How Per Encounter power recharging should work

[BarkingDeathSquirrel]

In SW Saga, the fact that Jedi cannot refresh their powers at all in-battle unless they take a talent really bugs me. The talent is not even that powerful, you can spend a full round action doing nothing and refresh one power. Personally, I think a refresh mechanic that weak should just be the default for all Jedi.

It drives me nuts. "Sorry, my character can't use the force anymore in this fight." It feels completely artificial and ruins my suspension of disbelief. Its like Vancian casting all over again.

A couple things:

1. If I remember correctly, you can use an Acti... er, I mean... "Force" Point to refresh a power as a Swift Action (or reaction, can't remember) and there is also a technique that can be used to regain Force Points used during an encounter in one of the Jedi Prestige Classes. This talent can also be taken multiple times, recovering more spent Force Points.

2. If you roll a natural 20 on any Use the Force Check, you regain ALL your expended powers at the end of your turn.

3. The Alter Talent Tree has a talent that lets you recover one Telekinetic power (Force Slam, et al) as a swift action once per encounter, without using a Force Point. And it can be taken multiple times.

4. The one feat that gives you more Force Powers scales with your Wisdom mod. Get more Wisdom, get more powers, quite a bit more if you pick up the feat a few times. You can also take a particular power multiple times to use it more than once per encounter without expending it.

I do agree that particular Talent your mentioned is incredibly worthless, but with the above options and sensible power choice and use, I really don't see how a Jedi could ever actually run out of powers entirely, particularly at the later levels.

And one last point, although this doesn't really have anything to do with 4e or the mechanics of Saga Edition... though, how often did the Jedi in the movies ever actually use Force Powers in a single encounter?

Now, if there is going to be ANY sort of Recovery method in 4e, I'm thinking it will be tied to Action Points or otherwise similar to the above options.

 

[HeinorNY]

Combats are not the only kind of encounter. If your character is interacting with something, the character is in an encounter.

I want to use my Fighter's Super Strike, wich is an encounter power, to break down a door. Can I use it in every attack?
Only once until the door is down? If I stop and come back later, and start attacking the door again, can I use the power again?
If Second Wind is an encounter power, how often can I use it outside combat? Once every 5 minutes?

 

[FourthBear]

I want to use my Fighter's Super Strike, wich is an encounter power, to break down a door. Can I use it in every attack?
Only once until the door is down? If I stop and come back later, and start attacking the door again, can I use the power again?
If Second Wind is an encounter power, how often can I use it outside combat? Once every 5 minutes?

I suspect that the answer in all cases will be once every five minutes, in or out of combat. I do agree that this does not well jive with one of the explanations of why you can't just reuse some maneuvers, so I think that explanation will have to wither away and die. Once every five minutes is simple and straightforward. As we've seen in this and other threads, the other rules breed arguments.

 

[Kwalish Kid]

I still have issues with per encounter powers.

1- I wanna know what happens to encounter powers outside combat! How often can I use them?

They are combat powers so, by definition, you can't use them outside of combat encounters.

2- I'm worried about the mentioning of the "wait x minutes and you are recharged", because what if an encounter starts before that? I saw people saying "if it happens it's still the same encounter" but it's not. Party kill all monster, take their loot, an are attacked by a new group of monster, before the x minutes passed. It's a new encounter, come on!

I think the claim made in the podcast was that a power required some rest to recharge. DMs should take this in mind when planning encounters.

3- They mentioned some martial powers can only be used once per encounter, because "the monster won't fall for the same trick again". But what if a new monster joins the combat, can I use that wasted encounter maneuver against him? I don't like this line of rationalization. Just say martial powers use some kind of energy, effort, momentum, weariness, inner power/will, etc.

Use whatever narrative logic you'd like. The mechanic is there for game balance. In the course of an encounter, you'll get to use the mechanic once effectively. You can say that the character uses it more than once but treat other uses like normal attacks.

 

[jasin]

It drives me nuts. "Sorry, my character can't use the force anymore in this fight." It feels completely artificial and ruins my suspension of disbelief.

Why is it artificial or difficult to believe that you need 60 seconds of rest to get your powers back, but not that you need 6 seconds?

