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Karoht
2012-06-25, 12:10 PM
So I'm looking for a suggestion to fix a mechanic that I've more or less imported from Rifts to D20 Modern.

For anyone unfamiliar with how rounds, actions, and initiative work in Rifts, see under the spoiler:

How Rounds, Actions, and Initiative All Work in Rifts
AKA
Staggered Initiative/Staggered Actions

Example:
Space Marine X has 4 Actions
Reaper Y has 5 Actions
Zergling Z has 3 Actions

All 3 roll Initiative to determine order, as normal.
They each take turns in that order, using up their actions as they go. There are no Full Attack Actions, please don't ask about any particular Feats or abilities at the moment.
Also, there are some attacks which use up more than one action.
Everyone gets one move action for free. Attack actions can also be used for additional movement.
On every Attack Action, everyone gets an Adjustment move, similar to a 5ft step.

However, when everyone is done taking actions, and there are no actions left among anyone involved in the combat, an new Initiative is rolled and the next round begins.


So what I'm looking for is something that feels a little less forced when rolling initiative multiple times per combat. It currently feels like we are just rolling dice for the sake of rolling dice. It also means I'm recording Initiative Order multiple times in a combat. The party I'm testing this with says they are okay with just rolling initiative once if necessary, but I agree with their criticism that it is breaking up the pace of combat to a degree.

It keeps Initiative feeling organic, it makes Initiative a much more valuable stat, but it also is bogging down combat just a bit.

Any suggestions, or should I just stick to one Initiative roll per combat?

TheWombatOfDoom
2012-06-25, 12:54 PM
It keeps Initiative feeling organic, it makes Initiative a much more valuable stat, but it also is bogging down combat just a bit.

Just curious how rolling initiative each round makes it more valued than if it's rolled once? I think it makes it less valued, because there's more of a chance basis on it since you role more. In otherwords, a good way to decide this is make a list of pros and cons for both. What do you like about varied inititive? What do you like about static? Dislike?

An alternative idea is you mention how each of the 3 have a different amount of actions per round. Say one has 4, one 3. The one with the greater amount of actions goes first. The one with 3, however could do one action this round, to save up 2 actions for next round (as in the actions get rolled over). This way, someone with 3 actions can sacrifice to go first the next round. Should both tie, then you roll inititive to see who would go first that particular round. There are certain things to think about with this, however, such as someone with more actions AND going first gives them a large advantage. Where do these action numbers come from? Race statistics? With this technique, you could potentially mainstream things so that everyone has a certain amount of actions equally, so initially you roll to see who goes first, but as combat continues and you save an action for the next round, or you can borrow actions from the next round, making your inititive lower next round in order to do more this round.

I hope that all made sense.

Karoht
2012-06-25, 02:57 PM
@Number of Actions per round
Comes from the class. IE-Reapers are faster, they emphasize on quick movement and quick hits. They also have implants in their brains forcing them into blitz tactics. Hence, they shoot more times a round than a standard Marine. Then there is Stimpack, which grants additional actions and movement per round.


@Trading Actions for Initiative
Not quite sure the benefit here. Could you explain in greater detail? I'm unclear as to why one would use such a trade.


@Action Carry-over
Um, okay, why does sitting on your duff in round A mean you can run and shoot more in round B?
A round is 15 seconds of time (in this system, for contrast I will point out that in DnD a round is 6 seconds), that time is still ticking whether or not you choose to act.


To make things clearer, do not think of a Round as a single turn, but each action as the turn. Multiple turns per round. Multiple actions per increment of time Faster characters act more, slower characters act less.


Also, between rounds is when I consider players and enemies to be reloading, getting ready to ambush, and generally preparing to act again.

TheWombatOfDoom
2012-06-26, 07:12 AM
The way you describe it, it sounds like the more actions they have, the faster they are. So, it would be easy to conclude that order of inititive could be determined by how many actions one has. If my guy has 5 actions because he's faster, he'd more than likely start performing his actions before a slower character that has 3. Ties could be determined by rolling off, or by dex score or whatever you feel would be besy to use. This system is easy, and not a lot of rolling, but it makes it so one always goes first, and one always goes last. That may not be something you like.

