Why Six Second Combat Rounds?

[Hrothgar Rannúlfr]

Having read a little about the new action economy of Pathfinder 2E, I'm left wondering why six second combat rounds are necessary?

Three actions and a reaction every six seconds. Why not shorter rounds? Perhaps, two seconds with just one action and possibly a reaction?

Why are six second combat rounds necessary?

[BigDTBone]

Hrothgar Rannúlfr wrote:

Having read a little about the new action economy of Pathfinder 2E, I'm left wondering why six second combat rounds are necessary?

Three actions and a reaction every six seconds. Why not shorter rounds? Perhaps, two seconds with just one action and possibly a reaction?

Why are six second combat rounds necessary?

Because it makes math for 10 rounds = 1 minute work out. And 10 rounds = 1 minute is pretty darn handy.

[Crayon]

Divides neatly into 10 rounds/minute or 600 rounds/hour?

Addendum: there are games like GURPS or Hackmaster that use 1s rounds, but a lot of those rounds your character is limited in what sort of actions she can take due to the timeframe. I remember spending 3 round per bullet reloading my revolver in one GURPS Old West campaign, for example.

[Planpanther]

Why seconds at all? Why cant a round just be a round?

[Hill Giant]

Hrothgar Rannúlfr wrote:

Three actions and a reaction every six seconds. Why not shorter rounds? Perhaps, two seconds with just one action and possibly a reaction?

I'm going to interpret your question not as "Why six seconds?" but as "Why three actions?". I strongly suspect the answer is fun. Turns where you just move are not fun. Turns where you perform 1/2 or 1/3 of a multi-action "action" are not fun.

[Crayon]

Planpanther wrote:

Why seconds at all? Why cant a round just be a round?

Put simply, fully abstracted rounds make it more difficult to adjudicate spells or effects with longer durations. Particularly outside of combat where rounds become more vague.

You could, of course, use an in-game term (anyone else remember 'turns?‘), but that doesn't really help since everyone already knows real world terms like second, minute, and hour

[kyrt-ryder]

Hill Giant wrote:

Hrothgar Rannúlfr wrote:

Three actions and a reaction every six seconds. Why not shorter rounds? Perhaps, two seconds with just one action and possibly a reaction?

I'm going to interpret your question not as "Why six seconds?" but as "Why three actions?". I strongly suspect the answer is fun. Turns where you just move are not fun. Turns where you perform 1/2 or 1/3 of a multi-action "action" are not fun.

Context.

A fast paced game with single action turns can be a ton of fun.

[Enlight_Bystand]

Planpanther wrote:

Why seconds at all? Why can't a round just be a round?

Because once you say just a round, people start asking how long a round is, which is relevantbfor judging how much you should be able ot doin a round- how much you canm talk, how long do you have to hold the door whilst the townsfolk get out.

One of the problems with the Starfinder spaceship system has is that rounds are deliberately not defined in time, but there are things like jumping to the drift that are a specific time period (a minute in that case) but you don't know how long that is in combat rounds.

[PossibleCabbage]

I feel like the benefit of the "3 action round" is to avoid situations like-

Person A is 60' away from Person B
Person A uses their lone action to stride 30' towards person B
Person B uses their lone action to stride 30' away from person B
Repeat ad infinitum.

With three actions this is instead-
Person A uses two actions to Stride twice moving 60' to draw adjacent to person B, and uses their remaining action to attack
Person B either draws an AoO by Striding, or uses an action to Step leaving them two actions to run away, so Person A can catch up to them next round.

[Fuzzypaws]

I think a 12 second round makes more sense, honestly. You still get a round easy to calculate number of 5 rounds per minute. And it better accounts for doing multiple things on your turn, other people's actions happening slightly before or after each of your actions in context because of initiative... And reactions that happen outside of the turn order.

If as a mid level character I can trace a rune on my armor to activate an item power, move 30-40 feet, trip someone, and then out of turn take an opportunity attack with one reaction against the first opponent and then raise my shield with a second reaction to ward off a breath weapon coming for my face from a second opponent... That sounds like more than 6 seconds to me.

[Terquem]

I like 1 minute rounds, divided into ten six second segments.

I don't know why, it just "feels" right for some reason

[Matthew Downie]

kyrt-ryder wrote:

A fast paced game with single action turns can be a ton of fun.

My guess would be that this would lead to a slower pace, because every time we switch to a different character, there's a slight delay (as the GM checks up the location, stats and situation of the NPC they're due to control next) or a longer delay (if it's one of those players who takes forever to decide what they're doing).

There would also be game balance implications - no more iterative attacks?

[kyrt-ryder]

Matthew Downie wrote:

kyrt-ryder wrote:

A fast paced game with single action turns can be a ton of fun.

My guess would be that this would lead to a slower pace, because every time we switch to a different character, there's a slight delay (as the GM checks up the location, stats and situation of the NPC they're due to control next) or a longer delay (if it's one of those players who takes forever to decide what they're doing).

There is a reason I emphasized Fast Paced. Think speed chess where players are motivated to make their move as fast as they can rather than within a time limit.

A very fast, engaging combat system.

Quote:

There would also be game balance implications - no more iterative attacks?

Let's say that variant kept PF2's spells take two actions to cast (for the average spell, Quick Spells that only take one action are a thing)

Suddenly spellcasting is a somewhat vulnerable task which requires actual protection while martials are no longer penalized for making all of their attacks.

Yes this would require a bit of juggling of spell effects but something along these lines can be very fun.

[Hrothgar Rannúlfr]

Thanks, Kyrt-Ryder,

I think you're describing exactly what I was thinking of.

[deuxhero]

Crayon wrote:

I remember spending 3 round per bullet reloading my revolver in one GURPS Old West campaign, for example.

A bit high for a break open (S&W model 3 or Webly), and low for loading gate (unless removing an empty case is a different action entirely).

Which brings up another reason for 6 second rounds, it's a big enough unit of time to be fuzz the details of exactly how long each thing you're doing takes place.

[Terquem]

I can't even find my glasses, when they are on the top of my head, in six seconds...