New Edition: Actions

[Koumei]

Woah, Frank and K actually disagree on stuff and they're NOT just a hivemind of excellence? Wow.

Anyway, why not have "Protect the Weak Chap" be an ability the Strong Chap can take? They decide to use the ability, and as long as it's being used AND he's within poking distance of the Weak Chap, enemies *have* to drop him before they can attack the Weak Chap (or at least one has to, or "You can attack him, but I get to attack you" - even roll to hit and damage when you activate it, and anyone who runs up to hit the Weak Chap has that attack made against them).

Either it costs an action to use, and then stays on for a minute, so Strong Chap still gets actions after he prepares to look out for the Weak Chap, or it's just something that's on unless he says it isn't (like the blinding ability of a Nymph, or Spell Resistance for a Monk). This way it's not using another special action type to pull off, and there's still a way to guard the mage. It even involves only one attack roll and damage roll.

Incidentally, if this is completed to our satisfaction before D&D4E comes out, it will be truly Epic, and WotC will have *NO* excuse whe- er, "if" their product sucks.

[Username17]

None of this multiple attack full round junk, there's a set of things defined as an "action" and they choose one.

You're applying a double standard. In your example creatures are moving and attacking. Whether you define the movement as an optional adjunct to the attack or a separately available move action doesn't change the fact that it is there.

Everyone determines initiative and resolves their (relatively small and simple) actions for the turn.
...
But the system creates some pretence to simultaneous resolution by making the resolved results of these actions, like hit point damage, only take effect between rounds.

What you're seemingly talking about is a Declare/Resolve system. It essentially builds delaying and readying into the system and keeps them from being confusing exceptions at the cost of increasing round resolution time every time. If people ready actions a lot, it's a net time savings, and if they don't it sets you back.

But what you're really talking about is a simultaneous Declaration/Resolution system like Lost Worlds. And while that has its advantages, it also has the disadvantage of taking exponential time to adjudicate as more players get on the board. When all 12 goblins have a path and a spear thrust declared and all 4 characters are moving around and breathing fire on the goblins it becomes a very math inensive affair to calculate which goblins make it into melee range, with who, and who gets stabbed and where they end up.

This is completely fine for a computer game, because all the math takes essentially meaningless time when compared to the amount of time it takes a player to declare their action. Indeed, the fact that the players can determine and declare their actions simultaneously is actually a net time savings vs. taking turns. But at the table top really only one person can talk at one time and be understood so you're "taking turns" whether you admit it or not. And since the math takes discussion and die rolls, it's quite time consuming. So taking exponential time is unacceptable.

There is a reason that Starcraft is not a board game. And there's a reason that Lost Worlds is a game for Duels. That kind of resolution mechanic just isn't practical or fun for face-to-face gaming.

Woah, Frank and K actually disagree on stuff and they're NOT just a hivemind of excellence? Wow.

Yes. We present a united front on things we co-write only because we have long arguments before hand hashing out potential problems and disagreements until we can find a common ground we can agree upon. I think it makes for a stronger product over all.

-Username17

[PhoneLobster]

You're applying a double standard. In your example creatures are moving and attacking.

There is a distinct difference between having a list of actions, some of which include movement and having separate and complex move actions as used in standard d20.

An enforced expenditure on a move type action and only a move type action (five foot step or standard move or whatever) adds an additional phase into each characters round each turn and the decision time to determine what if any move type action or legal substitute they should take in addition to what "standard" or "full" action they should also take.

Worse still having to decide each turn whether to go big move small action (standard move, standard action) or small move big action (five foot step, full round action) or really big move no action (double move, or run, or whatever). Adds further layers of complexity and decision making both in play and design.

What you're seemingly talking about is a Declare/Resolve system.

More like Resolve/Apply. When I say characters resolve their action when their initiative or whatever pops up I mean they resolve it, range checks, dice rolls numbers the lot. You determine entirely the effects of your action then and there.

Its just the final determined result of those actions that gets delayed until the turn over to the next round.

