Hoarders
You guys ever play Final Fantasy? Have you ever checked inside your inventory only to find that you can’t hold another phoenix down because you’re already holding too many phoneix downs? I must have finished VII with thirty of the friggin’ things, and I know there were battles along the way where I could have used them. In retrospect, I probably should have.
If your game of choice uses some kind of limited resource, whether it’s fate points or channeled virtues or Vancian magic, I say to use that mess ASAP. Drink that potion of water breathing and explore the mysterious pool. Call in your favor from the thieves guild and sneak into the catacombs. Go ahead and blow your daily power on the first encounter if the goblins are lined up like bowling pins.
Weighing the risks and rewards of a resource management game can be a lot of fun, and is certainly part of the challenge of an RPG. Nothing sucks harder than staring at your unspent spells when you’re back in the inn though, especially when you limped your way through a tough fight on suboptimal actions because, “I might need my disintegrate against the next guy.” That’s why I’ve been making an effort to burn my scrolls and my daily uses of luck lately. The five minute adventuring day sucks, but you don’t get bonus points for ending the campaign with the most stuff, and big plays tend to be more memorable than a well-organized loot bag.
Do any of you guys struggle against this sort of thing? How do you balanced the desire to conserve resources with the need to actually play the game? Conversely, have you ever seen limited resources wasted foolishly? Let’s hear about your epic battles against the inventory screen down in the comments!
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Learning the right balance between wasting resources where they weren’t needed and not using them enough was the biggest challenge for my bard, Elliot the unlucky, from the tiamat campaign, besides of course his absolutely horrid luck which meant that when he did cast spells, they often did little or nothing anyway except for the ever dependable healing word. Half way through though i got pretty good at it, and I feel like I only messed up with resource management once or twice in the year and a half since which is nice. He also really helped teach me how to do my turns fast. Currently however, I am also playing with a cleric who only occasionally casts even 1 spell a combat, primarily just using cantrips. He is willing to cast heals out of combat, but for that he might be a bit too free, using expensive spell slots on cure wounds when character abilities or more efficient out of combat healing would work better.
I get the sense that you’re thinking of some specific plays. May I inquire as the to nature of these miscalculations?
Not so much specific plays, as I just remember that I did either overuse or underuse resources heavily a few times since. Admittedly I don’t really have any funny stories for this:).
While Spheres of Power does have a resource pool (spell points), most spheres within the system have options that cost 0 spell points; and while I generally still conserve my spell points by only spending 1/4th of the spell points each encounter, I don’t feel nearly as bad as I do whenever I spend more than the allotted spell points for the encounter. This is because I know that even if I run out, I can still contribute (unlike the vancian spellcaster who is seen fleeing the scene if they have nothing more than cantrips/orisons).
Ofcourse, the general solution for vancian spellcasters is the 5-min adventuring day, where the vancian spellcaster who has lost half their spell slots refuses to continue on the adventure until he/she has had enough time to recover their spells.
I like the Vancian spell system extended with at will cantrip-level powers – that way even after depleting their spell slots, they still have a fallback power to stick to.
From this bit I’m inferring that you’ve got a fairly predictable adventuring day. Do you ever find yourself short on points when the day happens to go long?
Yes, but a spherecaster can do more with 0 spell points than a vancian spellcaster can with 0 spell slots. For example:
– Spherecaster possessing the Destruction sphere can with 0 spell points still spend a standard action to use a destructive blast dealing 1d6 damage per 2 caster levels, minimum 1d6 (a spherecaster at CL 20 does 10d6 with their base destructive blast w/ 0 spell points).
– Vancian spellcaster with zero spell slots can only deal 1d3 damage with their cantrips regardless of what caster level they are (a level 20 wizard still does 1d3 cold damage with ray of frost).
It’s a pretty neat system. Spheres’ at-will powers are rarely bad to have, and really, a scaling touch attack never goes out of style. Plus, the system is so big on player-made flavor that it’s easy to work the power into most character ideas. XD There are many reasons I’m a fan of it.
