Rushed actions

[Doc Democracy]

I am considering allowing my players to rush an action.

 

This is allowing them to voluntarily lower their OCV to improve their chance of going first in a segment.  ordinarily if players are acting on the same segment on the same phase then it is a DEX countdown.  I was thinking of improving DEX (for the purposed of going first) by 2 for every 1 OCV foregone (though I think it should be -1 to whatever roll for success you are rushing).

 

I do not see this being used regularly but it is something that might be useful in mixing up combat a bit if someone might take advantage of being able to go first in a phase (at the cost of being less able to accomplish what you want to do).

 

Doc

[ScottishFox]

Fixed action order lead to constant DEX races in my Saturday group so I re-instated a variation of D&D's initiative roll which we do in HERO as a Dex roll.

 

Whoever makes the roll by the most goes first.  Highest DEX wins on ties.

 

Works pretty well and adds a little variety to action order.

[Hugh Neilson]

We have Hipshot in 6e, but it is restricted to +1 DEX for -1 OCV.  Wasn't there an older version, Hurry, in 5e, maybe 4e as well?

 

Found the 5e version - it was a -2 penalty to attack, skill and characteristic rolls to add 1d6 DEX.

[Killer Shrike]

3 hours ago, Doc Democracy said:

I am considering allowing my players to rush an action.

 

This is allowing them to voluntarily lower their OCV to improve their chance of going first in a segment.  ordinarily if players are acting on the same segment on the same phase then it is a DEX countdown.  I was thinking of improving DEX (for the purposed of going first) by 2 for every 1 OCV foregone (though I think it should be -1 to whatever roll for success you are rushing).

 

I do not see this being used regularly but it is something that might be useful in mixing up combat a bit if someone might take advantage of being able to go first in a phase (at the cost of being less able to accomplish what you want to do).

 

Doc

 

Ya, I've considered variations on this idea in the past. A few considerations:

 

My great concern for schemes such as this is that I think it will slow down combat resolution by adding an additional decision making step to each segment. Players are not always the most decisive people, but even if you have players who make snap decisions it could also cause an escalation round...in what order do characters decide...can a player / GM change their bid in response to someone else raising their effective DEX? You'd probably want to resolve each character in _reverse_ DEX order such that the lowest DEX has to commit to rushing before asking the next higher DEX, with no takebacks. I could talk about the game theory of such a rushing mini-game at length, but generally speaking my goal as the GM is to speed up the mechanical aspect of combat so as to leave more room for roleplaying and narrative, not slow it down further.

 

If you are going to allow rushing as you describe it, then for symmetry you should probably allow for the opposite...going down in the DEX order to get a bonus. We have something similar for skills as it is. If it makes sense to take a -1 penalty to get +2 DEX, does it also make sense to take -2 DEX for a +1 bonus? If that makes sense, what kind of bonus should I get for rolling over into my next phase? That starts to fall apart conceptually pretty quickly. 

 

Same idea in reverse, if I can take a penalty to raise my DEX in my phase, why can't I take a penalty to "rush" my action into the segment before my phase? 

 

 

[Doc Democracy]

I missed hipshot.  However, I think 1 for 1 seems a bit stingy! 🙂

 

The 5th edition version seems to add too much time to the process - having to roll a dice and do the subtraction, while it may be exciting, takes time, time, time...

 

🙂

 

Doc

[Doc Democracy]

11 minutes ago, Killer Shrike said:

If you are going to allow rushing as you describe it, then for symmetry you should probably allow for the opposite...going down in the DEX order to get a bonus. We have something similar for skills as it is. If it makes sense to take a -1 penalty to get +2 DEX, does it also make sense to take -2 DEX for a +1 bonus? If that makes sense, what kind of bonus should I get for rolling over into my next phase? That starts to fall apart conceptually pretty quickly. 

 

Same idea in reverse, if I can take a penalty to raise my DEX in my phase, why can't I take a penalty to "rush" my action into the segment before my phase?

 

Absolutely, if introducing this significantly slowed down the game, then I would drop it immediately.  I am thinking that I might limit the use to one person per phase...or give each player a few RUSH tokens that they can use each night.

 

I do not subscribe to the need for symmetry.  🙂 I will not pursue that option...

 

Neither do I wish to break the action phase economy.  I am content with the phases and SPD elements of things, the rules already allow you to rush into the segment before your phase.  I am content with the rules around aborting.  Unless I went with the Rush token idea and then I might consider allowing that once or twice per session per character.  What harm can it do really??

[Killer Shrike]

11 minutes ago, Doc Democracy said:

What harm can it do really??

 

It is a mechanic that encourages "Alpha Strikes" which are usually unhealthy in the long term. It synergizes with AoE's as they are substantially less impacted by taking a OCV penalty. It adds variance to combat calculus, making it more difficult as the GM to gauge likely outcomes and balance encounters. And so on.

 

But, you know, nothing preventing you from trying it out.

[zslane]

I am interested in hearing how this experiment turns out, Doc.

