#Playtest Two - Action Economy Changes

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fair rain
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Crucible Playtest Two - Action Economy Changes

One of the most significant areas of focus following hands-on feedback and development of Playtest One involves some important changes to action economy that will be arriving in Playtest Two. Largely, the "three action economy" of Playtest One delivered on the heightened level of action and decision making I want for character turns in Crucible, but there were a number of key challenges that the implementation was failing to adapt well to.

What Was Not Working Well?

Some of the problems included (but not limited to):

  • The integer basis for action points meant that moving from a 1AP action to a 2AP action had to deliver a significantly greater expected effectiveness. It was difficult to walk the line of balancing special actions to have a heightened action cost without going too far and making them overpowered. A example consequence of this balance difficulty was that "Strike x3" was too effective in many cases compared to using a more expensive action. Similarly, two-handed weapons had to deal too much damage compared to 1h weapons in order to justify their doubled Strike cost.
  • The system lacked a meaningful way to differentiate between different weapon types on the spectrum of faster and lower damage to slower and higher damage. There was no good way to make daggers situationally preferrable to shortswords.
  • The system of action points saving over to increase your Initiative in the following round is a good one, but it was seldom used because it was very rare to find a situation in which you felt good about spending fewer than all 3 action points on your turn.
  • For the same reason as above, it became unrealistic to design Reactions which incorporated an Action cost, this forced most reactions to incur a Focus cost only, diluting the rationale and nuance behind a two-resource system.
  • Giving a creature an extra action, or reducing their action pool was a hugely impactful buff or debuff. Bosses with 5AP were extraordinarily effective (partially justified), implementing spells like "Haste" or "Slow" became difficult to balance, and talents like Blood Frenzy which granted a bonus AP were too powerful.
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What is Changing?

I have spent several weeks thinking about the right way to fix the above problems, considering a number of different solutions in the process. I like the 3AP system for its simplicity, and I considered many solutions which kept the action economy on a 3 point scale. Ultimately, I have decided on an alternate solution path for Crucible which I am confident is best for the needs of the system.

The Action Point pool available to each character will be increasing in size. A typical AP pool will be somewhere around 12 Action Points per turn. In proportion to this increase, the AP cost of actions will also be increasing. Overall you will still do a similar number of things (if not perhaps slightly more) on your turn than in Playtest One, but the way those choices are manifest will change to adapt for a larger scale.

An action that would previously have cost 1AP will likely cost around 3AP in the new system. An action that would previously have cost 2AP will likely cost around 6AP in the new system. Actions which increase or decrease the AP cost of an Action now have more granularity to the changes they can impose. For example a melee attack Action designed to be slightly more effective than a basic Strike might cost 4AP instead of 3AP - allowing for that action to cost 25% more compared to in Playtest One where the only option was increasing a 1AP action to cost 2AP (a cost increase of 100%).

The expanded scale also allows for much more interesting nuance in weaponry design. For example a weapon at the far end of the faster and lower damage spectrum might cost only 2AP to Strike, while a one-handed weapon that is a bit heavier than normal might cost 4AP to Strike. This leads to a lot more variation in action, weapon, and spell costs than was previously possible.

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Key Benefits

Some other key benefits of this change include:

  • Ability to support differences in action cost changes which are more granular than doubling cost from 1AP to 2AP, or moving from 2AP to 3AP.
  • With a larger pool of Action Points available, and more difference in the AP cost of actions it becomes easier to justify saving a few action points at the end of your turn to use for Reactions or to carry over to boost your Initiative in the following round. This opens the door to designing Reactions which have an AP cost.
  • The increase to your Initiative from conserving Action becomes more significant. Previously the Initiative bonus of +1 Boon per Action Point was quite small compared to the cost of reducing your Action economy by 33%. Now that same +1 Boon can be acquired by conserving only 8.3% of your total Action pool.
  • The system can support interesting differences in weapon "speed" modeled as different action point Strike costs.
  • The design of the Spellcraft system is improved by enabling spells to have more difference in action costs which models the "casting time" of the spell.
  • Status effects which slow or hasten your actions can be more easily added and balanced because a small boost or penalty to your AP pool is not as powerful as in a 3AP system.
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Concerns and Challenges

