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Exalted 3E Discussion

And health levels have been in every edition of Exalted. So have motes.
And?

One of the biggest complaints for second edition was that combat was janky as hell. So they thought the solution was to make it more complicated by adding initiative, two different types of standard attack, a boatload of rerolls, and, oh yeah, can't forget the new range system?
 
And?

One of the biggest complaints for second edition was that combat was janky as hell. So they thought the solution was to make it more complicated by adding initiative, two different types of standard attack, a boatload of rerolls, and, oh yeah, can't forget the new range system?
I'm well aware. That doesn't mean they should be omitted from consideration.
I have a question for the two of you. Is there anything at all you like about 3rd Edition? Because from what I've seen, the answer is no.
 
Personally, I like the Evocations and Sorcery/Sorcerous Working. Craft I still disdain with a passion.
 
I'll answer my question, since it has become something of a survey question.

I like the combat system. I like the give and take of initiative, I like the idea of battles not being outright slugging matches, instead being a game of advantage and disadvantage.

I like the social system. I like Intimacies being the identity of your character, their cares and concerns. I like that social influence is about altering those Intimacies, about catering to them as a way in, about employing them as a defense against people trying to change your views. I also like that it is a mini-game in its own right, instead of just a couple arbitrary rolls and done.

I like the crafting system. I like that top end stuff can't just be manufactured, that it needs inspiration, that it needs vision, which is all modeled by the craft xp system.

I like Sorcery. I like that it's more than just a few spells now, it is an entire system of how to change the world on a grand scale, a way to change the world that's fairly universal across all Exalts. I also like that demon summoning is spelled out as not being a Faustian bargain. I also like the initiations and shaping rituals, that each Sorcerer can have a unique awakening to power.

I like battlegroups and the new mass combat rules. I like that a battlegroup is an entity in itself and not just a pair of warpants for a commander. I like that a battlegroup can actually be dangerous to an Exalt, and that there also effective counters that do better against a battlegroup than individuals.

I like the Solar charmset. I like that the Solars are all about both power and efficiency now. I like that the Solars not only get the largest potential dicepools of all Exalts, their Charms are also about making those dice terrifyingly efficient.

I like Evocations. I like that artifacts grow in power as their wielder forms a bond with them, that artifacts become a legend in their own right.

I like Exigents. I like that other gods can destroy or beggar themselves in order to grant power to a Chosen of their own. I like that it offers a great deal of variety to Creation's Exalted, but comes at such a price to not be done lightly.

And there are probably other things that I like and aren't coming to me atm.
 
I have a question for the two of you. Is there anything at all you like about 3rd Edition? Because from what I've seen, the answer is no.
Constant mote regeneration. (I hacked Ex2 with a houserule that does that.)
The mass combat system, which is hindered by the combat system that it's attached to.
The death of flurry charms.
I was looking forward to the art, but then I saw what they called "high-quality".
Intimacy ratings. I've taken them for Ex2.
What Skitzy said, too.

What I like does not mean I'm going to overlook the many, many flaws. It certainly doesn't mean I'm going to overlook the lies. We were promised something, and this isn't it.

But then, you like Ex3 Craft, so you won't care about what's wrong with the system.
 
Weighing in (for the first time on these forums, hi :3), I really do prefer Ex3 to 2E or 2.5E. For all the complaints about having to track initiative on top of everything else, the fact remains that the initiative based combat is 1. Not difficult to track, 2. Genuinely dynamic and exciting, and 3. neatly avoids the issues that come with bad touches and rocket tag combat. The benefits far outweigh the book-keeping, and furthermore tracking initiative is much, much simpler than tracking Ticks and Speed in combat, so I still think Ex3 has less book-keeping.

Combat in generally is massively improved, especially with nerfing perfects and making paranoia builds unnecessary

Social Influence is a much, much better system than Social Combat, and frankly framing conversation as a fist-fight was a terrible idea in 2E. I like the fact that you have to hook into intimacies.

I don't really see the issue with there being /lots/ of charms or evocations, simply because you aren't expected to take all of those charms. It's not practical: just pick whatever branch of a charm tree looks most appealing to you.

I like Sorcery. One of my biggest issues in 2E was that combat sorcery was a lot of buildup for something that could be perfected away for like 3-4 motes.

I like Martial Arts, particularly since they are far tighter and more complete to basic combat charms, and more appealing to social characters who want to keep their regular xp in their social charms while still being competitive in combat.

So they thought the solution was to make it more complicated by adding initiative

Which is still easier than keeping track of ticks, which they removed.

two different types of standard attack,

The existence of which improves the combat system significantly compared to 2E

a boatload of rerolls

No. Out of about 900 charms, there are maybe two or three per tree.

, and, oh yeah, can't forget the new range system?

Much like ticks, I am happy with the new range system, because the alternative was using yards in Exalted 2E or 1E. And fuck doing that, a game should not require that I do trigonometry whenever there's more than two combatants.

The mass combat system, which is hindered by the combat system that it's attached to.

I'd really recommend trying the combat system. It's genuinely one of the better engines out there, and I really would not mind having something like it in other games.

I was looking forward to the art, but then I saw what they called "high-quality".

They did replace a lot of the worst pieces from the backer preview in the final version, to the point where I suspect the pieces people complained most about were just replaced wholesale in response, or else were just placeholder pieces before the final version was done.

It certainly doesn't mean I'm going to overlook the lies. We were promised something, and this isn't it.

If they gave me 2E Exalted but somehow were able to kill off Paranoia Combat, I'd have been content. They gave us a combat system and a social system that works well, and avoided the issues that 2E had when it came to perfect defenses. They were also unambiguous that the game would never have rules for domain or kingdom management, and would retain a bp/xp split. They were very, very up front with what their intentions were throughout the development process, so calling them liars is not remotely accurate in my opinion.


At any rate, I think it's a genuinely good system. My metric for success is: would I play this game even if it weren't attached to the Exalted setting? And I can safely say that, yes, I would.
 
I'd really recommend trying the combat system. It's genuinely one of the better engines out there, and I really would not mind having something like it in other games.
I've seen it. It isn't, and that's a low bar it's failing to clear.
If they gave me 2E Exalted but somehow were able to kill off Paranoia Combat, I'd have been content. They gave us a combat system and a social system that works well, and avoided the issues that 2E had when it came to perfect defenses. They were also unambiguous that the game would never have rules for domain or kingdom management, and would retain a bp/xp split. They were very, very up front with what their intentions were throughout the development process, so calling them liars is not remotely accurate in my opinion.
Craft. Martial Arts.
 
