ADDITIONS/ERRATA: -Another option is Paizo's Hero Point Deck. I use Foundry, and you can use it as a Rollable Table by typing "Hero Point Deck" in Compendium Packs and importing it. You can also customize the table. -I like SwingRipper's litmus test for Hero Point house rules. Does it do either of the following (if so, then it might be too strong): 1) Does Magus get on demand crit spellstrikes? 2) Does it make debuff spells like Slow too strong?

Ronald took the level 1 feat "Assurance (Playtesting)"

My group learned early, more out of anger and annoyance with poor rolls, that proactively spending your Hero point is vastly superior to hoarding them to prevent death. You won't get knocked out at all, if you landed an extra strike that ended the enemy 1 round early. Remember that "Turns to Kill" is a important metric, spending hero points on your rolls improves that metric.

I will say that one variant rule I'd probably run with is just having it be that the worst you can do on a hero point roll is fail. So you can't critically fail if you're using a hero point. That seems pretty fair. I agree that it really sucks to use a limited resource like that which is meant to be a benefit only to end up worse off than before.

9:38 Hey its me! Auto increase one degree of success would break grapplers... Restrained can be backbreaking, crit disarm is absurd, etc etc My way of changing hero points was basically the "hero deck" that paizo makes but with more potent effects, so that it is a weird X factor for my in person games!

Last time we played our Monk actually spent a Hero Point to reroll his second attack on a Flurry of Blows. The first one was already a critical hit and his original roll for the second Strike was a hit. He wanted to fish for that second crit. And he got it. Managed to melt the big bad's hit points by exactly 1 more point of damage than necessary. The group loved it.

For me, I don’t think they need “fixing”, but I think they can be a lot more fun since as is they focus on reducing suck rather than providing awesome. In a funny “fix”, to me one of the most fun solutions is the “Hero Point” system from D&D. Instead of rerolling / adding Fortune to a roll, you also have the option to *add a d6* to a roll. This allows you to easily nudge from a close miss to a hit, or a high hit to a crit. That one small change allows people to really push awesome effects rather than reducing bad ones. This is especially true if your table doesn’t like emphasizing death mechanics. I also like how SIMPLE this rule is. If you don’t like heroic recovery, then let this add d6 to death saves. You don’t have to think of rerolls being lower, and close calls feel like your hero is pushing through to a higher degree. It’s because of your character being awesome, not just plot armor. The tension doesn’t come from “will it be competent” but instead “will it be enough?” and if it’s very close you can excitedly push for “I’m using a hero point” rather than waiting for your failure. It also isn’t a full free degree, and it doesn’t reduce enemy competence. It’s just about having pushes of heroic prowess that plays with but doesn’t abuse the degree system. Lastly, I think accepting nat1s can be fun and can even be rewarded with Hero Points when accepting them. Using Hero Points mainly to mitigate nat1s helps normalize a level of competence, but also takes away some of the drama and fun behind the swinginess in my experience.

I think your proposed change would be really fun (and not break the game) For peeps who want general guidelines of if its a good adjustment 1) Does Magus get on demand crit spellstrikes? 2) Does it make debuff spells like Slow too strong? I think those two questions can be a guiding light for "will this change break something?" in a similar way to "is this ancestry better than human" is for homebrewing ancestries

So for my story we need to go back to the early 1980's. My group use to play D&D and after seeing everyone get invested in their characters after a LONG amount of playing and how easily they could die, I suggested "Luck Points". These could be used in a variety of ways BUT it was intended to prevent a TPK and or a perma death. We adopted it and it needed a ton of refinement over time before we landed on what worked for our group. Fast forward to me not playing for a decade or more and I am teaching my son D&D 4e and then I am back in to TTRPG's and tried Pathfinder 2e out of curiosity. I had to laugh when I saw "Hero Point". Yes they have the same problems we had back in the 80's. There is the intent vs smart players learning how to abuse it. Along with you still must have the fear of death. Without it, a system just become improv theater with some dice rolling. So yes the system needs tweaked for sure, but I would say it needs to be a list of things a DM could pick from with warning about each decision.

What's interesting is when even the senior developers of PF2e themselves use homebrew rules for hero points: the "D10+10" is also called the Keeley's rule for that reason.

Our table uses a variant on 1d10+10. We roll 1d20, then if the roll is 10 or less, add 10. 10+10 =/= Nat 20. This preserves the 5% Nat 20 chance rather than either having a 10% chance (10 on the D10) or 0% chance (no Nat 20). We imported this variant from Mutants and Masterminds. We find that players tend not to use a Hero Point if the initial roll is already higher than 10. Also, I had not seen the suggestion to award a HP for each hour of play, so thanks for that!

I’m surprised you didn’t mention the Hero Point deck that Paizo has already created for the purpose of buffing Hero Points. I use it when I run my home game. I deal out 3 cards to each player before play begins and let them select one. After that, if they gain a Hero Point it’s just dealt from the top of the deck.

i personally add to this list "Reroll enemy saves". Helps casters partake and make use of the points as they dont get to roll for a lot of their attacks. But I find saving throws to be a legacy mechanic. You should always get to roll dice for your own actions.

