Favorite Action Point Moments [Archive] - Wizards Community

Favorite Action Point Moments [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Omnirahk, half-Rahkshi
04-17-07, 03:51 PM So, what were all of your favorite moments you spent action point(s) on? How cinematic/awesome? I'll start.

1) There was this one character who was real fun to play. He was sorta the comedy relief, even though a hero. Whenever I spent an action point on him, it wouldn't reflect sheer awesomeness - it'd just be a dumb luck fumble. Like that charge attack where he tripped and stumbled forward into his blow. Like a feint, but unplanned. He'd always do that sort of thing.

2) This one was completely RP and (probably) a waste of a good action point. But I don't regret it. So I've been RPing a blossoming relationship. We've a night to ourselves, just for enjoyment. So I'm with her. I sit down at the piano and make a perform check. Yup, a total novice just sat down at the piano and composed a song for her, about their love. Sure, it wasn't a masterpiece, but it was still good. How many romantics out there wish they could just spontaneously compose a love song like that? Yup, that was worth the action point.
WolfHati
04-18-07, 01:10 AM I think the most awesome action point I spent was to help my gnoll barbarian make a heal check to save the dwarf monk from dying from a nasty poison.

Not necessarily cinematic, but pretty awesome nonetheless.
Nived
04-18-07, 02:00 AM I've told this story before on the boards somewhere, and it's longwinded, as I tend to be, but I like it.

My friends challenged me to play against type, so as I mainly play spellcasters, and never play elves, I was challenged to make a elf meleer. I went with swashbuckler. Just after the party hit third level were were traveling out of Sharn via caravan towards New Cyre following a lead. As the Caravan passed through a gap in a ridge line it was attacked by some bandits from Darguun. The caravan was pinned down, they were high up on the ridge line just pelting us down in the gap.

"I'll pull out my trusty..." I looked at my character sheet and realized that my elven swashbuckler never bought himself a ranged weapon, "Ah crap."

I stood feeling rather useless as the rest of the party tried to fight from range... That's when the goblinoids launched the second part of their attack. They dropped some ropes from the cliff and started repelling down towards us now that they'd soften them up.

My initiative, the goblinoids weren't yet down the ropes, "I sprint over jump grab one of the ropes and start shaking for all I'm worth trying to knock some of the goblins off!" The DM said it was within my movement, a strength roll vs their climb check, "I'll spend and action point."

Frantically shaking the rope I managed to make one of the goblins fall, incapping him when he landed,, but the other goblin didn't fall and the other goblins made it down their ropes.

The next round goes by, volley's exchanged, all the while I consider my options. MECHANICALLY I should pull out my rapier and start going to town on the gobs and hobs... but that's not SWASHBUCKLY ENOUGH! "So what would I have to roll to swing around ont he rope booting goblinoids in the head?"

There was a pause, then the rules debate started, should it be a str or dex check? Use Rope? Climb? Balance? Everyone at the table had an opinion. Eventually the DM decided I had a 15 foot radius to swing around it, climb check to swing into the square I want, I would be provoking an AoO by attacking unarmed and I'd keep my dex bonus to AC. Worked for me. So in the subsiquent rounds I spent all my 3rd level action points swinging and booting in the head (and adding my Int bonus to damage since unarmed stike is finessable).

I managed to drop three, all nonleathal too so we got to interrogate them and learn the location of their encampment, which turned a random encounter into a side quest.

And yes I shouted "Boot to the head!" when I rolled damage.
Dselby86
04-18-07, 03:48 PM Well our DM uses a hand of god rule for action points where you burn all your action points for that level, assuming you have at least 3. if you would die, your instead at minue 9 and stablized. Anyways so our party gets attacked by several rust monsters who of course want to eat the tasty war forged, luckily they don't hit him. So it my turn next in initive and they are all in a line around the warforged, so my gnome artificer walks over and uses one of his scrolls of lightning bolt. He shoots the bolt and right as I roll a high number for the UMD check the Dm says you know lightning bolts bounce right? (we found out at the end of the night that they don't anymore and houseruled it so that they do again.) my response is I do now. well the lightning bolt went threw the rust monsters 3 or four times and threw my gnome twice, well needless to say both they and I were dead. but I used the hand of God to survive, it was good times first time I ever chunky salsaed myself
Cloud Divider
04-18-07, 06:20 PM It happened in a game a long time ago, now, but it was still pretty cool. We fairly heavily houseruled Action Points, to be something a little more like a Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG-styled Drama Point. So you could spend them to pull off certain things that you might not ordinarily be able to according to the rules...

