This is going to be a long post... sorry but not TL;DR, if its too long just skip it I guess
Trust me, I cut what I could.
Alternatively if you and your players want a highly tactical barroom brawl, it can be a Big Fight- it will just be more time consuming to resolve.
In general, I would map Big Fight more to 'fight where the NPC has tactics substantially beyond 'hit them' and the PC's have a high chance of having prepped specifically for this fight'.
But that is my point. With all your examples the same general premise is there as with what you say right here. A big fight is where the combat uses resources beyond the simple; ALL my combats are like that. Or at least they all have the potential to be like that. I don't see what your suggested rules do for that. Perhaps your rules are helpful in defining for the players when something is significant or making sure they don't blow their big guns too soon but that has never really been a big problem for my players. They typically know when something is important enough to warrant a fireball. I've never run a 4e game so I don't know if this is more present there.
The problem is that with mine there would be no little fights, as you are describing it here. And yet there would be almost no big fights as you described it earlier. As I said before all my fights are potentially fatal; an aspect I enjoy about the game. Just last week my solo player fell to two hobgoblins in a sewer. It was a fight that he was supposed to walk through and it wasn't even the "boss fight" of the adventure. But it happened and it was a potential outcome all along. Now, from there I have a number of resources to continue on, but that is what makes it more interesting. Indeed the player could have used any number of his limited use abilities (or rather items) to have that fight turn out differently. The option was always there for him to use his 'nova' power and walk out alive. He didn't use it and now (after a series of unfortunate rolls) he isn't walking out alive.
I say all that because this additional would have done absolutely nothing except hinder him. That little fight turned out badly for him and having my saying it was a little fight would have meant that he couldn't use those tricks he had acquired.
Are you saying these rules would need to be substantially different from the current set of 4e rules, or that you need rules for defining the abilities used in a Big Fight? I would certainly expect those powers to be defined completely in the rule set, rather than built out from it. Certainly there needs to be much more detailed rules to balance the two types of encounter- this is obviously more a sketch of an idea that seemed to have potential than anything. I can understand feeling that you would need to know more specifics to judge the merits of the idea, but I don't really have any for you, unfortunately.
No, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that you propose a system similar to 4e's AEDU. 4e has rules for AEDU but 5e doesn't. As this thread is on the 5e board I assumed you meant for 5e to come up with them. The problem I see is that in so doing most of the book would be needed to create the framework and balance of 4e's AEDU or else it isn't working at all.
The other problem is that a lot of people who liked 4e's AEDU liked it because of its balance. Now, you could remove that balance in favour of less rules on how 5e's AEDU would work to make more space in the book, or focus less on the balance that other people (non-4e) disliked about the game but then you haven't satisfied either camp.
'always available' was maybe a poor choice of words; maybe 'have traditionally always been available prior to 4e' would maybe be better. I would certainly include in that single-use or limited use magic items or limited use gear (caltrops, etc.). The idea is that during the small fights you operate in a more traditional pre-4e mode; when you enter a big fight, all of your regular small fight resources (including toys like magic items, pets, etc.) are still available, you just also pick up your set of Big Fight resources. Balance on this front would certainly be tricky.
Okay, your always available resources and what I'm talking about are different it seems. You are talking about caltrops and I'm talking about fireball(or meteor swarm). Granted, it is less likely for my players to throw a bag of caltrops during the boss fight but that doesn't mean they ONLY use them in "little fights". And I especially don't want my players to be limited only to caltrops, etc. That would seem to suggest (as this post mostly did) that I would want to only play big fights, so I can use everything...
But, as you also suggest here, big fights are 4e type fights. I don't ever want to play a 4e style fights in my game. It would take a lot of convincing to make me change my mind here. As I'm sure people who are anti-3e wouldn't like to play a system that is primarily a 3e type. If the purpose of this thread was to again say that 4e and pre-4e styles are different then I happen to agree. I don't agree about the conclusion you draw however, sorry.
