Alternative Combat Orders for Combat

[Fox1]

Re: Alternative Combat Orders for Combat

 

Way too random. characters can be left essentially floating, hanging motionless while a slower character gets a lot more actions. Besides all the mechanics and rules problems it brings up, it really makes tactics and team moves difficult, even impossible, and puts too much intothe hands of chance.

 

As a GM, I don't like it, and as I player, I'd definitely hate it, maybe enough not to play.

 

I've played a lot of Deadlands. I'm with you on this, it was one of the things that cause me me to move on.

 

I hate the idea of hanging around doing nothing because of bad luck. Missing and failing skills rolls I can handle, setting on my hands and being unable to work with my team- nope.

[lemming]

Re: Alternative Combat Orders for Combat

 

Way too random. characters can be left essentially floating, hanging motionless while a slower character gets a lot more actions. Besides all the mechanics and rules problems it brings up, it really makes tactics and team moves difficult, even impossible, and puts too much intothe hands of chance.

 

As a GM, I don't like it, and as I player, I'd definitely hate it, maybe enough not to play.

I liked it as a system in Deadlands. Not sure if I liked it enough to use it in Hero, but there's also ways to get around a bad hand. Other players with Tactics can trade with for instance. (I haven't played it in at least a year. Lamrok is going to run a game tomorrow though.)

But I could see where it would be more annoying than worthwhile.

[Gary]

Re: Alternative Combat Orders for Combat

 

As noted, there are 2 things at work here, and the two of them work in opposite directions.

 

The first is that Spd is effectively a "force multiplier". It makes the rest of the character's points much more effective. And its relative cost decreases as a character's points increases (+2 SPD for a 800 pt character is relatively painless while +2 SPD for a 200 pt character really hurts).

 

The second is that there is a diminishing returns aspect to it. Going from a 2 to 4 SPD doubles your number of actions, while going from a 10 to 12 SPD only increases your actions by 20%. It would take +10 SPD for the 10 Spd person to achieve the same impact as those first 2 pts of spd. And in actual play, a Spd 8 character can easily fight a Spd 10 character effectively, while a Spd 2 character basically has no chance vs a Spd 4 character under most circumstances.

 

Rather than a flat 3 pt Spd range, I would probably recomment a 50% Spd range, where the top end can't be more than 50% of the bottom end. Thus 4-6, 5-7, 6-9, 7-10, or 8-12 would be acceptable Spd ranges.

[lemming]

Re: Alternative Combat Orders for Combat

 

good analysis Gary. But that's just me pointing out the obvious.

[Dragonblade]

Re: Alternative Combat Orders for Combat

 

Has anyone thought about using SPD in a way similar to how Palladium has attacks per round?

 

1. Roll initiative. Say 3d6 + DEX/5.

 

2. Then everyone acts in order of initiative. Everyone has a number of actions per round equal to their SPD. On your turn, you get one Full-phase action. You can do a full move, a half-move and attack, or so on per the standard HERO rules.

 

3. After your action, the next person goes and so forth until everyone uses up all their available actions. Then go back to step 1 and roll initiative for the next round.

 

You can abort to Dodges and so forth as before. Aborting uses up one of your available actions in the round. For example, Hero A has SPD 4. He fights Hero B who also has SPD 4. At the beginning of the round Hero A attacks Hero B who dodges. Hero B uses up 1 action for his Dodge. After Hero A's attack, Hero B gets to go. He has 3 actions since he used 1 to Dodge. He attacks Hero A and then has 2 actions left.

 

We used this system when we played Rifts back in high school and it worked great for us. Seemed to flow much faster than the normal SPD chart combat. The one thing to keep in mind is that at the end of the round, those with higher speeds will be able to make extra attacks while the lower SPD opponents just stand there and take it.

 

To remedy this we instigated a rule that even if you were out of actions, you could still declare a Dodge. Additionally, the Defenders had the option of actually rolling a dodge roll that opposed the attackers attack roll. We used d20s for combat so an attack roll was d20+OCV vs. d20+DCV, or if the defender didn't want to roll they could just have a Defense score of 10+DCV. You could easily use 3d6 + OCV vs. 3d6 +DCV if you don't like the linear probability of d20.

