Spells per encounter

[MicHag]

In my upcoming E6 campaign, i worry somewhat about my casters and the balance within the party (that does not even exist yet). I must also note that in my campaign all casters will be spontaneous.

I will try to put several encounters in a day, but i know there will be days were there will be just one encounter, and in most cases, the party will know (highly suspect) that.

My worry is that in that case, the casters can go all out, using all their spells for that one encounter. While it is their "right" i fear that in doing so, they will outshine the non-casters in those encounters.

What i want to try and introduce is "Spells per encounter", where they trade 2 of their daily spell slots to cast a spell every encounter. This means that if they have for example three level 3 slots, they could trade two of them, to get one level 3 slot every encounter, and they still have a slot that can be used daily.

Problems i potentially create:
1. Is this balanced? in a day with 3 or more encounters, they have more spells to cast, but i guess that is the trade-off.
2. Is it "boring"? while knowing they have a level 3 spell every encounter, they have no reason not to use it. On the other hand, in the old scenario, they could probably cast a level 3 spell every encounter as well, as long as there are no more than 3 encounters.
3. It will become "difficult" to determine what an encounter is outside of combat/initiative.

A) a spellcaster wants to cast invisibility before entering the throne room that they know will have a boss fight. It seems pretty plain to me that i can rule that spell is used as one of the spells they get per encounter, even if it gets cast before the encounter. To make the rule more explicit:

if a spell with a duration has been cast as a "Spell per encounter" and is active when an encounter begins, the spell is counted as been cast that encounter.

B) a spellcaster wants to cast fly during a walk on a random road, just to scout ahead.

In doing this, the spellcaster essentially would be able to fly all day long (and with rule A would have lost a "Spell per encounter" if Fly is active when the encounter starts).

Is this going to be problematic? and what if it's Invisibility? or what if they decide to want to burn the forest down with unlimited Fireballs (not that my party would want that).

I could also say, that any spell cast outside of initiative is not a "Spell per encounter" meaning that they have to use a daily spell slot for that. With the exception being that (as per rule A) it becomes a Spell per encounter if within the duration of that spell, an encounter happens.

But the strange thing would be that they would say, "Yeah sorry, i cannot cast Invisibility now, i have no daily spell slots, oh a encounter starts? yeah i can cast invisibility now...."

Does someone have some advice for me, and i guess most would say, just don't do the "Spells per Encounter" thing, but i really want to try and make this work.

[Fizban]

I will try to put several encounters in a day, but i know there will be days were there will be just one encounter, and in most cases, the party will know (highly suspect) that.

My worry is that in that case, the casters can go all out, using all their spells for that one encounter. While it is their "right" i fear that in doing so, they will outshine the non-casters in those encounters.
The expected average resource expenditure for an encounter of equal EL to a four person party's level is 20% (in 3.5). If they expend significantly less than this, the party is overpowered. If they expend significantly more than this, but suffer no repercussions for poor resource management, you can give them a reduction in xp due to favorable circumstances*. Knowing that you will be safely able to burn all your spells on one fight instead of rationing them is undisputably a favorable circumstance.

*The same way that the DM is expected to increase xp for unfavorable circumstances, like the enemy having cover or nearby traps that they're immune to and so on. Something some early modules remember and then later ones completely ignore, along with much advice for "dealing with" optimized parties.

What i want to try and introduce is "Spells per encounter", where they trade 2 of their daily spell slots to cast a spell every encounter. This means that if they have for example three level 3 slots, they could trade two of them, to get one level 3 slot every encounter, and they still have a slot that can be used daily.
You want to convert spells to encounter-based casting. First of all, I'd tell you not to be wishy washy about it. Letting people choose how much they convert will just mean that they convert some, get "unlimited" encounter spells, and still get to nova anyway.

Problems i potentially create:
1. Is this balanced? in a day with 3 or more encounters, they have more spells to cast, but i guess that is the trade-off.
2. Is it "boring"? while knowing they have a level 3 spell every encounter, they have no reason not to use it. On the other hand, in the old scenario, they could probably cast a level 3 spell every encounter as well, as long as there are no more than 3 encounters.
3. It will become "difficult" to determine what an encounter is outside of combat/initiative.
The "expected" encounter day is four encounters, or rather, you're expected to spend 1/5 of your party resources per fight. Thus I would expect a cost of four spells to convert to an encounter slot.

