5 and 10 are not the same, because with 10 you get a spare 2 to allocate somewhere. On the other hand, if low rolls are actually bad for you you'd be better off with a 5 anyway.
I propose the following fundamental rules:
General overview:
-Turns are simultaneous. At the beginning of a turn, each player announces his or her primary action. Then, when all primary actions have been decided, the players roll for those actions and the GM rolls for the actions of NPC's (If this is to be done in secrecy or not is as of yet up to the discretion of the GM, as is the question of NPC actions have to be announced, though that may change.)
-After this, each player takes one action, in the order he or she choses, until no player can take any more actions. For each of these action subrounds, the effects are applied simultaneously. Indirect results of these actions are evaluated after this.
(For example if a player would simultaneously take lethal damage and be healed, those effects happen at the same time and if the healing effect is strong enough the player survives because he or she doesn't die until after both actions have been applied. Similarly, if an effect would prevent a magic user from using spells, it can't prevent the spells cast in the same subround because the effects of both spells are applied simultaneously)
-The die rolled for each turn depends on the rolling players' skill with his or her primary action. Secondary actions do not factor into this, as they are decided later, though they may modify the result of the primary action. this is not a given though.
Rolling:
-When rolling, a roll has to be factored into at least 1 prime, but all 1's are discarded. The exact amount of factors can be chosen, within this constraint. So if you'd want to, you could factor 36 into 2, 2, 3 and 3, but 18 and 2 is also fine. 4 and 9 would not be because you need at least 1 prime. The only exception is if a player rolls a 1, in which case he automatically uses a 1 on his or her primary action and doesn't get to take any secondary actions.
-The highest factor has to be allocated to the primary action. Remaining factors can be used to do secondary actions.
Round structure:
-After all players have rolled for a round, they each announce how they will factor their rolls. After that, the first subround starts.
-At the beginning of a subround each player announces which action he or she will take and what factor he or she will use for this action. If a player doesn't have any factors left he or she will be idle by default during the subround. Some skills may alter the default action when a player doesn't have any factors left.
-When a player uses his or her primary action, he or she must announce this and used the highest factor he or she made during the round start for this action. Using the highest factor for secondary actions is not allowed.
-Any primary action can be used as a secondary action, but some actions are defined as secondary actions only (examples include parry some spells, attack-modifying skills and most attacks made with the second weapon of a duall-wielding character).
-As said, after the players have decided upon their actions for the subround, first the would-be results of these actions are determined, accounting for any dependencies such as between attack and parry. Then each of these actions is applied completely simultaneously. After the effects have been applied anything resulting from these and prior effects is applied (such as players dieing or poison or spells wearing off.) Then the next subround starts.
Note: I chose for simultaneous turns since with factoring there's a lot going on in a single turn and it would be rather annoying if you have to wait for the players before you to each make 3 or more moves when you're getting to the high die numbers. This way, at least all players can be active at the same time, unless someone rolls a prime and someone else rolls a 32 and decides to spend it on 5 magic missiles
Anyway, this way the game can easily scale up to high numbers without becomming too cumbersome. At high levels, implying high die numbers, secondary actions become much more important because you're often getting a lot of them. On the other hand you can often factor the roll into 2 pieces, a high and a low one and use the high one for the primary and the low one for an unimportant secondary action. There should also be some safeguards to prevent a player from getting instagibbed by an NPC that rolled 97 for an attack.
Edit: Ninja'ed.
Anyway, I think the use of ranged and melee attacks should be determined by the equipment and skills of the players. Perhaps there should be non-factored actions that take a subround but always succeed, such as moving or switching weapons. That way you could take shoot crossbow as your primary, then first shield bass your opponent as a secondary, switch to your crossbow and shoot at him. Of course, if you roll a prime, you'll have to change to your crossbow, wasting a subround, and then fire, possibly while still in melee. On the other hand, you're likely to get a high factor for your shot (though if you rolled a 2 you're screwed)
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Topic: D-PRIME (Read 3367 times)