Other Initiative Systems

[Yora]

I just read an article that made me think of Initiative. I agree that writing down the initiative order at the start of every encounter is one of the more tedious parts of the game and then your notes still look confusing and you have to search who is next after every turn.
So lets share some ideas for other ways to handle initiative and discuss their benefits and problems.

One interesting proposal I've seen goes like this:
First, the GM makes one initiative roll for the enemies, then the PCs make one intiative roll each.
> All the players who beat the enemies roll go first in whatever order they want.
> All the enemies take their turns.
> Then all the PCs take their turn in whatever order they want.
> Then the enemies, and so on.

There are not really "rounds" with a beginning or an end or a "next round" in the strictest sense, but all limited duration effects would simply last "until the beginning of your next turn" and so on.
If the enemies roll high, many PCs seem to get one less turn.
If the enemies roll low, many PCs seem to get an extra free turn.
Since enemies should sometimes have high Init modifiers and sometimes low ones, it should averagage out over time.
Characters who really push to get a high Initiative modifier (rogues with Improved Init and so on) still get a benefit from it, as they still get the enemies flat footed. Doesn't really matter if they take their turn before all their allies or not.

Might not work for groups in which some players tend to push to the front all the time, but I think quite often the tactical situation will make it a good idea for players to sometimes want to react first and sometimes wait out the other PCs actions.
However, I think the GM should discourage players discussing what they want to do during the round before they decide who goes next. When a player claims his turn, the PC is commited and can not chose to let someone else go first instead. (This pretty much nullifies the delay action.)

[Deox]

It's similar to the Edge of the Empire system of initiative. All combatants roll their initiative at the beginning normally. Instead of the player going on their specific roll, any party member may take that 'slot' for the round. This goes until all combatants have acted in the round. Rinse and repeat. We've found this method really does speed up the play and allows for more teamwork.

[lsfreak]

My big issue with that would be that 3.X is a game where even moderate levels of optimization allows someone to significantly affect the battle in a single round. Two otherwise-equal groups, with one entire group acting at once followed by the other, means that each group can severely disadvantage the other (if not guarantee their own win), without the other group having any kind of recourse.

For that reason, as much as figuring out who's next is annoying, I prefer to divide the NPCs/monsters up further than the book suggests, giving every character on the board their own initiative score so as to allow the greatest chance at the party level to react to a new situation, as opposed to four actions followed by four reactions.

[ArcturusV]

Yeah. Mostly my experience with DnD has been any "Whole team goes, other team goes" pattern just leads to one sided curb stomps. This isn't a bad thing if you wanted something like the mook brawl, where the level 15 party surprises something like a group of 200 gobbos, stomps them hard on the surprise round, and you want an epic, bloody confrontation from that point on.

Honestly when I read this topic title my mind went to the BattleTech system, which I've never really seen used outside of BattleTech. It would work somewhat well for low level DnD, but not for higher level. But interesting enough that I might try to use it some game.

The idea on it being that you roll off initiative like normal. Low initiative moves first. Then the next lowest, etc, all the way to the highest initiative moving last. Then the highest initiative attacks first, lowest initiative attacks last. Which could work out decently until you get to the point where people have swift action movements and full attack actions.

But I always liked the idea behind it, that higher initiatives can "react" to slower, less agile enemies. Avoid being in the line of fire/blast radius, and set up counter attacks, etc. As opposed to standard DnD where... having a high initiative isn't necessarily good.

See for example if say, your Barbarian wins initiative. So cool, he charges in, raging and just splatters one enemy. Except... oh, the next four in the order are all enemies who proceed to flank and smash your barbarian to pieces before your teammates can do anything to back him up.

... so if he wants to avoid being isolated and ripped apart like that he has to ready/delay effectively forfeiting his good initiative roll.

Just... random thoughts. I haven't found a good solution to that. But I'd like to.

[Yora]

My big issue with that would be that 3.X is a game where even moderate levels of optimization allows someone to significantly affect the battle in a single round. Two otherwise-equal groups, with one entire group acting at once followed by the other, means that each group can severely disadvantage the other (if not guarantee their own win), without the other group having any kind of recourse.

That is certainly true. For a highly tactical game with decent amounts of optimization, it would probably lead to rather wonky results. I've been thinking mostly of low level games where players don't prepare any character builds in advance, because that's how most of my games play out.