I ultimately came up with a slightly complex solution but one my players have really enjoyed. You can only have one Hero Point at a time, but when you use it your minimum result is your original result + 2. On top of this, every player has a hand of Hero Point Cards (which I hand out like Hero Points, including an automatic one for every two hours of play) that they can play at any time as a reaction as soon as the trigger condition on the card as met (or they can use it to turn a Crit Fail into a Fail, reduce damage from a critical hit, or reroll a healing or damage roll). If they have three Hero Point cards, they can trade them in for another Hero Point. And as long as they have at least one card, they can always trade their whole hand for Heroic Recovery. I came up with this whole system because I really like every encounter to feel dangerous and memorable, and that can lead to frustration. Hero Points being reliable is really important to me because I want my players to feel like, if they fail, they were given every chance to succeed and their failure can't simply be blamed on outlier RNG results. I think this leads to more satisfying victories *and* losses.

I was thinking about this the other day while we were playing. I've had the "Hero Point Guarantee" many times in our games. While I was thinking about it, the idea of auto-increasing the degree of success popped into my head, and it seemed like it might be a good option. Glad to see other people thinking about that too.

My group has been using the following rules for hero points: You get a hero point if you keep a natural 1 (and it should only apply when a roll is actually called for by the GM), and each player can hand out 1 per session to other players who do something they or their character think is cool/in character/whatever. This reduces the burden on the GM of actually remembering to hand those out. Obviously you have to have the right group for any specific rules to work, but for us it has been good without any changes to the actual functionality.

Need more lawyers like you out there! Keep fighting the good fight, and playing RPGs. I'll keep liking and subscribing.

I'll share something regarding Hero Points that has been successful at my table: At the end of each session, I have my PCs privately vote for the MVP of that session. The player who gets the most votes gets an additional Hero Point for the next session. I do keep an MVP leaderboard public to help all of us see the balance on who seems to be shining during sessions. As a GM, it helps me see if I need to pay attention to a player who hasn't been voted for awhile. Also, the leaderboard/tracking helps me break ties (I have 4 PCs). If there is a tie in votes, I award the MVP Hero Point to whomever has the least amount if total MVP votes. (If both are tied on the total, I just award each). Now, this system works if you have everyone voting fairly and not trying to metagame or only vote for themselves. It may not work for all groups.

Our answer to the hero point disappointment issue was to make the spent hero point minimum roll be 10. And 90% of our spent hero points are to reroll a crit failure because we play with the crit failure and success decks.

My GM just lets us keep the original roll of the reroll is worse -- which happens shockingly often in our campaign, even though we players have been conditioned to use them only in the case of *really* bad rolls. Also, he realized he was giving out Hero Points less often than suggested so he proposed the following, which we agreed to: whenever a player rolls a natural 1 and doesn't (or can't) expend a hero point to change that result, the player gains a Hero Point. It's working out pretty well so far, but I think additional changes might still be in order.

Love ya Ronald. Your channel has always been the go-to.

I have introduced another mechanic in my game where a Witch the party saved will grant them "Fateweaving Boons" before they leave on an adventure. I deal out cards to the players, and every card has some effect like the ability to turn a crit fail into a crit success, or roll all rolls with advantage for one turn, basically lots of different "fortune" effects. It has added a lot of fun to my game, so I'll have to check out the Hero Point Deck to see if I can get inspiration for more of these cards...

I like the hero points deck. Giving access to some heroic actions that can turn some things around are cool. It doesn't wind up used that often, but the times it has have been fun and memorable.

I played a bit of Starfinder, which as a similar system called Resolve Points, that I think works a lot better due to how they integrate with a character's abilities than Hero Points.

The group I run for uses some funky rules some hero points that could be fun for others to use: - We stick with giving hero points once an hour, tho I may give heropoints when a player character does an amazing moment of roleplay or pulls something off against all odds (generally something that feels narratively appropriate) - The new roll cannot have a worse degree of success. This means you don’t crit fail if you rerolled a failed check, and attacks may potentially crit if you wanna risk the second roll. - You can spend a hero point to enact a rule-of-cool moment to have your character do something narratively interesting by bending the rules a little (with GM arbitration). This could involve a wizard casting Cone of Cold below them to rocket into the air, or a fighter using their polearm for a pole vault jump to cross a larger distance.

What we’ve done in our group for hero points is that they upgrade your success to the next tier. Crit Fail -> Fail, Success -> Crit success, etc. BUT at the same time we don’t have the 1 heropoint/hour rule (cause we simply forget about it constantly). 90% of the time the players will have one heropoint for the entire session UNLESS someone does something very cool or imaginitive or survives impossible odds. It has worked wonders for our group and made for some intense moments! But obviously do what works best for your group and it’s needs.

We have adopted the following: When used to reroll a check, you take the higher of the two rolls, then add a bonus depending on your level (+1/2/3/4 if you are at least level 3/7/12/17, respectively). We're also experimenting with simply giving three to every PC during their daily preparations. This is roughly half as frequent as we were experiencing with the 1 per hour guidance.

The group I DM uses normal Hero Points rule, where everyone starts with 1 at the start of a session. The only exception to this is if they are in the middle of prior combat from a previous session. Only after the conclusion of that battle will the hero points then reset to 1 each. On top of this, I also use Keele's Hero Points rule. "If the result of a hero-point reroll is 10 or less, a bonus of 10 is applied after the fact". Using this combination of how to handle Hero Points, I found it both impactful, and not overpowered while also not punishing really bad rolls on Hero Points.