B) a spellcaster wants to cast fly during a walk on a random road, just to scout ahead.

In doing this, the spellcaster essentially would be able to fly all day long (and with rule A would have lost a "Spell per encounter" if Fly is active when the encounter starts).
Indeed, the Tome of Battle definition of when an encounter ends is 1 minute of non-combat. Thus, any spell with a duration of 1 minute or more is now infinite duration.

Is this going to be problematic?
Depends on if you find it to be problematic. Some people expect that once a wizard knows a spell, it is somehow always active at the perfect time, and I'm sure some DMs write their adventures that way. Letting people trade two slots for infinite duration and also per-encounter repetition actually goes a long way towards that.

I could also say, that any spell cast outside of initiative is not a "Spell per encounter" meaning that they have to use a daily spell slot for that. With the exception being that (as per rule A) it becomes a Spell per encounter if within the duration of that spell, an encounter happens.

But the strange thing would be that they would say, "Yeah sorry, i cannot cast Invisibility now, i have no daily spell slots, oh a encounter starts? yeah i can cast invisibility now...."

Does someone have some advice for me, and i guess most would say, just don't do the "Spells per Encounter" thing, but i really want to try and make this work.
An obvious patch is that you can't cast any duration spells with encounter slots at all. Of course, that leaves other problematic instantaneous spells like Stone Shape. You could also put individual spells on cooldowns so that the "encounter slot" refreshes but they still burn out certain spells that shouldn't be infinite.

The only sure-fire solution is to make a list of eligible encounter-use spells, and that's it. And really, I would expect that list to be pretty much nothing but blasting. In which case, why not just go Warlocks, adding daily SLA feats or features if desired.

[MicHag]

The expected average resource expenditure for an encounter of equal EL to a four person party's level is 20% (in 3.5). If they expend significantly less than this, the party is overpowered. If they expend significantly more than this, but suffer no repercussions for poor resource management, you can give them a reduction in xp due to favorable circumstances*. Knowing that you will be safely able to burn all your spells on one fight instead of rationing them is undisputably a favorable circumstance.

While i could give xp penalties, it doesn't really solve the "problem", the problem being i fear the Caster will nova on every boss (i have several in the campaign) and be the VIP in those fights everytime.


You want to convert spells to encounter-based casting. First of all, I'd tell you not to be wishy washy about it. Letting people choose how much they convert will just mean that they convert some, get "unlimited" encounter spells, and still get to nova anyway.

I understand, and you are also correct i am not sure if i am going to force a certain amount or not.


The "expected" encounter day is four encounters, or rather, you're expected to spend 1/5 of your party resources per fight. Thus I would expect a cost of four spells to convert to an encounter slot.

In my memory it was three, but i guess four is the correct number then. Given that, i didn't want to make it a bad deal for them. If i use four, than it's pretty much a bad deal, even if you get four encounters (because then you get the same amount, but had no choice in how to divide them). I already have considered three slots for one encounter slot, but stuck with just two for now. I might make it three, but i doubt the players would fancy that.



An obvious patch is that you can't cast any duration spells with encounter slots at all. Of course, that leaves other problematic instantaneous spells like Stone Shape. You could also put individual spells on cooldowns so that the "encounter slot" refreshes but they still burn out certain spells that shouldn't be infinite.

No duration encounter spells is not something i like, it limits their possibilities a lot.


Depends on if you find it to be problematic. Some people expect that once a wizard knows a spell, it is somehow always active at the perfect time, and I'm sure some DMs write their adventures that way. Letting people trade two slots for infinite duration and also per-encounter repetition actually goes a long way towards that.

I guess i like this thematically the most, like you said, much like the Warlock. I never liked the idea of a Wizard saying, yeah, i just cast this Burning Hands, but i cannot cast it again, but i can still cast a Fireball.

