Been gone for a long time. Back into the hobby because of my new campaign (the campaign building blog is at http://axrebirth.blogspot.com
Anyway, I'm currently playing in a 4e campaign run by my friend Jon. We have been having a lot of fun, and he's done a great job so far emphasizing situations with meaningful tactical decisions. However, one of Jon's pet peeves has always been the short adventuring day. In all editions, you run out of hit points and spells within 4 encounters, and go to sleep. 4th Edition addresses this issue somewhat by reducing the amount of daily resources and the rewards/ability for nova-ing. Also, 4th Edition introduced the idea of receiving an action point at every milestone in order to encourage adventurers to go "one more door." Essentially, at any point, you've either just received an action point and are eager to use it, or you can get one by doing another encounter.
However, action points don't seem especially motivating. Once you are low on surges or dailies, you are, and more action points doesn't seem to ever motivate anyone to go further (rightfully so). Personally, I'm not particularly bothered by this. I think that 4th edition parties tend to be great at handling ~4 encounters, and that's really an appropriate number for a short term goal. Any more encounters, and you're talking about the goal taking more than one session to achieve. This is bad for continuity, narrative, and your player's interest. Everyone knows what it's like to hit week three of clearing goblins from the dilapidated moat house.
Jon hasn't spelled out his approach, but has offered additional healing surges at each milestone, and it seems restored dailies (or other options) at every other milestone. This has successfully extended the adventuring day, but it's not much different than saying every other milestone, you take an extended rest as a short rest. It hasn't hurt the game. It simply throws out the largely meaningless "do we have enough surges/dailies to open another door" choice (the answer's usually obvious) and instead has us resting when we need to go back to town anyway.
But, what if we wanted to maintain that "another door" choice and have it be meaningful, either as a permanent house-rule or as part of a special circumstance, how would we do so? Right now, your surges and your dailies drain away throughout the day, but you gain action points. Once someone is out of surges and dailies, action points are not enough to make you consider going on. But, if the milestone rewards were great enough, certain situations might become more ambiguous. What if the controller is out of surges, but others still have enough for one more. What sort of reward is enough to keep the party going?
First, an action point seems to be enough for the first milestone as PCs routinely pass it. After that, here are some options for additional rewards that might keep PCs going. They could either be mixed up or used alone. Note I have not included surges or dailies as a reward, as these are essentially just restoring the resource already lost, and not creating interesting choices.
1. Buff Action Points. +1/2 level damage on attacks made using this action point.
2. Additional Action Point. Gain two Action Points this milestone.
3. New resource, Recovery Point. As a free action, spend a Recovery Point to roll a saving throw against one effect.
4. Bonus Experience. All encounters after this milestone give 10% additional experience (cumulative).
5. Bonus Healing. Regain an additional 5 hp/tier anytime you spend a healing surge.
Just some thoughts. Anyone else have an idea?
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I think operational or strategic decisions deserve operational or strategic rewards.
ReplyDeleteAll of the proposed rewards -- except for #4 -- are tactical rewards. The choice to open one more door is at least operational if not strategic. Given the high risks involved, it should pay a long-term strategic benefit.
In short, I think it would make it a much more interesting choice to say, "Yes, you are all tired, but when you hit Milestone #3 in one day you automatically get a Minor Quest worth of XP, and when you hit Milestone #4 you get a Bonus Feat for 48 hours," or something.
Some ideas of appropriate rewards:
- Bonus XP. I'd go lump sum at each milestone to keep it simple. XP is paradoxically flavorless but always tasty.
- Bonus Feat for a limited time. However, this could lead to session slow-down as folks pore through the books -- maybe pick from a limited menu?
- Bonus Power for a limited time. I really like this one. Let folks use an extra At-Will power for some period of time. It is a short menu to pick from (i.e. fast) and probably won't unbalance the game much, and it lets them try something they wouldn't otherwise use -- sort of a test-drive for retraining. You could also hand out bonus Daily or Encounter powers, but this is likely to be more complicated and time consuming. You don't want people to be poring through the books deep into a long session.
- Bonus Ritual. Rituals don't get used often. Maybe you get a freebie scroll or something. This could also be done with consumable magic items. It doesn't have to be a potion falling from the sky, but it could just be a "mystic tingling" that gives you some sort of limited-use level appropriate goodie. I prefer rituals as they tend to be operational/strategic in focus, not tactical one-shots for a bonus to hit.
- Add some sort of Repute or Fate or Divine Favor mechanic where going extra milestones earns you fame and respect which can be cashed in later for stuff.
I recently wrote about the flip side of the coin, long term damage, but this is quite similar (http://vedronspotionshop.blogspot.com/2010/06/4e-lasting-damage.html).
Interesting idea. Right now my favorites are XP and powers.