building resources before spending in D&D

[Giltonio_Santos]

In World of Warcraft, a warrior builds rage by using attacks that generate rage and taking damage, before unleashing some powerful attacks (or other abilities) that use rage.

In my DnD Next game, the group recently went against a villain with a special mechanic of my design: the villain would build energy each time he dealt damage with his attacks to unleash a powerful area effect against the group, after accumulating enough energy.

Is there any official class (any edition) with this kind of reverse resource management? Classes like the monk and the newly revealed sorcerer, which use a pool of "class points", could use this kind of mechanic for great effect.

Cheers!

 

[DEFCON 1]

Is there any official class (any edition) with this kind of reverse resource management? Classes like the monk and the newly revealed sorcerer, which use a pool of "class points", could use this kind of mechanic for great effect.

Cheers!

In 4E the Dark Pact Warlock has a resource management mechanic with its Pact Boon, the Darkspiral Aura.

Basically, every time an enemy that has been cursed previously by the warlock is reduced to 0 or fewer HP... his Darkspiral Aura goes up by 1 point. At some point after that when the warlock is hit with a melee or ranged attack, the warlock can interrupt the attack by releasing all of his Aura points to do an attack of his own, doing 1d6 necrotic and psychic damage per point of the Aura against the person attacking him.

So as his enemies die, the warlock grows more powerful with this defensive aura... and when he is finally attacked, he can attack the person back first. We have a Dark Pact warlock in my current 4E game and it works really cool.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Book of Iron Might had many class mechanics that worked that way. In general, you built up tokens that were relevant to the class. So an archer built up "aim tokens" (I think this took move actions) which could be spent on more damage, more accuracy, special effects, and so on.

 

[Jan van Leyden]

Sovereign Stone had a similar system for spellcasting. Each round the caster would make a spellcasting role (1d20 + spell casting bous). Each spell has a so-called Casting Threshold which you had to reach for your casting to be complete. Casting rolls during subsequent rounds were added, so you didn't know how long the casting would take. As Casting Thresholds for powerful spells were over 100, such effects did need a substantial build-up.

 

[pemerton]

Book of Iron Might had many class mechanics that worked that way. In general, you built up tokens that were relevant to the class.

I think you mean Iron Heroes.

13th Age sorcerers are also a bit like this.