Post/Author/DateTime	Post
ChrisSuch 11-28-04, 07:06 PM	Hiya all, I am DMing a party that suffered a mishap in our Friday night session. Due to a number of failed dice rolls, several of the party suffered considerable falling damage. The fighter was ok (if being left on 3hp can be considered ok) but the bard was on -16hp. Since it was in the middle of an adventure I ruled that the bard could regain 1d4hp per Action Point used but the player had to decide in advance how many AP they were going to spend. The player elected to use 4 action points which gained him 11hp so his character was no longer a corpse. Do people thing this is a valid use of APs? Cheers, Chris.
Edymnion 11-28-04, 07:17 PM	I'd just call that the "I don't want you ruining the story by going and dying in a stupid way. You can spend your AP to save your butt this time, but don't expect me to let you do it whenever you want." But overall, yeah, I think its acceptable. Remember, there are real life cases of people going skydiving, their shoots not opening, and them not only surviving the fall, but getting up and walking away from it. Yes, this really has happened. Sounds to me like she burned her entire lifetime supply of Action Points to do it though ;)
ChrisSuch 11-28-04, 07:22 PM	Yeah, that is pretty much it :) After the player had burnt 4 of his 5 remaining APs he needed to spend the last one to stabilize as no one could get to him in time. He needs to lead a charmed life until he levels up I think :) Cheers, Chris.
Edymnion 11-28-04, 07:48 PM	This would be the point I started taking Heroic Spirit as many times as I could talk the DM into letting me get away with ;)
Maelflux 11-29-04, 03:22 AM	That's also pretty much how I intend for Action Points to be spend. It reminds me a bit of the "Hand of God"-spend-all-karma thingie from Shadowrun. I find it more exciting the more things AP can be spend on, so if anyone else have some great ideas, it could be nice to know :)
Sarlax 11-29-04, 04:46 AM	I've been allowing my players to spend action points in unconventional ways if it keeps the game from getting derailed. Two sessions ago, for instance, the party's two warforged got into a bit of trouble in Sharn. They came up with the bold plan of leaping off the tower to escape the danger as the artificer activated his Scroll of Feather Fall to save them from a fall. However, after leaping, one realizes that 3.5 Feather Fall affects one target per level, rather than every object in a particular radius as was in 3.0. I allowed the artificer to spend an action point to retroactively remake the scroll second level so save both of them (as well as lose the extra GP and XP that he would have spent). This allowed the game to keep moving without doing something too lame like just rewinding a few rounds of decisions. Another thing I allow them to be used for is "cool tricks" that the rules won't normally allow. In the last session, an assailant fired a flaming projective at a dragonmarked noble that the PCs were protecting. The attacker had the initiative, so the players could have done nothing by the rules. However, I allowed the party warlock (yes, I let new rules in fast if I think they'll be fun) to act out of turn: by spending an action point, he was able to fire his Eldritch Blast to destroy the bolt, and only if his own ranged attack roll beat the attack roll of the assailant. He spent his point and rolled a natural 20 to destroy the flying weapon. It was a great moment that everyone enjoyed. Eberron's about heroic action. The PCs are supposed to have the right combo of skill and luck that lets them survive their adventurers. The spirit of action points is that players can change their luck just enough to keep things going. And if you tweak things to make the game more fun, there shouldn't be a problem at all. Without knowing the specifics, I think the decision is pretty good. Whether it might be said that the PC should have spent his action points to save himself before going to -16, I don't know. But it kept the game going, so no big deal. I would say however that you definitely should not turn that particular decision into a rule. The first time it happens, it's luck. But if it happens again and again, it might get a little hokey. Forget precedent for action point policy. Just go with the decision that makes for a good, fun game.
Save-vs-DM 11-29-04, 04:57 AM	I do a similar thing, I don't think you were out of line at all (I let me players duplicate the rogue's defensive roll class feature with an action point - not guarunteed but it's saved their bacon a few times). Cheers, SvD
Ashrem Bayle 11-29-04, 01:44 PM	It was a great moment that everyone enjoyed. This is the heart of it. In my last session, our enlarged warforged beat a small band of globlins and hobgoblins to death. Why is that so special? His weapon of choice was one of the hobgoblins! Picking the hobgoblin up by the ankles, the 14ft tall warforged laid waste to the small warband, going so far as to land a critical hit on one goblin which killed both the goblin and hobgoblin he was weilding instantly. :cool: :D Great fun!