D&D 5E [Ro3 4/24/2012] The Action Economy of D&D Next

[Incenjucar]

I can understand not allowing minor actions to be used for attacks - they work best as situation modifiers. Wildshape, summon, heal, buff, light, bluff, etc. Removing them is just making more work in the long run.

 

[Thac0 the Barbarian]

I'll admit, as someone who did he bulk of his play in BECMI and 2nd edition, I found the "action economy" of 4E jarring when I returned to play. Even the phrase itself "action economy" implies that actions are incredibly precious, which leads to a protracted effort to ensure none are wasted. While it does lend a strategic component, as does all resource management, It feels a bit artificial. When I play I want to worry about attacking, casting my spell etc, , not whether I remembered to sheath my weapon at the end of my last round in preparation for drawing one this round. Therein lies the way of madness ( and slow play).

 

[Blackwarder]

I dislike having one attack doing bigger damage, I think that the idea of a skilled warrior being able to land more meaningful hits, meaning more attacks per round, is more logical and interesting. That is of course if all your attacks got the same bonus to hit, 3e of different bonus to attacks was a bad thing IMO.

Tnh, I think that this discution is pointless if we don't know what kind of initiative system that action economy will live in, rolling initiative every round will render out of turn actions almost unneccesery IMO.

Warder

 

[vagabundo]

I'm willing to give this system a go. My group aren't too ridged on the actions anyway. I usually handwave extra minor actions. It away depending on what's I feel is best and with player consensus.

Star Wars Saga though did have some good uses for minor actions and led to some interesting decisions.

 

[Ratskinner]

I hadn't seen Capes before. Just glanced at it now. Looks interesting.

And pretty good evidence that I was wrong. Rules lite does not have to mean GM fiat. I'll still claim that it often DOES mean that, mind .

No doubt .

IME, the more "narrative" the game is, the more it can get away with stuff like that. However, I won't hold my breath for a major publisher to put out a deep-end narrative game...there's really just no need for $upplement$. I had a Capes group run fantasy with it right out of the box, frex.

 

[DEFCON 1]

The only downside I fear to the "one action a turn" is that it would return combat back to being much more static due to the idea that I think most players have... which is that attacking is the fun part, whereas moving is the necessary part TO get to attack.

If you have to either move or attack on your turn... that means that the more mobile attacker ends up attacking only 50% as often as the frontline melee attacker.

The frontline melee attacker charges on round 1, and then spends each subsequent turn attacking, attacking, attacking. No movement ever being necessary. The ranged or mobile attacker, however, spends a round to move, then next round attacks, third round moves, fourth round attacks etc. And for many players, that just won't seem as fun. So what'll happen I fear is that characters who should be mobile, won't end up being so merely because the player doesn't want to "waste" potential attack turns by running around.

Now, this could be easily solved by expanding the "Charge" attack concept to include "mobile charging"... where any character can use their turn to move their speed and then attack, and that attack can be ANY type... melee, ranged, spell etc. Which then allows the mobile character to attack just as often as the frontline one. Of course, whether or not those "mobile charges" would be balanced is a different question entirely.

 

[Ratskinner]

The only downside I fear to the "one action a turn" is that it would return combat back to being much more static due to the idea that I think most players have... which is that attacking is the fun part, whereas moving is the necessary part TO get to attack.

If you have to either move or attack on your turn... that means that the more mobile attacker ends up attacking only 50% as often as the frontline melee attacker.

That depends. Personally, I feel that combat is much more static the way it is. The "action economy" & grid seems to work to slow play down a lot. If we avoid the grid, then you don't have to worry as much about 5'steps and the like. Different classes/themes could have different special abilities to work in there as well.

The frontline melee attacker charges on round 1, and then spends each subsequent turn attacking, attacking, attacking. No movement ever being necessary. The ranged or mobile attacker, however, spends a round to move, then next round attacks, third round moves, fourth round attacks etc. And for many players, that just won't seem as fun. So what'll happen I fear is that characters who should be mobile, won't end up being so merely because the player doesn't want to "waste" potential attack turns by running around.

Now, this could be easily solved by expanding the "Charge" attack concept to include "mobile charging"... where any character can use their turn to move their speed and then attack, and that attack can be ANY type... melee, ranged, spell etc. Which then allows the mobile character to attack just as often as the frontline one. Of course, whether or not those "mobile charges" would be balanced is a different question entirely.

Yes. OSHs Fighter have a "charge" ability. I would think that 5e as a more "serious" game would have other special actions as well. However, I think you're missing the effect that the speed of resolving rounds has on the combat. When a player's turn takes all of about 10 seconds to resolve a complicated turn and only 3 or 4 seconds for a typical turn, things move so fast that we mentally get away from the "action economy" mentality that slows down play.

 

[infax]

Star Wars Saga though did have some good uses for minor actions and led to some interesting decisions.

Would you care to give some examples? I'm not familiar enough with Star Wars Saga to imagine what were the interesting uses for minor actions they have.

As a general rule, I'd rather see Minor Actions as part of the system right from the start. It should be trivially easy to convert them to free actions.

 

[Mallus]

I like the simplicity of Action & Move (or vice versa).

The only things I'd like to see is some (simple) guidelines for Actions While Moving. Like shooting on the move (take a - to hit and + to AC) or casting (%50 chance to blow the spell).

 

[DEFCON 1]

The "action economy" & grid seems to work to slow play down a lot...

...However, I think you're missing the effect that the speed of resolving rounds has on the combat. When a player's turn takes all of about 10 seconds to resolve a complicated turn and only 3 or 4 seconds for a typical turn, things move so fast that we mentally get away from the "action economy" mentality that slows down play.

I'm not concerned about the speed of play... I'm more concerned about what each player can do on his turn.

Yes, speeding actual gameplay up will help ameliorate some of the problems (by having turns come up really, really quickly so there's less downtime)... but that doesn't change the fact that WHAT a player gets to do when his turn comes up is going to be 50% movement and 50% attacking for mobile PCs, and 100% attacking and 0% moving for frontline ones. And since the attacking is traditionally the "fun" part of the turn... mobile PCs are only having fun 50% of the time (even if that time moves pretty quickly).

When you have both a Standard action and a Move action in your turn... a mobile character gets to do both each and every turn. They still get to have the "fun" part every time their turn comes up. Sure, the frontline character ends up "wasting" a Move action each turn because he never moves... but because moving isn't fun anyway, it doesn't MATTER to the player that he's "wasting" it. He's still getting to attack every round and the "lost Move action" is an afterthought.

That's my only concern by merging the Standard and Move into one single action per turn. The mobile PC potentially loses half his attacks compared to the frontliner.