Why only two at will powers?

[Steely Dan]

There are 4 at-wills available per class, but you get to choose 2.

How come in the Tiers/Powers excerpt it lists characters as having 2-at wills, all the way through 30th level?

 

[Piratecat]

Yup, there are 4-5 to choose from, but you always know only two. I believe that it's to encourage you to use your more effective and flashy encounter/daily powers. Between those, and the powers from magic items, I don't think it'll be too big a problem. I've only run one test game, but we didn't run into the problem at all yet.

 

[Charwoman Gene]

Most of the "repetitive" complaints were from people ujsing higher level monsters with level 1 pregens. Basically, the dailies and Encounter powers are gone in a few rounds and you have to go more rounds to wear down the opponents after that.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Another consideration regarding choosing 2 at wills is that it gives you 6 variations of the base class right there, x2 for the two starting types (e.g. brute rogue vs charismatic rogue) so that it increases the opportunity for having the same class look and work pretty different even before and feats or equipment is considered.

I like it as a principle.

 

[bobthehappyzombie]

Also it needs to be stated that Humans racial bonus of 1 extra at will would be seriously devalued if every one got 3 or 4.

I think with the amount of encounters and dailies you recieve as you advance in levels you will use at wills more infrequently anyway. Per encounter skills are the test of adaptability not at wills.

 

[thalmin]

Each class only allows 2 at-wills, races (like human at level 1) might allow extra or racial at-wills, at least 1 encounter power (more at higher levels) ,1 daily (more at higher levels), standard attacks, possibly defensive attacks (we haven't seen all the combat options yet. Don't forget Marks and abilities to slide-push-pull opponents.
Seems like a non-caster character, especially at first level, has more combat options than ever before. And the idea was to cut down on the game-slowing-as-I-look-through-pages-of-choices casters had.

 

[vagabundo]

These two at will come from your class only.

You may get at-will powers from other sources; race, magic items, feats...

 

[Cadfan]

From the Tier excerpt, we know that at level 5 you can expect to have the following:

2 at will powers
2 encounter powers
2 daily powers
2 utility powers, which may be daily or encounter (or at will?)

That's just from your class.

You also might have a racial power, you will almost undoubtedly have powers from your gear, and you will have "always available" abilities like Sneak Attack or Marking or the warlock's Curse.

And as you level up, you'll just get more.

I'm honestly not concerned about the number of at will powers available. I'm slightly concerned that at very high levels, I may feel a little overwhelmed with choices. I'm sure I'll get over it though. Its like complaining about too much ice cream.

 

[keterys]

In the group I've been playing with, they were all effectively human and I actually gave out one bonus at-will (at 4th in that hole in the progression we know about). I haven't seen a problem with people taking too long to pick which at-will to use or the at-wills competing with encounter powers for effectiveness... it has made defense cherry picking a bit easier to do (ie, like trying a will attack or reflex attack to see if that works better)

That said, I would want there to be a lot more powers than 4-5 each first (like, I gave the paladin in my pseudo 4e playtest 10 options). The human extra at-will is probably less useful for many characters because it will be 'off spec', so giving more at-wills available and to everyone wouldn't necessarily diminish the benefit.

 

[Kaodi]

Also, if you multiclass at paragon level (and maybe even with the paragon paths, I forget), do you not get another at-will power? So, that means at level 11 you have the option of going up to 3...