I've seen it. It isn't, and that's a low bar it's failing to clear.

Reading it is one thing, but playing it is another. A lot of people genuinely like the combat system, and your arguments don't gel with the actual experiences a lot of people have had with the system.

I tried doing white room combat simulation in Ex3. It's much less painful than I expect.

Granted, I don't use any charms - it is as basic as they come. Gonna see how it hold up in play.

Good luck :3
 
Reading it is one thing, but playing it is another.
That's an argument that's been made before, in this very thread. It's not the case. This is a system of game mechanics, like any other system of game mechanics. More precisely, it is a Storyteller system. I know how Storyteller systems work.

It's slower than Ex2, intrinsically. This isn't something that can change in play, and it's not going to change with familiarity.
 
Reading it is one thing, but playing it is another.
Only for people that don't have enough experience playing. There's plenty of people with enough gaming experience to see where the problems are in a system without having to sit down and play it out.

Playing does make most things look better, but that's because you're hanging out with your friends doing something you all enjoy. That makes anything look better, and the emphasis there is on "look". Hell you can have fun playing FATAL if you've got a good group, that doesn't make it a good game.
 
It's slower than Ex2, intrinsically.

Absolutely not. Initiative is significantly simpler to track than the nightmare that was tick combat and speed.

The basic idea behind initiative is that the largest number goes first, and hits the hardest. Contrast this to 2E, where every player could have a different speed even from turn to turn, depending on the gear they have or the specific action they are taking.
 
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Absolutely not. Initiative is significantly simpler to track than the nightmare that was tick combat and speed.
Not really. Ticks are a different style, and speed is a bit of a hassle, but Initiative has more moving parts.
The basic idea behind initiative is that the largest number goes first, and hits the hardest.
That's not really a positive.
Contrast this to 2E, where every player could have a different speed even from turn to turn, depending on the gear they have or the specific action they are taking.
Yes, that's the point. It was imperfectly executed, but that was the intention behind it. It resulted in a bloody mess, yes. It was complicated and clunky, and took time to teach. Still less complicated.
 
Not really. Ticks are a different style, and speed is a bit of a hassle, but Initiative has more moving parts.

This is absurd. While different factors and actions can change Initiative, different charms, actions, and weapons change speed. But it's always clear, with initiative, who gets their next action. Further, with ticks and speed it's almost a constant that a person with a knife can get more turns than a person with a greatsword, to the point where a knife always trumps a greatsword.

That's not really a positive.

Initiative is, at its base, simple and easy to grasp. The book-keeping involved is much less onerous than anything that comes with ticks. That is very much a positive.

Yes, that's the point. It was imperfectly executed, but that was the intention behind it. It resulted in a bloody mess, yes. It was complicated and clunky, and took time to teach. Still less complicated.

I think this argument is a little absurd. Yes, we can both agree that ticks were bad. But the fact remains that in every game of 2E I was in, even when I was a player rather than the GM, I was always the one who had to keep track of ticks. This was either because the GM wasn't able to grasp the system appropriately, or else they made enough errors in the book-keeping that they had to ask me to assist them.

This has never, ever happened with 3E's initiative. It's undeniably a simpler system, that's something one can grasp even when reading it. Could you please explain why you feel initiative is somehow more complicated than ticks?

My argument that the game should be played rather than theorycrafted after a few reads is not because playing it would make the game appear more appealing. I mean, of course playing a game with friends is fun, even if it is a bad game. That's not what I was trying to do. My issue is that your analyses seem flawed, and genuinely contradict how the system functions in play. I'd really recommend playing it before making a final judgment over it, simply for the sake of getting a clearer picture of how the game actually works.
 
This is absurd. While different factors and actions can change Initiative, different charms, actions, and weapons change speed.
Initiative is a spendable resource. Many charms have an Initiative cost. Initiative can change during a round, altering turn order. Taking a hit can alter turn order. Counterattacks can alter turn order.

In comparison, Speed can vary between 3 and 7. Certain charms and abilities can reduce it, others can increase it. Every action has a set speed, usually around 5.
Initiative is, at its base, simple and easy to grasp. The book-keeping involved is much less onerous than anything that comes with ticks. That is very much a positive.
It would be, if it were true. It is not.
I think this argument is a little absurd. Yes, we can both agree that ticks were bad.
Not bad. Complicated. Difficult.

In a group which can handle them, they result in a much better system than any turn order can produce. However, that requires that everyone be familiar with them. As you might gather, that's not a common outcome.
This has never, ever happened with 3E's initiative. It's undeniably a simpler system, that's something one can grasp even when reading it. Could you please explain why you feel initiative is somehow more complicated than ticks?
And done. ↑↑↑
My argument that the game should be played rather than theorycrafted after a few reads is not because playing it would make the game appear more appealing. I mean, of course playing a game with friends is fun, even if it is a bad game. That's not what I was trying to do. My issue is that your analyses seem flawed, and genuinely contradict how the system functions in play.
Is two higher than one? If yes, then Ex3 is slower than Ex2. If no, then you've somehow disproved basic mathematics.

Almost every ability in Ex3 has access to a new mechanic: Partial rerolling. This introduces another step into attack resolution.

This step is not mandatory, but it is easily accessed and useful. It's also compatible with total reroll Charms, which still exist.

The reduced accessibility of Perfect Defences makes all-out attacks more viable, so offensive Charms will see more use. Partial reroll Charms will find use, because they are useful.
I'd really recommend playing it before making a final judgment over it, simply for the sake of getting a clearer picture of how the game actually works.
No, I will not waste my time putting together a group to test a game that's broken to the very core. I see no reason to start putting together fixes for Ex3 when I have decent fixes for Ex2.

I have been running games for seven years. I have systems that work without fixes. I have systems that already have fixes. I do not need a system that will cost me several hundred pounds over the next eight years for broken mechanics, terrible lore, and nonsensical developer decisions.
 
Iunno. I think ticks and speed is easy enough. Initiative and rounds isn't any easier.

All I do is know what speed my action is, what the tick number is when I act and then I know when my next action is. Estimating when my Enemy acts is all I need as a player after that.

Then again my ST can grasp simple concepts like characters act again after x number of moments. And herd the cats that are my assembly.

