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griff
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 Posted: Mon Sep 24, 2018 11:19 pm Post subject: |
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I concur.
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CRMcNeill
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| Posted: Mon Sep 24, 2018 11:30 pm Post subject: |
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And if you had been just a bit quicker, you could've concurred concurrently.
8)
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CRMcNeill
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| Posted: Sun Dec 16, 2018 12:26 am Post subject: |
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A thought on this...
Should it be possible to declare a Concurrent Action as a reaction to something else? Say, for instance, that a Jedi attempts to block a blaster bolt with his lightsaber, but misses. Should he then be allowed to attempt to bring up Absorb/Dissipate Energy with an appropriate Haste penalty?
Another combat possibility for non-Force users. In the Palladium system, they had a back-up save where, if a character took a hit for damage, they could Roll with Punch/Fall/Impact in an attempt to reduce damage. The title is a bit of a mouthful, but I picture a character sent flying through the air from an explosion who, through training and reflexes, twists in mid-air to turn his flight into a more controlled tumble to reduce damage.
Or perhaps a snap-shot with a ranged weapon, where a target doesn't present itself until after the actions have been declared, like a character who was hiding out of sight when the round began, but declared he was going to make a break for it. A character who wished to stop him could declare a snap-shot and attempt to hit him - with appropriate CAP penalties - even though he hadn't declared that he would do this at the beginning of the round.
IMO, this could very easily cross the line into D&D 3.0 Attack of Opportunity territory, but I think there may be something to it with appropriate limits.
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nuclearwookiee
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| Posted: Fri Dec 21, 2018 3:29 am Post subject: |
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| CRMcNeill wrote: | | Should it be possible to declare a Concurrent Action as a reaction to something else? |
I would think so, as long as the character is capable of reacting in more than one way and those reactions are capable of being performed concurrently.
| CRMcNeill wrote: | | Say, for instance, that a Jedi attempts to block a blaster bolt with his lightsaber, but misses. Should he then be allowed to attempt to bring up Absorb/Dissipate Energy with an appropriate Haste penalty? |
I could see allowing that, but in my opinion, the player couldn't react by declaring a parry, failing, and then reacting with Absorb/Dissipate Energy. The player would have to declare all concurrent reactions to a single triggering event at the same time. That means the character would roll the parry and Absorb/Dissipate checks at an extra -2d (-1d MAP for Absorb/Dissipate Energy's Control roll and another -1 CAP for doing it concurrent with parrying).
| CRMcNeill wrote: | | Another combat possibility for non-Force users. In the Palladium system, they had a back-up save where, if a character took a hit for damage, they could Roll with Punch/Fall/Impact in an attempt to reduce damage. The title is a bit of a mouthful, but I picture a character sent flying through the air from an explosion who, through training and reflexes, twists in mid-air to turn his flight into a more controlled tumble to reduce damage. |
This sounds like more an issue of adding other skills to 2d ed.'s list of reaction skills. If you use a skill like d6 Space's Acrobatics skill in your game, I could see letting a player roll that as a reaction to being hit--not as a reaction to being attacked. I wouldn't treat it as an action concurrent with dodging or parrying because it is a reaction to a separate triggering event. But MAPs would apply as normal.
| CRMcNeill wrote: | Or perhaps a snap-shot with a ranged weapon, where a target doesn't present itself until after the actions have been declared, like a character who was hiding out of sight when the round began, but declared he was going to make a break for it. A character who wished to stop him could declare a snap-shot and attempt to hit him - with appropriate CAP penalties - even though he hadn't declared that he would do this at the beginning of the round.
IMO, this could very easily cross the line into D&D 3.0 Attack of Opportunity territory, but I think there may be something to it with appropriate limits. |
This also sounds like an issue of deciding whether to add a skill to the list of reaction skills. The real question here is: Do you want Blaster to be a reaction skill?
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CRMcNeill
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| Posted: Fri Dec 21, 2018 1:53 pm Post subject: |
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| nuclearwookiee wrote: | | I could see allowing that, but in my opinion, the player couldn't react by declaring a parry, failing, and then reacting with Absorb/Dissipate Energy. The player would have to declare all concurrent reactions to a single triggering event at the same time. That means the character would roll the parry and Absorb/Dissipate checks at an extra -2d (-1d MAP for Absorb/Dissipate Energy's Control roll and another -1 CAP for doing it concurrent with parrying). |
The way I see it happening in universe, a Jedi/Sith would attempt a Lightsaber Parry against multiple shots, recognize he lacks the skill to parry them all, and parry as many as he can while using Absorb/Dissipate to get the ones he couldn't. The precognition inherent to many Jedi abilities makes this plausible. Unfortunately, at the gaming table, there is no way to simulate results until the dice are actually rolled, so this would simulate the effects of precognition after the fact, with the CAP penalty representing the necessity of taking that sudden, unplanned action.
The best example I can think of this is in the trailer for The Old Republic, where Satele Shan duels Darth Malgus on Alderaan. Malgus damages her saber and goes for the killing blow, but she takes the lightsaber blow to her palm using Absorb/Dissipate to soak the damage. It's an awesome scene, but there's no method under the RAW to duplicate it, as Absorb/Dissipate has to be declared in advanced (and IIRC can't even be used as a reaction skill).
It's still not a guarantee of success, since the stacked MAP/CAP penalties add up pretty quickly, but it could make for some pretty dramatic Force Point moments at the right place and time...
| Quote: | | This sounds like more an issue of adding other skills to 2d ed.'s list of reaction skills. If you use a skill like d6 Space's Acrobatics skill in your game, I could see letting a player roll that as a reaction to being hit--not as a reaction to being attacked. I wouldn't treat it as an action concurrent with dodging or parrying because it is a reaction to a separate triggering event. But MAPs would apply as normal. |
That's fair. Instead of Acrobatics, I'd probably use Agility (Dodge and Running combined into a single skill), although I'm not sure the regular MAP is sufficient to represent the added difficulty of doing this unexpectedly...
| Quote: | | This also sounds like an issue of deciding whether to add a skill to the list of reaction skills. The real question here is: Do you want Blaster to be a reaction skill? |
I'm not sure Reaction skills are the right description, since Reactions as defined in the RAW are exclusively defensive in nature. That's why I mentioned Attacks of Opportunity, as this is almost the mirror image of a defensive reaction. I'd say it's more like an additional rule in parallel with Reaction, and not an addition to it.
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nuclearwookiee
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| Posted: Fri Dec 21, 2018 3:17 pm Post subject: |
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| CRMcNeill wrote: | | The best example I can think of this is in the trailer for The Old Republic, where Satele Shan duels Darth Malgus on Alderaan. Malgus damages her saber and goes for the killing blow, but she takes the lightsaber blow to her palm using Absorb/Dissipate to soak the damage. It's an awesome scene, but there's no method under the RAW to duplicate it, as Absorb/Dissipate has to be declared in advanced (and IIRC can't even be used as a reaction skill). |
That is an awesome scene. You know, I looked up Absorb/Dissipate Energy last night. You are right that the text of that power doesn't explicitly state that it can be used as a reaction. That said, the example of the power given on 2d ed. R&E p. 143 totally uses it as a reaction in place of the Dodge skill: " A stormtrooper is shooting at Ana. Rather than dodge behind cover, she decides to use absorb/dissipate energy to absorb the shot." So I think the power does actually work the way you want it to.
The problem for your Jedi/Sith who realizes he can't keep up with all the parrying is that Absorbing/Dissipating multiple shots is much harder. Absorb/Dissipate energy is a one-time deal when it comes to shrugging off damage. Each time you get attacked, you're making a new roll at an additional -1d MAP. In contrast, under RAW, parrying is roll once for the entire round. So unless the Jedi/Sith's Control skill is way better than his combined Lightsaber and Sense skills, he's pretty much always going to do a better job parrying than Absorbing/Dissipating. I agree that it makes sense that a Jedi/Sith should be able to use Absorb/Dissipate as a backup, and you're right that the rules just aren't set up for that.
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CRMcNeill
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| Posted: Fri Dec 21, 2018 6:26 pm Post subject: |
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Using Absorb/Dissipate as a reaction would be possible as written, if it is used in combination with Danger Sense. The shooter would have to declare his shot the round before, giving the Force user time to declare Absorb/Dissipate as a normal action, not as a reaction.
And I agree that it absolutely should be more difficult to pull this off "on the fly," so the MAP/CAP would be perfectly appropriate. I very much picture what Satele Shan did there as a Force Point moment, where she was pretty much out of options, and it was either die on Malgus' blade or go for a Hail Mary.
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.
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Zulgyan
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| Posted: Tue Feb 05, 2019 11:04 am Post subject: |
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| The Haste system is not worth the trouble, at all. |
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CRMcNeill
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| Posted: Tue Feb 05, 2019 1:13 pm Post subject: |
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| Zulgyan wrote: | | The Haste system is not worth the trouble, at all. |
Not as written, but nuclearwookiee's Concurrent Action Penalty is an excellent evolution of the idea.
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Zulgyan
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| Posted: Tue Feb 05, 2019 3:41 pm Post subject: |
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This whole haste system and it's corrections is rather "rules playing" to me: finding good strats within the confines of the rule system alone.
When I play SW, and 1E especially, I just want an easy system that can let me run SW adventures with my friends. The resulting stories is what matters, not so much the fiddly rule subsystems.
I usually play SW with just casual RPGers. I can get a more intricate system if you are more into hardcore gaming.
Last edited by Zulgyan on Tue Feb 05, 2019 4:21 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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CRMcNeill
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| Posted: Tue Feb 05, 2019 4:10 pm Post subject: |
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I'm not sure exactly what you're trying to say here. You're not going to find a "strat" (whatever that is) for every scenario you can potentially face in a game, and WEG straight-up said it's expected that we will invent new rules to suit our games (see my signature for the reference). Sure, the 1E Haste Rule was a flop, but that doesn't mean the idea itself is worthless, so long as a decent way can be found to apply it.
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.
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Whill
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| Posted: Thu Oct 08, 2020 12:37 am Post subject: Re: 1e's Haste System |
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| nuclearwookiee wrote: | | To you 1e experts: Is the Rules Companion the first time 1e's haste system is discussed? If not, could you kindly point me in the right direction?... |
I remember always skipping over this thread after my initial post in it because of how much I dislike Haste. I ran the RAW combat round for all three iterations of the 1e rules as they came out. Haste sounded great at first but then everyone started trying to out-haste each other and there were a lot of spectacular failures when it made more tactical sense to not haste and if the enemy's attack ended up happening first to have the most dice available for dodging and subsequent actions. So Haste looks good on paper, but as a GM that had a lot of practical experience with it, it was more trouble than it is worth.
Then in 2e we finally got initiative which was a step in the right direction, but the combat round was still a bit wonky. Then in R&E the combat round was finally perfected to initiative orders, when it came to your turn you only declare the number of actions for MAP calculation purposes and roll your first action, all actions occur as they are rolled, reactions can be rolled as they happen adjusting the MAP for the rest of the round. No rolls wasted because for actions that end up not occurring.
Haste was designed for 1e which had no initiative. I hate Haste even more when considering it for an initiative system. I like initiative. Haste in 2e would be unnecessary crunch to defeat initiative. Initiative is much simpler, and in my experience it is more fun for everyone when you just have to accept the randomness of who goes first and make the best of it.
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Whill
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| Posted: Thu Oct 08, 2020 12:44 am Post subject: |
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I had an idea for statting out the special abilities of my homebrewed 4-armed Verinex, my homebrewed 4-tentacled Sarpah, and the 6-handed Ardennians (which has 4 arms and 2 legs that work as arms with feet that work as hands). In the Verinex thread Nexx brought up giving characters MAP-free actions, but I don't like that because it's too powerful of a benefit. Even if it is only one extra action, it doubles the amount of actions that most characters can do without penalty and could benefit too many skills.
Last night or today, I thought of an alternative I like better. Instead of giving them extra unpenalized actions, how about letting them do more than one action simultaneously, but still with normal MAPs on all actions? That made me think of the word "concurrent" which I had seen at the bottom of CRM's stats/rules index. Which lead me to nuclearwookiee's thread on Haste where this came up so I finally read this thread...
| nuclearwookiee wrote: | I'm wondering if 1e's haste rules couldn't be tweaked and combined with the later editions' initiative rules as a way to perform simultaneous actions. Here's how it could work. Determine initiative according to your preferred method. If you follow 2e R&E pp. 77-78, decide how many sides are in the battle and roll the highest Perception for each side. Then have the players declare how many actions their characters will take in the round. As usual, a character who takes more than one action in a round suffers a -1d multiple action penalty (MAP) for each additional action beyond the first. If a character who takes more than one action in a round wishes to perform two or more of those actions simultaneously, the character also suffers a -1d simultaneous action penalty (SAP) for each additional action performed simultaneously with the first. MAP and SAP are cumulative.
Example 1. A gunslinger wielding two pistols with a Blaster skill of 7d turns a corner and comes face-to-face with a pair of stormtroopers. The PC wins initiative, and his player declares two actions: a blaster shot at each trooper. But not wanting to give either trooper a chance to get a shot off, the gunslinger's player declares that the shots will be simultaneous. The gunslinger will make both attacks at 5d (7d skill -1d MAP for performing two actions and -1d SAP for performing two actions simultaneously), but both attacks will resolve before either stormtrooper gets a chance to shoot back.
Example 2. Let's say the gunslinger, who has a Running skill of 5d, is still worried about being shot at by the troopers. His player instead declares three actions: one shot at each stormtrooper and a movement action to get to cover. But again, the player doesn't want to give the stormtroopers a chance to react before completing these actions. So the gunslinger's player declares that all three actions will be simultaneous--i.e., he will fire both weapons at the same time while running to cover. Both attacks would be rolled at 3d (7d skill -2d MAP for performing three actions and -2d SAP for performing three actions simultaneously), and the gunslinger would roll only 1d for his Running check.
Example 3. For a more complicated example, a Jedi Knight wielding her lightsaber with a Control skill of 6d, a Sense skill of 6d, and a Lightsaber skill of 7d knows that she is about to be attacked by a Sith apprentice, but the Jedi wins initiative and decides to go first. The Jedi wishes to raise Lightsaber Combat (LSC), so her player declares two actions: the Control and Sense rolls required to raise LSC. But wanting to have the power up (to boost her parry roll) before she is attacked on the Sith's turn, the Jedi's player declares that the Control and Sense rolls will be made simultaneously. Both rolls will be rolled at 4d (6d skill -1d MAP for performing two actions and -1d SAP for performing two actions simultaneously). If the Jedi succeeds in raising LSC and then decides to roll her Lightsaber skill to parry on the Sith's turn, her Lightsaber roll to parry will be rolled at 7d (three actions = -2d MAP, two simultaneous actions = -1d SAP; which reduces her Sense skill from 6d to 3d and her Lightsaber skill from 7d to 4d; and adding her Lightsaber skill of 4d and Sense skill of 3d under LSC = 7d).
As these examples demonstrate, this proposed rule can be used to reproduce some combat maneuvers found in other gaming systems, such as dual wielding (examples 1 and 2) and spring attack (example 2). But these examples also demonstrate that the penalties for performing simultaneous actions add up quickly. This rule could be abused only by highly advanced characters when interacting with relatively low-skill adversaries (which imo, isn't the worst thing). And of course, the GM will need to decide which actions can be performed simultaneously.
Thoughts? |
This is definitely a different concept than Haste, which is trying to get the first action of a round. Your turn still comes wherever in the round it normally would based on initiative, but at that point you are adding extra actions to your turn. Honestly I think the extra -1D penalty for each simultaneous action (on top of normal MAPs based on total number of actions) make this house rule fair and not game breaking. You have to really pay to do it. I probably won't want to implement this in my game because it is just another choice for a player to possibly labor over and the combat round works fine without this option. But if a GM and player group are all ok with it, I don't see anything wrong with it. This is way better than Haste.
I agree that the Absorb/Dissipate power make sense to be used as a reaction (regardless of the concurrent action rule). That appears to be what Vader was doing with Solo on Bespin, unless the rule writer's interpretation was that Vader prepared the power since he knew they were coming and figured Solo would probably try to shoot him (he wouldn't be Han if he didn't).
| nuclearwookiee wrote: | | The SAP rule alone lets you pull off another type of quick draw common to RPGs. Without using HSatCS's speed-drawing rule, you can still use the SAP rule to draw a weapon from a holster (first action) and simultaneously shoot (second action) at -1d MAP and -1d SAP. Quickdraw holsters that add to a character's Blaster skill (see HSatCS pp. 121-22, stating that quickdraw holsters add +1 to +2d to Blaster skill when quickdrawing) could simply be used as written to offset these MAP and SAP penalties. The speed component would just be the initiative roll. |
I bolded nukewook's last sentence because this is key. Bringing quick-draw into it is taking this concept backwards to Haste. Concurrent Actions aren't competing to be first in the round like a quickdraw scenario. I think the Concurrent Action rule option only makes sense if Initiative is still king. Concurrent Actions may let you combine the draw and the first shot, but which side goes first still depends on Initiative.
If you really want to make sure you go first in a round when it really counts, spend an FP that round which will also boost your Perception, and if that makes you the highest Perception on your side then you roll Initiative at double your Perception. Initiative is still king, and spending an FP to boost it is a special occurrence and not something you can try every round.
| CRMcNeill wrote: | I browsed that rule when I got my copy of the Rules Companion a few months back, but never really took the time to grok it.
It almost sounds like the D6 version of D20's Attack of Opportunity mechanic... |
I don't think Haste is like Attacks of Opportunity, and I read the subsequent attempts in this thread to also bring this d20 concept into Concurrent Actions.
I was a player in multiple D&D 3e and 3.5 campaigns. From what I remember, Attacks of Opportunity are when a character or monster moves or attacks someone nearby another enemy in such a way that their defenses would be at a disadvantage, so "provokes" a free attack from that nearby enemy as a reaction to it. Like if a monster is attacking someone else in my party while they are nearby me but facing away from me towards the other character, or moving in front of my character when not engaging me (and thus not properly defending themselves against me). D&D is not an action-based game system like D6. It has static defenses built in and a single "attack" may technically be the sum of multiple separate actions all rolled into one roll. Also, it is dependent on how miniatures are arranged on grid because character movements have grid-specific rules. I didn't care for Attacks of Opportunity when I played D&D and I hate the idea of it being folded into Star Wars D6.
I feel it is quite an alien concept for D6 to make things that are actions into reactions, and this is not the concept of concurrent actions anyway. Concurrent actions are when a single character choses to do multiple actions on their turn for actions. Concurrent actions is not adding an extra action for you when you are attacked. Your option at that point is to react or not to react, like in RAW.
You can do whatever you want in your game, but I think it is wise to parse these house rules of unrelated things like 'haste/quick-draw' and 'actions of opportunity' out of Concurrent Actions.
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