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ShadowRun, SR4: Welcome to New York! | by LongFist | 2015-07-20 20:40:45 |
| Initiative Revealed! |
by LongFist |
2015-08-20 10:23:13 |
About Initiative:
As it is in AD&D so it is in ShadowRun: we do not call for initiative rolls until the time comes where it makes a difference. Rolling initiative ahead of time is cute, but this GameMaster ignores those rolls in favor of some nicer, fresher rolls at the time they are needed.
Initiative determines who goes first, and who goes next - defines the entire (possible) chain of events for a combat turn. (The flip side of that coin is “Initiative Passes” - and we’ll get to that in a few minutes.) To get this each character will - at the beginning of each combat turn - roll a number of dice equal to his/her/its Initiative Attribute. Then ADD the “Hits” from that roll TO his/her/its Initiative Attribute, for a final Initiative Score. Confused yet? I was too, long ago. Let me show you an example:
MookMaster has an Initiative Attribute of 6, so she will roll 6 dice [results: 3 2 4 5 5 6] and add the number of “hits” (die rolls of 5 and above) to her Initiative to find her Initiative Score. Looking at her dice results, she has a total of 3 “hits” - so we add 3 to her Initiative Attribute of 6 to get her Initiative Score of 9 for this combat round. Not bad for a spellslinger, huh?
A Word About Wounds/Damage and Initiative Scores:
When making the Initiative Test, wound modifiers from damage affect the Initiative Score. In addition, if a character takes damage that inflicts wound modifiers during a Combat Turn, apply those (additional) modifiers to his Initiative Score immediately. This means that a character’s Initiative Score may be affected in the middle of an Initiative Pass (though if he has already acted in that pass, it won’t matter until the next one).
If damage modifiers reduce a character’s Initiative Score to zero or less, that character does not get any actions during that Combat Turn. Let’s look at another example:
MookMaster (you remember her, right?) has just achieved an Initiative Score of 9. Before she can act, some clod hiding in a nearby dumpster is a little quicker than she is, and decides to shoot her with his assault rifle from concealment. (Too much detail. Never mind all of that.) Long story short: MookMaster takes 4 boxes of physical damage (good thing she’s wearing her armor today!) which reveals a wound modifier of -2. Her Initiative Score is immediately adjusted down by 2 (dropping it from 9 to 7), pushing her further towards the end of “goes last this round”. What can I say, the Wound Modifer directly affects Initiative Score!
If a character does not get an action that allows him to act during an Initiative Pass, he can do nothing; he must bide his time until the next turn. The character also gets no Free Actions during those extra Initiative Passes; he may, however, still dodge and defend against attacks. The same Initiative Score is kept for the entire Combat Turn—do not re-roll it for each Initiative Pass. The only way to affect an Initiative Score during the Combat Turn is with wound modifiers.
There is a treasure trove of information in your 20th Anniversary 4th Ed Core Rulebook on pages 144 through 171 inclusive. 27 pages is a lot to read - but the game manual makes it somewhat enjoyable.
About Initiative Passes:
Initiative Passes are how many “actions” an individual gets per combat round. Remember “attacks per round” in AD&D? Well, that’s what the Initiative Passes are, but they’re for far more options/actions than mere attacks. Some people use them to prepare/switch weapons, shift targets, speak a few words, sling some mana, turn systems on or off (or both! A quantum joke...) or…
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