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Dumpshock Forums _ Shadowrun _ Combat rounds, Initiative. How rubbish are they?
Posted by: Shiloh Apr 18 2008, 02:07 PM
Artificial time subdivisions and current Initiative mechanics suck... so how about redesigning the initiative system?
I've always hankered after a continuous initiative system that can work without too much record keeping and waiting around for those not acting. After the recent thread on IPs and game balance, my design juices got kicked into action on the way home last night. There are a number of things wrong with the current IP-based initiative system, not least that the non-amped or low-amped characters get to twiddle their thumbs in the later initiative passes.
So how about a houserule.
Basic principles
1) divide time into 1/nth second "phases".
2) Everyone starts with zero initiative and gets more as time (i.e phases) passes. Surprise might mean you start with negative initiative and you have to "work that off".
3) When you've got enough initiative, you can act, and reduce your initiative score by however much the action needed. Or you can save the initiative until it's needed, but can only do one thing a phase, normally.
4) Stuff that takes time, still takes that time. So if you want to talk to someone, and that uses x initiative, it still could take 3s for the whole message to arrive. Or if there's something that would normally give a benefit for a whole round, it gives that benefit for 3s from when initiative is used to initiate it.
5) Uncompensated recoil takes time to recover from rather than magically resetting to 0 every IP.
Some ideas on specifics:
* n = 10, in my head. Anything smaller gets into the realms of too much repetetive "just advancing everyone's initiative scores".
* You roll your Initiative dice and *hits* give you initiative points. Levels of reflex boost are automatic hits.
* it takes about a second for un-amped people to react with a "simple action" (you get 2 per 3 second round currently, and handwave 1s for "Free Actions and stuff"
* un-amped, but switched-on people have 4-6 dice of Initiative, so will get one or two successes per phase, so after 10 phases (1 second) will have say 15 hits, so a simple action probably should take 15 Initiative.
* characters with Lv1 reflexes probably have 8-10 dice for initiative (yielding 3 hits), and one auto success, so will hit 15 Initiative in 4 phases.
* speed freaks with Lv3 boosters and 18 Dice will get 6 and 3, so will usually be able to take a simple action every other phase, occasionally in successive phases. This is 18 actions in 3s, more than twice what they can in 3s now. But 18 Initiative and WiRef3 characters are pretty extreme; a 13+3 gets (30*7/15=14 simple actions. These won't be all shooty, though, because Recoil is going to get extreme if they don't take actions to control it. And hey, is it all so bad...?
* Free actions take smaller amounts of initiative.
* Edge spent to increase reflexes gives an auto success on every phase for 3s, giving 30 more Initiative, which is 2 simple actions...
* If you aren't spending Edge for the whole 3s, you can spend Edge on any specific roll, same as any.
* Initiative rolls can't be glitched. Unless you're a particularly cruel GM.
* Within a given phase, Initiative runs in order of highest to lowest current total, with ties broken by base score and then a die roll.
That's the easy part: single simple actions.
Complex actions... A broad church this, but a first stab at characterising them is that they take the same time to initiate as a Simple action, but longer to complete. So:
* A complex action needs an initiative score of 15 to start, and takes 30 *off* your initiative score, which must be worked back.
And *Re*active actions (Defending, mostly).
* can be taken at any point and reduce your initiative score by whatever value the action has.
I'm not touting this as a solution to any perceived problem of game mechanic balances in favour of lots of IPs. I think it might be the beginning of an answer to "4 of my players are stuck on the sidelines while Sammy Samuel makes hay with the mooks" since everyone gets to do something each phase.
Posted by: DocTaotsu Apr 18 2008, 02:34 PM
*blinks*
4 of your players should all get to do something at least once at the same time your Sami does.
My main objection is that these rules are complex (I'm reminded of 2nd ed rules and adding weapon speeds to initiative and counting aloud while players scramble to remember exactly when that heavy crossbow reloads). I'd also like to remind you that the Sami's job is indeed to make hay out of the mooks. Perhaps you need smarter or better equipped mooks, or more of them.
Posted by: samuelbeckett Apr 18 2008, 03:04 PM
What I have never understood about the whole multiple IP/initiative debate, is that people don't realise that trying to make it realistic would actually increase the perceived problems rather than reduce them.
