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Galathir
2007-09-12, 06:34 PM
I know a type of action point mechanic exists in other RPGs beside D&D, but as I'm not familiar with them, I've been working on something for D&D to put in a upcoming campaign. My idea was to make it more of a class feature for Fighters in order to boost their capabilites at higher levels. I don't want to get into any discussions on the relative merits of fighters but I think one of their biggest weaknesses is that they can only do so much in one round.

Here is the basic idea:

You get one action point at first level, and one more every odd level after first (i.e. 3rd, 5th, etc). Action points recover at the rate of one per minute outside of combat or initiative order. You may use your action points to do extraordinary things in combat.

You can spend the points as follows:

Benefit:
+1 bonus to AC for one round costs 1 action point (no limit)
+2 bonus to damage for one round costs 1 action point (no limit)
1 extra standard action costs 6 action points (1/encounter)
1 extra move action costs 3 action points (1/encounter)
1 extra swift action costs 2 action points (2/encounter)
1 extra immediate action costs 2 action points (1/encounter)
+2 to threat range for one round costs 2 action points (1/enconter)
+2 to confirm critical costs 1 action point (no limit)
+5 foot reach for one round costs 4 action points (1/encounter)
+10 foot movement speed for one round costs 1 action point (2/encounter)

You must announce your use of action points at the start of your round except for gaining immediate actions or to gain a bonus on confirming a critical hit. You may use these whenever needed.

You may use as many action points per round as you desire, unless other limits apply. For example, you could spend two action points and gain a +2 bonus to AC for one round, but you could not spend six action points to gain two additional move actions.

Abilities that grant extra actions cannot be combined (i.e. gaining both an extra standard action and an extra move action).

So what are your ideas? Need work? Scrap it? Any and all comments are welcome.