legendary actions in gurps

[muduri]

Have been playing in a friend's That Other Game 5E campaign. Don't worry, it hasn't affected my first love. But I am kind of intrigued by the idea of Legendary Actions - as far as I can tell, a sort of free bonus action once during the PC's turns for boss monsters only to make them more formidable.

Intuitively, the appeal of porting this into GURPS (vaguely-Dungeon-ish) Fantasy to me is twofold: 1) to stop the five PCs from getting in five killer attacks in a row before the boss has a chance to retaliate / evade (which I understand was the original intention); and 2) your black dragon doesn't really want to waste his turn on a wing buffet when he could be breathing acid or claw/claw/bite-ing, so this would give a nice flavorful way to give all those cool extra appendages a chance to do something.

1) Would this be a terrible idea? As mentioned this is in alpha, so might there be negative effects on mechanics or game flow?

2) What would it cost? If the idea is to keep them rare, I was thinking sort of a giant-sized Extra Effort in Combat, requiring say 4 FP and a Will roll and available only to those with the 50-point Legendary Monster (Trained By A Legend?) advantage.

As always, thanks for your considerations!

[Kelly Pedersen]

I think the basic idea of using Legendary Actions for your monsters is fine, for pretty much the reasons you've described. I'd suggest telling your players that it's a possibility before just springing it on them, but if you do that, it should be all right. You'll have to balance around individual legendary actions, though - one that lets the monster attack everyone within 5 yards with its best attack is a lot more potent than one that lets it hit one person with a fairly-easily-resisted attack, for instance!

Mechanically, if this is confined to monsters, you don't have to build it using points - in fact, doing so is frequently a waste of time. Points are for PCs. But if there's a possibility of a PC getting these, or if you just want to theorycraft, what I'd suggest for this is a build based on Altered Time Rate. To allow the actions granted to be taken on other people's turns, you'll need Cosmic at some value. If they can only be taken on other people's turns, I'd call that +50%. Then, you'd put Accessibility limitations on it to represent them only being useful for the specific legendary actions, rather than whatever the creature wanted. The value of that will depend on how many, and what kind, of legendary actions it can take.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen

Mechanically, if this is confined to monsters, you don't have to build it using points - in fact, doing so is frequently a waste of time. Points are for PCs. But if there's a possibility of a PC getting these, or if you just want to theorycraft, what I'd suggest for this is a build based on Altered Time Rate. To allow the actions granted to be taken on other people's turns, you'll need Cosmic at some value. If they can only be taken on other people's turns, I'd call that +50%. Then, you'd put Accessibility limitations on it to represent them only being useful for the specific legendary actions, rather than whatever the creature wanted. The value of that will depend on how many, and what kind, of legendary actions it can take.

"Wait Maneuvers Only" should be a limitation on Altered Time Rate, not an enhancement.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

"Wait Maneuvers Only" should be a limitation on Altered Time Rate, not an enhancement.

Any theorycraft on the size? Cause -50% feels high to me...


[EDIT]
Nevermind. My precoffee brain was thinking of Extra Attack, on which -50% seems high...
[/EDIT]

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

"Wait Maneuvers Only" should be a limitation on Altered Time Rate, not an enhancement.

But being able to have multiple Waits in effect in parallel isn't.

And if the 'Wait' isn't constrained by the usual pre-committed trigger and response, that's...well, not really at all a Wait anymore.

[Kelly Pedersen]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

But being able to have multiple Waits in effect in parallel isn't.

And if the 'Wait' isn't constrained by the usual pre-committed trigger and response, that's...well, not really at all a Wait anymore.

Yeah, that's my thought. Legendary actions are simply too broad to be really considered Waits.

[sir_pudding]

I haven't played 5e at all, so I don't really know what they do but the example upthread of of a wing striker attack after half the PCs have gone isn't too broad for Wait nor requires multiple parallel Waits.

[Kelly Pedersen]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

I haven't played 5e at all, so I don't really know what they do but the example upthread of of a wing striker attack after half the PCs have gone isn't too broad for Wait nor requires multiple parallel Waits.

The way most legendary actions in the Monster Manual work is that the monster gets two or three options for actions they can take, and can choose whichever one is most tactically advantageous. For example, the black dragon can do the aforementioned wing attack, it can actively try to perceive hidden creatures, or it can make a tail attack (actually, the wing attack also allows it to move, but it counts as two actions, so that would probably work just as well in GURPS). The point is, while you could probably Wait for any one of those, I don't think "Wait until any of this happens, then do any of these three things" is valid as a Wait action. You've got to be more precise. Also, legendary actions never really seem to have the potential for mistakes that Waits in GURPS do - there's no chance that a creature with a legendary action attacks a friend who comes into the wrong place the way it can happen with a Wait, for example.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

I haven't played 5e at all, so I don't really know what they do but the example upthread of of a wing striker attack after half the PCs have gone isn't too broad for Wait nor requires multiple parallel Waits.

I don't see where you're getting 'after half the PCs have gone', but I do see how you're reading it as only one extra action total taken between the end of the dragon's turn and the start of the next, and think you may have that right.

Which might work with ATR 1 (Wait Only -??%), yeah.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen

Mechanically, if this is confined to monsters, you don't have to build it using points - in fact, doing so is frequently a waste of time. Points are for PCs. But if there's a possibility of a PC getting these, or if you just want to theorycraft, what I'd suggest for this is a build batsed on Altered Time Rate. To allow the actions granted to be taken on other people's turns, you'll need Cosmic at some value. If they can only be taken on other people's turns, I'd call that +50%. Then, you'd put Accessibility limitations on it to represent them only being useful for the specific legendary actions, rather than whatever the creature wanted. The value of that will depend on how many, and what kind, of legendary actions it can take.

I kind of like this.
As I understand it This is an Extra Action but does not have to be taken in consecutive order like normal Actions.
Also you want the ability to take one first, before everyone else goes?
Consider ETS is 45 points and lets you go first regardless of Basic Speed. +50% on ATR is 50 points (unless your using Multiplicative modifiers).
So pricing for initiative is fair, and even a little high, especially considering ETS includes Combat Reflexes.
Not going in consecutive order is like a wide open Wait and I think the utility pricing of Cosmic covers it fairly.