Retooling the initiative system

[Popertop]

I searched and didn't find anything.

Has anyone ever tried a complete overhaul of the initiative system?
It seems to me (in the games I've played at least, and the ones I've heard about) that it fails at its very goal: to streamline combat.

I keep hearing about logjams and encounters that take forever,
and I wonder if this could be mitigated a little bit by a modified initiative system where everyone basically takes their turn at once.

One of the complaints I hear from people is that they don't get to do anything until its their turn.

Have you ever tried a different initiative system that was successful?

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Everyone doing everything at once is pure chaos, and works no better.

As an option to re-tool the initiative system:

Take your initiative bonus. That is your initiative number. Everyone goes on their initiative number. No more rolling and making charts of 'who goes first, who goes next'...

Egg timer. You have x minutes to enact your turn. If you fail to do so, you have lost your actions this round. After all, this is simulating 6 seconds in the middle of turmoil and combat. You shouldn't be able to spend a half hour thinking up your next move.

[Vangor]

One of the complaints I hear from people is that they don't get to do anything until its their turn.

You still wouldn't be able to do anything until your turn even if everyone went at once. Everyone could choose a set of actions, roll anything necessary, and suddenly convene on what happens, but this seems rather ridiculous with people moving passed one another to strike at empty space and such.

What I have been working on for a new game system is initiative as action points in a +/- minus system. Combat begins with 1d10+initiative bonuses. Each action, such as movement of a square or a weapon attack, takes a certain amount of action which reduces the amount of available action you have. If you had 1(roll)+2(dex) and needed 4 action to attack, you could not until the next turn. If, however, someone had 6(roll)+1(dex), they could use 4 action to attack immediately. After this, everyone gains 1 action, meaning you have 4 and then have 4 remaining after spending 4. Both of you may attack, but since you have the higher initiative you may attack first.

Still working on refining, but reduces the amount of actual actions per turn and makes players more reactive and more able to react. Plus, allows for less abuse of action economy since gains to action will be more easily tracked.

[Gnome Alone]

A while ago someone posted the idea that you could just roll initiative for the players' side as a whole and the enemies' side as a whole, then just ask the players, "Okay, your turn, what do you do?" Supposedly it encourages the players' to act as a cohesive team; they can organize the best plan of action and it encourages paying attention during the whole round and not just one's turn. I could see it.

[Ozreth]

You could go 2e style. Everybody states their action and then roll initiative at once. Stated actions immediately unfold in that order.

Not sure how this would interfere with the rest of the 3e system though.

[Bang!]

One of my friends hated traditional initiative systems. He made a plan to ask everyone to announce actions on their turns, then to resolve them all at once at the end of the round.

I didn't play that game, but he said afterward that he scrapped that idea after the second round.

[Gnome Alone]

You could go 2e style. Everybody states their action and then roll initiative at once. Stated actions immediately unfold in that order.

Not sure how this would interfere with the rest of the 3e system though.

I believe that if spellcasters got hit, in melee or with another spell, their own spell would fizzle. Which significantly nerfs magic.

[PersonMan]

You could go 2e style. Everybody states their action and then roll initiative at once. Stated actions immediately unfold in that order.

Not sure how this would interfere with the rest of the 3e system though.

Doesn't this just result in the whole "slow people walk through a hail of AOOs to attack the square where their enemy was before he moved" thing?

[CaptainPlatypus]

A while ago someone posted the idea that you could just roll initiative for the players' side as a whole and the enemies' side as a whole, then just ask the players, "Okay, your turn, what do you do?" Supposedly it encourages the players' to act as a cohesive team; they can organize the best plan of action and it encourages paying attention during the whole round and not just one's turn. I could see it.

I actually like that idea a fair bit. Might even be particularly suited for PbP, because the players tend to do this sort of planning anyway and it lets everyone post when they're online, instead of hoping that they're online after their initiative comes up.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

I believe that if spellcasters got hit, in melee or with another spell, their own spell would fizzle. Which significantly nerfs magic.

