Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Xaer 04-29-07, 04:09 PM	Working on a rule for managing combat, but I wanted feedback on what other people thought before trying to use it. Rolling Initiative Counter: All characters have an Agility rating equal to 1/2 their initiative. Starting initiative for the battle is determined as normal, with d20+init being the base value. If a natural 20 is rolled, that character starts with an initiative one higher than the highest rolled(unless that was also a 20, in which case they reroll to see who gets the highest). However, that value may change throughout the battle from more than just readying or delaying actions. Whereas DnD rules generally have all the character's action taking place in one init value, in the rolling counter the action takes time to do. For instance, a monk is using a move action to move 50 feet. This move will take 25 initiative to complete, and throughout that period, the move will occur. Divide them out, and you'll get that every 2.5(round up) initiative, the character will move 5 feet. Thus, a character may not be in the same position by the time another person tries to act upon him. Move actions take 25 init. A standard action takes 25 init as well. Full round actions take 50. 5 foot steps and other free actions take 0. Immediate actions take a penalty depending on how intensive it is(generally this applies to spells, which have their own rules below). Quick actions take 5 init. Spells take 5+((Effective spell level + 10 - Caster's max spell level)*2) to cast(max 25 for a one action spell). If the caster is attacked during this period, the caster must take the concentration check to avoid losing the spell. The spell activates at the end of this period. All in all, it makes combat much more involved, albiet much harder to track. Thoughts?
Arcade 04-30-07, 09:03 AM	Very time consuming. The benefit of having one person do their entire actions at once is that you can get around the table one time and that's the whole round. When characters split up their actions like this, you need to go around the table at least twice per round, and possibly many more if movement is involved. After using a comparable system in 2nd edition, all I can say is that combat will drag quite a bit. If you do wan this system, I'm not sure why you are making spells more powerful by making them faster. Just keep them the same as a standard action- 25 points. Similarly, you state full round actions as 50 pooints, but what about full attack? I assume you take the 50 and divide it by the number of attacks to determine when each attack goes off. But you should make it so the first attack only goes off at 25 and divide the other 25 by the remaining attacks.
Clearly_Toughpick 04-30-07, 10:58 AM	Just to check: I think you want to simulate the fact that, as characters move around the grid during a six second round, they interact with other characters. Whereas what actually happens is that each combatant moves in turn without interruption from anyone else. Have I got that right? If I have, I understand what you want to do. However, I'm doubtful about what it adds to the game. First of all, the rules try to recognise the issue to some degree with Attacks of Opportunity and the Ready action, and secondly, tracking fractions of movement would slow the game down to a glacial pace and, for me, would make combat very exacting, very precise, and very boring. In fact I would probably prefer to measure the pace of a glacier. At mid to higher levels (like with the monk moving 50 ft) combat is slow enough as it is; I wouldn't make it any slower.