PCs With Recharging Abilities... Why Not?

[Pbartender]

because they are so much better than at wills. The incentive to use magic missile is that it doesn't run out, but does weak damage. The chance to drop a fireball and recover it every other round? too tempting to pass up...

Okay... for just a few minutes, imagine something midway between a fireball and a magic missile.

Something like, oh... say... Grease... A spell that gives you the option of knocking someone prone or making them drop whatever their holding.

Imagine something that's a little too powerful to used at-will, but not quite powerful enough to be an encounter only power... I'm not proposing making Encounter powers rechargeable, I'm proposing adding a "rechargeable" category in between the two for PCs, to fill in that big quantum gap that lies between them.

 

[Pbartender]

If your encounter power recharges on a 6, every fight's initial round you're going to be firing your encounter power.

Only if I happen to be in a position where I can utilize that ability within the first round, and only if the rechargeable power is as powerful or more powerful than a typical encounter power... I am NOT suggesting that rechargeable powers should be. I am NOT saying that all encounter powers should be made into rechargeable powers.


I am only suggesting that there are, potentially, powers that lie somewhere between at-will and encounter on the power scale. Lacking any other option, you have to put them in one category or the other. So you end making them either slightly overpowered at-will powers, or slightly underpowered encounter powers.

What I am saying, is that that entire category of in-between powers could feasibly be rechargeable powers, with the "recharge rate" set by the relative power of the ability... the least powerful abilities might reset on a 3-6, while the most powerful abilities reset only on a 6.

 

[Irda Ranger]

I really like the idea of Recharding the Encounter powers ("Trip when you have an opening" as someone else said), but I think it would be too good. I'm also too lazy to down-grade all the Encounter powers the necessary notch to make it balanced.

If I were going to do it though, this is how I'd do it to make it fast and easy to track:

1. Have Power Cards. On one side is the power; on the other is the recharge number. All cards start combat "power side" up.
2. As you use powers, flip 'em over.
3. Designate one d6 your Recharge Die (or "the Die of Fate" to recognize the role of luck in perceiving opportunities). When you roll your attack on any round roll the d6 along with the d20 (you save on hand motions this way). Finish your actions that round with the d20 and then look at the d6. Flip any Power Cards back over that match the Die of Fate while the guy next to you is doing his stuff. No time is lost.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Therefore, a simple 1-in-6 chance of recharge kills tactical choice on the first round of every fight and 1/6th of the rounds thereafter.

I'm confused, if you have a per-encounter power, isn't it in your best interest to use it at some point during the encounter? Barring some strategic niftiness, there's basically going to be two options: use it when you're at full power and give your team an early edge, or use it when you're starting to get weak, to come back from behind. Most of the time, you're better off launching it right away, in case something crazy happens and your second opportunity slips through your fingers.

If an encounter is 5 rounds, and your average party size is 5, you'll even get well-coordinated teams blasting at least one encounter power per round.

There's a 100% chance that smart players will use their encounter power during an encounter.

With a recharge mechanic, the choice gets simpler. If I need it, I use it. There's a not-half-bad chance I'll be able to use it again by the next time I need it.

All the possibility of the recharge does is say that I might be able to spend one more round unleashing might against my enemies.

Really, I don't care if my PC's can end a battle with "I nuke them."

It's not going to be a whole lot different in the 5th round of combat when the last enemy only has 8 hp left anyway. When anything can kill the critter, I really don't mind it being a powerful ability that kills them.

 

[hong]

See that makes sense...but allowing total regain of all per encounters within a 2 round period within a period of narrative importance seems to blow the spirit out of the water.

DC

If you can take 2 rounds out of a fight to do nothing, then either 1) you are not in a fight worth speaking of; 2) it is critical to the remainder of the fight that you recharge. The assumption is that 2 rounds is a sufficient price in terms of the actions economy that recharging is not a no-brainer option.

 

[Ximenes088]

I'm confused, if you have a per-encounter power, isn't it in your best interest to use it at some point during the encounter? Barring some strategic niftiness, there's basically going to be two options: use it when you're at full power and give your team an early edge, or use it when you're starting to get weak, to come back from behind. Most of the time, you're better off launching it right away, in case something crazy happens and your second opportunity slips through your fingers.

