Everyone doing one thing in combat. true. But wasn't the main thing about the Sam on both sides to be THE combat monster.
The Samurai is still a combat monster. If he has three initiative passes, he'll still be banging out six short bursts, and that's probably six (and at LEAST three) enemies who are
absolutely hamburger dead, every combat turn.
The trick is, with the way initiative works now? The
rest of the team doesn't stand there with their thumbs up their collective asses, wondering why they even BOTHERED to roll initiative in the first place. They at least get to
contribute to each combat - even if their contribution is half or a third as much as the combat-monster Samurai's is. "Some" is definitely better than "none".
If they went before the others went....well wasn't that their schtick.
It wasn't just that the Samurai went first - even now, someone with a lot of initiative boost is probably going to go FIRST.
The problem was that the Samurai got to gofirst, second, third,
and often fourth ... before anyone else got to act
AT ALL. It was to the point where either
EVERYONE jacked their initiative as high as they could, hoping tt act
just once in combat before the super-initiative-junkies wiped the board completely clean ... or you just didn't bother to roll initiative at all. Nor carry a gun, learn a combat spell, or ANYthing relating to combat at all. Because, you know, if you didn't have at least the ability to break high twenties with initiative?
You were never going to USE a gun, a combat spell, or what have you. Ever. At all.
Period.I know combat is the part of the game everyone can participate in but they could all do it in their own way, why begrudge the Sam his way?
And that's just the thing. If you had a Samurai who could reliably push initiative scores of 30 or 40? Noone but thats amurai
would be participating in
any way, except as
spectators.
Seriously. I had a character who reliably got initiative scores of 42 to 44 - that was an average result on the dice. It was
possible for him to just barely break FIFTY.
So picture, you can get a 21 on a good roll, and you do. I get a TYPICAL roll, and have a 43. You know how combat goes, against half a dozen mooks and one "real threat" ...?
At 53, I kill 2, and 4 are left.
At 43, I kill 2 more, and 2 are left.
At 33, I kill the last two mooks, and only their leader is left.
At 23, I kill the leader.
At 22
combat ends... and you never got to act. At all. In the slightest degree.
Your turn simply never came up.
And this happens not just in one combat, or two, but
EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. Run after run, combat after combat,
your character is a fifth wheel, and I am the sole, singular Star Of The Show.
...
Is that really what you're advocating?
Because
now ...? Even if I have four initiative passes, and you only have ONE ...?
FIRST INITIATIVE PASS
... with my godlike Initiative, I kill 2 mooks before you can blink;
... you unload with everything and kill the leader;
SECOND INITIATIVE PASS
... I kill the third and fourth mooks;
THIRD INITIATIVE PASS
... I kill the fifth and sixth mooks
combat endsI've still waxed six of the seven enemies. I'm still "the king of combat".
But you got to contibute ... meaningfully. Even if all you did was seriously wound the leader, in the fourth and final IP, my samurai would then be able to finish him off ,,, and your contribution is STILL meaningful (because maybe I didn't have to blow a point or two of Edge making sure he went down in one IP)
Either way, now we're BOTH happy. See how that works?