BrOp's Age of Worms Adventure Path (OOC)

[Branding Opportunity]

Lacking the books to read, and never having used them before, how many do I have?

I have never understood the concept of action points.

I'll give you the basic concept, and then my additional thoughts on how they should work in a PbP game.

Action points are a way of altering a d20 die roll in dramatic situations, reflecting the luck that can change crushing failure into heroic success. Each time you spend an action point you get to add 1d6 to any d20 die roll you make. You can only spend one point a round, and you have a total of 5 action points at 1st level. Each time you attain a new level you gain a fresh supply of action points equal to 5 + 1/2 your new character level, rounded down. At 2nd and 3rd level, however, you can only have a maximum of 6 action points, so any "extra points" you haven't spent are lost. The rules say that you can't use an action point on a skill check where you "take 10" or "take 20", but I disagree with the latter.

Now the rules say that you can spend an action point after a d20 has been rolled, but before you know if the roll is a success or failure. I think that on a PbP game this would slow the game quite a lot, as I resolve all the die rolls. The only way that I can think of dealing with this is to allow you to affect a roll with an action point even after I declare the result. Yes, that makes this mechanic more powerful, but I can't see a way around it otherwise. Anyone else have any good ideas? Have people run them in PbP games before?

 

[Ranger Rick]

When do you get these action points back? When I level up? That brings another question, how will we know we are getting close to leveling?

 

[Branding Opportunity]

When do you get these action points back? When I level up? That brings another question, how will we know we are getting close to leveling?

You don't "get them back" you simply get a fresh supply (as detailed in my previous post) every time you level up. You have a max amount you can have in your "pool" every level (6 at 2nd and 3rd, 7 at 4th and 5th, 8 and 6th and 7th and so on.) Any over that number are lost when you gain a new level. For instance, if you are about to become second level and you have 2 action points left, you gain 6 new points, which would bring your total to 8 points. However, because at 2nd level you have a 6 action point maximum, you loose the "extra" 2 points.

I meant to let you know how many XP you got for your last encounter. The encounter with the wolves was worth 133 XP for everyone. Please update your character sheet to reflect this.

 

[lotuseater]

one possibility is to try and handle it the way i suggested for my own luck rerolls. people should have a good idea if a certain attack roll/skill check etc. is important enough to warrant an action point be used. they should then let you know before hand that they might want to on this one. at the same time, you might realize that a certain save or initiative roll, etc might warrant an action point, and you might ask before you show the results. of course, sometimes it might be after the fact, but i think we can do a pretty good job of trying to let each other know when an action point might come into play.

 

[Erekose13]

I think that as long as you are rolling the dice then the best way would be after the fact. The only other way would be either as lotuseater indicated that you have to state that a roll is important enough to potential warrant it or you declare the roll, then we say yea or nay then you post results. Both of which are too complicated, the former means we will generally never use them and the later taking way way too long.

 

[Bront]

The rules say that you can't use an action point on a skill check where you "take 10" or "take 20", but I disagree with the latter.

The mechanic for taking a 20 is that you have enough time to simply roll and retry till you get a 20, and there is no penatly for failure. Under that mechanic, using action points on a take 20 doesn't work well. Doesn't mean you can't allow it, but that's the official reasoning.

Taking a 10 means you are doing an average job and there is little effort or danger involved in the activity, and you have time to make sure you don't do a below average job. I can see the rational for not allowing action points here as well, as this is definately not "action"

I don't see why for some rolls we can't declair that we are going to use an AP if we fail (Fairly easy in combat, or on skill rolls we suggest). The luck reroll is a bit different, but could be used similarly. But we should have the opertunity to ask to use an AP if we fail a save or other roll, or we can simply trust the GM to use them for us on occasion unless we've spelled out to him not to (which is a faster option, though not sure how good it is).

 

[Branding Opportunity]

Family in town. Will post more tomorrow or Friday at the latest.

 

[D20Dazza]

Good ideas? Have people run them in PbP games before?

I've seen it done in other games where the players post the circumstances under which they will use an action die. For example on an attack against an Ogre I would say "I swing lustily at the slavering brute with my sword - ooc if I roll less than a modified 13 I use a action dice" Nice and simple and keeps the game flowing yeah???

 

[D20Dazza]

Family in town. Will post more tomorrow or Friday at the latest.

No worries mate, enjoy the visit (not the mo-in-law is it *shudder* ).

 

[Branding Opportunity]

I've seen it done in other games where the players post the circumstances under which they will use an action die. For example on an attack against an Ogre I would say "I swing lustily at the slavering brute with my sword - ooc if I roll less than a modified 13 I use a action dice" Nice and simple and keeps the game flowing yeah???

The thing that I've discovered with the action die is that you want to use it on a lowish roll, but not a low roll. On a really low roll you know that even rolling a 6 on the action die will do nothing. You want it for something close. I like the of letting me know ahead of time that you would like to use it in a given round, and then letting me decide when I actually see what I roll for you. How does this sound?