Deciding what X (between three and seven) is seems simpler to me than going through however many intiative changes every round. Also keeping track of withering and decisive attacks which change how intiative changes and there are a lot of ways for it to change. And who I should be sending into crash as effciently and effectively as possible.

The base system of rounds and intiative looks simpler on the surface but once I read into it more, it felt more complex. With more to keep track of. because I need to keep track of more than just me.
 
Initiative is a spendable resource. Many charms have an Initiative cost. Initiative can change during a round, altering turn order. Taking a hit can alter turn order. Counterattacks can alter turn order.

Whereas turn order in 2E is a flexible, transient thing that can change moment to moment, rather than at any reliable interval. Further, the only thing necessary to keep track of turn order is to simply write down one's current initiative. Ticks, meanwhile, involve an extra element of math that complicate things further: you don't only need to know a person's speed, you need to know what tick their last action occurred on. That by necessity involves far more book-keeping than a simple score-board.

Second, any system where a person can take more than one action (even before flurries are a thing) has issues, just like Wired Reflexes in Shadowrun had issues. In 3E, initiative provides incentive to be aggressive, and to target enemies with the most initiative. In 2E, ticks provided incentive to use jade weapons regardless of your exalt type.

In comparison, Speed can vary between 3 and 7. Certain charms and abilities can reduce it, others can increase it. Every action has a set speed, usually around 5.

Or 3, if they're aiming. Or four, if they are using jade. Or six, if they want to do a misc action. Remember also, that Long Ticks and Short Ticks are different things, and operate on different timescales.

Also, Jesus help you if you want to do an action on a long-tick scale in a short-tick combat.

Not bad. Complicated. Difficult.

The complicated, difficult portions contribute to a much slower combat experience, wherein a fight will typically grind an entire session to a complete halt. In 2E, the threat of having to join battle is what gets players to overwhelmingly prefer diplomatic solutions or lateral thinking, not out of preference but simply for the sake of avoiding combat. This is, frankly, bad.

In a group which can handle them, they result in a much better system than any turn order can produce. However, that requires that everyone be familiar with them. As you might gather, that's not a common outcome.

Incorrect. As stated before, any situation where one character gets more turns than another character inherently has issues. It's certainly more complex, and more gameable, but it is not a fun thing.

Is two higher than one? If yes, then Ex3 is slower than Ex2. If no, then you've somehow disproved basic mathematics.

That's an extremely flawed argument. Is tracking initiative slower than tracking ticks? You have not established this at all, leaving this argument as sophistry.

Almost every ability in Ex3 has access to a new mechanic: Partial rerolling. This introduces another step into attack resolution.

It does not, unless you involve charms. And players may or may not wish to use those charms. Further, this does nothing to establish that ticks are somehow faster than initiative, it merely makes the argument that doing something like rerolling ones would slow down the game.

It may, but not nearly to the extent demanded by tracking ticks.

No, I will not waste my time putting together a group to test a game that's broken to the very core. I see no reason to start putting together fixes for Ex3 when I have decent fixes for Ex2.

Then at the very least, spend some time putting together a more solid argument. The system is not broken to its very core, even remotely. Consider also that during the debut of Exalted 2E, everyone realized very quickly that perfect defenses were cheap and easily exploitable resulting in an elaborate combat meta-game and paranoia combat. It had issues with lethality. It had issues with the fact that fights would drag on nonstop because aggression was suboptimal and turtling behind scene-long charms and effects was the way to go.

3E has been out for nearly a year now, and while people can have personal gripes with different aspects of the system, scenarios where the entire game simply breaks down as soon as Join Battle is rolled do not exist.

I have been running games for seven years. I have systems that work without fixes. I have systems that already have fixes. I do not need a system that will cost me several hundred pounds over the next eight years for broken mechanics, terrible lore, and nonsensical developer decisions.

That is your prerogative, of course. But your arguments are not gospel, and I believe your assessment of 3E's flaws are lacking.

All I do is know what speed my action is, what the tick number is when I act and then I know when my next action is. Estimating when my Enemy acts is all I need as a player after that.

But how is this, in any way, more complicated with initiative rather than ticks? All you do is find your current initiative, and see where you rank when the next turn begins.

Then again my ST can grasp simple concepts like characters act again after x number of moments. And herd the cats that are my assembly.

Deciding what X (between three and seven) is seems simpler to me than going through however many intiative changes every round. Also keeping track of withering and decisive attacks which change how intiative changes and there are a lot of ways for it to change. And who I should be sending into crash as effciently and effectively as possible.

A lot of it is that the element of ticks themselves are perplexing and counter-intuitive. You start at zero, and count up from there. Where a person goes after zero depends on their join battle results relative to each other, and where they proceed from their starting count depends on their action. For some reason, a lower speed is more optimal than a higher one. You count down tick by tick (creating situations where 'is anyone going on tick 5, anyone anyone? Okay tick 6?') until a player gets to go.

A player who acts on tick 3 goes again on tick 9, meanwhile the player who went on tick 4 acts on tick 7, while this NPC goes on tick 5 and then will act between ticks 8-12 depending on the action they take. Everyone begins on a column of ticks at different positions, progress down it at different rates, and the rates of progression keep on changing depending on the action they decide to take and the other players' previous and upcoming ticks relative to their own.

Tick combat has a lot more moving parts than a simple 'count down from highest initiative to lowest initiative per turn.' Yes, your initiative can change. But as established, so can your speed, and that becomes a lot more complicated especially when one's players keep forgetting to declare the speed of their action.

Initiative, regardless of what action a player takes, only requires simple addition or subtraction to determine what the final values are for the next turn. They change depending on the results of an attack or defense, or whether a charm is used. By contrast, one's order on a battle wheel in tick combat depends not just on the final results of a roll, but also what actions are taken, what actions are not taken, and who gets to act before or after you, which again is a transient and confusing thing.

The base system of rounds and intiative looks simpler on the surface but once I read into it more, it felt more complex. With more to keep track of. because I need to keep track of more than just me.

Having played both? I've spent far less time tracking a single shift in initiative than I've ever had tracking my players' entirely unique progress down a ladder of ticks.
 
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This entire discussion is rather silly. We've moved beyond personal anecdotes into the even more nebulous space of 'I looked at the rules'.
 
I will reply when I get home and can quote properly.

Just you wait mister/miss/gentleperson!
 
Whereas turn order in 2E is a flexible, transient thing that can change moment to moment, rather than at any reliable interval.
Are you still trying to defend Ex3? Because your words apply equally well to it.

