Action Points

[Nullzone]

I have an idea to change action points from giving you an extra action to letting you recharge powers (1/power, and powers with multiple charges only buy you one charge). You can use this on any power you like; encounter or daily, including Second Wind. Recharging a daily power can only be done between combats though to prevent hoarding APs and going spam-happy with one attack over and over.

The idea here is to help cut down on nova and keep tension high, letting people use their awesome daily powers more, and cutting down on the resting at unreasonable intervals. Allowing it to recharge Second Wind gives people a little more individual utility for self-preservation (as well as providing some classes some interesting benefits and giving players more than just their encounter powers as triggers for their Paragon Path AP benefit), and allows a little more aggression than usual on the table from the monsters.

You still gain APs at the same rate (1/milestone, and resting resets you to 1), but can use as many as you want per combat (aside of the daily power rule, and the PP effect only works once).

Input is welcome

 

[eriktheguy]

Similar ideas have been suggested. I think some paths/destinies allow similar AP use. Using this to recharge an encounter power is a little weak: you are almost always better off hitting with two at-wills than with one encounter power.

Recharging dailies during short rests is a more palatable choice, and could help extend the adventuring day.

Trying to discourage hoarding APs? Allowing players to use more than one per combat promotes hoarding. If they can only use one per fight, there is no point in storing up 5 for the boss fight; if they can use many per fight they can save up and act twice per round against the boss for 3 or more rounds.

Maybe you can throw in a second bonus with the 'recharge encounter' usage of APs. A move action, a basic attack, free use of second wind or full defense. An action point for an encounter power just seems like too little compared to the extra at-will attack it could be granting.

 

[Nullzone]

Well, I suppose it's worth noting that the game where I intend to implement this, they're already paragon, so they'll already be getting the AP boon from their paragon path. I left the encounter option open so they'd have a way to trigger their boon if they wanted it in combat and had no reason to recharge second wind. I may consider giving them a "free" second wind off of it though, you're right. That would add a little more appeal and then you don't have to manage using and then recharging second wind itself.

Good call on the 1/encounter too, my initial thought process was just "use APs whenever" and then I kept remembering the other impacts APs have, and adding exceptions rather than just boiling it down to the lowest common denominator.

 

[eriktheguy]

On a side note, I DO allow multiple action points per encounter (limit 1/round). In my campaign I run action points as an adventure resource rather than a daily resource. You can carry action points over to the next day, or reset to 1 after an extended rest. Some players have 3 action points at a time, so they save them for later even on the last encounter of the day.

 

[aco175]

I've implemented using them to reroll hitting with encounter/daily power. I would say it gets used this way 40% of the time, mostly casters i think.