Balance question: Replacing Dailies with Encounters

[TwoSix]

Let's say there was a simple house rule in 4e:

Whenever you would gain a daily attack power, you gain an encounter attack power of the same level or lower.

How would that affect balance at the table? Is there a horrible consequence I can't see?

 

[Dice4Hire]

Overall it sounds good to me, and I do not see any huge problems.

Some classes, like the barbarian, would need tweaks as they rely on their dailies for their main class features.

 

[Larrin]

In my experience replacing dailies with encounters (similar to slayers and knights) makes your average output higher, but in the sort of encounter that you would normally drop a daily in, you really miss having that daily.


I usually estimate an encounter power is about 3/4 of a daily of similar level in terms of burst damage and one round/save-ends effects, but a daily with an encounter long effect/zone can be much much more potent (and impossible to predict). If you're in a tough fight, you may wish you had that daily. On the otherhand, in a fight where a daily would be a waste/overkill, you can whip out your encounter and look cool doing it without fear of waste.

In the end I think the overall effect of daily->encounter is you get better at easy and medium fights, but worse at the tough fights.

 

[D'karr]

Let's say there was a simple house rule in 4e:

Whenever you would gain a daily attack power, you gain an encounter attack power of the same level or lower.

How would that affect balance at the table? Is there a horrible consequence I can't see?

I have not seen it, but I've implemented it with the limit of standard action powers only. I've been toying with the idea, and playtesting with my group for several months. I know that there is a certain "numerical" imbalance because they have more "powerful" attack powers per encounter, but the action economy still limits that to once, twice, at most 3 times. I'm okay with that.

At that point your daily limiting resource becomes the healing surge, which I like. It provides a good measure for all classes. As a DM if I want the adventuring day to continue I can allow resurgence of healing surges through magic, provide a "safe" location for uninterrupted rest, or other means.

I tinker quite a bit with the rules, and my players are really good at accommodating this type of off the cuff playtesting.

We have playtested a bunch of ideas and adopted some for certain scenarios. We just keep increasing our toolbox. We've tested a long term injury/wounds system. Also tested a relational positioning system to have combats without a grid. Quite a bit of testing has gone into alternate ritual casting rules.

We have even tested working with all powers all the time. You're still limited to the amount per level (this is for encounter, not daily powers). So that at 1st level you have access to use any of the encounter powers, even changing them from encounter to encounter. However, you can only use one encounter power per encounter. Because obviously at 1st level you only get one encounter power. It's a bit like clerical spells in 3.x, but you select at any time. As long as you don't spam, or exceed the number per level it seems to work fine. It needs more testing and work to make it feasible but it seems to work well if you don't have power gamers. I've also been tweaking milestones specifically for this. Milestones now happen when they actually accomplish something significant (instead of the general every 2 "real" encounters). This helps with the avoidance of spamming.

The action economy is what is becoming the delimeter, and I'm really liking that. I've also started allowing "book" spellcasters to select duplicate spells if they want. Most have not taken me up on it, they like the variety rather than the "one trick" pony mentality. I've also started to experiment with quick casting of rituals in combat. That has been a fun experiment.

One of my players' favorite "house rules" to date has been the death scene monologue. Whenever, someone actually dies (negative bloodied, or 3 failed death saves) they get a scene as part of the wrapup phase of the encounter. We've had a lot of "cheesy" fun with that one.

 

[Jhaelen]

Well, I wouldn't want to have no dailies in hard encounters (i.e. level+2 or higher). Dailies are what turns those encounters from being deadly into managable. Strong conditions, ongoing damage, large AoE effects, healing without surges, buffs that last for an entire encounter - all of these things are practically not available without dailies.

 

[radja]

Let's say there was a simple house rule in 4e:

Whenever you would gain a daily attack power, you gain an encounter attack power of the same level or lower.

How would that affect balance at the table? Is there a horrible consequence I can't see?

only consequence (which may or may not be horrible) you seem to have missed is some PHB3 psionic classes (ardent, battlemind, psionicist.. maybe more) that have no encounter powers.
If you don't allow those classes, or your players don't want to play them this isn't horrible. If they do, you may have some problems.

 

[davep123]

In our campaign we replaced dailies with "bloodied" powers, which are of similar strength to dailies but are basically encounter powers that can only be used when bloodied. Narratively, they are represented as a suite of adrenaline-fuelled powers only available to the characters when they are in great pain. It means that when the PCs are badly hurt, they are also at their most dangerous. It also helps solve the problems of grindy combats and PCs going nova in the first round if they know they can treat the fight as their 15 minute working day. So far I haven't found it to be unbalanced with regard to the monster XP budget assumptions.

