New action type: "Minor" actions

[Scais]

So currently, we have Standard and Free actions. Sometimes, things get a bit wonky with being able to use so many Free actions in a turn. Perhaps a third action type, Minor Actions, would help. You can take only one minor action per turn.

 

For skills that aren't quite worthy of being Standard but are too good to be Free actions, you can make them Minor instead. Thoughts?

[MaxQuest]

Or here's a somewhat related, another wild and unpolished idea:

 

Standard Action: limited to 1 per turn

Half Action: limited to 2 per turn

Quick Action: limited to 4 per turn

Instant Action: limited to 4 per turn, but first cast is for free

 

Such that, you can cast 1 Instant Action and 1 Standard Action.

Or 2 Instant Actions, 2 Quick Actions and 1 Half Action.

Stuff like that.

Edited February 11, 2019 by MaxQuest

[Madscientist]

I had to read the pathfinder PnP rules in the internet because the computer game tells you very little about game mechanics.

So in pathfinder ( and probably DnD too, pathfinder is kind of DnD 3.75) you have:

 

- free actions: These are "non actions", or stuff you need to do to perform an action or turn on/off a stance. Things like

  + barbariens can enter rage or stop to be enraged. Similar stuff for other "stances"

  + You can chose to hold a weapon with 1 or 2 hands

  + There are no items or spells as free action

 

- Swift actions ( thats what you mean ). They can only be used once per round.

  + Quickened spells or some very fast extra attacks (e.g. cleave )

 

- standart actions: everything that is not described as sometings else, usually its doing an attack, casting a spell or using an item

 

- full round action: You do somethings that takes a long time so you cannot move in this round.

  + casting a spell with a very long casting time.

  + making a full attack, where you try to attack more than once per round

 

- move action:

Usually you can use one move action and one standert action per round. You can chose not to make a standart action and move twice as long instead. You can chose not to move and make a full round action instead.

 

For PoE2 turn based mode this means:

You should only be able to use one swift action per round ( the stuff that is now a free action). You can do one swift action and one standart action per round. Maybe you can do two swift actions per round, in this case the second swift action would be considered a standart action and your round ends.

 

 

PS: I have never played a PnP game and I read the rules only to understand the computer game.

If somebody knows those things better, please explain this stuff.

Edited February 11, 2019 by Madscientist

[Madscientist]

Hi Max Quest, you were faster than me.

 

I have the feeling that 4 actions per round would be too much in any case.

[Scais]

Interesting ideas all around. MaxQuest, I feel we may be better off with an Action Point system like Divinity if it were to be that complicated.

 

MadScientist, I think that could be a good idea too.

[Wormerine]

- full round action: You do somethings that takes a long time so you cannot move in this round.

  + casting a spell with a very long casting time.

  + making a full attack, where you try to attack more than once per round

Considering how powerful some spells are, that might be a cool idea: having to be in position to cast them.

[Scais]

Agreed, Wormerine.

[MountainTiger]

Trying to add a bunch of action types between full and free feels like groping towards an action point system to me. This was the solution in the main example (Arcanum) I can think of that tried to have both real time and turn based combat (I say tried to because I found Arcanum's real time combat unplayable for non-trivial fights).

[Madscientist]

If you make a system with action points, everything will change completely.

You have to give each thing you can do an AP value and maybe change some abilities.

 

The next question is:

Should the number of AP be fixed or is it a variable?

If it is a variable, what does it depend on?

 

Do you remember Divinity Original Sin 1?

It had variable AP. Result: Its best to max out speed. You act before the enemy and you have many AP which you should use to hard CC enemies before their turn. You could win most fights without being hit.

[MountainTiger]

All abilities already have variable time increments attached; translating this to AP is fairly straightforward (simplest option: choose a time increment that represents 1 AP, the way 6 seconds currently seems to represent a round in durations; actions get costs based on how long they take, minimum 1. Action and recovery phases complicate this a bit-a simple option is to require enough action points to be available in a round to use an ability and allow recovery points to carry over to future turns).

 

Having action speed be a meaningful mechanic is fine, it is quite important in real time.

[Eurhetemec]

Once a turn minor action would be decent and balance some abilities better without making the game vastly more complex, though I don't think it is needed, strictly speaking.

 

As some who has played pen and paper RPGs for thirty years, I would say tabletop rules generally are a bad point of comparison. TT RPGs typically have one player per character, and a very small number of combats, which means more complex action system can work.

 

As for AP, if I wanted to play RtwP on the slowest speed and/whilst pausing constantly, I already could, and every AP suggestion so far has amounted to that.

Edited February 12, 2019 by Eurhetemec

[SChin]

Hey everyone!

 

I put a report in for this suggestion of adding an additional action type.  If you think of anything else, please continue to post about it here as I linked this thread to the report so the team can take a look at for their review.

 

Thanks again for all the help you guys have been providing.