Action point house rule - opinions [Archive] - Wizards Community

Action point house rule - opinions [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Faragdar the Wise
10-19-05, 03:14 PM As an option so that a 1 is no longer automatically a failure on a save, I've decided to try this house rule. If a player rolls a 1 on a save he can burn an action point. Instead of automatic failure, his roll then actually counts as a 1. No longer do players, no matter their level, automatically fail saves at least 5% of the time. I thought I'd ask for opinions. Is this a reasonable house rule in an Eberron campaign? How might it come back to bite me?
Chiyo
10-19-05, 04:12 PM Early in the campaign, it won't make much difference. At low and mid levels, a 1 usually missing your save by more than what an action point can give you. That's ok because effects of failing a save isn't usually that dramatic.

Example, my lvl 8 artificer has +8-9 to her saves (think that's decent for that level). Typically she faces DCs in the 15-20 range, 1+ action point is pretty much always still gonna be failure.

At higher levels however, you may run into a situation where players have such high save modifiers that they only fail on 1 for many saves. This is somewhat balanced by the result of failing a save - often deadly -. Personally, I wouldn't remove that element of risk. Players by the time they face those save or death situations have ways to recover from those events.

One compromise would be to consider whether the player still has a risk of failing the save with the use of action point added to 1. If they make their save on a roll of 2, forget it, they can't use action poitn for automatic success. But if they need maybe 3-4 on action point to make it, then they can still fail. that way, action point isn't an automatic get out of jail card so that's ok, possibly with an extra cost (like 2 action points instead of 1).

Depends how vicious you are with your PCs, how min-maxed they'll be and how heroic you want the campaign to be. For me it becomes less exciting if you know you cannot fail, but as long as the system maintains that risk, then house rule should be fine.
garner_adam
10-19-05, 05:21 PM Faragdar the Wise
Is this a reasonable house rule in an Eberron campaign?

I think it's a great idea. Normally characters only refresh action dice when they level up so they have a limited supply any ways. This also protects you from having to make up reasons for player survival or instead having to face a seemingly random character death.

If you want to keep true to action dice you might want to preserve the chance of failure. Just because a character added the die doesn't mean it'll guarentee is success.

Chiyo
Depends how vicious you are with your PCs, how min-maxed they'll be and how heroic you want the campaign to be.

It seem's like Chiyo plays a more realistic campaign. That being said if you like to play in a more realistic manner, keep the element of failure.
a_psh
10-19-05, 07:42 PM I just change all instances of the auto-succeed on 20/auto-fail on 1 rules to "30 if you rolled 20, -10 if you rolled 1". Works for me.
makeshiftwings
10-19-05, 07:44 PM I think it could work, though what it basically leads to is the exact thing that the fail-on-one was created to stop: PCs will be completely unafraid of anything a few levels lower than them because they know they're invincible. With the fail-on-one rule, all combat still has a hint of danger, like real life, because even though you know you're powerful, there's still always a chance that guy with the knife could stab you in the eye. If you get rid of failures on one (or let them get rid of it with action points), they know they're usually invincible against lower levels.
Edymnion
10-19-05, 09:31 PM Agreed, I use the +/- 10 rule variant in my games.
A 20 is not an automatic hit/success, it just counts as if you rolled a 30.
A 1 is not an automatic miss/failure, it just counts as if you rolled a -10.

Means that sometimes an AP can help you, sometimes it can't.
Faragdar the Wise
10-19-05, 11:37 PM I use the +/- 10 rule on skill checks, but I don't know if I want to use it for saves. Maybe.

One thing I might be doing differently than in your campaigns is that I don't tell my players the DC for a save until after they've decided whether to use an action point. I want my players to sweat if they get a roll and think they're close but not quite good enough to make the save. I want them to agonize a little before burning an action point, and I want them to occassionally burn action points when they didn't really need to. That, to me, makes the action points all that much more valuable, and it means they can't be sure whether using an action point on a roll of 1 is actually going to be a "get out of jail free" card, though I'm sure they'll use it anyway if their save is quite high. And there's still the issue that you can only use one action point a round. Do you accept the failed save from a low level guy so you can be ready for a tougher save from his leader?