 

That way players with characters on the defensive didn't just sit there while the GM rolled to see if they got hit.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Alternative Combat Orders for Combat

 

1. Roll initiative. Say 3d6 + DEX/5.

 

2. Then everyone acts in order of initiative. Everyone has a number of actions per round equal to their SPD. On your turn, you get one Full-phase action. You can do a full move, a half-move and attack, or so on per the standard HERO rules.

 

3. After your action, the next person goes and so forth until everyone uses up all their available actions. Then go back to step 1 and roll initiative for the next round.

 

I've seen similar suggestions.

 

The one thing to keep in mind is that at the end of the round' date=' those with higher speeds will be able to make extra attacks while the lower SPD opponents just stand there and take it.[/quote']

 

With this problem.

 

To remedy this we instigated a rule that even if you were out of actions' date=' you could still declare a Dodge.[/quote']

 

So I can take a 1 speed. Compare that to a 6 SPD. I'll put my extra 50 points into +7d6 damage and +5 levels with Dodge and Dive for Cover.

 

Assume standard Supers characters - 12d6 attacks, 25 DEF, OCV and DCV equal before that 50 point discrepancy. Assume you'll sacrifice 1 phase to abort to Dodge when I fire, so I'll hit on an 8 or less. I'll hit 37.5% of the time inflicting 59.5 average STUN (34.5 after defenses). You hit on a 3 (1 chance in 216) for 42 STUN in average (17 after defenses). With 5 shots a turn, you'll hit a bit less than every 40th turn. Pretty clear who wins that battle.

 

An area effect may catch me, of course. I can dive for cover, but that won't be pretty since I'll have to blow my one action. But I'll rely on my teamates taking down anyone with an AoE.

[Dragonblade]

Re: Alternative Combat Orders for Combat

 

Good analysis, Hugh. Its not a perfect system, but it works fine if the GM keeps an eye on such things. The thing about HERO is that anyone can abuse the rules if the GM doesn't intervene. I mean wasn't there a joke in the 4th edition Champions book about players abusing rules in HERO by creating deaf, blind, mute, paraplegics, with Clairsentience and the ability to annihilate stars with their minds?

 

The system I outlined works fine if the GM is watching to make sure players aren't abusing the rules. Put in a 60 or 75 Active Point ceiling on powers, or put a cap on CSLs, or simply mandate that all characters must have a SPD between 4 and 6.

 

But really, if someone wants to only have a SPD 1 because of a perceived combat advantage, then eventually everyone will do the same thing and the advantage disappears. Its self-correcting. Also if you use d20's instead of 3d6 for combat (like we did back in the day), the +3 or +5 bonus is now not nearly as potent. In practice, we found that most people took at least SPD 4 or 5 so they could have enough actions to actually do something in combat other than be a punching bag for the GM's goons.

[incrdbil]

Re: Alternative Combat Orders for Combat

 

I like Dragonblade's suggestion--it works well with Shadowrun. I'd just stick to dexterity for initiative, to keep die rolls to a minimum.

 

There are soem changes., A character with a significant speed avantage will be hard ot take down--if he's got the last one or two actions, he just takes recoveries, then you have the free post phase recovery.

 

Of course, low speed characters need ot be careful with their last action. A dive for Cover or a Dodge effects their DCV for many, many actions of others. A sped 4 vs a Spd 7 who is stunned on his last action is now subject to three attacks in his stunned condition, instead of the 2 he was subject to before.

 

And the lack of segment pauses can put the low speed character into eternal dodge/stun mode as well.

[casualplayer]

Re: Alternative Combat Orders for Combat

 

The only change I make is that when combat begins I start on Segment 2d6 instead of Segment 12. It mixes it up a little so that the first phase of combat isn't just a quick draw contest, everyone going in descending DEX order. I've noticed a lot of character designs list towards "shoot first, shoot hard" constructs that might as well just have a 2 SPD because they only care about going first on Seg 12 and annihilating their enemy.

 

I also track all the SPDs of the players and NPCs and don't announce what segment it is. I just point and say "your action."