This change does come with a few disadvantages, most notably:

  • The simplicity of a 3AP system is sacrificed in favor of something more complex. The 3AP system was relatively easy to understand, and is a proven working model that lots of players can relate to and enjoy (see Pathfinder 2e among others).
  • More granularity of action economy will lead to more opportunity for optimization of your action choices - this means your character effectiveness becomes more dependent on good decisions by the player. This could make the system appealing for veterans, but more daunting for newcomers.
  • The increased scope for optimizing your action choices could slow down combat because of an increased "decision paralysis" that players may feel to make the correct choices with their AP pool.
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What to Expect

Crucible Playtest Two is still a ways away, but as this mechanical change has come together I wanted to be sure to share with everyone ahead of time to allow for discussion. This choice is "already made", but I do still want to hear your feedback - both good and bad - about the direction.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Post reserved for answers to frequently asked (and answered) questions about this change.

stone anvil
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This is great, I think this will help to let weapons be unique as well. I think from a design perspective leaning into the power of a VTT will be helpful. I believe if we are harnessing digital tools it will allow for complexity of 'numbers' to be perfecly fine, the numbers can be very complex (ex. Bane/boons), but as long as the concepts are simple it'll be digestible by your playerbase. I also think that what drives people to enjoy TTRPG over other things is 'choice', in a TTRPG having choices that matter and are plentiful makes it fun. Having a combat system where you're making 2-4 choices per round is where I think most people really enjoy it. In 5e people really start enjoying stuff around lvl 5, this is where martials have multi-attack and casters begin to get concentration and other powerful spells, at this point people are making 2-4 'choices' per round. I think designing around 'choices' is how you'll get engaged players, the more we can do the happier the players will be (with a limit obviously, analysis paralysis is a thing for certain).

safe zephyr
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This sounds great to me. It's not unheard of to increase scaling like this (i.e. 1-10 -> 1-100 to gain granularity) and I'm thrilled to see that the VTT-specific nature of the system isn't holding back from things like might be more complicated on pen/paper but trivially handed here 👍

amber turret
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I have in my common set of players two power gamers, and two who could not make a build to save their life, and a player who is middle of the road. As a DM I have always been on the more RP side of tailoring my games, combat is almost always an afterthought, with most systems at least. All this said allows for someone to understand my preferences and take what I say with that in mind.

I quite like the change, I like granularity. It is one of the reasons I prefer 3.5 to this day over 5E, 2E, to name the most well known systems that'd compete in this general fantasy genre. I like a +1 - +2 bonus over larger bonuses or "catch all" bonuses. I think that kind of granularity creates a lot more chances for experimentation and fun mechanics that all types of players can enjoy.

I often find that this type of thing allows someone who likes to optimize do so usually since there will often be "Good" choices, and assuming balance remains tight, it allows players who do not optimize, or who don't care to, have a lot of choices to make something they want to play, as in my experience, and this may just be my player base (and likely is), but when a player does not make optimized builds, they make very themed builds. I for instance, when graced with the ability to play, make absolutely terrible builds that are very thematic, no matter the system. They, and I, don't usually care knowing the build is "bad" as long as it is fun.

Another boon for Crucible, is that it doesn't have to worry about complication. As a built-for-VTT system, a lot of options that would be off the table no longer have to be. 12 points may be a lot to track in a pen and paper game (grab your MTG mana gems!) but here, you can have all the benefits of a 12 point systems, and the modularity it confers, and virtually none of the set backs outside of build complication.

