How much would the power level raise...

[Seerow]

(and please avoid OVER NINE THOUSAND jokes. tia)


So, I was reading some posts from a few people who still play 1e/2e rather than moving on to 3/4, and was interested at the reasoning that was given by one of them. One person made the point that they hate feats because rather than giving you something really cool to do, they restrict what you are able to do, because to accommodate them the rules system must be much more rigid.

Now, in 4e this is less the case, because for the most part the feats are smaller passive bonuses, and all the really cool stuff you wish you could do comes in the form of your powers, rather than feats.

So what I'm wondering is, how huge of a power boost would it be to give a character access to -all- powers of their class, and skills, but limit them to the same number of encouter/daily powers at the appropriate levels? ie take every class from being the Wizard equivalent, with prepared powers, to a sorcerer equivalent who can spontaneously cast powers they have access to.

It would make characters a lot more flexible and unpredictable, but just eyeballing it, it doesn't seem like it would be that huge of a power jump. The biggest problems I'm seeing are Utility powers, which are harder to restrict in that same manner, so may require some fiddling with, and how much more powerful this would make multiclass feats.


The pros and cons as I see it:

Pros:
-A lot more flexibility
-Characters feel like they have more options in combat

Cons:
-Could bog down the game as players look for that perfect power for the situation they're in
-Takes away a large part of character customization. Powers have become the main source of differentiation between two characters, this brings it back to a fighter is a fighter, as opposed to two different fighters having different fighting styles

[Caphi]

Seems like it would make weapons bad again. Lots of martial powers depend on the user wielding a certain weapon type. The rest of the classes wouldn't have it that bad, but they'd also be affected by their ability scores (and in some cases, subclass features).

[Erom]

I wouldn't trust any group I've ever played with to be able to move combat along at an appropriate pace with this many options. Things would go from 1-2 hours per combat to 1-2 hours per round.

Also, older classes would have a lot more options than newer classes.

[Mando Knight]

(and please avoid OVER NINE THOUSAND jokes. tia)
It's actually an increase of 1006. :smalltongue:

The problem is that the classes were never intended to be able to do this. It's why the Wizard is Tier 1 in 3.5: he can, unlike the Sorcerer, learn his entire spell list if he expends the resources. This change turns characters into the 3.5 Wizard rather than avoiding that issue.

It's not as much of a power jump in 4e since there's less variance in the overall utility of each level of power, but you essentially kill your characters' theme. In addition, it's a fairly ridiculous idea. The level 1 Fighter goes from being able to do a few things fairly well, to being able to choose exactly the right powers for the situation and do it as well as if he had specialized in them: one fight he's able to corral several grunts with one strike, the next he uses the same power slot to severely hamper the villain with a precise, devastating blow. The pyromancer runs into a horde of angry fire elementals? No problem, he switches to using only Cold spells, which his allies had never seen before!

[KingFlameHawk]

It's not as much of a power jump in 4e since there's less variance in the overall utility of each level of power, but you essentially kill your characters' theme. In addition, it's a fairly ridiculous idea. The level 1 Fighter goes from being able to do a few things fairly well, to being able to choose exactly the right powers for the situation and do it as well as if he had specialized in them: one fight he's able to corral several grunts with one strike, the next he uses the same power slot to severely hamper the villain with a precise, devastating blow. The pyromancer runs into a horde of angry fire elementals? No problem, he switches to using only Cold spells, which his allies had never seen before!

I would have to agree with this. In 4e teamwork and the character roles are more important in combat then in earlier editions so what each player can do is very important. Even within classes, if there is say two fighters in the group the actions that the offense heavy one does and the defense heavy one does are radicaly different and by allowing everyone to have access to all powers you kind of make everyone the same and (for me at least) the diferences are what makes it interesting.

If you want to add a little more versitility you could say homebrew feats for this. Like say a feat that allows you to gain one extra encounter power of your choise and a feat for utilities and dailies as well. (I don't know if there is already a feat like this or not)

[mobdrazhar]

I agree with what is being said here. it would remove all specialisation and would also massively bog down combat as people would take soooo long to go through the powers they have available to find the perfect one for the situation

[Zaq]

This might be better if you forced them to, like the Wizard, prep their powers at the start of the day (er, in 4e parlance, after an extended rest). That'd prevent the whole "hang on, I think I have the perfect power in here somewhere" thing from happening mid-encounter.

Overall, though? I don't think it's necessary. I think you'd get much the same effect from letting them swap more than 1 thing (the exact amount is up to you, but even letting them choose all of their powers again probably wouldn't destroy anything) when retraining every level.

[Kurald Galain]

So what I'm wondering is, how huge of a power boost would it be to give a character access to -all- powers of their class, and skills, but limit them to the same number of encouter/daily powers at the appropriate levels?
First, it would enormously slow down gameplay. And second, it would remove a lot of character diversity.

It's not that bad in terms of power level, though. However, usually for any class level, there are one or two very good powers and the rest just pale in comparison.