I like encounter powers and rituals but not at-wills and dailies

[Sadrik]

In 3e, the game was shifting to encounter based systems. Book of nine swords is the best example of this. In 4e they threw that out and split powers into at-will/encounter/daily/ritual powers. I don't like at-will or daily but really like encounter powers and rituals.

At-will powers suffer from being too at-will. The image of the wizard eventually knocking down a wall by magic missiling it endlessly escapes my believability standards. At least martial characters can dull their axe or run out of ammo with their at-will powers. Also, what exactly is the purpose of basic attacks when there are at-wills?

Daily powers are just a limiting factor that I thought was trying to be abolished in the 3e ruleset, yet here it is in 4e. I have seen various threads trying to basically get daily powers to be used more for various reasons (hated when they miss, want monster to die more quickly, power point system etc). So, there is some like for systems like this.

I would love it if we can come up with a way, in this thread, to migrate daily powers into the ritual system which may cause some changes to the ritual system and the easier task migrate at-will powers into the encounter powers system.

So here is the bottom line:
Let’s make some rules that make daily powers into rituals and make at-will powers encounter powers.

 

[Sadrik]

I have some ideas for accomplishing the two stated goals. First of all, making at-will powers into encounter powers is simple; give them their 21st level version as encounter powers and you’re done. A couple of them may have to be re-written but I think there would only be a couple.

Rituals would need an additional way to utilize them without spending money. And dailies could probably carry over directly over level for level. Any ideas?

 

[Sadrik]

Also, in regard to giving 21st level versions of at-wills as encounter powers players should also recieve more encounter powers to start off with. Possibly simply rolling the at-will powers "known" over into encounter powers "known" at first level. So a first level charcter selects 3 encounter powers instead of 1.

After doing a quick scan through the PHB it seems that twin strike needs revising and perhaps the warlords furious smash needs some buffing. Other than that it seems they all boost to encounter powers very well.

Note that the Class Features that are at-will would still be at-will, marking and cantrips etc.

 

[amnuxoll]

This is an intriguing idea and I think it has merit. But I don't know if I agree with your reasoning for doing it.

I've run into the situation you describe where the endless application of an at-will brings down stone walls. This is where the DM should step in and make a ruling that it takes a very long time to do this and leaves the wizard severely fatigued. Any stone wall can be brought down in time but it should take quite a while.

Also at-wills avoid the <=3.5e situation where the 1st level wizard runs out of spells and has to resort to a crossbow. On top of that you want to avoid having to track the number of uses of a power because that's inconvenient and annoying.

What I don't like about them is that they are boring in long combats. So, I'm not opposed to eliminating them if a replacement can be found that preserved the things I do like. Turning at-wlls into encounter powers doesn't appeal to me because it just means that it's even more boring.

One solution is to simply to dream up about ten different encounter powers for each class that are of about the same power level as an at-will power. Then replace the at-will powers with these. Most combats don't last longer than 10 rounds.

 

[amnuxoll]

I'm also not keen on removing dailies outright. I like the idea of having a few powers that are for "special occasions." But it sure stinks when you realize that you used your daily in the wrong combat or saved it when you should have spent it.

One thing you could do is turn dailies into encounter powers that have a cost. So, the power would have its effect on the enemy but it would also do something pretty bad to you like damage you or leave you dazed. The danger of this approach is preserving balance but I don't think that's insurmountable.

If you really want to stick with rituals then I'm inclined to make all daily powers into rituals with a 24 hour duration. This requires some severe rewriting though with a lot more stances and powers that are similar to "weapon of the gods." There are definitely balance issues here too.

 

[Alex319]

At-will powers suffer from being too at-will. The image of the wizard eventually knocking down a wall by magic missiling it endlessly escapes my believability standards. At least martial characters can dull their axe or run out of ammo with their at-will powers. Also, what exactly is the purpose of basic attacks when there are at-wills?

AFAIK, there are no rules regarding weapon deterioration, so at least according to RAW, there's no way martial characters can "dull their axe." Of course, you're free to houserule otherwise if you want, but then you're also free to houserule the same way with magic missile (after using it often enough he runs out of magic energy, or whatever) so I'm not sure what your point is.

 

[Burrito Al Pastor]

Theoretically, you could get away with no dailies for players, since you can't assume players would have access to them or be willing to use them for any given encounter. It's problematic, though, because dailies are one of the primary incentives for PCs to ever rest for more than five minutes at a time.

