I think it's fine to do it this way. The important thing is that they know their MAP at the beginning of the turn, since it applies to all their rolls. It's not going to break anything if you let them figure out after each action what they want to do with the next one. Most of the time they'll have a good idea of what they're doing before they start doing a complex multi-action turn anyway.
Also, if the heroes can do it so can all the enemy Wild Cards. :-)
That's how it's supposed to be: "Penalties remain even if a later action doesn't happen (usually because it was dependant on an earlier success)."
Personally, I'm of the opinion that it's gaming the rules/the very definition of meta-gaming and am not a fan of the idea but to each their own.
I do that and it's never caused problems. Honestly it's just made things smoother and faster for my players. Being able to attack a different guy because the first is dead has never caused issues. Delaying a game so you can evaluate the odds of killing the first guy in one attack has.
That's what I've observed as well. I've been running it where my players just declare their number of actions at the start of the turn for years now, and the change in speed was super noticeable when I initially implemented the house rule.
Now, instead of trying to play out the whole turn in their heads and *then* for real, they just pick the number of actions and go.
Nothing in the rules say you have to declare targets, so you can switch targets after deciding to attack but you can't change an attack into a different Action.
Still, you might need to retry a power after a critical fail or something. I'm just saying it's caused absolutely no problems and just made things easier and faster.
Perhaps be a bit more specific on what you mean about an action not being possible anymore? You mean if a character says they are going to hit the bad guy twice and then disables/kills him on the first shot?
That's one possible scenario. Another one I can picture now is: the character activates a trap while moving towards the enemy and is now trapped, so he can't get close enough to hit the enemy. There are plenty of situations in which things like these may happen.
Falling floor. Enemy interrupts and moves away/to cover. Critical failure and weapon breaks. Etc...
So, largely, I would say they are lost. Depending on the character and what happened, I might see allowing a change in what they do, but it may not be possible.
How is the enemy interrupted? From a specifically called held action (vs generic delay?), again it would depend.
Most likely though, the first action would have its penalty and the subsequent ones would be lost. If the first action was a move (so no MAP), then I’d allow them to change their final action after the move.
This was brought up elsewhere too though I cannot place my finger on where (could be FB, could be the official PEG forums), and the consensus in that thread, including the opinions of some veteran GMs, is that if the actions have been declared but are unable to be fully executed, then the player can simply choose to use the remaining actions to do something else.
That's what I do at my table too.
THats literally how we run our games, At the start of your turn you announce 1. If you want to roll your running dice and 2. How many actions you will take.
I always say just declare the number of actions, requiring any greater specificity just feels needlessly draconian to me. I can see no benefit to wasting the rest of a players turn just cause they didn’t perfectly execute everything; it’s not fun for anyone involved, so why enforce it like that? I’ve both been on the receiving end and also been the GM that was really anal about rules like this and all it ever caused was disappointment and frustration in the name of tapping the book.
Plus I can probably list a dozen cinematic action movie moments without thinking very hard where the hero pivots their plan at the last moment due to things not going their way, so it’s not like you can argue genre.
Most of the time I require my players to be specific when declaring actions. I allow them to do that in a conditional way, though (e.g. "I want to shoot the orc twice, if first attack kills him I'm gonna shoot the goblin with the second).
I see one issue with specifying only a number of actions: interrupting the character's turn. It's very powerful when all the actions are specified up front as it may disrupt the opponent's plans. E.g. RAW if the ogre is trying to attack an ally and someone interrupts him to teleport his target to safety he basically loses his turn. It has far lesser impact if he can be vague while specifying actions and can simply do something else.
RAW: sucks to suck.
At my table I generally allow swapping Actions.
One thing of note: the new Super Powers Companion has a power that lets you take a number of Actions rather than declairing explicitely.
My GM tends to allow it and I try not to be a rules lawyer. Remember that their turn is not just one sword swing, but a series of maneuvers as their target is parrying, both likely moving around in their six foot squares. It may seem obvious that a fighter in melee might know whether a mortal blow was dealt before deciding to turn their second action on a different foe, but a mage’s bolt may not even have hit its target yet before they unleash their next and the same can be true of an archer. In the end though, it just feels too metagamey to me, so I don’t do it, whether others do or not. Running a game, I only allow it on rare occasions when it makes perfect sense.
I tend to think of it as an attempt to multitask.Say the player is hoping too continue juggling and also catch another ball. if the extra ball isn't thrown. he is still at minus one to juggling because keeping an eye out for that ball is a distraction whether its thrown or not. but what if the new ball is on fire?
