Encounter power buffs outside of combat

[VannATLC]

The first and last are self-explanatory. The middle, well, the 'theoretical' length of an encounter is 5 mins.

So, that's what I'm using.. to the point that if a particular encounter lasts the necessary 50 rounds, I may allow 2nd uses of certain abilities.

 

[Aenghus]

Unlike the OP, I would be delighted if the PCs *can't* buff outside combat. Buffing was always useful in D&D, but it reached ridiculous heights in 3e, in many campaigns becoming a necessity as encounters were designed to assume a fully buffed party, and would TPK an unbuffed one.

So prebuffing is an expectation from 3e habits, but I really hope that most players will enjoy or at least accept what seems to be the 4e scenario, where there are much less buffing effects, that almost all take effect during an encounter rather than before it. The power curve of 4e is shallower in rising, but starts higher. 4e PCs, especially the martial types, have more class power-based options and don't need buffs as badly as 3e ones did.

Ideally, this should reduce the swinginess of encounters, and take some of the stress out of DMing.

 

[cwhs01]

Actually thats quite easy as long as you use don't use arbitrary definitions of "scenes" and "encounters" in your rules.

These definitions don't seem to be a problem to most players of WoD based games. Or of the numerous other games using similar mechanics.

clearly defined durations (x seconds/minutes/hours etc.) have advantages but also some drawbacks. likewise with durations defined as per scene (or encounter length).
What solution is best for a particular rpg, depends on what it is needed for. Knowing that a power works exactly 33 seconds is unnescesarily detailed for what is needed in 4e. so durations in 4e are instead "as long as interesting things are happening to the pc's or 5 minutes".

 

[Lizard]

From last night's (3x) Game:

PC (returned from following Suspicious Priest into Hidden Passage filled with Undead Guards):"I followed him! And there's a tunnel! And undead things! Which see in the dark! And..."

Other PCs:OK, this buff on you, that one on you, this other one on me, activate this, turn on the other...

3x can feel like an MMORPG, too. ("OK, before we go into the instance, everyone refresh your buffs...")

As for 4e...assuming spells can be cast which don't require hitting things first ("I detect magic!" "You can't, you didn't hit someone."), I'd let them be cast as soon as the players were aware they were *about* to be in combat, with the caveat that if the fight didn't begin in <5 minutes, the duration would end and that would count as a 'per encounter' use, unless they rested to recover it. From what we've seen, there's not going to be that great an advantage to 'going in' buffed.

Pretending the universe knows if you're "in an encounter" or not is head-go-splodey for me. I would rather say "The spell lasts for five minutes from when you cast it, and you need a five minute rest to re-cast it", and just make it clear that for reasons of playability, NOT reality, we treat all encounters as "lasting five minutes", whether they do or not. If the PCs immediately rush to the next encounter, too bad, despite it only "seeming" like a few rounds, it "really" took longer. 4e is going to demand much higher levels of abstraction than 3x.

(5 minutes/encounter does lead to an idea for a new kind of clock..."We need to cook the meat for exactly 15 minutes!" "OK, I'll send in three orcs, one after the other. When you kill the third one, dinner is ready!")

 

[Cirex]

I would say that the days of party casting 50 different buffs (potions, scrolls, spells, wands, whatever), keeping track of what stacks and what doesn't, the duration and stuff are over.

At last.

 

[Kitirat]

What would prevent you from activating an encounter power that buffs you for a whole encounter before opening the door to a room?

My rationale is that activating a power should be easier to do outside of combat, as you don't have any distractions...

I've been running lots of demos, played a few and run extended demos and this and the cleric "bonus healing" question have come up.

The answer for us has been, nothing stops them. Encounter is an easy thing to remeber, but think of the powers as "this ability lasts till you take a short rest" if it has a prolonged effect (which is not the case for any 1st level ability), those that do last most often are sustain minor's and thus as long as you forgo a minor action it stays up.

The one time it matters is paladin temp hit points. "what is to stop us from from just not resting and keeping the paladins 3 temp hit points up?" The answer again is nothing and it is not a gamist thing since it makes sense. Their per encounter abilities do not come back till they rest and their per encounter abilities that sustain do not fall till they rest (defined as actually sitting down for a few minutes to gather themselves, not just not doing anything or not being in combat for a sec.

The person this has the biggest effect on is the cleric who has lots of boon abilities that are based on combat. The most important is healing words which grants a 1d6+1+Chr or Wis (can;t remember which) to the use of a healing surge. So if the party wants to rest 15 minutes, the cleric effectively can use 6 of these instead of 2, and I do not consider it a problem (though there is always the chance of a random encounter). The net effect is the game still feels real and they get a few extra healing surges throughout the day (because they get a few extra hit points back from the healing words).

