In 4th edition, more and more DMs run their games such that everyone is always at the same level. I think this is generally great because it helps to ensure that each player is able to contribute approximately equally, and no one gets too far ahead.
However, it prevents something that used to happen in 2e and 3e games I've DMed and played in, which is giving out individual XP rewards for exceptional ideas, ingenuity, roleplaying, or the like. (My current DM tried to give a simple 200 XP to one of the other players for an idea a while back, but it has presented a minor problem in that--since the DM wants everybody to be the same level, he ends up intentionally creating encounters that push that player AND everyone else up a level all at once, which essentially renders that character's bonus 200 meaningless.)
An alternative reward is to grant Karma Points (KP). Karma Points are meant to be awarded by the DM to individuals for exceptional ideas, ingenuity, roleplaying, and may even be awarded to players for metagame reasons if you so desire (for example, I had a DM back in 3rd ed award something similar to whoever brought drinks.) They do not affect a character's permanent stats or abilities, but like action points, they may give an incidental advantage in a particular combat.
I'd welcome input from the boards as to how exactly to implement this. I've had a few ideas, but I have not DMed 4th ed myself yet, so I wanted to run them by everyone.
Extended rests do not affect the number of Karma Points a player has. The DM is encouraged to award 1-3 KP to each player, each level. It may be that some of your players never do things that you feel warrant receiving them (for example, "watcher"-type players), but even such players may feel left out if they never get to use this rule. If you find that that is happening, you may choose to award every player one additional karma point for completing a Major Quest, and also slightly decrease the number of karma points you award for other things (to 0-2 to each player per level.)
Players are encouraged to use them on particularly (or unexpectedly) tough encounters. Players may "store" KP equal to 5 at heroic tier, 7 at paragon tier, and 9 at epic tier. If a player is at his or her maximum, then they cannot receive any more karma points.
Here are some thoughts I've had as to what a Karma Point can do. PEACH.
And please feel free to add other suggestions. As a DM you're free to pick and choose from these possible uses for your campaign, but allow the same ones for all players.- A KP can act as an action point. Spending a KP can do any of the things which spending an action point can do. You may even spend a KP to take an extra action in the same encounter that you spend an action point for the same reason, but this is subject to two restrictions: you may not spend more than one KP in this way in a single encounter, and you may not spend a KP and an action point in this way in the same round.
- You may spend a KP to add a 1d6 bonus to any d20 roll you make, after seeing the result. This works as per the Deva's "Memory of a Thousand Lifetimes" ability. You may only use a KP in this way once per encounter.
- You may spend a KP to reroll any d20 roll you make, after seeing the result. You must take the new roll, even if it is lower. This works as per the Elf's "Elven Accuracy" ability. You may only use a KP in this way once per encounter.
- You may spend a KP as a free action to regain a spent encounter power. You may only use a KP in this way once per encounter. (Too strong? I'm considering limiting it to racials and core class abilities including channel divinities. Note that without this restriction it allows the player to regain Second Wind... I'm not sure what that might do.)
- You may spend a KP at the end of a short rest to regain a spent daily power other than one granted from a magic item. You may only use a KP in this way once per day. (Too strong?)
- You may spend a KP at the end of a short rest to regain a spent daily power from a magic item. If you do this, you also are treated as having met one additional milestone for the purposes of how many daily magic item powers you may use. You may only use a KP in this way once per day. (Too strong?)
- You may spend a KP in lieu of a healing surge.
I considered allowing the use of karma to gain additional gold or residuum while selling items, but I think this goes too far towards "permanent character abilities/powers," and also steps on the toes of the very specific treasure parcels laid out in the DMG. I think that if the DM wants to increase party treasure beyond what's recommended, he's free to do so, but KP aren't necessary for this.
This rule will, of course, slightly increase the overall power level of the players, and will especially increase their ability to "go nova" on particularly hard encounters.
This rule will, of course, slightly increase the overall power level of the players, and will especially increase their ability to "go nova" on particularly hard encounters.
I'd say, it increases their power considerably.
This is not neccessarily a bad thing and even though for instance a Daily Attack can be considered more powerful than a Magic Item Daily use or a Healing Surge, I believe your KP options to all be viable and every single one will probably be desirable above the others in some situation.
You have done a good job balancing the KP options against one another.
However there will be interactions with other game mechanisms that are less beneficial. Sone of your KP options duplicate racial or paragon path features. That reduces the value of those features somewhat because they are now openly available to everybody.
Regaining Second Wind isn't a big deal since most non-dwarves will not use it anyway as long as the party leaders haven't run out of 'words' to heal without standard action loss.
