Combat rounds, Initiative. How rubbish are they?, Artificial time subdivisions and current Initiative mechanics suck... Options Track this topic Email this topic Print this topic Download this topic Subscribe to this forum Display Modes Outline Switch to: Standard Switch to: Linear+

[Shiloh]

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.