Hero Points

[Bella]

Awarding Hero Points
Each character begins play with 1 hero point, regardless of her level.

Completing Plot Arcs: The GM might award a hero point to each of the PCs who were involved in completing a major chapter or arc in the campaign story. These hero points are awarded at the conclusion of the arc if the PCs were successful or advanced the story in a meaningful way.

Group Service: The GM can award hero points for acts outside the game as well. Buying pizza for the group, helping to clean up afterwards, or even hosting the game for a night might be worth a hero point. This sort of hero point should be given out of generosity, not as a payment.

Heroic Acts: Whenever a character performs an exceptionally heroic act, she can be awarded a hero point. This might include anything from slaying an evil dragon when the rest of the group has fled to rescuing townsfolk from a burning building despite being terribly wounded. It does not have to be related to combat. Convincing the reticent king to send troops to help with a bandit problem or successfully jumping a wide chasm might earn a character a hero point, depending on the circumstances. Note that a hero point should only be awarded if the PC involved did not spend a hero point to accomplish the task.

Return from the Dead: When a character dies, she does not lose any hero points she has accumulated. If she died with no hero points remaining, she gains 1 hero point when she is brought back from the dead through powerful magic, such as raise dead or resurrection.
Maximum Hero Points: Characters can have no more than 3 hero points at any one time. Excess hero points are lost.

Using Hero Points

Hero Points can be spent at any time and do not require an action to use (although the actions they modify consume part of your character’s turn as normal). You cannot spend hero points more than one time during a single combat. Whenever a hero point is spent, it can have any one of the following effects.

I didn’t really do that: You can spend one hero point to take back an action that proved to be relatively dumb in hindsight. An example is turning over a card from a deck of cards.

Minor character change: You can spend one hero point to make a minor character change. You can only use a hero point for this twice.

Medium character change: You can spend two hero point to make a medium character change. You can only use a hero point for this once.

I would rather play a: You can spend three hero points to make a medium character change. You can only use a hero point for this once. Your new character will begin with 1 hero point.

Change initiative: You can spend a hero point to take your turn immediately. Treat this as a readied action, moving your initiative to just before the currently acting creature. You may only take a move or a standard action on this turn. Your next turn will be at the new initiative and you can take a full round action.

Extra Action: You can spend a hero point on your turn to gain an additional move action this turn. You can also spend 2 hero points to gain an additional Full round action.

Inspiration: If you feel stuck at one point in the adventure, you can spend a hero point and petition the GM for a hint about what to do next. If the GM feels that there is no information to be gained, the hero point is not spent.

Recall: You can spend a hero point to recall a spell you have already cast or to gain another use of a special ability that is otherwise limited. This should only be used on spells and abilities possessed by your character that recharge on a daily basis.

Reroll: You may spend a hero point to reroll any one d20 roll you just made. You must take the results of the second roll, even if it is worse.

Special: You can petition the GM to allow a hero point to be used to attempt nearly anything that would normally be almost impossible. Such uses are not guaranteed and should be considered carefully by the GM. Possibilities include casting a single spell that is one level higher than you could normally cast (or a 1st-level spell if you are not a spellcaster), making an attack that blinds a foe or bypasses its damage reduction entirely, or attempting to use Diplomacy to convince a raging dragon to give up its attack. Regardless of the desired action, the attempt should be accompanied by a difficult check or penalty on the attack roll. No additional hero points may be spent on such an attempt, either by the character or her allies.

Cheat Death: A character can spend 2 hero points to cheat death. How this plays out is up to the GM, but generally the character is left alive, with negative hit points but stable. For example, a character is about to be slain by a critical hit from an arrow. If the character spends 2 hero points, the GM decides that the arrow pierced the character’s holy symbol, reducing the damage enough to prevent him from being killed, and that he made his stabilization roll at the end of his turn. Cheating death is the only way for a character to spend more than 1 hero point in a turn. The character can spend hero points in this way to prevent the death of a familiar, animal companion, eidolon, or special mount, but not another character or NPC.

Villain points

The GM has 3 villain points for the entire campaign. He cannot use these points to influence the PC’s in any way. More than likely these will be used as a chance to counteract things the PC’s do to his main battles. Example: casting charm on a main general as he is rushing to attack (just after watching his black dragon die). The GM can use one of his Villain points to reroll the saving throw.

[Bella]

This is a draft. I may make changes to some. I am uncomfortable with the moving up initiative one. It can be abused.

Thoughts? Additions?

[Wedge]

Sound pretty good actually. We've been doing the character changes and 'un-dos' with out any cost and I like the idea of some penalty for those.

Will you tell us when we are getting close to completing a plot arc? It would make the points easier to manage.

[Bella]

Right now I am thinking plot arcs would be the begining of each of the six books. I may give bonus hero points for how the group handles certain situations in the game.

[Wakko]

I like the hero points, but I hope there is not a maximum. My reasoning is that we have never used them before, and may not know when to use them, so they may tend to be hoarded. I think the DM should give some leeway to a maximum number.

[ulf]

The system comes from the advanced players guide. Paizo set the limit to three points at once. I would think that hoarding would be worse if there was no limit, but that is just a guess.

If I was playing as a pc with the above rules, I would keep at least 1 point in reserve for that time I really needed it. I might keep two if I was noticing something about the character build I was unhappy with. If I had 3, I would use one pretty fast to stat under the max number unless I really wanted to play a new class.

The system can be tweaked as we go and see how it works in game. I don't think they are meant to be used often, though.

[Sponsored content]