Let's say i change the rules for duration-spells.
- They can still be cast with encounter slots, but in that case, they can only be cast in combat situations.
- However, you can remove a certain amount of slots at the start of your day (as your slots are refreshed after rest) to have a duration spell active for 24 hours. Or maybe even make it a permanent thing.

hour-duration spells (like Mage Armor) require 2 slots
minute-duration spells (like Invisibility) require 3 slots

round-duration spells i probably don't want at all, and i bet there are some problematic minute-duration spells as well, but i can simply not allow those as i see fit.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Am I crazy or are you trying to solve the "problem" of the PCs being able to use their highest level slots in every encounter by guaranteeing they can cast a high level spell in every encounter?

That seems counterproductive.

In the case of them "knowing" there's only going to be one encounter on a given day, if they're wrong often enough then they'll stop thinking that way. If it's a relatively rare happenstance then just let 'em have it.

It's pretty easy in this system to imagine problems that just don't crop up that often. Are you sure that's not what's happening here?

[MicHag]

Am I crazy or are you trying to solve the "problem" of the PCs being able to use their highest level slots in every encounter by guaranteeing they can cast a high level spell in every encounter?

That seems counterproductive.

I am trying to solve the problem of them casting a lot of high level spells in one particular encounter (i believe this is called Nova).
The difference of being able to cast one 3rd level spell every encounter or three daily 3rd level spell all cast in one encounter.


It's pretty easy in this system to imagine problems that just don't crop up that often. Are you sure that's not what's happening here?

This is certainly a possibility.

[Gruftzwerg]

Does someone have some advice for me, and i guess most would say, just don't do the "Spells per Encounter" thing, but i really want to try and make this work.

Imho there are better (balanced) options within the rules, so better scratch the Spells per Encounter idea.

Go with Reserve Feats. They are official feats for that purpose you are looking for. Giving casters a bit more use of their limited spell-slots. Add a few magic items that give extra spells (main stat boosts, ring of wizardry, spellstoring...) and your caster should have enough options all day long even on E6.

If you shouldn't know Reserve Feats:
Fiery Burst as example needs at least a 2nd lvl fire spell available (prepared or a spellslot to cast from) to give you at will fire attack for 1d6/spell-lvl, 5ft radius , 30ft range.
Other reserve feats do the same (give you access to a lesser version of a spelltype) as long as you still have one spell of that type prepared/spellslot available to cast the spell.

[RNightstalker]

Go the old Battleclash route. When you reach the final boss, you kill him only to reveal he's not dead, but he'll transform into his "True Form" and you have an immediate rematch with a bigger baddie.

[MicHag]

Go with Reserve Feats. They are official feats for that purpose you are looking for. Giving casters a bit more use of their limited spell-slots. Add a few magic items that give extra spells (main stat boosts, ring of wizardry, spellstoring...) and your caster should have enough options all day long even on E6.

While i appreciate the option, you are not offering a solution to my problem, but rather an alternative to the side-effect of my solution.

My goal is not to give the Spellcaster a way to get through multiple encounters. That is a side-effect of my solution.

I want to prevent the Spellcaster from unloading all of his level 3 spells in one encounter. Reserve feats does not do that, although it might let the player think twice about spending that last level 3 slot, so he keeps his strongest reserve feat.


Go the old Battleclash route. When you reach the final boss, you kill him only to reveal he's not dead, but he'll transform into his "True Form" and you have an immediate rematch with a bigger baddie.

This works, but my campaign has at least 6 different bosses, having this each time can seem a little overdone, but i guess having multiple levels in a boss-fight can be done in multiple ways.

But then again, it's not just the boss-fights i am worried about. The players will travel through some "safe" areas, where they might happen upon a random encounter, and the chances are, that this will be their only encounter of the day (or even week). And the players will know that (since they had no encounters for the past two days for example, it would be weird to suddenly get 4 random encounters in one day).
If the Sorcerer starts blowing away all his most powerfull spells at the random encounter, he probably single-handedly took care of it.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

It looks to me like you're getting all worked up over nothing. Unless all of your spellcasters are mailmen who nuke down the encounter in a few rounds (which most caster builds can't do), what does it matter?

