Can you spend an action point outside of combat?

[kerbarian]

For example, it could be handy for a high-level character to have a suit of level-2 Veteran's Armor that he could put on outside of combat in order to use its daily ability: Spend an action point to regain the use of an expended daily power.

I don't see anything in the rules that would prohibit it, but it does seem to be against the spirit of action points. Is there anything I'm missing?

 

[Thanee]

Sure, don't see why not. You can basically start as many "encounters" as you like outside of actual encounters.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Doctor Proctor]

Sure, don't see why not. You can basically start as many "encounters" as you like outside of actual encounters.

Bye
Thanee

If that were true, then you'd also have unlimited milestones and AP's for a day too. Before you leave town, you just run through a bunch of encounters and build up a reserve of action points and milestones to power all magic items.

This, however, would be extremely broken... I think that the only time you should be using Action Points is actually in an encounter, since there are a lot of abilities that key off of them, such as Veteran's Armor. Allowing them outside of encounter encourages things like carrying 4 sets of Veteran's Armor and using them to recharge your dailies.

Unlike normal powers, I believe the rules only make reference to AP's being usuable in encounters, so I would stick with that.

 

[Wolf88]

i'd agree to AP being spent outside of combat to achieve some out of the ordinary feat, but putting on veteran's armor and recharging powers out of combat sounds too much like cheese to me...

oh and definitely no AP gain outside of combat

 

[Mort_Q]

I'd also say no. As you said, it seems to go against the spirit of the rules. YMMV.

 

[Nikosandros]

If that were true, then you'd also have unlimited milestones and AP's for a day too. Before you leave town, you just run through a bunch of encounters and build up a reserve of action points and milestones to power all magic items.

This, however, would be extremely broken... I think that the only time you should be using Action Points is actually in an encounter, since there are a lot of abilities that key off of them, such as Veteran's Armor. Allowing them outside of encounter encourages things like carrying 4 sets of Veteran's Armor and using them to recharge your dailies.

Unlike normal powers, I believe the rules only make reference to AP's being usuable in encounters, so I would stick with that.

The rules state that insignificant encounters don't count towards milestones.

I really don't see a problem in allowing that use of an AP outside of combat. In order for your hypothetical scenario to come to pass, you need to have accumulated all the action points. That means going though six real, dangerous encounters without expending a single action point.

 

[Thanee]

If that were true, then you'd also have unlimited milestones and AP's for a day too.

That's why I put the "..." there.

Theses are not really encounters, but you are allowed to use all your encounter powers and recover them with a short rest, then do it again, if you like. And each time you could also spend an Action Point.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Milambus]

oh and definitely no AP gain outside of combat

Non-combat encounters (Skill Challenges) count towards a milestone, and its Action Point, just as much as Combat encounters do.

 

[ThirdWizard]

This, however, would be extremely broken... I think that the only time you should be using Action Points is actually in an encounter, since there are a lot of abilities that key off of them, such as Veteran's Armor. Allowing them outside of encounter encourages things like carrying 4 sets of Veteran's Armor and using them to recharge your dailies.

Don't worry about it - it's already taken care of in the rules. This is exactly the reason why you have a limited number of daily item power uses available per day (with additional uses per milestone). See page 226 of the PHB. An epic level character who simply carries around a bunch of Veteran's Armor is limiting what they can do with other, high level, magic items.

 

[Lord Zardoz]

You could use the action point outside of combat, by way of skill challenges. Outside of an encounter, I suppose that I would see no problem with spending the action point outside of combat to get back the daily power via the magic item. However, I am not sure of the benefit to doing so, unless activating the magic item would count as an action by its self.

END COMMUNICATION