Quote:
Originally Posted by Mahatatain
I think that you’ve identified a potential issue with initiative system. I haven’t had an experience yet where the enemy get the drop on the PCs but I have had an encounter where the PCs had a surprise round and it was a slaughter. That’s probably realistic but it could potentially be a TPK very easily if the enemy either achieve complete surprise or act first as a block at the start of the combat round. Even with the 4E initiative system as written though I would break the enemy up into several groups and give them each their own initiative card to try to break things up. There are only 10 initiative cards though so the enemy can only be broken down into groups so far.
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This was a BIG problem with the 6 step Initiative Phases in Twilight V2.2. The guy with the Initiative of 6 would go first and fire 5 bursts (for a 5-second round) and that was the end of the fight.
I transitioned to 6-second rounds and made each Phase basically a "mini-round." I then had everyone roll a 1D6 and add that to their Initiative then divide by 2 (rounding up). So a 7 Initiative (the highest RAW score) can begin to act from Phase 7 (high) down to Phase 4 (low). A 1 Initiative can act from Phase 4 (high) down to Phase 1 (low).
The mini-Round...
Each Phase represents 1 SECOND OF TIME, so I allow ONE ATTACK per Phase. This means that 7 Initiative shooter is going to fire SEVEN TIMES in 6 seconds, BUT he is going to fire at ONLY ONE TARGET, OR FIRE A SINGLE BURST PER PHASE. That means the 7 Initiative shooter will most likely be trading shots with slower combatants throughout the ROUND. Therefore, one must pick one's targets carefully, since ALL ACTIONS IN A SINGLE PHASE ARE SIMULTANEOUS. That means two shooters can kill each other in a single phase.
Movement is done the same way. Sprinting is 8m per Phase/Second. Running is 6m per Phase/Second. Trotting is 4m per Phase/Second, Walking is 2m per Phase/Second, and Crawling is 1m per Phase/Second.
Since Phases are 1 fixed second. Any action can be counted out in 1-second intervals and performed in that many Phases. Clear a Jam? 2 1-second phases. Drawing? 1 second/phase. It is easy and pretty fast to use.