I've seen this mentioned in several posts and also on other forums but it seems that many people are house-ruling action points so that they become slightly more useful. I'm interested in all creative ways to make action points more useful without making them too powerful or unbalanced. Possibilities are:
- The default: spend an action point for an extra action (once per encounter).
- Spend an Action Point to allow a re-roll of a d20 for any purpose.
- Spend an Action Point to allow to re-activate a daily power. This is pretty powerful so if allowed it should probably be something that can only be done once.
- Spend an Action Point to get a healing surge back.
Thoughts on these and any other possibilities?
Greetings,
- Spend an Action Point to allow a re-roll of a d20 for any purpose.
Very powerful. One of the Paragon Paths give this. Back in Eberron 3.5, this is more or less the most useful uses of an AP. Especially now that we have daily powers, it means anyone can increase their chance of landing it by 11% to 25%. Crazytalk.
- Spend an Action Point to allow to re-activate a daily power. This is pretty powerful so if allowed it should probably be something that can only be done once.
Crazily powerful. Define 'done once'. You get an AP every 2 encounters - and there are classes that can earn you APs continuously. Heck, even doubling the use of a Daily is very powerful.
- Spend an Action Point to get a healing surge back.
Meh. I see no real problem with this.
I think APs are fine as they are. Once you hit PP there'll be lots more uses for them that tie in with the relevant PPs.
This is one of those House Rules that I consider fit in the category of "Haven't read everything". ;)
Admittedly the V armor needs some tweaking, for it is quite broken as is. Damned pajamas.
Very
Crazily powerful. Define 'done once'. You get an AP every 2 encounters - and there are classes that can earn you APs continuously. Heck, even doubling the use of a Daily is very powerful.
I mean that this usage of an AP can only be done once per day. So once per day you can use an AP to get back one daily. But I agree that even with that restriction it is pretty powerful.
Perhaps rerolling using an AP is something that should also be restricted to a daily usage.
Greetings,
Spend an Action Point to allow to re-activate a daily power.
This is an epic tier feat for wizards. Even limiting it to once a day is too powerful.
The problem with your idea is that there are already things that allow you to do these, things that have prerequisites or monetary value. By allowing these anybody to access them for free you are stepping on several paragon paths and the Veteran's armor.
Admittedly the V armor needs some tweaking, for it is quite broken as is. Damned pajamas.
The Veteran's Armor was errata'd to remove that ability, as it was incredibly overpowered.
The Veteran's Armor was errata'd to remove that ability, as it was incredibly overpowered.
Wait, when did that happen? There's official errata for AV now?
Wait, when did that happen? There's official errata for AV now?
There's official errata for many of the released books. Check the errata page.
The issue has been brought up before that it was more useful taking an extended rest after each encounter to regain the action point and dailies. I always felt action points were made to encourage players to keep on going.
Another problem is with giving away AP's for good roleplaying and such as I feel that might unbalance the amount of AP's.
I thought maybe I could split action points up. Maybe divide them by 3 so buying an extra action would cost 3 points. I might then also add other actions that cost less or more action points. I would have to remove the 1 action point per encounter rule and change the rate of gaining them.
I could say you start with 1 (maybe 2) after an extended rest and gain 1 after an encounter and 2 at milestones. This would make keep going instead of resting more interesting and also room for the DM to give away points as rewards.
Any ideas as to actions I could have and how many action points they should cost?
I thought maybe I could split action points up. Maybe divide them by 3 so buying an extra action would cost 3 points. I might then also add other actions that cost less or more action points. I would have to remove the 1 action point per encounter rule and change the rate of gaining them.
I could say you start with 1 (maybe 2) after an extended rest and gain 1 after an encounter and 2 at milestones. This would make keep going instead of resting more interesting and also room for the DM to give away points as rewards.
Any ideas as to actions I could have and how many action points they should cost?
Personally I think AP work great as they are and you're just going to complicate things, but to each his own. My only advice is that re-rolling dice and regaining the use of dailies is horribly broken, so don't allow that, and regaining a healing surge isn't worth spending an AP on. Maybe spending them to turn a non-critical hit into a crit, or turn an enemy crit into a non-crit...still seems less useful to me than just taking an extra swing, but I don't think it's broken.
