Holding Actions and Suppressive Fire

[GarethL]

Rules for holding actions (sometimes called overwatch) and suppressive fire are fairly common in some RPG systems, has anyone experimented with house rules like these for traveller?

I quite like the idea of spending a Leadership Boon to hold your action and interrupt another player or NPC later in the turn?

Suppressive fire I am less sure about - I suspect that it is tied up with the Dodge and Dive for Cover reactions?

 

[alex_greene]

Suppressive fire is treated the same as ordinary fire, but the aim is not to cause damage; rather, the aim is to cause the enemy to duck for cover. So even an Effect of +1 should be enough to clear the line of sight of targets ... one way or the other.

 

[alex_greene]

Holding actions could be treated as aiming, with the associated +1 DM per combat round, but instead of applying the rule to a Gun Combat check, the DM is applied to initiative - meaning that, for the round in which it is applied, the team acts on its modified initiative.

 

[arcador]

Those rules make sense indeed.

What I like with the traveller system is that the reaction mechanism can simulate suppression. I think Mr Hanrahan designed it this way. However, this variant also works, considering the referee plays the npcs with such behavior in mind.

The holding action is trickier. It's not the triggering mechanism, as it is the aftermath. This type of action, in most systems, supports "clever use of game mechanics". Usually having an initiative change only for 1 round can result in a particular participant to have TWO consecutive actions (or at least 2 actions before a specific enemy). In systems such as Traveller this can be deadly to the opposition. My suggestion here is that the modified initiative stay the same for the rest of the combat.

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

If a player has held his action so as to get two consecutive turns, any NPC attacking that player will have had two effectively consecutive turns to attack that player; also, by saying, “I’ll hold my action”, the GM may then choose to shift the focus of an additional NPC to that player. The GM can even have an NPC hold their action, to counter the PC! It’s not really that unbalanced if it’s GMed right, and the GM can abuse it even worse right back, if he wants to make a point. I’m not convinced that it’s more unbalanced. To me, they are different for an altogether different reason; one is built around allowing for the concept of a counter, and the other is built around genuinely spending time doing nothing. I am generally in favor of allowing a held action that results in two effectively consecutive turns; sometimes, a player wants to do something complicated that he can’t do if he’s interrupted; it’s not unreasonable for him to be able to find an opportunity to. If holding your action costs a minor action, I think that balances things out just fine.

That being said, if a player wants to do two consecutive things in Traveller, he can just take those two -2 penalties for two simultaneous actions; waiting for an opportunity to do that where you won’t be further disadvantaged might be better done as “suspending your turn”. But this doesn’t really model attempting to counter anything.

I think holding an action and suspending your turn until later are really two different techniques for different purposes, and that, while holding an action so that you get two different actions consecutively isn’t inherently broken, it also steps on the toes of the simultaneous actions rule. Holding an action arguably fits better into the exclusive role of countering, while suspending your turn fits better into waiting for appropriate conditions to be met, like a bad guy popping out from cover.

 

[GarethL]

The holding action is trickier. It's not the triggering mechanism, as it is the aftermath. This type of action, in most systems, supports "clever use of game mechanics". Usually having an initiative change only for 1 round can result in a particular participant to have TWO consecutive actions (or at least 2 actions before a specific enemy).

I take your point,

That is in part why I suggested it costing a leadership Boon (someone with tactical awareness needs to shout "hey, Trev, cover that doorway!" or whatever).

Do you think this is mitigated at all by the character having to cite a specific condition and action when announcing that they delay their turn? ("I a im at the doorway and shoot the next thing to come through")? That would give you a delay option at the cost of tactical flexibility?

 

[arcador]

Yes! Also, the condition has to be relatively easy to read - for example, "shooting the next enemy that comes out of the door" might require a recon check to identify friend or before in the millisecond before deciding to take the shot. Delaying a bit (failed check) might result in failing to trigger in time. The referee can punish the cheese-factor if necessary.

But to be honest my initial assessment, while sound as an assumption, rarely met an abuse in my sessions. And thinking about it, I can see a reason for it. Let me elaborate for better clarity:

- With my group, we played a lot of DnD and a pet system (again rules heavy). I guess the system nourished the culture of in-mechanics-thinking so much, that players often found various patterns in the rules, which then they abused in their favor. Some of those patterns became memes of DnD (and some were "patched" in the errata). What I mean is, perhaps the Game Master and the system can create a culture, which supports such behavior.

- The same group in Traveller - not a single such thing. In my experience as a referee, I have met bascially ZERO attempts to be cheesed by a player gaming the rules, and Traveller is not an abuse-proof system, on the contrary. It's just that the game (and to my credit - my role as a referee, I hope) have created a culture of in-imagination thinking over the in-mechanics thinking, and while the system may allow for cheesing, the same players don't do it.

So even with the possibility of double action, I don't see the players constantly abusing it.

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

The thing about making that Recon roll is that it may count as a major action, preventing him from taking the shot normally. They would have to apply a -2 penalty to both the Recon roll and the attack. Unless there’s a reduced standard penalty for taking a major action in place of a minor one...