Recharge Magic Variant (Tome of Battle/Spontanous Casters/Psionics)

[Corporate M]

This variant tends to work best for spontanous casters who have a limited number of spells known. It was intended originaly for the warlock and worked its way up to being used as appropiate.

What was great about tome of battle? High accessibility, (even if limited selection both ingame and out) to different combat buffs. However, the highest problem with tome of battle is probably the extremely easy rate at which manuevers are recovered. (IE: The warblade either just has to make a basic attack, or used an equivalent action to "restup" So 5 minutes of taking a breather and drinking some juice, and all of a sudden he can dish it out just as awesome as five minutes before...)

This works well for martial classes I suppose because they're attacking very often and will more then likely burn their manuevers up. So before I even go into charge magic itself, I have variants to use of the martial classes.

New Tome of Battle Manuevering:

This whole "recharge" mechanic was inspired by tome of battle, even if ToB itself I find to be flawed. But I've fixed it I believe to make them act more conservative with their manuevers...

Innitiator classes, (crusader, swordsage, and warblade) can only recover a manuever or stance. (Yes, even stances exhaust eventually...) under certain conditions...

1: 8 hours of rest. (IE: It's a new day, fresh start)
2: An attack fails against their AC (But they may only recover one manuever or stance this way. This is to suggest that innitiators have to actually BE in battle, and in mid battle may get an idea or notice a weakpoint. The fluff matches the crunch)

Stances last for a number of rounds equal to 5+the stances level.


New Spellcasting:

Now we get into charge magic. Typically casters use vancian magic. (IE: They prepare spells ahead of time, and have so many "per day" but of each level category) This is simaler to tome of battle, only the conditions are different. It is obvious this can only work with casters with limited accessibility to spells known. Warlocks however are free to learn more invocations (maybe double or triple) to keepup with sorcerers and spontanous divine casters... The only way mages can recharge their magic is...

1: 8 hours of rest (This is pretty much a given)
2: They roll a 20 on any sortof check (But they may only recover one spell this way. Obviously "taking 20" takes the sortof time 8 hours of rest would expend anyway... Typically casters will have more spells then innitators will manuevers, so it's unsurprising theirs is a little more difficult to meet)


New Psionics Manifesting:

Psionics entire premise is changed, but probably for the better. One of my good friends doesn't like psionics, says it's too exploitable when you apply metapsionic feats... (And he's a powergamer) But thats going to change now, and be alot easier on DMs and players who don't want to keep track of powerpoints...

Luckiely all psionic characters have limited powers known. We just combine this with the presumption that powers are at their maximum capable augmentation for that level. Therefore powers can only be recovered once expended the following ways;

1: 8 hours of sleep (No ****...)
2: Take damage to your real HP equal to the power's level to recover it. (Think of it like straining the body or mind. Psychic nosebleeds, chakra, whatever...)

Psionics actually have it the easiest "technically" cause they can recover whenever they choose too rather then waiting for circumstance. But psionics typicaly don't have the HP to withstand it much... Notice I said "real HP" so someone wouldn't try using vigor, thinking it was cute. Albeit vigor could become a staple useful giving they'll be taking more damage now...

As for the soulknife, since there's no longer powerpoints, it's suffice to say expending psionic focus just means eating up your swift action for the turn. But the two are not mutually exclusive. Soulknives now get a slight buff because they're not limited to one psionic focus per swift action. This could be the point to "wild talent" feat, and instead of a feat, be a scaling ability that progresses with level. Wild Talent=2 psionic focuses per swift action, and gains an additional +1 every five levels after first, and can use the same one more then once. That means a level 20 soulknife can use psionic shot and deal his ranged attack +12d6 damage once per turn. And thats just one feat, the soulknife now has many more options then that. (Though still might be behind)



The main gist of these changes is that...

A: Abilities that should have a limited number of uses per day should not be restricted by arbitary senses of time unless it's an amount of time that could actually mean life or death.

B: Abilities should be "always on", just not "always accessible".

C: Every class should be able to feel unique. As such, manifestors, casters, and inniators all function differently even if their abilities sometimes look and act alike.

D: Powerful functions should be difficult to recover, but not impossible.

E: Rather then change meta feats, simply make them obsolete. Essentially, all metapsionic and metamagic feats function like the sudden versions in unearthed arcana. Going back to rule A.

[Ferrin]

You want to nerf the ToB classes, but buff sorcerers?

Other then that I can see a big problem with psionics, especialy with the powers Body Adjustment and Mend Wounds.

Also; you say you want each class to feel unique, yet you take away the uniqueness of manifesters?

[Zore]

Um... The TOB stance change seems exceptionally harsh. Most stances provide a moderate benefit at best, they become almost useless with this especially the ones that key off something happening. And it makes several feats, (Shadow Blade especially) entirely worthless.

[IcarusWings]

Wasn't part of the point of ToB that the manoeuvres can be refreshed easily? The mechanic was also quite realistic too (taking a quick breather to regain your strength).