I think 2nd Edition had one initiative system (which I think is default for Myth & Magic), where initiative is rolled every round and all combatants have to announce their actions first and only then they start rolling dice to see what actually happens.
Which I am not a fan of because it gets even more confusing to keep track of, but it provides even much less chance to plan ahead what the optimal action would be at your turn.

[ArcturusV]

Ah yeah. I remember that. Reroll initiative every turn. Weapon Speed/Casting time slowing down your initiative. Announce what you're doing before you roll initiative. You can "cancel" your action, no cost. But if your action isn't valid "I cast lightning bolt at the ogre!" "Sorry, the ogre is already dead because the fighter cut him open with a massive crit from his axe", then you basically just lost your turn. Though thankfully minor things like "Well the ogre moved" didn't spoil it, you'd still adjust aim, etc.

It was both more tactical and less. Because... you had to have a good idea of what was likely to happen in order to call out your action (And quickly, if you dallied trying to decide, you just lost your turn). But luck could mean your carefully thought out plan was no longer valid.

[Zombimode]

That is certainly true. For a highly tactical game with decent amounts of optimization, it would probably lead to rather wonky results. I've been thinking mostly of low level games where players don't prepare any character builds in advance, because that's how most of my games play out.

Problem is, your seeing it from the PC's perspective only. But you can't count out the opposition. The DM only has to pick some stronger enemies, even accidentally, and win initiative and *bam* TPK.

[Yora]

If you have a very large group of enemies and they get a very high initiative roll, it does increase the chance that all enemies act before any of the PCs.
A situation that can always happen, but would be less likely to.

And it is true, that this is a problem much more for the PCs than for the enemies, since monsters are expected to lose almost any fight anyway. And if they all get slaughtered in one round, it does't really disrupt the game much.

[hymer]

We have some folding cards with the names of PCs and a few called BG1, BG2, etc. (BG is short for Bad Guy) At the beginning we arrange them according to initiative (usually in front of the DM's screen), so everyone can easily see what's up. When people move initiative, we simply slip the cards about.

Pro: It beats writing things down because it's faster to set up, and easier to deal with changes in the order. It is also easy for players to see who is going to go when, which helps their planning.

Con: It's more prop intensive than writing it down.

Preps to my player who introduced this to me over my objections.

[Yora]

That sounds actually quite practical. Basically like the initiative list of Final Fantasy 10. And you can even move all characters around when one uses a readied action.

[DonEsteban]

First, the GM makes one initiative roll for the enemies, then the PCs make one intiative roll each.
> All the players who beat the enemies roll go first in whatever order they want.
> All the enemies take their turns.
> Then all the PCs take their turn in whatever order they want.
> Then the enemies, and so on.
That's what we've been doing for a long time. Especially in PbP games. It works very well. It's not that different from the standard rules anyway, if the DM chooses group initiative for his guys. The only thing is that maybe fights tend to be a little bit more swingy, because all actions of one side come at the same time. Extreme circumstances may call for exceptions...
High-level or very optimized parties may be a little bit more problematic... but that's their own fault!

AD&D and initiative each roll: I always thought that this system was superior to 3e's. The argument against it was always that it's too time-consuming at the table, but I've always doubted if the difference is that great with reasonably competent players.

And, yes, an initiative board is a great thing. We even used to have a wooden one with small, sliding tablets. But a magnetic board with index cards and magnets is just as handy. Or folded index cards over the top of the GM screen. Have a player handle them to take a bit of workload from the GM. You might even extend the idea to keep track of effects and their durations.

[Ailowynn]

In Edge of the Empire, everyone rolls Initiative, but instead of slots for each character, there are PC and NPC slots: any PC can take any PC slot, any NPC can take any NPC slot.

[ImaDeadMan]

I'm a fan of the Edge of the Empire initiative system. I also think the card idea for initiative order is great. Like Yora said, it reminds me of FFX turn order and I always thought it was a decent system.

[Temji]

one roll per combat encounter

each player rolls individual initiative

the bad guys are grouped and assigned an initiative card... either by position or by type of monster...

away we go...

bit of a combination here I suppose... we use the cards rather than writing it all down, easier to adjust... each character gets individual initiative... monsters have a bit more of a shot at winding up in the middle, hence more opportunity to disrupt the curb stomp scenario...

[Zombimode]

We have some folding cards with the names of PCs and a few called BG1, BG2, etc. (BG is short for Bad Guy) At the beginning we arrange them according to initiative (usually in front of the DM's screen), so everyone can easily see what's up. When people move initiative, we simply slip the cards about.

