Fate Points
I use the Hero Point system from James Bond: The Role-playing Game. As this game was done by former SPI staffers it's rules have aspects of DragonQuest and Universe.
Basically you roll your skill roll against a modified Grievous Injury table that is now used for all skills with 4-6 levels of success. You get a Hero Point each time you roll a critical success (I think you can also buy Hero Points using experience but I don't have the rules in front of me).
Hero Points can be spent to change a roll result by one level per Hero Point. So you can change a failure to a minimal success with one HP or into a critical success by using 4 HP.
NPCs generally do not get Hero Points but Tough enemies get Survival Points that they can use in the opposite way to reduce a player's chance of killing them. Great for those recurring evil arch-enemies ("But we killed him last time").
I think I have the converted tables around here in word format if you are interested.
JohnR
-----Original Message-----
From: jcorey30
To: dq-rules@yahoogroups.com
Sent: 1/5/02 1:57 PM
Subject: [dq-rules] Considering some rule addtions
2) "Fate" points. Some games have this. In the old StormBringer
RPGm they were called elan points. The conept is basically you are
given points you can cash in when you are desperate, to save your
back side. I wonder if this would work at all in DQ. Your thoughts?
Thanks