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GriffinKemp
2009-11-09, 08:51 PM
I know a lot of d20 is posted here, but it also reads, "RPG" so I thought I would whip this up here to see what kind of opinions come about because the group I will be introducing this to has largely never touched Shadowrun and comes from the D&D and D20 side of RPG's.

A brief bit on myself: I've been playing RPG's for about two decades and making them in some form or another for about a decade and a half.
I started in the mid 80's with D&D and still play when I can, but mostly stick to other various systems than D&D (e.g. Mechwarrior, Shadowrun, GURPS).

Shadowrun Initiative is linear cyclic; meaning, everyone rolls their amount of d6 (typically between 2 and 3 d6) and adds their Reaction (an "averaged" attribute based out of combining /2).
This number (high numbers are values such as >21; low numbers are such as <11) is then decreased by 10 until it cannot be decreased any further.
So 21 would be: 21, 11, 1

This would mean the character would have three initiative passes this combat round.

Here's the problem:
To get up to something like >21 bracket, a character usually has a piece of gear called Wired Reflexes built into their body (like the terminator...but on crack).
This wouldn't be a problem in itself except that any magic users in the group then have to use various magic systems to even come close to moving at the levels this warrior type moves at.
(Magic users don't usually use Wired Reflexes because it takes away Essence from the person to do so, and Essence is what determines magic power capacity)

Either this, or the magic user typically has an initiative around the <10 bracket, and at best (with magic speed booster spells, which aren't that great to tap into), the <20 bracket.

Now, the way that turns are done in Shadowrun are something like this:
Wired Reflex Warrior
21
11
1

Anyone else (including magic users) [at best]
11
1

For each of these values above is two simple actions or one complex action.
Shooting semi-automatic firearms is considered a simple action.
Shooting a fully automatic firearm is considered a complex action.
Casting magic is always considered a complex action.

So, the Wired Reflex Warrior gets to take 6 actions, while the normal mundane fellow takes 4 actions, and the magic user only gets 2 actions.

Further more of a problem is that these are resolved in order.
(typically, due to dice rolls, you don't have two character with the same value on initiatives)

So you would have:
23
13
3

and
11
1

This means that Wired Reflexes (WR) and Magic User (MU) will look like this in turn counts:

23 - WR
23 - WR
13 - WR
13 - WR
11 - MU
03 - WR
03 - WR
01 - MU

You can see quickly the problem.
Now, I should note that magic is extremely powerful and you could easily kill off multitudes of character with one turn of magic, but it does present a VERY un-involved game play for anyone that wields magic.

You could easily end up sitting around twiddling your thumbs hoping you are still alive when it gets to your turn.

So, I wanted to revise this (and have several times in the past with successful systems...this time, however, I'm taking a different angle and approach to the issue).

I also wanted to remove the focus on everyone being speed junkies to be involved (which tends to happen in Shadowrun).

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More or less, I went about this by dissecting the combat to smaller components and removed and modified the system in various small methods that pull together a slightly more complicated mechanic for combat.
This would not be good for systems that are more story-based focused than mechanic's based, but luckily in Shadowrun, you will spend about a quarter to half of each session in at least one combat session (and most groups spend more along the lines of half to three quarters of their sessions in combat), so making combat more articulate and detailed at the expense of a bit of speed is fine for this system.


So...with out further ado...here is the rewrite (and no, you don't need to understand everything...just the general concepts at play).

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Roll Xd6 (typically between 1 and 3 d6) per character.
The sum is the Starting Initiative of the character.
Do not add Reaction to this number (which is the normal method).

The values are laid out as typical (numbers are modified to show a better example than above):
WR guy would be:
21
11
01

MU guy would be:
13
03

The difference is that they will roughly go at the same time.
It will lay out like this:
21...11...01
13a..13b.03

This means that 21 goes, then 13a goes, then 13b goes, then 11 goes, then 03 goes, then 01 goes.

That may seem trite, but when you mix up three different speeds of characters, it becomes valuable.

P1: 23......13....03
P2: 15a....15b...05
P3: 08a.....xx....08b

This means that the order would be:
23, 15a, 8a, 15b, 13b, 08b, 05, 03

Which would be:
P1, P2, P3, P2, P1, P3, P2, P1

Notice how Player 3 was able to jump in and become involved on the first pass rather than waiting a very long time as normally would occur.

