action points – Dungeon's Master

Bonus Action Points for the Party

Action points are designed to give every PC a chance to be truly heroic and do something extra when it’s needed most. The very name “action point” brings to mind the potential for something truly remarkable. Unfortunately this has not been the case in my experience.

I’ve found that at my gaming table actions points are generally used in one of the three following ways:

Make another attack after missing with the first one (essentially a re-roll).
Use your second wind.
Take a move action after standing from prone.

Don’t get me wrong, these are all perfectly acceptable actions all well within the rules as written, but honesty, these are all pretty boring ways to spend (waste) and action point. Action points should be used to keep the action going. There should be excitement when a player declares he’s using an action point. These three examples are all sort of blasé.

The problem is that you only get one action point every two encounters. If they were more abundant in the game then using one in the ways I’ve listed above wouldn’t seem so bad. After all, you’re not going to be knocked prone during every encounter. So the question becomes how to let PCs use more action points more often without breaking D&D.

Putting More “Action” in Action Points

As D&D has evolved over the years many rules and mechanics have been tweaked and changed in order to make the game better. I think one of the greatest improvements was when actions points were introduced with the Eberron Campaign Setting back in 3e D&D. They began as bonus to your d20 roll. Expending an action point meant a good attack became a great attack. With 4e D&D the action point was changed and this good idea became a great idea. Now you actually got another action when you used an action point. Awesome!

Recently I’ve been thinking back to how Wizards of the Coast described the original action point mechanic. One of the reasons it was introduced was to add an extra level of excitement to encounters. This was your chance to have your character do something truly remarkable. You suddenly gave greater consideration to trying new things that were over the top and spectacular.