack action(declaring the number of extra attacks first), but after each attack they make the con save, and the dc starts at 10 and increases by 2 each time. I also had another one that allows for casting of spells up to 6th level without spending spell slots, with a number of saves equal to the level of the spell
I will take all the passive abilities please, I already have 5 hot keys assigned and will never remember anymore.
Prestidigitates freely
