12-tick action speed system?

[Sonja]

Is it Hero System that uses a 12-base model to pace out a combat round, so that some faster characters can act more times, and slower creatures get less actions? Or am I thinking of a totally different RPG system?

 

If it's Hero, is there a good description of how this works somewhere online? or I basically have to buy the Hero book?

 

Sonja

[Chris Goodwin]

Re: 12-tick action speed system?

 

Yes, it is Hero.

 

I don't think there's an in-depth description of it anywhere, though the 5th edition Introduction to the HERO System document gives a couple of paragraphs on it. Someone wrote a Flash-based Speed Chart tracker which may help, though it might also be confusing if you don't know the whole system.

 

If you've ever played Starfleet Battles or early editions of Car Wars, it works similarly.

[Wolf]

Re: 12-tick action speed system?

 

Your thinking of Hero.

 

The basics are this:

Every Turn is 12 seconds long, these are the Segments in a round.

Every Character, vehicle, and computer in the game has a "Speed" attribute who's number basically tells you how many times you get to act in that 12 second round and what Segment you act on, called a Phase.

SPD 2 you have a phase on segments 6 and 12

SPD 3 you have a phase on segments 4, 8, and 12

SPD 6 you have a phase on segments 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, and 12

SPD 12 you have a phase on segments 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12

etc.

is that what your looking for?

[Chris Goodwin]

Re: 12-tick action speed system?

 

Basically, what Wolf said. A Turn is 12 seconds long; each second is referred to as a Segment. A character gets a number of actions (Phases) during the Turn equal to his Speed (SPD) value, divided throughout the Turn as evenly as possible. During a character's Phase, he can take one action or two "half-Phase" actions; a half-Phase action can be moving up to half the character's movement. Combat actions (attacking, dodging, blocking, etc.) take a half-Phase, but also end the character's Phase regardless of whether the character takes one or two half-Phase actions, so you'll see a lot of players saying things like "I half-move and attack." Characters can also delay their action until a later Segment, but no character can make more than a single full Phase's worth of actions in a single Segment.

 

If a character is Stunned in combat (takes an amount of STUN damage equal to his Constitution score) he spends his next full Phase shaking it off (recovering from being Stunned).

[StGrimblefig]

Re: 12-tick action speed system?

 

Pattern Ghost used to have a decent example combat walkthrough posted here somewhere, but I'll be darned if I can find it now.

[Wolf]

Re: 12-tick action speed system?

 

Oops, mixed up segment and phase... will correct... mershenbershen grumble grumble....