ADDITIONS/ERRATA: -Another option is Paizo's Hero Point Deck. I use Foundry, and you can use it as a Rollable Table by typing "Hero Point Deck" in Compendium Packs and importing it. You can also customize the table. -I like SwingRipper's litmus test for Hero Point house rules. Does it do either of the following (if so, then it might be too strong): 1) Does Magus get on demand crit spellstrikes? 2) Does it make debuff spells like Slow too strong?
One option I was thinking of was "Success." You can change any roll to a base success, including enemy rolls. For players it turns a failure or crit fail into a success. For enemies it turns a crit success into a success. This avoids the Magus Crit Cascade. It protects players from overwhelming damage, but they still take something. I do have concerns if this will be before or after other effects that shifts degrees of success. If it is before, then players who turn saves into crit saves get to avoid everything, but superior monsters will blow off all effects too (i'd refund the hero point if this happens). If it is after, then you can guarantee that boss monsters take some effect and players would too. This admittedly does take the randomness out of it. I'd probably give fewer hero points.
Hero point deck is fun, it's niche (if you don't allow players trading cards) but when they end up in an unexpected situation with a card that serves it, it creates excitement!
I tried something new with Hero Points last session. Everyone started with one, per RAW. Then halfway through the session, I offered what I called an "Easter egg point" (we played on Easter Sunday). I had everyone roll a d20 to get one of these alternate buffs. Some of these metagame functions are arguably more powerful, but they are also much more circumstantial. Here is the list (I'd love some feedback): 1) Automatically find the next secret door within 20 ft of you. 2) Add 2d8 damage to any one attack. 3) Get 1 additional Action for 1 round. 4) Add +4 to any one skill check roll. 5) Get +20 ft bonus to your speed for 2 rounds. 6) Add +4 to any one saving throw you roll. 7) Get 1 additional hero point. 8) Swap positions on the battle map with any 1 enemy or ally within 30 ft. 9) Gain 20 temporary HP for 2 rounds. 10) Get a +4 bonus to AC for 2 rounds. 11) Add +4 to your spellcasting DC for 1 spell. 12) Get 1 additional spell slot of any rank for which you can cast spells. 13) Acrobatics: increase success by one step 14) Athletics: increase success by one step 15) Diplomacy: increase success by one step 16) Intimidation: increase success by one step 17) Performance: increase success by one step 18) Society: increase success by one step 19) Stealth: increase success by one step 20) Thievery: increase success by one step
If you're using and tracking the Hero Point Deck on FoundryVTT, the module PF2e Toolbelt is currently the way to track it on your character sheet (along with a lot of other useful things IMO).
My group learned early, more out of anger and annoyance with poor rolls, that proactively spending your Hero point is vastly superior to hoarding them to prevent death. You won't get knocked out at all, if you landed an extra strike that ended the enemy 1 round early. Remember that "Turns to Kill" is a important metric, spending hero points on your rolls improves that metric.
Also as a GM I tend to give out hero points to the ones using them the most, because there's nothing sadder than ending a session with a handful of unused hero points.
We're on the same page with regards to this. The only thing my group wants is an objective, codified rule for obtaining hero points rather than the wishy-washy "approximately one per hour based on [the GM's feelings]".
@@Ilandria.I don't know. While they are important mechanically-wise, I think the design intention for them is to be a way of helping the GM reward players for cool moments of roleplay or something similar. It's more about the relationship between players than the player and the game system. I think things are fine with just adding more benefits to hero points.
both the group I play in and the group I GM for both tend to blow their hero points the moment they're a) annoyed by missing or b) crit failing a save they're scared of
I will say that one variant rule I'd probably run with is just having it be that the worst you can do on a hero point roll is fail. So you can't critically fail if you're using a hero point. That seems pretty fair. I agree that it really sucks to use a limited resource like that which is meant to be a benefit only to end up worse off than before.
I use this with one other variant that I don't think breaks anything: I distribute hero points differently. Instead of giving them out once an hour, I give out two hero points at the beginning of the game and usually that's all they get (and the game is usually 3-4 hours). This is not for balancing reasons. It's because I started off trying to distribute them raw and quickly realized ... I do not remember to give out hero points during the game. So if I try to play raw they'll only get one the whole session. So far my method has worked much better than that first attempt. My players use hero points more (they barely used them initially possibly because they knew if they used it, they were completely out.) But also it's rare for the table to completely run out. I would highly recommend this to anyone who also has the same issue of forgetting to give them out. (Not for everyone).
@@AlexM-is6ru I have this problem, as do some of my GM's. Since we have longer sessions, he gives out three to most players. But only one to me, because I have great dice luck (I'm okay with this).
9:38 Hey its me! Auto increase one degree of success would break grapplers... Restrained can be backbreaking, crit disarm is absurd, etc etc My way of changing hero points was basically the "hero deck" that paizo makes but with more potent effects, so that it is a weird X factor for my in person games!
I think the auto-increase one degree of success rule could be balanced if it has a chance of not working. That avoids the issue of on-demand crits. e.g. you only increase your degree of success if you succeed a DC10 flat check. (you'd want to fine-tune the DC to make it properly balanced)
Last time we played our Monk actually spent a Hero Point to reroll his second attack on a Flurry of Blows. The first one was already a critical hit and his original roll for the second Strike was a hit. He wanted to fish for that second crit. And he got it. Managed to melt the big bad's hit points by exactly 1 more point of damage than necessary. The group loved it.
I think your proposed change would be really fun (and not break the game) For peeps who want general guidelines of if its a good adjustment 1) Does Magus get on demand crit spellstrikes? 2) Does it make debuff spells like Slow too strong? I think those two questions can be a guiding light for "will this change break something?" in a similar way to "is this ancestry better than human" is for homebrewing ancestries
I was thinking of "success". You can turn a fail or crit fail to a basic success. Or turn a bad guy's crit success into a regular success. No crit fishing. I do have concerns if this will be before or after other effects that shifts degrees of success. If it is before, then players who turn saves into crit saves get to avoid everything, but superior monsters will blow off all effects too (i'd refund the hero point if this happens). If it is after, then you can guarantee that boss monsters take some effect and players would too.
I'm curious, are there any agreed upon guidelines for homebrewing ancestries? Or any homebrewed ancestries that are known as good already? I'm not going to do it/allow it for my first campaign but it would be fun to dive into in the future :3
@@Sunny_Haven Battlezoo has several books of odd ancestries. Mark Seifter was involved and he was one of the creators of P2e. They do look balanced to me, but I expect that there are some odd combos that might break things.
@@philopharynx7910 alright, thank you! I noticed them before when my friends and I were regularly creating characters in Pathbuilder to check the system out but never really looked into them. I'll read up on them in the future!
For me, I don’t think they need “fixing”, but I think they can be a lot more fun since as is they focus on reducing suck rather than providing awesome. In a funny “fix”, to me one of the most fun solutions is the “Hero Point” system from D&D. Instead of rerolling / adding Fortune to a roll, you also have the option to *add a d6* to a roll. This allows you to easily nudge from a close miss to a hit, or a high hit to a crit. That one small change allows people to really push awesome effects rather than reducing bad ones. This is especially true if your table doesn’t like emphasizing death mechanics. I also like how SIMPLE this rule is. If you don’t like heroic recovery, then let this add d6 to death saves. You don’t have to think of rerolls being lower, and close calls feel like your hero is pushing through to a higher degree. It’s because of your character being awesome, not just plot armor. The tension doesn’t come from “will it be competent” but instead “will it be enough?” and if it’s very close you can excitedly push for “I’m using a hero point” rather than waiting for your failure. It also isn’t a full free degree, and it doesn’t reduce enemy competence. It’s just about having pushes of heroic prowess that plays with but doesn’t abuse the degree system. Lastly, I think accepting nat1s can be fun and can even be rewarded with Hero Points when accepting them. Using Hero Points mainly to mitigate nat1s helps normalize a level of competence, but also takes away some of the drama and fun behind the swinginess in my experience.
They come out to about the same. A d20 will average 10.5 per roll. A d6 will average 3.5 per roll. So rolling a d20 and a d6 together you will average a 14 total. Rolling 2d20 (5e advantage) will average 13.82 each time you roll.
One issue is that it makes hero points dependent on how close you were to the next degree of success. If it takes seven points to go up a degree, then the d6 won't help you at all. If you haven't figured out the enemy's defense, they could very well waste it. A d10 would always have a chance of increasing the degree, but would probably be too much.
@@philopharynx7910Yeah exactly. If you feel like you failed by a significant amount, maybe take the L or try a reroll instead, or maybe it takes stacking multiple hero points if it a HUGE deal. Your hero points also function as narrative punctuation. If you were a fair amount under, it still respects the original roll, just providing wiggle room. And the difference in feel is significant. And with the difference of being unsure, that either means the GM may use language to describe a close miss, or the players use the information based on previous rolls. By empowering knowledge, it gives more power in later rolls and thus is less of a nova pusher. That’s even more reasoning for narrative/climactic momentum unleashed.
@@xczechr In a vacuum and while blind, yes. However, adding +d6 provides a lot of difference: • Advantage =/= reroll. Using after the roll is a big deal • You can push degrees of success for close calls this way, and you can give more weight and understanding later in the battle when there is a greater understanding of defenses • It promises to ALWAYS increase the score • On big fail gaps you might just want to accept it, or reroll instead. A nat1 rerolled is almost like a +9.5, but failure on a rolled [13] makes a reroll unfavorable. Context matters • Depending on your GM, rolling multiple d6s is dramatically greater narrative + mechanical for a big move If blind and in a vacuum before making any roll they are very close, but in execution and game feel is dramatically different
I’m surprised you didn’t mention the Hero Point deck that Paizo has already created for the purpose of buffing Hero Points. I use it when I run my home game. I deal out 3 cards to each player before play begins and let them select one. After that, if they gain a Hero Point it’s just dealt from the top of the deck.
Honestly the Hero Point deck kind of sucks. A lot of the things the cards give you come with drawbacks that aren’t worth using or are just too situational to use. So people just end up tossing them.
@@mikecarlock5527 isn’t that kind of the point? You don’t want to unbalance the game. But that’s why I hand out 3 for them to choose from initially so it minimizes their chances of getting something useless. And I like that they’re semi-official so there’s less argument over it.
@@LiaElf76If you introduce a mechanic or a game aid, the gold standard should be “is it being used?” And for a majority of the cards in that deck, the answer is typically “no”. Instead of having to have to deal a bunch of cards it would have been better to have a majority of good cards in the first place.
So for my story we need to go back to the early 1980's. My group use to play D&D and after seeing everyone get invested in their characters after a LONG amount of playing and how easily they could die, I suggested "Luck Points". These could be used in a variety of ways BUT it was intended to prevent a TPK and or a perma death. We adopted it and it needed a ton of refinement over time before we landed on what worked for our group. Fast forward to me not playing for a decade or more and I am teaching my son D&D 4e and then I am back in to TTRPG's and tried Pathfinder 2e out of curiosity. I had to laugh when I saw "Hero Point". Yes they have the same problems we had back in the 80's. There is the intent vs smart players learning how to abuse it. Along with you still must have the fear of death. Without it, a system just become improv theater with some dice rolling. So yes the system needs tweaked for sure, but I would say it needs to be a list of things a DM could pick from with warning about each decision.
What's interesting is when even the senior developers of PF2e themselves use homebrew rules for hero points: the "D10+10" is also called the Keeley's rule for that reason.
I'll share something regarding Hero Points that has been successful at my table: At the end of each session, I have my PCs privately vote for the MVP of that session. The player who gets the most votes gets an additional Hero Point for the next session. I do keep an MVP leaderboard public to help all of us see the balance on who seems to be shining during sessions. As a GM, it helps me see if I need to pay attention to a player who hasn't been voted for awhile. Also, the leaderboard/tracking helps me break ties (I have 4 PCs). If there is a tie in votes, I award the MVP Hero Point to whomever has the least amount if total MVP votes. (If both are tied on the total, I just award each). Now, this system works if you have everyone voting fairly and not trying to metagame or only vote for themselves. It may not work for all groups.
Personally, im not a fan of... by that, i mean absolutely despise...the common game design concept (regardless of system) where you spend a resource or take a Feat/Merit that says you have to take the second roll even if worse. Im hoping future Pathfinder releases also give us more options for what to spend them on. Feats that cost a Hero Point to use would be a nice possibility.
I played a bit of Starfinder, which as a similar system called Resolve Points, that I think works a lot better due to how they integrate with a character's abilities than Hero Points.
My group has been using the following rules for hero points: You get a hero point if you keep a natural 1 (and it should only apply when a roll is actually called for by the GM), and each player can hand out 1 per session to other players who do something they or their character think is cool/in character/whatever. This reduces the burden on the GM of actually remembering to hand those out. Obviously you have to have the right group for any specific rules to work, but for us it has been good without any changes to the actual functionality.
I have added a similar rule to my games, where players track their natural 1s and will get a free hero point every 3rd nat 1 they roll. They track them across sessions, and I have found that it takes the sting out of nat 1s when they can track the progress towards a free hero point
I ultimately came up with a slightly complex solution but one my players have really enjoyed. You can only have one Hero Point at a time, but when you use it your minimum result is your original result + 2. On top of this, every player has a hand of Hero Point Cards (which I hand out like Hero Points, including an automatic one for every two hours of play) that they can play at any time as a reaction as soon as the trigger condition on the card as met (or they can use it to turn a Crit Fail into a Fail, reduce damage from a critical hit, or reroll a healing or damage roll). If they have three Hero Point cards, they can trade them in for another Hero Point. And as long as they have at least one card, they can always trade their whole hand for Heroic Recovery. I came up with this whole system because I really like every encounter to feel dangerous and memorable, and that can lead to frustration. Hero Points being reliable is really important to me because I want my players to feel like, if they fail, they were given every chance to succeed and their failure can't simply be blamed on outlier RNG results. I think this leads to more satisfying victories *and* losses.
i personally add to this list "Reroll enemy saves". Helps casters partake and make use of the points as they dont get to roll for a lot of their attacks. But I find saving throws to be a legacy mechanic. You should always get to roll dice for your own actions.
What do you think should replace saving throws? Rolling against a passive defense like AC? What about defending against indirect hazards like poison and traps? I have this thought too but I struggle to make sense of some sources of attacks with that idea
@@Wyrmshield @Myrdraall You might be interested in this video by KingOogaTonTon (another Pf2e video creator) who talks about one way to change PF2e to do this: /watch?v=5Jsk1KCN5ZA
Our table uses a variant on 1d10+10. We roll 1d20, then if the roll is 10 or less, add 10. 10+10 =/= Nat 20. This preserves the 5% Nat 20 chance rather than either having a 10% chance (10 on the D10) or 0% chance (no Nat 20). We imported this variant from Mutants and Masterminds. We find that players tend not to use a Hero Point if the initial roll is already higher than 10. Also, I had not seen the suggestion to award a HP for each hour of play, so thanks for that!
