Actions (Action)
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| Heroic Action Role-Play |
The core of the Action system is about heroic action, and that is described in great detail.
Random Rolls
Action involves a great deal of raw chance. Chance comes from rolling ordinary six-sided dice in different ways.
Standard Roll
The standard roll is the most common way of rolling dice in Action. It generates a random result that is usually in the range from -5 to +5, with a strong concentration around zero. It will sometimes generate very high or low results.
Roll two six sided dice. The dice should be marked; one is the positive die and one is the negative die. For each die, if the result is six, roll an additional die and add that to the die that originally came up a six. You can do this again and again as long as you keep rolling sixes, making extreme results possible but unlikely.
Take the result of the positive die and subtract the result of the negative die. This is the bonus number, and is added to whatever skill or trait you were rolling for.
Confident Roll
A confident roll is used when conditions are favorable or routine; when performing an action you are very familiar with or when spending Fortune. A confident roll is almost, but not quite, guaranteed to generate a result of zero or greater.
A confident roll is the same as a standard roll, only the result is always positive; whichever die comes up with the higher result becomes the positive die. There is one exception. If you roll a boxcars on a confident roll, the dice go wild and you go back to making it as a standard roll, which can give either positive or negative results.
Closed Roll
A closed roll is similar to a regular roll, but a result of six is not re-rolled. A closed roll thus always generates a result from -5 to +5. Closed rolls can also be confident rolls. Special rolls can still apply, but any re-rolls after a Boxcars result remains a closed roll.
d6
Sometimes dice are used to select a result from a random table with an equal chance of each result. In these cases, simply roll 1d6 normally and read it on the table. There are no confident d6 rolls, but if you spend Fortune to reroll a d6, you get to choose either result, the original one or the reroll.
Special Results
There are two special results on the dice.
Boxcars: If both dice come up sixes, they are both open, as described above, but in addition you up the ante on the roll. If the final result of your skill is a success, you earn some kind of windfall or your opponent suffers a Setback. But if the roll comes up as a failure, you fumble and suffer a Setback yourself. In case the result is not clear-cut, such as when you roll against a sliding difficulty with many degrees of partial success, the GM can play it either way or otherwise introduce some random event. A boxcars result also changes a Confident Roll into a Standard Roll.
Snakeyes: If both dice come up one, any jury-rigged or less than completely mastered effects come crashing down. If you are somehow under friction you suffer a Setback. Friction here is any condition that is not fully reliable. As long as you are playing it safe and only using equipment and abilities that are tried and true, there is no result. Using a weapon you just picked up, you run out of ammo. If you are using a power or device you haven't fully mastered, it fails in spectacular ways. If you are using your kit in ways it was not intended to be used, it breaks.
Initiative
The Action system uses an initiative system of shots to determine the order of action.
At the beginning of a round, make a Closed Reflexes roll for each creature or group of minions in the fight. This becomes their first shot. Each character has a shot counter, and the GM counts down shots on this shot counter, beginning at the highest first shot rolled. As each character's shot comes up, she gets to take an action, which reduces her shot counter. As the countdown progresses, she will get to act again, until out of shots for the round. Then initiative is re-rolled and the shot count starts over.
Normal Basic Actions take three shots. This means that characters normally act every third shot, acting again and again in the same order until the round is over. However,there are many exceptions, and characters can lose shots for a variety of reasons.
If two characters come on the same shot, player characters always act before NPCs. If there is still a tie and the player's cannot agree, the character with the highest Reflexes goes first.
Actions
There are a number of different types of actions that come into play. Most of these are a part of the various Schticks characters can learn, but some are available to everyone.
Basic Action
3 Shots
This is the basic three-shot action described above. When your shot count comes up you take the action, determine the result, and reduce your shot counter by three. Most actions are basic actions. When you take a basic action, you also get to move a distance equal to your Move, either before or after acting.
Limit Break
All shots
A limit break is something really out of the of the ordinary. In an action movie or game, it would have its own small cut scene. You must be focused to use a limit break; see the Focus action for details.
A limit break costs all your remaining shots. Even outside of action scenes a Limit Break is strenuous and taxes your Endurance, you cannot go on making Limit Breaks all day.
A Limit Break is otherwise similar to a Basic Action.
Trigger Action
1 Shot
These are done in response to another's action. Each trigger action has a specific trigger event; when this occurs, you perform the trigger action immediately and before the thing that triggered it happens. You then reduce your shot counter by one. A trigger action can never itself be the trigger for another trigger action; this means that trigger actions have a slight edge, and that you cannot defend against or counterattack against them.
