Do you guys' characters really drop to 0hp so infrequently? One of mine goes down on average once per encounter.
In the Coaltongue fight, I dropped all but one PC by the end. The Yerasol Veteran was the first to go down, as the Defender.
In the fight against Asrabey, everyone was near 0hp, but none dropped, as they decided to not pursue Asrabey when he took to the roof.
Otherwise, through tactical decisions and roleplaying, I haven't dropped anybody, no. There was no combat with the Dockers, they talked down the mine foreman, they got low on HP but didn't drop at the lighthouse, and they roleplayed past the hedge maze.. I haven't started adventure 2 yet.
Clearly I need to make things harder.
I really do prefer 'dropped to 0 hp' instead of bloodied.
No, the difficulty is pretty much right where I'd like it. There shouldn't really be someone dropping every fight, and yet people are ALMOST dropping all the time in my game. Difficulty isn't too low.
The "problem" is actually multi-sided.
- The YV is likely to be a Defender, or at least in melee, and thus is likely to be the first to drop in an encounter. If they drop first, they can't activate the ability to grab the action point.
- Much of the time, through good tactics, nobody will drop in an encounter.
- Most of the encounters in Zeitgeist have variant ways to bypass them without combat, resulting in nobody dropping to 0hp.
With these combined, even with a good amount of difficulty in the game, the YV may never be able to get his free action point. The flavour is great, but the ability is... well, problematic.
Add to that that the YV now has an incentive to let a party member drop to 0hp. As a Defender theme, it should be focused on preventing this, not making it desirable.
Actually, thinking about it, the flavour is also problematic, even when it activates. Someone drops to 0hp, and the YV gets the courage to do something extra... later. When it's more needed.
How about the following:
"Once per day, when an ally drops to 0hp from an enemy attack, you may make a melee or ranged basic attack as a free action against the enemy that made the attack. You may sheathe a weapon and draw a weapon as a free action before making this attack."
Still concerned that it sounds like you only get the choice once per day. How about, "Whenever an ally you can see drops to 0 hp, you may gain 1 action point. You may only gain an action point in this way once per day."
Is it really a choice, though? Since you can only use an AP once per encounter, still, and this AP doesn't need to be used during the current encounter, the best course of action will always be to get it early and save it until you want to use it.
