RQ3 SR vs Time

[Mikus]

Hello,

I am trying to wrap my head around SR vs Time in the sense of why not just use real time like HackMaster 5?

For example:

  DEX Rank = Speed Modifier

  Weapon Speed = how nimble weapon is

  DEX Rank + WS = time between attacks. (DR = 2, WS = 4, 6 seconds between attacks)

Longer weapon get first attack upon initial engagement IF it is ready and you are not surprised.  Lance > Halberd >Spear > Great -Weapon > sword> (dagger - hand)

Initial contact equals S-1, count up begins here.  Sword man with CS-6,(Combat speed for sword).  Spear man with CS-8.

  Sword man closes with spear man.  Spear gets 1st attack on S-1.  Sword attacks S-2.

  Swords next attack is S-8 and Spear is S-9.  (unless some combat damage causes someone to be stunned a few seconds). Then sword SR-14 and spear SR-17.

In time the fast attacker will get more attacks but not 'x per turn', only over a length of time IF nothing changes.  This is a smooth progression and not segmented bites.

...........................................................

You can Dodge or Parry whenever you want however consecutive parries by the same weapon impart a penalty.

  -30 the next second, then -20 on the next second with -10 on the third second.

 4 seconds after the last dodge or parry it is back to its original %.

 So....I dodge or parry on S-4.  On S-5 if I dodge or parry I get a -30%.  This continues until I stop dodging or parrying.

Once I skip a second the penalty is -20, then -10, then I have recovered. 

   Parry SR-4..., Parry SR5 (-30), Dodge SR-6 (-30), Parry S-9(-10), Parry S-11(-20), Parry SR-15(no modifier as 4 seconds have passed).

Seems a lot but RARELY would you be attacked that often unless you were beset by multiple opponents, and thats a bad thing.

Or some such mechanism.

........................................................

Getting hit might cause a time penalty,----"Stunned for 1d4 seconds, Parry or doge only at 1/2%"

Armor and encumbrance imparts a speed modifier which could either adjust the DEX SR or be a flat out +3 seconds for Full Plate Male. +1 second per 10% encumbrance allowance.

Dual weapons attacks ...not sure..both same second...1 second apart...???

.............................................

It does not seem that difficult of a stretch and get rid of the freeze frame SR.  The key would be to not let it get out of hand where someone gets 3 actions to someone else getting 1 with the same weapon.  By having a base weapon speed and adding a speed modifier that is fairly easy to do.

You could still use the skills over 100% get 2 advantage.

  Split % for a flurry attack where speed is cut in half.  If your time to attack with a sword is 8 seconds you can flurry every 4 seconds at 1/2 your chance.

  Split parry / Dodge - defend against 2 attack on the same second at 1/2 percent, 3 at 1/3 percent or 4 at 1/4.  (This would involve making your opponents get in each others why, which is how it works in a real situation.  You don't stand in the middle of three attackers, you try to get outside them and make them come thru each other.)  Or maybe a success allows immediate repost at 1/2 percent or something.

Anyhow, I am just kicking around the idea of getting rid of clunky combat rounds and just using time, (thats how I do everything else),  but I want it to be easily implemented and more logical or else why bother.

Any thoughts would be greatly welcome as to why or why not, and how or how not to make it worth while.  The main advantage I can see is the play of all events during combat will make more sense than an arbitrary 1 attack every 10 seconds no matter the speed, size or source.  And these in a ordering of 1-12.

Edited April 7, 2018 by Mikus

[Joerg]

In my simulationist days I thought about abandoning the combat round almost entirely, using a point cost for movement and combat actions, inspired by the Gunslinger board game where you played action cards to indicate your action, which would be revealed as the ticker proceded, if I recall that correctly from about 30 years ago. Abandoning a planned action would cost some re-orientation time. Basically I had a dial on which these actions would have been placed.

This would offer a great tactical game on a hex grid, which could be done using your roleplaying characters. It would be quite a pain for each and every combat, however.

