Encounter and Daily Points

[Flobby]

I was thinking of having encounter and daily points instead of the way powers work now in 4E and folding Action Points into on of them.

So, for example a character would start with 2 or 3 encounter points, and 1 or 2 daily points to spend on powers and other abilities such as an extra action and maybe a re-roll.

Regardless of whether or not this is a good or bad idea in itself, do you think an extra action is closer to an encounter or a daily power in terms of power?

I was thinking of allocating the extra action to encounter points and a re-roll for dailies... What do you think?

 

[andy3k]

An extra action is equivalent to a daily, in my opinion.

The ability to fire off two unrelated encounter and/or daily powers in a row is sweet, especially if I can do it every encounter.

The ability to set up a two-power combo in one round is sweet, especially if you are first in initiative and get to screw things up royally for the bad guys.

It would be scary to imagine what kind of multi-power combos two or more characters could pull off in concert, which is what power players might do if they knew they got to do it every encounter.

Having an extra action every encounter (instead of every other encounter like with RAW action points) allows some characters to always have a "save my a$$" utility power waiting to be used.

An action point every other encounter is encounter level, but if you are making it so they can do an extra action every encounter, that's daily-level stuff.

 

[Nytmare]

Huh, I ended up coming at this from the other direction.

I turned action points into another card in the players' hands, upped the rate that they gained them to at least 1 an encounter, and then made an array of different effects beyond "take an extra standard action."

I'd say at least half the action points are either "take a standard action," "regain an expended encounter power," or "regain an expended daily power after a short rest." But the remainder of the deck is an array of different effects that change over the course of the campaign.

Is it that you dislike the idea behind encounters and dailies, or are you just that much of a fan of power points?

 

[the Jester]

An extra standard action is far better than most daily powers imho.

I'm not sure what you're trying to accomplish. Limiting the use of encounters and dailies? Allowing the same encounter/daily to be used multiple times?

Can you clarify a bit?

 

[Flobby]

I was kind of just experimenting, but basically I wanted to:
- let players use an encounter power twice in an encounter if they wanted to.
- not have to replace encounter powers
- have more options then just an extra action for action points.

I know that utilities kind of screw this up, but like I said, I was just experimenting.

 

[Flobby]

It wouldn't really be much of a difference. I don't really like action points and I thought I could fold them in with something else. And yes I wanted the option to use a power more than once in an encounter.

Maybe though it would be easier to say you get 1 action point per encounter and can use to activate an encounter power you have already used if you want. And them maybe add some more options, like say, an extra second wind.

And yes I admit I have a preference for power points

 

[andy3k]

Extra second wind is great for a group with no leader or with a leader who concentrates on buffs instead of healing. If you have multiple leaders or a cleric or, essentially, enough heals to go around then the extra second wind is close to useless.

I see no problem with an action point every round and being able to use it to rerun a spent encounter power. OR, coloring with a psionic crayon, they could spend two action points to rerun a daily.

But if your players are half-decent at optimizing characters, doing this means you should probably up the difficulty of every encounter by half a level or by one level.