On a personal level, I feel like every character should have an all-day way of contributing in combat. Strong cantrips is the only thing that’s made playing a Warlock in 5E tolerable for me – I love the character, but they have so few spell slots (and other expendable resources) that if I do practically anything, they’re spent. It’s even worse when a spell fails – many Warlocks get about 2-3 ‘big’ things outside Eldritch Blast, their favorite cantrip, and if it fizzles then you’re basically just an archer dealing Force damage. That’s not bad, per se, but it’s often less damage than actual damage-focused characters deal, and it’s very easy to feel like you can do one thing and then you suck. My group often doesn’t have the luxury of resting between encounters, so I might end up going several fights using none of my expendable resources in the hope that things won’t fizzle when they really count. It’s pretty hit or miss. XD; Overall, I much prefer Spheres’ approach, where you can build a sustainable, all-day character and still burn some resources for cool stuff without feeling like you’re kinda sucky when you run out.
Knowing whether your DM thinks zero short rests or three short rests per day is normal is important before writing “warlock” on your sheet.
Two games ago my wizard died with only two spell slots used out of many. Not even the higher level ones.
Although in his defense, the fight happened inside an antimagic field that rendered his Headband of Intellect useless, and without that his intelligence was quite… low, so he resorted to physical violence. Still, it felt such a let down.
I guess that the thing about Intelligence. If you don’t have any, you don’t know when to run away.
Why was your Wizard’s Int so low? Was he a gimmick character or something?
I feel like I’ve gotten on a pretty good wavelength for inferring how many encounters my GM is planning and spending spell slots (They really need to ditch that name and call them spell charges since they’ve ditched Vecnan (Vecna was a reference to Vance, hence the anagram) casting) accordingly. I’ve ended my last two adventuring days with 1 or two slots left, which I used for things at night like re-summoning my steed or Zone of Truth trust exercises.
How does your GM telegraph that information?
Don’t really know, I’ve just been rolling really well on real-life insight.
If that’s an Aboleth, they have bigger long-term problems than just whether they’re healed unless someone makes a nature roll to know aboot the bad stuff that comes with an Aboleth. The disease has no
Upon being hit with a tentacle: If the target is a creature, it must succeed on a DC 14 Constitution saving throw or become diseased. The disease has no effect for 1 minute, and can be removed by any magic that cures disease. After 1 minute, the diseased creature’s skin becomes translucent and slimy, the creature can’t regain hit points unless it is underwater, and thedisease can be removed only by heal or another disease-curing
spell of 6th level or higher. When the creature is outside a body of water, it takes 6 (1d12) acid damage every 10 minutes unless moisture is applied to the skin before 10 minutes have passed.”
Barb easily makes the save, but Wild Magic Sorcerer might have a problem. Does Divine Soul Sorcerer have the Heal Spell known? It always strikes me as odd that the anti-party has two sorcerers.
The script said “big fuck-off plant monster.” Beyond that your guess is as good as mine.
Ah, with the eyes and finned tentacles I thought Aboleth.
While I’m on the subject of Wild Magic Sorcerer, can we talk aboot his family’s tendency for xenophilia? One of his grandparents schtupped not-Lolth, then his human parent schtupped an Elf/Demon.
Thank Piers Anthony: http://xanth.wikia.com/wiki/Love_spring
Though that does bring up the whole “He’s super-white” thing, which is odd, because if his granny is not-Lolth, then his half-fiendish grandad is presumably a Drow.
I look forward to your fan fiction.
My fan fiction is for my eyes alone!
Oh boy, I certainly do struggle with that issue yup.
In video games and roleplaying games both (though more videogames). I don’t think I’ve ever used a Megalixer or equivalent item in a games.
I’m a bit less bad about it in roleplaying games, but still I will often wince at the idea of using up the last of my highest level spells or such since you never know what’s around the corner or if it was over-kill on this fight and you’d need it on the next.
Such a frustration. I’m glad more modern games tend to give you at least some infinite resources like Cantrips or the like.