And this is a bad thing?

[Kansaschaser]

One of my favorite ways to do inititative is to keep the normal initiative bonuses, but you add +1d6 instead of +1d20. That way, it's a little less chaotic. You could even do what other's have suggested, where you don't roll at all and you just go in order.

The other option that I use is everyone rolls initiative as normal, but then instead of the person with the highest initiative declaring and going first, the person withe the lowest initiative declares what they are doing. Then you move to the next lowest and they have to declare what they are doing, and so on.

EXAMPLE: Jim rolls a 14 for initiative, Lisa rolls an 8, Mark rolls a 17, and the goblins roll a 15.

Lisa must declare what she is doing for the round.
Then Jim must declare what he is doing for the round.
The DM then declares what the goblins are doing.
Finally, Mark takes his actions. He doesn't have to declare since he goes first.

After Mark takes his actions, then the goblins take theirs, then Jim, and finally Lisa.

I have a rule where if someone wants to change declared actions, they take a penalty of -2 to every roll for the round.

[Greenish]

I actually like that idea a fair bit. Might even be particularly suited for PbP, because the players tend to do this sort of planning anyway and it lets everyone post when they're online, instead of hoping that they're online after their initiative comes up.All (that is to say, both) of the PbPs I've been have used group initiative, and it has worked pretty well.

[Popertop]

One of my favorite ways to do inititative is to keep the normal initiative bonuses, but you add +1d6 instead of +1d20. That way, it's a little less chaotic. You could even do what other's have suggested, where you don't roll at all and you just go in order.

The other option that I use is everyone rolls initiative as normal, but then instead of the person with the highest initiative declaring and going first, the person withe the lowest initiative declares what they are doing. Then you move to the next lowest and they have to declare what they are doing, and so on.

EXAMPLE: Jim rolls a 14 for initiative, Lisa rolls an 8, Mark rolls a 17, and the goblins roll a 15.

Lisa must declare what she is doing for the round.
Then Jim must declare what he is doing for the round.
The DM then declares what the goblins are doing.
Finally, Mark takes his actions. He doesn't have to declare since he goes first.

After Mark takes his actions, then the goblins take theirs, then Jim, and finally Lisa.

I have a rule where if someone wants to change declared actions, they take a penalty of -2 to every roll for the round.

oh wow, I really like this idea

[Grendus]

Group initiative works great in PbP. IRL it comes down to teamwork - if you can coordinate actions without DM interference it's fine. If you have problems (or impatient children), it could be a little dicey.

[Jolly]

A while ago someone posted the idea that you could just roll initiative for the players' side as a whole and the enemies' side as a whole, then just ask the players, "Okay, your turn, what do you do?" Supposedly it encourages the players' to act as a cohesive team; they can organize the best plan of action and it encourages paying attention during the whole round and not just one's turn. I could see it.


Comes from the Ars Ludi article Initiative: The Silent Killer (http://arsludi.lamemage.com/index.php/72/initiative-the-silent-killer/).

[Glimbur]

Street Fighter: the RPG has an interesting approach to initiative. Every turn everyone selects a combat card. Each card has a speed rating, which is based both on the character's Dex rating and the maneuver's speed modifier. Then, begin counting up from 0. When the initiative count comes to the speed of your maneuver, you have to go. However, at any point during your action, someone with a higher Speed maneuver can interrupt you. This means you can move forward intending to deliver a strong punch only for your target to Backflip Kick you and get out of range. It is the best system I have found to reward mobile characters and it gives faster weaker maneuvers a role.

There are also modifiers to speed (if you blocked last round you are faster this round, musical accompaniment can make you faster, etc).

[HalfDragonCube]

With the flaw unreactive (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/buildingCharacters/characterFlaws.htm#unreactive) and low dex one party member in my group often gets initiative counts in negative.

Still, the bonus feat is probably worth it.

[Draz74]

Old School Hack has an interesting take on a new initiative system.

