Houserules for initiative orders
Sept 18, 2017 15:52:56 GMT -8
Post by Linus on Sept 18, 2017 15:52:56 GMT -8
I ask mainly for V:tM, but I guess it is applicable for all the old gamelines.
Do you have a set of houserules to run initiative? As Stu has voiced on many occassion, the rules as written are a bit of a hassle.
My current rules are as follows:
1) Roll initiative as normal.
2) Ask players to spend blood on heals, buffs and celerity actions.
3) I use Roll20 atm, so I add the celerity actions as bottom entries in the built in initiative tracker.
4) Characters act on their initiative. Defendants may take evasive actions as long as they have an entry left in the initiative tracker.
5) Damage is applied when the attacking part is acting, ie. characters may be incapacitated before they get to act in the same turn.
It works, but it's not great. I've been toying with the idea of using tokens when playing face to face, to keep track on whether they may (re)act further before the end of the turn: one colour for standard actions (may be non-physical actions, pool may be split) and another for celerity actions (physical only, no splitting). The player and GM alike toss in a token whenever a character acts, including defensive measures. No celerity-tokens may be spent while you still have your normal token. No celerity-token may be used for non-defensive actions until everyone's normal tokens have been used (celerity action goes LAST in the initiative).
It'll be hard to mimic in Roll20, and it still feels unecessary complicated, even though it'll have a tactile element and the players contibrute to initiative bookkeeping.
Don't bother with extra actions at all, then? One could treat celerity like potence and add a static bonus to all DEX-related dicepools and offer automatic successes once per turn with the expenditure of blood. Would that break the system in another place, though? Questions, questions...
What are your views and experiences on the subject? Do you have a set of houserules that has worked well for you? Some that proved disastrous?
Do you have a set of houserules to run initiative? As Stu has voiced on many occassion, the rules as written are a bit of a hassle.
My current rules are as follows:
1) Roll initiative as normal.
2) Ask players to spend blood on heals, buffs and celerity actions.
3) I use Roll20 atm, so I add the celerity actions as bottom entries in the built in initiative tracker.
4) Characters act on their initiative. Defendants may take evasive actions as long as they have an entry left in the initiative tracker.
5) Damage is applied when the attacking part is acting, ie. characters may be incapacitated before they get to act in the same turn.
It works, but it's not great. I've been toying with the idea of using tokens when playing face to face, to keep track on whether they may (re)act further before the end of the turn: one colour for standard actions (may be non-physical actions, pool may be split) and another for celerity actions (physical only, no splitting). The player and GM alike toss in a token whenever a character acts, including defensive measures. No celerity-tokens may be spent while you still have your normal token. No celerity-token may be used for non-defensive actions until everyone's normal tokens have been used (celerity action goes LAST in the initiative).
It'll be hard to mimic in Roll20, and it still feels unecessary complicated, even though it'll have a tactile element and the players contibrute to initiative bookkeeping.
Don't bother with extra actions at all, then? One could treat celerity like potence and add a static bonus to all DEX-related dicepools and offer automatic successes once per turn with the expenditure of blood. Would that break the system in another place, though? Questions, questions...
What are your views and experiences on the subject? Do you have a set of houserules that has worked well for you? Some that proved disastrous?