Slight tangent, but frankly, I think it's more a problem with individual powers than the power point mechanic in itself.
That is absolutely true and it's always the same powers that are bought up, but we have psionic power coming out next month. All it takes is one low level at-will in any of those three classes and boom, they break the game utterly by high levels. Is that good class design? One that's so vulnerable to a single low level power being broken (usually because of poor scaling) that is completely breaks the entire class?
I know there are many examples of low level powers that people keep for their whole careers they are that good. Very few of those examples can be done every round at-will by the classes that have them, which does limit how much impact (even if a significant one) they can have. Turn Rain of Blows into an at-will power at epic though and well, the problem becomes obvious.
That's what happens with psionics. You have a single bad power at low levels and that class can use it at-will by epic. This is why I am not excited about major changes to the at-will/encounter/daily power structure.
Edit: Incidentally, I can't help but notice all the most notable game breaking psionic powers have yet to be errata'ed. Personally my hope is that Wizards is hitting the real problem, the PP system and not putting a bandaid on the broken at-wills. They'll just be replaced with something else anyway in time.
Every time this argument gets brought up, I feel like I'm in the General forum reading yet another diatribe about how 4E has totally abandoned simulation because of
come and get it and martial healing.
You run an epic game where a psion turns a solo into a pincushion with a -7 to -9 all attacks and -7 to -9 all defenses
at-will (Using an AP first round and usually an orb to extend one of the above penalties one round further) and you'll understand why this is a significant flaw.
For the record, I don't care about "simulation" and what I do care about game balance and consistency. I do like things that push the system or do something new, but I'd like it to be within a certain framework that the game has made. Abandoning encounter and daily powers just doesn't seem like a good idea to me. If they do so, I'd really love reassurances we aren't looking at another psionics fiasco.
However, (as has also been pointed out) this means that you get the benefit whenever you make a melee basic attack, e.g. when charging, or when making an opportunity attack, or when your warlord buddy gives you an extra basic attack.
That is a minor advantage, especially because you might be adjacent to one enemy and get a MBA, hit it and of course waste your cleave damage. Albeit, some stances are just "always on" like the +2 damage, so I imagine those will be taken quite often.
It also isn't clear to me whether it is possible for a knight to swap out power strike for another fighter encounter power. Right now, the heading is showing up as "Fighter Attack" instead of "Fighter Attack 1" for me, so unless it gets changed, the answer is probably no.
I wonder if you copy and paste it the 1 will show up, like with Magic Missile on the mage. As that didn't show it was still a "Wizard Attack 1" in the name.
(Although if you ask me, it seems about in line with what you would expect from a 1st-level fighter encounter power, so even if it isn't "official", I would allow it to be taken as a 1st-level fighter encounter power, and I would allow a knight to swap it out for another 1st-level fighter encounter power.)
Yeah, I'm just concerned about them not having the same versatility actually.
