Alternate actions system [3.X]

[Judging__Eagle]

I've been thinking that how combat is represented in don't accurately represent the sort of cost that they deal on an individual, nor the abilities that actually affect combat; nor do they represent the speed at which things happen.

Also, how combats in D&D are far too static for my liking. I want creatures and PCs to be able to react.

Attributes

Strength
"Because I'm the dopest! That's why!"

Wearing heavy equipment, and heavy weapons puts a toll on the wearer, and just because you can wear heavy armour, or even have it available, doesn't mean that you'll wear it.

Using weapons larger than light, sheilds larger than bucklers, and armour heavier than clothing (ie. almost all 'real' armour) has a cost load associated with it.

The effects of this cost load, called "weight cost", are paid off in strength modifier; and any remaining cost load are taken away from the maximum amount of rounds that your Constitution modifier will allow a creature to remain in combat.

Non-armour, bucklers, light weapons
-No cost

Light Armour, small Shields, one-handed weapons
-Cost of 1 per item used

Medium Armour, large Shields, two-handed weapons
-Cost of 2 per item used

Heavy Armour, tower Sheilds, Two-handed weapons used one-handed (bastard swords, etc.)
-Cost of 3 per item used

Unspent Strength Modifier on "weight cost" are added to the Constitution modifier for rounds of Vigorous activity that a creature can perform.

Yeah, so, Str is going to help you determine how heavy you can fight, and people will wear less, so they can fight longer. The light fighter relies on tiring his enemies, and fighting defensively. Especially when he has more Str than his enemies.

Constitution
"You can't outlast me"

Let's face it, watching professionals fight should tell us that a fight that goes past 30 seconds is grueling. Watching Kimura slam Gracie into the floor over and over for 13 minutes is brutal thing to watch; and we're talking about two people who were at the top of the world in terms of raw unarmed combat ability. While, the average D&D character might be able to fight for 13 minutes; they don't because lethal wounds will probably catch up with them first.

Going back to the 30 seconds though. That's 5 rounds of combat in D&D (6 seconds per round), and you know what? In D&D, once you've hit the 5 round mark, everyone has the feeling that the fight is going on a long time.

To make this more representative of the real world, here's how Con affects combat:

Every round that a character does more than take a single move or attack action counts as a round where they are acting "vigorously". Any creature that acts vigorously can do so for a number of rounds equal to their Constitution Modifier.

Every round not spent acting vigorously pushes the limit back a round; catching your breath is something that happens in the real world during a fight, and should happen in game. People break off to get a breather.

Basically, players will decide to push their characters, or have them rest; and it's a tactically good thing to do one or the other.

Dexterity
"Whoop, whoop, whoop, wooo!"

A good indicator of Dex is flexibility, but it's also speed. The person who can take stairs 3 or 4 at a time probably has better muscle tone than the person who can only take them 1 or 2 at a time. They're going to move through a crowd faster, and get to where they want to get sooner.

Hauling Ass

Every point of dex mod affects your base speed by +5' per point of modifier. The dexterous rogue is also faster than the hulking fighter. probably b/c the fighter is played by an actor who took steroids.

Intelligence
"Ok, here's the plan"

Creatures with high intelligence can come up with ideas.

Orders, and Planning.

If a creature has a positive intelligence modifier they may add 1/2 their class levels to a number of actions equal to their intelligence modifier that occurs between now, and their next round. Each time that a creature does this, they cannot take more than a move or single attack action in their current round.

The sergeant or officer commands; but they often won't have time to do more than take potshots at the enemy.

Wisdom
"It's a good plan"

Wisdom is all about assessing what is going on. Watching how an enemy walks like a fucking brick shithouse; or a cat. Figuring out if they are left, or right legged. As well as knowing how to use that to your advantage.

Insight, and outsight.

A creature can spend up to their wisdom modifier in seconds every round in order to gain a bonus pool of points; up to a maximum of their Challenge Rating. Doing so is a full round action.

These bonus points can be used on any attack roll, wisdom based skill check, or armour class. The creature spends points on a one for one basis, and the bonus applies to their affected checks until their next round.

Yes, that means that a Cleric is going to have a higher AC, or Attack roll; but they are also spending an action to do so.

Charisma
"RAAAH"

Knowing the difference between yourself and others is what charisma is; it's also meant to give you a psychological edge over your enemies in a fight. The fact that charisma is often a deciding factor in uneven fights; with a stronger fighter getting a massive advantage over an inexperienced fighter; or a weaker fighter being able to remain on par with a stronger fighter.

Traumatic Stress, and force of Personality.

Any creature with an intelligence score may only engage in lethal combat for a number of rounds equal to their Charisma Modifier, plus 1/2 their Challenge Rating. After that, a creature may only engage in standard, or move actions. As with how Constitution works, not engaging in direct combat allows a creature to recover on a one for one basis.

Powerful creatures are more personable, and that's not for an arbitrary reason either.



Actions
"Okay, hip, torso, shoulder, arms, hand. Good. Now, snap it back fast. Don't celebrate your punch."