I do tend to be a relatively forgiving DM, so I don't mind if high level PCs are basically immune to low level effects. And I do really hate random, pointless character death. I don't want my PCs dieing off to chumps (well, unless they do something to deserve it). This way an 18th level fighter doesn't just die to a Bodak, or something (CR 8--10 below his party level--with a DC 15 death gaze) just because of an unlucky die roll. If he dies to something like a 15th level cleric with a DC 23 slay living spell, well that's a different story. The players will be talking about that "bad-ass priest that killed Dirk" instead of, "Hey, remember when Dirk died to some putz because he rolled a 1!"
ekomega
10-20-05, 01:36 AM I think this is also an issue for the rule that your magic items can be damaged only on a saving throw roll of 1. It's nice for your players to know that their items might never be damaged, but I think that takes away from the game.
Faragdar the Wise
10-20-05, 12:05 PM I think this is also an issue for the rule that your magic items can be damaged only on a saving throw roll of 1. It's nice for your players to know that their items might never be damaged...
Hadn't thought about that, though I don't have to rule that the use of an action point negates the damage to items. "Okay, so you made the save against that red dragon's breath, thanks to your action point. But you rolled a 1. So you were able protect yourself by using your shield. Unfortunately, that means your shield took the brunt of the breath weapon--it takes X damage."

Thanks, all, for the input. I'll see how it goes. Maybe it'll become a problem once some of my players have saves of +20 or higher, but we'll see.
LaoKhanWei
10-23-05, 08:05 PM Invincible? Hah!

The PCs may have strong magical items and 13 character levels but they're still essentially all alone in the world.

Put five 12-13th level PCs up against an army of 200 well built, well coordinated 2nd-5th level enemies in a strategically interesting location and they're back in danger again. The problem is when you through the same kinds of small scale, straightforward battles at them.
twelvedrunkenmonkeyz
10-23-05, 08:15 PM I use the +10/-10 rule as well, but my games tend to be pretty lethal. I do count a natural 20 and a 1 as critical threat/failure and this effects if it is a hit or a miss. The thing is on a nat 20 if you don't score the critical hit it only counts as a +10. If you back up your critical failure and you don't make the fumble it counts as a -10.
I wouldn't suggest you to allow them to instantly bypass failure though. I would recomend that you allow them reroll (and they can't spend an action point to this roll).
I would also further the advice that you never tell a PC even after their roll what the DC is. This way you keep control of the story. For instance last game I had a player who was gettin' his foot in the door with a crime syndicate and the Trust had to lay down the law. Now there is no way that they could've taken him without drawing attention and being killed. Twice he made the save for the poison (nothing evil just knockout juice) by 1. Now mind you he had already made 4 saves as they peppered him with darts (and he was like wth is this?). One the two saves that where just out of reach I knocked him out. My player didn't get mad, heck I'm sure he knew what had happened, but he took it like a team player.
LaoKhanWei
10-23-05, 08:18 PM As an option so that a 1 is no longer automatically a failure on a save, I've decided to try this house rule. If a player rolls a 1 on a save he can burn an action point. Instead of automatic failure, his roll then actually counts as a 1. No longer do players, no matter their level, automatically fail saves at least 5% of the time. I thought I'd ask for opinions. Is this a reasonable house rule in an Eberron campaign? How might it come back to bite me?

Why don't they just add the action and to their D20 roll? That'd make it not a natural one anymore. Problem solved and it's already part of the rules.
BullyBoy
10-28-05, 08:45 PM Why don't they just add the action and to their D20 roll? That'd make it not a natural one anymore. Problem solved and it's already part of the rules.

Technically, add any modifier to a natural 1, and it's still a "natural 1", i.e. the modifier doesn't change what the dice is showing. But I still like the idea - it's what I use, although none of my players have ever used an action point on a natural one (yet).
Medesha
10-28-05, 09:05 PM We use open-ended die rolls in our games. So if you roll a 20, you roll again and add it; if you roll another 20, you add it again, etc.

And with a 1, you roll again and subtract (20-your roll) from the roll, if you roll a 1 again you keep rolling down, and so on.

Since 1s are no longer an auto-failure, we can add APs to any die roll. And sometimes we get fun situations like criticalling with a roll of 86. At first level. :D
makeshiftwings
10-28-05, 09:24 PM Invincible? Hah!

The PCs may have strong magical items and 13 character levels but they're still essentially all alone in the world.

Put five 12-13th level PCs up against an army of 200 well built, well coordinated 2nd-5th level enemies in a strategically interesting location and they're back in danger again. The problem is when you through the same kinds of small scale, straightforward battles at them.

