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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jackelope King" data-source="post: 3785114" data-attributes="member: 31454">I sincerely doubt that 3 is being completely removed from the game. Rather, from what I've read, certain healing abilities are integrated with certain classes in such a way that the character's first role is no longer one of support/the walking band-aid.Ah, but that's not what seems to be happening. I honestly don't see the designers reducing costs/risks so greatly, but instead refocusing them so the costs/risks are mostly decided upon in light of making the only encounter the PCs are garunteed to have (the one they're currently in) as interesting and fun as possible. I've said it before, but the way things are being described, I think designers might purposefully design per-encounter abilities which, if used with abandon, will leave players with reduced options by the time an encounter is over.Take the barbarian, for example. My thought would be the barbarian gaining some sort of "mini-rage" which won't last for the whole encounter, but will be useable in any encounter, so the barbarian will have to time when to use that rage very carefully. In the current per-day system, the barbarian's decision to rage is binary "yes/no" for a given encounter. If an encounter is dangerous enough to merrit raging, then he should on the first possible round, since the rage will last the whole combat. In essence, if you run fewer combats than the barbarian has rages (or at least tend to), there's no decision on the barbarian's part: rage, rinse, repeat.Spellcasters are similar. As it stands now, the only reason for a spellcaster not to use his biggest spells first is the threat of a possible later encounter that will require them. And smart nova casters know how to get around this with spells like rope trick, teleport, plane shift, etc. But that's a digression. Spellcasters are forced to focus not on the encounter at hand, but rather on an encounter that may never happen, and the system rewards it for them. It fails to account for the fact that there is only one encounter that is garunteed, and all others are only maybes that could become broken promises to the wise spellcaster who budgeted his magic wisely for an encounter that never comes. Players take a risk for essentially no reward, and they have very little control over whether or not they'll get that reward.In fact, early encounters tend to be less tactical for the reason that the spellcaster is at full. They can blast with impunity, crossing off only one of three fireballs from their spell list while still maintaining a majority of their power. It's only later in the day that managing those remaining resources even comes up, if ever.But, if the system is designed around the idea that this one encounter is everything, and resources are designed accordingly, then it will focus players on the tactical fun of deciding on this encounter. Rage this round or later, when the enemy closes? Do you use your only lightning bolt for the encounter now, or wait for the enemy to try to come through the choke point? Should the cleric go mix it up along side the fighter, knowing that the fighter will need healing soon and can only benefit from that area heal if the cleric is close enough and actually in combat? Should the rogue disappear into the shadows this round, or stick it out for another few rounds so that he can save it just in case the fighter needs someone to sneak around and help him whittle down at the BBEG with a nice sneak attack?There might not be another encounter after this one, so why not make the rules for this one as much fun as possible?</blockquote>

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