D&D 4E 4th Edition and the 'Adventuring Day'

[pemerton]

I thought I had covered that in "Outside of class features and utilities, it really seems each does get the same, can you tell me where in the PHB they get different".

(Italics new.)

They all get the same level progression, there might be some class features that have timings, sure.

I'm not sure about the merits of this tangent, but . . . isn't it a tautology that any departure from the uniform schema would have to be in virtue of a class feature?

But anyway, clerics do get two encounter attack powers at 1st level: one is Turn Undead, the other is the one they choose from their general class list. And if they use their other Channel Divinity feature, then they can't use Turn Undead until they rest (and vice versa).

My understanding is that this is the point @glass was making. I don't know how big a deal it is, but it is true.

 

[Blue]

I'm not sure about the merits of this tangent, but . . . isn't it a tautology that any departure from the uniform schema would have to be in virtue of a class feature?

Its a valid statement, but it's pretty far afield from the point of the discussion, which was the adventuring day. That a class might have an extra class feature or so really doesn't extend that by having (mostly) uniform schema means that changing the length of an adventuring day doesn't favor one class or another in terms of total powers available.

It does turn out to be a slight simplification, but one that is relatively unimportant in context.

 

[Randomthoughts]

Was there some expectation as to how often long rests were possible? Put another way, could you still have balanced fights if you only had one per day? I'm trying to understand what the norm was (if there was one). I know that your'e supposed to have several combats between rests in 5th (though most people don't), and I'm wondering how 4th handled the '5 minute adventuring day' problem, if it was a problem at all.

Thinking more about my experiments with 4e, that you may find useful:

Milestones (briefly mentioned above) were a "lever" that tried to encourage parties to continue adventuring. A milestone was met every 2 encounters. You gained an action point, and initially, an extra use of a magic item daily (which started at # per Tier, like 1 use at Heroic, etc.). Daily magic item usage was changed by Essentials IIRC. Action Points gave you an additional Standard Action that encounter. But Milestones reset if you took an extended/long rest. Hence, the incentive to carry on.

One of the things I tried was requiring the use of an Action Point to use Dailies/Signature Powers (so not limited to only once/day). I made them more plentiful by awarding one per encounter and counted Skill Challenges/Battle Challenges as encounters. It worked pretty well but ended up with the system I had described above.

I'd encourage you to play around with the 4e "widgets" of Healing Surges, Dailies, Action Points and Milestones [1]. My players and I had a lot of fun experimenting to see what worked best for us, and in fact, our preferences evolved over time.

EDIT: [1] Like, should Dailies be refreshed based on time (short rest, long rest) or a fictional unit (knowing Milestones are fictional units)? How many Dailies should be spent per encounter? Should that be encouraged or discouraged? B/c combat can be long, we tended to encourage use of Dailies (usually 1-2 per encounter), but all-out novas were rare.

Should healing surges refresh the same way as Dailies? For a long time, we had healing surges refresh after short/long rests while Dailies refreshed on Milestones and eventually other fictional units (Story Points).

Let us know what you come up with!

 

[Voadam]

One of the things I tried was requiring the use of an Action Point to use Dailies/Signature Powers (so not limited to only once/day). I made them more plentiful by awarding one per encounter and counted Skill Challenges/Battle Challenges as encounters. It worked pretty well but ended up with the system I had described above.

So basically every encounter they get one of their dailies but cannot really nova due to the two action point limit? At level one when they have one daily it is basically an encounter power so a bit of a power bump, but at higher level the multiple dailies are mostly a little flexibility in choice (though highest level will probably be most chosen in practice I'd think).

It seems like it lessens the incentive to get multiple daily utility powers a bit because of the limited access pool, but maybe balanced by potential to have more to do with the encounter's daily and having possible options outside of combat attacks.

Interesting balance.

 

[Randomthoughts]

So basically every encounter they get one of their dailies but cannot really nova due to the two action point limit? At level one when they have one daily it is basically an encounter power so a bit of a power bump, but at higher level the multiple dailies are mostly a little flexibility in choice (though highest level will probably be most chosen in practice I'd think).

It seems like it lessens the incentive to get multiple daily utility powers a bit because of the limited access pool, but maybe balanced by potential to have more to do with the encounter's daily and having possible options outside of combat attacks.

Interesting balance.

So one thing we also did was use Dailies as a "pool" of powers. When a player spent an Action Point, he chose to activate any one of his Dailies [1]. This influenced power selection since players chose a wider variety. In play, they chose the Daily that was the "best tool for the job", whether damage, buffs, etc. Players really like the flexibility.

I can't say all this was "balanced". I didn't perform calculations or anything. But it suited the play style of the group pretty well for a time.