Although Daily Power regeneration can be huge with Dailies that last an entire encounter, the KP = AP option would be my first choice to kick out simply because it makes Action Points somewhat redundant and your other options are really powerful enough to make your players fight to the bone about upping their Kharma as quick as possible.
I'd prefer to think of it that way... making the character "lucky" without making it able to do more. To this end, I'd allow the point to grant a bonus to a roll, a reroll, or a negative to a roll by the enemy in the form of a defense buff.
The ability to reroll any die roll is somewhat less powerful than an action point;
I have to disagree here. It's situational but can be much more beneficial. Getting an extra at-will this turn is less than making your most powerful daily hit instead of miss (the example is drastic but holds true in it's minor versions, too).
While I don't consider it the strongest of features, it has been deemed good enough to be an option to be granted as part of a few Paragon Paths (Reasoning: If using an Action Point for Reroll is an advantage, then a reroll is not inherently less usefull than an Action Point).
Just use Action Points, and house rule them to allow for more actions, such as those you've listed.
Regaining Second Wind isn't a big deal since most non-dwarves will not use it anyway as long as the party leaders haven't run out of 'words' to heal without standard action loss.
Although Daily Power regeneration can be huge with Dailies that last an entire encounter, the KP = AP option would be my first choice to kick out simply because it makes Action Points somewhat redundant and your other options are really powerful enough to make your players fight to the bone about upping their Kharma as quick as possible.
Hmm, maybe the campaign I've been playing in just involves unusually hard encounters; our Bard seems to run out of HP-restore abilities in nearly every fight, our Paladin runs out of LoH quite often too, and we resort to second wind quite often, as well as mage-hand-tossing-around healing pots.
(The paladin also has that one item--I can't recall the name offhand, it's a cloak that lets you burn 2 surges when you second wind, and gain two surges worth of HP.)I think I agree about removing the "KP as AP" use for them. They're meant to be distinct. I was trying to make them somewhat distinct by making sure they didn't "count against" each other in the "one use per encounter" respect, but even so, they end up being fairly similar. Or--
No. It's poor game design. You're adding a redundant system, because everything you're describing is basically just a repurposing of Action Points.
Just use Action Points, and house rule them to allow for more actions, such as those you've listed.
The idea isn't simply to create another action point system; the idea was borne out of a desire to create an alternate reward for individual ingenuity besides "bonus XP."
I suppose I could just award extra action points, but then they'd go away at any extended rest--which would mean it's an underwhelming reward, especially if the "ingenuity" is expressed during or after the final encounter of the in-game day. Would you propose having two different classes of action points--normal ones gained through extended rests and milestones, and "Permanent Action Points" gained through DM awards? I could get behind that--it's not more complex than the HP vs. Temp HP issue--but then it's basically Karma Points at that point anyway, and the name difference is just cosmetic.
Taking your combined responses, I suppose I need to make them either more or less similar to APs.
Hmm, maybe the campaign I've been playing in just involves unusually hard encounters; our Bard seems to run out of HP-restore abilities in nearly every fight, our Paladin runs out of LoH quite often too, and we resort to second wind quite often, as well as mage-hand-tossing-around healing pots.
I think I agree about removing the "KP as AP" use for them. They're meant to be distinct. I was trying to make them somewhat distinct by making sure they didn't "count against" each other in the "one use per encounter" respect, but even so, they end up being fairly similar. Or--
The idea isn't simply to create another action point system; the idea was borne out of a desire to create an alternate reward for individual ingenuity besides "bonus XP."
I suppose I could just award extra action points, but then they'd go away at any extended rest--which would mean it's an underwhelming reward, especially if the "ingenuity" is expressed during or after the final encounter of the in-game day. Would you propose having two different classes of action points--normal ones gained through extended rests and milestones, and "Permanent Action Points" gained through DM awards? I could get behind that--it's not more complex than the HP vs. Temp HP issue--but then it's basically Karma Points at that point anyway, and the name difference is just cosmetic.
Taking your combined responses, I suppose I need to make them either more or less similar to APs.
Are you Dming this game you are talking about or playing in it? Sounds like you are dming. If that is the case wouldn't you know if the encounters are hard for the players?
Are you Dming this game you are talking about or playing in it? Sounds like you are dming. If that is the case wouldn't you know if the encounters are hard for the players?
The campaign I've discussed here is one I'm playing in. I do happen to know that the DM has been regularly throwing encounters at us ranging from partylevel+2 to partylevel+4 (and in fact he included one monster of partylevel+5; a vampire lord when we were 6th).
I'm thinking of DMing one myself soon, though, and I have a generalized interest in rule-making, which both are reasons that've got me thinking about houserules lately.