However, there are fewer things that change turn order in Ex2. Once an action is taken, the number of ticks until the next is set.
Further, the only thing necessary to keep track of turn order is to simply write down one's current initiative. Ticks, meanwhile, involve an extra element of math that complicate things further: you don't only need to know a person's speed, you need to know what tick their last action occurred on. That by necessity involves far more book-keeping than a simple score-board.
"My sword is speed four. When I make an attack, it will be four ticks until I can act again."
This is not dependent on any other factor.

"My Initiative is 12, which tells me nothing about my place in the turn order. It is entirely relative to the Initiative of every other combatant, and is quite likely to change several times during one round."
This is.

Initiative is not a number like Speed, it is a number like Motes. It is paid, it is earned back, it changes with most attacks.
Second, any system where a person can take more than one action (even before flurries are a thing) has issues, just like Wired Reflexes in Shadowrun had issues.
True in some ways, but you're missing the point. There are no turns in Ex2's tick system, only actions. Some actions should be faster.

Action Economy is meant to balance out wielding a hammer that can shatter a city wall. This failed due to Mote Recovery being linked to Stunting and due to heavier weapons being given low Accuracy and Defence, to balance them with lighter blades.

Ex2's tick system is flawed, yes. That doesn't redeem Ex3's Initiative system.
In 3E, initiative provides incentive to be aggressive, and to target enemies with the most initiative. In 2E, ticks provided incentive to use jade weapons regardless of your exalt type.
No, Soulsteel. Mote recovery and added Accuracy. Of course, paying twice the commitment cost was something of a discouragement to using the wrong magical material.
Or 3, if they're aiming. Or four, if they are using jade. Or six, if they want to do a misc action.
If you'd looked up a matter of centimetres, you'd have see my words. You quoted them. "between 3 and 7".

You might pick out Aim, Guard, or Dash, if you're trying to poke a hole in that. Of course, all three of those can be cancelled on any tick, so I wouldn't call them actions as such.

Now I'm tempted to be rather sarcastic here, but I'll try and tone it down. Yes, actions have differing Speeds. That is the intended point, and it's not hard to keep track of the differences.
Remember also, that Long Ticks and Short Ticks are different things, and operate on different timescales.
And never the twain shall meet, but should they then it'd be rather simple to remember that a long tick is ten short ticks. Of course, Ex2's mass combat was a mess and social combat was a mistake.
Also, Jesus help you if you want to do an action on a long-tick scale in a short-tick combat.
Why would you want to? Some kind of sorcery? Activating an ancient First Age defence system?

That sounds to me like a set piece, with most of the Circle defending the one who's busy for a period of time.
The complicated, difficult portions contribute to a much slower combat experience, wherein a fight will typically grind an entire session to a complete halt. In 2E, the threat of having to join battle is what gets players to overwhelmingly prefer diplomatic solutions or lateral thinking, not out of preference but simply for the sake of avoiding combat. This is, frankly, bad.
Yes. This is why Ex2's combat system is a poor choice for new players, who can't recall what their character can do out of hand.

Ex3's was supposed to be better.
Incorrect. As stated before, any situation where one character gets more turns than another character inherently has issues. It's certainly more complex, and more gameable, but it is not a fun thing.
No, that's where the fun comes in. This is a niche system, unsuited for general use.
That's an extremely flawed argument. Is tracking initiative slower than tracking ticks? You have not established this at all, leaving this argument as sophistry.
You're trying to draw one argument away from the point it was aimed at, but sure. Is two higher than one?

Initiative changes more often. More changes mean more notekeeping, mean more time spent tracking turn order.

If two is higher than one, then Ex3 is slower than Ex2.

It does not, unless you involve charms.
Oh, yes, I forgot all the people who're going to play Exalted without any Exalted. Or Spirits. Or mortal martial artists- Oh, yeah. Those aren't a thing in Ex3, are they?
And players may or may not wish to use those charms.
Already covered that.
Further, this does nothing to establish that ticks are somehow faster than initiative, it merely makes the argument that doing something like rerolling ones would slow down the game.
Perhaps you missed the thrust of this argument, then. Or maybe you didn't recognise it.
Then at the very least, spend some time putting together a more solid argument. The system is not broken to its very core, even remotely.
Craft.
Consider also that during the debut of Exalted 2E, everyone realized very quickly that perfect defenses were cheap and easily exploitable resulting in an elaborate combat meta-game and paranoia combat. It had issues with lethality. It had issues with the fact that fights would drag on nonstop because aggression was suboptimal and turtling behind scene-long charms and effects was the way to go.
Yes. It did. Fixes for that have been considered, attempted, and reworked for years. It's still an ongoing problem with the system.

Of course, over at the other end of the system is D&D, with scry'n'die.

Either Players should have ways to defend themselves, or not. If players can protect themselves, then NPCs can too. Finding a solid balance is something very difficult for a system, and Ex3 has not achieved that.
3E has been out for nearly a year now, and while people can have personal gripes with different aspects of the system, scenarios where the entire game simply breaks down as soon as Join Battle is rolled do not exist.
The game's most notable flaws are visible from character creation.
But how is this, in any way, more complicated with initiative rather than ticks? All you do is find your current initiative, and see where you rank when the next turn begins.
I'll step in to repeat: Action, not turn. Your way of thinking may have something to do with the difficulty you're having. It's not "the next turn", but "the character's next action".

And it's less complicated because nothing will change the number of ticks until that next action. Counterattacks won't, enemy attacks won't, charm costs won't.
A lot of it is that the element of ticks themselves are perplexing and counter-intuitive. You start at zero, and count up from there. Where a person goes after zero depends on their join battle results relative to each other, and where they proceed from their starting count depends on their action. For some reason, a lower speed is more optimal than a higher one. You count down tick by tick (creating situations where 'is anyone going on tick 5, anyone anyone? Okay tick 6?') until a player gets to go.
Which Ex3 does at the beginning of every turn? I mean, certainly, if the players are too bored to keep track of their next action tick, the system won't work. It kinda relies on every player wanting to play.
Tick combat has a lot more moving parts than a simple 'count down from highest initiative to lowest initiative per turn.' Yes, your initiative can change. But as established, so can your speed, and that becomes a lot more complicated especially when one's players keep forgetting to declare the speed of their action.
This is, of course, equivalent to forgetting to declare their initiative. That aside, speed can change once between a characters actions, and only once: When they pick their action. Initiative changes more often.
Initiative, regardless of what action a player takes, only requires simple addition or subtraction to determine what the final values are for the next turn. They change depending on the results of an attack or defense, or whether a charm is used. By contrast, one's order on a battle wheel in tick combat depends not just on the final results of a roll, but also what actions are taken, what actions are not taken, and who gets to act before or after you, which again is a transient and confusing thing.
No. Only one of those things determines tick speed: What actions are taken. Speed is not affected by rolls of any sort after Join Battle, Speed is not affected by any other character's action, and Speed is not affected by any character acting before or after the character.

