[Pentanima] Initiative and Turns

[AmbroseCollector]

I've been writing a game for about a month, now, and have a good 55 pages of material, but there are problems I routinely encounter when running battles.

The resolution mechanic of the game involves adding an Attribute and a Skill together to find a Target Number (TN), and rolling 2d6 under the TN.  High numbers are better, as long as they are under the TN.

More dice than the normal 2 can be gained with use of Techniques (gifts that require the expenditure of the Pneuma guage) or particularly snazzy or appropriate descriptions.  Dice gained by this second method are called style dice.

Combat is broken up into turns, and turns are broke up into Actions and Reactions.  Actions are things like attacks and most offensive Techniques, where as Reactions are dodges, parries, and certain Techniques that allow for counterattacks or enhanced dodges.

The problem, as I see it, is in the determining of turn order and the allottment of Reactions, which I've excerpted below.

All combatants make an Agility + Focus check at the beginning of each turn to determine action order.  Style dice MAY be used on this roll, if the character can think of a really cool reason to go first.  Characters then perform thier actions in order of highest to lowest number shown on the dice.  Ties are resolved with an Evens-or-Odds roll.  Note that turn order is unrelated by success or failure on the dice.

Characters who succeed this role may also make one Reaction this turn in addition to their Action.  Characters who failed or who otherwise make a Reaction without one available must sacrifice their Action.

If a character has no actions and no reactions, he can do nothing except activate Instant techniques.

I like this system in that it makes it dynamic as to whether or not a character is able to, for instance, attack AND dodge.  It also limits the number of dodges possible based on speed.  Half my group complains that this slows battle down, and are irritated by the system, the other half like it a lot.

Do you have any ideas on how to speed this process up, while maintaining the allottment of reactions as a dynamic value?

[TonyLB]

For sheer speed, why not just give folks who succeed on their Initiative roll the chance to immediately pull some sort of stunt out of their bag-o-tricks which gives them a defensive bonus against one attack of their choice?  It seems, intuitively, as if it would be faster.  Is the difference between a Reaction decided upon at the time of the attack, and a bonus allotted at the time of Initiative worth slowing down your system?