[Plane]

Originally Posted by Say, it isn't that bad!

A battle involving 1,000 individuals on each side, still proceeds at 1 second per round, with no game time given to Oberve, Orient, or Decide in the game time. No time is given to pauses, unless rules such as exhaustion mechanics force it.

The Action Point system is a big help there. I also think maybe if we required stuff like a # of concentrate maneuvers to use skills like tactics (along with all the potentiall rerolls it optionally provides) it could also push pauses.

To add some randomness to the AP (Last Gasp) system you could appropriate the "Lulls" idea for 3e's compendium 2 (pg 81) except to "Press" during a lull should merely deplete 1 AP instead of 1 FP, so it's not such a huge gamechanger, just a quirky setting feature. It doesn't tire anyone any faster if they're taking restive actions, but will tire them faster if they avoid them.

To deplete AP faster (thus encouraging more pausing) you can also opt to ignore the free step / free pivot built into last gasp. Charging for those will require a lot more Evaluates / Do Nothings to recharge the AP.

Originally Posted by Say, it isn't that bad!

In addition, everyone is clearly shown as perfectly aware of everything that doesn't need an explicit per roll.

Observation rolls 'round the board are too crunchy for many but I like the idea for helping to RP the knowledge limitations that happen in the fog of war, the speedy heat of battle, to keep things away from metagame tactics.

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

You start with Action Points, usually equal to your HT, and then spend them for a while Doing Stuff. If you do too much stuff, too fast, you have to stop and take a breather.

One idea that just came to mind... given that "Do Nothing" allows you full defensive capability (unless of course you're stunned, then you defend at -4) what are your thoughts on something along the lines of an "All-Out Do Nothing" to give you either +2 or +4 to the usual HT+4 roll a normal Do Nothing gives, in exchange for losing defence capability? Similar to the All-Out Concentrate?

Plus maybe a middle ground like "Committed Do Nothing" where you take the defensive penalties of Committed Attack for either a +1 or +2 to the HT roll?

The idea being that the usual DN with it's "I'm keeping alert for attacks" is kinda stressful and not as restive as it would be to entirely tune out.

I know that DN's HT+4 roll has an "if uninterrupted" disclaimer meaning you wouldn't recover AP if you had to defend yourself (doesn't seem like that applies to Evaluate's HT roll though?) but you're still basically keeping an eye out for them so it might be cool if there was a reward for zoning out and being less defensive, like with sleeping.

Probably shouldn't be an option if already stunned though since you're already taking huge penalties to defence in which case you're not trading much.