Now that I think of it, I blame Pokemon. I haven’t thought about the master ball in years, but it messed me up something fierce. I can’t remember what I used mine on, but it wasn’t named Mewtwo whatever it was. I spent hours save scumming to bag that psychic bastard with ultra balls. I’ve been terrified of making that mistake again for years.
I can’t remember which game it was, but one Pokemon game I was holding onto my Masterball so hard that I wound up using every single ball I had other than it to catch a Legendary. So I wound up with a Legendary in a Net Ball.
lol. It worked though! That’s what really matters I guess.
I just use the Master Ball on whatever roaming legendary is running around that region. No more chasing down sleeping-at-1-HP Raikou and hucking Quick Balls at it before it flees for me!
It’s a bit less effective when there’s more than one roaming legendary, but hey, I’m acclimated to at least some tedium in my Pokeymans.
I did “reserve” spells for emergency use, until I had a friend point out the whole “At the end of the day, any unspent spell is a wasted spell” issue.
Now the way I see it is, daily stuff gets used first.
My Gunslinger Kobold has the “Called” trait which is a 1/day attack reroll on a Nat1.
On a musket, that’s one of the best traits you can get, since a 1 is not only an auto-miss, it’s also a misfire (jammed guns are bad yo). So it’s a pretty easy calculation to make: Is he gonna die regardless of my shot hitting him before he can do anything bad?
Hero Points though… those are another thing all together. I used to spend those ONLY in a not-to-die fashion, but then a friend used one in response to a big bad teleporting away. He hit him with a thrown dagger, interrupting his spell. It was an amazing moment. Now I weigh their cost more evenly across all possible action choices. After all, nobody said your character had to live, to win at DnD…
Last time my group used hero points, it was the last fight of our mythic campaign. Our rogue had done quite a few between-sessions write-ups, all culminating in the acquisition of a bizarre form of treasure. She’d come away from her solo planar adventures with a pilfered luck spirit. It took the form of a duck. It was a luck duck, and it was full of hero points.
Cue the last boss, an undead swarm with all kinds of damage immunities.
“How the crap are we supposed to beat this thing?”
*quack*
We squeezed that duck until we could squeeze no more. #worth
You see, I see it a differently, any unused spell at the end of the day isn’t a wasted spell, but rather an opportunity to use to craft a potion that the rest of the party may use.
Spells left over at the end of the day are not wasted if you take „Scribe Scroll“
Kind of I guess? I always thought of scribe scroll as a downtime activity rather than an at-the-end-of-the-adventuring-day sort of thing.
For me it’s actually a bigger issue in CRPGs than TRPGs. Which is a bit wierd, since you’d expect it to be the other way around. I tend to slowly acumulate a nice, big pile of the aforementioned Fate Points and then spend it all in a burst, until it falls back to the “emergency-only” size. On the other hand, the first time I’ve beaten Pillars of Eternity, I’ve used a scroll (with a main character that’ve put all their skill points in the scroll-using skill, mind you) exactly once. To finish off the final boss. And only because I was standing on the very edge of TPK, with everyone but the Watcher out of Endurance (unconcious), the tank also out of Health (unconcious and 1hp away from permadeath. Poor Eder), and the Watcher herself about to fall and unable to use any of her powers. It was actually pretty epic, but I still think I have a problem.
Responding to this comment was made more difficult by my stupid brain’s insistence n translating “CRPGs” as “collectible card games.” I was sitting here like, “I guess he plays a lot of control strats?” #AmDumb
Actually though, it sounds weirdly applicable to your situation. You’ve got all your scrolls in nice protective sleeves, and don’t want to play with them for fear of damaging their value on the secondary scroll market.
*Sorry if this is a double post, It doesn’t look like the first one got through
For some reason, this ends up being a bigger issue for me in CRPGs than TRPGs. Which is odd, since you’d expect it to be the other way around. I usually slowly accumulate a nice, big pile of the aforementioned Fate Points and then spend them all in a burst, till I it goes back to the „emergency-only” size. On the other hand, the first time a finished Pillars of Eternity, I’ve used a scroll exactly once. To finish off the final boss. While standing on the very edge of TPK, with everyone but the Watcher out of Endurance (unconcious), and the tank also out of Health (1hp away from permadeath. Poor Eder). Have I mentioned that said Watcher have put almost every of her skill point into the scroll-using skill? All in all, it ended up being pretty epic, but I still think I have a problem.
