Here’s something that came up in my game, I’ll tell you how and why I ruled it a certain way, and then I’d love to get your responses and ideas about it.
One of the PC’s in my game because dazed. Now dazed limits you to one action: either a standard a move or a minor. You can also take free actions. After the player took his action, he decided he was going to use one of his action points to take a second action, since the action point grants him the use of another action.
I ruled no, that he could not. Why? Because in my opinion, the dazed condition specifically says that dazed limits the actions available to the player to one, and an action point is not a cure for dazed, a saving throw at the end of your turn is. If one of his allies had given him a saving throw in the middle of his turn, and he would have made it, then he definitely could have used his action point. Otherwise no.
He then argued that the game is excepetion rules based, and the action point is an excepetion rule to the dazed condition. I said that on the contrary, the dazed condition is the exception rule to the action point mechanic.
So DM’s, where do you stand on this? Has it come up in your games? We could find no answers online, only forum arguments either way. There seems to be no clear ruling on this.
How would you judge it?
www. Newbie DM .com 
justaguy
June 15, 2009
I’d have gone with the players interpretation to be honest. I understand where you are coming from but I tend to think of it like:
You get a turn, that turn consists of 1 Standard + 1 move+ 1 minor and free actions to a reasonable amount. The dazed effect allows you to only take one of your three primary actions. The Action Point expenditure is a special power that allows you to take an addition primary action to the ones allowed. Since neither Dazed nor Action Point rules mention one another, I assume they do not interact and they do what each one says. Dazed limits your standard turn, then when you spend the AP you get another action.
Zzarchov
June 15, 2009
In my case, if he had a reasonable case I would let him use his action point this one time and then make a ruling that the normal answer is “no”
Why? If he made plans to act in a certain way with the assumption that the “World’s physics” operated in a certain way its jarring to have your plan screwed up midway through. A smaller scale of building your character to a certain paragon path then being told “in this setting that path isn’t available”. The notion of it being unavailable in the setting is good, merely the timing of letting the player know is bad.
To reel this ramble back in, I would thus allow him the interpretation of the rule he based his plans around this encounter, then make it stated (And ideally written down) how the rule works in the future.
Rules are always less prone to debate over rulings when the ruling doesn’t have any immediate impact on the gameplay.
Aoi
June 15, 2009
Ah, the age old problem of the chicken and the egg – which rule is an exception to which rule? My reading of the rules is that both the action point rule and the dazed condition are exceptions to the rule allowing one standard, one move, and one minor action per turn. Neither, in my view, creates an exception to the other. This suggests, I guess, that your player was correct – he can take his one action per turn due to the dazed condition, then spend an action point to take another action.
However, based purely on flavor, I would have made the same ruling you did. It does not make sense to me that a person who is dazed could have a moment of insight/clarity/heroic awesomeness necessary to pull off the extra action granted by action point use.
On another level, you might judge it based on the tactics you want to allow and game experience you want to create. If you rule that the dazed condition prevents action point use and apply that same rule to action points possessed by your monsters, then players will be incentivized to daze monsters. If being dazed does not prevent it, then action points become a sort of “escape hatch” for dazed characters.
More confusion – sorry. I guess my ultimate point is that your ruling is reasonable, and as long as you apply it consistently from here on out your players will get over it. While this may be a conflict on this rule, as long as you apply it consistently (and let your players take advantage of it), it will at least be reasonable and fair.
Tony Law
June 15, 2009
Isn’t that what Action Points are for? To allow the PC to do something they normally can’t do? I think they are and would have let the player use an AP while dazed.
RPG Ike
June 15, 2009
This tends to get me into trouble, but I would have ruled more based on the logic of the situation and worried less about the rules mechanics.
I prefer something that jives with my picture of the action and the game world—your PC was struck a blow that made it impossible for him to function to his capacity (maybe he’s concussed). Trying really hard not to be concussed shouldn’t help him act. I would have ruled like you did, but for different reasons, and I would almost certainly have had the same conversation with my player as you had with yours.
