this post was submitted on 18 Sep 2025
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You decide to take action. Please roll for initiative.
rolls 1
You slip and fall on banana peel. You ran out of action points.
What a strange mix of RPG tropes. I get what you meant but that's like when you see "hacking" on tv.
I’ll be honest. I never played DND and only know it from memes. I was trying to make a funny. 😔
Edit: the rpg part probably stems from Baldur Gate 3. 🤷♂️
Heh, that would've been my guess. Nothing to be embarrassed about! Your joke worked. It was just weird to see all those concepts put together in a way they wouldn't go in an actual game. (DND doesn't have action points, for starters)
But Baldurs does right? I played it for like 2 minutes 😂
Not in the sense people usually use the phrase "action points".
In D&D, on your turn, you get one action. That might be hitting someone with a sword, casting a spell, or whatever. You can also move, but that's not typically an "action". Some classes also get what are confusingly called "bonus actions", which are extra things you can do on your turn. Rogues, for example, can try to hide as a bonus action even after they did a normal action like shoot someone. A regular fighter who shot someone with a bow wouldn't be allowed to try to hide on the same turn, but the rogue could.
Because you only get one action (and bonus actions), no one calls them action points. You might say "you already took your action" or something.
Compare with a game like the original Fallout. You get a number of action points based on your stats. For an average character, it's 7. Shooting someone typically takes 2, a called shot takes 3. I think movement also takes action points. So on your turn you might shoot someone 3 times (six action points) and move a little (1 action point). Or take a called shot (3 AP) and move a lot (4 AP). Lots of options. Divinity Original Sin 1 and 2 also use action points in a similar way.
This is way more explanation than you probably needed. The key thing is on D&D you typically do one thing on your turn (eg: attack, cast a spell). Pretty much every action has the same "cost" in this sense. You can't really mix and match, and there's not as much tactical depth on your turn. (Pathfinder 2e gives you three actions per turn, but I don't think anyone calls them points there, either.)
Yeah, they're just actions. Though the original joke kinda works, because the way Pathfinder frames it is that you gain actions at the start of your turn, so it's more conceivable that something could prevent you from gaining those actions, or could take them away. (Indeed, the "Slowed" condition says that you "When you regain your actions, reduce the number of actions regained by your slowed value", as a similar example.) Even though they're not called points, they do kinda act like that kind of a resource.
Yes but not in that way.
Initiative determines the order of action. Usually in combat, but it could theoretically be applied elsewhere, a debate for example, or if a Bard challenges someone to a rap-battle (I guess those are both kinda just verbal combat though).
Action points are how many actions you can perform per turn of initiative. Usually a movement, an action, and possibly a bonus action.
Slipping on a banana peel could be done if you rolled acrobatics to leap over the banana peel but failed the skill check. Say you're a Gnome whose lost their legs, taking a -6 modifier to Dexterity. This could cause an acrobatics roll of 12 to fall to 6, which could below the 7 you might contextually need to succeed at leaving over the banana peel.
"Using your powerful gnome arms you make a mad gorilla dash and leap with all your might, Unfortunately the loose dirt under your right hand gives way and you slip. You manage to catch yourself with your left hand, but before the squelch of the banana peel registers to your ear your arm slips out from under you and you strike your head upon the ground"
Take 1 Damage and Roll a Con save to see if you're concussed.
Edit: I brainfarted and described a potential DnD or PF situation, this cannot occur in BG
Do you crit-fail your players on initiative roles? Brutal 😮
Do you crit-fail your players on ANYTHING? I can't imagine the dm ideas for how one in twenty swings should send your sword flying into the ether.
I crit fail my players on skill checks if they have a negative with modifiers.
"Oh you rolled a -1 on your lockpicking roll? Sorry bucko, you broke your pick off deep in the lock because what you thought was a false set was your tensioner slipping"
Pathfinder's four degrees of success system is so good here. A crit is any time you beat the DC by 10. A crit fail is any time you get 10 less than the DC. The system itself then tells you on a bunch of different spells/actions/effects what happens on a crit/success/fail/crit fail. It's handy because often this means a regular fail can still mean something good happens for you. In the case of lockpicking:
I’ve never played DND. I’ve only know it through memes. 😔 I tried to put the gist of what I understood.