Short post today: Just links!
Reinhart has a post on the Five Minute Workday at Chaos Engineering. Take a look:
http://chaosengineering.tumblr.com/post/52410699666/the-five-minute-workday
Mike Mearls posted about it, too, on Wizards.com
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4ll/20120716
Reinhart, as usual, has the better analysis. :-)
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Not hard for Reinhart to have the better analysis considering the WotC guy said pretty much nothing :)
ReplyDeleteThe one thing I think Reinhart missed in suggesting a focus on shorter resource cycles is the nova turn, which I see as a tactical equivalent to a "bang" in a plot/story... it's dramatic and fun for the players, a well-timed one can flip the script of an encounter, and the GM can even get in on the fun trying to set up encounters that encourage that dramatic action and the tension that often leads up to it. But for a PC to go nova they need powerful yet limited abilities. I've generally viewed the Essentials classes with no dailies as powerful but not "fun" and I think I just figured out why.
So I come back to stuff like the point system I suggested in your last 5MWD post... nova turns and the accompanying drama remain available, the 5MWD is mitigated, and the pre-nova tension is built directly into the system ("This encounter is hard but we just need to hold out a few more rounds to turn the tables."), instead of being something that just kinda happens sometimes ("This encounter isn't going well, but I have a cool daily for this occasion.").
As I recall your one objection was that it didn't feel like D&D, to which I say who cares? If we're fixing something that's broken in D&D, of course it's gonna feel different.