I.N.I. ; Action Point System

[Autocrat]

OK, I'm happy with Action Point systems for interracting, I'm OK with figuring who goes when....the problem I have is excessive AP scores and normal AP Scores.

Details:
All Characters, (P and NP) have Action Points.  These are used to perform actions in Action Scenes, (Combat mainly, or any scene when time or timing is important).
So, for Average Humans in a Realistic Earth setting, most people would have 10 AP.  All weapons have an Action Point Cost, (ranging from 3 to 9), the higher the APC, the slower the weapon.

Now, at the moment, it's simply a matter of people decide what they are going to do, and their APC decides the order of events, (those with lower APC go first etc.).


Now the problem occurs when you shift genre.... say you go to hero gaming in the sdense of Flash, Superman, Spiderman etc.  So, you have normal humans with the normal AP 10, then you have Chracters, (P or NP) who have scores exceeding this... sometimes greatly.  So what to do?

*Now I could do it on lower AP Characters call out first, yet act last.  This emulates the occurence of seeing an event and being fast enought to counter it.....yet the higher AP Characters will really beat everyone for quite some time, (AP10 to QP 40 means the chances are AP 10 will never accomplish anything as AP 40 will defeat them way before time!).

*I could break it down into 10's....you take the higher AP score, and work downwards from there, so AP 40 and three AP 20's and one AP10 would mean AP 40 gets upto 10 APC before anyone else can act, then you have AP 40 and the three AP 20's all acting at the same time, then you have all the Characters acting for the last 10 AP.
Kind of like Shadowrun?

*I could introduce initiative based on Character Speed or Reflex or what ever.  Who ever has the highest speed gets to act first.

*Icould introduce an Initiative modifier based on Speed or Reflex stats....so Who ever has the highest AP Score after applying the stat gets to goe first, (or after subtracting the APC...thus taking quicker actions pays of?).
Kind of like AD&D


So what fo people think.... what have they found they prefer and that works fairly well without getting to complicated?

[s3kt0r]

Well, I was working on an AP based combat system a while back, and my ideas for it and other suggestions that helped me can be found in this thread where I asked a similar question about really fast characters

Superhuman vs. Regular Human Combat Mechanics

Eventually, I discovered a wonderful game called Feng Shui that seems to be one best methods of using Action Points that captured the feel of what I was looking for.  Which method works best, I think depends on what you want the feel of the game to be.  You mentioned Shadowrun and I think the way their combat is set up gives it a gritty, dangerous feel.  Meeting a Street Samurai with a Move-by-Wire system is very intimidating because I know he has so many actions he can do while I'm twiddling my thumbs.  Feng Shui has a completely different feel and kind of works like your fourth option.  Faster characters get more moves, but it's not as exaggerated.

Anyway, I don't know if any of this helps, but that my two cents.

Greg

[Shreyas Sampat]

Idea dump:

I like the Shadowrun solution. The WW-style "initiative stack" thing has never worked for me.

One way to reduce the effect of excess AP could be to introduce "sinks" for AP, that encourage players to choose fewer actions:

Aim: Slow down your action to make it likelier to get a better result.

Split: You get a speed discount for doing the same action repeatedly (this is useful because repeating the same resolution is faster than doing several unrelated actions.)

Simultaneous: Do several things uninterruptibly. This is useful because, supposing you have some way for equally quick characters to prempt each other, you want preternaturally quick characters to have a way to circumvent that.

On the same token you could have a "shifting gears penalty" or something that penalizes doing many different things.

Instead of giving especially fast characters lots of AP, you could give them a discount on the AP cost of actions (assume you require at least 1 AP per action); then you can have a hard cap on how many actions are possible per turn.

[Autocrat]

... Shreyas Sampat ...

I'd thought of capping and of rewarding with reduced APC....what I'd come up with was that the characters can by AP, and when they hit XX AP, then they get a minus 1 APC to all actions, (effectively making them faster than others).
The problem with this was figuring what number to set the cap at, what AP score should they revert to, and the fact that it made certain thing become negative, (ie.  A normal character had 10 AP, a fast character had 15.  If the fast character went 10 AP yet had all actions at -1APC, great.  Yet if it went the other way, and the slower character reached 20AP, then reverted to 10 AP at -1 APC, they were worse of than they had been!  Things could be done quicker, yet they could do less!).
Another problem was that no other part of the game worked that way!


