[X] My Assistant

[hyphz]

Old Twitch had to stop because of simple common sense, I realize in D&D 4E everything is spelled out. Also Twitch if he had Gymnastics might have gotten away with continuing to move while helping up someone, but SR4A and really most games out there leave that adjudication to the GM to fit his tables particular style of play.

But as you've said - the movement section has nothing to do with actions. That includes the fact that it doesn't say you can't move and take a Complex Action in the same phase. Twitch suggests you have to give up a phase worth of movement for a Complex Action which doesn't seem to be duplicated anywhere else.

Saying "Well, it's common sense you can't move and help someone up, that's a special case action" doesn't seem to fit either, since actions that _are_ described in the book don't follow the same common sense. You could, for example, move, fire a mounted gun, and then move away from the mount in one IP.

[CanRay]

Just to add biodiesel to the fire: What about Parkour?

[Stahlseele]

Just to add biodiesel to the fire: What about Parkour?

uses swimming speeds.

[Yerameyahu]

In RAW, it seems to be possible. Declare run mode, then you have 23m movement for your turn. Move 10m out, melee, move 10m back. You have moved a total of 20m in the combat turn so you get the -2 penalty but that's all. You only need one IP to do this (by RAW) so no-one else gets a turn to attack you.

Again, no. You can do this if (and only if) you have only one IP, *and* no one else has more than 1 IP. However, it doesn't mean no one else can attack you, during IP 1, 2, 3, 4, (or even 5). I don't understand why you think it does mean that.

I don't know what this Twitch business is, but it sounds like roleplaying. He *chose* not to move while performing an action, because that made fluff sense.

[Udoshi]

So in a single Phase, you can declare running, move to somebody 10m away, use a Complex Action to attack then in melee, then move 10m back again?

No.

In RAW, it seems to be possible. Declare run mode, then you have 23m movement for your turn. Move 10m out, melee, move 10m back. You have moved a total of 20m in the combat turn so you get the -2 penalty but that's all. You only need one IP to do this (by RAW) so no-one else gets a turn to attack you.

No, see:

"If a character mixed his modes of movement during a Combat
Turn and it becomes important to know exactly how far the character
moved in a particular pass, simply divide his Movement Rate by the
number of passes in that turn."

Sorry hyphz, as direradiant and Yerameyahu point out, it doesn't work like that and you can't teleport around the battlefield like that.
While you CAN do a sort of spring attack - move-attack-move, its a bad idea for a few reasons.
1) Interception attacks. Trying to disengage means free attacks against you. Those are Free actions, so you can interrupt other players turns with them.
2) You don't get your full Combat Turn movement speed all at once in one Pass. You only get a portion of it. You don't move 20 meters in total all in one go. You move about 5 meters before your turn ends, and you're open to retaliation by everyone else in the combat.
2a) it IS possible to PowerWalk your way into and out of melee range, without using actions, but not with the way you're trying to do. Sadly, it relies on critter powers and other movement rate multiplication tricks, and is so outside the reach of most players to actually pull off.
3) The rule on 4a 149 is the main reason I suggested dividing everyone's movement by 4 all the time. Flexible movement rates and annoying in-combat math that varies depending on who's fighting is just bad rules. You ALREADY divide movement by passes(because the rules say so), so doing it all the time actually makes sense.
4)Almost every other game system out there has a flat movement rate each time a player goes, and NOT having clear rules about it leads to the current confusion and rules clusterfuck we are currently discussing.

[Mäx]

You could, for example, move, fire a mounted gun, and then move away from the mount in one IP.

No you can not, your either moving or you standing still using the mounted weapon, it's totally imposible to do both of those thinks simultaniously.

[Udoshi]

No you can not, your either moving or you standing still using the mounted weapon, it's totally imposible to do both of those thinks simultaniously.

Actaully, you can.

Non action to Walk over.
Complex to shoot.
Free action left. You don't need to use it, but you could, for example, go Prone with it and use your remaining movement to crawl away. Or a called shot when you fire.

