Resource Reimbursement

In Video Games, one way to reduce the cost of something is to give back all or part of the cost after it's been spent.

Reductions might be done like this for multiple reasons, but it's likely because it's easier for both programming and difficulty balancing, being an effect that's just added on, instead of altering pre-existing values, and making maximum resource capacity still a restriction, since you still need to pay the initial cost before you get the refund, unlike if costs were just set to 0.

Functionally can occur with Life Drain and Mana Drain effects, but those are for if the refund is done as the primary effect.

This is Sub-Trope of Reduced Resource Cost. A Chain Lethality Enabler might do its job by refunding the cost of performing the lethalities upon execution.

Sweet and Sour Grapes is this, but as a plot instead of a mechanic, a character sacrifices something important to them, then because of their altruism they get it back, or something even better. Card Cycling is similar to this, and is for card games, giving up a card to get a different card.

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Examples:

Board Games

• Aftermath: Ringr's starting gun refunds one one-point action card spent towards a successful attack, allowing him a potentially huge number of shots per turn.
• Dead of Winter: If a player has George Coleman as their leader, whenever they would play an item card (ranging from gasoline to single-use weapons) into the waste pile, they have a 1 in 6 chance to gain its effect but keep it in their hand — potentially a major benefit in Resources Management Gameplay.

Tabletop RPG

• Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition:
  • Overlap with Anti-Wastage Features: Once-per-encounter or once-per-day powers with the trait "Reliable" aren't expended when they miss, allowing the character to try again later in the fight.
  • There is a "rebreather" build that attempts to exploit the trope. It involves a Dragonborn Sorcerer with a breath weapon, the dragon soul class feature to partially bypass enemy resistance, the Sensate character theme to gain temporary hit points when using dragon breath, the ancient soul feat to recharge dragon breath power when taking damage of the same type of the breath, and Nusemnee's Atonement to redirect damage from allies to yourself. The claim is that the chain of abilities allows recharging dragon breath and thus being able to use it three times per round.
• The One Ring: Adventurers spend Hope points to boost dice rolls and activate special abilities. If they do so to protect their Fellowship Focus — their dearest companion in the Player Party — from immediate danger, the cost is refunded.
• Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: The Hag Witch spell "Charmed" gives the target a 30% chance not to consume the Fortune Point when they use one to reroll a test, buy an extra action, or boost their Initiative.