@ Trading and Carrying over: Eh, it was just some quick idea I had. Basically, I felt the sacrificing an action as the "preparing an action" idea, but I see now what I didn't see in my half asleep post :smallsigh:. Also you have preparing as an in between thing, so that idea is mostly null and void either way. The benifit for it would have been going before the other in the next action, thus being able to hit them before they hit you. As in, the slow guy would actually have a chance to go first once in awhile.

@ interpretation of rounds - So does that mean actions take longer for certain characters than others? if a round is 15 seconds and someone has 3 actions in that time, its 5 seconds an action. With someone with 5 actions, it's 3 seconds. In this it would be something like:

Begin Round-
Reaper-1
Zergling-1
Reaper-2
Reaper-3
Zergling-2
Reaper-4
Reaper and Zergling-5,3
/Round

That about the gist of it?

Karoht
2012-06-26, 09:33 AM
This system is easy, and not a lot of rolling, but it makes it so one always goes first, and one always goes last. That may not be something you like.Indeed. The Reaper in the party would always go first. That could be problematic. If only there were a way to come up with a middle ground here. I feel you may be on to something though.



As in, the slow guy would actually have a chance to go first once in awhile.This is what I had hoped rolling the initiative every round would accomplish. While it certainly can, the problem is more that it is just bogging down the pace of combat to collect new rolls and sort them out.



@ interpretation of rounds - So does that mean actions take longer for certain characters than others?Yes, however I'll give you another example.

Reaper-5 Actions
Zergling-3 Actions

Reaper1
Zergling1
Reaper2
Zergling3
Reaper3
Zergling3-Final Action
Reaper4
Reaper5-Final Action

And to answer a previous question, yes, there are some actions which take more than one action to perform. A Ghost uses Snipe, at level 1 Snipe takes two actions to perform. Later it becomes a single action on the first use, and two actions any other time it is used. A Marine uses Spray and Pray, at level 1 it takes two actions to perform. When used with Stimpack, it only takes 1 action to perform.

TheWombatOfDoom
2012-06-26, 10:55 AM
Alrighty, then we need another variable. We have a constant - inititive is directed by amount of actions each class has. After figuring out who goes first, it doesn't really matter for each other action because it then has a natural order of back and forth, based on the amount of actions and how they are distributed through the round.

The reason I listed the actions in the way I had was because it was based on the amount of time it took to get off an action per person in 15 seconds, as I'm sure you caught. The tie at the end and the beginning could be something resolved by a single roll of inititive. They all start at the same time - at 1 second. and all end at the same time - at 15 seconds. So, if an inititive roll was done, it could be determined who went first initially before it broke back down into actions per player. This is hard to explain through wording. Let me graph it out...

Round Starts -
Reaper and Zergling roll inititive - Zergling gets the higher roll.
Zergling1
Reaper1
Reaper2
Zergling2
Reaper3
Reaper4
Zergling3
Reaper5

The first and last action are determined from the inititive roll. So if Reaper wins it would look like this-

Reaper1
Zergling1
Reaper2
Reaper3
Zergling2
Reaper4
Reaper5
Zergling3

Let's throw in a space marine, just for gitts and shiggles.

Roll off. Space Marine wins. Reaper 2nd. Zergling last.

Marine1
Reaper1
Zergling1
Marine2
Reaper2
Marine3
Reaper3
Zergling2
Marine4
Reaper4
Reaper5
Zergling3

Since 4 doesn't go into 15 well, I ended his actions at 12.

Not sure if this helps to explain it better, but maybe it gives you something to work with. As you can see, the lowest score also goes last.

Karoht
2012-06-26, 11:29 AM
Sorting the actions and distributing them also seems like rather a lot to keep track of. Bear in mind I have 6 players at the table. I've also got some pretty big combats ahead.


Hmmm.

If someone rolls a 1 on initiative in the first round, what if that person were to sack their last action in the round, for a boost to the initiative next round.

