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Hey all, wasn't sure if this should go in Advice or Houserules, as it's asking for advice about a houserule.
My upcoming campaign is designed to blow the old estimate of 3-5 encounters per day out of the water. I just don't think it feels very heroic: "Whew, four fights. I'm so beat! Let's take a rest here."
No, my player's'll be clearing entire dungeons between rests, defeating a whole army with little support and little time to nap, and generally going to Hell and back (maybe even literally) with little time to even catch their breath.
Spellcasting was easy: set them up with Recharge Magic from here and they're good to go.
Martial characters, with their times/day or rounds/day abilities are a bit tougher. I can't expect a Barbarian to Rage only a few seconds each day, when my spellcasters are throwing spells out continuously. Bards need to be able to Inspire Courage throughout an entire battle. Not just an "encounter", but an actual, army vs. army battle raging for possibly hours.
I'm looking for ideas and advice on how to achieve this. I can't let them be on all the time, but I also can't keep it how it is. The best thing I've thought up is having them burn actions each round to keep the effects up, but that seems... even more limiting than normal.
I turn to you, great Men and Women of the Houserules board for help.
Thanks in advance! :)
Possibly let them recharge rounds per day uses per day when they aren't active.
Maybe for every minute a rounds/day ability is off get back a round.
For x use/day abilities set them on a recharge based on how often you want them used so maybe use the wizards 1d6+1 round as if it were his highest level spell.
In Pathfinder, if your party can't take on 6-10 encounters a day, they're the ones making the mistakes.
CR relative to party level was diminished, the old rules of 3.5 do not apply anymore. A PL=CR encounter is easier now. Combine that with good teamwork and a group can go for quite a while.
The only thing that stops a party from continuing in a dungeon is two resources: HP and offense. Offense is almost always spell slots, as a rogue/ranger/barbarian/fighter don't care unless they are consuming ammunition. Still, a sundered weapon might give some pause. HP goes down if you are hit, and comes back at the cost of spell slots/channel energy.
Minimalize how often your are hit, supplement HP restoration with outside sources, and reduce how often you consume limited offense, and you go longer.
Then again, lets look at what is common in my gaming groups:
Spellcasters NEVER cast every round, unless they need to. Spells are reserved for opportune moments or needful circumstances. Always carry a backup ranged weapon. +1 crossbows are cheap and can always contribute in a fight.
Everyone chips in for healing, with the old CLW Wand. Between UMD and spellcasting, usually every member can at least try to use a wand, and often two of them have reliable/guaranteed success. A few potions are always carried as well.
Flanking, aid another, tactical positioning, helping each other out when needed. My groups figure something went wrong in a fight if no one had to calculate flanking bonuses.
Granted, it seems like what you want is beyond even this.
I recommend just extending the recharge mechanic to the limited martial character abilities. Barbarian Rage is basically the rage spell, so check how fast the spell recharges, and allow the barbarian to recharge perhaps his con mod in rounds after said time. Whether he can repeatedly recharge himself to full or can ONLY recharge that amount after using rage is up to you: the first version means he can go nuts and fully recover with a decent break, the other means he can only fully recover if he rages less than his con mod each time, prompting some degree of resource management.
Bards are also easy, just compare bardic music effects to similar spells accquired at the same or close level. Inspire Courage = bless, inspire heroism = heroism, etc etc.
I'd say multiplying by a factor of 3 is fair for limited use abilities. 5/day becomes 15, 3 becomes 9, 1 become 3. Perhaps give them a recharge downtime to prevent them from getting rapid-fired in climactic battles. 5 minutes would often be enough, and could still allow for something dramatic like: Failed attack, fight for another two minutes, villain starts to win, monologues for 3 minutes, attack recharges, hooray".
I like the way you think, Austin; I've also used the Recharge Magic rules as a GM.
CrackedOzy's idea sounds reasonable (reduce the number of rounds and let it recharge normally in 1d6+1 rounds or 5 minutes or whatever).
Everyone chips in for healing, with the old CLW Wand.
That's one of the reasons I ran a game using Recharge Magic in the first place -- healing wands are a fugly crutch, IMO. I'd much rather just have all HP recover in between fights for free.
Yeah I was tempted to plug Strain-Injury there Hogarth, but cranewings beat me to it. It does exactly that (all HP back between encounters) while leaving a place for dramatic "wounds" which are rare and persistent. Since you just expressed a desire for exactly that kind of thing, I would really love to get your opinion on it.
I'm also really interested in ideas for removing "per day" -ism from the game. One of my most ornery players hate-hate-hates per day powers conceptually, and it would be really nice to be able to rebalance the game so that you could use all of those powers in a single-encounter context, or some other balanced method.
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I'm also really interested in ideas for removing "per day" -ism from the game. One of my most ornery players hate-hate-hates per day powers conceptually, and it would be really nice to be able to rebalance the game so that you could use all of those powers in a single-encounter context, or some other balanced method.
The danger lies in going too far with that and ending up with 4e.
I do like the "touchstone" idea though, I may use that in my games.
I do like the "touchstone" idea though, I may use that in my games.
Can you explain what you mean by this?
