Action Points for re-rolls: what breaks?

[Syrsuro]

I am going with a slightly weaker variant of this idea, loosely based on a blog post here: Heroic Effort | A Butterfly Dreaming

By spending an action point, the players can roll a second die (and they must identify which die is the second die) on any d20 roll simultaneously with the standard d20 roll.

If either die is a success, the attack/skill check/ etc. is a success. However the second die cannot generate a critical hit or other special benefit for rolling a 20, and cannot be re-rolled through any power. Naturally, the original die can be rerolled and can generate critical hits. All modifiers to the attack can be applied to either die as appropriate.

This allows the players to - by spending an action point - significantly increase the odds of a particular hit landing but it does not increase the odds of a critical hit. But it is not quite as powerful as allowing them to wait until they miss and then choose to spend the action point.

Carl

 

[keterys]

I'd worry about people wasting their action points excessively with that variant, but it's certainly a much safer variant.

 

[mattdm]

I'd worry about people wasting their action points excessively with that variant, but it's certainly a much safer variant.

Yeah, it certainly encourages saving action points to make sure your encounter or daily powers connect. This then reduces thinking about action points as resources to be used at a critical moment to do two different moves or attacks that work together. Which, in my mind, equals less fun.

 

[Syrsuro]

Yeah, it certainly encourages saving action points to make sure your encounter or daily powers connect. This then reduces thinking about action points as resources to be used at a critical moment to do two different moves or attacks that work together. Which, in my mind, equals less fun.

I disagree.

It gives you the choice between using it to take two attacks (which has many obvious benefits) or to use it to land a single attack. I don't think either is necessarily the obvious choice.

If I were to guess, I would guess that they might save one AP per day to use to land their daily but the others will be used as often for actions as the heroic roll.

But since I haven't used the rule much yet, it's really too early to judge how they will react.

If this is a problem, I may return to my original idea which was to allow the extra roll on dailies only.

Carl

 

[Paul Strack]

I've used action points for re-rolls in several sessions now and haven't found it to be particularly unbalancing. Remember to use it for your Elites and Solos as well, though. It also sucks when you Big Bad whiffs on his major attack and ends up looking like a wuss.

Regarding concerns that it will slow down combat, my experience has been the opposite. Since your big attacks end up hitting more often, there is more overall damage inflicted and combats go faster. Anyhow, it takes less time to re-roll an action you've already taken than it does to pick and make an extra standard action.

EDIT: It isn't relevant yet, but when my PCs reach the Paragon tier, my plan is to convert all the Paragon "action point for a re-roll" powers to "action point for a re-roll at +2".

 

[Evilhalfling]

Im doing exactly the same as Paul, I also added the caveat that action points spent on a basic re-roll also trigger all events triggered on using an action point for a second action.

I wonder about humans using action points for a +5 using a pp reroll and paragon feat.

only 2 games DM'd and action points have always been used for reroll - but playing my 13th lvl pbp charater, I would prefer 2 actions.

 

[vic20]

Thanks all for the responses.

I like Syrsuro's "spend a point for a secondary die" approach. The fact that it is a decision made up front helps me a bit with my "why wouldn't the player ALWAYS re-roll a whiff?" mental block.

 

[BASHMAN]

Something to consider: Some paragon paths grant the ability to use action points to re-roll attacks, so if you do this then you will need to replace those abilities if a player takes one of those paths.

I think an elegant solution for those paragon paths would be that if you use a point to do a reroll, you get to do it with a bonus to the roll-- or you get to roll 2d20 and take the better result.