[MJ Sadique]

20 hours ago, Mikus said:

Anyhow, I am just kicking around the idea of getting rid of clunky combat rounds and just using time, (thats how I do everything else),  but I want it to be easily implemented and more logical or else why bother.

Any thoughts would be greatly welcome as to why or why not, and how or how not to make it worth while.  The main advantage I can see is the play of all events during combat will make more sense than an arbitrary 1 attack every 10 seconds no matter the speed, size or source.  And these in a ordering of 1-12.

1/ You didn't understand that in RQ3 SR is a Time value (of 1,2s). In these forum, I already explain why 1,2s instead of a simple second count :
-First by having a 1SR equalling 1,2s permit to simply link Movement in combat to movement on a map as 1Pt of Movement = 1m per SR = 1 Km/h. All others systems need a table of conversion because converting from m/s to km/h give non-natural numbers.
-Secondly, RQ3 is a more figurine based fighting systems. When you play in Monster Coliseum's Arena or with figurine, you can understand that the system is more fluid because there is a lot more movement and SR spend to displace your character from an enemy to another... In contradiction of most game where you can strike or be attacked by anyone in a melee despite their numbers or any logic regarding their respective positions.

2/ You second Idea of a "continuous fight" is really easy to implement without changing the whole system (I already model and tested it) :
-First, you change from a linear 10SR round to a Circle of 50 SR (or less, but 30 at minimum); This way, you create a natural and easy to track table of actions for everyone fighter or magician with one marker by player. Everyone can see when the others will act and the master just play the clock.
-Second, you need to change the declaration of action phase : Each player will have to choose his action as soon as he ended his own; And each player making a dodge or parry before his turn of action will have to shift his next action by one SR.
-Third, you may need to add an "Resting and catching you breath" action of 3SR to be a bit more realist OR Use the Fatigue point rules by spending 1FP per actions, attack parry or dodge.

After testing it, it can be pretty good but new problems appears: Fights are not faster, Players easily lose track of what is happening when multiples fights occurs,  High-DEX-and-SIZ characters attacking every 3SR will break the game, ...

[Mikus]

I do get the SR not being time but the round is still 10 seconds and you get a 1 per 1 attack every 10 seconds regardless if any given SR equated to 1/12 of a second or 7 seconds. It still equates to 10 second actions blocks.  SR is actually just a fancy form of initiative.

The 50 SR circle is a neat idea but I agree that you cant just extend the number of SRs without making some adjustments.  SIZ would only be for initial engagements. After that SIZ is not really a speed thing.  Once the perimeter is breached the SIZ advantage can actually shift, especially if STR and DEX belong to the smaller combatant. 

This is in fact is a way of trying to sequence, and the most natural way to sequence is using the same time we use for everything else.  Now anyone who has gone through a drive thru often enough, or the line at a grocery store, knows that people move at greatly varying speeds.  I am one of those people who usually is getting finished around the time the next guy is getting going.  At least with short term goals. LOL  For me most people move painfully slow, be it walking, doing dishes, raking the yard.  Really doesn't matter.  You can take a 3 second task and some people will get it done in 3 seconds and others take 10.  Consistently.

I would have a base time modified by adding seconds, minutes or hours depending upon the normal length of time necessary.  This would be like the SR for weapons only flipped.  A great-sword would be slower than a rapier. So a task like making a sword attack might be 5 seconds.  Time modifiers for humans might be from 0 to + 4 with most being +2.  A really slow guy would then take 9 seconds and a really fast guy 5.  Most would be from 6 to 8 though, so the difference would only rarely be a 1 for 2.

Something like....

DEX Rank

DEX         DR MOD     Task Time Adj

<5                 5               x1.5

5-9                4               x1.25

10-12            3               x1

13-17            2               x.75

18-24            1               x.5

>24               0                x.25

With a sheet with combatant down the left and seconds on the top it does not seem it would be to difficult to note when someone acted by shorthand or symbols. Of course I would use graph paper.  A-ATTACK, P-PARRY, M-MOVE,....

