Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 blaster219 Sep 14, 2009 7:27:27	Ever since I started playing/running for 4E, I've been disappointed with how Action Points work. its  not that I think they're broken, or a crap mechanic or anything. Its just that they're a little, well, uninspiring. Every other game I've played that has some sort of point mechanic (be it Hero, Action, Drama, Cool, or Awesome Points) they work by giving a bonus to the roll, rather than simply giving you an extra action or reroll. Drama Points are what make Cinematic Unisystem one of my favourite games. Hero Points and Extra Effort together make M&M2E a cool system as well. 4E's Action Points are a little flat in comparison. I've tried to alter the way they work but each time it hasn't really worked right. Plus, a few race/class/path/power/feat combos do funky things when APs are spent so it seems more trouble than its worth to tinker with them. So I'm thinking about adding a seperate pool of points instead of modding APs. PCs start each level with a minimum number of Hero Points dependent on their tier (5/10/15 for H/P/E). You can spend a HP to get a bonus to a roll (1d6/2d6/3d6 dependent on tier). This can be ANY type of roll. Every time a PC gains a level, they reset their HP total upwards to the tier minimum. If they have more than the tier minimum then they don't reset downwards. Player's can get HP awarded for doing cool and awesome stuff without spending HP to pull it off. Basically, if they describe their action as something far cooler than "I twin-strike the orc with my longbow" and actually manage to pull it off without needing to spend HP, they get a HP for making the game more fun, more cinematic. You can spend as many HP in a round as you want, but only ONE per roll. Is this too unbalancing?
#2 Shadowsire Sep 14, 2009 8:09:39	I personally find taking an extra action more interesting than getting a numeric bonus to a roll, but I can see the allure of your Hero Points. Two considerations that hit me immediately: 1. Giving a 1d6/2d6/3d6 to d20 rolls by tier is probably a bad idea. A +1 to a d20 rolls is generally just as good at epic tier as it is at heroic tier; the only reason why the Expertise feats scale is because they are correcting for the fact that monsters get harder and harder to hit as you level. 15 Hero Points at +3d6 a pop will trivialize nearly everything; in epic tier, it could be a serious balance problem. No player will ever miss with an important roll. I would keep it +1d6 to d20 rolls at every tier, and +1d6/2d6/3d6 to damage rolls only. Giving more and more hero points per tier is not as big a problem, but you're gonna have to correct (in your encounter design) for the players' increased power more and more as they level. If Hero Points become a powerful enough boon to your players, and they begin forcing you to use very high level monsters, then you could run into another problem: extremely high monster defenses. If players are looking at 15 Hero Points per level + more for doing cool things, you're gonna have to compensate quite a bit. It could get to the point where players hit often with Hero Points, but only hit on very high rolls without them. That's frustrating. Now, I know this point is pretty abstract, and that you could use more monsters rather than higher level monsters with very high defenses, but always keep in mind your players' chance of hitting without Hero Points. 2. Abilities like this tend to cheapen powers like Elven Accuracy and Memory of a Thousand Lifetimes. Instead of elves and deva getting a very special powerful boost to an important roll, they just get one more boost among the many that everyone gets. I think elves and deva are powerful enough races to handle it, but keep it in mind anyway.