D&D 4E 4e Special Ability PER Encounter stinks...

[hong]

Hehehe. These things happen in the midst of combat all the time with no downtime.
"All right Jack, it's your turn, what are you doing?"
"I'm going to loot the guy I just dropped."
"Uh, okay. You do realize your pals are still fighting the other hobgoblins,right?"
"Yeah, and?"
"Okay, you start looting the body."

... and would you let Jack recharge his per-encounter abilities in this situation?

First off, take the group attack elsewhere. Any other response will net me another tempban I imagine. Second, there is a difference between "1 minute to recharge" and "per encounter", and I'd darned well expect someone going by the name of "ruleslawyer" to know that. But hey, whatever. You keep on keeping on.

For all practical purposes, "1 minute to recharge" is the same as "per encounter", but with more syllables. No, the fact that you had one encounter that ran for 3 1/2 minutes does not disprove this. It just proves that commonsense has a role to play in adjudicating these things.

 

[howandwhy99]

ok, the title is perhaps somewhat provoking (or not) but what does anyone think of special abilities useable X-times per encounter?

i personally do not like this approach, because encounter is something which can be from a short battle to a long battle, or even not be a combat encounter at all...so lets say you have a short encounter of 2 minutes of playtime: you can use special ability x here once. then there is a nother encounter taking 2 hours and still you can use special ability x only once here? remind you, encounter not necessarily means combat encounter... i think the whole useable per encounter thing stinks...

I totally agree.

Imagine a fireball used every 1d4 rounds every encounter. Just like dragons' breath.

And just like dragons, these wizards will be able to burn down until forests, farmlands, towns, and cities in a day. For a guesstimate: 1 minute of blasting away, 1 minute of trotting up to the next unburned area. Repeat until sleep rules kick in.

 

[Jack99]

I dont know if it has been said, but since I am bit short on time, I had to skip a few pages.

This new model will definitely increase resource management for most groups. From reading the various boards, it is my understanding that a lot of groups take the sleep-memorize-burn all in one or two fights-approach, then camp once again.

With this new system of per day and per encounter abilities, there is a much bigger chance that the party will move on, since they after all have all their per encounter abilities left, and thus a decent firepower. That will lead to some decisionmaking, as in, when to use those pesky per day abilities.

Ofc, It might just be that people start camping after they have burnt their per day abilities, but it seems from what we hear, that the game will encourage the opposite behaviour

Cheers

 

[jasin]

Imagine a fireball used every 1d4 rounds every encounter. Just like dragons' breath.

And just like dragons, these wizards will be able to burn down until forests, farmlands, towns, and cities in a day. For a guesstimate: 1 minute of blasting away, 1 minute of trotting up to the next unburned area. Repeat until sleep rules kick in.

You feel this is problematic?

 

[Jack99]

I totally agree.

Imagine a fireball used every 1d4 rounds every encounter. Just like dragons' breath.

And just like dragons, these wizards will be able to burn down until forests, farmlands, towns, and cities in a day. For a guesstimate: 1 minute of blasting away, 1 minute of trotting up to the next unburned area. Repeat until sleep rules kick in.

We obviously dont know how an encounter will be defined, but I am fairly certain they will NOT be able to do what you are suggesting.

 

[Beastman]

Bolding mine. Why would you assume it's being moved to a per-encounter ability? Wizards have already stated that 4e will feature at-will abilities, in addition to per-encounter and per-day ones. There's no reason to assume it will be moved to a per-encounter basis, as it's not a combat ability that would need to be limited in that way.

Yup. Was perhaps not the best example to use a paladin's at-will-detect-evil-ability here. What i wanted to show, is the application of some outside-combat ability in combination with non-combat encounters. Essentially, using abilities with an annotation of X/encounter boils down to:

- is use X/encounter meant to be "use X times then do Z for y round to regain your ability" and if not...(so if merely exploring a room, is this a situation a charcater can regain his ability)

- how is/will an encounter defined (start with "sighting of the scene, i.e. the DM describes a more or less important scene, and and with the conclusion of said scene as described as say in the adventure module) This still leaves the "problem", that a charcater can use his special ability X times in a 1-minute encounter and still x-times in a 30-minute encounter (regardless of the fact what the character is doing: strenous activity or not.), which I find somewhat unfair and unrealistic.

It still seems to me, that X/day seems just simpler for me, because time can be tracked according to what the charcaters do and you know when the day begins and ends. As far as it stand now I do not now when an encounter begins or ends and in addition to this encounters can have a variable length of time (which a day has not)

 

[amethal]

I totally agree.

Imagine a fireball used every 1d4 rounds every encounter. Just like dragons' breath.

And just like dragons, these wizards will be able to burn down until forests, farmlands, towns, and cities in a day. For a guesstimate: 1 minute of blasting away, 1 minute of trotting up to the next unburned area. Repeat until sleep rules kick in.

My binder has been able to use his fiery breath weapon every five rounds, from level 1 onwards.

It hasn't disrupted the game in the slightest. I've got no desire to burn down forests or farmlands. There's an obvious reason why I haven't done it to towns and cities.

 

[D.Shaffer]

My binder has been able to use his fiery breath weapon every five rounds, from level 1 onwards.

It hasn't disrupted the game in the slightest. I've got no desire to burn down forests or farmlands. There's an obvious reason why I haven't done it to towns and cities.

Heck, Totemists can get a 1/round breath weapon from level 2. And while my totemist DOES have a reputation as a bit of a pyro because of his 'Burn first, ask questions later' personality, it's not like I'm spending my time burning down entire forests just for the thrill of it. I'm not quite sure what the problem is here, myself.

 

[Sun Knight]

I found Binders to be a bit overpowered.

 

[hong]

Heck, Totemists can get a 1/round breath weapon from level 2. And while my totemist DOES have a reputation as a bit of a pyro because of his 'Burn first, ask questions later' personality, it's not like I'm spending my time burning down entire forests just for the thrill of it. I'm not quite sure what the problem is here, myself.

Hell, people in Greece right now will tell you, if you really want to burn down a forest, you don't even need a funky magic ability....