[Firechanter]

* Savage Worlds uses a totally different Ini system, using a deck of standard playing cards. Every player draws a card, and the GM draws cards for groups of mooks and individual NPCs. The Joker is Wild, i.e. if you draw it you can go whenever you like and you get +2 to everything this round.
Ini is dealt fresh every round.

_This_ really speeds up combat, since everyone can easily see when it's everyone's turn.
The drawback is that you can't have Ini modifiers. There are some Edges (read "Feats") that allow you to draw more than one card, but it remains pretty random.
This system's inability to discriminate between what would in D&D be Ini modifiers 0, +4, +8, +12, +16 is the main reason why I didn't try to introduce it in D&D yet.

* Conan D20 basically uses Reflex saves for Ini, augmented by the Improved Ini feat. This makes Initiative pretty reliable for classes that have good Ref.
(Also, in Conan it's extremely important to go first, so in fact classes with bad Ref progression are pretty shafted and can't do a damn thing about it.)

[Volos]

One of my favorite ways to do inititative is to keep the normal initiative bonuses, but you add +1d6 instead of +1d20. That way, it's a little less chaotic. You could even do what other's have suggested, where you don't roll at all and you just go in order.

The other option that I use is everyone rolls initiative as normal, but then instead of the person with the highest initiative declaring and going first, the person withe the lowest initiative declares what they are doing. Then you move to the next lowest and they have to declare what they are doing, and so on.

EXAMPLE: Jim rolls a 14 for initiative, Lisa rolls an 8, Mark rolls a 17, and the goblins roll a 15.

Lisa must declare what she is doing for the round.
Then Jim must declare what he is doing for the round.
The DM then declares what the goblins are doing.
Finally, Mark takes his actions. He doesn't have to declare since he goes first.

After Mark takes his actions, then the goblins take theirs, then Jim, and finally Lisa.

I have a rule where if someone wants to change declared actions, they take a penalty of -2 to every roll for the round.

This is pretty much what is outlined in WoD: Combat! except you've put a D&D flavoring to it. That being said, I have played in WoD and 3.5 games that ran like this and it was an interesting experience. You have to make sure that NPCs or PCs make the appropiate checks to understand their opponents turns when it comes to spellcasting otherwise you end up with paladins in full plate dodging fireballs. And by dodging I mean moving out of the area of effect before it happens. This sort of system does have it's merrits though, and I may concider using it in the future myself.

[TOZ]

A while ago someone posted the idea that you could just roll initiative for the players' side as a whole and the enemies' side as a whole, then just ask the players, "Okay, your turn, what do you do?" Supposedly it encourages the players' to act as a cohesive team; they can organize the best plan of action and it encourages paying attention during the whole round and not just one's turn. I could see it.

I tried this. My players had no idea what to do. The monk would leap up to make her full attack, only to be told by the druid to wait for his spell to go off, and the warlock player would get skipped because he didn't speak up. After a session of confusion, I went back to ordered initiative. It really depends on what kind of players you have.

[Mutazoia]

What I have been working on for a new game system is initiative as action points in a +/- minus system. Combat begins with 1d10+initiative bonuses. Each action, such as movement of a square or a weapon attack, takes a certain amount of action which reduces the amount of available action you have. If you had 1(roll)+2(dex) and needed 4 action to attack, you could not until the next turn. If, however, someone had 6(roll)+1(dex), they could use 4 action to attack immediately. After this, everyone gains 1 action, meaning you have 4 and then have 4 remaining after spending 4. Both of you may attack, but since you have the higher initiative you may attack first.

kind of sounds like the D6 initiative system a bit. person with the lowest dex declares actions first, person with highest dex acts first (allowing them to react to the lower dex's actions). If you have 4D in your weapon skill you could do one action and roll 4D, or take a haste penalty to bump your initiative by one and roll 3D, or take two haste to bump your self two..and roll 2D..so on and so forth...

[dob]

It seems to me (in the games I've played at least, and the ones I've heard about) that it fails at its very goal: to streamline combat.

