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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Crazy Jerome" data-source="post: 5862290" data-attributes="member: 54877">I agree with most of what you are saying here, but not this part. First, encounter powers aren't used once per encounter. They are used zero or once. Infinite reuse is silly, but there is some sweet spot between "can't effectively do it" and "spamming" that could be somewhere north of one. The main reasons for stopping at one are: <ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Ease of handling -- you've used it this encounter or you haven't--simple check to record.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Maximum push to use other things in the encounter--by closing off options as the encounter progresses.</li> </ol>Those may even be good reasons for stopping at one, assuming that you set up the system to limit fights to a predictable number of rounds somewhat shorter than the available options. In any case, I'd say the limit should be a lot closer to zero than spamming. The trick is devising a mechanic that takes everything into consideration. For example, you might have a recharge mechanic that works based on all encounter powers expended. Let's say that you roll a d6 at the end of your turn. If you roll less than the number of encounter powers expended, you get one encounter power back. (It's end of the turn to reduce analysis paralysis at the beginning of your next turn.) Until you've expended at least two such powers, you can't get one back. (Naturally, this system would work better if each character had at least two encounter powers to start with, and preferably more. To house rule 4E, allow 3 encounter powers at 1st level, but replace one each at 3rd and 7th level.)  Note that this encourages early use of encounter powers over dailies (though dailies that have encounter-long effects might still win out at times). You want to get your encounter powers used quickly, and keep them used, then use at wills and dailies and magic items to fill in while you wait for recharge to hit. Not that I'm saying this is superior to what 4E uses now, but it is a way to turn "zero to one" into "zero to two, maybe three in a long fight" without going all the way to "spam". <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> For a variant that adds less raw power, with different implications, have the encounter recharge d6 (or maybe d8 or d10) based on the number of encounter, daily, and item (encounter or daily) powers used thus far in the encounter.  So now the impetus is to get this number up as high as you can without totally blowing through daily resources--while also getting at least one or two encounter powers used so that you have something to recharge. It all depends on what result you want.  The problem with a lot of the "design analysis" from our simulation loving friends is that they aren't clear what results they want. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /></blockquote>

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