Something I noticed in my games of ACKs is the players always went first (mostly, I'm generalising, rarely went last...). To the point that I may as well have just removed initiative rolls. The cause is that your average monsters roll 1d6 and players do too, but players get bonuses, lots of them, the main culprit is dexterity, the second is proficiencies. So the normal solution I am told is to not use 'standard monsters'. But that can take prep and can remove monster simplicity (I like random monster tables and their immediacy). I experimented with the monster surprise bonus equals an initiative bonus, but it felt wrong.
One of my players wanted to try the greyhawk initiative option a long time ago and I sort of rejected it. But I gave it another look… then tested it… then changed it a lot until I arrived at this.
Worldship initiative
Each combatant may roll up to two dice for initiative, one dice from movement options and action options. A player may roll only one dice if they choose. Movement always occurs before the action and cleave stepping is not effected by movement choices. The lowest initiative goes first with actions taken in increasing order, actions of the same number are simultaneous.
Note that under these rules dexterity no longer adjusts initiative.
Movement options (always first):
- Called attack - d4 (targets AC -2, -4 with modern firearm)
- Change weapons - d6 - can be done as an action
- Defensive stance - d4 (+2 AC)
- Disengage - d6 - cannot take action
- Move - d6
- Special maneuver - d8 (Disarm, Forceback, Knockdown and Sunder only)
Action options (always last):
- Cast spell - d10 - cannot take move
- Change weapons - d6 (free w/fighting style)
- Melee attack - one handed - d6
- Melee attack - two handed - d8
- Multiattack - d10 - cannot take move
- Ranged attack - d8
- Special maneuver - d6 (all)
- Use item (Eg wand/staff/potion) - d6
- Other action - d6
Proficiency adjustments
Proficiencies can reduce dice rolled to the next dice down, each reduction is referred to as a step. Eg reducing a d8 one step gives a d6, two steps a d4. A dice cannot be reduced below a d4. The following proficiencies adjust initiative.
- Battle Magic: reduces cast spell action by one step.
- Combat reflexes: Reduce any move or attack action dice by one step before rolling.
- Fighting style: if changing to your style or re-equipping from holstered gear counts as a free action (in addition to other actions).
- Skirmishing: May swap out move for disengage without declaring. Reduce all move actions by one step.
- Unflappable Casting: roll a new move and action and add it to your current score to act at that point.
New actions (optional)
The following two new actions should be considered an option, I'm still testing them out.
Defensive stance: in place of a move action the character uses their excess mobility to make themselves harder to hit. That gain +2 AC for the round this was declared in, even prior to their action.
Called attack: you focus your next attack at a weak point in the target's armor granting a bonus of -2 to the target AC on the next attack. If you are using an advanced firearm the bonus is doubled to -4. This bonus is limited to the armor bonus to the targets AC, and their armor cannot be reduced below zero.
Design Notes
ACKs already has a roll each round initiative so this criticism for this system is moot, the main hurdle is the additional detail and choices (it does amaze me how many people criticise roll each round as they prefer predictable combat). Not all groups will like the detail of this but I have found it makes combats a bit more dynamic. You can't reverse an attack here, so melee players without moves have found themselves without a target and ranged attackers have been engaged and lost their actions. In fact my players look for the ranged attackers calls to close and force an action loss.
The multiattack option is a bit of a 3ed throwback that limits monsters with more than one attach to being stationary, feel free to ignore it if it is not to taste. The monster charging with three attacks doesn't gel with my group.
The defensive stance is a bit of a take on the old +2AC -2 Hit full, but it penalises initiative instead. I have found it doesn't get much use in my group as I rule all throws succeed on an 18+, criticals occur on a 20 (an extremely radical hACK I have been testing that I might talk about another day). In games using the normal 20 auto-hit rule I feel it would still work, most of the time against monsters players with lots of AC already cap out their AC well above the amount required for a monster to be forced to roll 20 to hit. Its easy enough to remove this and the called shot, which is why I listed them as optional. The called attack evolved from the firearms armor penetration rule from guns at war and helps in my setting that has firearms.
As a GM I tend to just roll 2d6 for most melee monsters and d8 for ranged (which I call) and as such have not had any significant increase in tracking things behind the screen.
So far, it has achieved my goal, monsters can go first with minimal hassle and there is a slight increase in the dynamic nature of combat on a subtle level. Players try to roll as little dice as possible to beat the monsters but that can backfire. Sometimes the 2d6 move and attack is the best defensive play, and rolling low has never been so good.
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