I'm a hater of the 1/day spell-like abilities and effects. In an effort to try and tailor it more to my liking (as a GM), I did a little brainstorming and considered the per encounter effects used by Star Wars Saga Edition.
Didn't like that, either. It went from too little, to too much.
The thought occured to me, however, that "cooldowns" were mentioned in one of my 3.0 books, so I went looking and found the Recharge Magic system which got my interest. Recharge for these in rounds, however, was worse than the per encounter mechanic in terms of frequency.
Anyway, ended up with the following chart, after some modification; I'm considering trying it out.
Spell .... Arcane ........... Divine
0 ......... 1 hours ........... 1d3 hours
1st ...... 1 hours ........... 1d3 hours
2nd ..... 1d3 hours ....... 1d4 hours
3rd ...... 1d3 hours ....... 1d4 hours
4th ...... 1d4 hours ....... 1d4+1 hours
5th ...... 1d4 hours ....... 1d4+1 hours
6th ...... 1d4+1 hours ... 1d6+1 hours
Has anyone else tried something similar? How did it work out? Did you continue/stop using it?
What I did is I made the spell like abilities be able to be used a certain number of times a day and have them increase in usage as they level up. Here is a link to what I have going. http://www.dragonarmyone.com/Home/index/fantasy-house-rules/character-creat ion2/magic/sorcerer-mana-points.
For me if I push the pc's hard through a module and they have to say ' storm the castle' then have an hourly refresh time just would not make sense as they would have to rest to recharge there abilities so what do the big bads do? Just sit around waiting for them to get back? This way if the the pc needs to use his SLA in several fights back to back then he has that option. I also use action points and if they spend one then they get to use their SLA an additional time.
What I did is I made the spell like abilities be able to be used a certain number of times a day and have them increase in usage as they level up. Here is a link to what I have going. http://www.dragonarmyone.com/Home/index/fantasy-house-rules/character-creat ion2/magic/sorcerer-mana-points.
Thanks for the link, I'll definitely check it out.
For me if I push the pc's hard through a module and they have to say ' storm the castle' then have an hourly refresh time just would not make sense as they would have to rest to recharge there abilities so what do the big bads do? Just sit around waiting for them to get back? This way if the the pc needs to use his SLA in several fights back to back then he has that option. I also use action points and if they spend one then they get to use their SLA an additional time.
My way around that issue would be to a) track recharge myself - they would be made aware when it was available; and b) my players know me well enough to know that excessive resting leads to excessive extra preparation by the Big Bad. I may end up using your system, but all in all, I don't think my players would be willing to risk giving the Big Bad extra prep time.
I also use action points and if they spend one then they get to use their SLA an additional time.
I tried to use this mechanic, but my players do not seem even vaguely interested in it. Ultimately, what I ended up doing, was no longer "fudging" the dice. When I would normally "fudge", I'd check their action point pool, and if it was available, a minor form of "divine intervention" would occur with one of the beneficial options most relevant to the necessary "fudge". Additionally, some of my players will roleplay their character saying a brief prayer before doing something, which I allow deific support through action/hero points, as well.
They seem to like this version, interestingly enough - as do I. It removes a lot of the "judgement call" aspects of when to fudge and when not to.