RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16
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As written, with hero points being awarded by session, I'm not a fan of the system. This is too variable by group, even with the suggestion of giving more for sessions longer than 4 hours. It means groups who play 3 hours regularly get more than groups who play 4, and groups who play 5 hours get more than groups who play 6, etc.
Furthermore, not all sessions are equal. Some are mostly roleplaying, planning, investigating, etc, with only one combat, and others are a series of only combats. It would be much better balanced (and take one more thing of the GM's plate if they want) to just say that every time PCs level up, they get a hero point, and the only others are awarded based on in-play actions.
I have been testing a system of fast hero point earning. Basically, I give the players hero points for roleplaying that illustrates their character well while also being beneficial to the party. If a PC is supposed to be clever, then a problem-solving idea gets a hero point. If a PC is supposed to be compassionate, then attacking for non-lethal damage might earn a hero point. If a player plays a dwarf with Stone Cunning, then spending a turn to examine the stone walls for secret doors as a legitimate precaution will earn a hero point.
This does quickly get most players up to 2 hero points, one for showing up and one for roleplaying, enough to buy a reroll.
It is not perfect. My wife, who roleplays her goblin paladin a lot, ended Tuesday's game session with 3 hero points and nothing she could do with them. And the double reward of a PC doing something in character that both succeeded well and earned a hero point feels awkward.
A simple fix might be to have players get 1 hero point per encounter, whether it's a combat encounter, social encounter, or a skill challenge encounter like a trap. That way, efficient groups or groups who play longer sessions aren't punished by comparison to slow groups who only do a few hours per session.
I played a PF1 game for years once ever two weeks with hero points and the GM would go several months without giving out points. When I GMed, I never used them. I think that GMs have to deal with so many other things that when hero points do get used it tends to be more random than anything else. I think that hero points are a waste of character sheet and core rulebook space. I'm fine with it being an optional rule, but I don't think that it should be core.
I'm of two minds on hero points:
1. We houseruled them into a 3.5 campaign. You get one per level. You can keep them as long as you want. There's no other way to get them. That makes using them a pretty limited, important thing.
2. I run FATE Core games, where Fate points can do similar things but the system expects you to use them, frequently. There's lots of ways to get them, lots of ways to spend them, and it's expected that you will be using them. Players are also actively involved in this economy, it's not entirely on one person to distribute them.
We're kind of in no mans land right now in the Playtest, where the onus to hand them out is placed squarely on the DM and one action with them is so strong that it's hard to get enough to want to use them for the others.
I'd actually be okay with one per encounter, stacking up for the day, and wiping them out at the end of the adventuring day. That gives some value in a longer adventuring day because you're going to gradually gain more of them as you go and you can't hoard them for right after rest. That also removes the DM from having to decide what is worth awarding them and also doesn't make it look like they are playing favorites.
But there's lots of ways to do this, depending on what the goal is. If they want to stick to the current system, I would appreciate some more guidance and examples of when to give them out.
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I'm not fond of Hero Points, or any version of them I've encountered elsewhere... For the most part I feel like they're just a cheap-looking patch for fundamentally broken game mechanics.
However, having them be awarded as they currently are is absolutely unacceptable. I flat out refuse to give a Character a bonus (or penalty) because of something their Player did. So at the moment I am giving out up to two-per-session for heroic deeds instead.
Because my sessions actually run about 4 hours the timer works out... but in a Play by Post game a single session might take months to complete. As such I am seriously considering an alternate rule where you begin the adventure with 2 Hero points, and are awarded another Hero Point each day during your daily preparations (up to a maximum of 3 Hero Points). So as to tie them to your adventuring day instead of an arbitrary session length.
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I played a PF1 game for years once ever two weeks with hero points and the GM would go several months without giving out points. When I GMed, I never used them. I think that GMs have to deal with so many other things that when hero points do get used it tends to be more random than anything else. I think that hero points are a waste of character sheet and core rulebook space. I'm fine with it being an optional rule, but I don't think that it should be core.
As a DM, I dabbled with Hero Points decades ago and decided it just wasn't necessary, so I ditched it.
As a Player, I also tend to forget about them. Usually I only spend one when something bad happens and the DM suggests I spend one.
Like Alignment and "Bulk" (Encumbrance) they're effectively already optional rules because the game cannot make the DM bother with them. The only bummer is if the DM and a player have a difference in desires related to how the game is run/played.
What if it took five hero points to level up?
So contributing five bags of chips to the table is worth a level?
What if it took five hero points to level up?
Measure encounters by total points earned so far?
Monte Cook might reasonably sue at that point.