Adding Recharge to PC powers

[Ouronos]

Recharged and Readied!

Greetings...

This is an interesting idea. It is one that I probably would not use in my own campaign, but it is definatly and idea with merit for those that are more into the power game scene.

I do have a couple of suggestions, though, that may be of merit.

1 - Second Wind. Second wind is really a "recharge" in and of itself. You could easily allow recharging abilites to coast in on a second wind with a roll (maybe even something like: recharge encounter ; recharge daily ). Alternately, you could permit the player to automatically recharge an encounter power by forfeiting the normal benefits of using Second Wind. Maybe give Daily powers a chance to recharge on a instead of just .

In short, using Second Wind should be allowed to come into play somehow.

2 - Action Points. With your players having so many action points to use, letting them use it to gain a chance to recharge an encounter or daily sounds like a great way to go. I may even go a more complex route.

Allow the players to spend an AP to attempt to recharge an encounter or daily. Encounter and Daily . Give a +1 bonus if the power that they are attempting to recharge was used in the same encounter (or reverse this and give a bonus if it is a power that was used in a different encounter). Perhaps even give the player a +1 bonus if their only action that turn is a recharge attempt (or couple it with "total defense").

3 - Recharge as a Standard Action. Allow a simple recharge attempt for an encounter ability as a Standard Action. The recharge occurs on only, and dailies couldn't be recharged in this fashion.

Daily Powers, I would rule, can only be recharged once during the day. Encounter powers could only be recharged once per encounter.

(As an aside, in order to attempt to stop the "15 minute work day", I rule that in order to gain the effects of an extended rest, you must wait a period of time equal to the rest. If you want "multiple extended rests" though the day, you have to take a "daily rest"... and I guarentee that the critters you are preparing for aren't going to be idle during that time.)

Just my two cents.

Until that time...

 

[pukunui]

This is an interesting idea. It is one that I probably would not use in my own campaign, but it is definatly and idea with merit for those that are more into the power game scene.

Thanks for the encouragement.

1 - Second Wind. Second wind is really a "recharge" in and of itself. You could easily allow recharging abilites to coast in on a second wind with a roll (maybe even something like: recharge encounter ; recharge daily ). Alternately, you could permit the player to automatically recharge an encounter power by forfeiting the normal benefits of using Second Wind. Maybe give Daily powers a chance to recharge on a instead of just .

In short, using Second Wind should be allowed to come into play somehow.

Yes, I quite like the idea of tying it to a second wind as well.

2 - Action Points. With your players having so many action points to use, letting them use it to gain a chance to recharge an encounter or daily sounds like a great way to go. I may even go a more complex route.

Allow the players to spend an AP to attempt to recharge an encounter or daily. Encounter and Daily . Give a +1 bonus if the power that they are attempting to recharge was used in the same encounter (or reverse this and give a bonus if it is a power that was used in a different encounter). Perhaps even give the player a +1 bonus if their only action that turn is a recharge attempt (or couple it with "total defense").

I'm not a big fan of making things more complex (neither are my players), so this probably wouldn't work out well for us. Thanks for suggesting it though.

Maybe what I could do is this: During an encounter, you can attempt to recharge encounter powers with your second wind (recharge ). During a short rest, you can attempt to recharge a daily (recharge ) by spending an action point. This could all be described in-game as regaining your focus or something.

3 - Recharge as a Standard Action. Allow a simple recharge attempt for an encounter ability as a Standard Action. The recharge occurs on only, and dailies couldn't be recharged in this fashion.

I can guarantee you that my players would never use this. They'd much rather spend that Standard Action attacking something, even if they're only using an at-will, than "waste" it trying to get a more powerful power back.

Daily Powers, I would rule, can only be recharged once during the day. Encounter powers could only be recharged once per encounter.

This is acceptable. The reason I wasn't putting limits on it was to reduce the bookkeeping associated. The simpler it is, the more likely my players will be willing to go along with it. 4e PCs are complex enough as it is (DMing has, thankfully, gotten significantly less complex, but PCs have, sadly, gotten more complex).

(As an aside, in order to attempt to stop the "15 minute work day", I rule that in order to gain the effects of an extended rest, you must wait a period of time equal to the rest. If you want "multiple extended rests" though the day, you have to take a "daily rest"... and I guarentee that the critters you are preparing for aren't going to be idle during that time.)

