Getting away from "Daily" and "Milestone"

[Hadrian the Builder]

Dailies/Milestones/Action Points together have not worked very well with my group. Players are reluctant to use their daily powers (in case they need it for the big fight) and they don't like keeping track of action points or milestones. also, everyone uses the DDi charbuilder, so no one wants to deal with changing any of the auto-calc numbers on their sheet.

I am thinking about proposing a house rule to them, and I'd like some commentary on the idea:

Milestones get abandoned. Action points cease to be banked, and instead everyone gets a free action point every encounter that goes away after the encounter. Action points can be spent to recover spent daily powers, and
all "daily" powers become "healing surge" powers instead.

I would really like to work through the consequences of making this change. I know there are specific magic items that depend on milestones. I'm ignoring those corner-case issues. We're also not playing in epic tier at all.

 

[Alex319]

Action points can be spent to recover spent daily powers, and
all "daily" powers become "healing surge" powers instead.

I'm assuming that the second clause about daily powers becoming healing surge powers refers to magic item daily powers, not daily powers on characters. Is this correct?

As for APs being spent to recover daily powers on characters, the Veteran's Armor from AV allows you to do that, and that power proved so powerful it had to be errataed out. (In fact your solution is even more powerful than Veteran's Armor, because Veteran's Armor can only be used once per day and this can be used as often as you have APs.)

For example, if I were a Fighter, then I would have Rain of Steel up every encounter using these rules.

 

[Hadrian the Builder]

No, I mean all daily powers, magic item or character, use healing surges. I want to get away from "time" as the basis for the daily powers.

I'm ok with players using dailies more. That's what I want. The sacrifice is that they have to spend healing surges to use them every time, and if they already used that daily power today, then they have to also spend their action point to recover it.

I think Rain of Steel is a great example for this. A fighter has at least 12 surges. If he spends a surge to get rain of Steel up every encounter, then he'll probably end up spending 3-4 surges per encounter just to use the daily and recover lost hit points. The more dailies he uses, the faster he depletes his reserves and the more dangerous battles will become as he gets close to running out of surges.

But the player gets more freedom to whip out those dailies and use them, knowing that if they hit the BBEG encounter, they will still be able to bring out their "Big Guns", as log as they have a surge left. Flexibility at a price

Also, I've been running a game where I allowed action points (actually I've replaced action points in my game) to recover (not use) daily powers and, surprisingly, I have not found it to be disruptive. I don't run a "power game", so I guess I just disagree with the D&D team on this one.

But, to sum your point (yes?):
One consequence of this house rule is that the party's effective power level is higher.

 

[Siberys]

The other effect is that the adventuring day will be shortened. In 4e, the only thing that limits the length of an adventuring day is the amount of healing surges. Once you're out of those, the game gets SIGNIFICANTLY more deadly. Unless you plan on adding HSs to compensate, you could end up with the players going for fewer encounters.

 

[Hadrian the Builder]

Agreed. In my campaign, there tends to be 1-2 encounter a day during exploration and travelling, then 3-4 combats together. I like to keep the spectre of death nearby, though

 

[Nytmare]

We also went with a "one AP per encounter." The only problem I personally have with it is that we haven't gotten into the habit of using APs for anything other than extra attacks.

We got rid of milestones as well, and changed magic items that have milestone effects to "after the third encounter."

Is it really a problem that your players aren't using their daily abilities? My group frequently ends an adventuring day with their dailies practically untouched. I'm not seeing why it's a problem?

I'd be afraid that giving players the ability to convert healing surges into extra daily abilities would result in them being able to tackle medium to big things way too easily, and then end with them cashing in for the night far too soon.

The pace they're moving at isn't a problem, is it? I mean, if they're holding onto their resources, "just in case", then they're probably moving at the exact speed that the game is built around? Is it that they're getting to boss fights with too many resources intact?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I'd be concerned that at higher levels having dailies available in every encounter is going to SERIOUSLY increase character's power levels. It isn't so much of a big deal with low level where you have a relatively limited daily. By RAW at high levels you have your lower level ones and then as you hit paragon and again around epic you start kicking them up, but the limit is still 4. Being able to unleash 2 top level dailies per encounter will make a surprising difference.

For example there are striker builds that can literally unleash 1000's of points of damage if you have a daily available in a single round. Fighters can actually even exceed that, though not against a single target, and they take a couple rounds to 'rev up'. Just be advised. If you have players that know how to charop, you are giving them a really massive power boost.

 

[Alex319]

I'm assuming that the second clause about daily powers becoming healing surge powers refers to magic item daily powers, not daily powers on characters. Is this correct?

As for APs being spent to recover daily powers on characters, the Veteran's Armor from AV allows you to do that, and that power proved so powerful it had to be errataed out. (In fact your solution is even more powerful than Veteran's Armor, because Veteran's Armor can only be used once per day and this can be used as often as you have APs.)

For example, if I were a Fighter, then I would have Rain of Steel up every encounter using these rules.

I'm still a little confused. So character Daily powers now cost an AP and an HS to reuse?

 

[jorrit]

As a DM I have a houserule that allows players to get back one daily power every time they reach a milestone (every 2 encounters). That way they can use their dailies a bit more often before requiring extended rests. Works rather well IMHO.

Greetings,

 

[Alisair Longreach]

Milestones are irritating.

In my campaigns I ignore milestones completely. Magic items with properties dependent on milestones are not available. A few magic items from Advenurer's Vault had to banned because they were wortless.

One Action Point per encounter.

A Daily power is a daily power, hoard them all day and unleash all in the big boss fight, I don't care. I actually want my PCs to do that as it reduces the time spent on the big boss encouinter.