I was researching and trying new ways of buffung martials. A lot of people have good ideas, but they are kind of complex. I was trying to find a way to make martials stronger in one simple step.
Then I thought about this: Abilities that can be done once per short rest can now be done twice per combat. Abilities that require a long rest now can be done once per combat. When you would give one more use per long/short rest you gain 1 more use per combat.
For example, if a Fighter used second wind in a previous fight, and then your group find another enemy and iniciate a new combat, the Fighter can use second wind again.
And it makes more sense that a lot of abilities such as Rage or Manuvers can be done a limited amount of time by combat and not by day.
You don't get enraged only once per day, and you are not limited to using your fighitng techiniques once per day either. However, you may be limited by the chaotic heat of battle.
Before you think this is busted, just remember casters can deal 4d12 40 ft away while healing gaining AC and teleporting away, while martial dudes have limited range, no other utility, higher chance of dying only to deal 1d8+7.
Rage generally lasts the entire combat. There's rarely going to be times when you'll need to rage twice in the same combat (if it's a common occurrence your GM is being a jerk). There are some powers that martial characters don't get enough uses of (like the Arcane Archer's abilities) but making everything twice per combat means that suddenly a lot of them are effectively infinite because combat tends to only last 2-4 rounds.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
This idea is fairly similar to Fourth Edition’s encounter powers. Encounter powers were the bread and butter of 4e, something you could use each combat or out of combat encounter, then fire off again when in a new encounter. They were a critical part of 4e’s system which was systemically balanced (though application was variable) between marital and caster, giving both sides of the coin access to powerful abilities (other than hit things with sword multiple times) and fun effects.
Like with most things about 4e, the encounter power system was a pretty good one if one kept an open mind—which of course meant the D&D community rejected it as heretical. Problems raised with encounter recharges included difficulty in figuring out where an “encounter” ended (especially a non-combat encounter) and there being “too many options for martial users and it slowing down gameplay” (which always struck me as a bad argument).
Personally, I think this would be great to help martial classes get a little more oomph—but I also am one of few people who think 4e was a better designed system than 5e.
Better balance/better design does not necessarily mean more fun and some people have a lot of fun with unbalanced games.
Now that I have said my old man speech. Balance in everything IMHO tends to loose the differences in the classes and I felt 4e had this issue in abundance. I do know some people who really bought into the power descriptions until they soured on the idea. But again there are lots of people out there and they do not all enjoy the same ways to RPG.
Your question has been asked a few times that I have seen so you might want to do a search for some past threads for information.
I was researching and trying new ways of buffung martials. A lot of people have good ideas, but they are kind of complex. I was trying to find a way to make martials stronger in one simple step.
Then I thought about this: Abilities that can be done once per short rest can now be done twice per combat. Abilities that require a long rest now can be done once per combat. When you would give one more use per long/short rest you gain 1 more use per combat.
For example, if a Fighter used second wind in a previous fight, and then your group find another enemy and iniciate a new combat, the Fighter can use second wind again.
And it makes more sense that a lot of abilities such as Rage or Manuvers can be done a limited amount of time by combat and not by day.
You don't get enraged only once per day, and you are not limited to using your fighitng techiniques once per day either. However, you may be limited by the chaotic heat of battle.
Before you think this is busted, just remember casters can deal 4d12 40 ft away while healing gaining AC and teleporting away, while martial dudes have limited range, no other utility, higher chance of dying only to deal 1d8+7.
What do you think?
It think it needs fine tuning at least.
Rage lasts ten turns which is longer than any combat I've had so far. Can the Barbarian be balanced while having Rage always on? I'm not going to answer that since I haven't done the maths, but it's worth considering. I'm less concerned about balancing with casters so much as balancing among martials.
Regardless, the discussions I've read and participated in have convinced me that combat isn't the problem. This is the first time that a serious suggestion has been put forward that would actually start balancing martials to a significant degree (and kudos to you, without taking away from casters, which is the usual solution), and from discussions, I've drawn the conclusion that the problem isn't so much that martials are bad, but that they (their players) get a bit envious of casters.
And I understand that. High level Wizards create new planes of reality, while Fighters swing their sword once a second. They're not weak or boring - martials are fairly consistently more popular than casters, with only one (or two, depending on source) caster(s) being more popular than any martial - but especially towards the end, casters get really awesome stuff, while martials just dial up their sword swinging to eleven. The problem isn't really combat or even number of uses of abilities per day, so much as martials need more interesting abilities. I think anything short of that won't solve the problem. That envy of casters supernatural powers isn't going to go away by giving them a few extra swings of the sword.
