How Per Encounter power recharging should work

[The Little Raven]

I think Action Points will fill that role, by either refreshing spent powers, or allowing you to use any known power with the expenditure of an Action Point, whether you've used the power or not.

 

[D_E]

The way I would design it would be:

- Rest for 5 minutes to regain per encounter abilities
- When you regain per encounter abilities this way, lose encounter-duration buffs

This has the added benefit* of allowing PCs control over buff duration.

*unless you don't like that, in which case it isn't a benefit

*YOINK*

Thank you, ThirdWizard, that's perfect!

 

[Dragonblade]

I think Action Points will fill that role, by either refreshing spent powers, or allowing you to use any known power with the expenditure of an Action Point, whether you've used the power or not.

I can live with action points as long as they are not a level based finite resource. If so, then I still have a problem with it.

It forces the DM to level his players at a rate he may not be comfortable with, and it also brings up the same issue of metagame mechanics intruding on verisimilitude. Plus it strikes me as a balance issue akin to the 15 minute adventuring day. I blow all my action points in a single fight and now can no longer refresh my abilities. How is that different than casting all your good combat skills in a couple encounters and wanting to camp? Only in this case you are screwed until you level up. Whenever that might be.

 

[The Little Raven]

How is that different than casting all your good combat skills in a couple encounters and wanting to camp?

5 minutes versus 8 hours.

 

[Dragonblade]

5 minutes versus 8 hours.

True enough. But I guess I should have clarified that being able to blow your whole wad of action points in a single fight strikes me as getting right back to the core issue of balance.

If a character can hoard their points and then Uber Attack 6 times in a row by using action points, that strikes me as more unbalanced than simply allowing an attack to be reused after a full round recharge. My system also makes estimating encounter difficulty much easier and I can control fight pacing easier.

Nothing is more anti-climactic than getting to the final boss and having everybody blow all their action points making multiple uber attacks and turning the boss into swiss cheese in a single round. Conversely, nothing is more anti-climactic than having the PCs reach the BBEG and be all out of action points and then having their clocks cleaned because of it.

 

[Dragonblade]

By the way, I hope there are some WotC folks lurking about and at least considering what I'm saying even if they don't post and acknowledge their presence.

 

[Lanefan]

Reasonable depends on context. Would it be reasonable for a person in our world to be as fresh for his 5th or 10th battle in the same day as his first? No. Would it be reasonable for Achilles or Hercules or Cuchulainn or Bhima to be as fresh for his 5th or 10th battle as his 1st? Hell yeah! And a D&D PC, especially with a few levels under his belt, is a whole lot closer to the mythical characters I mentioned than to anything in our world.

A few levels under his belt? A few *dozen* levels, maybe. But PCs at the usual levels they get played at (1-10 in 1e, 1-whatever in 2e, 1-15 in 3e, and 1-maybe 20 in 4e) haven't achieved that sort of mythical status yet, or shouldn't have; because if they have then what's left for them to achieve at higher (a.k.a. epic) levels. And if the game scales as well as 3e does, 5 or 10 encounters for a 25th-level party should be just as (relatively) draining as for a 1st-level party.

That, and I prefer it if the game at least somewhat reflects the real world where it can...

Then again, I glanced at the Races and Classes preview today for the first time and saw they want to go back to something that always bugged me in 1e: that high-level PCs can challenge and defeat gods. *Now* you're talking Hercules-level epic stuff, to the point I'd suggest it almost needs a somewhat different rules system (how *do* you kill an immortal?).

Back on topic, it'll be interesting to see how long it takes for the following to happen after 4e's release: an even combat - say, between competing adventuring parties - where both sides meet, skirmish, withdraw, refresh, rinse, repeat until eternity because there is no attrition (other than death) or weardown. And even death appears harder to come by for the PCs...the same considerations had better be given to their opponents...so something like this could go on forever with cautious players facing smart foes.

What this encourages is an all-or-nothing approach...there's no way in what we've seen so far for a weaker party to nibble away at a stronger foe: an example might be a situation where the party holds the high ground (or can fly) and spends days sniping at the enemy camp, hoping to inflict more damage each day than can be healed overnight until the camp has been reduced to something the party can handle face-on.

Lanefan

 

[RigaMortus2]

I have a black belt in taekwondo and used to compete in tournaments. If I got off a jump 360 roundhouse kick or spin hook to the head, I didn't need to wait until after the match to be able to do it again. I just needed another opening.

Well then, there is your answer. You can't use the same maneuver more than once in an encounter because the opponent(s) won't give you that opening again.

As the old G.W. Bush saying goes, Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice... A fool can't be fooled again.

 

[Darth Cyric]

Last night this was rather humerous in my group. I was playing a Crusader-- the only healer in the party. When combat was over, and people were still hurt, I would punch somebody (for subdual) to heal someone else! It was kinda funny with some volunteering to take a punch so I could heal them, while others got mad about it. I played it off by knighting the party member in question "and now, no man may clout thee in such a fashion again, arise a knight!" That took some of the sting out of it...

Your DM is a dumbass if he allows that. In BO9S it even states explicitly that maneuvers can only be performed against something that is actually a real threat.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

A few levels under his belt? A few *dozen* levels, maybe. But PCs at the usual levels they get played at (1-10 in 1e, 1-whatever in 2e, 1-15 in 3e, and 1-maybe 20 in 4e) haven't achieved that sort of mythical status yet, or shouldn't have; because if they have then what's left for them to achieve at higher (a.k.a. epic) levels. And if the game scales as well as 3e does, 5 or 10 encounters for a 25th-level party should be just as (relatively) draining as for a 1st-level party.

That, and I prefer it if the game at least somewhat reflects the real world where it can...

There is nothing "real world"-like about a human fighting a Dragon. That is akin to fighting a angry Lion with the size of an Elephant that is armed with a Flamethrower, and with the intellect of Napoleon or Rommel. You don't get a gun, surprise and you have to survive 30 seconds next to it.

Your DM is a dumbass if he allows that.

Please, no name calling. The DM could have just decided to let it go through because he didn't care, needed the party to be ready again for the next fight and he knew he could handle further "abuse" (knowing other DMs are capable of handling parties amassing Wands of Cure Light Wounds...).