That's a good "in theory" thing, but have you actually tried to run a battle against your PCs with TWO HUNDRED npcs on your side? I think I would fall asleep just waiting for their turn to end while you rolled the d20 a few hundred times in a row and slowly checked off hit points on the Excel spreadsheet used to keep track of them all.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Faragdar the Wise 10-19-05, 03:14 PM	As an option so that a 1 is no longer automatically a failure on a save, I've decided to try this house rule. If a player rolls a 1 on a save he can burn an action point. Instead of automatic failure, his roll then actually counts as a 1. No longer do players, no matter their level, automatically fail saves at least 5% of the time. I thought I'd ask for opinions. Is this a reasonable house rule in an Eberron campaign? How might it come back to bite me?
Chiyo 10-19-05, 04:12 PM	Early in the campaign, it won't make much difference. At low and mid levels, a 1 usually missing your save by more than what an action point can give you. That's ok because effects of failing a save isn't usually that dramatic. Example, my lvl 8 artificer has +8-9 to her saves (think that's decent for that level). Typically she faces DCs in the 15-20 range, 1+ action point is pretty much always still gonna be failure. At higher levels however, you may run into a situation where players have such high save modifiers that they only fail on 1 for many saves. This is somewhat balanced by the result of failing a save - often deadly -. Personally, I wouldn't remove that element of risk. Players by the time they face those save or death situations have ways to recover from those events. One compromise would be to consider whether the player still has a risk of failing the save with the use of action point added to 1. If they make their save on a roll of 2, forget it, they can't use action poitn for automatic success. But if they need maybe 3-4 on action point to make it, then they can still fail. that way, action point isn't an automatic get out of jail card so that's ok, possibly with an extra cost (like 2 action points instead of 1). Depends how vicious you are with your PCs, how min-maxed they'll be and how heroic you want the campaign to be. For me it becomes less exciting if you know you cannot fail, but as long as the system maintains that risk, then house rule should be fine.
garner_adam 10-19-05, 05:21 PM	Faragdar the Wise Is this a reasonable house rule in an Eberron campaign? I think it's a great idea. Normally characters only refresh action dice when they level up so they have a limited supply any ways. This also protects you from having to make up reasons for player survival or instead having to face a seemingly random character death. If you want to keep true to action dice you might want to preserve the chance of failure. Just because a character added the die doesn't mean it'll guarentee is success. Chiyo Depends how vicious you are with your PCs, how min-maxed they'll be and how heroic you want the campaign to be. It seem's like Chiyo plays a more realistic campaign. That being said if you like to play in a more realistic manner, keep the element of failure.
a_psh 10-19-05, 07:42 PM	I just change all instances of the auto-succeed on 20/auto-fail on 1 rules to "30 if you rolled 20, -10 if you rolled 1". Works for me.
makeshiftwings 10-19-05, 07:44 PM	I think it could work, though what it basically leads to is the exact thing that the fail-on-one was created to stop: PCs will be completely unafraid of anything a few levels lower than them because they know they're invincible. With the fail-on-one rule, all combat still has a hint of danger, like real life, because even though you know you're powerful, there's still always a chance that guy with the knife could stab you in the eye. If you get rid of failures on one (or let them get rid of it with action points), they know they're usually invincible against lower levels.
Edymnion 10-19-05, 09:31 PM	Agreed, I use the +/- 10 rule variant in my games. A 20 is not an automatic hit/success, it just counts as if you rolled a 30. A 1 is not an automatic miss/failure, it just counts as if you rolled a -10. Means that sometimes an AP can help you, sometimes it can't.
Faragdar the Wise 10-19-05, 11:37 PM	I use the +/- 10 rule on skill checks, but I don't know if I want to use it for saves. Maybe. One thing I might be doing differently than in your campaigns is that I don't tell my players the DC for a save until after they've decided whether to use an action point. I want my players to sweat if they get a roll and think they're close but not quite good enough to make the save. I want them to agonize a little before burning an action point, and I want them to occassionally burn action points when they didn't really need to. That, to me, makes the action points all that much more valuable, and it means they can't be sure whether using an action point on a roll of 1 is actually going to be a "get out of jail free" card, though I'm sure they'll use it anyway if their save is quite high. And there's still the issue that you can only use one action point a round. Do you accept the failed save from a low level guy so you can be ready for a tougher save from his leader? I do tend to be a relatively forgiving DM, so I don't mind if high level PCs are basically immune to low level effects. And I do really hate random, pointless character death. I don't want my PCs dieing off to chumps (well, unless they do something to deserve it). This way an 18th level fighter doesn't just die to a Bodak, or something (CR 8--10 below his party level--with a DC 15 death gaze) just because of an unlucky die roll. If he dies to something like a 15th level cleric with a DC 23 slay living spell, well that's a different story. The players will be talking about that "bad-ass priest that killed Dirk" instead of, "Hey, remember when Dirk died to some putz because he rolled a 1!"
