action points, house rule(?)

By eviltwin61878, in Fallout

in the first game I actually played with other people.

it was observed that people were getting annoyed by the slow pace of the game.

the fact that each player only gets a maximum of 2 actions per turn was frustrating, because like, if one of us wanted to explore a certain ruin, we would frequently find ourselves exactly 3 spaces away and then we would have to use up both of our actions just to get there only to have to wait until the next turn to draw the encounter card.

same thing with quests that required a quest action, frequently, we would end up having to wait until the next turn to perform the quest action.

another annoyance is something like..the raider camp. I have to spend a movement to get there and there's a raider on it, I have to spend an action to kill the raider, it immediately respawns on the spot upside down and then my turn is over, and then in between the turns, an agenda card activates the raider, flipping him back over and now when it gets back to my turn, I have to spend ANOTHER action to kill the new raider, then spawn yet another raider in upside down, and finally I can encounter the raider camp and draw a card.

I see why they did this, it was to try and give the other players a chance to reach a quest objective first and get it before the other player.

I know that there is the action boy/girl perk to gain an extra 2 actions but only one person can ever hold that at any given time and it can be tricky to get your hands on it, you have to level up at just the right time and then draw the right letter.

one player suggested that it would have been nice if we had more action points or something like the original fallout games where you could have between 1-10 action points depending on what your stats and equipment were.

would it break the game if we house ruled it in that everyone gets 3 actions per turn?

or maybe that if someone were to have an "A", then it allows them to move 1 extra space per turn?

I mean, the BOS Outcast seems to be at a clear disadvantage in this situation, yeah I know that the outcast can spend 1 cap to get their full movement and I guess it is assumed that they will be killing more enemies and therefore getting more loot and therefore getting more caps, but still, +1 movement for having the "A" would be nice.

and the other thing is that, we sit there for 4 hours playing the game and then time runs out because the factions reach the bottom of the chart, but we didn't even get through all the storyline quests because it takes too long to cross the map.

I know its 'my" game and I can make any house rule I want but I just want to know what ya's think, would it break the game to give everyone more actions or movement points per turn?

having 3 actions would get us to quest objectives more quickly and allow us to actually "see" all the content...

(someone even suggested not even playing with the faction timer but then I was like...then how do we know when the game ends? I know there are the influence cards and that's how you know who wins but most of them are tied to the faction meter...)

I've found that the narrative aspect of the game is best experienced solo. You can usually get to the end of at least one of the side quest lines plus the main one. More players means more pressure to get influence, so the game will end before getting to all of that.

More actions per turn will help of everyone is working towards the quest lines, but if even one person is pushing for victory then the game will just end sooner, with even less of the stories accomplished. Try it out and see if it works. It sounds like you all have the same desire for the game.

P.S. the BoS outcast can always take his armor off when he needs to get across the map.

On 1/15/2018 at 5:46 PM, DarwinsDog said:

I've found that the narrative aspect of the game is best experienced solo. You can usually get to the end of at least one of the side quest lines plus the main one. More players means more pressure to get influence, so the game will end before getting to all of that.

More actions per turn will help of everyone is working towards the quest lines, but if even one person is pushing for victory then the game will just end sooner, with even less of the stories accomplished. Try it out and see if it works. It sounds like you all have the same desire for the game.

P.S. the BoS outcast can always take his armor off when he needs to get across the map.

i struggled solo.. the less agenda cards meant the factions kept incrementing so much quicker. quarter of the card meant they increased in power 4 times as fast but i also had 4 times the enemies to contend with. it seems counter productive. surely you should get more agenda cards not less. i don’t know how any of the stories pan out very far before the faction gets enough power. (solo or with 4). also solo the lesser power faction catching up means it’s harder for most of the agendas people would have (most of which are to do with the difference between the factions) to actually be worth anything, let alone get to 11! (as opposed to the 8 for 4 player).

also, slightly off topic, i wish the numbered cards were double sided (results on the back) to make it easier not to see results. to get round the ones that are added to encounter you would need another card that just says see card #xx

On 1/1/2019 at 11:58 PM, labrys said:

also, slightly off topic, i wish the numbered cards were double sided (results on the back) to make it easier not to see results. to get round the ones that are added to encounter you would need another card that just says see card #xx

Shouldn't that be fixable by sleeving the cards and then paint over the results (on the sleeves!) with a permanent marker? That way you can't see the results but you can easily find out by shifting the card halfway out of the sleeve.