Has anyone ever seen a top class rapid fire pistol shooter in action? I guarantee you that the best shooters in the world (unwired of course) can empty a six shot revolver into a group the size of a playing card in under a second. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Miculek has fired six shots from a revolver, reloaded the revolver and fired another six shots in 2.99 seconds (i.e. one combat turn). By my reckoning that is effectively 12 complex actions in one combat turn.
So the idea that a highly skilled shadowrunner couldn't fill several mooks with bullets before anyone else had reacted, especially given the ability to increase reaction speed to superhuman levels through magic/cyber/bio, means that 4 IPs are probably too few, let alone too many.
Posted by: Shiloh Apr 18 2008, 03:39 PM
4 of your players should all get to do something at least once at the same time your Sami does.
Aye, according to current rules they do, or at least in the same IP. It's the later passes where non-combatants are doing nothing, and don't have the chance to do anything.
There's an element of record-keeping: you have to note your rolled hits. When you have 15 you can act... there will be dead phases when no one has enough positive initiative to take an action, and there will be busy phases when the ref has to count down thorugh the Initiative scores for the three or 4 who want to react. Ref can either keep all his NPCs on similar initiatves or track them separately. Me, I like the idea of everyone acting together at different rates, as opposed to everyone going first, and then the speedsters getting another three free actions.
There's been a bit of discussion in another thread about quite why there's a problem with this (and the smartness and gearing of mooks). I entirely agree that mooks are Sam-fodder. But Sam and the mooks both need to get a bit smarter...
It's not the mooks' lack (or otherwise) of challenge to Sam that I seek to address, but the uninvolvement of Faceman.German boardgames (Settlers of Catan, Puerto Rico and the like) often have some sort of mechanic that allows people who's turn it isn't to interact with the turn of the person whose turn it is in some secondary way. This helps prevent boredom at large tables when you might have a long wait between your goes, but being able to trade with whoever's go it *is* or react to what they're doing by, say, getting something cos they used your stuff, goes a long way to keeping people interested. That's what I'm seeking to achieve, along with a better idea/representation of the "bullet time" of literature, films and video games.
[snip]
So the idea that a highly skilled shadowrunner couldn't fill several mooks with bullets before anyone else had reacted, especially given the ability to increase reaction speed to superhuman levels through magic/cyber/bio, means that 4 IPs are probably too few, let alone too many.
That's not the element I'm trying to address. It does raise the question of "realism" vs "verisimilitude". Aiming for "realism" out of SR4 is trying to make a shiny turd. All the elbow grease in the world won't do it. Verisimilitude is, I believe, achieveable, and a continuous initiative system can, I believe assist in achieving it.
Posted by: DocTaotsu Apr 18 2008, 03:53 PM
Dude, I'll be honest, if this works for your table that's awesome but it sounds like more work than the problem merits. I mean, how much time are you spending on this extra initiative passes?
Posted by: thiagão Apr 18 2008, 04:08 PM
I´ve seen him in action and it´s really impresive, but i don´t know if he would be able to do that in a combat situation.
Posted by: samuelbeckett Apr 18 2008, 04:42 PM
Good point, but I'm sure there are people in the world who can - and especially people in the Shadowrun world.
I for one am happy with the balance that the IP system provides - everyone gets to act, then the fast guys get to act more. IRL it is likely the fast guy would act multiple times before other peeps get a look in, but from a gaming perspective that doesn't the rest of the party a chance to do something productive in their combat turn.
Posted by: DTFarstar Apr 18 2008, 04:42 PM
*nods at Doc* A lot of the initiative system complaints seem to come from the fact that to keep up in combat it is almost(not quite I've seen it done otherwise, but generally speaking) required to have multiple IPs and that anything that is a *must have* for a player is something that needs to be fixed. The main reason I disagree with this is that if there was such a thing as Wired or Synaptic Boosters or Increase Reflexes or Jazz or whatever in real life, then it would be a *must have* situation for just about everyone. Sure, Bob has a GPA .3 higher than Jim's and has had some real world experience, but he refuses to have the Wired surgery. Jim on the other hand has already had his wires installed and while not quite as good as Bob can do twice the amount of work in the same amount of time. We are so hiring Jim. In the continuous initiative system, you would want to pump initiative dice and have reflex boosts as high as possible anyway so as to add to the number you have and go faster. Same problem, different environment.
Initiative just has this problem. Even in DnD where there is only one turn per combat round for everyone it is still a fairly significant advantage to go first. Going first and going more often(Time Stop in DnD) is always going to be a covetted and sought after thing as long as options are available to make it happen.
