There’s a good reason for the going for the last one: Opportunity Cost.
If you’re in a situation and have an ability that can only be used once a day, you can never really know if this encounter will be the optimal use. So you hold off on it and thus get less utility. Even if you are regularly using it, having something you can always get utility out of is far more valuable than something that is strong but wasted sometimes.
Fun fact: At my table I ruled Primeval Awareness to be a “use per day equal to proficiency modifier” rather than spell slots (there’s more to our change but that’s the TLDR version)
It was so damn expensive that the ranger at the table never used it before I made the ruling because, “that’s way too expensive for so little use,” which I agreed with
Currently we’re still testing the new version of it but we’re liking it so far, it’s still open for tinkering before we “add it to the rules board” but it’s soon going to be put there at this rate
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It’s less about increasing the uses and more about allowing them to keep their spells and still use it
I’m on the complete other side of the meme, give my wizards crossbows and Locate-City bombs, please
I really dislike “per day” resource management, it really limits the way in which stories are constructed!
Switch to an in-universe time length.
‘This spell recharges at the next dawn, as long you have fleemed the scrabinator.’
‘This spell can be recharged by having a really good meal with your closest friends.’
‘To recharge this spell, you must sacrifice a male hare on an alter to your god under the full moon.’
This provides a sub-task that the caster is motivated to reach for, which helps with RP and moving the story along.
I’ve had electric magic items that recharge after getting hit by electric damage.
This is how most magic works in Unknown Armies, by the way. That game is fantastic and just drips with flavor and insight (2nd edition anyway. I haven’t read 3rd)
If your book mage wants to charge up, he has to go find some rare valuable books and add them to his collection. If the chaos mage wants a charge, she has to start taking some risks. You can do some crazy things with a major charge, but getting one is probably work. Or win Russian roulette if you’re a chaos mage.
In practice it can be difficult with a large group where everyone has their own obsession. It provides good down time options and plot hooks, though.
Same here, I’m always debating with myself:
“Should I use this? Should I save it for later? I’ll save it.”
Then I never use it…
Use it the first time it’s needed. Always use it. As a DM I often expect people to use their stuff. Besides, having low resources makes for interesting decisions. And the DM will know if you’re all out of resources anyways.
Disagree. If the party just uses Fly to get over the cliff instead of coming up with an interesting solution, that’s kind of boring. It also makes it harder for non-casters to shine.
Second, I don’t really like when the world scales with the party. The DM changing the world because the wizard blew all his slots stupidly feels bad. Why even have the choice of spending resources over a long period if everything is just going to scale with us?
Also it kind of sucks when you do get to the big boss and the wizard is tapped out because he’s been real loose with his slots
That’s exactly what fly is for. Level 10 parties aren’t challenged by simple terrain.
Also it’s a game. Your can run yours preplanned or improvised as much as you and your players like.
Barely making it through is more fun than casually strolling through
As a DM I usually make things to utilize my parties resources to the fullest so when they decide to hoard abilities and not use them it usually makes things harder than it has to be
Today my party will be encountering a creature with an aura of silence (like the spell but a bigger area) which will basically put half the party on survival duty (managing the layout of the encounter) while the other half are on combat duty (as they’re the only ones able to do damage)
It’s going to be rough but some encounters I make primarily focus on the abilities of some party members over others and it shifts about for who that is
Hell a few weeks ago I had an encounter where no one was very effective and it was super intense where a party member jumped in front of another shielding them and keeping them alive for the remainder of the fight even though they knew it would probably put them into death saves (didn’t by 2hp)
Basically what I’m saying is that sometimes the best tool for a power fantasy is having powerless moments, it helps to make the world more alive and encourages out of the box thinking
Barely making it through is more fun than casually strolling through
The way D&D is designed, you’ll very often stroll through the first couple encounters of the day. You have way more resources than you need to handle them, since a medium encounter is only designed to take like 1/6th out of you. The last fight or two in the adventuring day might be extra tense, but you have to do some filler first. I don’t like that. I’d rather have all the conflicts be meaningful.
Now, in 5e you could just run all deadly encounters, but this quickly creates several problems. Short-rest and no-rest classes don’t get to shine, for one thing. Secondly, if you’re doing a lot of long rests you can’t really have time sensitive plots.