Personally, Hero points are one of the features of PF2E that I don't like. Not their function, I've found that low-level PF2E is very deadly and the game is clearly balanced for the PCs having them. I don't like the administration of giving them out, either on a timed basis or a subjective (You did a thing! Get a hero point!) basis. I'm always forgetting to give them out, and it's so subjective that naturally you're going to have some players earn them more frequently just by the fact they're on average more courageous or creative. I've somewhat solved this by using a simply saying that all characters begin every combat with 1 Hero point. If they don't use it, they can carry it into exploration/roleplaying. That way we don't really have to keep track of them. Very occasionally I'll give them out when something truly exceptional happens, usually a story milestone rather than an action in combat.
My GM just lets us keep the original roll of the reroll is worse -- which happens shockingly often in our campaign, even though we players have been conditioned to use them only in the case of *really* bad rolls. Also, he realized he was giving out Hero Points less often than suggested so he proposed the following, which we agreed to: whenever a player rolls a natural 1 and doesn't (or can't) expend a hero point to change that result, the player gains a Hero Point. It's working out pretty well so far, but I think additional changes might still be in order.
That was our experience as well. It is shocking how much worse you can make things by using a hero point. Everyone at my table has used a hero point, only to re-roll an get a natural one multiple times. Many times we've used hero points, only to go from failure to critical failure. Consequently, like you, we were conditioned to only use them in the case of really bad rolls. My standard guideline is that if you at least roll a 10 on the d20, don't use a Hero Point. Hero Points are best used when you've rolled a 5 or less, or if you know you've already critically failed a roll. And you should always strive to keep one hero point in the bank, just for heroic recovery if you think you'll be going into battle that session. We changed how they worked, making it so that you can spend two hero points instead of one hero point to roll with D&D-style advantage. I also agree that most tables seem to give out hero points too conservatively. The rules assume that at a standard gaming session (about 4 hours or more) you are going to get a hero point at least once per hour, and if you have shorter gaming sessions, you will get hero points more frequently. This actually caused our gaming group to begin giving out hero points at the top of every hour, because typically nothing would happen that could justify EVERYONE getting AT LEAST one hero point per hour. That us to gain the number of hero points the game intended, and allowed the GM to reward out additional hero points above and beyond that amount as genuine awards. The consequence of that, of course, was that hero points became very arbitrary and disconnected with player actions. That led us to the second change that we made, which was making it so that you get hero points basically whenever you are doing something that could have a genuine change of failure that would be bad -- which almost always means dice are rolling. That more-or-less allows us to obtain the number of hero points the game assumes that you should be earning, but at the same time at least loosely connects them to player actions.
Our groups relationship with hero points has been very strange to say the least: - at the start of our game we used the default rules, but the GM realized that after a certain while we just weren't using them because mathematically it was often a bad idea to use them rather than hoard them in case of either death/a nat 1. - the reason for this is that situations that usually call for hero points are situations where you have a lower success rate than failure rate, this is because naturally, if you have a higher chance to succeed the likelihood you'll need to use a hero point to reroll is going to be lower. - In those situations where rolling a "12" on the dice wasn't enough for a success, this means that statistically you have at max a 35% chance of success, a 5% to crit succeed, a 50% chance to fail and a 10% chance to crit fail. - the math here doesn't work like advantage, which is broadly like getting a "+5" to the roll and improves your success rate, here the probability never shifts because you're not taking the highest, so you're always going to have that 60% screw-up rate cause you're basically just taking a second crack at the roll. - A consequence of this isn't just that the second roll was "worse" and therefore didn't feel heroic, it was usually just the exact same which didn't add any tension or excitement, it was just "welp, nothing happened so who cares". For us, the default hero point rules actually made the game MORE boring and less intense because the likelihood of getting the exact same outcome never shifted so often times you'd just... Fail again, and as a result we threw those rules out by the end of the first book of blood lords.
Have to disagree - points 1 and 4 of the default rule are in conflict with one another. Because the roll can often be worse our tables found it rarely felt heroic or exceptional. At best it was a fate roll, not a heroic roll. It quickly became a joke how often the players had to describe what their character heroically did to critically fail the check they were only failing moments before. *Which I see you cover later on, but seems to defy the initial point.
Our answer to the hero point disappointment issue was to make the spent hero point minimum roll be 10. And 90% of our spent hero points are to reroll a crit failure because we play with the crit failure and success decks.
Hero Points TBH need to be fixed greatly. I use the deck and it's at least something to give an option for them. Otherwise they just generally sit there, or are there for save or die moments. They need some sort of gusto added to the basic rules and concept.
I was thinking about this the other day while we were playing. I've had the "Hero Point Guarantee" many times in our games. While I was thinking about it, the idea of auto-increasing the degree of success popped into my head, and it seemed like it might be a good option. Glad to see other people thinking about that too.
I have introduced another mechanic in my game where a Witch the party saved will grant them "Fateweaving Boons" before they leave on an adventure. I deal out cards to the players, and every card has some effect like the ability to turn a crit fail into a crit success, or roll all rolls with advantage for one turn, basically lots of different "fortune" effects. It has added a lot of fun to my game, so I'll have to check out the Hero Point Deck to see if I can get inspiration for more of these cards...
The group I run for uses some funky rules some hero points that could be fun for others to use: - We stick with giving hero points once an hour, tho I may give heropoints when a player character does an amazing moment of roleplay or pulls something off against all odds (generally something that feels narratively appropriate) - The new roll cannot have a worse degree of success. This means you don’t crit fail if you rerolled a failed check, and attacks may potentially crit if you wanna risk the second roll. - You can spend a hero point to enact a rule-of-cool moment to have your character do something narratively interesting by bending the rules a little (with GM arbitration). This could involve a wizard casting Cone of Cold below them to rocket into the air, or a fighter using their polearm for a pole vault jump to cross a larger distance.
the other thing i think is MAYBE the increase success by one would work for more hero points (maybe 2?). as long as the original roll wasnt a nat 20 (nothing should ever move it up two)
Ive tried the increase success by 1. I agree its too much. I like your idea of the d10+10. I might do something like a combo of that and also keep the higher. Hero points should never be worse, in my opinion. Hero points SHOULD be good. Im going to give the d10+10 approach. Im also a big fan of the hero point cards, and i let players pick and swap. It allows different people to do differng things with hero points. I also dont do the hour thing, and I also dont get rid of them at the start of a session. Especially since the really significant things often happen at the end of a session, so hero points earned at the end of a session arent "lost". Sometimes you want to save them over. Basically I think Hero points hould be slightly more rare, but more effective. I also got rid of heroic recovery. For the reasons in your video. In general i think hero points every hour is a weird thing, because it depends on the length of session and the TYPE of session. I get the purpose behind them. Also the hero point cards are also more fun. The players like drawing them and swapping them. I think the hero point cards are some of the best things because none of them are "bad". And they all allow heroic things to happen.
My Variant Hero Point Rules: 1) First, the "debuff." I, as the Storyteller, get Villain Points. They work exactly like Hero Points (including the changes below). Reason: if my players get rewarded for doing cool stuff, I should get rewarded for doing cool stuff. Also. I have a large group, so it helps with the fact I have so many players. 2) The "Not exactly a Debuff." Hero & Villain Points have an economy at my table. I have 30 "Hero Coins," which are distributed between two cups - the Hero (Yoda) Cup & the Villain (Darth Vader) Cup. The Coins are ratioed out so that more start in the Hero Cup & when a player earns a Hero Point, they must draw it from the Hero Cup. Yes, they can run out of Hero Points (though this has only ever happened once at my table). When a player SPENDS their Hero Points, they go in the Villain Cup! However, the reverse is true for my Villain Points. I draw my Villain Points from the Villain Cup, and when I spend my Villain Points, they go into the Hero Cup. Reason: This actually pairs with the next item, so hold that thought... 3) The "Social Dynamics." Hero Points must be "nominated" before they can be rewarded. Only my players can nominate Hero Points. (As an aside, yes, the group discusses what criteria counts for a nomination.) When a player does something cool, another player at the table cam nominate them for a Hero Point, and if I agree, then I will distribute it. Players also decide when I've done something cool enough to warrant a Villain Point. Reason: I straight up tell my players why I do this: "This is designed to make sure you're paying attention during the game." Players often have a bad habit of zoning out during other players turns, and then asking "whats going on?" When their turn comes around. This actively discourages that behavior by putting a critical game mechanic on the line! If you're not paying attention when your friend does something cool, and by extension, you don't nominate them for a Hero Point, you are directly hindering your team's power level. Also, if you're ignoring other players, other players might ignore you & your cool stunts. This change actively encourages player engagement & leads to more investment in the game. Additionally, if they're stingy in giving me Villain Points for my cool moments, then their Cup is going to run dry as I don't have any to spend & deposit in the Hero Cup. 4) The Slight Buff Players (& the GM) start with two points at the start of the session. The cap of three points remains unchanged. Reason: I like high adventure style games & Paizo's suggestion works well here. 5) The "Narrative Buffs" My players can spend Hero Points in two additional ways, though it should be noted that these are designed to "allow a roll," not "replace a roll." "I know a guy." The player can spend a Hero Point to introduce an NPC to a scene that they are acquainted with who might be able to help with a problem. The NPC has a "neutral" attitude towards them, but is always willing to listen to the party's request. The NPC has one skill that is appropriate to the player's current challenge with an "Expert Proficiency for the party's current level," though the NPC can typically only be convinced to use that skill once before leaving. At higher levels, the NPC skill increases to Master or Legendary. "There's a chance..." The player can spend a Hero Point to make a "minor modification to a scene" that would allow them to attempt a skill check that they would otherwise be unable to try. This is a very free-form offering, but examples might include "finding some discarded tools" or "the door catches on something as it's closing, giving you a few extra seconds to get there." The player describes what they want to add to the scene, and assuming GM approval, they are then allowed to attempt the roll that they'd normally be unable to try. Reason: This gives players some extra narrative input & allows them to be creative without just handing them "free wins." All of these changes have proven very popular at my table & my players love them. We also use Hero Point Cards sometimes... when we remember to get them out. LOL.
We use the PF2E Workbench built in Keeley's Hero Point Rule instead of the other suggestions. "A house rule favored by a certain Paizo developer: If the natural result of a hero-point reroll is 10 or less, a bonus of 10 is applied after the fact." I have also begun using the PF2E Toolbelt setting for Hero Point Deck.
As an old-school GM (as in doing this for over 30 years, not of the RPG by the same name), the very existence of DM's advantage in 5e and Hero Points in PF2e bump up against what I'm used to and my nature very hard. The fact some players are complaining that what *I* consider to be a Cheat Button isn't Cheaty enough and needs fixing is beyond me. Gen X GM's are like, nah, dawg, be glad you even got a Chat Button.
10:12 That would basically be the Silvery Barbs issue. Not quite as extreme (Incapacitation still exists), but still a issue. 11:05 It might help if you cap the maximum Degree you can get with it. Like, you can upgrade - but only _up to_ Attack Success/Save Fail. Never to a Critical result past that. This might also be a good modification of Incapacitation. Avoiding Critical Fails should always be possible. But upgrading a Success to a Critical Success feels bad. Or sometimes even Fail->Success. 12:20 One of my groups uses "if you roll exactly the same number, refund the Hero Point". A weaker version of the second.
I like some of the suggestions. Here is a thought, gate some Hero Point (HP) changes behind levels (experience). Levels 1-5 - basic rules as written. but remove heroic recovery. Levels 6-10 - refund HP if 2nd roll is lower. Levels 11-15 - allow rerolls of enermy attack rolls. Level 16-20 - reroll is D10+10 or D10-10 if used on enemies. Thoughts?
We do auto-increase/decrease on players AND enemies. Change-ups we have are you can't HP crit or HP enemy crit fail. You can't "donate" to another PC and you also have to use it before damage is rolled. So far it has felt really good, even with a Magus in the group. Edit: What spurred us on to try something else was having a session with EVERYONE failing with every HP roll. Now THAT felt bad
My table uses the following rules to make hero points feel better without changing the balance: - If you critically fail a check to defend yourself from an enemy or a hazard, or if an enemy or a hazard critically succeeds on a check to use a hostile effect on you, you gain a hero point. - This hero point cannot be used to reroll the check retroactively. - If the result of a critical success or failure is not different from a regular success or failure, you do not gain a hero point. - You can never gain more than one hero point from a single action or reaction. This combined with generally sticking to the hourly guideline for GM-driven hero points means that players generally always have enough hero points to cover their most important checks and overall serves to prevent death spirals since a boss critting 3 times in a row also means the players get 3 hero points out of it.
Good subject. Let me propose my homebrew as well: hero points can only be used for one thing: adding a d12 to a d20 roll. Can be done after you roll but before the result is narrated. Advantages: 1. Spending a hero point always makes your d20 roll higher, not lower. 2. Compared to just increasing the degree of success by 1, it's a little less overpowered (6.5 average not 10). 3. it's still exciting due to the risk (d12 is swingy; might not change the outcome, but it might turn a miss into a crit). 4. It's straightforward to spend more than one point if you really want to spend all your resources. d20+2d12 makes crit success very likely. 5. It's less confusing because there aren't multiple uses for the hero points. You want to avoid dying? Just add d12s to your death save, or to your attack roll to kill a dangerous enemy. 6. Compared to other proposed buffs, enemies are still scary. You can't change their rolls and you can't force enemies to crit-fail your incapacitating spells. 7. I like the idea that your original roll always matters. You can modify it, but it's more dramatic if there is no "Undo" button. Re: crit spellstrikes, they still wouldn't be guaranteed with d12, but they would be likely. However, is that really so bad? They got into positions, spent multiple actions, a spell slot, and a hero point. If they are highly likely to do massive damage that turn, rock on. That's your thing, bro.
We have adopted the following: When used to reroll a check, you take the higher of the two rolls, then add a bonus depending on your level (+1/2/3/4 if you are at least level 3/7/12/17, respectively). We're also experimenting with simply giving three to every PC during their daily preparations. This is roughly half as frequent as we were experiencing with the 1 per hour guidance.