In any case, in this particular situation, the PC's had found themselves crossing the Breland border into Darguun, chasing some goblinoid raiders. This particular batch of raiders were about to complete an arms deal with someone (Emerald Claw maybe...) who had interests in destabilizing the region, as they were both anti-Lhesh dissidents, and had an axe to grind with Breland. They also happened to be under investigation by a band of Lhesh Haruuc's "military intelligence." The loyalists, however, get ambushed by the dissidents, though one escapes.

This surviving loyalist hobgoblin then runs into the PC Warforged (who was formerly Cyran Recon), and they cooperate to take out a squad of dissidents chasing the escapee. They succeed, and return to the PC's base camp, and the nominal "party leader," a Thranish Paladin of the Silver Flame. Who also happens to see all goblinoids (and pretty much any non-humans, except for the "civilized...and pretty" elves/dwarves/halflings) as scum that deserve only death. There was a healthy amount of backstory to explain it, but there you go. Yes, I tended to run a MUCH more noir-inspired Eberron.

So we have a big heated debate between the Paladin and the Warforged over the wounded hobgoblin (done really well - the WF player had done some neat voice-characterization of his warforged, a sort of cool, calculated monotone...which contrasted brilliantly with the argumentative and fiery human). Some absolutely awesome INTENSE roleplaying between the two. It eventually escalates to the point where the Paladin draws her sword and lunges at the (at this point, seriously wounded) Hobgoblin.

The Warforged declares "I want to spend an Action Point to place myself in front of the Paladin's blade." And that's frickin' cool, so he does it. He also gets practically run through (the Paladin rolled quite high on damage), as they both collapse to the ground fighting for control of the weapon.

What then follows up is another patch of intense roleplaying as the Paladin almost kills the Warforged, regrets her action, and yet struggles to contain her anger at him (for defending the Hobgoblin).

Absolutely phenomenal roleplaying...
DragoonDarkfire
04-18-07, 06:51 PM OK imagine this.

I am an ardent/paladin of the Silver Flame. I only have a longsword and the armor on my back. I wind up facing two minotaurs in a coliseum in Droaam. What makes it worse is that my initiative was a 1. So they both move into flanking positions and then they charge me.

Now what is a man like this to do? They're a good 60ft away so my DM gives an opportunity to decide what to do and that's when it comes to me. I ask him how much would it take for me to drive my longsword into the ground and then jump and balance on it.

I spend an action point and sure enough, My sword in implanted in the ground, I'm up and balancing on one hand and the two Minotaurs go head butting directly into my sword... causing it to shatter.

But I dealt them both critical damage so it was still awesome.
Omnirahk, half-Rahkshi
04-18-07, 10:58 PM Nived, I do remember that story. Maybe you shared in in The Best Lines Ever? I know a couple of people shared stories instead. And it's still an awesome story. And now I feel an urge to play a swashbuckler/monk, making use of Kung Fu Genius to use INT instead of WIS for monk abilities. I think it's the best way to make a true swashbuckler - unarmored and totally able to improvise.

Cloud Divider and DragoonDarkFire, I love your stories as well. Balancing on the tip of a sword, having two minotaurs gore one another. Simply amazing. How'd you win the fight from there? And Cloud Divider, as a DM I can say I also allow action points to allow stuff you shouldn't normally do. Some things are too awesome to let the rules hitch up, though too good to allow frequently.