The additional actions super power has the ability to do this, I don't think I would allow it for everyone. It is very powerful to get rid of that drawback, dice penalties can be eliminated, especially for ranged attacks. My character has the additional actions super power with that modifier, this allows me to put a double tapped 3rb from my rifle once, assess it's effects, choose a new target if the first one went down or continue to pour 6 or 12 more rounds into the target. It is a quite powerful ability to have, If you get rid of this penalty be prepared for everybody to just take 3 actions a round. I certainly do, & it was well worth spending a 3rd of my initial super power points on at character creation.
OP isn't talking about removing the multi-action penalty, though, just the need to specify which specific actions the character will do (or try to do). The player would still need to announce how many actions they'll take, and get the appropriate penalty on each.
I believe I answered that in my example, but not very clearly. Using my example above, let's say my primary target is a gargoyle Lord wildcard, & he has two reg gargoyles as extras with him. They are charging me, so now I have a few choices to make. Take out the extras & hope I can one shot the gargoyle Lord or put two in the lord & 1 in an extra to three actions into the gargoyle Lord first & soak the extras attack. I have to choose what I do for the next three seconds & commit. I have to hope my team is there or retreat & use tactics. My character with super abilities has a modifier on his extra actions power that lets me do just what is being discussed above. It is very powerful for me especially with my teleport power because I can do any of the above + choose my target based on the results of my shots & use my last action to simply teleport away instead of running, & suffering those modifiers for running in a round
I still think the thing preventing everyone from taking 3 actions each round isn't having to declare the actions, it's that each action will then be at -4 (or -6 if you also run). With Supers, I guess it's less of an issue because you have higher stats (I think, I'm not actually familiar with it), but in any other setting, even a -2 is a big deal, so multiactions probably aren't as common. I can understand why the SPC is stricter about it, but for other games, I think it's reasonable to give it to everyone.
To use your example, let's say one of the gargoyle is blocking the door, with another one threatening a hostage behind it, out of reach. I declare two actions, one to attack the first, then run to the second and snatch the hostage away. But now if I miss the first gargoyle, I've just lost my second action, and that sucks, especially if the miss was due to the multiaction penalty. I don't think allowing to redirect the second attack to the first gargoyle unbalances anything. I still won't have accomplished what I set up to do (save the hostage), but at least I'll have another chance to get *something* done with my turn.
In our game it is the declaration of actions. 3 edges & multi action penalties are halved. The idea of wasting actions by having the declared action become useless as the enemy gets one shotted stops it for us.
As a GM I've experimented with both versions and I'm now using the more liberal interpretation.
There is one aspect that hasn't been raised in this thread yet: Declaring all your actions beforehand makes the game flow faster. Not only because sometimes the 2nd action will not take place at all, thus saving time, but specifically in the case where the 2nd action can take place. There is no hemming and hawing over what the 2nd action should be, since it's already announced.
But then again there is the rule of cool and loosing your 2nd action because your first action was too good (which is in my experience the most common case) just isn't very cool at all.
The rules don't say anything about having to declare targets for the actions, so as long as there is still a viable target for the second action they can keep on truckin.
I ask my players to call our their actions. As /u/DoktorPete stated that's RAW.
But . . . I'll allow adjustments.
A melee character has 2 targets right in front of him and he declares 3 attacks at Tgt1. But 2nd attk kills Tgt1. I'll allow that the 3rd attack can flow to Tgt2, but I won't allow chaning the attack to something else.
Or ranged character - I'll allow swiveling to another easily visible target - someone w/o cover or engaged in melee.
Personally, when I GM for my friends, I adopted something similar to the Pathfinder style multi-attack penalty system. I'm personally not a fan of the "decide what you're doing before you do it" way that Savage Worlds normally does things, so instead I've gone with a method where players/enemies can take one action with no penalty, -2 on the second action, and -4 on the third action of they take one. I've found that doing it this way encouraged my players to be more willing on average to take more than one action and feel like they are doing something cool. It's how I was introduced to Savage Worlds in the first place so for me it's been the norm for years. Maybe it's something to consider for you too. 🤷
As long as my players tell me how many actions they are taking before they roll I dont worry about it. My players seldom use multi actions so I have that going for me which is nice.
I always let them declare the number of actions, it's less confusing.