Actor                      1     2     3     4     5     6     7     8     9     10     11     12     13     14     15    16     17     18     19     20     etc

Bogart the Rat      A                                 A

Pompous Snide    P A                             P             P-20

Zippo the Flame  M                                                A   

But ya, I can see how that might slow the game needlessly.  One can always go with the 1 attack means the total of what you were able to achieve in the last 10 seconds based upon skill and luck.  Just mulling things over.......

[styopa]

16 hours ago, Joerg said:

In my simulationist days I thought about abandoning the combat round almost entirely, using a point cost for movement and combat actions, inspired by the Gunslinger board game where you played action cards to indicate your action, which would be revealed as the ticker proceded, if I recall that correctly from about 30 years ago. Abandoning a planned action would cost some re-orientation time. Basically I had a dial on which these actions would have been placed.

This would offer a great tactical game on a hex grid, which could be done using your roleplaying characters. It would be quite a pain for each and every combat, however.

That's pretty much how we play, with a hex map for all but the simplest combats.  We used to use the declaration method with change-action penalty, but abandoned it for the simpler, faster "just do what you want when your action comes around".

[styopa]

1 hour ago, MJ Sadique said:

After testing it, it can be pretty good but new problems appears: Fights are not faster, Players easily lose track of what is happening when multiples fights occurs,  High-DEX-and-SIZ characters attacking every 3SR will break the game, ...

Funny, that's exactly the same result we got too.  The simulationist in me preferred it, but value/cost ratio was too low in play.  We did stay with the reversed sr/mods (and counting DOWN through sr's then) because the idea of DEX & SIZ modifiers topping-out is just too silly.

[styopa]

Mikus, further you have to address the inconsistency today in melee vs (some) missile fire.  Melee get (unless >100%) 1 attack a round, while some weapons missile fire gets "rolling" actions leading to multiple shots/round if you're fast enough.

That is a whole 'nother can of worms.

[RosenMcStern]

22 hours ago, Mikus said:

I do get the SR not being time but the round is still 10 seconds and you get a 1 per 1 attack every 10 seconds regardless if any given SR equated to 1/12 of a second or 7 seconds. It still equates to 10 second actions blocks.  SR is actually just a fancy form of initiative.

The 50 SR circle is a neat idea but I agree that you cant just extend the number of SRs without making some adjustments.  SIZ would only be for initial engagements. After that SIZ is not really a speed thing.  Once the perimeter is breached the SIZ advantage can actually shift, especially if STR and DEX belong to the smaller combatant. 

This is in fact is a way of trying to sequence, and the most natural way to sequence is using the same time we use for everything else.  Now anyone who has gone through a drive thru often enough, or the line at a grocery store, knows that people move at greatly varying speeds.  I am one of those people who usually is getting finished around the time the next guy is getting going.  At least with short term goals. LOL  For me most people move painfully slow, be it walking, doing dishes, raking the yard.  Really doesn't matter.  You can take a 3 second task and some people will get it done in 3 seconds and others take 10.  Consistently.

I would have a base time modified by adding seconds, minutes or hours depending upon the normal length of time necessary.  This would be like the SR for weapons only flipped.  A great-sword would be slower than a rapier. So a task like making a sword attack might be 5 seconds.  Time modifiers for humans might be from 0 to + 4 with most being +2.  A really slow guy would then take 9 seconds and a really fast guy 5.  Most would be from 6 to 8 though, so the difference would only rarely be a 1 for 2.

Something like....

DEX Rank

DEX         DR MOD     Task Time Adj

<5                 5               x1.5

5-9                4               x1.25

10-12            3               x1

13-17            2               x.75

18-24            1               x.5

>24               0                x.25

With a sheet with combatant down the left and seconds on the top it does not seem it would be to difficult to note when someone acted by shorthand or symbols. Of course I would use graph paper.  A-ATTACK, P-PARRY, M-MOVE,....