None of the problems you highlighted relate to what bugs me about Hero Points; I take issue with how they're distributed. The text says to tie them to some in-game act of heroism, but also to dole them out in roughly 1-hour intervals. I find that to be too vague and a bit patronizing - true heroics don't generally occur 1/hour, so you usually end up awarding HPs for _dramatics._ Besides, the focus on heroics is undermined by the fact that you're on a timer, and past the hour are just looking for a flimsy excuse to hand out a point. I've yet to find a good enough fix, but I've had success with the "Breaking off a Five" house-rule used by Tabletop Gold for their _Roots of Ruin_ live-play campaign. It goes like this: Hero Points reset to 1 on every session that is divisible by 5 (so 5, 10, 15, etc.); in the meantime, they transfer over from session to session. I generally interpret "heroic deeds" as clever, tide-turning uses of the rules (e.g., a light-sensitive monster is Dazzled from the _light_ the Sorcerer is keeping up, and the Flat Check turns a crit into a miss), which is a great way to highlight cooperative aspects of PF2e. However, such events only generally occur once per combat, so the cadence is way too slow for my group. To compensate, I make sure quests consist of plenty of Moderate Accomplishments (30 XP + Hero Point), and make them obvious to the characters - getting to the quest location, completing an objective, and a side objective, would each give out HPs. Just the fact that HPs transfer over (up to a point) makes them more powerful, since players can more consistently store them for when they are needed. The lack of a regular reset is compensated by their higher availability - combats semi-regularly result in 1 or 2 HPs, while any one quest is likely to give out 2 or 3. Since I've been using this system, it has never felt like a HP was given out because of non-diegetic reasons (like a timer running out).
I simply don't use/allow Hero Points in my own games. Partially for a much more challenging experience, but also because I don't like these sort of benny/inspiration mechanics in RPGs. I believe good interactive roleplay should be something that's simply encouraged by running a much better game that engages my players rather than "forcing it out" with meta currencies. I think I would prefer if Paizo provided some sort of guidelines for "Heroic XP" instead, giving out shared progression bonuses to the whole party for the types of interaction the GM wants to see in their game. XP's a useful tool for me to pace adventures and reward players consistently throughout a chapter. But the trend for most tables these days seems to be moving towards GM Fiat/milestone progression; Sky King's Tomb didn't even have experience points as an option.
What we’ve done in our group for hero points is that they upgrade your success to the next tier. Crit Fail -> Fail, Success -> Crit success, etc. BUT at the same time we don’t have the 1 heropoint/hour rule (cause we simply forget about it constantly). 90% of the time the players will have one heropoint for the entire session UNLESS someone does something very cool or imaginitive or survives impossible odds. It has worked wonders for our group and made for some intense moments! But obviously do what works best for your group and it’s needs.
So the rule I've been using is one that's baked into Foundry vTT via the PF2e Workbench module - when spending a Hero Point, if the result on the die is
I'm new to the game (GM) and have a group of players that haven't played before. I agree that using HP for surviving feels a bit cheap, and there's a risk that they'll horde the resource. But on yje other hand, is that so wrong? To me HP are an extra resource, not a core game mechanic. So the players are free to use them as they like. Then granted, I'm not good at giving out extra HP and never does so "by time", more because good RP. BUT! My players, new to the system, uses their HP every so often to change a roll, even when it's not a "crucial" moment. So I haven't really experienced the "downsides" of HP. Yes, some players use them more often than others, but in general tjey are being used. With more experience my viewpoint might change, but for now I'm happy with the HP mechanics. (If any change, aim leaning more towards removing HP all together...).
RAW Hero Points are kind of terrible and boring, no ifs and buts about it. In fact anyone I've played with who comes from a different system with Hero Points ends up finding them EXTREMELY lame and disappointing. They do NOT let characters feel heroic or exceptional. They aren't even terribly beneficial a lot of the time. Rerolling with a hero point isn't tense, if anything it just feels like a chore. If you have one (you will often have only 1 in a RAW game) you should never ever use it, because the terrible reroll is not worth losing out on Heroic Recovery. The idea of describing your heroic moment BEFORE you reroll is downright laughable. Every table I have played on has abandoned the base structure of 1 + trickle HP and simply switched to every player starting with 3 hero points and gaining no more during the session. In my own games I GM I went one step further and dole out an extra hero point to all players whenever a boss-class enemy appears. But more importantly I added several additional uses of Hero Points, since even with this change the base reroll remains ass. For my games, hero points cannot make your reroll worse. If you roll the same number on the reroll, you get the hero point back but have to keep the result. Alongside the reroll, you gain spend a hero point to either 1) push a roll to a Success if you failed by exactly 1 (we play on foundry, so players can see how much they fail or succeed by) and 2) can spend 1 hero point to essentially use the Ferocity reaction (they stay at 1 hp and gain Wounded) Frankly, PF2 would probably be a better system without having Hero Points at all. But maybe I will remove Heroic Recovery.
Rerolls of enemy saves feels right to me, but a lot of that comes from having played D&D 4E, where you had Reflex defense, Fort defense, Will defense, and Armor defense. Attackers were rolling their attacks against whichever defense the attack listed, and saving throws were what PF2 calls flat recovery checks. It IS a buff, because it dramatically increases the number of things you can hero point to improve, but thematically I feel like letting the wizard nearly double their odds of critically hitting with Briny Bolt but not Spider Sting is just...weird.
My HP rules are as follows: - If a hero point reroll comes up as the same number, reroll it again. (Feels bad to heropoint and get exactly the same number on the die :) ) - Encounters have Villain Points which the GM can use for enemy rerolls. When a Villain point is used, a hero point is awared to the players. Number of Villain points is static based on encounter difficulty. (Moderate/Severe/Extreme 1/2/3 Villain Points) I've yet to outright kill a player with Villain Points so I'm not worried about that one. I might take the hero point refund rule, and the removed heroic recovery rule.
@TheRulesLawyerRPG I'm curious, would it be possibly fairer for it to be: "Can spend point to change a Critical Failure to a Failure" when player is rolling against an effect, and "Can spend point to turn Critical Success into Success" against an attack roll being used against them? Seems like it could limit it to essentially buffing the player's choices, as well as still having a semi-tactical version of "Heroic Intervention".
I like Heroic Recovery, but I think it can also sour the experience a little bit. I have a squishy Psychic character, but I don't feel a lot of danger because I always hoard a Hero Point. I also don't like that Hero Points rob healers of their heroic moment of saving a downed player. What about this: Heroic Recovery can only be triggered when your dying value reaches 2. Instead of rolling a death save, reduce the value of your dying condition by 1. So, it reduces your dying value AND prevents the possibility of rolling a failure. That's kind of like 2 turns of assistance, which could be a real game changer for someone who is dying. It also gives your healer extra time to be heroic. You could even play with the values a little. Maybe you have to wait until dying 3? And maybe in that case it would reduce your dying value by 2? Thoughts, anyone?
The Fate system also has something similar, the fate points. They let you reroll o gain a flat bonus, but you could only use them in an action thematic with your character, but you could also use it to do special actions. Also, you start with 3 of this points and could gain more by using the background of your character or his main flaw, to create fun situations that bring problems to your character, similar in the way vampire the masquerade did it with willpower points.
4:56 "Not only does it feel bad, but it's also arguably not thematic." 11:37 "Auto-increasing something by a degree of success kind of allows you to get critical hits by command" Yeah we kind of have to pick our poison here. In terms of game balance, re-rolling to avoid critical failure is much less exploitable, but avoiding critical failure isn't "heroic". Getting a critical hit by command is much more heroic, but also potentially game breaking. Maybe the real solution is to keep the current rules, but rename them to something like "Insurance Points"
My group plays with the Hero Point Deck. For the most part, we've been using them not on Heroic Recovery but on critically failed saves. On a rare occasion we might use one on offense (I did when fighting a nasty boss fight, successfully). So far our 'save from death' things are 'survivors using healing abilities'. And only one character death (mine but she got better).
Games that have HP go up with every level should not have inspiration/hero points. That is what the abstraction intent of of escalating hit points cover. i.e. "Luck, Stamina, skill, resilience, etc,..." Every one of your points about the 'Reasons for the default rule' is covered by HP going up by level, except for the 'player reward' which can be covered by giving out extra XP. Skill based games with low fixed HP have "hero points" to mitigate the randomness of die rolls, because they do not have an ever increasing pool of HP to bail them out when a chance roll does not go their way. If the game math makes the PC's are so perfectly matched at all times that they still need a hero point mechanic on top of HP escalation; then I posit that there is a game design issue.
Hero Points have been a major pain point for me as a GM because a lot of the time, my players are usually hero pointing on something exciting like a spell or a some ability of theirs and they fail and the re-roll fails again. I've tried some house rules, like just allowing a hero point to negate at the very least a crit failure (and I probably did "improve by a degree"), but something didn't sit right with me. I think letting the players re-roll an enemy roll might be a decent idea, alongside just "refund a hero point if 2nd roll is lesser" just seems like a good way to remove the salt from that wound. Unfortunately, or fortunately, I have a low level of death in my games for one reason or another (I'm also not big on just being aggressively hard on the players), which is also something I've considered. I once tried to do this deep dive in at least two other systems with a mechanic like hero points that came to mind, those being Shadowrun and Vampire the masquerade (and probably requiem) and as I read my copies of the SR4E20a and VTM20A books I kind of realized that mechanically, their systems weren't too different, save for the fact that in Vampire, Willpower is also a stat you roll with and spend for a variety of other uses, but we're very specific to the kind of game Vampire is. So not much in the way of helpful advice I could pull from other games I dunno, I'm mixed on this, but I'm also mixed on a lot of things. But maybe I should at least consider more things from a "Is this fun for the players" and not solely just "Is this balanced?"
an effect I haven't seen around yet is keeping everything about hero points, but removing Fortune, which potentially makes it way more powerful when stacking with other Fortune effects, and can fight back Misfortune effects better, but I think it's mostly gonna make it more intuitive or quicker to parse situations where you're not sure of the dice interactions like "yeah I'm gonna use a hero point to reroll my Devise a stratagem" or "I don't know if I failed that Hide, but I'll chuck a Hero Point at it, because I got a bad feeling"
@@iCarus_A Devise has Fortune, and Fortunes can't affect each other, (or replace each other), which I think also applies to its main d20 roll, it's what people argue against DAS+Srue Strike, aka yeah I have no idea how they interact because they're both Fortune lol
Heretical Idea: Steal the Intrusion mechanics from Cypher System power it with Hero Points. What’s the intrusion system? In short, a mechanic that allows players to make minor changes to the world around them (gm discretion). Example: The players get cornered by a band of thugs in an alley way. Player 1: I spend a hero point to say that the leader of the thugs and I were inmates together in prison and he actually owes me a favor. But the GM can also intrude on the players, giving the player/players hero points but adding a nasty unavoidable twist on the situation.
I've been thinking about this exact topic. I wanted a system for close calls, to "succeed at a cost". But in playtesting, none of my penalties have been very good (crit miss card, conditions, damage). I've been thinking about a new action for hero points, a nudge. For each hero point a player spends, they may increase/decrease a die roll by 1 or 2. It is more deterministic than rerolling, but only works if you roll just under the dc. Nudging from am 18 to a 20 counts as a natural 20, so it also gets those extra bonuses too. Not sure I'm gonna let them nudge monster rolls. Gonna test 1 variable at a time.
My GM uses the 1d10+10* rule, and I'm so-so on it. It's nice that hero points are consistently good, but it also means there's less risk with some abilities. I feel like I can do less tactically sound options because I can hero point them and know they'll be good. I really like the idea of removing heroic recovery, though. It sounds like it might be an example of a trap option. It's rarely the best option, but because it seems good, newer players hold onto it. Just as it's important to remove trap options during character creation, I think it's important to remove trap options during play. If this rule causes new players to play in a consistently bad way, it should be reworked or removed to better show the other options. *Technically, it's "add 10 if the d20 is
I've yet to have my group start 2e, but in the past we had rolling AC. We just negate the starting 10 to armor and instead just use a d20+modifiers. On a failed check we can reroll that d20 as a hero point use. This is as a counterpoint to a monster rerolling its successful strike. Additionally for aid checks, etc. we usually use the check score converted to a modifier stat and add that value - so a check of 19 gives a +4, a check of 23 gives a +6, etc. So rerolling a d20 to hit, we could either just straight up add that value to the missed roll, or add that as a modifier value instead. And if that's still too powerful, then maybe just roll a d10 and add that value?
Not sure how “preventing your dying value from increasing” practically prevents a knock out. It doesn’t prevent the damage, and you are still at 0 HP. The rules do not support being fully conscious at 0 HP.
The last pathfinder game I was in, the GMs rule was that HP could improve the roll by 1 degree, but it couldn't turn a success into a crit success, so it helped with doing things by the kin of your teeth - like Indy going back for his hat - but you couldn't do something supercool. That seemed to work better for us, as it didn't fail like the precious resource was wasted - but the GM didn't hand out HP nearly as often as the book suggested, so maybe that ws the compromise.
I like the idea of calling them "story points", the idea that a player can use them to try to rewrite the story. That way if the re-roll is not successful, the player/character didn't "fail", they learnt that they could not change that part of the story. That thing was important and supposed to happen. CANNON EVENT!
Perhaps a hero point can be used to add a d10 to roll (or subtract from an enemy attack roll). This could allow for several of the options mentioned in the video. For instance it could potentially bring a roll from a success to a critical success (or a fail to crit fail) but it's not guaranteed (thus still allowing for some tension). What this does is allow for say a fighter or magic user who might have come close to that crit success (maybe 1-2 shy) to make that heroic extra effort that pushes them over the top. Or maybe they simply failed by 1-2 on the roll and this could mean the difference between a fail and a success (or a hit and a miss etc). This also allows for some flexibility on how generous you want your heroic points to be. An extra 1d10 is too much? Maybe it just adds an extra d8, d6 or even d4. Basically like adding a D&D equivalent bardic inspiration or guidance to any roll you allow it to be used with. By having the hero point add or subtract from an existing roll, this still allows for the original roll to be valid and if you already "hit" and were trying to “critically hit”, it doesn't take away from the original roll (so there is less feel bad involved).
My Proposal: lots of the system is designed around the CF, F, S, CS chain, so link it to hero points ; If you Reroll, the lowest result you can get is a Failure. Instead of rerolling enemies, you can turn a CS into only a S. You have made the heroic stay heroic, but you havent completely removed the random, or completely denied entire builds.
I'm currently DMing a Pathfinder 2e game, this is the first TTRPG for all of my players so their play is far far far from optimal. So I'm allowing them to call for me to reroll with a Hero Point.... and when they do I use my loaded dice that are loaded to roll natural 1's (hits a nat 1 on about 30% of rolls). I've told them that some NPCs will be immune to this effect and that after they are more used to the game I may remove this bonus.
Honestly, I've always preferred the "action points" from dnd3.5 ebberon. You get points per level, and they don't replenish until you've gained another level. They allow many of the same abilities that hero points allow, but instead of a reroll or advantage, they allow you to roll 1d6 and add that number to the original check. As you increase in level, you roll more d6s and take the best roll.