Chris
Posted by: DocTaotsu Apr 18 2008, 04:45 PM
Well DnD had what amounted to extra IP's in the form of extra attacks... which... boggles if you think about it.
But thinking and DnD were never to strong points for me. I just rolled the pretty dice and tried not to ask questions.
Posted by: DTFarstar Apr 18 2008, 04:49 PM
Agreed there, and also an example of how everyone really wanted more actions. Go look at the char-op board and see that for it to quality as an optimized melee build you need to have a BAB of 16+ for the 4 attack on a full attack.
Chris
Posted by: DocTaotsu Apr 18 2008, 04:51 PM
I'd rather not, these are probably the same people who break down the probability bonus you get for selecting certain classes with certain feats. you know, so you know the optimal point to multiclass or some such nonesense.
*Yells as d20 rules whores*
GET OFF MY LAWN!!!
Posted by: Sponge Apr 18 2008, 05:32 PM
* it takes about a second for un-amped people to react with a "simple action" (you get 2 per 3 second round currently, and handwave 1s for "Free Actions and stuff"
* un-amped, but switched-on people have 4-6 dice of Initiative, so will get one or two successes per phase, so after 10 phases (1 second) will have say 15 hits, so a simple action probably should take 15 Initiative.
So a player with average un-enhanced initiative has got to roll his Initiative pool TEN TIMES before he can actually DO something? That sounds like an awful lot of extra rolling.
I'm pretty sure the SR4 initiative system is the way it is (i.e. simplified from previous editions) in order to reduce the overhead of initiative in running a combat. From what I understand of the previous editions' rules, it generally works out fairly closely, too (less randomness aside): The enhanced guys get to go first. The major difference that I can see is that you can't go TWICE before someone with only one IP gets to act.
*Yells as d20 rules whores*
GET OFF MY LAWN!!!
Is that really so much different from figuring out the optimal choice of cyberware/bioware for your melee adept?
DS
Posted by: deek Apr 18 2008, 05:58 PM
I still don't understand people's issues with IPs.
Assuming that you break combat down into 4 IPs every combat turn, you are only dealing with 0.75 seconds per pass...still only totaling 3 seconds per combat turn. It seems very reasonable that me, say with 1 IP, takes a full 3 seconds to target, aim and pull the trigger twice. I'm not talking about just pulling a trigger, but acquiring a target and aiming as well. And someone with better "reflexes" can do that more often. The higher IP people are able to do more with that 3 seconds...
And I also don't get the "just standing around" bit either. Again, we are talking about a total of 3 seconds. Its not like a runner is stuck in time for 10 minutes while everyone else acts. Not to mention that fact that each pass, you are getting your movement. So there really should never be an IP where a player is doing nothing. They should be announcing they are moving, where to and whatnot, or deciding that they are not moving at all...
Anyways, to the OP...reading through this, I have to agree, there is a complexity to this that seems overkill. The SR4 initiative system is very easy to run. No one at my table has ever had a question concerning it. If they have two passes, everyone knows what that means. There's no ambiguity or complications...and again, I always go back to saying, we are talking about a total of 3 seconds per combat turn...
Posted by: yesman Apr 18 2008, 06:26 PM
There's an older game system called Phoenix Command that used an action turn resolution system kind of like this. Every action had an amount of time associated with it, and you sort of counted upwards from 0.0 seconds with each action being completed in it's time until everything stopped. I don't recall how (or if) the concept of 'faster' characters was addressed perhaps some fractional reduction to the timing of actions. It might be worth a look.
Posted by: Ice Hammer Apr 18 2008, 06:39 PM
The only issue I can see with how the current rules in SR4 handle initiative passes is with everyone going all at once in the very first initiative pass, and continuing until you are out of passes. I think it makes more sense that it be reversed. For example, if someone has 4 passes, and his/her opposition only has 2 passes, than in the first two initiative passes, the character with the 4 passes should be the only one acting. The one that has two passes should only get to take actions in the final passes of the combat turn, simply because they are that much slower than the other person. I think reversing that order makes a lot of sense, in my opinion.
Posted by: Muspellsheimr Apr 18 2008, 07:58 PM
If you must have something like this, simply use a slightly modified version of White Wolf's 'tick' system. Each second is one 'tick', and each action has an amount of 'ticks' it takes. Say 3 for a complex action. On your turn, you take a complex action, and you move up 3 ticks. Each second counts down 1 tick. Extra passes would instead reduce the number of ticks each action takes. 2 passes would mean your actions take half the normal time. 4 passes would mean your actions take 25% of the normal time.