You're right- most of the time, it is in their interest to open up early and hard with encounter powers. Yet the penalty for holding it back is minimal. 30 HP damage out of a 100 HP monster means almost the exact same thing at every HP range from 100-31. It can be more advantageous to save the power until after the tactical situation shakes out and you can identify who really needs to have his day ruined. You can afford to take a few rounds to drop the power without "wasting" any of it overkilling an almost-dead enemy.

Conversely, the more encounter powers you have, the more incentive you have to drop them quickly when a recharge mechanic is in play. Assuming a power recharges on a roll of 6, every encounter power after the first drastically increases the chances you'll have at least one encounter power up on any given round. With six of them, by the time you've burnt your sixth power, you've rolled to recharge as many as 15 times.

In a personal sense, it's annoying to me to have an uncertain amount of resources going into a fight. With a recharge mechanism, I don't know if I have 1 shot of a power or 2 or 3 or 15. I have enough uncertainty to deal with in coping with good or bad rolls. I really don't want to play a Book of Nine Swords Crusader-style resource management minigame alongside it.

 

[Ondo]

I really like the idea of Recharding the Encounter powers ("Trip when you have an opening" as someone else said), but I think it would be too good. I'm also too lazy to down-grade all the Encounter powers the necessary notch to make it balanced.

It strikes me that to do a better job of simulating "Trip when you have an opening", you should just roll to see if you can use it each round, without being able to save it for a later round.

I'm not sure that's a workable idea, but maybe it'll inspire someone. It would at least eliminate the incentive to use the ability early in order to have more chances for it to recharge.

 

[D_E]

What I am saying, is that that entire category of in-between powers could feasibly be rechargeable powers, with the "recharge rate" set by the relative power of the ability... the least powerful abilities might reset on a 3-6, while the most powerful abilities reset only on a 6.

I agree with you, it would have been a good option for those powers that are just a bit too good to be used at-will, but evoke a definite "I can only use it ONCE PER FIGHT? Now that doesn't make any kind of sense!"

 

[jackston2]

Based on a previous thread here, I'm leaning toward allowing PC's to spend action points to recharge encounter powers. That takes the guesswork and dice out of it but keeps the tactics firmly in place. I'll allow the gain of one AP per 1 combat, not per 2. Recharging daily powers might be an option too, but the cost will be at least 2 AP.

This will unbalance the game in favor of PCs with stronger encounter and daily powers (perhaps favoring wizards over fighters)

 

[Remathilis]

Okay... for just a few minutes, imagine something midway between a fireball and a magic missile.

Something like, oh... say... Grease... A spell that gives you the option of knocking someone prone or making them drop whatever their holding.

Imagine something that's a little too powerful to used at-will, but not quite powerful enough to be an encounter only power... I'm not proposing making Encounter powers rechargeable, I'm proposing adding a "rechargeable" category in between the two for PCs, to fill in that big quantum gap that lies between them.

Problem: They ultimately still end up better than an either.

Imagine Magic Missile does 1d6 damage, Fireball does 5d6 to an area, and say, FLAMING SPHERE does 3d6 to a foe, recharge 6.

Your facing a foe with not particular immunity to fire. What do you start with?

Magic Missile? weak damage.
Fireball? Well, damage is a lot better but it might be better used when more foes group up.
Flaming Sphere? Might as well. More damage than a MM, and there is a chance you get it back.

So you shoot a flaming sphere, and roll a 6 on the d6. Woo hoo! you have it back. Now what? Flaming sphere again next round!

Next round, you don't recover it. Seeing the foe is bloodied, you fireball it to end the fight. By the virtue of poor dice rolls, its still alive.

The round after that, you resort to magic missile. You miss, but you recharge flaming sphere!

Next round, guess what time it is?

So FS gets spammed for 9d6 damage, fireball gets used for 5d6, and magic missile once for 1d6. Without FS, you would have to use magic missile almost 8 more times to make up for that damage.