D20 players are doing this already every time they do things like roll up their attacks and junk before their initiative rolls round and just tell you the results when it does.

In fact its widely used as a time saving measure.

Now during the final application of results at the end/beginning of the round there could potentially be additional emergent resolution requirements.

But they seem to be relatively rare and can be easily resolved with some minimal priority rules for "conflicting" successful actions, like a simple instruction on what location you or your target end up in if you successfully grapple them and they successfully move.

The worst possible situation for additional complexity from using this system is if you wanted it to handle the targeting of fifteen moving goblins that may or may not be in range at some point in their path simultaneous to your attack.

Which should probably be resolved by restricting the targeting rules so that you only care about their original position and/or destination and not the potentially complex realm of stupidly detailed paths in between.

And you know full well I see that as a failing of the stupid grid/squares mechanic used by d20.

I mean the complexity of handling, with full legal formality, the paths of 15 goblins and their targeting with any effect even in the turn based system is a big pile of smelly bullshit on any sort of standard grid.

Play a game of Descent some time, and its mechanics are dead simple in comparison.

But this is a thread about actions, not discussion of your intended relative positioning mechanics where I can continue to advocate the death of the fucking Rook spell.

[Username17]

There is a distinct difference between having a list of actions, some of which include movement and having separate and complex move actions as used in standard d20.

An enforced expenditure on a move type action and only a move type action (five foot step or standard move or whatever) adds an additional phase into each characters round each turn and the decision time to determine what if any move type action or legal substitute they should take in addition to what "standard" or "full" action they should also take.

I can see why you would think that, but you are wrong.
Can someone "draw a weapon" and still attack? "Stand Up" and still attack? What attacks?

Your proposition of a de-formalization of action types does not make things simpler, it makes things more complex. You still have a "Maneuver" (or "Move Equivalent Action" if you'd rather), and actions still use it or don't while using up your Standard Action or not. It's just that in your set-up you have to derive that information from the game information of various actions.

Consider your setup, you have a list of actions:

• Strike
  Omegablast
  Move
  Run
  Draw Weapon

Something like that, yes? And Strike allows you to Move or Draw Weapon in the same round, and Omega Blast and Run don't allow other actions. This is the same as writing it like this:

• Strike (Standard)
  Omegablast (Standard + Move)
  Move (Move)
  Run (Standard + Move)
  Draw Weapon (Move)

And then telling everyone that they get a Standard and a Move. Are you with me?

Now if you have a short enough list of options in the entire game, you can actually have each action tell you explicitly every single other action it can be combined with. But in the extremely likely case that you're going to have move than about six actions in the entire game, that's impractical.

De-formaliztion is a bad plan. The good plan is explicit formalization without exception. Exception based design is bad for class balance and it's also bad for player comprehension. The rules should establish the possibilities ahead of time.

-Username17

[Prak]

1197710450[/unixtime]]I meant 'engaged' as in, 'Joe the Fighter engages the Goblins' and then the goblins cannot pass him. 'Joe the Fighter engages the Troll' and now the Troll's movement and attacks are limited in choice.

one of those choices, at least for the troll, should be "backhand fighter across battlefield," provided the fighter is low level, if we're talking about General Joe the Fighter who is 10th level, the Troll should certainly be able to try that, but Joe's not going to just let himself be flung, he should grab onto the troll's arm and hardly budge while trying to slip his sword inside the troll's reach and ribcage, or swing his hammer into the troll's head, or whatever. If it's "Joe the Fighter, formerly known as joe the Farmer," then he should go flying and the troll should be able to just continue on.

Some reason or benefit for attacking every enemy unit instead of piling upon one - which would be your preference. An enemy that is engaged does less damage in the battle than one who is not.

I agree. There's needs to be a reward for using intelligent tactics, rather than playground fighting styles.

A reason for the Goblins to have a benefit from having a numerical superiority. But this reason means that the Troll or Fighter, who is capable of taking on many foes at once, isn't completely floored simply by being outnumbered.

again, I agree. High level characters should be able to take on many mooks, but semi-mooks should get some benefit from squad-style fighting. And I could see goblins using Pictish style fighting tactics.

I don't want a phased or simultaneous execution of turns, that's just really tedious and complex, and has a place in Mechwarrior or Champions, and I don't need that detail in D&D.

I have no clue what this is, could you explain?

[PhoneLobster]

I can see why you would think that, but you are wrong.
Can someone "draw a weapon" and still attack? "Stand Up" and still attack? What attacks?

I'm not talking deformalization, I'm talking about shifting the categories around compared to standard d20.

Everything either downgrades from a move action to a free action (like drawing a weapon) or upgrades from a move action to a plain old action (like standing up).

As far as I can recall the only two cases where it looks like a move+standard are as follows.

I allowed an action to move and still make a close range attack. Regrettable for the basic concept of the system and in an implementation with more discipline would certainly not happen. But I felt it was required to encourage people to use close range attacks and in combat movement rather than just standing there and shooting with ranged attacks.

I decided the successful grapple of a moving target should place you at their destination. That could have been resolved differently to avoid the free move thing, but I just preferred it that way.

But seriously every damn action is going to get a write up ANYWAY. There is no avoiding that. There will always be specific rules for resolving a "Grab" action and they will contain any number of exceptions and peculiarities not present in the write ups of some other actions but that are present in some others.

You seem to be suggesting there is a vast raft of actions that MUST be usable in the same turn as other actions, but which also should not be free actions. Enough so that they need to have their own formalized fragment of every turn adding additional complexity to the game.

And once you do declare that drawing a weapon, standing up or whatever needs to be a partial action you suddenly find yourself in need of an AoO system to interrupt complex multi step turns.

How many move actions are there in d20? How many of those could easily either be free actions or regular actions? I would suggest by far not enough to justify the continued differentiation between a move action and a standard action.

And how many things does d20 give away as "part of a move action"? Isn't that exactly the exceptional criticism you just levelled against my suggestion? You even specifically mentioned the drawing of a weapon, are you suggesting you want that to take an actual full formalized move action?

At the VERY least if you must continue with the partial action junk you should probably declare all move actions standard actions and just give out two actions a turn.

Indeed that's not a bad thing to think about simply because it demonstrates somewhat what you are already doing or suggesting needs to be done with move actions compared to what I'm suggesting should be done. You are taking actions described by the system as discrete and separate then requiring everyone to perform more than one of them before anyone else gets a turn, except when they don't due to an EXCEPTION system called AoOs.

[K]

OK, here's an idea. You get a cookie if you guess which game inspired it.

Rule 1: You can't move through people's squares unless they are prone. You might have abilities that push people around or make them prone, but that all depends on your character.

Rule 2: You can't attack or use an ability through someone's square as a default. Fireballs burn the first rank, and archers hit the guy in front, and mages don't cast spells from behind meatshields.

Rule 3: You get 10 action points. You spend them on your turn like this: moving 5' on the grid costs one point, and using an ability costs a number of points equal to its level. Smaller actions costs smaller amounts of points(standing up might be 2, while drawing a weapon is 1).

Rule 4: You can use one attack or ability a turn. You can use as many skills as reasonable(and up to your points)

Example: Tommy the Mage moves three squares(3 p), fires off a Fireball(3 p), then moves back two squares(2). The front rank of gnolls takes Fireball damage, but the jackal demon behind them doesn't. One gnoll drops.

Kaz the Samurai uses his Sense motive skill to figure out if the jackal demon is spellcaster(3), the uses his Powerful Strike(3) ability to fire an Arrow at the jackal demon now that he has line of sight to him, then he draws his katana(1) and moves four into the breach caused by the dead gnoll(4).

Jackal demon uses his Finger of Death(5) on Kaz, then uses 4 points to move up two squares of stair. One gnoll charges Tommy, but uses 9 squares to get there and can only make a basic attack(1).

Reasoning:

If we assume that HPs and AC are dependent on level and not class, then its OK if mages mix it up more than they do in DnD. The "weak spellcaster" and "strong fighter" stereotype is gone, so we don't have to worry about AoOs and zones of control that are all about forcing some people to play defensive characters.

If stats are merely defenses for "saves" such as resisting certain kinds of attack(Str resists Grapple, Con resists poison, Dex resists blade traps on chests), but not for calculating damage hits we are fine.

[PhoneLobster]

I thought 2 actions per round that could only be spent on two things from the same action list was a poor compromise.

10 actions per round that can be spent on any combination of 1 to 10 actions of varying cost displease me in many ways.

[Crissa]

Troll should be able to backhand Mage or Rogue across the battlefield, but some player-unit should be able to resist that. I selected Fighter.

I want a reason for units to fight and duel, rather than merely piling on. I don't mind if a high level archer can ignore a rank of foes or a certain level of foe. But I want a reason for the guards to stick around. A reason to need melee guys to draw the guards away so you can shoot the BBEG.

-Crissa

[Captain_Bleach]

1197758438[/unixtime]]OK, here's an idea. You get a cookie if you guess which game inspired it.

When you mentioned "Action Points," I immediately thought of Fallout. Am I right?

[Prak]

1197762500[/unixtime]]Troll should be able to backhand Mage or Rogue across the battlefield, but some player-unit should be able to resist that. I selected Fighter.

I want a reason for units to fight and duel, rather than merely piling on. I don't mind if a high level archer can ignore a rank of foes or a certain level of foe. But I want a reason for the guards to stick around. A reason to need melee guys to draw the guards away so you can shoot the BBEG.

-Crissa

yeah but then you have silliness like that guy who just became a fighter stopping the troll's backhand, while the rogue that's been breaking and entering for 40 years getting tossed like a ragdoll.

[K]

1197760078[/unixtime]]I thought 2 actions per round that could only be spent on two things from the same action list was a poor compromise.

10 actions per round that can be spent on any combination of 1 to 10 actions of varying cost displease me in many ways.

Read it again. you got it exactly wrong.

------------------
CB,

Not Fallout, but close.

[Crissa]

1197769584[/unixtime]]yeah but then you have silliness like that guy who just became a fighter stopping the troll's backhand, while the rogue that's been breaking and entering for 40 years getting tossed like a ragdoll.

Do you?

Does it say that a Level 20 Rogue gets tossed and a Level 1 Fighter doesn't, when faced with a Level 10 Troll?

No, it doesn't. Don't make shit up just to add to the thread. It doesn't say many things... Merely trying to talk about types of actions and reasons for action types to exist.

I would like a tactical reason for dueling. A tactical reason for someone in the party not ignoring a pile of mooks. A game mechanical battlefield control reason for melee combat.

-Crissa

[RandomCasualty]

1197758438[/unixtime]]
Rule 3: You get 10 action points. You spend them on your turn like this: moving 5' on the grid costs one point, and using an ability costs a number of points equal to its level. Smaller actions costs smaller amounts of points(standing up might be 2, while drawing a weapon is 1).

So you want people just tossing 10 magic missile spells per round? Because that's what the game turns into. Even at 1st level you can drop down a 10d4+10 irresistible attack. At 1st fucking level.

Bad idea.

[virgil]

So now people suddenly have 10 first level spells, at level 1?

[PhoneLobster]

Read it again. you got it exactly wrong.

OK then, not "any" combination, some large unknown combination of movement and "other" actions and an attack action.

Close enough to any. I can still take 10 move 5' actions or one 10 action point implode action which means I'm taking between 10 and 1 different actions every turn.

Looks a hell of a lot like move action and standard action only with additional and different complexities.

[Koumei]

RandomCasualty:

1197758438[/unixtime]]
Rule 4: You can use one attack or ability a turn. You can use as many skills as reasonable(and up to your points)

You're not throwing 10 Magic Missile spells, because that would be "an attack or ability".

[Prak]

1197772355[/unixtime]]

1197769584[/unixtime]]yeah but then you have silliness like that guy who just became a fighter stopping the troll's backhand, while the rogue that's been breaking and entering for 40 years getting tossed like a ragdoll.

