What's in a Phase?

[Manic Typist]

Seriously? What is in a phase? What does it consist of to you? What does it represent?

 

My biggest question: How LONG is one phase to you? One second? 5? More? Less?

[austenandrews]

Re: What's in a Phase?

 

I figure I'm a 2 SPD, so a Phase is 6 seconds.

[Manic Typist]

Re: What's in a Phase?

 

What about for speeds higher than that? 3? 4? 5?

[NuSoardGraphite]

Re: What's in a Phase?

 

The length of 1 Phase equals 12 seconds (1 full Turn) divided by your characters Speed characteristic. This is how it breaks down:

 

SPD/Length (in seconds)

1/12

2/6

3/4

4/3

5/2.4

6/2

7/1.7

8/1.5

9/1.3

10/1.2

11/1.09

12/1

[Hyper-Man]

Re: What's in a Phase?

 

Seriously? What is in a phase? What does it consist of to you? What does it represent?

 

My biggest question: How LONG is one phase to you? One second? 5? More? Less?

 

Assuming that your question is in relation to the HERO roleplaying experience, I would lean towards the definition of 1 phase = 1 panel of action. Of course this is heavily influenced by my superhero gaming experience. Depending on the realism of the genre/setting it easily can slide closer to the rigidly timed definition where a SPD 6 character has phases of 2 seconds length. It all depends on the type of game everyone wants to play.

 

HM

[Manic Typist]

Re: What's in a Phase?

 

Thank you all. This had helped much.

[Trained Chicken]

Re: What's in a Phase?

 

Trying to track exactly how long a phase is is tough. I do imagine that it's one panel of a comic book. The slower characters are standing around marvelling at the faster characters- or, in the case of someone acting upon someone else where the target has not action that phase, someone who is "too quick" for their intended target to react.

 

Which reminds me of my speedster character, who is of course one of the fastest men alive, blah blah blah...but only spd 5, dex 23, on account of having an all-too-human mind in charge of the best reflexes in the universe.

 

So I suppose that at least in his case, his SPD is a reflection of both his body's speed and his mind's speed.

[John Desmarais]

Re: What's in a Phase?

 

Seriously? What is in a phase? What does it consist of to you? What does it represent?

 

My biggest question: How LONG is one phase to you? One second? 5? More? Less?

 

What you need to keep in mind is that, unlike segment and turn, phase is not a unit of time.

 

A segment is one second. A turn is 12 seconds. A phase is an opportunity to execute an action. The number of opportunities a character has during a turn is reflected in their SPD stat.

[Flames]

Re: What's in a Phase?

 

I think that one thing a Phase represents is a unit of time during which it is possible for a character to initiate a new action. I say that because if I'm SPD 6 and I Dodge on Seg. 2, I'm still dodging on Seg. 3 unless I get Stunned or knocked back or Entangled or something.

 

On Seg. 4, at my DEX, I can change what I'm doing and opt to continue dodging, or do something else, like attack, Dive for Cover, or hold my action.

 

I might just be paraphrasing what someone said above. I don't know, I just like talking about Hero System mechanics.

[Dust Raven]

Re: What's in a Phase?

 

What you need to keep in mind is that, unlike segment and turn, phase is not a unit of time.

 

A segment is one second. A turn is 12 seconds. A phase is an opportunity to execute an action. The number of opportunities a character has during a turn is reflected in their SPD stat.

 

This is pretty close to what I was going to say.

 

Personally, I don't see a Phase as a panel in a comic book. For one, I've seen a single panel represent a dozen actions and a dozen panels represent a single action. A Phase is just an action, or as John says, an opportunity to perform an action. You don't have to take the action, and some actions cause you to lose a latter opportunity or take one from an opponent. The "real time" any of these takes varies, depending on the chracter performing the action, what the action is and under what conditions they are performing the action.

[NuSoardGraphite]

Re: What's in a Phase?

 

What you need to keep in mind is that, unlike segment and turn, phase is not a unit of time.

 

A segment is one second. A turn is 12 seconds. A phase is an opportunity to execute an action. The number of opportunities a character has during a turn is reflected in their SPD stat.

 

This is probably the best description of what a Phase is you are likely to find.

[Manic Typist]

Re: What's in a Phase?

 

Thank you all very much.