Action Points vs EL [Archive] - Wizards Community

Action Points vs EL [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
IMADAJ
01-30-08, 06:36 PM I am trying to design a campaign in which the PC's will be able to use action points. The other people in my group are an experienced bunch so I do not plan on pulling any punches. I like the idea of the PC's being able to use action points for pulling off extraordinary stunts at crucial times, but without raising the EL of encounters the Action Points will make the encounters too easy.

I was thinking of trying two things:

1) Taking a number of encounters equal to the average number of action points allowed per level in the party and increasing their ELs by 1.

(Ex: If the PC's have an average of 5 Action Points per character then use 5 encounters of the party's EL+1 and 8.33 encounters of their EL instead of 13.33 encounters equal to the party's EL.)

or

2) String a number of encounters together that equal a normal challenge rating for the party before they have to rest plus a number of encounters up to or equal to the PC's average Action Points per character.

(Ex: 4 challenging encounters + number of action points, or 2 very challenging encounters + number of Action Points of challenging encounters.)

I realize that the game is about role-playing and not about being easy or hard, that each party is different, and that the EL chart is not exact science. I'm just looking for a base to build off of.

For those of you that use action points in your games, how do you go about keeping a balance?
iserith
01-30-08, 06:48 PM I never really had a problem with balance in my games. My players use action points in our Eberron campaign. At least one player has several additional action point related feats. They mostly use them for skills and saves.

I do optimize encounters because my players tend to min/max, so maybe that balances action points out.
Pezz
01-30-08, 08:18 PM We use action points in our games, and what we have always agreed on is, if it is fair for the players, it is fair for the DM. Thus, whenever we fight a BBEG, or a non-peon minion, the DM rolls a D4 and gives that number of action points to the boss. It generally works out well, and i find that most of the time, we end up using out action points on frivolous things since we don't really need them very often.
IMADAJ
01-30-08, 10:49 PM We use action points in our games, and what we have always agreed on is, if it is fair for the players, it is fair for the DM. Thus, whenever we fight a BBEG, or a non-peon minion, the DM rolls a D4 and gives that number of action points to the boss. It generally works out well, and i find that most of the time, we end up using out action points on frivolous things since we don't really need them very often.

Ok, I can see how that would work. What do you think about this? Find the average action point total for the party, and divide that number up between multiple BBEG that are used before the party levels up again, never going over 3 or 4 each.

(EX: The average action point total for 4 level 1 PC's would be 5. So have one BBEG with 3 action points, and one Sub Boss with 2 action points. At level 10 the average action point per PC is 10, so there would be the BBEG with 4 points, and two sub bosses with 3 points each.)
iserith
01-31-08, 12:25 AM The rules say you should give the Heroic Spirit feat to important NPCs. This grants them 3 action points. I've never had to give an NPC action points. Just optimize them and put them in surroundings where they have a slight advantage.
SmiloDan
01-31-08, 01:05 AM Just GIVE the NPCs and monsters a number of action points equal to 1/2 their CR. And USE them, especially on things like attack rolls and to re-use an ability.
I run a campaign that uses Action Points, and some PCs barely use them at all. But they're nice to have, so you can really amp up the EL without (accidentally) TPKing.
Sildatorak
01-31-08, 01:10 AM I typically run campaigns without AP, but in the one instance where I did run them it didn't affect EL in a measurable way. It did give them a little boost every now and then, but that was easily leveled out by just using a higher % of tough encounters and a lower % of average to weak encounters (which translates to fewer encounters per day for the same total resource drain). Basically it just let them push the limits a bit more, and the most common use of AP was to auto-stabilize.
Escef
01-31-08, 10:05 AM In my experience, AP are sometimes used to make a hard encounter easier, but overall, they are mostly used to counteract low to middling rolls. They just help mitigate the effect of randomness. They're nice, but not worth raising the bar over. YMMV.
Vharuck
01-31-08, 10:19 AM In my experience, AP are sometimes used to make a hard encounter easier, but overall, they are mostly used to counteract low to middling rolls. They just help mitigate the effect of randomness. They're nice, but not worth raising the bar over. YMMV.

