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View Full Version : Original System [Homebrew System] Problem: The delicate action economy



Newwby
2014-03-07, 07:05 AM
The Intro
So (as I've mentioned in a handful of posts around the forum) I've been working on a sci-fi tabletop system for the better part of nine months now. It's currently on it's sixth revision since I started and I don't expect it'll ever see anything beyond getting posted on here for review or being a game for my friends and I to play. Like many things we do here, it's just a pet project that I do because I enjoy.

However I am deeply concerned with balance and making it a fair game - attempting to achieve the best possible balance between customisation of characters and limitation of game-breaking combinations. I realise that without a deeper look in to the system (it's not quite ready for that) most feedback I get on the subject is only going to be so helpful but what I'm mostly looking for are general thoughts and opinions, from people more versed in tabletop gaming, on the subject of action economies within gaming systems.

The Problem
The game uses a point-based action system. E.g. you have X amounts of action points per turn/round, if you don't use it all you don't save it until next round and you get the full X amount every round. No ability is going to allow a character to gain any amount of additional action nor affect the amount of action points another character has (although obviously they can impede what kinds of action they can take, by immobilising them in some fashion).

However, and I cannot remember my logic for it given it happened several revisions ago now*, characters do (VERY) slowly gain additional action points as they increase in experience. By maximum level they have roughly 50% more action points than a 1st level character.

My question is thus - HOW unbalancing do you find that? I have zero problem with a maximum level character kicking the ass of hordes of minimum level characters, and hopefully a tightly controlled attack/damage system will still make mid-level characters threatening, but what problems are there with systems that allow characters to take more actions that I may not have envisioned? Feel free to use any system you've played as an example, even homebrew. I'm always eager to read game systems.

Addendum
*It's probably written down somewhere but I'm not going through 600,000 words of notes (online word counter for folders) to find it.

*Edit* Found it, the logic is that more experienced characters are so used to doing things they do them slightly quicker, the net result of performing every action quicker meaning they can do more things in the same amount of time. So the players aren't getting more time, they're just doing things (things that used to take them longer) faster and fitting more in to a turn/round.

Segev
2014-03-07, 08:37 AM
Action economy is only delicate if you have one wherein enemies who are supposed to be on par with each other do not have the same number of actions available to one side than the other. Action deficit kills without an overwhelming advantage to compensate for it (e.g. a guy who can only act once per round but who cannot be hurt by his foes will likely win a straight up knock-down drag-out fight even against foes who can take a dozen actions each per turn). Therefore, if everybody is advancing at the same rate, foes of equal level will always have equal amounts of action available to them, so there's nothing delicate about it, there.

Where you will have break points is when you have foes of different levels facing each other, and the difference is across one of those action point divides. Obviously, this only matters if your action point difference does mean the difference between getting an extra action or not, but I'll assume it does (else the action point bonus is only meaningful when you reach a level where it finally does matter).

The question then becomes: how effective is a single action, and just how many extra actions are we talking about? Twice the actions is a lot deadlier than eleven-tenths of the actions (2:1 vs. 11:10). The other question is whether it costs actions to defend. This is a serious problem in the Palladium system; most methods for resolving actions in that system (and every GM has a variant, because I've yet to get a clear explanation of how the resolution precisely works without a GM's house rule to make a judgment call somewhere) mean that somebody with even an equal number of actions who goes first can lock down somebody else, completely denying them actions unless that "somebody else" is willing to allow his foe a free shot with no defense.

But, from the description in the OP, as long as equal-level foes are all that face each other, there's nothing breaking about it at all.

Newwby
2014-03-07, 09:15 AM
It only strikes me now, after reading your post, that the enemies should have an equal advancing bonus. At no point did I decide they shouldn't but I just hadn't gotten round to revising the opponent templates to include it.


In this post I'm going to give more information on the system so things I say elsewhere make sense. I didn't do so in the first post as not to try and make sure most of the replies are directed toward game system action economy in general, not tailored toward my system.

