Unearthed Arcana 7-10-17 ... Is anyone really excited for alternative Initiative?

[Matrix_Walker]

So today's UA is Mike Mearls variant Initiative...

https://twitter.com/mikemearls/status/883555367279443969?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sageadvice.eu%2F2017%2F07 %2F09%2Fare-we-allowed-a-sneak-preview-for-this-months-unearthed-arcana%2F


Does anyone have a dog in this race? I'm not expectivng to be wowwed.


And here it is

http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/unearthed-arcana/greyhawk-initiative

[jaappleton]

Yuck.

This came up via an AMA that Mearls did maybe a month back. A lot of people had questions, and there was interest. I couldn't care less. The system basically has people almost re-roll each round, to prevent the party from forming "Well we have time for that because the healer goes before the BBEG" strategies. It keeps people on their toes, I guess, but to me it seemed like it'd REALLY prolong combat.

What upsets me about this is the fact that they said the UA leading up to ToA Xan's Guide would be focused on getting stuff ready for it, to revise all the class options, spells, etc we've gotten so far. So... The **** is this?

[Goosefarble]

I'm honestly genuinely shocked that a) Mike Mearls uses this and b) other people think it sounds like a good initiative system? Like it just seems so horrifically awful to me and I would never in a million years dream of implementing it into my game

[Belltent]

What upsets me about this is the fact that they said the UA leading up to ToA would be focused on getting stuff ready for it, to revise all the class options, spells, etc we've gotten so far. So... The **** is this?

I'm pretty sure ToA was already sent to the printer (I'm pretty sure it had been way back around the time of the stream) so I'm not sure there's much they could do.

[jaappleton]

I'm pretty sure ToA was already sent to the printer (I'm pretty sure it had been way back around the time of the stream) so I'm not sure there's much they could do.

I misspoke.

Xan's. Not ToA.

[Misterwhisper]

It is starting to seem like they just don't care about UA anymore and just keep it going because it brings I'm views.

[Vaz]

Oy vey.

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/1_T6XMDg53g/hqdefault.jpg

As if anyone's waited months for this to be produced.

[Mortis_Elrod]

Yuck.

This came up via an AMA that Mearls did maybe a month back. A lot of people had questions, and there was interest. I couldn't care less. The system basically has people almost re-roll each round, to prevent the party from forming "Well we have time for that because the healer goes before the BBEG" strategies. It keeps people on their toes, I guess, but to me it seemed like it'd REALLY prolong combat.

What upsets me about this is the fact that they said the UA leading up to ToA would be focused on getting stuff ready for it, to revise all the class options, spells, etc we've gotten so far. So... The **** is this?

Gonna have to repeat this entirely. WTF is this? waiting all month then this. I can't say im not a little peeved. But maybe it won' ONLY be variant initiative. maybe it will be alot of variant rules. trying not to lose hope.

[jaappleton]

Gonna have to repeat this entirely. WTF is this? waiting all month then this. I can't say im not a little peeved. But maybe it won' ONLY be variant initiative. maybe it will be alot of variant rules. trying not to lose hope.

Plane Shift: Almondcat was more UA than this.

[Misterwhisper]

Plane Shift: Almondcat was more UA than this.

That is because MTG is a MUCH bigger priority to wizards than D&D is.

[Belltent]

I misspoke.

Xan's. Not ToA.

Ah. Pretty sure Xan's is wrapped too (or is in its final edit.) Probably too late to change anything that isn't strictly related to layout.

[jaappleton]

That is because MTG is a MUCH bigger priority to wizards than D&D is.

Two reasons, actually.

One: You're right, M:TG makes WOTC a lot more money than D&D.

Two: James Wyatt, formerly of the D&D team, was moved to the M:TG team shortly after 5E's launch. He's the one responsible for Plane Shift.

Just think it's kinda cool that Wyatt has been on both sides of the proverbial coin, and is merging the two. It's can't-lose for WOTC: If M:TG players get into D&D, they buy more WOTC products. Same for D&D players that get into M:TG as a result of Plane Shift.

[Mortis_Elrod]

Plane Shift: Almondcat was more UA than this.

And i loved every single thing in that. Probably my favorite plane shift.

[Anonymouswizard]

That is because MTG is a MUCH bigger priority to wizards than D&D is.

Which honestly makes a lot of sense, MtG makes the money.

I remember when this originally came up, there was disagreement on how to read it and if you had to fully plan your turn at the start of the round and how it screwed over two-weapon fighters. I'm looking forward to seeing exactly how borked the system is in reality.

[GlenSmash!]

I remember that AMA. I remember thinking that sounds fiddly and time consuming. The opposite of what I want in 5e. So I'll Read the UA, but I'm not excited about.

[jaappleton]

And i loved every single thing in that. Probably my favorite plane shift.

In fairness, most Plane Shift articles weren't very good. Even if the Cleric domains in Almondcat are just mashups of existing PHB Domains, it's still cool to have. I love Ambition a lot more than Trickery, for example.

[Matrix_Walker]

Having everyone have to decide their action, figure out what dice they are rolling, and adding that all up just seems like it will take a hella-LONG time... oh and you have to do it every turn.

And it removes the ability to base your actions on what else has happened just before it... I don't see what's good about it. And drawing an arrow, knocking it, lining your shot and firing, takes WAY longer than a sword stroke, so what's the deal with making one of the longest combat actions into the fastest?

I've only seen the twitter version and I already hate it.


Roll each round. D4 = ranged, d8 = melee, d12 = spell, d6 = anything else, +d8 to swap gear, +d8 for bonus action, low goes 1st. Oh, and +d6 to move and do something ... adds tension, speeds up resolution. So far in play has been faster and makes fights more intense."

I don't see how it can be faster, unless it is sucking all the creative flow description out due to people being too focussed on their dice and numbers...

[Belltent]

It is starting to seem like they just don't care about UA anymore and just keep it going because it brings I'm views.

I mean, it's not like UA hasn't taken giant, runny dumps in the past (rune scribe? Mass combat 1 and 2? And, IMHO, Artificer?), and we technically haven't even seen this dump yet. We could ignore the bad ones when it was rapid fire time because we knew we'd just get one next week. Our sense of entitlement probably just needs to level back down.

[Anonymouswizard]

In fairness, most Plane Shift articles weren't very good. Even if the Cleric domains in Almondcat are just mashups of existing PHB Domains, it's still cool to have. I love Ambition a lot more than Trickery, for example.

I haven't read all of them, but I remember them being about as good as most UA, and I have lower expectations anyway. Plane Shift feels like official homebrew done for the reasons of homebrew and a 'people might like to play in these settings' attitude, and feels a lot more like supporting the Magic universe than making new content.

Or in other words, I feel like Plane Shift can get away with a lot more because it's not being done by the actual design team, like how I don't expect the first round of anything posted here to be balanced.

[jaappleton]

I mean, it's not like UA hasn't taken giant, runny dumps in the past (rune scribe? Mass combat 1 and 2? And, IMHO, Artificer?), and we technically haven't even seen this dump yet. We could ignore the bad ones when it was rapid fire time because we knew we'd just get one next week. Our sense of entitlement probably just needs to level back down.

Funny you say that.

In an interview, Mearls said the Mass Combat articles "went over like a lead balloon". On Twitter, JC and Mearls said that people showed a total lack of interest in Prestige Classes.

[coolAlias]

Can't say I'm excited about Mearls' system, but my group has been declaring actions first thing each round and rolling initiative after to mix things up a little bit and it has been quite fun. Combats tend to feel a little more chaotic and have been pretty exciting this way, and it doesn't seem to slow anything down.

[Belltent]

Funny you say that.

In an interview, Mearls said the Mass Combat articles "went over like a lead balloon". On Twitter, JC and Mearls said that people showed a total lack of interest in Prestige Classes.

Yes. The community, the developers, and I agree the UA sometimes sucks. They are test/variant ideas for a reason.

[Steampunkette]

I'm really hoping he's faking us out on this one...

If not, I'll still read it. But goddamn I hope he's lying.

[GlenSmash!]

In fairness, most Plane Shift articles weren't very good. Even if the Cleric domains in Almondcat are just mashups of existing PHB Domains, it's still cool to have. I love Ambition a lot more than Trickery, for example.

This is what I like about them. It takes existing pieces of the game and tweaks them for the various settings.

I also like how the Backgrounds in the SCAG did this. I find the Mercenary Veteran, Knight of the Order, and City Watch backgrounds all more interesting then the Soldier background they are based on.

In a way, it's much more useful to me than new classes, races, or backgrounds.

[Ralanr]

Honestly if it is the reroll each round method, it only helps (or drastically buffs) classes that have that "If you have zero of X resource, gain Z of X resources on the start of combat" things like battlemaster and monk Ki.

It also makes dex and other ways of getting initiative more important because you're more likely to go first.

The idea (because I haven't seen the new UA and can't actually judge it) seems like a more chaotic version of Shadowrun initiative, and as cool as it could be I don't think it's worth it.

Honestly a lot of alternative rules I've seen for imitative and combat speed kinda screw over strength based melee while complimenting dex based more. I'm wondering if the higher numbers from strength really balance that out.

[Malifice]

My favorite initiative version is savage world's use of cards.

Id love something similar, but with certain cards providing special benefits for the round or triggering certain things (slip over, unexpected help arrives, catch a second wind, parry a blow, redirect an attack, help action an ally as a bonus action, heal x HP if you drop a creature this round, turn one hit into a critical hit etc).

Maybe have the additinal effects enhanced or only trigger if you have a feat.

Would make combat much more dynamic.

[Vaz]

Funny you say that.

In an interview, Mearls said the Mass Combat articles "went over like a lead balloon". On Twitter, JC and Mearls said that people showed a total lack of interest in Prestige Classes.

Eh. If you serve someone cow offal, you can't then judge and say that people don't want meat. We want Bacon, or Filet Mignon. Not entrails. That's perhaps why people didn't care about PrC's if they're being thrown bones as uninteresting mechanically as Rune Scribe.

[Matrix_Walker]

Honestly if it is the reroll each round method, it only helps (or drastically buffs) classes that have that "If you have zero of X resource, gain Z of X resources on the start of combat" things like battlemaster and monk Ki.

It also makes dex and other ways of getting initiative more important because you're more likely to go first.

The idea (because I haven't seen the new UA and can't actually judge it) seems like a more chaotic version of Shadowrun initiative, and as cool as it could be I don't think it's worth it.

Honestly a lot of alternative rules I've seen for imitative and combat speed kinda screw over strength based melee while complimenting dex based more. I'm wondering if the higher numbers from strength really balance that out.

The "when initiave is rolled" rules are sure to be redefined to "when combat begins", and it's been stated that the system does not apply DEX to initiative.

[BurgerBeast]

First, I want to be very clear that I agree with the sentiment here: this sounds like a waste of a UA (but I am prepared to be wrong if it is more than just the new initiative system).

However: rolling initiative every round is actually pretty awesome, at least it was in the 2e days without using squares and precise movement counting. I have considerered going back to it many times because combats were so much better. (It's hard to know how much of that is because of nostalgia and how much is because of the actual rule.) It allows the narrative to "jive" better with the mechanics because the simultaneity of actions is played out right there. It becomes so cool. I even remember the idea of the opportunity attack arising organically out of this style of play (e.g. The Barbarian is charging toward the troll as the goblin tries to cut across his path... Player: "can I take a swipe?")

[Mortis_Elrod]

Eh. If you serve someone cow offal, you can't then judge and say that people don't want meat. We want Bacon, or Filet Mignon. Not entrails. That's perhaps why people didn't care about PrC's if they're being thrown bones as uninteresting mechanically as Rune Scribe.

I rather liked rune scribe. I don't know if thats how PrCs should be done in 5e if they should done at all though.

[Matrix_Walker]

Eh. If you serve someone cow offal, you can't then judge and say that people don't want meat. We want Bacon, or Filet Mignon. Not entrails. That's perhaps why people didn't care about PrC's if they're being thrown bones as uninteresting mechanically as Rune Scribe.
QFT

Agreed. 100%

[mgshamster]

Rerolling init every round was something we did back in 2e. I didn't take that much time; adds a few seconds to each round.

Even if you had variable initiative modifiers depending on your action, it would be something you'd know about ahead of time (like each spell subtracting from init depending the the spell, or weapon speeds subtracting from init).

Back then, I never even noticed the additional time.

Speed for gameplay isn't an issue; however it is more fiddly. Some people like that, some people don't. And it does add a dynamic to the game.

I'm curious as to how it'll play out in the UA.

[Hypersmith]

I rather liked rune scribe. I don't know if thats how PrCs should be done in 5e if they should done at all though.

They're just too fiddly to implement well across the board along with subclasses imo. As for Mike Mearls initiative, I don't think it would be too bad on a table, but rerolling every round online feels like a nightmare. What about combat where I want the players to be outnumbered? Rerolling 5+ things every round even sounds tedious.

I was hoping for some artificer revisions.

[Anonymouswizard]

My favorite initiative version is savage world's use of cards.

Id love something similar, but with certain cards providing special benefits for the round or triggering certain things (slip over, unexpected help arrives, catch a second wind, parry a blow, redirect an attack, help action an ally as a bonus action, heal x HP if you drop a creature this round, turn one hit into a critical hit etc).

Maybe have the additinal effects enhanced or only trigger if you have a feat.

Would make combat much more dynamic.

I also love SW initiative, and it would work fine as is in 5e. It still has the advantage of being able to see initiative easily, you can have Jokers give either a +2 or Advantage, and the add a Fast feat to allow characters to act on the better of two cards.


Eh. If you serve someone cow offal, you can't then judge and say that people don't want meat. We want Bacon, or Filet Mignon. Not entrails. That's perhaps why people didn't care about PrC's if they're being thrown bones as uninteresting mechanically as Rune Scribe.

Speak for yourself, some of us like offal, this is a really bad analogy. While I like Bacon I'd rather take kidneys or liver if I had the chance.

Rune Scribe was closer to being told we'd get meat and actually giving us a big pile of beansprouts (replace them with whatever you dislike).

[Vaz]

I mean, it's not like UA hasn't taken giant, runny dumps in the past (rune scribe? Mass combat 1 and 2? And, IMHO, Artificer?), and we technically haven't even seen this dump yet. We could ignore the bad ones when it was rapid fire time because we knew we'd just get one next week. Our sense of entitlement probably just needs to level back down.

Aug 19, 2014 > Jul 10, 2017 = 2years, 11 months, pretty much.