This is a good point. When you think about it, action points are only ever used when the d20 ends up so low as to scare the player. In fact, I'd say that half the times my players used action points, the sum of the d20 and d6 still wasn't enough for what they were trying.

Also, action points are usually reserved for players since it helps make the players feel like they're the heroes. They're the ones who do the super-cool stunts and amazing feats.
hastur_nz
01-31-08, 03:39 PM Depends on the campaign really, as well as how optimised the PC's are. We've been using them in Red Hand of Doom, and towards the mid-levels, the biggest effect they have had is to power-up our spell casters. The ability to spend an action point to get back the use of a spell means our casters now have 8-10 more spells to cast before we level up. Given the nature of RHoD, that can mean 2 or more spells per big fight. Also, the ability to use an action point to use a metamagic feat for free can easily be abused by a player. Me, I use it for Empower Spell, which feels a little too good, but it could be a lot worse (e.g. Persist - ouch!) Our DM has now house-ruled that it costs one action point per spell level i.e. Empower costs 2, which I am fine with, I can still empower a few of my top-level spells for free (just not so many times). For the fighter-types, the effect is less marked, sure a bad roll can be made to hit, so with full power attack it can be OK, but it's still just a few more hp of damage. Everyone can stabilise before dying, which is a good thing, and once in a blue moon you might make a save you would normally miss, but that's rare in my experience. Other things you can do? We've never used them for powering feats or class abilities, it just doesn't seem that important or useful, but I guess it's possible you might find a use occasionally (e.g. one more turn undead in an infested area).

Now, RHoD is a bit of a meat-grinder, and so allowing spell casters to go a bit longer before they run out of spells is not a bad thing - just be aware of the change in balance this brings about, as giving the BBEG's action points won't actually make a real difference here - NPC's don't have to worry about endurance as they don't last long enough; action points for PC spell casters gives them a lot more endurance (and power, if they take metamagic). Depending on the adventure design, you might find the PC's can clear out a whole site in one go, using loads of spell-power to do so. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, it depends on what the DM and players find fun (me, I hate spell casters who have so few spells they spend half their time doing nothing in combat; that happens a lot especially at lower levels).

Apart from that, the ability to add to a d20 is nice, especially at low levels where you tend to swing and miss a lot, but as you go up in levels it doesn't swing things too far in the PC's favour as things are more predictable (e.g. you need to lot more hits to kill something). Giving an NPC a couple of action points, e.g. to help swing a crucial save, will probably balance that nicely. Certainly they can help keep PC's alive when luck deserts them, which is a good thing, but a natural 1 is always a failure so action points only ever go so far (at mid and especially high levels, the ability to not fail on a 1 becomes more important).

So I'd say add action points to important NPC's, and other than that just be aware of the endurance your PC's might exhibit with action points (especially as they go up in levels, as higher level = more action points). If you use the DMG as a guide, you'll find they chew through four encounters of their EL and not break a sweat, but if you use say 6 encounters before they can rest, or say up the average EL by up to 1, it will probably balance out.

As always though, it's really hard to say; you're best off judging balance as you go along, and have a flexible adventure design that allows you to throw multiple encounters at the PC's in quick succession and/or merging together on the fly. For example, dungeons (or forts, or a building, or...) with rooms very close together, where one room is easy to clear but if the baddies from another room or two join in the fight part-way through, it can get quite interesting and challenge the PC's even with their action points. For me (as a DM and player), I'm not concerned about the PC's having more endurance, the game is actually more fun when you don't have to rest after every second fight; it's also fun to have some big fights with multiple baddies, coming in at different times so the battle unfolds as it goes along, rather than a stock 4-5 PC's vs 1-3 monsters. Action points can help the PC's survive these types of encounters a little bit more, and perhaps still have enough left in them to go another one before resting; the game might progress a little bit faster than normal, as they might earn more XP than typical, but personally I think that's a good thing.

