My friend and I have kinda felt this way for awhile now.
Something just feels off with the mechanic to recover strain at the end of an encounter. Cool or Discipline. Nothing can be done with advantage. It just feels like something is missing.
How does everyone else feel about this mechanic?
If you want Strain to be a finite resource that needs to be managed in order to function as a balancing mechanic for using Maneuvers and Talents I think it works fine.
Typically Advantage can be spent on any check to recover Strain.
Additionaly this is Genesys, feel free to make a talent that utilises those strain. Perhaps: “Heal Wounds equal to Advantage”, or “Spend 1 Advantage to cause one ally to recover one Strain”
In my games, it's 1 strain per
, 1 strain per
and 3 strain per
.
That way you can use all the symbols.
Of course, you can have each player roll in succession, and spend
or
to boost the roll of others, but I find that it's easier to just let each player use their own symbols.
I am stealing the
"
1 strain per
, 1 strain per
and 3 strain per
" for my game.
1 hour ago, c__beck said:In my games, it's 1 strain per
I do exactly this.
I have really come to appreciate Strain as a finite resource for the Genesys magic system. In the last session of my fantasy campaign the Gnome summoner was agonizing over whether or not to cast a spell. It was the second encounter since they had had a chance to fully rest and another PC had already been taken past his Wound threshold. The stakes felt really high, and when the magic skill check succeeded it was a great moment. Then, the roll at the end of the encounter to regain strain had real weight to it as well.
The Strain system is really great and is a much better approximation of how books/movies usually handle spellcasting. Reading books set in D&D realms has always amused me because the authors bend over backwards to include the utterly asinine Vancian system.
Yeah, I'm not knocking the system. It just feels like a letdown when you get an opportunity to regain strain after an encounter and you get this -
"Yay. Regain strain time."
rolls 3 dice. 6 advantage.
Fuuuuu
?
13 hours ago, Mogloth said:Yeah, I'm not knocking the system. It just feels like a letdown when you get an opportunity to regain strain after an encounter and you get this -
"Yay. Regain strain time."
rolls 3 dice. 6 advantage.
Fuuuuu
?
I house rule that you can also spend 2 advantage on such checks to recover strain as well.
Edited by kaosoe14 minutes ago, kaosoe said:I house rule that you can also spend 2 strain on such checks to recover strain as well.
You can spend 2
strain
to recover strain? Perhaps you meant you can spend
? :p
That's what I do:
On 6/24/2018 at 8:40 PM, c__beck said:In my games, it's 1 strain per
27 minutes ago, c__beck said:You can spend 2 strain to recover strain? Perhaps you meant you can spend
Yes. Thank you for the clarification. Fixed in my OP.
16 hours ago, Mogloth said:Yeah, I'm not knocking the system. It just feels like a letdown when you get an opportunity to regain strain after an encounter and you get this -
"Yay. Regain strain time."
rolls 3 dice. 6 advantage.
Fuuuuu
?
You're looking at it too mathematically and not narratively enough. Sometimes even hardened combat vets don't get their **** together after a fight. I mean if PCs are going to be able to get Strain back for every positive symbol on the dice on a no Difficulty roll, why even have a Strain mechanic in the first place? Cheapens the challenge imo.
Edited by 2P511 hour ago, 2P51 said:You're looking at it too mathematically and not narratively enough.
Out of curiosity, how do you usually handle advantage on strain recovery rolls?
If you would like a scenario for an example, say it's after a gunfight in a warehouse and your player has just rolled 6 advantages.
I don't do anything with it. The whole Strain mechanic is balanced around a certain amount of recovery post conflict. There's also a Talent that's easily ported over that allows the use of Advantages for this based on ranks purchased, but it's balanced in that way, gotta buy the ranks and not everyone gets it.
There are all kinds of dice pool results where all the successes aren't used so I don't get too worried about it. If someone just couldn't live with not using it I'd consider just using the combat results table and they could add a Boost or whatever to a Med check to be performed on them, they calmed themselves down eliminating shock as something the Medic has to address. Maybe something needs a Mechanic check and they did a good job clearing their head so they can concentrate and focus on the task.
PCs can already use Advantages for it during the encounter. I'm thinking 20 sessions in not just session 1 when PCs have good combat dice pools and have all kindsof spare Advantages for recovery during the fight, then they're rolling maybe a couple three yellows and a green on their simple Cool check, I arrivevat wtf is the point of Strain? They're never at risk unless you hit them with direct attacks against the pool.
I mostly GM so this is my opinion overall. This system does a great job holding characters at risk even at an advanced level and any houserule that chips away at that is a bad move.
I have to admit that if there is a roll that generates advantage or triumph and we aren't able to come up with a good use for it I feel like I have let down the players a bit (and in a sense the game itself). This is in large part why I avoid calling for rolls that each party member makes individually (like Perception, Stealth, or Survival checks), choosing instead to have one PC lead the check.
For strain recovery checks, as I said above, I have always allowed 2 advantage to regain 1 strain and a triumph to regain 3. Honestly, even with this small amount of additional strain recovery my players have still struggled with this finite resource.
Between magic actions, the numerous talents that draw on strain, threats generated on skill checks, and direct strain damage from enemy attacks, someone is always close to the edge of their strain threshold.