Multiple Main Actions

[Dr.FunLove]

@Sancta
Interesting. ONLY additional attacks or simply remove the cap I've proposed? If I remove the cap as proposed, would I instead add a spray rule in its place on each category of action (spray attacks, spray blocks, spray maneuvers, etc)?

[Mr. Death]

Random idea I just had which may or may not be balanced at all--treat them like spray attacks, roll once, and divy up the result of the roll, added to the skills.

So say you want to attack with Fists (Superb), and at the same time maneuver with Might (Good). You roll the dice once, and come out with a +2, so then you have to decide which skill gets what, whether that be a +1 to each, or just lumping the +2 with one of them.

[Dr.FunLove]

@Mr.Death
Interesting. My concern is making the rule clean is possible without infringing on other parts of the system (like Attacks -> spray attacks). Though of course, it is always a choice to have multiple actions so in a way that isn't as much of a problem.

[Sanctaphrax]

Random idea I just had which may or may not be balanced at all--treat them like spray attacks, roll once, and divy up the result of the roll, added to the skills.

So say you want to attack with Fists (Superb), and at the same time maneuver with Might (Good). You roll the dice once, and come out with a +2, so then you have to decide which skill gets what, whether that be a +1 to each, or just lumping the +2 with one of them.

Isn't that strictly better than just taking one action?

Like, in your example I could have an Epic Fists attack mixed with a Good Might maneuver. If I had taken one action, I would just get an Epic attack.

And if I roll badly, I can focus the roll on one action so that the rest are fully effective.

@Sancta
Interesting. ONLY additional attacks or simply remove the cap I've proposed? If I remove the cap as proposed, would I instead add a spray rule in its place on each category of action (spray attacks, spray blocks, spray maneuvers, etc)?

Simply remove the cap on attacks.

I think it's sensible to include some kind of limit on maneuvers, though.

Blocks I don't care much about one way or the other.

[Mr. Death]

Isn't that strictly better than just taking one action?

Like, in your example I could have an Epic Fists attack mixed with a Good Might maneuver. If I had taken one action, I would just get an Epic attack.

And if I roll badly, I can focus the roll on one action so that the rest are fully effective.

Well, I did say it was random, off the top of my head, and I hadn't put any thought into balancing it. After thinking about it, yeah. There'd need to be some kind of penalty to the second action, at the least.

[InFerrumVeritas]

After a little playtesting:

When performing multiple actions, the total bonus from skills on all actions taken in the round must be at least one step lower than your highest skill. 

You may voluntarily reduce a skill in order to use it (so if you have Great Lore, you may choose to instead roll it at Good). 

You may only apply a bonus from a stunt or power (including Focus Items, Weapon Ratings, and other similar effects) to a single action.  Fate points or aspects invoked to improve a result only apply to one action each (so you can boost two actions, but that requires that you spend two FP).

So if your skill cap is Superb, you may roll:
One Superb
or
One Great
or
One Good and One Average
or
Two Fair
or
One Fair and Two Average
or
Four Average

Roll once, adding the bonus or penalty from the dice to all actions taken.  You may re-roll by spending only a single Fate Point.

Notes:
-Limiting it by only by Skill Cap meant that if you wanted to use any skill lower than your top tier or "peak skill", you'd always opt to also take a second action since there was no penalty for doing so.  This was also strictly better than taking a supplemental action in every way.
-This encourages the use of skills below your top two tiers.  It's my experience that most players don't look below these in a conflict.  This has the effect of rewarding the use of these by in essence granting an extra action.
-This essentially imposes a -2 penalty on the main action if you wish to use an extra action.  Since most "supplemental actions" are 0-1 shift effects, the greater penalty allows for potentially better results than just taking a supplemental action.  Other penalties are built in as well (in that there's functionally no difference between rolling a Fair skill at -1 and rolling an Average skill).
-Limiting bonuses from anything other than skills was necessary to prevent abuse.  Same with FP, obviously.
-I found that using a FP to re-roll the dice, however, is not significantly better this way due to the probability differences. 
-Having a single roll speeds up gameplay considerably, but doesn't generally change the effectiveness of this option.
-As much as I really, really want to, having stunts affect the cap on this is a very bad idea.  It's basically giving free actions and leads to a dramatic increase in power that is also difficult to measure due to its versatility.
-Taking only one Superb action is generally better than taking two actions (one at Good, one at Average).  Taking a Superb and a supplemental is about the same as taking one at Good, one at Average (or two at Fair).  Taking one skill at Great is slightly suboptimal in this scenario (but not significantly so).  Taking lots of Average actions is generally suboptimal. 
-This can complicate and lengthen conflicts considerably.  Be warned.
-I did limited testing with a cap of Great and Good.  I did no testing with a skill cap higher than superb.
-Testing was done both with the DFRPG assumption that 3 shifts is enough for a successful, unopposed maneuver and the Fate Core assumption of 2 shifts.  This is obviously better (read: more advantageous to the player) with the latter.
-If using Fate core style results (boosts and succeed with style), rolling one Superb skill (unopposed, difficulty Fair) will most often result in one Aspect and one Boost.  Two Fair skills will only result in two Boosts. 
-If using DFRPG "sticky" aspects (with Good difficulty), there is rarely an advantage to taking multiple actions which aren't movement related.

Take these as you will.

[UmbraLux]

When performing multiple actions, the total bonus from skills on all actions taken in the round must be at least one step lower than your highest skill. 

It's an interesting solution to limiting the power of multiple actions.  However it looks like it penalizes generalists over those who specialize in a few skills.  Do you have any generalist PCs in the group?  If so, how often are they able to take advantage of multiple actions compared to their specialist cohorts?  Finally, have you considered basing your total bonus on the current max skill level instead of on the characters' max skill?

