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Charges That Recover Faster Than Daily?


bigdamnhero

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A random thought that came up in a discussion with one of my players about his PC. There are rules for increasing the value of the Charges Limitation if those Charges recover more slowly than once per day: -1/2 per step on the Time Chart. Has anyone tried going the other direction, with Charges that recover more quickly than Daily, thereby reducing the value of the Limitation? For example, say a character wants to be able to use a power "x" times per hour, or (more fuzzily) "x" times per combat? How would you calculate that change in the value?

 

A few possibilities leap to mind. +1/2 per step up the Time Chart would be the most consistant with the existing rule, but that's going to bust your Framework AP caps pretty quickly. Is +1/4 per step too little? Or what about +1/2 for "per combat"? Or do you just call them Recoverable and let it go as that?

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That option would end up with paying full price for the power, and then adding on the cost of the end reserve for a limitation.

 

What we have done is allowed it to be stepped up for the same value. However this only ever came up once when doing our Sword of truth write up and the relevent character chose to go with once per week anyways because of the expense of the Confessors touch.

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I'd say that steps up the time chart would be worth -1/4 per step on the Time Chart. 

 

To implement in HDesigner I would use Recoverable (+3/4) and Recovers Under Limited Circumstances (-1/4 per step) to adjust the value of the Charges Limitation accordingly with a detailed description of how it works in the notes.

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  • 2 weeks later...

One way to think about this is to determine how many Daily Charge equivalents you get.

 

So say I want to have a power recover all its charges each Hour. That would be equivalent to having 24 times that many Charges that recover each Day. So say I wanted to use a power 4 times/hour, I would buy it with 4 x 24 = 96 Normal Charges and just ask my GM to phase in the recovery over time rather than all at once. That would give me back 4 charges each hour. The advantage you get for recovering in this phased in manner is offset by the fact you cannot use all 96 charges in an hour (you would be capped at 4 per hour). This should get you the proper value for the quicker recovery time.

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One way to think about this is to determine how many Daily Charge equivalents you get.

 

So say I want to have a power recover all its charges each Hour. That would be equivalent to having 24 times that many Charges that recover each Day. So say I wanted to use a power 4 times/hour, I would buy it with 4 x 24 = 96 Normal Charges and just ask my GM to phase in the recovery over time rather than all at once. That would give me back 4 charges each hour. The advantage you get for recovering in this phased in manner is offset by the fact you cannot use all 96 charges in an hour (you would be capped at 4 per hour). This should get you the proper value for the quicker recovery time.

Brilliant!

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary asks why I didn't think of it

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I think capping it at four per hour might still rate a limitation adjustment of some kind, but I'm not sure.

Or at least less of a Advantage. RAW charges also include the full "No Endurance Cost" Advantage.

Charges and Endurance reserve are both more granular and less expensives ways of doing "Cost No End".

How about basing the whole thing on the Rules for "Clips"? Instead of having (or being able too) spend a Full/Half/0-Phase action to change the "Clip", you have to wait till the next hour passes. It goes autoatmically (even when unconscious), there are no physical items to steal from you (as with conventinal "Clips" rule), but you are also a bit more limited.

 

The thing with charges is, that the more you have in any specific timeframe the less of a limitation it is. And when it truly stops being a limitation, all you got is 0 End.

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), there are no physical items to steal from you (as with conventinal "Clips" rule),

When Charges is combined with Focus, there is a physical item to steal.

 

When Charges is not combined with Focus, there is no physical item to steal.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary points out that combining Charges with Physical Manifestation or possibly with Restrainable could also mean a physical item to steal

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A random thought that came up in a discussion with one of my players about his PC. There are rules for increasing the value of the Charges Limitation if those Charges recover more slowly than once per day: -1/2 per step on the Time Chart. Has anyone tried going the other direction, with Charges that recover more quickly than Daily, thereby reducing the value of the Limitation? For example, say a character wants to be able to use a power "x" times per hour, or (more fuzzily) "x" times per combat? How would you calculate that change in the value?