You just can't do it with the speeds and distances that hyphz thinks you can.

[TheLaughingBandi...]

I generally solve this by saying the first IP is the movement pass. Period. It makes it far easier to deal with the rest. If I want to get overly technical, I can say that if you move like that the first pass, you need to give up your free actions during the following IPs or have your movement divided by how many IPs you have and chose to use. Makes it very simple.

[hyphz]

Ok, I'm starting to get some idea of how this goes now, so can I post a few clarifying examples to check?

1. A wants to run 23m and give a gun to B. A can declare this in IP 1, but A will not actually get to B until next Combat Turn, and technically will hand over the gun at that time too.

2. A wants to move 10m and give a gun to B. He has 1 IP. In IP 1 he declares a run and holds his Simple actions. In IP 3 he arrives at B, unholds and gives B the gun with his action for that IP.

3. A wants to move 10m and give a gun to B. A has 1 IP but B has 2. In IP 1 A declares a run and holds his Simple actions, and B holds. In IP 2 A moves and B loses his second action because he cannot keep more than one held. In IP 3 A arrives at B, unholds and gives B the gun, then B unholds and fires.

Are those right?

[Warlordtheft]

Ok, I'm starting to get some idea of how this goes now, so can I post a few clarifying examples to check?

1. A wants to run 23m and give a gun to B. A can declare this in IP 1, but A will not actually get to B until next Combat Turn, and technically will hand over the gun at that time too.

2. A wants to move 10m and give a gun to B. He has 1 IP. In IP 1 he declares a run and holds his Simple actions. In IP 3 he arrives at B, unholds and gives B the gun with his action for that IP.

3. A wants to move 10m and give a gun to B. A has 1 IP but B has 2. In IP 1 A declares a run and holds his Simple actions, and B holds. In IP 2 A moves and B loses his second action because he cannot keep more than one held. In IP 3 A arrives at B, unholds and gives B the gun, then B unholds and fires.

Are those right?

yeah, but just because I'm on DS I'll nitpick Scenario 1, he will get to B at the end of the current combat turn. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/read.gif)

[Udoshi]

I generally solve this by saying the first IP is the movement pass. Period. It makes it far easier to deal with the rest. If I want to get overly technical, I can say that if you move like that the first pass, you need to give up your free actions during the following IPs or have your movement divided by how many IPs you have and chose to use. Makes it very simple.

Emphasis mine.


haha what?
You're actually houseruling quasi- teleport movement BACK into the game, when it actually doesn't work in the first place?
Instead of using the sane approach?
for the love of god, why?

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

haha what?
You're actually houseruling quasi- teleport movement BACK into the game, when it actually doesn't work in the first place?
Instead of using the sane approach?
for the love of god, why?

A Touch of Insanity? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif)

[hyphz]

yeah, but just because I'm on DS I'll nitpick Scenario 1, he will get to B at the end of the current combat turn. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/read.gif)

Yes, but too late to act, as in IP 4 he'll still be doing the last quarter of the movement - right?

[Bigity]

A Touch of Insanity? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif)

Maybe his game is based around a squad of Warp Spiders.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Maybe his game is based around a squad of Warp Spiders.

Heh... Maybe... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Warlordtheft]

Yes, but too late to act, as in IP 4 he'll still be doing the last quarter of the movement - right?

Effictively your delaying the simple action of handing the gun off till the end of last IP you move on.
Using 24m for simplicity in the following example:
1st IP:Run 6 Delay action
2nd IP: Run 6 more
3rd IP:Run 6 more
4th IP: Run 6 more, hand off gun to Player b.
Player B who held his action readies the gun and shoots.
End combat turn.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[MYST1C]

I had a similar problem in SR3, but I haven't figured out how to best apply my house rule to SR4.5. Basically, actions were declared and resolved in reverse order. That's right, the slowest guy went first. The trick here was that people with higher scores could "seize the initiative" and interrupt someone else's action.

