Charisma bonus added to Action Points in Eberron?

[Bront]

I was thinking of using this in my home Eberron campaign to reduce Charisma from being somewhat of a dump stat, and possibly adding to the high adventure feal a bit.

Does this throw balance off a bit? I know it favors a few High CHR characters, but not by a lot, and they (Bards and Sorcerers) are the ones that get a bit less out of it (Can't benifit from Spontanious Casting feat, which burns Action points to let you swap out a spell).

 

[ARandomGod]

Action points are pretty powerful. I've been playing with them in some of my games for a while now.

The main balance issue I could see would be that certain prestige classes and at least one feat that I know of also grant extra action points, and this would make those benifits comparatively less.

Do I think that's a big issue? No, not really. But it's at least a little issue, something to think about. You might want to look at those feats/PrC's and consider adding something else (maybe just adding the extra from the class ability and two times their charisma bonus... although that would make the feat awesome for a high charisma character).

 

[nothing to see here]

I don't play Eberron, but I do use this variant and it rocks. Gives a meaningful MECHANCICAL advantage to Charisma so even the most committed one dimensional hack-and-slasher sees it as more than a dump state.

Our groupd did run a campaign with slightly less magic so we upped the number of Action points slightsly to equalling (LEVEL + CHA modifier) each time they levelled up.

Another thing we didn't like was favoured class rules. However, by removing favoured class we were also de facto weakening humans and half elves against the other classes (giving away an otherwise restricitve racial feature for free). To compensate we gave humans and half elves a couple of extra Aciton Ponts each level. 1 extra point for levels 1-7, 2 extra AP's for levels 8-14, 3 extra AP's for levels 15-20...and 4 extra AP's for each epicl level.

That's the beauty of easily portable mechanics like Action Points, it allows you to rebalance things you don't like in the core rules, by tweaking with the way they are adjudicated.

 

[Nifft]

I wouldn't worry about Bards & Sorcs. They're traditionally underpowered. Especially Bards.

Worry about Paladins. Worry about extra uses of 1/day abilities like Smite Evil.

Balance the Paladin with this mechanic, and you're gold. (In the swashbuckly game that I'm considering Action Points for, there will be no Paladins.)

-- N

 

[MadBlue]

I wouldn't worry about Bards & Sorcs. They're traditionally underpowered. Especially Bards.

Worry about Paladins. Worry about extra uses of 1/day abilities like Smite Evil.

Balance the Paladin with this mechanic, and you're gold. (In the swashbuckly game that I'm considering Action Points for, there will be no Paladins.)

Although really, since you'd need to burn 2 AP to get another use of a class ability like Smite Evil, that would amount to an extra two Smites over an entire level for an 18 Charisma - and that's not even guaranteeing that they'll hit. For most Paladins, they might be better off spending those extra 4 AP to boost the To Hit rolls of 4 Smites that need a bit of help to succeed.

MadBlue

 

[Nifft]

Depends how fast you level up, of course.
And how much combat there is per day.

IMC, I give out Fate Points, which are like double-power Action Points, except:
1/ You get them for helping the game OoC (writing a journal, making pictures of battles, etc.)
2/ They don't regenerate each level.

I've done some extended running / fighting / etc. scenes, and the party Paladin has made very good use of Fate Points via Smiting.

-- N

 

[MadBlue]

Depends how fast you level up, of course.
And how much combat there is per day.

If you're leveling up so fast that you can afford to spend 2 AP per combat to get an extra Smite, without considering what else your AP can be spent on, that's not the fault of the Paladin class or Action Points. Even without AP, if you're only going through one combat a day, any class that has spells or daily powers is going to come out ahead. That's hardly something to blame the rules for.

MadBlue

 

[Nifft]

Even without AP, if you're only going through one combat a day, any class that has spells or daily powers is going to come out ahead. That's hardly something to blame the rules for.

Right, one combat/day really lowers the value of Action Points.

Blame?

-- N

 

[MadBlue]

Right, one combat/day really lowers the value of Action Points.

My point is that one combat a day makes spellcasters and classes with daily use abilities much more powerful, because they're unlikely to exhaust their spells and/or abilities, even without the use of AP to get extra uses. The rules balance classes with daily use abilities and spells with those that don't have daily use abilities and spells with the assumption that you're going to run through a few encounters a day and use up your spells and abilities at one point. If you're a 10th level Paladin and the DM only runs one combat a day, you always start combat with 3 Smites, 4 spells, Turn Undead, Lay on Hands and a mount. You're probably not going to need the extra Smites. Then again, if you're using AP in that one combat, sure, you can get plenty of extra Smites, but you're going to use up your AP long before you level up.

Conversely, if you're leveling up so quickly that it allows you to have AP to spend on extra Smites in every encounter, that's hardly the fault of the rules, either.

Seriously, I don't see the reason for concern about balance, unless you're running one of the styles above, in which case, you've already thrown balance out the window, anyway.

MadBlue

 

[Nifft]

My point is that one combat a day makes spellcasters and classes with daily use abilities much more powerful

Duh.

Conversely, if you're leveling up so quickly that it allows you to have AP to spend on extra Smites in every encounter, that's hardly the fault of the rules, either.

By the RAW, you should have about 20% encounters 3-4 CR higher than the party's average ECL. 13.3 fights/level * .20 = 2.7. So, 1-2 Action Points per hard fight.

Yeah, +4 AP/level can make a significant difference.

-- N