The only down-side I find with action points is that, as a player, I do actually feel that by having them we have a bit too much of an advantage over what the adventure has assumed. This is because our DM hasn't adjusted the adventure for us having them - he figured that RHoD was very difficult as written so giving us action points would balance it out. Personally, I agree except that I think he should have given key NPC's at least 2 action points each (if only to try and make sure the BBEG doesn't look like an idiot failing a first save, or missing on their first melee attack, which has happened occasionally and kind of ruins their reputation as a BBEG).

Footnote: In the games I've run, I've never actually used action points, mainly because I think they are not well balanced, i.e. some uses of them are really minor, and some are really powerful, and it depends on your PC build too much in terms of how much you can get out of them. I prefer a much more even footing for all, and have no desire to tweak the action points rules to try and re-balance them to my liking. The only time I've used something along these lines was in a campaign that went all the way to Epic, where at high levels they got a couple of "fate points" they could use to re-roll any d20, which of course was of most use to avoid the "save or die" from killing a PC too easily (the PC's had to make a lot of Fort saves in that campaign, the result usually being death if they failed). The fate points were earned as part of a story reward i.e. when they accomplished key things in the campaign; not auto-refreshed every level-up like action points.
Rederik
01-31-08, 03:59 PM I use a version of "Action Points" or "Fate Points" The amount is 1+Cha Mod (min 1). The reason for this is two fold. The mechanic purpose was to give a bonus to those who didn't dump Cha. The other reason is I like the idea of higher Cha characters to be looked highly apon by the fates.

Anyway, their use is also a bit different. It can be used to ad 1d6 to any d20 roll. The other use is it can regain back 1 use per day spell like ability that they each have.

Each character also has abover average stats (each one has a primary stat at about 20, a bunch of 14's-18's and a low stat (9-12))

So between the higher stats, a couple spell like abilities and Fate Points, they each have a +1 LA for determining CR and EL and it works quite well (there is also 5 party members.)

