1st House Rule: Multiple Actions
As I already stated in the "Action Allowance" thread, I'm not entirely satisfied with the way coda handles the multiple actions problem. Of course, this is all very theoretical because I haven't had a chance to play with coda much, but it seems to me that it's too easy to declare multiple actions even when they're not necessary, "just to make sure". For instance a player might declare dodge, shoot, shoot: the 3rd action will be at -5, but since the 2 first actions (dodge and shoot) are not affected by that last action, he might as well take it, just to make sure he hits his opponent. Which seem (to me) to be in contradiction with the spirit of the game.
Hence the following house rule proposals:
Considering a character with x allowed actions (often, x=2), use one of the following tables to determine the multiple action penalty:
Option 1 (-1 per additional action, except the last one (std modifier)
-> allowed actions at -(nb of additional actions), then increase penalty by 4 each action)
...................Modifiers
Number.of.actions.....x+0..x+1..x+2..x+3..x+4..x+5
all.allowed.actions...0...-1...-2...-3...-4...-5
1st.additional.action./...-5...-6...-7...-8...-9
2nd.................../.../....-10..-11..-12..-13
3rd.................../.../..../....-15..-16..-17
4th.................../.../..../..../....-20..-21
5th.................../.../..../..../..../....-25
Option 2 (-1 per additional action, even the last one
-> allowed actions at -(nb of additional), then increase by 5 each action)
...................Modifiers
Number.of.actions.....x+0..x+1..x+2..x+3..x+4..x+5
all.allowed.actions...0...-1...-2...-3...-4...-5
1st.additional.action./...-6...-7...-8...-9...-10
2nd.................../.../....-12..-13..-14..-15
3rd.................../.../..../....-18..-19..-20
4th.................../.../..../..../....-24..-25
5th.................../.../..../..../..../....-30
Option 3 (-1 per additional action, incremental)
-> allowed actions at -(nb of additional), then increase by (nb of additional) each time)
...................Modifiers
Number.of.actions.....x+0..x+1..x+2..x+3..x+4..x+5
all.allowed.actions...0...-1...-2...-3...-4...-5
1st.additional.action./...-2...-4...-6...-8...-10
2nd.................../.../....-6...-9...-12..-15
3rd.................../.../..../....-12..-16..-20
4th.................../.../..../..../....-20..-25
5th.................../.../..../..../..../....-30
I think this is the one I like most, so I'll use it as a basis in the following.
Of course, these modifiers become problematic when a player doesn't declare a dodge/parry beforehand.
"Reaction" dodge/parry as a:
- First action (character lost initiative, or decided to delay):
simply counts against the action allowance when the character starts acting.
- Last action(character acted first):
take the next modifier (move diagonally right+down in the table ... for instance if the player was at -6 for his last action, his dodge is at -12), moreover, this counts against the action allowance of the next round as an action (i.e. if the character doesn't want a penalty next round he can only act (x-1) times).
- Between other actions (example: act, delay, oops dodge, act):
move to the next column to the right and apply modifiers (for instance, if the character was at -4 (x+2), his dodge is at -9 and his last action at -12).
Considering this, unless they really want to protect themselves and declare a dodge as their first action, fast characters will often find it advantageous to wait for the opponent to act before declaring a dodge/parry. Thus, I'm considering giving a +1 (or more?) modifier to declared dodges/parries, as opposed to "reaction" dodges/parries.
Admittedly, this is a bit more complicated than what's proposed in the PG, however, I think it is much fairer to player who act sensibly rather than machine-gun wise, and there's much more drama when a character really needs to do a lot of things in the same round. If anyone found a simpler way to deal with it more satisfyingly than in the PG, I'd be happy to hear about it :).
So ... what do you think?