3.5 material produced
2003/06 Dungeon Master's Guide v.3.5
2003/07 Monster Manual v.3.5
2003/07 Player's Handbook v.3.5
2003/08 Dragonlance Campaign Setting
2003/09 Miniatures Handbook
2003/10 Book of Exalted Deeds
2003/10 Underdark
2003/11 Draconomicon: The Book of Dragons
2003/12 Complete Warrior
2004/02 Unearthed Arcana
2004/03 Player's Guide to Faerûn
2004/04 Expanded Psionics Handbook
2004/05 Complete Divine
2004/06 Eberron Campaign Setting
2004/07 Planar Handbook
2004/07 Serpent Kingdoms
2004/07 Shadows of the Last War
2004/08 Races of Stone
2004/09 Dungeons & Dragons Basic Game
2004/09 Frostburn: Mastering the Perils of Ice and Snow
2004/09 Monster Manual III
2004/09 Whispers of the Vampire's Blade
2004/10 Libris Mortis: The Book of Undead
2004/10 Shining South
2004/11 Complete Arcane
2004/11 Sharn: City of Towers
2004/12 Races of Destiny
2005/01 Complete Adventurer
2005/01 Grasp of the Emerald Claw
2005/02 Lost Empires of Faerûn
2005/02 Races of the Wild
2005/03 Sandstorm: Mastering the Perils of Fire and Sand
2005/04 Lords of Madness: The Book of Aberrations
2005/04 Races of Eberron
2005/05 Champions of Ruin
2005/05 Heroes of Battle
2005/06 City of Splendors: Waterdeep
2005/06 Dungeon Master's Guide II
2005/07 Five Nations
2005/07 Weapons of Legacy
2005/08 Explorer's Handbook
2005/08 Stormwrack: Mastering the Perils of Wind and Wave
2005/09 Fantastic Locations: Fane of the Drow
2005/09 Magic of Incarnum
2005/09 Sons of Gruumsh
2005/10 Heroes of Horror
2005/10 Magic of Eberron
2005/11 Champions of Valor
2005/11 Fantastic Locations: Hellspike Prison
2005/12 Spell Compendium
2006/01 Player's Guide to Eberron
2006/01 Races of the Dragon
2006/02 Red Hand of Doom
2006/03 Power of Faerûn
2006/03 Tome of Magic
2006/04 Complete Psionic
2006/04 Fantastic Locations: Fields of Ruin
2006/04 Voyage of the Golden Dragon
2006/05 Player's Handbook II

5e Material Produced;
Players Handbook
DMG
Monster Manual
Volo's
Tales From the Yawning Portal
Curse of Strahd
Mines of Phandelver/Starter Set
Hoard of the Dragon Queen
Out of the Abyss
Elemental Evil/Princes of the Apocalypse
Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide
Storm King's Thunder
Rise of Tiamat

13, including Core books, to like 60, not including Special Editions, or "Map Folio's".

Edit @Anonymouswizard, that's pretty pedantic. You get the point pretty easily. I love a bit of black pudding too.

[Belltent]

Aug 19, 2014 > Jul 10, 2017 = 2years, 11 months, pretty much.

3.5 material produced
2003/06 Dungeon Master's Guide v.3.5
2003/07 Monster Manual v.3.5
2003/07 Player's Handbook v.3.5
2003/08 Dragonlance Campaign Setting
2003/09 Miniatures Handbook
2003/10 Book of Exalted Deeds
2003/10 Underdark
2003/11 Draconomicon: The Book of Dragons
2003/12 Complete Warrior
2004/02 Unearthed Arcana
2004/03 Player's Guide to Faerûn
2004/04 Expanded Psionics Handbook
2004/05 Complete Divine
2004/06 Eberron Campaign Setting
2004/07 Planar Handbook
2004/07 Serpent Kingdoms
2004/07 Shadows of the Last War
2004/08 Races of Stone
2004/09 Dungeons & Dragons Basic Game
2004/09 Frostburn: Mastering the Perils of Ice and Snow
2004/09 Monster Manual III
2004/09 Whispers of the Vampire's Blade
2004/10 Libris Mortis: The Book of Undead
2004/10 Shining South
2004/11 Complete Arcane
2004/11 Sharn: City of Towers
2004/12 Races of Destiny
2005/01 Complete Adventurer
2005/01 Grasp of the Emerald Claw
2005/02 Lost Empires of Faerûn
2005/02 Races of the Wild
2005/03 Sandstorm: Mastering the Perils of Fire and Sand
2005/04 Lords of Madness: The Book of Aberrations
2005/04 Races of Eberron
2005/05 Champions of Ruin
2005/05 Heroes of Battle
2005/06 City of Splendors: Waterdeep
2005/06 Dungeon Master's Guide II
2005/07 Five Nations
2005/07 Weapons of Legacy
2005/08 Explorer's Handbook
2005/08 Stormwrack: Mastering the Perils of Wind and Wave
2005/09 Fantastic Locations: Fane of the Drow
2005/09 Magic of Incarnum
2005/09 Sons of Gruumsh
2005/10 Heroes of Horror
2005/10 Magic of Eberron
2005/11 Champions of Valor
2005/11 Fantastic Locations: Hellspike Prison
2005/12 Spell Compendium
2006/01 Player's Guide to Eberron
2006/01 Races of the Dragon
2006/02 Red Hand of Doom
2006/03 Power of Faerûn
2006/03 Tome of Magic
2006/04 Complete Psionic
2006/04 Fantastic Locations: Fields of Ruin
2006/04 Voyage of the Golden Dragon
2006/05 Player's Handbook II

5e Material Produced;
Players Handbook
DMG
Monster Manual
Volo's
Tales From the Yawning Portal
Curse of Strahd
Mines of Phandelver/Starter Set
Hoard of the Dragon Queen
Out of the Abyss
Elemental Evil/Princes of the Apocalypse
Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide
Storm King's Thunder
Rise of Tiamat

13, including Core books, to like 60, not including Special Editions, or "Map Folio's".

Edit @Anonymouswizard, that's pretty pedantic. You get the point pretty easily. I love a bit of black pudding too.

I see your point, but I have no idea how it pertains to mine. I was responding to a perceived dip in UA quality.

[EvilAnagram]

]

13, including Core books, to like 60, not including Special Editions, or "Map Folio's".



Yes, but most of that 3.5 material was garbage, and not just because it was 3.5. 5e has a higher standard of quality for each piece of material released, in direct opposition of 3.5's book vomit.

[Steampunkette]

3.5 was trying to capitalize on the Shotgun method of content generation.

Put out enough books and you'll hit a wider variety of individual interests. They weren't aiming on everyone buying every book, but everyone buying -some- of the books.

[Coidzor]

The only real thing that I see as an advantage is having people take time to decide their turns all at once, rather than each player's turn having its own individual chance of delay.

[Vaz]

Sorry; I was aligning your supposed dip in quality with amount of quantity. In the misappropriation of the quote, quantity has a quality all of itself, and despite imbalances within the core game, 3.5 producing so much material allowed for much more good stuff.

When we get drip fed stuff, we have virtually nothing new to talk about, no new blood in the game. Just endless discussions of "hi am new how do optimize lol?" and "i'm old school DM and my players suck, what do?". If WotC are intent on producing A-tier content, not only are they failing, but they're making the "mistake" of not having enough content outside of the optimum, and not having enough mechanical difference elsewhere to have a realistic "other" option.


Yes, but most of that 3.5 material was garbage, and not just because it was 3.5. 5e has a higher standard of quality for each piece of material released, in direct opposition of 3.5's book vomit.

Having a higher overall quality of product doesn't outweigh the higher quality of the good content produced within those books. Tome of Battle, Incarnum, the Completes, Holy/Unholy, Baby it's Hot/Cold/Wet Outside, Eberron Dragonmarks...

[Belltent]

Sorry; I was aligning your supposed dip in quality with amount of quantity. In the misappropriation of the quote, quantity has a quality all of itself, and despite imbalances within the core game, 3.5 producing so much material allowed for much more good stuff.....



I guess it's just a matter of opinion. I feel the proliferation of material does much more to harm the meta than it does to help in game options.

[Matrix_Walker]

Rerolling init every round was something we did back in 2e. I didn't take that much time; adds a few seconds to each round.

Even if you had variable initiative modifiers depending on your action, it would be something you'd know about ahead of time (like each spell subtracting from init depending the the spell, or weapon speeds subtracting from init).

Back then, I never even noticed the additional time.

Speed for gameplay isn't an issue; however it is more fiddly. Some people like that, some people don't. And it does add a dynamic to the game.

I'm curious as to how it'll play out in the UA.

I can't see how it is possible to roll multi-dice modified for circumstance and recorded in the resulting character turn order at the beginning of each round could possibly only add "a few seconds" compared to the current single roll per person version can. My group of a half dozen take longer to determine initiative than for any one person to take their turn.

If you want to speed things up, remove the rolls entirely and set everyone's speed as a fixed quantity. Works great in GURPS.

[Anonymouswizard]

Heck, if you want to speed it up just use round the table initiative. I've occasionally argued that it doesn't matter when everybody goes, only that everybody gets a turn (leaving out the issue of SoD/SoL/SoS spells).

[KorvinStarmast]

I guess it's just a matter of opinion. I feel the proliferation of material does much more to harm the meta than it does to help in game options. Agreed.


When we get drip fed stuff, we have virtually nothing new to talk about, no new blood in the game. They don't make money on forum discussions about nit-noid details the way everything gets micro-dissected and over analyzed. (Which can be part of the fun, to be sure ...)
You will note that WoTC dumped their forum.
Trying to make the new material fit better with core is a very good idea.
I am all for quality over quantity.

As to this allegedly good idea: no. Done initiative with loads of mods to it. If everyone at the table has system mastery, it can work out.
If even one person doesn't, don't bother.
KISS Principle is the better idea.

[Anonymouswizard]

They don't make money on forum discussions about nit-noid details the way everything gets micro-dissected and over analyzed. (Which can be part of the fun, to be sure ...)

Assuming we're all getting our copies of the books legally, they do make money from that. I mean, it's hard to discuss how the new Jumplomancer bard college interacts with the Persuasive Performance feat and multiclassing to get a few levels in fighter for that sweet 'jumping tackle' ability that the Charging Fox Battler archetype gets if we don't have the rules for any of them.

On the other hand, if we were at 3.5 levels of books I wouldn't be surprised if one of them included a College of Jumping and Charging Fox Fighters.

To be nonpedantic, I get what you mean.


You will note that WoTC dumped their forum.
Trying to make the new material fit better with core is a very good idea.
I am all for quality over quantity.

For the first, yeah. I can see why, I'm not sure what benefit it gave them for their money over social media beyond 'here's an easy place to find the insane game breakers', but it's still a bit sad. Despite providing the same general service I'm just not as comfortable talking about the game on social media as I am on forums, it's why I haven't abandoned this place and the madness within (although I might have been immediately drawn back by the sudden reduction in madness).

I agree that the additional attention to making everything fit is a good idea, although I do miss the days of throwing sourcebooks at a wall and seeing what fits. I'd just wish there was a bit more support for nonstandard settings.

I'm also for quality over quantity (I'd rather have a good UA article every other month than a poor one every month), but I'm concerned that what's being put out is only serving a small portion of the fantasy RPG market (I'm going to leave other genres out of it. Specifically the Forgotten Realms portion. I mean Pasta Sauce companies don't provide just one variety of pasta sauce (well, except for maybe some family businesses), so why is WotC assuming that one setting fits all?

[mgshamster]

I can't see how it is possible to roll multi-dice modified for circumstance and recorded in the resulting character turn order at the beginning of each round could possibly only add "a few seconds" compared to the current single roll per person version can. My group of a half dozen take longer to determine initiative than for any one person to take their turn.

Start by ensuring people have their modifiers easily accessible. If you only use three weapons, ensure you have their speed listed so you can easily determine the mod. If your players can't solve 15+2-4 in a heartbeat, then you may have more issues than this system.

Then skip the "recording" step. No need to write it down every round.

Everyone rolls. People keep track of their own init.

Then the DM says, "Who's above 20? Ok, which if you is higher, your turn." And then go down the init. The quick communication between DM and Players can often be faster than referencing "wherevertheheck you wrote down the init order - is is this paper? No, no... Ok, that paper, let's see who just went, ok and you're next!"

Repeat every round.

My old 2e group had between 4 and 10 players over the years, and we'd fly through combat. Initiative was barely a factor in how long the round took. Most of the time was for those who didn't prepare on other players turn and when their turn came up they didn't know what to do.

This would be a horrible system to use in a PBP game, but for a live table, it can go fairly quickly and allows the order to change up every round.

Its not for everyone, but it also isn't the monstrosity everyone is making it out to be. Spells are more complicated than this system, and take up more time.

[Gryndle]

I am so excited about MnM's Initiative variant that I would rather go to the dentist and get my teeth drilled without benefit of novacaine. And I'm not exaggerating. I really would rather have my teeth drilled.

[Matrix_Walker]

Start by ensuring people have their modifiers easily accessible. If you only use three weapons, ensure you have their speed listed so you can easily determine the mod. If your players can't solve 15+2-4 in a heartbeat, then you may have more issues than this system.

All characters have far more options than that. You're leaving out the die you add in if you want to move, and the die you gave to add in if you want to use a bonus action.


Then skip the "recording" step. No need to write it down every round.

Everyone rolls. People keep track of their own init.

And the GM gives up their narrative flow? Yuck!




Then the DM says, "Who's above 20? Ok, which if you is higher, your turn." And then go down the init. The quick communication between DM and Players can often be faster than referencing "wherevertheheck you wrote down the init order - is is this paper? No, no... Ok, that paper, let's see who just went, ok and you're next!"

Repeat every round.

yeah, I don't see how it is possible for that to be faster. And you are not confused by which list when you have ONE list... the confusion is going to come up when you have one every round.

the "who's above 20" method is a waste of time, it takes way longer than just recording the order on a loose leaf. The goal shoud be making it faster, not slower.



My old 2e group had between 4 and 10 players over the years, and we'd fly through combat. Initiative was barely a factor in how long the round took. Most of the time was for those who didn't prepare on other players turn and when their turn came up they didn't know what to do.

This would be a horrible system to use in a PBP game, but for a live table, it can go fairly quickly and allows the order to change up every round.

Its not for everyone, but it also isn't the monstrosity everyone is making it out to be. Spells are more complicated than this system, and take up more time.
The complications around spells are not going anywhere as long as there are spells. Throwing in a bunch of time consuming fiddly bits that add absolutely nothing to the game is a waste of everyone's time.

Might this speed up your turn when you are not rolling initiative? Sure! And all you had to do was lock in your decision early despite the things that happen between when you decided and when you get to act, removing almost all agency from your actual turn.

[Vaz]

They don't make money on forum discussions about nit-noid details the way everything gets micro-dissected and over analyzed. (Which can be part of the fun, to be sure ...)
Then why are they doing it internally, if they don't make money from having balanced stuff?

Let's just call it what it is; making the most amount of money for the least amount of work. And sod the people who enjoy the game.

[mgshamster]

All characters have far more options than that. You're leaving out the die you add in if you want to move, and the die you gave to add in if you want to use a bonus action.

You don't have to add those in. Bonus action are already described as quick, so their addition would be negligible. And movement has never added to initiative in any edition. Just weapons, spells, and Dex.


yeah, I don't see how it is possible for that to be faster.

Ah.. here's the problem. I never said it's faster. I said it's not that much slower than what's currently used. It only adds on a few more seconds to the current model.


And you are not confused by which list when you have ONE list... the confusion is going to come up when you have one every round.

Only three things would be needed: Dex Mod, weapon speed, spell speed. That's it. And since you only have one action per turn, you're not going to be attacking and casting at the same time. Unless it's a bonus action, but then it still doesn't matter.

The only issue would be action surge - and personally, I'd ignore that as far as init goes. It gives those fighters an extra boost.


The complications around spells are not going anywhere as long as there are spells. Throwing in a bunch of time consuming fiddly bits that add absolutely nothing to the game is a waste of everyone's time.

As I said, some people like the changing of initiative order. It clearly adds something to the game for them - most notably, more verisimilitude via the chaos of combat. Mike Mearls and his gaming group are a prime example of people who believe it adds something to their game.

Just because you don't like it doesn't mean other people won't.

[Anonymouswizard]

Start by ensuring people have their modifiers easily accessible. If you only use three weapons, ensure you have their speed listed so you can easily determine the mod. If your players can't solve 15+2-4 in a heartbeat, then you may have more issues than this system.

Then skip the "recording" step. No need to write it down every round.

Assuming this is just 'weapon and spell modify initiative', and not MM's 'roll and handful of dice and go last' system, I agree with you. Although with the number of spells you can have in D&D the casters might slow it down a touch.

