Trading Dailies for Encounter Powers

[Stalker0]

I've toyed with this idea for a while, and I wanted to formalize it.

Trading Dailies for Encounter Powers

Whenever gaining a level, a character can choose to swap out one daily attack power to pick up an encounter attack power of the same or lower level. This can even be the same encounter power the character has already chosen.

A character can change their power back using the retraining option.


Now at first it might seem a massive power down for a character to give up dailies for encounter powers, but for some character archetypes I think it could be well worth it. A character can give up the raw power of dailies for the consistency of encounter powers. They don't spike like other classes, but they can last longer across multiple fights in a day.

Also, encounter powers tend to be the ones most focused on your secondary stats, so this allows a character to make more viable builds that actually use the secondary stat as teh primary. An example is the dexterous halfing fighter. This guy actually goes big dex over strength, wearing light armor to make the most of it. At 5th level he chooses to take the 3rd level encounter Armor-Piercing Strike a second time. This reduces the normal penalty he would suffer from having a lower strength and lets him be more viable overall.

 

[keterys]

As a general rule, I'd rather have the encounters than the dailies (unless combats in the campaign tended to very short).

Not all of them, but certain ones definitely.

I don't like allowing it to work for the same power, however. I get why you're doing it that way and I could potentially warm to it, but I'm not big on the idea of every encounter looking too close to the other ones, and if you've got 3 of one power and 2 of another it might work out that way.

 

[logopolis]

I kind of like the concept of being able to use an encounter more than once, as long as there's a cost to it. Doing this with the trading mechanic seems a little clunky to me, though.

I'm thinking an easier way to do it would be to make a feat that allows the character to spend a daily power in order to recharge an encounter power.

 

[Kzach]

Contrary to popular belief, I think encounter powers are more powerful than daily powers. I base this on the fact that a daily power may get used once a session, if you're lucky, whereas an encounter power can, and should be, used every encounter.

Therefore I think it's unbalanced to offer this trade. You're really boosting the power of the character significantly as you're giving them an extra option for every single fight, rather than just the very big ones.

 

[keterys]

Well, you're almost always looking at a lower level encounter power at least. It's also a lot more predictable for the DM which has _some_ advantages.

So I'm not sure that a character using 4 encounter abilities instead of 3 at-wills and 1 daily, say, is a "significant" boost in power, except for certain encounter abilities, certain at-wills, certain dailies. It's close enough that I'd shrug and allow it, anyhow.

 

[Raven Swords]

It sounds like there's not much in it power wise, but personally I'd go with the feat that allows you to swap out a daily to replace with an encounter power - I think this feels like a better mechanic and eliminates the slight advantage gained with an extra encounter power.

I was thinking about this but with utility powers but I'm not sure if the trade off (an attack power) is worth an extra utility? Maybe 1 att pwr = 2 utility?

It would be great for lower combat games...

 

[Anthony Jackson]

Overall, this is probably a power increase -- two encounter powers are often better than one daily power, and since you can use an encounter power every encounter, you're very likely to get at least two uses out of an encounter power.

However, the major problem with a power swap like this is that it significantly reduces the range of encounters that are viable. With many more encounter powers, the characters will find standard encounters easier, but will find hard encounters more difficult.