Do you?

Does it say that a Level 20 Rogue gets tossed and a Level 1 Fighter doesn't, when faced with a Level 10 Troll?

No, it doesn't. Don't make shit up just to add to the thread. It doesn't say many things... Merely trying to talk about types of actions and reasons for action types to exist.

I would like a tactical reason for dueling. A tactical reason for someone in the party not ignoring a pile of mooks. A game mechanical battlefield control reason for melee combat.

-Crissa

My point was that we can't just say "the fighter can resist being thrown, while the others can suck troll cock for all we care." I take it that you were implying the fighter can resist better than the others.

[Neeek]

1197771227[/unixtime]]
CB,

Not Fallout, but close.

I initially thought Hero Quest, but since Fallout was close, I'll go with X-Com.

[ckafrica]

Or Jagged Alliance.

I like that way of doing things you could dedicate more action points to doing one thing better or take several actions less well. Have amount of action points effect how powerful your attack is so 1 AP fires a real weenie Magic Missile but dedicating all 10 AP to it would allow to let out a whopper of one.

Also for our super smack down attacks, you could have a charge up pool so each round you could choose to dedicate some of AP to a super attack which requires more than a total rounds AP. That way you can act in some capacity and still prepare you uber attack for later. Keeps combats from being anti climactic where you blow your wad first and the get down to floor play.

[K]

Neeek for the win.....or the cookie...whatever.

[Koumei]

I also thought "Hero Quest" at first. I liked that game. My dad thought it would be a very appropriate gift for a six year old, and apparently it was.

ckafrica: Wouldn't "you can supersize your action with extra AP" be the same as "you can cast the same spell a couple of times" though? I always felt a given action should always be level-appropriate. In the method you showed there, either your actions are crap unless you stand still (so we can assume everyone does it because they don't want crap actions, so we might as well just give them their movement for free), or your actions are decent most of the time, but awesome if you stand still and turbo-charge it, in which case... people will try to do that all the time.

I'm not sure what a good compromise/solution would be.

[RandomCasualty]

Well it's not really X-com style. In X-com, basically you'd get variable amount of time units (whcih were effectively like action points). Faster characters would have more TUs. Some stuff was static, like movement always cost X amount of TUs. Things like firing your gun however cost you a percentage of your total TUs. So shooting an autofire burst actually cost a fast character more TUs than a slow character. This made it so fast characters moved faster but didn't get any extra attacks.

[K]

OK, here are the benefits to the new system:

1. You still use lesser powers. In DnD, you very quickly stop using lesser powers and just hit enemies with your biggest power. If we remove the per days limits, something else needs to fill the gap so that 10th level wizards still cast Magic Missiles. Since under this system you still need move actions to position yourself appropriately and escape attackers(preventing them from using their biggest powers on you), you are still forced to use smaller powers.

2. Accountability for lesser actions: In any game, people want things to be "no action" or "free action" for things that you should be able to so in a turn. By removing that idea entirely, we can charge small costs for things like drawing weapons and the like rather than forcing people to burn of move actions.

3. Doing something with your move. People keep asking to be able to "do a big attack and not get a move", and thats because we know that there are a bunch of reasons to not move and they want to feel like they aren't wasting that action. In this system, your bigger powers eat into your move, so you do get something for your move, but in a level-appropriate way.

[Username17]

All of this is true. My immediate concerns are:

• People whose largest attack is a spell or other ranged attack.
  
  
• Witty reparte during combat.
  
  
• Fiddliness.

I don't want the game to turn into Dragonball, where while it is nominally possible to run over to your opponent and jab at them, what you actually do is just stand there going "AAAAAAAAAH!" until you can shoot your super ki blast.

I don't want the game to turn into Arduin, where noone talks or does anything cool during combat because that all cuts into attack time in a very real way.

I don't want this to turn into Squad Leader where I have lots of resource management to do on every infantryman.

-Username17