Uller
Adventurer
I've seen a few threads suggesting house rules to recharge encounter powers. One of 4e's biggest draw backs to me is combat grind. Last night we had a lvl 5 party in a EL8 encounter that included an elite boss monster. The first 3 or 4 rounds of the fight were exciting....minions everywhere, PCs and monsters maneuvering to make the most of powers or avoid enemy powers. The players had a sense that any round could see them down and bleeding.
But due to a few bad rolls on both sides, the fight dragged on. It wasn't clear who would win (normally I don't alllow combats with forgone conclusions to drag on....I have the monsters flee or surrender or just die on the next hit), but no one had any fight changing powers left. Occasionally the monsters would recharge a power but the PCs were down to all at wills and I could see boredom setting in. It became a static fight with everyone just exchanging at-wills. When the fight finally ended it was more of a relief than a climactic ending to a 3 session long assault on an enemy stronghold.
One thing I noticed is that players rarely use their second winds. Occasionally if they are in real trouble they will use an AP to use their second wind, but when you are up a against a foe that can deal 150% or more of your healing surge value, it doesn't seem all that useful to forgo a turn to gain X hp only to lose 1.5 or 2 times X by your next turn.
I'm thinking of a house rule where PCs can use their second wind to recharge an encounter power. Elites and Solos can use an AP to recharge an encounter or recharge power.
Has anyone tried this or something similar? My biggest concern is the wizard. Rarely do I see wizards needing to use second winds at all and their encounter powers tend to be more earth shaking than other classes...so I am not sure it works for them.
EDIT: Whoops! This was meant for the 4e forum...reposting there!
But due to a few bad rolls on both sides, the fight dragged on. It wasn't clear who would win (normally I don't alllow combats with forgone conclusions to drag on....I have the monsters flee or surrender or just die on the next hit), but no one had any fight changing powers left. Occasionally the monsters would recharge a power but the PCs were down to all at wills and I could see boredom setting in. It became a static fight with everyone just exchanging at-wills. When the fight finally ended it was more of a relief than a climactic ending to a 3 session long assault on an enemy stronghold.
One thing I noticed is that players rarely use their second winds. Occasionally if they are in real trouble they will use an AP to use their second wind, but when you are up a against a foe that can deal 150% or more of your healing surge value, it doesn't seem all that useful to forgo a turn to gain X hp only to lose 1.5 or 2 times X by your next turn.
I'm thinking of a house rule where PCs can use their second wind to recharge an encounter power. Elites and Solos can use an AP to recharge an encounter or recharge power.
Has anyone tried this or something similar? My biggest concern is the wizard. Rarely do I see wizards needing to use second winds at all and their encounter powers tend to be more earth shaking than other classes...so I am not sure it works for them.
EDIT: Whoops! This was meant for the 4e forum...reposting there!
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