Movement in combat?

[glitterboy2098]

per melee is based on your SPD. (the number represents how many feet you can move in 15 seconds)


but basically its GM call.

i know a few people that have said they make players expend actions to move around, but that always struck me as a bad thing. it gets you into the realm of games like mage knight, where you either move or shoot.

RPG's are supposed to be a bit more realistic, so you should be able to attack while running, jumping behind cover, ect.

[MADMANMIKE]

..All of the basics for this are on my designs for the revised Rifts Game Master Screen...

..Here's the low-down on Speed:

Speed (Spd): The Speed attribute breaks down as follows:

Yards/meters per melee: Spd. x 5
Miles per hour: Spd x 3600 ÷ 5280 (km=x1.609
Stamina: generally speaking, a character can move at half of his maximum speed without the need for frequent rest. If the charaqcter has the Running skill this can be increased to to thirds of the max.

Exertion: for every hour of intense, continual physical exertion, reduce the following: Speed -2, Innitiative -2, Parry and Dodge -1, Damage -2.

..Instead of the lame "No bonuses" listed on the existing Attribute Bonus Chart, I list the yards per melle and miles per hour on mine.

-Mike >8]

[Esckey]

I have it so that if you want to move your SPD distance it takes an action, but you can shot while doing that cept it's a wild shot unless you got wp sharpshooting cause I put the whole shooting while on the move into the "Can shoot from saddle, or roll and come up shooting with no penilties" catagory of WP sharpshooting.

If you just want to duck into a door way or jump behind a rock or basically move just a few feet away it doesn't take any action and shooting is not a wild shot

[Dead Boy]

Technically speaking, when you completely refine the Speed attribute, its ultimate and most useful measument is Spd = Feet Per Second. However, this would be at a full-on run with any actions done being counted as "Wild". However when you devide the characters' number of attacks by the 15 second duration of a Melee Round and multiply those seconds by the speed, something hinky happens. Characters with more experence and more attacks tend to go SLOWER than those with less. I don't care by whoes standards you count that by, that's just plain wrong.

So I suggest for "Combat Movement" allow each character to move their speed in feet (adjusted to scale of a hex map if being ussed) per Melee Attack/Action, ignoring exactly how long that melee action represents to that character. For Non-Combat Movement ,where the character is not in a situation where his number of melee actions are to be measured against another's, use at full strength.

[ToddArcher]

..All of the basics for this are on my designs for the revised Rifts Game Master Screen...

..Here's the low-down on Speed:

Speed (Spd): The Speed attribute breaks down as follows:

Yards/meters per melee: Spd. x 5
Miles per hour: Spd x 3600 ÷ 5280 (km=x1.609
Stamina: generally speaking, a character can move at half of his maximum speed without the need for frequent rest. If the charaqcter has the Running skill this can be increased to to thirds of the max.

Exertion: for every hour of intense, continual physical exertion, reduce the following: Speed -2, Innitiative -2, Parry and Dodge -1, Damage -2.

..Instead of the lame "No bonuses" listed on the existing Attribute Bonus Chart, I list the yards per melle and miles per hour on mine.

-Mike >8]

This is extremely interesting and helpful, but what about movement rates for long-distance hikes? Has anyone put out guidelines for figuring out how long it'll take the band of adventurers to hike through the high mountain passes to the other side? I'd use the rules from AD&D's 1st ed DMG, but I'd rather see if anyone's come up with anything specific to Palladium's games.

[MADMANMIKE]

..good point. My players always complain when they get a new attack and lose some of the distance per attack they can move.

..I've seen a system designed by some of the players here that compensates for this...I can't remember how it goes though...somebody repost that will you?

-Mike >8]

[MADMANMIKE]

There are Non HtH Skilled characters, and Skilled characters.
This also has to be accounted for.

The ONE thing that can be determined that is always correct, is Feet or Yards per Melee.

Our group prefers Feet per Melee. (Bigger number makes them sound faster)

WHen you look at this stat, regardless of the number of attacks a character has, it is obvious who is faster.

Then as usual you divide this number by the number of attacks.
It is this point where it appears that characters with less attacks can suddenly move faster.

_____________________________________________________________

Our group fix for this was simple. Divide the Feet(Yards) / Melee by 4.
This represents the max movement per action a character can make.

Then divide by the true number of attacks for those who have more than four. This represents how far that character can move without using an Action.

