Talk:Recharging Power Points (3.5e Variant Rule)

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)