 

A few possibilities leap to mind. +1/2 per step up the Time Chart would be the most consistant with the existing rule, but that's going to bust your Framework AP caps pretty quickly. Is +1/4 per step too little? Or what about +1/2 for "per combat"? Or do you just call them Recoverable and let it go as that

If i were going to do this i would use the +1/2 per step up the time chart, with the standard Charges caveat that the final cost for charges cannot exceed +1/2 (as at that point you could buy 0 End for the same price.) This seems to make the most sense to me and feels balanced as well. If your buying lots of charges that recover quickly you dont have to pay too much, but you can have a few charges that are only useable after a set amount of time.

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  • 2 weeks later...

96 charges/day would allow you to always have 4 charges/hour, since if you used only 4 (at most) each hour, that means you use 96/day. However, if you also set a hard limit saying you cannot exceed 4/hour, then I agree you should get some extra limitation on it.

 

This was being discussed because the OP was trying to find a way to price per hour charges. I started off with suggesting a method, that basically says there are 24 hours/day so just buy 24 times more charges than you want per hour and that gets you on your way to finding the right price for a per hour charge. However, depending on the game, if your GM agrees, and basically decides that your PC will sleep on average 6-8 hours a day (and you do not need charges during this time usually) he could say only pay x16-18 for your per hour charges, not the full x24. This would be the way, I think, to get at the correct value for a hard per hour limit. If your GM agrees, and say only has you pay x16 for each per hour charge (granting you 8 hours per day of down time in effect where you need not pay for the charges), then the GM could say you only get at most X charges/hour, but always get them each hour, even for those hours you did not technically pay for them (such as those 8 hours of downtime), so you get more charges than you should get, but since it is rare to need to use them during those hours, it makes up for the fact you are limited to only using X charges per hour. This seems to be a fair way to work it, IMO.

 

For example, you want 4 uses per hour of something. You agree you cannot use this thing more than 4 times per hour as this is how the power's flavor and concept works. So your GM tells you buy x16 those number of uses as daily charges, with the extra limitation (cannot use more than 4/hour) for which you get a -0 limitation (since the bonus is from only paying for x16 not x24). In this case, instead of buying 96 charges for this effect (+3/4) you only have to buy 64 (16 x 4=64) which is only a (+1/2). So in effect you get a reduced advantage of -1/4 from this rather than a Limitation of -X.

 

It depends on the GM and player and how the power in question works. If the power were some triggered defensive type which was always ready to go off when the trigger happens (requires no conscious action, could go off just fine even while you sleep), but only 4/hour at most, then as a GM I might not give the x16 and require the full x24 but give an extra -1/4 Limitation of No More than 4/hour. This would not be as good at the x16 method, but for this type of power it would seem more fitting. If the power requires you to be conscious and use it with at least a 0-phase action, then I would be more than willing to grant the better x16 instead of x24 cost method.

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If it is a combat power I would be happy to grant the 16 charge even if the character has LS: does not sleep. Usually there are only going to be 2-3 combats per day. So with a max of 4 charges, a character is typically never going to have an opportunity to use more than 8-12 charges a day while paying for 64 charges.

 

I would be concerned if the power was "put everyone in stasis for 15 minutes" or if anyone in the party had a power along those lines.

 

So I would go with the 16 charge level (+1/2 over the 4 charge level) or move two steps down the time chart @+1/4 per step = +1/2.

 

If I ran the kind of campaign where combat occurs every few minutes for hous at a time, I would need to rethink this.

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Also one thing to consider is that not all "daily" charges recover after a literal day for all GMs. I for one do not work in actual days, but rather I restore "daily" charges when the PCs reach an important Milestone. If they reach it in a few hours, they get all charges back, if it takes weeks, they get nothing back until the Milestone is met, even after weeks. Some of my games see the PCs traveling long distances with encounters happening along the way. Until they reach their destination and achieve the Milestone they get no charges back.

