evaluate a house rule: recharging encounter powers

[ppaladin123]

The tail end of 4e combat can become rather boring. My group often gets stuck wailing away on amazing durable but non-threatening monsters with our at-will attacks. It is obvious that we will win the battle, it is just that the monsters have so many darn HP. I thought initially about cutting monster HP but with different monster roles (and their different HP amounts), this would get tricky. Someone else in the group suggested this problem wouldn't be so bad if there was a way to refresh encounter powers...players would regain interesting attack options, and the greater damage associated with the encounter powers would shorten combat somewhat.

So, I came up with this rough idea. Would you evaluate it and help me make it better? Here you go:

"Beginning on the turn after you have expended your last encounter power, every turn at the start of your turn roll a d20. If it comes up 17 or higher you regain the use of one encounter power of your choice. If you roll a 20, you recover all encounter powers."

How is that? The last sentence about a roll of 20 doesn't need to be included. I just thought it might add some more suspense.

Thanks for your help!

 

[FireLance]

I think the recharge variant that I would be most willing to implement in my games at the moment is recharging missed encounter powers.

Essentially, each PC has a recharge number that resets to 7 at the start of every encounter. This number is reduced by 1 every time the PC misses* with an encounter power.

At the start of each PC's turn, the player rolls 1d6 and may recharge one missed encounter power if the result of the roll is higher than or equal to the PC's recharge number. Each time a power is recharged, the recharge number increases by 1.

This systems adds a bit more predictability to the PCs' encounter powers in that they can get their encounter powers back, but only if they miss.

You can further vary the system by reducing the recharge number by 1 for every missed daily power, the first time in an encounter the PC gets bloodied, whenever the PC takes a second wind, the first time in an encounter one of the PCs drops to 0 hit points or less, etc. In such cases, it becomes possible to recharge an encounter power that hit if the PC has no more missed encounter powers.

* Technical definition of a "miss": does not hit with any of the attack rolls for a power.

 

[ppaladin123]

That's an interesting idea. I'll consider that too. Anyone else have any ideas?

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

There is a similar new thread here,

Maybe a mod can merge them..

An older thread came up with the variant I am trying in my game. Haven't had the chance to actually see it in play but I like the theory:
Stalker0's Acheron Recharge

 

[ppaladin123]

There is a similar new thread here,

Maybe a mod can merge them..

An older thread came up with the variant I am trying in my game. Haven't had the chance to actually see it in play but I like the theory:
Stalker0's Acheron Recharge

Yup, I'd like the mods to merge the threads then. It seems to be a common problem; I'm sure we can come up with some good ways to deal with it.

Stalker0's system is neat but honestly seems a bit too complicated for some of my players. Maybe I can just go back and take the refresh mechanisms from Book of 9 Swords and do something with them.

 

[GlaziusF]

My initial thought on this is, for every tier an encounter power is lower than your max, it gets a digit of recharge, from 6 to 56 to 456 to 3456. So at level 3 your level 1 encounter power becomes recharge 6.

Roll once per round. Recharge any one qualifying power.

Dailies also get a digit, roll once for recharge at milestones.

Utilities get a digit for every 2 tiers below the max, roll for recharge at the appropriate times.

 

[ppaladin123]

I'm currently thinking that players should attach their (up to four) encounter powers (no racial or utility powers) to numbers on a d8. At the top of the round, the DM rolls a d8. Each player simultaneously gains the benefit on the chart below:

1: encounter power 1 refresh
2: encounter power 2 refresh
3: encounter power 3 refresh
4: encounter power 4 refresh
5-8: nothing
roll number of power you haven't expended yet: nothing

I'm trying to keep the amount of rolling and choosing between powers to a minimum. I don't want to slow the game down to a crawl while players decide which power to refresh. This method only requires that players know the number associated with each encounter power. For simplicity, the lowest level power is "1," the second lowest level is "2" and so on. How does this sound?

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Dailies also get a digit, roll once for recharge at milestones.

I like this idea.

 

[Verision]

Base it off of the monster mechanic

There is another thread talking about this:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/4e-fan...41-adding-recharge-pc-powers.html#post4501752

It's based off of monster recharge abilities. There are a few different methods talked about in that thread, but here's the one I've been using:

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: Spend a healing surge to recharge a single Encounter power.
6: Spend a healing surge to recharge a single Encounter or Daily power (PC choice).
Speical II: Recharged power must be used during the same turn as Recharge.


My group used this house rule during our last session. We had three combat encounters and this power was only used by one PC in one combat. The Ranger rolled the recharge three times (over three rounds) during one extended combat and he rolled a 6 once. It didn't seem to unbalance the fight and my PCs really liked the idea of being able to recharge powers during longer combat encounters.

 

[ppaladin123]

There is another thread talking about this:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/4e-fan...41-adding-recharge-pc-powers.html#post4501752

It's based off of monster recharge abilities. There are a few different methods talked about in that thread, but here's the one I've been using:

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: Spend a healing surge to recharge a single Encounter power.
6: Spend a healing surge to recharge a single Encounter or Daily power (PC choice).
Speical II: Recharged power must be used during the same turn as Recharge.


My group used this house rule during our last session. We had three combat encounters and this power was only used by one PC in one combat. The Ranger rolled the recharge three times (over three rounds) during one extended combat and he rolled a 6 once. It didn't seem to unbalance the fight and my PCs really liked the idea of being able to recharge powers during longer combat encounters.

I like this but I am afraid it will encourage players to "go nova" and will effectively bring back the 15-minute work day.