D&D 4E The Economy of Actions in 4e

[jaldaen]

Honestly, I'd rate IAs as higher than Standards, since they happen in addition to Standard actions. There aren't any examples in the PHB of Conjurations that consume players' IAs, so I would avoid any kind of At-Will abilities that consume player IAs.

Yeah I'd rate them higher too, but I was mainly thinking of a "what if" you could trade your IA for an action on your turn. I think it would be appropriate to have a hefty cost to do so.

I'm also thinking that IAs as At-Will Attacks (utility powers is fine as the rogue reveals) is probably too much and as pointed out already would cause a lot more trouble than they are worth.

I think it would be nifty to have some Encounter/Daily powers that allow your pet to take an IA, as long as the overall effect isn't more powerful that other IA powers. For example, a "Loyal Protector" power that uses the PCs IA to give the pet an attack against a creature that just damaged the PC.

That's exactly what I was thinking or even take the attack instead of you... like the succubus' ability

 

[virgileso]

Economy of Actions is only part of the problem, and I think the author of that article does us a disservice by leaving out some important aspects.

Having more actions only equals more power when the sum effect of your actions exceeds the sum of someone with fewer. Having two actions at half power is about as balanced as one full-power action.

The other concern with Economy of Actions is screen time, which is a different beast from balance. If each half-power action takes as long to resolve as a full-power action, then it takes twice as long to go through that players turn. If reduced power actions can be resolved faster, then there is no imbalance in screen time nor power.

The time it takes to choose a center point and draw out the area covered with a fireball, and followed by a seperate roll for each person in that area, is more than swinging your sword at an adjacent foe; which shows a noticeable disparity in screen time (or Economy of Real Life Action Time). A damaging wall that harms those near/in it, and take damage to be taken down, shows a persistant presence on the battlemat that is nearly indistinguishable from pets in both resolution and battlefield influence.

Note that these remain, which shows a distinct tunnel-vision when forbidding pets of various sorts on the foundation of 'Economy of Actions'.

 

[bardolph]

I don't think it's tunnel vision. Pets have existed in previous editions of the game, and playtesting has revealed that pets tend to skew "economy of actions" in terms of power AND screen time. The designers of 4e were right to be cagey about pets.

 

[amysrevenge]

Having more actions only equals more power when the sum effect of your actions exceeds the sum of someone with fewer. Having two actions at half power is about as balanced as one full-power action.

The other factor is that with more actions, even half-actions, you have a much better chance of performing the "right" action - in addition to pure power (which with this half-action pair would be the same) you are also getting a flexibility advantage.

Big Mike

 

[virgileso]

As I stated earlier, having two half-power actions is about as powerful as a single full-power action. I'm not disregarding the potential synergy. Besides, when you have pets perform actions that consist of dealing damage, there isn't much room for this vague 'versatility' claim to wrench into unbalanced territory; no more than what could happen from further products from WotC, at the worst.

There remains the fact that Area spells have equal or greater screen time compared to having a pet, and there already exist damageable creations by various classes to take up space on the mat. It's nowhere near this insurmountable balancing challenge some seem to think it to be.

 

[Psychic Robot]

I don't think it's tunnel vision. Pets have existed in previous editions of the game, and playtesting has revealed that pets tend to skew "economy of actions" in terms of power AND screen time. The designers of 4e were right to be cagey about pets.

While I agree with you, completely removing pets is a huge blow to the game itself, I think. My preference is to play a character with a pet--pets are pretty much my favorite thing ever--so 4e's lack of pet options is a real turn-off to me.

 

[Danceofmasks]

I need my combat challenge interrupt as a threat.
Especially since with shield push, it's also a possible action-invalidating threat.

 

[bardolph]

As I stated earlier, having two half-power actions is about as powerful as a single full-power action. I'm not disregarding the potential synergy. Besides, when you have pets perform actions that consist of dealing damage, there isn't much room for this vague 'versatility' claim to wrench into unbalanced territory; no more than what could happen from further products from WotC, at the worst.

There remains the fact that Area spells have equal or greater screen time compared to having a pet, and there already exist damageable creations by various classes to take up space on the mat. It's nowhere near this insurmountable balancing challenge some seem to think it to be.

It's not insurmountable. It just takes a bit of work. I'm sure future expansions will have plenty of pets. However, I'm glad that pets are not part of the "core" eight classes.

 

[Snotboy]

While I agree with you, completely removing pets is a huge blow to the game itself, I think. My preference is to play a character with a pet--pets are pretty much my favorite thing ever--so 4e's lack of pet options is a real turn-off to me.

I'm not able to link or site anything specific, but I swear I saw in this very sites pre-release info compilation say something to the effect that the development team 'figured out' how to make pets or summons work in some way, but were too late to do anything with it before the books went to print. You may have what you're looking for coming--we'll see how it turns out.

 

[jaldaen]

It's not insurmountable. It just takes a bit of work. I'm sure future expansions will have plenty of pets. However, I'm glad that pets are not part of the "core" eight classes.

I agree... although I also think pets aren't in the "core" eight b/c WotC really wants to drive home the redefinition of "core." WotC really wants people to see all the PHBs, MMs, and DMGs as "core" and the best way to do that is keep a few previously "core" classes, races, and features back for future "core" releases. Familiars, companions, etc... would certainly fit this description in my estimation. It also gives them extra design and development time for the concept of pets, which is useful for getting things right the first time around