[InFerrumVeritas]

It's an interesting solution to limiting the power of multiple actions.  However it looks like it penalizes generalists over those who specialize in a few skills.  Do you have any generalist PCs in the group?  If so, how often are they able to take advantage of multiple actions compared to their specialist cohorts?  Finally, have you considered basing your total bonus on the current max skill level instead of on the characters' max skill?

I don't have any generalists.  I hadn't thought of that.  I think limiting it by skill cap-1 instead is a good idea (I think that's what you mean by "current max skill level"). 

[UmbraLux]

Yep, that's what I meant.  Sounds like it hasn't affected your group at all.  If you don't mind my asking, how often do players take multiple actions?  Has high or low weapon value affected the decision at all?

[InFerrumVeritas]

Yep, that's what I meant.  Sounds like it hasn't affected your group at all.  If you don't mind my asking, how often do players take multiple actions?  Has high or low weapon value affected the decision at all?

It depends on the player.  One of my players likes to make an attack at Good and maneuver with a stunt (at Average, but effectively Good).  I've found that most players don't use it to attack, but support players really like to use it to provide aspects for the other players to use.  One of the spellcasters really likes to try and cast multiple spells, using focus items on the lowest skill (which tends to make it the highest).

[Dr.FunLove]

So I have been playing around with the numbers more and I am coming to the point that, for balance purposes, Multiple Main Actions may need a cap on # of actions per exchange or (as was suggested earlier by Taran) be the realm of stunts and powers. In keeping with the flavor and mechanics of the RAW I am leaning towards the former. Actually having worked on it more, the power of the mecanic has become apparent.

My next step will be to work on some sample stunts/powers that might make use of this mechanic to look at it from that angle.

EDIT: Another way of approaching multiple main actions is by not allowing them to benefit from their Skill bonuses. Thoughts?

[Sanctaphrax]

Not allowing skill bonuses?

You mean all multiple actions would be at Mediocre?

Sounds like a bad idea to me. Acting twice at Mediocre is vastly worse than acting once at Superb, but it's better than acting once at Mediocre. So that wouldn't scale well.

And it seems wrong for a master swordsman and a random joe to be equally good at attacking twice with a sword.

[Dr.FunLove]

@Sancta
Good points. Especially that last one. Instituting a mechanic that defies possible narrative sense isn't the best solution.

EDIT: A current issue that I am seeing is that taking two or more attacks in an Exchange supplants Spray-attacks. Without a cap or some mitigating circumstance (I wouldn't want to leave it up entirely to internal logic of the story) multiple attacks are likely to be too powerful especially higher up the power-ladder. Any thoughts?

EDIT II: Another way I had looked at it was making the penalty per extra attack on each extra attack double: 2, 4, 6, 8 etc. Still has the problem of outclassing spray attacks though. This brings me back around to the idea of allowing multiple main actions for actions other than an attack.

[InFerrumVeritas]

@Sancta
Good points. Especially that last one. Instituting a mechanic that defies possible narrative sense isn't the best solution.

EDIT: A current issue that I am seeing is that taking two or more attacks in an Exchange supplants Spray-attacks. Without a cap or some mitigating circumstance (I wouldn't want to leave it up entirely to internal logic of the story) multiple attacks are likely to be too powerful especially higher up the power-ladder. Any thoughts?

EDIT II: Another way I had looked at it was making the penalty per extra attack on each extra attack double: 2, 4, 6, 8 etc. Still has the problem of outclassing spray attacks though. This brings me back around to the idea of allowing multiple main actions for actions other than an attack.

Honestly, my version is about as powerful as spray attacks. 

Superb spray attack at +2.  This gives you 5/2, 4/3, 3/2/2.
Multitasking (superb skill cap) attack at +2.  This gives you 5/3, 4/4, 4/3/3.

Superb spray attack at 0.  This gives you 4/1, 3/2, 3/1/1.
Multitasking attack at 0.  This gives you 3/1, 2/2, 2/1/1.

Superb spray attack at -2.  This gives you 2/1, 1/1/1.
Multitasking attack at -2.  This gives you 1/-1, 0/0, 0/-1/-1.

So for attacks, my version of MMA is better if you get a positive roll but worse if you get even or less.  Statistically, the latter is more likely.  If you're using stunts or powers, spray attacks get even better (as my MMA only allows a bonus from a stunt or power to be applied to one action, although the trick my players use is to use their stunt or power on the 2nd or 3rd action rather than the first).  It doesn't supplant spray attacks at all.

The thing to worry about is maneuvers.  Seriously.  Increasing the number of +2 bonuses your players can stack on a single attack is far more dangerous than letting them attack a lot at what is essentially a penalty.  A Average navel gazing maneuver is very easy to pull off this way (which is why my version basically has a -2 penalty built in).  If you can pull off 2-3, that's still a +4 bonus on the main attack.  That's why the static difficulty I tend to use is Fair to Good.  It makes it rely on the dice a bit more.

[Dr.FunLove]

Any penalty I impose on multiple actions would apply to all actions. Granted if one assumes the highest possible rolls all the time, then yes maneuvers get out of hand. If I get much more heavy handed with the penalty though the likelihood of success is likely to be reduced vastly. I am currently working with a version that applies a -2, -4, -6, etc penalty to ALL actions in an Exchange.

This was one reason I wanted to institute some kind of cap. But then, IDEALLY it should be something that can be left up to GM adjudication. How many attacks can a person reasonably get off in an Exchange that is lasting maybe seconds-minutes with just two hands? How many other actions, like a block or a maneuver?

There's a logic implicit to allowing MMA but mechanics shouldn't just rely on such logic - there will always be someone to poke a hole in it in-game.