Unless, of course, you were talking about the order of acting characters, in which case you just said that one's place on a list is dependent on one's place on that list. Such insight.
Having played both? I've spent far less time tracking a single shift in initiative than I've ever had tracking my players' entirely unique progress down a ladder of ticks.
Yes, a single shift in Initiative.
 
However, there are fewer things that change turn order in Ex2. Once an action is taken, the number of ticks until the next is set.
"My sword is speed four. When I make an attack, it will be four ticks until I can act again."
This is not dependent on any other factor.

No, because as we both know from experience, what tick we can act on has less to do with when we can take our next turn in comparison to who is able to act for the span of ticks in between my actions. Which changes depending on what actions everyone else took earlier, rather than being a consistent thing determined by initiative order.

Initiative is not a number like Speed, it is a number like Motes. It is paid, it is earned back, it changes with most attacks.

Yes. But all you need to know is "is this other person's initiative higher or lower than mine" to determine turn order afterwards. As opposed to 2E's "well, he took a four tick long action on tick 7, and she took a five tick long action on tick 9, therefore during the interval between my Speed 5 action on Tick 10 and Tick 15, both he and she get to act before me." Come on. You have to admit, it adds quite a few extra steps!

True in some ways, but you're missing the point. There are no turns in Ex2's tick system, only actions. Some actions should be faster.

It doesn't change the fact that one person gets more actions than another person. And not by virtue of what actions they take but by virtue of what equipment they use for that action. An Exalt with a Jade Reaver and Jade Bracers can attack in three ticks, while the Exalt with a Soulsteel Daiklaive can attack in five ticks. Over time, the first Exalt gets to attack roughly 1.5 times more than their opponent, and in a system that is reliant on mote attrition that difference is critical.

One character in Exalted 3E will still get the same number of actions as another, even if the former was stupid enough to bring a hefty greataxe to a knife fight.

Action Economy is meant to balance out wielding a hammer that can shatter a city wall. This failed due to Mote Recovery being linked to Stunting and due to heavier weapons being given low Accuracy and Defence, to balance them with lighter blades.

No, Soulsteel. Mote recovery and added Accuracy. Of course, paying twice the commitment cost was something of a discouragement to using the wrong magical material.
If you'd looked up a matter of centimetres, you'd have see my words. You quoted them. "between 3 and 7".

The deficit was further compounded by the tick system. You also sort of neglect the fact that a faster person's DV refreshes sooner than a slower person's, and that allows them the opportunity for more flurries without penalty. In every meta I've seen, Jade is far, far more useful than soulsteel: you also forget that Soulsteel only increased mote attrition with successful attack, green jade was the magical material that actually allowed a mote transfer.

Yes. This is why Ex2's combat system is a poor choice for new players, who can't recall what their character can do out of hand.

Ex3's was supposed to be better.

It is better.

No, that's where the fun comes in. This is a niche system, unsuited for general use.
The fun was lacking for a great deal of people, even the ones who played Exalted for years and were familiar with the intricacies of tick combat.

You're trying to draw one argument away from the point it was aimed at, but sure. Is two higher than one?

Initiative changes more often. More changes mean more notekeeping, mean more time spent tracking turn order.

If two is higher than one, then Ex3 is slower than Ex2.

But you don't need more notekeeping for Ex3. You only need the final initiative value after resolving an action. For tick combat you need two pieces of information: what tick did a player act on AND what speed was their action. Additionally, a player needs to figure out which characters get an action during the intervening time between their current tick and their next tick.

Oh, yes, I forgot all the people who're going to play Exalted without any Exalted. Or Spirits. Or mortal martial artists- Oh, yeah. Those aren't a thing in Ex3, are they?

Oh, silly me, I forgot that my Melee Dawn always used all thirty of their melee charms on every single attack, as opposed to only maybe two or three at a time :p


A niche ability that only some players will use, and that some people still enjoy. Contrast this to 2E, where combat and social fundamentally do not function!

Either Players should have ways to defend themselves, or not. If players can protect themselves, then NPCs can too. Finding a solid balance is something very difficult for a system, and Ex3 has not achieved that.

It certainly has. For example, I can now get hit by someone without being instantly splattered and left as a sticky smear on the ground. It also provides mechanisms by which players can either flee from a battle completely, or else go to ground and hide. Furthermore, even non-combat skills have combat utility, whether it's buffing up allies or simply using Performance to boost dodge

I'll step in to repeat: Action, not turn. Your way of thinking may have something to do with the difficulty you're having. It's not "the next turn", but "the character's next action".

Certainly. But as far as 2E is concerned, beyond maybe moving a few yards per tick between actions, there's really nothing a player can do. Turn and Action are interchangeable concepts where both systems are concerned, and the fact remains that a person with a faster weapon can gain more actions/functional-turns than a slower person.

And it's less complicated because nothing will change the number of ticks until that next action. Counterattacks won't, enemy attacks won't, charm costs won't.

If it changes, it changes. That doesn't do anything to the fact that, when a new round starts you can simply read down a list for the action order, rather than cross-referencing a separate chart for each person's progress down a tick column and trying to figure out the points at which they intersect.

Which Ex3 does at the beginning of every turn?

It doesn't. I'd really suggest re-reading it if that's your conclusion, but there's never any dead rounds in 3E like there are dead ticks in 2E.

I mean, certainly, if the players are too bored to keep track of their next action tick, the system won't work. It kinda relies on every player wanting to play.
This is, of course, equivalent to forgetting to declare their initiative.

Not necessarily. Unlike speed, Initiative is something easier to get invested in as it's also an indicator of how well or poorly you are performing in a fight. To put it plainly, one's Initiative holds a greater level of psychological interest than one's Speed.

That aside, speed can change once between a characters actions, and only once: When they pick their action. Initiative changes more often.

