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

[Alt Boy!]

I still rather deal with specific timeframes. :\

Just assume "Encounter" in 4Ese means "Turn" in 2Ese.

1 Encounter = 10 Minutes.
Quick easy, non-breaking house rule.

A 100 round combat should be more then one encounter.

 

[Sun Knight]

I am thinking more along days, such as needing a a good eight sleep/rest before being replenished.

 

[frankthedm]

Encounter = Scene (IMO).

Thats exactly why it does not work. This is not a narrative game more concerned with story than action. Unless granted BY a god of Battle, special abilities should not recharge as one gets into combat, because one got into combat.

That said, my one, possibly only 4E housrerule will be once per encounter becomes once per minute.

 

[Stone Dog]

In my mind, the latter makes far more sense, both in terms of gameplay and realism.

I agree. One minute is what, ten rounds? So not only would you have to keep track of 50 or 100 rounds going by for that sort of system, you might have to keep track of it for multiple powers at a time!

 

[Stone Dog]

I am thinking more along days, such as needing a a good eight sleep/rest before being replenished.

Those would be "per day" powers. Characters have those too. Those are probably going to be the bigger bang abilities.

 

[Stone Dog]

That said, my one, possibly only 4E housrerule will be once per encounter becomes once per minute.

So every per encounter power you have needs to have a ten round shot clock to see when it becomes available again?

 

[Malhost Zormaeril]

I am thinking more along days, such as needing a a good eight sleep/rest before being replenished.

That's great! Now think of the per encounter abilities as needing one minute sleep/rest before being replenished

 

[reanjr]

I would hope that they would better define what an encounter is. Currently, the DM is the person who determines when an encounter ends and when it begins.

What is the problem with the DM defining when an encounter begins and ends? She knows more about the encounter than anyone else...

Personally when I DM, I would consider and encounter as any type of continuous conflict without break. I would require about 5 minutes of downtime between encounters to recharge.

But I certainly wouldn't want to be held to that by some rules WotC tries to pigeon-hole in. If the next "encounter" is only 1 minute from the end of the previous, if I intended the 1 minute downtime to be an encounter break, then it is. If instead I just wanted to grant 1 minute of prep time to the players between waves of a single encounter, then it isn't a new encounter.

 

[Grog]

Thats exactly why it does not work. This is not a narrative game more concerned with story than action. Unless granted BY a god of Battle, special abilities should not recharge as one gets into combat, because one got into combat.

That said, my one, possibly only 4E housrerule will be once per encounter becomes once per minute.

Well, the way it's done in SWSE is that the "per encounter" abilities require one minute of uninterrupted rest/recovery before they can be used again. "Per encounter" is just a convenient shorthand, since one full minute of rest is impossible in just about every combat.

 

[psionotic]

So every per encounter power you have needs to have a ten round shot clock to see when it becomes available again?

This type of system is the worst of all possible worlds, in my mind. Think of every player (and the DM) counting down rounds for multiple abilities. Yuck.

Actually reminds me of WoW, with every spell having the little clock hand, ticking around every time I use it.

Definitely in favor of having all abilities broken down into at will, per encounter, per day; all of which are very easily kept track of.