Effects lasting until the end of the encounter, w00t!

[Merlin the Tuna]

And in the same line of thought, if there's going to be such a mechanical focus on encounters in 4e, one expects that some kind of description of what constitutes an encounter will be forthcoming in the DMG. I don't see any valid reason for worrying about the sky falling right now.

As far as the change itself, I'm a little bit torn. I like the idea of being able to turtle-up against an enemy with a few big short-duration buffs on him. That that won't be possible in 4e is a teensy bit frustrating, but at the same time, it never really happened in practice in 3.5 since fights tended to end in about 3 rounds anyway, and effective non-magical turtling-on-command is hard to come by anyway. (The best I've managed is Combat Expertise + Thief-Acrobat levels. Fight defensively while using CE for -9 Attack, +9 AC.) So I can't help but feel that what we're losing here is an option that wasn't seeing use anyway; that makes me way less sad to see it go.

 

[Patlin]

The Swordsage is probably the most "per encounter" of them, and his abilities aren't strictly "per encounter" either, they're timed, but with a really, really easy to remember and really, really easy to adjudicate timing system. Instead of multiple abilities refreshing on multiple rounds, all of which need to be tracked, its "one minute of no fighting, get everything back, or one full round action to get back one." Bam, problem solved.

Or spend 1 feat and be able to reselect your readied maneuvers for a full round action, causing your new selections to be available immediately -- even if the same as your old selections. Still not quite as good as the Warblade mechanic, but a significant improvement.

 

[Plane Sailing]

The DMG needs lots of concrete examples that take into consideration situations like this. How much "downtime" actually eliminates your buffs between fights? I can see it being a sore point if not well explained, and understood, by DM and players.

I don't think it needs concrete examples as much as it needs common sense (and thus perhaps some principles that the DM can use).

Concrete examples might tend to lead to some people taking up the banner of 'player empowerment' and demand that "this is a new encounter because the examples said so".

In play, there will be some times when it is appropriate for the guards busting in to be part of the same encounter, and some times when it is appropriate for them to be part of a new encounter. I'm happy for my DM to make the call. When I DM for others, I'll make the call and tell people how it is.

Although we don't yet know how 'per encounter' powers will actually be used (e.g. is it a spending a minute meditating out of combat? or something else?) consider this.

a) if the guards busting in are part of the same encounter, then your encounter buffs are still working

b) if the guards busting in are the start of a new encounter, then you get a new chance to use your per-encounter buffs.

Thus the exact distinction between encounters is likely to be important only from the point of view of per-day abilities... and you are only using those once per day anyway, so for those purposes it doesn't make any difference at all whether it is one encounter or two encounters!

Cheers

 

[Lord Zardoz]

I think that in practice, at least at the encounter level, replacing spell durations with 'lasts for the duration of the encounter' for buffs will have minimal effect. Once you hit about 5th level in 3rd edition, most of the round limited effects last longer than the fights, with the only exceptions being the remarkably large fights ("You enter a room with 1001 Goblins. Roll initiative");

I think that the more telling impact will be the following.

- Effects limited to per encounter will mean spell casters might not be able to give out a buff to every combatant they would like to.

- Dm's wont be able to easily wear down a partys resources by using a series of successive encounters, or by trying a 'retreat and regroup' approach. The per day stuff will run out, but the per encounter stuff will refresh

- Both Dm's and Players may have a tactical incentive to 'retreat and regroup' to refresh per encounter abilities that inflict damage or have instantaneous effect (as well as potentially refreshing half HP if what I read somewhere was accurate).

In general, I do not think that Round to Round combat will change much, but that the strategic considerations concerning how often you expect to fight in a given day, as well as reasons to consider retreat, will absolutely be affected.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[Lord Zardoz]

Thus the exact distinction between encounters is likely to be important only from the point of view of per-day abilities... and you are only using those once per day anyway, so for those purposes it doesn't make any difference at all whether it is one encounter or two encounters!

You are assuming that all per day abilities will be Once per day. I would not be surprised if there were abilities you could use only 2 or 3 times per day.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[Kraydak]

Thus the exact distinction between encounters is likely to be important only from the point of view of per-day abilities... and you are only using those once per day anyway, so for those purposes it doesn't make any difference at all whether it is one encounter or two encounters!

Cheers

You are missing the (probably, but not certainly) crucial point of time spent buffing. If per-encounter buffs cost actions, you want to keep them up (or precast them). Keep an Angry-Rat-On-A-Stick around to allow for arbitrarily premature buffage!

(If they cost actions with trigger conditions, well, triggering conditions can be manufactured)

A dedicated party will be able to turn per-encounter, encounter duration buffs into permanent abilities. That being the case, why bother with durations at all? (per-day buffs, of course, might be worth sacrificing some burned per-encounter abilities to keep up by artificially prolonging an encounter)

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

Some questions will also certainly be raised when someone will try to run an army scene and all buffs will last two hours.

In the real world soldiers might fight for a couple minutes, then break off and rest for ten or twenty. Rinse and repeat.

The concept of encounters holds within a large mass battle, if the DM imposes some half-way realistic pacing. This is, in fact, one of the reasons ancient versions of D&D has that funky concept of Turn which translated to very small skirmishes so weirdly.

 

[Gold Roger]

You are missing the (probably, but not certainly) crucial point of time spent buffing. If per-encounter buffs cost actions, you want to keep them up (or precast them). Keep an Angry-Rat-On-A-Stick around to allow for arbitrarily premature buffage!

(If they cost actions with trigger conditions, well, triggering conditions can be manufactured)

A dedicated party will be able to turn per-encounter, encounter duration buffs into permanent abilities. That being the case, why bother with durations at all? (per-day buffs, of course, might be worth sacrificing some burned per-encounter abilities to keep up by artificially prolonging an encounter)

I usually don't do this, but, are you frickin serious?

You regularly play with people that regularly do such system bending stuff and a DM that lets such actions pass?

I don't think so.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

a) if the guards busting in are part of the same encounter, then your encounter buffs are still working

b) if the guards busting in are the start of a new encounter, then you get a new chance to use your per-encounter buffs.

Thus the exact distinction between encounters is likely to be important only from the point of view of per-day abilities... and you are only using those once per day anyway, so for those purposes it doesn't make any difference at all whether it is one encounter or two encounters!

Right.

Either you have the advantage of your buffs still being up when the second wave of guards arrive without resorting to spending an action (swift or otherwise), or you have the advantage of getting a refresh and gaining access to Per Encounter abilities you might have already burned on the first wave of guards.

I do not think we can generalize as to which is a better deal for the PCs. In a perfectly designed game it would be six of one and half dozen of the other, provided you were wise enough to build a PC with a mix of buff abilities and instantaneous abilities.

If you chose to put all your eggs into one kind of basket, do not whine if the DM resists your effort to game the mechanics to get the encounter pacing you desire.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

If someone really wants to game Per Encounter abilities to make them effectively permenant, the DM could set a limit of Per Encounter really means up to 100 times per day. The overly clever will burn through all their Per Encounter abilities for the day by 11:23 am.