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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Majoru Oakheart" data-source="post: 4694609" data-attributes="member: 5143">Fair enough, a lot of my previous post already goes into a discussion of this.  This is the post for those who didn't want to read through the last one.Here's the basic summary:There are two major problems with removing at wills for longer lasting, more powerful encounter powers:1. Swingy Combat.  If all powers still have attack rolls, then this method makes combats a LOT more swingy.  If someone has one encounter power and misses, and it would have done 30 damage while their basic attack does 6(adjusted for probability of hitting), they've just extended the combat by 5 rounds.The reverse of this is if everyone hits with their more powerful encounter powers on the first round, the battle ends really quickly with nearly no challenge at all and no resources wasted.2. The Action Economy.  What an action is worth in a combat.  Long lasting effects have their effect in every round of combat.  This means that they have the same effect as a power that lasts a round multiplied by the number of rounds they last for.This also allows you to stack powers.  Each round you get to add the effects of all powers you've used together for the entire encounter.  And there's no way to predict how long an encounter will last anymore, due to how swingy it is.  So, a +2 to hit might last 20 rounds and give you huge amounts of damage or it might last 1 round and do nothing.  So, there's no way to tell how powerful it is.  How do you balance powers against each other with no way of knowing how powerful they are?These two issues, when combined mean that all the predictability that has been designed into the core 4e mechanics is thrown out.  Since the goal of the 4e core mechanic is to add predictability to the game, I suggest that your goal is impossible.  If remove at-will powers you sacrifice the core 4e mechanic.</blockquote>

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