Would work great for something like Traveller, where you might have a choice of 'if in melee I use my sword, if at range I have a choice of my pistol rifle, thrown object, or psychic probe' (5 choices plus interacting with the environment, which is a zero). Even for psionic character's there's not a ton of direct options in a fight until you get in a vehicle, but Traveller also docks you initiative per dodge or parry (essentially the more you spend reacting the slower you act), and yes if you act first all your reaction penalties apply next round.


Everyone rolls. People keep track of their own init.

Then the DM says, "Who's above 20? Ok, which if you is higher, your turn." And then go down the init. The quick communication between DM and Players can often be faster than referencing "wherevertheheck you wrote down the init order - is is this paper? No, no... Ok, that paper, let's see who just went, ok and you're next!"

Honestly, in my experience the difference between doing this and writing it down is a minute or two, and by far the slowest part of the combat round. But then again, I also tend to play without a battlemat, so you'll have character sheets and notebooks/pads as the only paper, and it'll be on somebody's current page if not all of them.


Repeat every round.

My old 2e group had between 4 and 10 players over the years, and we'd fly through combat. Initiative was barely a factor in how long the round took. Most of the time was for those who didn't prepare on other players turn and when their turn came up they didn't know what to do.

This would be a horrible system to use in a PBP game, but for a live table, it can go fairly quickly and allows the order to change up every round.

Its not for everyone, but it also isn't the monstrosity everyone is making it out to be. Spells are more complicated than this system, and take up more time.

Agreeing entirely here. But this is different to MM's initiative, where you have to take 2-3 different dice, depending on your actions, and then total them, compared to 2e where you were always rolling the same dice and just applying modifiers.

Because in my experience the part of the round that takes the longest is hunting down where the die you need for damage are. YMMV.

[MaxWilson]

So today's UA is Mike Mearls variant Initiative...

https://twitter.com/mikemearls/status/883555367279443969?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sageadvice.eu%2F2017%2F07 %2F09%2Fare-we-allowed-a-sneak-preview-for-this-months-unearthed-arcana%2F

Does anyone have a dog in this race? I'm not expectivng to be wowwed.

I hate the default PHB initiative, but I'm also pretty happy with Speed Factor Initiative in the DMG. From what I know of Mike Mearl's system, it is focusing on the part I find rather uninteresting (initiative rolls, not declarations), so from that perspective I don't expect to use it--but I'm glad to see alternate initiative systems getting some publicity just because the PHB initiative variant is so awful.

[mgshamster]

Assuming this is just 'weapon and spell modify initiative', and not MM's 'roll and handful of dice and go last' system, I agree with you.

I haven't seen MM's particular method. I was actually just speculating about what it would be and assumed it would he something akin to what 2e did.

You make a lot of good points, though.

When I was considering designing the 2e method for 5e, I was thinking of just making a blanket init mod for each level of spell, rather than doing it by individual spells like what was done in 2e.

We once even tried the system where you state what you did before rolling init. This was meant to simulate the idea that everyone went at the same time, but some people were just a little quicker than others this round, and you don't have time to change your actions based on what others did this time. It was fun for a bit, but we didn't keep it for more than one campaign.

[Matrix_Walker]

You don't have to add those in. Bonus action are already described as quick, so their addition would be negligible. And movement has never added to initiative in any edition. Just weapons, spells, and Dex.
You must not have seen the tweet...
"Roll each round. D4 = ranged, d8 = melee, d12 = spell, d6 = anything else, +d8 to swap gear, +d8 for bonus action, low goes 1st. Oh, and +d6 to move and do something "

So if you move, Attack, pull out a weapon and do a bonus action, you have to roll 3d8+1d6



Ah.. here's the problem. I never said it's faster. I said it's not that much slower than what's currently used. It only adds on a few more seconds to the current model.

What constitutes "much slower" my be different for different folks and different groups. I assure you my numbskulls will take far, far, far longer to decide and do things.


Only three things would be needed: Dex Mod, weapon speed, spell speed. That's it. And since you only have one action per turn, you're not going to be attacking and casting at the same time. Unless it's a bonus action, but then it still doesn't matter.

The only issue would be action surge - and personally, I'd ignore that as far as init goes. It gives those fighters an extra boost.

I think you would have to decide beforehand so you could add more dice for more attacks... But this may be addressed in the article... clearly it has to be more involved that the tweet version.
but DEX has no impact on initiave.


As I said, some people like the changing of initiative order. It clearly adds something to the game for them - most notably, more verisimilitude via the chaos of combat. Mike Mearls and his gaming group are a prime example of people who believe it adds something to their game.

Just because you don't like it doesn't mean other people won't.

Point taken, some may like the chaos... but the shifts in order will have wierd effects, and most of them will be a strain on what little realism exists in the turn system, and balance problems (like when the Wizard gets to go again before the guy cought in his "Hold Person" gets his follow up save).

[jaappleton]

It's up.

It's convoluted.

Pass.

[toapat]

Plane Shift: Almondcat was more UA than this.

YES! I have infected people!


That is because MTG is a MUCH bigger priority to wizards than D&D is.

to be fair, James Wyatt basically gets to do his own thing in the MTG group when hes not writing a story for the currently worked on set story, and you can see from the general depth he put into Planeshift #4 that he cares about the world itself more than previously (Zendikar and Innistrad were phoned in, and Kaladesh seemed half baked and kinda missing the point of giving people access to the material)


I rather liked rune scribe. I don't know if thats how PrCs should be done in 5e if they should done at all though.

PrCs are difficult to justify in 5E. they do have unique design space from base classes, but alot of that unique space, along with almost all the design space of ACFs and substitution levels are eaten both by the system and by the subclass system. that basically just leaves the multi-system hybridization. which we dont need atm because we dont have any alternate spell systems besides "Psionics" Incarnum, and Mysti has the Wu Jen to blend it. We do need a Psionic Fighter subclass though

If mearls hasnt massively rebuilt his Initiative system, this really is a waste of a UA. it pretty much follows the opposite design pricinples of 5E, At least he had some valid root issues for his complaints about Bonus actions.

[jaappleton]

YES! I have infected people!

Am I going to need a tiny comb and a special shampoo?

[Anonymouswizard]

I haven't seen MM's particular method. I was actually just speculating about what it would be and assumed it would he something akin to what 2e did.

He shared an overview in a tweet, and essentially it uses a similar idea to 2e initiative, but much worse with a bunch of different dice for different actions. 2e was 1d20(or d10, depending on how you want to roll)+dex+weapon or spell speed. Movement was assumed to be free, not so here, and neither are bonus actions.


You make a lot of good points, though.

Why thank you sir.


When I was considering designing the 2e method for 5e, I was thinking of just making a blanket init mod for each level of spell, rather than doing it by individual spells like what was done in 2e.

I was considering either spell level or spell level/2 round up. Then remove the ability to have advantage on concentration checks. 9th level spells are risky with that -5 initiative modifier, but if you can pull it off they're worth it (I'd also consider spell level/3 if you wanted more big spells going off). I'd also consider varying it by school, so Evocation might get +1 to your initiative because they're spells made for battle, but crafting an illusion is complex and takes a -1.


We once even tried the system where you state what you did before rolling init. This was meant to simulate the idea that everyone went at the same time, but some people were just a little quicker than others this round, and you don't have time to change your actions based on what others did this time. It was fun for a bit, but we didn't keep it for more than one campaign.

Yeah, I find most tables slip back to either round robin or roll at start, declare on number initiative because it's easier than declaring your actions at the start of the round and there's no chance to lose them. I've also considered 'declare on number, act after weapon or spell speed' but it might get a bit fiddly.

[toapat]

Am I going to need a tiny comb and a special shampoo?

no just some catnip and hipster repellent

ya, i just popped it open, this system is crap.

Mearls would have done better to figure out how to build up a Shadow Run style speed based Imitative

[Nicrosil]

Here's the link to... "Greyhawk" initative.

http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/unearthed-arcana/greyhawk-initiative

[mgshamster]

You must not have seen the tweet...

I did not. Something must be wrong with my app, because when I loaded the tweet on my phone, it didn't show the method or link to anything. It just said that UA will be his init method.

So all of this confusion stems from a lack of information. I do apologise.

[tkuremento]

I am very confused guys, it is July, not April 1st.

[Hypersmith]

It's up.

It's convoluted.

Pass.

/thread for me


It's just so much extra work for nothing

[Matrix_Walker]

Yeah, I guess the tweet was pretty much it, other than a few minor variations.

Interesting to note you can hold your action, and that they accept that that might not do you any good because your turn could be wasted by picking an action that's no longer viable by the time your initiative comes up.

Also interesting that it touts metagaming and players (Not characters!) planning what their characters will do each round is encouraged rather than called out as pretty much cheating.

[Cybren]

obligatory angry DM link regarding alternate initiatives and whether they slow the game down: http://angrydm.com/2015/02/fine-i-wrote-about-speed-factor-initiative-in-dd-5e/

[Matrix_Walker]

I did not. Something must be wrong with my app, because when I loaded the tweet on my phone, it didn't show the method or link to anything. It just said that UA will be his init method.

So all of this confusion stems from a lack of information. I do apologise.

Oh no worries! I should have been clearer with my quote.

I quoted the tweet with the limited method info in post 7 or so...

[toapat]

i suggest we hijack this thread for discussion of the Real July Unearthed Arcana: Planeshift Almondcat (https://media.wizards.com/2017/downloads/magic/plane-shift_amonkhet.pdf)

like, i cant even identify the logical source of Mearl's idea that Initiative is broken, because unlike his bonus action issue, this doesnt at least acknowledge a problem and attempt to solve it, its acknowledging that most people dont like Linear PHB ini and declaring "This sucks because its too logical" rather than the fact that the PHB method makes Initiative feel irrelevant.

[Waterdeep Merch]

Yes, this is precisely what my games needed. Everyone handling copies of initiative charts, casting an out of game slow or stopon everyone, as much dice rolled on initiative as on actual combat, and the need for an accountant to parse out who's turn it is. It's like Christmas if all your presents required an algorithm to find and were actually just the mundane things you always had, but now with a whole layer of annoyance in an attempt to make them more engaging. This would be unparalleled as a sleeping aid.

I just banned normal initiative in favor of side initiative a few months ago because I hated how initiative slows things down. You'd need to put a gun to my head to make me run this system, and I'd still have to think about it.

[Matrix_Walker]

He's talking about it here...

https://youtu.be/hfSo4wVkwUw

Hilariously, he starts off saying how it's based on the 2e initiative system that no one used because it was a pain in the ass, then proceeded to make it MORE complicated.

[JumboWheat01]

Well... it certainly is a thing. I think I'll keep with the rest of 5e's KISS policy and stick with the normal initiative, thank you very much.

[Hypersmith]

i suggest we hijack this thread for discussion of the Real July Unearthed Arcana: Planeshift Almondcat (https://media.wizards.com/2017/downloads/magic/plane-shift_amonkhet.pdf)


First I see this. If my world wasn't already baked and complete, I'd be really tempted to use this.

[Lombra]

I really hope that the UA won't be only about an alternative initiative rule.

[Cybren]

He's talking about it here...

https://youtu.be/hfSo4wVkwUw

Hilariously, he starts off saying how it's based on the 2e initiative system that no one used because it was a pain in the ass, then proceeded to make it MORE complicated.

That's a little unfair right? He specifically said he wanted to try to take the interesting concepts and make them work. Determining whether or not he succeeds is like... the entire reason for a public playtest?

[Matrix_Walker]

It is only about that, it's out...

Link in the OP.

I loathe it even more than I thought I would... The notion that if you didn't think to move and the guy next to you goes down, you have sacrificed your movement and so can do nothing on your turn... just pure stupidity (how about roll a "movement" die and add that to your initiave so you can then go?) .

[Matrix_Walker]

That's a little unfair right? He specifically said he wanted to try to take the interesting concepts and make them work. Determining whether or not he succeeds is like... the entire reason for a public playtest?

How is it unfair? He said that, right? He did that, right?

[Cybren]

How is it unfair? He said that, right? He did that, right?

He didn't say "i wanted to do a bad thing" he said "I wanted to see if i could take some of the good ideas and make them work".

[Coidzor]

Well. That's a new one. Never thought that I would hear someone who wasn't a suit or PR laud WOTC's bad habit of killing their forums.

[Steampunkette]

In the UA article he ACKNOWLEDGES that this system will sometimes leave players doing absolutely nothing with their turn because they didn't budget enough actions into their initiative or whatever. And that's freaking unacceptable.

If he wanted increased randomness in combat, just make everyone roll regular initiative every round. Then you don't have to have all the problems associated with party planning, action-shafting, and elsewise that this system results in.

This is a bad design. I'm glad it worked well for him with his personal group and some groups at Gary-Con, but to take up the once a month article to share something he's talked about on twitter and podcasts and now youtube is a massive waste.

I'm honestly upset that he's done this.

[Waterdeep Merch]

In the UA article he ACKNOWLEDGES that this system will sometimes leave players doing absolutely nothing with their turn because they didn't budget enough actions into their initiative or whatever. And that's freaking unacceptable.

If he wanted increased randomness in combat, just make everyone roll regular initiative every round. Then you don't have to have all the problems associated with party planning, action-shafting, and elsewise that this system results in.

This is a bad design. I'm glad it worked well for him with his personal group and some groups at Gary-Con, but to take up the once a month article to share something he's talked about on twitter and podcasts and now youtube is a massive waste.

I'm honestly upset that he's done this.
I don't get the desire to screw with team tactics. This is, as has often been reiterated, a team-based cooperative game. I've always felt there should be more rules to benefit teamwork, not less. It's what I like best about side initiative.

This smacks of DM's that are annoyed with their players winning fights by playing the game right, then knee-jerking and ruining their ability to coordinate to get the smug sense that they finally put the players in their place. That, or another painfully bad attempt at making the game realistic with overly complicated rules that are boring and annoying to use. The complete opposite of 5e's approach to gaming.

[Cybren]

In the UA article he ACKNOWLEDGES that this system will sometimes leave players doing absolutely nothing with their turn because they didn't budget enough actions into their initiative or whatever. And that's freaking unacceptable.

Is it? Presumably if you use the system that's one of the things that makes it alluring. I certainly expected some way to change your actions if they become redundant but I also understand it's not there because that would sort of undermine the core tension of the system



If he wanted increased randomness in combat, just make everyone roll regular initiative every round. Then you don't have to have all the problems associated with party planning, action-shafting, and elsewise that this system results in.

This is a bad design. I'm glad it worked well for him with his personal group and some groups at Gary-Con, but to take up the once a month article to share something he's talked about on twitter and podcasts and now youtube is a massive waste.

I'm honestly upset that he's done this.

You're... upset that a free optional rule isn't something you're interested in playing?

[Vaz]

How does this guy still have a job? Wow.

[Gryndle]

ok, I have to admit that I am generally biased against MnM. I really don't like most of his rulings nor most of the things that are "his." His design and game philosophy often goes a radically different direction from mine.

So I tried to read the UA with an open mind. I made and honest effort, I really did. And gods, that is just awful! just awful!

shakes a finger (yeah, THAT finger) at WotC for allowing an Aprils Fools joke in mid July

[Matrix_Walker]

He didn't say "i wanted to do a bad thing" he said "I wanted to see if i could take some of the good ideas and make them work".

He said "In play, we never actually used that rule because it was just kind of a real pain, to like, what's everyone doing then to remember everything, and allot of other stuff."

So, he wanted to redo the system without the pain in the butt part, but ended up making it way more of a pain in the butt.