I use index cards to keep track of initiative and combat goes very smoothly. I have one index card to indicate the beginning of a round, and then one index card per character or monster group. The cards also give me a handy place to note monster hp, various effects and durations, etc.

[Vangor]

kind of sounds like the D6 initiative system a bit. person with the lowest dex declares actions first, person with highest dex acts first (allowing them to react to the lower dex's actions). If you have 4D in your weapon skill you could do one action and roll 4D, or take a haste penalty to bump your initiative by one and roll 3D, or take two haste to bump your self two..and roll 2D..so on and so forth...

Nah, mine is more similar to turn-based strategy games using action points, except you do not refresh amount of action points each round but instead gain action points each potential round, and there is no turn order.

[Zaranthan]

A while ago someone posted the idea that you could just roll initiative for the players' side as a whole and the enemies' side as a whole, then just ask the players, "Okay, your turn, what do you do?" Supposedly it encourages the players' to act as a cohesive team; they can organize the best plan of action and it encourages paying attention during the whole round and not just one's turn. I could see it.

This works pretty well. If you want a regulation on it, get a 1 minute egg timer (I have a small hourglass for this purpose). The players have 60 seconds to decide their actions, and when time's up, they need to announce their actions. Delaying means you can interrupt the monsters' turn, but not an individual monster's action. Backpedaling means you're delaying, so at least one monster is going to get to do something before you can recover and accomplish something.

[Kansaschaser]

This is pretty much what is outlined in WoD: Combat! except you've put a D&D flavoring to it. That being said, I have played in WoD and 3.5 games that ran like this and it was an interesting experience. You have to make sure that NPCs or PCs make the appropiate checks to understand their opponents turns when it comes to spellcasting otherwise you end up with paladins in full plate dodging fireballs. And by dodging I mean moving out of the area of effect before it happens. This sort of system does have it's merrits though, and I may concider using it in the future myself.

Yeah, the way I explained things like "dodging fireballs" is that since the Paladin got a higher initiative, he was able to determine what the caster was going to do. He may not know where he's going to target the fireball, but he knows the caster has started the spell, but the Paladin will get to move before the caster finishes casting.

[Gnome Alone]

And this is a bad thing?

Ha! Nope. I did not say that. Just remarked that it would nerf magic. I think it's a freaking GREAT idea, magic is absolutely ludicrous in 3.5 relative to everything else.


Comes from the Ars Ludi article Initiative: The Silent Killer (http://arsludi.lamemage.com/index.php/72/initiative-the-silent-killer/).

Thanks! I was wondering where I'd read that, guess it stuck pretty well.

[Dsurion]

* Conan D20 basically uses Reflex saves for Ini, augmented by the Improved Ini feat. This makes Initiative pretty reliable for classes that have good Ref.
(Also, in Conan it's extremely important to go first, so in fact classes with bad Ref progression are pretty shafted and can't do a damn thing about it.)This. And I really like the way it's implemented, too. That first turn most of the time really is a life or death situation, especially since, if I remember correctly, you don't get any of your active defenses, and Dodge and Parry are pretty freaking important to your defense (AC).

[Hida Reju]

Street Fighter: the RPG has an interesting approach to initiative. Every turn everyone selects a combat card. Each card has a speed rating, which is based both on the character's Dex rating and the maneuver's speed modifier. Then, begin counting up from 0. When the initiative count comes to the speed of your maneuver, you have to go. However, at any point during your action, someone with a higher Speed maneuver can interrupt you. This means you can move forward intending to deliver a strong punch only for your target to Backflip Kick you and get out of range. It is the best system I have found to reward mobile characters and it gives faster weaker maneuvers a role.

There are also modifiers to speed (if you blocked last round you are faster this round, musical accompaniment can make you faster, etc).

This is a good one but I like the count up variant quoted from Musashi Cheesy home page before it crashed.
Countup vs. Maneuver Speed Announcement

Instead of everyone (including the GM) announcing the speeds of their maneuvers at the top of each round, the GM instead slowly counts upwards from the lowest speed possible (can be as low as -4 if you happen to have a dex 1 guy with a possible Widowmaker who was just knocked down). As the numbers move up, players can announce their maneuvers on the speed they wish to go on; other players announce interrupts, aborts, etc. Characters using poses/stunts go first; Zen No-Mind goes last. Players still use combat cards, turning them up when their maneuver goes off.

