Per-Encounter Powers

[Kinak]

Encounter powers never really sat right with me. A single power restored by a short rest makes sense, you're fatigued after going all out and need a while to catch your breath.

But then you throw in another one. You can use sword strike A and sword strike B each once, then you're done. But you can't use A twice or B twice? And straining yourself doing A doesn't prevent you from doing B?

And if it's just a matter of people seeing the trick you're using and preparing themselves, why do you need a rest? It should work in the next encounter regardless. And what if a new wave of enemies comes in? What about someone who was distracted the first time you used it? Or is distracted right now and isn't prepared?

There's also the "finding just the right opening" explanation. But perception doesn't help? And you're no more likely to "find an opening" on an immobile or dazed target?

There are a lot of ways to model fatigue and improvisation and looking for openings. I have every faith the design team can come up with great answers (or deciding those things don't need to modeled, which is also fine), but fitting AEDU to each class was treated like a question instead.

I just want them to give me rules built on the fiction, rather than leaving me to drape the fiction over the rules.

Cheers!
Kinak

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

One of the mechanics that's been hinted at, but which we can't yet see in the playtest, is a limit on the total number of spells a caster can prepare. So rather than having 4 spells of each level, a level 20 wizard might only be able to prepare, let's say, 10 total spells (not counting cantrips). Would this improve the 15-minute day problem?

 

[dkyle]

That is not really a good fix, having the DM design the scenario to remove Encounter Powers is essentially just screwing over the players by making the powers Daily anyway. I could easily achieve that by removing the powers without the issue of misleading the players about what their PC's will be able to do.

Is a wave-based encounter "screwing over" the players? The model I'm suggesting is just that, with the "waves" being small encounters they run into, instead of small encounters that come to them.

Encounter Powers would still come back much more frequently than Daily powers (provided you still expect 3 to 5 short-rests per day).

If a player has invested in an Encounter power, they presumably want a power that works every encounter, which means the DM either has to worry about encounter based design or result in the player having no idea what the power level really is. Which frankly makes them a reasonably bad idea.

The power level is "you can do this once between short rests". It's exactly the same as Dailies (which have been in the game from the start), except a shorter rest duration.

 

[Abstruse]

Stupid needing to sleep...missed a lot of this discussion.

My group, if you pulled what they considered "cheesy" tactics, would rebel. Rolling random encounters every 10 minutes and you'd get lynched. Note that they can do all the cheesy stuff they want and complain when I say no or give them a negative to balance it, because it's okay for them to be cheesy and cheap. Part of the reason I stuck them in Ravenloft for a bit, so I can point to a rulebook and say "It's not me, the Dark Powers did it. I didn't want to, but the rules are the rules."

To another point whose post I lost re-reading this thread, encounter powers very much will change adventure design. If a player can take a short rest and get back a powerful ability, they're going to take short rests more frequently to get those abilities back. This means that they're stronger in any particular encounter. If they go with the 4e model, an encounter power is on par with or better than a critical hit with an at-will power.

Why would this change design? Because it takes challenge out of short encounters. If players only have daily and at-will abilities and run across a scout or guard, they're not going to waste those daily abilities to not waste the resources. They may, however, lose other resources such as HP/healing or ammunition. If you get a sneaky and dirty-fighting enemy like a goblin, you can make a strong adventure with every encounter only having a couple of goblins. They'll be slowly pecked to death. Think Tucker's Kobolds running ambushes.

If resources are shifted back to an encounter based design, that means that any encounter that isn't in and of itself a challenge becomes nothing more than a waste of time. They're not losing any resources with a short, easy encounter. Even if things go bad (which in a daily-based resource balance means they may have to use up spell slots for healing or attack), it's not going to matter because those encounter resources come right back.

I can even give you an exact example from 4e when I realized the problem with encounter-based design. I was running the Storm Tower adventure (the adventure from the Penny Arcade podcast season 2), but I had a twist. The dwarf that guides them to the tower was actually a doppelganger who was planning to stab them in the back (literally) during the first combat while they were distracted. However, they rolled well and saw through his lies, confronting him. Roll initiative.

