D&D 5E (2014) Hero Points/Inspiration Mechanic

[TheDonger]

Apologies if this has been covered already, but I plan to incorporate both the hero points and inspiration mechanic in my campaign. Curious to know your experience with these mechanics... Is it good/bad to use both or either? Thanks.

 

[AriochQ]

I have never used hero points in D&D. My current campaign has some pretty brutal encounters so I allow characters to save up Inspiration up to their character level. We also have players award Inspiration. Each session, each player can award 1 Inspiration point to another player. If they do not award it by the end of the session, it is lost. The DM can also award Inspiration as per the normal rules as appropriate.

 

[Jester David]

I find the resource management hero points awkward. Since there's a small pool each level that can be exhausted, players are loathe to use them. They're also easy to forget, only being a number on the sheet.
I've found per session or other method of recharging tends to work better. (I currently award them to players for completion of a log or campaign journal entry on our game's website.)

I like representing the points with a physical prop. Since my current game is pirate themed I'm using plastic dollar store gold coins. If you have a few bucks to spare, Campaign Coins are excellent for this, being metal and gorgeous.

For inspiration, I have giant d20s:

So when the player uses their inspiration they can just roll the die.

 

[TheDonger]

Arioch - You must be throwing some crazy encounters at your PCs. Sounds like you have a good system, but Im wondering whether multiple Inspiration will unfairly skew encounter balance too much in favor of PCs.

 

[Paraxis]

The Angry DM just put up a very good article about using inspiration in different ways.

http://theangrygm.com/take-the-suck-out-of-inspiration/

After reading that I am seriously thinking of changing the way I use inspiration in my games.

 

[AriochQ]

Arioch - You must be throwing some crazy encounters at your PCs. Sounds like you have a good system, but Im wondering whether multiple Inspiration will unfairly skew encounter balance too much in favor of PCs.

We use campaign coins to track inspiration. Gold the players hold on to for Inspiration, brass they get one per session to give to another player (which is then exchanged for a gold coin).

In the long run, players average 1 Inspiration per session (plus whatever I give out, and I am stingy). It does let them stock up on Inspiration for really tough battles or when things start to go really bad. I don't find it imbalancing, but I am also the kind of DM that will throw a wrench into the mix if I think the battle is going to easily.

 

[CapnZapp]

The Angry DM just put up a very good article about using inspiration in different ways.

http://theangrygm.com/take-the-suck-out-of-inspiration/

After reading that I am seriously thinking of changing the way I use inspiration in my games.

Thanks. Some good advice on making the inspiration mechanic more relevant.

As for inspiration granting advantage however... I would have preferred something that didn't interact with the existing rules. Advantage can sometimes be hard to come by; getting it through rp kind of short-circuits this. Heroes are plenty capable as is.

I feel I want Inspiration to award something that stacks with everything else, that can't be used instead of game rules but on top of them...

 

[Paraxis]

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As for inspiration granting advantage however... I would have preferred something that didn't interact with the existing rules. Advantage can sometimes be hard to come by; getting it through rp kind of short-circuits this. Heroes are plenty capable as is.

I feel I want Inspiration to award something that stacks with everything else, that can't be used instead of game rules but on top of them...

I can see a few options not sure about the balance of them but I guess trial and error at individual tables would see what works.

1. Have Inspiration work like luck points gained from the Lucky feat, they allow you to roll an additional die and choose from all those rolled. So it turn advantage and disadvantage into roll 3 pick the highest.

2. Have Inspiration work like Action Points did in older editions and give a character an extra action, just like Action Surge fighter class ability.

3. Have Inspiration add a d6 (or higher maybe at higher levels) to any roll, this would be like action points from 3rd edition eberron. You could add in the other uses of action points and basically let them recover a spent ability or spell that would normally recover with a rest.

4. Have Legendary Inspiration points, I would only give these out infrequently but spending one would allow you to not roll the dice but just use the result as if you had rolled a 20. Make them spend it instead of rolling so they save it for when it matters most not when just just get a bad luck roll.

Thinking about it I might pull out my copy of Eberron and take a look at the action point system from it again, I like the idea of number 3 the most I think.

 

[Li Shenron]

Apologies if this has been covered already, but I plan to incorporate both the hero points and inspiration mechanic in my campaign. Curious to know your experience with these mechanics... Is it good/bad to use both or either? Thanks.

I don't like when the DM uses hero points or action points, mostly because they always feel too "meta". The only narrative explanation is typically "because you're heroes so you sometimes get to negate the odds".

Sometimes I feel that the problem comes from the game being too easy. If most of the time the PCs succeed at what they try to do, then failure really stings when it happens because of a bad roll, and therefore many players want a trick out of that situation. That's my short explanation about why hero/action points are actually pretty popular.

Note that I am not against using PC protections in general. As a DM I sometimes have players who clearly don't want their PC to die, and I have decided long ago that I will always let them stay alive (e.g. by replacing the event of death with some other penalty) if dying would seriously upset the player. However, hero/action points always feel too artificial, too much like "that was bad luck... so let's pretend it didn't happen". Why even rolling the dice in the first place then?

On the other hand, when I prevent a PC's death, I'm not "pretending it didn't happen", instead I am just voluntarily interpreting the condition "below 0hp" (or whatever defines death) as "death or something else, depending on the circumstances", and follow up with a narrative explanation (the penalty the PC gets is related to whatever caused the fatal blow).

That said, 5e inspiration is a lot better for me than mere hero or action points. The reason is that inspiration is much more solidly tied to the narrative, since it is gained usually by doing something in-character and feeling morally boosted afterwards, while in the most common case hero/action points are just a fixed daily pool.

I haven't actually used inspiration yet, but when I do it, I will however probably end up using it more sparingly than the other DMs out there. More specifically, I intend to grant inspiration mostly only to someone purposefully having her PC do something inefficient/inconvenient just because it feels more in-character compared to the most efficient choice. So you can either go for efficiency (which has its own reward) at the expense of playing in-character, or play more in-character and be compensated with inspiration.

 

[Mercule]

I find the resource management hero points awkward. Since there's a small pool each level that can be exhausted, players are loathe to use them. They're also easy to forget, only being a number on the sheet.
I've found per session or other method of recharging tends to work better. (I currently award them to players for completion of a log or campaign journal entry on our game's website.)

I like representing the points with a physical prop. Since my current game is pirate themed I'm using plastic dollar store gold coins. If you have a few bucks to spare, Campaign Coins are excellent for this, being metal and gorgeous.

For inspiration, I have giant d20s:
So when the player uses their inspiration they can just roll the die.

For the most part, this.

I hated the 3E per-level management. In my current Eberron game, I've got one player trying it out (gave as a feat). The two mechanics are similar enough that they get lost in each other. I'm looking for a way to blend them. Right now, I've got action/hero points modified so that the player has the option to either roll 1d4 (basically a Bless) after the d20 roll or gain Inspiration, which can be used immediately. They also reset after a long rest. It seems about right, so far. My house rules are here. FWIW, the d4 instead of d6 is because 1) they reset daily, 2) it's on par with Bless, and 3) I wanted to encourage the "gain inspiration" feature.

For Inspiration, I also picked up some distinctive d20s. They're all handed out, right now, so I can't give you any pictures. The FLGS had a bin of ugly dice from which I grabbed a bunch of half-neon and half-pastel dice. They really stand out, so no one forgets when they have Inspiration. They are, however, required to roll the actual Inspiration die for their Inspiration. I've found that inspiration dice > inspiration chips > ticky mark on paper.