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

I quite like the True20 mechanic for recovering Conviction. You get 1/day for free, and you recover additional Conviction (essentially AP) for role-playing in the spirit of your character. The system has you define your character's nature with a Virtue and a Vice, and performing behavior appropriate to either trait allows you to recover Conviction.
 

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I have been using the Arcana Evolved "Hero Points" (action points on steroids). In AE RAW, Hero Points are very rare to compensate for their power. I house ruled them to be have even more uses, and handed them out like candy--but I put a cap on the number that the player can have at one time. This change was directly intended to stop hoarding with a bunch of players that love to hoard, and it worked. (I also used Hero Points for overcoming level drain, creating magic items, and all other uses of XP besides actually advancing the character. All roleplaying, cleverness, and other such awards were done in Hero Points instead of XP, which kept characters at same level, but rewarded good play.)

IMHO, this is what SWSE should have done, and a tweak to that would work fine for 4E. Isn't SWSE something like 5 AP per level, +1/2 AP per current level? Instead of making that the amount you get when you level, make it the cap. So a 4E 1st level character can have 5 AP. When he reaches 2nd level, he can now have up to 6 AP. However, the rate at which a character gains those points, and when, can be any number of things, depending on the rule set and the style of the campaign. It's pretty easy to support the existing SWSE model then. Just make one of the options for replenishment be:

Characters start with AP equal to their cap. When they gain a level, and only when they gain a level, they reset to AP equal to their cap.

But it's a heck of a lot easier to provide other options, like:

1. GM Fiat - you get AP when the GM says you do, due to story awards, heroic actions, or whatever the players want rewarded.

2. You get 3 points per session, up to the limit of your cap.

3. Any number of hybrid replenishment mechanisms.

Near as I can tell, there are two design issues being addressed with the SWSE mechanic--balancing the number of AP that the character can have at any one time, and encouraging a certain pace to the progression. IMHO, these two issues should be divorced, especially since the latter is far more likely than the former to need tweaking for style preferences.
 

I'm unhappy with Action Points being included at all. I sensed it was inevitible, but I still don't like it. It's fine for Eberron, but frankly, to me the D&D experience includes a hefy dose of "oops, the dragon ate you, so sad." If the new edition has action points, then an entire genre of play, of which D&D was the exemplar, is extinct.
 

pawsplay said:
I'm unhappy with Action Points being included at all. I sensed it was inevitible, but I still don't like it. It's fine for Eberron, but frankly, to me the D&D experience includes a hefy dose of "oops, the dragon ate you, so sad." If the new edition has action points, then an entire genre of play, of which D&D was the exemplar, is extinct.
Even if Action Points are not easily removed, it probably will not be difficult to disallow them for re-rolling or auto-stabilizing. Sure, they can still power certain abilities, but they are no longer saving the characters' asses.

I think that would be very possible.
 

pawsplay said:
I'm unhappy with Action Points being included at all. I sensed it was inevitible, but I still don't like it. It's fine for Eberron, but frankly, to me the D&D experience includes a hefy dose of "oops, the dragon ate you, so sad." If the new edition has action points, then an entire genre of play, of which D&D was the exemplar, is extinct.
The sacred cow is dead! Long live the new bovine overlord!
 

pawsplay said:
I'm unhappy with Action Points being included at all. I sensed it was inevitible, but I still don't like it. It's fine for Eberron, but frankly, to me the D&D experience includes a hefy dose of "oops, the dragon ate you, so sad." If the new edition has action points, then an entire genre of play, of which D&D was the exemplar, is extinct.

Having played in games that made heavy use of APs, trust me when I say that while they may lessen such things slightly, they remove neither the element of chance, nor the element of accidental meaningless death.
 

Mouseferatu said:
Having played in games that made heavy use of APs, trust me when I say that while they may lessen such things slightly, they remove neither the element of chance, nor the element of accidental meaningless death.
Plus, it's easy for a group of like-minded players to just ignore the reroll and stabilize options of Action Points...I mean if the groups goal is to emulate a certain gaming style, then there is nothing stopping them (obviously, diverse groups will have a more difficult time).
 

Mouseferatu said:
Having played in games that made heavy use of APs, trust me when I say that while they may lessen such things slightly, they remove neither the element of chance, nor the element of accidental meaningless death.

That's reassuring, at least. I don't have much room for comparison... never used them for D&D, and in Star Wars, PCs are virtually immortal.
 

Celebrim said:
I wasn't talking about Game Table. I was talking about WotC going after the MMORPG market. I think WotC believes it is in thier interest to have a system which is as portable to video gaming as possible so that the two branches of thier business can more easily market one another.

They are probably right.

One of the stated goals of 3E was a system that was easier to port to video games.
 

Personally, I don't know if AP is so much dependent in Dungeons & Dragons. Mind you, I don't play nor have any interest in Eberron.

In previous (and current) editions (A)D&D, I played without AP and they're just as much fun without them than with them.

If you can do more with AP other than boosting one's roll or check, then it's logical to offer characters more AP to spend. Having said that, I don't like special abilities that require the spending of AP.

As for replenishing, there has to be a balance that would allow players to have fun yet not depend on AP constantly to fix things (the "do-over" effect). After all, why even make a roll or check if you just want a Success result in the first place and not face the consequence of Failure?
 
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