Typical trigger actions are are Schticks involving dodging, parrying, counterspelling, riposting, and so on. There is one trigger action everyone can make, the dodge.
There are several types of trigger actions. In general, one action can only trigger one reaction. In play this means you can only do one trigger action of each type in each situation.
Trigger Action (Combo)
These trigger on something you do, and modify basic action you are doing. An example is a power with a trigger like "When you hit an opponent" or "When you cause damage to an opponent". These trigger on the result of your actions; for example on a hit or a miss. They often modify the action you just did, but sometimes give new actions or other options instead.
Trigger Action (Defense)
These are triggered when you or another is attacked, and generally modify your defense. Only one defense can be active at any one time; activating a new one negates any earlier ones.
Trigger Action (Finisher)
This is a special type of trigger action. Whenever you knock an opponent out, you can take a finishing action. All finishing actions are Schticks. You can also use a finisher on a helpless target that you did not just defeat, in which case it is a Basic Action.
Trigger Action (Focus)
Characters in Action can focus, which means that they have built up their concentration, willpower, chi, and/or magic to a peak, enabling Limit Break, stunts even more stupendous than what is normally possible. To do so, you must first focus. You are focused until you use a Limit Break or something happens to break your focus. Methods are common focus actions.
Focusing outside of combat or action scenes normally take 15 minutes, but if you have a relevant Trigger Action (Focus) it can be done faster, usually in about 5 minutes.
Stance
1-Shots between rounds, 1 shots in rounds.
A stance is done before the round starts and before rolling for initiative. It is used to adopt a certain pose and style, and affects your actions from now on. Many stances are enablers for trigger actions or otherwise improve your other actions.
Each stance you adopt costs you one shot from your first shot. If you wish to adopt a stance during a round, the cost is still one shot, but you can only do so when it is your turn. Stances last until the end of the scene, or until you turn them off. Even if you had the stance running before the action began, you still have to pay the shot cost in the first round - in this case the shot cost represents the distraction you suffer from maintaining the stance. Out of action scenes, you can run any number of stances with no cost, but this can prove a major distraction if an action scene suddenly begins.
Some stances are typed, such as (Damage Boost). You can only benefit from one stance of each type at the same time.
Special
Some schticks are special and do not conform to any of the standard types of actions. These are each explained in detail.
Inherent
0 Shots
Not an action per see, but an effect that is constantly active and inherent to the creature, power, or equipment. Described here because it appears in the place where the type of action would be specified in a schtick description. In general, you must use an inherent quality once you get it.
Standard Actions
There are certain actions that everyone can perform, and which do not require any schticks.
Full Move
Basic Action
Move twice in one action, doing nothing else.
Attack
Basic Action
Make an attack with no special modifiers or rules.
Assist Action
Basic Action
You aid a friend in performing an action. Decide on a person, skill, and action to assist. If your cjhosen friend attempts this as their next action, he gains a bonus.
Make a Confident Roll of the skill you are assisting, the difficulty is your friend's skill rating. If you succeed, your friend gets a +1 modifier to his roll. Several assistants can help the same action, to a maximum bonus of +3.
When assisting someone of the same or lower skill, you can forgo the die roll for speed. To assist, you should generally be physically capable of the action you're supporting (in the right spot, not prevented from acting), but need not have any relevant schtick or equipment. The GM has the final say on whether assist action is relevant to a certain task, and how many helpers can assist.
Focused Action
Limit Break
Athletes undergo mental training to achieve top results when it really matters. Any hero can achieve this kind of concentration.
Make a Basic Action. Any roll you make for this action is a Confident Roll. Out of combat, this must be a specific, quick action - you cannot use this to get a bonus on a task taking more than a minute to complete.
Defend
Trigger action
When you are being attacked, you can defend. This adds +3 to one particular skill used as the difficulty of someone else's task. The most typical defense is Active Dodge, but almost all skills can be used as a defense at some point.
In a situation where shots are not counted, defending means you are not fully participating - you play defensive rather than engaging in the situation - which in means you can't initiate actions or make stunts of your own.
Environment Interaction
Basic Action
You interact with the environment in some manner, opening a door, manipulating controls, trowing a lever, picking something up off the floor. This takes a separate basic action, but of the environment interaction can be described as part of a Stunt, you can combine the two actions into one. Examples are closing a door in the face of opponents (using Maneuver to make them to lose shots), picking up the fallen enemy flag (using Impress to make them lose morale) and so on.
Normally, you cannot combine environment interaction with attacks, but you can combine it with powers that can be classified as stunts.