And as I consider how awesome action point moments tend to be, I ask: Why didn't I create this thread long ago? May it grow to the extent of the Best Lines Ever. Amen.
TheAnthroDM
04-19-07, 12:33 AM I accidently activate the self-destruct mechinism in the Quori monolith and it's going to explode in ONE minute(I rolled two natural 1s on my Psicraft checks). A Inspired Overlord block our only escape. Our Telepath, Psychic Warrior and I(see my signiture for class) join in a metaconcert(just so nowone asks, I have taken Psionic talent enough times that I had a decent amount of power points) and quickly goes over ways we can escape, Our DM says that the presense of the monolith combined with the metaconcert gives us a slim chance of being able to escape to safety through Psionic Teleport if we spent 17 Power Points each and 1 action point each we could escape, but only if our action rolls landed high enough, the results? 6(me), 6(telepath), 8(Psychic Warrior). We teleported to a Monolith on the outskirts of Riedra, giving us enough time to flee back to Adar.
seedjar
04-19-07, 12:00 PM I managed to just about break my druid by taking Spontaneous Spellcasting from the ECS... I've now had many Action Point moments of, "Oh, I'm screwed. Wait, for 2 AP I have precisely the spell I need, because my spell list is FREAKING ENORMOUS." The best example was probably the dragon encounter where I managed to spontaneously cast Protection from Energy on myself before the first breath weapon, and then when it flew up above the trees and we could neither see nor hit it, had our kineticist Dimension Door us onto the dragon's back (managed to make the concealment roll the DM ordered to determine our success without an AP adjustment) and used a spontaneous casting of Poison for 9 Consitution damage, which translated into roughly half the dragon's HP (by far the best hit I've ever had on a single creature.) We even survived the ensuing fall! It's really nice to be able to spend your AP without having to worry about rolling a 1.
~Joe

PS - Fun end to that story - very ill and angry dragon tries to fly away. The kineticist goes first on the next turn and hits dragon with some cold damage nonsense; I blow two more AP for Earthbind and the dragon starts to fall. Where does it land? Not 20 feet from our Warforged barbarian, who's been running around the forest floor in a rage, totally useless (since dashing into the bushes and stirring up the dragon to begin with.)
Jagnis
04-19-07, 05:45 PM We were playing the Forgotten Forge. We had just defeated the second worforged and I told my Dm that I was readying an action to catch the final messanger if it came out. As predicted the final messanger pops out instantly, Dm says roll an attack roll. I got 20 in total. Now I knew that wasn't enough but I couldn't remember the exact AC of the Final messanger. I look at my d20, look at my Dm, look at my d6, sigh, and toss the d6 in the air. I reluctantly look at my d6, look at my Dm. 26? I ask. Dramatic pause. Just enough. We then sold the messanger for a niffty 1000gp I think, which was nice at first level.

It sould be noted that ever since that roll, I've gotten nothing but ones and twos on my AP rolls.
DragoonDarkfire
04-19-07, 06:35 PM Nived, I do remember that story. Maybe you shared in in The Best Lines Ever? I know a couple of people shared stories instead. And it's still an awesome story. And now I feel an urge to play a swashbuckler/monk, making use of Kung Fu Genius to use INT instead of WIS for monk abilities. I think it's the best way to make a true swashbuckler - unarmored and totally able to improvise.

Cloud Divider and DragoonDarkFire, I love your stories as well. Balancing on the tip of a sword, having two minotaurs gore one another. Simply amazing. How'd you win the fight from there? And Cloud Divider, as a DM I can say I also allow action points to allow stuff you shouldn't normally do. Some things are too awesome to let the rules hitch up, though too good to allow frequently.

And as I consider how awesome action point moments tend to be, I ask: Why didn't I create this thread long ago? May it grow to the extent of the Best Lines Ever. Amen.

Well to put it simply I was rescued by a Goblin I saved from a couple of Harpies.