The Wizards proofreaders could have told him that it was a major fail, and they put it out anyway as filler. There is no way they didn't know this was a waste of time.


In the UA article he ACKNOWLEDGES that this system will sometimes leave players doing absolutely nothing with their turn because they didn't budget enough actions into their initiative or whatever. And that's freaking unacceptable.

If he wanted increased randomness in combat, just make everyone roll regular initiative every round. Then you don't have to have all the problems associated with party planning, action-shafting, and elsewise that this system results in.

This is a bad design. I'm glad it worked well for him with his personal group and some groups at Gary-Con, but to take up the once a month article to share something he's talked about on twitter and podcasts and now youtube is a massive waste.

I'm honestly upset that he's done this.

Agreed.

[jaappleton]

How does this guy still have a job? Wow.

That's a bit harsh.

I don't like the article either, but that's a bit much.



And as usual, Punkette has articulated my thoughts on the article better than I could.



To be clear, it's a variant Initiative that Mearls uses in his home game. It's something people had a lot of questions about when he mentioned it in an AMA. I highly doubt it's going to be released in a book.

Additionally... Look, UA is free trial content. That's what it is. Not every article is going to be a winner. We have to understand that, and accept it.

[Anonymouswizard]

Ouch. My brain hurts.

I also want to say I was right in the initial thread we had about this, this is exactly how I'd read the tweet. In fact he's made it even worse, now if I want to allot a bonus action I have to decide what it is so I can look up the die.

But yeah, this is just horrible. People didn't want more maths, they wanted an official ruling that 'rerolling initiative each round is okay'. It's like saying that lifepath character creation is too random on the skills front in Traveller, and the Devs decide not to respond with 'pick your training option each term' but with an entire system where you pick your character's activities for every month of their life and gain tenths of a skill point and thirds of an ally or rival to get exactly the character you're trying to build.


i suggest we hijack this thread for discussion of the Real July Unearthed Arcana: Planeshift Almondcat (https://media.wizards.com/2017/downloads/magic/plane-shift_amonkhet.pdf)

I would, but I couldn't get the entirety of Almondcat on this machine, I'll download it once I'm on a better computer.

[Vaz]

Unpopular opinion time. Gary Gygax's legacy is the worst thing to happen to D&D.

The game has evolved since it was first envisaged, and this culthood devrloping around Gygax's flawed system is going to do more hurt to the game if it's encouraging more things like this.

Thanks for your efforts Garyists. Cheers mate, seriously - your game has given me endless hours of fun. Just... It's evolved. And I wouldn't have enjoyed that time if it was more like how you envisaged. Tbh, i'd play 5e less if it wasn't the scrubs entry to Table Top Gaming and one in which got more people into the game, because this slavish Devotion is kind of crap.

Ed; yes, i know he's dead.

Edit; jaappleton - not really. Followed him on twitter. His rulings, discussions and actions, and then introducing stuff like this... I'm actually wondering how he can even consider himself a viable content lead and decision maker for the game. The guy is on a different wavelength from the core of the game when it comes to 'this is what I do'. And given that all we tend to see of him is a glorified Customer Service Agent, why he couldn't be replaced by a 16K/year teenager escapes me.

[Beelzebubba]

Wow, so many hot takes you can cook an egg on here!

I'm gonna try it.

[Lombra]

Poor Rath (and his player). Anyways. Speaking from the perspective of someone who wants to add depth to the combat:

I like the effort, I really do, but there's something that feels wrong about it. I don't know what it is, but the fact that you will be slower at acting because you want to dash forward rather than normally advancing clicks in a wrong way with me, but I can see the balance.

I like the risk vs reward aspect of this, the fact that you micromanage rounds as a team.
I am pretty convinced that when talking about attacks it is intended the attack action, I don't see why a bonus feature like extra attack should slow the character down.

I find kind of amusing that he complains about two weapon fighting being poorly designed (not in this UA but in his AMA), yet with this variant rule two weapon fighting seems even worse: counterintuitively (but realistically) slowing down your character if he wants to dual wield, which is the complete opposite of the canonic trope of the agile and swift dual wielder.

This variant rule does something nice tho: it makes DEX less relevant, and makes casters less effective, which seem to be two popular arguments.
I don't know if I would like to play with it, it looks reasonable, but maybe too fiddly.

And I am deeply disapponted about not seeing XGtE plausible class reviews.

Edit: I don't find it bad that if someone doesn't invest enough dies in actions that he could take ends up being screwed, it's a system that enforces planning and backup options that are not so optional

[Misterwhisper]

Ok, let me get this straight:

If I want to shoot a longbow it is only a d4,
But if I want to stab someone with my dagger it is a d8, and if I have to move too it is add a d6 too...

Why would anyone EVERYONE play a melee character with those rules?

5e is already stacked to give ranged characters huge benefits over melee, so with these rules, nobody would play anything but ranged people.

[Steampunkette]

Is it? Presumably if you use the system that's one of the things that makes it alluring. I certainly expected some way to change your actions if they become redundant but I also understand it's not there because that would sort of undermine the core tension of the system

If shafting people out of their chance to act during combat is a feature then it's a system I'll never enjoy. I have yet to meet the person who enjoys that sort of thing, and if I ever -do- I'll just make sure that all the "Hold Person" spells get aimed at them.


You're... upset that a free optional rule isn't something you're interested in playing?

I'm upset that this is a thing Mearls has already been talking about in other places. That it's a system he debuted at a convention and spread word on, already. THEN decided to take up this once a month piece of content design playtesting to reiterate it. The man has also made a freaking VIDEO about it.

This is, objectively, not a good use of the article. The content of it is already available elsewhere. This is not providing new content to be tested, this just takes away our once a month peek into game design to plug a system he's plugged in at least 2 other places.

THAT is what frustrates and upsets me. Not "Getting a system I won't use."

[mgshamster]

Funnily if you use the weapon speed variant monks get slower the higher level they get.

[Anonymouswizard]

I'm upset that this is a thing Mearls has already been talking about in other places. That it's a system he debuted at a convention and spread word on, already. THEN decided to take up this once a month piece of content design playtesting to reiterate it. The man has also made a freaking VIDEO about it.

This is, objectively, not a good use of the article. The content of it is already available elsewhere. This is not providing new content to be tested, this just takes away our once a month peek into game design to plug a system he's plugged in at least 2 other places.

THAT is what frustrates and upsets me. Not "Getting a system I won't use."

This. I honestly wouldn't care if this rule took up a few pages of XGtE or something, it's an optional rule in a book full of stuff to use. Sure, I might complain about it online, but I wouldn't truly mind. It would a system in a book designed to give me systems.

But I wanted to see something cool that I might get to use and test, like a bunch of new races or rules for attaching goblins to sticks (I mean, I'm willing for it to include other monsters as well). But it's obvious that this system isn't going to get much tweaking, anything that would make it acceptable to most players would ruin it's 'thing'.

[Coffee_Dragon]

Spell disruption doesn't cost you a slot? Weaksauce AD&D flavour. I hope you at least lose all your slots if you're knocked out.

Fun to see Rath and Delsenora again.

Planeshift a monkey?

[jaappleton]

Spell disruption doesn't cost you a slot? Weaksauce AD&D flavour. I hope you at least lose all your slots if you're knocked out.

Fun to see Rath and Delsenora again.

Planeshift a monkey?

I'm going to take that last line out of context and use it in my 60 year old characters insane ramblings. Thank you, Coffee_Dragon.

[ad_hoc]

My table has used a simplified version of this for our last 3 sessions and we love it.

Combat is much faster for us (though I realize it won't be with some groups it is for us).

There is more drama and tension in combat.

Finally, combat is more cinematic. Turn resolution occurs very quickly since everyone has already declared what they are doing.

I am looking forward to trying out the more detailed system. I am leery of the 'durations' rule but willing to give it a shot.

I think the 'surprise' rule is bad. Instead I am just going to do something like d10 roll when it's your turn you can use reactions and are no longer surprised.

Finally, we like to allow a declared 'dodge' to activate on count 0 and will be continuing with that.

[Lombra]

Ok, let me get this straight:

If I want to shoot a longbow it is only a d4,
But if I want to stab someone with my dagger it is a d8, and if I have to move too it is add a d6 too...

Why would anyone EVERYONE play a melee character with those rules?

5e is already stacked to give ranged characters huge benefits over melee, so with these rules, nobody would play anything but ranged people.

I would use the damage die alternative rule if I were using this system. You are not shooting a longbow faster than a sword swing.

[Lombra]

Funnily if you use the weapon speed variant monks get slower the higher level they get.

Technically you should use the listed damage in the weapon table, which is 1 for unarmed strikes, the fastest attack in this system.

[Anonymouswizard]

Planeshift a monkey?

You been adventuring in jungles as well?

I've considered using an initiative variant for a game where you decide if you want to use one, two, or three actions on your turn (up to one each of a standard, move, and bonus action), roll 1d6 per action, subtract your Wisdom bonus, and that's your initiative count up. I'd want to have more bonus actions being used so classes they rely on them don't end up penalised, so I'd include stuff like pulling out items or knocking over tables, but I think the idea of trading speed and actions might be fun.

[MadBear]

This sounds great. I'm a fan of making combat more interesting and less routinely predictable.

[Gryndle]

Unpopular opinion time. Gary Gygax's legacy is the worst thing to happen to D&D.

The game has evolved since it was first envisaged, and this culthood devrloping around Gygax's flawed system is going to do more hurt to the game if it's encouraging more things like this.

Thanks for your efforts Garyists. Cheers mate, seriously - your game has given me endless hours of fun. Just... It's evolved. And I wouldn't have enjoyed that time if it was more like how you envisaged. Tbh, i'd play 5e less if it wasn't the scrubs entry to Table Top Gaming and one in which got more people into the game, because this slavish Devotion is kind of crap.

Ed; yes, i know he's dead.

Edit; jaappleton - not really. Followed him on twitter. His rulings, discussions and actions, and then introducing stuff like this... I'm actually wondering how he can even consider himself a viable content lead and decision maker for the game. The guy is on a different wavelength from the core of the game when it comes to 'this is what I do'. And given that all we tend to see of him is a glorified Customer Service Agent, why he couldn't be replaced by a 16K/year teenager escapes me.

I disagree that Gygax is the worst thing to happen to D&D. I think Mearls is. Don't get me wrong, I'm no Garyist or Gygaxian or whatever. I thank the man for the contributions he made to our great hobby as ONE of its "founding fathers." But I think Gygax gets far too much of the credit while Cook and Arnesson get too little.

Aside from my personal views on Mearls, I have to absolutely agree with Steampunkette's post. And here's why: 1st his (Mearls) initial tweet of his initiative variant garnered primarily negative responses. I understand that he has also played it up on a podcast or two here or there, and then almost a month later that exact thing is what he gives us for UA.

Its basically saying "Oh here is the substandard work I showed you a month ago. I haven't really done anything since, so here it is again." Man, I can only believe he has some serious leverage over someone at WotC.

[ad_hoc]

I disagree that Gygax is the worst thing to happen to D&D. I think Mearls is.

Mearls is the best thing to happen to D&D in a long time. 5e is by far my favourite system and it is doing very well.

D&D almost died from 4e.




Its basically saying "Oh here is the substandard work I showed you a month ago. I haven't really done anything since, so here it is again." Man, I can only believe he has some serious leverage over someone at WotC.

It sounds like you aren't the audience.

I have been anticipating this UA and like what I see. We have been using the simplified version to great success and are now looking forward to using the full one.

It's also free content which no one is entitled to. I'm thankful they are doing articles at all, of which they have done a ton since 5e came out.

[Kane0]

Not sold on it. When who takes what turn is not the most important part of combat (which already overshadows the other two pillars) and should not comprise 50% of total combat time/rolls nor add significantly to that time. 5e prizes its speed and ease of play, this goes right against that design philosophy.

[tkuremento]

It sounds like you aren't the audience.

I have been anticipating this UA and like what I see. We have been using the simplified version to great success and are now looking forward to using the full one.

It's also free content which no one is entitled to. I'm thankful they are doing articles at all, of which they have done a ton since 5e came out.

I hate the "free content" argument. They put something out, people can critique it to the high heavens and back. And the fact that this has existed elsewhere and not really been iterated upon since then only hurts it. They took up what could have been something new and amazing but gave us this, something we already had. Not only that but it was after not having given us a heads up that it'd be late by a week because they had that Monday off. Idk about their state but I find non-holiday days are rarely expected days off.

[Matrix_Walker]

It sounds like you aren't the audience.



Nor am I. Or anyone in my group. I'll be checking the local gaming store to see if I can find a flesh and blood person who likes it... I'm doubtful it will happen.

Seems like you get into situations where someone and charge at you from 60 feet away and attack you and you have not had the opportunity to move, all you can do is watch them charge... and since they were still some distance, you thought you could use your ranged attack, but alas, they beat you on that second roll so you are now rolling at disavantage if you do... and you might as well, because apparently characters exist on a 6 second delay and you have no other choice anymore.

[Gryndle]

Mearls is the best thing to happen to D&D in a long time. 5e is by far my favourite system and it is doing very well.

D&D almost died from 4e.

It sounds like you aren't the audience.

I have been anticipating this UA and like what I see. We have been using the simplified version to great success and are now looking forward to using the full one.

It's also free content which no one is entitled to. I'm thankful they are doing articles at all, of which they have done a ton since 5e came out.

Don't go giving Mearl's all the props for 5E. if I remember correctly D&D NEXT was already through several rounds of playtest before Mearls was brought back in. I'm sure he has had input, but the man basically slid in just in time to get his name on the original books.
I'm not sure 4E did the damage you imply either. Maybe it wasn't the money maker Hasbro wanted, that doesn't mean it "almost killed D&D". At least 4E was a decent tactical card game.

[Cybren]

If shafting people out of their chance to act during combat is a feature then it's a system I'll never enjoy. I have yet to meet the person who enjoys that sort of thing, and if I ever -do- I'll just make sure that all the "Hold Person" spells get aimed at them.

That's a really silly comparison. People that want to play that system are buying in to the concept. Part of the concept is the tension it creates from uncertainty. For that uncertainty to create tension there has to be a cost. Should there be a method to address that uncertainty? Maybe! It's... uncertain.




I'm upset that this is a thing Mearls has already been talking about in other places. That it's a system he debuted at a convention and spread word on, already. THEN decided to take up this once a month piece of content design playtesting to reiterate it. The man has also made a freaking VIDEO about it.

This is, objectively, not a good use of the article. The content of it is already available elsewhere. This is not providing new content to be tested, this just takes away our once a month peek into game design to plug a system he's plugged in at least 2 other places.

THAT is what frustrates and upsets me. Not "Getting a system I won't use."

It just strikes me as the height of an undeserved sense of entitlement to expect All Rules To Appeal To Me Personally, let alone free rules meant for playtesting that were previously mentioned as being a candidate for Unearthed Arcana




I disagree that Gygax is the worst thing to happen to D&D. I think Mearls is. Don't get me wrong, I'm no Garyist or Gygaxian or whatever. I thank the man for the contributions he made to our great hobby as ONE of its "founding fathers." But I think Gygax gets far too much of the credit while Cook and Arnesson get too little.

Aside from my personal views on Mearls, I have to absolutely agree with Steampunkette's post. And here's why: 1st his (Mearls) initial tweet of his initiative variant garnered primarily negative responses. I understand that he has also played it up on a podcast or two here or there, and then almost a month later that exact thing is what he gives us for UA.

Its basically saying "Oh here is the substandard work I showed you a month ago. I haven't really done anything since, so here it is again." Man, I can only believe he has some serious leverage over someone at WotC.

