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Straxus
Lieutenant Commander
Joined: 30 May 2017
Posts: 105
Location: Norway
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 Posted: Mon Feb 05, 2018 9:07 am Post subject: |
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I don't like letting characters do several actions in a row before anyone else can act, because it's not so much unbalanced as it can be really boring for players with slower characters.
If the group runs into a group of 3 stormtroopers, and the first PC takes three shots, and kills all the troopers. Fight over, the group continues. Now, imagine that happening in every fight throughout the session. Not much fun for the "onlookers".
We had a similar "problem" with shadowrun in the old days, characters with wired reflexes and similar enhancements got 2-4 actions before anyone else could blink, and by then the fight was often over. Later there was a rule change, so fast characters did their first action, then everyone else, then the speed freaks could to any remaining actions in the round. More realistic? Probably not, but it turned out more entertaining and engaging for everyone. |
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garhkal
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Joined: 17 Jul 2005
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Location: Reynoldsburg, Columbus, Ohio.
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| Posted: Mon Feb 05, 2018 3:54 pm Post subject: |
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In the past one of the stranger options i saw for initiative, was everyone declared WHAT they were going to do, in order of Lowest to highest per (and if per was tied, they rolled off). THEN everyone took their actions in highest to lowest order.. But it was still "i do my first, then you do yours, then he does his, and so on"..
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MrNexx
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Joined: 25 Mar 2016
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Location: San Antonio
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| Posted: Mon Feb 05, 2018 4:05 pm Post subject: |
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Old Shadowrun had a Initiative Countdown system... roll Initiative Dice + Reaction attribute. Whoever has highest goes first, then whoever has next highest, or highest-10... so if I had a 41 Initiative, and you had a 20, I would get actions on 41, 31, and 21, before you got an action on 20. I'd go on 11, you'd go on 10, and then I'd go on 1, and the round would start over. A huge initiatve was a MASSIVE advantage, to the point high-initiative characters were, in many ways, able to completely dominate any battlefield.
Palladium has a set number of actions. Initiative determines who goes first, but what ultimately told was number of actions. If you have 5 actions and I have 2, even if I win initiative, I go, you go, I go, you go, you go, you go. You might even choose to burn a certain number of actions with different options that I would never consider.
Both have very distinct disadvantages, mostly tied to people with low number of actions (for whatever reason) getting bored because the combat monsters go so many times to their puny number of actions, and they do it all in a block.
Personally, I'd love to see something more like Hackmaster's seconds combat, but that would be harder to implement, and I don't know enough about Ace's and 8's combat to make it happen.
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Straxus
Lieutenant Commander
Joined: 30 May 2017
Posts: 105
Location: Norway
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| Posted: Tue Feb 06, 2018 4:18 pm Post subject: |
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| MrNexx wrote: | Old Shadowrun had a Initiative Countdown system... roll Initiative Dice + Reaction attribute. Whoever has highest goes first, then whoever has next highest, or highest-10... so if I had a 41 Initiative, and you had a 20, I would get actions on 41, 31, and 21, before you got an action on 20. I'd go on 11, you'd go on 10, and then I'd go on 1, and the round would start over. A huge initiatve was a MASSIVE advantage, to the point high-initiative characters were, in many ways, able to completely dominate any battlefield.
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Exactly. I think the rules changed in later editions, or we did a house ruling, so using your numbers you with 41 would get one action, then I (20) would get one. Then you subtract 10 from all numbers. So you go first with 31, I go second with 10. After that I'm on zero, so you get three more actions before the round is over. So you still have a big advantage, but only if I don't kill you early in the round... 
So that's closer to Palladiums system, if I understood correctly.
| garhkal wrote: |
In the past one of the stranger options i saw for initiative, was everyone declared WHAT they were going to do, in order of Lowest to highest per (and if per was tied, they rolled off). THEN everyone took their actions in highest to lowest order.. But it was still "i do my first, then you do yours, then he does his, and so on".. |
I kinda like that, if you're perceptive and fast you're better at predicting what others are doing. Remember what game that was from? Sounds familiar... |
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MrNexx
Rear Admiral
Joined: 25 Mar 2016
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Location: San Antonio
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| Posted: Tue Feb 06, 2018 5:10 pm Post subject: |
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| Straxus wrote: | | MrNexx wrote: | Old Shadowrun had a Initiative Countdown system... roll Initiative Dice + Reaction attribute. Whoever has highest goes first, then whoever has next highest, or highest-10... so if I had a 41 Initiative, and you had a 20, I would get actions on 41, 31, and 21, before you got an action on 20. I'd go on 11, you'd go on 10, and then I'd go on 1, and the round would start over. A huge initiatve was a MASSIVE advantage, to the point high-initiative characters were, in many ways, able to completely dominate any battlefield.
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Exactly. I think the rules changed in later editions, or we did a house ruling, so using your numbers you with 41 would get one action, then I (20) would get one. Then you subtract 10 from all numbers. So you go first with 31, I go second with 10. After that I'm on zero, so you get three more actions before the round is over. So you still have a big advantage, but only if I don't kill you early in the round...
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Sort of. 4th edition Shadowrun (last one I have experience with) is I would still get 5 actions for a 41, and you would get 2, but I would go first, you would go 2nd, me 3rd, you 4th, and then me, me, me, which is the Palladium system, more or less.
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"I've Seen Your Daily Routine. You Are Not Busy!"
“We're going to win this war, not by fighting what we hate, but saving what we love.”
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garhkal
Sovereign Protector
Joined: 17 Jul 2005
Posts: 14316
Location: Reynoldsburg, Columbus, Ohio.
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| Posted: Wed Feb 07, 2018 2:09 am Post subject: |
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| Straxus wrote: |
I kinda like that, if you're perceptive and fast you're better at predicting what others are doing. Remember what game that was from? Sounds familiar... |
IIRC it was my 2nd or 3rd gm i had for back in the early 90s for when i started getting into 2e SW..
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Naaman
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Joined: 29 Jul 2011
Posts: 3190
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| Posted: Wed Feb 07, 2018 7:26 pm Post subject: |
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| I had a gm who ran it like that. I want to say it was from 1st edition SWD6? |
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