D&D 4E Things I really like about 4e (and how they could be better)

[Gort]

Well, with only one combat encounter per day you don't really need anything to counter the 15-minute adventure day. Heck, you could almost turn those dailies into encounter powers and not notice the difference.

Well, it's more that the dailies tend to do game-breaking stuff when they can be used every single encounter. In multi-combat sessions you can at least go, "Well, at least they won't have *incredibly destructive power X* next encounter". Not so in my campaign.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Well, it's more that the dailies tend to do game-breaking stuff when they can be used every single encounter. In multi-combat sessions you can at least go, "Well, at least they won't have *incredibly destructive power X* next encounter". Not so in my campaign.

I would suggest something like what I use, which is to just divide the adventure up into 'chapters' that accomplish logical units of the plot and give the benefits of an ER at the end of the chapter. So if the PCs spend a few days in Gortville solving a little problem with the Thieves Guild they might SLEEP several times, but they won't REST until they're done. They might gain some small benefit from sleeping, and if the players decide to break off the story (IE the guild chases them out of town) then the end of the chapter is flexible. Maybe they run off, regroup, and eventually come back, but the convention then is I get to rework the situation, so progress made before may be lost and things might even get harder.

I think APs are rather underutilized now and could afford to be drafted for other purposes, and I like the idea of starting with 0 APs. Personally I have always been pretty flexible with milestones. I never really considered the 1 per 2 encounters to be hard and fast at all.

Maybe give out 1 AP to start with, and say 2 per encounter. Let the PCs use them to recover an HS, take an action, or recharge a daily. On average that means the PCs will have their daily powers MOST of the time, or at least some of them. That's OK. It would mean changing daily powers a bit probably, but I'd also cut back a bit on the number of surges people start with. This creates the 'momentum' you want. As the party forges ahead they can rebuild their stock of daily resources and take extra actions. Once they retreat they're back to their baseline power.

I'm kind of old school though in some ways, and I sort of wonder if things in general aren't getting mighty gamy. I sort of wonder if this is all really the right path to go down.

 

[KarinsDad]

I prefer the concept of just doubling the number of healing surges and leave it at that.

Our table group never runs out of Dailies. Except for one player (out of about 10, not all who show up each session) who burns through his Dailies (often 1 or 2 per encounter), we don't blow through them. So, the only thing that forces us to rest is getting low on healing surges.

Also, close to half of the players are playing Essentials PCs (who have few Dailies), so Dailies are especially not an issue for them.

As a player, I would enjoy having 10 or 12 encounters in a "single day". It's heroic to keep pushing on through the entire keep of enemies. The 4 to 6 encounters per day limit is a bit bothersome. With last year's monster damage increase, this limit is enforced greater now than it was in the past.

 

[D'karr]

I prefer the concept of just doubling the number of healing surges and leave it at that.

Our table group never runs out of Dailies. Except for one player (out of about 10, not all who show up each session) who burns through his Dailies (often 1 or 2 per encounter), we don't blow through them. So, the only thing that forces us to rest is getting low on healing surges.

Also, close to half of the players are playing Essentials PCs (who have few Dailies), so Dailies are especially not an issue for them.

As a player, I would enjoy having 10 or 12 encounters in a "single day". It's heroic to keep pushing on through the entire keep of enemies. The 4 to 6 encounters per day limit is a bit bothersome. With last year's monster damage increase, this limit is enforced greater now than it was in the past.

In one of my campaigns we've done something similar, in a way. Instead of every 2 encounters being a milestone, the DM determines when an actual milestone has taken place. At a milestone the players get an action point and a predetermined number of healing surges. That way it simulates the sense of accomplishment of reaching an actual milestone.

In combat my players tend to blow through healing surges pretty quickly. They really don't mind getting their hands dirty when it comes to butt kicking. They also get their butts handed to them occasionally. The extra healing surges keeps them going, and blowing dailies is not that much of a big deal.

 

[Dragon Sin-Camealot]

Anything can be better with the right imagination. The question is if you're the one to do it.

Because the game involves dice rolling it generates a variance factor. What is the main reason for problems. The person you introduce the game biasly hates it.

Or a lack of understanding the game.