Action Rounds


Action Rounds - An action round is a brief period of time - about two seconds - enough time for most characters to attempt a couple of actions. At the beginning of each round, at least half of every character's non-damaged hit points become ready. (The rest of the hit points may stay in place to maintain "wind-up" or "manuvering" bonuses, or they can instead also become ready. If they "stay in place", they are said to be "carry over" from the last round.) Then the characters take turns trying to do various moves or combinations of moves until they all have no more ready hit points.

Turns - Every time it is a Character's "Turn" to act, at least one of those Character's "ready hit points", if they have any, must be used. If the Character does absolutely nothing worthy of using a single hit point, and they still have one or more "ready" hit points, then one of those "ready" hit points goes into "other used" hit points, because this hesitation counts as an action (see Action Rules/Hit Points.)

Any number of characters can try to act during a single turn. These actions occur simultaneously but they don't all start at exactly the same time, so it is important to decide which characters will decide how to act first.

Movement from "carry over" hit points (see first pargagraph in this section,) takes place before any normal turns begin. These "carry over turns" initiative works exactly the same as normal turns, except instead of who has the most "ready" hit points is changed to who ever has the most "carry over" hit points. If a character does not move as much as he could have from his "carry over" hit points on his first "carry over turn", then the remainder of his potential movement from "carry over" hit points is lost (or in other words, each character has a maximum of one "carry over turn" per round, and they may not use "carry over" hit points to move after that "carry over turn"). During these "carry over turns", the characters can only move, and only use "carry over" hit points.

Surprise - if a character uses stealth or some other trick they decide how to act first regardless of other factors.

Initiative - Usually the character with the most "ready hit points" gets to decide how to act first. (See Characters/Hit Points for the definition of "ready hit points.") If more than one character is "tied" for having the most "ready hit points," then of those characters, the character with the longest reach gets to decide how to act first. (But if two characters are closer than half the reach of the longest character's weapon, then the closer character actually gets initiative - except for missile weapons which still get initiative when they have the most range.)

If for some reason more than one character has exactly the same reach and ready hit points, then the one with the highest bonus to do his action goes first. If all of these options are tied, then the tied characters go in random order (each one rolls a die and the one with the highest roll goes first. No ties allowed on the rolls, if they roll the same numbers, continue to re-roll until they do not roll the same number.)

Also, if a character is outreached and not using a missile weapon or similar long range weapon, he can only attack his target's weapon and not the target, and then only when his target attacks him. The exeption is if when his target attacks the target's weapon's reach is shorter than the defender's (this character's) total reach.

Interfering - An action can be used to keep another action from succeeding. The roll for the success of this action is one roll against the success of the action being prevented. There can be several rolls against the success of one action. If any of these are successful the action fails. Interfering actions can't use more hit points than the action being interfered with.

Multiple Weapons - Each weapon a character uses simultaneously can be used once per turn.

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Copyright © 1997 - 2003 Seth Galbraith and Benjamin Galbraith