Here at Aberrant Rules, we try to keep the ideas more or less within the bounds of standard 4th Edition D&D play and they usually tend towards storygame elements so far. Today, I present you with something distinctly mechanical and well outside the realm of the core rulebook, so proceed with some caution.

One of the things that bugs me about turn-based combat both in 4E and anywhere else, really, is the lack of simultaneous action. Obviously having everyone take a turn sequentially makes things easier to deal with, but sometimes I really want two things to happen at the same time. So taking a cue from the old SNES game Chrono Trigger, I’ve developed a rough sketch of something I call Combined Powers. It’s actually a bit detailed so I’ve written up a PDF and sent it in to Jared* for him to include in the show notes, and I’ll just give you a brief rundown here.

A Combined Power occurs when two characters use Powers simultaneously to achieve greater tactical effect. The combined Power counts as a use of each of its component powers for both frequency and action type. One character must ready his or her component Power as an immediate reaction/interrupt to the other character’s component Power in order to initiate a Combined Power. Important – a character can only be involved in one Combined Power per encounter.

Then there’s a bunch of guidelines as to how to deal with all the numbers and such. They aren’t exactly hard-and-fast rules and you may find a loophole for something here or there, but I think it’s a darn good start. Let’s take a look at an example of a Combined Power. You are a Swordmage. Your allied wizard tosses a Scorching Burst to ignite your bonded weapon and you then sear everyone next to you in the same way you would normally Sword Burst. The new power is called:

Fire Whirl gives up Sword Burst’s ability to distinguish friend from foe and Scorching Burst is sacrificing range and targeting ability. Also, someone is losing an immediate interrupt action, probably the wizard. For this trade, though, you get an extra ability modifier on a single hit (good for overcoming nasty resistances) and half damage on a miss. It’s better, but given that you can only do one of these per encounter (the power itself is still “at-will” because it’s composed of two at-wills), it’s not game-breaking.

I’ve included a couple more examples in the document, so please – take a look at them, decide if you like them or not, see if they add something unique to your game and then send me feedback, either on the forums, at ryvencedrylle@gmail. com or on Twitter as ryvencedrylle. I’m looking forward to your input!

*for the full pdf, go here!