I mean, Action Points are a finite thing, other than level ups. Theoretically, you could have undergon ten levels of a class, for an ability you could permanently run out of.
Would it be unbalancing to make most of those abilities once per day, or even once per session, and having it cost action points after that?
It just seems like it would be really lame to use up all your action points, and not be able to use a sweet class feature for the rest of a level...
I am, however, more a fan of using action points as rewards. When the PCs complete X mission. In addition to experience, they gain Y action points.
I do roleplaying rewards like that, too.
Just my PDC1.
maybe even less maybe 1d2+1 or 2, unless you like super heroic play
I wouldn't want to give out class abilities as either once per day or once per session (at least, the ones that run on Action Points) because I think it's assumed that you might use those abilities few times in a game. You get 6 APs per level, plus half your level. That's a lot. At the veary least, it's more than once per day.
Would be so awful if they did hoard them? I mean, if one of my players doesn't use one for a dozen games and then just starts adding 1d6 to every roll... I don't see a problem with that. 1d6 isn't actually all that much.
That's how my friend's Smart/Engineer survived combat. :D
Try '1 per game session plus 1 per day' if mostly your game sessions cover a single 24 hour period.
Try '2 per game session' if people start using them right away and then having their characters 'go back to the secret hideout and gather intel' or other timewasters simply to 'recharge' the abilty
Action points being once a day might actually hinder players though. From my experience, my players horded APs, spending MAYBE one per level through the first story arc. Then, when they fought super boss battle X at the end of their first story arc (Which took them from lvls 1-6, I believe) they spent, like 10 each in one battle. Very epic and also very cool. (And no, I did not design the boss battle to require the expendature of AP, they just really hated my villians and wanted to beat the snot out of them.)
That essentially depends on the number of sessions per level-up and the rate of action point expenditure per session. If you assume three sessions per level, your players are going to spend 57 sessions reaching level 20 (they start at level 1, so that's 19 * 3 sessions) and will have had at least 185 AP to spend along the way. This is about 3 AP per session, though in practice they'll have less to spend on the lower levels and more to spend on the upper levels.
So sticking to the standard rules for AP means that the character is limited to using these kind of abilities about three times per session. More if he's hoarded some points from previous levels/sessions.
So: Are AP costs for abilities a problem or not? You decide.
-DF
How many AP do you need to handle 13 situations?
Easy encounters tend to be resolved more quickly than challenging ones. I don't think three sessions per level is all that off the mark.
-DF
If you have 13 encounters to level, 3 encounters per session, then its about 4 sessions to level. Unless all four fights are on different days, they could use the ability more often by spending action points, especialy at higher levels.
I noticed people weren't spending action points. I've dealt with it three ways. 1 is by making them a physical object... poker chips. It reminds people to use them when they're sitting on the table. Secondly is if someone has a good idea, makes everyone squirt mountain dew out of their noses, or does something awsome i'll hand them a chip. thirdly, i'll remind players to use them by holding out my hand for a chip if the chip might help. That might be slightly cheating on the "spend the chip after the roll but before the results are revealed" thing, but theres nothing wrong with a little reminder.
I may be biased since I like to use poker chips as counters in of various sorts, but still.
-DF