I agree it's a stylistic choice, and I was careful to word it as to make either case optional. However, in practice I think there are few people who are playing an AEDU-style game without some kind of grid, and the assumption of the grid being there makes it much easier to define effects and powers in a way that doesn't slow down play too much. Certainly playing using the 'Small Fight' toolkit with a battle grid wouldn't be at all out of the ordinary. Part of the point of the two styles of fight, referring back again to the thread that kicked off this idea, was that the level of tactical detail provided by the 4e abilities having the background assumption of gridy-ness is attractive to some people for high-importance encounters, even if they don't want it every time they roll initiative. The two styles of fight are not only to provide different schema for balance (or non-balance) and style, but also to provide different levels of detail. I can see wanting to separate those things out, but in practice I think that takes us into a realm where D&D hasn't really explored very well- whereas this is intended to be built on top of two familiar systems.
I tried, unsuccessfully it seems, to make this point earlier. 4e does not equate to grid combat, just as pre-4e doesn't equate to gridless. I played with grids for a number of years in 3e and up until recently I preferred it, that being said I have tried gridless (or rather grid-light) lately and I have enjoyed it much more. That isn't to say I don't see the value either way, it is just my preferred style. My players in fact seem to prefer a grid - all while playing 3e.
Now, the only 4e game I ran we did with a great DM and we never once used the grid. It was entirely theatre of the mind and we loved it. I hated the system but loved the game. A grid is what the game was built for or with it in mind but you can certainly play 4e with or without it, just as you could with 3e.
But back to the point I was actually making - grid is just an aspect. It can be used with big fights and little fights. You make it seem like it is intertwined. I'll give a similar example, though it probably translates poorly.
You are familiar with backgrounds and specialties. What if I told you B+S could only be used during big fights but not little fights. If you are fighting a boss you can use the cleave ability (haven't gotten around to playtesting pack 2 yet) but you can't do it during little fights. That would strike many as strange and extremely gamist as suddenly not only do you have a fairly gamist ability but you can only use it during specific moments when the DM says so. That is mother may I run amok. As much as I dislike dailies and encounter powers; it would be worse if the DM says I can or cannot use them during certain fights.
There is something irreducibly gamist about having a specific set of powers that apply only in Big Fights. Definitely. There are ways to justify it in-world that I think work better than the 4e justifications- that the Big Fight represents a slowed-down, 'bullet time' version of a regular fight, that Big Fights are typically fights that PCs are specifically preparing for, that they are higher-stakes than ordinary fights, and the characters access untapped reserves of power- whatever. However, I also know that those explanations will not ever be sufficient to certain players.
Did you ever see lord of the rings? Do you remember when they go to Rohan and went to see the possessed king? They were supposed to give up their weapons and Gandalf kept his staff? Okay. Now, when the three took out the guards in the throne room is the ONLY time in the entire trilogy I can think of that you might classify as a small fight. Even then it could have very easily turned sour as they were mostly unarmed. It definitely doesn't suit well as the basis for an entire ruleset on how to limit player power. It also doesn't really help emulate one game system style or another very well (be that 4e, or pre-4e).
l liked the detail level, in general, provided by 4e, but found it exhausting having to break it out for every combat. Combats got too long as DMs tried to make every encounter utilize terrain and battlemap features that kept powers interesting, and this lead to the feeling that focus was being drug disproportionately to combat. Some of this, just like your skill challenge problem, stems either from bad DM'ing or poor presentation of the rules (i.e., you don't have to make every encounter use the full XP values worth of creatures for that encounter level- you can spread them out into multiple smaller fights).
Ran games, played games for many years with and without grids. Terrain never came up except when it was important and it certainly wasn't very prevalent unless we were using pre-made maps. I know that you said this was an element of 4e but as I already said 4e didn't invent the grid-based concept. The same goes for 'battlemap features'. We often had to deal with set-based pieces but I assume that is something other than what you are talking about.