Knew it! Now, that I’ve sent this I can see the first post, just my luck.
The internet’s ways are mysterious and dumb.
I am gonna say it: I HATE VANCIAN MAGIC, SO, SO, SO MUCH. I am not sorry. That say when, not if, when i play some caster with, ugh, vancian and sassy magic, the sassy magic is the vancian one, i don’t care about resource management. In fact that is a feature of my hate about the works of magical theory of Jack, i hate this system so much i usually cast my full range of spells in the first encounter, so i no longer need to keep track of that stuff. Yeah i know and my party companions know very much how reckless is that approach. I don’t know why but i really hate the system, the warlock class, best thing of D&D 3.5, and one of my favorites of all the editions. Why? Because he doesn’t use that system, oddly enough i very much don’t hate the magic system when i play a shadowcaster. Yes i hate vancian magic and love the shadowcasters of Tome of Magic. Sorry about the whole rant, but Gygax works awakens passions.
So wait, I’m still unclear on something. What are your feelings on Vancian magic?
Cast empowered maximized fireball, gets natural twenties in all dice
I let the power of hate flowing through me.
Now i realice. Where is paladin? Is he in the illuso-plex while the rest of his party fights a lettuce? The evil party attacked him after the movie and let him cuffed and underwear with halos in front of a church whit a sing that reads: ” i am a holy-goody-two-shoes”, while they take pictures in their scryphones™?
No fair making me giggle at the office. Now my boss knows I’m slacking.
I think Yahtzee said it best: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwvR-B2xKrs
Anyway, yes I’ve experienced that issue in videogames, but it can usually be alleviated by just grinding a little more. In tabletops I usually haven’t had a problem, especially with spells. I find that I can pretty easily get into the use-it-or-loose-it mindset. I can’t speak for everyone, but for me at least that’s partly because there are real people relying on you and you can’t save-scum your way to victory, and partly because you’re kind-of competing against other people to be star of the show (at least it feels that way a little).
But that brings me to the story I wanted to tell today. Your comic from a few weeks about about finding groups ( https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/recruiting ), finally motivated me to get off my ass, go out (or go on Reddit anyway), and actually inquire about getting back into gaming after a long, LONG absence. I found a group that had room for someone and was willing to take on a newbie to 5th edition, and so far it’s going great! I’m playing a Druid, a class I don’t have a lot of experience with, and I’ve built a few neat roleplaying quirks for him. The GM was very welcoming about using some UA material and I am really loving it so far.
But boy-oh-boy does this group burn through resources. Before I joined the party was only 3 and they had a series of support NPCs, who I was informed tended to blow through their spellslots at a prodigious rate. And I can see why- the group’s unofficial name might as well be “Chaos Inc.” So far in just 2 sessions we’ve fought some kind of deathknight-in-it’s-lair, giant scorpions, more undead, pissed off a fairy queen, and I’m only now finding out that before I joined the group they managed to get on the radar of an insane noble AND a continent-conquering lich.
Even at only 1 or 2 encounters-per-day, I just don’t have enough spell-slots. Part of that is because a lot of the Druid’s spells are concentration-based, and if I need to get a heal off I sometimes have to drop a spell that could theoretically run for several more rounds. And part of it is because I’m currently the party’s back-up tank. This will be a fun challenge to see how long I can go without someone, including myself, biting it.
😛
As you might expect of druids, they’re big into conservation. Just inform your enemies that you now identify as a giant ape and that your pronouns are henceforth “king” and “kong.” Suddenly your spell slots go a little bit further.
Grats on finding a group though! Thinking about this hobby is half the fun, but there’s nothing quite like getting in there and putting all that theorizing to practical use.
