Why only two at will powers?

[hcm]

Does anyone know the reason for only giving characters two at will powers? It seems that three or four at will powers would be a huge gain (combat will be much less repetitive, especially at lower levels) at a very low cost in increased complexity. What am I missing?

 

[Jack99]

Does anyone know the reason for only giving characters two at will powers? It seems that three or four at will powers would be a huge gain (combat will be much less repetitive, especially at lower levels) at a very low cost in increased complexity. What am I missing?

Diversity?

But yeah, I guess it should be possible to make up some more at-will powers, and give more out at first, without "breaking" the game.

 

[Byronic]

I wouldn't mind only have 2 at the start, but why not more later on?

Or do you get more at-wills and I just overlooked it somewhere?

 

[hcm]

I wouldn't mind only have 2 at the start, but why not more later on?

Or do you get more at-wills and I just overlooked it somewhere?

As I understand it, you don't get more later on (and the need for more is less, later on, as you then have more encounter and daily powers).

 

[Steely Dan]

As I understand it, you don't get more later on (and the need for more is less, later on, as you then have more encounter and daily powers).

Also racial, utility, and magic item powers will add to a character's overall repertoire.

 

[hcm]

But I still think it's wierd -- there are many reports already of combat feeling repetitive at low levels. It seems such a simple task to add one or double the number of at wills per character. I'm just curious why they choose to stay at only 2.

 

[dervish]

I honestly don't believe that you need that many at-will powers to make your choices intresting every round in a battle. Though I think that the burden of creating intresting choices partly lies with the DM using some kind of tactics for the enemies, requiring you to do some tactical movement to counter that.

On a related note: In my demoing sessions so far, the one thing that makes the battle stagnate a bit and turn into a boring grind is that the enemy has a hard time justifying letting the fighter attack them just to shift away from him.

One other thing to consider are the at-will abilties that everyone effectively has.

Grapple
Basic Feature
At-Will
Standard Action Melee touch
Attack: Strength vs. Reflex
Hit: Target is immobilized an everyone but you has a combat advantage against him. Both effects lasts until the target makes an Athletics check vs. your Fortitude defense or an Acrobatics check vs. your Reflex defense. Attempting a check is a move action.
Special: If you are still grabbing your target at the beginning of your next turn, you may perform a Strength attack vs. Reflex to slide him 1 square.

Though I'm not 100% sure that the above is correct, I know for certain that everyone can grapple as an at-will ability. There might also be Bull Rush, Trip and Disarm equivalents.

At this stage I really wouldn't be worried, except maybe fighting a dull solo monster at the lowest of levels.

 

[Steely Dan]

But I still think it's wierd -- there are many reports already of combat feeling repetitive at low levels. It seems such a simple task to add one or double the number of at wills per character. I'm just curious why they choose to stay at only 2.

I believe it has now been confirmed as 4 at-wills, according to some people who saw the books preview.

 

[Vael]

Each class has only 4 or 5 at-wills to choose from, giving them more would defeat the purpose of choosing them.

 

[Stogoe]

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