IE
Reaper rolled a 2, initiative mod of 8 (high dex and improved initiative) for a total of 9. Zergling rolled a 15 total.
Reaper sacks the last action of the round, and somehow adjusts this initiative order. This would be representative of holding an action, sitting in a prepared position under cover, taking careful time to aim, etc.
The catch is, how to alter that initiative score?
He rolled a 9, allow them to simply add their Initiative Mod again to that number? Add a second d20 roll cumulative to the previous one? Both? Some entirely different effect?

I may tie such an option to another ability. Perhaps a critical hit effect.

zorenathres
2012-06-26, 11:57 AM
i personally found combat in rifts to take forever, everyone gets a dodge or parry (don't get me started on juicers), sooo many rolls just to see whats going on, when you actually hit something it felt rather... empty.

i also found rolling each round gets redundant, i like to keep the pace of combat constant & too many re-rolls is a distraction for me as a DM (ok, how many bad guys am i rolling initiative for again?). keep in mind delaying & readying actions & the like, when you have the set initiative, characters can prepare/ anticipate for something.

i was thinking however about opportune moments to re-roll initiative, like the second wave of a major battle & major events/ shifts in the battlefield. using it a bit more sparingly could come in handy.

TheWombatOfDoom
2012-06-26, 12:16 PM
Sorting might be made easier with table cards, but yeah, I understand it could be a little complicated. The easiest so far is what I originally said with the if you have more actions you go first, and remove rolling almost alltogether.

What is the range of actions? Are there more than 5 or less than 3 for any class? If no, it might be able to be explained, even with 6 players...if there are more variations, it might be likely not to be.

Karoht
2012-06-26, 12:21 PM
i personally found combat in rifts to take forever, everyone gets a dodge or parry (don't get me started on juicers), sooo many rolls just to see whats going on, when you actually hit something it felt rather... empty.Yeah, I took out Auto-Dodge and the like. I was going to keep it but, yeah no. I did leave in things like Opposed Dodge (roll D20, add it to AC total) for the cost of an action, and a few classes got one or two of those for free, but so far it hasn't been used.



i was thinking however about opportune moments to re-roll initiative, like the second wave of a major battle & major events/ shifts in the battlefield. using it a bit more sparingly could come in handy.See, that was what I was thinking I might do. Smaller waves, but more frequent, some enter while one wave is already engaged. It would be a sensible time to re-roll initiative. But on that note, I will probably have more enemies retreat, and then regroup with the upcoming wave. Especially when fighting things like Mercenaries who aren't really paid to die as it were.



What is the range of actions? Are there more than 5 or less than 3 for any class?How fast can someone move and act? There really isn't a hard cap on that. And there are implants and cybernetics and psionics which boost all of these capabilities. How slow can someone be? Well, the minimum number of actions per round is 1.

zorenathres
2012-06-26, 12:33 PM
range of actions in rifts or d20? in rifts i think i remember most good HtH prof's starting with three attack actions (& 2 for HtH assassin, though it game more actions later on) & 1 for the expert/ simple prof.

ok, i pulled out my rifts ult. ed. rulebook & their revised rules state each HtH prof starting with 4 actions, assassin with three (the older ones were more spread out?), gaining one additional action every 4 levels (4, 8, 12...) with assassin gaining one at 5th & 8th level.

TheWombatOfDoom
2012-06-26, 01:10 PM
Round time
1 Actions
2 Actions
3 Actions
4 Actions
5 Actions
6 Actions
7 Actions


1 second
o
o
o
o
o
o
o


2 seconds
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


3 seconds
-
-
-
-
-
o
o


4 seconds
-
-
-
-
o
-
-


5 seconds
-
-
-
o
-
-
o


6 seconds
-
-
o
-
-
o
-


7 seconds
-
-
-
-
o
-
o


8 seconds
-
o
-
-
-
o
-


9 seconds
-
-
-
o
-
-
o


10 seconds
-
-
-
-
o
-
-


11 seconds
-
-
o
-
-
o
o


12 seconds
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


13 seconds
-
-
-
o
o
o
o


14 seconds
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


15 seconds
-
-
-
-
-
-
-



Ok...so this is a table of 1 to 7 actions. Ties go to the initial inititive. You can see that mainly on 1st and last actions. You'd go down the 15 one by one, so 1 second, everyone goes in order of roll, 3rd second 6 and 7 would go based on their inititive, then 4th, 5 would go and so on.