A change in initiative is only meaningful if the person whose initiative changed has yet to act. If so, they are pushed backwards or forwards in the turn order, relative to other people who have yet to act. Otherwise, the change only takes effect at the start of the next round.

No. Only one of those things determines tick speed: What actions are taken. Speed is not affected by rolls of any sort after Join Battle, Speed is not affected by any other character's action, and Speed is not affected by any character acting before or after the character.

I agree that speed does not change! However, the actual amount of IRL time that passes between your first action and your second action is entirely dependent on how many people have actions on ticks that fall on the span of time between your first action and your second action.

Which is overcomplicated, and confusing, because that is entirely dependent on when and what manner of action they took on their own turns!

Yes, a single shift in Initiative.

Oh don't worry, I am quite capable of tracking fifty shifts of initiative more easily than tracking what happens in fifty ticks of combat!
 
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No problem, I'mma get work done!

I'm glad you liked my poor Willow Rosenberg impression.

But how is this, in any way, more complicated with initiative rather than ticks? All you do is find your current initiative, and see where you rank when the next turn begins.

At the end of a round, its about the same amount of complication. Its all the stuff that goes on during the round that I feel makes initiative and round combat in Ex3 more complicated. I'm expecting to get to that later, but if I don't I'll do a pretend ninja edit back up here.

Also note: I'm talking from my purely player perspective unless otherwise noted. Bolded and underlined for emphasis. Want to be clear, nothing personal is meant by it.

A lot of it is that the element of ticks themselves are perplexing and counter-intuitive. You start at zero, and count up from there. Where a person goes after zero depends on their join battle results relative to each other, and where they proceed from their starting count depends on their action. For some reason, a lower speed is more optimal than a higher one. You count down tick by tick (creating situations where 'is anyone going on tick 5, anyone anyone? Okay tick 6?') until a player gets to go.

I don't quite see it that way. Just like with Ex3 whoever 'wins' the join battle roll goes first. So nothing there is changed. And then based on the difference in the number of successes the number of ticks until the next person's first action is determined, and so on, until all parties are accounted for. This is what I feel is the most complicated part of tick combat is. And this round turn order is simpler in Ex3, given that you just start at the highest init and work you're way down until everyone is listed.

I also generally don't assign tick numbers past those initial ones. Or at all. I just start at the top of my notebook paper and work my way down (usually in the given space, or if I feel like I'm crunched for notebook paper half spaces count as a tick). And that's if I even keep track of the others beyond they are acting on a tick. My ST is nice enough to say 'tick down.'

Lower is better because 'Speed 3' means '3 ticks until I act again.' And 'Speed 6' is '6 ticks until I act again.'

A player who acts on tick 3 goes again on tick 9, meanwhile the player who went on tick 4 acts on tick 7, while this NPC goes on tick 5 and then will act between ticks 8-12 depending on the action they take. Everyone begins on a column of ticks at different positions, progress down it at different rates, and the rates of progression keep on changing depending on the action they decide to take and the other players' previous and upcoming ticks relative to their own.

Do you do that super wonky thing where you progress 6 ticks at a time sideways? It's waaaaaaay easier to go down a page longer when you keep track of it. 'Cause I do remember Ex2 core showing something like a 6 cell excell sheet going sideways to keep track of ticks and boy did that confuse the fuck out of me for a while.

Like I wrote a bit earlier, I go down a piece of note book paper, usually with enough columns for every party in the combat. And then whenever someone acts I count down the speed of their action and mark when they act next, crossing out ticks that have happened as I go.

Tick combat has a lot more moving parts than a simple 'count down from highest initiative to lowest initiative per turn.' Yes, your initiative can change. But as established, so can your speed, and that becomes a lot more complicated especially when one's players keep forgetting to declare the speed of their action.

Ah, so its more a case of lazyplayeritis. I don't like the regular Exalted charsheets so I wrote my own. They work really well for online games. I linked them earlier in the thread, iirc.(I can also PM them to you if you want) I have a stat block that looks like this:

Clinch(Speed 6): +5 Dex +5 Martial Arts = 10 + Stunt Attack; +Thresh +3 Str B = Thresh+3B Damage Reduce target's Bashing and Lethal Soak by 2, min 0.
Punch(Speed 5): +1 Acc +5 Dex +5 Martial Arts +3 Crane Style = 14 + Stunt Attack; +Thresh +3 Str = Thresh+3B Damage Reduce target's Bashing and Lethal Soak by 2, min 0.
Kick (Speed 5): +5 Dex +5 Martial Arts +3 Crane Style = 13 + Stunt Attack; +Thresh + 3 Str +3B = Thresh+6B Damage Reduce target's Bashing and Lethal Soak by 2, min 0.
Kick with Boots (Speed 5): +1 Acc (+2 if living) +5 Dex +5 Martial Arts = 11 (+2 if living) + Stunt Attack; +Thresh + 3 Str +8B = Thresh+6B (+2 if living) Damage Reduce target's Bashing and Lethal Soak by 2, min 0.
Hook Daiklave(Speed 5): +2 Acc (+2 if living) +5 Dex +5 Martial Arts +3 Crane Style = 15 (+2 if living) + Stunt Attack; +Thresh +3 Str +4L (+2L if living) = Thresh+7L (+2 if living) Damage Reduce target's Bashing and Lethal Soak by 2, min 0.

My other charsheet doesn't list the speed, but my attacks are speed 4 since all I do is sword and cannon, and my shorthand panoply section lists those a section down. (I do improve my charsheets as I go)

If I do forget, I can reference what I normally do right there(Which is attack). I know Aim is a 1-3 tick action, and there are a couple others that I know exist but don't use all that often that are variable speeds too. And I know that Simple charms are Speed 5 unless otherwise noted. And I have the rule book up when I play and I have to reference something that isn't on my charsheet or reference sheet. Because I've been hit too many times in the head (I really have been too, brain lesions yay!) and I know I forget things.

But by this point my ST knows I generally take Speed 4 actions so I don't have to declare it unless I change it with a charm. But if I forget and they forget, it's easy to find the answer, because I wrote it down.

The TL;DR for my ticks-based combat is:
  • It is my action, so I act
  • My action is 'X' speed (Which has been previously altered to include Jade bonuses if applicable), unless augmented by charms by 'Y' (Usually -1 from what I've seen). If augmented 'X+Y' is Z speed.
  • I act again in X or Z ticks
That's it. I've done all my math. All I have to know is the speed of my action and keep track of ticks. And then I act again in that many ticks. In the meantime I move or defend.