I've yet to play Pathfinder, so I'm not 100% on balance changes, but I'm pretty confident my 5E group wouldn't like the base hero points, and the inspiration from 5e usually falls flat in our group because of the aforementioned both rolls sucking thing. My question is thus: Using the 1-Step variant for the hero points, do people think it would fairer if it couldn't be used to nudge things _into_ criticals, only out of them? So, say the enemy is rolling a save, a player could turn its crit success into a normal success or turn a success into a failure, but couldn't turn a failure into a crit failure. Or if the player is making an attack/check, they could bump a crit failure into a normal failure, or turn a failure into a success, but couldn't turn a success into a crit success. In a vacuum, it seems like it would still make hero points able to turn the tide of battle (instead of the fighter being burned to death from crit failing against a fireball they just become mostly crispy, or turns that failure trying to slam a door on the zombie horde into a much-needed success and time to breathe), but wouldn't allow players to hoard them for "crit fishing" by only using them when the effects would be so much stronger. I'm also liking not using the heroic recovery as our group already tends to hoard inspiration. Though now that I'm thinking about it, I'm liking the concept of being able to use hero points for a heroic recovery of a _different_ character. I'm picturing the party's witch gets downed by some nasty critter. The altruistic ranger takes their turn to position themselves over their fallen comrade to keep the beastie from making a meal of them. Whether they were awarded a point for this action (which I definitely would if the ranger had none at the time) or they already had one, they could spend the point to stabilize the witch. Though this might come more from our group's ruling that inspiration can be spent to help another player's roll, just giving a bit of description how your character helps. This has definitely enabled our group to help each other shine when a character succeeding is paramount, but they're out (usually me, I have terrible luck and also spend them pretty freely).
2:30 That isn't weaker. In 5e if your 1st roll is bad you still have to accept the 2nd roll, so a hero point is equivalent to advantage where the 1st roll is bad; ability to save it for when "the first roll is bad" is gravy. That's the only time advantage could keep up, so either way the 2nd roll determines success, except that ability to save it. Statistically, advantage is +3.3 on a roll, and a hero point is a separate chance to hit. In a balanced game players hit roughly 66%, so in those games a hero point is worth 3x since only 1/3 of inspiration rolls will turn out to have needed it. edit: and yeah that complaint about the 2nd roll is nonsense. If you use a hero point to turn a success into a crit you are *gambling*, and thematically, gambling doesn't always pay off.
At the risk of doxxing myself, I'm running a 2E-adapted WotR campaign, and I'm using homebrew for the Hero Point system to fill in for the old Mythic system that's otherwise so central to the campaign. While I recently began allowing something similar to the blanket 'up their degree of success' variant, prior to this they've mostly used their Hero Points to avoid failure and crit failure consequences rather than fishing for crit successes, and I think that sort of scenario is when Hero Points feel best to use. I think a simple rider that they can't get crit successes this way improves the 'up their degree of success' variant tremendously as an alternative for general play.
Have players use Hero Points to "try for that Crit" when at Success Level. Sometimes allow players to Force Enemy to reroll yet at minimum the cost of three Hero Point is required & from more than one player. Each person earns 20% for the first HP + 10% for each additional HP from that Player's seeking the reroll.
I have used the increase degree of success rule and it was ok, it helped my group of newish players survive AV(mostly). I did caveat that success to crit success took 2 points to use, which aleviated how often on-demand criticals would happen. I think I would be willing to try the d20, min 10. I also have thought about allowing advantage if a point is spent before a roll is made, but if a point is spent after a roll then it must become the 2nd roll.
I'm okay with the risk of making things worse, but I find it boring if nothing at all happens. That's why I recently introduced a tiny house rule: If the reroll produces the exact same number again, the degree of success increases by one. It changes nearly nothing about the power level, but adds another "5% chance to cheer and laugh" event.
Have only played 4 sessions of 2e. I do like the ones Ronald recommends at the end. The auto 1 degree higher success is interesting. Perhaps more specificity is needed. One something like a saving throw, if a PC gets a crit fail, they can choose between 1 degree of success increase (so regular failure) or to roll it as suggested in the book? Also a number of valuable skill checks have a negative effect on the PC if they crit fail, perhaps then too? And maybe turning a Crit hit against a PC into regular hit? The saving throw and crit hit degree of success change could be the difference between being full hp and rolling death saves at level one, from my experience
My current house rules on hero points: 1. The player may spend a point to automatically succeed on a check or attack, but at a cost. Usually I draw from the fumble deck or apply something that changes the battlefield. (You hit the ogre, but he grabs a hanging brazier as he staggers back, and suddenly the ground is covered in hot coals that damage anyone who enters the area.) 2. The party can spend three collective points to force an enemy reroll. That way the cost to do so is significant, and usually has to be a group decision. 3. The party may spend five hero points to force a critical success.
Something I haven't seen mentioned in the top comments so I'll ask about it: What about gating certain stronger effects behind using more than one point? Obviously this would depend on your actual method for giving them out. But if making an enemy reroll a Save is too strong for one point, what if it cost two? Or three? If a player is really fond of the character to the point they really want Heroic Recovery, what about making that a two-point option?
I recently ran a session where the 4 players were fighting 2 basilisks and were able to get around never being petrified, despite failing nearly every "slowed" effect at the start of their turns. They kept spending hero points, which I felt trivialized the encounter. I fully expected at least 1 of the characters to be petrified,and need to be bathed in the creature's blood. But I also didn't expect it to be a tpk. It just didn't go the way I had hoped and kinda felt bad as a GM. I'm worried thag kind of thing might happen again.
Personally, I give out hero points that stay between sessions. This allows me to give rewards for good roleplay/sticking to character flaws towards the end of session without the feelsbad of the points going away. I keep a limit of 3, though. And likewise I award hero points for heroic action and good incharacter banter...but allow them to be used for one extra action on the turn, or to slightly bend the rules (such as falling from 30ft to deliver a devastating piledriver without being punished too hard)
I added one specific mechanic to hero points. Well, two, but I’m currently tweaking the other one, it still does not work as I intended it to work. So… I allow my players to use any feat-based actions (feats that have number of actions in their name) from feats they have access to but did not choose while leveling up by spending a hero point. It works pretty well when I’m playing with my advanced group, it gives them pretty heroic ability to force themselves to do something in a pressure of the moment that they wouldn’t be able to do otherwise. It’s too complex for newbies though. Idk I wanted to share it here :p
The group I DM uses normal Hero Points rule, where everyone starts with 1 at the start of a session. The only exception to this is if they are in the middle of prior combat from a previous session. Only after the conclusion of that battle will the hero points then reset to 1 each. On top of this, I also use Keele's Hero Points rule. "If the result of a hero-point reroll is 10 or less, a bonus of 10 is applied after the fact". Using this combination of how to handle Hero Points, I found it both impactful, and not overpowered while also not punishing really bad rolls on Hero Points.
Lost my Level 9 Fighter in AV to a Hero Point spend - failed a save which would have dropped me to Wounded 3, so HP to re-roll into a Crit fail and died immediately dropping to Wounded 4 - have not forgiven them since!
I have done the up or down degree of success and it is extremely powerful. Don’t do it if you want to challenge your players. They cannot do it every fight but they won’t need to do it every fight. Just on the +3 boss they meet. If you are fine with this being very easy mode then it is AWESOME! Really puts the Hero in Hero point. Be sure if you do this that Hero points are infrequent. Maybe only once a session at the beginning and when they do something remarkable. Even for a super easy mode letting them do this many times a session is just too much. Ive had players suggest the refund the Hero if the reroll still fails has been suggested at my table and I turned it down because I too have wanted to keep the tension up but I am starting to reconsider. Iver got one player who rolls a lot of 1s and rerolls into 1s
I use the auto-increase of the degree of success at my table, but I only allow it on failures and critical failures. The point being that the character is so heroic that they succeed where anyone else would have failed. So far, it has helped my players a lot to alleviate the bad rolls streak (I've some unlucky players, really, rolling two 1s in a row on a regular basis), and I only give 3 points at the beginning of a 6 to 8 hours long session. I'll present them the 1d10+10 rule though, it seems to me that it is good to achieve the same goal!
Increasing success by 1 degree is way too strong. It hearkens back to Pathfinder 1E where you could gain a bonus to a roll (and a smaller bonus if you use it after the roll), which honestly I don't think would be too bad to add back in, as opposed to automatically increasing the degree of success. Turning a near miss into a hit can be cool, but effectively spending a hero point to get +10 to a roll feels like way too much
I personnally use the variant rule of giving more hero points (about 50% more I'd say). The game is far from deadly though, so I might consider removing heroic recovery
We give more hero points. Writing a character journal is +1 to start, and we regularly get one per hour. However, I tend to give out less, because we have a lot of RP and a lot good play and it is easier to just have them appear at regular intervals. We have given out some for truely awesome scenes, but this is rarely more than 1 a session. We let you take the higher roll, but otherwise just do the reroll. We don't let it affect enemy rolls that feels like a bit much. We keep that it is a fortune effect (no stacking rerolls) and let it prevent death. I am running games with big gay heroes and also use Free Archetype and Ancestry Paragon. Also, we may have as many as 5 sessions with no combat whatsoever, and Players write journals, sometimes have family trees, spicy romances, and games tend to last years, so character death is usually going to a lead to a big sidetrack where folks want to go rez the person before doing anything else.
I wish there were more hard rules for frequency given they're supposed to be used to pad the swinginess. Arguing with the GM hourly that "we should've gotten Hero Points by now" only to be rebutted by "Hourly is just a suggestion" and everyone to have received zero at the end of the 7 hour session sucks.
Proposed idea. Keep Hero Points as they are in the book, but add one additional option. When spending a Hero Point to reroll a d20, you can either reroll a new d20 roll and keep the second roll even if it's worse, OR you can choose to add a 1d6 to the original roll. This encourages the spending or Hero Points on already good rolls to stretch for that possibly normally impossible crits against a highlevel DC. You are still limited to only spending one Hero Point per roll, so if you roll low, you would likely just reroll the d20, but if your original roll is pretty good, but not great, you can be tempted to spend a Hero Point on that as well.
As a GM i would constantly forget to reward HPs so started issuing the group 3 each per session (we are playing through AV) which i quickly realised this was too much they would just either blow through them on any fail/crit fail or horde them till the end, so we dropped it down to 2 HPs each per session and this has made the sessions more tense in a fun way. They party is taking effects more seriously and with the Keelys HP variant rule it prevents going from a fail to a crit fail etc
I've tried a bunch of things like giving out prerolled results when the session starts and letting players choose when to use those rolls(like stratagem kinda). One I like the most is using the stamina variant and letting resolve reroll a check u make. Let's Resolve kind of do everything hero points can (stabilize and reroll) but you don't just hand them out when the GM says u deserve one, always thought that was kind of an odd design choice for this game.
I have to refute a criticism of Heroic Recovery, the point that it eliminates the chance of dying. In my experience monsters typically prioritize killing downed characters, so having one use of Heroic Recovery often only delays death; letting a downed PC take one or two more hits while getting swarmed. It can make the difference between life and death but is absolutely not a guarantee.
We don't use Heroic Recovery in our games. BUT..... that's because we play with the Stamina variant rule and it suggests to not use hero points for recovery since Resolve does something similar.
Add a new reaction that uses hero points as the resource. Reaction: if an enemy would make a save, you can spend a hero point to make a relevant skill check against one of the creatures Dcs (whether its reflex, will or fort depends on player justification/ how the chosen skill would effect the creature. diplomacy, deception and intimidation for Will or athletics, acrobatics, for Fort arcana, nature for Reflex ect. This would all be up to interpretation). the effects depend on the degree of success succeed: nothing happens Fail: the creature must reroll its save Crit fail the creature rerolls its save and takes a -2 circumstance penalty to the save this has the misfortune and incapacitate trait. This reaction can be used by anyone. The thing i like best is that it would allow martials to help when it comes to spell saves
I honestly don't care for hero points all that much. Most players in our group like narrating how stuff goes wrong when they roll low, so there are very few re-rolls. Which means that the players have their hero point(s) available when their character goes down and it becomes a fail-safe against dying. I would argue for abolishing them at our table, were it not that the players only get their first hero point if they are on time (even though they don't use them, this is a great motivator, for some reason). Reading the comments, I must say that the idea of adding a d4 or d6 to the original roll sounds like a good outcome, too. I might just change my mind on not liking them.
I would personally love an adjustment to the hero point rules. I'm in a play by post game and I rolled lower *three times in a row* when using hero points--and I rolled precisely one lower than the first roll each time. Staggeringly low odds, to be sure, but that's going to stick with me for quite a while. I wouldn't feel less bad with more hero points in these situations, particularly because they're a fortune effect and I still couldn't save my bad rolls; I just want to not do worse than I did after having spent a very limited resource.
There’s also the slight variation to the d20 minimum 10 rule is add 10 to a d20 roll less than 10 which I think is an option in the pf2e workbench module in foundry
I use the first two 'variants' together, but with a hard limit: you can only turn a failure into a success or a enemy success into a failure. I also only hand out one hero point each session. W9ithout that limit I agree, it'd be way to powerful, But with it.. once per session each PC can do something truly heroic, and my player's love it. Not to mention they're substantially more likely to use them lol.
I have it that you can’t roll less than 11 on the d20 with your hero point. If you roll less than 11 add 10. But I do not give out hero points at all. Each player gets one a session. People haven’t been saving them for recovery because it’s very strong
My groups usually do the minimum 10 variant for hero points. In our Sunday game, we normally start out with two because our GM was bad at awarding then during games
I said this on another video of yours that discussed hero points a while back, but I will say it again... I don't enjoy these types of open-concept/interpretive rules because it's both way too easy to over/under use them, while also not being clear at all to players how often they should expect to obtain the points and thus are afraid to use them. I would much prefer codified rules along the lines of "any time the party gains XP, the party votes to give a hero point to one character." or something.
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ADDITIONS/ERRATA:
-Another option is Paizo's Hero Point Deck. I use Foundry, and you can use it as a Rollable Table by typing "Hero Point Deck" in Compendium Packs and importing it. You can also customize the table.
-I like SwingRipper's litmus test for Hero Point house rules. Does it do either of the following (if so, then it might be too strong):
1) Does Magus get on demand crit spellstrikes?
2) Does it make debuff spells like Slow too strong?
One option I was thinking of was "Success." You can change any roll to a base success, including enemy rolls. For players it turns a failure or crit fail into a success. For enemies it turns a crit success into a success. This avoids the Magus Crit Cascade. It protects players from overwhelming damage, but they still take something.