Back in SR2, IIRC, the system was:

1. Roll Initiative.
2. The (N)PC with the lowest Initiative declares first.
3. Repeat step #2 for all involved (N)PCs in ascending order of Initiative rolls.
4. The (N)PC with the highest Initiative then starts to resolve his actions (i.e. he declares then immediately acts).
5. Repeat step #4 for all involved (N)PCs in descending order of Initiative rolls.

This was meant to reflect that Initiative-enhanced characters had better situational awareness and faster reflexes and thus could react to anyone slower than them. Of course, this also meant that characters with low Initiative propably never resolved their actions as they had already been killed or incapacitated by then – frustrating for the players if this struck their PCs...

SR2 was deep in Pink Mohawk territory and the combat system IMHO expected all PCs to have some sort of Initiative enhancements.

[Mäx]

Effictively your delaying the simple action of handing the gun off till the end of last IP you move on.
Using 24m for simplicity in the following example:
1st IP:Run 6 Delay action
2nd IP: Run 6 more
3rd IP:Run 6 more
4th IP: Run 6 more, hand off gun to Player b.
Player B who held his action readies the gun and shoots.
End combat turn.

Can't be done, once character a is done moving that 24m the whole 3s combat turn is over.
That character could do it for 18m, moving of witch only takes the first 3IP:s.

[Yerameyahu]

Handing the gun takes no time, only an action. There's no reason to rule that way, Mäx.

[Mäx]

Handing the gun takes no time, only an action. There's no reason to rule that way, Mäx.

So wish i could post the Star trek double facepalm picture right about know.
So your seriously saying that actions take no time at all, then why exactly are we limited in the amount of actions we can do during that one 3s combat turn?

[Epicedion]

Actions can be taken before, during, or after movement. There's no rules-backed reason to say that the end of the turn must coincide exactly with the end of movement, and that after that last movement is fully taken there can be no more actions. If you still have actions to take during the last IP, you can take them after you've moved.

In that sense, actions take no time. You're simply allotted them.

[hyphz]

Ok. Sorry, one more question..

Since you can use delaying to take your Simple/Complex actions at any point in the turn, what is the practical difference between these and Free Actions? I mention this only because the rulebook seems to highlight that Free Axtions can be taken at any point in the turn after your Phase, but this seems to be true for other action types as well.

Also, it was really interesting to learn that SR2 used PBEM style initiative. What did 1 and 3 use?

[Yerameyahu]

It's very simple, Mäx: you have actions, not time. Time is not important in SR4, actions and IPs are. Obviously, they are related in an abstract way, but that is *not* a reason to start inventing rules like 'there's no time at the end of your phase to act'.

hyphz, they're different 'size' actions, which is a big enough distinction for me. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) I've never really thought about the Free action feature of being taking any time. You get 1 Complex + 1 Free, or 2 Simple + 1 Free, or you can trade anything larger in for more Free.

[Mongoose]

The only reasonable way to use the current movement rules is to assume there is a constant number of IP's. AFAIK, the most possible IPs in the game is 5. Somebody, somewhere in the world has 5 IPS, and (seeing as they are a hacker, so can affect things almost anywhere in the world) they might do something that affects your combat. Thus, for movement purposes, you have to assume there are 5 IPs, right?
Except, that kinda makes for crap game play. Diving for cover is pretty much not an option, even against totally un-augmented enemies. Also, having everybody move 5 times per turn is just a pain in the ass.

I'd compromise by having everybody move just 2 times per turn, using half their move rate. If there's only 1 IP (rare), then you add a second IP just for movement. If there more than 2 IPs, that's fine- you get to pick which 2 you want to move in. Keeps the math simple, and (IMO) simulates the fog of combat nicely; once bullets start flying, friends and enemies are often not where you expect them to be.

[Yerameyahu]

You can dive for cover, you just can't 'dive' 20 *meters* for cover. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

I'm sure any of these are valid (that is, fun) ways to play the game. The RAW way is to ignore it until it matters, and then to use the most IPs anyone has. If that's too flexible, then do feel free to screw with it, heh.