Resolve: A little add on rule for Mutant Future.

[Agrippa]

I decided that Mutant Future could use some rules for more action oriented play. Maybe you want your PC to put a little effort into a melee swing, firing a gun or letting loose an arrow. How about trying decypher ancient languages or attempting to learn how to opperate ancient technology. You roll the standard dice and whatnot to get a result. But for extra effort, you might want a little more. By the way, if you're wondering this is pretty much the same as 3.X's optional action points rules with some slight differences.

Resolve

Resolve gives characters the means to affect game play in significant ways, by improving important rolls or unlocking special abilities. Each character has a limited number of resolve points, and once a resolve point is spent, it takes a week to regain.

Metagame Analysis: Resolve

Resolve points give players some control over poor die rolls. Although this has little effect in an average encounter, it makes it a little more likely that characters will survive extremely challenging encounters and less likely that a single character will fall to what would otherwise be a balanced foe because of bad luck. A pool of resolve points lets even careful players expose their characters to more risks, heightening the game’s tension and opening the door to even more heroic action. This variant also makes it less likely that an entire adventuring group will fall victim to one powerful effect, such as circle of death or cloudkill.
Revolve points also make it more likely that the use of a character’s most potent abilities will be successful.
That said, resolve points can also lead characters to routinely get in over their heads (relying on reserve to save themselves), and for GMs to unconsciously increase the difficulty of encounters (since characters are more likely to succeed against foes of equal power). This is as fine as long as the characters have a reserve of such points to spend—but if they run out, encounters that would otherwise be merely challenging can become incredibly deadly. Keep the number of resolve available to your characters in mind when designing encounters on the spot.
In addition resolve points can be spent to activate or enhance specific mutations and boost the power of some spells and other powers.

Acquiring Resolve

A beginning (1st-level) character starts the game with half his or her Willpower in resolve.

Resolve and Existing Games

Adding resolve to an existing campaign is easy, since characters don’t need to make any special changes. Each character simply gains a number of resolve equal to Will/2.

Using Resolve

You can spend 1 or more resolve either to add to a single d20 roll, to take a special action, to improve the use of a mutation (if applicable) or increase your mental or physical defenses for one round.
You can spend up to three resolve in a round. If you spend a point to use a special action (see below), you can’t spend another one in the same round to improve a die roll, and vice versa.

Add to a Roll

When you spend 1 to 3 resolve points to improve a d20 roll, you add the result of a 1d6 for each point spent to your d20 roll (including attack rolls, saves, checks, or any other roll of a d20) to help you meet or exceed the target number. You can declare the use of 1 or more resolve points to alter a d20 roll after the roll is made, but only before the GM reveals the result of that roll.
For every seven character levels, a character might be able to roll more than one d6 when he spends 1 resolve. If so, apply the highest result and disregard the other rolls. A 15th-level character, for instance, gets to roll 3d6 and take the best result of the three. So, if he rolled a 1, 2, and 4, he would apply the 4 to his d20 roll.

Activate Class Ability

A character can spend 1 resolve point to gain another use of a class ability that has a limited number of uses per day. For example, a monk might spend a resolve point to gain another use of her stunning fist ability, or a paladin might spend a resolve point to make an additional smite attack.

Boost Defense

A character can spend 1 resolve point as a free action when fighting defensively. This gives him double the normal benefits for fighting defensively for the entire round (-4 dodge bonus to AC; -6 if he has 3 or more levels in mystic, thief or battle dancer). He can also raise his Willpower by 1/6 per resolve point spent against a single mental attack, even after the attack roll has been made.

Extra attack

During any round in which a character takes a full attack action, he may spend 1 resolve point to make an extra attack. Resolve points may be used in this way with both melee and ranged attacks.

Spell Boost

A character can spend 1 resolve as a free action to increase the effective caster level of one of his spells by 2. He must decide whether or not to spend a resolve point in this manner before casting the spell.

Spell Recall

Spellcasters who prepare their spells in advance can spend 1 resolve to recall any spell just cast. The spell can be cast again later with no effect on other prepared spells. This use of a resolve point is a free action and can only be done in the same round that the spell is cast. Spontaneous spellcasters such as sorcerers and bards can spend 1 resolve to cast a spell without using one of their daily spell slots. This use of a resolve point is a free action and can only be done as the spell is being cast.

Stable
Any time a character is dying, he can spend 1 point of resolve to become stable at his current hit point total.