Why do we need Encounter Powers?

[Dice4Hire]

One thing I forgot to mention in my OP was that part of my reasoning came from thinking back on how previous editions worked.

If you think about it, 1e-3e basically had an at-will + daily structure. Wizards had nothing BUT dailies whereas fighters and thieves had nothing BUT at-wills. Clerics, paladins, rangers, etc. had a mix of at-wills and dailies. I can't, off the top of my head, think of any class that had an encounter power.
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Personally, I find it very hard saying a wizard with 25-30 spells castable as having only dailies. In a way it is true, but they are not 'dailies' as 4E uses the term

 

[keterys]

Yeah, I pretty much used a fireball (or whatever) every encounter once you got past that initial hazing period.

 

[darkdragoon]

Encounter powers were introduced in 3.5, although if you're counting stuff like "do X during the first round" feats it's at least as old as Dirty Fighting. The psionic classes (Monk aside) already tried an encounterless power setup; it's an iffy tradeoff. The e-class tend you to give you more uses of one power or a few preselected ones, which again, tend to be less than exciting. There's little need for generic powers when existing powers, feats etc. have the same function and are better at it to boot.

 

[S'mon]

No, they don't.

In 3e and before, a spellcaster could really supernova - blow *everything*, all their spells, in one fight.

You might burn all your dailies in a single fight, but you're still going to have encounter and at-wills for the rest of the day, no matter how many encounters that is.

So, in the classic sense, no supernova - you cannot really blow the whole thing at once.

I stand in awe of your pedantry, Umbran. You are entirely correct.

 

[FireLance]

One of my other reasons was that doing something 'special' every encounter makes it all the less 'special'. I find I get bored of my encounter powers solely on the basis that they become standard tactics for me that provide no real excitement beyond what a well considered at-will would provide.

It seems to me that the real problem is continually using the same encounter powers over and over again. This, to me, is a step up from using the same at-will powers over and over again, but YMMV.

That said, the at-will + daily set-up has the advantge of greater potential variety. A high-level wizard (in previous editions) might be using a "daily" spell in every round of four separate six-round fights, but due to the sheer number of spells he could potentially prepare, there might be few or no overlaps.

Players who want to replicate this kind of variety in a 4e game could (with the approval of the DM) try the following variant rule: when you use an encounter power, during your next short rest, you must replace it with an encounter power of the same or lower level that you have not used since your last extended rest. Of course, this would only apply to class encounter powers (since you usually do not have a choice of racial or paragon path encounter powers) and works best with classes that have a lot of support (at least in terms of encounter powers). This effectively turns encounter powers into dailies without requiring too many adjustments in terms of balance.

 

[On Puget Sound]

Many class features in earlier editions functioned as encounter powers, though they were not labeled as much. Rages, bard performances, wild shapes, and turn undead were all useable x times per day, which often worked out to more or less once per encounter - or at least, something more than daily but less than at will.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Good observation.

 

[Umbran]

I stand in awe of your pedantry, Umbran. You are entirely correct.

It isn't just pedantry. The issue with the "supernova" isn't how much they can do in one encounter, but how much they could do *after* the encounter - the 15 minute workday problem. You go nova, and what's left is a nebulous cloud of gas that isn't useful for much.

But the major point of the power structure is to avoid that, and it does its job - you can do a great deal with just at-will and encounter powers. You don't have to end your day if you've spent all your dailies, and you can continue adventuring effectively.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Not that I advocate it, but another way to do things that I'm sure at least a few people would enjoy is to replace all encounter and daily powers with something that looks more or less like them, but are "critical" powers. Then make criticals somewhat more frequent and/or provide resources that a character can spend to up the chance of one. Probably combine that with more at-wills.

So characters use their at-wills, for a bit more variety in effects than "fighter swings his sword, again." They are fishing for crits. Get a crit, get to apply a "critical power" on top of the regular damage. You'd want the math set up so that "critical powers" happened regularly, but not quite as often as people use encounter and daily powers now.

Some people would like it because it would mostly remove any metagaming concerns from using powers. A lot of current 4E fans would hate it for exactly the same reason. Those in the middle might have some qualms about the inherent "swinginess" of such a system, while others heakening back to early versions would find that aspect pleasant. Mostly, people with a more simulation preference would like it better than they like 4E now.

So again, there are all kinds of things that could be done. All of them have consequences.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

Not that I advocate it, but another way to do things that I'm sure at least a few people would enjoy is to replace all encounter and daily powers with something that looks more or less like them, but are "critical" powers. Then make criticals somewhat more frequent and/or provide resources that a character can spend to up the chance of one. Probably combine that with more at-wills.

I've been thinking the same thing. I mean look how popular the Tome of Battle crusader was, with its semi-random maneuver mechanic.

I love encounter powers, and dailies almost as much, but them being so predictable causes a couple issues. There's the immersion-breaking "If this power is like a critical hit, how can my character strategically plan on it happening the way he does?" issue. (Alternatively, the "magic powers are boring and predictable!" issue.) And then there's the analysis paralysis issue.

So I think random or semi-random encounter and daily powers could be a lot of fun. Something to consider when I write that fantasy heartbreaker...