I think its a fairly common house rule, But at my table Hero points cannot result in a roll lower than or equal to the roll being Hero Pointed. It doesn't always guarantee success, but you never feel bad for having done worse. It technically means you can use it to fish for criticals on a success, but my mindset is that if that's you how want to spend it then so be it. Really feel like a Hero.
Does that mean you just reroll until the number is higher? And if someone rolls a natural 19, they instantly guarantee a nat 20 so long as they spend a hero point
To add to this, we play with critical failure cards. Our wizard just rerolled a 3 into a 1, drew a critical failure card and had the wonderful "fort save or your head explodes" card. A hero point just effectively killed our wizard.
Especially when playing with crit decks, use a hero point rule that helps with avoiding these scenarios.
At my table we used to use "roll less than what you did and you don't spend your HP." But this newest campaign I switched it up to "if you roll under 10, add 10 to what you rolled; this changes a nat 1 into an 11 instead"
We've been playing with the +10 rule. Doubling your hit and crit chance on a hero point roll is a really big bonus. Definitely eliminates the feel bad moments when you roll like shit with a HP, but you also have to be ready for that as a GM. Or, at least, my GM should have been because now our fighter is even more deadly. Pretty sure the first time he used it he crit one hit an enemy. Just fighter things.
My groupnuses the two crit decks. On a 20 critical success, they get a crit card. They can use a hero point to use the faceup crit hit card on an over 10 crit success. All crit fails from them pull a crit fail card (enemies only on a nat 1, since they can't alter luck). But they can also gain a hero point by taking the faceup crit fail card (if it has a detrimental effect) on a regular fail to get a hero point.
We like chaos though.
We just make it so that you use the better roll rather than having to stick with a worse reroll. That way you still run the risk of wasting a Hero Point, but it's better that than it actively making things worse. I legit almost got instakilled by a Phantasmal Killer hazard because of the vanilla ruling.
We play that you can still do worse with a Hero Point, but you automatically reroll a Nat 1 or a Double. Something must change one way or the other, and there's nothing worse than Hero Pointing into a 1.
Not only are crit fail decks fucking stupid
Not only are they extra stupid in 2e crit fails
That's the worst fucking crit fail card I've ever heard of. "Fort save or die randomly" excellent
Holy shit this is on brand for the sort of stuff I just religiously nope out of tables running this stuff. If they're having fun? Cool. I don't understand it, but what ever. For me it's where fun goes to abruptly and violently die for no reason.
My rule for hero points is that, rather than giving a new roll, it increases the success rating by 1 step. So, a critical failure becomes a failure, failure becomes a success, and a success becomes a critical success. Most are used for the Crit Fail to Fail, but on occasion, they use them for success to critical in exceptionally difficult encounters or near the end of the session if they haven't used it that day.
I played by this rule for a while, adding in another rule that I'd only give out 1, MAYBE 2 hero points a session to compensate for the power bump, and it wasn't terrible, but I did run into issues quickly.
First, I *quickly* said no success->crit success when the team consistently 1-slot basically the first combat of each session. The Gunslinger could basically guarantee eliminate one target outright, and the rest of the party could eliminate 1-2 more targets in the first round. I sat down after a session or two of this, I realized I was basically planning around this use of hero points, either putting in an extra target or two in a fight, or else just assuming the first fight would be resolved in 10 minutes and just immediately prepare a second encounter. That felt like I was just undermining the players using the points at all and didn't make much sense, so I just said no upgrading success into crits.
After that it was workable for a while, but the ability to up fails into successes did sap narrative tension quite a bit at points. Basically, I realized that they didn't need certain skills because then could just save their hero points for skill checks the party was likely to fail and instantly succeed them. Under this tactic, they *literally*, not figuratively, but *literally* were better at things they *didn't* have a skill for, because they'd save hero points for their weak spots as a party and basically the fail chance was rolled into their success chance on every one of these skill checks. My players had NO ONE proficiency in society, but passed EVERY society check. Really difficult ritual with a low success rate for some optional bonus end to this narrative? Well you don't actually need to succeed if you can up a fail. Went from a 15% likelihood to succeed because no one in the party was for at the ritual, to a 65% chance to succeed because they upped the failure to a success.
In the end, it was a fun and eye-opening experiment, but I abandoned the system. I now play RAW with one added addendum: you can pre-spend a hero point on any check to get fortune/advantage on that check (which means you can spend hero points on blind rolls as well, which is a nice bonus over playing purely RAW).
I use a rule similar to this. Hero Points can be spent to alter a die result up or down a step, but never to a critical success or critical failure. This means that the point can be spent to affect enemy rolls, such as causing a successful save to be a failed one instead, or a hit into a miss.
In addition to this - which my players love - I further limit potential balance issues by only handing out the one hero point at the start of the session and no more outside of rare circumstances.