I'm not sure I follow you here. By RAW, you can only take one extended rest per day anyway and you have to wait 12 hours in between (so no extended rest at the end of one day, adventuring for a few minutes through midnight, then another extended rest at the beginning of the next day.)

 

[Orcus Porkus]

My players are not happy when they burn a daily and then miss.
I like the idea of using the 2nd wind for guaranteed recharge of a daily or encounter power, in return for giving up the original benefits of 2nd wind.
Having to make this tough choice adds excitement, I think.
It's better than just giving the players more power.

 

[pukunui]

My players are not happy when they burn a daily and then miss.
I like the idea of using the 2nd wind for guaranteed recharge of a daily or encounter power, in return for giving up the original benefits of 2nd wind.
Having to make this tough choice adds excitement, I think.
It's better than just giving the players more power.

If I were to do that, my players would just choose the original benefits of the second wind every time. I guarantee it. I don't think they would even consider recharging a power. They depend on that healing surge and +2 to defenses.

 

[Callowbran]

I like the idea of recharge for encounter powers.

It might be too risky to use on daily powers, though, because after the encounter is over, PCs might just "take 10" until their powers recharge. Then the daily powers will be encounter powers.

One way to test out your rules without throwing your campaign universe into chaos is make the recharge power linked to a magic item like an amulet that each of your PCs has. That way if you decide it unbalances things, you can always take away the items.

 

[keterys]

I'd suggest the daily recharge only coming up at the end of an encounter or at milestones, rather than every round.

I definitely suggest it triggering on at-wills and second winds, rather than just every round.

These suggestions are partially for balance, but mostly to prevent spamming of the same attack which ends up boring, or using dailies _like crazy_. After all, if you normally have 6 encounters in a day of 6 rounds each, and 3 dailies, and you recharge a daily 1/6 of the time you can toss off 9 dailies over the course of those fights which is... man, a ton of dailies.

 

[Verision]

Slightly Different Approach

I like this idea for two reasons:

1) My PCs tend to roll low whenever they use a daily power, especially the Cleric, who has actually replaced a couple Daily Utility powers with Encounter Utility powers simply because he was always wasting the Dailies with low rolls.

2) My PCs have a habit of using all their daily powers by the end of the second encounter in a day and thus want to take an extended rest (even though they still have healing surges left). This gets really old, but I don't want to interrupt every extended rest with a random (or not-so-random) encounter since that tends to lead to TPKs (well, near TPKs the two times I've done it).

So, I think what I may do is this:

Recharge
At Will (Special: Can only be used when the PC has used all Encounter and Daily powers.)
Minor Action
Effect: Roll a d6
5: Recharge a single Encounter power.
6: Recharge a single Encounter or Daily power (PC choice).
Speical II: Recharged power must be used during the same turn as Recharge.


This way (I.E. requiring that the PCs can only use the ability when they have expended all their encounter and daily powers) the PCs won't just try to spam their best daily every round. With the TCs method, I know that my PCs would simply use their best Daily during the first round of any day and then simply attempt to recharge that ability every round for the rest of the day. Since most fights tend to last 5 rounds or more, the chances of the PCs getting to use their best Daily every encounter is too high (If I did the math right, then the PCs would have a 60% chance of recharging a Daily by the end of a 5 round encounter).
This way the PCs would have to use all their powers before attempting to recharge any. Plus, if they do use all their powers during one encounter, then in the next encounter they will have to use all their encounter powers first before trying to recharge a Daily.

 

[pukunui]

It might be too risky to use on daily powers, though, because after the encounter is over, PCs might just "take 10" until their powers recharge. Then the daily powers will be encounter powers.

I've already said that I wouldn't allow anyone to recharge a daily outside of an encounter.

I'd suggest the daily recharge only coming up at the end of an encounter or at milestones, rather than every round.

I've also said that I won't allow anyone to recharge the same power two times in a row. If it becomes a problem, I could change it to only recharge each power once a day or something, but knowing my group, I don't think it will be a problem.

I definitely suggest it triggering on at-wills and second winds, rather than just every round.

I am still considering this.

These suggestions are partially for balance, but mostly to prevent spamming of the same attack which ends up boring, or using dailies _like crazy_. After all, if you normally have 6 encounters in a day of 6 rounds each, and 3 dailies, and you recharge a daily 1/6 of the time you can toss off 9 dailies over the course of those fights which is... man, a ton of dailies.