I really like your conclusions in this video

Good subject. Let me propose my homebrew as well: hero points can only be used for one thing: adding a d12 to a d20 roll. Can be done after you roll but before the result is narrated. Advantages: 1. Spending a hero point always makes your d20 roll higher, not lower. 2. Compared to just increasing the degree of success by 1, it's a little less overpowered (6.5 average not 10). 3. it's still exciting due to the risk (d12 is swingy; might not change the outcome, but it might turn a miss into a crit). 4. It's straightforward to spend more than one point if you really want to spend all your resources. d20+2d12 makes crit success very likely. 5. It's less confusing because there aren't multiple uses for the hero points. You want to avoid dying? Just add d12s to your death save, or to your attack roll to kill a dangerous enemy. 6. Compared to other proposed buffs, enemies are still scary. You can't change their rolls and you can't force enemies to crit-fail your incapacitating spells. 7. I like the idea that your original roll always matters. You can modify it, but it's more dramatic if there is no "Undo" button. Re: crit spellstrikes, they still wouldn't be guaranteed with d12, but they would be likely. However, is that really so bad? They got into positions, spent multiple actions, a spell slot, and a hero point. If they are highly likely to do massive damage that turn, rock on. That's your thing, bro.

Megan's comments were on point. Great ideas!

My current house rules on hero points: 1. The player may spend a point to automatically succeed on a check or attack, but at a cost. Usually I draw from the fumble deck or apply something that changes the battlefield. (You hit the ogre, but he grabs a hanging brazier as he staggers back, and suddenly the ground is covered in hot coals that damage anyone who enters the area.) 2. The party can spend three collective points to force an enemy reroll. That way the cost to do so is significant, and usually has to be a group decision. 3. The party may spend five hero points to force a critical success.

My Variant Hero Point Rules: 1) First, the "debuff." I, as the Storyteller, get Villain Points. They work exactly like Hero Points (including the changes below). Reason: if my players get rewarded for doing cool stuff, I should get rewarded for doing cool stuff. Also. I have a large group, so it helps with the fact I have so many players. 2) The "Not exactly a Debuff." Hero & Villain Points have an economy at my table. I have 30 "Hero Coins," which are distributed between two cups - the Hero (Yoda) Cup & the Villain (Darth Vader) Cup. The Coins are ratioed out so that more start in the Hero Cup & when a player earns a Hero Point, they must draw it from the Hero Cup. Yes, they can run out of Hero Points (though this has only ever happened once at my table). When a player SPENDS their Hero Points, they go in the Villain Cup! However, the reverse is true for my Villain Points. I draw my Villain Points from the Villain Cup, and when I spend my Villain Points, they go into the Hero Cup. Reason: This actually pairs with the next item, so hold that thought... 3) The "Social Dynamics." Hero Points must be "nominated" before they can be rewarded. Only my players can nominate Hero Points. (As an aside, yes, the group discusses what criteria counts for a nomination.) When a player does something cool, another player at the table cam nominate them for a Hero Point, and if I agree, then I will distribute it. Players also decide when I've done something cool enough to warrant a Villain Point. Reason: I straight up tell my players why I do this: "This is designed to make sure you're paying attention during the game." Players often have a bad habit of zoning out during other players turns, and then asking "whats going on?" When their turn comes around. This actively discourages that behavior by putting a critical game mechanic on the line! If you're not paying attention when your friend does something cool, and by extension, you don't nominate them for a Hero Point, you are directly hindering your team's power level. Also, if you're ignoring other players, other players might ignore you & your cool stunts. This change actively encourages player engagement & leads to more investment in the game. Additionally, if they're stingy in giving me Villain Points for my cool moments, then their Cup is going to run dry as I don't have any to spend & deposit in the Hero Cup. 4) The Slight Buff Players (& the GM) start with two points at the start of the session. The cap of three points remains unchanged. Reason: I like high adventure style games & Paizo's suggestion works well here. 5) The "Narrative Buffs" My players can spend Hero Points in two additional ways, though it should be noted that these are designed to "allow a roll," not "replace a roll." "I know a guy." The player can spend a Hero Point to introduce an NPC to a scene that they are acquainted with who might be able to help with a problem. The NPC has a "neutral" attitude towards them, but is always willing to listen to the party's request. The NPC has one skill that is appropriate to the player's current challenge with an "Expert Proficiency for the party's current level," though the NPC can typically only be convinced to use that skill once before leaving. At higher levels, the NPC skill increases to Master or Legendary. "There's a chance..." The player can spend a Hero Point to make a "minor modification to a scene" that would allow them to attempt a skill check that they would otherwise be unable to try. This is a very free-form offering, but examples might include "finding some discarded tools" or "the door catches on something as it's closing, giving you a few extra seconds to get there." The player describes what they want to add to the scene, and assuming GM approval, they are then allowed to attempt the roll that they'd normally be unable to try. Reason: This gives players some extra narrative input & allows them to be creative without just handing them "free wins." All of these changes have proven very popular at my table & my players love them. We also use Hero Point Cards sometimes... when we remember to get them out. LOL.

I had an idea like "increase it by one degree of success" but rather than being useful to guarantee a higher result, it was done to avoid a lower one. Basically, if you'd get a critical failure on your reroll, you'd get a failure instead. Just a simple way to manipulate degree of success without bumping up the whole chart. You could even have failures become successes if you truly wanted, but I think avoiding a success automatically going to a critical success is the one stipulation for that idea.

