Like many 5e players, I investigated other systems during the drama in January. I have converted my table over to Pathfinder 2e, so that’s what I’ll mostly be running going forward.
However, I’m not one of those people who thinks 2e is better than 5e in all respects, and I’ll probably run 5e again at some point in the future. And when I do, there’s a mechanic from Pathfinder that I will 100% be porting over to 5e: Hero Points.
Below I will provide a version of this mechanic, written in the mechanical language of 5e (to the best of my ability)
Hero Points
(replaces inspiration)
Hero points represent a player character’s unique ability to act heroically against adversity.
At the beginning of each play session, each player loses any hero points they have accumulated, then recieves 1 hero point. Depending on the average duration of your group’s gaming sessions, the DM may increase or decrease the frequency of this by periodically resetting hero points mid-session, or only once every couple sessions. The expectation is that this reset will occur roughly once every 3-5 hours of play.
The DM may award additional hero points for any reason. They are encouraged to give out hero points to reward good roleplaying, good tactics, or any behaviour which improves the play experience for everyone at the table. A DM should award an average of approximately one hero point for every hour of play. You can have multiple hero points, but you can never have more than 3 hero points.
Whenever you roll an attack roll, saving throw, or ability check, you may spend a hero point after seeing the result and after the DM tells you whether or not the roll was a success or failure. If you do, you reroll the check and must use the new result, even if it is worse. This roll is unaffected by whether you have advantage or disadvantage on the check.
Whenever you would fall unconscious due to being reduced to 0 HP, or whenever you would accumulate a death saving throw failure, you may spend all of your hero points in order to remove any death saving throw failures and become stabilized at 0 HP.
The DM may provide other options for how to spend hero points, such as altering the story or introducing new information which benefits the party.
That’s it, that’s the whole mechanic. In general I just think 2e does a much better job of the “inspiration” system than 5e.
In my years as both a player and a DM, I can count on one hand the number of times I ever saw Inspiration being awarded to 5e players. It simply isn’t a good system. The DM fiat needed to receive it makes it unpredictable, and it’s way too hard to get players to actually spend it once they have it.
The Hero Points system is much better because it resets every session, meaning that players will have a predictable way to get hero points, and that they will have a good reason to spend them; even if the DM forgets to award it. And since they will be spending that resource more often, the DM will have more reminders that the mechanic exists.
I encourage DMs out there to experiment with this system in their own games. And let me know how it goes.
My own groups are trying out the luck system from Tales of the Valiant and like it so far. It’s extra bookkeeping but has some fun options and makes a series of bad rolls work out much better. As a GM, I like it a lot because I don’t have to keep track of it at all. It’s all player-managed.
See Playtest Packet 2 in the playtest packets on https://www.talesofthevaliant.com
The Lord of the Rings 5e game has a pool of Inspiration shared by the entire party called the Fellowship Pool (this is in addition to Inspiration for individuals). It can be spent by anyone in the party to roll with Advantage. The pool is set by the number of players, who their Patreon is and certain Feats (called Virtues in LOTR). The pool can also be spent to trigger special events with their Patron.
The points can only be refreshed during the Fellowship phase which is the players downtime between adventures and covers periods of weeks so typically happens 2-4 times per year. It works really well for the Tolkien style of 5e…it is the only 5e game where all 6 of my players have bought the Rulebook!
I have only been at one table that used inspiration which used them additively so you could have 10-15 inspirations. This basically meant that no one could ever fail a check which was a real bummer to play. Hero points like this can be ported over without much issue.
However, I would rather join in the Force Point Mechanics from FFG Star Wars games (it has also been used in other star wares games). Basically you spend light side points to do exactly what you mentioned above, however spending this will create 1 dark side point. These point can be used by the DM to do the exact same thing for monsters. These points are pooled across the table which lets everyone manage them. This is easier to see and others can suggest to spend them as a team when a big fails happens. Its super fun
used them additively so you could have 10-15 inspirations. This basically meant that no one could ever fail a check which was a real bummer to play
But wouldn’t this still require that the DM is giving them out like candy? Being additive and being easy to obtain are orthogonal ideas.
I like that a lot! It seems a bit odd in the context of games where the DM is given a lot of freedom to “make up” what happens, but I like the idea that the DM would actually have some currency in order to do broken things, rather than having effectively unlimited fiat for anything they do. Maybe instead of it being symmetric, there could even be special mechanics that the DM can only interact with by spending a “dark point”
That version where Inspiration stacked that much does sound pretty awful. Part of what makes them work well in 2e is that they reset every session, and that you can only have 3 of them. So there is often an incentive to spend them. The counterbalancing factor is the fact that they can be used both offensively and defensively, so you often get players saying “I can’t spend a hero point on this attack, because I’m unlikely to kill the enemy and I need to be able to use the hero point to beat the saving throw that the enemy will impose on me during its turn”. Basically, you get a lot of hero points, but there are a lot of important rolls in 2e. I guess part of what makes it work is that 2e is a lot deadlier than 5e, but I would say a DM could safely ratchet up the difficulty of their encounters if they employed this system.