Wow, Mearls didn't commit murder-suicide. That's a bit of a stretch. At any rate, claiming that his initial tweet "garnered primarily negative responses" seems like a stretch, I think that's more an effect of people assuming Forum Culture is representative of the games culture at large.


I'm not sure 4E did the damage you imply either. Maybe it wasn't the money maker Hasbro wanted, that doesn't mean it "almost killed D&D". At least 4E was a decent tactical card game.

4E tanked WotCs market share to the point where someone literally filed the serial numbers off their previous edition and it worked like gangbusters. 4E was the closest D&D came to dying since the waning days of TSR, most likely

[Steampunkette]

It just strikes me as the height of an undeserved sense of entitlement to expect All Rules To Appeal To Me Personally, let alone free rules meant for playtesting that were previously mentioned as being a candidate for Unearthed Arcana

Take your personal attacks and character assassination elsewhere, Cybren. I don't take kindly to that kind of malarkey.

"Undeserved Entitlement" my left buttock.

[Vaz]

Hard not to give it good attention when 90% of players don't know what UA is, let alone Mearls. So in the end, you ARE producing content for the forumite neckbeards or whatever, as we are the chosen beta testers by dint of being the few people who actually end up discussing and playing, or being able to judge the content placed in front of us with a practised eye.

@Lombra; errata removes the Unarmed Attack from the weapons table. Ergo, you don't actually get to act ny that reasoning.

[Cybren]

Take your personal attacks and character assassination elsewhere, Cybren. I don't take kindly to that kind of malarkey.

"Undeserved Entitlement" my left buttock.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I apologize if that was perceived as a personal, but the attitudes expressed here seem really kind of over the top.

[Cybren]

Hard not to give it good attention when 90% of players don't know what UA is, let alone Mearls. So in the end, you ARE producing content for the forumite neckbeards or whatever, as we are the chosen beta testers by dint of being the few people who actually end up discussing and playing, or being able to judge the content placed in front of us with a practised eye.

@Lombra; errata removes the Unarmed Attack from the weapons table. Ergo, you don't actually get to act ny that reasoning.

I don't know that we have reader data for unearthed arcana but I'm almost certain it's substantially larger than the number of people that participate in D&D forum discussions, even if it's substantially smaller than the total number of D&D players. I also don't assume that every D&D forum shares this specific ones Hate-On for Mike Mearls and anything he produces.

[Steampunkette]

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I apologize if that was perceived as a personal, but the attitudes expressed here seem really kind of over the top.

Passive Aggressive non-apologies also don't fly.

You didn't attack my argument, you attacked me. "If" it was "Perceived" that way, it's only because it -was- that way.

Bye, Felicia.

[RickAsWritten]

Not being able to do anything useful on your turn is one of the worst feeling that one can have while playing the game. If I were to play this variant, I would choose every single action possible on that chart, every round. I'd rather bank on the fact that I'm going last, but always have an option for my turn, then gamble with less dice rolled to get a chance to strike quicker.

Let's say I do that regularly, and the other players use the system normally. After a few times of losing their actions, I would anticipate that everyone(or at least a few of them) would then choose to roll the maximum number of dice as well to prevent a wasted turn. Essentially creating a system where the enemy always attacks first, and then all the players go; which is pretty much the initiative system we have now, but much worse.

I may be incorrect in my assumptions, but that was the first thought that I had upon reading the UA in it's entirety.

[Cybren]

Not being able to do anything useful on your turn is one of the worst feeling that one can have while playing the game. If I were to play this variant, I would choose every single action possible on that chart, every round. I'd rather bank on the fact that I'm going last, but always have an option for my turn, then gamble with less dice rolled to get a chance to strike quicker.

Let's say I do that a few times, and the other players use the system normally. After a few times of losing their actions, I would anticipate that everyone(or at least a few of them) would then choose to roll the maximum number of dice as well to prevent a wasted turn. Essentially creating a system where the enemy always attacks first, and then all the players go; which is pretty much the initiative system we have now, but much worse.

I may be incorrect in my assumptions, but that was the first thought that I had upon reading the UA in it's entirety.

Presumably you can only "choose" actions that you are actually capable of doing. Since you can't use more than one action (without action surge), you couldn't use your plan.

[Theodoxus]

Dumb. There's a really good love child between a Count Up initiative and standard Initiative, and MM blew it. Not that it wouldn't take more than a single tweak of this jumbled mess to get there:

Instead of rolling all your dice at once, roll each one as you decide to make an action. Gonna run up on the bad guy? Roll your movement die and go when your initiative is up. If he's moved out of range in the interim, you have a choice - move more, or use a ranged option. If he didn't move, you then roll your "attack" initiative and get to thwack him when it comes up (weapon speed would probably be better in this case, but we'll go simpler first).

If the enemy gets to move out of the way, you get an OA, unless during the declaration section, they specify the disengage if moved up on. This should massively increase the number of OAs in a game, which I would find refreshing.

End of the round happens once everyone has completed their move and action - or opted not to.

As others have noted, the Ranged Attack die is ridiculously small. Especially with the advantage of not needing to move often - I'd boost it to a d8 for bows, d6 for hand crossbow, d8 for light and d10 for heavy, and then reduce each a die for XBX, reflecting the lack of need for loading.

TBH though, I think a Count Up initiative would be more intuitive all around...

[toapat]

How does this guy still have a job? Wow.

mearls is basically half the engine behind making 5E

OTOH i feel like hes the "Ideas Guy" position who only achieves greatness through the cold unfeeling monstrosity that is corporate policy.

Like remember his commentary on the nature of Bonus Actions being a game design hack. He was clearly referencing the fact that during beta they would go back and forth on whether Bonus Actions exist, as well as the fact that the terminology presents an expectations dissonance because "Bonus" gives too much weight to the term.

the end result of the bonus action debate basically screwed up bonus actions actually being a good thing.


Unpopular opinion time. Gary Gygax's legacy is the worst thing to happen to D&D.

~snip~

Gary Gygax is the Most Important person to happen to TTRPGs. He directly is the influence for nearly all of the good and bad design practices of TTRPGs, such as the terrible practice of "detail Everything", the "Random Harlots Table" and the general attempt to create more social games and the attempts to create more efficient, effective systems

Id argue that Mearls does qualify as the worst thing to happen to 5E dnd. The guy clearly lost track of the whole system after the PHB came out.


This. I honestly wouldn't care if this rule took up a few pages of XGtE or something, it's an optional rule in a book full of stuff to use. Sure, I might complain about it online, but I wouldn't truly mind. It would a system in a book designed to give me systems.

But I wanted to see something cool that I might get to use and test, like a bunch of new races or rules for attaching goblins to sticks (I mean, I'm willing for it to include other monsters as well). But it's obvious that this system isn't going to get much tweaking, anything that would make it acceptable to most players would ruin it's 'thing'.

except the Guide to Everything shouldnt include some garbage variant diametrically opposed to the core value of 5E design principles. This doesnt add depth to Ini rolls, it doesnt fix the strategic problems where players have very little reason to individually consider the other's actions in non-horde combats.

All it does is increase the "Solitaire effect" of combat

[RickAsWritten]

Presumably you can only "choose" actions that you are actually capable of doing. Since you can't use more than one action (without action surge), you couldn't use your plan.

Ok so if I'm a martial only, then I remove the d10 for spellcasting and am slightly faster. For spellcasters, the starting equipment (AFB)always includes at least one melee weapon in each class, and most have a ranged option; so with slight variation, I don't see why my plan wouldn't work.

[Cybren]

Ok so if I'm a martial only, then I remove the d10 for spellcasting and am slightly faster. For spellcasters, the starting equipment (AFB)always includes at least one melee weapon in each class, and most have a ranged option; so with slight variation, I don't see why my plan wouldn't work.

Because you only have one action a turn. You can't declare yourself as taking two actions.

[RickAsWritten]

Because you only have one action a turn. You can't declare yourself as taking two actions.

Ah, ok. My bad. Mis-read that part.

[jaappleton]

Whoa whoa whoa.

Hold on now.

Someone said Mearls was the best thing to happen to D&D.

Now, I don't necessarily mind Mearls. I think he's done some great thing, and some pretty piss poor things.

He gave us Mass Combat. Swing and a miss.
He gave us the Hexblade. I'd call that a hit. Still in playtest, but there's a lot to like.

But there's one important thing about Mearls that some don't know:

He was the lead on the 4E Essentials line. That's... I mean, that's forever a demerit on his record, right? :smalltongue:

[RickAsWritten]

Ok, so I was a bit hasty in my original critique, but if you boil down the sentiment to its pure essence you get: I would rather go last then not have an option on my turn; so this system is a no-go for me.

[Gryndle]

Whoa whoa whoa.

Hold on now.

Someone said Mearls was the best thing to happen to D&D.

Now, I don't necessarily mind Mearls. I think he's done some great thing, and some pretty piss poor things.

He gave us Mass Combat. Swing and a miss.
He gave us the Hexblade. I'd call that a hit. Still in playtest, but there's a lot to like.

But there's one important thing about Mearls that some don't know:

He was the lead on the 4E Essentials line. That's... I mean, that's forever a demerit on his record, right? :smalltongue:

I had actually forgotten that tidbit JA. BUt then I tried to repress the essentials line.

And to eat my own hat, so to speak, I actually like the UA Hexblade, so if that was MnM's then good for him.

My initial introduction to Mearls was way back in the TSR Alternity days, when they were trying out the whole lets talk to the game design team via webchats. I remember Rich Baker, Bill Slaviseck and later on Wolfgang Baur and Mike Mearls. My impressions of Baker, Slaviseck and Baur were largely "wow, nice guys." Mearls not so much. He struck me at the time as a guy trying to convince everyone else of how important he was. My opinion hasn't improved

[Vaz]

I don't know that we have reader data for unearthed arcana but I'm almost certain it's substantially larger than the number of people that participate in D&D forum discussions, even if it's substantially smaller than the total number of D&D players. I also don't assume that every D&D forum shares this specific ones Hate-On for Mike Mearls and anything he produces.

People don't hate-on Mike Mearls' content in general. They hate Mike Mearls for the content he produces.

End result is the same, but there's ultimately a difference. Like say the difference between a judge condemning a man to death and a murderer, for example, as a rough analogy. Also, seems to be a running trend through many of the forums I read that his content sucks balls - D&D Reddit, 5E Reddit, D&DNext Reddit, enworld, minmaxboards, GiantITP, the stackexchange, RPG.net, and tbh, are there any others that actually carry a weight or userbase half as popular as the four main sites/discussion boards, now that Gleemax is shut down? The official d&d facebook? Reddit is as much as circle jerk hive mentality so biased around getting karma and "likes" to upvote their posts so as to accumulate more karma that you can't even talk common sense to people.

This individual Mearls seems like he'd have trouble working a lemonade stand, much less head a multi-million dollar business project. And like a good number of other companies out there, they have gradually begin to stop encouraging audience participation, outside of the stuff that makes their product look cool. "Look at this awesome artwork someone did on Reddit", "Look at this amazing gaming board someone designed to be used only once and never seen again", "look at this amazing miniature Dave has painted. He says it's his first, but we all know he secretly lying to make himself look better and stroke his own length because no-one else will". Ergo, the investors and head sheds can only look at numbers and audience participation.

Mearls makes comment over questionable rule decision at point A, in a relatively private, unquoteable situation, where it can be passed off as hearsay or vocal minority. People question. So he clarifies at point B in a similar manner - i.e, his Twitter, which is more of a propaganda tool. People say, no we don't like this. Then, he finally releases via UA; which gives the beancounters and paymasters a quantifiable figure of customer involvment outside of pure sales figures as an internal management tool. I know - I design and do this for a living, and encourage corporate engagement to make people feel better about themselves and to generate custom. It's Sales. Supply and Demand - he's created his own Demand for knowledge over this borked idea that noone ever considered in their right mind before he made it, and now, through the attraction of Unearthed Arcana in general in that it provides new content for DM's and players, he has subverted that idea to "sell" us this controversial piece. And it's probably going to be among the most highly downloaded bits of UA in existence. I don't think anyone really gives a toss for "Black Magic" or "Downtime", but the ones which were controversial? The original Warlock/Wizard for the borked Smites Invos and Lore Master? Kensei Monk? Mucho Discussion. Likewise here.

I do it for a job, and I still find it slimy how he's gone about it. That's how wrong it is.

Edit; He might have done UA Hexblade. But he also did the **** up Kensei, Raven Queen, Borked Smites, Lore Mastery Wizard, the Infinite Healing Ranger... Either he's the guy allowing the UA content to get produced like so, or he's producing it like so himself.


Gary Gygax is the Most Important person to happen to TTRPGs. He directly is the influence for nearly all of the good and bad design practices of TTRPGs, such as the terrible practice of "detail Everything", the "Random Harlots Table" and the general attempt to create more social games and the attempts to create more efficient, effective systems

Being important =/= good. It's one of those "cheers Grandad, I've got it from here. I know you flew Spitfires back in your day, but there's a slight difference between that and an F22. Humour me with the assumption that I'm calling the 5E game an F22, but it's more like a Cesna, and Grandad was actually one of the Wright brothers is probably nearer the mark.

[druid91]

Seems interesting. It's certainly a major buff to mounted Combat focused characters, and to Gishes. Horse Archers in Particular become even more devastating than they previously were. Going first almost always in addition to the mobility benefits of having a mount?

[LaserFace]

I can only shrug at this. I wasn't really looking for an alternate initiative rule, and I'm not sure I'd personally seek to use this for most games, but maybe some folks will find it neat.

I can understand disappointment or critique, but some of the responses here confuse me. Is somebody slighting us by nature of releasing a mediocre-to-poor UA? I literally have to be reminded UA is a thing that exists about every 4 months.

[Millstone85]

This time the UA comes with an interview.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfSo4wVkwUw

[Lombra]

I don't get the hate on Mearls, he is clearly one of those designers that spits out dozens of ideas of which only a couple get filtered and polished into official content, which is how all good games rise, a cluster of ideas that gets refined into one cohesive system. I can't even imagine how many ideas have been scrapped out to reach the final product of 5th ed. Probably more than 20 times the actual amount content in the final product.

And stop debating about playtest material as if it was an official rule set into stone, it's not tested, everyone knows that it's flawed, that's why they publish it: to get more (free) eyes to spot the flaws. Unhealthy discussions about hate can't contribute to improvements.

But who am I to judge...

[toapat]

Being important =/= good. It's one of those "cheers Grandad, I've got it from here. I know you flew Spitfires back in your day, but there's a slight difference between that and an F22. Humour me with the assumption that I'm calling the 5E game an F22, but it's more like a Cesna, and Grandad was actually one of the Wright brothers is probably nearer the mark.

hey, i brought up that specific table because that table is s beautiful, perfect thing.

in the context of his direct work, i do have to admit Gygax probably is as bad for Pre WotC DnD as Mearls is for 5E, and the Cook + Dave made the first 5 editions of DnD a real game. the problem is Gygax's influence truly defined RPG design itself for years

[jaappleton]

Hold on there.

For the massive majority of UA, here's how it works:

Mearls spits out an idea. He and JC together try to make it work, in the sense of mechanical balance.

SOME of that content is an amalgamation of concepts designed to elicit a reaction from the public, and is never intended to actually be printed in a book. That was the case with the Lore Wizard; how much is too much? Who is to say the lv6 Feature wouldn't have been put into a Sorcerer, or moved to a Capstone feature?