No spamming because you can't just keep recharging the same power over and over again. If you keep failing to recharge the same power round after round, fine, but if you manage to recharge it and use it, then you can't recharge that one again next round.

1) My PCs tend to roll low whenever they use a daily power, especially the Cleric, who has actually replaced a couple Daily Utility powers with Encounter Utility powers simply because he was always wasting the Dailies with low rolls.

My players tend to roll low all the time. We often joke about how the group is cursed ... because when my player who runs the SWSE game takes over as GM, his luck suddenly reverses while mine takes a downturn ... and I can guarantee that this is not because we cheat when we're GMing. There's just something weird with our group that means whoever's controlling the monsters always seems to roll well while the players always seem to roll poorly (obviously there are exceptions, but it has happened often enough for all of us to make note of it).

2) My PCs have a habit of using all their daily powers by the end of the second encounter in a day and thus want to take an extended rest (even though they still have healing surges left). This gets really old, but I don't want to interrupt every extended rest with a random (or not-so-random) encounter since that tends to lead to TPKs (well, near TPKs the two times I've done it).

My group's not quite that bad but I know how you feel.

Speical II: Recharged power must be used during the same turn as Recharge.

This is a good idea. Use it or lose it.

This way (I.E. requiring that the PCs can only use the ability when they have expended all their encounter and daily powers) the PCs won't just try to spam their best daily every round. With the TCs method, I know that my PCs would simply use their best Daily during the first round of any day and then simply attempt to recharge that ability every round for the rest of the day. Since most fights tend to last 5 rounds or more, the chances of the PCs getting to use their best Daily every encounter is too high (If I did the math right, then the PCs would have a 60% chance of recharging a Daily by the end of a 5 round encounter).
This way the PCs would have to use all their powers before attempting to recharge any. Plus, if they do use all their powers during one encounter, then in the next encounter they will have to use all their encounter powers first before trying to recharge a Daily.

I agree that making it so they can't recharge something until they've used all their non-at-wills is a good limiter, but I'm feeling like it's starting to get too complicated. Lots of little caveats -- if this, then this; if this, then not that.

I want to keep it very simple to start with. Since my game is on tonight, and I want to give it a try right away, what I'm going to do is this:

Recharge
At the start of a turn on which you only have at-will powers left to use, you can attempt to recharge a spent encounter or daily power as a free action.
Encounter powers recharge on a or .
Dailies recharge only on a .
You cannot recharge the same power more than once in a row (no spamming).
You cannot recharge dailies outside of an encounter (recharging dailies is to amp up the cinematic feel during conflict situations).


If this proves too problematic (and keeping my group in mind, I don't know that it will), then I will look at tying the mechanic to action points or second winds or something. Perhaps I'll make it that encounter powers can be recharged whenever, but dailies can only be recharged with a second wind. I'll discuss with my players.

Cheers,
Jonathan

p.s. Again, in case anyone is still wondering, I'm not really concerned about balance. I have a feeling my players won't be recharging stuff very often (either because they don't think to, don't want to, or just aren't rolling well enough, which is usually the case). Plus, I'm a powergamer through and through!

 

[Verision]

I want to keep it very simple to start with. Since my game is on tonight, and I want to give it a try right away, what I'm going to do is this:

Recharge
At the start of a turn on which you only have at-will powers left to use, you can attempt to recharge a spent encounter or daily power as a free action.
Encounter powers recharge on a or .
Dailies recharge only on a .
You cannot recharge the same power more than once in a row (no spamming).
You cannot recharge dailies outside of an encounter (recharging dailies is to amp up the cinematic feel during conflict situations).

Please post tomorrow to tell us how this went. I have a game on Sunday and I think I'm going to try something similar so I am quite interested to see how well this works.

 

[Plane Sailing]

It might be interesting to consider other cases were recharge powers are used.

Book of Nine Swords had a couple of recharge methods, but they seem too big.

Star Wars Saga has some very interesting ones though - for instance, if you roll a 20 on your 'use the force' check you recover used force powers.

If I wanted to include it for encounter and daily powers, I might say that if you roll a 20 when using an encounter or daily power you automatically get it back.

There may be some paragon paths or epic destinies which already do that, in which case they could be given new (better) benefits.