Pays to be kind once in a while.
ressurrector
04-19-07, 11:39 PM So far my players best use has been to aid their CL checks to overcome spell resistance vs a red dragon they had the opportunity to fight (Secrets of Sarlona teeth of the dragon mini-adventure).
a couple level 9 characters took that dragon down about 120 hp in a single round...and then it had to run away 2 rounds later.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Omnirahk, half-Rahkshi 04-17-07, 03:51 PM	So, what were all of your favorite moments you spent action point(s) on? How cinematic/awesome? I'll start. 1) There was this one character who was real fun to play. He was sorta the comedy relief, even though a hero. Whenever I spent an action point on him, it wouldn't reflect sheer awesomeness - it'd just be a dumb luck fumble. Like that charge attack where he tripped and stumbled forward into his blow. Like a feint, but unplanned. He'd always do that sort of thing. 2) This one was completely RP and (probably) a waste of a good action point. But I don't regret it. So I've been RPing a blossoming relationship. We've a night to ourselves, just for enjoyment. So I'm with her. I sit down at the piano and make a perform check. Yup, a total novice just sat down at the piano and composed a song for her, about their love. Sure, it wasn't a masterpiece, but it was still good. How many romantics out there wish they could just spontaneously compose a love song like that? Yup, that was worth the action point.
WolfHati 04-18-07, 01:10 AM	I think the most awesome action point I spent was to help my gnoll barbarian make a heal check to save the dwarf monk from dying from a nasty poison. Not necessarily cinematic, but pretty awesome nonetheless.
Nived 04-18-07, 02:00 AM	I've told this story before on the boards somewhere, and it's longwinded, as I tend to be, but I like it. My friends challenged me to play against type, so as I mainly play spellcasters, and never play elves, I was challenged to make a elf meleer. I went with swashbuckler. Just after the party hit third level were were traveling out of Sharn via caravan towards New Cyre following a lead. As the Caravan passed through a gap in a ridge line it was attacked by some bandits from Darguun. The caravan was pinned down, they were high up on the ridge line just pelting us down in the gap. "I'll pull out my trusty..." I looked at my character sheet and realized that my elven swashbuckler never bought himself a ranged weapon, "Ah crap." I stood feeling rather useless as the rest of the party tried to fight from range... That's when the goblinoids launched the second part of their attack. They dropped some ropes from the cliff and started repelling down towards us now that they'd soften them up. My initiative, the goblinoids weren't yet down the ropes, "I sprint over jump grab one of the ropes and start shaking for all I'm worth trying to knock some of the goblins off!" The DM said it was within my movement, a strength roll vs their climb check, "I'll spend and action point." Frantically shaking the rope I managed to make one of the goblins fall, incapping him when he landed,, but the other goblin didn't fall and the other goblins made it down their ropes. The next round goes by, volley's exchanged, all the while I consider my options. MECHANICALLY I should pull out my rapier and start going to town on the gobs and hobs... but that's not SWASHBUCKLY ENOUGH! "So what would I have to roll to swing around ont he rope booting goblinoids in the head?" There was a pause, then the rules debate started, should it be a str or dex check? Use Rope? Climb? Balance? Everyone at the table had an opinion. Eventually the DM decided I had a 15 foot radius to swing around it, climb check to swing into the square I want, I would be provoking an AoO by attacking unarmed and I'd keep my dex bonus to AC. Worked for me. So in the subsiquent rounds I spent all my 3rd level action points swinging and booting in the head (and adding my Int bonus to damage since unarmed stike is finessable). I managed to drop three, all nonleathal too so we got to interrogate them and learn the location of their encampment, which turned a random encounter into a side quest. And yes I shouted "Boot to the head!" when I rolled damage.