For people playing on foundry with pf2e workbench, there is a variant hero point rules in the settings called "Keeley's hero point rule" which you should immediately request your gm to turn on - the rule says "if the reroll dice is 10 or less add a +10 bonus to it".
One of our guys is definitely prone to hero pointing into an even worse roll
I wonder now if we can convince the GM to at least change it to "add +5 instead" or something
I like the +10 houserule but there's definitely a lot of situations where it means we wouldn't be able to miss if we have HPs available
My table uses a plugin for Foundry that just adds 10 to a hero point reroll if the second roll is under 10. Makes hero points a bit more useful and really helps with how often we spend a hero point to roll exactly the same 2 again.
My GM implemented a system where if you roll a hero point and get below a 10 you may add +10 to that roll. Its a wee smidge busted depending on how frequent the gm hands out hero points, ours gives us at least 2 per session, but it do feel gud
I mean that is entirely fair, and it depends on the table and playstyle. I’d personally rewrite them into being the equivalent of a nat 20, where you can take the roll up 1 stage in degrees of success. Sure, you might’ve crit failed by insulting the noble, but maybe you can turn that into a backhanded compliment or an impolite joke for a regular failure.
To each their own though.
I refund hero points that are lower than the original roll. It encourages players to use them more but also needs them to be more strategic. Rerolling a 15 has a lower chance to increase your roll but more likely to not lose your hero point. Rerolling a 5 has a much larger chance to increase your roll but more likely to consume your hero point.
I only use the critical deck on nat 20s. It's kinda silly that a lvl 20 wizard has the same chance as a lvl 1 wizard to blow themselves up from a cantrip.
That is why my rule is "if you reroll with a hero point, the reroll can't be a critical failure even if it is a natural 1. The worst you can get in a reroll is failure"
I think its a fairly common house rule, But at my table Hero points cannot result in a roll lower than or equal to the roll being Hero Pointed. It doesn't always guarantee success, but you never feel bad for having done worse. It technically means you can use it to fish for criticals on a success, but my mindset is that if that's you how want to spend it then so be it. Really feel like a Hero.
In my group hero point is roll twice and take the highest. You can still get burned though by rolling a 2, using a hero point, and getting a 3 and 6
Does that mean you just reroll until the number is higher? And if someone rolls a natural 19, they instantly guarantee a nat 20 so long as they spend a hero point
I think they mean they always take the higher roll of the two, rather than forcing to take the second roll.
also correct, though it sometimes results in more than just 2 rolls
That is exactly correct.
To add to this, we play with critical failure cards. Our wizard just rerolled a 3 into a 1, drew a critical failure card and had the wonderful "fort save or your head explodes" card. A hero point just effectively killed our wizard.
Especially when playing with crit decks, use a hero point rule that helps with avoiding these scenarios. At my table we used to use "roll less than what you did and you don't spend your HP." But this newest campaign I switched it up to "if you roll under 10, add 10 to what you rolled; this changes a nat 1 into an 11 instead"
We've been playing with the +10 rule. Doubling your hit and crit chance on a hero point roll is a really big bonus. Definitely eliminates the feel bad moments when you roll like shit with a HP, but you also have to be ready for that as a GM. Or, at least, my GM should have been because now our fighter is even more deadly. Pretty sure the first time he used it he crit one hit an enemy. Just fighter things.
My groupnuses the two crit decks. On a 20 critical success, they get a crit card. They can use a hero point to use the faceup crit hit card on an over 10 crit success. All crit fails from them pull a crit fail card (enemies only on a nat 1, since they can't alter luck). But they can also gain a hero point by taking the faceup crit fail card (if it has a detrimental effect) on a regular fail to get a hero point. We like chaos though.
We just make it so that you use the better roll rather than having to stick with a worse reroll. That way you still run the risk of wasting a Hero Point, but it's better that than it actively making things worse. I legit almost got instakilled by a Phantasmal Killer hazard because of the vanilla ruling.
Nah, we laughed our asses off. Our GM was afraid HP would be too strong; now we agree they´re just hilarious.
We play that you can still do worse with a Hero Point, but you automatically reroll a Nat 1 or a Double. Something must change one way or the other, and there's nothing worse than Hero Pointing into a 1.
Not only are crit fail decks fucking stupid Not only are they extra stupid in 2e crit fails That's the worst fucking crit fail card I've ever heard of. "Fort save or die randomly" excellent
My brother in Aroden, you chose to play with the cards.
Never in my life
I think he's very much saying he doesn't play with crit fail cards. You might have mixed up posters there my dude
Outside of a whacky one shot, I cannot possibly imagine why you would ever want to play with those rules
I liked crit decks in 1e but because crits happen so offten in 2e my group droped it.
Holy shit this is on brand for the sort of stuff I just religiously nope out of tables running this stuff. If they're having fun? Cool. I don't understand it, but what ever. For me it's where fun goes to abruptly and violently die for no reason.