Now, there is a potentially good idea there though. There is an inherent problem between long rest-based builds, such as the Fighter and the Bard, and short rest-based builds like the Monk and the Warlock. The latter want plenty of short rests so their powers recharge, while the former want to not waste time, keep moving and only stop to use HDs. Having abilities autorecharge would increase party harmony. On the other hand, perhaps that conflict is desirable since it provides the party with a resource-allocation dilemma - do we press on and go faster? Or do we let our Warlock and Monk recharge ready for the next encounter?
If you do prefer the autorecharge route...there is a significant problem we'd need to overcome, and it's already been mentioned; the definition of an encounter.
At the moment, it really doesn't matter because all it means if two encounters are separate, are rerolls of Intiative, which isn't a big deal. Now, you're saying that it means the difference between a Monk having his Ki points back or not, which really does affect how the game is played (especially for DMs like me who do not track player resources and trust them to be honest). Let's say you have a fight, then just after the last guy is killed, reinforcements arrive. Is that a new encounter? It could be seen as either.
And that's inherently bad game design. The entire point of rules is that you can say "If X, then Y, if not X, then not Y". If X becomes unclear, we have problems. 5e swept that under the rug because the consequences, Y, were of little meaning. You have to roll Intiative (or not), no biggy. But now powers recharge...there'll be arguments. We need to have the definition of an encounter be a lot tighter if we're having abilities be dependent on them.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Rage lasts ten turns which is longer than any combat I've had so far. Can the Barbarian be balanced while having Rage always on? I'm not going to answer that since I haven't done the maths, but it's worth considering. I'm less concerned about balancing with casters so much as balancing among martials.
Regardless, the discussions I've read and participated in have convinced me that combat isn't the problem. This is the first time that a serious suggestion has been put forward that would actually start balancing martials to a significant degree (and kudos to you, without taking away from casters, which is the usual solution), and from discussions, I've drawn the conclusion that the problem isn't so much that martials are bad, but that they (their players) get a bit envious of casters.
And I understand that. High level Wizards create new planes of reality, while Fighters swing their sword once a second. They're not weak or boring - martials are fairly consistently more popular than casters, with only one (or two, depending on source) caster(s) being more popular than any martial - but especially towards the end, casters get really awesome stuff, while martials just dial up their sword swinging to eleven. The problem isn't really combat or even number of uses of abilities per day, so much as martials need more interesting abilities. I think anything short of that won't solve the problem. That envy of casters supernatural powers isn't going to go away by giving them a few extra swings of the sword.
Now, there is a potentially good idea there though. There is an inherent problem between long rest-based builds, such as the Fighter and the Bard, and short rest-based builds like the Monk and the Warlock. The latter want plenty of short rests so their powers recharge, while the former want to not waste time, keep moving and only stop to use HDs. Having abilities autorecharge would increase party harmony. On the other hand, perhaps that conflict is desirable since it provides the party with a resource-allocation dilemma - do we press on and go faster? Or do we let our Warlock and Monk recharge ready for the next encounter?
If you do prefer the autorecharge route...there is a significant problem we'd need to overcome, and it's already been mentioned; the definition of an encounter.
At the moment, it really doesn't matter because all it means if two encounters are separate, are rerolls of Intiative, which isn't a big deal. Now, you're saying that it means the difference between a Monk having his Ki points back or not, which really does affect how the game is played (especially for DMs like me who do not track player resources and trust them to be honest). Let's say you have a fight, then just after the last guy is killed, reinforcements arrive. Is that a new encounter? It could be seen as either.
And that's inherently bad game design. The entire point of rules is that you can say "If X, then Y, if not X, then not Y". If X becomes unclear, we have problems. 5e swept that under the rug because the consequences, Y, were of little meaning. You have to roll Intiative (or not), no biggy. But now powers recharge...there'll be arguments. We need to have the definition of an encounter be a lot tighter if we're having abilities be dependent on them.
Hi! You brought up very good points.
Now that I think about it, I can picture party members also initiating pseudo combats among themselves so they can have infinite second wind.
I would say they recharge when you have to roll initiative in a combat against non-party creatures or things.
I agree with the jealousy of martial players, but on the other hand, I completely understand being jealous when you are objectively worse in almost every aspect.
Most people would expect that players among the parties all have their ups and downs and everyone is overall "equal" in usefulness; which is currently not the case.
