Pathfinder Revised Action Economy

[Creighton]

So, does anyone have any experience with this (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/o ... on-economy)?

On first look, it appears to be an interesting take that makes combat a bit less static. Or is it complete garbage? It doesn't seem to be being talked about much, so I assume it is as half-assed as the rest of Pathfinder.

I'm thinking of porting my E8 game over to it, but I'm looking for some opinions before I potentially waste my time with it.


Cheers.

[Zaranthan]

That is absolutely dreadful. Just reading through it half asleep, I came up with using 2 acts to cast a spell, then the third to ready an action to cast another spell, possibly one that would normally take 3 acts, and cast it with my reaction act. Two spells per turn at level one.

[Mord]

That is absolutely dreadful. Just reading through it half asleep, I came up with using 2 acts to cast a spell, then the third to ready an action to cast another spell, possibly one that would normally take 3 acts, and cast it with my reaction act. Two spells per turn at level one.

Maybe you should drink your coffee before taking another look...

Ready a Simple Action or an Advanced Action: You ready a single simple or advanced action that you can take before the start of your next turn as a reaction. You must designate a definite trigger for that reaction (such as "if a foe attacks me," "if a foe casts a spell," or "if a foe moves adjacent to me"), and you must have enough acts left to complete the action you ready. Once you ready an action, your turn ends. If you don't take the action you readied as a reaction by the start of your next turn, you lose that reaction.

Cast a Standard-Action Spell (Complex; 2 Acts): You cast a spell with a casting time of 1 standard action. This isn't an attack action, even if the spell requires a ranged attack roll. If you provoke attacks of opportunity when casting the spell, you don't provoke attacks a second time when making the ranged attack roll.

[Kaelik]

1) Still doesn't define Surprise Round at all, that sucks.
2) At least you get to full attack in the surprise round, so that Wizards aren't just objectively better than the full attack archers in that round.
3) you an either take an AoO or cast an immediate action spell, because they are the same thing. Also apparently Wizards now take Combat Reflexes to get off more spells per round? Also if you ready an action, you can't make AoOs. Because why not fuck Fighters when you can?
4) Wholly fuck this is bad. So you get 3 actions, but casting a spell is 2 actions, so you can either cast and move, or cast and cast a swift action spell. Apparently people were mad that Wizards casted swift action spells. That's literally the worst complaint against Wizards.
5) Fighters still can't move and full attack......... wtf? They can move and attack twice (even from level 1) but they can't full attack.
6) TWFing allows you to attack twice on a "standard action" attack, but only the first one each round. Improved and Greater TWFing allow you to attack again on your second and third attack each round. But with weird penalties that make no sense. I think this just means that TWFing is shit.

So here's how a fighters turn works:

You are level 1, you move and attack twice, level 1 is so fucking lethal, because Orcs with Greataxes are doing the same thing. If someone actually survives those two attack, they get three attacks back on the person that moved next to them. WTF, don't play level 1 at all.

You are level 6, so you can either take a full round action to attack at +6/+1, or you can move, and then attack twice at +6. Or stand still and attack 3 times at +6/+6/+6. You will never full attack.

If you TWF, you can attack at +4+4, and then if you have the feat, your next attack is -1/-1, and then your third attack is a single attack at +6. You will never TWF.

Now you are level 11, which means your full attack is +11/+6/+1, or you can spend three actions to +11/+11/+11. Or you can TWF, have spend three feats, and spend three actions to +9/+9/+4/+4/-1/-1.

You will never fucking TWF.

Meanwhile, the Wizard is a Wizard who has to give up his move action to cast a swift action spell, but he takes Combat reflexes and can use immediate action spells like 5 times a round.

Not sure what immediate action spells Pathfinder has though.

So far you can turn your level 1 spells into Dr/10 Magic and Sneak attack immunity or Cover, not totally useless. You can stagger anyone who is tripped or slips on grease for 1/round per level as a second level spell, so that's fucking the bomb at levels 5 and up.

[Lurky Lurkpants]

First, slight corrections: you can't ready an action to cast an extra spell, ready action says you need enough actions left to perform the action (which would be only 1 after a 2 act spell). Also, taking three attack actions is also +11/+6/+1, under "Attack Actions" it mentions the iterative penalty. "Full Attack" isn't an option at all.

Okay, with that out of the way, it is incomplete and poorly thought out garbage. On the most basic level setting 1 attack = move = swift = 5' step and AoO = immediate action is not going to give good results. Characters that relied heavily on swift actions (like most of the newer classes) take a big hit, as what was a fine space filling swift action is now something you will never use again because it is competing with main activities.

Natural weapons don't work at all. There appears to be nothing stopping you from using them with the normal attack action, so a Tyrannosaurus can now attack at +20/+15/+10 instead of just +20. However there is no option between a 1 act attack and a 3 act "attack with all natural weapons," which means you take a 5' step and drop a Kraken from 11 attacks to 2. Combining natural and manufactured weapons is entirely pointless. Also, there are no BaB limits on iterative attacks now. This is great for casters who are slumming it in Face Punch City, since they often get an excess of attack bonus but not base attack bonus. It also means that at level 1 instead of the Wizard running out of spells and whiffing with a quarterstaff at -2 they are whiffing with a quarterstaff at -2/-7/-12. It wastes time like crazy, but people won't throw away the actions.

It also doesn't address things like Vital Strike, except for a generic "do something" sidebar. This makes it either free damage (if you make it 1 act) or even more garbage than normal (if it is 2). Other common things like Pounce and such are similarly not mentioned, because the book needed 50 pages for a monster generator nobody uses.

