User talk:Spazalicious Chaos/The Failure of Encounter Powers

An analysis of this story

 * We come upon our heros as they celebrate their recent raid of the evil Duke Archibald III's personal treasure hoard.
 * They choose to drink to victory in the Flatfish Inn & Tavern, where they have bunkered down many a night before.
 * Local thugs have decided tonight is the night they should challenge these "mighty heros" to test their srength, starting a massive brawl in the process.
 * The brawl lasts for two full minutes with no victory in sight before the Guard enter the scene, not only to put down a riot but also to capture the party.
 * The party manages a fighting escape to the taverns celler, where a swarm of rats is immediately disturbed by their entry.
 * Trapped between ravenous rats and persistent police, the party manages to trick the guards into the celler to fight the rats in their stead. *They leave via the back door, taking back allys to reach the temple of (insert healing god here).
 * There they spy the Duke himself searching for the party, being informed of their wounded status.
 * As the party listens in, they hear a guard shout out their location from behind them. The Duke uses magic to reinforce his men as he runs into the temple.
 * The party fights their way to the Duke, where their final confrontation ensues. A bloody battle is waged, but the Duke is defeated. Or so it seems.
 * On his last legs, the duke calls a mighty demon to cover his teleportation escape, leaving no time for the party to recuperate. Our heros battle the demon, an a few of their number fall. However, the local clerics rush the demon when all seems lost, resulting in a victorious night for our heros, if only at the cost of a few ressurections.

Becomes:


 * Set-up to give the story some false continuity from the past. No action;
 * More set-up, showing what happens right before the encounter.
 * Thugs start an encounter with the party.
 * Guards enter the battle, scare the party.
 * Party attempts to retreat, fails. Finds another force entering battle.
 * Party attempts to retreat, succeeds.
 * Travels to new area.
 * Spying on Duke
 * Attacked by guards, minions of Duke, while Duke waits to act.
 * Duke sees minions decimated, has no choice to act.
 * Duke at last resort, pulls off final move, calling in a strong ally.
 * Ally almost wipes out party, but NPCs save the day. Somehow still called a victorious night.

Encounters are divided by logical points of rest in the story. If new enemies are joining the scene, or if enemies are switched out, there is no logical point of rest. There are only points that enhance the drama. If you fail to escape, you are by definition, still stuck in the encounter. If you succeed at escaping the encounter, then you escape the encounter. There are two encounters in this scenario. The one that starts with the thugs starting the brawl, and the one that starts with the PCs spying on the Duke. If somebody is arguing that there are more encounters than that, they are attempting to gain a mechanical advantage where none is due or the DM is being stingy at the definition of an encounter. Tome of Battle suggests that if there is a minute without fighting, then it is a new encounter. This works most of the time. All-in-all, it is up to the DM to decide when encounters split. --Havvy 02:20, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

DM Wankery
Just from glancing at the first section...

And suddenly you're fairly randomly attacked while chilling in a tavern! And suddenly guards come in! And suddenly rats appear and attack you while you're trying to get away! But suddenly the guards turn away to fight the rats! (Because I said so!) And suddenly the BBEG knows about you and attacks you! And suddenly a demon appears and the BBEG gets away! And suddenly half of you are dead! And suddenly NPCs come and totally save the day! And suddenly my penis in your mouth!

...Yeah. --Ghostwheel 02:39, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
 * It can be agreed the GM was a dip. Fortunately, this is only the abridged version. Unfortunately, the removed sections consisted entirely of players arguing with their GM over whether they had access to their encounter powers or not. I was okay with the rulings of "no" up until dungeon crawl mode, i.e the temple sweep. In game time- one hour, 30 minutes total. DM ruling- it was one encounter. Hence, the use of that adventure as an example of how fucked up the idea of an encounter really is.--Change=Chaos. Period. SC 04:52, 12 July 2011 (UTC)


 * So then you are obscuring detail in the original story. If by traditional dungeon crawl, you mean 'fought an enemy group' followed by crawled a bit, and then 'fought another enemy group' then there is a logical break in action.  Specifically, the crawl a bit portion.  That would lead to a new encounter.  --Havvy 05:15, 12 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Then the whole problem is easily fixed; mandate a required short rest (1-5 minutes) in order to regain encounter powers. Easily done, and allows a party to keep going on fairly fluidly instead of going, "lol, we fought a battle, now we have to rest for an hour before we can continue one." Because one hour is pretty retarded. --Ghostwheel 05:29, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
 * ... You have no idea what a sweep is, do you? (sighs, grabs tacticain/gamer dictionary)
 * In a sweep, you frag everyone on a map in one continouous encounter, mostly to elimintae campers. There are no pauses or time to rest in a sweep, because any respawn time given is also time hostiles... er... "monsters" can redistribute their forces and react to the intrusion. This temple was huge, thus the sweep took an hour and a half in a single continuous encounter.