But at-wills? You can't take them away without dramatically breaking the balance of something like half the class mechanics in the game.

No, seriously. Paladins can no longer be defenders, because their ability to mark enemies is an at-will power. The damage of rangers and warlocks will drop off significantly, because their Hunter's Quarry and Warlock's Curse at-wills are a significant source of their damage (and are also prerequisites for an numbrer of encounter powers and paragon classes.)

Oh, and wizards, warlocks, and laser clerics will be functionally incapable of contributing to combat for more than a few rounds.

The mechanics of the game are based on the assumption that at-will class powers are as inherent as passive class abilities. If you tinker with that, things break fast.


As far as the credibility of at-wills, I don't see a big issue. If you have a problem with a wizard casting more than a few magic missiles, that's a problem based on assumptions from different game mechanics, and shouldn't have any real bearing on how credible the in-game system of magic in 4e is. There's a lot of systems and settings where there are no limitations whatsoever on how often a wizard can cast any particular spell. Sorcerers of Tzeentch in Warhammer 40,000, for example, are completely immune to spell failure effects; that's simply an inherent part of how a Sorcerer of Tzeentch casts spells.

(Also, a battleaxe isn't going to get dull unless you're, like, trying to cut concrete with it. And one of the big historical selling points of magical weapons has always been that they don't need maintenance; a +1 battleaxe should be perfectly sharp, always.)

As far as basic attacks not being useful, well, yes. That's because they're basic. If you're a melee class, there's no particular reason why you'd ever just be making a basic melee attack, and there's no reason why a warlock or a ranger would ever make a basic ranged attack. That's not why they're in the game.

A warlock makes a basic melee attack if, god forbid, he's in melee. A fighter makes a ranged basic attack if, god forbid, he's using a bow and not a sword.

If a character is trained in the art of kicking ass, why should he ever refrain from doing so?

 

[Smeelbo]

Book of Nine Swords: Biggest Scam Ever

Book of nine swords is the best example of this.

Book of Nine Swords was one the worst scams Hasbro ever foisted on D&D Players. Essentially, Hasbro couldn't completely disguise the development of 4E, yet they still had more than a year of 3.5 sales they could not afford to torpedo.

They could not admit to working on 4E, but all this material existed. Although the material was not intended for that purpose, The Book of Nine Swords was published as a 3.5 supplement, even though it was really partially developed 4E materials. That way Hasbro could continue denying that they were developing 4E, while at the same time accounting for the existance of the materials, and generate some revenue at the same time.

Smeelbo

 

[Burrito Al Pastor]

Tell us how you really feel.

And in all seriousness, Book of the Nine Swords was an excellent book. It was well-designed, well-implemented, mostly well balanced, and did something new. It'd be one of the 3.5 books I kept, except that I suspect there's a strong correlation between people running 3.5 games and people with a hatred of that book. (If they liked its mechanics, they'd probably have switched to 4e.)

But saying that B9S was half-completed 4e material? That's silly. There's certainly no denying that B9S was the first implementation of the "Weeaboo Fightan Magic" paradigm that became a cornerstone of 4e, and it may well be fair to say that it was in many regards a prototype, but your suggestion that B9S was made of incomplete 4e material says to me that you never actually read either B9S, the 4e PHB, or both.

 

[Sadrik]

No, seriously. Paladins can no longer be defenders, because their ability to mark enemies is an at-will power. The damage of rangers and warlocks will drop off significantly, because their Hunter's Quarry and Warlock's Curse at-wills are a significant source of their damage (and are also prerequisites for an numbrer of encounter powers and paragon classes.)

Go back and re-read my posts and re-read the PHB. You are wrong on both accounts.

Oh, and wizards, warlocks, and laser clerics will be functionally incapable of contributing to combat for more than a few rounds.

This is not the case. A basic attack is not "functionally incapable of contributing to combat". How quickly we forget what previous editions were like.

As far as basic attacks not being useful, well, yes. That's because they're basic. If you're a melee class, there's no particular reason why you'd ever just be making a basic melee attack, and there's no reason why a warlock or a ranger would ever make a basic ranged attack. That's not why they're in the game.

This is a bit of a misnomer at-wills are their basic attacks since they are at-will. I would rather have them be more special. You may not. Thanks for your opinion.