Initiative, regardless of what action a player takes, only requires simple addition or subtraction to determine what the final values are for the next turn. They change depending on the results of an attack or defense, or whether a charm is used. By contrast, one's order on a battle wheel in tick combat depends not just on the final results of a roll, but also what actions are taken, what actions are not taken, and who gets to act before or after you, which again is a transient and confusing thing.

The problem is that during the round I might have to do a bit more addition and subtraction. Because charms might cost initiative, I hit someone and gain init (repeat if necessary), I got hit and lose init (repeat if necessary), I counter-attacked and gain init(?) (repeat if necessary), and (it has been a while since I've had Ex3 rules in front of me) I presume some actions might cost initiative.

Once I'm done doing all of that. the round is over, and I've got my final round initiative, setting up the next round is easy. High to low.

I feel like it does put more on me as a player that I can't just check my references for(and much to my eternal shame and embarrassment, I'm not as quick or as clear thinking as I was before all those knocks to the head), if bookkeeping for the GM is a bit easier because they're likely only keeping track of just the NPCs and asking what PC init is inbetween rounds in order to come up with the next turn order..

Having played both? I've spent far less time tracking a single shift in initiative than I've ever had tracking my players' entirely unique progress down a ladder of ticks.

I don't think init+rounds is easier. I think it's harder. Not by a whole lot, but combined with the withering/decisive thing(Which I'm not really a fan of either. I like it enough in video games, but on PnP it feels clunky), its enough.
 
Do you do that super wonky thing where you progress 6 ticks at a time sideways? It's waaaaaaay easier to go down a page longer when you keep track of it. 'Cause I do remember Ex2 core showing something like a 6 cell excell sheet going sideways to keep track of ticks and boy did that confuse the fuck out of me for a while.

I'm not sure what that is. Usually what I had to do was mark which ticks each player or NPC got their first action, and then add from there in a column on a word doc. It would look something like this.

Tick 0 - Dawn, Night
Tick 1 - Infernal
Tick 2 - Demon 1, Demon 2
Tick 4 - Zenith
Tick 6 - Twilight

And then I'd add more and more to the column as time progressed like

Tick 0 - Dawn, Night
Tick 1 - Infernal
Tick 2 - Demon 1, Demon 2
Tick 4 - Night
Tick 5 - Dawn
Tick 6 - Twilight, Infernal
Tick 7 - Demon 1, Demon 2

And all of that took considerably more effort than just writing this out:

Dawn: 15
Night: 15
Infernal: 14
Demons: 13
Zenith: 11
Twilight: 8

and then changing up the scoreboard as the shifts happened:

Dawn: 20
Night: 16
Demons: 13
Zenith: 12
Infernal: 10
Twilight 6

At the very least, the players are very clear about when they get to move relative to all the others and the NPCs in the second system.


My other charsheet doesn't list the speed, but my attacks are speed 4 since all I do is sword and cannon, and my shorthand panoply section lists those a section down. (I do improve my charsheets as I go)

If I do forget, I can reference what I normally do right there(Which is attack). I know Aim is a 1-3 tick action, and there are a couple others that I know exist but don't use all that often that are variable speeds too. And I know that Simple charms are Speed 5 unless otherwise noted. And I have the rule book up when I play and I have to reference something that isn't on my charsheet or reference sheet. Because I've been hit too many times in the head (I really have been too, brain lesions yay!) and I know I forget things.

But by this point my ST knows I generally take Speed 4 actions so I don't have to declare it unless I change it with a charm. But if I forget and they forget, it's easy to find the answer, because I wrote it down.

But again, at least in 3E, you don't need to actually do any of this. As long as you know your current initiative, none of these are necessary. And calculating initiative shifts aren't even all that different from calculating the Seven Steps in 2E combat, you just substitute Health Pools for Initiative when it comes to withering attacks.

The TL;DR for my ticks-based combat is:
  • It is my action, so I act
  • My action is 'X' speed (Which has been previously altered to include Jade bonuses if applicable), unless augmented by charms by 'Y' (Usually -1 from what I've seen). If augmented 'X+Y' is Z speed.
  • I act again in X or Z ticks
That's it. I've done all my math. All I have to know is the speed of my action and keep track of ticks. And then I act again in that many ticks. In the meantime I move or defend.

I still would much rather do something like "I hit someone for 6 withering damage, so my Initiative goes up by 7 and his goes down by 6. Because his initiative is now 6, he now goes after my friend with initiative 8." The math is more linear, and we don't need to look at the overlap in actions that might occur. We just need to know that 12-6 < 8

I feel like it does put more on me as a player that I can't just check my references for(and much to my eternal shame and embarrassment, I'm not as quick or as clear thinking as I was before all those knocks to the head), if bookkeeping for the GM is a bit easier because they're likely only keeping track of just the NPCs and asking what PC init is inbetween rounds in order to come up with the next turn order..

Speaking as someone who GMs Ex3 on a weekly basis, all I need is a player's initial Initiative values. From there, I can track how combat shifts pretty easily as long as I have a pencil or a word doc. But I can guarantee to you that, if you can keep track of all the combat resolution steps in 2.5E, you can definitely handle how Ex3 does it. It's just that one form of attack hits initiative, and another form of attack hits HP.

I don't think init+rounds is easier. I think it's harder. Not by a whole lot, but combined with the withering/decisive thing(Which I'm not really a fan of either. I like it enough in video games, but on PnP it feels clunky), its enough.

Init + Rounds is easier, I think where your issues might be stems from the Withering/Decisive divide. But again, the only real differences are: withering attacks add weapon accuracy, withering damage is reduced by soak and doubles tens. Decisive attacks don't add weapon accuracy, decisive damage must exceed hardness to function and does not double tens.
 