I do have concerns if this will be before or after other effects that shifts degrees of success. If it is before, then players who turn saves into crit saves get to avoid everything, but superior monsters will blow off all effects too (i'd refund the hero point if this happens). If it is after, then you can guarantee that boss monsters take some effect and players would too.
This admittedly does take the randomness out of it. I'd probably give fewer hero points.
Hero point deck is fun, it's niche (if you don't allow players trading cards) but when they end up in an unexpected situation with a card that serves it, it creates excitement!
I tried something new with Hero Points last session. Everyone started with one, per RAW. Then halfway through the session, I offered what I called an "Easter egg point" (we played on Easter Sunday). I had everyone roll a d20 to get one of these alternate buffs. Some of these metagame functions are arguably more powerful, but they are also much more circumstantial. Here is the list (I'd love some feedback):
1) Automatically find the next secret door within 20 ft of you.
2) Add 2d8 damage to any one attack.
3) Get 1 additional Action for 1 round.
4) Add +4 to any one skill check roll.
5) Get +20 ft bonus to your speed for 2 rounds.
6) Add +4 to any one saving throw you roll.
7) Get 1 additional hero point.
8) Swap positions on the battle map with any 1 enemy or ally within 30 ft.
9) Gain 20 temporary HP for 2 rounds.
10) Get a +4 bonus to AC for 2 rounds.
11) Add +4 to your spellcasting DC for 1 spell.
12) Get 1 additional spell slot of any rank for which you can cast spells.
13) Acrobatics: increase success by one step
14) Athletics: increase success by one step
15) Diplomacy: increase success by one step
16) Intimidation: increase success by one step
17) Performance: increase success by one step
18) Society: increase success by one step
19) Stealth: increase success by one step
20) Thievery: increase success by one step
@@philopharynx7910I actually like this. I might try it out.
If you're using and tracking the Hero Point Deck on FoundryVTT, the module PF2e Toolbelt is currently the way to track it on your character sheet (along with a lot of other useful things IMO).
Ronald took the level 1 feat "Assurance (Playtesting)"
My group learned early, more out of anger and annoyance with poor rolls, that proactively spending your Hero point is vastly superior to hoarding them to prevent death.
You won't get knocked out at all, if you landed an extra strike that ended the enemy 1 round early. Remember that "Turns to Kill" is a important metric, spending hero points on your rolls improves that metric.
Also as a GM I tend to give out hero points to the ones using them the most, because there's nothing sadder than ending a session with a handful of unused hero points.
And it's a lot better to hero point your crit fail vs dragon's breath than to stabilize afterwards!
We're on the same page with regards to this. The only thing my group wants is an objective, codified rule for obtaining hero points rather than the wishy-washy "approximately one per hour based on [the GM's feelings]".
@@Ilandria.I don't know. While they are important mechanically-wise, I think the design intention for them is to be a way of helping the GM reward players for cool moments of roleplay or something similar.
It's more about the relationship between players than the player and the game system.
I think things are fine with just adding more benefits to hero points.
both the group I play in and the group I GM for both tend to blow their hero points the moment they're a) annoyed by missing or b) crit failing a save they're scared of
I will say that one variant rule I'd probably run with is just having it be that the worst you can do on a hero point roll is fail. So you can't critically fail if you're using a hero point. That seems pretty fair. I agree that it really sucks to use a limited resource like that which is meant to be a benefit only to end up worse off than before.
I use this with one other variant that I don't think breaks anything: I distribute hero points differently. Instead of giving them out once an hour, I give out two hero points at the beginning of the game and usually that's all they get (and the game is usually 3-4 hours). This is not for balancing reasons. It's because I started off trying to distribute them raw and quickly realized ... I do not remember to give out hero points during the game. So if I try to play raw they'll only get one the whole session. So far my method has worked much better than that first attempt. My players use hero points more (they barely used them initially possibly because they knew if they used it, they were completely out.) But also it's rare for the table to completely run out. I would highly recommend this to anyone who also has the same issue of forgetting to give them out. (Not for everyone).
@@AlexM-is6ru I have this problem, as do some of my GM's. Since we have longer sessions, he gives out three to most players. But only one to me, because I have great dice luck (I'm okay with this).
9:38 Hey its me!
Auto increase one degree of success would break grapplers... Restrained can be backbreaking, crit disarm is absurd, etc etc
My way of changing hero points was basically the "hero deck" that paizo makes but with more potent effects, so that it is a weird X factor for my in person games!
yeah, im a big fan of the hero deck. it creates a lot of fun in the game.
Just learned there is a Rollable Table of Paizo's deck in Foundry! I might try it out
@@TheRulesLawyerRPG I never got the foundry implementation to work cleanly (but I also never tried *that* hard)
I think the auto-increase one degree of success rule could be balanced if it has a chance of not working. That avoids the issue of on-demand crits.
e.g. you only increase your degree of success if you succeed a DC10 flat check. (you'd want to fine-tune the DC to make it properly balanced)
Last time we played our Monk actually spent a Hero Point to reroll his second attack on a Flurry of Blows. The first one was already a critical hit and his original roll for the second Strike was a hit. He wanted to fish for that second crit.
And he got it. Managed to melt the big bad's hit points by exactly 1 more point of damage than necessary. The group loved it.
I think your proposed change would be really fun (and not break the game)
For peeps who want general guidelines of if its a good adjustment
1) Does Magus get on demand crit spellstrikes?
2) Does it make debuff spells like Slow too strong?
I think those two questions can be a guiding light for "will this change break something?" in a similar way to "is this ancestry better than human" is for homebrewing ancestries
Stealing your test for my pinned comment lol
I was thinking of "success". You can turn a fail or crit fail to a basic success. Or turn a bad guy's crit success into a regular success. No crit fishing.
I do have concerns if this will be before or after other effects that shifts degrees of success. If it is before, then players who turn saves into crit saves get to avoid everything, but superior monsters will blow off all effects too (i'd refund the hero point if this happens). If it is after, then you can guarantee that boss monsters take some effect and players would too.
I'm curious, are there any agreed upon guidelines for homebrewing ancestries? Or any homebrewed ancestries that are known as good already? I'm not going to do it/allow it for my first campaign but it would be fun to dive into in the future :3
@@Sunny_Haven Battlezoo has several books of odd ancestries. Mark Seifter was involved and he was one of the creators of P2e. They do look balanced to me, but I expect that there are some odd combos that might break things.
@@philopharynx7910 alright, thank you! I noticed them before when my friends and I were regularly creating characters in Pathbuilder to check the system out but never really looked into them. I'll read up on them in the future!
For me, I don’t think they need “fixing”, but I think they can be a lot more fun since as is they focus on reducing suck rather than providing awesome.
In a funny “fix”, to me one of the most fun solutions is the “Hero Point” system from D&D. Instead of rerolling / adding Fortune to a roll, you also have the option to *add a d6* to a roll. This allows you to easily nudge from a close miss to a hit, or a high hit to a crit.
That one small change allows people to really push awesome effects rather than reducing bad ones. This is especially true if your table doesn’t like emphasizing death mechanics.
I also like how SIMPLE this rule is. If you don’t like heroic recovery, then let this add d6 to death saves. You don’t have to think of rerolls being lower, and close calls feel like your hero is pushing through to a higher degree. It’s because of your character being awesome, not just plot armor.
The tension doesn’t come from “will it be competent” but instead “will it be enough?” and if it’s very close you can excitedly push for “I’m using a hero point” rather than waiting for your failure. It also isn’t a full free degree, and it doesn’t reduce enemy competence. It’s just about having pushes of heroic prowess that plays with but doesn’t abuse the degree system.
Lastly, I think accepting nat1s can be fun and can even be rewarded with Hero Points when accepting them. Using Hero Points mainly to mitigate nat1s helps normalize a level of competence, but also takes away some of the drama and fun behind the swinginess in my experience.
They come out to about the same. A d20 will average 10.5 per roll. A d6 will average 3.5 per roll. So rolling a d20 and a d6 together you will average a 14 total. Rolling 2d20 (5e advantage) will average 13.82 each time you roll.
@@xczechr right, but you can't roll lower if you're adding a d6. 😊
One issue is that it makes hero points dependent on how close you were to the next degree of success. If it takes seven points to go up a degree, then the d6 won't help you at all. If you haven't figured out the enemy's defense, they could very well waste it. A d10 would always have a chance of increasing the degree, but would probably be too much.
@@philopharynx7910Yeah exactly. If you feel like you failed by a significant amount, maybe take the L or try a reroll instead, or maybe it takes stacking multiple hero points if it a HUGE deal. Your hero points also function as narrative punctuation. If you were a fair amount under, it still respects the original roll, just providing wiggle room.
And the difference in feel is significant. And with the difference of being unsure, that either means the GM may use language to describe a close miss, or the players use the information based on previous rolls. By empowering knowledge, it gives more power in later rolls and thus is less of a nova pusher. That’s even more reasoning for narrative/climactic momentum unleashed.
@@xczechr In a vacuum and while blind, yes. However, adding +d6 provides a lot of difference:
• Advantage =/= reroll. Using after the roll is a big deal
• You can push degrees of success for close calls this way, and you can give more weight and understanding later in the battle when there is a greater understanding of defenses
• It promises to ALWAYS increase the score
• On big fail gaps you might just want to accept it, or reroll instead. A nat1 rerolled is almost like a +9.5, but failure on a rolled [13] makes a reroll unfavorable. Context matters
• Depending on your GM, rolling multiple d6s is dramatically greater narrative + mechanical for a big move
If blind and in a vacuum before making any roll they are very close, but in execution and game feel is dramatically different
I’m surprised you didn’t mention the Hero Point deck that Paizo has already created for the purpose of buffing Hero Points. I use it when I run my home game. I deal out 3 cards to each player before play begins and let them select one. After that, if they gain a Hero Point it’s just dealt from the top of the deck.
legal. Não sabia desse deck. Vou atrás. Obrigado pela dica.
Thanks for this recommendation. I’m going to try it with my players next session.
Honestly the Hero Point deck kind of sucks. A lot of the things the cards give you come with drawbacks that aren’t worth using or are just too situational to use. So people just end up tossing them.
@@mikecarlock5527 isn’t that kind of the point? You don’t want to unbalance the game. But that’s why I hand out 3 for them to choose from initially so it minimizes their chances of getting something useless. And I like that they’re semi-official so there’s less argument over it.
@@LiaElf76If you introduce a mechanic or a game aid, the gold standard should be “is it being used?”
And for a majority of the cards in that deck, the answer is typically “no”. Instead of having to have to deal a bunch of cards it would have been better to have a majority of good cards in the first place.
So for my story we need to go back to the early 1980's. My group use to play D&D and after seeing everyone get invested in their characters after a LONG amount of playing and how easily they could die, I suggested "Luck Points". These could be used in a variety of ways BUT it was intended to prevent a TPK and or a perma death. We adopted it and it needed a ton of refinement over time before we landed on what worked for our group. Fast forward to me not playing for a decade or more and I am teaching my son D&D 4e and then I am back in to TTRPG's and tried Pathfinder 2e out of curiosity. I had to laugh when I saw "Hero Point". Yes they have the same problems we had back in the 80's. There is the intent vs smart players learning how to abuse it. Along with you still must have the fear of death. Without it, a system just become improv theater with some dice rolling. So yes the system needs tweaked for sure, but I would say it needs to be a list of things a DM could pick from with warning about each decision.
What's interesting is when even the senior developers of PF2e themselves use homebrew rules for hero points: the "D10+10" is also called the Keeley's rule for that reason.
I'll share something regarding Hero Points that has been successful at my table:
At the end of each session, I have my PCs privately vote for the MVP of that session. The player who gets the most votes gets an additional Hero Point for the next session.
I do keep an MVP leaderboard public to help all of us see the balance on who seems to be shining during sessions. As a GM, it helps me see if I need to pay attention to a player who hasn't been voted for awhile.
Also, the leaderboard/tracking helps me break ties (I have 4 PCs). If there is a tie in votes, I award the MVP Hero Point to whomever has the least amount if total MVP votes. (If both are tied on the total, I just award each).
Now, this system works if you have everyone voting fairly and not trying to metagame or only vote for themselves. It may not work for all groups.
Personally, im not a fan of... by that, i mean absolutely despise...the common game design concept (regardless of system) where you spend a resource or take a Feat/Merit that says you have to take the second roll even if worse.
Im hoping future Pathfinder releases also give us more options for what to spend them on. Feats that cost a Hero Point to use would be a nice possibility.
I played a bit of Starfinder, which as a similar system called Resolve Points, that I think works a lot better due to how they integrate with a character's abilities than Hero Points.
My group has been using the following rules for hero points: You get a hero point if you keep a natural 1 (and it should only apply when a roll is actually called for by the GM), and each player can hand out 1 per session to other players who do something they or their character think is cool/in character/whatever. This reduces the burden on the GM of actually remembering to hand those out.
Obviously you have to have the right group for any specific rules to work, but for us it has been good without any changes to the actual functionality.
I have added a similar rule to my games, where players track their natural 1s and will get a free hero point every 3rd nat 1 they roll. They track them across sessions, and I have found that it takes the sting out of nat 1s when they can track the progress towards a free hero point
I ultimately came up with a slightly complex solution but one my players have really enjoyed. You can only have one Hero Point at a time, but when you use it your minimum result is your original result + 2. On top of this, every player has a hand of Hero Point Cards (which I hand out like Hero Points, including an automatic one for every two hours of play) that they can play at any time as a reaction as soon as the trigger condition on the card as met (or they can use it to turn a Crit Fail into a Fail, reduce damage from a critical hit, or reroll a healing or damage roll). If they have three Hero Point cards, they can trade them in for another Hero Point. And as long as they have at least one card, they can always trade their whole hand for Heroic Recovery.
I came up with this whole system because I really like every encounter to feel dangerous and memorable, and that can lead to frustration. Hero Points being reliable is really important to me because I want my players to feel like, if they fail, they were given every chance to succeed and their failure can't simply be blamed on outlier RNG results. I think this leads to more satisfying victories *and* losses.
i personally add to this list "Reroll enemy saves". Helps casters partake and make use of the points as they dont get to roll for a lot of their attacks. But I find saving throws to be a legacy mechanic. You should always get to roll dice for your own actions.
What do you think should replace saving throws? Rolling against a passive defense like AC? What about defending against indirect hazards like poison and traps? I have this thought too but I struggle to make sense of some sources of attacks with that idea
@@Wyrmshield @Myrdraall You might be interested in this video by KingOogaTonTon (another Pf2e video creator) who talks about one way to change PF2e to do this: /watch?v=5Jsk1KCN5ZA
Our table uses a variant on 1d10+10. We roll 1d20, then if the roll is 10 or less, add 10. 10+10 =/= Nat 20. This preserves the 5% Nat 20 chance rather than either having a 10% chance (10 on the D10) or 0% chance (no Nat 20). We imported this variant from Mutants and Masterminds. We find that players tend not to use a Hero Point if the initial roll is already higher than 10.
