Death Knight: Should we make Runic Power less precious?

[Jihia]

It has been brought up that Death Knights are limited in the amount of Short Rest features they have, although this is a design choice that we've taken, it does bring up a good point from a discussion with Tyloris in #archives-discussion.

Should we look into changing Runic Power so that it functions as a Short Rest feature? this would give less incentive for a Death Knight to hoard their Runic Power dice and allow them to comfortably spend those dice without worrying that they might've needed them later. By making it a Short Rest feature the number of dice would need to be reduced drastically, to half or a quarter of the DK's level. A class column that states the number of dice would definitely be the smoothest approach to this.

[Silverblade1234]

I'm pretty skeptical of this. In terms of effects, this would reduce the DK's ability to "smite" by reducing the pool's size, which you manage throughout a day, which something I really like. For an example:

Long Rest: If you're a level 10 DK with 11 runic power dice, and you're in a big fight and land a crit, you can safely spend 3-4 dice and know that you've got more for this fight, or you can save them for later if you need to. Spending big obviously takes away from your day's pool, but if you decide it's worth it you can, and you're not totally exhausted for this fight, or other fight's within this short rest period. But you will run out sooner or later so you've got to be careful!

Short Rest: If you're a level 10 DK with 3-4 runic power dice, and you're in a big fight, you'll probably just spend the 1 runic power die at an opportune moment, because your pool is very limited. Even if it's a high impact moment, you probably want to hold more in reserve for later this fight, or the next fight. This changes the feeling from being smite-like to being more like focus or maneuvers, something you use more constantly but to less impact in each moment.

Could it work? Sure, it's not hard to write or balance. But it changes things in a way I like less. At the end of the day, some classes are more/less short rest oriented, and that's something that contributes to all the classes feeling different and interesting.

[OmNomDom308]

So this is me commenting after seeing an issue continuous issue arise in a game with a death knight, and seemed to be arising elsewhere: Runic Power dice and feeling the need to hoard/not spend them in large quantities at the fear of getting more punished than it first appeared. This mainly comes from the integration of the Runic Power dice into some pretty core mechanics of each subclass. The main issue arising is feeling like the ability to mass spend Runic Power dice without some other means of regaining RPD feels like its a trap, especially at early levels. I say this because different subclasses have mechanics that require you to spend RPD to get off. Such as the Blood DK Dark Command, or a Frost DK Obliterate. However, with the option to spend mass amounts of RPD at once , at early levels, you'd end up running out quickly. This isn't an issue if you have a vast quantity or if you do this at the end of the day, but it does if you do at the beginning, bc one decision to use a big amount of RPD, leads to none for the rest of the day. It could be comparable to a x/LR ability, its just connected to different elements of the core functions of the class and subclasses that it doesnt play well (at least, from my player the once or twice he did it). So it lead to him either never spending more than 1 dice at a time, or hoarding them all to a big encounter when he "needed" the big damage. (He compared it to a paladin, where the choice of spell slot or Smite was a choice you made per combat or instance, and how with that, it felt more binary and in his opinion, easier to gauge what would be the better choice).

Suggestions from players, and myself: 1) Either we could remove the tie to Runic Power in the subclasses at early levels, and make those abilities innate, and add in the RPD functionality later. This is kinda done with Frost, and this would just make RPD a damage dump/source early on, eliminating or at least mitigating the issue at early levels . 2) Modify the amount they currently have. Either giving more, or giving some on a SR passively. This method would assure they have some resources of it they can rely on in the long rest, and Im not sure adding a bit more will drastically affect the class' balance (altho some thing would probably need to be modified) 3) Remove or Modify how much you can spend at once with RPD, to remove the possibility till the DK has more dice. 4) This was the hot fix I run in my games to decent success: a feature called Rune Tap, where the DK can expend a spell slot as a Bonus Action to regain a number of RPD equal to the spell level. This allows the DK to get some RPD back with in class resources, while still allowing more flexibility. I originally worried this would incentivize my player to convert all his slots to RPD (a common concern with paladin players and smites) but hasnt played like that at all actually. He only uses it when hes low and need the RPD for whatever he needs, but still considers if the slot is more valuable. This is mostly due to the conversion of slots to RPD is actually not as efficient as say a paladins smite is (1d6 per slot level versus 2d8 at 1st, 1d8 more per slot level), and bc the DK already starts with some RPD. So they dont feel the need to convert unless they need to, mostly for the subclass features

[Tyloris]

Listing out how the current RPD ability works:

• You get a number of RPD (d6) equal to your DK level + 1.
• You can spend any number of them at once (no limit over a round, just at once) equal to your Charisma modifier. For a secondary stat, this is assumed to be 2-3.
• Combined, this means that you can get one "full" use of your RPD once per day per 2-3 levels, or you can use it sparingly across the day.
• EDIT: A combat is assumed to last 3-5 rounds, with about 3-4 combats per day, making an assumed 9-20 rounds of combat per day. So with sparing use, RPD can last a whole day starting in the mid-levels.

Now the abilities that use RPD:

• Death Coil, level 1. As an action, fire a bolt at a target w/i 120 feet, dealing 2RPD damage or 1RPD healing if they are undead. As you can see yourself, you can use this for self-healing as well as damage. Decent chance this will be a full-use ability due to having a healing component and requiring an action.
• Rune Strike, level 1. You can deal extra necrotic damage when you hit a target with a melee attack. Since this is guaranteed damage, this is almost always going to be a full use ability.
• Dark Command, Blood level 3. A rider effect on Death Coil/Rune Strike, causing the target to have disadv on attacks vs creatures other than you. Since it doesn't scale with RPD spent, a player wanting to get the longest duration on the disadv will only use RPD sparingly.
• Frost Strike, Frost level 3. Alters Rune Strike, increasing damage dice to d8s and changing damage type to cold. Still a full-use ability. Enhanced by the level 11 ability ignoring cold resistance/immunity.
• Icy Talons, Frost level 15. Grants an extra attack when you spend 2+ RPD on Frost Strike. Incentivizes full-use even more if the DK has a +2 Cha bonus, otherwise changes the max that a DK would spend on this to 2 RPD.
• Plaguebringer (Outbreak), Unholy level 3. Allows you to inflict a disease on targets affected by Death Coil/Rune Strike. Damage dealt by the disease scales with RPD spent, and no limit on the number of targets under the effects of a disease at once, requiring three successful saves to end the effect. So either a full use on one/two creatures, or a sparing use on a group of them. The Plaguelord (Outbreak) ability (level 15) makes this a full-use ability, as you can drop a disease on an add and the boss, letting the boss take max damage while the disease chews through the adds.
• Plaguelord (Raise Dead), Unholy level 15. Allows ghoul to deal extra damage equal to the amount you spend on a Death Coil/Rune Strike. Makes this a full-use ability.

Conclusions:

• Most players are going to want to use as many RPD at once as they can per turn. 6/7 of the abilities have better benefits for doing so.
• Only Dark Command is purely a "less is more" approach to RPD.
• Icy Talons is the closest to this approach after Dark Command, but only if the DK has a high Cha mod. If they only have a Cha of 15 or less, then this is a full-use ability.
• The Outbreak path is the best way of implementing a less-is-more approach, granting a different approach if the DK is fighting a group of weaker monsters. However you will have no way of knowing what kind of monsters you will face that day.