Rolling for turn sequence?

[Ji ji]

I would use a quick contest of BS*4.
So every 0.25 of BS is a significant edge; faster character often (or near always) go first, yet they cannot be 100% certain of it.

[Walrus]

Are you aware of "Who draws first" rules in MA and TS and "Cascading Wait" option in MA? It seems you don't even try to implement Surprise rules from Basic.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by ErhnamDJ

I'm not talking about rolling in the middle of the fight. Only to figure the turn sequence at the beginning of the combat.

The thing is, determining this by random roll makes no more sense. The person who acts first is the one who first decides to start the fight (everybody "before" him in the turn sequence apparently selected "Do Nothing" on their last turn). Other people who were expecting the fight to start about then would then get a turn (possibly in random order, but in order of speed, i.e. how fast they are at realizing now is the right moment, is just as reasonable). Then everybody might. The mechanics that try to capture this are Surprise and Partial Suprise, not the turn sequence.

[gilbertocarlos]

90% of the fights people know ahead of time the fight will start, and one start because he used his action to act first.

If two swordsmen will fight, the first to attack isn't the one with the biggest basic speed, but the first one who approaches and tries an attack, while the other, knowing that an attack may come will be at All out defense.
So, it's not a matter of who attacks first, but of who is willing to attack first knowing that the enemy will have +2 to defend but they won't.

With firearm combat it's the same thing, except that cover will be used, and then, it's the matter of who will try to flank or expose himself trying to score a hit while risking taking a hit.

[ErhnamDJ]

When do you use Basic Speed to determine the turn sequence?

[Walrus]

Originally Posted by ErhnamDJ

When do you use Basic Speed to determine the turn sequence?

For full surprise:
1. During surprise freeze to determine sequence of surprising side.
2. When surprise freeze ends to determine sequence of both surprising and now "unfreezed" surprised side.

For no-surprise:
1. When fight begins with both sides aware. E.g., mass arena combat.
2. When new participants arrive to the ongoing fight.

Any other cases.

[Phantasm]

to the OP: I once used a house rule of 1d + Basic Speed. This lets those who put points into a higher Basic Speed have a better chance of going first without it being an absolute.

After all, a 6 on a 1d + a Basic Speed 5.5 gives an 11.5, while a 1 on a 1d + a Basic Speed 8 just gives a 9, even though if the Basic Speed 8 person rolled a 4 or better (50% chance!) s/he'd go first.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by gruundehn

In the original Dragonquest system from SPI (I still have my copy) Action Points are used and each action uses a certain number of points such as 1 point to move 5 feet, etc. Each turn starts with the character with the highest number of Action Points and then it works down from there. AS you use AP your next action moves to that AP point. This allows for some variance in the turn order based upon the actions taken by each character and allows a more realistic interuption action.

Yeah, I played that. As you got used to it, weird effects began to emerge. It was mutually advantageous to people on opposite sides to co-operate over the action sequence "if you attack and I evade, then I attack and you evade", it significantly reduced both side's chances of getting badly hurt - so much so that it tended to take priority over winning the fight. Which doesn't prove that the principle is wrong, but does show that generalising from the DQ implementation is dubious.

[Green-Neck]

My gaming group uses Kromms house rule for starting order:

"Alternatively, note that Basic Speed has a metric half that of attributes. If you're in love with random rolls and want to keep the same costs, probably the fairest approach would be to have each fighter roll 3d vs. (2 × Basic Speed) and use his margin to determine his place in the sequence. Then you can use any modifiers you feel should apply from advantages and disadvantages without having to wonder whether they scale properly to a 1d roll. This also gives you a target number to use in "Who goes first?" situations, if you don't think pure DX fits.

For instance, you might make the target (2 × Basic Speed), +1 for Combat Reflexes. So a Basic Speed 5 mook rolls against 10, while a warrior with Basic Speed 6 and Combat Reflexes uses 13."

[ErhnamDJ]

Originally Posted by Green-Neck

Kromms house rule

Awesome. That's exactly the same thing I came up with. So it should work out fine.