It seems a bit odd in the context of games where the DM is given a lot of freedom to “make up” what happens, but I like the idea that the DM would actually have some currency in order to do broken things, rather than having effectively unlimited fiat for anything they do.
I thought so too when I begun running FFG’s Star Wars but what struck me was that the dark side points I had was an invitation and encouragement to go hard on the characters. Of course there was nothing stopping me for upping difficulties and such, but with those points I did it more often. A great cure for being too nice.
If you like the FFG Star Wars light/dark side point mechanic, you might also like how Fate handles Fate Points. Here’s the gist:
Each PC has a pool of Fate Points (FP). At the start of each session, if their pool is lower than their character’s “Refresh” score (typically 3), it resets to that score.
A player can spend an FP to:
- invoke an Aspect on their character (or on the situation/location) to get +2 to a roll, increase the difficulty of an opponent’s roll by 2, or reroll the dice. They can also give the FP to another character to make a hostile invoke on another character’s Aspect. e.g. “since I’m a Debonair Swordsman, I’ll add +2 to to my Fight roll”, or “you still have that Slashed Palm from before, so your Fight roll is more difficult.”
- compel another character into some course of action that creates a narrative complication. The player controlling that character must either accept the compel (and receive an FP), or spend one of their own FP to refuse it. Unlike a hostile invoke, a compel is more about narrative complication, e.g. “you find a contact among the rebel militia, but uh oh, since you’re a Debonair Swordsman it’s an old flame of yours, and the breakup was pretty messy!”
- establish some useful detail/contrivance. e.g. “I cast my eyes around the tavern for a suitable weapon. Is there maybe an old, still-sharp sword mounted on the wall?” would probably require an FP, but “is there a chandelier at this ballroom party?” wouldn’t require one.
A player gains FP by:
- accepting a compel or receiving a hostile invoke, as above
- conceding a conflict.
If you gain FP in a scene, you don’t get to use them until the next scene.
The GM begins each scene with FP equal to the number of PCs (plus any gained from the previous scene), pooled across all the NPCs they control. They gain and spend FP in the same ways, except that they don’t need to spend an FP to make a compel.
While this is all well and good, I think the OneD&D playtest provided a great fix on the biggest issue I’ve had with the mechanic: Remembering it exists.
Simply stating that on an unmodified 20 or 1 that Inspiration is granted is a fantastic way to remind the GM that they should give this out more often. It’s gotten to the point that in cases where I would have previously given ad-hoc advantage, I now give inspiration where the player can make use of it if they feel like they want or not.
Also I have adopted those rules for both hero points in PF2e, and my regular D&D5e game. I mean both of them.
How it works…
A player rolls a Natural 1 - They get inspiration to use on a future roll. A player rolls a Natural 20 - They choose another player at the table who gets inspiration.
These two together more or less ensures that there’s an amount of inspiration floating around all the time. But this also solves an issue where a hot-streak gets hotter, and someone with luck early on will get more of a spotlight later. By making success something that gives a boon to someone else, you build espirt de corps as everyone celebrates eachothers’ successes more, and the spotlight be more likely to move to another player.
As I said before, this system works fantastic in both Pathfinder and D&D. The only downside is that it feels like PCs have an extra layer of plot armor, but that is mitigated by the fact that it wasn’t my decision that I made capriciously. Also it makes math rocks a little more ‘WEEE’!
You’re right about the real issue being that people just don’t use the system, whatever you’re calling it. I just started a campaign with a new group and the DM has his own variation on it that is really just a minor tweak…except that he appears to not forget that it exists. His tweak is making inspiration a collective (and cumulative) pool for the entire party and “you guys keep track of it, I have enough things to juggle already with seven players and all the NPCs, monsters, plot, description, etc.” In our only session so far he gave us two points, one I think for roleplay and the other because I posted a muscle wizard meme image in the discord while he was struggling to properly describe the second phase of the bulked up wizard boss we were fighting (“Yeah, like that! Take a point of inspiration!”). We didn’t actually use any of it yet but with the fight we ended on a cliffhanger for I’m planning to be proactive if nobody else does.
I’ve seen this kind of thing a lot and I always think it’s very much like reinventing fate points from fate. But I like Fate a lot, so I’m not mad about it.
The tldr for fate points in: you get some every session. You get more when something about your character complicates things in an interesting way. You can spend them to boost rolls if there’s a narrative justification, or to add story details to a scene (ie: there should totally be a trap door, the queen should totally have a pet elephant, etc)
I like this better than vanilla inspiration because it requires players to pay attention to the story. You can’t boost your medicine check if nothing about your character is medical, but if you have a Healer background that’s an easy sell.
Some people hate that more “writer room” style. Some people just want to sit back and be told a story. They probably won’t do well with this.
Anyway fate’s srd is free and I highly recommend it.