Perhaps a hero point can be used to add a d10 to roll (or subtract from an enemy attack roll). This could allow for several of the options mentioned in the video. For instance it could potentially bring a roll from a success to a critical success (or a fail to crit fail) but it's not guaranteed (thus still allowing for some tension). What this does is allow for say a fighter or magic user who might have come close to that crit success (maybe 1-2 shy) to make that heroic extra effort that pushes them over the top. Or maybe they simply failed by 1-2 on the roll and this could mean the difference between a fail and a success (or a hit and a miss etc). This also allows for some flexibility on how generous you want your heroic points to be. An extra 1d10 is too much? Maybe it just adds an extra d8, d6 or even d4. Basically like adding a D&D equivalent bardic inspiration or guidance to any roll you allow it to be used with. By having the hero point add or subtract from an existing roll, this still allows for the original roll to be valid and if you already "hit" and were trying to “critically hit”, it doesn't take away from the original roll (so there is less feel bad involved).

I have the critical hit and critical fumble decks and used them as an optional thing at the table. if you crit hit you can pay one HP to use a crit card, if you crit miss you can gain one and take a fumble card. I have only been able to use this on a short game so far as I am still wrapping up my long campaign from 5e but I was actually surprised how often people would take the fumble card to gain an extra hero point. I would not mind trying the hero point cards as well.. we will see once I do a session zero for the next campaign what everyone wants :)

As a GM i would constantly forget to reward HPs so started issuing the group 3 each per session (we are playing through AV) which i quickly realised this was too much they would just either blow through them on any fail/crit fail or horde them till the end, so we dropped it down to 2 HPs each per session and this has made the sessions more tense in a fun way. They party is taking effects more seriously and with the Keelys HP variant rule it prevents going from a fail to a crit fail etc

So my group runs with basically just the normal hero points rules with just one tweak, all the hero points are in one big pool that they all have access to. So far it's worked pretty well, they're not really afraid of using them up because as long as there's even one hero point left everyone feels safer because there's a safety net if someone drops to 0. We also implemented a you need permission from at least one other player rule so I think that helped out a bit as well.

10:12 That would basically be the Silvery Barbs issue. Not quite as extreme (Incapacitation still exists), but still a issue. 11:05 It might help if you cap the maximum Degree you can get with it. Like, you can upgrade - but only _up to_ Attack Success/Save Fail. Never to a Critical result past that. This might also be a good modification of Incapacitation. Avoiding Critical Fails should always be possible. But upgrading a Success to a Critical Success feels bad. Or sometimes even Fail->Success. 12:20 One of my groups uses "if you roll exactly the same number, refund the Hero Point". A weaker version of the second.

amen to the discussions to make a game better

I use the auto-increase of the degree of success at my table, but I only allow it on failures and critical failures. The point being that the character is so heroic that they succeed where anyone else would have failed. So far, it has helped my players a lot to alleviate the bad rolls streak (I've some unlucky players, really, rolling two 1s in a row on a regular basis), and I only give 3 points at the beginning of a 6 to 8 hours long session. I'll present them the 1d10+10 rule though, it seems to me that it is good to achieve the same goal!

There’s also the slight variation to the d20 minimum 10 rule is add 10 to a d20 roll less than 10 which I think is an option in the pf2e workbench module in foundry

For myself, I’d heard of the idea where you can increase the degree of success for a hero point when the roll is not a success (or fail or critical fail only). I’d also heard of folks enabling choice for reroll as RAW, or the aforementioned.

My group plays with the Hero Point Deck. For the most part, we've been using them not on Heroic Recovery but on critically failed saves. On a rare occasion we might use one on offense (I did when fighting a nasty boss fight, successfully). So far our 'save from death' things are 'survivors using healing abilities'. And only one character death (mine but she got better).

Our sessions are usually only just over 2 hours (due to party scheduling), so I often find myself awarding hero points too close to the end of a session for the player to have an opportunityto use them. My variant is that I allow up to two hero points to carry over to the next session.

The tables I play at use one variant rule. If you failed or critically failed and reroll you keep the hero point if the results are not at least one step better. This means your hero point always does something (eventually). If your rerolls are worse or just as bad, you get to keep trying on future bad rolls. Although the hero point is retained, you obviously can’t make another attempt on the same roll. So if you critically fail a fortitude save and get another critical fail, you keep your point. If you get a failure, that’s an improvement and the point is spent. In the event of a success on the initial roll this rule does not apply (this is to prevent “crit fishing” on a roll that you basically can’t miss on). You can still try to reroll, but if you roll another success you don’t get a refund.

I have used the increase degree of success rule and it was ok, it helped my group of newish players survive AV(mostly). I did caveat that success to crit success took 2 points to use, which aleviated how often on-demand criticals would happen. I think I would be willing to try the d20, min 10. I also have thought about allowing advantage if a point is spent before a roll is made, but if a point is spent after a roll then it must become the 2nd roll.

an effect I haven't seen around yet is keeping everything about hero points, but removing Fortune, which potentially makes it way more powerful when stacking with other Fortune effects, and can fight back Misfortune effects better, but I think it's mostly gonna make it more intuitive or quicker to parse situations where you're not sure of the dice interactions like "yeah I'm gonna use a hero point to reroll my Devise a stratagem" or "I don't know if I failed that Hide, but I'll chuck a Hero Point at it, because I got a bad feeling"

I'm running for a 2-player party. In order to reduce the likelyhood that a single stray critical downs a player and cuts the available actions in half, I introduced the ability to spend a hero point to downgrade an enemy critical, with the additional cost of allowing any one monster do the same.

Having it so enemy attack/spell rolls are reduced by 1 degree of success I think is a great variant way to handle hero points that both limits what can be done with the rolls and allows for players to avoid a fatal critical strike or even a hit in general. It has such good flavor of a hero managing to defeat the odds avoiding a devastating blow from completely taking them out or even narrowly missing. If you want a bit more risk of death just pair it with having it so Heroic Recovery isn't part of the rules and I feel like it could be rather balanced particularly considering in many cases you are likely still taking a regular hit and if its used to turn a regular hit to a miss you are in a very intense position to begin with.