Video Games

• Battleforge: Whenever you use a spell/unit ability, and whenever one of your units or structures is destroyed, 90% of their cost is reimbursed into the Void Pool, where it slowly flows back into your actual spending funds over time. The bigger the Void Pool, the faster it flows back in, so a player whose army was just massacred in a massive battle full of wild spellcasting will often have a hefty budget from which to summon reinforcements.
• Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night: Wearing Gebel's Glasses causes Miriam to be refunded the full mana cost of shards immediately after using them, but she still needs enough mana to cast it first.
• BoxxyQuest: The Gathering Storm: A few accessories cause skills to give back half of their RP cost when used.
• Control: Several gun mods have a chance to give you a bullet back every time you hit an enemy, and the secret Eternal Fire mod for Grip guarantees you a bullet back, allowing you to keep blasting away forever as long as you're accurate.
• The Dishonored games give you back 20% of your total mana a few seconds after you cast a spell. As that is also the price of the cheapest spells, it means you can use them indefinitely as long as you pace yourself.
• Divinity: Original Sin II: The talent "Executioner" grants the character two bonus Action Points once per round when they kill an enemy. This partly or fully refunds the action cost of the attack, though Cooldowns are unaffected.
• Dota 2: Outworld Destroyer’s “Essence Flux” passive ability gives him a 30% percent chance of restoring a certain percentage of his maximum mana (from 25% at Level 1, to 55% at Level 4) each time he casts an ability.
• This is how Item Crafting works mechanically in Dragon Age II. In contrast to the previous and the next game, where alchemical resources are spent for good when you create a consumable, in DA2, you keep your resources and only pay the monetary price for each potion you procure. In-story, this is justified by explaining that you find not resources per se, but infinite taps thereof, and the money you pay is for the merchants to go out and collect them. But gameplay-wise, this is effectively an immediate 100% resource refund, with higher-potency consumables requiring larger and larger stockpiles to craft them (e.g. a basic elfroot potion requires a single elfroot tap, while a Life Ward potion takes 4 stocks of elfroot and 3 spindleweeds).
• Genshin Impact:
  • Certain characters reimburse a portion of their Limit Break cost, such as Jean who gains 15 energy returned to her after using her burst thanks to one of her passives.
  • There are also Utility Passives that refund or recover portions of materials used in crafting certain items:
    • Diluc refunds 15% of the ore used in crafting claymore weapons.
    • Mona has a 25% chance to refund a portion of the materials used in crafting weapon ascension materials.
    • Lisa has a 20% chance to refund a portion of the materials used in crafting potions.
    • Ganyu refunds 15% of the ore used in crafting bow weapons.
    • Zhongli refunds 15% of the ore used in crafting polearm weapons.
    • Xingqiu has a 25% chance to refund a portion of the materials used in crafting character talent materials.
    • Yoimiya refunds a portion of the materials used in crafting decoration, ornament, and landscape-type furnishings.
    • Dori has a 25% chance to recover some of the materials used in crafting character and weapon enhancement materials.
    • Kaveh refunds a portion of the materials used in crafting landscape, building, and courtyard-type furnishings.
  • Genshin Impact: Genius Invokation TCG: The "Sacrificial series" weapon cards, when equipped to your character, allows you to reimburse one elemental dice after the equipped character performs an Elemental Skill (which typically costs 3 elemental dice of their element).
• Honkai: Star Rail: In Simulated Universe: Gold and Gears, if you choose to play the dice "Company Time", you'll get 30% reimbursement of Cosmic Fragments (the Simulated Universe's currency) whenever you purchase "Blessings" and "Curios" in the Transaction domains, or whenever you upgrade Blessings in the Respite domains.
• League of Legends features this with a lot of champions, with many instances of abilities that reward players for successful usage by resetting their cooldowns or refunding their costs, either to improve their neutral game of harassing poke and sustainability or to make their deadly engages even more deadly among more targets.
  • A handful of champions have a generic "single basic attack steroid" ability whose purpose is not necessarily to deal bonus damage (though they usually are fairly useful as such), but rather to give them better farming ability (making it easier for them to last-hit minions and get gold) and improve their sustainability (by rewarding their mana, health, and/or cooldowns, it keeps them tipped off to stay within neutral standoffs against enemy champions). This usually applies to champions who are reliant on using their abilities to make a splash, especially divers and bruisers who often have few escape options once they commit to engages. Examples include Fizz's Seastone Trident, Darius' Crippling Strike, Kassadin's Nether Blade, and Talon's Noxian Diplomacy.