Also, I had not seen the suggestion to award a HP for each hour of play, so thanks for that!
Need more lawyers like you out there! Keep fighting the good fight, and playing RPGs. I'll keep liking and subscribing.
Personally, Hero points are one of the features of PF2E that I don't like. Not their function, I've found that low-level PF2E is very deadly and the game is clearly balanced for the PCs having them. I don't like the administration of giving them out, either on a timed basis or a subjective (You did a thing! Get a hero point!) basis. I'm always forgetting to give them out, and it's so subjective that naturally you're going to have some players earn them more frequently just by the fact they're on average more courageous or creative. I've somewhat solved this by using a simply saying that all characters begin every combat with 1 Hero point. If they don't use it, they can carry it into exploration/roleplaying. That way we don't really have to keep track of them. Very occasionally I'll give them out when something truly exceptional happens, usually a story milestone rather than an action in combat.
My GM just lets us keep the original roll of the reroll is worse -- which happens shockingly often in our campaign, even though we players have been conditioned to use them only in the case of *really* bad rolls.
Also, he realized he was giving out Hero Points less often than suggested so he proposed the following, which we agreed to: whenever a player rolls a natural 1 and doesn't (or can't) expend a hero point to change that result, the player gains a Hero Point. It's working out pretty well so far, but I think additional changes might still be in order.
That was our experience as well. It is shocking how much worse you can make things by using a hero point. Everyone at my table has used a hero point, only to re-roll an get a natural one multiple times. Many times we've used hero points, only to go from failure to critical failure. Consequently, like you, we were conditioned to only use them in the case of really bad rolls. My standard guideline is that if you at least roll a 10 on the d20, don't use a Hero Point. Hero Points are best used when you've rolled a 5 or less, or if you know you've already critically failed a roll. And you should always strive to keep one hero point in the bank, just for heroic recovery if you think you'll be going into battle that session.
We changed how they worked, making it so that you can spend two hero points instead of one hero point to roll with D&D-style advantage.
I also agree that most tables seem to give out hero points too conservatively. The rules assume that at a standard gaming session (about 4 hours or more) you are going to get a hero point at least once per hour, and if you have shorter gaming sessions, you will get hero points more frequently.
This actually caused our gaming group to begin giving out hero points at the top of every hour, because typically nothing would happen that could justify EVERYONE getting AT LEAST one hero point per hour. That us to gain the number of hero points the game intended, and allowed the GM to reward out additional hero points above and beyond that amount as genuine awards. The consequence of that, of course, was that hero points became very arbitrary and disconnected with player actions.
That led us to the second change that we made, which was making it so that you get hero points basically whenever you are doing something that could have a genuine change of failure that would be bad -- which almost always means dice are rolling. That more-or-less allows us to obtain the number of hero points the game assumes that you should be earning, but at the same time at least loosely connects them to player actions.
Our groups relationship with hero points has been very strange to say the least:
- at the start of our game we used the default rules, but the GM realized that after a certain while we just weren't using them because mathematically it was often a bad idea to use them rather than hoard them in case of either death/a nat 1.
- the reason for this is that situations that usually call for hero points are situations where you have a lower success rate than failure rate, this is because naturally, if you have a higher chance to succeed the likelihood you'll need to use a hero point to reroll is going to be lower.
- In those situations where rolling a "12" on the dice wasn't enough for a success, this means that statistically you have at max a 35% chance of success, a 5% to crit succeed, a 50% chance to fail and a 10% chance to crit fail.
- the math here doesn't work like advantage, which is broadly like getting a "+5" to the roll and improves your success rate, here the probability never shifts because you're not taking the highest, so you're always going to have that 60% screw-up rate cause you're basically just taking a second crack at the roll.
- A consequence of this isn't just that the second roll was "worse" and therefore didn't feel heroic, it was usually just the exact same which didn't add any tension or excitement, it was just "welp, nothing happened so who cares".
For us, the default hero point rules actually made the game MORE boring and less intense because the likelihood of getting the exact same outcome never shifted so often times you'd just... Fail again, and as a result we threw those rules out by the end of the first book of blood lords.
Have to disagree - points 1 and 4 of the default rule are in conflict with one another. Because the roll can often be worse our tables found it rarely felt heroic or exceptional. At best it was a fate roll, not a heroic roll. It quickly became a joke how often the players had to describe what their character heroically did to critically fail the check they were only failing moments before.
*Which I see you cover later on, but seems to defy the initial point.
Our answer to the hero point disappointment issue was to make the spent hero point minimum roll be 10. And 90% of our spent hero points are to reroll a crit failure because we play with the crit failure and success decks.
Hero Points TBH need to be fixed greatly. I use the deck and it's at least something to give an option for them. Otherwise they just generally sit there, or are there for save or die moments. They need some sort of gusto added to the basic rules and concept.
I was thinking about this the other day while we were playing. I've had the "Hero Point Guarantee" many times in our games. While I was thinking about it, the idea of auto-increasing the degree of success popped into my head, and it seemed like it might be a good option. Glad to see other people thinking about that too.
I have introduced another mechanic in my game where a Witch the party saved will grant them "Fateweaving Boons" before they leave on an adventure. I deal out cards to the players, and every card has some effect like the ability to turn a crit fail into a crit success, or roll all rolls with advantage for one turn, basically lots of different "fortune" effects. It has added a lot of fun to my game, so I'll have to check out the Hero Point Deck to see if I can get inspiration for more of these cards...
The group I run for uses some funky rules some hero points that could be fun for others to use:
- We stick with giving hero points once an hour, tho I may give heropoints when a player character does an amazing moment of roleplay or pulls something off against all odds (generally something that feels narratively appropriate)
- The new roll cannot have a worse degree of success. This means you don’t crit fail if you rerolled a failed check, and attacks may potentially crit if you wanna risk the second roll.
- You can spend a hero point to enact a rule-of-cool moment to have your character do something narratively interesting by bending the rules a little (with GM arbitration). This could involve a wizard casting Cone of Cold below them to rocket into the air, or a fighter using their polearm for a pole vault jump to cross a larger distance.
the other thing i think is MAYBE the increase success by one would work for more hero points (maybe 2?). as long as the original roll wasnt a nat 20 (nothing should ever move it up two)
Ive tried the increase success by 1. I agree its too much. I like your idea of the d10+10.
I might do something like a combo of that and also keep the higher. Hero points should never be worse, in my opinion.
Hero points SHOULD be good. Im going to give the d10+10 approach. Im also a big fan of the hero point cards, and i let players pick and swap. It allows different people to do differng things with hero points. I also dont do the hour thing, and I also dont get rid of them at the start of a session. Especially since the really significant things often happen at the end of a session, so hero points earned at the end of a session arent "lost". Sometimes you want to save them over. Basically I think Hero points hould be slightly more rare, but more effective. I also got rid of heroic recovery. For the reasons in your video.
In general i think hero points every hour is a weird thing, because it depends on the length of session and the TYPE of session. I get the purpose behind them.
Also the hero point cards are also more fun. The players like drawing them and swapping them. I think the hero point cards are some of the best things because none of them are "bad". And they all allow heroic things to happen.
My Variant Hero Point Rules:
1) First, the "debuff."
I, as the Storyteller, get Villain Points. They work exactly like Hero Points (including the changes below).
Reason: if my players get rewarded for doing cool stuff, I should get rewarded for doing cool stuff.
Also. I have a large group, so it helps with the fact I have so many players.
2) The "Not exactly a Debuff."
Hero & Villain Points have an economy at my table. I have 30 "Hero Coins," which are distributed between two cups - the Hero (Yoda) Cup & the Villain (Darth Vader) Cup.
The Coins are ratioed out so that more start in the Hero Cup & when a player earns a Hero Point, they must draw it from the Hero Cup.
Yes, they can run out of Hero Points (though this has only ever happened once at my table).
When a player SPENDS their Hero Points, they go in the Villain Cup!
However, the reverse is true for my Villain Points.
I draw my Villain Points from the Villain Cup, and when I spend my Villain Points, they go into the Hero Cup.
Reason: This actually pairs with the next item, so hold that thought...
3) The "Social Dynamics."
Hero Points must be "nominated" before they can be rewarded. Only my players can nominate Hero Points. (As an aside, yes, the group discusses what criteria counts for a nomination.)
When a player does something cool, another player at the table cam nominate them for a Hero Point, and if I agree, then I will distribute it.
Players also decide when I've done something cool enough to warrant a Villain Point.
Reason: I straight up tell my players why I do this: "This is designed to make sure you're paying attention during the game."
Players often have a bad habit of zoning out during other players turns, and then asking "whats going on?" When their turn comes around.
This actively discourages that behavior by putting a critical game mechanic on the line!
If you're not paying attention when your friend does something cool, and by extension, you don't nominate them for a Hero Point, you are directly hindering your team's power level.
Also, if you're ignoring other players, other players might ignore you & your cool stunts.
This change actively encourages player engagement & leads to more investment in the game.
Additionally, if they're stingy in giving me Villain Points for my cool moments, then their Cup is going to run dry as I don't have any to spend & deposit in the Hero Cup.
4) The Slight Buff
Players (& the GM) start with two points at the start of the session. The cap of three points remains unchanged.
Reason: I like high adventure style games & Paizo's suggestion works well here.
5) The "Narrative Buffs"
My players can spend Hero Points in two additional ways, though it should be noted that these are designed to "allow a roll," not "replace a roll."
"I know a guy."
The player can spend a Hero Point to introduce an NPC to a scene that they are acquainted with who might be able to help with a problem.
The NPC has a "neutral" attitude towards them, but is always willing to listen to the party's request.
The NPC has one skill that is appropriate to the player's current challenge with an "Expert Proficiency for the party's current level," though the NPC can typically only be convinced to use that skill once before leaving.
At higher levels, the NPC skill increases to Master or Legendary.
"There's a chance..."
The player can spend a Hero Point to make a "minor modification to a scene" that would allow them to attempt a skill check that they would otherwise be unable to try.
This is a very free-form offering, but examples might include "finding some discarded tools" or "the door catches on something as it's closing, giving you a few extra seconds to get there."
The player describes what they want to add to the scene, and assuming GM approval, they are then allowed to attempt the roll that they'd normally be unable to try.
Reason: This gives players some extra narrative input & allows them to be creative without just handing them "free wins."
All of these changes have proven very popular at my table & my players love them.
We also use Hero Point Cards sometimes... when we remember to get them out. LOL.
We use the PF2E Workbench built in Keeley's Hero Point Rule instead of the other suggestions.
"A house rule favored by a certain Paizo developer: If the natural result of a hero-point reroll is 10 or less, a bonus of 10 is applied after the fact."
I have also begun using the PF2E Toolbelt setting for Hero Point Deck.
As an old-school GM (as in doing this for over 30 years, not of the RPG by the same name), the very existence of DM's advantage in 5e and Hero Points in PF2e bump up against what I'm used to and my nature very hard. The fact some players are complaining that what *I* consider to be a Cheat Button isn't Cheaty enough and needs fixing is beyond me. Gen X GM's are like, nah, dawg, be glad you even got a Chat Button.
10:12 That would basically be the Silvery Barbs issue. Not quite as extreme (Incapacitation still exists), but still a issue.
11:05 It might help if you cap the maximum Degree you can get with it. Like, you can upgrade - but only _up to_ Attack Success/Save Fail. Never to a Critical result past that.
This might also be a good modification of Incapacitation. Avoiding Critical Fails should always be possible. But upgrading a Success to a Critical Success feels bad. Or sometimes even Fail->Success.
12:20 One of my groups uses "if you roll exactly the same number, refund the Hero Point". A weaker version of the second.
I like some of the suggestions. Here is a thought, gate some Hero Point (HP) changes behind levels (experience).
Levels 1-5 - basic rules as written. but remove heroic recovery.
Levels 6-10 - refund HP if 2nd roll is lower.
Levels 11-15 - allow rerolls of enermy attack rolls.
Level 16-20 - reroll is D10+10 or D10-10 if used on enemies.
Thoughts?
We do auto-increase/decrease on players AND enemies. Change-ups we have are you can't HP crit or HP enemy crit fail. You can't "donate" to another PC and you also have to use it before damage is rolled. So far it has felt really good, even with a Magus in the group.
Edit: What spurred us on to try something else was having a session with EVERYONE failing with every HP roll. Now THAT felt bad
My table uses the following rules to make hero points feel better without changing the balance:
- If you critically fail a check to defend yourself from an enemy or a hazard, or if an enemy or a hazard critically succeeds on a check to use a hostile effect on you, you gain a hero point.
- This hero point cannot be used to reroll the check retroactively.
- If the result of a critical success or failure is not different from a regular success or failure, you do not gain a hero point.
- You can never gain more than one hero point from a single action or reaction.
This combined with generally sticking to the hourly guideline for GM-driven hero points means that players generally always have enough hero points to cover their most important checks and overall serves to prevent death spirals since a boss critting 3 times in a row also means the players get 3 hero points out of it.
Good subject. Let me propose my homebrew as well: hero points can only be used for one thing: adding a d12 to a d20 roll. Can be done after you roll but before the result is narrated.
Advantages:
1. Spending a hero point always makes your d20 roll higher, not lower.
2. Compared to just increasing the degree of success by 1, it's a little less overpowered (6.5 average not 10).
3. it's still exciting due to the risk (d12 is swingy; might not change the outcome, but it might turn a miss into a crit).
4. It's straightforward to spend more than one point if you really want to spend all your resources. d20+2d12 makes crit success very likely.
5. It's less confusing because there aren't multiple uses for the hero points. You want to avoid dying? Just add d12s to your death save, or to your attack roll to kill a dangerous enemy.
6. Compared to other proposed buffs, enemies are still scary. You can't change their rolls and you can't force enemies to crit-fail your incapacitating spells.
7. I like the idea that your original roll always matters. You can modify it, but it's more dramatic if there is no "Undo" button.
Re: crit spellstrikes, they still wouldn't be guaranteed with d12, but they would be likely. However, is that really so bad? They got into positions, spent multiple actions, a spell slot, and a hero point. If they are highly likely to do massive damage that turn, rock on. That's your thing, bro.
We have adopted the following: When used to reroll a check, you take the higher of the two rolls, then add a bonus depending on your level (+1/2/3/4 if you are at least level 3/7/12/17, respectively).
We're also experimenting with simply giving three to every PC during their daily preparations. This is roughly half as frequent as we were experiencing with the 1 per hour guidance.
