Neverwinter Night's 2 style recharging.

[Michael Morris]

As those who've played NWN2 can attest, you can rest for 5 seconds and be back at full health and spells. Has anyone ever considered running a game this way? I understand why the game designers did this for a video game, and would like to hear some thoughts on the weirdness.

 

[Nadaka]

Do you mean literally 5 seconds, as in less than a full round action in the middle of combat? or are you just going to assume that spells and hp recover fully after every battle?

In either case, it favors classes/races with limited use abilities like spells and rage over those with weaker abilities that operate over time like the fighter or rogue. It will will also mean that the CR Party Level guidelines will be much less useful because the any number of CR = PL encounters will never challenge the party because they can rapidly regenerate thier resources.

On the plus side, your fighters and rogues will no longer need a bandaid cleric to survive more than 1 fight a day.

 

[Narsil]

Do you mean literally 5 seconds, as in less than a full round action in the middle of combat? or are you just going to assume that spells and hp recover fully after every battle?

It is not capable of being performed while in combat, according to the game. However I find that this is rather much a bad idea

 

[Andre]

In either case, it favors classes/races with limited use abilities like spells and rage over those with weaker abilities that operate over time like the fighter or rogue. It will will also mean that the CR Party Level guidelines will be much less useful because the any number of CR = PL encounters will never challenge the party because they can rapidly regenerate thier resources.

On the plus side, your fighters and rogues will no longer need a bandaid cleric to survive more than 1 fight a day.

The solution to the first part is to restrict such abilities in some other way. My group is using a spell point system that allows casters to recharge their spell pools fairly quickly, but ongoing spells reduce the amount that can be recharged. Too many buffs at the same time = no spell points for other spells. I've created a number of magic items that require spell points to use, which creates a nice trade-off for the caster. I experimented with a similar token pool for other classes, so a barbarian could rage, power attack, cleave, trip, etc. - but not all in the same fight. My players found it too much effort, so we dropped it, but I still think that could work well in allowing a quick recharge for abilities, while still having limits to what characters can do.

As for healing, the spell points system allows fairly quick healing during downtime and we really, really, really like that change. It completely eliminated the need for a cleric class (we rolled those spells into the sorcerer list) and allows the meat shields to be more aggressive in fights. At low levels the party still has to worry about certain effects (ability damage, negative levels, poison, disease), but that just heightens their fear of such things.

And don't forget, if the pc's can recharge quickly, so can the bad guys...

 

[Nadaka]

I have considered something similar, but instead of regenerating after every battle, it requires an hour of rest.

Basically I would be using Wounds/Vitality with a spellpoint system (with very, very limited number of spellpoints) that regenerates every hour. One slight modification is that any spell points still in use by spells (that have a duration other than instantanious or permenant) can not be regenerated.

They would still have to stop and rest after a few battles, but it only takes an hour before they are back at full strength (unless they suffered a crippling wound and do not have the resources to cure it).

 

[WhatGravitas]

Essentially, NWN uses the "spells/resources" per encounter instead of the per day paradigm (very similar to the Tome of Battle classes).

To adjust to this per encounter paradigm, we have to consider, that the standard system assumes four encounters per day, this reduce the spells to about 1/4th of the usual spells (round up... otherwise it'll be hard), and reduce hit points. Considering the fact that hit point lowering is far more dangerous... to 1/2?

Otherwise: Just reduce the CR of all creatures by -3/-4, and we'll get in similar range.

However, this will make combat far more deadly and... it would need very much playtest.

 

[ValhallaGH]

You actually shouldn't need to fiddle with HP. Enough damage is dealt that characters are usually in danger of death in many "appropriate" encounters. Besides, I've rarely seen a party with a conscious cleric or druid move into another combat encounter at less than 75-90% of hp; they used up many spells restoring those hit points but they still have most or all of them when they get into the next fight. A fight that, again, deals enough damage to put the characters in danger of death.

HP and damage scale at just about the same rates for most of the game (the "sweet spot" is the main exception, where PC hp is usually about 10-25% better than enemy damage). Thus, scaled encounters are, generally speaking, equally deadly at all levels.

So, you shouldn't need to fiddle with HP.


Also, if the resting in NWN 2 is like the resting in NWN 1 then it's actually a full night's rest compressed into a very short downtime for playability reasons. Being able to have a safe night's rest one room away from a slobbering fiend is a luxury that the game gives and PCs usually lack.

 

[Li Shenron]

Also, if the resting in NWN 2 is like the resting in NWN 1 then it's actually a full night's rest compressed into a very short downtime for playability reasons. Being able to have a safe night's rest one room away from a slobbering fiend is a luxury that the game gives and PCs usually lack.

But does it really make a difference, if the rest of the world does nothing in the meantime? What about playing with other people on the web, if it takes 5 second for a night's rest... well the other players only have 5 seconds on their own, isn't it?

 

[ValhallaGH]

But does it really make a difference, if the rest of the world does nothing in the meantime? What about playing with other people on the web, if it takes 5 second for a night's rest... well the other players only have 5 seconds on their own, isn't it?

Hey, I'm just trying to point out the underlying mechanics of the resting period. Where you go with the in-game results is up to you.

 

[Festivus]

In my NWN1 campaign, when the players rested, the creatures in the next room might actually get the idea to partrol their area once in a while, and come upon the resting party.

I also required that the players carry a bedroll and someone carry a camping kit with the group (something that was heavy). Resting was limited to once every 8 game hours, and consumed a resource (food). The actual rest period for the group in real time was about 5 seconds, but in game time it was up to 8 hours.

All of that is of course, with a DM running the bad guys, not the computer.