Aoi’s making a really important point here—your ruling was reasonable, and applying it consistently from now on will solve a lot of problems. You did your job.
Hungry
June 15, 2009
I would have allowed the player to use his precious action point to take that extra action. They are rare enough in game that using them wisely should be rewarded.
Mike E
June 15, 2009
I most likely would have allowed the player to use his action point. To me, the action points are to allow the player to do something exceptional, something heroic. A normal person would be dazed and not be able to do anything except a single action. A heroic person would be able to push their endurance past that and, even if it is only once, be able to take another action.
For the most part, I’m a big fan of letting the PC’s do spectacular things for flavor and fun. There has to be rules and regulations to create a boundry, but players come to be awesome, heroic, and daring… not to hear you can’t do this because…. obviously there needs to be boundries.. like you can’t jump across the grand canyon because…. but why can’t the player use an AP, swing from a chandellier and attack a target, etc?
Alright.. I’m done rambling!
newbiedm
June 15, 2009
Well, the “allow the AP” camp wins this argument.
On twitter, (shameless plug: http://www.twitter.com/newbiedm ) the game designers pretty much comfirmed that the AP is allowed while dazed.
I insist the rules as written are vague and ambigious, but well, designers are as official as you can get.
BTW, twitter is a great source of rpg talk and discussion, if you aren’t on there. search for #dnd on the search box and start from there, or follow me and look at the people i follow.
Tony Law
June 15, 2009
@newbiedm – RAW being vague and ambiguous?! Bite your tongue, lad! 😉
wickedmurph
June 15, 2009
I would have allowed him to use the action point. The “dazed” exception limits his action, it has no effect on the action point mechanic, which allows an additional action. If the player was in a state that did not allow free actions (is there one?), I’d say no. I’d look at it as the character shrugging off the brutal blow by sheer force of willpower, in a “hit the one in the middle” Rocky-esque fashion. If he fails his save at the end of the turn, he’s still dazed, after all.
Wyatt
June 15, 2009
Even though the whole thing is apparently over, I would have allowed him to use the action point for the following reasons:
a) Action points aren’t easy to come by. You get one to start with and one every two encounters. Action points are a precious resource, and using them to salvage an otherwise worthless turn is a perfectly legitimate use of them. If you can still take some actions, why can’t you gain EXTRA actions?
b) Being dazed sucks. Daze often doesn’t give you any choice to recover, and it is very crippling. Hanging around Dazed is frustrating, and anything the player can do to mitigate it with the resources he has at hand and is entitled to use, should be allowed.
c) Game rules I don’t like can suck it anyway. That’s the only game rule at my table that doesn’t suck it.
Harlan
June 15, 2009
Ah, see, if I’d been allowed the action point I wouldn’t have gone below zero hit points. Time for a do-over?
anarkeith
June 15, 2009
I’m not usually a hard-ass, rules-lawyer DM, but if I told one of my players that I had made my decision I wouldn’t be interested in entertaining a discussion about “exception-based” rule design. Your interpretation of dazed = no extra actions seems reasonable. I’ve been in plenty of combats as a player where I got knocked out or was incapacitated. Frustrating? Boring (sometimes)? Hell, yeah.
I’d just tell my player that I’d be happy to discuss it after the session, and move to the next player’s turn. The spirit of the game is cooperative, so the dazed player needs to be able to depend on others to help him or her out in that situation. Sometimes you are helpless in the hands of fate.
greywulf
June 15, 2009
Same thing happened in our game (twice now, as it happens) and both times I’ve disallowed the use of the Action Point. I see it as meta-gamaing to use an AP when you’re dazed – the player is trying to twist the rules to their advantage. If you’re dazed, you’re DAZED. Now, if the use was to do something dramatically brilliant and awesome then yep, that’s a great use of an AP and I’ll allow it, even whilst dazed. That’s MY exception to MY rule.
Otherwise, I say nip it in the bud. You’ll get players asking if they can spend an AP while unconscious next. Then it’ll be trying to use an AP while they’re dead…….