As a final bonus, it includes an action to search a 10' area. That is a 3.5 rule that Pathfinder doesn't have anywhere else. For some reason Paizo dropped a bunch of little house rules like that into unrelated systems in Unchained, so you can ignore stat requirements for some feats if you use Stamina or redistribute skill points when you get Versatile Performance if going VMC, though not in the normal game.

[Kaelik]

On the most basic level setting 1 attack = move = swift = 5' step

Wow it did not even occur to me that they would be stupid enough to make 5ft steps into fucking actions. That is horrific.

[Lokey]

Make All Natural Attacks (Attack; 3 Acts): (30 words to say everything the action's title says).

Has CMD improved at all or is it just a loser unless you have a way to get stupid high stats? More than a few mentions for that.

Lots of silly things that shouldn't be part of combat: Call a forgery in one round with linguistics instead of 1d4 minutes/page of other skills or however long appraise takes down to one round of actions.

Dirty Trick looks like omg the power until you read what the conditions do.

Don't know enough about Pathfinder to be able to compare to base. If their intention is to streamline, there's way too many fiddly bits buried in there.

[Creighton]

Sigh. Thanks guys.

I had realised that it was missing a few things (how Vital Strike works was the one that leapt out at me, as does rapid shot/manyshot), but good to know there are also a whole bunch of other problems there too.

I wonder if it could work if you added back in a swift action to everyone (no spellcasting is a swift action, lets leave quickend spells at 1 act), and allowed taking a 5 foot step as a swift action? It fixes the multiple natural attacking creature vs 5 foot stepping opponent problem, and helps the newer classes (warpriest) that rely on quickened actions.

[Username17]

The reason no one talks about the dumb ideas in Unchained is that even Paizo admits that those are pretty much just dumb ideas.

There is not now and never has been a quick and dirty hack to turn D&D into an action points system without being horribly broken. The whole thing where Fighting Men get more attacks and Magic Users get better spells as their respective rewards for going up in level means that the exchange rate between an attack and a spell is not remotely even at different levels of play. That alone sinks the concept before we even get to specific implementations or the fact that Fighters and Wizards weren't balanced in the first place.

4th edition, or something like it could be converted into an action point system. And honestly it very nearly was. But previous editions don't work that way and strain to the breaking point if you try to make them.

-Username17

[AcidBlades]

I've never seen Pathfinder Unchained anything that isn't Rogue, being put to use at all.

[OgreBattle]

I've never seen Pathfinder Unchained anything that isn't Rogue, being put to use at all.

My favorite Pathfinder Unchained Rogue is the Ninja, and my favorite pathfinder ninja is the vivisectionist alchemist.

---

If you have a specific part of not-D&D you want to fix, the solution is to house rule that specific part. Changing the core mechanic of action economy will just cause all kinds of unintended problems as others have mentioned here.

So you want to make "combat feel less static/more mobile", I'd say you keep the action economy as it is and implement one of the following

* Allow full attacks with melee or throwing as a standard action
* Everyone gets pounce (or martial weapon proficiency only)
* Everyone gets vital strike (or martial weapon proficiency only)
* Jettison Pathfinder and play with TOME rules

[Mord]

It would be kind of nice if 3.5 ran on action points in the first place, but we're talking a serious ground-up rebuild. Has anyone published such a thing with the serious intention that it be used?

[souran]

Like most of the rest of unchained (which might as well be called "pathfinder - fine we admit the rogue is broken and fighters suck") the revised action economy has serious issues.

I will just hit on the things that other people have not really commented on yet.

1) It is not actually any simpler or more streamlined than the existing system. Even their own sidebar on how to convert quickly is filled with the sorts of wiggle words that make it totally useless. They spend 4 pages fitting all kinds of actions that were assigned under the old system to the new one and the list is still incomplete. Fundamentally it doesn't reduce the complexity of combat at all.

2) It isn't actually faster than the current system. If your table has a problem with iterative attacks taking to long buy more fucking dice. Roll your attack and damage dice together. I have never had the issue with d20 D&D be that people making attack actions take to long to resolve, the issue is always that every spell/spell like has to be looked up to adjudicate because every spell is a completely unique bit of rules. The internet has mostly resolved this issue.

3) It doesn't actually meet its own design goal. The stated goal is to have low level characters able to do more and high level characters able to do less. However, the "do more" is fundamentally always going to be "attack one extra time" and so after 6th level is probably just straight worse than the existing system. Meanwhile the reason that high level casters are complex is because they can quicken cast, then cast, then utilize contingencies/reactive spells. This can still be done. So the rules just straight up fail and achieving the purpose of the re-write.

A better inclusion would have been a TOTM/Gridless system that was focused on speeding up the time it takes to get through a round of combat. Every group I have played with has been willing to sacrifice tactical complexity for getting more turns in. A better alternate would be a final fantasy action complexity in exchange for final fantasy active battle system turn speeds.[/i]

[Orca]

It's ... weird. The magus gets an odd boost; spellstrike being a separate action to spell combat means that instead of casting one touch spell and getting two chances to land it as a full round action (the current rule) that they can cast and attack once, not casting the spell thru the weapon (using spell combat) and then cast a second spell in the round and attack with it thru the weapon (using spellstrike.) I doubt that's what they intended. I have no idea how charge and pounce are supposed to interact in this system. Spells which cost a full-round action to cast and not a standard or 1 round action have no defined casting time in this system. There's likely other things they didn't think of.

Someone wrote this in an hour, maybe tested it with a couple of friends with their usual characters (who weren't spontaneous casters with metamagic, maguses, or anyone with pounce) and then called it good. It might have worked better with some real testing and a rewrite - but that obviously didn't happen.