Dselby86 04-18-07, 03:48 PM	Well our DM uses a hand of god rule for action points where you burn all your action points for that level, assuming you have at least 3. if you would die, your instead at minue 9 and stablized. Anyways so our party gets attacked by several rust monsters who of course want to eat the tasty war forged, luckily they don't hit him. So it my turn next in initive and they are all in a line around the warforged, so my gnome artificer walks over and uses one of his scrolls of lightning bolt. He shoots the bolt and right as I roll a high number for the UMD check the Dm says you know lightning bolts bounce right? (we found out at the end of the night that they don't anymore and houseruled it so that they do again.) my response is I do now. well the lightning bolt went threw the rust monsters 3 or four times and threw my gnome twice, well needless to say both they and I were dead. but I used the hand of God to survive, it was good times first time I ever chunky salsaed myself
Cloud Divider 04-18-07, 06:20 PM	It happened in a game a long time ago, now, but it was still pretty cool. We fairly heavily houseruled Action Points, to be something a little more like a Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG-styled Drama Point. So you could spend them to pull off certain things that you might not ordinarily be able to according to the rules... In any case, in this particular situation, the PC's had found themselves crossing the Breland border into Darguun, chasing some goblinoid raiders. This particular batch of raiders were about to complete an arms deal with someone (Emerald Claw maybe...) who had interests in destabilizing the region, as they were both anti-Lhesh dissidents, and had an axe to grind with Breland. They also happened to be under investigation by a band of Lhesh Haruuc's "military intelligence." The loyalists, however, get ambushed by the dissidents, though one escapes. This surviving loyalist hobgoblin then runs into the PC Warforged (who was formerly Cyran Recon), and they cooperate to take out a squad of dissidents chasing the escapee. They succeed, and return to the PC's base camp, and the nominal "party leader," a Thranish Paladin of the Silver Flame. Who also happens to see all goblinoids (and pretty much any non-humans, except for the "civilized...and pretty" elves/dwarves/halflings) as scum that deserve only death. There was a healthy amount of backstory to explain it, but there you go. Yes, I tended to run a MUCH more noir-inspired Eberron. So we have a big heated debate between the Paladin and the Warforged over the wounded hobgoblin (done really well - the WF player had done some neat voice-characterization of his warforged, a sort of cool, calculated monotone...which contrasted brilliantly with the argumentative and fiery human). Some absolutely awesome INTENSE roleplaying between the two. It eventually escalates to the point where the Paladin draws her sword and lunges at the (at this point, seriously wounded) Hobgoblin. The Warforged declares "I want to spend an Action Point to place myself in front of the Paladin's blade." And that's frickin' cool, so he does it. He also gets practically run through (the Paladin rolled quite high on damage), as they both collapse to the ground fighting for control of the weapon. What then follows up is another patch of intense roleplaying as the Paladin almost kills the Warforged, regrets her action, and yet struggles to contain her anger at him (for defending the Hobgoblin). Absolutely phenomenal roleplaying...
DragoonDarkfire 04-18-07, 06:51 PM	OK imagine this. I am an ardent/paladin of the Silver Flame. I only have a longsword and the armor on my back. I wind up facing two minotaurs in a coliseum in Droaam. What makes it worse is that my initiative was a 1. So they both move into flanking positions and then they charge me. Now what is a man like this to do? They're a good 60ft away so my DM gives an opportunity to decide what to do and that's when it comes to me. I ask him how much would it take for me to drive my longsword into the ground and then jump and balance on it. I spend an action point and sure enough, My sword in implanted in the ground, I'm up and balancing on one hand and the two Minotaurs go head butting directly into my sword... causing it to shatter. But I dealt them both critical damage so it was still awesome.
Omnirahk, half-Rahkshi 04-18-07, 10:58 PM	Nived, I do remember that story. Maybe you shared in in The Best Lines Ever? I know a couple of people shared stories instead. And it's still an awesome story. And now I feel an urge to play a swashbuckler/monk, making use of Kung Fu Genius to use INT instead of WIS for monk abilities. I think it's the best way to make a true swashbuckler - unarmored and totally able to improvise. Cloud Divider and DragoonDarkFire, I love your stories as well. Balancing on the tip of a sword, having two minotaurs gore one another. Simply amazing. How'd you win the fight from there? And Cloud Divider, as a DM I can say I also allow action points to allow stuff you shouldn't normally do. Some things are too awesome to let the rules hitch up, though too good to allow frequently. And as I consider how awesome action point moments tend to be, I ask: Why didn't I create this thread long ago? May it grow to the extent of the Best Lines Ever. Amen.