ekomega 10-20-05, 01:36 AM	I think this is also an issue for the rule that your magic items can be damaged only on a saving throw roll of 1. It's nice for your players to know that their items might never be damaged, but I think that takes away from the game.
Faragdar the Wise 10-20-05, 12:05 PM	I think this is also an issue for the rule that your magic items can be damaged only on a saving throw roll of 1. It's nice for your players to know that their items might never be damaged... Hadn't thought about that, though I don't have to rule that the use of an action point negates the damage to items. "Okay, so you made the save against that red dragon's breath, thanks to your action point. But you rolled a 1. So you were able protect yourself by using your shield. Unfortunately, that means your shield took the brunt of the breath weapon--it takes X damage." Thanks, all, for the input. I'll see how it goes. Maybe it'll become a problem once some of my players have saves of +20 or higher, but we'll see.
LaoKhanWei 10-23-05, 08:05 PM	Invincible? Hah! The PCs may have strong magical items and 13 character levels but they're still essentially all alone in the world. Put five 12-13th level PCs up against an army of 200 well built, well coordinated 2nd-5th level enemies in a strategically interesting location and they're back in danger again. The problem is when you through the same kinds of small scale, straightforward battles at them.
twelvedrunkenmonkeyz 10-23-05, 08:15 PM	I use the +10/-10 rule as well, but my games tend to be pretty lethal. I do count a natural 20 and a 1 as critical threat/failure and this effects if it is a hit or a miss. The thing is on a nat 20 if you don't score the critical hit it only counts as a +10. If you back up your critical failure and you don't make the fumble it counts as a -10. I wouldn't suggest you to allow them to instantly bypass failure though. I would recomend that you allow them reroll (and they can't spend an action point to this roll). I would also further the advice that you never tell a PC even after their roll what the DC is. This way you keep control of the story. For instance last game I had a player who was gettin' his foot in the door with a crime syndicate and the Trust had to lay down the law. Now there is no way that they could've taken him without drawing attention and being killed. Twice he made the save for the poison (nothing evil just knockout juice) by 1. Now mind you he had already made 4 saves as they peppered him with darts (and he was like wth is this?). One the two saves that where just out of reach I knocked him out. My player didn't get mad, heck I'm sure he knew what had happened, but he took it like a team player.
LaoKhanWei 10-23-05, 08:18 PM	As an option so that a 1 is no longer automatically a failure on a save, I've decided to try this house rule. If a player rolls a 1 on a save he can burn an action point. Instead of automatic failure, his roll then actually counts as a 1. No longer do players, no matter their level, automatically fail saves at least 5% of the time. I thought I'd ask for opinions. Is this a reasonable house rule in an Eberron campaign? How might it come back to bite me? Why don't they just add the action and to their D20 roll? That'd make it not a natural one anymore. Problem solved and it's already part of the rules.
BullyBoy 10-28-05, 08:45 PM	Why don't they just add the action and to their D20 roll? That'd make it not a natural one anymore. Problem solved and it's already part of the rules. Technically, add any modifier to a natural 1, and it's still a "natural 1", i.e. the modifier doesn't change what the dice is showing. But I still like the idea - it's what I use, although none of my players have ever used an action point on a natural one (yet).
Medesha 10-28-05, 09:05 PM	We use open-ended die rolls in our games. So if you roll a 20, you roll again and add it; if you roll another 20, you add it again, etc. And with a 1, you roll again and subtract (20-your roll) from the roll, if you roll a 1 again you keep rolling down, and so on. Since 1s are no longer an auto-failure, we can add APs to any die roll. And sometimes we get fun situations like criticalling with a roll of 86. At first level. :D
makeshiftwings 10-28-05, 09:24 PM	Invincible? Hah! The PCs may have strong magical items and 13 character levels but they're still essentially all alone in the world. Put five 12-13th level PCs up against an army of 200 well built, well coordinated 2nd-5th level enemies in a strategically interesting location and they're back in danger again. The problem is when you through the same kinds of small scale, straightforward battles at them. That's a good "in theory" thing, but have you actually tried to run a battle against your PCs with TWO HUNDRED npcs on your side? I think I would fall asleep just waiting for their turn to end while you rolled the d20 a few hundred times in a row and slowly checked off hit points on the Excel spreadsheet used to keep track of them all.