D&D 5E (2014) A Time-Based Combat System for 5e (2014): Replacing Actions with Seconds and Making Movement Matter

[Horwath]

Hrm - for the spells that could be a nice Idea, but you inflate the number of attacks greatly. A martial character would have 2 at level 1, increasing up to 9 attacks at level 17.

number are up to balance,

it was just an example.

also I do not see a problem with 2 attacks per turn at level 1 if that is all that you do for that turn.

and attacking is fun, so 9 or 10 attacks per turn at high levels is also fine.

goes to fantasy about high level fighter dispatches an army of mooks in a minute.

 

[Reynard]

My hope would be, that it is easier to grasp than different kinds of actions.

I have not experienced what your table seems to have trouble with. I don't find the different categories of actions to be difficult for folks to grasp.

Seconds are intuitively graspable.

But counting them is a pain, especially when what you are counting changes over time or between classes.

It would also allow for more granular additions to the rules based on time - like Casting Time is already in Seconds/minutes/time increments - but are basically (for combat use) just either during the turn or 10 turns.

This is true, and granular can be good. But it isn't easier than the existing system.

I think a solid AP system for D&D combat would be cool. I just don't think this is somehow easier than the 3 types of actions model in use, or PF2's 3 action economy.

 

[M_Natas]

I have not experienced what your table seems to have trouble with. I don't find the different categories of actions to be difficult for folks to grasp.

But counting them is a pain, especially when what you are counting changes over time or between classes.

My group is also counting weight by the pound ... so I think counting seconds should be fine. I think it is more, what are they used, too, more than what is easier.

This is true, and granular can be good. But it isn't easier than the existing system.

I think a solid AP system for D&D combat would be cool. I just don't think this is somehow easier than the 3 types of actions model in use, or PF2's 3 action economy.

My personal preference is to use ingame-references (like seconds) instead of meta currencies (AP, Action/Bonus Action/Reaction), whenever I can get away with it (that's why I also hate the Bastion system with its Bastion Turns - dude, just use weeks!).

number are up to balance,

it was just an example.

also I do not see a problem with 2 attacks per turn at level 1 if that is all that you do for that turn.

and attacking is fun, so 9 or 10 attacks per turn at high levels is also fine.

goes to fantasy about high level fighter dispatches an army of mooks in a minute.

I was just trying to implement it in a way in which I don't have to redo the math for PC and Monsters ^^. 2 Attacks at level 1 would mean, Monsters and PCs would need double HP at level 1 or die very quickly. Or I would have to adjust the damage dealt ...
If I would a system from scratch, that would be different.

 

[NotAYakk]

Bonus Actions are designed as "while you are doing", not "instead of". Like, attacking with a second weapon while attacking with the first, or hiding while shooting, or smiting while attacking.

Your system converts them to "instead of", then patches it at level 5 with a bunch of mechanics that make it "while". Monks get the 3 attack feature at level 5 so the have time to do flurry and 2 attacks, barb/pal/rangers all get "special bonus actions via move".

The two weapon fighter? Tossed aside; fighters lose an attack to second wind or attack with an offhand weapon or whatever or cleave with a great weapon or...

Basically your base action budget for martials is 4 seconds at level 1, then increases to 6 at level 5. And then you had to throw patches at it. Spellcasters (and anyone without extra attack) meanwhile stay a 4 second budget for their action, giving them full access to bonus actions.

Then, we prevent people from doing multiple reactions actions. So even the second budget is a lie. The most you can do is action + bonus action and you lose your reaction, and sometimes you can't even do more than action.

You can cheese it with 3 bonus actions sometimes. For example, turn your spiritual weapon into a spinning blade with 3 attacks, or other similar stuff. Or 3x flurry of blows for 3 Ki. I'd expect that once cheesed it will be banned and patched away, so again the second budget is a lie.

---

In the end we end up with a management scheme that just weakens PCs (and monsters to a much lesser degree) and doesn't add anything? Whenever I see a way for a player to use it outside of the standard 5e action economy, it looks more like an exploit than a feature.

