Variant Recharge Mechanic

[the Jester]

I'm putting this in the 4e forum because 4e is where we see recharge dice.

I was thinking about a variant recharge system. Instead of rolling a die for each recharge ability, roll one die and use the roll to recharge any single ability that will recharge on that number.

This system would require shifting a lot of recharge numbers down a bit, for less impressive powers especially.

Let's say you are using a monster with two recharge abilities, Tail Sweep (recharge 5 6) and Breath Weapon (recharge 6). If I was using this system I would almost certainly increase tail sweep to 4 5 6; that way, half the time, something recharges, but most of those times it's the tail sweep attack.

I was actually thinking about this in terms of pcs with recharge abilities (from one of my homebrewed systems). I was thinking along the lines of the combat superiority dice in the new 5e playtest- that pcs could gain more recharge dice as you go up in level, and that the dice type could improve eventually, which also lets you set high-level powers with recharge numbers above 6. In turn, this means that mid- or high-level pcs can recharge lower-level powers almost ubiquitously while their highest-level abilities don't become usable almost at-will.

Mostly just thinking out loud here, but it's an interesting mechanical variant and I thought I would share my thoughts!

 

[Jhaelen]

I'm not sure what the goal behind this change is. Is it that you want to roll less often?

The reason I don't like your variant is that it will lead to more 'nova' rounds for the monsters.

If you'd like to ensure that the monster has a high chance to recharge 'something' every round, you'd have to choose disjunct number ranges, e.g. recharge the tail attack on 2, 3, 4 and recharge the breath weapon on 5, 6.

If you want to keep the chance for nova rounds three needs to be at least a partial overlap, e.g. recharge the tail attack on 3, 4, 5 and recharge the breath weapon on 5, 6.

Personally, I prefer it if a monster has a way to get a guaranteed recharge of a power in addition to the normal random recharge by succeeding (or failing) at a particular action, e.g. whenever the tail attack fails to hit at least one target, automatically recharge the breath attack.

I am also not fond of using different dice types for recharge abilities. I think if you feel that a d6 doesn't give you sufficient granularity, you should rather always use a d12 instead, double the normal recharge numbers and adjust them by +/- 1.

 

[D'karr]

I don't even roll recharge dice anymore. I have the players roll them. Their look of despair as they roll a is classic horror.

I don't mind your system but if I roll high do all the lower recharge powers also recharge or do I still have to roll again? You mention single power but what if the monster has multiple powers what then?