Once a person has broken past the whole "I'm not supposed to attack people" mental block that modern society places on them, the next step in turning a person into a fighter is to increase their response speed, and ratchet up their actions to be instinctive.

With training anyone can seriously throw 6 punches in 6 seconds, or even faster strikes. By "training", I mean, seriously, about 7 hours over the course of a week. It's not that hard, and the human body can easily be trained to be very dangerous.

The upshoot of this is that the actions that a creature can take in D&D don't really represent a lot.

A person casting Fireball or Colour Spray seriously has to spend 3 whole seconds casting the spell. In the real world, that's a death sentence. An enemy with a melee weapon can seriously bowl you over if you're not moving for 3 seconds straight.

What I propose to do is to have creatures have a master list of actions, and their cost; and a separate track for how many actions they can take, on an other track.

Something like this:

Minimum Points per round: 5.0
Initative Modifier: +1.0 point per point of Initiative Modifier.

Attack of Opportunity - 0.1
5' Step - 0.5
Immediate Action - 0.5
Swift Action - 1.0
Non-physical Skill check* - 1.5 [Spot, listen, Knowledge, Intimidate, UMD, etc.]
Move Action - 2.0
Physical Skill check* - 2.5 [Jump, Disable Device, Tumble]
Standard Action - 3.0
Full Attack action - 4.5
Full Round Action - 4.5 [Full Round Spell, Diplomacy* check, etc.]
Run - 5.0

*: Checks that normally have a -10 or -20 for being used in a single round; or that take a full round action to make, such as Diplomacy are still going to take the amount of time that they would normally do so. Crafting a sword can't be done in a single round; unless you accept a high enough penalty to your check.

Then have all creatures have a base of 5.0 points per round; with their initiative modifier adding +1.0 per +1 of initiative modifier.

Creatures can only perform a single action from the list at their initiative count; and can then choose to spend remaining points on other actions. However, this shifts their position in the initiative order down, a number of points equal to what they spent their action on.

---

edits to actions in your init count; 1, not all you want.

[CatharzGodfoot]

It's an interesting idea for a computer game, but something like this would be a nightmare to adjudicate on the table top. There are also a lot of fundamental issues just as important to combat simulation, such as the nature of injury, which you haven't touched upon.

If a system like this were to be straight-up applied to D&D, orc warriors would only ever be able to take standard or move actions, and spell casters (which have defenses that don't rely on armor, attacks that don't rely on weapons, an incentive to boost stats like charisma or wisdom, and need only one standard action a round) get boosted.

[Judging__Eagle]

Depends on who's running the tabletop game.

For my own games, I could see this working with not a lot of problem.

Mostly because I do a count down of initiative, and write down each creature's result; then have creatures act in their initiative order. If more than one person wants to 'interrupt', they can do so, in order of their current initiative.

I've also always felt that Initiative isn't really incentivized well, and I personally tend to make Init a stat that I end up dumping on all of my characters. While at the same time, I see characters who have massive initaitive modifiers, and huge Initiative check results..... but really don't get any benefits for being "faster", they just went first in the first round.

Meaning that something about the Initiative system is probably busted.

The 5.0 point action pool is more of a minimum, not a base. With creatures with high initiative being able to act more often in a round.

What I'm also proposing is that characters can't perform more than a single action from that list in their own round; and have to therefore react/interrupt other actions in order to "spend" their whole round's worth of actions. Of course, a character with higher initative would be able to react more often, since they went first in the first round; while at the same time, they will be slowly reducing their lead over other people as their initiative check for that fight gets reduced; eventually putting them after other people who they were once moving slower than themselves.

Spell casters would have to decide if they want to either cast faster (stack Init); or cast for longer (stack con or str). Casting a standard action spell takes a 3.0 cost.

[Ice9]

A creature can spend up to their wisdom modifier in seconds every round in order to gain a bonus pool of points; up to a maximum of their Challenge Rating. Doing so is a full round action.

This makes no sense - if it's a full-round action, it takes ~6 seconds. Also, this would not be worthwhile at low levels, and only dubiously so at higher levels (good for full defense, not so much for attacking).

[Judging__Eagle]

Yeah... I wanted to put in a hard cap of +6 per round; because honestly, that's a pretty big bonus to get for 'free' every round; and your character is "recovering" their mental, and physical stamina at the same time.

People can 'take a breather', assess what is going on, get their Wis modifier to their next roll, or AC; and then go back into the fray.

I'll have to clean that up.

[the_unthinkable]

I was wondering if I could post this up over at the Giant for a Bleach system? I don't know if it'll be in its entirety, but I'll give the credit to you.

[Judging__Eagle]

Sure, go nuts.

[TOZ]

I've heard some other people mention similar ideas. I kind of like the idea of a continually flowing combat where it's never just one person's 'turn'. Having people constantly taking actions with periodic refreshes of their action pool would keep people from being bored, and help with the problems of 'monster full attacks you to death before your turn' and 'wizard casts a spell and you die before acting'.