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Alternative Combat Orders for Combat

 

Also if you use d20's instead of 3d6 for combat (like we did back in the day)' date=' the +3 or +5 bonus is now not nearly as potent. In practice, we found that most people took at least SPD 4 or 5 so they could have enough actions to actually do something in combat other than be a punching bag for the GM's goons.[/quote']

 

Actually, it's a +8 bonus (3 for dodge, 5 for levels). If you needed an 11 or less (55% chance with d20) and now need a 3 or less (15%) it's still a significant difference. But take 2d6 off and make it 7 Dodge levels to make it a 1 to hit (5%).

[Warp9]

Re: Alternative Combat Orders for Combat

 

I actually like the solution given in DC Heroes.

 

Everyone (from a common turtle to the Flash) gets 1 action per turn.

 

I know that sounds like it would be unfair to the Flash, however, DC had rules similar to Hero System's Sweep and Rapid Fire manuvers (except these worked on an exponential scope). The Flash could achieve a great deal more with his action than a normal person could.

 

Whereas Joe average might cross the room and punch somebody with his one action, the Flash could cross the country and subdue an angry mob with one action.

 

Also the slower characters had to state their actions first, so that the fastest characters could make use of that information when determining their actions.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Alternative Combat Orders for Combat

 

Does anyone out there use an alternative to the Speed chart for combat? If so, how do you handle it?

 

I feel sometimes in my game that the people who have lower speeds in my game suffer compared to the higher speed folk using the speed chart, almost needlessly. I'm willing to experiment with it and see what happens.

 

I have a rough idea for an initiative system, but I want to see what other people have cooked up as well.

 

Just make the average speed 4, require bricks to have a rootin' tootin' excellent reason to have a speed above 3 and max out speed, even for speedsters at 6, unless that really is all they can do.

 

We found that limiting the unwarranted growth of speed created far more powerful heroes at lower levels of points. As with anything in this game though, being a vigilant GM at character creation tends to head off a lot of problems later on. Be vary wary of a very high speed character with a very big punch, NND atatcks or any sort of attack that works against non-standard defences.

 

Alternative initiative systems are OK, but frankly I think of the speed chart as a real feature of Hero: one of the things that distinguish it fromthe pack. It can take some getting used to.

 

One thing I would suggest is limiting the time that players have to decide what they are going to do. If you play with miniatures, don't let anyone measure anything unless they have an appropriate power before announcing actions. Just because a PC has twice as much speed as any of the others the player shouldn't get twice as much spotlight time. Stress thatthe character is quick: they should be too.

[Warp9]

Re: Alternative Combat Orders for Combat

 

Alternative initiative systems are OK, but frankly I think of the speed chart as a real feature of Hero: one of the things that distinguish it fromthe pack.

I can agree with that statement!

 

There are probably always better ways to do things but IMO the HERO speed chart is far superior to most other systems.

[Silbeg]

Re: Alternative Combat Orders for Combat

 

The only change I make is that when combat begins I start on Segment 2d6 instead of Segment 12. It mixes it up a little so that the first phase of combat isn't just a quick draw contest' date=' everyone going in descending DEX order. I've noticed a lot of character designs list towards "shoot first, shoot hard" constructs that might as well just have a 2 SPD because they only care about going first on Seg 12 and annihilating their enemy.[/quote']

Now, that is an idea! One of the issues I have always had is that the metagaming players will tend to hold their actions through to seg 1-2, so that the damage that they initially inflict isn't immediately recovered. But, by putting it back several segments, the first turn is still requires some actions.

 

However, this could cause some additional issues in timing. Depending on the segment rolled (average is 7), certain SPD characters may have a long wait until their first action (SPD 4 would likely be waiting until seg 9, while any faster SPDs will have acted by 8).

 

Since the first seqment is often the "surprise phase", you would see some characters gaining surprise waiting to act until after many surprised targets have actually acted.

 

Hmm... have to think on this...

[Silbeg]

Re: Alternative Combat Orders for Combat

 

Alternative initiative systems are OK' date=' but frankly I think of the speed chart as a real feature of Hero: one of the things that distinguish it fromthe pack. It can take some getting used to.[/quote']

 

I couldn't agree more, Sean! However, I also see it as a more important feature of the Champions genre, than the myriad Heroic level genres.

 

One thing I would suggest is limiting the time that players have to decide what they are going to do. If you play with miniatures' date=' don't let anyone measure anything unless they have an appropriate power before announcing actions. Just because a PC has twice as much speed as any of the others the player shouldn't get twice as much spotlight time. Stress thatthe character is quick: they should be too.[/quote']

I agree with all of that, in theory. However, in practice, it is hard to keep people from counting hexes, etc. Of course, when they do the counting of every possibility, that really tends to lessen the effectiveness of talents such as Absolute Range Sense.

 

The situation is also not helped by the other 3-6 people at the table telling the active player what he should or should not do.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Alternative Combat Orders for Combat

 

Now' date=' that is an idea! One of the issues I have always had is that the metagaming players will tend to hold their actions through to seg 1-2, so that the damage that they initially inflict isn't immediately recovered. But, by putting it back several segments, the first turn is still requires some actions.[/quote']

 

One simple way to resolve this is to start combat on Segment 12 with no PS 12 recovery before the start of the next turn. This also prevents a similar metagame tactic of spending lots of END on phase 12, since it all comes back (great time for a Rapid Fire or Sweep).

 

I have seen a "mix it up" speed aproach with playing cards that woudl also do the trick. You use a standard deck. A - 10 = ph 1 - 10, J = 11, Q = 12 and K = PS 12 REC. You shuffle and start turning cards up. 8? Everyone with a move on 8 goes. So you don't know when that PS 12 will hit. You could simply start on Ph 12, then start turning up cards with no PS 12 in between.

[Silbeg]

Re: Alternative Combat Orders for Combat

 

One simple way to resolve this is to start combat on Segment 12 with no PS 12 recovery before the start of the next turn. This also prevents a similar metagame tactic of spending lots of END on phase 12, since it all comes back (great time for a Rapid Fire or Sweep).

 

I have seen a "mix it up" speed aproach with playing cards that woudl also do the trick. You use a standard deck. A - 10 = ph 1 - 10, J = 11, Q = 12 and K = PS 12 REC. You shuffle and start turning cards up. 8? Everyone with a move on 8 goes. So you don't know when that PS 12 will hit. You could simply start on Ph 12, then start turning up cards with no PS 12 in between.

 

Interesting idea on both of these parts. The "mix it up" approach would tend to change certain play mechanics (especially held phases, and haymakers), but it interesting.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Alternative Combat Orders for Combat

 

Interesting idea on both of these parts. The "mix it up" approach would tend to change certain play mechanics (especially held phases' date=' and haymakers), but it interesting.[/quote']

 

Agbsolutely - you take the chance that the next card to come up is one of your segments, in which case TOO BAD - that's the risk of such actions. I'm not overly tolerant of saying "OK, Segment 4" to be greeted with "Wait, before Phase 3 ends I use my held action from Phase 2". There's no banner across the sky to tell you when one segment ends and the next begins, so if you don';t choose to act afetr the last guy in 3 moves, it's segment 4.

[RDU Neil]

Re: Alternative Combat Orders for Combat

 

Y'know... if you just get rid of the Speed Chart you avoid all these issues.

 

ducking and running...

[GaryB]

Re: Alternative Combat Orders for Combat

 

Well, I have been trying to formulate things. I got together a bunch of scientists, tinkering gnomes, graphs, sacrificial pits, pie charts, beakers, and pencils. After much deliberation we came to the following conclusions:

 

1) Gnomes like pie charts because they have the word pie in it.

2) Scientists are good sacrificial material since demons hate science.

 

About the speed chart we found:

 

The Good:

1) Keeps things organized.

2) Points spent in the right areas make you more effective.

3) Works out great with speeds in the same ranges.

 

The Bad:

1) Cumbersome to put together for larger fights

2) Doesn't work so well when people have various speeds (ala a superheroic game).

3) Creates metagaming strategies in using the chart's predictability.

 

The Other:

1) Makes HERO stand out from other games. This is niether a good or bad thing.

