Action Points and Advantage

I'm not a fan of Action Points as they appear in 3e-derived versions of the d20 system (whether that's Force Points in Star Wars, or Action Points in d20 Modern, "Unearthed Arcana", or Eberron). There are various reasons for this, but the biggest is the per-level nature of the Action Point pool, which in my games at least has the perverse effect of making the climactic encounter in many adventures near-trivial, as the players realise they're about to level-up and have loads of APs left.

However, I most definitely am a fan of Action Points as they exist in 4e. Here, when you spend an Action Point, you get an extra action. Simple, clean, and fun - I like it. The one change that I would make to 4e Action Points would be to the rate of acquisition - basically, I would give each PC one AP when they roll initiative, but allow them to have no more than one AP at a time. Effectively, then, they become a per-encounter resource.

I'm also a fan of the 5e notion of Advantage (which, due to NDA, I cannot describe here). Critically, if the player makes the roll and then remembers that he has advantage/disadvantage, it's an easy thing to fix - in effect, advantage/disadvantage can be applied even after the success/failure is known. (This last isn't true of 3e Action Points, another weakness of that mechanic.)

The upshot of that is that if I run another 3e campaign, and especially another campaign set in Eberron, I'll be adopting the following house rules:

Action Points

At the start of each encounter, each PC will receive a single Action Point (generally when rolling Initiative). You can use this in one of three ways:

1. You can spend your Action Point immediately to negate surprise for your character.
2. You can spend your Action Point immediately to take-20 on your Initiative roll. You can spend the Action Point in this manner even after rolling initiative.
3. On your turn, you can spend your Action Point to gain one extra action. This can be a standard, move, or swift action, at your discretion.

Action Points that are not spent at the end of the encounter are lost. No character can have more than one Action Point at a time.

(The other uses for Action Points given in the "Eberron Campaign Setting" apply to Advantage Tokens instead. See below...)

Advantage Tokens

At the start of the session, each player will receive one Advantage Token per hour of expected playtime (or fraction thereof). That is, for our standard evening sessions, running from 7:30 to 10:30, each player will receive 3 Advantage Tokens.

You can spend Advantage Tokens in the following ways:

• When making any d20 roll, you may spend an Advantage Token. (Insert the 5e Advantage mechanic here...)
• When suffering from Disadvantage, you may spend an Advantage Token to negate Disadvantage.
• When your character is dying, you may spend an Advantage Token to automatically stabilise.
• (Insert all the other uses of Action Points from the Eberron Campaign Setting book here - that is, speeding infusions, allowing extra uses of per-day powers, etc.)

You may spend no more than a single Advantage Token per round. That is, if you use one to negate Disadvantage, you cannot then spend a second to gain Advantage on the roll.

(Actually, I'm halfway inclined to present all this to the players in my current Eberron Code campaign, and see what they think about adopting it immediately. But I do so hate changing the rules in mid-campaign...)