What happens to CP after using charge that doesn't recover?

[LordQulex]

"This is a good way to simulate magic scrolls whose writing disappears after the spell on it is cast one time..." Ok, I'll bite:

Scroll of Fly: Flight 30m (30 Active Points); 1 Continuing Fuel Charge lasting 5 Minutes which Never Recovers (-2 1/2). Real Cost: 8 cp.

 

Depending on speed, that's 1.5 - 3 km which can be useful in a magical medieval society sure, but... what happens to those 8 cp after you use the scroll? Maybe I'm running a superheroic campaign and the player had to buy it with CP, or maybe a heroic campaign using resource points from the Advanced Players Guide, but either way, 8 character points got spent on a non-recoverable charge. Do you get those back, or are non-recoverable charges the new independent?

 

Also, what if (for cost-savings) a non-recoverable charge is put in a variable power pool? "Oh, that charge is used up. I'll just drop that power next time I can swap powers."

 

The idea of a non-recoverable charge just seems so foolish - even at -2 the only reason I'd ever have a non-recoverable charge would be a contingent, upon-my-death AOE KA.

[Steve Long]

If a character spends Character Points on a power which has Charges that Never Recover, when he uses all the Charges, the power is done and he never gets those Character Points back — they’re gone forever. If a character were foolish enough to put Charges that Never Recover on a slot in a Variable Power Pool, then he’s locked those Pool points into that slot permanently, and once he uses up all the Charges, that portion of the Pool remains inaccessible and useless to him permanently (as do the Character Points he spent on that portion of the VPP).

 

As for whether buying a power with Charges that Never Recover is foolish — sorry, but I don’t answer game design/philosophy questions here. If you haven’t already posted about this on the Discussion board, it might make for an interesting conversation there.