Recharging Encounter Powers

[Orcus Porkus]

Alternative to recharging...

... would be to make all powers "reliable".
I started a new thread on this topic:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?t=239682
The main problem is that it deflates the fighter class.

 

[VirtualWizard]

Why not use the recharge mechanic for monsters? At the beginning of your turn, roll a d6. If you score a 6, then you recharge one of your spent encounter powers. As you advance in rank, increase the range for success: 5-6 for paragon, 4-6 for epic.

A very simple mechanic one the players will love and the monsters will hate

 

[Obergnom]

The problem is, only players who have allready spend an encounter power would benefit. Thus, it does not fulfill design goal 5. (No drawback for careful players)

 

[VirtualWizard]

The problem is, only players who have allready spend an encounter power would benefit. Thus, it does not fulfill design goal 5. (No drawback for careful players)

You're correct; I didn't take #5 in to consideration or #3 or #4.

So how about this: During an encounter at the beginning of your turn roll a d6. If you roll a 6 (5-6 paragon, 4-6 epic), you either regain one spent encounter attack power that has not been recharged this encounter or gain a +1 recharge bonus to one attack, skill, or saving throw roll this turn.

This doesn't cover goal #4, but I think it covers #3 and #5.

For #4, you might want something like this: During an encounter as a free action, you may expend a recharged encounter attack power to add a +2 recharge bonus to one attack, skill, or saving throw roll this turn. Alternatively as a free action, you can expend two recharged encounter attack powers to recharge a spent daily attack power.

 

[Stalker0]

Why not use the recharge mechanic for monsters? At the beginning of your turn, roll a d6. If you score a 6, then you recharge one of your spent encounter powers. As you advance in rank, increase the range for success: 5-6 for paragon, 4-6 for epic.

A very simple mechanic one the players will love and the monsters will hate

My goal is to introduce a recharge mechanic that is useful but does not have a tremendous impact on the current balance of the game. The more frequent recharging works, the more change is created.

My current rules make recharging frequent enough that you will likely see at least one player per combat get a power back, but not so much that multiple players will get powers back all the time. That is 100% intentional.


As for using other resources to recharge, I am not a fan of them for the following reasons:

1) If I burn healing surges for powers, I will decrease the number of encounters a party can do. I like parties adventuring longer, not resting all the time.
2) If I convert AP, then the player is giving up damage (in the form of another attack) for a power that could do more damage. In a lot of ways they cancel each other out. More likely however is that players would always want to spend their AP to recharge, because encounter powers are good enough that it warrants it. This mechanic is intended to be an extra benefit, not a tradeoff with current mechanics.


Enough people have voiced a solid complaint that the mechanic should not wait until a player's encounter powers are empty. Your voices have been heard!

 

[Kaelkatar]

The largest issue that I can see is that you are willing to give the PCs extra power at no cost. Doing this changes the approximate worth of a PC slightly, such that when you are building encounters, you need to take into account the extra power, it may not seem like much, but it is not ignorable.

I made the mistake of giving my PCs more uses of daily item powers than the PHB dictates, and after a while the extra power could be seen quite clearly.

From my experience, never give PCs anything unless you are planning on taking something away as well.