Initiative and CSLs

[mhd]

What do you think of making initiative a "first class" target for Combat Skill Levels?

 

So you can exchange CSL points for initiative, just like you can for OCV, DCV and damage. Of course limited to what's possible with the weapon/combat style itself, so you can't just swap your "Colt .45" CSL to be the first to push the self-destruct button of Dr. Megalos' Doomsday Machine du jour.

Right now, the only thing we have to manipulate initative on a temporary basis is the Hipshot maneuver. Which is a very limited +1/-1 exchange. Perfectly fine for something generic, just like Haymaker is for damage, as opposed to more fine-grained (and side-effect free) CSLs used for the same purpose.

 

Mathematically, it's probably not a 1:1 exchange (1:3 more likely).

 

One argument against this is that this will result in more effort spent on tracking who goes next, and we've already got regular initiative, aspected lightning reflexes and the speed table...

 

It would make quite a big change in some Heroic games. Much more likely that people will go in the same segment, often even on the same initiative rank (with char limits and favorable rounding).

 

I'm probably going to try this soon enough, maybe with a secret "bidding" phase. Any good arguments why this could ruin things?

[Ndreare]

I think it would be workable with a couple guidelines.

1: exchange would have to be declared before anything else

2: I think a good exchange rate would be 2:1

 

Dex based initiative as hero use it really does not capture that going first is more about skill and removing hesitation that it is about actual striking speed. I think you idea would allow skill and muscle memory to play a bigger part.

[Lucius]

 

At first glance I'm not seeing where it would break anything. If you try it, let us know how it plays out.

 

I might even say one level should equal 2 or 3 pts of initiative DEX.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Combat Skill Levels with Palindromedary Mounted Weapons

[mhd]

Dex based initiative as hero use it really does not capture that going first is more about skill and removing hesitation that it is about actual striking speed.

I just assume that timing plays an important part, too, never mind that your actual speed and strength apparently are highly skill-based anyway. One could argue how realistic trade-offs are, but I'd rather not get into that, at least in HERO.

 

I might even say one level should equal 2 or 3 pts of initiative DEX.

I'm thinking 1:3 right now. OCV/DCV cost 3 points, Blast costs 5, Lightning Reflexes 1 per level, so that would continue to mirror their respective costs.

 

After a vote, we ditched SPD in our current campaign, so more differentiation here doesn't hurt. I'm definitely going to give certain weapons bonuses of their own, as this doesn't introduce any really new mechanics of their own and helps to make weapon choices more significant, which was a source of complaints recently.

[bluesguy]

After a vote, we ditched SPD in our current campaign

Why?

 

How does that work for character builds?  Or does everyone basically have a very similar speed?

[Zephrosyne]

Why?

 

How does that work for character builds?  Or does everyone basically have a very similar speed?

 I'm curious about this as well.

[Ninja-Bear]

I thought I saw a rule variant of fast draw to be used to go first.

[mhd]

How does that work for character builds?  Or does everyone basically have a very similar speed?

It's a rather low-powered fantasy game. Our last one was pretty unconstrained (according to the players), so we started out removing quite a lot of the (combat) rules, with the option of voting them in after a few sessions. So we started without the speed table, without martial arts, without hit locations, without deadly blow, without critical hits.

 

And surprisingly, after a few months of regular play, all those are still out. Although we do have a few house rules that move things in a rather Fuzion-ish direction (universal roll-over, stat/3 for bonuses, double the skill spread, flat skill costs).

 

Amongst them is our treatment of speed. It used to be SPD 3 for everyone, but we've switched to SPD 4 (after looking at how Sengoku did it). Not that it matters all that much apart from some spellcasting durations, as we ditched the free recovery, too.

 

I prefer that to the 2-4 range we had previously.