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
IMADAJ 01-30-08, 06:36 PM	I am trying to design a campaign in which the PC's will be able to use action points. The other people in my group are an experienced bunch so I do not plan on pulling any punches. I like the idea of the PC's being able to use action points for pulling off extraordinary stunts at crucial times, but without raising the EL of encounters the Action Points will make the encounters too easy. I was thinking of trying two things: 1) Taking a number of encounters equal to the average number of action points allowed per level in the party and increasing their ELs by 1. (Ex: If the PC's have an average of 5 Action Points per character then use 5 encounters of the party's EL+1 and 8.33 encounters of their EL instead of 13.33 encounters equal to the party's EL.) or 2) String a number of encounters together that equal a normal challenge rating for the party before they have to rest plus a number of encounters up to or equal to the PC's average Action Points per character. (Ex: 4 challenging encounters + number of action points, or 2 very challenging encounters + number of Action Points of challenging encounters.) I realize that the game is about role-playing and not about being easy or hard, that each party is different, and that the EL chart is not exact science. I'm just looking for a base to build off of. For those of you that use action points in your games, how do you go about keeping a balance?
iserith 01-30-08, 06:48 PM	I never really had a problem with balance in my games. My players use action points in our Eberron campaign. At least one player has several additional action point related feats. They mostly use them for skills and saves. I do optimize encounters because my players tend to min/max, so maybe that balances action points out.
Pezz 01-30-08, 08:18 PM	We use action points in our games, and what we have always agreed on is, if it is fair for the players, it is fair for the DM. Thus, whenever we fight a BBEG, or a non-peon minion, the DM rolls a D4 and gives that number of action points to the boss. It generally works out well, and i find that most of the time, we end up using out action points on frivolous things since we don't really need them very often.
IMADAJ 01-30-08, 10:49 PM	We use action points in our games, and what we have always agreed on is, if it is fair for the players, it is fair for the DM. Thus, whenever we fight a BBEG, or a non-peon minion, the DM rolls a D4 and gives that number of action points to the boss. It generally works out well, and i find that most of the time, we end up using out action points on frivolous things since we don't really need them very often. Ok, I can see how that would work. What do you think about this? Find the average action point total for the party, and divide that number up between multiple BBEG that are used before the party levels up again, never going over 3 or 4 each. (EX: The average action point total for 4 level 1 PC's would be 5. So have one BBEG with 3 action points, and one Sub Boss with 2 action points. At level 10 the average action point per PC is 10, so there would be the BBEG with 4 points, and two sub bosses with 3 points each.)
iserith 01-31-08, 12:25 AM	The rules say you should give the Heroic Spirit feat to important NPCs. This grants them 3 action points. I've never had to give an NPC action points. Just optimize them and put them in surroundings where they have a slight advantage.
SmiloDan 01-31-08, 01:05 AM	Just GIVE the NPCs and monsters a number of action points equal to 1/2 their CR. And USE them, especially on things like attack rolls and to re-use an ability. I run a campaign that uses Action Points, and some PCs barely use them at all. But they're nice to have, so you can really amp up the EL without (accidentally) TPKing.
Sildatorak 01-31-08, 01:10 AM	I typically run campaigns without AP, but in the one instance where I did run them it didn't affect EL in a measurable way. It did give them a little boost every now and then, but that was easily leveled out by just using a higher % of tough encounters and a lower % of average to weak encounters (which translates to fewer encounters per day for the same total resource drain). Basically it just let them push the limits a bit more, and the most common use of AP was to auto-stabilize.
Escef 01-31-08, 10:05 AM	In my experience, AP are sometimes used to make a hard encounter easier, but overall, they are mostly used to counteract low to middling rolls. They just help mitigate the effect of randomness. They're nice, but not worth raising the bar over. YMMV.
Vharuck 01-31-08, 10:19 AM	In my experience, AP are sometimes used to make a hard encounter easier, but overall, they are mostly used to counteract low to middling rolls. They just help mitigate the effect of randomness. They're nice, but not worth raising the bar over. YMMV. This is a good point. When you think about it, action points are only ever used when the d20 ends up so low as to scare the player. In fact, I'd say that half the times my players used action points, the sum of the d20 and d6 still wasn't enough for what they were trying. Also, action points are usually reserved for players since it helps make the players feel like they're the heroes. They're the ones who do the super-cool stunts and amazing feats.
