Comments on: Use Your Daily Powers Every Day

By: The Groundhog Day Effect in 4e D&D — Dungeon's Master

The Groundhog Day Effect in 4e D&D — Dungeon's Master — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 14:02:46 +0000

[...] effective against the creatures in the second? How often have you held onto a daily power and then regretted not using it? The same thing goes for actions [...]

By: D&D Encounters: Keep on the Borderlands (Week 13) — Dungeon's Master

D&D Encounters: Keep on the Borderlands (Week 13) — Dungeon's Master — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 14:03:46 +0000

[...] The guards ushered us right to the Lord’s audience chamber where we recounted everything that happened, beginning with the pending attack from two black dragons. Always play your best cards first. No point in holding them back and then not getting a chance to play them (the same thing pretty much goes for daily powers). [...]

By: Greatest Hits 2009: Avoiding Death — Dungeon's Master

Greatest Hits 2009: Avoiding Death — Dungeon's Master — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 14:01:48 +0000

[...] I had to add #11 to this list it would be to use your daily powers every day. But as a more general reminder, the only other piece of advice I’d offer is to just play [...]

By: Tiers Of Play: Epic — Dungeon's Master

Tiers Of Play: Epic — Dungeon's Master — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 14:15:20 +0000

[...] worse than saving a power for that ideal moment and then not getting that opportunity. Go ahead and use those daily powers. Rarely will you get the ideal opportunity to use your powers in the manner you’re expecting [...]

By: 10 Reminders for All D&D Players — Dungeon's Master

10 Reminders for All D&D Players — Dungeon's Master — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 14:32:17 +0000

[...] those daily powers! I’d rather use my daily and kill a single minion, or even miss the target all together than get [...]

By: Ameron

Ameron — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 18:13:03 +0000

@Wyatt
I think you’re on the right track. Daily powers that have an encounter-long effect are certainly more appealing to players.

When I’m the DM I strongly encourage my players to use their daily powers early and often. As mentioned above, you should never NEED a daily power to beat a monster.

@Swordgleam
The domino effect is common with my group too, but usually only in the last couple of fights. I’ve never seen it happen during the first encounter of the day. I think more daily powers should be reliable. That would minimize the disappointment if you miss.

By: Wyatt

Wyatt — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 01:28:41 +0000

I think Wizard's noticed that, because nowadays many Dailies have Effects, usually encounter-long ones, so even if the huge attack misses, you gain something from its use. This is part of the things I do with my own powers. .-= Wyatt´s last blog ..Wyatt Does Defense Math (Oh Lawd) =-.

By: Swordgleam

Swordgleam — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 00:51:34 +0000

My players tend to use their dailies as a group. If one player uses one, the rest follow suit. It’ll happen any time they think an encounter is especially tough – and given how I run my game (without bothering to do monster math) that’s about every other encounter.

I think part of it is how annoying it is to blow a daily for not much effect. Especially when one day of in-game time can last several sessions of gaming, when you use a daily, it’s gone for as long as a month of real-life time.

By: Wyatt

Wyatt — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 19:14:31 +0000

This is one of my goals in Eden, to try to make Daily powers more attractive. My idea is that at level 1, you should hold back your daily. At level 5, you should use a daily every 2 encounters. At level 9, you should use a daily every other encounter. I try to create feats and daily powers for this purpose.

For example, loads and loads and loads of Eden’s daily powers are Stances, even for the arcane/divine characters, because stances replace each other’s effects. This means that most of your dailies can give you an encounter-long boost, but you can’t stack them up. So using one each fight becomes more feasible and worthwhile.

I don’t like that 4e treats daily powers like they should be just a “huge attack” that you pop it and it’s gone…that just means you will hoard them so you can pop huge attacks one after the other when necessary and make mincemeat of the “boss battle”…they go unused all day.
.-= Wyatt´s last blog ..Wyatt Does Attack Math (This Can’t End Well) =-.

By: Ameron

Ameron — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 18:15:53 +0000

@Risan
It seems like good communication is the real key. The PCs need to talk to one another. Try to use a few daily powers during each combat and not horde them all until the end. It sounds like your group is better at this than mine is.

@DeadGod
Sound advice. One of the things we’ve found useful is for everyone to explain what their powers do (daily or otherwise) whenever they retrain or get new powers. If I can see a good opportunity for another PC to use his daily powers I can point it out, assuming I know what his power does. I like the idea of spreading the love with regards to daily powers. More PC need to take this approach (me included).

@Kensan_Oni
Using the daily powers early will definitely make the overall fight easier and should reduce the number of healing surges the party needs to use afterwards. I agree that very few encounters require a daily power in order to defeat it. Daily power may make it easier, but they aren’t usually necessary.