That’s the biggest beef I have with 5th edition, Concentration. The greatest allure of casting is making combos out of your spells to multiply the effect. 5th edition sort of stated “You can give out one buff or debuff, and then you’re a blaster wizard” which is the least exciting sort of wizard.
It puts a premium on non-concentration effects. That becomes part of the calculus when it comes time to choose non-concentration buffs like mirror image over blur, for example. It also make the game a load easier to run when you don’t have to track a million and one stacking bonuses.
Now that I think of it, we sort-of-kind-of did this conversation back here:
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/advantage
My thought hasn’t changed much since then. It’s a balancing act between depth and elegance, and I think that mess comes down to taste.
Im basicly the poster boy for that trope. I get incredibly OCD about the whole “but i might need it later” and thats why nowadays i only play characters who have some form of unlimited/stable source of power. And when i say that i mean beyond spell, im talking potions, scrolls, ammo. Even in scifi campaigns, unless its clear that ammo will be abundant, i tend to flock to self-sufficient energy weapons.
Im a lost cause 😛
You mean that, when you see a scroll or a potion in a treasure pile, it gives you anxiety rather than excitement over that new loot smell? Bro… That is a terrible and debilitating condition! Mad sympathy yo.
Hah, this is both me kinda. In Tableto RPGs, i like to go big and Awesome, which means bringing out the Big Guns early, and saving up maybe 1 use for an especially though Opponent. But since i almost always play Fighters or Fightery Characters of some sort, i don’t really have the Issue much, because even without those “Dailys” i can still kick Ass and Take names.
In Video Games well,… I am a completionist and a Horder, who always goes for the savest rout. Why yes i need a Quiver with 300 Arrows! Hell would go on an Adventure without!? Yes i keep that Infinity +1 Potion i will need it later!
In the End, i always Imagin my PC becomes a Shopkeeper. Why? Because he has an Inventory the Size of a Trade Caravan.
So you’re the reason this trope happens!
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/epic-level-npcs
Speaking of completionism, Laurel is straight up nuts in video games. She played all the way to the door of the last boss in Okami, and friggin’ stopped because she couldn’t get past the last blockhead:
http://okami.wikia.com/wiki/Blockhead
It’s five years later, and the game still remains in her “unbeaten” queue.
Hah! Yes i know that kinda feeling, usually I just hack at them Game until i win just by tying so much, but i also had one. Ratchet and Clank Size Matters. I got all the until the very last Stage of a multiple Cutscenes Bossfight. After a felt 100 Trys i gave up. Why? Because to win, I would either A. get the Pattern of the Attacks down perfectly. Or B. Grind a lot for (ingame) Cash so i can finally outlast the Boss. Oh and i was all out of Cash by the Time.
Since i knew the way to beat him, but was too tired of Grinding, i just said Screw it! I’ll watch the final Cutscene on youtube.
That was the only Game that made me give up though. So yes i can relate. I Guess to Laurel that Boss is: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ThatOneBoss
Leaving out things that get lost by the wayside (CLW potions when you’re level 12), playing certain classes has helped me recover from my Hoard the Consumables ways. There was one day with my Inquisitor where I had 3 daily uses of Judgment, and I refused to use one on mooks. But doors started opening and more mooks showed up, and then not mooks. About 2/3rds of the fight through, I finally realized ‘This isn’t going to be just 1 or 2 more rounds’ and used it, but by then it’s 2/3rds wasted (for those who haven’t looked over Pathfinder Inquisitors, Judgment gives passive bonuses that can be changed, for the duration of a combat, however short or long that may be). And that was the only fight that day.
From that, I realized that all I have to actually -save- is the last Judgment, or item in the stack. Judgment number 2 through 4, Potion of Invisibility number 2 through 5, and scroll number 2 through whatever, they can all be used freely unless there are actual plans to use them.
When you’ve got the last bullet in the metaphorical chamber though, do you still have trouble pulling the trigger? It’s your last potion of invisibility. How do you decide when it’s worth it to drink?