We also have house-ruled variants to the Action Point system and healing surge mechanics. With all these changes the goal has been to make the PCs more fragile but much more dangerous (1) the worse they are hurt in a fight, and (2) the more fights they push through before "resetting" with an extended rest.

So far the changes have worked very well for us, so perhaps you might want to experiment with "bloodied" powers in your game.

 

[Siberys]

I've considered just up and making daily powers encounter, because I hate daily resources. HP/Surges are what I'd like to deal with at most. I'm afraid it'd be too big of a power jump, though.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

In our campaign we replaced dailies with "bloodied" powers, which are of similar strength to dailies but are basically encounter powers that can only be used when bloodied. Narratively, they are represented as a suite of adrenaline-fuelled powers only available to the characters when they are in great pain. It means that when the PCs are badly hurt, they are also at their most dangerous. It also helps solve the problems of grindy combats and PCs going nova in the first round if they know they can treat the fight as their 15 minute working day. So far I haven't found it to be unbalanced with regard to the monster XP budget assumptions.

We also have house-ruled variants to the Action Point system and healing surge mechanics. With all these changes the goal has been to make the PCs more fragile but much more dangerous (1) the worse they are hurt in a fight, and (2) the more fights they push through before "resetting" with an extended rest.

So far the changes have worked very well for us, so perhaps you might want to experiment with "bloodied" powers in your game.

I would be very interested in hearing more about these bloodied powers of yours.

I've considered just up and making daily powers encounter, because I hate daily resources. HP/Surges are what I'd like to deal with at most. I'm afraid it'd be too big of a power jump, though.

You may be interested in my houserules thread; in it, I've basically made Daily powers usable at any time, but with a steep cost. Character resources are heavily tied into both Healing Surges and Action Points, both of which I've altered to suit. Still playtesting, but it's working pretty well so far.

 

[davep123]

I've considered just up and making daily powers encounter, because I hate daily resources. HP/Surges are what I'd like to deal with at most. I'm afraid it'd be too big of a power jump, though.

I felt the same way, which is why I replaced dailies with "bloodied" powers.

My alternative to healing surges is a "maximum HP" figure (distinct from full HP), which is reduced every time the PC gets healed. The amount lost per heal is usually 10% of current "max HP" (rounded down with a minimum of 1). F'rinstance, say a character with 40 HP takes 20 HP damage. He then gets healed for 10 HP taking him back to 30 HP, but his new maximum HP is now 36. If he gets healed for another 10HP, most of it will be wasted as his new maximum (and current) HP total is only 33. Characters recover maximum hps at the rate of a few per day. I'll probably have to adjust the maths once the characters are out of the Heroic Tier, but it's worked well at lower levels. Narratively, it's represented by the idea that being healed borrows some of your own inner vitality.

I also changed Action Points (aka free actions) to create a counter balance for the diminishing maximum HPs. In the first fight after an extended rest, the PCs get one free action usable only when they are "disabled" (i.e. between 0 and -25% of their full hps which, in my game, means they're conscious but have the 'dazed' condition). After each significant fight, the number and availability of their free actions increases as follows:
Fight 1: One free action usable when disabled
Fight 2: One free action usable when bloodied
Fight 3: One free action usable anytime
Fight 4: Two free actions, one usable anytime and one usable when disabled
Fight 5: Two free actions, one usable anytime and one usable when bloodied
Fight 6: Two free actions, both usable anytime

Narratively, this represents the PCs' powers amping up with the adrenaline of each fight - sort of the day-length equivalent of the bloodied powers becoming available in response to stress within a single fight.

What this all means is that after each fight the PCs are "reset", except for reduced maximum HPs and increased availability of free actions. With each extra fight they become more fragile, but also more powerful. They are reluctant to take extended rests because they lose their free actions, but sometimes their maximum HPs are so low that they are forced to. In fact, in one memorable session, one of the PCs got battered and healed so often that he started a fight with his maximum HPs below half his full HPs; in other words, he began unwounded and bloodied at the same time (which meant his bloodied powers were also available). His alpha strike in the first couple of rounds of that fight was spectacular, but he could easily have been taken out by one enemy attack.

I would be very interested in hearing more about these bloodied powers of yours.

Mechanically they're just daily-strength powers usable once per encounter but only when bloodied. I ripped them straight from the rulebooks, and then refluffed and tweaked them to match each PC and my own sensibilities. (Death to trivial, short-term conditional modifiers!) What about them would you like to know?