General Discussion Thread X

Knight Otu · Dec 8, 2006

Here's one - http://www.geocities.com/edymnionii/EPLvsEL.html

Bront · Dec 9, 2006

LiquidBlue said:
Well there, you have it. Action points in practice are cumbersome. I wonder why that is? Do they not in general simply modify one's actions. That is during the course of a regular action they can be declared and used to modify that action. The only reason that I could see them being cumbersome in a PbP game is if they caused out of order actions.

They're cumbersome in PbP because of the delays in waiting for responces.

Example:

Wizard blasts party of 5 with a fireball, no one drops, but they all fail their saving throw.

Henchman then attacks and strikes down the fighter, since he was next.

Finaly, party cleric rushes to heal the fallen fighter.

Then fighter finaly responds, saying he wants to spend an action point because he missed his save and couldn't respond earlier. :\

Now the GM has to reset several things, and it's possable a day or two may have been lost.

In person, it wouldn't have been an issue, fighter would have rolled save, saw he failed by 1, and spent the action point. And at worse, it would take minutes to fix, not hours or days.

In person, they're great. in PbP, harder. That's why I like to ask people to suggest contingencies. (If I fail a save by 2 or less, I will automaticly use one) or (If I roll between a 10 and 15, I will use one). Still complex, but saves some time.

Patlin · Dec 9, 2006

Bront said:
In person, they're great. in PbP, harder. That's why I like to ask people to suggest contingencies. (If I fail a save by 2 or less, I will automaticly use one) or (If I roll between a 10 and 15, I will use one). Still complex, but saves some time.

You have to declare the use of the action point before the DM declares whether your roll was succesfull. That kind of lets off the "2 or less" thing. In fact, it could be interpreted to mean that if the DM declares "everyone roll a DC 15 will save" you're then obliged to declare the action point before rolling.

I may be stricter than is required on this, but it does prevent the problem you mention. Rather than going back and undoing 2 days for the fighter in question, my answer would be "Too late."

*shrug*

Bront · Dec 10, 2006

Patlin said:
You have to declare the use of the action point before the DM declares whether your roll was succesfull. That kind of lets off the "2 or less" thing. In fact, it could be interpreted to mean that if the DM declares "everyone roll a DC 15 will save" you're then obliged to declare the action point before rolling.

I may be stricter than is required on this, but it does prevent the problem you mention. Rather than going back and undoing 2 days for the fighter in question, my answer would be "Too late."

*shrug*

Actualy, you can use one after the roll, which is stated in the rules. Idealy it's supposed to be before you know if you succeeded or not, but after the roll.

But I'm a bit looser with them anyway. It's hard enough to get my group to remember to use them if they don't have some feat to augment them.

Patlin · Dec 10, 2006

Bront said:
Actualy, you can use one after the roll, which is stated in the rules. Idealy it's supposed to be before you know if you succeeded or not, but after the roll.

But I'm a bit looser with them anyway. It's hard enough to get my group to remember to use them if they don't have some feat to augment them.

I understand that, but the 'ideally' part is a second part of the rule. It rather assumes a certain manner of play, which isn't always accurate. My face to face group can't be the only one where a DM will call out 'Everyone make a DC 15 will save.' We're all adults, we trust each other, and it's a lot easier to process "I make it, I make it, I fail, I make it" than "18, 23, 14, 15."

If you do it that way, I think you technically must declare the action point before rolling.

Which I suppose is agreement that action points can be complicated!

Rystil Arden · Dec 10, 2006

Patlin said:
I understand that, but the 'ideally' part is a second part of the rule. It rather assumes a certain manner of play, which isn't always accurate. My face to face group can't be the only one where a DM will call out 'Everyone make a DC 15 will save.' We're all adults, we trust each other, and it's a lot easier to process "I make it, I make it, I fail, I make it" than "18, 23, 14, 15."

If you do it that way, I think you technically must declare the action point before rolling.

Which I suppose is agreement that action points can be complicated!

If a GM tried to pull that with me, I would demand that he never tell me the DCs for anything before asking for the roll--forcing the AP to be declared beforehand weakens it incredibly, as you need to know if the roll is going to be so low it won't matter, so high you don't need it, or right in the AP zone. Besides, eventually after trial and error you figure out what the target number is, or approximately anyway, so for instance, with the Warforged we're fighting in FF, I knew a 17 (which I rolled) wasn't going to hit since it missed before, but a 20 and probably a 19 would, so I threw an Action Dice.

Patlin · Dec 10, 2006

I suppose so. The new mechanic has as yet not managed to change the way we play the game, but perhaps it will eventually.

Rystil Arden · Dec 10, 2006

Patlin said:
I suppose so. The new mechanic has as yet not managed to change the way we play the game, but perhaps it will eventually.

Well, the wasy way to have it not change the way you play the game is to allow the Action Dice roll after the normal roll even if they know the DC. The other advantage there is that you aren't disadvantaging newbie players. What do I mean by that? Suppose you have a new player who doesn't really know all the numbers and an experienced player who does. The experienced player knows the DC formulas by heart and can guesstimate the key casting stat of an appropriately-challenging enemy caster enough to get the DC just about right and she knows about how much AC an enemy will probably have in full plate with a large shield (this doesn't mean she's cheating and looking at your notes, but she can get the right answer within about +-3 every time because she knows the rules). The new player doesn't know any of this and just guesses to use Action Dice when the rolls are a bit above average but not by much. The experienced player is going to have a massive advantage over the inexperienced player. If you just let them roll afterwards even after they figure out the DC, you don't have this issue.

Of course, making them do it beforehand also gets around the issue, but it also makes the Action Dice significantly more worthless. A few +3s (average) to what seem like hard rolls is much much less useful than a few +3s to rolls that are all on the brink. Forcing the Action Dice roll beforehand probably means that at most one action dice per PC per character level (and probably 0) are actually going to make a difference to the outcome of what the character used the point for. Players will all start taking the action point feats because the normal use of action points has become much more worthless.

LogicsFate · Dec 11, 2006

I agree, Action points are usefull and interesting, but my own experiences haven't been good, not bad, but not really good either.
In use I see three things happening.
1.In a few cases I've seen people narrowly pass something using an AP which usually spurring a little more interesting flavor text from the GM.
2.In others I've seen people just horde them, keeping them unless forced, waiting for the BBEG encounther, and sometime not even using them then.
3.Last I've seen APs use by some as an easy clot, spending them to stabilze each time they go down(which also eventually spurred the GM to more interesting Flavor text

)

Just my experiences though, I've seen mostly option 2 and 3. Which means I've seen many APs wasted or used in a ways that seem much less heroic.

Rystil Arden · Dec 11, 2006

LogicsFate said:
I agree, Action points are usefull and interesting, but my own experiences haven't been good, not bad, but not really good either.
In use I see three things happening.
1.In a few cases I've seen people narrowly pass something using an AP which usually spurring a little more interesting flavor text from the GM.
2.In others I've seen people just horde them, keeping them unless forced, waiting for the BBEG encounther, and sometime not even using them then.
3.Last I've seen APs use by some as an easy clot, spending them to stabilze each time they go down(which also eventually spurred the GM to more interesting Flavor text )

Just my experiences though, I've seen mostly option 2 and 3. Which means I've seen many APs wasted or used in a ways that seem much less heroic.

Yeah, I just used my first AP in Living Eberron and pulled a #1 (I typed some cool flavour text too), but I do think they tend to be hoarded for the final encounter, and with the AP feats, you can do ridiculous things to the poor BBEG :lol: