New Initiative Idea for SR4 Options

[Vuron]

I was tossing and turning trying to figure out how initiative might be determined in the new SR4 without generating a completely different mechanic than the standard Attribute + Skill vs TN 5 model. I think I might've come up with a solution although I know that most people here will likely hate it.

Okay first premise is that SR4 has a skill called combat sense that is linked to intuition and/or reaction. This way you have a skill that reflects the tendency of trained people to react quick and decisively by linking it to reaction and/or intuition you can simulate the hyped up speedster as well as the wise master in tune with his surroundings.

Initiative is resolved as follows characters roll reaction + combat sense vs TN5 or intuition + combat sense vs TN 5. Number of successes determine order of actions in the combat round with people moving on the same number of successes move simultaneously. Note with this system people would still be able to react on turn 0 so nobody would be losing actions.

Situational modifiers like waiting in ambush etc would factor in as bonus/penalty dice for the test. Like wise reaction boosters like wired reflexes would give +x dice to the test.

Wait you say what happens to multiple initiative passes in this system? Simple they are replaced with the following:

Automatic Actions: These represent actions that require no skill to do and don't take up a huge amount of time (shouting a warning to teammates, dropping prone, etc) within reason a character can do x number of these during his/her turn. Personally I'd limit it to reaction attribute to keep speeches from being recited.

Standard Actions: Tasks that require a skill roll to accomplish (shooting a gun, throwing a gernade, taking evasive action). A character can take one of these a round without a penalty if the character want to do multiple actions he takes a -1 dice penalty per action attempted. Thus if I want to shoot 3 times this round each shot takes a -1 dice penalty.

Simple Actions: These are tasks that don't require a skill roll to accomplish but do take some fraction of time (reloading a gun, sprinting, etc). A character can do one of these in combination with a standard action but 2 replace a standard action. If you want to do 2 simple actions and a standard action the standard action recieves a -1 dice penalty.

Exclusive Actions: Actions like these require a skill roll and complete attention of the character for the round. This is stuff like picking a lock or reprograming a computer. Your focus is on completing the action and doing other task simultaneously is impossible.

Special Action Ready: This is when you declare that your character will do a certain task given a specific criteria (I shoot the first enemy through that door). With this special action you are waiting until someone fulfills that criteria later on in that round. If someone meets that criteria (Goon A bursts through the door a phase later) you get to resolve you action before that person does (basically interrupting them). You can either ready your action until your initiative phase the next round, hold it indefinitely or decide to take an action at the end of the round.

Special Action Delay: This is when you retain the option of acting later in the round but without a specific criteria. It is very similar to ready except you cannot interrupt another characters actions. So if Goon A bursts through the door you can either shoot them or throw a gernade etc but your action is resolved after Goon As actions. Like Ready you can either hold until your phase next round, indefinitely or take an actionat the end of the round.

Special Action Focus: By doing nothin but centering one's self the character can improve his ability to react to his surrounding. The character's initiative for the next round is figured with a bonus to the phase in which he acts.

With this sort of system anyone can do crazy amounts of actions if they have the skill and talent levels to pull off those tasks. Stuff like wired reflexes are still useful for reacting first but improved initiative is no longer the end all be all of combat. The character can act first but not neccesarily any more often than any other character of a given skill level.

Note with this system you can have gunbunnies that still can kill a huge number of combatants in a given round it's just that rather than having 3-5 initiative passes they pretty much do all that in one pass but with a difficulty hit to accomplish.

[Phantom Runner]

It seems like you have put a lot of work into this, but I would really hate to see a Attribute + Skill vs TN 5 mechanic for initiative mainly because Attribute + Skill vs TN was the system that the old WoD* used and it was a huge stinker back then.

*Of course I'm only using old WoD as an example because it has been used before by many (myself included) to compare SR4's basic mechanic to.

I'm of the opinion that initiative for SR needs absolutely no change. Asside from the fact that Reaction is no longer a derived attribute I would hope that initiative in SR4 is still 1d6 + some add and that initiative enhances add additional d6 and/or raise the "some add" part.

Initiative in all version of SR (1 to 3) was always different from the base mechanic (ie no TN) and so keeping it different in SR4 shouldn't be that big of a deal.

[Vuron]

[Patrick Goodman]

[Phantom Runner]

[Vuron]

[Backgammon]

One thing that's been bugging me is the hard limitations of Simple and Complex actions. I think it might be a better idea to do a bit like Fallout, and make actions cost "points". In effect, Shadowrun already works this way, it's just that 90% of all actions cost either 1 or 2 points (Simple and Complex), with the occasionnal excpetions taking "5 Combat Turns" or whatever to complete.

By breaking it up and allowing for actions to take 3 points or whatever, you already add more flexibility.

Of course, I have no idea how to determine how someone goes about determining how many points he gets a turn, and how many he can "spend" per phase.

[Vuron]

[hahnsoo]

[blakkie]

@ Vuron

First off, yuck. Everyone having to roll a fistful of dice and count up successes? Much harder than counting die pips on a few dice. I've thought about it a while and it seems kinda clunky.

Also a Combat Sense skill that has a huge bearing on Init rolls seems like kinda a bad thing. It gives a single skill a LOT of weighting. With death and disabling as easy as it is in SR going first is a huge advantage. That's just going to drive up that skill till everyone has a similar level.

It was bad enough before when [EDIT: what was it, Combat Tactics?] added a small percentage to the initiative. But when it becomes a major part? :(

[Vuron]

[RunnerPaul]

[Spookymonster]

[Nikoli]

I like the idea that training in a non-cybered charcter could conceivably equal a cybered up razor boy who hasn't takent he time to hone his reflexes and simply relied on his cybered up speed.

[RunnerPaul]

[Dawnshadow]

Simplest, most streamlined I can see:

Roll reaction. Count successes. Every 2 successes gives another phase-- starting at 1. Second success gives you a second simple action, or allows you to take a complex action.

expected number of phases for reaction 6: 1.
expected number of phases for reaction 9: 1 + 1 simple action.
Bonus dice given for cyberware/powers/etc? Lots.

[Vuron]

[blakkie]

[Dawnshadow]

Just a minor caveat.. I didn't say best, or good.. just simplest, most streamlined. I'd be absolutely nuts with it. I like SR3 initiative.

Shoot, it doesn't even touch who goes first... Probably make that straight reaction score. Because you don't slow down just because you can't change what you're doing.

I'm really just pointing out that there are some VERY simple things that can be done.. and it's no worse really then your +5d6 cyber-lightning people, one who rolls average 5 and one who rolls average 2.. that's 1-2 complex actions difference right there, depending on base reaction.

[blakkie]

[Dawnshadow]

I know, but I don't see any way to be 100% certain of getting any actions at all without making initiative static. It seems to be a case of either all or nothing.. and it gets worse -- even if, for instance, move by wire 4 "only" gives 12 extra dice, on a character with reaction 8.. that's 20 dice, and potentially 10 complex actions.

Before(!!) adding any extra for move by wire itself.

A bonus of 8 dice, is still potentially 8 complex actions, plus extra for the system.

There might be a way to make the system nicer, but it's always going to break down. You could make it always have a single complex action, but it could still be your only one. Or you could have reaction 6 and all of the sudden have 3 extra complex actions.

[Vuron]

One thing that I've noticed in various gameplay scenarios is that with each additional initiative pass that you can reasonably expect to get in SR4 your power level in combat goes way up.

Granted it's not super common for characters to average 4 initiative passes per combat round but it's certainly doable within the current ruleset. That means that in any given round he's getting 4 times the number of simple or complex actions that a character averaging 1 initiative phase is having. Further he has the advantage of pretty much always acting first once.

So what does that mean in practical terms it means at current the speed demons can reasonable expect to shoot 4x the rate of the the norms. Further there is no real penalty to how those actions are resolved based on the extreme amount of stuff he's doing in a very quick time period.

What the system I'm suggesting does is reduce the overpowering effect of high initiative in the current system (and incidently the high bookkeeping overhead- which is a big thing in trying to sell a game to a new audience) to a system where you still are likely acting first and if you really want to acting alot (note you could in theory shoot 10+ individual bursts in one combat round and you'd be able to do it first if you had the highest initiative you'd just be taking a big penalty to each burst) you still can.

I'm not sure I'm getting my points across that well so here's a sample round to illustrate the options of this system.

Mike a street samurai and Steve the former ganger are confronted by 6 security guards as they try to slip out of the facility they broke into.