From my experience as a DM and playing several systems, I believe that there is an alternative that keeps tension but also gives some security Replacing recovery with a different defensive factor. I would make it that instead of a reroll for the enemy, you spend it to reduce the enemy's level of success by one, and if that is too strong, to reduce a critical to a normal success only. I will leave the player side rerolling as is. I believe a "I can't handle that, reduce the tier" defensive ability option that has a static result that promises some level of defensive factor, they can use it to "heroically escape danger" but ko is ko. That reduction might still result in hitting zero. If your players are interested in rerolls, they still can, but if they just want to defend themselves, this option becomes something they actively use rather than holding onto a hero point to prevent death. If you want to promote a teamwork ethic, you may wish to allow players to spend their point for other players, however if that idea is considered, you may want to limit maximum to 1, as it's now more a party resource, though as a dm, I would discourage people from demanding someone else use their point for them.

I tend to give lots of hero points. For example at the end of a session I have my players pick an MVP , for things like best roleplay, creative tactics etc and they get an additional hero point in the next session. I also encourage my players to point out when they think another PC does something worth a hero point.

on my friend's tables we usually have stamina rules, so instead of using hero points to negate death we use resolve points, giving hero points more space to shine on rolls

Our groups relationship with hero points has been very strange to say the least: - at the start of our game we used the default rules, but the GM realized that after a certain while we just weren't using them because mathematically it was often a bad idea to use them rather than hoard them in case of either death/a nat 1. - the reason for this is that situations that usually call for hero points are situations where you have a lower success rate than failure rate, this is because naturally, if you have a higher chance to succeed the likelihood you'll need to use a hero point to reroll is going to be lower. - In those situations where rolling a "12" on the dice wasn't enough for a success, this means that statistically you have at max a 35% chance of success, a 5% to crit succeed, a 50% chance to fail and a 10% chance to crit fail. - the math here doesn't work like advantage, which is broadly like getting a "+5" to the roll and improves your success rate, here the probability never shifts because you're not taking the highest, so you're always going to have that 60% screw-up rate cause you're basically just taking a second crack at the roll. - A consequence of this isn't just that the second roll was "worse" and therefore didn't feel heroic, it was usually just the exact same which didn't add any tension or excitement, it was just "welp, nothing happened so who cares". For us, the default hero point rules actually made the game MORE boring and less intense because the likelihood of getting the exact same outcome never shifted so often times you'd just... Fail again, and as a result we threw those rules out by the end of the first book of blood lords.

I like the idea of calling them "story points", the idea that a player can use them to try to rewrite the story. That way if the re-roll is not successful, the player/character didn't "fail", they learnt that they could not change that part of the story. That thing was important and supposed to happen. CANNON EVENT!

My groups have been doing 2 hero points at the start of sessions and it's been working great! (it was mainly implemented because we forget to give out hero points most of the time... oops.) But just having that 1 extra to start with really encourages people to not hoard their points and even if they want to reserve that 1 point for death saves, they still have 1 to play around with.

About the enemy reroll, it would be a good thing to nuance such strong buff by asking the player some kind of RP reason to it, if it wasn't already for the vanilla reroll

Have players use Hero Points to "try for that Crit" when at Success Level. Sometimes allow players to Force Enemy to reroll yet at minimum the cost of three Hero Point is required & from more than one player. Each person earns 20% for the first HP + 10% for each additional HP from that Player's seeking the reroll.

The one potential compromise to the "affect enemy rolls" version of hero points would be to only allow the effect on enemy rolls to reduce a critical success to a regular success. This would allow players to resist crits from enemies and at least get something out of big spells (which often still have an effect on a successful save, and might even still be worth the action and resource spent to use them against a powerful solo monster). I tend to lean towards being more lenient towards players, so while I might not straight up go "take the better" for hero points, I might establish a rule that hero point rolls can't *critically* fail. So they could only worsen their roll if they had already succeeded and were using a hero point to try to go for a crit, or something. I prefer having that little bit of guarantee that using this resource will prevent a catastrophic result, at least, even if it mitigates the tension a little. That said, all my experience with PF2e is theoretical at this point, so I might take your advice and when I run my game, start with the default hero point rules and introduce my house rules only once we have a feel for things.

So the rule I've been using is one that's baked into Foundry vTT via the PF2e Workbench module - when spending a Hero Point, if the result on the die is

My HP rules are as follows: - If a hero point reroll comes up as the same number, reroll it again. (Feels bad to heropoint and get exactly the same number on the die :) ) - Encounters have Villain Points which the GM can use for enemy rerolls. When a Villain point is used, a hero point is awared to the players. Number of Villain points is static based on encounter difficulty. (Moderate/Severe/Extreme 1/2/3 Villain Points) I've yet to outright kill a player with Villain Points so I'm not worried about that one. I might take the hero point refund rule, and the removed heroic recovery rule.

We do auto-increase/decrease on players AND enemies. Change-ups we have are you can't HP crit or HP enemy crit fail. You can't "donate" to another PC and you also have to use it before damage is rolled. So far it has felt really good, even with a Magus in the group. Edit: What spurred us on to try something else was having a session with EVERYONE failing with every HP roll. Now THAT felt bad

My GM added a form of Hero Cards. Every time you get a point, you pick a card, and each card has a fairly powerful effect. You can spend a hero point normally, or to use a card. The latest one I used was "Remove a resistance from an enemy for one round" and it made a lot of difference on a fight against a ghost.

