When do monsters recover action points?

[Scholar & Brutalman]

In our game last night an elite monster used an action point in one encounter and then ran away. We had a 5 minute rest before going after it. In the second encounter the DM wanted to spend its action point, some of the other players objected, saying it had already spent it and hadn't had a milestone, and I spent a whole lot of time looking through the books to find out when monsters are meant to regain their action points.

So is AP recovery for monsters covered in the rule books or the FAQ? I've had a look, but maybe I used the wrong search terms.

[Crossposted on WotC forums]

 

[Mort_Q]

There are no rules as far as I know. It's a pretty edge case situation. I'd treat it like NPC HPs.

i.e. NPCs regain AP when and if the plot warrants it.

 

[Nifft]

I'd say a monster's action point pool resets along with its encounter powers. Monsters have fewer resources.

Alternately: it ate six villager babies (fillet minions) while you were resting, so it had another encounter.

If I were DM'ing this, I'd probably throw in a Skill Challenge before you met the critter again, so you'd have your Action Points back too. But I like Skill Challenges.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Mengu]

I'm with the DM decides camp. In other words, it probably should recover the action point. If solos can have 2 action points and use them both in the same encounter, I have no problem with elites recovering their action point after a short rest. I'd have solos recover both their action points too.

Of course if a solo barely escaped, and I don't want another long drawn out battle, I might not have it recover all its hit points, or its action points. DM designs the encounters. Sometimes this is done on the fly, and giving or removing action points is totally up to him. He can even give standard monsters action points, if for instance the monster survived one fight, ran off and joined another group for a later fight. Makes things more exciting.

 

[CapnZapp]

Using Dungeon adventures as a guide, my monsters get one healing surge for free if they survive an encounter.

That is, they start the next encounter having healed 1/4 hp. They can still spend healing surges (assuming the rare case where a monster do have a surge power to use) assuming they haven't used them up in previous encounters. Point is: they get 1/4 hp healing for free, without having to spend any hs (not that there's a difference for most monsters).

As for action points; I'm awarding 1 AP after each encounter, so an Elite would have its AP back; a Solo might be down to only 1 AP. But I could also give it all APs back depending...

 

[Ryujin]

Barring specific rules to the contrary, I would say that the same rules that apply to characters would apply to the opposition.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Use a simple rule for monsters. If a monster encounters the PC's and lives to talk about it, then it counts as a milestone.

 

[Engilbrand]

Monsters don't use the same rules as the PCs. As long as there was at least enough time for a short rest, then it regained everything.

 

[the Jester]

Use a simple rule for monsters. If a monster encounters the PC's and lives to talk about it, then it counts as a milestone.

That's exactly right imho. A milestone is not necessarily 2 encounters; when my 16th-level group encountered two 18th-20th level encounters in a row, each was a milestone.

 

[KarinsDad]

I totally change how the game works in some case.

As an example, the PCs ran into a Succubus and some devils last week.

To me, Charming Kiss should be total infatuation mind control. I was ok with the Dominate power forcing a single At Will power (that too really should include Encounter powers), but if a PC is going to jump in front of attacks for the NPC, s/he is also going to use resources short of Dailies to help out their new ally. So, I had a charmed PC throwing Encounter powers (if available) at the other PCs. It was fun and interesting because the players had not before encountered that level of NPC mind control.

The same for Action Points. The DM should refresh them as he sees fit for the enjoyment of the encounter.