D&D 4E A Power Point System for D&D 4e??

[Imaro]

Ok, so in an effort to try and work out some of the issues I have with 4e...I got to thinking about the rigidity of the power structure and how it could be loosened up a bit. What I came up with is as follows...

What if every class has a power point pool, so Wizards and Warlocks have an Arcane pool, Fighters, Rangers, etc. have a Martial point pool and so on.

I was thinking the pool could be constructed as follows...
Where x = the average number of encounters the DM wants within an adventuring day, each PC gets [#ofencounterabilities(x)]+[(x(#ofdailyabilities)] power points. So for example if the average number of encounters your 1st level PC's accomplish in a gameday is 4 then they receive 8 power points.

The powers are priced as follows...
At-Will = No power points to use
Encounter = 1 power point to use
Daily = 4 power points to use

There is no limit to how many power points you can spend in an encounter, and each time you continue (without resting) to another encounter you get one power point back. So for example...

If in the 1st encounter you use 2 power points, you would have to go through two consecutive encounters, after that, without resting to replenish those points, though you could just go through one to get one back.

It's a little rough, but any advice, thoughts, etc. that people have to offer would be appreciated.

NOTE: I understand people could go Nova, but I feel like this is a player thing, rather than a rules thing and I would expect my players to manage their resources or face being in a weakened state when the fit hits the shan.

 

[Henry]

I wouldn't expect "Nova" - I'd rather expect just spaming the good encounter powers over and over again, since they do about one die less than the Dailies. I'd expect to almost never see a daily used if they cost four times an encounter power.

Since this seems more of a fan rules creation thing, I'll move it into the 4e Fan Creations and House Rules forum.

 

[Imaro]

So I'm curious do most people feel my costing is off for the powers? How would others rate encounter vs. daily powers? Like I said I'm open to suggestions.

 

[The Little Raven]

So I'm curious do most people feel my costing is off for the powers?

I agree with Henry. Being able to use 4 encounter powers in the place of 1 daily power is a no-brainer.

How would others rate encounter vs. daily powers?

1 (encounter)
2 (daily)

Remember, if you gain 4 encounter powers every time you gain a daily, the expected damage will be thrown WAY off.

Two encounters per one daily still seems a little strong to me, but it's much better than 4 for 1.

 

[Walknot]

So I'm curious do most people feel my costing is off for the powers? How would others rate encounter vs. daily powers? Like I said I'm open to suggestions.

Would like to see a "free market" approach, combined with an "evolutionary" approach. Then anyone could invent any sort of power they like and it would be set to the appropriate level automatically.

Free market --> Initially, the inventor sets the "price" of their new power. Could be underpriced of course. Let's say a L1 at-will that dows 3[W]; that is underpriced! But then people would bid for that power as a L1 Daily or higher, and voila: correctly priced.

Evolutionary --> Through an online portal, player introduce their custom PC designs into a virtual environment where they battle each other etc. Through survival of the fittest, any "broken" powers are rapidly identified and this news feeds back to inform the free market.

Anybody want to set that up?

 

[Owen K.C. Stephens]

IF I was to go to a power point system (which is going to be more book-keeping for my style of play, but might be worth it for some campaigns), I would go with the following costs:

Encounter Attack Powers Cost: 2 + 1 per 5 full levels of the power
Daily Attack Powers Cost: 4 +1 per 5 full levels of the power.
Utility powers cost 1 less than attack powers.

Then I would total up the power point cost for using all a characters' powers 1ce (counting all utilities as encounter powers), and that would be how many power points a character would receive at that level. A short rest would earn you 1/8 your total power points (round up), and a long rest would get you all of them.

A 6th level character would receive 20 pp, and recover 3 with a short rest.
One 1st enc attack (3 pp)
one 1st daily attack (4 pp)
one 2nd utility (2 pp if an encounter power)
one 3rd enc attack (3 pp)
one 5th daily attack (5 pp)
one 6th utility. (3 pp if an encounter power)

There is a major trade-off here. While you can use the same encounter power multiple times in a row, or a daily more than once in the day, you actually have fewer powers earned back i short rests. I expect I would see daily powers a little less often, but for some fights people would unleash them over and over. On the other hand, you would never be able to use your total powers more often than you can in the normal 4e rules (though you could get a little more encounter power if you saved up).

If I wanted to go much more low-power, I would have at-wills go ahead and cost 1 power point. Basic attacks (but not powers that counted as basic attacks) would still be free. That's a HUGE change, and I'd only use it for games I wanted to tone down, but it could be done.

I would also probably allow wizards to simply have twice the daily and utility powers known, but no more power points.

Then, I'd playtest this system and see what needed to be tweaked for the kind of campaign I wanted.

 

[77IM]

I'm bad at math and prefer to add and subtract very small numbers like 1, so here's how I'd do it:

Power Point Total: 2 + 1/2 your level
Encounter powers cost: 1 power point
Daily powers cost: 1 power point + 1 action point

Using an action point to fuel a Daily power doesn't count towards your limit of using only 1 action point per encounter (so if you have the APs, you can fire off several Dailies and still use an AP to take an extra action or use a Paragon Path feature, all in the same encounter).

A short rest would recover half your power points, but multiple short rests in a row wouldn't get you back any additional power points. An extended rest recovers all of your power points and resets your action points to 1 + 1/4 your level. Each milestone gets you an extra AP, as usual.

-- 77IM

 

[Owen K.C. Stephens]

Daily powers cost: 1 power point + 1 action point

Now that's REALLY interesting. I also makes me think abut the question of magic item daily powers, which hadn't come up yet.

I don't know if I'd use your numbers, but the action point idea is facinating. Actually, I might just go the magic item daily powers/day, and make a daily power cost that and PP, and have you gain a new daily use each milestone, as it does now.

That takes things in a neat direction, thanks for the idea!

 

[77IM]

I'm glad you like it. I've considered doing something similar in 4e -- keep Encounter powers the same, make all Daily powers into "Encounter powers that costs an action point," and give out more action points.

I dearly love the mechanic of Encounter powers, but Daily powers, not so much. Dailies have a lot of "decision pain," because you don't know what you will be facing for the rest of the day, while Encounter powers are easier to spend because you can see most of the encounter right from the beginning.

-- 77IM