Hero Points TBH need to be fixed greatly. I use the deck and it's at least something to give an option for them. Otherwise they just generally sit there, or are there for save or die moments. They need some sort of gusto added to the basic rules and concept.

We took out the ability to get up from dying with a HP . There is so many chances to get up since you change your spot in the initiative to just before the monster that knocked you out . Players doesnt horde the points and well it leads to a better game just like you said in your video

At the risk of doxxing myself, I'm running a 2E-adapted WotR campaign, and I'm using homebrew for the Hero Point system to fill in for the old Mythic system that's otherwise so central to the campaign. While I recently began allowing something similar to the blanket 'up their degree of success' variant, prior to this they've mostly used their Hero Points to avoid failure and crit failure consequences rather than fishing for crit successes, and I think that sort of scenario is when Hero Points feel best to use. I think a simple rider that they can't get crit successes this way improves the 'up their degree of success' variant tremendously as an alternative for general play.

Here are some hero point ideas I've seen from other games that implement something like hero points. These games are more heroic fantasy than grounded and they reflect in how hero points work. 1. Instead of rerolling dice, spending hero points to activate certain very powerful unique class abilities. 2. Using them to make an aspect of the world canon/true. This acts almost like a blades in the dark "flashbacks" 3. Rewarding them extremely frequently, but making every encounter very stacked against players. (hero points in Gubat feel like swashbuckler panache, except you can get multiple of it at once, but every gubat encounter is like, equivalent to 240+ xp pathfinder encounters) 4. Similar to 3, rewarding them for bad luck. For example missing in a system where you hit 86% of your strikes. 5. Villain points. They can be spent on rerolls and such, but mostly get used for rebalancing combat live by spawning more enemies, or allowing an important villain to make a guaranteed escape. Common in games that abandon verisimilitude in favor of epic stories. 6. Its not exactly hero points but I think spending your healthbar in blades in the dark to nullify the downside of a bad roll fits the same bill. Blades in general turns your health (called sanity) into a resource you feel compelled to spend to accomplish problems, not something the gm can take from you.

My experience with hero points in PF2 and other similar mechanics in other games is that most DMs forget they exist and never give them out.

I've tried a bunch of things like giving out prerolled results when the session starts and letting players choose when to use those rolls(like stratagem kinda). One I like the most is using the stamina variant and letting resolve reroll a check u make. Let's Resolve kind of do everything hero points can (stabilize and reroll) but you don't just hand them out when the GM says u deserve one, always thought that was kind of an odd design choice for this game.

What I use is: Dont use Heroic recovery Allow to reroll enemy attacks, or saves, but that costs two hero points (its stronger than you rerolling your own roll) BUT I also have a second pool of hero points which is the party pool. So everyone starts with one point and the party starts with one. Everyone has access to the party hero point. So when the group does something cool I wouldnt give everyone a hero point, because then it would be too much, but maybe just give out one or two party hero points.

I added one specific mechanic to hero points. Well, two, but I’m currently tweaking the other one, it still does not work as I intended it to work. So… I allow my players to use any feat-based actions (feats that have number of actions in their name) from feats they have access to but did not choose while leveling up by spending a hero point. It works pretty well when I’m playing with my advanced group, it gives them pretty heroic ability to force themselves to do something in a pressure of the moment that they wouldn’t be able to do otherwise. It’s too complex for newbies though. Idk I wanted to share it here :p

Add a new reaction that uses hero points as the resource. Reaction: if an enemy would make a save, you can spend a hero point to make a relevant skill check against one of the creatures Dcs (whether its reflex, will or fort depends on player justification/ how the chosen skill would effect the creature. diplomacy, deception and intimidation for Will or athletics, acrobatics, for Fort arcana, nature for Reflex ect. This would all be up to interpretation). the effects depend on the degree of success succeed: nothing happens Fail: the creature must reroll its save Crit fail the creature rerolls its save and takes a -2 circumstance penalty to the save this has the misfortune and incapacitate trait. This reaction can be used by anyone. The thing i like best is that it would allow martials to help when it comes to spell saves

Honestly, I've always preferred the "action points" from dnd3.5 ebberon. You get points per level, and they don't replenish until you've gained another level. They allow many of the same abilities that hero points allow, but instead of a reroll or advantage, they allow you to roll 1d6 and add that number to the original check. As you increase in level, you roll more d6s and take the best roll.

Ive tried the increase success by 1. I agree its too much. I like your idea of the d10+10. I might do something like a combo of that and also keep the higher. Hero points should never be worse, in my opinion. Hero points SHOULD be good. Im going to give the d10+10 approach. Im also a big fan of the hero point cards, and i let players pick and swap. It allows different people to do differng things with hero points. I also dont do the hour thing, and I also dont get rid of them at the start of a session. Especially since the really significant things often happen at the end of a session, so hero points earned at the end of a session arent "lost". Sometimes you want to save them over. Basically I think Hero points hould be slightly more rare, but more effective. I also got rid of heroic recovery. For the reasons in your video. In general i think hero points every hour is a weird thing, because it depends on the length of session and the TYPE of session. I get the purpose behind them. Also the hero point cards are also more fun. The players like drawing them and swapping them. I think the hero point cards are some of the best things because none of them are "bad". And they all allow heroic things to happen.