As usual, I'm not offended if this table or idea doesn't interest you. Just throwing stuff onto the pile for you to look at.

Karoht
2012-06-26, 01:29 PM
action table, spoilered for reply

{table=head] Round time | 1 Actions | 2 Actions | 3 Actions | 4 Actions | 5 Actions | 6 Actions | 7 Actions
1 second | o | o | o | o | o | o | o
2 seconds | - | - | - | - | - | - | -
3 seconds | - | - | - | - | - | o | o
4 seconds | - | - | - | - | o | - | -
5 seconds | - | - | - | o | - | - | o
6 seconds | - | - | o | - | - | o | -
7 seconds | - | - | - | - | o | - | o
8 seconds | - | o | - | - | - | o | -
9 seconds | - | - | - | o | - | - | o
10 seconds | - | - | - | - | o | - | -
11 seconds | - | - | o | - | - | o | o
12 seconds | - | - | - | - | - | - | -
13 seconds | - | - | - | o | o | o | o
14 seconds | - | - | - | - | - | - | -
15 seconds | - | - | - | - | - | - | -

[/table]
Ok...so this is a table of 1 to 7 actions. Ties go to the initial inititive. You can see that mainly on 1st and last actions. You'd go down the 15 one by one, so 1 second, everyone goes in order of roll, 3rd second 6 and 7 would go based on their inititive, then 4th, 5 would go and so on.

As usual, I'm not offended if this table or idea doesn't interest you. Just throwing stuff onto the pile for you to look at.

Actually, that chart is kind of cool. While we could probably continue adding actions to infinity, it's an interesting way to look at initiative, literally counting by the second. That is so close to real time...
Sadly, I won't be using this, but it is a neat idea that I might have to iterate on for another game. It is extremely tempting to use this however, I must say.


@Rifts Actions
Yeah, most of the games I played, 7 actions a round became the norm pretty quickly. Usually any campaign where we survived past level 8. And bear in mind that it could scale further. The skill boxing gave you an attack, martial arts progression gave you more attacks, being a Juicer gave you an attack, there was a suit of power armor that gave you an extra three attacks (I think it was in the japan book or Triax) there was magic and psionics and cybernetics and... yeah, it got crazy in a hurry. This was before you took into account the optional rules regarding the Speed stat (which gave you more attacks) and I think there was a similar rule regarding Physical Prowess. Aaaaaand that was all before you got into homebrew. We once fought a pair of demons who had 20 attacks a round (15 seconds in a round) each. Sure there were 6 of us and our total number of actions was pretty much equal to theirs, but that was rough.

TheWombatOfDoom
2012-06-26, 01:31 PM
May I ask what holds you back from using it? Perhaps we could tweak it into working someway?

EDIT: And one could not go on into infinity. One COULD go to 15, but after 1 action a second, I think it gets a bit broken or needs a new mechanic anyway, :smallbiggrin:

Karoht
2012-06-26, 02:20 PM
May I ask what holds you back from using it? Perhaps we could tweak it into working someway?Going second by second, with this many targets and creatures having actions, while making for very visceral 'blow by blow' combat, will also be very tedious, or at least I estimate it to be such. I would have to test it on a smaller scale, and likely with a different group than the current playgroup.

Which brings me to the playgroup.
They seem to be remarkably slow or resistant to learning something new. Despite having played Rifts, 4 out of the 6 of them are entirely confused with the new system. Even though it plays almost entirely like Rifts, minus a few things like the Auto-Dodge/Auto-Parry/Auto-Roll-With-Punch/Auto-Save system, which really isn't that big of a change.
Suddenly, changing the initiative system to something that complex? I don't see that going well.

Hence why I feel that it wouldn't be a good fit for now, but might be for another campaign I have in mind in future.

TheWombatOfDoom
2012-06-26, 02:54 PM
Got ya. Well, thanks for giving me the idea for it! Glad you like it. I'm going to see if I can turn it into a homebrew, so keep an eye out.