Other content, produced solely by Mearls, is often a concept, an idea he had thrown out there. Mass Combat is a prime example. Remember, when Mass Combat was done, JC was working on Sage Advice and Mearls was doing UA.

And there's been some UA without Mearls at all. Look a thing the Feats For Races and Feats For Skills articles. Mearls wasn't involved. It was JC and someone else.

Now.... Let me circle back.

I wouldn't mind this article if something else was with it. I wouldn't mind it if it were a bonus article, and we'd received a second article this month with richer content.

My issue is the very same at Punkette's:

This content slot should have been reserved for something more... Useful. New spells, a more refined version of previous UA content, something along those lines. We get pretty much one of these articles per month. And it sucks to wait a month (more than a month in this instance, due to the July 4th holiday) for this type of content.

[Pex]

UGH!

I couldn't bother finish reading. I do not want to do calculus when determining initiative. I do not want to have to keep rolling dice. When there are lots of combatants on the field it would be a nightmare for player and DM alike to keep rerolling and determining play order. Sometimes I don't even know what I want to do in a round yet to determine which die or dice I should roll. Sometimes I want to do something but because something happens I want or need to do something else. I don't want to be committed because I used a d8 for my intended action instead of a d10 for my new action. I have to remember low is good again? I remember 2E initiative quite well with weapon speed, casting time, turn order changing that allowed a monster to act twice in a row. I do not want to go back to those days. Hate 3E all you want, for those who do, but it improved D&D in many ways and simplifying initiative was one of those things.

Complexity is not inherently a bad thing. A bureaucratic calculus mess of an initiative system is.

[DanyBallon]

I like this UA, it's definately something worth trying. And to be honest, I prefer UA like this one, which may end up either a total flop or a big success, but at least is trying something new, over new subclasses that feel they were rushed in order to please players looking for more players options.

[Dr.Samurai]

I don't know who Mearls is, or what he's responsible for outside of this UA. But after reading the comments here, I ****ing hate him and think he's the anti-christ. How do we stop him from destroying the world??? Is the Vatican aware of his existence and does the UN have a contingency in place for this?

[TheTeaMustFlow]

Oh God, not this again.

Alternative Initiative: Because TWF Wasn't Rubbish Enough Already!

[EvilAnagram]

Having a higher overall quality of product doesn't outweigh the higher quality of the good content produced within those books. Tome of Battle, Incarnum, the Completes, Holy/Unholy, Baby it's Hot/Cold/Wet Outside, Eberron Dragonmarks...

I prefer a single chocolate bar off the shelf to a dozen unwrapped in a cow pasture.

[Ruebin Rybnik]

I can see where this isn't for a lot of groups that already have a decent battle rhythm. But i have seen to many times where when its not a players turn they to often pick up there phone or laptop and are not really in the group. then when their turn comes up it takes longer because they're not ready. This will keep them more engaged because they have to plan the turn with the group. I would however change the rolls as such:

action with 1 hand weapon atts +1d6 (melee or ranged)
action with 2 hand weapon atts +1d8 (melee or ranged)
planned movement +1d8
unplanned movement +1d10 (ie fighter didn't roll for move but then needs to move because no longer next to target)
action casting spell +1d10
Bonus action +1d4 ( PHB say BAs are swift, no reason for them to take as long as anything else.)
Reactions have zero cost, can be done at any point
Spells that have a until end of your next turn duration stay the same, just cause your initiative changed doesn't mean you spell does.

I think this is a little more balanced as for the speed of actions, and give a little more flexibility if you didn't roll for something at first.

[ad_hoc]

Spells that have a until end of your next turn duration stay the same, just cause your initiative changed doesn't mean you spell does.


The issue with this is that it encourages players to Delay until the end of the round to get the most out of some spells.

[DanyBallon]

I can see where this isn't for a lot of groups that already have a decent battle rhythm. But i have seen to many times where when its not a players turn they to often pick up there phone or laptop and are not really in the group. then when their turn comes up it takes longer because they're not ready. This will keep them more engaged because they have to plan the turn with the group. I would however change the rolls as such:

action with 1 hand weapon atts +1d6 (melee or ranged)
action with 2 hand weapon atts +1d8 (melee or ranged)
planned movement +1d8
unplanned movement +1d10 (ie fighter didn't roll for move but then needs to move because no longer next to target)
action casting spell +1d10
Bonus action +1d4 ( PHB say BAs are swift, no reason for them to take as long as anything else.)
Reactions have zero cost, can be done at any point
Spells that have a until end of your next turn duration stay the same, just cause your initiative changed doesn't mean you spell does.

I think this is a little more balanced as for the speed of actions, and give a little more flexibility if you didn't roll for something at first.

How do you add +1d10 for unplanned movement if you already rolled your initiative and are now in need to move because the creature you planned to attack is gone?

I like agree that whatever bonus action should be 1d4, I'd do the same with use an object and swaping weapon.

[Sigreid]

I choose to believe Merels is trolling us.

[Kane0]

If you must do something like this, how about:

Each turn everyone rolls initative based on what they want to do, then reduce the total by their initiative bonus (lowest total goes first):
Using an action: +1d8
Using movement: +1d6
Using a bonus action: +1d4
Using an interaction: +1d2
Using a reaction: No cost

Not paying the die cost for one of these means it is not available for you to use that turn.
You can pay the die cost for an action then decide not to use it of course, leaving your options open delays you a little and you end up going later in the order.

[toapat]

I wouldn't mind this article if something else was with it. I wouldn't mind it if it were a bonus article, and we'd received a second article this month with richer content.

ironically, since Planeshift: Almondcat (https://media.wizards.com/2017/downloads/magic/plane-shift_amonkhet.pdf) is kinda not terrible ironically despite the narrow focus of the plane, we do have a real UA that most players could attempt

Hell, you can literally take your DM sized hand, scoop Naktamun, the Necropolis, and a hundred square miles of desert around the city, and plop it on any plane and have an entire self contained sect of Crazies

[EvilAnagram]

I'm a little confused as to what this accomplishes that we would miss out on by just having people roll initiative every round? It shakes up initiative every round, the fast people stay fast, and it doesn't screw over TWF.

[MadBear]

I find the argument that this significantly slows down combat laughably untrue.

Everyone makes a decision about what actions they're going to take and rolls. From that point on, you move up the initiative ladder, like any other round. It's not like the DM has calculate out the PC's rolls or anything. I mean it does admittedly take up more time then previously, but that amount of time is trivial, for the benefits it provides.

[Ruebin Rybnik]

The issue with this is that it encourages players to Delay until the end of the round to get the most out of some spells.

sense casting is the most expensive action it's likely they wont be at the front of the initiative anyways. But if they were then i'd say them giving up casting a spell before anyone could act a fair trade for sustaining a spell just a bit longer. Plus I don't think there are any "til end of next turn" spells that would be that problematic. Its the "til start of next turn" ones i would worry about.


How do you add +1d10 for unplanned movement if you already rolled your initiative and are now in need to move because the creature you planned to attack is gone?

I like agree that whatever bonus action should be 1d4, I'd do the same with use an object and swaping weapon.

Let me explain how i see it. Bruno the fighter is standing nest to the hobgoblin, so decides just to att with his longsword, and use his healing surge. He rolls 1d6+1d4 totaling 6. The hobgoblin dies/or moves away before Bruno's so instead of it being wasted he rolls 1d10 for unplanned movement then has a new initiative. 6+1d10 totaling 11. Now Bruno can move and att on his new initiative.

[DanyBallon]

Let me explain how i see it. Bruno the fighter is standing nest to the hobgoblin, so decides just to att with his longsword, and use his healing surge. He rolls 1d6+1d4 totaling 6. The hobgoblin dies/or moves away before Bruno's so instead of it being wasted he rolls 1d10 for unplanned movement then has a new initiative. 6+1d10 totaling 11. Now Bruno can move and att on his new initiative.

I think that maybe for the few first time, a player may get caught without an action, but after that they will consider adding a movement action just in case. And this would still be better than adding +1d10 for unplanned movement...

I may be wrong though

[Steampunkette]

I find the argument that this significantly slows down combat laughably untrue.

Everyone makes a decision about what actions they're going to take and rolls. From that point on, you move up the initiative ladder, like any other round. It's not like the DM has calculate out the PC's rolls or anything. I mean it does admittedly take up more time then previously, but that amount of time is trivial, for the benefits it provides.

I disagree.

At my table, for example, the players make independent choices with an eye toward the overall good of the team. The Cleric heals the wounded party member, the sorceress flings her icy around, the monk does his dashing pummeling of foes.

If the players at my table were to actively talk out a plan in advance before even rolling initiative, one of my players (The Cleric) would get positively steamrolled into acting in accordance with the other players's wishes (he's a quiet guy). Another of my players would argue, endlessly, over what should be done against the third player, who would be suggesting tactically sound maneuvers but ones that don't allow the arguing player to shine like -he- would want to. The plans created by player 3, by the way, would remove any option for deviation or individual player ingenuity outside of the Plan because the dude's a game developer and has the math of combat down pat.

Meanwhile my husband would interject, briefly, to explain why something would or wouldn't work well.

25 minutes later, we'd roll for initiative.

I dunno about your table, but at mine Analysis Paralysis is a -devastating- enemy.

[Kane0]

I find the argument that this significantly slows down combat laughably untrue.

Everyone makes a decision about what actions they're going to take and rolls. From that point on, you move up the initiative ladder, like any other round. It's not like the DM has calculate out the PC's rolls or anything. I mean it does admittedly take up more time then previously, but that amount of time is trivial, for the benefits it provides.

Taking up more time is what they mean by slowing down combat, no?

Lets say we have a standard party of 4 plus the DM rolling init for two monsters in an encounter. Each initiative check takes a few seconds to roll and call to the initiative keeper and said keeper twice that record them all and begin. Thats a total of about a minute at its most efficient, or perhaps two to three for your standard bunch of relaxed humans playing a game for fun.
Now your standard combat takes 3-4 rounds, so under standard initiative you take 1-3 minutes to get started. Under roll-each-turn you triple or more your time spent getting into the combat part of combat, so if your average combat is supposed to last about 15-20 minutes now it takes maybe 20-25, over an adventuring day thats an extra half hour or so just on initiative. Out of an 8 hour session thats not much, but for a 3 hour session that's significant.

And thats not really taking into account the decisionmaking process that people go through, especially new or strategically minded players. A chess turn might take one or two seconds but thats not how long players take is it?

[Cybren]

Presumably everyone at the same time having to analyze a situation and make a plan rather than waiting for their own turn to do so would minimize analysis paralysis, because each individual player doesn't have to analyze a new situation..

[Misterwhisper]

I think that maybe for the few first time, a player may get caught without an action, but after that they will consider adding a movement action just in case. And this would still be better than adding +1d10 for unplanned movement...

I may be wrong though

Making movement add to initiative is an outright nerd to any melee class.

Mr archer can sit back and roll 1d4... and that is all.

Mr melee has to spend a d8 just to attack, probably a d6 to be able to move because it is no gaurentee the enemy will even be there, a d if they have: pole arm master, offhand, great weapon master, any kindof monk, battlerager attack, add another just to get your bonus attack

[Ruebin Rybnik]

I think that maybe for the few first time, a player may get caught without an action, but after that they will consider adding a movement action just in case. And this would still be better than adding +1d10 for unplanned movement...

I may be wrong though

I think the better chance of getting to att before the enemy standing next to you would make you not add movement to your initiative. If you have to add 1d10 afterwards thats the risk you took, but i don't see that being a big deals as the difference between 1d8 and 1d10 averages to only 1 overall. But this is just my opinion as I typically play martial PC and I like going first.:smallamused:

[Ruebin Rybnik]

Making movement add to initiative is an outright nerd to any melee class.

Mr archer can sit back and roll 1d4... and that is all.

Mr melee has to spend a d8 just to attack, probably a d6 to be able to move because it is no gaurentee the enemy will even be there, a d if they have: pole arm master, offhand, great weapon master, any kindof monk, battlerager attack, add another just to get your bonus attack

Well DannyBallon was responding to my post, in which case you're ranged att would cost just as much as a melee att.

But let expand upon you're "sit back and roll" idea. What if the martial PC decides they want to go first and then don't move. Or say if there are more badguys then melee PC (which is likely), that means you will have to move in order to get smacked by the hobgoblins sword. These very like occurrences will keep initiative pretty even i'd say.

[DanyBallon]

I think the better chance of getting to att before the enemy standing next to you would make you not add movement to your initiative. If you have to add 1d10 afterwards thats the risk you took, but i don't see that being a big deals as the difference between 1d8 and 1d10 averages to only 1 overall. But this is just my opinion as I typically play martial PC and I like going first.:smallamused:

I get it, but that would mean that such a character will act twice in a round which could be kinda unfair for the others.
Something to mitigate that would be to not have an additional dice for movement. You only add die for use an object action, bonus action and/or swapping weapon. This way you never end up doing nothing because the intended target as moved or dropped dead

[DanyBallon]

Making movement add to initiative is an outright nerd to any melee class.

Mr archer can sit back and roll 1d4... and that is all.

Mr melee has to spend a d8 just to attack, probably a d6 to be able to move because it is no gaurentee the enemy will even be there, a d if they have: pole arm master, offhand, great weapon master, any kindof monk, battlerager attack, add another just to get your bonus attack

In the current system, ranged attackers are already advantaged over melee as the often have better dexterity score

[Mellack]

Presumably everyone at the same time having to analyze a situation and make a plan rather than waiting for their own turn to do so would minimize analysis paralysis, because each individual player doesn't have to analyze a new situation..

I would think it would take longer because instead of seeing what has already been done, now the players each have to discuss what the PCs will be planning to do to coordinate. Then they still have to make some more decisions when their action comes up, such as they said they would make a ranged attack, should I try to weaken the big guy or see if I can drop a minion?

[sir_argo]

Off the top of my head, I don't like this initiative variant. If I'm a Bow using Ranger, I love this new method. If I'm a wizard who only ever casts spells, I hate this new system. If I have a character with a 20 DEX or the Alert feat. I hate this system. But if I'm Bork the half-orc with a DEX of 4 I think this initiative system is great.

What I'm trying to say is that if a change effects everyone the same, we call it a wash and judge the change on other merits. This change adversely effects some and benefits others and there is no mechanism to re-balance it. Now, there's no problem with using this system in a new campaign as everyone would know the rules before they made their characters, but in an existing campaign, it would be unfair because of the disparate effect.

And just for the record, if you have the Alert feat, you literally lost your +5 initiative bonus.

[Coidzor]

This time the UA comes with an interview.

And I can safely say now that my desire to never know what any game designers actually look like was well-placed.

Totes uncomfortable just seeing the thumbnail.

[MadBear]

Taking up more time is what they mean by slowing down combat, no?

Lets say we have a standard party of 4 plus the DM rolling init for two monsters in an encounter. Each initiative check takes a few seconds to roll and call to the initiative keeper and said keeper twice that record them all and begin. Thats a total of about a minute at its most efficient, or perhaps two to three for your standard bunch of relaxed humans playing a game for fun.
Now your standard combat takes 3-4 rounds, so under standard initiative you take 1-3 minutes to get started. Under roll-each-turn you triple or more your time spent getting into the combat part of combat, so if your average combat is supposed to last about 15-20 minutes now it takes maybe 20-25, over an adventuring day thats an extra half hour or so just on initiative. Out of an 8 hour session thats not much, but for a 3 hour session that's significant.

And thats not really taking into account the decisionmaking process that people go through, especially new or strategically minded players. A chess turn might take one or two seconds but thats not how long players take is it?

Having played 7th sea's which uses a similar system, it does not at a full minute to each round of combat. You're skewing the numbers fairly significantly in a way that exaggerates your point.

