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Elethril - On Fighting
The following is some changes and clarifications to the combat system.
1a) The first round of combat, a group initiative is rolled for each side. This represents group strategy and coordinated actions. This is used to determine suprise. The winner's initiative is normalized to one, with all loosing group's initiative being the difference plus one. Thus, in the first round of combat between two groups, if side A rolls a 4 and side B rolls a 7, side A's base initiative is 1 and side B's is 4 (still two segments between). All individuals base their initiative modifiers on the group's base initiatvie. This is done only for the first round. The second round and afterwards, individuals roll individual initiatives.
1b) Characters in a group (two individuals to the entire party) can coordinate actions and use a group initiative. If a group initiative is used for part of the party, the rest of the party still rolls individual initiative. For group initiative, the reaction modifiers ca nbe used to determine individual initiative off the group base, or the entire group can use the slowest person's initiative modifiers so that all attacks are simulatanous. Two facts are of important note: all players must determine how their initiative will be handled before any dice are rolled (a player cannot decide to go with another group's better dice roll after the fact), the player rolling the die for group initiative cannot use his character's bonus for everyone else (letting the thief roll group initiative does no good). For example, a group of six elves, Aaxi, Baxi, Gaxi, Thaxi, Easi, and Zaxi, desides to nag a group of humans about their bad nameish. After the first round of nagging, Aaxi and Baxi decide to whine independantly, and thus roll their own initiative. The other four nag in concert, although Gaxi will not wait for Zaxi, the slowest, while the other two will; thus, the four will roll one initative die, Gaxi will use his initative modifiers, while Thaxi, Eaxi, and Zaxi all use Zaxi's modifiers. The third round, one of the humans Fireball's the elves, and the wolrd is a better place.
1c) Characters can delay their actions so as to take effect in a later segment in the same round. Thus a mage can hold off casting a Cold Bolt until an opponent mage starts casting his spell in hopes of interrupting the other caster's spell. This does not affect attack sequencing, see (6).
2a) Magical plusses are also used as initative bonuses. Thus, a magical +1 short sword would have a weapon speed of 2 (3-1). Plusses from weapon quality and metal purity do not affect initiative. If a weapon has more quality bonuses than magical bonuses, only the magical bonuses affect weapon speed.
2b) A weapons speed factor cannot be lowered below zero.
3a) The initative number indicates segments in a round. Since there are 10 segments in a round, only characters with a final initative of 10 or less will be able to act in the current round. The minimum initaitve is one. If a character's initiative is less than one, then a weapon attack occurs on segment one, and spell casting begins at segment one. If an action occurs on segment 11 or later, the action occurs in the next round. The character does not roll initative for the next round unless he forfeits his action, which incurs a one point penalty to the initative roll. An action occuring on segment 11-20 is considered the character's action for both rounds. If the initiative roll is 21-30, the action is on the third round, and so on. Large weapons with slow speeds or higher level spells will often only attack every other round. Besides being a more stream-lined system for large groups, this system better reflects the fact that a person with a small, fast weapon will be able to poke holes in a person wielding a cumbersome weapon before that person can attack.
3b) In a given segment, the sequence of events is (1) discharge of cast spells (including those from spells, items, and potions), (2) "instant casting" spell discharge, (3) missile weapons, and (4) melee weapons.
3c) Spell casting starts at the beginning of the caster's initiative segment and continues for as many segments as the spell's casting time. The spell takes effect at the beginning of the following segment, before other attacks. There are certain excpetions to this, namely Power Word and Magic Word spells, cantrips, and other spells specifically designed to be cast quickly. These spells have an extreemly short casting time, and take effect the segment they are used, before melee attacks, but after spells discharging that segment take effect (which can interrupt a Power Word and similar spells).
4a) Multiple attacks: the convention of attacking once during the round and three times at the end is over. After the initial attack, sequential attacks are spaced by the weapon speed. Note that reaction modifiers only affect the first weapon's speed, and do not quicken subsequent attacks. Any initiative modifiers for magical weapons affect only the initiative of that weapon, although if the primary weapon, the result would affect all following attacks.
4b) If multiple attacks are used, since it is often not possible to receive all attacks in one round as before, one initiative die is rolled for each attack, and the best single roll is used (the other rolls are discarded). This applies to missile and melee weapons, including two-handed fighting.
4c) Multiple attacks with melee weapons: the weapon in the primary hand is always done first. After the first attack, the secondary weapon is used a number of segments afterwards equal to the weapon's speed factor. Thus, if a character uses a short sword and dagger, the dagger would be used two segmens after the short sword. If a character has multiple attacks with a single weapon due to proficiency, the attacks are simply spaced a number of segments based on weapon speed. If an attack is to occur on segment 11 or more, then the attack is assumed to take multiple rounds unless the action is aborted (see 3a). Penalties for two-handed fighting are used.
4d) Multiple attacks with missile weapons: this is essentially the same as melee weapons. If the device has a firing rate less than one, then the character must skip an appropriate number of rounds between the last attack (even if the action too two rounds) and the next initiative roll. (The normal number of rounds spent re-loading is the fraction's denominator minus one.)
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