Even if the problem you perceive is a realistic one, I would solve it with enemy reinforcements. Spellcasters decide to go nova, one of the enemies in the back runs away and informs the next room of opponents that help is needed. The next encounter comes in and joins the fray, while one of the enemies from that group goes and tells the next room after theirs the same thing. After a few rounds that encounter comes in and joins the fray. It starts a chain reaction that forces the spellcasters to continue going nova until they've completely expended their daily resources and the non-casters are able to contribute to cleaning up the final encounter of enemies that joined in. You make next-encounters stop joining once it looks like the spellcasters are running out of gas. Start duplicating groups of enemies if you don't have enough next encounters, or figure out three or four reinforcement teams per area to rotate through but wouldn't have been encountered otherwise. This can be fun for the whole party because the spellcasters get to feel like they actually needed to do that but the non-spellcasters were also needed, and it doesn't require house rules or trying to restrict what the spellcasters are able to do.

Another option would be to include opponents capable of counterspelling. The feat Divine Defiance in FCII allows someone to counterspell as an immediate action instead of readying an action for it. Or they can ready a Silence spell if an opponent casts a spell with a verbal component, and targeting a point in space that includes the caster in the spell's effect doesn't allow a saving throw or SR, it just automatically causes their spell to fail and still be expended. Plus now they need to move out of the silence effect to be able to cast again, which may take a whole round to figure out where the edge of it is if you cover the whole back of the room with that. Covering the entire dungeon in a Hallow or Unhallow effect that imposes a Silence effect on any (nonevil, non-worshipers of a particular deity, etc.) creatures that enter will make them unable to make sound of their own including verbal components, but they can still hear and be hit with sonic effects and enemies can still speak and make sound unhindered. Edit: They may decide to pick up Metamagic Rods of Silent Spell to deal with the above tricks, but each one is only usable 3/day which will limit how many spells they get to cast on those encounters without house rules.

[Kayblis]

I believe the keyword here is E6. You're running an E6 campaign, players won't ever get 4th level spells, and at best they'll have ~4 level 3 slots per day. This isn't much to worry IMO, it's not like you're dealing with people with 10 feats and optimized metamagic to destroy any encounter with triple normal damage or 3x SoL per round, you'll be seeing your run-of-the-mill casting and a couple SoLs here and there when the enemies look like they're not very tough. 'Going Nova' is not a worry at level 6. Besides, any boss encounter would be CR 8 to 10, so even then they're probably too strong to be neutralized with a 3rd level spell in any reliable way.

[RNightstalker]

This works, but my campaign has at least 6 different bosses, having this each time can seem a little overdone, but i guess having multiple levels in a boss-fight can be done in multiple ways.

But then again, it's not just the boss-fights i am worried about. The players will travel through some "safe" areas, where they might happen upon a random encounter, and the chances are, that this will be their only encounter of the day (or even week). And the players will know that (since they had no encounters for the past two days for example, it would be weird to suddenly get 4 random encounters in one day).
If the Sorcerer starts blowing away all his most powerfull spells at the random encounter, he probably single-handedly took care of it.

In the case of a Sorcerer single-handedly taking care of an encounter, then that encounter should have less of a reward vs. one that took a group effort.

I would consider your approach to adapting to the player's strategies. If we keep doing the same thing over and over again, we'll get the same results. The arcane caster that sits in the back and casts glitterdust and grease a few times, then dances for the rest of the encounter while the rest of the party cleans up, will be surprised when bad guys attack from behind; because bad guys do that, and bad guys aren't necessarily stupid. You also seem to be putting a heavy emphasis on random encounters. Random encounters are exactly that: random. Players shouldn't know how many encounters they're going to have in a given "day"/session.

[lightningcat]

I used a +3 level metamagic feat to allow per encounter spells. And a +6 level metamagic feat for at will spells. The first got used and worked out well, although we were a mid-optimization group, but never got to see the second in play.
But I doubt that would work for an E6 game.

[Troacctid]

You could try recharge magic from UA. The addition of specific recharge times does a lot to solve the problem of forever buffs.

