Per-Encounter Powers

[ZombieRoboNinja]

One of the most striking departures from 4e in this D&DN playtest is the disappearance of encounter abilities. It seems that while fighters and rogues will gain a few daily abilities and powers, and spellcasters gain at-will cantrips (both good ideas IMO), the concept of per-encounter abilities seems gone from the mix. Judging from the "Shield" spell (which is ten minutes in duration rather than 1 encounter), even the concept of an encounter may be gone from this edition.

How does this strike you?

As I see it, there are two big issues here. First, some classes (spellcasters) will once again be somewhat more front-loaded than others (martial characters). While the at-will cantrips and daily fighter/rogue daily abilities mitigate this so it isn't as bad as 3e, it was considered a major hurdle in those editions, and I wonder if this won't be a step back from 4e in that respect.

Second, even setting aside the fact that classes will be balanced differently in the number and importance of their daily vs. at-will abilities, per-encounter abilities seemed like a cool (if potentially finicky) innovation for all classes. When they were an important part of the party's resources, it was possible to design an encounter that would strain the party without making them near-useless until they got a long rest.

My own feeling is that stepping back from the regimented power lineup of 4e is a good thing for class flavor. But not having played a ton of 4e, I'm interested to hear what those who have (especially DMs) think about the difference in gameplay between a session with per-encounter powers and one without them.

 

[Agamon]

I agree. A regimented list of PC powers is not what the designers are shooting for, and I subscribe to that ideal. One of the ideas of the playtest is to strike something of a balance without the need of things like encounter powers.

 

[Abstruse]

I've DM'd a lot of 4e and I have to say I'm not sorry to see encounter powers go. While it fixed some problems, it really changed the way you had to approach adventure design. In order to create an effective, interesting, and challenging adventure; you had to make sure that every single encounter was challenging in and of itself. No more trying to sneak up on the lone low-level guard keeping watch 50 feet away. Roll for initiative and move-charge and use your encounter. Repeat until it's dead. It rolled high enough to get an action after the first attack and shift-runs? Ranged attack encounter power.

Because of this shift, burnout sets in a lot faster on a DM. Because not only does every encounter have to be challenging, it also has to be interesting and different or else it's boring. I'd quickly run out of interesting ways to build encounters, especially if the ongoing story required a lot of enemies of a particular race (since I'd only have a dozen different variations on that monster at most).

In defense of Encounter Powers, the players really loved them. It gave them something interested to do and more tactical options, especially for the newer or more inexperienced players who are more prone to playing their character sheet rather than playing their character. They really liked having a trump card on top of basic attacks and their at-will powers to pull out in any encounter.

Also, 4e did simplify adventure design a lot. Because I didn't have to spend a lot of time adding class levels to monsters or re-reading the specifics on the spells and spell-like abilities to make sure I understood the rules around them, I had more time to come up with creative and interesting encounters.

If Next can find a way to take that pressure of encounter-heavy design for adventures without sacrificing the plug-and-play monsters and NPCs (which they haven't done yet but it's still early in the design cycle for monsters), we'd get the best of both. And if they can find a way to use the Race/Class/Theme/Background character design system to give players those useful options (even if they're an optional rules module) without also forcing me as DM to scale up combat too much, I think we'll have hit just the right note.

 

[jadrax]

The problem with encounter powers is you then need encounter based scenario design, and personally that is not the way I ever run any of my games.

 

[Herremann the Wise]

I have to admit that I'm not sad to see them go. Encounter powers always seemed to represent this artificial construction for me that never ringed true.
I would prefer that "special" actions be more naturally restricted by things related to circumstance (flanking, having advantage or opportunity, opponent unarmed etc.) than the artificial notion of the encounter.

For some people though, it either gave them the freedom of narrative they were looking for, or the tactical rush they wanted. It will be interesting to see how dedicated 4e players will embrace 5e.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[FireLance]

The problem with encounter powers is you then need encounter based scenario design, and personally that is not the way I ever run any of my games.

No, you don't, any more than having daily powers requries day based scenario design.