Roger
June 15, 2009
The argument that makes the most sense to me is that using an action point is actually a free action, as described in the PHB. Therefore, no matter what you choose to do with that action point, it would fall under that “free action”. Being dazed sets no parameters on the amount of free actions one can take during their or other player’s turns BUT the use of an action point is limited insofar that it can only be used during one’s own turn.
I hope this makes sense.
Scott
June 15, 2009
I’d probably have allowed using the action point, myself.
But I think your interpretation is equally valid. As long as you’re consistent, it seems fair enough.
As for RAW… Dazed (PHB p. 277) reads, in part, “You can take either a standard action, a move action, or a minor action on your turn.” Normally, you can take one of each of those types of action. You can also still take free actions.
Spending an action point is a free action (PHB p. 286). Its effect is “You gain an extra action this turn. You decide if the action is a standard action, a move action, or a minor action.”
So my reading would be that the dazed condition limits you to one non-free action, and then spending an action point (as a free action) gives you an extra action as normal.
But I think it’s possible to read the dazed effect as taking priority: technically, you can still spend an action point to gain an effect, but you cannot gain an extra action because daze limits you to one. (The only reason to spend an AP in this case would be that you have one of those “instead of taking an extra action” paragon path features, or a houseruled use for action points.)
mike
June 15, 2009
i actually read into this, and how it works, is you get to make take a standard action as a free action, which is why its so solid. It works, and ive had to use it with elites [99.99% sure of this]
Sean Brady
June 15, 2009
I am using a variant of the Action Point rules in my game (sort of a SW benny hybrid approach) with the goal of making the PC’s even more heroic. In my game I would have absolutely allowed it.
Reading the rules, and the comments here I agree that it would be allowed by the rules. I think of it as the hero who drags himself off the ground for one last swing before becoming truly dazed.
Ameron
June 16, 2009
Clearly I am on the wrong side of this argument/discussion. I’ve always ruled that if you’re dazed you get 1 action, period. You cannot use an action point if you’re dazed. And this goes both ways, for the PCs and the monsters. It just makes sense based on what the dazed condition is supposed to accomplish.
My gaming group has felt this is the correct interpretation from day one and we’ve always played that way. In fact, during one of the panel discussions at GenCon last summer someone asked the Wizards of the Coast guys this same question and the response then was that you cannot use an action point while dazed.
Ultimately I suppose it comes down to how the DM wants to interpret the rule and to make sure that the players understand this before the situation arises.
Nibelung
June 16, 2009
I’m a DM that have a simple rule: When any rule dicussion go over 3 minutes, i give my last word, and that’s it. Further discussion go after the encounter/session. BUT, usualy, i give my word to fav the player. Why? Because all the discussion already light on everyones head the doubt, and i will have time to correct it later. Nobody cares that a monster died one round earlier because of a misread, but let a player drop because of a misread will ruin your reputation as DM.
So, if this wasnt something you can prove and let the others to agree in 3 mins, then you go ahead, allow the rule to be used like the player told you, and reserve some time to discuss it with they after it, so everyone will agree about how the rule must work on our table.
Chris
June 16, 2009
What the DM says goes. As a player I would suck up the call and play on. As a DM: dazed trumps AP. “You’re too punch-drunk to be heroic right now.”
wickedmurph
June 16, 2009
I’ve gotta say, I think you guys are misreading the rules here, and penalizing players more seriously than the dazed condition warrants. Dazed is explicitly worded to allow free actions. Action points are explicitly free actions. I’m not sure why you would rule that this is not allowed.
MMM
June 16, 2009
Fighting through being dazed to burst out with an unexpected action is the epitome of heroism. Imagine how cinematic it is when the fighter you thought was out taps into his inner strength in a time of need and then collapses in exertion afterward.
Besides…the DM Guide suggests getting used to saying “yes” when in doubt.
Piers
June 18, 2009
Cinematic, heroic play-style, exception-based, spending an action point is a free action.
Based on all of those I’d have ruled that the action point gets you a standard action even when dazed.
Simon Newman
January 20, 2010
I charged when dazed, then declared I was spending an AP to take another action – cue 10 minute rules discussion before it was allowed…