On 1/15/2018 at 5:53 PM, eviltwin61878 said:

would it break the game if we house ruled it in that everyone gets 3 actions per turn?

or maybe that if someone were to have an "A", then it allows them to move 1 extra space per turn?

I mean, the BOS Outcast seems to be at a clear disadvantage in this situation, yeah I know that the outcast can spend 1 cap to get their full movement and I guess it is assumed that they will be killing more enemies and therefore getting more loot and therefore getting more caps, but still, +1 movement for having the "A" would be nice.

More thread necro, but meh.

It'd definitely break the game if you only gave players 3 actions a turn. Enemies wouldn't have any chance of catching you, ever, unless you wanted them to. The Brotherhood of Steel could just power they way immediately to the high-level areas (taking advantage of the fact that they'll barely ever take damage) and run away with superior loot in a few turns.

You'd have to make all monsters activate once, and a second time if they're shown on the end of turn agenda card. Then you'd have reliably scary npcs that still pressure the board about the right amount. I'd also enjoy it if for the BOS, you'd only have to pay the cap for full movement until you get both A and E; just so that they have a strong presence in the endgame like the vault dweller enjoys.

On 1/15/2018 at 5:53 PM, eviltwin61878 said:

And the other thing is that, we sit there for 4 hours playing the game and then time runs out because the factions reach the bottom of the chart, but we didn't even get through all the storyline quests because it takes too long to cross the map.

4 Hours?! The longest I've had a game take is 2, and that was with 4 totally new players (myself included), playing 50/50 between story and progress.

On 1/15/2018 at 5:53 PM, eviltwin61878 said:

(someone even suggested not even playing with the faction timer but then I was like...then how do we know when the game ends? I know there are the influence cards and that's how you know who wins but most of them are tied to the faction meter...)

In every scenario, the 'main' quest line eventually produces a card where none of the results have a "stage X" consequence. I've figured that completing one of those quests ends the game, with the faction track simply serving to make enemies more difficult as the game wears on.

On 1/2/2019 at 8:58 AM, labrys said:

i struggled solo.. the less agenda cards meant the factions kept incrementing so much quicker. quarter of the card meant they increased in power 4 times as fast but i also had 4 times the enemies to contend with. it seems counter productive. surely you should get more agenda cards not less. i don’t know how any of the stories pan out very far before the faction gets enough power. (solo or with 4). also solo the lesser power faction catching up means it’s harder for most of the agendas people would have (most of which are to do with the difference between the factions) to actually be worth anything, let alone get to 11! (as opposed to the 8 for 4 player).

also, slightly off topic, i wish the numbered cards were double sided (results on the back) to make it easier not to see results. to get round the ones that are added to encounter you would need another card that just says see card #xx

If you're struggling solo, play the Vault dweller. He's absurdly broken with any number of players. I've played through all 4 'classic' scenarios with him, and completed almost all side quests available to me each time, simply by virtue of the fact that my armour was so high I never needed to camp (and a vertibird when I needed it). 12 agenda points is quite easy to achieve when you've got 4 cards - almost laughably so. It's just a matter of getting there before your last shuffle of the agenda deck.

15 hours ago, Fnoffen said:

Shouldn't that be fixable by sleeving the cards and then paint over the results (on the sleeves!) with a permanent marker? That way you can't see the results but you can easily find out by shifting the card halfway out of the sleeve.

Genius, though I'd imagine that, with 250ish cards in the set so far, this would be a lengthy task.

My suggestion for you is to drink nuka-cola and drink lots of it.

Our house rule for moving is that if you use 2 move actions (full round move), you can ignore one terrain effect (rad or diff) to speed up movement. Also ranger gets three moves per move action. Also increasing inventory size to five helps a lot, when you can carry extra junk to do stuff when needed.

For that particular raider problem, try to plan ahead your moves so that you end up ending your turn in the camp. Then if the raider attacks, you get to waste it for free and if not, you use your first move to attack and second move to encounter. Much bigger problem for me is those doom stack-hordes of approaching enemies that usually tend to end very soon my so nice level 4 encounter grind...