I know that Final Fantasy conundrum all too well. I use Phoenix Downs pretty liberally, because, let’s face it, they’re not that rare (and there’s nothing worse than a downed party member missing out on EXP at the end of the encounter).
But I always hold onto special stuff like Elixirs, Mega-potions, etc, so much in fact that my party members go down more often and I’m forced to use more Phoenix Downs!
I distinctly remember playing FFX-2 and unlocking the Alchemist dress sphere and being SO excited about the free Mega-potions and whatnot they could spam… but also annoyed that the pile of Mega-potions I’d been saving was pretty much close to worthless then.
I was all manner of proud of myself for actually using a spell scroll of dimension door last session. It was a perfect scenario: escaping with a prisoner after a solo mission. I still had to talk myself into making that decision. It’s just so hard to actually cross your emergency escape kit off the inventory!
I like spell casting in games like shadowrun where you risk taking damage but as long you can keep soaking it, you can keep casting it.
As for my video game item use…. It up to the game, but I do end up with tons of healing items from not using them or just having a lot of cash that i may as well max it out just in case.
What other magic systems use that damage/power exchange rate? I’m sure I’ve heard of some others, but the examples escape me at the moment.
GURPS has it as an option or two.
Typically I save my consumable items for boss fights. An example of this hiccuped recently when, after attaining level twenty, our party ventured into the BBEG vampire’s dungeon to slay her and save the world. Since all expendable items weren’t going to be of use after this battle (because the campaign was about to end), I pulled out the wand of cure serious wounds… which I had used when I go it at level TWO and then never used again. It had just been sitting in my backpack with a bunch of planar ally scrolls, waiting all 18 levels to finally see use once again.
With renew each day resources, like spells, I do go around slinging them with abandon. One funny example was when my group made the switch from 3.5 to 5e, and we decided to familiarise ourselves via a level 13 one-shot. I decided to play a wizard who didn’t like spending a huge amount of spells and would ration them quite carefully. Thing is, though… 5e wizards don’t have as many spell slots as a level 16 cleric. Towards the end of only our second encounter, feeling happy with how feel I was doing at conserving spells, I went to cast shield, then as I marked it off, I realised that I had just cast my very last spell. What I had thought of as ‘conservation’ from a 3.5 view turned out to be, from a 5e view, a reckless caster who seemed hellbent on getting rid of all his spells ASAP
Amazing how much the assumptions change between systems. The only way to really build that intuition for “this is a lot of damage” or “that monster is TPK dangerous” or “I’m being conservative with my spells” is to play a lot. I went through much the same thing myself when I began playing 5e.
And this is why you buy wands. Our Oread mage had the Craft Wands feat, and when he died, my Hunter was only other caster at the time so she got them. She now has 2 wands of Cure Lights Wounds (combined charges 40), as well as wands of Cure Serious, Stone Call, Wall of Stone, Melting Hands (metamagic feat), and 3 wands of Fireball (combined charges 143).
I always appreciated that the wands you find in APs are mostly depleted. Aside from the ubiquitous CLW wands, nothing ever seems to run out. Finding a wand with only 6 charges means you’ve actually got a chance of using it up, which means that you get to play the resource management game with ’em.
I doubt the fireballs are going to get used up. No one has them on their spell list so a UMD is always needed. It’s just easier to hit the thing with my scimitar or Stone Call.
As a DM (I believe I had this whinge earlier) I have suffered a lot from my players hoarding their stuff. I’ve been working with some success to change their ways, though.
As a player myself, I tend not to hold on to things, but in comouter games it is another story. I always hoard potions and scrolls and have piles of them unused byt the end of the game. Why? I really couldn’t say. It’s a ompulsion.
I absolutely struggle against resource hoarding. I also struggle with having enough spell slots to keep these idiots from killing themselves, especially at the gaming-store group (which has inexperienced players, including a couple of aggressive idiots). I remember one time that this was getting to me badly enough that I told my latest rescuee not to spend all his hit points in one place…which wasn’t polite, but they laughed, do it’s probably fine.