Treatise on adding power recharge mechanics to 4e

I’ve seen some talk on the boards of late, highlighting a desire for some sort of power recharging mechanic. Having thought about the idea, I find it very appealing. If done well, power recharging could help to solve two main issues I see with 4e currently.

1) The Solo slugfest. Well not necessarily commonplace, many have mentioned a certain “monotony” that has arisen in their solo fights. Basically once the party has depleted its share of dailies and encounter powers, a solo becomes a drone of at-will powers until it finally falls. This phenomenon also greatly highlights the importance of attack rolls in 4e. If a party manages to land several of their daily and encounter powers on a solo, the fight lasts a reasonable amount of time, with excitement for all players involved. But if several of those miss, a great boost in the early part of the fight is lost. This is when players return to at-will powers against a creature that has far more hitpoints remaining than it otherwise might have had, and can lead to the issue mentioned above.

2) The limited number of powers at low levels. In the early levels, players have very few powers to work with, both in how many they can choose from and how often they can use them. By design, that’s not in itself a problem, but it can limit the fun factor a bit. Players having at-will powers are certainly a stepup from 3.5’s crossbow wizard, but I think we can do more in a way that does not greatly harm game balance.

Now, the designers have mentioned that they took a good look at recharge mechanics. In fact, the recharge mechanics presented in the Book of 9 Swords was a testing ground for several recharge mechanics. In the end, the designers decided against recharging powers for various reasons. Let’s take a look at some of the earlier mechanics to gain some insight that may help us now.

In B09S, there were three main recharge mechanics:
1) Exhaustive, random recharging. When you’re out of powers you gain more, but you have no control over what you get.
2) Player controlled, singular recharging. The player can at any time use his total action to regain one of his powers.
3) Player controlled, full recharging. The player can at any time use his action to regain all of his powers.

I personally believe the problem with these mechanics in general is that each is too extreme in its own way. Number 1 is too random. Players enjoy making choices about their character, not being dictated what abilities they get. Number 2 is too weak. Giving up your whole action for a single power (at least in 3.5 terms) just isn’t worth it. Number 3 is too strong; further, it encourages players to only focus on their best powers. They will use that collect of best powers, recharge, and then use them again over and over again. This creates its own repetition and monotony, and further increases the power disparity between similar powers.

Looking over these mechanics and with a little thought about other ones that could be tried, I have developed a list of criteria I think is important in the development of a solid recharging mechanic:

1) Players should have some influence in how the recharge mechanics work, it should not be done completely at random.
2) In order to use recharge mechanics in the current 4e framework, they cannot be too extensive, else the balance of the game is thrown off.
3) Recharging must be done so that a player is not able to repeat his best moves over and over again.
4) The mechanic should be simple and consistent enough so that it is not forgotten. All too often supplemental mechanics add oddities that players have problems remembering.
5) In order to address issue #1, recharge mechanics should be more influential (or entirely influential) near the end of the fight, when resources are few and combats are long.
6) To address issue #2, the recharge mechanics should have a greater influence in the earlier levels, where resources are low, compared to the high levels when recharging of powers is already a part of the system. Yet, it must not be such a big increase that it imbalances low level combats.
7) The mechanic should add fun to the game, not detract.
8) The mechanics should reward players that both use up their resources early in the fight and those that wait for just the right time to use their abilities.

That’s a big list, and to my mind number 8 was the hardest to accept personally. I brainstormed a number of mechanics that would activate once a player had exhausted his encounter and daily powers, and had nothing left. This seemed the ideal time to add recharge mechanics. But…that significantly rewards players who burn all of their resources early, and that’s really only one way to play the game. The tacticians who like to save their powers and use them at the right time should be just as rewarded.

So with all of this in mind, I have developed a recharging system that hits each one of these points. Feel free to follow this link and check it out: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?p=4442214#post4442214

And feel free to comment in this thread as to your opinions about recharging mechanics in 4e.

Stalker0 said:

Feel free to follow this link and check it out.

Click to expand...

How long 'til he figures it out, do you think?

-Hyp.

Hypersmurf said:

How long 'til he figures it out, do you think?

-Hyp.

Click to expand...

Come on, you couldn't give me 5 minutes to link the documents together?

I like the concept, and if recharging encounter powers is important to a player or DM and adds to the game, then this looks like the way to go.

My only critiques are:

1. Everyone making an extra roll on their turn will slow down combat a bit.
2. Yet one more thing to book-keep.

However, if the trade-off is worth it for you, then Rock On.

That is an interesting system, one that I might try. I have just 2 players and I lay a very thick paladin as an NPC to make up the numbers. I have been thinking of doing something to increase the power of my PCs so I can keep the large combats (i.e. lots of baddies). I think some mix of this and gestalt PCs and damage modifications might do it.

Sorry about xposting this, but:

I would try to stay away from inventing another resource to keep track of, and try to use what's available:
- action points: Instead of getting an extra action on your turn, you can spend 1 action point as a free action amd get 1 encounter power back. Spend 2 (more?), get a daily back.
- healing surges: The character digs into his reserves for another heroic blow. Spend 1 healing surge as a free action, get 1 encounter power back. Spend 2 (more?), get a daily back.
- hps: nearly identical in concept to the healing surge, spend 1 healing surge's worth of hp as a free action, yada yada yada.
- the "Bloodied" condition: when first Bloodied during an encounter, an adrenaline rush lets you recharge one encounter power.

AR

Reward Cards usable once each per game session

Mmyep

"You may use this card when X happens:
Recharge 1 encounter power

OR when Y happens:
Recharge 1 daily power"

X/Y = roll a natural 20, Use an action point, Roll max damage on all dice, Make DM laugh, Buy DM a pop, Buy the DM a beer, Bribe the DM $5, or whatever.

they don't even have to be limited to recharging

"This card is good for 1 Natural 20, you may replace a dice just rolled, or use instead of rolling"

"This card is good for Maximum dice damage"

so on, so forth.

I use these as extra rewards. I pass one randomly out at Milestones to each player, or when they do somthing realy cool and heroic, or when one bribes me $5, or whenever I feel like it.

El Mahdi said:

1. Everyone making an extra roll on their turn will slow down combat a bit.
2. Yet one more thing to book-keep.

Click to expand...

When the mechanic is first introduced to a group, it will slow down combat a little bit, but after using it for a bit I don't expect any slow down what so ever. The reason is its consistent, you do it every round every combat. That means players don't have to think "do I make a recharge roll now?"

Second, there are NO modifiers at all to this roll. No math, no adding, nada. You just roll a d20 and see what happens. Heck you can roll it with your attack roll if you want.

When I considered the time issue, I personally believe that letting player action determine when recharge rolls are made who slow the combat down much more than this. The reasons:

1) Players will think about whether they want to use the "recharge mechanic". Since 4e has already pushed the game more towards players thoughts and less towards the mechanics of execution, I didn't want to push any more baggage on the player.
2) If players are required to give up some action to perform a "recharge action" then they add rounds to the combat, which adds more length.

Basically there is no recharge mechanic that won't add a little bookkeeping and time to the game. Adding new rules always does. But I think in this case I have limited that extra baggage to the absolute minimum possible.

As Irda Ranger suggested in the other threat I, too, would remove the "you can only recharge once you are out of encounter powers" clause. That's imo necessary to fullfill number 8 of your design goals.

Otherwise, I think it is a great system. You could of course, just use action point, but I like this better. (We use poker chips for resource tracking like this)

Here's a thought: when a player runs out of encounter powers, he has a chance to regain them by using his at-will powers. Whenever you score a critical with an at-will power, you regain all of your encounter powers. No extra dice, slightly extra fun!