You would probably have to make the ticks into fractions of a second for it to work well in Shadowrun. As having a lower tick value is better, each player's first action would be on (10 - initiative's hits). As an example, someone who scores 8 hits on their initiative would act on the second tick. Assuming each tick represents .25 seconds, and the character has 3 passes, his next action would be two ticks later (1.5 seconds for simple action, or 6 ticks, divided by 3).
Personally I am fine with the initiative system as is, but this would probably be far more effective than what you outlined. As for recoil, have it disperse at a rate of 1 per X ticks, and introduce some new action to steady your weapon - such as using a simple action to reduce the active recoil by 3.
Posted by: Wounded Ronin Apr 18 2008, 08:02 PM
Shiloh: SEARCH FUNCTION NOOOOB! 
Seriously, this issue has been discussed many times over the years. I think you'll find some good discussions.
Posted by: Spoonfunk Apr 19 2008, 05:33 AM
The only issue I can see with how the current rules in SR4 handle initiative passes is with everyone going all at once in the very first initiative pass, and continuing until you are out of passes. I think it makes more sense that it be reversed. For example, if someone has 4 passes, and his/her opposition only has 2 passes, than in the first two initiative passes, the character with the 4 passes should be the only one acting. The one that has two passes should only get to take actions in the final passes of the combat turn, simply because they are that much slower than the other person. I think reversing that order makes a lot of sense, in my opinion.
I have found the same problem with the initiative system also. Instead of reversing the order however I took an idea from another set of house rules (somewhere on here) and made it to where are three phases of combat that the IP's fall into.
There is the Pre-emptive phase= The first extra IP granted do to an ability,edge,gear, or drug gives you a pass during this phase. Edge must be spent before Pre-emptive phase to gain the extra pass.
Everymans Phase= Every one gets to act during this phase from highest IP. From Highest Initiative to the lowest.
Reactive Phase(I know the name sucks but its all I could think of)= Every one else with extra IP's goes according to the normal IP order(max of 4)
A character may only make Movements During the pre-emptive and everyman's phase's. If they do move during te reactive phase they move a number of meters equal to there movement allowance in a given round/2 during that phase and the same amount during the everyman's phase.
Also to provide an extra "edge" for the character who disdains the use of magic or cyberware I have created an extra edge.
Quick Cost:20BP's
The character is granted an extra IP during the Reactive Phase of combat. The Extra IP granted from this edge is not compatible with Magic, Cyberware,Bioware or any other form of augmentaion. (such as genetech,nanotech blah blah blah). The extra IP granted from this edge is compatible with drugs however. This edge may be only taken once.
I made it 20 bps because I wanted unaugmented characters to be more unique and I made it compatible with drugs because Addiction to them is one hell of a hienous drawback.
I have been using this system for initiative for the last year and it makes combat alot less one sided, and as an interesting side effect alot of my hackers in game have been using AR alot more....the rational that they have told me is that they went VR all the time to get the +2 and the extra IP's only.
Posted by: Crusher Bob Apr 19 2008, 10:33 AM
I agree that making most people roll init 4+ times before they get to act seems a bit over the top.
2nd Edition Exalted also has a continuous initiative system that mostly seems to work; might be worth looking at.
As an alternative:
Initiative is measured in phases, every phase, increment your initiative count (IC) by one.
You spend IC to take an action.
If you have 1 IP, every simple action takes 12 IC
If you have 2 IP, every simple action takes 6 IC
If you have 3 IP, every simple action takes 4 IC
If you have 4 IP, every simple action takes 3 IC
When combat starts, everyone rolls initiative. The number fo hits they score is the IC they start the fight with. Guys who are surprised start with an IC of zero.
Samples:
Mook: 6 INI, 1 IP
Starts a fight with around 2 IC, acts for the first time around phase 10
Fast norm: 9 INI, 1 IP
Starts a fight with around 3 IC, acts for the first time around phase 9
Minor wired Mook: 7 INI, 2 IP
Starts a fight with around 2 IC, acts for the first time around phase 4
Starting SAM: 14 INI, 3 IP
Starts a fight with around 5 IC, can take a simple action immediately, and than act again for around phase 3
Speed Demon: 18 INI, 4 IP
Starts a fight with around 6 IC, can take 2 immediate actions and then act again around phase 3
----------------
Sample fight:
2 mooks 6 INI, 1 IP
1 wired mook 7 INI, 2 IP
vs
1 SAM 14 INI, 3 IP
----
Combat starts:
mook1 is surprised and start with an IC of 0
mook2 rolls 3 hits, getting a starting IC of 3
wiredmook rolls 4 hits for a starting IC of 4
Sam rolls 5 hits, for a starting IC of 5
phase 0
Sam takes an immediate action (costing 4 IC) to shoot mook 2, who is not quite taken out of the fight.
