The Action Index

So, my buddy Chad is playing the Dragonborn Witch Doctor named “Zargon” in our local game, set in a “Babylon 5″ style city built by giants as a safe haven for ALL comers against the apocalypse that’s descended upon the world at large (but enough about that — this is about Chad).

Chad’s not really a “native” D&D player, and doesn’t soak in system esoterica like a number of us do, so Rob and I have been taking to creating a sort of “managed character sheet” experience for Chad, statting things up and providing him all the powers details he needs to make a go of it. Zargon recently made level 6, and the Witch Doctor got released, so I’ve been working on the update for his character today. Towards the end, after listing out his item, race, and class powers, I realized that — as a player — I’d probably get a lot of use out of a short summary of what I can do for each *type* of action in the game. So I wrote one up for Zargon, to give Chad a quick and easy way (that doesn’t depend on an internalization of the mechanics) to say “Okay, I’ve got a minor action left this turn — what are my options?”

Here’s Zargon’s action index:

FREE ACTIONS
* Activate Burning Gauntlets (Daily Item)
IMMEDIATE INTERRUPTS
* Encounter Powers: Evil Eye
IMMEDIATE REACTIONS
* Use Razor Shield (Daily Item)
* Use Repulsion Leather (Once Activated)
* Encounter Powers: Taste of Mojo
MINOR ACTIONS
* Activate Cloak of Resistance (Daily Item)
* Activate Repulsion Leather (Daily Item)
* Encounter Powers: Dragon’s Breath
* SUSTAIN: Rolling Boulder
MOVE ACTIONS
* Daily Powers: Repel Earth
* Move your Rolling Boulder
STANDARD ACTIONS
* At-Will Powers: Swarm of Fire, Tremor Strike
* Encounter Powers: Earth’s Fist, Spirit’s Pursuit
* Daily Powers: Rolling Boulder, Spirit Cascade
* Make another Rolling Boulder attack.

I’m figuring this might actually make for good play streamlining even for experienced players. Is anyone else out there doing something like this? (I know, with power cards a lot of this could simply be handled via a sorting/ordering method for your cards, though that does break down a bit when you have powers that take one action type to activate, but then another to sustain or make use of some other ongoing benefit.)

1. Chad Underkoffler, March 19, 2009:

   And I do appreciate it, mang! This will make remembering all that STUFF much easier.

2. Chris Cumming, March 19, 2009:

   Oh I like that idea. I’ve got a mid-paragon level character that has tons of actions but it’d be nice to know which options by action type he’s got.

3. Trip the Space Parasite, March 19, 2009:

   I did something like this for a pick-up game I made characters for a couple of months ago, and people seemed to like it a lot. I split actions up by at-will/encounter/daily and included the action type and a brief description (“ranged 10, +7 vs Will, 1d8+7 radiant (crit 1d6+15 radiant), target is discombobulated until end of your next turn”) in the listing for each action, but your way seems equally valid.

   I also put things like Second Wind and Basic Melee Attack in the appropriate sections, to make sure new players didn’t forget about them.

4. fred, March 19, 2009:

   Yeah, the second wind and BMA’s would have been on the list if there was room in the document I was typing them into. For now, I skipped them.

5. rob, March 19, 2009:

   This may end up informing how I do home-made character sheets.

   -Rob D.

6. Nick Wedig, March 19, 2009:

   You could have a table, where each column is the usage (At-Will/Encounter/Daily) and the rows are action types (Standard/Move/Minor/etc). In each box of the table is listed each action that fits there:

   This listing should also include a note about trading actions for smaller kinds: Standards can become move or minor actions, move actions can become minor acts. That’s a bit of knowledge a casual player might forget in combat, but could be useful to know when looking at their sheet.

7. Eric Finley, March 20, 2009:

   Ah! Thank you!

   Not so much for the basic index, which would I think be excellent but might not integrate that well with power cards (as you say). But thinking about your trick I just came up with a way to mesh that with power cards, too…

   On a single page, put six card-sized blanks. Label them with the action types – standard, move, minor, and so forth. The blanks are spots for you to put your power cards of that type, but they also contain text – they contain lists of everything other than a power card you can do with an action of this type. The built-in ones like basic melee and second wind are typed in permanently; blanks underneath that provide room to write in (e.g.) item power activations, sustain options for powers listed elsewhere, and so forth.

   I’m totally going to do that for my game. Very tidy indeed.

8. NMcCoy, March 23, 2009:

   At paragon, with a Warlord in the party, it’s really handy to write additional effects (“+3 to attack roll, and get a bonus move action”) on the Action Point card the character builder prints out. Similarly, at that level it’s common to have a lot of conditional feats, and I’m considering devoting an entire page to a “contingency sheet” that I can glance at to total up my conditional effects easily.

   BLOODIED:
   Attack rolls +1 (Dragonborn Fury)
   Damage rolls +2 (Dragonborn Frenzy)
   Invigorating powers +2 THP (Bloodied Invigoration)
   Aura adjacent: 2 fire damage (Bloodfire Braidmail +3)
   Healing Surge increases by 5 (Belt of Blood)
   Action Point +dragonbreath as free action even if expended (Inner Dragon)

   HAS THP:
   Damage rolls +2 (Battlerager Vigor)

   …etc.