Unearthed Arcana - Recharge Magic?

[Retreater]

Has anyone used the Recharge Magic variant from Unearthed Arcana with first level characters?

We've used it for one-shot, high-level sessions and it was a blast. It really allowed us to pick up the pace of the game.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, here's a link to that section of the Hyptertext SRD. http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/magic/rechargeMagic.htm

Also, I'd like to know if anyone has used this system for psionics.

Thanks,
Retreater

 

[Voadam]

We adopted it for the high level solo I play in (my character is an Eldritch Knight wizard/ranger) while taking out the randomness of recharge time and giving flat times. The DM also took out bonus spells for high int. We also changed wands to be recharge items (same price as 50 charge wand and recharges as highest level spell) and I use a cure light wounds wand to cure up between encounters. It has worked really well and I like it better than tracking slots and charges.

We adopted it when my character was level 16 so I don't have any experience with it at 1st level and we have not adapted it to psionics.

For first level the big things I'd foresee will be that a caster will be the two spell limit and cure minor wounds.

A caster will have a first and zero level spells then must wait a long time for the recharge to kick in. If most combats take 4-5 rounds this will mean they must find something else to do during that time.

Also be aware of the cure minor wounds fully healing the party between encounters.

Recharge changes the adventuring dynamic and allows the party to continue after encounters instead of needing to rest. It changes the spellcasting dynamic by limiting repeated powerful spell casting during combat but encourages the use of spells instead of hoarding the slots for possible later use.

I prefer this style of adventuring and resource management over the standard vancian one.

 

[GreatLemur]

So you haven't found keeping track of the cooldown periods to be a pain? I would have thought the the huge pile of additional round-by-round countdowns introduced by this system would be its biggest drawback.

 

[Voadam]

round by round tracking

I was worried about this aspect before we tried it but it went well in practice.

We handled it by doing the following:

First we simplified the chart so it is not random but just the average amount for each spell level (round up for higher level with the same die, round down for the lower level with the same die).

Second on a piece of paper we wrote out a line for each spell level and marked the recharge time and placed a die next to them with the appropriate number on them. When we cast a spell we moved the die from the left of the spell level to the right to indicate recharge was active. Each round we then moved all the recharging dice down one number.

Very visual, and easy to implement, track, and evaluate the situation at a glance.