hastur_nz 01-31-08, 03:39 PM	Depends on the campaign really, as well as how optimised the PC's are. We've been using them in Red Hand of Doom, and towards the mid-levels, the biggest effect they have had is to power-up our spell casters. The ability to spend an action point to get back the use of a spell means our casters now have 8-10 more spells to cast before we level up. Given the nature of RHoD, that can mean 2 or more spells per big fight. Also, the ability to use an action point to use a metamagic feat for free can easily be abused by a player. Me, I use it for Empower Spell, which feels a little too good, but it could be a lot worse (e.g. Persist - ouch!) Our DM has now house-ruled that it costs one action point per spell level i.e. Empower costs 2, which I am fine with, I can still empower a few of my top-level spells for free (just not so many times). For the fighter-types, the effect is less marked, sure a bad roll can be made to hit, so with full power attack it can be OK, but it's still just a few more hp of damage. Everyone can stabilise before dying, which is a good thing, and once in a blue moon you might make a save you would normally miss, but that's rare in my experience. Other things you can do? We've never used them for powering feats or class abilities, it just doesn't seem that important or useful, but I guess it's possible you might find a use occasionally (e.g. one more turn undead in an infested area). Now, RHoD is a bit of a meat-grinder, and so allowing spell casters to go a bit longer before they run out of spells is not a bad thing - just be aware of the change in balance this brings about, as giving the BBEG's action points won't actually make a real difference here - NPC's don't have to worry about endurance as they don't last long enough; action points for PC spell casters gives them a lot more endurance (and power, if they take metamagic). Depending on the adventure design, you might find the PC's can clear out a whole site in one go, using loads of spell-power to do so. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, it depends on what the DM and players find fun (me, I hate spell casters who have so few spells they spend half their time doing nothing in combat; that happens a lot especially at lower levels). Apart from that, the ability to add to a d20 is nice, especially at low levels where you tend to swing and miss a lot, but as you go up in levels it doesn't swing things too far in the PC's favour as things are more predictable (e.g. you need to lot more hits to kill something). Giving an NPC a couple of action points, e.g. to help swing a crucial save, will probably balance that nicely. Certainly they can help keep PC's alive when luck deserts them, which is a good thing, but a natural 1 is always a failure so action points only ever go so far (at mid and especially high levels, the ability to not fail on a 1 becomes more important). So I'd say add action points to important NPC's, and other than that just be aware of the endurance your PC's might exhibit with action points (especially as they go up in levels, as higher level = more action points). If you use the DMG as a guide, you'll find they chew through four encounters of their EL and not break a sweat, but if you use say 6 encounters before they can rest, or say up the average EL by up to 1, it will probably balance out. As always though, it's really hard to say; you're best off judging balance as you go along, and have a flexible adventure design that allows you to throw multiple encounters at the PC's in quick succession and/or merging together on the fly. For example, dungeons (or forts, or a building, or...) with rooms very close together, where one room is easy to clear but if the baddies from another room or two join in the fight part-way through, it can get quite interesting and challenge the PC's even with their action points. For me (as a DM and player), I'm not concerned about the PC's having more endurance, the game is actually more fun when you don't have to rest after every second fight; it's also fun to have some big fights with multiple baddies, coming in at different times so the battle unfolds as it goes along, rather than a stock 4-5 PC's vs 1-3 monsters. Action points can help the PC's survive these types of encounters a little bit more, and perhaps still have enough left in them to go another one before resting; the game might progress a little bit faster than normal, as they might earn more XP than typical, but personally I think that's a good thing. The only down-side I find with action points is that, as a player, I do actually feel that by having them we have a bit too much of an advantage over what the adventure has assumed. This is because our DM hasn't adjusted the adventure for us having them - he figured that RHoD was very difficult as written so giving us action points would balance it out. Personally, I agree except that I think he should have given key NPC's at least 2 action points each (if only to try and make sure the BBEG doesn't look like an idiot failing a first save, or missing on their first melee attack, which has happened occasionally and kind of ruins their reputation as a BBEG). Footnote: In the games I've run, I've never actually used action points, mainly because I think they are not well balanced, i.e. some uses of them are really minor, and some are really powerful, and it depends on your PC build too much in terms of how much you can get out of them. I prefer a much more even footing for all, and have no desire to tweak the action points rules to try and re-balance them to my liking. The only time I've used something along these lines was in a campaign that went all the way to Epic, where at high levels they got a couple of "fate points" they could use to re-roll any d20, which of course was of most use to avoid the "save or die" from killing a PC too easily (the PC's had to make a lot of Fort saves in that campaign, the result usually being death if they failed). The fate points were earned as part of a story reward i.e. when they accomplished key things in the campaign; not auto-refreshed every level-up like action points.
Rederik 01-31-08, 03:59 PM	I use a version of "Action Points" or "Fate Points" The amount is 1+Cha Mod (min 1). The reason for this is two fold. The mechanic purpose was to give a bonus to those who didn't dump Cha. The other reason is I like the idea of higher Cha characters to be looked highly apon by the fates. Anyway, their use is also a bit different. It can be used to ad 1d6 to any d20 roll. The other use is it can regain back 1 use per day spell like ability that they each have. Each character also has abover average stats (each one has a primary stat at about 20, a bunch of 14's-18's and a low stat (9-12)) So between the higher stats, a couple spell like abilities and Fate Points, they each have a +1 LA for determining CR and EL and it works quite well (there is also 5 party members.)