[ciopo]

you can prevent duration abuse by simply stating that if they are used for duration effect, the slot is not regained until the duration elapsed (or the effect is willingly dismissed) plus being out of combat for 1 minute?

this to prevent things such as a single 2nd level slot providing the whole party with every buff existing ever, making the slot still very versatile allowing

also if you're worried about nova, simply rule it that the trade is losing one 3rd level slot in exchange of a 2nd and a 1st level "per encounter" slots.

[Fizban]

While i could give xp penalties, it doesn't really solve the "problem", the problem being i fear the Caster will nova on every boss (i have several in the campaign) and be the VIP in those fights everytime.
You know your players better than me. Usually if you tell them up front they'll lose xp, I'd expect most people to immediately resolve to never do the thing- but some people will run the numbers and decide that spending a bunch of xp to guarantee victory is worth it, sure. But usually the practice for a single encounter boss fight is to make that "one" encounter actually so huge that it requires all your resources anyway, with the special trick being that you need to set it up so short durations and AoEs don't get a huger advantage than normal (spaced out multiple waves of foes, dispels, etc).

I guess i like this thematically the most, like you said, much like the Warlock. I never liked the idea of a Wizard saying, yeah, i just cast this Burning Hands, but i cannot cast it again, but i can still cast a Fireball.
Switching to a spell-point system alleviates that problem, in exchange for others, but if all casters in your setting are already spontaneous then that's one problem accounted for. Spell points can also be used to reduce nova problems, if you're willing to just reduce the spell point totals- it's well known that high level psions can cast a ton of high level effects, for example.

Let's say i change the rules for duration-spells.
- They can still be cast with encounter slots, but in that case, they can only be cast in combat situations.
Specifically you want them to also end at the end of the encounter.

- However, you can remove a certain amount of slots at the start of your day (as your slots are refreshed after rest) to have a duration spell active for 24 hours. Or maybe even make it a permanent thing.

hour-duration spells (like Mage Armor) require 2 slots
minute-duration spells (like Invisibility) require 3 slots
How many effective slots it takes to have infinite duration depends heavily on caster level, access to cheap Extend effects, and how much duration your campaign requires to reach always-on. This is a major problem with the existing spell duration system, as 10 minute/level spells are actually 1 hour+ spells for most of the game (but still never more than 3-4 hours), while 1 hour/level spells range from 1 hour to 24+ hours. Even 1 min/level spells can reach "entire dungeon" as early as say, cl 5, depending on how the players act/the DM counts time- some people assume that every room somehow takes 10 minute to an hour even if you do nothing, and some people track exact action times and leave any searching for after the monsters are all dead. It's no wonder why experiences are so different once you actually look at it.

I really don't think there's any number of slots that is appropriate for infinite duration of any spell- either it's a 24 hour duration spell, or it's not.

round-duration spells i probably don't want at all, and i bet there are some problematic minute-duration spells as well, but i can simply not allow those as i see fit.
If you're willing to make spell-by-spell calls, and your players are cool with significant changes to their base casting mechanics that involve so many DM calls, then that's easier than trying to write a whole new system. Assuming these spellcasters still have to pick spells upon level up, you can make all those calls on level up rather than in-game. But I still think you're going to need some sort of cooldown system for certain spells to have a chance of working, which then directly clashes with the normal slot system this is trying to also be a part of.

There have been some homebrew attempts at Tome of Battle style casters, but I don't remember any successfully completed. There's also the Recharge Magic (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/magic/rechargeMagic.htm) variant from the same place as general spell points. I've never heard from anyone that actually used it, and I'm pretty sure most opinions remain either "completely useless" or "still overpowered," but hey. This system effectively limits you to one slot per spell level at the start of combat, with the higher level slots possibly taking the whole fight to recharge, while lowers can come back quicker- much like if you traded all your slots for "encounter" slots, except it actually affects the high levels and doesn't unduly penalize the low ones. They also have a list of all the PHB spells with many of them given Specific recharge times that are used instead of the per round ones.

Since no one has suggested it oddly enough, I guess I'll have to admit that Pathfinder has that Spheres of Power thing with at-will powers that have a limited pool of daily points. Dunno how nova-proof it is, but it should be better than normal casters, while still having some dailies that Warlocks don't (I don't like it because it immediately and flagrantly flouts certain obvious limits with at-will teleportation and such, but others do).

