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ShortQuests -- Pocket Sized Adventures! An all-new collection of digest-sized D&D adventures designed for 1-2 game sessions.

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="KarinsDad" data-source="post: 2316042" data-attributes="member: 2011">Characters should be able to become heroes without having Get Out of Jail Free cards.The risk of gaming is minimized. Might as well be playing Molopoly at that point.For example, PC Fighters tend to have a good chance to hit now as is. If a PC Fighter with Action Points is fighting the BBEG and threatens and then rolls only so-so on his critical roll, he can pretty much ensure most of the time that he does a critical, especially (at least in Eberron) once he gets high enough level (8?) to roll two D6 instead of one and take the higher of the two.Boring.Save or die saving throw. No problem.Granted, Action Points do not guarantee success, but they sure as heck decrease failure and take quite a bit of risk out of the game.A game with little or no risk is a more boring game. At least to me. A BBEG with a high spell resistance and high AC is a real threat. But, not in a game where the players can decide to use action points when they roll reasonably well. Then, the BBEG becomes just another day at the office challenge. Ho hum.The other problem, at least in Eberron, is that a group of PCs can have a LOT of Action Points. A 4 member party at low level: 20 points on the team. A 6 member party at higher level: 60 points of the team. Having a group modifiy their dice that many times within 3 to 6 gaming sessions (depending on campaign) from one level to the next makes it difficult for a DM to even challenge them without either adding Action Points to his bad guys or upping the power of each encounter (which has balance issues in and of itself).It becomes an arms race between the DM and players, just to maintain balance.Like I said, I'd rather give the players in-game ways to up their odds in crucial combats than make it purely a mechanical thing where the player has semi-control over the dice.</blockquote>

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