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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Arlough" data-source="post: 5530372" data-attributes="member: 79335"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nova" target="_blank">Nova</a> is when a star suddenly flares brightly due to runaway fusion reaction releasing much of the energy it recently aquired from a companion star.  A <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernova" target="_blank">supernova</a> is when something similar happens (through different means, though) and the star explodes, destroying anything nearby.In D&D, nova is when one or more characters expends a proportionately large amount of their combat resources, particularly daily powers and Action points, to do tremendous damage in short order.  This can be a risky move, since 4th was made under the premise that you would most likely expend about 20% of your combat resources per encounter (on average) and therefore if you spend more than that, you would have less for the remaining encounters in a day.  But, if the players either know they will only have one encounter that day, or maybe can even choose when they take and extended rest, then it reduces the risk associated with <a href="http://theangrygm.com/schrodinger-chekhov-samus/" target="_blank">going nova</a> to nil, and makes the subsequent fight non-challenging.I am guessing that the term nova in D&D actually is a shortened form of supernova, but either works for the analogy.If you have an encounter that is within 3 levels of your party, and they all immediately pull out all their daily powers and action points, they can "explode" with damage capable of dropping just about any opponent before that opponent can deal significant damage.  Then as a DM you have to choose whether you attack them again, and risk TPK (usually not fun in the classic sense) or take it easy on them but reinforce the "5 minute day" method of play (fight for one 5 minute encounter and then go take an extended rest to regain all the party resources.)</blockquote>

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