Talk:Recharging Power Points (3.5e Variant Rule)

Ratings

	Leziad opposes this article and rated it 0 of 4.
	What others have pointed out, this is a huge unneeded nerf to psionic..

	Fluffykittens opposes this article and rated it 0 of 4.
	Blanket nerfs on most powers with a duration (regardless of their actual strength) and forcing Psi characters to be useful in combat for only a few rounds does not make psionics better.

	Undead Knave opposes this article and rated it 0 of 4.
	I was kind of iffy on the subject until I got to the bit about powers with a duration. That's completely unusable for most kinds of psionic builds.

	Spanambula opposes this article and rated it 0 of 4.
	What kills this for me is forcing psionic PCs to use their swift actions every round for PP recovery or risk running dry in the middle of combat. That's hamstringing them, plain and simple. Upon further examination and some brief simulation, I believe this variant to be unplayable. See my comments in the "Longer Lasting Loss" section below for explanation.

Honestly, the only reason I did this was to remind people to use it, since in games they sometimes forgot. Do you think a free action 1/round would be better? --Ghostwheel (talk) 20:20, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

I'd just say they regain PP at the beginning of their turn to be more specific. That way you don't get someone going mini-nova, refreshing their PP and then firing off something else as a swift action (if that's the kind of thing you're looking to limit).

Also, I want to correct myself. PC resource management is 99% the responsibility of the player, and if the Player wants to blow through all their daily stuff; that's all on the player for being chaotic stupid, not the DM's lack of planning. Unless the DM habitually runs 15-minute work days, I guess. Spanambula (talk) 21:25, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

I've changed it drastically in the last few days, despite the small number of words changed/added. Someone explain to me how this is a "huge nerf" before I block the above votes? --Ghostwheel (talk) 16:20, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

The only recent changes I've seen on the history log are a maintenance cost exception for duration spells that are not dismissible and not personal, and the following line: "All powers that are have a maintenance cost have a Permanent duration and last until the effect is dispelled, is destroyed (such as in the case of creatures summoned), or the manifester stops maintaining it." which would seem to mean that so long as a manifester has PP available, they can continue maintaining a power indefinitely for the appropriate cost per round. That's cool, but it doesn't change the previous rule where all maintenance cost-incurring powers are dispelled if you run out of power points. These two changes do not address my issues with this variant rule, do not address the fact that you've taken a flexible casting mechanic and severely curtailed that flexability in return for continuously recharging but substantially weaker power. Instead of giving someone a hundred dollars a day, you're giving them ten bucks whenever they want it, but never more than ten bucks, and claiming this gives them SO MANY MORE OPTIONS. Which is technically true, so long as they never want an option that costs more than ten bucks. I've explained my point of view well enough; I've responded your counter-arguments and nothing substantial has changed, so I'm not sure why you're suddenly deciding our votes should be blocked. Spanambula (talk) 21:59, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

One thing you neglected to note is the change to which powers are maintained. Only those that are dismissable (very few combat powers), or that affect you personally, have a maintenance cost. That makes it so you can't have all the buffs, but the majority of combat powers, including debuffs, are fire and forget. So I'm not seeing how it's a huge nerf, especially as it allows a self-buffer to keep buffs up on themselves all day, every day, without spending any actions in combat (the most valuable resource) to activate them. That's a huge buff to self-buffers, and doesn't affect other people too much. So how is that a huge nerf to psionic-users? --Ghostwheel (talk) 22:59, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

No, I didn't "neglect to note" your change to which powers have maintenance costs. I mention it in the first part of the first sentence in the above paragraph. Instead of arguing that actually there are a great many commonly-used powers that are still affected by maintenance cost, I will re-list my objections in as concise and clear a manner as possible. They are: Giving manifesters a relatively small pool of power points limits options instead of enhancing them. Subtracting from that pool via maintenance costs further limits options and forces added book-keeping in the middle of combat. Creating a system that rewards only one style of psionic build (blaster) also limits options. But you insist that this variant instead enhances tactical play, increases options and makes for a better game, and refuse to acknowledge the vailidity of opposing opinions that see this as a significant reduction in ability and flexibility in exchange for insufficient rewards; i.e., a huge nerf. Power point resources are just like spells per day and other exhaustible resources, they require management. This is not a design flaw. It's fine if you want to keep manifesters from going supernova, but this is a bad way to do it. Psionics does not need additional rules to treat them like babies who don't understand that if they eat all their candy now they won't have any for later. Spanambula (talk) 23:54, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