The final time I've seen it an issue is the clerics grants a free saving throw to ally when it hits spell (sacred flame I believe) which is worse as it is an at will ability. the ruling (which makes sense) is out of combat the cleric can, every round, provide an additional save to an ally as needed (for ongoing damage from traps or posion in your tavern drink, etc). This prevents silliness like "hey wench, come here, I have to hit you to save my friend". For the warlock killing something for the teleport, if he wants to run around with a bag of rats, well lucky him, but out of combat how big a deal is a 15 ft LOS teleport? I have not seen it an issues and when it comes up, if they want to port up a cliff, good for them and bad for the rat.

In combat however they have to focus on foes, so the warlock is not going to have time to get out a rat to port if enemies are on him (or he will get OOA's) and the cleric is not going to have the time to focus on just giving an ally a save (unless he has no enemies around him and is not threatened with them coming in). Stays simulationist and keeps with the rules.

See ya,
Ken

 

[Cadfan]

Looking at the buffing abilities we've seen so far, they have the following categories:

Long duration- we've only seen one of these. Mirror image. It can last up to an hour, so you can pre cast it.

Very short duration- these are buffs that have instantaneous effects, then stop. No point in casting them in advance, they only last a round or an action.

Minor actions- these buffs cost only a minor action to cast, so while you could cast them in advance, there isn't much point.

Minor to sustain- often these are also minor to cast. You could pre-cast these, but you can only have a certain number of them at a time, so it can't break things much.

Occurs as part of an attack- most of these are small attack, ac, or temp hp bonuses. They also tend to be very short duration bonuses. The only ones that might possibly be longer are warlord abilities we haven't seen yet.

So... all in all, you can buff in advance. But most buff abilities aren't compatible with buffing in advance, or provide little to no advantage to buffing in advance. So while its possible, it won't be as common.

 

[Lacyon]

From last night's (3x) Game:

PC (returned from following Suspicious Priest into Hidden Passage filled with Undead Guards):"I followed him! And there's a tunnel! And undead things! Which see in the dark! And..."

Other PCs:OK, this buff on you, that one on you, this other one on me, activate this, turn on the other...

3x can feel like an MMORPG, too. ("OK, before we go into the instance, everyone refresh your buffs...")

As for 4e...assuming spells can be cast which don't require hitting things first ("I detect magic!" "You can't, you didn't hit someone."), I'd let them be cast as soon as the players were aware they were *about* to be in combat, with the caveat that if the fight didn't begin in <5 minutes, the duration would end and that would count as a 'per encounter' use, unless they rested to recover it. From what we've seen, there's not going to be that great an advantage to 'going in' buffed.

Pretending the universe knows if you're "in an encounter" or not is head-go-splodey for me. I would rather say "The spell lasts for five minutes from when you cast it, and you need a five minute rest to re-cast it", and just make it clear that for reasons of playability, NOT reality, we treat all encounters as "lasting five minutes", whether they do or not. If the PCs immediately rush to the next encounter, too bad, despite it only "seeming" like a few rounds, it "really" took longer. 4e is going to demand much higher levels of abstraction than 3x.

(emphasis mine)

I'm not sure why you would normally do this. From my standpoint, if you immediately rush to the next encounter, you're really just extending the encounter, so your encounter-duration effects are still active and you don't get to refresh per-encounter abilities.

Making the 'encounter-duration' powers last 50 rounds makes sense though. If the party stops for a short rest (breaking out of encounter-time), the duration expires naturally at some point during the rest.

Seems to me like the balance point is that you can't keep the encounter-long buff up for multiple fights and have your per-encounter abilities in each of those fights - one or the other ought to be fine.

 

[Lizard]

(emphasis mine)

I'm not sure why you would normally do this. From my standpoint, if you immediately rush to the next encounter, you're really just extending the encounter, so your encounter-duration effects are still active and you don't get to refresh per-encounter abilities.

Mostly, I'd say, to keep from exploiting Daily buffs, which are intended to be good for on encounter. Then again, I don't know that there are any.

 

[Lacyon]

Mostly, I'd say, to keep from exploiting Daily buffs, which are intended to be good for on encounter. Then again, I don't know that there are any.

I'd assume that all encounter-duration effects would be daily. But by rushing forward to the next encounter, you give up the opportunity to recover per-encounter abilities (including Second Wind, Healing Words, etc.). The buff would have to be really good for that to be much of an exploit.