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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Crazy Jerome" data-source="post: 3759406" data-attributes="member: 54877">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.</blockquote>

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