How many abilities do you prefer to track at once?

[RSKennan]

By "abilities", I'm not talking about the D&D abilities of Strength, Dex, etc., I'm talking about things you can do- actions you can take. Feats, class features, maybe even skills... but mainly I'm asking about combat.

4e streamlined abilities a lot with powers, but in 3rd edition, there were a lot more and most of the time people were all right with tracking them.

So how many options do you like to track at once?

 

[Leatherhead]

It depends more on how I have to track them.

I can keep track of far less situational abilities and things like mana pools, than I can keep track of "fire and forget" and always active powers.

 

[Silvercat Moonpaw]

What do you mean by "keep track of"? You say "actions you can take" but I'm still confused: do you mean potential options, or things that change in a short span of time vs. things you only have to calculate into your running numbers once and then forget?

 

[Umbran]

I will be unsurprised if the answer you get is 7±2.

 

[Voadam]

By "abilities", I'm not talking about the D&D abilities of Strength, Dex, etc., I'm talking about things you can do- actions you can take. Feats, class features, maybe even skills... but mainly I'm asking about combat.

4e streamlined abilities a lot with powers, but in 3rd edition, there were a lot more and most of the time people were all right with tracking them.

So how many options do you like to track at once?

I like to have a bunch of reuseable options. I dislike tracking large numbers of expendables. I dislike daily power resource management in D&D. Vancian magic, charges, daily powers and one shot potions/scrolls are not my preferred type of power.

I don't like Iron Heroes style token accumulation and spending as combat mechanics.

I don't want my focus to be on math and gambling odds and resource management and conservation of forces until they are needed.

I enjoy just blasting the same power/attack again and again and not worrying about tracking resources so warlocks, fighters, and rogues are great mechanically for my preferences.

I like to go all out and dive into combats and focus my attention onto the scene and flow of combat as conceived visually rather than mechanically.

I like quick active recharges such as the soulknife's psychic strike which recharges on a move action or the psionic focus which recharges on a full round action (or move action with a feat).

I find things like recharge magic from UA better than vancian (and better if you house rule out the die rolls), but still a bit to track.