Mike has the following among his upgrades
Reaction: 6 (12 with wired reflexes)
Quickness: 6
Pistols: 7
Combat Sense: 6
Edge: 3
Wired Reflexes 2 (which for the sake of argument adds three dice per level)

Steve has the following
Reaction: 5
Quickness: 5
Pistols: 4
Combat Sense: 4
Edge: 6

The secguards have the following
Reaction: 3 (4 with thier boosted reflexes)
Quickness: 3
Submachine Gun: 3
Combat Sense: 2
Boosted Reflexes 1 (lets say it provides 1 dice per level)
No edge because they are mooks!

So on average Mike will roll 6 successes unless he burns his edge in which he gets 7 (using the rule of thumb that 3 dice on average buys you 1 success) while steve averages 3 success unless he burns his edge to get 5 success on average. The poor mooks average 2 success.

So Mike will almost always go first.

He decides to pull out his pistol (simple action) and shoot it two times (two standard actions) which means he rolls his shooting test of quickness + pistols - 1 to each shot. He averages 4 successes per shot and takes down 2 secguards

Steve goes next and decides to pull out his pistol and shoot it once so he doesn't need to take any penalties. However he want to make that shot count so be burns 3 edge dice on the shot. Quickness 5 + Pistols 4 + 3 edge dice means he's averaging 4 successes per shot so he takes out secguard three

All the remaining sec guards managed 2 init successes so the go simultaneously.

Sec Guard 4 shoots a burst at Mike and averages 2 successes which hurts Mike but not enough to take him down.

Sec Guard 5 does the same with Steve and hurts Steve some.

Sec Guard 6 realizes that with 3 of his buddies down and bleeding out he needs to get back up fast. He doesn't shoot either character but moves to find cover and call his superiors.

So 3 secguards down 3 uninjured with Mike and Steve slightly injured considering Mike and Steve are almost certain to win initiative next round the secguards are in trouble.

However under this type of system Mike can do something really cool like shoot once at each guard in which he's rolling Quickness 6 + Pistols 7 - 5 for each additional action. He still wants to be lethal so he adds 2 edge dice in to negate of the 2 of the penalty. He's still average 3 successes per shot.

I think people wanting high end killers still wiping the floor with mooks would still like this type of system ;)

[sapphire_wyvern]

Hypothetical system:

Each player rolls some "initiative" dice pool and counts successes.

The combat turn proceeds through n phases where n is the maximum number of successes rolled. If you rolled at least as many successes as the current phase number, you get to take actions in this phase.

Turn order within a phase is determined first by counting how many 6's each player rolled, highest going first, (so a 6 is slightly better than a 5), then by total "initiative" pool size, then by dice-off.

Players may delay in much the same manner in which they do in earlier SR editions. I see no need for a "Readied Action/Delayed Action" distinction in the style of d20.

[Ellery]

Oi, oi, that's way too many actions per phase. Phases are short.

The simplest thing is to do away with multiple passes. Everyone rolls reaction vs. TN 5 (or maybe reaction + intuition--that sounds good). The person with the most successes goes first. Ties go to the person with higher reaction. Ties there happen at the same time.

That's it. No multiple passes--your bonus for going first is to go first.

Maybe cyber and adept powers could convert complex actions into simple actions, or give you an extra action, or reduce your penalty for shooting at multiple people, or allow you to shoot twice in a simple action. Since you're going first more often, and taking your turn all at once, you don't need a huge number of actions to have a big advantage. Also, maybe if you go first you can dodge people who go after you.

Of course, this also depends on how easy it is to kill someone. If you have to shoot at them a bunch of times before they die (either because you can't hit them or because you can't do enough damage to kill them), then this won't work, since who goes first is meaningless. So without knowing what the combat system is like, I can only suggest that this might be a possibility.

[sapphire_wyvern]

Well, I think they're trying to retain a little more of the classic SR mechanical flavour than that. After all, it's SR4, not a world book for the nWoD or d20.

I would still expect to see faster characters going more often, and will continue to do so until it's confirmed or denied. Until I hear otherwise, I'm going to assume that SR4 will more closely resemble previous versions of SR than other games. Faster characters taking more turns is something of a trademark of SR's combat system (I certainly can't think of another game that does it).

But you're probably right about the number of phases per turn in the system I just proposed, which took less than two minutes to invent. :) Besides, who says phases are short? If that's too many actions per phase, triple the game-time length of a phase. Everyone will be taking turns at the same frequency and the duration of an action isn't changing, so it doesn't really matter.