He fought to escape. They were third level so each had 2 Encounter powers each to blow. He won initiative and tried to run, but didn't get far enough. Each player in turn used one Encounter power, used an action point, then used their second Encounter power. Or they double-moved, AP'd, and used an Encounter power. There was absolutely no chance for the doppelganger, and the entire encounter felt like a complete waste of time so after the second player pulled that tactic, I just said "You're going to drop him, do you want him dead or alive?"

If that had been a previous edition or Next as-written, it still could have been an interesting combat. The doppelganger's HP wouldn't have dropped so easily, and even if they did, his attack would've meant something more than "Oh no, I have to spend one healing surge."

What I realized in that exact moment was that I now had to make every single encounter some sort of challenge. The characters had to be threatened every time they entered combat or else they could walk right over the bad guys without expending anything meaningful, wasting time. So instead of spending my time prepping for the adventure coming up with an interesting story or a cool and logical design, I was spending my time crafting interesting encounters and then trying to find a way to tie them together. And I realized I had been doing that for months, and why I was constantly getting burned out so quickly compared to other editions.

Now, I like 4e, but it's a different "genre" than 1st-3.x/PF/Next. Those games are more adventure style. They're Indiana Jones. Meanwhile, 4e was action. It was The Matrix or the Legend of the Seeker TV show (if you remember that one). 4e's not bad and neither is encounter-based design, it's just different. And it doesn't really "feel" like D&D to me as much as other editions since D&D has traditionally been that more adventure/exploration base.

And the problem isn't encounter powers in and of themselves. If one or two players at the table have encounter-based powers, it's not going to be that bad. If a fighter or rogue can get a damage boost once per encounter, it's not a big problem. It's when there are enough of those encounter powers amongst the group that it actually shifts the adventure design to encounter-based. That's when you shift from adventure or action/adventure genres into straight action and that's when you start losing that classic feel of D&D.

 

[Steely_Dan]

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.

Yes, though I liked much of 4th Ed, MIlestones and Expected Wealth were two things I mentally excised (and the 1/2 level treadmill).

 

[Aenghus]

I like encounter based design and encounter powers. I have little inclination to run a guerilla war in D&D, certainly not as a regular game. My players are casual and not into a "challenging" game either.

This became clear to me in the D&D next playtest, when I realised I wanted to run the module encounter style, and the module provided no assistance in doing so, if anything it actively resisted the effort.

While easy fights in 4e don't have a lasting effect on party resources, they can have other consequences. When engaging small numbers of guards the issue is whether they raise the alarm or not, given that their defeat is not really in question for incidental fights. There are a whole load of potential consequences for easy encounters that don't depend on the resource model used.

 

[Abstruse]

While easy fights in 4e don't have a lasting effect on party resources, they can have other consequences. When engaging small numbers of guards the issue is whether they raise the alarm or not, given that their defeat is not really in question for incidental fights. There are a whole load of potential consequences for easy encounters that don't depend on the resource model used.

Then that's no longer a fight. That's a skill challenge with initiative.

Encounter-based design makes no logical sense for a story standpoint (because monsters or NPCs aren't going to stay huddled in encounter-level appropriate groups) or from a historical game standpoint (4e is the only edition of D&D and now that I think about it the only roleplaying game I can think of that had an encounter-based design). If you like that style of play, more power to you. I assume you've kept all your 4e books and hopefully, later on down the road, Next will introduced the proper combination of optional rules modules to support that style of play for you. You can even shoehorn Next into that style of play if you like when you write the adventure (try writing your own using the Bestiary and see how it works...I'm honestly curious now). But something like that shouldn't be the core design of Next.

 

[Thalain]

I personally considered "per encounter" one of the weakest elements of 4e and one of the parts that turned me away from playing the edition in any serious setting. Not only is "encounter" a very badly defined term (what if a group of monsters finds the party while we are still extricating ourselves from a trap - two encounters in rules terms but only one in terms of plot continuity), but it also leads to a party meeting five monster groups in a short time having the same powers as one who had several hours of rest between them. I prefer recharge times measured in minutes or hours as an intermediate between at will and daily - they scale much better.

