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Message: <blockquote data-quote="kerbarian" data-source="post: 3759846" data-attributes="member: 40393">If the goals for APs are* They can be used to help save your character's life* They can be used to pull off dramatic/heroic actions* Players actually use them for heroic actions and don't just hoard them for the life-saving usesthen we definitely need mechanics that actively fight hoarding.  Yes, there are players who will go for the dramatic actions even if it means that it could risk their character's life later, but, IME, most won't.  As many others have mentioned in this thread, characters will save their AP until either it looks like the character is in serious danger, or until the player can see the refresh coming and feels like he has enough left that he can burn through them without risking his character's life.The mechanic you mention of handing them out frequently but placing a cap will definitely work.  Players will probably still hover at or near their cap, but then they'll start using AP because they know that otherwise the points will be wasted.  So players will spend AP about as fast as they come in, and then when the character is really in danger, or there's a climactic battle, they can dip into their reserve.  Sounds good to me.One of the keys is that the refreshes need to be frequent.  Players will spend AP when they can see the refresh coming.  The closer the refresh is, the more willing they'll be to spend points.  Another key is adding to the pool of AP rather than resetting it.  If you reset the pool every once in a while, players will try to burn through their entire reserve right before the reset, which doesn't make much story sense -- why would characters go super-heroic at seemingly random intervals?  If you're always adding to the pool (and if the amount you're adding each time is small relative to the cap), there's no mechanics-induced desire to burn through it all at once.However, as has also been mentioned in this thread, I'd expect 4e to have very objective rules about when AP are awarded, rather than relying on DM whim.  The obvious options for when to award AP are:Per level:  The big problem here is that it's not frequent, which results in hoarding.Per session:  Could work -- I don't see any major problems.Per day:  Frequency is okay, but it means that characters could sit around for a few days to recharge AP.  Doesn't seem like a good side-effect.Per encounter:  Very frequent, but it also has weird side-effects like, "Thog is low on AP.  He'll go to the tavern and start a bar fight.  That's an encounter, right?"The issue with per-day and per-encounter awards of AP is that it allows the characters to take actions that let them stock up on AP.  One way to address that is to not allow saving up of AP at all.  It might not work per-day, since AP would then become a per-day resource like 3e spells, possibly shifting things back towards the 5-minute work day.Granting AP per encounter that can't be saved up could work, though.  Players can feel confident about the scope of the current encounter, so they won't feel like they need to hoard AP until the end of it.  One possible issue is that it means the PCs will be equally heroic in every encounter, rather than pulling out all the stops for the big, final battle.  Of course, that's saying that characters *should* have a reserve of AP that they're hoarding for big events.  That could be handled by having a reserve pool of AP (possibly even refreshing per level), plus granting a small number of AP each encounter that are lost if they're not used by the end of the encounter.So, a couple options that seem reasonable:1) Grant some number of AP every session that characters can save up, up to a cap.  e.g. 3 AP/session, with a cap of 15 AP.2) Grant some number of AP every encounter, and those AP are lost if they're not used during the encounter.  In addition, have a reserve pool of AP that's refreshed more slowly (perhaps per level).</blockquote>

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