In the 'Will there be a 4.75e?' thread, @Dungeoneer and @Tony Vargas inspired me to revisit the idea of scaling encounter and daily powers so that the game doesn't need so darn many of them. (Some of which are simply scaled-up versions of lower-level powers to begin with.) Though I didn't initially realize it, this is a difficult thing to do well, but I think I've finally found an elegant solution:
Instead of PCs gaining two encounter and two daily powers per tier, and needing to retrain old ones away starting at 13th level, they gain just one of each per tier. No retraining. (Unless a player wants to, of course!) I'll have to rejigger the character advancement table, but there are enough goodies that I can just avoid dead levels.
This means that PCs still end up with 2/4/4/7 by 30th level, but the accumulation of powers will be more gradual. Monster HP have already been trimmed down, so combat length shouldn't be an issue. It also means that there's no real need to categorize attack powers by level, which is a huge deal to me because it means I don't have to write nearly so many of them!
So my questions are:
(I should mention two things that are already different about powers: 1) 1st level encounter and daily powers come in tightly thematic build-bundles, and 2) Power pools will be by power source rather than class.)
Instead of PCs gaining two encounter and two daily powers per tier, and needing to retrain old ones away starting at 13th level, they gain just one of each per tier. No retraining. (Unless a player wants to, of course!) I'll have to rejigger the character advancement table, but there are enough goodies that I can just avoid dead levels.
This means that PCs still end up with 2/4/4/7 by 30th level, but the accumulation of powers will be more gradual. Monster HP have already been trimmed down, so combat length shouldn't be an issue. It also means that there's no real need to categorize attack powers by level, which is a huge deal to me because it means I don't have to write nearly so many of them!
So my questions are:
- Am I missing some problem that I should be seeing with this idea?
- Would you want attack powers to be tied directly to PPs and EDs, or would you want them in larger a la carte power lists?
(I should mention two things that are already different about powers: 1) 1st level encounter and daily powers come in tightly thematic build-bundles, and 2) Power pools will be by power source rather than class.)