 

[FireLance]

To another point whose post I lost re-reading this thread, encounter powers very much will change adventure design. If a player can take a short rest and get back a powerful ability, they're going to take short rests more frequently to get those abilities back. This means that they're stronger in any particular encounter. If they go with the 4e model, an encounter power is on par with or better than a critical hit with an at-will power.

Why would this change design? Because it takes challenge out of short encounters. If players only have daily and at-will abilities and run across a scout or guard, they're not going to waste those daily abilities to not waste the resources. They may, however, lose other resources such as HP/healing or ammunition. If you get a sneaky and dirty-fighting enemy like a goblin, you can make a strong adventure with every encounter only having a couple of goblins. They'll be slowly pecked to death. Think Tucker's Kobolds running ambushes.

If resources are shifted back to an encounter based design, that means that any encounter that isn't in and of itself a challenge becomes nothing more than a waste of time. They're not losing any resources with a short, easy encounter. Even if things go bad (which in a daily-based resource balance means they may have to use up spell slots for healing or attack), it's not going to matter because those encounter resources come right back.

IMO, the real issue is not encounter powers (or, to avoid knee-jerk negative reactions, powers that are regained after a short rest) per se, but a failure to take into account the additional power that they provide to the PCs. To take your doppleganger example, you are probably an experienced enough DM to know that a single low-level monster such as a kobold, a goblin or even an orc simply would not pose a challenge to a 3rd-level party, with or without powers that are regained after a short rest. They would be able to wipe it out with just at-will powers (maybe even basic attacks) and probably not even lose a single hit point. On the other hand, a more powerful monster such as a disguised devil would give them a tough fight, and in the absence of powers that are regained after a short rest, they would have to use their daily powers (or powers that are regained after a long rest). In other words, it was the added power, and not how quickly the PCs regained their abilities, that made the fight easier than you expected.

If that had been a previous edition or Next as-written, it still could have been an interesting combat. The doppelganger's HP wouldn't have dropped so easily, and even if they did, his attack would've meant something more than "Oh no, I have to spend one healing surge."

And really, how different is this from the Tucker's kobold example where the PCs lose a few hit points with each fight and are "slowly pecked to death"? Apart from the fact that it was just as single, lone doppleganger and not a series of similar fights, that is.

And the problem isn't encounter powers in and of themselves. If one or two players at the table have encounter-based powers, it's not going to be that bad. If a fighter or rogue can get a damage boost once per encounter, it's not a big problem. It's when there are enough of those encounter powers amongst the group that it actually shifts the adventure design to encounter-based. That's when you shift from adventure or action/adventure genres into straight action and that's when you start losing that classic feel of D&D.

And I still don't see why powers that are regained after a short rest would shift adventure design to an encounter-based design. You simply need to take into account the fact that the PCs will be more powerful and adjust your estimation of what would be a challenging encounter accordingly (and if you're not concerned about encounter balance, this wouldn't even be an issue in the first place). This is something that you would have to do anyway if the PCs' at-will attacks and basic attacks improve, e.g. if they gain damage bonuses from magic weapons and implements, feats, class features, etc. If a DM can adjust for the PCs' increased capability when they gain levels, he should also be able to adjust for the PCs' increased capability if they have powers that are regained after a short rest.

 

[FireLance]

I personally considered "per encounter" one of the weakest elements of 4e and one of the parts that turned me away from playing the edition in any serious setting. Not only is "encounter" a very badly defined term (what if a group of monsters finds the party while we are still extricating ourselves from a trap - two encounters in rules terms but only one in terms of plot continuity), but it also leads to a party meeting five monster groups in a short time having the same powers as one who had several hours of rest between them. I prefer recharge times measured in minutes or hours as an intermediate between at will and daily - they scale much better.

Actually, encounter powers (or, to avoid the constant misunderstandings, powers that are regained after a short rest) are regained after a short rest. If the PCs do not take a short rest (which is usually assumed to take five minutes), they do not regain their powers that are regained after a short rest.