Actor                      1     2     3     4     5     6     7     8     9     10     11     12     13     14     15    16     17     18     19     20     etc

Bogart the Rat      A                                 A

Pompous Snide    P A                             P             P-20

Zippo the Flame  M                                                A   

But ya, I can see how that might slow the game needlessly.  One can always go with the 1 attack means the total of what you were able to achieve in the last 10 seconds based upon skill and luck.  Just mulling things over.......

If you wish to take all these factors into account, you should really try Revolution D100. It factors all of these element into initiative (yes, even the fact that the long weapon allows you to strike first, but after the first strike it is slower to swing), without you even noticing.

[Mikus]

Thank you.  I'll take a look at Revolution.  As I said I love BRP but that does not mean there are not some things I would like to try tweaking.   If someone has done it and made it work thats great.

[styopa]

3 hours ago, RosenMcStern said:

If you wish to take all these factors into account, you should really try Revolution D100. It factors all of these element into initiative (yes, even the fact that the long weapon allows you to strike first, but after the first strike it is slower to swing), without you even noticing.

I think I'm going to be bringing a lot of seed-ideas from Rd100 into RQG, or at least toying with them.

[Mikus]

I certainly will.  Thank you.

 

[olskool]

Mikus;  

We had issues with RQ2/RQ3's Strike Rank system too.  We eventually began using a Time (ROUGHLY) = SR System that still used Strike Ranks but was randomized and counted DOWN to zero.   Each Strike Rank is loosely equal to 1 second's worth of activity in our system.   We combined this with a Weapon reach system and it worked pretty well.  Here's a rough overview of our "initiative system."

REACH: 

     All weapons have a Reach in meters that indicates how far away you can attack a target.  The range of each Reach Class was;

• Short Reach = 1-meter attack range.  Examples include fists, daggers, kicks.
• Medium Reach = 2-meter attack range.  This is the "default Reach."   Examples include swords (both short and long), axes, hammers, maces, etc...  
• Long Reach = 3-meter attack range.  Examples include poleaxes, short Spears, and morningstar/war flails. 
• Extreme Reach = 4-meter attack range.  Examples include whips and long spears.  

SIZ doesn't impact Strike Ranks anymore BUT it does affect Reach.  For every 10 SIZ or fraction thereof over 20 a creature has, you add 1 meter to its Reach.  Thus a Troll using a dagger has a Reach of 2 meters with it.  Reach also assumes that the attacker is using some movement to position himself for a better attack.  That movement is considered part of his weapon's Reach.  A longer weapon's Reach is often balanced by the fact that it is heavier and bulkier and therefore requires MORE Strike Ranks to make an attack with (this is dealt with below).  Now onto actual Strike Ranks.

Strike Ranks:

     To determine a Character's base Strike Rank, you just divide DEX by 4 rounding up (please note that our characteristics are determined by 3D6+2 Rolls and range from 5 to 20).  This gives you the character's Base Strike Rank.  To determine the actual Strike Rank each round, we roll 1D6 and ADD that roll to the character's Base Strike Rank.  Strike Ranks can be reduced by wounds, fatigue, and encumbrance.   This Strike Rank then COUNTS DOWN instead of up.  Different actions take different Strike Ranks but each Strike Rank is LOOSELY based on 1 second's worth of activity.  If you want to know how long something takes, just time it.  

The Declaration Phase:

     In this phase, everyone narratively describes what they are doing and the SR Cost of each of those actions is calculated.  This is where Reach affects things.  If a person cannot currently reach the desired target, they must move into position to attack.  Responding to attacks with parries or dodges also take time as well as drawing weapons and readying spells.  Examples of the number of Strike Ranks various actions take are listed below:

