Oops, it turns out that in the default code a method was being run that clears actor (party side) actions.
This same method has aliased code that resets charges for the party. This was being run during the "pre-battle phase".
Doing away with this line calling this method, the alteration of the battler turn charge seems to be behaving much better.
It sounds like "charge" needs to be something that survives in an object across turns and then is evaluated _after_ each new turn's order assignment to adjust turn order, and then cleared?
@Taylor .hg ohai Ruby
My problem at the moment, is that I seem to be resetting and reshuffling the turn order each turn, so while I can reduce a turn "charge" to zero if that side is at a disadvantage, the next turn everything gets reset and the advantage is lost.
I'm sure I have some way to check if an invisible "round" of turns is complete, but I'm not sure where that was... or if maybe it was in an older version of this project...