Now that whole decision making process already takes place in many D&D games (I say many because it takes place in every single one I've ever been in or watched, but I obviously can't speak to all groups), so that addition is also trivial since it's not additional time.

In fact what this does do is it gets rid of the "umm... oh wait, it's my turn.... umm I cast.... hold on let me look up my spell list again" since everyone already planned out their actions as a group. to be clear, I'm not saying it's faster, but the degree to which people are saying it'd slow things down is again.... laughable.

[SaurOps]

Something strikes me as odd about the deities of Amonket, in that some have names that end in t but references to them use male pronouns. In this very Egyptian-inspired setting, some observance to names ending in t being feminine would have been nice (see also: Bast, Sekmet, and Aset - the non-Grecian name of Isis - for three examples).


UGH!

I couldn't bother finish reading. I do not want to do calculus when determining initiative. I do not want to have to keep rolling dice. When there are lots of combatants on the field it would be a nightmare for player and DM alike to keep rerolling and determining play order. Sometimes I don't even know what I want to do in a round yet to determine which die or dice I should roll. Sometimes I want to do something but because something happens I want or need to do something else. I don't want to be committed because I used a d8 for my intended action instead of a d10 for my new action. I have to remember low is good again? I remember 2E initiative quite well with weapon speed, casting time, turn order changing that allowed a monster to act twice in a row. I do not want to go back to those days. Hate 3E all you want, for those who do, but it improved D&D in many ways and simplifying initiative was one of those things.

Complexity is not inherently a bad thing. A bureaucratic calculus mess of an initiative system is.

This isn't calculus. Calculus would be quick and streamlined for its purpose...

[miburo]

Looked it over and, well, meh. Too much additional work for very little real upside to game enjoyment. More rules usually translate either into more realism (which this really doesn't add) or the ability to do more complex stuff (which this really doesn't add either).

The one thing I like in the new UA ruleset and kinda miss from core 5e is the ability to delay, which allowed for some interesting tactical changeups in 3rd edition. But that's fairly easy to houserule in 5E without requiring a brand new initiative system to go with it.

[MadBear]

I disagree.

At my table, for example, the players make independent choices with an eye toward the overall good of the team. The Cleric heals the wounded party member, the sorceress flings her icy around, the monk does his dashing pummeling of foes.

If the players at my table were to actively talk out a plan in advance before even rolling initiative, one of my players (The Cleric) would get positively steamrolled into acting in accordance with the other players's wishes (he's a quiet guy). Another of my players would argue, endlessly, over what should be done against the third player, who would be suggesting tactically sound maneuvers but ones that don't allow the arguing player to shine like -he- would want to. The plans created by player 3, by the way, would remove any option for deviation or individual player ingenuity outside of the Plan because the dude's a game developer and has the math of combat down pat.

Meanwhile my husband would interject, briefly, to explain why something would or wouldn't work well.

25 minutes later, we'd roll for initiative.

I dunno about your table, but at mine Analysis Paralysis is a -devastating- enemy.

A couple things come to mind with your situation.

1. It seems like this would already happen regardless at your table? no? I mean does your husband not already interject to tell someone why something would/wouldn't work? If not, why would this be different?

2. This particular rules seems bad for your table, but I'm not sure how you're group gets anything done regardless since, from what your saying they seem to argue and argue with eachother regardless

3. If you already had a rule in place that stops the issues (people telling others how to act) then this would carry over to the new system. People would roll their dice with their own plan in mind, and you'd have to let the dice fall where they lie.

4. You've given me a newfound appreciation for my group where what your describing just doesn't happen.

[DanyBallon]

And just for the record, if you have the Alert feat, you literally lost your +5 initiative bonus.

Not really, it is stated that any bonus to initiative you get, reduce your initiative dice by one step. So an Alert archer, would use a d3 instead of a d4. And concerning Dex, many tried to remove initiative from Dexterity as it benefits for too many things. Still using Greyhawk initiative, you still benefit from being dexterous when more than one character/monster have de same initiative count.

[toapat]

Something strikes me as odd about the deities of Amonket, in that some have names that end in t but references to them use male pronouns. In this very Egyptian-inspired setting, some observance to names ending in t being feminine would have been nice (see also: Bast, Sekmet, and Aset - the non-Grecian name of Isis - for three examples).

Catmom, The Dogemother, and T8r G8r are female, Failbird and Liftsnake are male

Nicol Bolas in his Nicol Bolasing of the plane really screwed with the Akmonkhetti divines.

Id go contact the egyptologist that noted the correct plurality. she can probably explain mistakes

[sir_argo]

Not really, it is stated that any bonus to initiative you get, reduce your initiative dice by one step. So an Alert archer, would use a d3 instead of a d4. And concerning Dex, many tried to remove initiative from Dexterity as it benefits for too many things. Still using Greyhawk initiative, you still benefit from being dexterous when more than one character/monster have de same initiative count.

I think that spending a feat to go from a d4 to a d3 is pretty indicative of how screwed you get.

I am a fighter. I took Alert and was used to winning initiative routinely. I used to be able to win initiate and charge to engage those pesky ranged guys. Now, even with the Alert feat, I'm 1d8+1d6 vs. their 1d4. I lose almost all the time. I went from winning initiative most of the time, to losing initiative almost all the time.

Meanwhile, the archer, who took Alert to aid in winning initiative. Now, all archers have a 1d4 initiative by default. They go first almost all the time anyway. Oh, but he took that feat to lower his initiative from a d4 to a d3. Sorry, that's a waste. He now looks at Alert as a wasted feat.

I stand by what I said. Some characters benefit. Some characters get nerfed. No effort was made to re-balance. Not a problem in a new campaign. It is a problem in an existing campaign.

[JackPhoenix]

In sunday's game, my players tried to steal an airship. The ensuing battle involved about 20 enemies total (as the alarm was raised and the characters took long enough for the security to arrive, it was 3 encounters worth of enemies), counting the guards at the tower, the "security complement" aboard the ship, the crewmembers, the captain and ship's mage/engineer. Now, they weren't involved all at once, between the crew running from inside the ship to join the fight, wounded enemies retreating and incoming enemy reinforcements.

I don't want to even imagine what insane slog it would be if I had to roll (and remember) initiative for each of them every round depending on their actions... there were archers, melee combatants (one of them using two weapons), spellcaster, unarmed crewmen trying to help through grappling and pushing the PC's overboard, and everyone moving around half the time. And the PCs themselves.

[McNinja]

Good god. If you need this many pages to explain a change to an already basic system, then you need to scrap the change and start over. This is absolutely absurd.

[Telwar]

I did derive some amusement value about the example player complaining about the dodginess of the system.

But this really seems like it's mostly going to discourage any attempt to adapt to changing circumstances, like trying to heal someone who went down or intercepting a monster that suddenly turned out to be much more of a threat than you realized.

As Jack points out (edit: almost) immediately above, it's going to be a nightmare if you're running a large fight, though I guess you can just clump mobs together and have them machine-gun down one PC at a time in mass fire all choose the same action.

But really, I don't see a point to this. Not that I see much to anything they've flopped out this edition, but this seems like a solution in search of a problem, and even then only if you mistake "player frustration" for "drama."

[toapat]

obligatory angry DM link regarding alternate initiatives and whether they slow the game down: http://angrydm.com/2015/02/fine-i-wrote-about-speed-factor-initiative-in-dd-5e/

ok, pulling out my DMG, cross referencing against that post, Mearls seems to have Drunkenly hamfisted up the same system with half the elegance and a complete incompatability with the Initiative Score variant

[Cybren]

ok, pulling out my DMG, cross referencing against that post, Mearls seems to have Drunkenly hamfisted up the same system with half the elegance and a complete incompatability with the Initiative Score variant

Mearls definitely likes dice a lot. I think part of the idea is counting up and classifying action by die size makes things play quicker

[toapat]

Mearls definitely likes dice a lot. I think part of the idea is counting up and classifying action by die size makes things play quicker

ah yes, because referencing dice mistakes like my sweet Blue/Red Marbled pearl with gold lettering dice is faster than just taking a base +6-15 Ini and modifying based on weapon and spellcasting

[Steampunkette]

A couple things come to mind with your situation.

1. It seems like this would already happen regardless at your table? no? I mean does your husband not already interject to tell someone why something would/wouldn't work? If not, why would this be different?

2. This particular rules seems bad for your table, but I'm not sure how you're group gets anything done regardless since, from what your saying they seem to argue and argue with eachother regardless

3. If you already had a rule in place that stops the issues (people telling others how to act) then this would carry over to the new system. People would roll their dice with their own plan in mind, and you'd have to let the dice fall where they lie.

4. You've given me a newfound appreciation for my group where what your describing just doesn't happen.

1. Not really, in combat. Give my players a heads up in advance so they can plan an encounter and analysis paralysis settles in. It's why games like Shadowrun often wind up with planning sessions lasting muuuuuch longer than the actual run does. A problem common enough that there are dozens of articles on how to handle it. So common that the Wikipedia article on the phenomenon has a paragraph on gaming.

Currently in combat each player makes their own independent decisions rather than conferring to decide the best use of their turn.

2. Irrelevant to the topic, degradation of the players. Don't be insulting.

3. No. It wouldn't. The "New System" is designed to encourage groups to plan things out together. I have no rule about talking on other people's turns, it's just not something that happens often because they do their own things. When someone does get into personal analysis paralysis, particularly the Immortal Mystic, they sometimes ask one player for advice, but because of the lack of 4 person crosstalk planning it tends to be very brief.

4. Good for you.

[Ugganaut]

This would be unparalleled as a sleeping aid.

Thanks for the giggle Merch :)

[Foxhound438]

read through it, and good f***ing god is it a hot mess. Even worse than a soup sandwich.

[Foxhound438]

I just banned normal initiative in favor of side initiative a few months ago because I hated how initiative slows things down. You'd need to put a gun to my head to make me run this system, and I'd still have to think about it.

"you know what, just end it. There's not enough good in the world that could ever make up for what one session of this would do."

[Jerrykhor]

My problem is, they seem to think ranged attacks are x2 faster than melee attacks. Also, doesnt matter if you move 5 ft or 50ft, you still roll a d6.

They also think all spells are so powerful that they need a d10, totally ignoring the fact most attack cantrips are just range attacks.

[Anonymouswizard]

If you must do something like this, how about:

Each turn everyone rolls initative based on what they want to do, then reduce the total by their initiative bonus (lowest total goes first):
Using an action: +1d8
Using movement: +1d6
Using a bonus action: +1d4
Using an interaction: +1d2
Using a reaction: No cost

Not paying the die cost for one of these means it is not available for you to use that turn.
You can pay the die cost for an action then decide not to use it of course, leaving your options open delays you a little and you end up going later in the order.

I'd want the option to downgrade a move action to a bonus, otherwise this is far, far better than what we got.


Mearls definitely likes dice a lot. I think part of the idea is counting up and classifying action by die size makes things play quicker

Sure, because looking for where your d4 went and rolling your d8 three times, assuming you're like most players I know and only have​ one of them, is going to be faster than picking up the d20 you were using for skill checks five minutes ago. You know, most games don't even require more than one type of die these days, dice juggling just slows play down.

Plus if I want to play Traveller Yhartzee gives me more than enough dice. I like d10s as much as the next gamer, bit is easier to get into the game of you can raid Monopoly instead of buying in funny shaped dice.

[JellyPooga]

Sooo...this system suggests that a stationary plate armoured greatsword wielder should almost always go before a fast-moving, mobile skirmisher?

These initiative rules really hammer anyone that a) wants to move, b) uses bonus actions and c) is even thinking about changing weapons. Good luck to all those Rogues and Monks out there.

Seriously badly thought out. Pass.

Want turn and action based initiative? Base it on the actions taken in the previous turn, with the first turn being as per normal rules (and things like Alert only appying to the 1st turn, perhaps). That way, you can calculate your next turns initiative dice as you go, don't get "wasted" actions and don't have arguments over who gets to choose their actions for the turn first. Sounds more "tactical" to me than spending 5 minutes at the start of each turn deciding who's doing what. On top of that, let's not penalise characters for abilities that are supposed to give the impression of being fast and agile, shall we? Taking a bonus action is supposed to be a good thing, not a way to get shot before you get a chance to act. Initiative die type should also be based on existing rules like the Heavy and Finesse properties, not on whether they're ranged or not; it'd give a reason to use a short bow over a long bow, at least (proficiency aside).

[Vaz]

I prefer a single chocolate bar off the shelf to a dozen unwrapped in a cow pasture.

Your analogy doesn't quite work when you've still got 3 chocolate bars off the shelf in 3.5 compared to 5e in your analogy.

[tkuremento]

Sooo...this system suggests that a stationary plate armoured greatsword wielder should almost always go before a fast-moving, mobile skirmisher?

These initiative rules really hammer anyone that a) wants to move, b) uses bonus actions and c) is even thinking about changing weapons. Good luck to all those Rogues and Monks out there.

Seriously badly thought out. Pass.

Want turn and action based initiative? Base it on the actions taken in the previous turn, with the first turn being as per normal rules (and things like Alert only appying to the 1st turn, perhaps). That way, you can calculate your next turns initiative dice as you go, don't get "wasted" actions and don't have arguments over who gets to choose their actions for the turn first. Sounds more "tactical" to me than spending 5 minutes at the start of each turn deciding who's doing what. On top of that, let's not penalise characters for abilities that are supposed to give the impression of being fast and agile, shall we? Taking a bonus action is supposed to be a good thing, not a way to get shot before you get a chance to act. Initiative die type should also be based on existing rules like the Heavy and Finesse properties, not on whether they're ranged or not; it'd give a reason to use a short bow over a long bow, at least (proficiency aside).

Honestly ^^^this^^^ makes a bit more sense.


I mean really what I'm seeing with the UA as is is almost a tick system except distinct rounds still exist and actions are lumped together instead of waiting X ticks before you get another action depending on what it is. Do you think this could work well as a tick system? Heck, I don't look around homebrew much but has someone already done any tick systems?

[DanyBallon]

I still need to try and test it, but I think Mearl's Greyhawk Initiative works best if you factor the weapon speed variant. This way a crossbow ranged attacker as less chance to go first than someone using a rapier. any unnarmed strike would use 1d4 (to have some measure of randomness and allow feats like Alert to have an effect). Monks would use 1d4 for unnarmed attacks no matter that their unnarmed damage increases with levels.

I still believe that for ease of use, movement should be part of your turn whatever action you choose to do.

I think there's is a lot of variant to try and it would be fun to test.

[tkuremento]

So if you look at the Weapon Speed Variant for this UA, doesn't it make something like blowgun with Sharpshooter sorta alright? You only add a 1 to initiative per attack! At level 20 fighter you'd only have to roll 2d6+4 for 4 attacks, a move, and a bonus action (assuming said bonus action doesn't do something that requires a different die.) And with Sharpshooter and let's say maxed out dex of 20, you'd still be doing 16 damage (1 + 10 + 5) per shot. Sure, it'd be at the -5 attack cause of sharpshooter but you've got plenty to cover that hole up.

[Kane0]

I'd want the option to downgrade a move action to a bonus, otherwise this is far, far better than what we got.


Heh, thanks. Only took me 2 minutes too! I was thinking dropping or ditching the cost for movement though, but i suppose it makes a certain sort of sense to say that charging and swinging your axe about takes slightly longer than just swinging.

[rollingForInit]

I dislike this for a lot of reasons. It's more complicated, will bog down combat with a serious amount of more dice rolls. It'll take a lot of planning at the start of each round to decide what to do, and even more when things change and you can no longer do what you intended. It works poorly with builds that are intended to have great initiative (e.g. a Swashbuckler with Alert).

