Altering the Initiative Order

[Figleaf23]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

AFAICT, I haven't.

http://forums.sjgames.com/showpost.p...&postcount=111

[Kazander]

Originally Posted by Figleaf23

This seems like a very pertinent question. I'm not a big Magic buff -- does anyone know the answer?

That would be a Custom Spell, AFAIK. There is no existing spell that changes Basic Speed. This is for same reasons as have been stated in this thread: to prevent abuse of the double-turn.

The attribute boosting spells explicitly do not affect Secondary Attributes like Basic Speed.

Haste explicitly only affects Move and Dodge; not Basic Speed. Great Haste only acts like ATR; there is no effect on BS.

[Kuroshima]

Personally, in my games, if you get a boost to basic speed, you go up in the initiative ladder. This means that if a companion hastes you, you can get to act before the monster (for example). The reason being, I don't like the divide between having it cast before or during combat.

Also, in my games, after reading this thread, I would allow:

• Setting your basic speed bellow your maximum basic speed, at the beginning of the combat
• Take a wait maneuver, and roll tactics to lower your basic speed. You can not interrupt anyone's action. Once your new basic speed comes up, you act normally.
• Take a Do Nothing maneuver and roll tactics to reset your basic speed.

If you fail your tactics roll, you just wasted a turn. The changes in basic speed last until changed again, and do not affect basic speed derived quantities.
Under none of the options above, does this allow you to do two actions in a row.

EDIT: When I say hastes, I'm not explicitly referring to the Haste spell, but to for example, afflictions that grant extra basic speed, DX buffs, such as the one from Blessed (heroid Feats), etc etc

[BaHalus]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Or it lets you delay your action to coordinate with slower PCs; which is what we are talking about. If you can just change your effective Basic Speed at whim to do this, why would you ever take Waits to do so?

Because wait let you act in your regular turn order, delaying to change order wouldn't allow that, the only option would be delaying again, losing a full turn like a do nothing maneuver.

You can't anticipate actions, is the anticipating that would break things up.

[Garion]

OK...let's see if I can get this right and explain the issues people are having and how I see it working...

In my games I allow the players to change when they can go in the combat order. This allows the faster person using the *delay* action (rather than calling it wait and getting confused) to not go when his 'official' time comes around. Instead he is waiting to go just after or just before another person. He will get his full action - this is not a wait with a triggering condition. When the player chooses to take his action, he will be setting his basic speed to whatever speed is appropraite for the sequence to insert him in the order. Now a lot of players are worried about the player waiting until after an enemy goes to get an attack in and then when his 'turn' would come up at his regular basic speed getting in another attack. But it does not work that way. No matter what your BS is, once you have made an attack or ready action, you can't perform another action like that until a full second has passed (effectively). Thus, if you attack when the BST (basic speed time) is 7.25, you have to wait for BST to reset to 7.25 next turn. If you normally have a BS of 7.25 but acted on BST of 3.5, then you can't act again until the BST is again at 3.5. If you want to get back to your regular BST of 7.25 you will need to delay, starting at 3.5 and going until BST time 7.25 comes up again. Note, because of this you can go past BST 0, into the next 'turn' and set yourself first in the rotation at whatever BST time you want; but even if you choose to go on BST time 10456.5, you still only act once a second, when the BST matches yours.

For cases where individuals have Altered Time Rate or Great Haste, they will have 2 or more BSTs determined as follows: take the highest BST in the rotation and divide it by the number of times the person can act in a turn and subtract that amount from the player's normal BST to find his other BST. For example, Bob has a speed of 9.0 and Terry at speed 4.0 has just cast Great Haste. This gives him a new BST of 4.0 - (9.0/2) or -0.5 which translates into 0.5 less than the best BST of 9.0 or 8.5. If Terry ever delays, each of his BSTs will change by the same amount. And if one would drop below 0, it instead goes to the best original BST and drops by what was remaining. This is a little complicated, but luckily you almost never have anyone with more than one level of Altered Time Rate.

Gosh I hope this makes sense...it does to me at least :)

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by Garion

This is a little complicated, but luckily you almost never have anyone with more than one level of Altered Time Rate.

Werewolf the Apocalypse game, 10 players, all playing werewolves. All taking multiple actions per turn via Rage Points (basically ATR points) and splitting their dice pools for multiple actions per turn (basically Rapid Strikes). Vs similarly equipped and acting NPCs.

Having played the degenerate scenario, I can no longer take "a little complicated" scenarios as a good idea :/

[Hohenstadt]

Being so new to GURPS (got about 12 books 4e and haven't even GM'd/played yet. Been reading thru them and making characters) all this discussion about simply going when you want to in a round/turn is really starting to put me off GURPS. If this is an example of what goes on in a game session over just this one issue, what else have I to face?

Isn't this supposed to be fun to play?

As GM over many a years (since early 1970's to date) in a multitude of game systems, I just let PCs go in their round/turn when they want to as long as it is not faster than their max speed/move/dex/whatever. It has never broken a game or have I ever had any problems with this.

Only 2 rules I have, as mentioned here and other threads, is 1) you cannot take a back to back turn/attack/action/whatever and 2) You have to announce at the start of the round/turn your desire to change your position in the Initative order.

Am I missing something? Is it so important in GURPS as to when one takes their action? Does it break the system if you don't?

As I have read in the books and here on the GURPS forum you can use and/or change any rules you want. Use as few rules or as many as you want. But what I am seeing here (and few other discussions) this isn't the case?

Please, I hope I am not offending anyone as I have learned alot in this forum. Just trying to learn a new system.

Thanks for your patience with me.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Figleaf23

I don't see the problem.

If characters can set their sequence at any number up to their Basic Speed only at the beginning of combat because they can choose to slow react slower, why can't they later decide to react faster? If a character punches at partial ST one turn, they can choose to use full ST next turn; if the situation with Basic Speed is analogous to the ST one, then it should allow you to return to full speed. It doesn't make any sense that a human being could really "dial down" their reaction speed or that they'd be trapped at the lower speed so long as interpersonal violence was occurring in the vicinity.

Originally Posted by roguebfl

yes you have, Post #111 of this thread.

Originally Posted by Figleaf23

http://forums.sjgames.com/showpost.p...&postcount=111

As I said before, I am aware of that post but I am not reading what you guys are into it. Nowhere does he say you can change your sequence at any time and nowhere does he say anything about being able to set Basic Speed at the beginning of combat but not later. AFAICT the paragraph about operating at lower Basic Speed is the explanation as to why you can use Waits to go later without the same rigor that other Waits require in triggering conditions. If a character wants to delay his reactions he needs to take a Wait.

[ericbsmith]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

If characters can set their sequence at any number up to their Basic Speed only at the beginning of combat because they can choose to slow react slower, why can't they later decide to react faster?

Because, unlike with ST and swinging, Turn Sequence is set once per combat to keep things simpler.

Also, if you are allowed to change your place in the Turn Sequence whenever you want you are virtually guaranteed the ability to line up double turns every other turn if you want. Simply All Out Defend, then announce that on the following turn you're "slowing down," when your "slow" turn comes up your All Out Attack followed by a normal turn or All Out Defense so you can do it all over again. This works right up until the GM decides to make all the NPC's change their Turn Sequence every turn as well, in which case you have a very complex mess where everyone is changing their place in the Turn Sequence every single turn for no real gain (since everybody is doing it) but a very large increase in complexity.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by ericbsmith

Because, unlike with ST and swinging, Turn Sequence is set once per combat to keep things simpler.

So why should you be allowed to use a lower Basic Speed at all, ever, instead of taking Waits?