Normally, this would look like this:
23, 15, 13, 08, 05, 03

Which would be:
P1, P2, P1, P3, P2, P1


So the player is able to be more involved.
Now, the A and B versions are just taking their turn and splitting it into two simple action tallies.
So if you are P3, in the above alternative concept, then you would take your first simple action at the end of the first round (firing a pistol), and take your second simple action at the beginning of the last round (firing a pistol).

Now...you are still moving markedly slower than anyone else, for example, this would be the action break down of the above:
P1: 23......13....03
P2: 15a....15b...05
P3: 08a.....xx....08b

Listed by shooting pistols (best way to show it).

Round 1
P1: Shoots, Shoots
P2: Shoots
P3: Shoots

Round 2
P2: Shoots
P1: Shoots, Shoots
P3: ----

Round 3
P3: Shoots
P2: Shoots, Shoots
P1: Shoots, Shoots


So, P1 still shoots 6 times, P2 shoots 4 times, and P3 shoots 2 times.
But [I]when they shot has drastically changed, as it would normally look like this:

P1: Shoots, Shoots
P2: Shoots, Shoots
P3: ----

P1: Shoots, Shoots
P3: Shoots, Shoots
P2: Shoots, Shoots

P1: Shoots, Shoots
P2: ----
P3: ----


You can see now, how much more active people are able to be in the alternative than the original.


Now, the catch is that if you take a complex action, that can go over both of your actions that are split.
So, say above the 08a and 08b, you would cast a spell, or shoot a fully auto machine gun, then it would start on 08a and end on 08b.

Now, with the machine gun, you would roll half of the successes on 08a and the other half on 08b.

With the magic, however, you would only roll at the 08b, having started on 08a.

The protection is that you can't stop the spell from occurring by killing the caster of the magic.
This is because it is considered a done deal, that you are only waiting for the magic to reach you on the second turn.
The first turn already cast the magic.


And this is all because the combat is within 3 to 4 seconds in Shadowrun per combat round (one instance of the numbers depleting to 0 by subtracting 10).


One further note is that where the A and B parts of a turn land (such as where you saw 08a, XX, 08b above) is up to the player.
That same player above could have done XX, 08a, 08b, and the 15,5 player could have done 15, 5a,5b instead.
It's left to the player so that if the split ends up having a poor turnout, it's their decision that caused the poor turn out; like chess.

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To the close reader, some of you might be wondering what happened to that Reaction I dismissed above.

Reaction becomes a reactive roll to being attacked instead.
So you can roll your Reaction + half your reaction value to gain options in defense.

If you have a dodge skill then you can add that into the roll as well.
It becomes a roll of Reaction + your Dodge Skill (this means you can have a much higher chance of reacting).

In reaction, you can choose to increase the TargetNumber to hit you, or you can take your upcoming action and use it now as an offensive defense (meaning you attack to try to stop the incoming attack).
The last of which, forfeights defense, so if you fail to attack and win, then you receive all of the damage with an increase TargetNumber to soaking the damage.

If you are in the middle of a complex action that spans multiple turns, then you have to decide if you are going to use your Reaction/Dodge or keep focused on your current action (magic is the exception; they cannot make a choice to forfeit without completely undoing their casted spell completely).

Now, if you are a player with a high number like, 23, and you don't want to go first, then you can save your turn as a potential interrupt of sorts.
You can place it as a Reactive Offensive Defense.

Meaning, you just placed the action in your "back pocket" and let the first fractions of seconds pass even though you are well able to move; in a sense, you are analyzing the combat situation.

Then, if someone attacks you, you can pull our your Reaction test and use your saved action as an Offensive Defense without losing any upcoming turns.

So instead of losing turn 13, when someone attacks you on their turn 15, you saved your turn 23 and pulled it out as an offensive defense by Reaction test when they attacked you on 15.


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There are some further options that can be thrown in that I'm not sure I want to, such as "real time initiative" which basically subtracts from the initiative when you get hurt so that initiative is less planned and more reactionary throughout the round, but I'm not really wanting to add that much more "pencil work" into the system for these guys yet.

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So...there it is....hope it makes some sense.

Any thoughts?