Refresh mechanic for Encounter powers

[Dragonblade]

So I want to implement a simple refresh mechanic for encounter powers:

--
You can expend one standard action on your turn to recharge one expended encounter power. After expending the Standard action, the recharged power is immediately available for use.

Encounter powers with a built in recharge mechanic already cannot recharge in this manner and can only recharge based on the rules provided for that particular power.
--

I realize this is a pretty powerful variant, but thats ok. I don't mind. It basically means that in a 4-6 round combat (pretty typical for 4e), a PC could use a minor or move action encounter power every round as long as they kept expending a Standard action to recharge it. I consider that a fair trade since they are paying the opportunity cost of using that standard action to recharge instead of doing something else like actually attacking.

Likewise, attack powers that use a Standard action would only be usable every other round since it would take a round in between to recharge. This limits power spamming to an acceptable degree. Allowing the PC at most, the ability to get off that power two maybe three times before the combat is done, but they wouldn't be using any other powers. I'm ok with that. I'm also ok with spending an AP to get an action and thus recharge a power.

What I want to ask is are there are combos or powers that might be truly game breaking if usable multiple times that I cannot foresee? What am I missing? The movement stuff doesn't bother me so much. I don't care about players gaining flight and using it all combat or anything. But an encounter power that gave them free surgeless healing, for example, would be something I consider game breaking. Likewise a power that could be spammed using this recharge rule to create an infinite loop to do something ridiculous would be bad too.

So is there anything like that out there that you can think of?

 

[marelion]

Minor Action Attack Powers, such as the rogue`s Snapshot, the Healing Anilities of the Leader classes are all minor actions, too. And racial abilities such as the Goliath`s damage reduction.

Another huge balance issue is the way classes are designed, there are quite some differences between the power-level of At-Wills, Encounters, Dailies and utilities for the different classes. Our rogue constantly outdamages my Avenger Encounter-Attack powers with his Sly Flourish at-will power. This gap would likely become smaller if I could spam Encounter powers longer (on a side note, our encounters normally take 8-10 rounds to finish because our GM does not care about grind).

The last factor are some EDs, that get to recharge powers: This feature is normally part of the selling point of a particulary ED, I would be curious to know how you plan on compensatig for that.

The idea all by itself probably is not bad, but the implementation sounds nigh impossible to me under the current guidelines of 4E.

 

[Dragonblade]

Thanks for your feedback!

Recovering healing powers doesn't bother me as long as its not surgeless healing. In my experience, healing is truly balanced by surges, not by running out of healing powers in battle. I have other house rules to limit frequent extended rests that I'm not including here.

Also minor action encounter attack powers (I know the Ranger has one) don't bother me either. You are giving up a standard just to recover and use another minor? That's a reasonable trade off to me and I don't find it unbalanced at all. Can you point to a ridiculously awesome minor action attack power that you feel I should look more closely at?

I thought about the ED thing, but my games haven't gotten to epic tier so far, so I'm ok with kicking that can down the road for now. I'll think about that.

Can you provide me with the names of specific encounter powers that would seem to be broken, or that might be broken if they could be chained with something else by alway recharging them?

I own nearly every 4e book WotC has released and have a DDI sub, so I can look up anything.

 

[the Jester]

Trading an attack for a recharge? This would only be worth it in a very few circumstances:

-To alleviate the need for a short rest (instead of five minutes it becomes five rounds!)
-To recharge healing that takes less than a standard action to use
-For lurker monsters with kick-ass encounter powers, while they are in 'lurker mode' and the pcs can't attack them effectively

In those three cases, I see this mechanic as being too good. In every other case, I see it as being too weak.

Okay, add "When monsters are all out of attack range for a round" to the list.

I'd never use this in my campaign. Dual-imbalance does not equal balance; that's a very "1e elf" approach.

 

[Dragonblade]

Trading an attack for a recharge? This would only be worth it in a very few circumstances:

-To alleviate the need for a short rest (instead of five minutes it becomes five rounds!)
-To recharge healing that takes less than a standard action to use
-For lurker monsters with kick-ass encounter powers, while they are in 'lurker mode' and the pcs can't attack them effectively

In those three cases, I see this mechanic as being too good. In every other case, I see it as being too weak.

Okay, add "When monsters are all out of attack range for a round" to the list.

I'd never use this in my campaign. Dual-imbalance does not equal balance; that's a very "1e elf" approach.

Thanks, Jester.

I don't know if it would alleviate the need for a short rest per se, but in my experience, short rests are usually handwaved anyway. By that I mean, the party doesn't set its watches to 5 minutes and prays there's not another encounter unless the DM is specifically putting them in a time pressure situation as part of the adventure or scenario they are in. Since all healing still has to be paid for in surges, I don't consider it a balance issue at all.

Regarding monsters, that would certainly be imbalanced. To clarify, this rule is only for players. I did not intend for monsters to be able to recharge encounter powers this way.

My principle goal is to provide players with meaningful choices and options, that may be good in some cases, but not good in others. If a power or option is so good that they would use it constantly in lieu of all others thats a concern for me. But if this just adds additional flexibility to PCs who may sometimes choose to use it, or not then my goal has been achieved.

I have been playing a lot of PF lately, and while I find the rules foundation of 4e superior, PF classes have a feeling of openness to them (even if that openness is largely illusory, but I digress) and I wanted to give that same feeling to my 4e players. That they can do cool stuff with their powers in and out of combat without worrying about the power being lost for the rest of the encounter or 5 minutes.

 

[the Jester]

The real thing to watch out for, I think, is that you might suddenly have the old-skool healbot who can't do anything but heal in tough combats, at least after the first couple of rounds.

If the party's in a really tough scrape and their leader can trade away his attack every round in order to keep healing one pc (probably the striker or defender) or let the poor guy fall in order to unleash an attack of his own instead once his 2/encounter heal power is used up... poor leader! His job becomes boring in tough fights. In older editions, it was a drag to be the healer because, at a certain point, all you got to do was heal. I'm afraid you could end up with something similar here.

The worst part about this scenario is that the more fun and harrowing the combat would be without this house rule, the more likely it is to turn into a hit point yo-yo until the monster finally gets killed; after all, there is no need to employ your standard to recharge your healing word unless you already need it a third time in the encounter.