Moving the "max" allowed always uses an action, but this is ok for non skilled toons as they have non combat actions.

For Skilled toons it is nice, because they have a way to move for free, but can also choose to move further by spending an action.

A toon can never move more than its total allowed per Melee. (This has never been an Issue though, because anyone wanting to move that much generally is running for their life, and simply moves their total movement, using up all actions.

..Characters without hand to hand combat have 1 attack per melee OR 2 non-combat actions at first level. At third level this changes to 2 APM OR 3 non-combat actions, at level 6 add 2 more non-combat actions, and at level 9 at 1 apm and 1 non-combat action, for a total of 3 APM or 6 non-combat actions.

..Regardless, at the end of a melee everyone could potentially have moved their max distance per melee and speed will level back out.

-Mike >8]

[Nekira Sudacne]

I wish this question would be archived so I can stop re-typing the equation every time it's asked.

ok. it says plainly in RMB that speed attribute times 20 is the number of yards you can run in one minute

now, it's extreamly basic math.

take it and multiply by 20. let's say it's an average speed of 10.

so 10*20=200 yards per minute.

now, for feet, multiply yards per mintue by 3.

200*3=600 feet per minute.

now there are 4 melees in a minute.

600/4= 150 feet per melee.

now, for feet in one action, divide by numver of actions. lets say it's an average of 5 (HtH expert+boxing, level 1)

150/5=20 feet in one action.

[Nekira Sudacne]

..good point. My players always complain when they get a new attack and lose some of the distance per attack they can move.

..I've seen a system designed by some of the players here that compensates for this...I can't remember how it goes though...somebody repost that will you?

-Mike >8]

of course. they DO loose the number of feet they move and act, because they can act faster than they could before.

it takes the exsact same amount of TIME to move the same distance.

the number of times they can ACT in that time decreses.

you move just as fast, but have to put off attacking to do so.

[MADMANMIKE]

That is very true, BUT in a Combat Round (Melee Round.)

The game is run per action.

If we use an example of a really small Encounter where a group of 6 players meet an NPC group of only 3. It is quite concievable the combat will be over after only a few Actions.

When these type of encounters happen. The toons with less actions actually can move more than those who have higher speed.

Toon A (2 attacks) moves 1/2 his movement as an action. Toon B (5 Attacks) moves only 1/5th. Chances are toon A who is slower than B will be able to move the furthest, because he has less actions to determine is distance per action ratio. This is the type of situation that is in question, and is why our group uses the before mentioned rules that I posted.


In reality, if we wanted a true fix. Then actions would occur in Increments, and not neccesarily one per "action" per character. But this would require setting up a standard "Action" time frame, every time we do combat. Which would get quite complicated.

..What's with "toons"? That's not a Palladium game...

..Look, character one can move 100 feet per melee, and has 5 attacks. Character 2 can move 90 feet per melee and has 3 attacks. If they were to both use all their attacks to run, in the first attack, character 2 moves 30 feet and character 1 moves 20. In the second character 2 moves another 30 for a total of 60, while character 1 has moved 40 feet. Third attack character 2 maxes out at 90 feet while character 1 is at 60, seemingly at a loss, but no, character 1 has two more attacks, putting him ahead of character 2 in the end by 10 feet, his total movement allowance.

..The system that was posted somewhere here before involved increments and was thus more realistic, as slower character would never have been able to stay so far ahead of the faster one until the end. Basically those with more attacks get to use more than one attack between the attacks of those with less. More complicated, but more realistic.

-Mike

[Nekira Sudacne]

That is very true, BUT in a Combat Round (Melee Round.)

The game is run per action.

If we use an example of a really small Encounter where a group of 6 players meet an NPC group of only 3. It is quite concievable the combat will be over after only a few Actions.

When these type of encounters happen. The toons with less actions actually can move more than those who have higher speed.

Toon A (2 attacks) moves 1/2 his movement as an action. Toon B (5 Attacks) moves only 1/5th. Chances are toon A who is slower than B will be able to move the furthest, because he has less actions to determine is distance per action ratio. This is the type of situation that is in question, and is why our group uses the before mentioned rules that I posted.


In reality, if we wanted a true fix. Then actions would occur in Increments, and not neccesarily one per "action" per character. But this would require setting up a standard "Action" time frame, every time we do combat. Which would get quite complicated.

..What's with "toons"? That's not a Palladium game...

..Look, character one can move 100 feet per melee, and has 5 attacks. Character 2 can move 90 feet per melee and has 3 attacks. If they were to both use all their attacks to run, in the first attack, character 2 moves 30 feet and character 1 moves 20. In the second character 2 moves another 30 for a total of 60, while character 1 has moved 40 feet. Third attack character 2 maxes out at 90 feet while character 1 is at 60, seemingly at a loss, but no, character 1 has two more attacks, putting him ahead of character 2 in the end by 10 feet, his total movement allowance.

..The system that was posted somewhere here before involved increments and was thus more realistic, as slower character would never have been able to stay so far ahead of the faster one until the end. Basically those with more attacks get to use more than one attack between the attacks of those with less. More complicated, but more realistic.

-Mike

yea, but who actually bother to count that?

either it takes an action, two action, a melee, or a number of melees/minutes to get to a point before you can do it. the exsacts don't matter except in a general sort of way.

the above equation serves to show how many melees/actions they will have to spend to get there

[Dead Boy]

However when you divide the characters' number of attacks by the 15 second duration of a Melee Round and multiply those seconds by the speed, something hinky happens. Characters with more experience and more attacks tend to go SLOWER than those with less. I don't care by whose standards you count that by, that's just plain wrong.

I would REALLY like to see the math you use for that, cause something tells me you are doing something wrong. It sounds very much like that really odd (and totally incorrect) arguement someone came up with about a mage with less attacks per mele actually casting faster then a mage with more.
(snip snip)
remember, when doing this kind of math, your baseline is the increments of TIME across the full 15 second mele action, not the number of ACTIONS across said 15 second mele action.

What you're forgetting to factor in is the Canon Game Mechanic aspect. Let's use a slight variation of those examples of yours to keep things simple, playing with the speed for simplicity's sake. Character A has 5 attacks and a Speed of 10, where as Character B has 3 attacks and also a Speed of 10.

During combat the flow of things will go Character A attacks, then Character B attacks back and forth for the first three melee actions, and then Character A gets 2 more attacks that go unanswered. Barring slight variations from moves and initiative rolls, that's basically the flow of things by the book.

Ah, but let's take a look at what happens when we throw movement in there. Character A has a Speed of 10 and five attacks. That means that he can move 10 feet per second at a full run. Factor in his 5 attacks out of a 15 second melee round and that equates each of his melee actions being worth 3 seconds of time. In that time he can run 30 feet.

Character B also has a Speed of 10, but has two fewer attacks. He too can cover 10 feet per second running at full tilt. But given that each of his 3 attacks that melee round represent 5 seconds of time, on each of his actions he can move 50 feet. Now, let's plug this in to the official game mechanics.

Character A is trying to stop Character B from reaching the alarm button on a far wall some 120 feet away in a running shoot out. Both start from the same distance but B has the initiative. On his first melee attack B makes a full move and makes a Wild Shot over his shoulder at A. He covers 50 feet in his melee attack and missies A with his shot. A takes off in pursuit on his melee action doing the same. He make a full move and makes a Shot. A's shot hit's B's back, but he only covers 30 feet so he can't catch up. For B's second attack he makes another full move and fires Wild again over his shoulder. The shot misses again, but he covers another 50 feet. A tries to keep up but since he is only allotted 30 feet of movement per action he is still 40 feet behind even though they have the same speed. On B's next attack he makes another move and saves his action to hit the button at the end of his move. A can make another move, but why bother.

If the distances were farther than A would get his two extra actions to catch up and maybe tackle B if he win's the initiative for the next melee round. But in any case where the distances are short, all speeds being equal, the guy with the greater number of attacks gets the shaft. In effect this is a Time Distortion problem because technically speaking when both characters on their third attacks, only 9 seconds has passed for Character A while 15 seconds have passed for Character B! And yet by the rules this is how it must be reasoned out.

Now admittedly that sucks, but there is good news. There are no official movement rules by melee action in the game so none of this is canon! That means that the door is open for various House Rules to deal with this. On that note, here's what I came up with. Now I'll be the first to admit that this is not the most original rule or game mechanic, but it works really, really well.

First, borrowing the Speed Chart from the Hero System and adapting it to a 15 segment system instead of a 12, I assigned actions as per the number of attacks. Given the initiative system of Rifts and Palladium I deemed it necessary to have everyone start at "1" so everyone still has the possibility of getting in the first attack. (Well, everyone except those with only 1 attack to their name because they don't deserve it.)

This is the way the Melee Action Phases break down on the chart:
1 Melee Attack: 7
2 Melee Attacks: 1, 6
3 Melee Attacks: 1, 6, 11
4 Melee Attacks: 1, 4, 8, 12
5 Melee Attacks: 1, 4, 7, 10, 13
6 Melee Attacks: 1, 3, 6, 8, 11, 14
7 Melee Attacks: 1, 3, 5, 8, 10, 12, 14
8 Melee Attacks: 1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 10, 12, 14
9 Melee Attacks: 1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11, 13, 15
10 Melee Attacks: 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10, 12, 13, 15
11 Melee Attacks: 1, 2 ,4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14
12 Melee Attacks: 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15
13 Melee Attacks: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15
14 Melee Attacks: All segments except 8
15 Melee Attacks: All segments (1-15)

(Note: the sequencing was intentionally made so each will have a slight edge on the one immediately before.)

Each character can attack on their assigned segments as per the 15 second chart. Those that have attacks/actions on the same segments go in order of the initiative rolls.

All characters can move during EVERY segment of the 15 second Melee Round, thus avoiding the time distortion problem. But to keep things from running off the hex map there are two kinds of movement. There's the Full Sprint that allows characters to use their Speed Attribute to it's fullest potential, but the character can not make any actions on his next a
available melee action (even if sprint is used for only a single segment). Then there's the Melee Move which allows the character to use up a a third of his Speed and still make an attack or action at any point along that line of movement, (like maybe running from one place of cover to the next and getting a shot off in between), but of course the normal Wild Shooting rules still apply.

Also all movement is scaleable by the hex map being played on. Default scale is usually 1 hex = 3 feet (or 1 meter), but for fast moving characters and/or vehicles it can be changed to 1 hex = 100 feet, or 500 feet, or whatever is desirable. This will keep the fast movers on the map and game play manageable.

[PigLickJF]

In reality, if we wanted a true fix. Then actions would occur in Increments, and not neccesarily one per "action" per character. But this would require setting up a standard "Action" time frame, every time we do combat. Which would get quite complicated.

Not really that much mnore complicated. My group did this for awhile. We broke up each melee into 20 "segments," then made a chart showing in which segments you act depending on how many attacks you have. Everyone acted in the first segment, and the rest of your attacks are evenly distributed throughout the rest of the segs. It did add a bit more complexity to combat, but it also made a lot more sense and gave combat a much more dynamic feel. There were some additional rules to go along with that, but that was the basics.

PigLick

[grandmaster z0b]

Brain ...hurts

[PigLickJF]

I like the idea, but one problem reread through the length of melee rounds in HU it's 15 seconds same as all other Palladium settings you might have an old book though?

No, I know melee rounds are 15 seconds. But the chart was a little nicer to make with 20 segments instead of 15- that extra bit of resolution just made it seem to make more sense to me. Combat rounds and actions are all very abstract anyway, so I saw no real reason to make one segment equal exactly one second.

PigLick

[Vrykolas2k]

You people have WWAAAAYYYY to much time on your hands if you're sitting around figuring all of this kinda stuph out lol.

[Chuck Lang]

I don't know if something similar to my rules has been posted on this thread, but here is what I do with movement. I have been completely rewriting the Rifts rulebook so that it actually makes sense and this is part of it that I have come up with. None of this is in metric and I have no intent to convert it to metric (sorry guys); I like metric and wish that the U.S. was metric, but "standard" is what I grew up with. I don't know how to recreate tables on this message board, but if you want a .pdf of it I'll send it to you. I have rules concerning shooting while running and all that other jazz so this is not a "Mage Knight" thing.

MOVEMENT

Each character has a specific speed measured in the number of feet they can move in one minute. In order to find how many feet your character can move in one action consult Table 1-11: Speed Per Action, reprinted below for your convenience. If your speed is above 30 then in order To determine the number of feet you can move per action multiply your speed by fifteen and divide by your total number of actions per round [(Speed x 15) ÷ actions per round = spd. per action] or consult table Table 1-11: Speed Per Action if your speed is below 31 and you have less than 11 actions per round. Round any fraction down to the nearest whole number.
If you need to convert a speed that is given in Miles Per Hour then use the following equation to determine the number of feet you can move per action:

[(5280X ÷ 3600)15]÷actions=Speeed Per Action

You should substitute “X” in this equation with the miles per hour value you are attempting to convert into your speed per action. You should round any fraction down to the nearest whole number.
Moving your full amount in one round is considered running. You do not have to move the entire feet per action your character can move that is simply the maximum number of feet your character can move. Any amount of movement is considered an action.

[Chuck Lang]

I also use a battlemat during combat situations that I created and had printed off and laminated at a copy store. So I have a nice 3 foot by 5 foot laminated grid to draw and move minis on. The battlemat is divided into 1-1/4" bold-lined squares, which are then broken down into their specific 1/4"x1/4" squares to represent each foot of distance.

Traditional Palladium spell casting rules no longer apply in my converted system either because I completely changed those rules as well.

[Dead Boy]

The melee round is quite well explained. Melee attacks are not supposed to be time at all, and that's why they don't fit well when people try to convert running speed or spellcasting speed into it.

The melee round is supposed to basically compare everyone's speed and reflexes in combat. The people with less melee attacks get a couple shots in, but just get overwhelmed by sheer speed and hold back and use automatic parries and dodges while those with many melee attacks take many shots at them.

If you want to run at full speed, I'm pretty sure that's all you can do each melee. In that case, you'd compare speeds, and make it independant of melee actions. I personally would institute some sort of attribute check. For example, both opponents roll D20+speed+initiative, and the winner either catches up, gets away, gets to the target first, whatever.

The problem with this is it dosen't hold up at all when you want to both fight and move at the same time. In such common-as-dirt situations you have to have the melee attack combat structure intertwined with the a concrete and detailed movement system. And to do that you have to have a quantifiable value for movement for every melee action, which in turn leads to the weird timing difference that mane no sense whatsoever. Alternately you could do it in the way I detailed in my House Rule post (bottom part of pg. 1 of this string) and have an even flow of movement for everybody and have people's actions spaced out over a melee round, (which I used 15 segment framework becaus it makles better sence to me).

[PigLickJF]

The problem with this is it dosen't hold up at all when you want to both fight and move at the same time. In such common-as-dirt situations you have to have the melee attack combat structure intertwined with the a concrete and detailed movement system. And to do that you have to have a quantifiable value for movement for every melee action, which in turn leads to the weird timing difference that mane no sense whatsoever. Alternately you could do it in the way I detailed in my House Rule post (bottom part of pg. 1 of this string) and have an even flow of movement for everybody and have people's actions spaced out over a melee round, (which I used 15 segment framework becaus it makles better sence to me).

Heh, yah, looks like we use pretty much the same system, except you use 15 segments while we use 20 (personally I found the actions to fit into 20 segments a little "nicer" than 15, but 15 works just as well). We also don't have any set rules for movement. We don't use a hex/square map, we just sketched things out on a whiteboard, so any questions about movement are just left to DMs arbitration using his best judgement. We also instituted a "delayed action" rule, whereby one could delay his action from segment to segment, but would be lost if nothing was done by the time his next attack came. Eg, let's say a character has attacks in segs 5 and 10. When seg 5 comes around, there's nothing he wants to do right at the moment, so he "slides" his attack into seg 6, etc. If he still has not used that attack by the end of seg 9, he loses the attack and proceeds onto his seg 10 attack. That was a newer rule that didn't get much testing, but we were pretty happy with the initial results. Gave the slower attackers a little more leeway to decide what to do without losing attacks.

I've heard a lot of people mention that systems like this only add length and complexity and bog down combat. I disagree. They certainly add a bit of extra complexity (and recordkeeping for the GM), but we found they actually make combat much more realistic and dynamic than the canon rules.

PigLick

[Chuck Lang]

I then broke up the melee round into three five second phases. During each phase each character or npc takes a number of actions. For example, if a character has 7 actions per round then during phase one the character would take 3 actions; during phase two the character would take 2 actions; and during phase three the character would take the remaining 2 actions.

If a character has 5 actions per round then he or she would take 2 actions during the first phase, 2 actions during the second phase, and 1 action during the first phase.

What this simulates is the speed of characters; for example, juicers are supposed to be faster than basically all characters around them, well, taking 3 actions before everyone else (if the juicer won initiative) simulates that speed. I have play-tested this a great amount and it has worked quite well. So instead of taking the rest of the action at the end of the round (lame!) the faster characters get to take their actions before the slower characters.

[Dead Boy]

The problem with this is it dosen't hold up at all when you want to both fight and move at the same time. In such common-as-dirt situations you have to have the melee attack combat structure intertwined with the a concrete and detailed movement system. And to do that you have to have a quantifiable value for movement for every melee action, which in turn leads to the weird timing difference that mane no sense whatsoever. Alternately you could do it in the way I detailed in my House Rule post (bottom part of pg. 1 of this string) and have an even flow of movement for everybody and have people's actions spaced out over a melee round, (which I used 15 segment framework becaus it makles better sence to me).

Heh, yah, looks like we use pretty much the same system, except you use 15 segments while we use 20 (personally I found the actions to fit into 20 segments a little "nicer" than 15, but 15 works just as well). We also don't have any set rules for movement. We don't use a hex/square map, we just sketched things out on a whiteboard, so any questions about movement are just left to DMs arbitration using his best judgement.

Personally I feel a hex map is absolutely essential! It completely eliminates the arguments of who's where, what the various ranges are, how far X is from Y, and so on. I honsetsly don't see how people get along with out one.

We also instituted a "delayed action" rule, whereby one could delay his action from segment to segment, but would be lost if nothing was done by the time his next attack came. Eg, let's say a character has attacks in segs 5 and 10. When seg 5 comes around, there's nothing he wants to do right at the moment, so he "slides" his attack into seg 6, etc. If he still has not used that attack by the end of seg 9, he loses the attack and proceeds onto his seg 10 attack. That was a newer rule that didn't get much testing, but we were pretty happy with the initial results. Gave the slower attackers a little more leeway to decide what to do without losing attacks.

Yep, ditto here too. Except we use the term form the Hero system, "Holding an Action". I figure if you're going to swipe an element of their game mechanics, ya might as well go with their terminology as well.

I've heard a lot of people mention that systems like this only add length and complexity and bog down combat. I disagree. They certainly add a bit of extra complexity (and recordkeeping for the GM), but we found they actually make combat much more realistic and dynamic than the canon rules.

PigLick

I can't agree more. I do admit that counting out 15 segments and allowing movement with each, plus acttions on the given phases, does add time to the fight sequences by about a factor of 3, (which isn't really that bad given the speed of Rifts), but you get so much more out of it. And quite franlky it's almost more universally fair for all the characters as well. I say "almost" because it has been brought up that those with fewer attacks are now more so at the disadvantage. For example, by canon rules the attacks would be traded back and forth till the end when the guy with more melee actions gets X number of extra unanswered hits/shots. But with the Phased Action System, now that back and forth action is no longer going on and the guy with fewer attacks is now eating those unanswered attacks much sooner in the melee round. Personally, I write that off as a lesser of two evils.

I then broke up the melee round into three five second phases. During each phase each character or npc takes a number of actions. For example, if a character has 7 actions per round then during phase one the character would take 3 actions; during phase two the character would take 2 actions; and during phase three the character would take the remaining 2 actions.

Hmmmm... I don't know if I like that. Such a system creates a set-up where, with a winning initiative roll, a character with a high number of attacks can get off 3, maybe 4 attacks all at once before anyone can do a thing about it. Arm that boy with a Wilk's 457 or the like and he can kill darn near any foe instantaneously before the guy even has a chance to defend himself. And that can go both ways too where a Bad Guy can vaporize your PC before he can do a thing about it. Sounds aufully unbalanced and nasty to me.

[Chuck Lang]

I then broke up the melee round into three five second phases. During each phase each character or npc takes a number of actions. For example, if a character has 7 actions per round then during phase one the character would take 3 actions; during phase two the character would take 2 actions; and during phase three the character would take the remaining 2 actions.

Hmmmm... I don't know if I like that. Such a system creates a set-up where, with a winning initiative roll, a character with a high number of attacks can get off 3, maybe 4 attacks all at once before anyone can do a thing about it. Arm that boy with a Wilk's 457 or the like and he can kill darn near any foe instantaneously before the guy even has a chance to defend himself. And that can go both ways too where a Bad Guy can vaporize your PC before he can do a thing about it. Sounds aufully unbalanced and nasty to me.

I feel as though it is realistic for a world in which there are mechanically and chemically augmented beings (not to mention the supernatural). If a character has super speed and quick reflexes then what better way to represent that than giving them the ability to react with quickness and deadliness. Yeah it does work both ways, but that is where the GM's artistic liberties come into play.

The main thing that I like about the "phase" modification is that it simulates the speed of the characters.

[PigLickJF]

I feel as though it is realistic for a world in which there are mechanically and chemically augmented beings (not to mention the supernatural). If a character has super speed and quick reflexes then what better way to represent that than giving them the ability to react with quickness and deadliness. Yeah it does work both ways, but that is where the GM's artistic liberties come into play.

The main thing that I like about the "phase" modification is that it simulates the speed of the characters.

I think where it breaks down, though, is when two similarly fast characters are fighting each other. If they have the same umber of attacks, why should one get to make two, three, or more actions before the other even gets to react? A simple loss of initiative shouldn't be enough to account for that much of a difference in reaction time.

PigLick

[PigLickJF]

Personally I feel a hex map is absolutely essential! It completely eliminates the arguments of who's where, what the various ranges are, how far X is from Y, and so on. I honsetsly don't see how people get along with out one.

Well, I'm sure they could be a big help, but we didn't have any decent sized hex maps, minis, or anything else, and didn't want to spend the resources to buy/create them, let alone the rules to go along with them. We really didn't have much in the way of arguments. Our GM was fair and logical and there were never really any contentious decisions made when it came to movement/positioning. I can see how they would be helpful, especially if you're in very complex settings (urban, etc), but for the most part we didn't really have many problems without them. I definitely understand how many groups couldn't do it, though.

Yep, ditto here too. Except we use the term form the Hero system, "Holding an Action". I figure if you're going to swipe an element of their game mechanics, ya might as well go with their terminology as well.

Hehe, never played Hero. We just developed the rule after playtesting a bit, because we found that too many people, especially those with lower numbers of attacks, were losing their attacks too often when we used a rigid system, which seemed unfair.

I can't agree more. I do admit that counting out 15 segments and allowing movement with each, plus acttions on the given phases, does add time to the fight sequences by about a factor of 3, (which isn't really that bad given the speed of Rifts), but you get so much more out of it.

Probably the minis/maps made the difference, but wew didn't find it really made combat that much longer. I'd say maybe 1.5-2 times as long (longer at first though, until we got more used to the system).

And quite franlky it's almost more universally fair for all the characters as well. I say "almost" because it has been brought up that those with fewer attacks are now more so at the disadvantage. For example, by canon rules the attacks would be traded back and forth till the end when the guy with more melee actions gets X number of extra unanswered hits/shots. But with the Phased Action System, now that back and forth action is no longer going on and the guy with fewer attacks is now eating those unanswered attacks much sooner in the melee round. Personally, I write that off as a lesser of two evils.

Never really thought of it that way, I suppose it's a valid argument though. I agree with you though, definitely the lesser of two evils. I also feel that in some ways, it helps favor those with fewer attacks. They don't run out of attacks so early into the melee, and with the delayed action rules, it gives them a lot more flexibility. People with more actions have less flexibility because they have fewer segments to delay their action before they lose it (but of course having more attacks to begin with is still a much bigger advantage).

I was actually toying with adding an additional rule concernig dodges. How did you handle them? With the first dodge, it of course just used up your next attack, which makes sense. In situations where you end up dodging more than once before your next attack though, it started to feel strange. I was thinking of a rule something along the lines of: When you dodge, you roll your dodge normally for that specific attack. Any other attacks that come at you before your next attack (the one you used up with the dodge) cannot be dodged, however you apply your +dodge modifier as a negative to hit for the attacker. Example:

You have attacks in seg 5,10, and 15, and a +3 to dodge. On segment 6, you get attacked, and decide to dodge. You roll your dodge normally(including your +3 dodge bonus), and your segment 10 attack is used up. Any attacks coming at you from segs 6-9 cannot be dodged, but the attacker has a -3 to hit you. Once you get to segments 10-14 you're free to dodge an attack again, but it will use o your seg 15 attack, and any subsequent attacks before seg 15 are undodgeable, etc.

I never playtested that one though, so I'm not sure how well it would work out. In some ways it would tip the scales back in the favor of the faster atatckers, but at the same time, it would allow the slower combatants a chance to at least try and use some of their actions for attacks rather than dodges without leaving themselves totally defenseless.

PigLick

[MADMANMIKE]

..If two characters had the same number of attacks then their attacks would fall in the same segments; innitiative winner takes an attack, then everyone else with an attack in that segment goes in order of innitiative..

