WotC: Do NOT tie Action Points to level advancement!!!

[Cam Banks]

Quite frankly, if AP are tied to level like they are in Eberron and SWSE, I'll do what I would do in those cases, too; I'll house-rule them not to be.

I second or third the notion that it's a truly repellent idea. By all means increase the maximum number of AP the character may have by level, but the AP themselves need a better mechanic for refreshing than level advancement.

Cheers,
Cam

 

[Doug McCrae]

My list of objections to action points per level is long indeed, but it centers around the feeling that the player is called upon to guess how much XP he'll earn so he can guess how long it will be until he refreshes his action point pool. This is, for me, a deeply jarring bit of metagame thinking.

Aren't action points purely a metagame construct anyway?

 

[catsclaw227]

When I read the thread title, I thought the OP meant: "WotC: Do NOT tie [Adventure Paths] to level advancement!!!" and I mused "huh.... how would they do that?"

As far as action points go, I have been using them in my games for quite some time (since UA came out), and I like them as a heroic mechanic, until higher levels where the PCs are already rather heroic. That said, making them per encounter or per day sounds much better. The PCs need to rest to get their heroic juices flowing again.

 

[takasi]

In our War of the Burning Sky campaign, I give everyone three action points per game session. It seems to work very well. I also allow them to use an action points to "cheat death". (Although I've still had character deaths...)

 

[Shieldhaven]

Aren't action points purely a metagame construct anyway?

They're a rules construct created to emulate the luck-against-all-odds and determination shown by Real! Action! Heroes!. They become a metagame construct when using them properly becomes the game-within-the-game, requiring players to make judgments unrelated to anything the characters can observe and disconnected from the immediate out-of-game elements (the necessary evils, if you will) that are necessary to resolve conflicts. What I mean by the latter part is that deciding to use an action point because your d20 roll is kind of crummy is one thing; deciding to use or not use an action point because you're worried that your current batch of action points will have to last for the next five sessions rather than the next three or four is quite another.

Haven

 

[Wormwood]

I prefer to have action points refresh per SESSION.

Each player gets X points at the beginning of the session and any left over at the end of the night are lost.

 

[2WS-Steve]

I'm sort of fond of the action points tied to level -- since you get xp and levels for accomplishing goals, you create an environment where the incentive is action in order to replenish their action points.

A per day or per session replenishing rate makes the incentive inaction -- or doing enough to burn your AP through the early part of the session then that kind of meandering around that happens in the second half when you're weaker.

Most players are good about it and will try to do at least something -- but the per day scenario creates what I think economists call a perverse incentive, and I'd prefer to see some other solution that rewards the kind of stuff we want to see heroes do.

Alternative solutions where you perhaps recharged or awarded AP for in-game actions would also work. The World of Darkness willpower rules could be a nice model.

 

[Wormwood]

A per day or per session replenishing rate makes the incentive inaction -- or doing enough to burn your AP through the early part of the session then that kind of meandering around that happens in the second half when you're weaker.

In my experience (AP per session), the opposite is true.

Players tend to hold their action points unless absolutely necessary, only really spending them as the end of the session approaches (when they are forfeited).

 

[Celebrim]

I'm not really a fan of action points either, nor do I think that the D20 game is a system well suited for them (ablative hit points, linear dice roll for resolution). Before I'd consider putting fate/force/hero points ect of any sort into the system, the game would have to look alot more mechanically like M&M (or WEG Star Wars) where they actually serve a useful purpose.

But, if you had them, I wouldn't tie them to level advancement. Much like WEG Star Wars or WW's WoD system, I'd tie thier replenishment to achieving role-playing goals suited to the character. This is in my opinion the most compelling reason to have such a story award mechanic at all.

I STRONGLY suspect however that the 4e design team would not be interested in such a mechanic for two very important reasons:

1) It relies on DM fiat, and this moves in the opposite direction of reducing the role of the DM in the resolution of game and 'empowering the players' which has been a hallmark of recent design.
2) Fourth edition is being pretty obviously designed for online computer arbitrated play, and goal based mechanics are difficult to program for and to balance in an openended world.

I do however suspect that the per level mechanic is going to prove to be unpopular enough that they'll find some thing else.

 

[drothgery]

I do however suspect that the per level mechanic is going to prove to be unpopular enough that they'll find some thing else.

Since there's been very little grumbling about it in d20 Modern, Eberron, and three incarnations of Star Wars (other than some recent dust-ups on 'my 20th level character can't get any more APs'), I'm thinking it's not unpopular.