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Nov 18, 2012 -- 7:30AM, Garthanos wrote:

Conversely not having encounter powers makes daily powers too important and reduces the effective length of the game day. (or can encourage it for them who are dependent on them)

And makes what I want to be trivial.. .too important.

This is something I don't really understand.

The way I see it, "lesser" daily powers and encounter powers are interchangeable. For every encounter power you should have gotten, you get 4-5 lower level daily powers with roughly the same strength. At each encounter, you burn as many lesser dailies as you would have used encounter powers and the same number of major daily powers.

This should work for people that want 4-5 important encounters per adventuring day.

This probably also works for those that want 1-2 important encounters per day. You just anticipate the nova effect exactly like you did in 4th edition. 

It doesn't work for people that just want a nearly unlimited amount of trivial encounters per day that use so little of your daily resources (Healing Surges) that you can have 15-20 of those. I'm sure that's not your playstyle.

I see what you mean by "encouraged to use daily powers" though. It's very true that in my AD&D experience, most of my players would use a spell every round, even a lesser spell. But that's because their only other option was shooting darts... It's only natural for players to want to contribute to a fight every round. I personally pick Magic Missile over shooting 3 darts that each deal 1d4 damage, even if that means going to bed early.

But I think 4th edition solved that problem with at-will powers, not encounters powers. In a EDU (no at-will) system, once you run out of encounter powers, if your only option is to shoot darts, your players will use daily powers.

The reason I come to this conclusion is my 3rd edition experience. Once we figured out how important wands, staves and reserve feats were, our spellcasters stopped using their daillies as fillers and our adventuring days were much longer (sometimes as much as 6-7 interesting encounters).

Nov 18, 2012 -- 7:30AM, Garthanos wrote:

It also means for the non-daily crew mono-tone ... capability, aka potentiallly boring.

Agreed. At-will powers are boring. It was true in 4th edition (in my opinion), 3rd edition (wand of magic missile is not that fun) and in AD&D (yay for shooting darts!).

Nov 17, 2012 -- 11:46PM, Crimson_Concerto wrote:

They make perfect sense to anybody willing to listen to something new. The only problem with martial encounter and daily abilities is some people being unable to get past their preconceived notions of what those limiters are meant to represent. To contrast, I see many experienced gamers who have issue with them but have not met even a single new player who thought they were any more immersion-breaking than encounter or daily spells.

I fear I dont have the ability to articulate this. I am an experienced player who believes that encounter powers dont make sense for martial classes. Its not that I haven’t listened to explanations.

The problem I have isnt related to immersion. My problem is that it breaks from a simulation. I refuse to implement rules that make the game less realistic for no good reason. There is not a physical feat that cant be replicated more than once in a battle. You could even sneak up on someone twice in the same battle if they fled and hid.

Ive listened to all the arguments. My answer to these arguments concedes that certain maneuvers should suffer from diminishing returns, and could only be used in certain situations. There are theoretical Next Powers and existing 4e Warlord exploits that are sophisticated and require multiple party members. I could see why they could only be used at the start of combat. They make sense to me however they dont make sense as individual powers. These types of exploits are party powers.

Every member of a party could share in certain party powers. A power could be called, right arm of Dwarven Phalanx. Everyone in the party has a piece or two of that formation. I hope the Warlord transitions to a prestige class for almost any class but certain Monks, and Priest domains. These Warlord classes could create party powers yet any party that pays to learn party powers could have them.

That is my sick delirium. Encounters powers don't make sense unless they are CRIPS community, revolution in the party's service. ????? Party Power is the way to go for encounter stuff. 

Nov 18, 2012 -- 6:35AM, OleOneEye wrote:

I like encounter powers in the manner they were implemented in the Book of 9 Swords, i.e. with an in-combat recharge mechanism.

That I could actually get behind. Having built in recharge mechanics not just for Encounter power but also for Daily powers going a long way towards making them both a bit more believable if that matters to you.

Nov 18, 2012 -- 9:35AM, Rory wrote:

I am an experienced player who believes that encounter powers dont make sense for martial classes.

Yes, that's what I've said. I've met many experienced gamers who take issue with it for thinking that it's bad for immersion or simulation, but I've not met a single newer player that thinks it's any worse than daily spells on a caster. "If I know how to cast a spell, then why can't I just cast it whenever I want?" they might ask. Whatever logical answers you can come up with for that pretty much work just as well for martial abilities. If you really think about it, I think you'll find that the underlying root of your objection that it's just a large departure from how you're used to seeing martial combat mechanically represented.

My problem is that it breaks from a simulation. I refuse to implement rules that make the game less realistic for no good reason. There is not a physical feat that cant be replicated more than once in a battle. You could even sneak up on someone twice in the same battle if they fled and hid.

And how do you reconcile this view with a lack of issue with spells being daily? What is at all realistic about that, especially when you compare it to most forms of magic in media and literature? It's not like it's hard to imagine a character that can cast Sleep at-will. But just as it's not difficult to imagine a caster that runs out of magical energy quickly and finds it too difficult to concentrate after, it's not difficult to imaging a martial character that has low endurance or only knows a few reliable tricks that the enemy catches onto quickly enough to make the fighting style ineffective.

Nov 18, 2012 -- 9:18AM, Gnarl wrote:

Agreed. At-will powers are boring. It was true in 4th edition (in my opinion), 3rd edition (wand of magic missile is not that fun) and in AD&D (yay for shooting darts!).

I disagree, at-wills in 4ed were boring because of the encounter and daiily powers (and limited options for at-will).

5ed Manuevers are way better then 4ed at-wills. They give players a lot of power over their turn. Encounter powers will likely render them obsolete, this game has short combats. A 10th level fighter with 2-3 encounter powers will only ever be doing the the same thing in every combat... sounds boring. 

If everybody is just going to do the same encounter powers every turn, why not just make them manuevers and not limit flexability of the players. 

Nov 18, 2012 -- 10:17AM, Garthanos wrote:

Nov 18, 2012 -- 10:09AM, zago wrote:

 ... sounds boring.   

Battles that are only mook fighting are going to be boring anyway.. something has to change. Encounter powers give a boost to potency but they arent that extreme... they do make potency fluctuate instead of being... xxxxx 

they make it

x+1/2, x-1/2,x-1/2,x+1/2,x-1/2

In music the at-wills provide one tempo every single turn with no crescendos and no pauses.. boring. 

I've personally found XD and maneuvers to already fill that function.  No fights I've participated in in Next have been boring thus far.