I'm just not sure how to do it!

I have a good idea what I want though!

I want it so that every gets a turn.
I want it so that faster characters don't get all their moves bundled together.
I want it so that things can be interupted.
I want it so that different actions, manouevres adn items have different costs.

I think I have all of this... yet something is missing.  When you reach a certain point, things go to the dogs, (really fast characters).


I think the only one that is really workable is to figure things as follows.
Have rounds/phases dictacted by the AP scores ,( worked in 10's).
  This measn that 30-40 goes first and can take actions upto 10 APC, (or higher if they are willing to go into the next round).
  20-30 then gets a go.
  10-20 then gets a go.
  1-10 then gets a go.

Each phase has Declaration and Action.  Declaration is when people state intent of action.  This is in order of slower to faster, which permits the faster characters to react to things as they happen.  Action then occurs in order of faster to slower, (reverse of declaration), permitting faster characters to act before the slower ones.

Now, would it be better if I included the Characters SPEED Stat into this somehow?  Maybe by basing the Declaration and Action order on Speed instead of AP, (as being able to do lots and being fast aren't necessarily the same thing?).

Yet There is still the problem really fast characters have a multitude of goes first.
(i.e. if using a long sword takes 5 AP, then a character with 30 AP could swing it six times, where as a character with only 10 could swing it twice.  This is fine, apart from the fact that the fast character can do it 4 times before the other can act!).
How can I get around that problem?

Whats more, I had an idea about the initialising and concluding of actions.
At the moment, I have only one APC listed for weapons/actions etc.
What would happen if you fired an arrow at long range.....the target might be able to react before it occurs.  This means that you can keep track of when things occur.  Doesn't this suggest that maybe a second number is required, when that states when things start to happen, so you know when things are nolonger interuptable?
If using the long sword takes 5 AP, then the first 1 or 2 AP might be the readying and swinging, (perfec t for interupting!).....4 to 5 AP might be the closing and striking, (which is to late to interupt, yet just right to defend against!)

so, any other ideas?

... s3kt0r ...
thanks for the link... it kind of helped, yet it got rather heavy and refered to alot of systems I haven't used![/b]

[Jack Aidley]

If you reduce the AP costs of actions you will have an uneven effect on the difference that makes.

Imagine your AP3 weapon with a APC30 chararacter. Without a change in AP for the weapon they can use it 10 times, with a 1 point reduction they can use it 15 times. Now imagine they are using an AP9 weapon, usually they can use it 3 times (3.33 if you're carrying over). While with a 1 point reduction he can now use it 3 times (3.75 if you're carrying over).

So with a AP3 weapon he gets a 50% bonus, while with an AP9 weapon he either gets nothing, or a 12.5% bonus depending on whether you are carrying or not.

Is this a mechanical effect you are looking for?

[s3kt0r]

If using the long sword takes 5 AP, then the first 1 or 2 AP might be the readying and swinging, (perfec t for interupting!).....4 to 5 AP might be the closing and striking, (which is to late to interupt, yet just right to defend against!)

Alot of your process here is going in the same direction I went in when I was working on an AP combat system.  What I got it down to was essentially breaking up combat in 1/4 second rounds.  I know that sounds a little crazy, but hear me out because essentially this is what you're talking about here.  

A player declares an action.  Every action has a certain number of rounds (or # of AP) that it will take.  So, swinging a sword is 5 rounds, pulling a gun from a holster is 2, picking a lock during combat would be 20 or something like that.  There are three different types of "cancels".  Some actions are completely cancelable, like picking a lock or pulling a gun from a holster.  There's no penalty for canceling these actions.  There's impossible cancels.  These are actions that cannot be cancelled once initiated, or if you like, after a certain number of rounds.  These are things like jumping or lobbing a grenade, or maybe even the arrow in the air that you mentioned.  These are things that once you commit, you have no choice but to allow them to come to a conclusion.  And thirdly are cancels that require a test.  Say for example, your swinging the sword.  Halfway through your swing you change your mind.  Then you have to make a strength test to see if you have the strength to pull back your blow.  Depending on the results of the test, you may pull it back completely or you still hit but with less force than you would of.  As a player gets better in any particular skill he can start buying down certain actions as he becomes faster at it.  So instead of 5 rounds to swing a sword it takes 4 and so on.  

