jaymz wrote:As long as you are prepared for your combats to take even longer to get thru than they do now (probably the biggest issue most people have with the system) and considering so far you've essentially blown off anything anyone has said, do whatever you want. It's your game.
No game is truly just one person's - every game is a collaborative effort between a G.M. and their players. A change like I'm proposing wouldn't just be made independent of any player's input, and if I'm going to seriously present it as an option then I need to be prepared to discuss how I'll handle the downsides to this change as well as discuss the benefits such a change will provide. I asked for input and I'm thankful for the replies I've gotten. There have been some good points made which have forced me to consider how this idea will impact the game both positively and negatively.
I am curious though as to what I've "blown off." People have presented me their issues, as I've asked, and I've discussed them in various replies. Just because they have failed to change my mind doesn't mean I'm blowing them off. But I will make clearer replies to specific posts and their issues in order to try and clear this up.
Pepsi Jedi wrote:Removing them results in more rolls for inits. Which inturn, slows down combat. It also means that people will be changing up action order 'more' which will result in more confusion.
Over all it's just going to make it longer to get through a fight (Twice as many inits rolls if nothing else) and result in a touch more confusion as people have to switch inits order more.
A valid concern (repeated ad nauseum in this topic) that I can easily solve by removing the need to roll for initiative at the start of each melee. Just like with D&D, I could instead have players reroll for initiative whenever I feel the scope of the combat has changed drastically (like when a new challenger enters). I do still think it's possible that having everyone roll initiative every melee won't actually end up being as big an issue as it seems to be to others in this topic. After all, it is a fairly straightforward process. I'm not convinced this is really the "deal-breaking" issue to my idea that it's being presented as. But I certainly appreciate how strongly everyone seems to think that it is, and I appreciate the time it's taking everyone to repeatedly tell me so, so I have considered how I would address that if it became an issue.
Killer Cyborg wrote:There are certain possible enemies that are affected by the presence or absence of TAFL.
Animals, for example, or golems and certain other created/summoned beings.
Also, relative mage casting time can be altered depending on which casting rules you use.
I actually think animals work out okay, since they were all originally designed without the 2 attacks for living and only had them added in for the later editions. I do have the first edition Monsters and Animals I can reference for the original attacks per melee in case animals in the newer editions didn't just have 2 added to them, as I suspect.
As far as the spell casting time, I would normally use the Rifts Ultimate Edition casting times. But for a Mystic Study or other magic character with only two attacks, that basically means they will be casting spells at the old half-melee/full-melee speed. But as they level up and gain more attacks per melee they will improve their casting speed, and since others also have less attacks per melee I don't think it impacts them as badly as it seems. It's a good thing to really think about though if magic will be an important part of the game (i.e., if any players have it).
glitterboy2098 wrote:having fewer attacks per melee means players would be less willing to use multi-attack options like power punch, power kick, bodyblock/throw, etc. for fear of not being able to have a dodge available later. this removes much of the dramatic nature and superhero style from close combat, as well as potentially dragging combat out over a longer period due to the lower overall damage of normal attacks. it also makes ranged combat options long long bursts and sprays less attractive for the same reason.
I have never seen any players hold off on using attacks "for fear of not being able to have a dodge available later." This may be a valid concern to some gaming groups however, and I respect that. I do allow in my games for the first action of the next melee round (and only that action) to be "lost" when a character dodges if they have no melee actions left in the current round. Some Palladium games allow those future actions to keep being taken and possibly leading to a point where the character enters a melee round with no actions at all! That creates a strange situation for me to try and envision so I avoid it by limiting it in this manner.
In my vision as originally presented the attacks per melee are reduced by two (from what is written up in the book) across the board for
everyone. Characters trying to hold onto attacks in case they need a dodge would only have two attacks, but their equally skilled opponents would also only have two attacks with which to press them, and the character could use their first attack in the next melee to dodge if they found themselves in a situation where that first action in this melee just really needed to be an action that uses two actions. This means those attacks should be used situationally and with careful judgement, which I think is how they should be used anyway.
eliakon wrote:Its going to make stun-locking people a LOT easier.
There are a large assortment of powers and abilities that cost the opponent an action (or two!).
Those sorts of things can quickly become stun-locks especially if you have two people willing to team up for it.
This removes much of the buffer people had against stun-locking. I am not sure how to solve that myself but it is likely going to come up.
The reduction of attacks per melee by two is a change across the board that applies to everyone in the game world, not just player characters. So while the defender has fewer actions, so too does the attacker. I don't see how that would make "stun-locking" any easier in this case. Multiple people versus one person is always a dangerous situation regardless of the number of attacks a character starts off with.
jaymz wrote:To address bringing in n&ss...
The simpler thing would be to just add 2 apm the ma's
Also if you arent interested in speeding up combat then why care about the time taken for individual melees? The two are inherently linked together.
I certainly agree that adding two attacks per melee to the Ninjas and Superspies martial arts is the "simpler" answer. I do know that the N&SS forms are not designed to do that, however. In the old conversion notes section of N&SS it specifically calls out
not adding the two attacks for living to characters who know the N&SS forms when bringing them into Heroes Unlimited Revised. If I were to use N&SS martial arts forms I would use them across the board, replacing all the martial arts with them. I'm not sure I am ready to fully contemplate that change just yet, however, since I would need to work out how that chance impacts the Physical Training power category. But the bottom line is that I
wouldn't bring in the Ninjas & Superspies martial arts forms if all the other characters in the game had the two attacks for living.
And as I said previously, I am not looking to speed up combat. I don't know what I said that gave people that impression but it's simply not true. I'm looking to speed up how fast melee rounds pass. If a character gets hit with a tranquilizer dart (or sleeping gas, or poison) I want there to be some real urgency that they may succumb to whatever it is before they can finish taking down the thugs they're facing. In the current rules as written I've never seen a situation where a character has ever had to worry about attacks like that, since they have so many attacks they just defeat their opponents long before the risk of succumbing becomes a concern. That's just another benefit I see from making this change.