 

Been a good topic here. Sorry to create so much fuss. Someone mentioned that I have to get used to the Speed Chart. I'm already used to it. Been using it for 15 years. Most of the time it hasn't been a bother, and most of my players have been good HERO vets themselves. So 'getting used to it' is not something I need to do.

 

The main quirk to me, IMO is that if a player spends points to do it, they end up having more impact than someone who didn't. In fact, the Speed character has to spend less points elsewhere to be more effective than the one with less speed and more powers and skills. That always seemed off to me. This is the reason why I have been seeking and thinking of an alternate way to do it. One mechanic should not dictate a character's effectiveness.

 

The problem I see about doing any alternative system outside the speed chart as stated in 5th Edition about 'Changing the Rules' is that if you do change it, you have to change a bunch of other things. Movement, Flash Segments and Fade Rates are the biggest things I can think of, off the top of my head.

 

Dont get me wrong here. I love the HERO system and all of it's wonders...even the speed chart. But sometimes the flexibility and universal rules just seem to kick ya in the rear.

[Warp9]

Re: Alternative Combat Orders for Combat

 

The Bad:

1) Cumbersome to put together for larger fights

I disagree with this idea.

 

Actually if you set things up right you make things go very quickly. There is very little randomness in the Hero Turn Sequence. You can tell in exactly what order people will act, the only things that might violate this exact order are Held actions and Aborted actions (and this can be dealt with fairly easily).

 

I once ran a game with 5 PCs (4 of those Players had never played HERO before), 30 crazed cultists, and 7 Crazy Aliens.

 

I resolved the whole thing (including a whole bunch of turns of combat) in 2 hours.

 

It was fast because I had a list for each turn and I could always tell you exactly who was up next. I just went down my action list. I would point my finger at the next person who was "up" and find out what they were doing.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Alternative Combat Orders for Combat

 

The Bad:

1) Cumbersome to put together for larger fights

2) Doesn't work so well when people have various speeds (ala a superheroic game).

3) Creates metagaming strategies in using the chart's predictability.

 

I'm not keen on randomising the speed chart as this will mean that, if anything, that low speed charcters will come off worse: the wait might sometimes become interminable.

 

Also, if someone aborts or holds an action remembering it (by this I mean the GM remembering it in the GM role as general rule-keeper) is far more difficult if you don't have a predictable order of combat.

 

Looking at 'The Bad':

1) I don't agree that the speed chart is more cumbersome for fights of any size than any other initiative system i've seen, in fact it has the advantage that an organised GM can write out an order of combat before the game begins if they so desire, rather than having to roll and scribble one out on the side of the gaming mat for each combat, which is what we always end up doing when we play DnD.

 

DeadLands has an interesting and novel initiative system, but it is slower than Hero: you roll against your quickness, count the number of successes and then draw that number of cards. The turn then starts with a countdown from aces to deuces with jokers wild, the suit of the card determining tie breaks. (Deadlands also uses poker ships for some things: I assume this is the origin of many of the chip and card suggestions we've seen lately)

 

This is a good system in that you do not know what number of actions you or others are going to get nor what order they will come in, but it involves more work than the Hero system speed chart, and is clearly more 'cumbersome'

 

2) I also don't agree with this criticism. The difference between Hero and most other games (MOG) is that with MOG, starting charcters only have one action per turn. If you want to simulate that sort of set-up, just require all characters to have the same speed. In superhero combat you often have characters whose concept requires different speeds so that may not be practical, but I have not seen a better system for simulating high speed/multiple action characters, and have them function in the same game as low speed/few action characters. If you know of any games that handle it better, let me know: I'm always open to new ideas.

 

3) This is a valid criticism: metagaming is something that is perhaps made easier by the speed chart, but I would not say that there is another system which completely eliminates it (although the Deadlands system I mentioned above comes close, all it means in practice is that the player witht he good hand has the best opportunity for it that turn). There are various ways you can get around this though.

 

a. The first is make the speed of villains less obvious - as a GM do not simply announce that the villain goes on segments 3,5,8,10,12, but make more use of held actions, aborts and so on, which makes guessing the speed and therefore the next phase more difficult.

