Altered Time Rate Variant - Simultaneity

[Varyon]

This is largely just the start of a thought I had thanks to the discussion of point defense in the TL 9 armies thread. One of the issues with ATR is that the extra turns are taken sequentially - so maneuvers like Wait, All Out Defense, etc can only be taken once, at the end of the turn, while you can use All Out Attack for every maneuver but the last without consequence (unless a foe happens to have an appropriate Wait, but then your speedster with 100 maneuvers to their single one is rendered helpless against their attack).

What if we instead changed ATR so that the maneuvers more-or-less happen simultaneously? Essentially, you declare all of your Maneuvers, then actually take what amounts to a single maneuver that has all the movement, attacks, defenses, readies, aims, etc of those Maneuvers. So three Attack maneuvers let you take three Steps and make three Attacks at full skill (each of which can be subdivided into Rapid Strikes or similar) in whatever order you see fit (so two Steps and one attack, then a third Step and two attacks, for example) and three defenses. Replacing one of them with an All Out Attack (Determined) means you get a +4 to one of the strikes and can move two Steps plus half Move, but lose one of your defenses. Replacing one with All Out Defense (Double) means you get to double up one of your defenses and can move three Steps, but you lose one of your Attacks. Note this also means you could do something like taking a Wait to watch several hexes and Aim at a target that enters one of them (this is arguably more fair if using the "On Target" article, where Aim calls for a roll, so that you penalize that roll for watching multiple hexes) as well as a Wait to watch those same hexes and attack a target that enters one, resulting in you getting to Aim and Attack a target that enters a watched hex.

Most of this feels fairly straightforward, but I'm not certain how to handle the defenses. If you get three defenses, does that mean you get to roll up to three times against each attack? Or should it instead mean that you get three defenses before iteration penalties come into play? I'm thinking the latter is more appropriate, as it results in two characters with the same level of ATR fighting each other being on more-or-less equal footing to two characters without ATR fighting.

How does this sound? Would this be appropriate as a simple replacement to ATR, or should it be an Enhancement? It seems like this treatment would go a long way toward making ATR feel as though the character is actually acting faster, rather than just somehow acting more (which is what the current trait does). Note things like Compartmentalized Mind should probably get similar treatment.

[ericthered]

I feel like compartmentalized mind does sort of work that way.

Three defenses before penalties sounds more elegant, I think.

I'm not sure that this really has any difference besides letting you have the extra defenses, and letting you take multiple waits/all out defenses, which normally you only get one of at the end of the turn.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by ericthered

I feel like compartmentalized mind does sort of work that way.

I think you may be right, but I'm not certain.

Originally Posted by ericthered

Three defenses before penalties sounds more elegant, I think.

Yeah, the more I think on it, the better this sounds. Otherwise I think it makes ATR too good as a defensive trait (even without sacrificing attacks for AoD).

Originally Posted by ericthered

I'm not sure that this really has any difference besides letting you have the extra defenses, and letting you take multiple waits/all out defenses, which normally you only get one of at the end of the turn.

I think the differences are relatively small, yeah, which is why I'm leaning more toward this just being the way ATR should work rather than being an Enhancement on it. Here are the differences I'm seeing would be in play.

• You can lump all your movement together, then lump all your actions together. So if you have ATR 2, 1-hex Steps, and need to move 3 hexes to engage your target, you can take three Attack maneuvers, move all 3 hexes, and then attack three times, rather than needing to use Move/All Out Attack for your first maneuver to get close.
• You can more readily react to interrupts (Waits), even if doing All Out Attack, so long as at least one of your maneuvers allows for a defense.
• As you note, you can do multiple Waits and All Out Defenses, and even use one (or more) of each in the same turn. A Stop Hit* combined with an All Out Defense could potentially be rather useful.
• The order of your maneuvers doesn't matter, because it's actually just one big super-maneuver.
• You get a separate defense for each maneuver that allows it (with the modifiers for that maneuver - if you took a Committed Attack, that defense is going to be penalized and you won't be able to use the weapon to attacked with for it; meanwhile, you actually lose a defense if you use and All Out maneuver, rather than having that loss wiped away when you follow it up with a maneuver that allows a defense).

There are probably more I'm missing at the moment, of course.

*A Stop Hit, and probably a Stop Thrust, should probably get a bit of special treatment here. I don't think it's fair for the character with ATR to be able to use all of their attacks as Stop Hits in response to a single attack. Maybe something like you work out the number of maneuvers Stop-Hitting character has (total), divide this by the number of maneuvers the initiating character has, and finally divide this by 2 (round down, minimum 1). If either character is using Rapid Strike or similar, count the additional attacks as though they were additional maneuvers. If the GM decides two attacks can be counted as occurring simultaneously (such as with a Dual Weapon Attack), treat them as a single maneuver/attack (so they only count as one for determining how many you can use as part of a single Stop Hit, but also only count as one if used as part of said Stop Hit). There's probably a more elegant way of explaining and working that out, but this should work as a rough draft.

[JulianLW]

Originally Posted by Varyon

....

How does this sound? Would this be appropriate as a simple replacement to ATR, or should it be an Enhancement? It seems like this treatment would go a long way toward making ATR feel as though the character is actually acting faster, rather than just somehow acting more (which is what the current trait does). Note things like Compartmentalized Mind should probably get similar treatment.

Very cool, simple idea.

I think there are some pretty powerful effects here, but at 100/level, Altered Time Rate should give some major benefits. I think you might want to model Simultaneity as a perk with ATR as a prerequisite.

Compare it to the effects of Teamwork from Power-Ups 2.

Christopher Rice, on his blog, adapted Teamwork as Coven:

https://www.ravensnpennies.com/desig...ng-of-team-up/

In this case, the team you are working with would be yourself. This perk already talks about coordinating attacks, sharing active defenses, and "handing off" spells or "transferring" the benefits of feints. It does seem like an ideal solution to a lot of the complaints people have about ATR.... I'd like to see it written up and hear other opinions.