This is my long-winded way of saying, I quite like that chance, and it seems to be a good direction for the game. I should also note I found this systems combat quite fun, even as someone who didn't like it, and this change could only serve to accentuate what I did like, and cut away that I did not.

flat surge
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I think this is a good choice for a system that inherently embraces its complexity. As automation handles the tracking, players are allowed to then make conscious choices based on the budget available to them. Going from 3 to 12 enforces that idea - while it is not the "industry standard", I do think it fits into Crucible's ecosystem of systems.

haughty lily
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Will the focus point pool also be increasing? Focus point pool felt extremely close to martials with a 1-2 point difference if you leaned into being a spellcaster.

fair rain
rough garden
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Would this mean i could take 12 movement action in a single round? or would the movement cost be augmented?
edit: Oh i just saw the other thread, nvm.

ionic ocean
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Hmm, I understand why the action costs had to be adjusted and the idea above is good.
But my concerns are, that the combat gets a bit slower due to the calculation of what every actor can do in this round and always doing a bit more math for this.

But I am curious to get my hands on this and test it and see how this works.

worldly moss
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I think this change is actually a solid decision. Part of what makes Pathfinders 3 Action economy so effective is how it handles subsequent actions. Attack-attack-attack takes more penalties each time after the first, but the game allows for different ways to overcome those penalties while still allowing any character to still have that choice. I especially like the idea of building a more reaction based character by conserving Action Points between rounds. I'm really curious to see what makes it into Playtest 2 from this design choice.

safe zephyr
summer mulch
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I like the sound of this change. It'd be a pain for a classic pen & paper game, but in FVTT, let the computer do the grunt work 👍🏻

ionic ocean
jade vine
# ionic ocean Hmm, I understand why the action costs had to be adjusted and the idea above is ...

Have you ever played Slay the Spire? The enemies are absolutely dumb. There's usually a pool of two to three actions from which they pick one (attack, defend, cast (de-)buff, or a combination thereof) either at random or in a repeating pattern or via a very simple decision tree (one boss for example summons goons if there are none and attacks if there are goons left). But that doesn't break immersion, as the game does a wonderful job of making the player focus on their own decisions. I can see a similar dynamic work here. Give NPCs a very limited set of actions (move, attack, defend) and a rather simple decision tree (for ranged fighters for example "move to cover or attack if in cover"). Once Foundry has a built-in cover and heights system, that could even be calculated via heatmap automatically. Then suggest doing that for the gm. You can always ignore that and do something more complicated. Especially for special enemies. But in the majority of cases, there's no need for the same level of depth that a player wants to attend to their character. That way, you can automate the majority of combat decisions away to a reasonable level while allowing the gm to focus on one or two characters - the big bads of the fight.

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I mean, the game basically already does that for character creation. While the players get to pick how to distribute points one by one, the npcs are a combination of two scalars, a level and a tag.

ionic ocean
jade vine
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Turn based card battler. One pc vs 1-5 enemies. You have three points per round and your cards usually cost between 0-3 or X, where X is the amount of remaining points. So it is somewhat comparable in that regard. Great game btw., if you're into that kind of thing. Won a lot prizes iIrc.

jade vine
errant wren
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If it's easy to end up with a small number of AP at the end of your turn without a good idea of what to do with them, I think there should be at least one generic thing that lets you spend all remaining AP for some nice-enough benefit. it can be a bonus to your initiative, it can be a bonus to your defense, it can be extra AP for next turn, it can be a bit of resource regeneration.

elfin path
errant wren
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true, but I think having the choice to get a different bonus would be good; particularly if you're a character who normally has high initiative anyway

fair rain
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Thanks for all the thoughts and feedback so far, folks. I appreciate hearing everyone's opinions and thoughts and I'm relieved to hear that this change of direction is - for the most part - one that sounds appealing to people.

fair rain
shell steeple
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(Apologies if this is already something that Crucible has; I've only read about it and haven't had the chance to play it)

With the change from 3 to 12 actions, there must be an action tracker that updates based on a player's action usage. In pf2e, it's easy enough to check how many actions are left, because there are at most 4 Actions, but if Crucible players need to stop and think "wait did I use 8 or 9 actions?" and have to count back a turn that includes potentially multiple 1 action choices, things can get bogged down very quickly

flat surge
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Taken from Atro's last video

fair rain
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Definitely custom token hud eventually also

