Pathfinder 2e famously uses a three-action economy. A lot of people say it works well, but I’m skeptical, because a lot of people also say Pathfinder is slow. D&D 5e uses a kind of neither-fish-nor-fowl combat economy, where you have an action, a bonus action, a reaction, and free actions. This is a bit complicated, so I want to simplify things while giving OSR games the advantage of an explicit action economy.

Some people consider original D&D to have had a one-action economy.

One-action “Economy”

I use “economy” loosely here. The word implies that you’re spending something to get something, and there are strategic tradeoffs. The idea behind the original one-action economy is that, each round, you can do one thing. You can attack once, or drink a potion, or move or whatever.

In 2e (I’m not sure about all the earlier versions), you could move half* your movement rate and still attack in melee or shoot one arrow rather than the normal two.

* That’s 60 feet for humans, because the normal movement is 120 ft per 1-minute round–a leisurely 1.36 mph. It’s calibrated for creeping thru a dungeon, not tactical combat.

The old game dealt with an extra attack by staggering them over two rounds: from 1 per round to 3 every 2 rounds, then 2 per round, and then 5 every 2 rounds, and then 3 per round. This is awkward to track.

With a one-action economy, I suspect most DMs say that your first attack (melee or arrow) occurs during your regular turn in initiative, and additional attacks happen after every other character has had a turn. Then heroes with extra attacks and archers with a second arrow have a little mini round to themselves.

Two-action Economy

So I propose a two-action economy: You can move & move, move & attack, attack & attack, etc. Spells would typically have a casting time of 1 action or 2 actions. So quick spells let you cast & move or cast & attack or even cast & cast.

Note: I’ve since learned that the Black Sword Hack TTRPG has a two-action economy, but I haven’t read it, so I can’t compare them. Tiny Dungeon also has a two-action economy, but I can’t figure out why; everything about the actions seems equal, which means you’d get the same effect by just allowing one action per round and having twice as many rounds. Months later, I’ve found that Hearthfire uses a two-action economy, with a second attack being at -5.

Pathfinder subjects your second and third attack in the round to -5 and -10 penalties, which is a decent way of limiting constant attacking. Our new system could use disadvantage (the mechanism where you roll two d20s and take the lesser die roll). You can still get extra attacks each round as you advance in level, but some are at disadvantage.

If you move no more than 10 feet, you still get both your actions. Archers normally get two arrows each round, so archers get an extra “½” attack (that is, they start with 2 attacks instead of 1 ½).

Warrior Level	Name	1st Action Attacks	2nd Action Attacks
1-3	1 ½	1 normal	1 disadvantage
4-6	2	1 normal	1 normal
7-9	2 ½	1 normal & 1 disadvantage	1 normal
10-12	3	2 normal	1 normal
13+	3 ½	2 normal	1 normal & 1 disadvantage

Movement During Combat

With a 2-action economy, you can move with your first action, then attack with the second. In modern D&D and Pathfinder, movement rates are scaled to movement in combat (rather than movement thru a dungeon). Depending how movement is scaled in your game, you may allow full movement as an action or only half.

Personally, I don’t see the point in counting off squares during combat. If you need to move 70 or 80 feet instead of 60, you can just rush a little faster or, once you get there, make your attack a little more quickly. Combat rarely occurs over such large distances that it matters.

I say you can move pretty much all you want indoors. Rooms just aren’t that big, normally. But if there’s any doubt about whether or not you can get around the perimeter and up some steps to get to a certain bad guy, the GM should decide 1) if another bad guy would intercept and engage, and 2) if a dexterity or athletics check or something similar should be used to decide it.

Initiative

As for the order of battle, check out my preferred initiative method. Roll 1d20 and add all the active characters on your side. The winning side chooses who among them goes first, then the other side chooses who goes, and so on, back and forth. When one side runs out of actions, the other side finishes out theirs.

Resolve all your attacks for a given action at the same time. So, a 7th-level fighter who gets chosen early can make one normal and one disadvantaged attack, then get chosen again later and make another attack (or move or whatever). The DM might rule that a given PC can’t take their actions back to back; an ally must take an action in between.

Addendum

It occurs to me that another way to do this would be to say that you normally can use your hero die (which varies by level in my system) to assist your attack or damage, but you can instead choose to roll an extra attack. This would only apply to mid- and high-level characters, since low-level characters would not have earned a hero die yet.

This would make the choice of making a second attack more tactical, since it becomes a trade-off with a better single attack.

At higher level, you would get an additional attack each round, but your hero die would only apply to one of the attacks. Then at high level, your hero die would apply to both attacks. But you could always convert a use of a hero die into an extra (normal) attack.

Warrior Level	Name	Attacks	Option
1-3	1	1 normal	n/a
4-6	1 with	1 with hero die	2 normal
7-9	1 & 1	1 with hero die & 1 normal	3 normal
10-12	2 with	2 with hero die	2 with hero die & 1 normal
13+	2 & 1	2 with hero die & 1 normal	1 with hero die & 2 normal