How many spells each day and each encounter do we truly get?

[Jhaelen]

Complete, unfounded speculation: The switchover from "I pick new powers" to "I improve old powers" is the heroic/paragon switchover.

That's what I assume as well. It's not really completely unfounded, either. I guess, the maximum complexity for characters will be reached at level 10. Level 11-20 will replace your entire repertoire, then at level 21-30 you'll do it again.
The only things that will keep piling up will be things that don't increase complexity, like feats. Of course, in 3E feats were a source of additional complexity, too, but 4E feats won't. I think they already said as much.

 

[DreamChaser]

Complete, unfounded speculation: The switchover from "I pick new powers" to "I improve old powers" is the heroic/paragon switchover. This means people will have about 12 powers, maybe 15 or 20 depending on speed of acquisition, split between at will, daily, and per-encounter, which seems large enough to allow choices while being small enough to still exhaust.
I'd wager you get on the order of 1 daily power (maybe 3. Probably not 5.) and on the order of 3 per-encounter powers (Filling a variety of uses, with a variety of triggering conditions; probably not 1, probably not 7). As many at-will as they like.

The paragon/epic switchover, though... Just "bigger powers"?

You'll note I admitted to making an assumption.

We also know (from the list of 10th through 13th level wizard spells) that in this range there are no at will and a mix of per day and per encounter. They are not, apparently, upgrades of earlier powers either. So the Paragon/Epic idea is not as clear as one might think.

Additionally, since an even power slope across all 30 levels is a core idea of 4e (which has been mentioned extensively), the inference that the number of 1st level starting powers can be taken as an indicator is not unfounded it is merely unsubstantiated.

DC

 

[erf_beto]

I'm not sure how many spells/powers we get, but it seems it all depends on the classes and their inherent subsystems. Looking at the pre-gens, we see the wizard has Cantrip as a Class Feature, thus receiving 3 aditional cantrip at-will powers (the exact number might be Int-modifier or whatever). He can also know two per-day spells, but must memorize (and cast) just one of them. The cleric has Channel Divinity wich are a number of different powers that are always ready but you can only use one of them per encounter (kinda like the old spontaneous casting; it's probably how the new psion will work too, IMO). But, on the other hand, the paladin can use his Lay on Hands 3 times a day, but it's considered an at-will power.

I don't think we can be sure about how many powers we get. Every class have different options (thank god!), so I don't think we *need* a set-in-stone table saying how many per day powers you know.

Also, most powers (seem to) remain usefull through the 30 levels, and you're probably going to improve some of them as you level up. And we've been hinted that there will be retraining rules for switching powers you know, and some classes might just add more options to their repertoire (through Channel Divinity feats or reserching new per-day spells).

 

[pukunui]

There are some other limits on how many encounter powers you can use. For instance, both the cleric and the paladin know more than one "Channel Divinity" encounter power, but it specifically states that they can only use one per encounter (although they do have other encounter powers that do not fall under that restriction).

 

[Lackhand]

You'll note I admitted to making an assumption.

We also know (from the list of 10th through 13th level wizard spells) that in this range there are no at will and a mix of per day and per encounter. They are not, apparently, upgrades of earlier powers either. So the Paragon/Epic idea is not as clear as one might think.

Additionally, since an even power slope across all 30 levels is a core idea of 4e (which has been mentioned extensively), the inference that the number of 1st level starting powers can be taken as an indicator is not unfounded it is merely unsubstantiated.

DC

I was admitting my own assumption, not challenging yours. Sorry to be unclear!

I don't think the spells chapter tells us much about how powers are organized, though sure, I'd believe that there aren't any at-will powers at those levels.
They are, however, upgrades of previous abilities -- forget how to Acid Arrow and learn how to Prismatic Pwnage? Sure, I'd love to!

I'm not sure what you mean by the last paragraph, though. I mean, my inference was more along the lines of "how many powers should players have in total"; I agree that they might gain .3 per level, might gain 5 per level, or might gain one whenever they roll a 1 on a d6 when leveling (or whatever), sure.
But I can't see having more at 10th level than about 10 (maybe 15), and I can't see having more at 20th level than 15, either, because it's just too complex.

YMMV!