When using this variant, characters do not have their own personal supply of action points. Instead, the party has a single group pool of action points available to use by all players. These otherwise function much like the standard action point system.
Action Point Pool
The party has a number of action points available to it equal to 2 + the number of players. So, if there are 4 players in the party, there will be 6 action points available. Note that this is based solely on the number of players in the game, regardless of the number of characters each player might control.
Tracking and Using Action Points
Action points should be tracked using a number of tokens clearly visible to all players. It is suggested that the tokens have two distinct sides, preferably different colors, to allow them to be easily flipped to show the difference between the two sides.
One of the two sides shows an Available action point. The other side will represent an Expended action point.
Available action points in the shared pool can be expended exactly as a normal action point by any character in the party. When spent, the action point becomes Expended.
Expended action points become available to the GM to use against the party. When the GM uses an expended action point, it once against becomes Available for use by the players.
Additional Rules
For Players
Activate a Class Feature
Activating a class feature using action points only requires expending 1 action point rather than 2.
Luck
When your luck is good, it’s really good, but when it’s bad…
Any player who rolls a natural 20 immediately converts one Expended action point into an Available action point. This is in addition to any other effect of the natural 20.
Conversely, any player who rolls a natural 1 immediately converts one Available action point into an Expended action point.
This does not apply to GM rolls.
Defy Death
When a character would normally die (whether a player character or NPC), the players can choose to immediately expend all remaining Available action points to save that character’s life. The character falls unconscious and becomes stable at -1 hit points, miraculously still alive, although the character appears dead to casual observation.
Pause the Clock
When using the Race Against the Clock rules, a character who is otherwise doing nothing may expend one action point to prevent a die from being added to the Time Pool, effectively allowing tasks to be completed more quickly.
For example, when carefully searching a room in a dungeon, a die will normally be added to the Time Pool, as this takes up significant time. One of the characters may use an action point to prevent this die from being added, but that character may take no other actions or make any rolls while doing so. In effect, the character spends an action point to assist or organize the other characters to work more efficiently.
For the Game Master
The Main Villain/Primary Crisis
When players reach the climax of a plot arc, such as the appearance of the main villain, the GM may choose to add 1 or 2 additional action points to the pool. These new action points always enter the pool already Expended and represent that fate or some other force is working against the heroes in favor of the villain or crisis.
Non-“Heroic” Villains
Only “Heroic Tier” villains can use action points for themselves. Most common enemies have no access to action points.
Available Actions
The GM has access to all of the same options that players do when spending action points; however, the GM may never spend a point simply to “undo” a player spending a point. If a player spends an action point to improve a roll, the GM may not spend a point to defend against that roll.
When using the Race Against the Clock rules, the GM may spend an action point to add an additional die to the time clock, representing an action taking twice as long as otherwise expected.
Miscellaneous Problems
The GM should use action points when adding unexpected setbacks to the story, such as unexpected bad weather, random mishaps, extra enemies showing up as reinforcements, or other such things. These effects should be relatively minor and outside of the players’ control to influence, but by using action points when introducing complications, fate is shifted back in favor of the players.