UA's "recharge magic" - anyone used it?


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I messed around with it just enough to realize that the bookkeeping cost is prohibitive. It is a tremendous pain in the butt to keep track of.

EDIT: It also seriously messed with party buffs. No more memorizing a bunch of greater magic weapon spells for yourself and the two fighters; you can cast it only once every 6 hours.

Those two factors were enough for me to toss the idea as unusable in my game.
 

I use a modified version of it in one game I run and in one game I play in.

If you prefer encounter based resource management it is great. I do.

I found the dice rolling to be an extra variable to track I didn't want to have to do. So we modified it so that it was not random but fixed recharge times instead alternatively rounding up and down for the average recharge times.

In tabletop I have a sheet with a list of spell levels with recharge times listed and a die to the left of each spell level. After casting a spell I set the die at the appropriate recharge time to the right of the spell level. At the end of each round I change each die down one count. When they go to zero the die goes back to the left and I have a visual cue at a glance that that spell level is available again for casting. It has proven very easy to track in combats.

I prefer the resource management of choosing which spell to use for this round instead of trying to guess which ones I need to save/use before resting again.

Note you will generally heal up between combats even if you only have a bard or paladin with cure spells.

The big effect is that parties will press on without backing off to stop, camp, and regain spells.
 

It is also neat how spellcasters can't blast their top spells every round, they only get one shot with their top spell level before having to shift to descending power level spell levels.
 

You could use the maneuver system from Bo9S, and allow characters to spend maneuvers to cast spells. Spend a readied maneuver of Nth level to cast a spell of at most Nth level.

Maneuvers are refreshed as normal, so this effectively becomes per-encounter casting. To stop people running around with quasi-permanent buffs, you can rule that any spell with non-instantaneous duration means you don't get back the slot used to cast that spell.

I've got a PrC that does basically this, based on the Jade Phoenix mage; should be on my web page in a jiffy.
 

Yes, I used it once for a period of about 5 sessions with 9th, 10th, and 11th level characters. I caution you, only use it if you want casters to become vastly more powerful than they already are. The way it worked when we ran it was that casters would always open every combat with their highest level spells. The fighters in the group were disgruntled at being constantly outshined. It also makes items such as wands, scrolls, and staffs almost completely irrelevant. The only way I could figure out to make them useful was to simply allow them to be cast at will instead of having limited uses. That way, it simply enhances your spell repertoire.

A variant of this idea is that the recharge time is 24 hours for highest level spells, 12 hours for second highest level spells, 1 hour for third highest level spells, 10 minutes for fourth highest level spells, 1 minute for fifth highest level spells, and 1 round for all others. Hence an 11th level wizard could still only cast his disintegrate once per day, but he could get away with casting one cone of cold during the day and one at night, and his magic missile spell he could use every round if he wanted to (which is not unreasonable if you allow reserve feats if you think about it). Resource management is still critical at lower levels, but at least you don't eschew it completely. And limited-use items are still less desirable, but not as much.

Another good variant to reduce the multiple buff problem is to simply say that only one casting of a spell can only be in effect at any given time. So if you cast mage armor on yourself, but then later cast it on someone else while the other is still in effect, the spell fails (or the previous spell is dismissed).
 

hong said:
You could use the maneuver system from Bo9S, and allow characters to spend maneuvers to cast spells. Spend a readied maneuver of Nth level to cast a spell of at most Nth level.
[snip]
I've got a PrC that does basically this, based on the Jade Phoenix mage; should be on my web page in a jiffy.

Can't find it yet, Hong. Have you had time to get it online?
Why wouldn't the mage simply ready all their *highest* level maneuver slots?
Rusty
 

johnnyq said:
Can't find it yet, Hong. Have you had time to get it online?

Mang, it's been what, one day since I posted that? You guys are TOUGH. Anyway, it's up:

http://www.zipworld.com.au/~hong/dnd/bo9s_classvar.htm

On that page are the Jade Phoenix warrior, and a variant ranger to use the archery disciplines.

Why wouldn't the mage simply ready all their *highest* level maneuver slots?

Nothing. The idea is that the existing classes already limit how many high-level maneuvers you can have, so I just use that as a balancing mechanic for spells as well. It's a tradeoff: you can hit that guy for 100 points using greater insightful strike, or you can cast a 6th level spell. One nice side-effect of this is the more you twink out your maneuvers, the more you'll be giving up on the spellcasting side in terms of opportunity cost, and vice-versa.

I'll no doubt be tweaking this as time passes, and I get more experience with how it plays out.
 

Hong, I have been working on this idea for a while, but you did it better than I had come up with. I will be stealing this idea. Per encounter magic that is not overly powerful, but stays on par with other gish types. I like it very much. The flavor of the JPM is good, but I don't like the limitation of only a few characters in a campaign being able to take it. I do like not being able to combine it with other PrCs though. What about combining it with the alternate swordsage that gets spells in place of maneuvers? Over the top?
 

BigCat said:
Hi folks. Tantalized by reserve feats and the new SW Saga approach to force powers, I've been trying to figure out a way to adapt 3.5 to a per-encounter or similar system. It looks like the "recharge" system presented in UA might be appropriate:

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/magic/rechargeMagic.htm

Has anyone out there used it? Opinions?

I used it in a one shot and I liked it. But I also used it with lots of alternate rules (gestalt characters, no magic items, a feat every level, Iron Heros attack bonuses, saves, defense and feats).

Oh and the casters were all spontaneous casters (they had a known list of spells).

I liked it though...
 

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