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That’s not done yet

visual prism
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Honestly, the idea of moving to some big number of Action Points like 12 seems... overwhelming? Bordering on comical? I agree often Strike x 3 was the best use of your actions, but that was mostly because of the lack of a penalty for just spending all your actions attacking rather than anything else. I am intrigued to see how it works out, but definitely remain skeptical that inflating the APs will keep the game streamlined enough to play fast without decision paralysis on the players end

safe zephyr
sour folio
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The action economy is definitely the aspect that left me coldest early on in the playtest. Running up and bludgeoning something with a mace generally worked out better than burning focus on magic or on doing multi-AP actions. Spending focus on out of turn reactions was I think in a pretty decent space, but casting a spell and doing no better than someone just whacking the thing with a sword was painful, ditto for doing a super move that you'd gone and specialized for and only produced about double the effect of a single-AP attack.

fair rain
visual prism
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Fair enough ,yeah. I am more worried about bogging down player choice. With 3 actions (that sometimes translates to 2 or less things), turns can go fast. 12 actions, with some going down to like 2 actions or so, can leave 6+ things per turn. Anything that slows down the flow of the game or forces turns to take longer (whether by more rolls, or more options leading to more thought between actions) is worrying!

shell steeple
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Just for some fun white room math, if you care about order (e.g. 1 action -> 2 action is different than 2 action -> 1 action) but not about the action itself (e.g 1 action Strike is interchangeable with 1 action something else), assuming that you have at least one activity with action costs of 1...n where n is the max number of actions, there are 8 ways to reach 4 actions and 2048 ways to reach 12 actions

fair rain
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Very little will cost only 1 action - just things like a single unit of movement or a reaction

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Most things will cost more, on the 3-6 range

shell steeple
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Why the dramatic jump from 3 -> 12, and not e.g. 5 or 7?

fair rain
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I want to be able to adjust action costs in roughly 25 to 33% intervals

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For example Action A (5AP) that is 25% more expensive than action B (4AP)

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12 is a total pool size that works well for that granularity of choice in a world where you are performing 2-4 distinct actions per turn

shell steeple
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My gut instinct is that you want an odd number

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It just kinda Works™️

fair rain
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12 is one of the “sacred numbers” inherent throughout Crucible design

brazen token
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Plus as someone mentioned it works well with 1, 2, 3, 4, and 6

shell steeple
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Fair enough! I like how with an odd number of AP, you can have something that costs the highest amount that you can do twice in a turn, e.g. 3 in a 7 AP system, and something that costs the lowest amount that you can't do twice in a turn, e.g. 4 in a 7 AP system, and that comes together to make a full turn. If you have 12 AP, you can't do 7 and 6, so there has to be at least a 2 AP difference between costs if you want to use at least half of your AP, meaning the gap needs to widen, whereas with an odd number, a 3 vs 4 AP action can be closer

fair rain
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Not to mention that your movement will eat away at individual APs so it’s not usually going to be as clean as “use two 6AP actions, done”

shell steeple
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I have no exhaustive knowledge of other systems but having variable AP costs to reactions is very interesting and unique

brazen token
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With the more granular action control, is “free movement” being removed? I feel like you could change the penalties related to it to by lowering actions regained or increasing movement cost

shell steeple
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My biggest concern would be that it feels worse to hold 4 AP and not get the opportunity to use them than it does to hold 1, even if it's the same proportion

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Loss aversion and all that

ocean kite
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And it is important to have enough 1AP options or a carry over mechanism that those are not lost or feel wasted.

fair rain
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Here is a preview into the proposed AP/Base Damage changes by weapon category. Certain weapons may have special properties that would increase/decrease AP cost or base damage on top of this.

image.png
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quick everyone get out your calculators

elfin path
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If you paste the text table we can dump it into our own Excel copies and start making graphs, lol

fair rain
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These numbers are likely to further change before Playtest Two - just giving people a bit more fuel for discussion.