 

[Willie the Duck]

The “seconds” are really just a way of breaking open what happens inside a 6-second round, not a claim that time is literally being tracked continuously. In practice it probably is closer to an action-point system, just with a fiction-first label that matches the six-second round the game already talks about.
...
So I’m less trying to model real time passing and more trying to make tradeoffs between attacking, casting, and positioning clearer and more flexible than Action/Bonus Action currently allows.

My personal preference is to use ingame-references (like seconds) instead of meta currencies (AP, Action/Bonus Action/Reaction), whenever I can get away with it (that's why I also hate the Bastion system with its Bastion Turns - dude, just use weeks!).

My perspective is that you are attaching a fiction-first label to a meta currency. So long as characters are still taking their actions and then (mostly) freezing in place and letting the next person act, and so long as combat rounds aren't then taking 6 second per combatant, then this isn't fiction-first. It's renaming action points as seconds, but it isn't actually making them into seconds.

If you reworked the system and made a simultaneous-action system where everyone did have 6 seconds worth of actions (each with a specified duration) during the same 6-second round, that would be fiction-first. That is much more of a re-write and I understand why you don't want to.

Anyways, as it stands, it's a perfectly fine slightly-more-fiddly action-economy system. There's some combination of actions this allows that standard 5e doesn't that leads to some bizarre results, but welcome to rules tweaks. Mostly I imagine it will be a lot of re-writing and re-learning for minimal change in behavior.

I want to be clear that this system has not been playtested yet. I am posting it here specifically to get feedback before running it at the table. EN-World has a lot of people who have thought deeply about action economies, martial and caster balance, and alternative systems such as Pathfinder Second Edition or GURPS. I am very interested in where people think this would break in practice, what edge cases I may have missed, and which classes or play styles might need adjustment once it sees real play.

A dominant takeaway I have from GURPS (3e, where it matters) is that it is decidedly not built to make different choices be equal or balanced. There are strictly right choices. Other times, there are not, and those are often because of natural consequences of the decisions. It's helpful to understand those in deciding what GURPS options to implement (or how to apply this to a proposed alternate system, like you are doing here). One good example is 'taking a turn to aim/recover' and the implications are different across tasks/genres.

In GURPS, you can swing a sword in 1 second, or swing an axe. Both do cutting damage based of your Str-based swing damage dice, so they are even there. The axe adds more damage to that score, so does overall more damage. However, you have to spend a second to recover and can't attack again (and IIRC can't parry) until you do*. With Damage Reduction and stun thresholds and overall just lower HP compared to something like D&D, it is conceivable that the extra damage on round 1 (and maybe never experiencing the counterattack) justifies the lack of attack (and having to dodge/block instead of parry) on round 2. Possible, but highly unlikely, and I don't think I ever saw anyone use an axe in the game for very long.
*This is relatively realistic (why they likely did it), but they leave out some potential realistic other mechanics that advantage axes over swords other than a little extra damage.

Conversely, missile weapons work better when you spend a second beforehand to aim. There are various rules about penalties for 'snap shots' as well as bonuses (or removal of range penalties) for use of scopes and the like that require aiming. You can just shoot every second* (depending on the loading time of your weapon) and accept any penalty that entails. However the penalties can easily cut your chance of hitting by more than 50%, making shooting every other turn a perfectly reasonable decision (potentially relegating shooting during the first turn to 'cause I won't get a shot off if I wait til turn 2' situations).
*or more than once per second, with rules for automatic fire or fanning a single-action revolver, and so on.

 

[Lord_Blacksteel]

If you want to reinforce that it's the same 6 seconds for everyone then you should try using something like the speed chart from hero - players have to decide what they're doing second by second, in order of say, highest dex first. Some people are waiting for their actions to finish, some are moving - it might add to the payoff of changing it in the first place.

 

[Reynard]

I am always fooling around with a competitive D&D concept I call "DungeonBall" and one of the things I have considered a couple times in the process is second by second initiative. One square at a time. If you attack, it costs seconds. If you cast, you have to wait seconds. Like that. It is cumbersome though.