..I like the dodge bonus as a negative vs attacks that cannot be dodged idea..

..The thing is, if melees always went like this players would be more prone to declaring defensive actions early in their characters experience until they could figure out just who the baddest baddies are.. Which of course would be realistic; If I were jumped by a bunch of hoods I'd take cover and try to figure out which danger was the most dangerous before acting...

..Piglickjf, where's your character? Just a name will do for now, so I can give you board access.

-Mike >8]

[Dead Boy]

I was actually toying with adding an additional rule concernig dodges. How did you handle them?

Between the action structure from Hero, (which kind of goes with the segmented action system), and pg. 40 in the Rifts GMG, dodging kind of takes care if itself. If you dodge, you use your next available melee attack and may not borrow from the one after that for more defesnive actions that require an attack. However the number the character rolls to dodge, if it's successfurl or not, becomes the To Hit number for others to hit that character untill his next melee action comes up, (usually the one he borrowed from to make the dodge in the first place). So if a guy dodges on Segment 4 (rolling a 12 plus his +5 to dodge for a total of 17) and had to borrow from his next attack on Segment 8, then though he can't attack durring that term until his following attack on Segment 12, up to 8 others have to roll better than a 17 to hit him or the normal To Hit number (which ever is more benificial to the defender). On Segement 8 he is back to normal can can be hit with a normal roll... that is unless he borrows from his next melee action and dodges again. If the Dodging character is making the defensive maneuver on his normal action phase and has yet to use his melee attack, then that Dodge roll not only applies to the attack he's trying to avoid, but all subsequent attacke as above till his next melee attack comes up.

That's how I do it. It's simple, effective, and fair. Just like all rules should be.

[PigLickJF]

I was actually toying with adding an additional rule concernig dodges. How did you handle them?

Between the action structure from Hero, (which kind of goes with the segmented action system), and pg. 40 in the Rifts GMG, dodging kind of takes care if itself. If you dodge, you use your next available melee attack and may not borrow from the one after that for more defesnive actions that require an attack. However the number the character rolls to dodge, if it's successfurl or not, becomes the To Hit number for others to hit that character untill his next melee action comes up, (usually the one he borrowed from to make the dodge in the first place). So if a guy dodges on Segment 4 (rolling a 12 plus his +5 to dodge for a total of 17) and had to borrow from his next attack on Segment 8, then though he can't attack durring that term until his following attack on Segment 12, up to 8 others have to roll better than a 17 to hit him or the normal To Hit number (which ever is more benificial to the defender). On Segement 8 he is back to normal can can be hit with a normal roll... that is unless he borrows from his next melee action and dodges again. If the Dodging character is making the defensive maneuver on his normal action phase and has yet to use his melee attack, then that Dodge roll not only applies to the attack he's trying to avoid, but all subsequent attacke as above till his next melee attack comes up.

That's how I do it. It's simple, effective, and fair. Just like all rules should be.

Yep, I agree, that sounds like a pretty good system too. And since I assume you've actually playtested it, it's probably superior to mine, though the two are similar (basically the only difference is that yours uses the dodge roll to set the to hit number, while mine simply uses the dodge bonus as a to hit penalty, but doesn't change the true to-hit number). In fact, the thing I like better about yours is that even people with no dodge bonus still get a chance of some benefit after they've dodged, which was also an irksome point about mine. Thanks for the info (not that I'll probably ever run a Rifts campaign again, but it's still nice to have a good set of house rules to think about, hehe).

PigLick

[Dead Boy]

A good system from you both, been a while since people actually posted rational methods of dealing with the system. Now how do you deal with Auto-Dodge?

Auto-Dodge is an automatic action that is used to counter each and ever attack directed the character with that ability. It uses no melee actions so the character doesn't have to ever borrow from his next available melee action. However, it should be noted that normal Dodge bonuses do NOT stack with Auto-Dodge. Unless you have something that speciffically grants bonuses to Auto Dodge, it's more or less a straight roll of the D20, (though it is perfectly reasonable to allow a dodge bonus from an exceptionally high P.P.). Consequently there may be times when an Auto-Dodger may want to use a normal Dodge, like for instance if he fudges a roll for his Auto-Dodge and really, really doesn't want to eat the damage from this particual attack.

For simple combat movement, everyone apparently has forgotten the basic movement. Which is Spd = Ft per second.

Everyone?