Action Points 4thed

[HMS Invincible]

How have you guys given out action points as a reward for a milestone? It says we should do it for acts of bravery or other such things, but I have yet to do so. What have your players done to warrant a free action point? (other than multiple encounters)

[Oracle_Hunter]

I use poker chips to count AP - the PCs get one every two Encounters.

I haven't used them to reward other things - that's what XP is for

[Colmarr]

Spoilered for KotS:

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Our DM gave our Keep on the Shadowfell group a collective action point (ie. one person can use it then it's gone) for telling Keegan that the portal had been closed and he could finally rest

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Otherwise we just get them for milestones.

[Decoy Lockbox]

Our group just uses milestones, which we have many of, since our DM loves having grueling combats...in a single day, we fought 4 fights with orcs and 2 with undead, then a dragon the next day. It was so brutal.

If I was DMing, I would probably reward deeds of outrageous heroism, bravery, awesomeness or badassery (and I do mean outrageous) with an "eternal action point", which behaves in all respects like a regular action point, but does not go away when you take an extended rest. It would, of course, go away when it was used!

This is to prevent situation where the bonus action point was awarded at the last fight of the day, and would then promptly vanish, without the player having a chance to use it.

[Kurald Galain]

How have you guys given out action points as a reward for a milestone? It says we should do it for acts of bravery or other such things, but I have yet to do so. What have your players done to warrant a free action point? (other than multiple encounters)

It would probably be more interesting to give AP as a result of cool actions or good roleplaying instead of based on how many encounters one participates in.

Note that in 4E, experience points are also based precisely on how many encounters one participates in, and not on cool actions or good roleplaying. That makes 4E one of the few RPG systems that doesn't reward trying something cool. At least by RAW, of course - a good DM will likely do it anyway.

[Artanis]

Remember that the APs from number of encounters only covers about half the number you can actually use. To use more APs in a day, you'll need free ones from the DM

[DM Raven]

I throw out extra action points as a quick reward for people who add to gameplay. This can be anything from good role-play to a well-timed quote or joke. Action points are a good bonus because they act as a quick reward and don't overpower characters or push them too far ahead of other characters on the XP track.

[TheEmerged]

I view the "one every other encounter without resting" as the baseliine, the minimum. I'm probably a touch liberal with them.