And of course, if you do actually convert all of your main resources over to encounter/recharge/whatever, you have to recognize that there is no longer an expected number of daily encounters. You'll have to find other ways besides simple resource expenditure to pressure the party to rest. Normally you could attempt this with ability damage and long term status effects, but the Recharge Magic variant actually has all those removal spells on the round-based cooldown, so you might want to change that if you use it.

[Endarire]

If you're playing E6, I don't see this as a problem: E6 is intentionally made to be friendly to most classes. Not all casters will use their best spells all the time just because they can.

[Aotrs Commander]

I am trying to solve the problem of them casting a lot of high level spells in one particular encounter (i believe this is called Nova).
The difference of being able to cast one 3rd level spell every encounter or three daily 3rd level spell all cast in one encounter.


My goal is not to give the Spellcaster a way to get through multiple encounters. That is a side-effect of my solution.

In my experience, most casters WILL save their best spells to nova on what they consider a critical encounter, regardless of what you do - aside from literally mechanically prteventing them from doing so - until such point they decide that the party will have to rest (because they are out of spells), when they'll just blow through the rest. Because most players are horders, and thus they will save their best expendable resources In Case They Run Into A Boss or something. And the players are usually prepared to sit on their arses and do nothing or take pot-shots with crossbows in encounters they don't think it worth spending their precious spell slots on.

But it sounds to me that you're trying to solve a problem that shouldn't either need solving, or needs to be solved non-mechanically.



If you are concerned about the caster being able to nova in just one encounter of a number of encounters per day - at level 6... I think that's unreasonable, to be honest. Even the most charitable reading of the (frankly dubious, in my opinion) expected encounters per day doesn't mean "20% of each resource taken individually" as the balance point; the game does not expect the caster to expend 20% of their spell slots of each level per combat; it's an approximation not a quota.



Now, if your characters are novaing EVERY encounter and then resting and doing the fifteen minute adventuring day, then you have got a classic case of The Rest Problem.

The fifteen-minute adventuring day problem exists simply because resting is generally defined by the spellcaster's players, who want to rest after they have used their spell slots - and usually by the noncasters, who are reliant on the casters for healing. If you have on-hand plentiful wands of CLW or Lesser Vigour, this last point can be slightly emoliated; but again in my experience, the noncasters players aren't interested in carrying on when the casters are out anyway.

(There's a reason this issue (when and to how rest) is such a hard one to solve for the computer games, because there are fundementally two camps in exactly the opposite ends of the spectrum: "I want to have to manage my resources like I was an AD&D spellcaster" verses "I don't want to have to manage my resources like I was an AD&D spellcaster." .)



There are basically four broad solutions to The Rest Problem. And they are all fundementally not mechanical, but either out-of-game or based on encounter design, not mechanical changes.

You can make an out-of-character gentleman's agreement with your players. This is what we did in 4E for our DM, the agreement being we would aim to do four encounters before resting - which functionally meant we basically always ended up noving on the final encounter - the whole party, not just the casters, and basically only using at-will/per-encounters until then. Instead of novaing every other encounter or something like we had been doing. (Blame 4E's early low-level modules for training us not to go wandering around without our dailies inc ase we ran into an Unheralded Dragon.) Which demostrates this problem exists EVEN IN 4E, which is predomintly predicated on per-combat abilities (so even saying "just play 4E" would not solve the issue.)

You can roll with the 15-minute adventuring day, buffing up encounters and edging towards rocket-tag (if the combat lasts only 2-3 rounds, the casters can't blow through all their resources); with a few chaff encounters that you really don't car too much about and that are functionally there for the PCs to cleave through, laughing, and feel powerful thrown in (and often in these cases in my experience, the casters will as often as lot stand and watch smugly while their noncaster mates blend through). This requires you to be able to judge by eye what sort of things throw, of course, meaning CR (and especially EL) become less helpful to plan encounters.

You can spring random encounters at them every time they rest when you don't want them to; but unless you are prepared to TPK the party to make your point, ultimately, this doesn't help much and the latter is counter-productive. (Punishing the players for not playing the game the way you want them to at best (assuming your players are your mates and just roll their eyes whenever you wipe them out), they are likely to become disinclined to put as much effort into making the characters.)