 

So for me, as a GM, since I do not mark my game progress in terms of literal game time, but mark it in terms of events (Milestones, Encounters, Goals, etc), and game time is really just flavor text most of the time (some times it matters in a rush against the clock type goal), I would not use a per hour charge but rather a per Encounter charge or per Goal or per Milestone (which for me is how I work the "daily" charges).

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  • 3 weeks later...

Also one thing to consider is that not all "daily" charges recover after a literal day for all GMs. I for one do not work in actual days, but rather I restore "daily" charges when the PCs reach an important Milestone. If they reach it in a few hours, they get all charges back, if it takes weeks, they get nothing back until the Milestone is met, even after weeks. Some of my games see the PCs traveling long distances with encounters happening along the way. Until they reach their destination and achieve the Milestone they get no charges back.

 

So for me, as a GM, since I do not mark my game progress in terms of literal game time, but mark it in terms of events (Milestones, Encounters, Goals, etc), and game time is really just flavor text most of the time (some times it matters in a rush against the clock type goal), I would not use a per hour charge but rather a per Encounter charge or per Goal or per Milestone (which for me is how I work the "daily" charges).

For all it's faults, D&D 4.0 and 4.5 seemed to go into the same direction.

Instead of something as unbalanced as "24 hours" it said "till next minor/extended rest" or "till end of combat". Were and how regulary you place the "restplaces" is a important part of Adventure Design.

Warhammer Fantasy afaik had something similar in both the Combat and Social Resolution Systems.

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This is one reason why I'm not too fond of Charges in general. I dislike both the "daily" and the meta-gamey "milestone/encounter set" variations. Unless the ability itself is meta-gamey enough (e.g. Luck) or there's a really good reason for it (cycles of the sun/moon).

 

Never mind the whole ammo debacle...

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This is one reason why I'm not too fond of Charges in general. I dislike both the "daily" and the meta-gamey "milestone/encounter set" variations. Unless the ability itself is meta-gamey enough (e.g. Luck) or there's a really good reason for it (cycles of the sun/moon).

 

Never mind the whole ammo debacle...

What ammo debacle exactly?

If it is ammo in a heroic game, you just buy more Clips. No ingame price, but the GM can make something up.

In superheroic you might just let it cost ENd (the STR used to use the weapon) or place 0 End instead on it (if you wanted that many Charges anyway).

 

The problem with any set timeframe will be that it is either to fast or to slow for certain games. X/Day might be too severe (for it's value) for a superheroic setting where combats often can follow another (often only STUN damage to heal, fast travel times between scenes).

While it could be almost non-limiting in a heroic game (long travel and healing times).

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What ammo debacle exactly?

Well, maybe that's overstating it a bit, but simulating ammunition with charges can create some unwanted side-effects. Which is probably one reason why we have so many variants and amendments for this limitation. Especially where powers meets equipment -- what if my special ability is using 9mm rounds, too? Or D cells...

 

And yes, sometimes it's probably better just to not use charges at all for that, especially once there's no game-relevant difference.

 

The problem with any set timeframe will be that it is either to fast or to slow for certain games. X/Day might be too severe (for it's value) for a superheroic setting where combats often can follow another (often only STUN damage to heal, fast travel times between scenes).

While it could be almost non-limiting in a heroic game (long travel and healing times).

I'd say that even within a single game it often causes problems, as not every adventure has the same pacing. So the daily limit is rather arbitrary. Which leads to the meta-gaming alternatives, where e.g. you get your mojo back every fourth encounter, whether that's a matter of minutes or involves LotR-like overland travel. That probably solves some of the pacing issues, but really rubs me the wrong way for some kind of reason.

 

And quite often we also get the "charged wizards vs. duracell fighter" issue, but that's not entirely unique to charges (although in HERO they're the prime candidate here).

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