I do like the "touchstone" idea though, I may use that in my games.Can you explain what you mean by this?
The ideas in Lincoln Hills's post, presumably.
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I'm also really interested in ideas for removing "per day" -ism from the game. One of my most ornery players hate-hate-hates per day powers conceptually, and it would be really nice to be able to rebalance the game so that you could use all of those powers in a single-encounter context, or some other balanced method.The danger lies in going too far with that and ending up with 4e.
Yes, this is a major concern for me. Though I've never so much as seen a 4e game played, a good chunk of my players are major 4e-haters.
Yes, this is a major concern for me. Though I've never so much as seen a 4e game played, a good chunk of my players are major 4e-haters.I'm also really interested in ideas for removing "per day" -ism from the game. One of my most ornery players hate-hate-hates per day powers conceptually, and it would be really nice to be able to rebalance the game so that you could use all of those powers in a single-encounter context, or some other balanced method.The danger lies in going too far with that and ending up with 4e.
I'm not worried. The things about 4e that bothered me were not the "practical" mechanics like easy HP recovery, but the lack of an in-character rationale for such things. I work really hard to frame my mechanics in a way that makes sense in the world of the characters. I really hate the idea of just tossing a mechanic out and saying "here, this works mechanically, use it." Any good rule has flavor.
I think someone called this "disassociated mechanics" at some point. That's as good a name as any.
Anyway, I'll be sad if this becomes a trainwreck 4e thread, so let's take the relevant lesson and move on. Streamlining the cure-spell raindance between encounters was a good idea. Making it feel like a superpower (Healing Surge!) was a bit if a fumble.
Taking the "per day" out of the mechanics and replacing it with something a little less astrological would actually make Pathfinder less like the offending mechanics, no?
For those of you who have used the Recharge variant from UA, can you tell me about any emergent effects of the system? How do you characterize the quirks like managing different spell level in in-character terms?
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First, I'm sorry I didn't mean to turn this into a 4e-bashing thread, as they did implement a lot of great ideas, I just meant we should be wary of taking the "per encounter" idea too far.
Second, yes I was referring to Lincoln Hills' post about the monoliths. I believe there was a similar idea in the 3.5 Planar Handbook that referred to them as touchstones or something like that.
New idea:
What if PCs had the option, once per day, to refresh as if they had taken a full night's sleep? Sort of a mid-day recharge at their discretion. Maybe each PC could even "recharge" when they needed, not as a group.
Yeah I was tempted to plug Strain-Injury there Hogarth, but cranewings beat me to it. It does exactly that (all HP back between encounters) while leaving a place for dramatic "wounds" which are rare and persistent. Since you just expressed a desire for exactly that kind of thing, I would really love to get your opinion on it.
In my case, I would consider that kind of system to be fixing a symptom (x/day cure spells backed up with CLW wands are lame), not the disease (x/day abilities backed up with fugly kludges are lame). A particularly bad symptom, but a symptom nonetheless.
For those of you who have used the Recharge variant from UA, can you tell me about any emergent effects of the system? How do you characterize the quirks like managing different spell level in in-character terms?
How do you characterise any of the weird and awkward ways that D&D magic works? Ultimately, it will just boil down to "magic just works that way".
Hogarth, there was a whole thread on implied D&D metaphysics here just a few months ago.
One of the big ideas was that the aura has 9 layers, and spells of greater and greater power are "hung" on those layers as the wizard becomes more realized. The act of casting magic isn't in doing a set of gestures to make the magic happen, but to tap into a prepared part of your aura and releasing the energy there.
Link? Was I in on that one? I should have been.
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New idea:
What if PCs had the option, once per day, to refresh as if they had taken a full night's sleep? Sort of a mid-day recharge at their discretion. Maybe each PC could even "recharge" when they needed, not as a group.
I really like this, actually. It could be some sort of "second wind" system.
Each class could have a different sort of "second wind".
Hogarth, there was a whole thread on implied D&D metaphysics here just a few months ago.
One of the big ideas was that the aura has 9 layers, and spells of greater and greater power are "hung" on those layers as the wizard becomes more realized.
Actually, the metaphysical bit that bugs me the most is clerical magic. The gods love you so much that they'll allow you to raise the dead...but only if you ask in advance, and each request takes a separate slot,e tc.
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Figured I'd go ahead and post here as to the result.
I presented my players with a Recharge Magic system, combined with a varying increase in uses of other abilities.
The group were heavily resistant to the Recharge system, and we came to the decision that we would use a non-recharging Spell Point system.
Everything that is X/day is doubled, flat out. Spell Points per day are twice normal, Barbarian's Rage rounds per day are twice normal, the Ninja's Ki Pool has twice as many Ki points in it.
The group seems happy with this, and I made it clear that I would still run the campaign as if they had "endless" resources. I.e. if the Sorcerer tries to "nova" every combat, he will run out of Spell Points, and quickly. Bunkering up and resting for him to regain them will require the entire rest of the party to spend their resources as they defend him for 9 hours or so.
Everyone seems to be happy with this :)
Huh! I'm surprised that they'd be resistant to recharge magic but open to spell points. Sounds interesting.