this post was submitted on 10 Dec 2023
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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.
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.
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.
That seems pretty easy to design around. You could have powers that ramp up over turns instead of being nothing for several turns and then the big effect.
So like a maelstrom spell. The second round reduces movement speed of enemies, the third round does small damage, the third round immobilizes, the fourth round does big damage.
You can tweak a lot of variables there to make it tactically interesting. How many rounds before the first effect. How good are the intermediate effects. Consequences of being interrupted. Choices to make mid-channel. It could be a very cool way of doing spellcasters and it doesn't need to be per-rest at all.
Spells that need a longer out of combat prep time would also be interesting, like your magical trebuchet.
Honestly if I was going to do a dnd-like game, sorcerers would be like my ramp up and wizards would be like your trebuchet. Wizards would be bad if they were surprised but they could build very specific spells ahead of time.
It sounds like the MCDM RPG will have abilities that charge up over the course of a battle, which kind of reminds me of your idea. It might be a good one, can't wait to see how the playtests go.
I don't think I'm familiar with this one. This one? https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/mcdm-productions/mcdm-rpg
Yup! He had a video where he described some basic mechanics it will have, including one where classes will gain their resources over time as the battle continues - making players ramp up as the battle goes on. It seems to me like a clever way of letting them nova on big bosses and stuff, while theoretically the smaller encounters wouldn't go long enough to do so, saving the drama for more appropriate battles.
Those abilities would not be able to be used outside of combat then.
Then you have casters blowing max slot every fight and trivializing them.
Then you're going to have boring spells that do damage akin to cantrips. No one wants homogenization.
I absolutely do want mechanical homogenization. Interesting variants can be handled with flavor without forcing everyone to learn completely new rules for every ability. The existence of generic rule systems (e.g. Savage Worlds) proves I am not alone with that view.
Cool. And that exists in that game. But that's not the core of dnd.
It was my impression that we are at this point discussing (rp)game design in general, not specifically D&D. If your context was D&D specifically, that explains a lot of the disagreement between us.