 

For what it's worth, I think Killer Shrike is wise to be cautious and skeptical about the viability/playability of this. I like that he puts his game designer hat on and thinks of all the possible implications; the law of unintended consequences is more applicable the more complex the system is that you're messing with.

 

But, of course, it never hurts to try out new ideas; if they don't work out, no harm done. It's just a game, after all, and the worse that can happen is that it compromises the fun of the game for a session.

[Surrealone]

I tend to agree with Killer Shrike that if one is going to penalize for hurrying then one should provide a benefit to taking one's time -- otherwise one ends up with a poorly-considered band-aid in play that isn't exactly logical.  Certainly you may not subscribe to the need for symmetry, but that doesn't mean all of your players will see it the same way.

 

I mention this because, ultimately, groups agreeing to play by a certain rule set with a GM isn't a license for a GM to be draconian.  Instead, it is exactly that … an agreement (usually verbal) … that the rule set is mutually acceptable to use as a basis for game play.  Thus, it logically follows that players should also have some input into whether changes/amendments to the rule set are mutually acceptable.  If they aren't, well, the adult thing to do is hash it out (a la negotiatiation) … but if that reaches a stalemate, there are always other GM's (or, from the GM's perspective, other players).

[Gnome BODY (important!)]

9 hours ago, Doc Democracy said:

I am considering allowing my players to rush an action.

 

This is allowing them to voluntarily lower their OCV to improve their chance of going first in a segment.  ordinarily if players are acting on the same segment on the same phase then it is a DEX countdown.  I was thinking of improving DEX (for the purposed of going first) by 2 for every 1 OCV foregone (though I think it should be -1 to whatever roll for success you are rushing).

 

I do not see this being used regularly but it is something that might be useful in mixing up combat a bit if someone might take advantage of being able to go first in a phase (at the cost of being less able to accomplish what you want to do).

 

Doc

Like Killer Shrike mentions, I'd be very worried about when this gets declared and how to prevent bidding wars. 

I play a bunch of Honor+Intrigue, and that system has some maneuvers that allow you to act earlier.  Every single time somebody's thrown their sword, they've neglected to mention before their turn that they're doing so and thus they've missed out on the +2 Initiative that a Blade Throw provides.  This has caused some awkward moments when that +2 Initiative would have been really important. 

My experience is that many players do not interface with the game outside their turn.  This is a mechanic that requires interfacing with the game outside your turn.  This makes me worry. 

 

6 hours ago, ScottishFox said:

Fixed action order lead to constant DEX races in my Saturday group

This is interesting to me because my groups have never had anything like this.  What do you feel the underlying cause of "I gotta go faster" was? 

[Surrealone]

I was curious about that too, as I've never seen DEX races, either. Perhaps it's because the GMs I've had tend to take heavy advantage when a character 'drops his pants' (by taking an action on a Phase at his DEX early in the DEX count for the Segment), thereby precluding his/her ability to abort when someone (or several someones) with lower DEX attack in the same Segment … often thumping him/her.

 

Kick a dog enough when it can't abort … and it begins holding Actions until the last possible moments to use them -- i.e. until the Segment just before an upcoming new Phase, usually.  That's been my experience anyway...

[Hugh Neilson]

In fairness, Doc's model, like all which have come before, impose a pretty heavy OCV penalty for moving a bit faster.  None of those earlier mechanics allowed you to get an OCV bonus by acting later either.

 

The tradeoff makes these a desperation play to me.

[ScottishFox]

1 hour ago, Gnome BODY (important!) said:

Like Killer Shrike mentions, I'd be very worried about when this gets declared and how to prevent bidding wars. 

I play a bunch of Honor+Intrigue, and that system has some maneuvers that allow you to act earlier.  Every single time somebody's thrown their sword, they've neglected to mention before their turn that they're doing so and thus they've missed out on the +2 Initiative that a Blade Throw provides.  This has caused some awkward moments when that +2 Initiative would have been really important. 

My experience is that many players do not interface with the game outside their turn.  This is a mechanic that requires interfacing with the game outside your turn.  This makes me worry. 

 

This is interesting to me because my groups have never had anything like this.  What do you feel the underlying cause of "I gotta go faster" was? 

 

Some of it is just the action economy of the game.  If you have the highest DEX you can go first when you want to OR hold your phase.  If you have a lower DEX you can't do that.

 

Some of it is some friendly competition at the table somewhat like Legolas and Gimli racing for minion count while fighting for their lives.  Going first allows more kills.

[PhilFleischmann]

On 12/20/2019 at 12:28 PM, Surrealone said:

I tend to agree with Killer Shrike that if one is going to penalize for hurrying then one should provide a benefit to taking one's time

There are a number of benefits already available for taking one's time.  The most obvious being Holding one's action for a great advantage in flexibility and the ability to react to whatever has happened, but there are others, such as Set and Haymaker.

[dmjalund]

The extreme extrapolation of this is to allow aborting to attacks but at zero OCV (no skills can apply)