Archetypes
Something I didn't mention in the original post is that in lieu of classes everyone has an attribute archetype (inspired by D20 Modern hero types) which provides a slight bonus to some kind of character progression. It helps in that I can then use the same 'class' for creatures/opponents as well as players. The archetype tied to dexterity ('fast') provides slightly increased action point progression - not gamebreakingly so, at the early levels it provides no benefit, in the mid fast types often get the new action point a level earlier and by maximum the fast type has one additional point over other types.

Character progression goes from level one to ten* and action point progression currently looks like this;
At 1st level everyone has 6 action points.
At 3rd level everyone has 7 action points.
At 5th level fast archetypes have 8 action points.
At 6th level all other archetypes have 8 action points.
At 8th level fast archetypes have 9 action points.
At 9th level all other archetypes have 9 action points.
At 10th level fast archetypes have 10 action points.


Combat and Non-Combat Actions
As far as 'what these actions can do' goes, a single bonus action point won't grant you an extra 'real' action like moving or attacking. What it will do is give you more options. Most actions take longer in combat (with the exception of moving/attacking, fluff: fight or flight) so attempting something that isn't super easy/quick (e.g. dropping something) or a 'real' combat action (e.g. shooting a gun, reloading, moving, going prone) takes four action points (or more!). Since this would leave you with two action points at 1st level the only 'real' thing you can do is move**). The extra action point instead leaves you with three which open up a wealth of other things you can do in the turn/round***.

By the time you get that second additional action point then you can start doing extra things in combat that actually matter, but by that point you're halfway through the level progression. In total a maximum level character should have 50% more action points (or slightly more if of the 'fast' archetype****) than a 1st level character, and no more than that.

Defence and Interrupts
In terms of whether you need to expend actions to defend - well you do and you don't. Defence happens automatically, roll XdX + X against a DC of X, that sorta thing. You mentioned Palladium*****, I'm not familiar (although it'll be the next thing I look up after this reply), but expending actions in order to counter-attack a character/opponent is something I've incorporated in part. It doesn't allow you to stop outright actions without some form of difficult check/additional training however. The original system (I've revised it since then but I don't have the file to hand) allowed you to expend your actions during the turn of another, allowing you to act ahead of schedule but leave yourself defenceless /weakened in your own turn.

I think I scrapped that in favour of something similar, possibly something akin to readying an action in DnD, but 'interrupts' are very much part of the combat system. The best possible example of it that I can think of is 'opponent Y is attacking you', 'alright I'm going to interrupt with a move over here', 'ok this costs you X action points and gives opponent Y a penalty of X to his attack roll'. I can't be sure as I rarely keep notes on what inspired what but I think the idea of the interrupt system was stolen from the fictional 'Index' game system from AGC.

Addendum
*Progression potentially will go on beyond tenth but by this point players are supposed to be manning spaceships and colonising planets, not engaging in man-to-man combat. Also I'm toying with alternate progression methods beside level, in order to keep feeding that player 'reward' instinct beyond equipment bonuses. Think D&D Online in terms of levels and limited ability progression inbetween levels.

**Attacking with nearly all weapons costs three action points whereas simple movements take two action points. Extremely light weapons (e.g. knives) can attack with only two action points. Corollary: extremely heavy weapons take slightly more action points to use.

***I call it a turn in the system but I'm referring to it as both in the text for less confusion. The system started out heavily D20/D20M influenced but it's slowly becoming it's own thing.

****The attribute archetypes are new so are currently undergoing scrutiny and revision at the moment. I've noticed that two, 'tough' and 'fast' have exponential rewards whereas the rest have linear. I'm either going to bring the others up to par or weaken tough/fast archetypes.

*****Looked it up, I had in fact heard of it but I've never read any of the rulebooks, gotta try track 'em down now. Man these additional notes got carried away.