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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mercule" data-source="post: 3758822" data-attributes="member: 5100">First, where did this information come from?  I saw mention of a podcast, but am clueless.Myself, I love action points and doubt I'd ever again run a 3x game w/o them.  My reasoning isn't to shield the players from their own stupidity or bad luck, but from mine.Most GMs have been in a position where they have thrown together an encounter, puzzle, etc. that should be really easy, but the players just aren't getting it and it's beating their tails.  Any GM who claims otherwise would be suspect.  Odds are good that, rather than me having five otherwise smart people at my table who all get stupid simultaneously, I'm the one who got stupid.  Sometimes I misjudge the clues I give or the challenge presented to a party.  Sometimes I forget or misapply a rule.  It's not like I'm doing more than one thing at a time, as GM, right?  If I make something too easy, then the players get a bye, essentially.  Sure, it's not as fun as getting just the right balance, but try again next time.  On the other hand, if I make something too hard, it can cost a player their character in pretty short order.  That sucks, to put it mildly.Action points are the players' shield against me screwing up.  APs give them enough time to realize things are going badly and bail or survive that one extra round they need for the encounter to play out as I expected.  IME, action points aren't abused.  They're only pulled out when the PCs really need that extra "oomph" one way or another.  They also haven't prevented some pretty freakish things from happening, like all be one PC being charmed by a harpy.  They just make corner cases less likely.I'm tickled that the idea of action points is, apparently, being included in the 4E PHB.  Hopefully, it's a good implementation.  If not, don't use it.  I didn't have any problems excising the paladin and monk from the 3.5 PHB.  APs in 4E couldn't be any worse.</blockquote>

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