Recover Energy is a really odd spell. I'm not the first to notice this. Basically, take the spell at 15+ and you recover energy (FP) at 1 point per 5 minutes instead of 1 point per 10. At 20+, it's 1 for 2 minutes. And that's it.
Generally, people put either 1 point in it (generally enough for a 15-19 with a dedicated spellcaster) and then later buy it up all at once to 20.
That's it. It's more like a cheap, cheap way to recover energy than a spell you actually cast.
It gets tricky if you want to restrict it to only improving recovery of FP spent on spells, too.
You also end up with people using Recover Energy to fuel Lend Energy and Steal Energy for other casters and bootstrapping each other up at an increased speed.
If I could do my DF game again, I'd ditch the spell and figure out a fair cost for Regeneration (FP only) instead. Or just have two new traits that ape Fit and Very Fit, call them Efficient Mana Sponge and Very Efficient Mana Sponge. EMS would give you 1 per 5 mins, VEMS would do 1 per 2 mins. No decrease in outflow.
Ditching the spell would have some spillover effects I think would be interesting:
- You could seal off the entire Healing college to clerics, which means wizards aren't FP batteries for everyone anymore (recover 2.5x as fast as the most Fit non-spellcaster, use Lend Energy to hand it around).
By getting rid of Lend Energy you nix casters helping each other, but then you can make an argument for allowing partial access to ceremonial magic, at least for non-enchantment spells, so wizards who know spells can chip in power to their friends when they cast them. As a huge fan of the Complementary Skills rules, this would be a big plus. You'd want to cooperate on casting, not just fuel each other's batteries.
- Wizards would more fairly be charged for speed recovery costs, since 1 point for 5 minutes and generally 4-12 points for 2 minutes per point is quite cheap. The proposed advantages above would be more on the low end and only a little more on the high end, but would also tie in nicely with Fit/Very Fit.
- It makes for one less automatic must-buy for wizards, who are chained into a lot of odd spell choices in order to optimize their ability to crank out spells.
- It makes having both FP as high as possible and getting Energy Reserve and its concurrent recovery even more attractive, since you recover more slowly overall so splitting into two pools is better.
Has anyone else messed around with swapping out Recovery Energy and costing a replacement?
How about a leveled advantage: each point lowers the recovery time by a minute, minimum one minute. Or two.
ReplyDeleteMostly because I suspect the first few levels would either be annoying ("I need 9 minutes per FP! Tell me whenever 9 minutes goes by.") OR be so cheap people would skip right to 5 levels worth or so.
DeleteI really never liked the idea that spells were cast with fatigue because I feel that kind of energy is mundane rather than supernatural. So I always had wizards get 10 mana points to start with and they can increase them at 3 pts per level. The same is true for clerics, druids and other spell caster but each type of magic is different and can not be used to cast different types of spells. Thus a wizard/cleric can not use his mana points to cast a clerical spell. To cast a clerical spell you need Divinity points to cast them.each type of magic and the energy to cast them are different. So that means there is no Recover Energy in my gameworld. So a wizard can not grant power to a cleric so they can cast healing spells. The wizard can go to an area where there is high mana and recharge more quickly and a cleric can go to a holy site and recharge divinity though. You idea for faster recharge could work pretty well with the way my magic system works. It seems like a good idea.
ReplyDeleteI tried that back in 1e GURPS. It was okay, but mages were very powerful indeed. They basically could run/fight/etc. with the non-mages and cast spells all day until they suddenly had no more power. It's a valid choice, but it's one that privileges magic to a very large degree.
DeleteHow about a pool of Mana, as above, and spending each mana point also costs 1 FP. The two pools recover separately - perhaps the FP pool according to the rules in The Last Gasp and the Mana pool according to the old FP recovery rules. Maybe the Recover Energy spell could then be used to spend Mana to recover FP instead of spending them (perhaps 2 Mana per FP recovered or some such ratio, with a minimum cost of 1 Mana per FP recovered and a casting time based on Mana points spent; that is, spending 2 Mana through the Recover Energy spell recovers 1 FP, while spending Mana in any other spell costs FP equal to Mana spent).
DeleteDouble-limiting FP in that manner seems like it would get complex, fast - tracking two pools and having to spend off both to get things done, and tracking recovery separately. I already dislike that Energy Reserve recovers at the same time as FP just for this reason.
DeleteI've definitely thought about this. I hate skills or spells that are nonstandard like that one.