You can try and force the issue of not letting them rest when they like by time-pressure (which is difficult to sustain over a long period and also irritates a lot of people - even when very generous, like in PF: Kingmaker). But for a short burst, it can be a good way to do this (and only using time pressure infrequently makes it more effective).

[MicHag]

In my experience, most casters WILL save their best spells to nova on what they consider a critical encounter, regardless of what you do, until such point they decide that the party will have to rest (because they are out of spells), when they'll just blow through the rest. Because most players are horders, and thus they will save their best expendable resources In Case They Run Into A Boss or something. And the players are usually prepared to sit on their arses and do nothing or take pot-shots with crossbows in encounters they don't think it worth spending their precious spell slots on.

While you seem to say you disagree with me, the scenario you describe (that is apparently standard routine in your experience) is exactly what i want to prevent.
And i don't know what you mean by "regardless of what you do", but if i have forced the player (which i do not intent to do), to take encounter-spells, instead of daily-spells, they cannot do what you said.


Now, if your characters are novaing EVERY encounter and then resting and doing the fifteen minute adventuring day, then you have got a classic case of The Rest Problem.

I am not worried about the 15 minute adventuring day, i have a solution to that "problem".

That said, i am starting to wonder if indeed this will be a problem in the upcoming game. But one of my main goals of the campaign is to not let one player outshine the others. This has been a problem before, that is why i am extra focused on it probably. In the previous situation, that specific player outshone his teammates simply by being more powerful in almost every (sometimes dubious) ways. I am not worried about that anymore, while it was a situation, there was a talk and everyone agreed this is not what we want, the power level of the characters should be some what on the same level, as a DM i will see to that and make adjustments as i see fit.
But while being on the same power level on average, i am still a bit worried about people outshining others in specific situations. And i do not mean that the particular character that has a swim speed might be able to outshine others in a aquatic encounter, that is nice thing to happen once in while for every player. But a Nova-sorcerer that outshines the other players in every important encounter (while being mostly useless in the "lesser" encounters), is not what i want.

Maybe i should just wait and see if the problem occurs before looking for a solution.

[Xervous]

A L6 sorcerer knows 1x 3rd level spell and 2x 2nd level spells. Everything will hinge upon what spells they pick. If Stinking Cloud is a problem on its lonesome more castings of Stinking Cloud won’t have as much effect for a standard Big Dude boss. Hold Person will still be a shot at trivializing the encounter as will Deep Slumber. You are likely to see some manner of save or suck effect picked for the 3rd level slot if anything offensive is chosen. Limiting casts of these spells per encounter does nothing to eliminate the chance of the sorcerer coinflipping the Big Dude, it will just reduce the frequency of such events. The problem lies in the spell effects not being desirable for your game.

20 CHA L6 sorc with spell focus forces a DC 19 save on his third level spells. A good save progression and 12 in the associated ability score gives a L10 creature 50-50 odds of succeeding. Great X feat and a generous 16 ability reduce this to 30% of singleton bosses falling prey to the spell. But if he’s targeting a poor save backed up by a 10 that boss is on its way out sure as a Thanos snap.

[Aotrs Commander]

But a Nova-sorcerer that outshines the other players in every important encounter (while being mostly useless in the "lesser" encounters), is not what i want.

Which means you're kinda going uphill against pretty much the whole spell system ass it exists in 3.x entirely; you're basically saying "I want players to only expend exactly what resources I tell them," whether you do that by dicate or by changing the rules.

(I also might ask what even the point of having important encounters is if they fundementally are no different to the others.)

The solution to that is a) everyone is casters, b) no-one is casters or c) play 4E (a mean person might say that was like a) again) but at least the likelihoof of the whole party novaing together is higher.

To be honest, if you are dead-set on having spells as per encounters, I would very serious suggest you liberally mine 4E for stuff you can back-convert even if you don't want to use 4E itself.




Maybe i should just wait and see if the problem occurs before looking for a solution.

I would definitely do that, considering a functional mechanical solution is not something you can implement without a considerable amount of effort.