• Attack (small light weapons like daggers) =1SR.
• Attack (normal weapons like swords) = 2SR.
• Attack (heavy weapons like poleaxes, hammers, and great axes) = 3SR
• Attack (large or very heavy weapons like the morningstar and long spear) = 4SR
• Missile Attack, *Short Range = 1SR
• Missile Attack, *Medium Range = 2SR
• Missile Attack, *Long Range = 3SR 
• Missile Attack, *Extreme Range = 4SR
• Readying/Loading a Missile = 5SR
• Drawing a Weapon = 1/2 the weapon's attack SR (rounding up).  For example, a dagger (SR1) takes 1SR to ready.  A great axe (SR3) takes 2SR to ready. 
• Changing an action requires a 2SR "hesitation" from the point you desire to change.  For example, you want to attack the Trollkin on SR5 but another character kills him.  changing to another target will take 2SRs.  
• Changing from melee to spell casting will require a 5SR "Concentration/focusing" action.
• Parrying/Dodging require a 1SR Reaction to parry and recover.  The desire to defend MUST be declared in this phase and the character loses the SR even if the attack fails.
• The Hard Look.  Characters trying to spot hidden or invisible enemies, using detection spells and Spirit Sight must expend 1SR to "look around."  They can examine the 3 hexsides that they are facing.  Looking behind you costs 1 ADDITIONAL SR per hexside you check.  
• Magic costs 1SR per POW Point you cast for Spirit and Divine Magic.
• Sorcery costs 1SR per Manipulation/Shaping X the Intensity you cast at.  For example, casting an Intensity 3 spell with Range and Duration Shapings would take 6SR to do.
• Movement [crawling, climbing, sneaking]  = 1SR per meter traveled.
• Movement [walking] = 1SR per 2 meters traveled.  Attack penalties may apply at the GM's discretion. 
• Movement [trotting] =  1SR per 3 meters traveled.  Attack penalties usually apply.
• Movement [running] =  1SR per 4 meters traveled.  Attack penalties WILL apply.  A character cannot go from a standing start to Running without a skill check (Athletics).
• Movement [dropping to ground or rising from crouch/sitting] = 1SR.
• Movement [rising from prone] = 2SR. 

It is fairly easy to figure what the SR Cost of other actions will be from this list.  I then record all the actions on a dry-erase sheet with 12 lines (we used RQ2's 12 strike rank system with RQ3).  At the start of the Action Phase, we would simply go down through the SR chart and resolve all the actions in order down to zero.  Actions could "roll over" into following rounds.  In fact, this was common for magic and reloading missile weapons like crossbows.  Finally, we would finalize the "bookkeeping in the Resolution phase.  One easy way to keep track of SRs is to give everyone either checkers or poker chips for their SR.  They then give you back those chips as they declare their actions.   This helps new player a great deal as they have a visual reference of how many SRs they have to work with.  I would also swap out RED poker chips (our default colored chips) for BLACK chips when the Character "owed" SRs to complete an action that took more than ONE round.  This was a visual cue to collect the needed SRs during the Declaration Phase of the next round.      

   I hope this gives you some "insight" into an alternative method of doing initiative in RuneQuest.   

 

*We use a differing missile combat system where the weapon's Base Range is divided into FOUR (mostly) EQUAL Range Bands.  Each range band not only takes more time to shoot to but also reduces the shooter's Skill accordingly.  Short Range is full Skill and 1SR.  Medium Range is 3/4 Skill and 2SR.  Long Range is 1/2 Skill and 3SR.  Extreme Range is 1/4 Skill and 4SR.  For example, a master archer (100% Skill) is using an RQ2 Composite Bow (100m Base Range).  His Short Range Limit is 25m and 100% Skill.  His Medium Range is 26m to 50m and 75% Skill.  His Long Range is 51m to 75m and 50% Skill.  Finally,  his Extreme Range is 76m to 100m and  all shots are at 25% Skill.  The SR times take into account the time needed to gauge the range, lead the target (if moving), fire the missile weapon, and for the projectile's flight to the target.  A normal arrow will travel at around 80m per second, so the SRs are designed to mirror this.    

   

[soltakss]

On 09/04/2018 at 5:43 PM, styopa said:

I think I'm going to be bringing a lot of seed-ideas from Rd100 into RQG, or at least toying with them.

I definitely will.