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Message: <blockquote data-quote="delericho" data-source="post: 4402595" data-attributes="member: 22424">Funnily enough, the only times I ever saw it in 3e were at higher (mid-teens) levels.Agreed. Siloing of abilities in 4e is something of an improvement. (There are other ways of solving this problem, of course.) Agreed. In 3e, I was going to fix the issue with availability of Clerical healing by use of a custom magic item I called a wealstone, which would heal 10 hit points per use, and could be used 10 times per day. (It would only heal the user, and require a mental command, so couldn't be used as an anti-undead weapon or on the unconscious Barbarian.) Unfortunately, our recent campaigns haven't got far enough for me to see what impact this would have had.I do like per-encounter balancing (with 'an encounter' being defined as the time between two short rests). I'm not at all a fan of mixing per-encounter with per-day balancing.For the 'big gun' powers, I would have done the following:1) Allow Wizards (and Clerics, etc) to prepare any six spells at any time. This selection could be swapped during a short rest.2) Switch to a mana-pool system. (Yes, I know, the notion of D&D going to a mana system is almost heretical.) At the start of an encounter, characters would begin with their mana pool at half of maximum.3) Allow a Concentration check (or equivalent) standard action for characters to replenish/expand their current mana.The 'big gun' spells (and powers) would thus have bigger mana costs, meaning that the Wizard has the tactical choice of either firing off a relatively small spell every round, or spending some time hedging his resources before ending the encounter with his 'big gun'. (Of course, this hits the problem that the character might spend all his time charging up, only to find the encounter is over too soon, or his big gun isn't appropriate.)There's not question that my players would have definately retreated at this point. They might even not have returned to that dungeon.Is the Wizard using his crossbow really that horrible a notion? I mean, I get that people play the Wizard because they want to be the spell-casting master of arcane lore... but at 1st level they're not there yet, in just the same way that the 1st level Fighter really isn't the legendary weapon-master that his player wants to be playing.</blockquote>

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