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

[Wormwood]

But back on topic, I love the idea of the Paladin getting to smite evil once per encounter. That's a great way for this mechanic to improve the game.

I've been moving per/day abilities to per/encounter in my new 3.5 game (5 players with zero 3e experience among them)

Game running just fine, with much more action, fewer sidelined players, and less downtime than my previous D&D games.

 

[Wormwood]

Is this two encounters? Three? Or just one long encounter?

I'd say that was one long encounter, and quite similar to one of the 4e playtests posted last week.

That party is in trouble---just as much as they would have been in a "powers per-day" system.

 

[Mad Mac]

I'm pretty sure the recharge method for regaining once per encounter powers will be pretty well defined, as it has been in previous products using similar systems. (Like the 10 minute meditation in Star Wars)

As long as you set up a good "refresh" condition, than knowing when powers have recharged shouldn't require any handwaving.

To give a somewhat strained example, lets say Hennet has snuck into 4th edition, buckles and all. He has a special once per encounter attack called "Hennets Buckle Barrage" where all his dozens of buckles go flying towards the enemy at supersonic speed and cuts them to pieces. He can use this ability at will, however, he has to refasten his buckles before using this power again. As Hennet has many buckles, doing so requires a few minutes without interruption. Doing so in combat is impossible! Also, as no sane party is willing to put up with a completely unbuckled Hennet any longer than strictly necessary, it can be assumed that he is all buckled back up whenever he has a few minutes of downtime before action scenes.

 

[jonrog1]

At least in SWSE, there are multiple ways to regain a "per Encounter" ability -- which in SWSE basically boils down to spiffy Force powers -- in the middle of combat. Take a full round to recharge, there are a few feats and talents, etc. In the example above, there would be a couple ways to "recharge" in the middle of the chaos, and they would require as much tactical thought as knowing when to drop behind cover and reload while in squad-level combat. Which, to me, is a good thing. I personally don't find it more "cinematic", just easier to track and more fun.

If you enjoy trying to guess how many combats you might have before you get to imaginary sleep after 12 hours of adventuring, then no, the system may not be for you. If you want some sort of ticking shot-clock (shudder), then no, not for you. But if you are vaguely annoyed at having held back your spiffy character abilities just in case the big fight is later, and it's not, and you stood around and let all the other PC's have all the fun for the combats that did happen, then this system is probably preferable. "Everybody gets to do their signature cool stuff every encounter" is to me some nice game design.

Also, I'd suggest we stop using "computer-game like" as an insult. Computer games, because of their massive audiences, have necessarily made some pretty fine advances in games system design in balancing variability of infinite and unexpected choices vs. simplicity for the neophyte gamer.

IN fact, the entire 4E design direction to me is more elegant, in that, for the official rules, they seem to be aiming for the SIMPLEST system which can then be house-ruled UP into levels of complexity/wonkery/accounting that individual groups desire. The previous way, in which almost everyone tended to house-rule DOWN from complex to more-simple is not good design IMHO.

 

[ShaggySpellsword]

I hope they go the rought of defining what you must do to get an ability back rathe rthan how long it takes until the ability is magically availible again.

They have said that every character will have at will, per encounter and per day abilities. At will abilities should need no reset action, per encounter abilities should have a 1-5 minute reset activity (rest, light activity, meditation, something), and per day abilities can be regained by that old stand-by of 8 hours sleep.

That way, it takes a good deal of safety to get your big guns back, but just a little bit of time to get your per encounter stuff together.

That way, if you have huge fights that take in-game hours (Battle of Brindol in Red Hand of Doom for instance), the characters still can have time to "rest" between encounters, but they sure as heck can't take 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Mouseferatu has already quoted it, and I'll quote it again, because it needs saying and thinking about.

I think that the whole thread has started off on the wrong foot. It is taking the assumption that 'per encounter' means that you've automatically got the abilities available at the start of each encounter and thus divides into the minutae of 'what is an encounter'

If you use the SWSE model, you need a minute of meditation to recharge your Force abilities (this is without using talents, burning a Force point to instantly recharge, or whatever).

It's not "once per encounter", it's "once, and then you have to recharge"... with a recharge time long enough that PCs won't be able to do it in the middle of most combats.

SWSE has 'per encounter' abilities because once you've used them, you can't reuse them until you've had the chance to recharge them, and the recharge time is long enough that it is very unlikely to crop up during an actual encounter.

Of course, they could have referred to 'recharge out of encounter' abilities, but that doesn't have the immediate impact of 'per encounter'; it is a more complex way of saying something that doesn't necessarily bring anything extra to the party (although obviously it might have forestalled some discussion along these lines!)

Cheers

 

[Moon-Lancer]

Sun Night, your 2 hour encounters, do they last 1200 rounds? if not, its probably not a single encounter. Also How do you use ecl? do you count the fight with the dragon and his minions together in the ecl or separate? If you keep them separate, why do you insist that they are one encounter? each ecl you calculate separately is a different encounter. ecl is effective encounter level, and once per a encounter abilities work once per an encounter.

we really don't know exactly how the per encounter abilities work though. will they regenerate at the beginning of the encounter, or will it be require a few minits of rest after an encounter to recharge abilities? we don't know yet, so i don't think its an issue at the moment, and theirs no reason to be upset about them.

 

[hong]

Let's remember that in 3x only the barb has the per encounter mechanic for anything. Since 4e will likely use this mechanic more often, I'm sure they will take a little time to clarify what an encounter should mean.

Mind you, nobody ever complained about the per-encounter mechanic in the first 5 years of 3/3.5E. It seems to be that now per-encounter stuff has become more visible, it's become a bugbear for no good reason.

 

[robotron666]

Start a thread on this!

I've been moving per/day abilities to per/encounter in my new 3.5 game (5 players with zero 3e experience among them)

Game running just fine, with much more action, fewer sidelined players, and less downtime than my previous D&D games.

I'd love to see how you do this, are you adapting SWSE or Bo9S in some way?

 

[an_idol_mind]

I think I'd like the "per encounter" stuff better if the round/turn paradigm from older editions was brought back and "per encounter" meant "per turn" (i.e., ten minutes).

For the system itself, I'll have to see it in action before making a judgment. I'm hoping that the number of per encounter abilities will be somewhat limited, so as to avoid the need for a long checklist of abilities that a player would have to keep track of during the encounter.

One of my other potential problems with the per encounter basis is that the majority of my D&D encounters don't involve combat; they involve diplomacy, trap-finding, puzzle solving, et cetera. I'm hoping that the designers pay equal attention to non-combat, non-dungeon crawling encounters, because that's what my games tend to revolve around more. Upping the paladin's capacity to smite evil from once a day to once a minute doesn't do much for my players, since the ability isn't always even used once a day.

Unfortunately for me, I'm betting my style of gaming is far from the D&D norm, so the designers probably don't have my concerns foremost on their list.