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<blockquote data-quote="Pseudopsyche" data-source="post: 5940093" data-attributes="member: 54600">I'll take a stab at this. Let's compare imaginary games A and B, where A has only at-will powers and B has both at-will and short-rest powers. Let's say that we intend the typical at-will power in game A to inflict an average of 10 points of damage per attack. We design game B so that an at-will power averages 5 points and a short-rest power averages 15 points. Clearly, a party playing game B will have the same damage output per round as a party playing game A, if in game B you tend to use short-rest powers half the time.But savvy players use their short-rest powers first, since there's no point in saving them for a future encounter (unlike dailies). For short (easy) encounters, PCs in game B average 15 points of damage per round. For long (hard) encounters, they average less than 10 points, and the harder the battle, the lower their average damage per round. Conclusion? In games with short-rest powers, easy encounters are easier and hard encounters are harder, compared to a similar game designed without such powers. Short-rest powers indeed make it harder to create &quot;balanced&quot; encounters.That said, I am not personally against short-rest powers. The above analysis applies to a vaguely 4E-like game, but it is possible to mitigate the front-loading issue.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Pseudopsyche, post: 5940093, member: 54600"] I'll take a stab at this. Let's compare imaginary games A and B, where A has only at-will powers and B has both at-will and short-rest powers. Let's say that we intend the typical at-will power in game A to inflict an average of 10 points of damage per attack. We design game B so that an at-will power averages 5 points and a short-rest power averages 15 points. Clearly, a party playing game B will have the same damage output per round as a party playing game A, if in game B you tend to use short-rest powers half the time. But savvy players use their short-rest powers first, since there's no point in saving them for a future encounter (unlike dailies). For short (easy) encounters, PCs in game B average 15 points of damage per round. For long (hard) encounters, they average less than 10 points, and the harder the battle, the lower their average damage per round. Conclusion? In games with short-rest powers, easy encounters are easier and hard encounters are harder, compared to a similar game designed without such powers. Short-rest powers indeed make it harder to create "balanced" encounters. That said, I am not personally against short-rest powers. The above analysis applies to a vaguely 4E-like game, but it is possible to mitigate the front-loading issue. [/QUOTE]

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