Alternative to phases/SPD, here's another solution.

[Funksaw]

Yes, it's another alternative to Speed, but I was thinking about this:

 

Speed governs the number of actions you have each "round" of "turns" The person with the highest DEX, not the highest SPD, goes first. He may then start using actions.

 

If the action fails (or the character just wants to do so) control passes to the next player with the highest DEX.

 

If he succeeds with an action, he may use another action immediately; BUT that action carries a -1 penalty to the roll. This penalty is cumulative, so assuming successful rolls throughout, a SPD 7 character could continue attacks at -6 for his 7th roll.

 

These penalties go away whenever the player fails a roll or passes control to another player, so in many ways passing the play is encouraged for high SPD characters.

 

Truthfully this doesn't work as well in HERO as the system I originally thought of it for, Tri Stat DX (which had a horrible initiative system) but if you want alternatives to phases, here they are.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Alternative to phases/SPD, here's another solution.

 

A lot of alternate speed systems suffer from the same issue, but this seems to motivate two things.

 

If you're low speed, take your actions as quickly as possible, and make the last one Turtle Mode - crank defenses and DCV up as high as possible, since it will stay in effect until the start of the next turn, and make you less vulnerable to a large portion of high SPD characters' attacks.

 

If you're high SPD, pass routinely and get a whole bunch of actions at the end of the turn when no one else can move. Now you can haymaker (they have no actions to get out of the way), recover (they have no actions to attack you), use abilities that reduce your DCV, etc. knowing your opponents have no way of taking advantage of your split second vulnerability.