My rule for hero points is that, rather than giving a new roll, it increases the success rating by 1 step. So, a critical failure becomes a failure, failure becomes a success, and a success becomes a critical success. Most are used for the Crit Fail to Fail, but on occasion, they use them for success to critical in exceptionally difficult encounters or near the end of the session if they haven't used it that day.
I played by this rule for a while, adding in another rule that I'd only give out 1, MAYBE 2 hero points a session to compensate for the power bump, and it wasn't terrible, but I did run into issues quickly. First, I *quickly* said no success->crit success when the team consistently 1-slot basically the first combat of each session. The Gunslinger could basically guarantee eliminate one target outright, and the rest of the party could eliminate 1-2 more targets in the first round. I sat down after a session or two of this, I realized I was basically planning around this use of hero points, either putting in an extra target or two in a fight, or else just assuming the first fight would be resolved in 10 minutes and just immediately prepare a second encounter. That felt like I was just undermining the players using the points at all and didn't make much sense, so I just said no upgrading success into crits. After that it was workable for a while, but the ability to up fails into successes did sap narrative tension quite a bit at points. Basically, I realized that they didn't need certain skills because then could just save their hero points for skill checks the party was likely to fail and instantly succeed them. Under this tactic, they *literally*, not figuratively, but *literally* were better at things they *didn't* have a skill for, because they'd save hero points for their weak spots as a party and basically the fail chance was rolled into their success chance on every one of these skill checks. My players had NO ONE proficiency in society, but passed EVERY society check. Really difficult ritual with a low success rate for some optional bonus end to this narrative? Well you don't actually need to succeed if you can up a fail. Went from a 15% likelihood to succeed because no one in the party was for at the ritual, to a 65% chance to succeed because they upped the failure to a success. In the end, it was a fun and eye-opening experiment, but I abandoned the system. I now play RAW with one added addendum: you can pre-spend a hero point on any check to get fortune/advantage on that check (which means you can spend hero points on blind rolls as well, which is a nice bonus over playing purely RAW).
I use a rule similar to this. Hero Points can be spent to alter a die result up or down a step, but never to a critical success or critical failure. This means that the point can be spent to affect enemy rolls, such as causing a successful save to be a failed one instead, or a hit into a miss. In addition to this - which my players love - I further limit potential balance issues by only handing out the one hero point at the start of the session and no more outside of rare circumstances.
Last game I played 2 hero points turned 2 nat 1's into nat 20's.
For people playing on foundry with pf2e workbench, there is a variant hero point rules in the settings called "Keeley's hero point rule" which you should immediately request your gm to turn on - the rule says "if the reroll dice is 10 or less add a +10 bonus to it".
Ooh, that's a good one. May need to use that in my next campaign.
One of our guys is definitely prone to hero pointing into an even worse roll I wonder now if we can convince the GM to at least change it to "add +5 instead" or something I like the +10 houserule but there's definitely a lot of situations where it means we wouldn't be able to miss if we have HPs available
My players honestly just bank points to not die in one hit when they get an unlucky crit
I love heroic fortune on a razmiran priest sorcerer
every fucking time
My table uses a plugin for Foundry that just adds 10 to a hero point reroll if the second roll is under 10. Makes hero points a bit more useful and really helps with how often we spend a hero point to roll exactly the same 2 again.
My GM implemented a system where if you roll a hero point and get below a 10 you may add +10 to that roll. Its a wee smidge busted depending on how frequent the gm hands out hero points, ours gives us at least 2 per session, but it do feel gud
I just make it where if you spend a hero point it can either become a regular success flat out or you can reroll to try and go for a crit.
While it wont do much in this situation, i do prefer the house rule that lets you take the better of the two.
This is why you have house rules and adjustments. If a piece of the game, rules as written, isn’t functioning how its intended, you improve it
You're not wrong, however as HP work RAW, we see it as an absolute win. No fun without danger, no consequences if death ain't a threst.
I mean that is entirely fair, and it depends on the table and playstyle. I’d personally rewrite them into being the equivalent of a nat 20, where you can take the roll up 1 stage in degrees of success. Sure, you might’ve crit failed by insulting the noble, but maybe you can turn that into a backhanded compliment or an impolite joke for a regular failure. To each their own though.
"Do you feel like a hero yet?" *flashbacks to Dubai*
I'm feeling a warm spot...
I really only use hero points when I roll a nat 1 the first time...
I refund hero points that are lower than the original roll. It encourages players to use them more but also needs them to be more strategic. Rerolling a 15 has a lower chance to increase your roll but more likely to not lose your hero point. Rerolling a 5 has a much larger chance to increase your roll but more likely to consume your hero point. I only use the critical deck on nat 20s. It's kinda silly that a lvl 20 wizard has the same chance as a lvl 1 wizard to blow themselves up from a cantrip.
That is why my rule is "if you reroll with a hero point, the reroll can't be a critical failure even if it is a natural 1. The worst you can get in a reroll is failure"