The advantages to using a countup vs. speed announcement are as follows:

Keeps players from guessing what everyone is doing, so they know to avoid the blockers, whom to target, and the like;

Doesn't require characters using Zen No-Mind and the like to give away their play every round, inviting swift beatdown.

Obviously the big advantage is reason 1, but it's HUGE when dealing with smart players. How long will it take players to figure out that antagonist A has a 4 dex, and therefore on a speed on 8 he's probably blocking? The guy with the speed 2 Buffalo Punch is going to be looking for a target with a lower speed than his to maximize his effectiveness, or else go for the speed demon to force him to blow his move early.

The only disadvantage to the countup is that addle-brained players who miss their maneuver speed have to forfeit or do something stupid like abort to Block when it's unnecessary. This can also be viewed as a plus, since it forces characters to pay attention instead of relying on the beleaguered GM to keep track of everything that goes on.

TL;DR = it's a method that moves combat along but still allows for player participation due to being able to take their move at any time in the round if they have high initiative.

[Firechanter]

This. And I really like the way it's implemented, too. That first turn most of the time really is a life or death situation, especially since, if I remember correctly, you don't get any of your active defenses, and Dodge and Parry are pretty freaking important to your defense (AC).

Yeah, there's a pretty lethal synergy in the Conan rules there:
- Armour does not increase Defense, it gives DR, but can be pierced (halved) with the right weapons or bypassed by a Finesse attack
- the actual Defense bonus comes from class-inherent progressions for Parry and Dodge
- when you're flat-footed, your Defense is always 10, unless you have Uncanny Dodge (which however 3 classes get; Barbarian, Pirate and Nomad)
- as in D&D, you're flat-footed until your first action, and initiative as mentioned is a Reflex save.
- Massive Damage saves start at 20 damage and have a scaling DC

So any character that does not have Uncanny Dodge can be one-shotted in the first round of combat by either Power Attack or Sneak Attack. Imagine a level 10 Barbarian with Str 22; with a two-handed weapon he can easily do 2d10(sic)+9(Str)+20(PA) on the surprise round and still hit on anything but a natural 1; do an average of 40 damage per hit, which triggers a Massive Damage save DC 30-ish, Great Cleaving a breach into the enemy lines.

[Ravens_cry]

Everyone doing everything at once is pure chaos, and works no better.

As an option to re-tool the initiative system:

Take your initiative bonus. That is your initiative number. Everyone goes on their initiative number. No more rolling and making charts of 'who goes first, who goes next'...
The trouble in D&D D20 is that many characters will have a 0 initiative modifier, so you will still need some way of splitting ties.


Egg timer. You have x minutes to enact your turn. If you fail to do so, you have lost your actions this round. After all, this is simulating 6 seconds in the middle of turmoil and combat. You shouldn't be able to spend a half hour thinking up your next move.
I don't see how that changes much for the better. An experienced group probably does things pretty fast anyway, and a newbie is having enough problems as is.

[ffone]

A while ago someone posted the idea that you could just roll initiative for the players' side as a whole and the enemies' side as a whole, then just ask the players, "Okay, your turn, what do you do?" Supposedly it encourages the players' to act as a cohesive team; they can organize the best plan of action and it encourages paying attention during the whole round and not just one's turn. I could see it.

I do this. It encourages team thinking, and it radically speeds up PBP. The players don't need to post in any particular order - they just each get one post in between enemy turns (except of course some may not get a turn before the first enemy turn).

[Malimar]

* Savage Worlds uses a totally different Ini system, using a deck of standard playing cards. Every player draws a card, and the GM draws cards for groups of mooks and individual NPCs. The Joker is Wild, i.e. if you draw it you can go whenever you like and you get +2 to everything this round.
Ini is dealt fresh every round.