Not sure where you got "lol rest for hour" from my proposed solution. Simply count off one hour from the first use per hour of the ability. Thus, if I used "Frag Inept Critic" (assume 3/encounter use) on the next flame war, and use it only twice the whole first hour, in hour two I get all three uses back.--Change=Chaos. Period. SC 15:27, 12 July 2011 (UTC)


 * The fact that you're ruling an entire temple as one encounter is just a silly ruling. By that logic, mass combat would be impossible with per encounter powers because you would always be surrounded by enemies and the 'encounter' would never end until the entire battle did. Were that to be the case, you would die long before you got to an hour. Is it really that difficult or illogical to split encounters by groups of enemies? We move to new room, fight new things. Bam, new encounter. You're seeing a problem where there really isn't one. In fact, restoring powers chronologically--in the form of per day use abilities--is one of the lamest things in D&D in my opinion. It's what causes the 15 minute work day, which balancing powers per encounter fixes much more readily. - TG Cid 16:32, 12 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Not to mention, was the DM keeping you in initiative the whole time? Because that would be a slow ass game.  "What do you do this round."  "Move 60ft to the next encounter, same as the last 3 rounds.  Listen, I know we aren't stopping to rest and are hurrying to the next room and all, but seriously you're telling me we can't stand still for 30 seconds to pop a potion, buff, or, I dunno, do anything?"  I call triple scooped bullshit with fail sprinkles. -- Eiji-kun 21:32, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
 * @TG Cid- Mass combat is already impossible for the human mind to endure in D&D, unless you have the power to keep track of over 100 NPC initiative counts and not fry your brain. Invalid argument is invalid, as mass combat is one encounter. Without bullshit, it can not be any other way, as everything is trying to kill everyone and only the most idiotic of generals try to perform it any other way, as many of the northern generals in the CIvil War had taught us. Seriously, the only reason Lee was winning half of those battles was because Abe was hiring idiots who were trying to battle in a turn based manner, not real time.
 * Sweeping a building, by contrast, is a way to engage multiple encounters effeciently and in min time, but because I described the sweep this way and the rest of the party agreed, the fucktard behind the screen declared it one encounter. We did do the entire dungeon round by round, though every single round was either setting up an entry or making an explosive entry into combat. It was fun, it did not take forever, but it still should have been multiple encounters.
 * @Eiji- I called the same thing, but for different reasons, as detailed above. Yes, down time is awesome when you have it, but rarely do fast-paced and well run games have it. You have to make time for that exact stuff you just mentioned. "Cover me while I'm buffing Ryan" "Back out, we need to heal" "Barricade that door and toss me a potion" "I toss Dave a scroll. CATCH!" I like these very tactical games, but encounter powers don't work with any kind of sense within these styles of gaming. Either they are one shots for an entire adventure, or you effectively always have access to them.


 * Quad Bullshit. I run those kinda of games all the time.  The trick?  After initiative is over "You have X time before Y happens".  And if X is at least than 1 minute, congrats, encounter powers refreshed.  Also, for the sake of mass combat, sane DMs quickly realize to set most or all enemy units on the same initiative, be it "all the kobold warriors are init X" or "all the enemy goes on the init of Commander Dude".


 * And if for some reason encounters are literally coming faster than 60 seconds, the party finds a bunker and hides for a bit, even going so far as to having half the party resting for 1 minute and half fighting. It was a common trick I used in a game (Neverwinter Nights for the curious) where, in trying to defeat a Hp Tank of a Superboss we had two on fighting and one resting so we were always refreshed.


 * Of course, I'd be suspicious of the DM being a dillweed doing that kind of eternal encounter. Most parties should be able to force a resttime if they at least try to do so, and any wizard can make that happen by level 3 (Rope Trick, hello!) -- Eiji-kun 03:21, 13 July 2011 (UTC)