If your party is fond of taking long rests after just a few battles, just have them start getting raided while they camp overnight, or make future encounters tougher since enemies have had more time to reinforce and set up battle plans. Make sure your players understand that there isn't always a lot of time to wait around and if they make a habit of camping out after every battle, things will be worse than if they just press on.
Personally I think AP work great as they are and you're just going to complicate things, but to each his own. My only advice is that re-rolling dice and regaining the use of dailies is horribly broken, so don't allow that, and regaining a healing surge isn't worth spending an AP on. Maybe spending them to turn a non-critical hit into a crit, or turn an enemy crit into a non-crit...still seems less useful to me than just taking an extra swing, but I don't think it's broken.
If your party is fond of taking long rests after just a few battles, just have them start getting raided while they camp overnight, or make future encounters tougher since enemies have had more time to reinforce and set up battle plans. Make sure your players understand that there isn't always a lot of time to wait around and if they make a habit of camping out after every battle, things will be worse than if they just press on.
Well then I think you don't understand what I'm meaning. You say that regaining a healing surge is not worth the AP, but in my system 1 old AP worth 3 new AP so the healing surge could cost 1 AP that is 1/3 of the old value. Buying a new action would cost 3 AP's. Also I'm not saying my group will take the extended rest every time but I might wan't to award them when they don't.
Personally I think AP work great as they are and you're just going to complicate things, but to each his own. My only advice is that re-rolling dice and regaining the use of dailies is horribly broken, so don't allow that, and regaining a healing surge isn't worth spending an AP on. Maybe spending them to turn a non-critical hit into a crit, or turn an enemy crit into a non-crit...still seems less useful to me than just taking an extra swing, but I don't think it's broken.
I left the action points alone but I do have a house rule now that the players can choose to get back one daily at every milestone. This works really great and it helps avoid the problem of the players being too afraid to use their dailies. At least they can get one back now. Before I used that rule my players either wanted an extended rest nearly after every one or two encounters or else they simply were afraid to use their dailies and that's not very fun either.
Greetings,
Well then I think you don't understand what I'm meaning. You say that regaining a healing surge is not worth the AP, but in my system 1 old AP worth 3 new AP so the healing surge could cost 1 AP that is 1/3 of the old value. Buying a new action would cost 3 AP's. Also I'm not saying my group will take the extended rest every time but I might wan't to award them when they don't.
I understand, however, as a player I'd rather save up 3 AP to spend on an extra action than spend one on a Healing Surge. Unless of course you mean spending 1 AP to recover HP as if you'd spent a surge, though even then the extra action is still probably the better deal.
Let's put it this way: if you could spend 3 healing surges to take an extra action in combat, would you? I know I would.
I left the action points alone but I do have a house rule now that the players can choose to get back one daily at every milestone. This works really great and it helps avoid the problem of the players being too afraid to use their dailies. At least they can get one back now. Before I used that rule my players either wanted an extended rest nearly after every one or two encounters or else they simply were afraid to use their dailies and that's not very fun either.
Greetings,
I was thinking of a similar system for my party, since they were going to be in a wilderness area with little or no hope of running back to town if things went badly. I don't think this is terribly broken. Really it could even make for even more epic combat as your party may be able to handle more than one "boss" encounter per day. What I was objecting to was spending AP to recover dailies, which could allow players to use their dailies twice in the same combat.
I could see allowing an AP to grant a reroll of a saving throw though, especially if it's against something that would otherwise take the character out of the fight (unconscious, petrified, etc).
I decided it would be less complicated if I just kept these points separate from AP.
I call them FX points.
Each player gets one per session (we have 6-8 hour sessions, usually). You can use one for any of the following:
- Auto Critical on a confirmed hit
- Turn a miss into a normal hit
- Turn any hit to your character into a miss
- use an encounter power for an opportunity attack
- Auto-Nat 20 on any skill check
- Regain a daily power (to be used immediately)
- Do something crazy and get a reasonable chance of success. If you fail (and stay alive), this does not use the FX point.
- As a regular action point and regain your level in HP
All FX points are controlled by the DM. If you ask to try something and he says no, you can't do it.