You know how in anime the combatants are getting faster and faster as they grow in power, dodging bullets and throwing a thousand punches per second? This is something I've been playing around with, rules-wise. The rule is very simple:
Every round of combat you can take [HD] actions.
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| From JoJo's Bizarre Adventure |
There are no special kinds of actions anymore - reactions or movement will take one of your actions now. Other possible actions might include defensive stunts or combat manoeuvres. This applies to both PCs and NPCs. High level enemies will get a lot of actions, which keeps the action economy a bit more balanced. Hypothetically.
Now, this rule is intended mostly for fighters, who will be able to zip across the whole battlefield or take down a group of mooks or strafe around a monster, throw up some dust to get advantage on an attack and then decapitate it, all in a single round once they get a few levels under their belt. But what about wizards? Two options, really.
Option one, which I like better: Wizards get only a single action per round, but their spells get progressively more powerful with HD - spell power should scale fast enough to keep up with fighters' endless barrage of actions. Dominions might be a good measure of spell power - by spell level 4, there are spells to conjure a fortress, call meteors, buff a whole army or blot out the Sun.
Option two: Wizards get just as many actions as fighters, but spell casting now takes a number of actions equal to the level of the spell. High level spells should once again be appropriately more powerful to still be worth casting when you can throw out six first level spells at once at HD 6. Yes, the wizard can also throw out six attacks per round. Either let them (this is anime, after all), and/or make them really bad with weapons skills.
In either case, casting spells is effectively slower than swinging a sword, which nicely preserves the common trope of fighters protecting wizards until they can finish their incantation and demolish the opposition.
This obviously completely reshapes the way that combat plays out and while I have tried it out slightly in a solo game, I have not attempted to put together a comprehensive and balanced rules document. However, this nicely boosts fighters and at least for me captures the anime feeling of fighting an absolutely overwhelming threat, whether it is your first level party struggling against a single ogre who suddenly has four actions per round, or when a superhero-levelled fighter drops a squad of enemies before they can even act at all.
My only objection to this, besides it likely being broken as heck, is that it might slow down the game too much, as you might end up with a situation where the players have to take a lunch break each time the fighter gets to make his half dozen attacks, which could kill the pacing.
ReplyDeleteA quick fix: tie the number of actions to your Attack stat, if you have one. This works best in a system like mine, where the bonus to-hit is tied to the class. For example, a Level 4 Fighter has a +4 bonus to-hit and damage, so he gets 4 actions.
But then, we introduce the concept of Focus. You can divide your Actions up and by choosing to focus on one over the others, you can give that action a better chance of succeeding. For example, with attacking, it relies on the Attack bonus. So if you have a +4 to hit, you can make four +1 attacks, one +4 attack or any combination therein.