How does giving enough PP to cast fully-manifested powers twice in the first rounds of combat incredibly limiting? Are you expecting them to shoot off fully-manifested powers every single round? It's a debuff, but nowhere near making psionic characters "unplayable". I'd also rather you look at the power list and see what needs maintaining--I did, and it's actually relatively few powers. I agree that there's more book-keeping here, and it's not a good thing, but I don't think it entirely breaks the system or makes it unplayable. You also haven't shown that non-blasters are made unplayable. If you want, I can give a whole suite of powers at various levels that are non-blasty, don't have a maintenance cost, and are strong in combat. Go into the particulars please and explain in examples how it's a "huge nerf" please.

As someone who is an advocate of encounter-based resource systems rather than per-day, I think that per-day resource systems *are* design flaws. Why is this a bad way to stop manifesters from nova-ing? And why is stopping players from shooting themselves in the leg a bad thing, or stopping them from being useless later in the day bad? How does this make psionics unplayable? Please go into details with examples. --Ghostwheel (talk) 11:34, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

	Foxwarrior likes this article and rated it 3 of 4.
	I think it does what it sets out to do, and while the math is weird, it's weird in places that are easy to precalculate.

Tarkisflux is neutral on this article and rated it 2 of 4.

This isn't actually a bad system. It does a decent job of putting any casting class that use it on an encounter recharge schedule. But it's kind of clunky. It breaks the round down always rule and uses some odd (and even stacked) fractions to get done what it wants to, which doesn't make for particularly smooth updates when stats change or you level up. The requirement that you maintain your duration based powers with PP from your pool is also weird and requires more bookkeeping than I particularly like. Plus, I just don't like encounter recharge schedules for casters. I don't want all of the classes in the game to have the same, or even substantially similar, resource management setups.

The 15-Minute Workday

In a recent combat I ran, one of the manifesters in the party used up virtually all their PP in a single encounter. I had wanted to run another encounter or two for that in-game day, but doing so would have left the player feeling useless, non-contributing, it wouldn't have been fun for him, and I'd have to tone down the encounter considerably to accommodate the fact that one of the players was now a glorified commoner until the next time the party rested. Is there another solution that's balanced that could stop this from happening--both the problem of the 15-minute workday once the manifester's out of PP, and the ability of manifesters to mini-nova, using all their highest-level powers time and again in a single encounter until they're out of PP? This variant addresses the problem that is inherent in abilities that are balanced per-day--can anyone think of any other solution? --Ghostwheel 05:47, February 1, 2010 (UTC)

I don't agree that the issues you mention above are actual problems, but there are a couple of things besides this that you could do to avoid them. There's the straight slot recharge from UA that is very similar to this, but technically not this so it can be mentioned here. You've already taken a pass on a different solution that allows them to nova in a fight if they have /want to (though to a much smaller degree) and then fall back on lower level things for the rest of the day, but the general idea that you could reduce their big per day stuff and give them something more or less unlimited to fall back on is still sound. There's also the ToB system where people get fewer powers that they cycle through almost endlessly (but that probably requires a substantial power rewrite).

Alternately, you can tell your players that every one of their powers / spells is the equivalent to several actions taken by other players, and they'd better conserve them because you're not going to stop the game because they can't manage their resources. And then when they fail to do that or choose not to, you allow them to feel like glorified commoners for the rest of the "day". I have very little sympathy for people who burn through limited resources being awesome for a moment, and am perfectly happy to let them suck for the rest of the "day". - TarkisFlux 07:16, February 1, 2010 (UTC)

