Editing Mano a Mano:Hack and Slash (section)

==Duration==

In real-time we give actions different durations instead of skipping turns for slow characters and giving fast characters more actions per turn.

;Powerful and Reduced Actions: When damage plus stun is more than a character's health, or when the character uses an unwieldy weapon, the character performs reduced actions: quick actions with the duration of powerful actions. Powerful and reduced actions have a duration of 1 turn for characters with 1 or more speed and a duration of 1 turn divided by the character's speed if the speed is between 0 and 1. (If the character's speed is 1/2, the duration is 2 turns. If the character's speed is 1/4, the duration is 4 turns.)

;Combo Actions: When the character does not have to perform reduced actions because of damage and stun or unwieldy weapons, they can perform combo actions: quick actions which may have a shorter duration depending on a character's speed and whether they use a secondary weapon. The duration of a combo action with a single weapon is 1 turn divided by the character's speed. The duration of combo actions by character's using multiple weapons depends on their speed. If they have 1 or more speed, the duration is 1 turn divided by (speed + 1). If they have between 0 and 1 speed, the duration is 1/2 turn divided by speed. (If the character's speed is 1/2 the duration is 1 turn.  If the character's speed is 1/4 the duration is 2 turns.)

When the animation of actions does not exactly fit the duration the action is supposed to have, you can trim and pad the animation or adjust the duration. 

;Trimming Animation: If a character has a 1.5 second animation for a punch with a duration of 1 second, the last 0.5 seconds are probably just follow-through animation, and the character can interrupt this follow-through animation to start a second punch as soon as the 1 second duration is up.

;Padding Animation: If a character has a 0.5 second animation for a 1 second duration action, the character could return to moving and fighting stance animation for 0.5 seconds after the animation completes.

;Adjusting the Duration: If a character has animation for a combination of punches averaging 1.1 seconds in length, but the character is supposed to have punches with a duration of 1 second, the duration of each punch could be changed to fit the animation even though the average punch animation length is not exactly the same as the correct duration and 

Speed does not have to be limited to whole numbers and simple fractions.
Instead of designing animation to fit a template's speed, you may want to estimate a template's speed based on it's animation.
For slow templates, speed could be 1 turn divided by the duration of their average powerful action.
For fast templates, speed could be 1 turn divided by the duration of their average combo action.
Subtract 1 from the speed of fast templates if the combo uses secondary weapon actions.