None of the problems you highlighted relate to what bugs me about Hero Points; I take issue with how they're distributed. The text says to tie them to some in-game act of heroism, but also to dole them out in roughly 1-hour intervals. I find that to be too vague and a bit patronizing - true heroics don't generally occur 1/hour, so you usually end up awarding HPs for _dramatics._ Besides, the focus on heroics is undermined by the fact that you're on a timer, and past the hour are just looking for a flimsy excuse to hand out a point.
I've yet to find a good enough fix, but I've had success with the "Breaking off a Five" house-rule used by Tabletop Gold for their _Roots of Ruin_ live-play campaign. It goes like this: Hero Points reset to 1 on every session that is divisible by 5 (so 5, 10, 15, etc.); in the meantime, they transfer over from session to session. I generally interpret "heroic deeds" as clever, tide-turning uses of the rules (e.g., a light-sensitive monster is Dazzled from the _light_ the Sorcerer is keeping up, and the Flat Check turns a crit into a miss), which is a great way to highlight cooperative aspects of PF2e. However, such events only generally occur once per combat, so the cadence is way too slow for my group. To compensate, I make sure quests consist of plenty of Moderate Accomplishments (30 XP + Hero Point), and make them obvious to the characters - getting to the quest location, completing an objective, and a side objective, would each give out HPs.
Just the fact that HPs transfer over (up to a point) makes them more powerful, since players can more consistently store them for when they are needed. The lack of a regular reset is compensated by their higher availability - combats semi-regularly result in 1 or 2 HPs, while any one quest is likely to give out 2 or 3. Since I've been using this system, it has never felt like a HP was given out because of non-diegetic reasons (like a timer running out).
I simply don't use/allow Hero Points in my own games. Partially for a much more challenging experience, but also because I don't like these sort of benny/inspiration mechanics in RPGs. I believe good interactive roleplay should be something that's simply encouraged by running a much better game that engages my players rather than "forcing it out" with meta currencies.
I think I would prefer if Paizo provided some sort of guidelines for "Heroic XP" instead, giving out shared progression bonuses to the whole party for the types of interaction the GM wants to see in their game. XP's a useful tool for me to pace adventures and reward players consistently throughout a chapter. But the trend for most tables these days seems to be moving towards GM Fiat/milestone progression; Sky King's Tomb didn't even have experience points as an option.
What we’ve done in our group for hero points is that they upgrade your success to the next tier. Crit Fail -> Fail, Success -> Crit success, etc. BUT at the same time we don’t have the 1 heropoint/hour rule (cause we simply forget about it constantly). 90% of the time the players will have one heropoint for the entire session UNLESS someone does something very cool or imaginitive or survives impossible odds.
It has worked wonders for our group and made for some intense moments! But obviously do what works best for your group and it’s needs.
So the rule I've been using is one that's baked into Foundry vTT via the PF2e Workbench module - when spending a Hero Point, if the result on the die is
I'm new to the game (GM) and have a group of players that haven't played before.
I agree that using HP for surviving feels a bit cheap, and there's a risk that they'll horde the resource. But on yje other hand, is that so wrong? To me HP are an extra resource, not a core game mechanic. So the players are free to use them as they like. Then granted, I'm not good at giving out extra HP and never does so "by time", more because good RP.
BUT! My players, new to the system, uses their HP every so often to change a roll, even when it's not a "crucial" moment. So I haven't really experienced the "downsides" of HP. Yes, some players use them more often than others, but in general tjey are being used.
With more experience my viewpoint might change, but for now I'm happy with the HP mechanics. (If any change, aim leaning more towards removing HP all together...).
RAW Hero Points are kind of terrible and boring, no ifs and buts about it. In fact anyone I've played with who comes from a different system with Hero Points ends up finding them EXTREMELY lame and disappointing.
They do NOT let characters feel heroic or exceptional. They aren't even terribly beneficial a lot of the time.
Rerolling with a hero point isn't tense, if anything it just feels like a chore. If you have one (you will often have only 1 in a RAW game) you should never ever use it, because the terrible reroll is not worth losing out on Heroic Recovery. The idea of describing your heroic moment BEFORE you reroll is downright laughable.
Every table I have played on has abandoned the base structure of 1 + trickle HP and simply switched to every player starting with 3 hero points and gaining no more during the session. In my own games I GM I went one step further and dole out an extra hero point to all players whenever a boss-class enemy appears. But more importantly I added several additional uses of Hero Points, since even with this change the base reroll remains ass.
For my games, hero points cannot make your reroll worse. If you roll the same number on the reroll, you get the hero point back but have to keep the result. Alongside the reroll, you gain spend a hero point to either 1) push a roll to a Success if you failed by exactly 1 (we play on foundry, so players can see how much they fail or succeed by) and 2) can spend 1 hero point to essentially use the Ferocity reaction (they stay at 1 hp and gain Wounded)
Frankly, PF2 would probably be a better system without having Hero Points at all. But maybe I will remove Heroic Recovery.
Rerolls of enemy saves feels right to me, but a lot of that comes from having played D&D 4E, where you had Reflex defense, Fort defense, Will defense, and Armor defense. Attackers were rolling their attacks against whichever defense the attack listed, and saving throws were what PF2 calls flat recovery checks.
It IS a buff, because it dramatically increases the number of things you can hero point to improve, but thematically I feel like letting the wizard nearly double their odds of critically hitting with Briny Bolt but not Spider Sting is just...weird.
My HP rules are as follows:
- If a hero point reroll comes up as the same number, reroll it again. (Feels bad to heropoint and get exactly the same number on the die :) )
- Encounters have Villain Points which the GM can use for enemy rerolls. When a Villain point is used, a hero point is awared to the players. Number of Villain points is static based on encounter difficulty. (Moderate/Severe/Extreme 1/2/3 Villain Points)
I've yet to outright kill a player with Villain Points so I'm not worried about that one. I might take the hero point refund rule, and the removed heroic recovery rule.
@TheRulesLawyerRPG
I'm curious, would it be possibly fairer for it to be:
"Can spend point to change a Critical Failure to a Failure" when player is rolling against an effect, and "Can spend point to turn Critical Success into Success" against an attack roll being used against them? Seems like it could limit it to essentially buffing the player's choices, as well as still having a semi-tactical version of "Heroic Intervention".
I like Heroic Recovery, but I think it can also sour the experience a little bit. I have a squishy Psychic character, but I don't feel a lot of danger because I always hoard a Hero Point. I also don't like that Hero Points rob healers of their heroic moment of saving a downed player.
What about this: Heroic Recovery can only be triggered when your dying value reaches 2. Instead of rolling a death save, reduce the value of your dying condition by 1.
So, it reduces your dying value AND prevents the possibility of rolling a failure. That's kind of like 2 turns of assistance, which could be a real game changer for someone who is dying. It also gives your healer extra time to be heroic.
You could even play with the values a little. Maybe you have to wait until dying 3? And maybe in that case it would reduce your dying value by 2?
Thoughts, anyone?
The Fate system also has something similar, the fate points. They let you reroll o gain a flat bonus, but you could only use them in an action thematic with your character, but you could also use it to do special actions. Also, you start with 3 of this points and could gain more by using the background of your character or his main flaw, to create fun situations that bring problems to your character, similar in the way vampire the masquerade did it with willpower points.
4:56 "Not only does it feel bad, but it's also arguably not thematic."
11:37 "Auto-increasing something by a degree of success kind of allows you to get critical hits by command"
Yeah we kind of have to pick our poison here. In terms of game balance, re-rolling to avoid critical failure is much less exploitable, but avoiding critical failure isn't "heroic". Getting a critical hit by command is much more heroic, but also potentially game breaking. Maybe the real solution is to keep the current rules, but rename them to something like "Insurance Points"
My group plays with the Hero Point Deck. For the most part, we've been using them not on Heroic Recovery but on critically failed saves. On a rare occasion we might use one on offense (I did when fighting a nasty boss fight, successfully). So far our 'save from death' things are 'survivors using healing abilities'. And only one character death (mine but she got better).
Games that have HP go up with every level should not have inspiration/hero points. That is what the abstraction intent of of escalating hit points cover. i.e. "Luck, Stamina, skill, resilience, etc,..."
Every one of your points about the 'Reasons for the default rule' is covered by HP going up by level, except for the 'player reward' which can be covered by giving out extra XP.
Skill based games with low fixed HP have "hero points" to mitigate the randomness of die rolls, because they do not have an ever increasing pool of HP to bail them out when a chance roll does not go their way.
If the game math makes the PC's are so perfectly matched at all times that they still need a hero point mechanic on top of HP escalation; then I posit that there is a game design issue.
Hero Points have been a major pain point for me as a GM because a lot of the time, my players are usually hero pointing on something exciting like a spell or a some ability of theirs and they fail and the re-roll fails again.
I've tried some house rules, like just allowing a hero point to negate at the very least a crit failure (and I probably did "improve by a degree"), but something didn't sit right with me.
I think letting the players re-roll an enemy roll might be a decent idea, alongside just "refund a hero point if 2nd roll is lesser" just seems like a good way to remove the salt from that wound.
Unfortunately, or fortunately, I have a low level of death in my games for one reason or another (I'm also not big on just being aggressively hard on the players), which is also something I've considered.
I once tried to do this deep dive in at least two other systems with a mechanic like hero points that came to mind, those being Shadowrun and Vampire the masquerade (and probably requiem) and as I read my copies of the SR4E20a and VTM20A books I kind of realized that mechanically, their systems weren't too different, save for the fact that in Vampire, Willpower is also a stat you roll with and spend for a variety of other uses, but we're very specific to the kind of game Vampire is. So not much in the way of helpful advice I could pull from other games
I dunno, I'm mixed on this, but I'm also mixed on a lot of things. But maybe I should at least consider more things from a "Is this fun for the players" and not solely just "Is this balanced?"
an effect I haven't seen around yet is keeping everything about hero points, but removing Fortune, which potentially makes it way more powerful when stacking with other Fortune effects, and can fight back Misfortune effects better, but I think it's mostly gonna make it more intuitive or quicker to parse situations where you're not sure of the dice interactions like "yeah I'm gonna use a hero point to reroll my Devise a stratagem" or "I don't know if I failed that Hide, but I'll chuck a Hero Point at it, because I got a bad feeling"
Correct me if I'm wrong, but RAW you can reroll the results of DAS, but not the strike to which DAS is applied to
@@iCarus_A Devise has Fortune, and Fortunes can't affect each other, (or replace each other), which I think also applies to its main d20 roll, it's what people argue against DAS+Srue Strike, aka yeah I have no idea how they interact because they're both Fortune lol
@@cyanic3148 actually, DAS is not a check thus cannot be rerolled. i had to go check but yeah, its a "roll" not a "check"
Heretical Idea: Steal the Intrusion mechanics from Cypher System power it with Hero Points.
What’s the intrusion system? In short, a mechanic that allows players to make minor changes to the world around them (gm discretion).
Example: The players get cornered by a band of thugs in an alley way.
Player 1: I spend a hero point to say that the leader of the thugs and I were inmates together in prison and he actually owes me a favor.
But the GM can also intrude on the players, giving the player/players hero points but adding a nasty unavoidable twist on the situation.
I've been thinking about this exact topic. I wanted a system for close calls, to "succeed at a cost". But in playtesting, none of my penalties have been very good (crit miss card, conditions, damage). I've been thinking about a new action for hero points, a nudge.
For each hero point a player spends, they may increase/decrease a die roll by 1 or 2. It is more deterministic than rerolling, but only works if you roll just under the dc. Nudging from am 18 to a 20 counts as a natural 20, so it also gets those extra bonuses too.
Not sure I'm gonna let them nudge monster rolls. Gonna test 1 variable at a time.
My GM uses the 1d10+10* rule, and I'm so-so on it. It's nice that hero points are consistently good, but it also means there's less risk with some abilities. I feel like I can do less tactically sound options because I can hero point them and know they'll be good.
I really like the idea of removing heroic recovery, though. It sounds like it might be an example of a trap option. It's rarely the best option, but because it seems good, newer players hold onto it. Just as it's important to remove trap options during character creation, I think it's important to remove trap options during play. If this rule causes new players to play in a consistently bad way, it should be reworked or removed to better show the other options.
*Technically, it's "add 10 if the d20 is
I've yet to have my group start 2e, but in the past we had rolling AC. We just negate the starting 10 to armor and instead just use a d20+modifiers. On a failed check we can reroll that d20 as a hero point use. This is as a counterpoint to a monster rerolling its successful strike. Additionally for aid checks, etc. we usually use the check score converted to a modifier stat and add that value - so a check of 19 gives a +4, a check of 23 gives a +6, etc. So rerolling a d20 to hit, we could either just straight up add that value to the missed roll, or add that as a modifier value instead. And if that's still too powerful, then maybe just roll a d10 and add that value?
Not sure how “preventing your dying value from increasing” practically prevents a knock out. It doesn’t prevent the damage, and you are still at 0 HP. The rules do not support being fully conscious at 0 HP.
The last pathfinder game I was in, the GMs rule was that HP could improve the roll by 1 degree, but it couldn't turn a success into a crit success, so it helped with doing things by the kin of your teeth - like Indy going back for his hat - but you couldn't do something supercool. That seemed to work better for us, as it didn't fail like the precious resource was wasted - but the GM didn't hand out HP nearly as often as the book suggested, so maybe that ws the compromise.
I like the idea of calling them "story points", the idea that a player can use them to try to rewrite the story. That way if the re-roll is not successful, the player/character didn't "fail", they learnt that they could not change that part of the story. That thing was important and supposed to happen. CANNON EVENT!
Perhaps a hero point can be used to add a d10 to roll (or subtract from an enemy attack roll). This could allow for several of the options mentioned in the video. For instance it could potentially bring a roll from a success to a critical success (or a fail to crit fail) but it's not guaranteed (thus still allowing for some tension). What this does is allow for say a fighter or magic user who might have come close to that crit success (maybe 1-2 shy) to make that heroic extra effort that pushes them over the top. Or maybe they simply failed by 1-2 on the roll and this could mean the difference between a fail and a success (or a hit and a miss etc). This also allows for some flexibility on how generous you want your heroic points to be. An extra 1d10 is too much? Maybe it just adds an extra d8, d6 or even d4. Basically like adding a D&D equivalent bardic inspiration or guidance to any roll you allow it to be used with. By having the hero point add or subtract from an existing roll, this still allows for the original roll to be valid and if you already "hit" and were trying to “critically hit”, it doesn't take away from the original roll (so there is less feel bad involved).
My Proposal:
lots of the system is designed around the CF, F, S, CS chain, so link it to hero points ;
If you Reroll, the lowest result you can get is a Failure.
Instead of rerolling enemies, you can turn a CS into only a S.
You have made the heroic stay heroic, but you havent completely removed the random, or completely denied entire builds.