No, because as we both know from experience, what tick we can act on has less to do with when we can take our next turn in comparison to who is able to act for the span of ticks in between my actions. Which changes depending on what actions everyone else took earlier, rather than being a consistent thing determined by initiative order.
You seem to be confusing editions. That's Ex3.
Yes. But all you need to know is "is this other person's initiative higher or lower than mine" to determine turn order afterwards.
For every single character in the fight, yes.
As opposed to 2E's "well, he took a four tick long action on tick 7, and she took a five tick long action on tick 9, therefore during the interval between my Speed 5 action on Tick 10 and Tick 15, both he and she get to act before me." Come on. You have to admit, it adds quite a few extra steps!
No, it doesn't. You do, but the system doesn't. The tick an action took place on doesn't matter in the slightest. Only the next tick the character will act on.
It doesn't change the fact that one person gets more actions than another person. And not by virtue of what actions they take but by virtue of what equipment they use for that action. An Exalt with a Jade Reaver and Jade Bracers can attack in three ticks, while the Exalt with a Soulsteel Daiklaive can attack in five ticks. Over time, the first Exalt gets to attack roughly 1.5 times more than their opponent, and in a system that is reliant on mote attrition that difference is critical.
Congratulations, you found one of the flaws of the system. Mote recovery.
This could be solved by divorcing actions and mote recovery, but in the system as written it's something of a flaw.

The difference in attacks isn't a flaw, by the way. Using a pair of magical items designed to boost speed should have some benefit for the commitment.
The deficit was further compounded by the tick system. You also sort of neglect the fact that a faster person's DV refreshes sooner than a slower person's, and that allows them the opportunity for more flurries without penalty. In every meta I've seen, Jade is far, far more useful than soulsteel: you also forget that Soulsteel only increased mote attrition with successful attack, green jade was the magical material that actually allowed a mote transfer.
I'm sorry, are we talking about Ex2? Because the Ex2 I know had things called penalty negators. Also perfect defences, but if we're talking meta then they'd only show up in step 7.
The fun was lacking for a great deal of people, even the ones who played Exalted for years and were familiar with the intricacies of tick combat.
Hence niche.
But you don't need more notekeeping for Ex3. You only need the final initiative value after resolving an action. For tick combat you need two pieces of information: what tick did a player act on AND what speed was their action.
Okay, you want to play that game?

After any successful Withering attack in Ex3, four pieces of information must change: The current Initiative of both combatants, and their place in the turn order. These things may change again before either character's next action.

For Ex2, you need one: The speed of the action. The tick they act from doesn't matter, because it's always going to be the current tick. This will not change before the character's next action.
Additionally, a player needs to figure out which characters get an action during the intervening time between their current tick and their next tick.
A player doesn't, no. That's the Storyteller's job. A player may, but it's not obligatory.
This is also the case for Ex3, by the way.
Oh, silly me, I forgot that my Melee Dawn always used all thirty of their melee charms on every single attack, as opposed to only maybe two or three at a time :p
I'm such a fool, I completely forgot that Excellent Strike isn't a constantly applicable charm that's easy to grab for any character who feels like dipping into Melee. It certainly doesn't have simple but constantly helpful effects that scale up the more dice are being rolled, and three motes is totally unaffordable.

I went through all of the charms that have partial reroll effects which might be used in combat. Most are quite affordable. Some are scene-long. One was permanent.
A niche ability that only some players will use, and that some people still enjoy. Contrast this to 2E, where combat and social fundamentally do not function!
Combat does, but sure. Dismiss Craft as a niche ability, rather than a core subsystem.

If that's how Ex3 views it, why does it have so much focus? There are far more Craft Charms than there are Investigation charms. There's no Investigation subsystem. No Lore subsystem. There's no Disguise subsystem, no system tracking a Crew for sail, no business management for Bureaucracy.

Ex3 craft is a broken mess, but it earned how many pages to explain all the hoops a player needs to jump through? How many Charms to bypass all the artificial limits?

Craft got more focus than Social in Ex3. Try again.
It certainly has. For example, I can now get hit by someone without being instantly splattered and left as a sticky smear on the ground. It also provides mechanisms by which players can either flee from a battle completely, or else go to ground and hide.
Those aren't new.
Furthermore, even non-combat skills have combat utility, whether it's buffing up allies or simply using Performance to boost dodge
You're holding up some of the most terrible bullshit the Ex3 devs have pulled as if it's a badge of pride. If nothing else, you can spin.
Certainly. But as far as 2E is concerned, beyond maybe moving a few yards per tick between actions, there's really nothing a player can do. Turn and Action are interchangeable concepts whereas both systems are concerned, and the fact remains that a person with a faster weapon can gain more actions/functional-turns than a slower person.
They're interchangeable if they start with the same thing. "the" or "your character's". One is universal, the other is personal.

You may choose to call this nitpicking. It's not. Words affect thought processes.

And once again, that's the point. It wasn't executed well, but that is the intended result.
If it changes, it changes. That doesn't do anything to the fact that, when a new round starts you can simply read down a list for the action order, rather than cross-referencing a separate chart for each person's progress down a tick column and trying to figure out the points at which they intersect.
...Ah. That's it, huh. You're taking...
No, wait. Even a tick column wouldn't explain it. A tick column would make it quite simple to track actions. Take more time to mark actions, but it'd be absurdly simple to follow.

I honestly can't understand why you'd have difficulty looking at a horizontal line and checking for tick marks. Or xs, whatever you use to mark them.
And a chart? Why the hell do you need a chart?
It doesn't. I'd really suggest re-reading it if that's your conclusion, but there's never any dead rounds in 3E like there are dead ticks in 2E.
...And once again, you take a quality as a flaw.
Not necessarily. Unlike speed, Initiative is something easier to get invested in as it's also an indicator of how well or poorly you are performing in a fight. To put it plainly, one's Initiative holds a greater level of psychological interest than one's Speed.
Because it's doing two things at once, perhaps? Regardless, no. It doesn't.
A change in initiative is only meaningful if the person whose initiative changed has yet to act. If so, they are pushed backwards or forwards in the turn order, relative to other people who have yet to act. Otherwise, the change only takes effect at the start of the next round.
And that matters how, exactly? The changes still take place, turn order is still adjusted, and that doesn't stop once most of the character have taken their actions.
I agree that speed does not change! However, the actual amount of IRL time that passes between your first action and your second action is entirely dependent on how many people have actions on ticks that fall on the span of time between your first action and your second action.

Which is overcomplicated, and confusing, because that is entirely dependent on when and what manner of action they took on their own turns!
Perhaps you'd like to stop picking problems that apply to Ex3 as much as they do to Ex2 when you're trying to argue for the system?
Oh don't worry, I am quite capable of tracking fifty shifts of initiative more easily than tracking what happens in fifty ticks of combat!
Fifty actions. Not fifty ticks, fifty actions. Ticks do not change turn order.

And as long as one is less than four, that won't be true.
 

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