Are Milestones fun?

[Alisair Longreach]

I can see from your replies that very few 4E players like Milestones as RAW and either ignore them totally (like I do) or house rule them for more fun.

Most prefer having an Action Point for every encounter and Magic Item Daily Power activations either once per day per tier or once per day per item and not worry about PCs going nova.

 

[zoroaster100]

I don't think you can draw a conclusion from the handful of posts on this thread about what most players like. In fact some of the folks that replied did not specify whether they use milestones as written or not. I for one like the milestones rules so far.

 

[Wik]

I'm ambivalent, and always forget to award milestones. Luckily, my players remember.

I really have no complaint with how they work.

 

[Crothian]

I wouldn't call them funm, but they also do not take away from the fun. Many aspects of the game by itself are not fun. It's the game as a whole that needs to be fun. But I guess to make it more fun we can have ballons and confetti drop from the ceiling each time a milestone is reached.

 

[Hadrian the Builder]

I find milestones to be tedious and fiddly, and the same is true of action points. I've abandoned the milestones system and replaced action points with a similar house rule that works better for my group.

 

[Drkfathr1]

The game I play in currently doesn't use milestones.

I don't intend to use them in the games I run either.

I think the designers need to give some us more credit about being able to decide when to hand out action points instead of making it an arbitrary number of encounters. I think most of us can handle it just fine.

 

[Henrix]

It seems to me that the thing people dislike about milestones is when they are reached, not so much their effect (apart from those who dislike action points).

So, again, don't award them every two encounters but when you (the DM) feels a milestone has been reached.

If you let the PCs pass milestones at a lesser rate then you need perhaps think about how tough your encounters are, because action points will be a rarer commodity.

If you're playing in a less dungeon-intense manner than WotC standard then perhaps it's fine if milestones are few and far apart. If there's just an encounter or so every day - then you don't need to bother about them.

 

[Jhaelen]

I hate the Milestones rules but please present some good arguments for why I should learn to love them.

I think you forgot to mention why you 'hate' the milestone rules. I'd find it a lot easier to give you an answer if you did. Otherwise, everything I might point out might be futile since it doesn't even address what you don't like about them.

 

[MarkB]

I've no real objection to the milestone system, but it does feel a little arbitrary.

One alternative that I considered when I first read the milestone rules, and am thinking about revisiting, is to say that, after each encounter, you can choose one out of a small selection of benefits. Either:

• Gain another Action Point

• Gain a new Daily item use

• <insert benefit here>

I want to add a third element to that list so that players with one or no daily items (or indeed players whose daily item powers aren't all that interesting) won't always go for the action point. It would have to be a useful but not essential benefit that is not dependent upon class, race or items, and doesn't outweigh the other two options. The only candidate I have at the moment is: Regain an expended healing surge.

 

[Nymrohd]

I am pretty sure the rules say that a milestone is mainly to be decided by the DM with every 2 encounters being a guideline (DMG pg.123 Varying Action Point Rewards). I like the concept of the milestone but I don't think the rewards are enough. Personally I also let my players recharge a daily attack at each milestone (so the duration of the adventuring day is almost entirely dependent on healing surges).