[Christopher R Taylor]

I could see letting people use their levels to move first even after someone else has acted, in direct one-on-one combat.  The reasoning behind this is the "second strike" doctrine of combat; someone who is highly trained can actually move faster than someone who attacks them - this has been demonstrated and is known to martial artists and other combatants.  The principle is that reflexive muscle reaction is actually faster than conscious effort to move.

[Ninja-Bear]

It's a rather low-powered fantasy game. Our last one was pretty unconstrained (according to the players), so we started out removing quite a lot of the (combat) rules, with the option of voting them in after a few sessions. So we started without the speed table, without martial arts, without hit locations, without deadly blow, without critical hits.

 

And surprisingly, after a few months of regular play, all those are still out. Although we do have a few house rules that move things in a rather Fuzion-ish direction (universal roll-over, stat/3 for bonuses, double the skill spread, flat skill costs).

 

Amongst them is our treatment of speed. It used to be SPD 3 for everyone, but we've switched to SPD 4 (after looking at how Sengoku did it). Not that it matters all that much apart from some spellcasting durations, as we ditched the free recovery, too.

 

I prefer that to the 2-4 range we had previously.

I'm GMing a game very similar to yours and adding rules in as needed. And I'm glad to see that someone else is also having fun with these rules because it seems that anytime I've suggested playing fantasy without using hit locations, the pitchforks and torches come out with shouts of heresy!

[mhd]

We had two different campaigns before that recently. One had the aforementioned unrestricted attitude towards rules, and the combinations of CSL for damage, deadly blow with specific weapons and PSLs for hit location seemed a bit like overkill to some players (way too many headshots). And the even more low-powered "zero to hero" campaign had some pretty deadly random and not-so-random head hits with the players on the receiving end. Which is probably why we shelved that way before we got to the "hero" part...

 

I think this combined really "sold" the players on giving hit locations a rest, never mind that this is an adventure with lots of friendly NPCs, so saving rolls is highly important, too.

 

It's pretty good for lethality, although I do miss going for unarmored spots. A lot of "special maneuvers" boil down to simple hit location choice. But we just simulate this with precision Haymakers.

[Steve]

The big problem I see with this is that it will overly-complicate the initiative structure, and you could get into a bidding war with levels as to who gets to go first.

 

Player A has a DEX of 17 and Player B has a DEX of 18, and both have SPD 4.

 

Knowing this, Player A declares on his current phase that he is turning a 3-point level into +3 Lightning Reflexes to go on DEX 20 on his next phase, since according to the rules he has to declare how he allocates levels when his DEX order occurs on his phase.

 

Player B is then caught because he can only re-allocate his levels on DEX 18 in his next phase. He chooses to allocate one 5-point level to add +5 Lightning Reflexes and go on DEX 23 in his next phase. Player A would then have to allocate at least seven points of levels to overcome this.

 

The tactics get interesting in that Player B can choose to immediately re-allocate his levels on his heightened DEX 23 and still gain the initiative bonus because his heightened DEX is due to levels he allocated in the previous phase.

[mhd]

First of all, why would the point cost of the CSL have an effect on the initiative bonus? It'd be the same ratio for every CSL, the only difference is to what you can apply it to.

 

And you could do it like Hipshot does it: Everyone declares their "bet" at once, at the beginning of each segment you've got a phase in. Points allocated this way aren't available in your pool, and if you're attacked before you've got a phase (and thus could change your CSLs), it's assumed that points used this way are deducted equally, with the remainder going to OCV. If you do something that your CSL wouldn't apply to, the points are lost for this phase.

 

I'm not yet sure how Block should be handled.

[Steve]

It sounds like having a few smaller levels with maneuvers/weapons you use most often would be more point-efficient than having them in all-HTH/all-Range/all-combat levels. I would far prefer to sacrifice a 3-point level for a 2 or 3 point initiative boost than I would an 8-point or 10-point level for the same thing.

 

Block shouldn't be an issue, since it always puts you ahead of whoever attacked you, if you share the next phase number. That would still be the same no matter how many points were thrown into an initiative bonus.