I should probably add that I'm basically against putting everyone on a limited power, encounter based schedule in the same way that you seem to be against allowing novas (though encouraging them actually is annoying). So any variant that moves a substantial subset of classes in that direction when there already are a substantial subset of classes there already, regardless of how good it works, is going to be largely unsatisfying and unappealing to me. So you should probably take my rant at the end of the last bit with a bit of salt, since we have very different goals. - TarkisFlux 22:03, February 1, 2010 (UTC)

Scaling Issue

Primary manifesters, at odd levels, can use one high-level power per encounter and then have to fall back on low-level powers (meaning a number of first-level powers equal to their ability modifier). That's fine if that's your goal. But at even levels, the difference is a single first-level power, which doesn't seem right; as they gain levels, their ability to use their level-appropriate powers drops. Also, considering how powers don't scale without spending more power points, switching to 1st-level powers is crippling. --IGTN 00:48, May 2, 2010 (UTC)

Mind coming on the chat? I'm not clear on what you're saying, or if there's even a problem there... --Ghostwheel 03:33, May 2, 2010 (UTC)

mana based Spellcasting

Can it be translated?--Parakee 03:44, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Not successfully IMO. A good alternative however is this. --Ghostwheel 05:03, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

I disagree. After both the scan over and the in-depth read, if you are using Publication:Unearthed Arcana/Spell Points, you have a near perfect translation. Then again, I'm in the camp of people who see no difference between mana casting and D&D psionic system. For those who don't see it, talk to an absolute newb about both systems. I promise you he will ask what the difference is.--Change=Chaos. Period. SC 06:58, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

The difference, quite obviously, is their power. Magic vastly outpowers psionics, and thus putting them on the same system doesn't work well. --Ghostwheel 07:14, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Longer-Lasting Loss

Unfortunately, even with the free-action recharge, the duration costs still neuter any manifester that isn't a dedicated blaster. For example, let's take Psam the 5th level psion with Int 20, very respectable for 5th level in a rogue-level game. Psam has 10 pp, and refreshes 3 pp per round per this variant rule. We'll start combat with no buffs active.

1st round of combat: Psam manifests his new 3rd level power Energy Wall to help with battlefield control. This costs him 5 pp, half his pool.

2nd round of combat: Psam decides to aid his melee comrades with his signature Astral Construct power. He creates a 2nd level astral construct for 3 pp, weaker than his maximum because he doesn't want to completely deplete his power points. But because Psam isn't concentrating on his energy wall, the wall costs 3 pp to maintain, meaning that Psam gains a net 0 pp when he refreshes his pool (3-3=0). He's left with 2 pp at the end of the round.

3rd round of combat: As the total cost for maintaining both the Energy Wall and his Astral Construct is 6 pp, even after Psam refreshes his pool for 3 pp he is still at -1 pp (2-6+3), or just 0 pp. Both the Energy Wall and Astral Construct vanish, and Psam is left with no power points until next round, leaving Psam's player understandably frustrated and unhappy.

This scenario uses a decently optimized manifester, uses no metapsionics and only a single augmentation, but the manifester is still rendered useless by round 3. That's not reasonable; that's not even playable. I understand you don't want a manifester walking around with all their buffs on 24 hours a day, but your cure for that problem ends up killing the patient. Spanambula (talk) 00:19, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

Alternatively, here's my idea to keep manifesters from blowing their PP wad all at once:

Psions have an available pool of power points equal to 4x their manifester level, or their total daily pool, whichever is less. They can refresh their available pool with any remaining points in their total pool by spending one minute in total concentration. Probably we'll need a lower multiple for Psychic Warriors and other half-manifesters, probably x3, will need to see how that scales.

Using 5th level Psam from my previous example, Psam would have a total pool of 37 pp (barring any extra from race or feats or items), but only an available pool of 20 pp. By 10th level, Psam should have around 120 pp, but can only use 40 pp in a single encounter. This leaves him enough PP to be effective through multiple encounters, but doesn't allow him to spam his fully-augmented/overchanneled/empowered/whatever powers more than once or twice per encounter. What do you think? Spanambula (talk) 00:19, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

First, I think you're being incredibly disingenuous. You choose bad powers, no pre-preparation (which this system gives advantage to), and just give such an incredibly gimped example that it can't be taken at face value at all. Energy wall is pretty damn weak. Why start with that? Why are you using a per-round power that can have a huge effect over the course of an encounter without augmenting it to the max? Etc.

