Encounter power buffs outside of combat

[Cadfan]

If you go slow, and make sure that every fight is a new encounter, you get more

1. Encounter abilities
2. Action points
3. Ability to heal (some with encounter abilities, some with Heal skill checks)

If you go fast and blur all your fights together (screw killing the guard, ring the alarm bell yourself!), you lose all that, but gain longer per day buffs.

We'll find out in June if one of these strategies is dominant, but at least the architecture is there to balance things.

 

[Aust Diamondew]

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.

I'd agree.

And I like the flavor of animal sacrifice being needed to activate a warlock power.
Though I'm unsure it was intended.

 

[Derren]

Who says that the Fey Pact teleport stays at 15 ft and doesn't increase with level? And where do you get the "LOS" thing from?

 

[Lacyon]

Who says that the Fey Pact teleport stays at 15 ft and doesn't increase with level?

Who says it matters if a higher level character can go farther?

And where do you get the "LOS" thing from?

DDXP DMs who said "you need line of sight".

 

[LostSoul]

Pretending the universe knows if you're "in an encounter" or not is head-go-splodey for me.

Why would the fictional universe you're creating know something that you don't want it to know?

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

If my players wanted to activate appropriate encounter powers before opening the door, that would be fine with me. I would essentially consider the encounter to begin before the door opens.

The first thing they would need to keep in mind is that they set precendence and therefore they may find times where the opponents do the same and get to activate encounter powers of their own before an ambush of the party. No whining about it suddenly not being fair.

If somehow in the complete rules there are encounter powers where it becomes a major advantage to use them like "always on" powers (I activate my encounter power and turn the corner. Nothing there? OK, I walk across the room, activate my encounter power and open the door. Nothing again? OK, I walk down the corridor and activate my encounter power when I get 5 squares down the hall...) and after out-of-game discussions the players continue doing it, then I would compensate in other ways.

I'm sure as DM there will be plenty of opportunities to abuse the rules if the players seem to be into the idea of playing a game by the letter of the rules, rather than the spirit of the rules.

 

[Lacyon]

If somehow in the complete rules there are encounter powers where it becomes a major advantage to use them like "always on" powers (I activate my encounter power and turn the corner. Nothing there? OK, I walk across the room, activate my encounter power and open the door. Nothing again? OK, I walk down the corridor and activate my encounter power when I get 5 squares down the hall...) and after out-of-game discussions the players continue doing it, then I would compensate in other ways.

Precisely this is why I would think any encounter-duration buffs would be Daily abilities. Any per-encounter encounter-duration buffs would, in 90% of cases, act like always-on powers anyway because there's no reason not to activate them every fight. In which case the designers should write them like always-on powers and call out the 10% exceptions as needed (like not working in a surprise round or whatever).

 

[D'karr]

Pretending the universe knows if you're "in an encounter" or not is head-go-splodey for me.

I'm not sure if that is a bad thing or not...

 

[Vaeron]

They've said they're considering many things other than just combat to be Encounters. My understanding is that DDE they ran an entire scenario that was skill-based only. More loosely defined, perhaps an Encounter is any combat, puzzle, or social interaction that might require skill checks or rolls of any kind. That would prevent the following ridiculous situation:

"I want to use my Fey Step to teleport to the next platform and see if I can find a lever for the bridge there."

"Sorry, you can only use your Fey Step when you're fighting something."

"I thought it was an Eladrin racial power?"

"Well, yeah, but it's an encounter-only."

"How does that make sense?"

"Well, otherwise you could just teleport 30 feet at a time whenever you wanted... Even climb a cliff. Teleport 30 feet up, start to fall, teleport 30 feet up, start to fall..."

"But I'm only trying to do it ONCE! Why can't this chasm be an encounter?"

"Hmm, I dunno."

I think, if we look at it from that perspective, where anything that challenges a PC is an encounter, it helps solve this particular problem. I believe I'll House Rule it that way if the DMG doesn't.

 

[Trainz]

If my players wanted to activate appropriate encounter powers before opening the door, that would be fine with me. I would essentially consider the encounter to begin before the door opens.

The first thing they would need to keep in mind is that they set precendence and therefore they may find times where the opponents do the same and get to activate encounter powers of their own before an ambush of the party. No whining about it suddenly not being fair.

Thus the reason for me posting this here thread.

When WotC touted that buff/open door/repeat was gone, I was very glad. In 3.5 I house ruled out several times using different ways the buffing aspect of the game. But I was thinking outloud about how can this be applied given what we know about the current rules, without it seeming contrived on verissimilitude and suspension of disbeleif from the players.

I guess it works out, even given what little we know.