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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celtavian" data-source="post: 4441098" data-attributes="member: 5834">Mustrum,I do not know if you are a writer or not. I write scripts and stories in the hope of one day making it a profession. I understand storytelling very well.Encounter powers are lacking drama because they are both overused and underused at the same time. They overused because they are used every encounter, which as I said is like playing the same action sequence every battle as though I would write the same thing over and over again. Which is in essence a bad movie, so encounter powers are an example of a very bad movie. And underused because there is no good, viable reason even from a story standpoint why a character would not be able to execute a learned combat maneuver over and over again as he does with a feat.As I stated in this thread and the other thread, I run encounters that start what I call a domino encounter. A non-stop series of fights that leaves no time for rest to recover encounter powers. This used to work very well in 3E because the player decided when to use his reservoir of power in the case of casters and fighters were skilled combatants who fighting prowess was always available because it was a physically learned skill. So when I ran a cineematic encounter of a continuous fight, there was no need to explain the recovery of encounter powers.If you want to discuss film battles, they rarely have rest periods. Usually it is a series of short, easy encounters that don't require much in terms of what the character can do, with one long drawn out fight scene that is a knockdown drag out fight where maneuvers are tried over and over again.For example, how do you simulate Jackie Chan movie in 4E? Jackie Chan is constantly tumbling and using wild maneuvers. He isn't resting for five minutes to regain his encounter powers. He is always tumbling, doing flying kicks, roundhouse kicks, strange punches, amusing feints, and the like.When you watch Excalibur the movie, that battle at the end is one long, drawn out fight with the guys just swinging away. No time to rest for encounter powers. Fight until you are dead or have won the battle.I have difficulty simulating these types of battles with 4E because the player constantly needing at least five minutes of rest. Sorry man. Your trite explanation for enconter powers is unsatisfying and extremely limiting for a storyteller. Any 4E storyteller will be forced into using the exact same explanations in every encounter for the repetitious encounter powers that seem "special", while at the same time being forced to arbitrarily end encounters to give the players time to rest five minutes to "recover" their learned skills. It doesn't work for me. If it works for you, then enjoy.But the bad action film is 4E encounter powers. The same action sequence over and over and over and over again. The very definition of a bad action film, cliche, repetitious, and uninteresting.</blockquote>

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