Access to All At-Wills

[Sanglorian]

I would prefer characters to have more tactical options available to them.

A way to do this occured to me while flicking through Martial Power. Why not give characters access to all their class's at-will attack powers (or a large number, like 6, since not every class has an equal number)?

This should make characters broader, with a range of attacks for every combat, but hopefully not too much more powerful. Players would have more powers to muck around with, more powers to use cleverly in interesting situations and would tire of their powers more slowly.

What do you folks think? Have others suggested this in the past?

 

[mkill]

What's the highest level you ever played? If you only know the low levels, it might look like PCs don't have many options in combat, but as soon as you hit upper heroic and paragon, PCs usually have enough powers on the table that it can become tedious to select the right one. I have a more casual player at the table, and it can take him quite a while to decide what to do. Remember there are not just at-will, encounter and daily attack powers, but also class features, items, utilities and so on. If PCs can use any at-will ever published, expect players to spend too much time sifting through their power cards.

That said, I don't think giving a third at-will power is breaking much. Some classes won't notice much; there is hardly a situation when a ranger wouldn't want to twin strike. Other classes have a lot of tactical variety in their at-wills, they would benefit. I'm especially thinking about swordmages here, who could, for example, choose sword burst (multiattack), booming blade (sticky) and lightning lure (repositioning).

In fact, there are a few oddball at-wills that are excellent in some situations but useless in others, expect these to be chosen more often when you give more at-wills.

One thing you need to consider are humans: The third at-will is one of their main strengths. If every character gets 3 at-wills, humans lose their shtick. You need to give them some other freebie to make up for that.

The other element that might break are psionic classes, but I don't have play experience with them.

 

[RangerWickett]

If you do this, maybe give humans an extra use of any one encounter power each encounter.

 

[eriktheguy]

I agree with 3 at-wills. It seems to make plenty of sense without being game-breaking.
Humans would then get 4.

Using all the at-wills would be overwhelming by paragon tier.

 

[Mengu]

Going on a slight tangent here, one way to increase options is through more elaborate encounter design. Place some statues that can be knocked over on top of enemies. Put up some chandeliers that can be shot down to fall on a brawler. Throw in spiked pits enemies can be bull rushed into. Allow the wizard to magehand a torch over to a barrel of explosive material. Even at low levels, these can increase the different options characters have without changing any core mechanics. You just have to give some good descriptions of terrain at the start of combat to make sure players understand their options.

 

[eriktheguy]

Going on a slight tangent here, one way to increase options is through more elaborate encounter design. Place some statues that can be knocked over on top of enemies. Put up some chandeliers that can be shot down to fall on a brawler. Throw in spiked pits enemies can be bull rushed into. Allow the wizard to magehand a torch over to a barrel of explosive material. Even at low levels, these can increase the different options characters have without changing any core mechanics. You just have to give some good descriptions of terrain at the start of combat to make sure players understand their options.

These are great ideas and could add a lot more than increasing at-will options. This also helps to reduce grind by adding high-damage options for the PCs and helps individual encounters to spice up an adventure rather than bog it down.

 

[Sanglorian]

Thanks for your feedback, guys. I think going for 3 at-wills but giving other options in combat is a great compromise.