Adding Recharge to PC powers

[krystian]

Be extremely careful when adding things to 4e. Everything gained in this game is threw 'death by a thousand paper cuts'. That is to say giving huge flashy powers often unbalance the game. I tried several variants on this and other ideas but it just power gamed the characters.

If you introduce this counter balance it with Sanity, Morale, Karma, Taint or another function that can hinder the player slightly enough but keep the balance. I personally like Sanity since WoTC opened Pandora's box with the Far Realms (my favorite plane ).

 

[gtoasnt3]

This looks like a fun idea for the PC's, but I probably won't use any variant of the recharge in our game. Main reason isn't for the balance, but for the real time effect that it would produce. Our gaming session had been bogged down during combat for several reasons, and our gaming team has cleared all of the time consuming issues up to make our game faster over the last few months.

The recharge ability would bog down the game at our table as the PC's try and keep track of when/if they can recharge; what roll is needed; what daily/encounter should I try to recharge. I see this as a step backwards to our overall fun, but thank you for bringing up a clever idea.

 

[Drkfathr1]

I've been wrestling with the ideas of recharging and reliable powers and its hard to come up with something I find balanced that doesn't also add too much complexity. Still not sure what i want to go with, but my latest idea is making a new feat just called: Reliable. Each time you take the feat you apply it to one of your Encounter attack powers. When you use that power, if you miss, you retain the use of that power. I'd leave Dailies and Utilities alone.

If you end up retraining that power later on, you just add the Reliable feat to the power you replace it with.

Kind of makes the power you apply it to one of your "signature" moves.

 

[pukunui]

Be extremely careful when adding things to 4e. Everything gained in this game is threw 'death by a thousand paper cuts'. That is to say giving huge flashy powers often unbalance the game. I tried several variants on this and other ideas but it just power gamed the characters.

If you introduce this counter balance it with Sanity, Morale, Karma, Taint or another function that can hinder the player slightly enough but keep the balance. I personally like Sanity since WoTC opened Pandora's box with the Far Realms (my favorite plane ).

For the short while in which I actually had this in play, it caused no problems whatsoever and made the game more fun for everyone. I think in many cases "balance" is overrated ...