I feel like once martials and casters are in an equal level that jealousy will fade away.
Rage lasts ten turns which is longer than any combat I've had so far. Can the Barbarian be balanced while having Rage always on? I'm not going to answer that since I haven't done the maths, but it's worth considering. I'm less concerned about balancing with casters so much as balancing among martials.
Specifically about that, rage obligates the Barbarian to engage offensively, otherwise he loses it for an entire long rest.
That would give barbarians freedom to disingage for a round and rage again on the next one, without fearing to "waste" a rage since he gets everything back on the next combat.
To me the issue with the OP is it removes a lot of the resource management aspect. Part of the fun of playing a martial (for me) is deciding when to use my abilities. If I know I’ll always have them ready, it removes that tactical choice, and makes every fight kind of too same-y. You’d almost have to open every fight with your abilities, instead of weighing whether or not to use something, now or do you save it for a later encounter, knowing that later encounter may not come.
Better balance/better design does not necessarily mean more fun and some people have a lot of fun with unbalanced games.
Now that I have said my old man speech. Balance in everything IMHO tends to loose the differences in the classes and I felt 4e had this issue in abundance. I do know some people who really bought into the power descriptions until they soured on the idea. But again there are lots of people out there and they do not all enjoy the same ways to RPG.
Your question has been asked a few times that I have seen so you might want to do a search for some past threads for information.
Do you think that it would make martials less unique?
I believe it would make quite the opposite, once it enhances the abilities that make these classes so unique.
I see your point that balance does not necessarily equal fun, but new ideas might make the game even more fun.
I dunno. The proposal seems decent but as Linklite said, encounters would need to be more clearly defined. Also, I think you might have to change some of the amount of uses on somethings if you're making them per a combat, as opposed to per a day. Because being able to use some abilities more than once during the same combat might be game breaking.
Better balance/better design does not necessarily mean more fun and some people have a lot of fun with unbalanced games.
Now that I have said my old man speech. Balance in everything IMHO tends to loose the differences in the classes and I felt 4e had this issue in abundance. I do know some people who really bought into the power descriptions until they soured on the idea. But again there are lots of people out there and they do not all enjoy the same ways to RPG.
Your question has been asked a few times that I have seen so you might want to do a search for some past threads for information.
Do you think that it would make martials less unique?
I believe it would make quite the opposite, once it enhances the abilities that make these classes so unique.
I see your point that balance does not necessarily equal fun, but new ideas might make the game even more fun.
I was not a fan of 4th edition, due to the over balancing of the system, but there were people I know that liked the game for a time before switching to something else, it simply took them time to notice the issues and decide to change. In the past the Palladium system was notorious for unbalancing issues and a friend on mine often had a house rule book for every book that was 1/2 to 100% of the page count of the book. We did occasionally have fun with the system before moving on or back to another system, simply put it was fun for a time to see and experience the imbalance.
5e is very simple and due this this there is not a lot of things you can change without potentially impacting and breaking other areas.
An example of my 4e experience : At level X most classes do 1d6 damage but if it is a range ability it does d4 and if it has a feature it does d2+ other feature. Now that would work in a video game with special animation and other effects for the 40-100 hours most people would play the game but for a long term PnP RPG it became a problem. Also people I talked to about 4e would often say no this ability is different because the flavor text is different, they got sucked into the word hype and their imagination and did not look at the effect in terms of math. I often found if I asked a question such as "based on the abilities description it says you do X, Y and Z have you used that ability when that was not possible? Often the answer was yes, so in my view this just reinforced the illusions that the text brought on.
Note: I am all for different RPG games and or differences in core rules of a game so people can enjoy themselves (as long as it does not harm anyone unless the group agrees to that harm (ie hiring MMA and weapon specialist to be monsters and they physically fight out every combat)).
Fighters don't need another Second Wind. Martials are fine in combat. What they need is something - LITERALLY ANYTHING - that they can do outside of combat.
At high levels, spellcasters are consulting gods and creating portals and mass mind-controlling NPCs and conjuring up magical fortifications while the martials are just standing around waiting for the next combat. This is where the real gap is - these characters are missing the huge utility toolbox that spellcasting gives you. This is painfully apparent in high level campaigns as you spend a lot of time waiting for your friends to read through their spell lists to find the answer to whatever challenge you are presented with.
Martials need a similar resource. Followers. Skill powers. Weapon/armor modification. Something they can do outside of combat - that spellcasters can't - to help move the story along or prepare for the next challenge.
