Topic: What actions do you allow players to perform in a single round?

[Druss_the_Legend]

What actions do you allow players to perform in a single round?
Rolemaster Companion 1 has a handy table for showing what is possible in a single round. What system do you use and how many choices do you give your players?

[Spectre771]

For RM2, we stuck pretty closely to what the core rules stated.  We did away with the percentage movements because it led to too much heated discussion over what percentage things were at.  We allowed one major action and some reasonable movement/repositioning with 10' without penalty.  Movement beyond 10' incurred a penalty or only a simple action. 

"I run to the torch on the wall 15' away and grab it."
"I kick the table over and run back 10"
"I attack the orc and position myself between him and the spell caster so the orc doesn't have a clean shot at him."

We tried to keep it as open and fluid as possible to keep the action moving along.  At times we had to whip out the Movement Maneuver chart to see what percentage of action was completed or how far the PC could get like "running across a bridge before the oil flask explodes."

What RMCI presented was a great skeleton frame to work off of.  Best thing is to have something that is at least in print that can be referred to in case the players don't like the GM decision.  Always have something to fall back on when it's needed.  We always allowed players to ask what the GM felt could be achieved or attempted in a round mostly because the GM has the entire picture in his head and there may be circumstances that the players are not yet aware of.  The player could then rework his action before making any dice rolls.

[intothatdarkness]

I stuck with the phased round as well and found that it prevented many of the issues caused by % action. On the whole my groups have been pretty common sense-based, so we never really had issues with someone trying to abuse actions.

[jdale]

This is one of the places we have simply used the rules as written, both RMSS and RMU beta 1.

[Aotrs Commander]

I use an amalgamated sort of percentage activity system, modified from various RM sources (but drawing mostly from SM:P). Percentage movement isn't a problem for us, since we always play on a map (I've also just cribbed the movement from RMU, though we haven't played with it yet). The round sequence is mostly RMC, with long and short actions. We used the snap/normal/deliberate system briefly, but in sci-fi - especially with player access to Haste - it was allowing FAR too many attacks per round. (Character with twin pistols = 6 attacks per round at no penalties other than for offhand attacks.)

I have now stipulated that a character is only allow a maximum of two combat actions per round (which includes attacks and most spells*), regardless of percentage activity.

The current system has the player with the highest initative (initative is rolled once at the start of combat) declare their first action, and if it is a short action, resolve it immediately and keep going until their next action would take them to 51% activity (101% if Hasted), where upon in moves to the next and so on, and then back to the first character for long actions. This splits the difference between the various RM systems and D&D 3.x's cyclic system, which I think was extremely well-designed (and on into 4E's; while not a 4E fan as purely a system it's mechanically sound - it's what it does is entirely the wrong direction for me).

This still gives Haste a huge advantage, since it means you will likely get both potential attacks in the short action phase, but doesn't make it ridiculous.

Granted, with the old RM2/SM2 phased system, this was less of an issue, but I always found the phased system slow and clunky, especially with a party size of 6-8. Getting stuff done around the table also why I did away with action declarations and hybridised with 3.x somewhat.



*Spells have drastically been reduced in casting time (though I've adapted RMU's SCR system as well for the net game), as otherwise, for instance, EAR spells became laughably bad compared to sci-fi guns.