Pro: It beats writing things down because it's faster to set up, and easier to deal with changes in the order. It is also easy for players to see who is going to go when, which helps their planning.

Con: It's more prop intensive than writing it down.

Preps to my player who introduced this to me over my objections.

This... this seems like a very good idea. I will propose it to my players at sunday.

Thanks for the suggestion :smallsmile:

[Zubrowka74]

I think 2nd Edition had one initiative system (which I think is default for Myth & Magic), where initiative is rolled every round and all combatants have to announce their actions first and only then they start rolling dice to see what actually happens.
Which I am not a fan of because it gets even more confusing to keep track of, but it provides even much less chance to plan ahead what the optimal action would be at your turn.

They also had weapon speed. And armor with AC changing depending on the type of melee damage (S/P/B) inflicted.

Yeah, thoses were the days...

[Larkas]

I considered using an initiative system based on FFT's for a time, which would allow fast characters to act more than once every "turn". FFT characters have a "Speed" statistic, whose value is added to its CT counter every "tick". When your counter equals to or exceeds 100, you get an action.

It's neat on paper, but using that without a computer to keep track of everything would be a nightmare.

[Slipperychicken]

See for example if say, your Barbarian wins initiative. So cool, he charges in, raging and just splatters one enemy. Except... oh, the next four in the order are all enemies who proceed to flank and smash your barbarian to pieces before your teammates can do anything to back him up.

... so if he wants to avoid being isolated and ripped apart like that he has to ready/delay effectively forfeiting his good initiative roll.


The Barbarian got splattered because he leeroyed into a 5v1, not because of his initiative number. Delaying lets him go whenever it's best (i.e. alongside his teammates), or take advantage of opportunities as they come up in the round, like if an opponent moves up unsupported. This Barbarian didn't take advantage of that flexibility and instead got himself killed.

[Maginomicon]

I considered using an initiative system based on FFT's for a time, which would allow fast characters to act more than once every "turn". FFT characters have a "Speed" statistic, whose value is added to its CT counter every "tick". When your counter equals to or exceeds 100, you get an action.

It's neat on paper, but using that without a computer to keep track of everything would be a nightmare.
I figured out a way to pull this off using spreadsheets, but the fact of the matter is that for D&D at least, the game becomes horribly HORRIBLY unfair. There's not really an effective way to convert an initiative modifier into an active-time system "speed" that would be fair. About the only thing that would work is everyone rolling "3d6 + Variable Initiative Modifier (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/variableModifiers.htm)" for a number of ticks and when anyone hits 200 (100 is too small) that's when their turn happens. Even with that being the case, high initiative modifiers come out much farther ahead in terms of when they act. It might be compatible with D&D if whenever someone had their turn they don't start counting up again until everyone's had their turn.

It's also incompatible because the Delay and Ready actions would no longer function.

I should point out that the DMG has an alternate initiative method or two.

[Tevesh]

I played with 2E and I liked the Initiative because it gave Fighters an advantage in combat. Sure, Wizards can warp reality but Fighters got a go at you first.

I saw in the 'House Rules' thread that they use Reflex instead of Initiative, which I think is elegant and is something I'd toy with.

Another House Rule I saw from a blog that was neat was everyone roll Initiative. The highest goes first and then they select who goes next in the Initiative. This would allow PCs to all go first but then all the Monters would get a turn. You might want to break up actions, but then if you gave Initiative to the Monsters, who knows when you'd receive Initiative back.

I can't remember if he had Initiative reroll each round or that the guy who went last then gets to go first on the new round.

I've played Savage Worlds and I like their Initiative Mechanic. You use a deck of playing cards. It went from highest to lowest with suits. The Red Joker gave you a bonus, the Black Joker gave you a penalty. So when your turn is done, you hand back your card. My only nitpick is that Aces were the lowest (counted as a 1). That rubbed me the wrong way, for some reason.

[Qc Storm]

We have some folding cards with the names of PCs and a few called BG1, BG2, etc. (BG is short for Bad Guy) At the beginning we arrange them according to initiative (usually in front of the DM's screen), so everyone can easily see what's up. When people move initiative, we simply slip the cards about.

Pro: It beats writing things down because it's faster to set up, and easier to deal with changes in the order. It is also easy for players to see who is going to go when, which helps their planning.

Con: It's more prop intensive than writing it down.