I was researching and trying new ways of buffung martials. A lot of people have good ideas, but they are kind of complex. I was trying to find a way to make martials stronger in one simple step.
Then I thought about this: Abilities that can be done once per short rest can now be done twice per combat. Abilities that require a long rest now can be done once per combat. When you would give one more use per long/short rest you gain 1 more use per combat.
For example, if a Fighter used second wind in a previous fight, and then your group find another enemy and iniciate a new combat, the Fighter can use second wind again.
And it makes more sense that a lot of abilities such as Rage or Manuvers can be done a limited amount of time by combat and not by day.
You don't get enraged only once per day, and you are not limited to using your fighitng techiniques once per day either. However, you may be limited by the chaotic heat of battle.
Before you think this is busted, just remember casters can deal 4d12 40 ft away while healing gaining AC and teleporting away, while martial dudes have limited range, no other utility, higher chance of dying only to deal 1d8+7.
What do you think?
Rage generally lasts the entire combat. There's rarely going to be times when you'll need to rage twice in the same combat (if it's a common occurrence your GM is being a jerk). There are some powers that martial characters don't get enough uses of (like the Arcane Archer's abilities) but making everything twice per combat means that suddenly a lot of them are effectively infinite because combat tends to only last 2-4 rounds.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
This idea is fairly similar to Fourth Edition’s encounter powers. Encounter powers were the bread and butter of 4e, something you could use each combat or out of combat encounter, then fire off again when in a new encounter. They were a critical part of 4e’s system which was systemically balanced (though application was variable) between marital and caster, giving both sides of the coin access to powerful abilities (other than hit things with sword multiple times) and fun effects.
Like with most things about 4e, the encounter power system was a pretty good one if one kept an open mind—which of course meant the D&D community rejected it as heretical. Problems raised with encounter recharges included difficulty in figuring out where an “encounter” ended (especially a non-combat encounter) and there being “too many options for martial users and it slowing down gameplay” (which always struck me as a bad argument).
Personally, I think this would be great to help martial classes get a little more oomph—but I also am one of few people who think 4e was a better designed system than 5e.
Better balance/better design does not necessarily mean more fun and some people have a lot of fun with unbalanced games.
Now that I have said my old man speech. Balance in everything IMHO tends to loose the differences in the classes and I felt 4e had this issue in abundance. I do know some people who really bought into the power descriptions until they soured on the idea. But again there are lots of people out there and they do not all enjoy the same ways to RPG.
Your question has been asked a few times that I have seen so you might want to do a search for some past threads for information.
It think it needs fine tuning at least.
Rage lasts ten turns which is longer than any combat I've had so far. Can the Barbarian be balanced while having Rage always on? I'm not going to answer that since I haven't done the maths, but it's worth considering. I'm less concerned about balancing with casters so much as balancing among martials.
Regardless, the discussions I've read and participated in have convinced me that combat isn't the problem. This is the first time that a serious suggestion has been put forward that would actually start balancing martials to a significant degree (and kudos to you, without taking away from casters, which is the usual solution), and from discussions, I've drawn the conclusion that the problem isn't so much that martials are bad, but that they (their players) get a bit envious of casters.
And I understand that. High level Wizards create new planes of reality, while Fighters swing their sword once a second. They're not weak or boring - martials are fairly consistently more popular than casters, with only one (or two, depending on source) caster(s) being more popular than any martial - but especially towards the end, casters get really awesome stuff, while martials just dial up their sword swinging to eleven. The problem isn't really combat or even number of uses of abilities per day, so much as martials need more interesting abilities. I think anything short of that won't solve the problem. That envy of casters supernatural powers isn't going to go away by giving them a few extra swings of the sword.
Now, there is a potentially good idea there though. There is an inherent problem between long rest-based builds, such as the Fighter and the Bard, and short rest-based builds like the Monk and the Warlock. The latter want plenty of short rests so their powers recharge, while the former want to not waste time, keep moving and only stop to use HDs. Having abilities autorecharge would increase party harmony. On the other hand, perhaps that conflict is desirable since it provides the party with a resource-allocation dilemma - do we press on and go faster? Or do we let our Warlock and Monk recharge ready for the next encounter?
If you do prefer the autorecharge route...there is a significant problem we'd need to overcome, and it's already been mentioned; the definition of an encounter.
At the moment, it really doesn't matter because all it means if two encounters are separate, are rerolls of Intiative, which isn't a big deal. Now, you're saying that it means the difference between a Monk having his Ki points back or not, which really does affect how the game is played (especially for DMs like me who do not track player resources and trust them to be honest). Let's say you have a fight, then just after the last guy is killed, reinforcements arrive. Is that a new encounter? It could be seen as either.