  • Annie's Disintegrate refunds the mana cost and a good chunk of its cooldown if it successfully kills an enemy, encouraging its use as a Finishing Move against low-health units.
  • Cassiopeia' Twin Fang fully refunds its mana cost if it kills its enemy. Given the ability's cooldown and highly spammy playstyle, this provides not only an incentive to farm up enemies, but also a means to keep herself sustained over long neutral standoffs against champions.
  • Dr. Mundo's Infected Bonesaw consumes a portion of his health to cast, but refunds half of it if it hits a non-champion enemy unit, and all of it if it hits a champion.
  • Evelynn's Allure marks an enemy and primes Evelynn's next attack on them to cause them to become charmed. If successful, the mana cost is refunded, encouraging her to make regular engages on the enemy.
  • Kalista's Rend passively causes all the spears she chucks into her enemies to remain lodged in them, and on activation, she instantly rips them out of everyone around her for a burst of damage. If this kills at least one enemy, Rend's cooldown and mana cost are instantly refunded.
  • Kha'Zix's "evolution" dynamic allows him to upgrade Taste of Fear — an otherwise straightforward damaging swipe of his claws — by increasing its range and causing it to deal even greater damage to enemies who are isolated from their team.
  • Nautilus' Dredge Line has him toss out his anchor to either drag enemies to him or to drag himself onto terrain. If he opts for the latter, half of the ability's cooldown and mana cost is refunded, enabling him his only real form of fast movement.
  • Pantheon's Comet Spear can be thrust in close range or thrown at enemies from afar — if he opts to just use it for the former and successfully hits someone with it, he instantly refunds over half of the ability's cooldown.
  • Tahm Kench's Abyssal Dive has him teleport into any nearby area and launch any enemies above him into the air, something that is actively rewarded by refunding a portion of its cooldown and mana cost if it hits someone, incentivizing its use as an aggressive engagement tool.
  • Thresh's Death Sentence has him toss out his chain-hook to catch unfortunate enemies — if it successfully lands, half of the ability's cooldown is reset, allowing him to do it again in a shorter time.
  • Twisted Fate's Draw a Card allows him to pull one of three different cards to enhance his basic attacks, one of which (the Blue Card) deals slight bonus damage and restores a chunk of his mana, usually more than what it costs to cast the ability.
  • Vel'Koz's Plasma Fission fires an energy bolt that splits into two in a perpendicular fashion. If any instance of the bolt kills an enemy, he's able to restore a chunk of his mana.
  • Zac's Cell Division passive makes it so that Casts From Hit Points, but if any of his abilities damage anyone, a chunk of goo from his body lands nearby, and he can collect it to instantly regain some of his lost health, though enemies can trample on them and destroy them first.
• Mario & Luigi: Dream Team: The Rookie Gloves refund BP if the player gets less than an Excellent on a Bros Attack, while the Master Gloves refund BP if the player scores an Excellent.
• Minion Masters: On death, the Crystal Construct refunds one mana.
• Ruphand: An Apothecary's Adventure: Brill's "Recycling" badge gives her back some of the ingredients needed to craft a potion when she uses one.
• Team Fortress 2: The Widowmaker is an Engineer-specific shotgun that — rather than firing bullets from the usual ammo/magazine system — instead fires metal that he normally spends to create buildings, with the upside being that it returns metal based on the damage he deals with each shot. It also doesn't require reloading, meaning that an effective Engineer who can consistently land shots can pump out a non-stop stream of damage (the tradeoff being that missing too many shots leaves you without a primary weapon or the ability to build anything).
• Tekken 8: Some characters have attacks that inflict damage on themselves, like Jun, Zaphina, and Yoshimitsu. This damage is always recoverable, allowing them to gain it back by attacking their opponent.
• Terranigma: Magirocks are spent to store spells for later, using the Magic rings and medals to hold the spells. The Magirocks are returned to the inventory once the spell is spent.
• Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines: Two Thaumaturgy powers fire blood projectiles that return to the player character after striking an enemy, replenishing their casting cost with stolen blood.
• Vermintide II:
  • Ranged weapons with the trait Scrounger regain one ammunition when they land a headshot.
  • The Bounty Hunter's capstone talent Double-Shotted causes his Limit Break attack to refund 60% of its cooldown if it scores a headshot.
  • The Huntsman's passive ability regains one ammunition whenever he lands a ranged headshot.
  • The Waystalker's capstone talent Piercing Shot turns her Limit Break attack into one powerful arrow that fully refunds its cooldown if it lands a headshot.
  • The Ranger Veteran's capstone talent Ranger's Parting Gift lets him throw one grenade while his Limit Break is active without consuming the item.
• Warframe: The Bounce Back Decree (available in Duviri and in the Circuit) refunds 25% of the Energy spent on casting Abilities.

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