Certainly, encounter powers (or, to avoid knee-jerk negative reactions, powers that you regain after a short rest) make it easier to balance combats on an encounter to encounter basis. However, if you're not too fussed about per encounter balance, and you are prepared to accept that PCs with daily powers (or powers that you regain after an extended rest) might choose to expend none in one encounter and two or more in another, then the presence or absence of powers that you regain after a short rest isn't going to make much of a difference.

I don't think it would be too difficult to introduce powers that you regain after a short rest via feats, e.g. an extra effort ability which allows a character to deal extra damage on an attack, but which he must rest before he can use it again. Some spells might also have greater (for at-will spells) or lesser (for daily spells) effects that a character who knows the at-will spell or has prepared the daily spell could use in a fight and regain after taking a short rest.

WotC would probably want to avoid such abilities for the more classic spells such as magic missile and fireball (so that old-school players can use these spells and not worry about it), but a new force darts at-will spell which requires an attack roll, affects a single target, and deals 1d6+Intelligence modifier force damage could also allow the wizard to prepare force javelin, a spell which requires an attack roll, affects a single target, deals 2d6+Intelligence modifier force damage and allows the wizard to push the target Intelligence modifier squares on a hit, and can be prepared again after a short rest.

Similarly, there could be a spark storm daily spell that deals 3d6+Intelligence modifier lightning damage to all creatures in a 10-foot cylinder (Dexterity save for half) which, if prepared, also allows the wizard to prepare spark shower, a spell that deals 1d6+Intelligence modifier lightning damage to all creatures in a 10-foot cylinder (Dexterity save for half), and which can be regained after a short rest.

There might even be some spells that specifically state that you can regain them after a short rest in their spell descriptions. For example, perhaps the spell binding frost, which deals 1d10+Intelligence modifier cold damage and reduces the target's speed to 0 until the end of your next turn if the target fails a Strength save (on a successful save, the target takes half damage and its speed is not reduced), can simply be regained after taking a short rest.

 

[BobTheNob]

Among the 4e crowd ,you will still get those that would advocate them. Im not one of them, but not because I dont like them.

Its the whole "encounter" thinking. 4e was an encounter centric system, the problem I ad was that as a DM i found myself having to pre-design encounters. Im not fond of that, I much prefer that players define the terms of encounter through there choices and actions, not that encounters are built into campaign design (and please, dont give me the "Your doing it wrong" argument. Heard, absorbed it, utterly unconvinced by it).

Its the old pack of kobolds question. The adventure has by definition this encounter with kobolds of various capabilities. At the same time there is the map layout, with cover, difficult terrain, built in map mecahnics (such as traps or siege weapons, or interactive items). The whole design intended to let the players enjoy 4e's superb tactical experience (and 4e was a great tactical experience...if a little slow)... then you players turn around, steal a mask from one of the kobolds lairs, and dance around the fire pretending to be an avatar of the kobolds cult in an attempt to trick them. I want the players to do crazy stuff like that, but so much for all that preparation.

So it wasnt encounter powers per-sae that I objected to. By definition, they were just powers you could recover with a 5 minute rest. The thing I dont want is encounter centric design which is customed to a power systems mechanisms, and sorry, encounter powers are part of that big bad beasty.

 

[ren1999]

Encounter and Daily powers are hard to keep track of even with a computer.
But the play-test does have them because the wizard is limited to 3 1st level spells per day.

One way to make all powers at-will is to lower the damage of burst powers.

 

[Pseudopsyche]

I agree with both Abstruse and FireLance. I see no rational reason why powers that recharge after a short rest should require every encounter to be an elaborate set piece, but 4E as a whole certainly encouraged that approach to adventure design. This approach pervaded everything from the formatting of published adventures to the math for XP budgets. The most concrete rule that demonstrated the degree to which this approach was baked into 4E's DNA is the rule for milestones, which required the DM to explicitly designate what counted as a "real encounter."

So I think there can still be a place for powers that recover after a short rest, but I definitely won't miss an overemphasis on the Encounter as the fundamental building block of adventures.

 

[Campbell]

While I'm fairly certain we won't see any explicit encounter powers I think there's actually quite a bit of design space left in the daily/encounter ability vein especially among classes that are explicitly supernatural like paladins, monks, sorcerers and warlocks. For instance I could easily see a monk with a variety of supernatural abilities that require say 10 minutes of meditation to restore.