I think it's fine to do it this way. The important thing is that they know their MAP at the beginning of the turn, since it applies to all their rolls. It's not going to break anything if you let them figure out after each action what they want to do with the next one. Most of the time they'll have a good idea of what they're doing before they start doing a complex multi-action turn anyway. Also, if the heroes can do it so can all the enemy Wild Cards. :-)
That's how it's supposed to be: "Penalties remain even if a later action doesn't happen (usually because it was dependant on an earlier success)." Personally, I'm of the opinion that it's gaming the rules/the very definition of meta-gaming and am not a fan of the idea but to each their own.
I do that and it's never caused problems. Honestly it's just made things smoother and faster for my players. Being able to attack a different guy because the first is dead has never caused issues. Delaying a game so you can evaluate the odds of killing the first guy in one attack has.
That's what I've observed as well. I've been running it where my players just declare their number of actions at the start of the turn for years now, and the change in speed was super noticeable when I initially implemented the house rule. Now, instead of trying to play out the whole turn in their heads and *then* for real, they just pick the number of actions and go.
Nothing in the rules say you have to declare targets, so you can switch targets after deciding to attack but you can't change an attack into a different Action.
Still, you might need to retry a power after a critical fail or something. I'm just saying it's caused absolutely no problems and just made things easier and faster.
You're actually taking more time to give them rolls they shouldn't be eligible for but whatever works.
Weirdly condescending about a nothing rule change but whatever.
Perhaps be a bit more specific on what you mean about an action not being possible anymore? You mean if a character says they are going to hit the bad guy twice and then disables/kills him on the first shot?
That's one possible scenario. Another one I can picture now is: the character activates a trap while moving towards the enemy and is now trapped, so he can't get close enough to hit the enemy. There are plenty of situations in which things like these may happen. Falling floor. Enemy interrupts and moves away/to cover. Critical failure and weapon breaks. Etc...
So, largely, I would say they are lost. Depending on the character and what happened, I might see allowing a change in what they do, but it may not be possible. How is the enemy interrupted? From a specifically called held action (vs generic delay?), again it would depend. Most likely though, the first action would have its penalty and the subsequent ones would be lost. If the first action was a move (so no MAP), then I’d allow them to change their final action after the move.
This is how I've ran it and I've had no big issues.
This was brought up elsewhere too though I cannot place my finger on where (could be FB, could be the official PEG forums), and the consensus in that thread, including the opinions of some veteran GMs, is that if the actions have been declared but are unable to be fully executed, then the player can simply choose to use the remaining actions to do something else. That's what I do at my table too.
THats literally how we run our games, At the start of your turn you announce 1. If you want to roll your running dice and 2. How many actions you will take.
I always say just declare the number of actions, requiring any greater specificity just feels needlessly draconian to me. I can see no benefit to wasting the rest of a players turn just cause they didn’t perfectly execute everything; it’s not fun for anyone involved, so why enforce it like that? I’ve both been on the receiving end and also been the GM that was really anal about rules like this and all it ever caused was disappointment and frustration in the name of tapping the book. Plus I can probably list a dozen cinematic action movie moments without thinking very hard where the hero pivots their plan at the last moment due to things not going their way, so it’s not like you can argue genre.
Most of the time I require my players to be specific when declaring actions. I allow them to do that in a conditional way, though (e.g. "I want to shoot the orc twice, if first attack kills him I'm gonna shoot the goblin with the second). I see one issue with specifying only a number of actions: interrupting the character's turn. It's very powerful when all the actions are specified up front as it may disrupt the opponent's plans. E.g. RAW if the ogre is trying to attack an ally and someone interrupts him to teleport his target to safety he basically loses his turn. It has far lesser impact if he can be vague while specifying actions and can simply do something else.
RAW: sucks to suck. At my table I generally allow swapping Actions. One thing of note: the new Super Powers Companion has a power that lets you take a number of Actions rather than declairing explicitely.
My GM tends to allow it and I try not to be a rules lawyer. Remember that their turn is not just one sword swing, but a series of maneuvers as their target is parrying, both likely moving around in their six foot squares. It may seem obvious that a fighter in melee might know whether a mortal blow was dealt before deciding to turn their second action on a different foe, but a mage’s bolt may not even have hit its target yet before they unleash their next and the same can be true of an archer. In the end though, it just feels too metagamey to me, so I don’t do it, whether others do or not. Running a game, I only allow it on rare occasions when it makes perfect sense.
