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<blockquote data-quote="Wik" data-source="post: 5368489" data-attributes="member: 40177">With all due respect, I think the encounter power is a bad power to give to PCs, and in play will actually go against your main&nbsp; goal, which is to have PCs be &quot;cool&quot; and swash-buckly/high-action.Essentially, what you are doing is granting a +5 bonus to any one skill check per encounter, at the &quot;cost&quot; of having the player describe it so that is cool.&nbsp; What you are doing is rewaring players for using their skills in combat (which is a good thing).&nbsp; However, most players will not use this +5 as a buffer to try out weaker skills, but instead as a means of guaranteed success at the skills they are good at.&nbsp; In addition, when it's compounded with other skill boosting powers (such as the bardic words of friendship, a +5 to diplomacy encounter power), you are essentially allowing an &quot;I win&quot; button.&nbsp; Basically, instead of your power contributing to a &quot;now I can jump off that airship onto that chandelier and then land on the bad guy's cape, tripping him!&quot; you are instead allowing a &quot;how can I use my already super high athletics skill to gain an in-game advantage?&quot;&nbsp; Players will quickly learn that it is in their best interest to spam their major skills.&nbsp; It happens.&nbsp; This also changes the DC system in your campaign - if a hard DC is normally 23 for your level, this rule might change it to 25 or something.&nbsp; Fundamentally making harder tasks harder for those who used their power the way you intended them to do (using them to make awesome scenes, rather than to improve their odds of succeeding on difficult skill checks).&nbsp; We have a bard in my campaign, and he'll use his encounter power whenever possible to guarantee success with diplomacy.&nbsp; It can be kind of annoying. I think a better variant would be to expand upon what action points could do.&nbsp; Maybe action points allow re-rolls.&nbsp; Or grant extra saves.&nbsp; or something else.&nbsp; Personally, I allow players to negate conditions upon their characters with skill checks (but if they fail the check, the condition actually worsens).</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Wik, post: 5368489, member: 40177"] With all due respect, I think the encounter power is a bad power to give to PCs, and in play will actually go against your main goal, which is to have PCs be "cool" and swash-buckly/high-action. Essentially, what you are doing is granting a +5 bonus to any one skill check per encounter, at the "cost" of having the player describe it so that is cool. What you are doing is rewaring players for using their skills in combat (which is a good thing). However, most players will not use this +5 as a buffer to try out weaker skills, but instead as a means of guaranteed success at the skills they are good at. In addition, when it's compounded with other skill boosting powers (such as the bardic words of friendship, a +5 to diplomacy encounter power), you are essentially allowing an "I win" button. Basically, instead of your power contributing to a "now I can jump off that airship onto that chandelier and then land on the bad guy's cape, tripping him!" you are instead allowing a "how can I use my already super high athletics skill to gain an in-game advantage?" Players will quickly learn that it is in their best interest to spam their major skills. It happens. This also changes the DC system in your campaign - if a hard DC is normally 23 for your level, this rule might change it to 25 or something. Fundamentally making harder tasks harder for those who used their power the way you intended them to do (using them to make awesome scenes, rather than to improve their odds of succeeding on difficult skill checks). We have a bard in my campaign, and he'll use his encounter power whenever possible to guarantee success with diplomacy. It can be kind of annoying. I think a better variant would be to expand upon what action points could do. Maybe action points allow re-rolls. Or grant extra saves. or something else. Personally, I allow players to negate conditions upon their characters with skill checks (but if they fail the check, the condition actually worsens). [/QUOTE]

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