Phase 1
IC totals:
Mook1: 1
Mook2: 4
wiredmook: 5
Sam: 2
Phase 2
IC totals:
Mook1: 2
Mook2: 5
wiredmook: 6
Sam: 3
Wired mook takes an action (6 IC) to shoot at Sam.
Sam goes on full defense to demonstrate the rules (8 IC)
wiredmook misses
Phase 3:
IC totals:
Mook1: 3
Mook2: 6
wiredmook: 1
Sam: (-4)
No one acts again until phase 8, so we'll skip ahead
Phase 8:
IC totals:
Mook1: 8
Mook2: 11
wiredmook: 6
Sam: 1
Wiredmook takes another shot at Sam, who is still on full defense. Wired mook misses.
Phase 9:
IC totals:
Mook1: 9
Mook2: 12
wiredmook: 1
Sam: 2
Mook 2 finally gets to act. he takes a shot at Sam, also missing.
skipping to phase 11, when Sam acts again
Phase 9:
IC totals:
Mook1: 11
Mook2: 2
wiredmook: 3
Sam: 4
Tired of this demonstration of initative, Sam lets all the mooks have it with his underbarrel GL.
Add some other actions, for example, to compensate for recoil and you are good to go.
To reduce the impact of wired reflexes, just increase the amount of IC a wired person takes to act.
Posted by: HentaiZonga Apr 19 2008, 10:38 AM
I've always hankered after a continuous initiative system that can work without too much record keeping and waiting around for those not acting. After the recent thread on IPs and game balance, my design juices got kicked into action on the way home last night. There are a number of things wrong with the current IP-based initiative system, not least that the non-amped or low-amped characters get to twiddle their thumbs in the later initiative passes.
So how about a houserule.
Basic principles
1) divide time into 1/nth second "phases".
2) Everyone starts with zero initiative and gets more as time (i.e phases) passes. Surprise might mean you start with negative initiative and you have to "work that off".
3) When you've got enough initiative, you can act, and reduce your initiative score by however much the action needed. Or you can save the initiative until it's needed, but can only do one thing a phase, normally.
4) Stuff that takes time, still takes that time. So if you want to talk to someone, and that uses x initiative, it still could take 3s for the whole message to arrive. Or if there's something that would normally give a benefit for a whole round, it gives that benefit for 3s from when initiative is used to initiate it.
5) Uncompensated recoil takes time to recover from rather than magically resetting to 0 every IP.
Some ideas on specifics:
* n = 10, in my head. Anything smaller gets into the realms of too much repetetive "just advancing everyone's initiative scores".
* You roll your Initiative dice and *hits* give you initiative points. Levels of reflex boost are automatic hits.
* it takes about a second for un-amped people to react with a "simple action" (you get 2 per 3 second round currently, and handwave 1s for "Free Actions and stuff"
* un-amped, but switched-on people have 4-6 dice of Initiative, so will get one or two successes per phase, so after 10 phases (1 second) will have say 15 hits, so a simple action probably should take 15 Initiative.
* characters with Lv1 reflexes probably have 8-10 dice for initiative (yielding 3 hits), and one auto success, so will hit 15 Initiative in 4 phases.
* speed freaks with Lv3 boosters and 18 Dice will get 6 and 3, so will usually be able to take a simple action every other phase, occasionally in successive phases. This is 18 actions in 3s, more than twice what they can in 3s now. But 18 Initiative and WiRef3 characters are pretty extreme; a 13+3 gets (30*7/15=14 simple actions. These won't be all shooty, though, because Recoil is going to get extreme if they don't take actions to control it. And hey, is it all so bad...?
* Free actions take smaller amounts of initiative.
* Edge spent to increase reflexes gives an auto success on every phase for 3s, giving 30 more Initiative, which is 2 simple actions...
* If you aren't spending Edge for the whole 3s, you can spend Edge on any specific roll, same as any.
* Initiative rolls can't be glitched. Unless you're a particularly cruel GM.