You could instead run a different rules system that has the desired feel from the start instead of putting the round peg in the square hole. But as I said elsewhere in the thread, D&D is so mega popular it sucks all the air out of the room. It’s hard to find players for other games. Hard to find community discussion for other games. Plus, if you take someone who’s only ever played D&D and plop them into another kind of game, that’s often a difficult transition.
Could you recommend a few other systems to me to take a look at? I am interested in finding new ways to play :)
I posted some off the cuff answers elsewhere in this post: https://ttrpg.network/comment/3849752
But that was specific about the rest thing.
Fate is my game crush. It’s a general purpose RPG. And i know some people cram DND into any setting but it usually doesn’t work great. Fate is actually designed to work for any setting.
It’s very open and honestly I think requires more engagement from the players. If you have a bunch of wallflowers who look at their phone and then just say “I attack” on their turn, fate isn’t going to go well.
But if you have good players it can be fantastic.
The core of the game is “Aspects”. They’re free form short phrases about your character. “Fresh Faced Wizard”, “Last Knight of the Silver Shield”, “Royal Accountant”, or whatever. Those inform what your character can do, and you can invoke them to get a bonus on rolls.
The dice system is also more to my taste. It’s a fixed dice pool, so you tend to roll average results more than outliers. 1d20 means every outcome on the die is equally likely. I kind of hate that.
It also has better rules for succeeding at a cost. DND just doesn’t have any rules for that. The DM can handwaive something but it’s not codified at all.
It encourages anymore writer’s room approach where players are encouraged to add to the story. More than just being zeroed in on their character. Some people hate this. I like it.
I could go on, but I’m on my phone and supposed to be working. Fate is really cool though.
The world of darkness / Chronicles of darkness games are also very good. I like cofd more but I think that’s uncommon. Very clean dice system. Honestly could do fantasy with it without much changes.
I like that stats and health are pretty tightly constrained. You know that on average a person has 7 health. So you can be pretty sure that if you have a hammer that does two damage, and your dice pool gives you on average two hits, you’ll probably take them out of the fight pretty quick. Compare with DND where that bandit might have 8 HP or 20 or 40. There’s not really a way to gauge what you’re dealing with. Some people like it. It feels bad to me. Like the worst kind of video game where the red goblins have twice the hp as the green ones just-because.
The rules for supernaturals are also pretty good. Mage just blows DND magic out of the water with the flexibility and depth.
There’s also blades in the dark and related powered by the apocalypse games. They’re popular. They have a pretty simple but effective dice pool system. I’m not a huge fan but they’re worth checking out.
I could go on but I really should go back to work. Been fussing with this between tasks all day, heh.
Thank you very much for the detailed information. Fate looks really interesting but also a little bit intimidating. I will have to read up on it. Thanks again!
I thought that before I started playing, but since then I have leaned further towards the first two.
Prestidigitates freely
Kineticist <3
If I can get wish, I will get wish.
*Resssource
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.”
ELDRITCH BLAST
Guidance would also fit well.
I will take all the passive abilities please, I already have 5 hot keys assigned and will never remember anymore.
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.
What’s a good example of an item like that?
Not an item, but a barbarian’s relentless rage
Yeah. I feel like as things keep changing, I’m growing less fond of TTRPG’s that are pure battles of attrition. It’s nice to have things you can use at will. Or if there is a limited resource, having a way to regain some of that resource on the fly makes for more dynamic game states.
PC Warlock (A): I finish my turn, open the door and take a short rest."
Me (GM): So you what, slump against the wall and take a nap?
PC Warlock (A): “Effectively.”
Me (GM): “You can clearly see an armored bandit in the next room, along with three skeleton archers and another set at the far wall.”
PC Warlock (A): “Can they reach me on this turn?”
Me (GM): “No?”
PC Warlock (A): “Can they hit me with a ranged attack, this turn?”
Me (GM): “Also no”
PC Warlock (A): “Short rest.”
Short rests take an entire hour though.
Those things don’t translate well to boardgame mechanics.
The biggest mistake I made with the Cleric I play in my current session is that I do have Guiding Bolt, a 1st level spell dealing 4d6 radiant damage with a spell attack, but not Word of Radiance, which deals 1d6 radiant damage against anyone whom I want to cast it on as a cantrip, or Sacred Flame, which does 1d8 radiant against a specific target, also as a cantrip. I’m pretty much going into my upcoming boss fight against a (presumed) vampire going “I want y’all to pin down and/or restrain the fucker, 'cause I get only one shot at this and I want to make it count.”