ReplyDeleteFit gives you the same benefit of Recover Energy 15-19, no local mana requirement, and a +1 to HT rolls for just 5 points. Is this, like Combat Reflexes, one of those deliberately under-priced advantages? I suspect it might be. For the same five, 1 FP and one ER per five minutes seems like a fair trade, though I'm not sure what to do about the second level to keep it from being too expensive for mages to want and too cheap to keep warrior types from taking it just to tap local mana to maintain their FP levels.
Might be time to entertain ideas like Benjamin's above, and separating normal spellcasting from FP.
It wouldn't work for non-wizards if it only replenishes FP to supernatural expenditures. The non-magic user types would need to take Fit if they want their non-magic FP to replenish quickly.
Delete15 for 2 minutes is pricey, yes, but 5 FP per 10 minutes vs. 5 FP in 25 minutes is huge in a tactical situation.
And it's worth noting, Fit doesn't speed up recovery of FP lost to supernatural effects.
DeleteI've always ignored that, personally. There's no real reason to treat FP differently based on source, as long as you don't halve spell costs with Very Fit. Plus, it encourages PCs to take a cheap advantage that gives them +1 to Stay Alive rolls, which is never a bad thing.
DeleteThere is, if you don't want Fit to be more of a must-have that it is now. It's already cheap for what it does (+1 HT rolls, 2x FP recovery.) If it is +1 HT rolls, 2x FP recovery including magic/supernatural, it's not a 5 point trait anymore.
DeleteClearly, you want that, but since I routinely deal with people with HT rolls in the 14-15 range for most purposes thanks to high HT and Fit, I don't see any reason to encourage it further!
If I could convince my players that their HT needs to be higher I wouldn't. Even the fighters tend to top out at 13, which is OK but not great.
DeleteI don't think we have anyone with below a 12, because of their DF templates. Fit is pretty routine for fighters. Hard to Kill and Hard to Subdue are popular. So is bumping HT to 13. So the usual death check is 14+, usually higher, which barely even matters. The +1 for Fit is mostly annoying, really - just another "Did you count the +1 for Fit?" "Yes, wait, no . . . hold on . . . yes, yes I did. Made it" exchange.
DeleteIn my campaigns, I've done away with the Recover Energy spell and give out a leveled perk.
ReplyDelete[1] recovery rate +1(2 FP per 10 minutes)
[2] recovery rate +2 (3 FP per 10 minutes)
[3] recovery rate +3 (4 FP per 10 minutes)
[4] recovery rate +4 (5 FP per 10 minutes)
[5] recovery rate +5 (6 FP per 10 minutes)
[6] recovery rate +6 (7 FP per 10 minutes)
[7] recovery rate +7 (8 FP per 10 minutes)
[8] recovery rate +8 (9 FP per 10 minutes)
[9] recovery rate +9 (10 FP per 10 minutes)
You can take as many of these as your Magery level.
I also do not allow the Lend Energy type spells.
I realize that it's a LOT better than the RAW or recovery levels of Fit, but it makes record keeping fairly easy.
Of course, this only applies to recovery of magic based FP use.
I also only let casters start out with 1 or 2 levels and only allow them to "level up" one level at a time between sessions. They do max out as quickly as possible usually, but in the long run, it doesn't seem to make a HUGE difference.
DeleteThat's a nice progression and advantage-tied limitation.
Deleteits really a no-brainer. I keep all FP recovery in 10 minute chunks. Very Fit folks get 2 per 10 minutes, not one every 5. Of course it doesn't make sense realistically, but from a time/ record keeping point of view, it is very easy to work with.
DeleteYou're resting for 10 minutes? You get this much back.
Resting for 30? You get this much.
Done.
There are some pretty extreme levels of regeneration for Fatigue Points in The Last Gasp. It's there for different reasons, but it was costed based on the existing pricing extrapolated to higher rates. Might want to look (Pyr #3/44).
ReplyDeleteI'll take another look at those.
DeleteI had the same concerns myself. I use a Recover Energy advantage, 5/15 for the first two levels and the Regeneration costs and times above that. No one's bought more than two levels in the five years I've been using this so it seems to work fine.
ReplyDeleteI only made one wizard PC in GURPS and put about 12 points in this spell...to get it to 15. It was a must-buy.
ReplyDeleteI'm totally in favor of doubling the price of Fit and extending it to cover supernatural FP loss. That's my solution because Regeneration is too expensive and tracking natural/supernatural FP expenditure separately is more bookkeeping than I want to deal with anyway.
I hear you. But since we use Energy Reserve, and it recovers on its own even without rest (and is largely valueless if it doesn't), it's not a big deal.
DeleteEvery wizard in DF quickly ends up with three pools: FP, ER, and their Power Item.