TheAnthroDM 04-19-07, 12:33 AM	I accidently activate the self-destruct mechinism in the Quori monolith and it's going to explode in ONE minute(I rolled two natural 1s on my Psicraft checks). A Inspired Overlord block our only escape. Our Telepath, Psychic Warrior and I(see my signiture for class) join in a metaconcert(just so nowone asks, I have taken Psionic talent enough times that I had a decent amount of power points) and quickly goes over ways we can escape, Our DM says that the presense of the monolith combined with the metaconcert gives us a slim chance of being able to escape to safety through Psionic Teleport if we spent 17 Power Points each and 1 action point each we could escape, but only if our action rolls landed high enough, the results? 6(me), 6(telepath), 8(Psychic Warrior). We teleported to a Monolith on the outskirts of Riedra, giving us enough time to flee back to Adar.
seedjar 04-19-07, 12:00 PM	I managed to just about break my druid by taking Spontaneous Spellcasting from the ECS... I've now had many Action Point moments of, "Oh, I'm screwed. Wait, for 2 AP I have precisely the spell I need, because my spell list is FREAKING ENORMOUS." The best example was probably the dragon encounter where I managed to spontaneously cast Protection from Energy on myself before the first breath weapon, and then when it flew up above the trees and we could neither see nor hit it, had our kineticist Dimension Door us onto the dragon's back (managed to make the concealment roll the DM ordered to determine our success without an AP adjustment) and used a spontaneous casting of Poison for 9 Consitution damage, which translated into roughly half the dragon's HP (by far the best hit I've ever had on a single creature.) We even survived the ensuing fall! It's really nice to be able to spend your AP without having to worry about rolling a 1. ~Joe PS - Fun end to that story - very ill and angry dragon tries to fly away. The kineticist goes first on the next turn and hits dragon with some cold damage nonsense; I blow two more AP for Earthbind and the dragon starts to fall. Where does it land? Not 20 feet from our Warforged barbarian, who's been running around the forest floor in a rage, totally useless (since dashing into the bushes and stirring up the dragon to begin with.)
Jagnis 04-19-07, 05:45 PM	We were playing the Forgotten Forge. We had just defeated the second worforged and I told my Dm that I was readying an action to catch the final messanger if it came out. As predicted the final messanger pops out instantly, Dm says roll an attack roll. I got 20 in total. Now I knew that wasn't enough but I couldn't remember the exact AC of the Final messanger. I look at my d20, look at my Dm, look at my d6, sigh, and toss the d6 in the air. I reluctantly look at my d6, look at my Dm. 26? I ask. Dramatic pause. Just enough. We then sold the messanger for a niffty 1000gp I think, which was nice at first level. It sould be noted that ever since that roll, I've gotten nothing but ones and twos on my AP rolls.
DragoonDarkfire 04-19-07, 06:35 PM	Nived, I do remember that story. Maybe you shared in in The Best Lines Ever? I know a couple of people shared stories instead. And it's still an awesome story. And now I feel an urge to play a swashbuckler/monk, making use of Kung Fu Genius to use INT instead of WIS for monk abilities. I think it's the best way to make a true swashbuckler - unarmored and totally able to improvise. Cloud Divider and DragoonDarkFire, I love your stories as well. Balancing on the tip of a sword, having two minotaurs gore one another. Simply amazing. How'd you win the fight from there? And Cloud Divider, as a DM I can say I also allow action points to allow stuff you shouldn't normally do. Some things are too awesome to let the rules hitch up, though too good to allow frequently. And as I consider how awesome action point moments tend to be, I ask: Why didn't I create this thread long ago? May it grow to the extent of the Best Lines Ever. Amen. Well to put it simply I was rescued by a Goblin I saved from a couple of Harpies. Pays to be kind once in a while.
ressurrector 04-19-07, 11:39 PM	So far my players best use has been to aid their CL checks to overcome spell resistance vs a red dragon they had the opportunity to fight (Secrets of Sarlona teeth of the dragon mini-adventure). a couple level 9 characters took that dragon down about 120 hp in a single round...and then it had to run away 2 rounds later.