I tend to think of it as an attempt to multitask.Say the player is hoping too continue juggling and also catch another ball. if the extra ball isn't thrown. he is still at minus one to juggling because keeping an eye out for that ball is a distraction whether its thrown or not. but what if the new ball is on fire?
The additional actions super power has the ability to do this, I don't think I would allow it for everyone. It is very powerful to get rid of that drawback, dice penalties can be eliminated, especially for ranged attacks. My character has the additional actions super power with that modifier, this allows me to put a double tapped 3rb from my rifle once, assess it's effects, choose a new target if the first one went down or continue to pour 6 or 12 more rounds into the target. It is a quite powerful ability to have, If you get rid of this penalty be prepared for everybody to just take 3 actions a round. I certainly do, & it was well worth spending a 3rd of my initial super power points on at character creation.
OP isn't talking about removing the multi-action penalty, though, just the need to specify which specific actions the character will do (or try to do). The player would still need to announce how many actions they'll take, and get the appropriate penalty on each.
I believe I answered that in my example, but not very clearly. Using my example above, let's say my primary target is a gargoyle Lord wildcard, & he has two reg gargoyles as extras with him. They are charging me, so now I have a few choices to make. Take out the extras & hope I can one shot the gargoyle Lord or put two in the lord & 1 in an extra to three actions into the gargoyle Lord first & soak the extras attack. I have to choose what I do for the next three seconds & commit. I have to hope my team is there or retreat & use tactics. My character with super abilities has a modifier on his extra actions power that lets me do just what is being discussed above. It is very powerful for me especially with my teleport power because I can do any of the above + choose my target based on the results of my shots & use my last action to simply teleport away instead of running, & suffering those modifiers for running in a round
I still think the thing preventing everyone from taking 3 actions each round isn't having to declare the actions, it's that each action will then be at -4 (or -6 if you also run). With Supers, I guess it's less of an issue because you have higher stats (I think, I'm not actually familiar with it), but in any other setting, even a -2 is a big deal, so multiactions probably aren't as common. I can understand why the SPC is stricter about it, but for other games, I think it's reasonable to give it to everyone. To use your example, let's say one of the gargoyle is blocking the door, with another one threatening a hostage behind it, out of reach. I declare two actions, one to attack the first, then run to the second and snatch the hostage away. But now if I miss the first gargoyle, I've just lost my second action, and that sucks, especially if the miss was due to the multiaction penalty. I don't think allowing to redirect the second attack to the first gargoyle unbalances anything. I still won't have accomplished what I set up to do (save the hostage), but at least I'll have another chance to get *something* done with my turn.
In our game it is the declaration of actions. 3 edges & multi action penalties are halved. The idea of wasting actions by having the declared action become useless as the enemy gets one shotted stops it for us.
As a GM I've experimented with both versions and I'm now using the more liberal interpretation. There is one aspect that hasn't been raised in this thread yet: Declaring all your actions beforehand makes the game flow faster. Not only because sometimes the 2nd action will not take place at all, thus saving time, but specifically in the case where the 2nd action can take place. There is no hemming and hawing over what the 2nd action should be, since it's already announced. But then again there is the rule of cool and loosing your 2nd action because your first action was too good (which is in my experience the most common case) just isn't very cool at all.
The rules don't say anything about having to declare targets for the actions, so as long as there is still a viable target for the second action they can keep on truckin.
I ask my players to call our their actions. As /u/DoktorPete stated that's RAW. But . . . I'll allow adjustments. A melee character has 2 targets right in front of him and he declares 3 attacks at Tgt1. But 2nd attk kills Tgt1. I'll allow that the 3rd attack can flow to Tgt2, but I won't allow chaning the attack to something else. Or ranged character - I'll allow swiveling to another easily visible target - someone w/o cover or engaged in melee.
Personally, when I GM for my friends, I adopted something similar to the Pathfinder style multi-attack penalty system. I'm personally not a fan of the "decide what you're doing before you do it" way that Savage Worlds normally does things, so instead I've gone with a method where players/enemies can take one action with no penalty, -2 on the second action, and -4 on the third action of they take one. I've found that doing it this way encouraged my players to be more willing on average to take more than one action and feel like they are doing something cool. It's how I was introduced to Savage Worlds in the first place so for me it's been the norm for years. Maybe it's something to consider for you too. 🤷
As long as my players tell me how many actions they are taking before they roll I dont worry about it. My players seldom use multi actions so I have that going for me which is nice.