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As I understand it, per encounter abilities represent abilities that can be renewed with a short amount of preparation time. However, a battle is too hectic to renew the ability, and these abilities are too complex to use at will. Therefore, it can be readied during downtime, expended during combat, but cannot be renewed again until you have some more downtime.

Makes sense to me.

I didn't understand it at first either, but when I learned more and really thought about it, I figured it out.

In the games in which I play, we almost never do an actual dungeon crawl and rarely have multiple combats in one session, let alone one in-game day. This has led our DM to be really frustrated with the CR system. We just nova out and kill the monster in two rounds. To make a significant challenge, the DM has to use a CR of 3, 4, or 5 levels over us. Even still, combats tend to play out the same way.

We can only alter our playstyle so much, and it should be the other way around anyway; the system should accommodate a variety of playstyles.

Even when you go by the book and run 4 encounters per day, that tends to make for 3 dull encounters and 1 challenging one. Then, the Wizard and Cleric run out of spells. This would be the Fighter's turn to shine, but he's pretty hurt too, so the party leaves the dungeon. This is what the designers called the "5 minute workday". Kick in the door, fight 4 encounters, go back to camp.

So what to do? Well, theoretically the casters' spells are per day abilites that are supposed to be rationed to fit 4 encounters in any given day. So why not cut to the chase? Split them up. Instead of 12 spells in a day, make 3 per encounter. Now, "supposed to" and "is" are the same thing.

From there, work on the "5 minute workday" problem. Give each class abilities that are usable at will, as well as the ability to keep pressing on through "second wind" type stuff and the diffusion of healing throughout the classes.

It makes sense when you think about it. You have to look at the game mechanics first, and then come up with fluff that makes sense. Hey, the new fluff can't possibly be any worse than "metal armor interferes with arcane energies" which is what they said in 2E IIRC. :D

Dragoon1 wrote:

You can use an ability against an orc, and then 5 minutes later against another orc, but only once in the hour long battle with a pair of red dragons?

An hour long battle against two red dragons!? Gah! The longest battle I have ever seen in D&D lasted a couple of minutes tops in-game time. An hour long battle would take 600 rounds! That boggles my mind.

Anyways, as far as I know, the basic idea behind a per encounter ability is that it takes a minute or so for a character to catch his breath and regain his focus after a battle to refresh the ability. It makes plenty of sense to me. Honestly, I always had more trouble understanding the flavor behind 1/day abilities. In a point based system like Psionics, it makes sense that the character is getting worn down over time. However, that doesn't seem to be happening with something like spell-like abilities, where someone can use a spell up with no bearing on other spells.

Non-magical per-day and per-encounter abilities may seem a little odd at first, but it's just a game mechanic, and supposedly one that works well. If for some reason you need an in-game rationale, rather than thinking of it as a resource that gets used up, consider that maybe the in-game conditions need to be "just right" to pull off the manuever. So, while in theory you could pull off a "Dragon Punch" or whatever at will (in the fiction), the opportunity (enemy position, flow of battle, terrain, etc) only occurs about once per-encounter or per-day.

Yes, it's a patch, but if you just can't live without some kind of explanation, that might do the trick.

(Why doesn't Voltron just whip out the Blazing Sword at the start of the fight and get it over with? Hmm. )