Action Points and Feats

[Prophet2b]

This is sort of a two question post... I'm preparing stuff to run an Eberron campaign, and I'm wondering...

1) Does anyone have any experience with action points in Eberron Campaign Setting and Unearthed Arcana? And if so, which version would you recommend going with? I'm leaning more toward UA, but I thought I'd ask.

2) Has anyone ever looked at the feats that use action points (like those in Dragonmarked or any other book? Or has anyone played a player or had a player in a group that used them? I'm curious, because they seem severely weak to me. You only get a limited number of action points, and then you spend a precious feat slot in order to gain an ability with your limited numbered "skill". And overall, it doesn't seem that the feats grant characters any ability that is noticeably more powerful than what they could otherwise do. In fact, it seems that they're far less powerful, if for no other reason than you could run out of uses. And I'm not sure the abilities they grant make up for that.

But, then, I've never seen them in play, either.

I was wondering if it might be overpowering for the characters if I took the "action point feats" in the Eberron books, toned them down a bit, and simply made them available as other general options players could use their action points for?

One final idea I had was to convert the feats to cards (like these Swashbuckler Cards), shuffle them all up, and hand one out to each player at the beginning of each session. That card would then designate for the player one extra ability he could use his action points for during that session.

But this all depends on how balanced action points and the action point related feats are (whether their under-balanced, over-balanced, or right on).

Thoughts? Comments? Ideas?

 

[just__al]

Best use of action points ever....

Party is travelling through savage territory, and after running off a hunting party, the party is attacked at night by the savages in force. The savages are using non-lethal damage and they manage to incapitate one of the females in the group and run off leaving a ceremonial tomahawk to indicate that they've claimed her as a challenge.

The party goes to the savages and if they want her back somebody in the party has to face the cheiftian's son in battle.

They are strapped together and given ceremonial weapons and the fight rages on.

The party's ranger has endurance because he's a ranger....

The fight goes fairly evenly but the ranger gets brought to -1 and uses his first of 4 remaining action points to have the diehard feat for a round. He starts fighting defensively and burns through his remaining action points over the next few rounds to keep taking diehard for one more round. On the round with his last action point he manages to hit the cheiftian's son and take him negative. They both collapse in a heap.

The savages healers rush in, heal everybody before they die and the party are now made members of the tribe and there's a big feast.

THAT'S what action points are for.

 

[James McMurray]

For the most part they're balanced as long as everyone (including important NPCs) has them. Only a few feats (like Heroic Surge) can be problematic.

 

[Slaved]

I like for them to refresh at a faster, more predictable rate. Especially if a feat is being spent on it.

 

[shilsen]

I handed out 3 action pts a session and never had any trouble with it. Then again, I run very tough encounters.

 

[MarkB]

I've used a selection of the Eberron action point feats, and didn't feel shortchanged by them. Action Boost is very powerful, especially to a spellcaster, and Spontaneous Casting works very well for divine spellcasters - being able to choose just the right spell for the occasion can really swing a battle.

The usefulness of these feats does very much depend upon how fast you progess in levels. At the standard 13-fights-per-level progression, you're going to be able to gain the benefit of your feat during a tough encounter often enough that it feels like it makes a diference, especially at higher levels.

 

[Prophet2b]

I've used a selection of the Eberron action point feats, and didn't feel shortchanged by them.

Okay, so it appears it's just the "on paper/in my head" that's making it seem like that might be the case. I won't mess with 'em then.

I like for them to refresh at a faster, more predictable rate. Especially if a feat is being spent on it.

I handed out 3 action pts a session and never had any trouble with it. Then again, I run very tough encounters.

Those are both good ideas. Yeah, if people are planning on using any of these feats, I think I might do that, too. I just can't see taking a feat for something you'll get to use a maximum of 5+however many times each level - especially since I'm going to try to draw out levels a bit more than I have in the past.

Besides that, shilsen, your story hour is one of my favorites (even though I've just started reading it, I can't stop) - so if you do it, then it must be good!

 

[werk]

I played using action points in Eberron in one campaign. The biggest problem for our group was remembering to use them.

I took the feat that gives you extra action points, as a prereq for a PrC. It was pretty much a wasted feat for the reason above, but would have fulfilled the PrC requirement.

I did remember to use my action points in one session, but it was my last session with that group. ...I won.

 

[shilsen]

Besides that, shilsen, your story hour is one of my favorites (even though I've just started reading it, I can't stop) - so if you do it, then it must be good!

Aw, thanks

I should give fair warning, however, that my method almost certainly isn't for everybody. It was very generous, simply because I really do run PCs through the wringer. I have signiicantly tough PCs, but they're constantly being taken down by much lower level NPCs, with an average of one PC dropping below -10 every two sessions. Since I effectively took death out of the game, because it causes significant problems with no real benefits in my kind of campaign (heavily character-driven campaign, where returning from the dead isn't an easy option), I allowed players to use three action pts to turn a killing blow/effect into one that dropped them to -9 hp (and stable) instead. Between that and having to use APs to stabilize when taken down, a lot of APs got used on sheer survival. Which is interesting considering we only have 1-2 encounters a session. If you run a very different game, my method might be quite a bad one for you.

I've also tried making APs work a fair bit like hero points from the M&M system, which worked fairly well, and would actually work better in a campaign that had more encounters a session than mine, actually.

 

[Prophet2b]

I played using action points in Eberron in one campaign. The biggest problem for our group was remembering to use them.

When playing the Serenity RPG, I got this big pack of Chinese coins (it fit the flavor of the game) and handed them out to players to be used as Plot Points (kind of like action points). I figure I'll hand them out for action points, too.

Players liked to fiddle with them a little bit, but at least they don't forget they have them to spend! Of course, in Serenity, they didn't roll often enough to spend them... but that will not be the case in D&D.