_This_ really speeds up combat, since everyone can easily see when it's everyone's turn.
The drawback is that you can't have Ini modifiers. There are some Edges (read "Feats") that allow you to draw more than one card, but it remains pretty random.
This system's inability to discriminate between what would in D&D be Ini modifiers 0, +4, +8, +12, +16 is the main reason why I didn't try to introduce it in D&D yet.

The Alexandrian recently proposed a system (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/4907/roleplaying-games/untested-d20-playing-card-initiative) to make it work. I haven't tried it, but it seems plausible.

Basically, you get a number of cards equal to 1 + your initiative modifier, and you keep the best one. If you have a negative initiative modifier, you get a number of cards equal to 1 + |your initiative modifier|, and you keep the worst one.

[Firechanter]

Okay, that would be a way to do it. But it will only work for low-level, low-up games without getting too clumsy.

I have a highlevel character with +11 Ini. (+5 Dex, +4 II, +2 Belt of Battle) Imagine having to deal and go through 12 cards for him alone. In a fight where multiple combatants have high Ini, you might well run out of cards in your deck.

It would probably be smarter to deal 1 extra card per X points of Ini modifier, where X should probably be a value between 2 and 4.

[ffone]

Everyone doing everything at once is pure chaos, and works no better.

As an option to re-tool the initiative system:

Take your initiative bonus. That is your initiative number. Everyone goes on their initiative number. No more rolling and making charts of 'who goes first, who goes next'...


Deterministic initiative is a terrible idea -at best, you'd need to recalibrate everything else around it. A high Initiatie is now much stronger; you'll virtually always go first.

It also leads to metagame-y and IMO-unrealistic behavior: if I know I've got a +1 better initiative mod than the other guy, then unless he sneaks up on me, there is NO WAY, EVER he can ever attack before I can. If you and I engage in a Clint Eastwood style duel, over and over and over, one of us will shoot first, every time.

(Currently accomplishing this requires a mod 19 higher than his, which means you have magic and/or a fancifully high Dex.)

And you'll still need a chart - the PCs will always have the same order, but each fight will have different monsters.

All this does is save a few d20 rolls...and if you want to do less rolling, there are easier ways to accomplish that (allow taking 10 more often, sharing the attack rolls of a full attack, etc.); the initiative rolls are some of the most important d20s)

Also, doing group initiative for the monsters probably simplifies things more, and has better side effects (especially in PBP).

[Firechanter]

By the way:
Actually, in the groups I've played with, it's always been a houserule that Ini is rolled fresh every round. In D&D, in Conan, everywhere.
We like this because it makes combat feel more dynamic; an actual "battletide" rolling back and forth. Sometimes this ends an encounter early because one character gets to act twice in a row. Sometimes it really gets nerve-wracking when two opponents are low on HP, and both have good attack, so you just know that whoever wins Ini in the next round will carry the day. Luckily, we didn't have a PC death yet because of this. Sometimes it was really, _really_ close.

The upshot is that for this to work (without an undue amount of PC deaths), players need to take care of their Initiative modifier, to make it less probable their opposition gets to go twice in a row.

[ffone]

When you reroll initiative every round, how do you deal with delay actions / readied actions that would cross round boundaries?

How do you do effect durations (such as 1-round debuffs like Stunning Fist)?

[Firechanter]

When you reroll initiative every round, how do you deal with delay actions / readied actions that would cross round boundaries?

How do you do effect durations (such as 1-round debuffs like Stunning Fist)?

The players can delay or ready their actions pretty much indefinitely. Strictly speaking they wouldn't have to roll as long as they still have a Delay or Ready going, but iirc they roll anyway, just in case.
When the delayed or readied action is used, the new Ini number doesn't stick. The player just rolls fresh Ini next turn.

Durations are more tricky. Technically you'd have to keep track of the Ini phase an effect expires, but tbh we don't really do that. In practice, a one-round effect would apply to the character's next action. I can't remember that ever coming up, though.