My table uses the following rules to make hero points feel better without changing the balance: - If you critically fail a check to defend yourself from an enemy or a hazard, or if an enemy or a hazard critically succeeds on a check to use a hostile effect on you, you gain a hero point. - This hero point cannot be used to reroll the check retroactively. - If the result of a critical success or failure is not different from a regular success or failure, you do not gain a hero point. - You can never gain more than one hero point from a single action or reaction. This combined with generally sticking to the hourly guideline for GM-driven hero points means that players generally always have enough hero points to cover their most important checks and overall serves to prevent death spirals since a boss critting 3 times in a row also means the players get 3 hero points out of it.

I have been running campaigns for a few years. This year I implemented a much stronger variant that usually makes a roll at least successful. I have players declare, before rolling, if they will be using a hero point. If they do they get fortune on the roll and a +2 untyped bonus. My rational is that this is their character putting all their energy into making this a success. I also start sessions with 2 hero points and award them at less than 1 an hour

the other thing i think is MAYBE the increase success by one would work for more hero points (maybe 2?). as long as the original roll wasnt a nat 20 (nothing should ever move it up two)

The last pathfinder game I was in, the GMs rule was that HP could improve the roll by 1 degree, but it couldn't turn a success into a crit success, so it helped with doing things by the kin of your teeth - like Indy going back for his hat - but you couldn't do something supercool. That seemed to work better for us, as it didn't fail like the precious resource was wasted - but the GM didn't hand out HP nearly as often as the book suggested, so maybe that ws the compromise.

Have only played 4 sessions of 2e. I do like the ones Ronald recommends at the end. The auto 1 degree higher success is interesting. Perhaps more specificity is needed. One something like a saving throw, if a PC gets a crit fail, they can choose between 1 degree of success increase (so regular failure) or to roll it as suggested in the book? Also a number of valuable skill checks have a negative effect on the PC if they crit fail, perhaps then too? And maybe turning a Crit hit against a PC into regular hit? The saving throw and crit hit degree of success change could be the difference between being full hp and rolling death saves at level one, from my experience

My groups usually do the minimum 10 variant for hero points. In our Sunday game, we normally start out with two because our GM was bad at awarding then during games

I allow hero points to upgrade a failure to a success on player rolls. I also let them spend hero points for each other. If the group wants more hero points, they make Devil's Bargains, per Blades in the Dark.

Might make other dms have an burst a vessel but Ive kept the normal hero point system but I let them regain a Hero point on a natural 20, im also running it as a much lower stakes game. It encourages them to make rolls and try things they normally wouldnt.

@TheRulesLawyerRPG I'm curious, would it be possibly fairer for it to be: "Can spend point to change a Critical Failure to a Failure" when player is rolling against an effect, and "Can spend point to turn Critical Success into Success" against an attack roll being used against them? Seems like it could limit it to essentially buffing the player's choices, as well as still having a semi-tactical version of "Heroic Intervention".

Hero Points have been a major pain point for me as a GM because a lot of the time, my players are usually hero pointing on something exciting like a spell or a some ability of theirs and they fail and the re-roll fails again. I've tried some house rules, like just allowing a hero point to negate at the very least a crit failure (and I probably did "improve by a degree"), but something didn't sit right with me. I think letting the players re-roll an enemy roll might be a decent idea, alongside just "refund a hero point if 2nd roll is lesser" just seems like a good way to remove the salt from that wound. Unfortunately, or fortunately, I have a low level of death in my games for one reason or another (I'm also not big on just being aggressively hard on the players), which is also something I've considered. I once tried to do this deep dive in at least two other systems with a mechanic like hero points that came to mind, those being Shadowrun and Vampire the masquerade (and probably requiem) and as I read my copies of the SR4E20a and VTM20A books I kind of realized that mechanically, their systems weren't too different, save for the fact that in Vampire, Willpower is also a stat you roll with and spend for a variety of other uses, but we're very specific to the kind of game Vampire is. So not much in the way of helpful advice I could pull from other games I dunno, I'm mixed on this, but I'm also mixed on a lot of things. But maybe I should at least consider more things from a "Is this fun for the players" and not solely just "Is this balanced?"

We don't use Heroic Recovery in our games. BUT..... that's because we play with the Stamina variant rule and it suggests to not use hero points for recovery since Resolve does something similar.

Personally, I give out hero points that stay between sessions. This allows me to give rewards for good roleplay/sticking to character flaws towards the end of session without the feelsbad of the points going away. I keep a limit of 3, though. And likewise I award hero points for heroic action and good incharacter banter...but allow them to be used for one extra action on the turn, or to slightly bend the rules (such as falling from 30ft to deliver a devastating piledriver without being punished too hard)

My group uses a variant to hero points that we found on Reddit: • Whenever a player uses a hero point to reroll their die, of the second roll of the die is less than 10, the result is considered to be one degree of success better. For example, if Bob uses a hero point to reroll their roll of 13 (6 on the die with a modifier of +7), and the now roll comes up as 16 (9 on the die with a modifier of +7), then we would consider the result as one degree of success better (or +10 as a shorthand). However to help balance this at my table, I added the following caveats: • You cannot use a hero point to reroll a natural 1. • You only gain 1 hero point per session unless your character does something truly heroic (i.e. facing down an insurmountable threat alone knowing that you most likely won't survive)

I use the first two 'variants' together, but with a hard limit: you can only turn a failure into a success or a enemy success into a failure. I also only hand out one hero point each session. W9ithout that limit I agree, it'd be way to powerful, But with it.. once per session each PC can do something truly heroic, and my player's love it. Not to mention they're substantially more likely to use them lol.