 

b. To an extent, guessing an opponent's speed and anticipating when he will act is a perfectly valid tactic and is something that could be seen as a feature: in 'real' combat anticipation is something that can make a real difference.

 

c. Remember that manoeuvre bonuses do not last if an action is held: if you are SPD 6 and martial dodged on phase 2, the +5 DCV only lasts until your DEX on phase 4 - if you hold the action the bonus disappears.

 

d. Try and fix it by building your villains with random speeds. Buy extra points of speed on an activation roll, so the speed changes, or may change, at each PS12 recovery, when you roll to see how many points of speed activate. The player who was facing a speed 5 villain last round gets a shock if they try to metagame without realising that the villain is now speed 6.....You might also want to encourage players to adopt this tactic. You can also buy lightning reactions on activation rolls to randomise the order within a given phase, at least to some extent. If you do do this, I'd advise you check for each point of speed activating seperately: you may want to have different actication rolls, or the same activation roll.

 

None of this requires a change to the way Hero system or the speed chart works, and so I'd be inclined to try the in-system fixes before I tried anything else.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Alternative Combat Orders for Combat

 

While I also disagree that the SPD chart makes things cumbersome, I don't have a pre-fab SPD/DEX chart. Each player knows his phases and DEX. I stack NPC sheets in order of DEX and have their SPD's across the top, so I rifle them. "Next Phase 2 action - DEX 25" Player: "Dex 27 - my move".

 

Combine a GM with a reliance on a chart with a PC who has a DEX drain, and watch the chaos break loose. "OK, 25 DEX - BadGuy moves." "Didn't BadGuy get DEX Drained". "Oh, right - he has a 23 DEX". "MiracleGirl has a 24, so she moves" chaos of MiracleGirl's action ensures.

 

"OK, next DEX is 21"

 

And yes, we had exactly that situation in a campaign. Maybe if you had a laptop with a spreadsheet, and could update DEX on the fly and re-sort, but that's too much hassle for me.

[RDU Neil]

Re: Alternative Combat Orders for Combat

 

If you know of any games that handle it better, let me know: I'm always open to new ideas.

 

(although the Deadlands system I mentioned above comes close, all it means in practice is that the player witht he good hand has the best opportunity for it that turn).

 

For fun, the other night, I tried a combination of my Initiative system and the Deadlands cards... just to see how it played out.

 

Each player has at least one action. Then each rolls initiative (SPD plus d6)

 

2-10 only one action

11-16 two actions

17-22 three actions etc. (extremely rare, and not in this game)

 

So I dealt each player one card... a card for each major villain... and then gave a second card to any player that rolled a second action.

 

yes... possibly slow at the beginning, but each player having their cards out in front of them made it easy to see who's turn was next. Some "two action" players might get two low cards and go after a single action player... sometimes not.

 

It wasn't pefect, but it was fun. Like any other version of Hero... knowing when to "hold your action" is important... but hardly out of whack. I dunno if I'm going to keep this combined bit... but maybe. Likely to have a couple HUGE combats this week... might try it. See if it drags or if it clicks along.

 

So... some randomness in both number of actions AND when those actions fall. I'll let the players decide whether they like it or not, but it did work.

[GaryB]

Re: Alternative Combat Orders for Combat

 

While I also disagree that the SPD chart makes things cumbersome, I don't have a pre-fab SPD/DEX chart. Each player knows his phases and DEX. I stack NPC sheets in order of DEX and have their SPD's across the top, so I rifle them. "Next Phase 2 action - DEX 25" Player: "Dex 27 - my move".

 

Combine a GM with a reliance on a chart with a PC who has a DEX drain, and watch the chaos break loose. "OK, 25 DEX - BadGuy moves." "Didn't BadGuy get DEX Drained". "Oh, right - he has a 23 DEX". "MiracleGirl has a 24, so she moves" chaos of MiracleGirl's action ensures.

 

"OK, next DEX is 21"

 

And yes, we had exactly that situation in a campaign. Maybe if you had a laptop with a spreadsheet, and could update DEX on the fly and re-sort, but that's too much hassle for me.

 

Nah, I wrote Phaser to keep track. Works well =)