Why wouldn't Psam would start combat already with an astral construct up at all time? Sure, this reduces his PP gain to 0. But he always has a construct up, one that normally has a 1-round casting time, something that is incredibly easy to interrupt.

Does this make debuffs relatively weaker? Sure. Does this make blasting a bit stronger? Sure. Does this open up new options such as having a constant "cohort" at higher MLs when you have a higher recharge? Absolutely. But it does what it aims to do without breaking the game. That said, I did mean for the limitation to be more on buff effects so you can't stack ALL THE BUFFS, which is why I'm making the change that will momentarily appear on the main article.

Let's take an example of Psam under this sytem, and under the regular system, with 1 combat for the day, 4 combats for the day, and 7 combats for the day. We'll assume that there are 4 rounds of combat per encounter, as most encounters go 3-5 rounds or so. First, totals: Psam 10 PP + 3/round-past-the-first under this system (19 per encounter), while under the normal system Psam has 37 PP throughout the course of the day.

Assuming Psam divides his PP equally between the encounters, under the normal system he'd have 37 PP to blow through if there's only one encounter per day, ~9 PP to blow on each encounter if there are 4 per day, and a measly ~5 if there are 7 encounters per day. And because generally you don't know how many encounters there will be, he may have even needed to save up even more.

On the other hand, Psam has 19 PP per encounter regardless of how many encounters there are for the day under this system. And he can be strategic about it, working with his friends to lengthen an encounter if he wants to recharge, choosing an opportune moment to blow his load before needing to spend time recovering, and so forth. This increases the strategic and tactical options available beyond a simple boolean of "if I use too many PP, will I be useless later?" That question is boring, adding little tactical depth or making the system interesting in any way, and is a threat that holds the player's balls in the DM's hand since another encounter can be dropped on them. And being useless is not fun.

This system does two other things. First, it makes it so that you aren't useless in later rounds of a combat, and stops you from blowing your entire load at the beginning of the combat. Neither of those happening is a good thing. And both are still possible in your alternate variant. --Ghostwheel (talk) 16:17, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

You said your system "makes it so that you aren't useless in later rounds of a combat, and stops you from blowing your entire load at the beginning of the combat." Just above that, here's how you describe your system: "he can... choos[e] an opportune moment to blow his load before needing to spend time recovering, and so forth."' So your argument is that your method keeps him from blowing his load and being useless by letting him choose when to blow his load and then be useless until he recharges? ....huh.

I'm not being INCREDIBLY DISINGENUOUS. I didn't misuse your system; I followed your rules perfectly. The specific powers I picked in my example aren't important; it's the expenditure of power points (5 points for a 3rd level power, Psam's highest available, and 3 points for an augmented 1st level power). My point was that more than one ongoing power per encounter isn't possible at low-to-mid levels of play, which doesn't exactly "increase strategic and tactical options available." That is, unless your idea of increasing strategic options is only using blasting powers because anything else will drain you dry in a round or two. You suggest going into combat with his fully augmented astral construct already up? Great, that gives him 5 PP to use with no way of recharging for the entire combat. You even freely acknowledge this, but then go on to say that somehow Psam will have an average of 19 PP to spend during the encounter. Wait, nevermind, that's actually accurate. It just means Psam ends up spending 14+ points on manifesting and maintaining a SINGLE POWER. That's not making debuffs "relatively weaker," that's making buffs, debuffs, and all other ongoing powers a strategic dead-end. Again, I'm not seeing how this increases tactical options.

The DM always has the players' balls in his or her hand, because they're the freaking DM. I've said it before, managing the use of expendable resources, including spells, powers, x/day items, and abilities, uses of Rage, Smite attempts, stunning fists, all of it, is an integral part of the game. Deciding what to use and when to use it is part of strategy, period. The bottom line is this variant removes the entire point of manifesting (more flexibility and scalability than the Vancian system), and replacing it with the ability to be at BEST a mediocre blaster all day long. My oppose remains. Spanambula (talk) 23:55, 8 November 2014 (UTC)