Elsidar wrote:GMSarli wrote:
- Core talents are generally usable once per round, and they are the foundation of a particular talent tree. (I'm considering making a prerequisite for other talents on a tree is that you have at least one core talent -- not yet set on that.)
- Minor talents are usually defensive, movement, aiding, or noncombat actions, usually about once per encounter.
- Major talents are usually offensive or aiding actions, usually once per encounter or once per day.
- Different recharge times allow for a balancing factor for talents that are slightly more powerful than others. Compared to a basic attack as a power-level benchmark, a talent usable 1/round is about 20% stronger, 1/encounter is about 50% stronger, and 1/day is about 100% stronger. (This obviously becomes very subjective when you're talking about something that doesn't directly affect combat statistics, but even in those cases you can compare talents of the same type to each other to evaluate their relative value.)
Aw, man... I was hoping not to see "1/day" ever again, especially on an ability that I'd have to spend character building resources on. I hate, hate, hate daily abilities; gaining them just makes a character stronger for one fight each day, and then every fight before and after he's used it, it might as well have been as if he never leveled in the first place, in terms of "neat things I can do".
I wholeheartedly agree. Per-day abilities have been the biggest weak point in the D&D franchise since its inception. The way they're done in 4E makes them a little easier to swallow -- at certain levels, you gain a slot for which you can pick abilities that are specifically marked as "daily." According to the rules you can't pick anything else for these slots, so you might as well pick a daily, and take comfort in the fact that you'll be given access to more frequently usable abilities later on.
However, daily abilities become much less attractive if you have other options with which to fill your character slots. I'll use my SWSE group as an example. Not a single player in my group has taken a talent for their character that was limited to once per day. In fact, most of them avoid talents that are limited to once per encounter. Given the relative freedom to choose one's abilities, my players lean towards talents that are either "always on" or usable at will. I believe most other players will show the same tendency when building their characters. If a per-round ability is available, then the per-encounter or per-day abilities will be passed over more often than not.
Elsidar wrote:If daily abilities must be included, I would like to see each talent that grants a 1/day "neat thing" to also grant a constant benefit for simply being able to do this Major "neat thing" at all. I'm thinking along the lines of the Reserve Feats from D&D 3.5's Complete Mage, if you want to understand what I mean a little better.
This is the only way I can see daily abilities working in a talent-based game. I think there was one talent in SWSE that followed this model, and it's a shame that it wasn't followed more often. To describe them for those who haven't read Complete Mage, a "Reserve Feat" would allow a spellcaster to use a weaker "at-will" version of a daily spell that they have prepared but haven't cast yet. So if a wizard has Fireball prepared, he can use a Reserve Feat to cast a weaker Fire-based magic attack every round as long as he has at least one un-cast Fireball in his spell list.
Translating this idea into a talent system, the idea would work something like this: A wizard chooses a talent called "Inferno," which allows him to make a magical fire attack against a single enemy within 6 squares for some small amount of damage, once per round. Additionally, once per day he can make a larger attack that hits all enemies within a 3-square radius of the spell's impact point, and deal quite a bit more damage to each one.
Each talent a character earns should have some component that can be used right away, without the player feeling like he or she has wasted it. A player should not have to hold back my awesome new talent, throwing older/weaker attacks at enemies just in case there's a bigger enemy in the next room. Either daily talents should include a smaller component that can be used more often, or the entire concept of "per-day" abilities should be left on the cutting room floor.
Vanguard has more cross-genre applicability, though, I think.