When doing ranged combat, you had to spend a round to aquire a target.  After that you could shoot except that the target numbers for the test were set very high so you were forced to spend a number of rounds aiming "off" the target number.  You spent one round to pull the trigger, when you felt the target number had dropped within your means of hitting.  This meant skilled gunners could take a shot before a lesser skilled one.  It was also somewhat of a gamble to shoot instantly after aquiring your target.

I have quite a bit more worked out on this, so if it interests you at all, I can explain more or answer any other questions.  Eventually I scrapped this all together, though.  It met my requirements, which were similar to the four that you mention, but it was far too crunchy.  I did take these rules to make a game in the spirit of a computer FPS.  It's played without a GM and works surpisingly well with two people.  I've played with three and could tell that too many more people and it would start to get bogged down.

Anyway, take it or leave it.  I'm just throwing out a few ideas to see if they help you at all.  I don't think this sytem would work in a regular RPG unless your looking for something really crunchy, but maybe it will help you think of something else.

Greg

[Umberhulk]

I like a strike rank system.  You could have characters have so many strike ranks (or actions, or whatever you want to call them) and then have a set numeric scale that the strikes happen.  1-20 or 1-12 or 1-10.  Then you have the characters roll that many d20s or d12s or d10s for each strike rank they have.  You then count up or down the scale and have the characters act on their rolled strikes.  Fast characters could reroll some of their strike ranks or + or - bump them perhaps.  I think this has been done in Deadlands with cards, though I have never played the game.  This is less "crunchy", faster to play, and spreads the actions out compared to a traditional initiative rank system.

[contracycle]

Another way to "sink" AP - which I think is probably the key concept - is to employ them in the resoluytion in a trade off manner.  I don't know how detailed the AP system is, but perhaps it might be better to cluster actions - like a flurry of blows for 20AP, or a feint-thrust for 8 AP or whatever.  Another trade off would be bonusses, so perhaps padding the minimum 5 AP for a blow with additional AP gives you an attack or damage bonus or something.

I think quite possibly once you have established the framework of what AP represent, in a fairly strict manner, you might be able to bundle things (possibly with a discount to prompt players to take it up) and present those bundles as the discrete entities about which to make decisions.

[Ben Morgan]

I like what Contracycle proposes, however, if you go in that direction, the system starts looking more like TROS (which is most certainly not a Bad Thing).

-- Ben

[Autocrat]

well, firstly, thank you for the posts... most helpful.  :)

Right then....

... Jack Aidley ...
What you pointed out has come to my attention!
The only saving grace is that the lesser affective stuff tends to have lower AP, (those that cause less damage etc.).  So, even with the optional rules for distratction, Disruption and Delay, it's not likely a dagger will succeed at doing much other than little bits of damage, (admittedly, 10 attacks would still hurt a ton though :) )
It's one of the trade offs you have to decide on really, the really cool big affective weapons and attacks tend to take a lot of time to prep, bring to bear, fire or that, so you can do less with them, yet when you do, they tend to do considerably more than the lesser items.
Sound fair?
(of course, guns tend to make this a little blury! LOL)


... s3kt0r ...
Yes, I'd like to hear/see more of it!.
I must admit to two things.  The first is I really like AP, they work fine for me.  The second is that I can see that some people will find them fidley and to detailed!
So, hopefully any light/info you give on the aspect would be helpfull, as it means that I can improve what I have, and generate an alternative as well!


... Umberhulk ...
OK, not sure I got the grasp of that one?
SO, is it a case of what ever your number is, you can act hten, or in multiples?
Or is it more like you roll aX# of die depending on your score, and act in accordance of them?
Or something else...?
Please let me know!

... contracycle ...
Ah, this is the reason I like AP so much.... it permits great variation, tactics and the blessings of special actions!
I have a Manouevres section of rules, (Optional/advanced), that permit speciofic moves and actions for all sorts of combat, ranging brawling, martial arts and melee to ranged combat and firearms.....things like the Basics---block, parry, trip, jab, guard, kneel, underhand swing etc., the Advanced---lunge, parry-riposte, snapshot, spinning hook kick, leaping punch, haft choke etc., and then the Specials---Triple kick, split kick, crushing blow, disarm & pin etc.
Using the basic X costs XX works OK, it's just that the n8umbers have to be even/fair to work well, otherwise it gets a little one sided!


