I'm wanting to design an action system for combat that features characters taking multiple actions per round. What are good examples of such a system?

There are many, but I haven't played such a system in a long time.

7th Sea was interesting, you rolled a number of d10 equal to your initiative stat, and then went on the combat segment indicated by the dice roll.

Feng Shui had a shot action system, where everything cost so many action points and you go to go again after once that many actions had gone. so if you has say 12 actions, you could have 4 punches at 3 action points each or 3 kicks at 4 actions each. (as I recall it anyway).

I suppose my first question would be, 'Why do you want a system where people have multiple actions around, what is you goal from using it?'

I plan to have the character's Chi score, which can be spent on bonuses as well, determine how many actions per round. I thought that might be neat.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;522409I plan to have the character's Chi score, which can be spent on bonuses as well, determine how many actions per round. I thought that might be neat.

Out of the two, I would definitely look at 7th Sea then. Feng Shui initiative is not based on a stat.

If everyone's got multiple actions per round... doesn't it kind of defeat the purpose of, you know, having rounds?

Just a stray thought. Attack-per-round proliferation was a pet peeve of mine back on my Rifts GMing days, and I did my best to curb it (if you've ever played a four-armed cyborg with Boxing on a Rifts game, fuck you).

Well everyone would have a number of actions and then once all are resolved you calculate a new order for those actions, the number of which my change during combat, afresh.

Certainly it's a bit more involved than otherwise.

Why use "Rounds"? HackMaster uses "Counts" or Seconds that way you just track how long it takes to perform an action. When that number of seconds is done, the character starts another action. If the action isn't complete but the player decides that his character needs to stop and do something else, i.e. he gets interrupted, then it makes it easy to track...

Quote from: greylond;522533Why use "Rounds"?

Because your description of HM's "Counts" makes them sound unwieldly as all hell?

Rounds are a simple solution, methinks. If anything, I'm always on the lookout for rules and systems to make rounds simpler, not more complicated. I'm OK with multiple attacks as long as they're not a universal prerogative (hear that, Kevin Siembieda?).

I was working on something where you roll initiative + some bonuses and that gives you an initial score then an action takes so many points to complete and so it completes on that phase. Then you can do another action int eh remaining phases. Damge would reduce your initiative meaning you could loose actions. At the bottom end you need 1/2 the points of the action to complete it (then I start looking at rolling everything into a wheel and getting rid of rounds)

So Dave and Frank roll 13 and 8 repectively.

Dave uses a dagger with a speed of 5 so he can attack on 13, 8, 3 or he can take another action say trigger a ring with a speed of 3 so he could hit on 13, then trigger a ring on 8 then strike on 5.

Frank with a Battle Axe Speed of 10 would get to strike on 8 but then gets no second attack. However if Frank had a Ring (speed 3 remember) he could trigger it on 8 and then still strike on 5 (speed of 10 means you need a minimum of 5 points left to get a strike.

Now if you get hit then your initiative drops in relation to the damge you take but there are some hit points and armour in the way so a dagger strike against a guy in heavy armour is unlikely to deal much damage if it did though Frnk might loose his attack.
Heavy weapons like Battle axes and War hammers would have special effects of doing extra initiative drops on a hit even if they didn't get through armour.

In play it's quite simple (though complex to explain) and the aim is to give light fast fighters a benefit of delaying their opponents attacks in return for doing less damage and having less armour (typically though the Feild plate guy with a dagger is proving tricky to deal with). So if you keep on hitting your opponent you keep him off balance and prevent him from getting a blow in, but when he does land one you are probably fucked.

Quote from: The Butcher;522572Because your description of HM's "Counts" makes them sound unwieldly as all hell?.

It kinda made them sound like 1 second rounds, but I haven't played the game so god only knows.

Quote from: The Butcher;522572Because your description of HM's "Counts" makes them sound unwieldly as all hell?

After using "Rounds" in one form or other for 30 years, HM's Counts system is wonderful. Combat is fluid and faster than any system I've played with "Rounds." Don't knock it until you try it...

Quote from: greylond;522656After using "Rounds" in one form or other for 30 years, HM's Counts system is wonderful. Combat is fluid and faster than any system I've played with "Rounds." Don't knock it until you try it...

I get it and i like it and I am converitng stuff now. Tryign to use a combat wheel to assist it tracking timings.

Quote from: greylond;522656After using "Rounds" in one form or other for 30 years, HM's Counts system is wonderful. Combat is fluid and faster than any system I've played with "Rounds." Don't knock it until you try it...

Sorry man, but I would never guess from your description.

There is a lot more to it, to describe it with justice would take a couple of pages. Even reading the book, people who have played for years have a hard time wrapping their head around the concepts even though it is actually pretty easy...

HERO System uses a Table, which, based on a character's speed attribute, tells how many actions the character gets in a 12 second turn, and when those actions occur. In order to do this, the 12 second turn is broken down into 12 seconds, and the table tells you which seconds you act on.

A SPD (Speed) 2 character (an average human) would act on 6 and 12
------------>6----------->12

A SPD 3 character would act on 4, 8, and 12
------->4-------->8------>12

A SPD 4 character would act on 3, 6, 9, 12
--->3------>6------>9---->12

So if you were comparing a Spd 2 character and a Spd 4 character, the Spd 4 character would act twice as often. That faster character would get to act on 3, then both he and the slower character would act on 6, then the faster character would get to go on 9, then they'd both act on 12. On seconds where both characters get to act, the character with the higher Dexterity acts first.




In Shadowrun (2nd and 3rd editions anyway), you get an initiative total (based on a stat + dice). If you get above 10, you get multiple actions (a roll of 13 would act on 13, and 3)(a roll of 31 would act on 31, 21, 11, and 1).

In 2nd ed SR, the extra (higher) actions happened first, so a character with 31 vs a character with 6 would go as follows:

The character with 31 acts on 31, 21, 11
then the other guy would act on 6,
and then the fastest guy would end things out, acting on 1.

3rd edition SR changed things so that the extra actions happened later. So, in the above example:
the guy with 31 would go,
then the guy with 6 would get to act,
then the character with 31 acts on 21, 11, and 1.




Mayfair's DC Heroes set things up so that everybody gets 1 action, but a more powerful character can do much more in that action. For example, an ordinary guy might cross the room and throw a punch as one action, but Superman might fly to the other side of the world, and subdue an angry mob in a single action.