And that's inherently bad game design. The entire point of rules is that you can say "If X, then Y, if not X, then not Y". If X becomes unclear, we have problems. 5e swept that under the rug because the consequences, Y, were of little meaning. You have to roll Intiative (or not), no biggy. But now powers recharge...there'll be arguments. We need to have the definition of an encounter be a lot tighter if we're having abilities be dependent on them.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Hi! You brought up very good points.
Now that I think about it, I can picture party members also initiating pseudo combats among themselves so they can have infinite second wind.
I would say they recharge when you have to roll initiative in a combat against non-party creatures or things.
I agree with the jealousy of martial players, but on the other hand, I completely understand being jealous when you are objectively worse in almost every aspect.
Most people would expect that players among the parties all have their ups and downs and everyone is overall "equal" in usefulness; which is currently not the case.
I feel like once martials and casters are in an equal level that jealousy will fade away.
Specifically about that, rage obligates the Barbarian to engage offensively, otherwise he loses it for an entire long rest.
That would give barbarians freedom to disingage for a round and rage again on the next one, without fearing to "waste" a rage since he gets everything back on the next combat.
To me the issue with the OP is it removes a lot of the resource management aspect. Part of the fun of playing a martial (for me) is deciding when to use my abilities. If I know I’ll always have them ready, it removes that tactical choice, and makes every fight kind of too same-y. You’d almost have to open every fight with your abilities, instead of weighing whether or not to use something, now or do you save it for a later encounter, knowing that later encounter may not come.
Do you think that it would make martials less unique?
I believe it would make quite the opposite, once it enhances the abilities that make these classes so unique.
I see your point that balance does not necessarily equal fun, but new ideas might make the game even more fun.
I dunno. The proposal seems decent but as Linklite said, encounters would need to be more clearly defined. Also, I think you might have to change some of the amount of uses on somethings if you're making them per a combat, as opposed to per a day. Because being able to use some abilities more than once during the same combat might be game breaking.
BoringBard's long and tedious posts somehow manage to enrapture audiences. How? Because he used Charm Person, the #1 bard spell!
He/him pronouns. Call me Bard. PROUD NERD!
Ever wanted to talk about your parties' worst mistakes? Do so HERE. What's your favorite class, why? Share & explain
HERE.I was not a fan of 4th edition, due to the over balancing of the system, but there were people I know that liked the game for a time before switching to something else, it simply took them time to notice the issues and decide to change. In the past the Palladium system was notorious for unbalancing issues and a friend on mine often had a house rule book for every book that was 1/2 to 100% of the page count of the book. We did occasionally have fun with the system before moving on or back to another system, simply put it was fun for a time to see and experience the imbalance.
5e is very simple and due this this there is not a lot of things you can change without potentially impacting and breaking other areas.
An example of my 4e experience : At level X most classes do 1d6 damage but if it is a range ability it does d4 and if it has a feature it does d2+ other feature. Now that would work in a video game with special animation and other effects for the 40-100 hours most people would play the game but for a long term PnP RPG it became a problem. Also people I talked to about 4e would often say no this ability is different because the flavor text is different, they got sucked into the word hype and their imagination and did not look at the effect in terms of math. I often found if I asked a question such as "based on the abilities description it says you do X, Y and Z have you used that ability when that was not possible? Often the answer was yes, so in my view this just reinforced the illusions that the text brought on.
Note: I am all for different RPG games and or differences in core rules of a game so people can enjoy themselves (as long as it does not harm anyone unless the group agrees to that harm (ie hiring MMA and weapon specialist to be monsters and they physically fight out every combat)).
Fighters don't need another Second Wind. Martials are fine in combat. What they need is something - LITERALLY ANYTHING - that they can do outside of combat.
At high levels, spellcasters are consulting gods and creating portals and mass mind-controlling NPCs and conjuring up magical fortifications while the martials are just standing around waiting for the next combat. This is where the real gap is - these characters are missing the huge utility toolbox that spellcasting gives you. This is painfully apparent in high level campaigns as you spend a lot of time waiting for your friends to read through their spell lists to find the answer to whatever challenge you are presented with.
Martials need a similar resource. Followers. Skill powers. Weapon/armor modification. Something they can do outside of combat - that spellcasters can't - to help move the story along or prepare for the next challenge.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm