Initiative and Reaction Skills

[Cowboy Hat]

I've read all the posts on Initiative and Reaction Skills that I can find and I'd like to ask two questions based on my findings:

1. Does anyone run the game exactly as they are written in SW 2nd Ed R&E?

Reason for question:

-It would seem from the other threads that most people don't run initiative and reaction skills as RAW.

Other people have stated.

Initiative penalizes people on "your side" if they don't have the highest score on "your side" and the player with the highest perception rolls low.

(also it seems bizarre and most other games don't do it like this - if they do it's only to combine 2 or more "mooks" (low levelled throwaway enemies) when PC's are facing very large numbers of enemies - i.e Feng Shui - Action Movie Game)

Reaction skills. You can take a first action with no modified dice pool and then declare a reaction skills with only a -1. Most people seem to think this is broken or at least not very clear in the RAW.

2. My second question is about Reaction Skills though to clarify, in regards to Initiative I am going to run it where each person rolls and highest goes first followed by second highest etc until all combatants have acted per turn. This will be irrespective of "side".

With reaction skills I was thinking of running it one of three ways, could someone give me their ideas of the pro's and cons of each?

a) Everyone declares how many actions they are going to take per round but not what they are. If someone has declared only one action he may roll full defense as a reaction skill but no other action that round. If someone has declared multiple actions he can take a reaction skill with the -mod at any point.

b) As D6 Space (paraphrased). - On your turn you may declare a full defense or multiple actions where one of actions these may be a reaction defense. These defense scores come into effect after your turn in the round. You can't react to an attack before this as you just weren't fast enough.

c) You may use a reaction skill at any time, however if you haven't declared it you will incur an additional -1 die penalty. i.e in the example previously - if you act on no penalty and then you declare later that round to take a reaction skill you suffer -1 for multiple action and then another -1 for an undeclared reaction skill.


Sorry if that's a little long, I wanted to be clear in what I was saying - and I can only hope that I have!

Thanks.
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"The Force will be with you. Sometimes."

[cheshire]

[Cowboy Hat]

[Ankhanu]

[Cowboy Hat]

[garhkal]

[jmanski]

We do (A) as well, seems to work well.

For initiative, we do sides so it will go faster.
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Blasted rules. Why can't they just be perfect?

[garhkal]

I have fluctuated between sides and having them go in perception order.. Where they roll their perception that is.
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Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[jmanski]

We tried that once but IRC it was a lot of paperwork
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Blasted rules. Why can't they just be perfect?

[Cowboy Hat]

I'm sort of bumping this as it's been awhile (well about a year) since I posted the thread and I've actually got the time to play.

I was hoping to get a few more answers (though all the ones I've got are great) as Initiative/MAP/Reaction Skills are almost universally agreed as broken (and those who don't believe they are broken should at least agreed they are hotly debated).

I'll probably only have 2/3 players and I'm still not sure which way I should run it, but with small amount of players I was thinking of dropping each side goes first and allowing each participant in a fight to act on their own initiative.
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"The Force will be with you. Sometimes."

[Rerun941]

Well, I kinda fall back to a modified form of the 1st Ed initiative rules. There's a declaration phase and a resolution phase.

Everyone rolls Perception and declares actions in the order from lowest to highest (more perceptive PCs see things coming). If they don't declare a dodge/defensive action right then or declare a spare action to keep in reserve for a reaction, they don't get one.

Then everyone rolls their actions and remembers the numbers. Actions are then resolved from highest roll to lowest roll. (e.g. If you get a 26 on your Blaster attack roll, it goes before an opponent's Blaster shot of 21. And if the bad guy got a 27 for his Dodge roll, your shot misses.)
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Luke - "Same as always."
Han - "That bad, huh?"

[Cowboy Hat]

[Rerun941]

[Cowboy Hat]

That's interesting and I might try it. (Might try a few actually in some faux combat games)

I've been playing a lot of Cortex recently, well Serenity but using the updated combat rules, and they seem very similar to how I would run Star Wars (yes it's a different system but it has similar MAP penalties and that seems to work okay.

I was thinking that it could be translated easily enough into Star Wars D6 - in fact rather than say -1 step penalty you just say -1 dice penalty.

I don't have either books here but I believe the updated cortex rules work as follows:

1 single turn between two people in a fight, turn = 3 seconds.

EDIT: I think turn and round are more ambiguous in cortex as everyone acts (has a turn) within the round of three seconds. I think. Might be wrong. There is just that chance.

You can take up to 3 actions (normally) in a turn after the first (with -1,-2 etc dice step reductions) depending on GM fiat and whether the dice step reduction will reduce to 0 or not.

Person who initiates fight gets to go first (I ignore this unless it's a surprise attack)

Roll for initiative

1st person attacks but has no penalty as first action

2nd person uses static defence which doesn't count as an action.

2nd person attacks but has no penalty as first action

1st person uses a dodge which can be taken at any time = 1 step penalty

1st person takes a swing for 2 step penalty

2nd person uses static defence which doesn't count as an action.

2nd person attacks with a 2 step penalty

1st person takes a dodge which can be taken at any time = 3 step penalty

1st person can't go again (4 actions in 3 seconds is the limit)

2nd person can attack again with a 3 step penalty

1st person can only use static defence.


I think that's how it works (although someone who plays cortex and has the book (and the sw book) to hand might be able to give a better example. Personally I'd only use a maximum of 3 actions but gave 4 to hopefully get my example across.

Also, the boss is looking.
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"The Force will be with you. Sometimes."

[Bren]