* Within a given phase, Initiative runs in order of highest to lowest current total, with ties broken by base score and then a die roll.
That's the easy part: single simple actions.
Complex actions... A broad church this, but a first stab at characterising them is that they take the same time to initiate as a Simple action, but longer to complete. So:
* A complex action needs an initiative score of 15 to start, and takes 30 *off* your initiative score, which must be worked back.
And *Re*active actions (Defending, mostly).
* can be taken at any point and reduce your initiative score by whatever value the action has.
I'm not touting this as a solution to any perceived problem of game mechanic balances in favour of lots of IPs. I think it might be the beginning of an answer to "4 of my players are stuck on the sidelines while Sammy Samuel makes hay with the mooks" since everyone gets to do something each phase.
My suggestion to you: Look at the Initiative system in Exalted, 2nd Edition. It's amazingly similar to what you're describing.
Posted by: Shiloh Apr 19 2008, 11:12 AM
Ah, now that's a good idea to separate the Quick from the Dead instead of rolling each tick.
The Pre-empt > Everyman > Reactive is quite a nice idea.
Posted by: Heath Robinson Apr 19 2008, 12:32 PM
I was going to suggest the White Wolf system, but someone already did it for me.
As an additional suggestion; make a circle divided into segments with one segment for each tick in a conventional turn and use counters to represent when everyone is acting next, helps to use something to indicate the current tick. This helps people schedule everything because everyone can see when everyone else is acting next.
The main thing is that, to make the most out of the system, you need to vary action speeds somewhat.
Posted by: Larme Apr 19 2008, 01:16 PM
The reason to stick with an abstract, unrealistic, artificial init system is that anything else is too complicated. All of the examples so far would add hours onto the bookkeeping of normal combat, and normal combat already takes a pretty long time... And therefore, though I don't wish to malign the hard work and ideas of their creators, these house rules are guaranteed to earn Larme's stamp of FAIL.
Posted by: hobgoblin Apr 19 2008, 03:17 PM
heh, anyone else reminded of SR1&2's initiative system? where one rolled xd6, added a solid number and thats your initiative.
count down from highest, he performs his 2 simpler or 1 complex, then substract 10 from his initative. if its still a positive number, he gets to go again on the new number.
end result, a wired sammie with a good roll could get some 4-6 passes before any unwired could even get 1.
messy messy messy, especially combined with full auto.
oh and feng shui uses a similar system to exalted. hell, as i think feng shui came out first, i suspect white wolf ripped it as the two games have a similar theme in mind.
but one thing to keep in mind about SR initiative, it do not increase movement speed. its about how fast you can figure out a threat and act on it.
this also makes the user twitchy. earlier versions had a rule where if one failed a specific kind of test one would attack automatically when surprised for some reason. there even was a special add-on to wired reflexes to disable it (or step down the level) when not in combat.
in SR4 i think that add-on have been folded into the base package...
Posted by: Cabral Apr 19 2008, 03:53 PM
I kinda liked a Rolemaster alternate initiative system (I think it was in one of the Companions) where it was based on action speeds modified by Dexterity (Reaction modified by IPs in SR). Init started at zero, and you added your action time to your last action time and measured init that way.
I think it'd be too unwieldy without a program to manage it though (not that RM provided that - which is why I never tested it out).
Posted by: Wounded Ronin Apr 19 2008, 03:54 PM
But you'd have more time to sip coffee while playing the game.
Posted by: Blade Apr 19 2008, 04:41 PM
Personally I try to ignore the combat round division and just go with the narrative description of the battle, taking into account the fact that some people will be able to act about 4 times faster than others.
I ask everyone to state what they want to do, then go on to describe what happens simultaneously, using the number of initiative passes to consider how many times the characters can act comparatively to the others (i still use free/simple/complex/extended actions to "time" the actions). I got rid of initiative rolls and just use initiative to check who's going to act first when it's really important. Actually most of the time it doesn't really matter if you act a millisecond before or after the other guy.
Instead I introduced a tactics pool you can use to interrupt the action you declared using a free action instead of a simple action (for example to stop shooting if the guy you're shooting at is dead or under cover).
It leads to a more descriptive and tactical combat, but is a little more loose in rule terms and requires a bit of GM fiat.
Posted by: Kerberos Apr 19 2008, 04:42 PM
So does the Larme scale come in degrees? You know like minor FAIL, FAIL, major FAIL and EPIC FAIL perhaps? Also are there actually any passing grades on the scale? Inquiring minds want to know.
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