Power Pools/Points?

[Mercurius]

I was thinking of designing a system whereby instead of specific power slots characters would have a "Power Pool" that they could use as they desire, until the Pool was drained. Maybe a character could use powers beyond the Pool, but it would cost actual Hit Points - the idea being that it is draining them physically. This idea would fit with the concept of a wizard who casts so many spells that they pass out from exhaustion.

I was also thinking of integrating a critical hit and fumble system whereby if a natural 20 is rolled, the power doesn't cost anything, whereas a natural 1 costs twice or more the cost. I'm also wondering if I should integrate at-wills so that they aren't "free" but just cost a minimal amount of points, say 1 versus 3 for encounters and 5 for dailies.

This could also well support a spontaneous power system, whereby a player can describe the effect they want to create and the DM assigns whether it is the equivalent of an at-will, encounter, or daily power.

Just brainstorming here as I write. Anyone tried something similar? Thoughts of how this might work? It seems to be the 4E version of "spell points."

 

[Alex319]

4e already has this, with the psionic power source. Psionic classes have "power pools" that they use to augment their powers.

 

[Mercurius]

Ah, great minds, no? I own PHB3 but have barely even cracked the covers. My bad .

I'll take a look and get back to my house rule. Maybe it can be applied to all classes?

 

[Chris Knapp]

I created something like this a while back. It was based off the Dragonlance SAGA sorcerer in that it used a point cost per spell effect.

Turned out to be a bit cumbersome but very flexible. None of my players wanted to try it out long term so it sits gathering digital dust. Hopefully someone can make some use of it. Probably needs some tweaking by someone with more skill than I have. . .

View attachment 4E Ambient Mancer.pdf

 

[Mercurius]

I like it, Chris - what a great idea. I will have to look over it in more depth before really commenting beyong an appreciation of the concept.

 

[SkullThrone]

retro fitting power points to every class is no small feat, essentially all encounter powers would need an At-Will equivalent, as well as a half point.

Before PHB3 came out I was looking at a Mana based system, but I settled on the term Stamina base, since it fit all classes better. Essentially broke down as follows (from memory):

At-Will cost 0
Power Point essentially equals 1 points (I added this later)
Encounter Powers cost 2
Daily Powers cost 4
Healing Surge cost 5

Essentially a characters stamina pool began at 5 x number of surges. In this system using encounter and daily powers effectively reduced the number of surges you get, and you could use the same powers over and over, just at a cost of stamina.

This remains untested in play, but it seemed like about as simple as I could keep a mana based system and keep it easy to track and easy to add into the 4e game mechanics. Admittingly the number of surges characters get would have to increase at some point, maybe at tier boundaries.