I'm currently DMing a Pathfinder 2e game, this is the first TTRPG for all of my players so their play is far far far from optimal. So I'm allowing them to call for me to reroll with a Hero Point.... and when they do I use my loaded dice that are loaded to roll natural 1's (hits a nat 1 on about 30% of rolls). I've told them that some NPCs will be immune to this effect and that after they are more used to the game I may remove this bonus.
Honestly, I've always preferred the "action points" from dnd3.5 ebberon. You get points per level, and they don't replenish until you've gained another level. They allow many of the same abilities that hero points allow, but instead of a reroll or advantage, they allow you to roll 1d6 and add that number to the original check. As you increase in level, you roll more d6s and take the best roll.
I've yet to play Pathfinder, so I'm not 100% on balance changes, but I'm pretty confident my 5E group wouldn't like the base hero points, and the inspiration from 5e usually falls flat in our group because of the aforementioned both rolls sucking thing. My question is thus:
Using the 1-Step variant for the hero points, do people think it would fairer if it couldn't be used to nudge things _into_ criticals, only out of them? So, say the enemy is rolling a save, a player could turn its crit success into a normal success or turn a success into a failure, but couldn't turn a failure into a crit failure. Or if the player is making an attack/check, they could bump a crit failure into a normal failure, or turn a failure into a success, but couldn't turn a success into a crit success. In a vacuum, it seems like it would still make hero points able to turn the tide of battle (instead of the fighter being burned to death from crit failing against a fireball they just become mostly crispy, or turns that failure trying to slam a door on the zombie horde into a much-needed success and time to breathe), but wouldn't allow players to hoard them for "crit fishing" by only using them when the effects would be so much stronger.
I'm also liking not using the heroic recovery as our group already tends to hoard inspiration. Though now that I'm thinking about it, I'm liking the concept of being able to use hero points for a heroic recovery of a _different_ character. I'm picturing the party's witch gets downed by some nasty critter. The altruistic ranger takes their turn to position themselves over their fallen comrade to keep the beastie from making a meal of them. Whether they were awarded a point for this action (which I definitely would if the ranger had none at the time) or they already had one, they could spend the point to stabilize the witch. Though this might come more from our group's ruling that inspiration can be spent to help another player's roll, just giving a bit of description how your character helps. This has definitely enabled our group to help each other shine when a character succeeding is paramount, but they're out (usually me, I have terrible luck and also spend them pretty freely).
2:30 That isn't weaker. In 5e if your 1st roll is bad you still have to accept the 2nd roll, so a hero point is equivalent to advantage where the 1st roll is bad; ability to save it for when "the first roll is bad" is gravy. That's the only time advantage could keep up, so either way the 2nd roll determines success, except that ability to save it. Statistically, advantage is +3.3 on a roll, and a hero point is a separate chance to hit. In a balanced game players hit roughly 66%, so in those games a hero point is worth 3x since only 1/3 of inspiration rolls will turn out to have needed it. edit: and yeah that complaint about the 2nd roll is nonsense. If you use a hero point to turn a success into a crit you are *gambling*, and thematically, gambling doesn't always pay off.
At the risk of doxxing myself, I'm running a 2E-adapted WotR campaign, and I'm using homebrew for the Hero Point system to fill in for the old Mythic system that's otherwise so central to the campaign.
While I recently began allowing something similar to the blanket 'up their degree of success' variant, prior to this they've mostly used their Hero Points to avoid failure and crit failure consequences rather than fishing for crit successes, and I think that sort of scenario is when Hero Points feel best to use. I think a simple rider that they can't get crit successes this way improves the 'up their degree of success' variant tremendously as an alternative for general play.
Have players use Hero Points to "try for that Crit" when at Success Level.
Sometimes allow players to Force Enemy to reroll yet at minimum the cost of three Hero Point is required & from more than one player. Each person earns 20% for the first HP + 10% for each additional HP from that Player's seeking the reroll.
I have used the increase degree of success rule and it was ok, it helped my group of newish players survive AV(mostly). I did caveat that success to crit success took 2 points to use, which aleviated how often on-demand criticals would happen. I think I would be willing to try the d20, min 10. I also have thought about allowing advantage if a point is spent before a roll is made, but if a point is spent after a roll then it must become the 2nd roll.
I'm okay with the risk of making things worse, but I find it boring if nothing at all happens. That's why I recently introduced a tiny house rule: If the reroll produces the exact same number again, the degree of success increases by one. It changes nearly nothing about the power level, but adds another "5% chance to cheer and laugh" event.
Have only played 4 sessions of 2e. I do like the ones Ronald recommends at the end.
The auto 1 degree higher success is interesting. Perhaps more specificity is needed.
One something like a saving throw, if a PC gets a crit fail, they can choose between 1 degree of success increase (so regular failure) or to roll it as suggested in the book? Also a number of valuable skill checks have a negative effect on the PC if they crit fail, perhaps then too? And maybe turning a Crit hit against a PC into regular hit?
The saving throw and crit hit degree of success change could be the difference between being full hp and rolling death saves at level one, from my experience
My current house rules on hero points:
1. The player may spend a point to automatically succeed on a check or attack, but at a cost. Usually I draw from the fumble deck or apply something that changes the battlefield. (You hit the ogre, but he grabs a hanging brazier as he staggers back, and suddenly the ground is covered in hot coals that damage anyone who enters the area.)
2. The party can spend three collective points to force an enemy reroll. That way the cost to do so is significant, and usually has to be a group decision.
3. The party may spend five hero points to force a critical success.
Something I haven't seen mentioned in the top comments so I'll ask about it: What about gating certain stronger effects behind using more than one point?
Obviously this would depend on your actual method for giving them out. But if making an enemy reroll a Save is too strong for one point, what if it cost two? Or three? If a player is really fond of the character to the point they really want Heroic Recovery, what about making that a two-point option?
I recently ran a session where the 4 players were fighting 2 basilisks and were able to get around never being petrified, despite failing nearly every "slowed" effect at the start of their turns. They kept spending hero points, which I felt trivialized the encounter. I fully expected at least 1 of the characters to be petrified,and need to be bathed in the creature's blood. But I also didn't expect it to be a tpk. It just didn't go the way I had hoped and kinda felt bad as a GM. I'm worried thag kind of thing might happen again.
Personally, I give out hero points that stay between sessions. This allows me to give rewards for good roleplay/sticking to character flaws towards the end of session without the feelsbad of the points going away. I keep a limit of 3, though. And likewise I award hero points for heroic action and good incharacter banter...but allow them to be used for one extra action on the turn, or to slightly bend the rules (such as falling from 30ft to deliver a devastating piledriver without being punished too hard)
I added one specific mechanic to hero points. Well, two, but I’m currently tweaking the other one, it still does not work as I intended it to work.
So… I allow my players to use any feat-based actions (feats that have number of actions in their name) from feats they have access to but did not choose while leveling up by spending a hero point.
It works pretty well when I’m playing with my advanced group, it gives them pretty heroic ability to force themselves to do something in a pressure of the moment that they wouldn’t be able to do otherwise.
It’s too complex for newbies though.
Idk I wanted to share it here :p
The group I DM uses normal Hero Points rule, where everyone starts with 1 at the start of a session. The only exception to this is if they are in the middle of prior combat from a previous session. Only after the conclusion of that battle will the hero points then reset to 1 each.
On top of this, I also use Keele's Hero Points rule. "If the result of a hero-point reroll is 10 or less, a bonus of 10 is applied after the fact".
Using this combination of how to handle Hero Points, I found it both impactful, and not overpowered while also not punishing really bad rolls on Hero Points.
Lost my Level 9 Fighter in AV to a Hero Point spend - failed a save which would have dropped me to Wounded 3, so HP to re-roll into a Crit fail and died immediately dropping to Wounded 4 - have not forgiven them since!
I have done the up or down degree of success and it is extremely powerful. Don’t do it if you want to challenge your players. They cannot do it every fight but they won’t need to do it every fight. Just on the +3 boss they meet. If you are fine with this being very easy mode then it is AWESOME! Really puts the Hero in Hero point. Be sure if you do this that Hero points are infrequent. Maybe only once a session at the beginning and when they do something remarkable. Even for a super easy mode letting them do this many times a session is just too much.
Ive had players suggest the refund the Hero if the reroll still fails has been suggested at my table and I turned it down because I too have wanted to keep the tension up but I am starting to reconsider. Iver got one player who rolls a lot of 1s and rerolls into 1s
My experience with hero points in PF2 and other similar mechanics in other games is that most DMs forget they exist and never give them out.
I use the auto-increase of the degree of success at my table, but I only allow it on failures and critical failures. The point being that the character is so heroic that they succeed where anyone else would have failed.
So far, it has helped my players a lot to alleviate the bad rolls streak (I've some unlucky players, really, rolling two 1s in a row on a regular basis), and I only give 3 points at the beginning of a 6 to 8 hours long session.
I'll present them the 1d10+10 rule though, it seems to me that it is good to achieve the same goal!
Increasing success by 1 degree is way too strong. It hearkens back to Pathfinder 1E where you could gain a bonus to a roll (and a smaller bonus if you use it after the roll), which honestly I don't think would be too bad to add back in, as opposed to automatically increasing the degree of success. Turning a near miss into a hit can be cool, but effectively spending a hero point to get +10 to a roll feels like way too much
I personnally use the variant rule of giving more hero points (about 50% more I'd say). The game is far from deadly though, so I might consider removing heroic recovery
We give more hero points. Writing a character journal is +1 to start, and we regularly get one per hour. However, I tend to give out less, because we have a lot of RP and a lot good play and it is easier to just have them appear at regular intervals. We have given out some for truely awesome scenes, but this is rarely more than 1 a session.
We let you take the higher roll, but otherwise just do the reroll. We don't let it affect enemy rolls that feels like a bit much. We keep that it is a fortune effect (no stacking rerolls) and let it prevent death.
I am running games with big gay heroes and also use Free Archetype and Ancestry Paragon. Also, we may have as many as 5 sessions with no combat whatsoever, and Players write journals, sometimes have family trees, spicy romances, and games tend to last years, so character death is usually going to a lead to a big sidetrack where folks want to go rez the person before doing anything else.
I wish there were more hard rules for frequency given they're supposed to be used to pad the swinginess. Arguing with the GM hourly that "we should've gotten Hero Points by now" only to be rebutted by "Hourly is just a suggestion" and everyone to have received zero at the end of the 7 hour session sucks.
Proposed idea. Keep Hero Points as they are in the book, but add one additional option. When spending a Hero Point to reroll a d20, you can either reroll a new d20 roll and keep the second roll even if it's worse, OR you can choose to add a 1d6 to the original roll. This encourages the spending or Hero Points on already good rolls to stretch for that possibly normally impossible crits against a highlevel DC. You are still limited to only spending one Hero Point per roll, so if you roll low, you would likely just reroll the d20, but if your original roll is pretty good, but not great, you can be tempted to spend a Hero Point on that as well.
As a GM i would constantly forget to reward HPs so started issuing the group 3 each per session (we are playing through AV) which i quickly realised this was too much they would just either blow through them on any fail/crit fail or horde them till the end, so we dropped it down to 2 HPs each per session and this has made the sessions more tense in a fun way. They party is taking effects more seriously and with the Keelys HP variant rule it prevents going from a fail to a crit fail etc
I've tried a bunch of things like giving out prerolled results when the session starts and letting players choose when to use those rolls(like stratagem kinda). One I like the most is using the stamina variant and letting resolve reroll a check u make. Let's Resolve kind of do everything hero points can (stabilize and reroll) but you don't just hand them out when the GM says u deserve one, always thought that was kind of an odd design choice for this game.
I have to refute a criticism of Heroic Recovery, the point that it eliminates the chance of dying. In my experience monsters typically prioritize killing downed characters, so having one use of Heroic Recovery often only delays death; letting a downed PC take one or two more hits while getting swarmed. It can make the difference between life and death but is absolutely not a guarantee.
We don't use Heroic Recovery in our games. BUT..... that's because we play with the Stamina variant rule and it suggests to not use hero points for recovery since Resolve does something similar.
Add a new reaction that uses hero points as the resource. Reaction: if an enemy would make a save, you can spend a hero point to make a relevant skill check against one of the creatures Dcs (whether its reflex, will or fort depends on player justification/ how the chosen skill would effect the creature. diplomacy, deception and intimidation for Will or athletics, acrobatics, for Fort arcana, nature for Reflex ect. This would all be up to interpretation). the effects depend on the degree of success
succeed: nothing happens
Fail: the creature must reroll its save
Crit fail the creature rerolls its save and takes a -2 circumstance penalty to the save
this has the misfortune and incapacitate trait.
This reaction can be used by anyone. The thing i like best is that it would allow martials to help when it comes to spell saves
I honestly don't care for hero points all that much. Most players in our group like narrating how stuff goes wrong when they roll low, so there are very few re-rolls. Which means that the players have their hero point(s) available when their character goes down and it becomes a fail-safe against dying. I would argue for abolishing them at our table, were it not that the players only get their first hero point if they are on time (even though they don't use them, this is a great motivator, for some reason).
Reading the comments, I must say that the idea of adding a d4 or d6 to the original roll sounds like a good outcome, too. I might just change my mind on not liking them.
I would personally love an adjustment to the hero point rules. I'm in a play by post game and I rolled lower *three times in a row* when using hero points--and I rolled precisely one lower than the first roll each time. Staggeringly low odds, to be sure, but that's going to stick with me for quite a while. I wouldn't feel less bad with more hero points in these situations, particularly because they're a fortune effect and I still couldn't save my bad rolls; I just want to not do worse than I did after having spent a very limited resource.
There’s also the slight variation to the d20 minimum 10 rule is add 10 to a d20 roll less than 10 which I think is an option in the pf2e workbench module in foundry
I use the first two 'variants' together, but with a hard limit: you can only turn a failure into a success or a enemy success into a failure. I also only hand out one hero point each session. W9ithout that limit I agree, it'd be way to powerful, But with it.. once per session each PC can do something truly heroic, and my player's love it. Not to mention they're substantially more likely to use them lol.
I have it that you can’t roll less than 11 on the d20 with your hero point. If you roll less than 11 add 10. But I do not give out hero points at all. Each player gets one a session. People haven’t been saving them for recovery because it’s very strong
My groups usually do the minimum 10 variant for hero points. In our Sunday game, we normally start out with two because our GM was bad at awarding then during games
I said this on another video of yours that discussed hero points a while back, but I will say it again... I don't enjoy these types of open-concept/interpretive rules because it's both way too easy to over/under use them, while also not being clear at all to players how often they should expect to obtain the points and thus are afraid to use them. I would much prefer codified rules along the lines of "any time the party gains XP, the party votes to give a hero point to one character." or something.