I've yet to have my group start 2e, but in the past we had rolling AC. We just negate the starting 10 to armor and instead just use a d20+modifiers. On a failed check we can reroll that d20 as a hero point use. This is as a counterpoint to a monster rerolling its successful strike. Additionally for aid checks, etc. we usually use the check score converted to a modifier stat and add that value - so a check of 19 gives a +4, a check of 23 gives a +6, etc. So rerolling a d20 to hit, we could either just straight up add that value to the missed roll, or add that as a modifier value instead. And if that's still too powerful, then maybe just roll a d10 and add that value?

I actually added a potion of "Heroism" and alternatively a tonic of "Divine Intercession" to my games. I run using default rules, however; the potion can be used ANY time assuming you have an action, which means even after a failure on using a hero point. Their rare and characters tend to hold on to them forever but ... they do get used.

Nice tips. But I think your second custom rule should be: "Refund hero Point if 2º roll is 1 or more degree of success lower"

Rerolls of enemy saves feels right to me, but a lot of that comes from having played D&D 4E, where you had Reflex defense, Fort defense, Will defense, and Armor defense. Attackers were rolling their attacks against whichever defense the attack listed, and saving throws were what PF2 calls flat recovery checks. It IS a buff, because it dramatically increases the number of things you can hero point to improve, but thematically I feel like letting the wizard nearly double their odds of critically hitting with Briny Bolt but not Spider Sting is just...weird.

Oh boy I know the feeling in my last game I and another player both rerolled into natural ones. yeah I think my main problem is with the ability only to reroll your own die there is some builds which can nearly not use it.

I have done the up or down degree of success and it is extremely powerful. Don’t do it if you want to challenge your players. They cannot do it every fight but they won’t need to do it every fight. Just on the +3 boss they meet. If you are fine with this being very easy mode then it is AWESOME! Really puts the Hero in Hero point. Be sure if you do this that Hero points are infrequent. Maybe only once a session at the beginning and when they do something remarkable. Even for a super easy mode letting them do this many times a session is just too much. Ive had players suggest the refund the Hero if the reroll still fails has been suggested at my table and I turned it down because I too have wanted to keep the tension up but I am starting to reconsider. Iver got one player who rolls a lot of 1s and rerolls into 1s

Increasing degree of success makes sense if you limit it to only what hero points are generally used for - preventing failure. That is, you can increase the degree of success only if you at least failed. This would be a buff if you failed, because the second roll cannot also be a fail or worse, but a bit of a nerf if your first roll was a crit fail, because you know you can no longer succeed.

A thought on save vs attack rolls. In 4e, the system I still enjoy, the player rolls for all attacks their character does. Swing a sword, roll vs the enemy's AC. Throw a fireball: roll vs the enemy's Reflex defense. Try to dominate them: roll vs the enemy's Will defense. It means everyone is rolling dice, and you are in control of the attack you are making. You can re-roll an attack? That now applies to things that previously may have been a saving throw. I prefer this over the Saving Throw system, where the enemy rolls the die for your attack to see if it hits. Both systems have the same chance to hit, it just changes who is throwing the dice. As such, I'd suggest PF allow re-rolls of enemy saving throws. If nothing else, it means casters have as many options to use it to re-roll an "attack" as non-casters. With respect to the idea that this allows casters to push through strong debuffs, so shouldn't be allowed, I think that highlights an imbalance in what a fighter can do vs a caster. However I'm not sure it should be the main reason to stop casters using their hero points as much as non-casters. Also spells are often a limited resource. Failing to hit with one and not being able to do anything to change that feels bad.

I am still working on how I run Hero points, but the way I currently think I will do it next campaign I run is like this: -You can spend 2 Hero die to re-roll an enemies dice (Although I might make it so that you can't make enemies re-roll saves, I am not sure yet.) -You can spend 1 Hero Point to auto succeed a Recovery Check. (Maybe I also make it so that doing so will keep you from taking persistent damage that turn). That way Hero points are still very useful at keeping you alive, but they don't trivialize death. -MAYBE I also make it so that you always can take the better result, but I am not sure about that one yet. It depends on how many Hero Points I will reward. Currently my part is fairly new to pf2e so I have given them "mission" that reward them with Hero points when they use certain class-features or game play mechanics, so atm they generate a ton of Hero Points, but in the future I might be more stingy, meaning that Hero Points would need to be better overall.

My Hero point rule is: each player gets 3 and only 3 for the session. The players can re-role any role they do but can only use them to re-role enemy critical hits. When they want use them on skill roles I rub my hands together and say "excellent" Mr. Burns style.

I like some of the suggestions. Here is a thought, gate some Hero Point (HP) changes behind levels (experience). Levels 1-5 - basic rules as written. but remove heroic recovery. Levels 6-10 - refund HP if 2nd roll is lower. Levels 11-15 - allow rerolls of enermy attack rolls. Level 16-20 - reroll is D10+10 or D10-10 if used on enemies. Thoughts?

Surprisingly, I've modified it to be more similar to Hero Points from D&D 3.5 (of Unearthed Arcana lore). So I've debuffed Hero Points slightly, but increase the variety. A single Hero Point can now add a d6 bonus to any roll, while two are spent to re-roll. This has increased the use of them, and frequently has people saving themselves from critical failures, or ramping into critical success, with the reroll dice being seen as a bigger spend. It provides a risk - reward. Spend one point to boost your roll, but it can only boost so much, or re-roll to see what luck deems is appropriate.