How to do VERY fast combat at incredibly hihg speeds

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OgreBattle
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How to do VERY fast combat at incredibly hihg speeds

Post by OgreBattle »

prop plane dog fights, super saiyan flying around, ninjas dashing from tree to tree.

What systems have you played that handle this well?

The D66 Shinobigami speed chart comes to mind but I haven't played it.
Guts
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Post by Guts »

Shinobigami is a good example, yes. It feels just like those high level Naruto battles where the ninja are atop trees in one second, over a big canyon the next and inside an airplane in the end. The problem is that the combat system is so much it's own abstract and mechanicist thing that it may feel more like a boardgame than a rpg to some.
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hogarth
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Post by hogarth »

If all combatants are super-fast, then you can get by with having big hexes/squares. It's more game-stopping if one combatant is super-fast and the other isn't (which I discovered through the Heightened Speed power in Villains & Vigilantes).
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brized
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Post by brized »

If power ranges are scaled mostly by base 10, then that makes it easier too. It can get more granular toward the tail end depending on the max speed in-game. If your scaled-up squares never go past 10 meters, then you can get more granular with ranges beyond 10 meters as long as they're divisible by 10.

If a power's reach is less than a square size, then you have to be in the same square as your target to be in range.


Some examples:

Max speed: 100 meters/round
Max "square" size: 10 meters
Melee: 1 meter
Short: 10 meters
Mid: 100 meters
Long: 200 meters
Far: 500 meters

When squares are scaled to 10 meters, to target an opponent with a Melee power, you have to be in the same square. You can use Short powers on targets up to 1 square away, Medium powers on targets up to 10 squares away, Long powers 20 squares away, etc.


Max speed: 1000 meters/round
Max "square" size: 100 meters
Melee: 1 meter
Short: 10 meters
Mid: 100 meters
Long: 500 meters
Far: 1000 meters
Extreme: 2000 meters

As above when scaling to 10, but when squares are scaled to 100 meters, to target an opponent with a Melee or Short power, you have to be in the same square. You can use Medium powers on targets up to 1 square away; Long powers 5 squares away, Far powers 10 squares away, etc.

If you want to move into a scaled-up square, you have to "spend" that much movement. So if you had 25 movement when squares are scaled to 10, you could spend 20 to move 2 squares, or 50 to move 5. Leftover movement is wasted. Ensure minimum movement speeds are such that if anything takes a double move or run action (x5 speed), then it can traverse at least one scaled-up square per round.


If you want to get more granular with the shorter-range powers, you can use two grids: One at the scaled-up size, and one that covers one square for when two or more characters are in the same square. So if you scaled to 10, then you'd have a grid, say 20x20 scaled that way that covers a 200x200 area. Then you'd have a 10x10 grid to cover one square to zoom in on as needed. You could use a 20x20 grid or whatever, just mark the middle 10x10 squares as the upscaled square of focus, with bordering upscaled squares as ones you can move into on the upscaled grid. Characters within the zoomed-in grid can use any leftover movement they had to position themselves within the upscaled square of focus.

That would be handy if positioning is important in your system, but it will take more time, and you can only really scale your bigger grid to 20 or 30 before the zoomed in grid becomes too big for a table. Scaling to 100 would require three grids, each 10x10 or 20x20: one upscaled to 100, a second grid upscaled to 10, and a third grid that's normal squares. I'd rather say screw positioning and just abstract it at that point. As you scale up the squares, you can scale up what constitutes as cover by requiring it take up an entire scaled-up square or more: instead of a wall, a whole house. Instead of a whole house, a whole city block of buildings, a mountain, a canyon, etc.
Last edited by brized on Tue Jan 29, 2019 3:50 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Woot
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Post by Woot »

Any game where your players can be arsed to understand what's on their character sheet, and look things up in the PHB on their own time occasionally. [/salt]
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