So saying, more info/ideas welcome!

Also, how about, keeping with the idea that all characters have AP, and that all actions have an APC, how about you still take turns........you go round and round until everyone has spent their AP limit.
The advantage is that low APC still happens before hi APC, Fast Characters can still act before slow characters, and those with huge amounts of AP get alot of actions if they use little APC, or get several large actions, they till perform more than a lesser AP Character would!
Sound OK?
Does that still simulate roughly how things would occur?
[/b]

[Umberhulk]

... Umberhulk ...
OK, not sure I got the grasp of that one?
SO, is it a case of what ever your number is, you can act hten, or in multiples?
Or is it more like you roll aX# of die depending on your score, and act in accordance of them?
Or something else...?
Please let me know!

Basically, you get to perform one action on each of the numbers that you roll.  Say you have two guys fighting.  Fighter X has 3 strike ranks and Fighter Y has 2 strike ranks.  Fighter X rolls 3d20 and gets 1, 5, 17.  Fighter Y rolls 2d20 and 3 and 18.  Say the order goes high to low, therefore the actions would be Y, X, X, Y, X.

On each of your "strikes" you get to take an action, which could be moving your (combat round move) / # of Strike Ranks, make an attack, ready a weapon, or other such things that you rate as 1 action or strike unit of work.  So strike ranks can equate to quickness not necessarily foot speed.

You could have Fighter X have Combat Reflexes and therefore he gets to reroll one of his strikes.  He picks up the "1" and rerolls and gets a 19.  The new order would be X, Y, X, X, Y.

[Autocrat]

OK, that makes sense!
Thank you.


Right then, so what do people think of having the following;

SPEED, A Primary Stat.  This is used to establish order of action, those with the higher scores get to declare actions last, yet take actions first, (where as lower scores declare first and act last!).

ACTION POINTS.  This stat measures how much a Character can do in a Phase of time in a Scene,(or round etc.).  Those with low AP make less actions than those with higher AP's.

PHASE.  A unit of time for actions to be made in.

SUB-PHASE.  THese are the units of time for rotation of action, as actions occur in a sequence of low AP to Hi AP.  Once every one has had a turn, then you enter a new sub-phase.

SO, THE SEQUENCE OF EVENTS WOULD BE.....

Character------SPEED-------AP
XXX.................20...............8
YYY..................15..............13
ZZZ.................25...............10

The order of Declaration would be; YYY, XXX, ZZZ.
The order of Action would be; ZZZ, XXX, YYY.


Then you can have fun with figuring whose actions occur before the others be counting the APC for each Character.....

Character----Declaration----Action--APC SP1--APC SP2--APC SP3
XXX..................2nd.............2nd......4 APC.......3 APC.......6 APC
YYY...................1st..............3rd......2 APC.......7 APC.......4 APC
ZZZ..................3rd..............1st......5 APC........6 APC.......3 APC

The order of Declaration would be; YYY, XXX, ZZZ.
The order of Initialisation would be; ZZZ, XXX, YYY.
The order of Events in Sub-Phase 1 would be; YYY, XXX, ZZZ.
The order of Events in Sub-Phase 1 would be; XXX, ZZZ, YYY.
The order of Events in Sub-Phase 1 would be; ZZZ, YYY, XXX.

Now, thats all well and good, yet I have too problems with this....
1) It means that those characters with higher AP don't really get any benefit from having it apart from being able to perform really large actions, (which they will always be acting last!).
2) Theirs little or no benefit from having a higher SPEED Stat, as the order of action depends upon APC!

Shame, because that was so neat and tidy.  How about we tweak it somewhat.....hmmm.

[Autocrat]

OK, had a break, a coffee, lets see what I can come up with aided by wonder caffine!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

right then..... the previous post was OK, not fantastic ,yet has the basics covered.  Need to tackle the lack of multiple actions, yes?!?