Stunt
Basic Action
Make a Stunt with no special modifiers.
Not an Action
Certain things that could reasonably be expected to be actions are not in Action. These are free, cost nothing, and can be performed at any time.
- Draw/Reload Weapon - Just drawing or reloading is trite and not worthy of Action, but making a montage of it can be dramatic. There are a few exceptional such as cannon, muzzle-loaders and crossbows that always take time to reload.
- Stand up from Prone, fall down etc. Stunts that cause these effects cost you shot; there is no separate action to do this. If happen to be lying down for some reason, there is no special cost to rise. This allows you to describe your characters posture more freely.
- Converse - combat quips and tactical tips are free, as long as it isn't an interaction stunt and doesn't take too long real-time, slowing down the game.
Modifiers to Rolls
Actions in Action are heavily modified by circumstance. This is where player skill and ingenuity comes in; it is the player's job to describe their stunts so that they make dramatic sense and the GMs job to create situations that challenge the players and prompts them to come up with creative and heroic scenes.
- Drama Modifier Does the stunt make sense from a dramatic perspective? Is this something that you'd like to see in an action movie? Did it make the other players at the table go wow? If it is, even if it is obviously very hard, it should not be penalized and might even get a bonus. Describe your action with all the flair you can muster. Just running up to someone and throw a punch is boring - saying you weave trough the storm bullets, roll along the ground, backflip to a standing position and headbutt your opponent to the solar plexus is much fancier. In game terms, this is the same action, and there is most certainly no extra cost for the elaborate description - possibly a bonus instead if the GM is impressed.
- Setting Modifier: The setting should not generally change the odds. In action, it is no harder to disarm a bomb hanging by your feet fifty floors up than it is to do so in a lab. Of course, distractions such as helicopters firing rockets at you are more common in the open air than in a lab, but the situation itself doesn't give any modifiers. Sometimes, you might let local NPCs familiar with the setting avoid some environmental problems, but this is more hand-waiving than anything else.
- Tool Modifier: Having the right tool for the job is a bonus - but using stunts to find or improvise a replacement tool on the spot is just as useful. The GM should be liberal when players use dropped weapons, improvised lockpicks, or use gear for stunts it'd really be inadequate for.
Action modifiers come in different types, classified to make them easier to use.
Stunt Modifiers
One of the most common modifiers in Action comes from stunts to gain advantage. Such stunts create a "pool" of bonus points, that can be used to make later actions more successful. These points are temporary and can only be used once, then they are gone. Stunt Modifiers represent temporary advantages or partial successes
Action Modifiers
A character can gain a bonus or suffer an penalty to certain actions, usually related to one or more skills. For example, a hero that has had his fingers broken suffers a hefty penalty to Shoot. Some action penalties applies to all skills, such as being blind. An action penalty only affects the character's use actions, not to skills used as defense values. GMs should constantly hand out one-time Action Modifiers to specific actions. Other action modifiers might be longer-lasting, even Curses.
Impairments
Impairments are more serious than action modifiers, and applies to all uses of skills, including skills used as defense values. This is very severe indeed and should be used with care; an impaired hero is effectively reduced in statue. Longer-lasting impairments are often Curses and should only be used as plot elements.
Jade Killer has been captured by the To Lung society, who wishes to teach him Confucian values and potentially recruit him. To achieve this, they use a dread martial arts technique to impose a 5-point impairment and then releases the hero into one of their model villages. The hero must now contend with situations that would normally be beneath his notice, escape, and seek help against his condition.
Action and Style
Action is a dramatic game. Characters are assumed to act out their actions with flair and drama. This applies to stunts, schticks, and powers. Each character has a style how they do things. One character might strike poses, another constantly totes and polishes his gear, another talks constantly and drops quips and puns, another is quietly mysterious. All characters are somewhat odd and exceptional and consciously have to work at looking ordinary, especially at higher power levels.
Characters in Action act out even simple actions in dramatic ways. Exactly how they do this varies by character, origin, tradition, and style, but they all need to be free to act to make heroic stunts. This means they need freedom of movement, freedom to talk, and a reasonable amount of space to make their actions. The GM is free to impose penalties in these situation, generally -2. Naturally, in some cases this does not make sense, a character stuck in a ventilation duct can still hack into a security system normally.
A character that is Sneaking can do stunts that affect only himself without attracting attention, but actions affecting others, even allies, draw attention. Remaining quiet when doing stunts affecting yourself does not give you impairments.
Details of being restrained can be found in the Restraint method.