 

[Dragonblade]

Weren't they pretty explicit in stating that there are no recharge mechanic?

Thats the whole point of my thread. There SHOULD be one. See my SW example. If there is no in-battle recharge mechanic, it completely breaks suspension of disbelief.

It goes right back to the same problems we had in 3.5 and its NOT fun. Like wizard spell prep or paladin smite evil. "Sorry guys, I know we are fighting the evil lich king and he'll cover the land in 1000 years of darkness if we fail, but my god only lets me smite evil X times and I'm fresh out." Its ridiculous.

So if I didn't ready a certain power for the day and my character gets into a battle where he needs it then he is just screwed? No recourse? No way to ready that power in combat?

Likewise, if I use an important power, no possible way to use it again? No possible way my character could train and train and train and be able to pull it off twice? No way he could take a moment to refocus himself, look for an opening and pull off the power again??

We must have in battle refresh mechanic available to all classes that does not cost a feat to use. And don't even get me started on using action points to refresh. I DESPISE level based action point systems like in Eberron and especially in SW Saga. They don't resolve the problem either.

 

[Dragonblade]

Why is it artificial or difficult to believe that you need 60 seconds of rest to get your powers back, but not that you need 6 seconds?

Because if my character has enough stamina to pull off Uber Blade Strike, and Hammer of the Gods, and Lay the Smack Down, then he has enough stamina to realistically be able to pull off Uber Blade Strike twice instead.

I have a black belt in taekwondo and used to compete in tournaments. If I got off a jump 360 roundhouse kick or spin hook to the head, I didn't need to wait until after the match to be able to do it again. I just needed another opening.

 

[jasin]

They are combat powers so, by definition, you can't use them outside of combat encounters.

I certainly hope you're wrong.

 

[Kunimatyu]

We must have in battle refresh mechanic available to all classes that does not cost a feat to use. And don't even get me started on using action points to refresh. I DESPISE level based action point systems like in Eberron and especially in SW Saga. They don't resolve the problem either.

Sure they do, they model your character pulling that bit of extra juice into what they're doing, and since action points are a finite resource, you have to really want that manuever back if you're willing to spend action points on it. I am with you on the level-based part -- I'd prefer a small pool of action points that never really gets bigger unless you devote feats or what-have-you to improving it, because getting 11 or so action points in high-level Eberron was silly.

I'd prefer to avoid an easy refresh mechanic, because then you have to balance per encounter powers two ways: is it balanced once per encounter, and (assuming a full-round refresh) is it balanced if the PC uses it once every other turn?

 

[HeinorNY]

Thats the whole point of my thread. There SHOULD be one. See my SW example. If there is no in-battle recharge mechanic, it completely breaks suspension of disbelief.

It goes right back to the same problems we had in 3.5 and its NOT fun. Like wizard spell prep or paladin smite evil. "Sorry guys, I know we are fighting the evil lich king and he'll cover the land in 1000 years of darkness if we fail, but my god only lets me smite evil X times and I'm fresh out." Its ridiculous.

So if I didn't ready a certain power for the day and my character gets into a battle where he needs it then he is just screwed? No recourse? No way to ready that power in combat?

Likewise, if I use an important power, no possible way to use it again? No possible way my character could train and train and train and be able to pull it off twice? No way he could take a moment to refocus himself, look for an opening and pull off the power again??

We must have in battle refresh mechanic available to all classes that does not cost a feat to use. And don't even get me started on using action points to refresh. I DESPISE level based action point systems like in Eberron and especially in SW Saga. They don't resolve the problem either.

But we just can't go too far on encounter powers rationalization, we will never be satisfied, there will always be a corner case that doesn't make any sense.
I'm really worried about the game itself.
If the rule is rest 1 minute outside combat to recharge encounter powers, I can see characters finishing a combat and laying down to ground to rest a little, even before looting, just to make sure they aren't caught unpowered.

*last monster is defeated*
-Quick guys, let's catch our breath fast, I hear enemies coming, let those coins there Rogue! We get them later, OMG OMG they are coming, rest rest rest!!!"