Right, so how about Sub-Phases permit more than one action... actually make them, in AD&D terms the Rounds, and the Phase becomes a Turn.
Fine, All I've done there is slide the scale.
Damn it!
LOL

Right, you have SPEED, this decides how is fast, who is slow.  It dictates who declares first/last, (slower characters call first!), and then who initialises action in the reverse order, (so faster goes first!).
Fine.
Then you take your intended actions, spending the relevant APC.
Great.
Now, instead of moving on to the next round, and replenishing the AP of the Characters, how about the option of more actions?
Yep, no real problems there... depending on how much your original APC was to when you go next.  So even if a a Character has a low SPEED and AP Score, if they took no action, or a small action, then the chances are good that they can act before anyone else, even really fast characters..... OK, not brilliant, but workable.

I think what is lacking are some modifiers.
How about Burning AP to act faster?
Say you have 10 AP, have an APC of 5, yet want to get in quick, before the other guy..... you could spend some of your AP, say making a total of 7 or 8 APC.  It means you will likely have nothing left to use for that Phase, yet you may get in first!
Also, have carry overs.....so if you bide you time, you could act faster in the next Phase?
Sounds reasonable.

SO, how does that sound?

Instead of "tit for tat", you can have multiple actions, you can immediately act faster than normal by expending additional energy, or you can act faster later by biding your time!
Add that you can Interrupt, (Distract, Delay or Disrupt) your opponent by hitting them, you have the option for specific manouvres, re-positioning and posturing for defence/offence, and I think it's quite well rounded.

Still doesn't completely remove the problem of really high AP Scores though, does it!
Well, actually, it's not to bad so long as the Character with lots of AP isn't also the character with a really high SPEED Score!
That kind of acts as a retention barrier.... of course, if the Character has both, then your'e boned, really, really REALLY stuffed with cabbages and sugs!!

So, using what I've just compiled from notes, scraps of paper and out of my mug of coffee, can any one see what I've missed to limit the supra-AP Character?

[Runjikol]

Hi,

Use of AP's becomes really tough when scaling between 'super' and 'normals'. IMO this is because 'super' characters are just that; super.

Another method of tracking in terms of AP's or the who goes when framing that underpins AP's is with 'time costs'. This requires a different approach than the AP's that have been mentioned above. The work in terms of time units (whatever they may be) and any action taking a number of time units to complete. Some provisions:
-Any action may be ceased before completion.
-All actions have a minimum time unit cost of one.
-People acting at exactly the same point in time resolve actions simultaneously.
-People acting simultaneously against each other generally cannot react in any active way.

This caps the speed of any character that operates under this system. One can then scale the speed of characters by framing the time cost for 'normals' to complete most actions at something considerably higher than one (ie. 50). The scaling is then extended to account for the 'supers' with the fastest possible time to complete an action being one but an 'average-for-a-super' time cost being more like 10. The 'supers' will still be able to complete 4 actions to a normal's one action but that is part of the paradigm (IMO).

Detailed-time would then start at a point of zero and track forwards, time-unit by time-unit until an action is completed.

Ie. 'Anyone on 30? No. Anyone on 31? Yes; resolve actions.' etc.

Let's say that Abrogas takes 25 time units to complete his action and Bendix takes 26 units to complete his action. Both will be repeating the same action continuously. Abrogas will complete his action on 25, 50, 75, 100, etc. Bendix will complet his action on 26, 52, 78, 104, etc.

There are no 'rounds' per-se but for convenience the point in time, ie. how many time units have passed since detailed time started, can be reset to a more manageable number at any whim with a minor adjustment to all the figures.

I've only encountered one system that uses this and it is a homebrew/Indie-RPG. I am since adopting it as an 'advanced' optional way of tracking time in my own RPG.

Downside of this system is that it requires everyone to be fluent with it and capable of adding the time unit costs promptly (calculators might be req'd for some groups).

Well, that's my first post; hope it helps you towards a solution.

[Autocrat]

Runjikol

Sorry for the long delay in response... injured!
Still, thank you for the post.
What you suggested is in essence what I am aiming for, yet I kept being side tracked!
The model of time units was what was meant for Action Points, yet I guess I confused Speed and Reflex with them and got lost.

So what you put forth is basically along the same lines as my AP and Umberhulk's system about taking action on set multiples, (without the randomisation!).


Hmmm, now all I have to do is coble it all together so as to make it simple, quick and workable!
That should be fun!