Declaration phase in 3.x

[airwalkrr]

Over in the General forum on a thread about who has played with EGG, someone mentioned that he never cracks open a rulebook during play unless it was something brand new and still under development. That means either he has memorized the rules or (more likely) just comes up with ad hoc rules on the fly when he can't recall the rules. This is something I have strongly been considering to speed up game play. I think I could get by too, with the only book I'd need being the monster manual.

 

[green slime]

I think that there are consequences to some of these ideas that are getting floated around here:

Penalizing a player a movement action for choosing a different action other than that declared during the proposed "declaration" phase may, (with no experience of such a system, this is just a guess), hinder the tanks more than anyone else.

Spellcasters can cast a spell with a standard action. Archers can still target other creatures. Tanks needs to traverse the battlefield to be effective. If he has given up a move action to change his action (his original target has been downed by another player), he then has to move to engage a different foe. As he only has a standard action left, he doesn't get to make any attack that round. He just moves around a bit, and provides a "ZoC" for the party, within which foes trying to move past him suffer an AoO.

Another aspect is that this lessens the amount of effective actions taken during combat, and will thus lengthen the actual number of game rounds it takes to defeat an enemy. Whether this actually takes more or less time in the real world is open to debate, and whether or not this is a "bad thing" is more dependant on the players themselves, and likely subjective.

Neither of those are unreasonable, unpardonable issues. Just likely consequences. YMMV.

 

[kaomera]

Over in the General forum on a thread about who has played with EGG, someone mentioned that he never cracks open a rulebook during play unless it was something brand new and still under development. That means either he has memorized the rules or (more likely) just comes up with ad hoc rules on the fly when he can't recall the rules. This is something I have strongly been considering to speed up game play. I think I could get by too, with the only book I'd need being the monster manual.

Honestly, I wing it a hell of a lot during play. Sometimes (rarely, and pretty much not at all since my player have gotten to trust that I'm just not out to get them) I get called on stuff and we have to crack a book, but usually it runs pretty smoothly on my side. The players, however, still spend a lot of time with their noses buried in the books, often during their turns. I have one player in particular who has a habit of reading rules text aloud verbatim when I ask him what his character's action is. Often the rules text doesn't really even tell me what I need to know... He's currently playing a Swordsage, and will read off the text of a maneuver he intends to use, without giving any indication that he intends to move first, or what he wants to target, or whatever...

Actually, one of the reasons I'm reluctant to really "put my foot down" on "delay-of-game" stuff is that I'm afraid of losing some of the trust I've built up with some of my players (specifically the ones I had the hardest time convincing that I wasn't going to cheat to "get them"). I think I'm going to end up writing up a "Table Rules" document, and probably handing out warnings only for a week or two. But I also think that I'll have to keep myself from hand-waving transgressions, which I'm going to be very prone to do if I don't think it's a big deal. The few players who are most likely to have problems with any kind of "you snooze, you lose" rule are also the ones who are actually the most annoying about it, and I don't want them to see me letting others get away with stuff, because I don't think they'll understand how the situation is different...

As an example, the Swordsage player above doesn't keep his character sheet in order, and therefore has to add everything up every time he makes a roll. I have a few other characters that like doing cool stuff, like chandelier-swinging, vaulting banisters, or jumping atop a table to get the high-ground. Those players need to ask me questions regarding their actions: "Can I do this?", "Can I get a circumstance bonus if I do that?", and I don't know if he's really going to understand why that's OK, but asking if he gets a synergy bonus (in the middle of rolling a skill check) isn't...

I'll have to get that Table Rules sheet done up and post it here, see if anyone has anything to suggest...

 

[Phlebas]

I think that there are consequences to some of these ideas that are getting floated around here:

Penalizing a player a movement action for choosing a different action other than that declared during the proposed "declaration" phase may, (with no experience of such a system, this is just a guess), hinder the tanks more than anyone else.

Spellcasters can cast a spell with a standard action. Archers can still target other creatures. Tanks needs to traverse the battlefield to be effective. If he has given up a move action to change his action (his original target has been downed by another player), he then has to move to engage a different foe. As he only has a standard action left, he doesn't get to make any attack that round. He just moves around a bit, and provides a "ZoC" for the party, within which foes trying to move past him suffer an AoO.

I think the tank moving to a position where he can control the battlefield is pretty important - if i'm restricted in movement, i'll normally miss an attack and double move to get to the right position, of course its better if you have combat reflexes and almost essential if you can then full attack the following round!

I guess it depends on circumstance though - sometimes the spell will win, sometimes the move.

 

[GreatLemur]

This is a very different situation, but it's somewhat relevant: I'm going to be playing in a forum-based game that's currently gearing up, and we've been discussing the possibility of using a declaration phase-like method to keep combat from slowing things down too badly (as it inevitably does in any play-by-post). The current plan (very much subject to change upon testing) is that at the start of combat, we tell the DM informed what we'll probably want to do for the next three rounds, complete with simple if-then clauses. So, if one of us takes annoyingly long to reply, the DM can NPC that character for a round with reasonable confidence that he won't be doing something the player will be annoyed about once he or she finally shows up.

The risks of this method are pretty obvious, and it obviously wouldn't work at all for a lot of groups. Fortunately, I don't think we've got any real powergamers among us (except for the guy who tried--in a move that totally impresses me--to wangle his character DR 3/cold iron at first level), so I don't think we'll go insane with comprehensive contingency plans or freak out about whatever decisions the DM makes on our behalf.

 

[kaomera]

I think the tank moving to a position where he can control the battlefield is pretty important - if i'm restricted in movement, i'll normally miss an attack and double move to get to the right position, of course its better if you have combat reflexes and almost essential if you can then full attack the following round!

I guess it depends on circumstance though - sometimes the spell will win, sometimes the move.

Well, I was used to allowing "I move up to screen the casters." or "I move to block the other door out of the room, and swing at anything that tries to come through it." and such as allowable declarations. Especially since we rarely used a battle-map you didn't need to be as precise about movement, etc. as in 3.x. Also, there where no standard and full-round actions; you could move your full allotment and still get all of your attacks (fewer than in 3.x, but all at normal odds...).