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The text of these talent cards say "Exhaust this card to recover 2 fatigue." and "Exhaust this card to recover 2 stress."

Exhausted talent cards recharge in 4 turns during Encounter mode, but there doesn't seem to be a reference to them recharging in Story Mode. Logically, this means that you should be able to use them every few minutes.

What stops you from using these talents to clear your stress and fatigue tracks between encounters?

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Seems like an easily abused rule if the GM is not pacing properly, if I read the question correctly. A party dropping into Story Mode could reset stress and fatigue; that is the concern, correct? Not being a WFRP 3e player/GM, I'm only guessing. – javafueled Oct 2 '12 at 21:31
My GM for this game doesn't do mechanical pacing, or encounters for anything other than combat. We also clear our stress and fatigue tokens when we sleep (but I'm not sure about the mechanical justification for that anymore either). The exploit isn't something I'm concerned about for our game. It looks unbalanced (why wouldn't you buy these talents if you were intent on using Reckless stance) and that probably means something prevents you from using it. What that something is just isn't clear. – Simon Gill Oct 2 '12 at 22:00
Hmmm... is this like "All Out Attack" (AOA) in WFRP 2e? or at least a similar corollary? In 2e one could just perform an AOA every round, get +20% to the attack with no perceived penalty. Only there was a penalty, the PC could not Parry or Dodge. The only problem: Parry and Dodge were often forgotten in the heat of the encounter, by both player and GM, so the penalty was effectively removed and became unbalancing. It got so bad I started making it a point to use AOA, Parry or Dodge on certain baddies. It was enough to prompt players to think about that next attack. Am I closer to the problem? – javafueled Oct 3 '12 at 0:04
@javafueled not quite. It would be similar if Dodging and Parrying are the default and the rules don't define what the penalty of not being able to do them was. – Simon Gill Oct 3 '12 at 8:46
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I offered one... hope to help. – javafueled Oct 4 '12 at 23:11
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I will refer to the Player's Guide, page 85 the block on the left.

As such, while fatigue and stress generally come and go quickly in encounter mode, GMs are encouraged to limit the recovery of fatigue and stress in story mode.

And if you read this PDF on page 71 there's a whole paragraph explaining recharge in story mode. But here's a quote :

As a rule of thumb, each time the scene shifts or an event occurs in story mode, each player should remove one recharge token from each of his recharging actions, talents, conditions, or other recharging cards. Within a given scene or challenge, one “round” can roughly equate to enough time for each player to have a chance to act or respond, after which each player may remove one recharge token from each of his recharging cards.

So from those two readings we can conclude that you should roleplay the effects of Fatigue and Stress and if you spend the talent card during the story mode to remove 2 stress or fatigue.

For instance everybody is exhausted from climbing that mountain all day but one player cheer up the troop and say: "Cmon folks! Only a couple steps and we'll be able to make a camp!" He use the talent card on the party sheet and the party move forward and ignore the effect of fatigue until they reach a nice spot to establish the camp.

There's also an action card called Assess the situation that let you recover fatigue or stress. Roleplay this one appropriately. If you stop for a breather (about 5 min) and the action as a recharge of 2, just let them recharge this card once per scene or a set period of time it make sense. Taking a 10 min breather won't let you fully recover from a whole day of climbing.

Recovering stress is about the same. Make sure people participate in the roleplay of recovering stress. If you are in story mode and want to vent off some stress using the Assess the situation: "Let's go to the tavern and have a drink. Let's talk about what's bothering ya. Ask for an ale and remember you are the best dwarf in town man!". Drinking the whole night might let you recover stress but next morning, give one of fatigue for the hard night.

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Thanks! If @somori believes this is helpful, you get the bounty! Meh, I'm not waiting... I think it's perfect, so I'm going to give you the bounty. :) ... oh, boo, have to wait 21 hours. Let's see what the OP thinks. – javafueled Oct 5 '12 at 1:29
9 hours for the OP to accept (before I can just award the bounty) – javafueled Oct 5 '12 at 13:12
So, basically, Story Mode still has turns but they have very elastic length. That makes sense. – Simon Gill Oct 6 '12 at 22:12

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