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Sure, as CSV:

Weapon Category,Prior Cost,Prior Base Damage,New Cost,New Base Damage,DMG/AP,Notes
Unarmed (1h),1,4,3,3,1.00,
Natural (1h),1,4,3,4,1.33,
Light (1h),1,4,3,4,1.33,
Simple (1h),1,6,4,5,1.25,
Balanced (1h),1,8,4,6,1.50,
Heavy (1h),1,8,5,7,1.40,
Simple (2h),2,10,6,8,1.33,
Balanced (2h),2,12,6,9,1.50,
Heavy (2h),2,12,7,10,1.43,
Projectile (1h),1,2,3,4,1.33,
Mechanical (1h),1,6,2,7,3.50,Reload cost 3. Effective D/AP 1.4 
Projectile (2h),2,10,6,9,1.50,
Mechanical (2h),1,10,4,10,2.50,Reload cost 3. Effective D/AP 1.43
Shield Light,1,2,3,3,1.00,
Shield Heavy,1,4,4,5,1.25,
Talisman (1h),1,2,4,4,1.00,
Talisman (2h),1,6,6,6,1.00,
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I suspect before things get finalized that 2h damage will get bumped up, but not yet committed

elfin path
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From some quick skimming the numbers do look reasonable

brazen token
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Yeah I was going to say since heavy two handed can’t make two attacks in a turn without a boost of two action points it gets outperformed by simple and balanced. Obviously this if forgoing talents and looking at purely the numbers. Also think ranged should be slightly “weaker” than melee as the risk and cost of getting into melee range. Although the latter statement might be offset by reaction stuff

elfin path
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Looks like the average damage/fraction-of-turn is going up slightly (or staying the same), with a few exceptions (2h Talisman being the worst of that)

fair rain
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Talismans (and light shields) are intentionally poor from a damage perspective

elfin path
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Yeah. I'm just noticing that they're really crap for how much AP they cost.

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Also, mechanical weapons won out in terms of damage/action with the reload getting 25% cheaper

fair rain
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Including reload cost, mechanical weapons are now aligned with Heavy (1h) and Heavy (2h)

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the need to reload is a bit of a double-edged thing. It can work in your favor some rounds, and work against you in others, so overall its more swingy.

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best build is obviously a backpack full of loaded blunderbusses where you just pull a fresh one out each round

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working as intended

elfin path
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Yeah, the AP cost shifting around is an interesting thing to factor in

fair rain
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In seriousness, though, the AP cost of equipping a new weapon in the middle of combat cannot be less than the AP cost of reloading a mechanical weapon otherwise we'll end up with some problems. Likely that both will cost 3AP

elfin path
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Eh, it depends a bit on the larger context of the game and such. If there's no disincentive to carrying 100lbs of pistols on you and you can afford+carry them, well, that is efficient. There's a reason we've got that image of pirates with a dozen pistols strapped to them, lol

safe zephyr
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Is it safe to presume these costs (less so) and dmg/ap stats (more so) will be affected by talents/skills/etc, and that these are baseline costs/stats?

elfin path
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Seems like it

fair rain
brazen token
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So my own thoughts on possible changes: balanced 2h to 10 dmg, heavy 2h to 12 dmg, Mechanical weapons dmg equal to balanced weapons (after prior changes), projectile weapons damage matching simple weapons.

elfin path
brazen token
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Hence why I think upping 2 handed damage by one is ok. And it has the chance of swinging twice in a turn (again without talents) compared to heavy, which unless you can gain 2 actions, can not hit twice standard

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Obviously these are just general first thoughts from this initial view. Haven’t had a chance to test it to see how it really feels

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And this is under that assumption that 12 will be the base action count, wasn’t sure if that was confirmed or just offered

elfin path
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Looking at the existing numbers, it looks like Balanced/Heavy end up neck-and-neck in terms of being the peak of the damage curve as-is; IDK that they need a damage buff. But time and testing will tell, I'm sure

safe zephyr
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A lot will come down to the actions they grant as well as the related talents

elfin path
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Yeah, the presence of talents to tweak the usage of weapons and offer other things to do will massively influence things

brazen token
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Yeah and again none of my thoughts are accounting for talents just how they work in their own current vacuum

fair rain
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Balanced weapons will end up with the best base damage per AP scaling, intentionally so