Preps to my player who introduced this to me over my objections.

One of our players bought the Pathfinder Monster Box. Which is a bunch of cardboard cutouts with pictures of various monsters on them (About 500 total I think).

Since we have actual miniatures (Warhammer 40k, but hey, that Dreadnaught is TOTALLY a hydra), we didn't use them much, except for Initiative.

Each player chose a Large-sized monster that represented them (Iron golem for the knight, Owlbear for the druid, Duergar for the dwarf, etc). We place them in order, on their stands, in front of the GM screen. Monsters usually whatever is handy at the moment. Sometimes dice case, soda cans, unused minis, etc. Then we just shift them around as needed.

Very handy.

[Tvtyrant]

We tried a system of initiative where we simply made an initiative deck. Each character had their name in the deck 1+their positive initiative score. Your turn in line is set each round when your name first gets up, and each subsequent time it is ignored until the initiative is worked out. It takes about 30 seconds to flip threw them all until the order is set, and then you shuffle and redraw each new round.

We also have tried normal rolls with rock/paper/scissors for ties.

[Tevesh]

For ties, I just go off of the Initiative modifier. If your Initiative is +3 to +2, you always win.

Tied ties results in both happening simultaneously. I'd have PCs go before monsters and PCs could roll-off for each other, but if you dealt the killing blow to a tie, he would still get a swing on you.

[nedz]

I had a complaint from a player when this happened naturally using the standard initiative system. Apparently it made the combat less interesting.

[Larkas]

I figured out a way to pull this off using spreadsheets, but the fact of the matter is that for D&D at least, the game becomes horribly HORRIBLY unfair. There's not really an effective way to convert an initiative modifier into an active-time system "speed" that would be fair. About the only thing that would work is everyone rolling "3d6 + Variable Initiative Modifier (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/variableModifiers.htm)" for a number of ticks and when anyone hits 200 (100 is too small) that's when their turn happens. Even with that being the case, high initiative modifiers come out much farther ahead in terms of when they act. It might be compatible with D&D if whenever someone had their turn they don't start counting up again until everyone's had their turn.

It's also incompatible because the Delay and Ready actions would no longer function.

Oh, it's certainly not directly compatible! It would need several tweaks to make it work. Specially when you consider that FFT units' speed go from 6 up to something like 14~16, ordinarily.

A "simple" way to go about it would be to give every creature a Speed statistic of 5+Dex modifier. Improved Initiative could add half your BAB to the stat, or it could be omitted completely.

Things would work fairly well if you considered only humanoids, but monstrous creatures with extraordinary Dex scores would throw the system off-balance...

As I said, it would need several tweaks to make it work.

[maximus25]

My DM had a deck of playing cards.

Person with the highest initiative draws from the deck. Whichever card they get determines when they go. This ensures that everyone knows when they're going because they have the card in front of them, and everyone has a chance to go first rather than x having +19 to Initiative and automatically beating the guy who has +4.

[Talderas]

Each participant in battle rolls initiative as normal. After the creature takes its turn, it's initiative has -10 added to it. Once initiative reaches 0 then initiative is rerolled.

So, for example, say four people in a fight have +2 (A), +1 (B), +4 (C), and +7 (D) initiative and they roll 20, 3, 14, and 8 respectively for total initiatives of 22, 4, 18, and 15.

A (22) would go first and then his initiative would be lowers to 12. Then C (18) would go and have his initiative lowered to 8. Then D (15) would go and have his initiative lowers to 5. Then A (12) would go and have his initiative lowers to 2. Then C (8) would go and have his initiative lowers to -2. Then D (5) would go and have his initiative lowered to -5. Then B would go and have his intiative lowered to -8. Finally A (2) would go again at which point initiatives would be rerolled. So the turn order would be A, C, D, A, C, D, B, A.

[prufock]

Index cards + pre-rolling initiative for baddies is a good way to go. IE if you plan an encounter with 3 goblins, roll the goblin's initiative and write the total on their index cards before the game begins. Then the players roll theirs in game and you arrange the cards as necessary. Easy peasy.

[nedz]

Index cards + pre-rolling initiative for baddies is a good way to go. IE if you plan an encounter with 3 goblins, roll the goblin's initiative and write the total on their index cards before the game begins. Then the players roll theirs in game and you arrange the cards as necessary. Easy peasy.

I've done this a few times. I always use cards (old business cards are ideal) but I don't always get around to pre-rolling the initiatives.