There are two things that I like, and one that I don't think is bad:

1) Making Dexterity less of a God-stat. This is good, in my opinion. However, it would be solved much easier by just removing Dexterity as a modifier to Initiatve. Or by allowing something like Dex OR Wis OR Int. Or making up some other static bonus.

2) It adds variety to the initaitive order, makes things less predictable. Not really good, but not bad either. It's a matter of taste, and I can really understand that it could be fun. But again, it feels like an overly complicated way to do it. Why not just roll the regular initiative at the start of each round? It's simpler, goes faster, it's just the one die.

3) That different types of actions take different amounts of time to complete. I don't personally like this, but I guess I can see why some people would. But it also feels a bit convoluted, and I'm not a fan of having to plan out the entire round in detail. Seems like there should be easier ways to make spellcasting slower (for example). Maybe say that spells are cast at the turn as normal, but their effects don't take place until initiative 0. A bit more complicated, but at least it skips all these different dice. But I dunno, not a fan of the idea to start with.

[DanyBallon]

So if you look at the Weapon Speed Variant for this UA, doesn't it make something like blowgun with Sharpshooter sorta alright? You only add a 1 to initiative per attack! At level 20 fighter you'd only have to roll 2d6+4 for 4 attacks, a move, and a bonus action (assuming said bonus action doesn't do something that requires a different die.) And with Sharpshooter and let's say maxed out dex of 20, you'd still be doing 16 damage (1 + 10 + 5) per shot. Sure, it'd be at the -5 attack cause of sharpshooter but you've got plenty to cover that hole up.

I think it's fine, a 20th level rogue that move, sneak attack with a shortsword and disengage will be at 3d6 which if he's lucky can be faster than our 20th level blowgun fighter and will be doing similar damage if he land his sneak attack.

As for myself, I'd prefer to set a minimum dice (unarmed damage is 1 as well) for each weapon, what should be the minimum is debatable. I think 1d4 gives a good range without making you too slow. 1d2 or 1d3 could be better for some weapons.

[Willywilliamrtx]

Let's not forget they had Great Weapon Fighting only apply to the Weapon damage dice RAI, because the rolling of those extra dice slows down the pace of the game and ''nobody want to sit there waiting for people to roll more dice''.

Now they bring out this article which makes EVERY PC roll extra dice every single round, along with having pre-combat strategy meetings that clog up gametime.

But hey, that's just my skewed observation of how arguments on core rules are being tossed out of the window now.

[DanyBallon]

I need to ask, to all those who complains about this options slowing down the game; have you tried it?

And to all others complaining about it adds complexity to the game and it's a departure from 5 design philosophy; you're right, but UA is for throwing out ideas and testing them out. Sometimes the devs use UA as small playtest material for future release like they did with the subclasses, but sometimes they're just throwing rules options for those who want to try something different. This UA is of the later type.

As for myself, I prefer this kind of UA over the playtest one, and I quite happy with these rules. Will I use them in a regular game? probably not, but I'll definitely run a few one shot to try them out, and to try some modifications I can think of.

[Willywilliamrtx]

I need to ask, to all those who complains about this options slowing down the game; have you tried it?

And to all others complaining about it adds complexity to the game and it's a departure from 5 design philosophy; you're right, but UA is for throwing out ideas and testing them out. Sometimes the devs use UA as small playtest material for future release like they did with the subclasses, but sometimes they're just throwing rules options for those who want to try something different. This UA is of the later type.

As for myself, I prefer this kind of UA over the playtest one, and I quite happy with these rules. Will I use them in a regular game? probably not, but I'll definitely run a few one shot to try them out, and to try some modifications I can think of.

The entire problem with this is that 5E as a whole is designed to spend the least amount of time possible on rolling dice. Sure, there's a few options that stray from this somewhat (Lucky feat, Great Weapon Fighting, Savage Attacker) - But even these are all rules to only apply to a die roll once, and the latter even only on the weapon's damage dice (no Flame Tongue damage, Sneak Attack etc etc) because (and I quote) "rerolling dice takes too long and slows down the pace of the game". - Jeremy Crawford, Sage Advice

This UA throws those design choices entirely out of the window (and as a mainly Two-Handed Paladin player makes me a bit salty that I can't reroll Smite Damage dice because it'd slow combat down but having every creature rolling and calculating their initiative every single round apparantly doesn't).

[RSP]

I think the things I like least about this system are the meta-gaming between players as they decide their actions, it forces the DM to go with less enemies (rather than plan/roll for mobs), and I'm still not sure how the DM vs Players planning dynamic would work.

Does the DM listen to the Players plan and then plan the enemies' actions (giving significant advantage to the DM/monsters), or do they plan separately which risks the players coming up with a plan the DM nixes (as in "no, you wouldn't be able to do that because the tables in the way...").

Just seems like a meta game mess.

[DanyBallon]

The entire problem with this is that 5E as a whole is designed to spend the least amount of time possible on rolling dice. Sure, there's a few options that stray from this somewhat (Lucky feat, Great Weapon Fighting, Savage Attacker) - But even these are all rules to only apply to a die roll once, and the latter even only on the weapon's damage dice (no Flame Tongue damage, Sneak Attack etc etc) because (and I quote) "rerolling dice takes too long and slows down the pace of the game". - Jeremy Crawford, Sage Advice

This UA throws those design choices entirely out of the window (and as a mainly Two-Handed Paladin player makes me a bit salty that I can't reroll Smite Damage dice because it'd slow combat down but having every creature rolling and calculating their initiative every single round apparantly doesn't).

I agree with you, but this UA is not meant to replace the actual initiative rules in an upcoming reprint of the PHB, it's only an initiative variant for those who wants to add a touch of randomness and complexity to their games. Since this won't see any prints, UA is the best medium to offer theses rules to the community. Like I previously said, not all UA are meant to be playtest for upcoming product release and this one is definitely not playtest material.
It's only a bone thrown to those who find the current initiative rules boring or too predictable and that don't mind adding a level of complexity to their game.

[jaappleton]

I agree with you, but this UA is not meant to replace the actual initiative rules in an upcoming reprint of the PHB, it's only an initiative variant for those who wants to add a touch of randomness and complexity to their games. Since this won't see any prints, UA is the best medium to offer theses rules to the community. Like I previously said, not all UA are meant to be playtest for upcoming product release and this one is definitely not playtest material.
It's only a bone thrown to those who find the current initiative rules boring or too predictable and that don't mind adding a level of complexity to their game.

Emphasis mine.

While I agree that UA is the best medium to present material like this, we were told numerous times that UA for the summer would be for refinement of the UA rush we got from fall-spring, as the finishing touches are put on Xan's Guide.

So, I ask again: What the **** is this?

If there's another shoe to drop, if this turns out to be some sort of bonus article and another article with player options or something is arriving on Monday, fine. Whatever. Cool beans. But right now?

I say again: What the **** is this?

[DanyBallon]

Emphasis mine.

While I agree that UA is the best medium to present material like this, we were told numerous times that UA for the summer would be for refinement of the UA rush we got from fall-spring, as the finishing touches are put on Xan's Guide.

So, I ask again: What the **** is this?

If there's another shoe to drop, if this turns out to be some sort of bonus article and another article with player options or something is arriving on Monday, fine. Whatever. Cool beans. But right now?

I say again: What the **** is this?

Maybe they feel like they have enough data from the playtest earlier this year, or that they are putting the final touch for the next playtest UA, but even if they stated that they would do more refinement over the summer, I didn't expected too much out of it, as usually the print cycle of a book request they send to the printer about 3-4 months before hitting the shelves, and before that they should already have the editing all done. So July is already late for doing any changes. I'm sorry to tell you so, but your expectations were to high (you can blame WotC for upping them though).

As far as "What the **** is this?" It's a article that fit perfectly in the UA mandate. It's not what you were expecting, but it not garbage as you make it sounds.

edit:
Not targeting you here, but I'm always amazed that people these day, forget that producing good takes times. They want high quality, immediately and at a low price, but unfortunately as the saying goes, you can only have two of these.
In order to keep cost as low as possible while producing quality products, many company deals with China to produce their goods (that's especially true with WotC and Paizo printing their RPG books, Apple is doing the same too). While keeping the cost low and keeping quality, this have a huge impact on delivery times as the products needs to be shipped by ships, and those aren't too fast. So you need to consider roughly a month for shipping through China to USA (and luckily WotC is on the west coast so a shorter sea trip), then you need at least a few days to ship from the west coast warehouse through America in order to have the same release date for everyone. Add 2 weeks between the prerelease and official release date, we already have almost 2 months accounted for. Printing can take up to a month easily, so this mean that if Xanathar's Guide is plan to hit the streets mid November, the final proof should be sent no later than mid-august. Editing take some times, more when you do last minutes changes like those that come from late playtest. Hence why I don't think we will see any more playtest UA for anything going into Xan book

[jaappleton]

I totally understand that editing and printing takes time. I've no doubt the book is 95% complete at this point, and its awaiting finishing touches.

But Mearls spoke of his alternate Initiative system in his AMA.
Then he opened up more about it on Twitter.
And he did a full interview about it.
And its in this UA.

I mean... What the hell? How many platforms does he need to talk about this?

[DanyBallon]

I totally understand that editing and printing takes time. I've no doubt the book is 95% complete at this point, and its awaiting finishing touches.

But Mearls spoke of his alternate Initiative system in his AMA.
Then he opened up more about it on Twitter.
And he did a full interview about it.
And its in this UA.

I mean... What the hell? How many platforms does he need to talk about this?

Well it's the first time I heard of it. I'm not on twitter and don't like Reddit forums so it may be the reason I missed the AMA.
UA articles are the place I'm going to get playtest material and variant to test. I must not be the only one to do so.

[Misterwhisper]

I totally understand that editing and printing takes time. I've no doubt the book is 95% complete at this point, and its awaiting finishing touches.

But Mearls spoke of his alternate Initiative system in his AMA.
Then he opened up more about it on Twitter.
And he did a full interview about it.
And its in this UA.

I mean... What the hell? How many platforms does he need to talk about this?

As many as it takes until he gets enough people to tell him they like it.

Mike never gives up on an idea, even if it is a horrible idea.

Mike is obsessed with first person shooters.
He tried to get gunslinger in as a class.
People said no.
He created a gunslinger fighter archetype.
People said no.
Finally he came up with artificer, and when they needed another subclass what do you know, a gunslinger.

If you are a big video game fan it is pretty obvious he rips off a ton of them to make about half his stuff.

Bloodhunter: witches
Hexblade: Witcher and about 5 other thkngs.
Tomb of Levistus is exactly Mai's ice block from Overwatch.

He completely ruined 4th edition by trying to turn it into MMO mechanics, and trying to stick his Mary Sue Raven Queen into just about everything.

[Gryndle]

Well it's the first time I heard of it. I'm not on twitter and don't like Reddit forums so it may be the reason I missed the AMA.
UA articles are the place I'm going to get playtest material and variant to test. I must not be the only one to do so.

there was a post with links here about a month ago. I don't do twitter or reddit, I barely do Facebook. But I did read through this a month ago. and after arguing in this thread even went back and read this mess of a UA again. And no I haven't played this particular version. I have tried initiative variants that include declaration phases, speed factors, casting times and other such, and hated them. Now he introduces a system like that, only replacing static modifiers with dice that change by action(s) taken and type, weapon type and may easily result in your character having no action to take on their turn.

I will reiterate my opinions:
On the Initiative variant in UA: I personally think it is trash. its just more static to throw at a game table to grind action to a halt. I want things to speed up the mechanics of play, so the players can focus on the action, not the meta-planning of action. This alone makes it a bad UA article, but in and of itself is no reason to get angry. It is not the source of most of our vitriol.

On the way Mearls has hawked this system via different platforms and UA: I think it was a trashy move. Either just downright poor decision making or outright douche-nozzelness. This is what I and I think most of the others that are angry, are actually angry about.

My honest hope is that there is enough negative feedback that he or someone at WotC learns from it and do better in the future. That hope is likely in vain, but oh well.

I want my post UA survey.

[DanyBallon]

there was a post with links here about a month ago. I don't do twitter or reddit, I barely do Facebook. But I did read through this a month ago. and after arguing in this thread even went back and read this mess of a UA again. And no I haven't played this particular version. I have tried initiative variants that include declaration phases, speed factors, casting times and other such, and hated them. Now he introduces a system like that, only replacing static modifiers with dice that change by action(s) taken and type, weapon type and may easily result in your character having no action to take on their turn.

I will reiterate my opinions:
On the Initiative variant in UA: I personally think it is trash. its just more static to throw at a game table to grind action to a halt. I want things to speed up the mechanics of play, so the players can focus on the action, not the meta-planning of action. This alone makes it a bad UA article, but in and of itself is no reason to get angry. It is not the source of most of our vitriol.

On the way Mearls has hawked this system via different platforms and UA: I think it was a trashy move. Either just downright poor decision making or outright douche-nozzelness. This is what I and I think most of the others that are angry, are actually angry about.

My honest hope is that there is enough negative feedback that he or someone at WotC learns from it and do better in the future. That hope is likely in vain, but oh well.

I want my post UA survey.

Then, it's not just for you, like most subclasses UA aren't for me, or the Traps UA didn't appeal to those who wants players options, but UA is not about pleasing everyone, it's about trying different things for different playstyle. It's mostly hits and miss, but it's part of the nature of UA.

[Fach]

I gave this a try when he was talking about it on twitter. My impression was, it changed the flow of combat. With the current system, most combat is punctuated by pauses and narrative freeze frames because a player will take an action, the DM will describe it, another player will take an action, the DM will describe it, a third player will take an action, the DM will describe it, and so on. Whereas with this system all the players take their action first, then the DM has a block of time to describe the entire round of combat from start to finish.

Personally I've never thought that was a problem so I'm not going to use this rule ever again, and even if I did this is a clunky way of implementing the idea. It basically turns the combat into something similar to a PBP game, where all the players describe their actions first and then the DM makes one big post that narrates the round.

[jaappleton]

As many as it takes until he gets enough people to tell him they like it.

Mike never gives up on an idea, even if it is a horrible idea.

Mike is obsessed with first person shooters.
He tried to get gunslinger in as a class.
People said no.
He created a gunslinger fighter archetype.
People said no.
Finally he came up with artificer, and when they needed another subclass what do you know, a gunslinger.

If you are a big video game fan it is pretty obvious he rips off a ton of them to make about half his stuff.

Bloodhunter: witches
Hexblade: Witcher and about 5 other thkngs.
Tomb of Levistus is exactly Mai's ice block from Overwatch.

He completely ruined 4th edition by trying to turn it into MMO mechanics, and trying to stick his Mary Sue Raven Queen into just about everything.

.......While Mearls is an avid video game fan (Undying Light Warlock was made while he was on a Destiny binge), I can't help but think you're confusing him with Critical Role's DM, Matthew Mercer. He made the Bloodhunter, and converted the Gunslinger as a Fighter archetype from his Pathfinder game.

Mearls made the Hexblade and Tomb of Levistus, but remember the Hexblade was something he also did in 4E with his Essentials line.

[Gryndle]

Then, it's not just for you, like most subclasses UA aren't for me, or the Traps UA didn't appeal to those who wants players options, but UA is not about pleasing everyone, it's about trying different things for different playstyle. It's mostly hits and miss, but it's part of the nature of UA.

and if it were a UA article ALONE I think most of us would be content to do the usual internet trash talk and move on. See, I don't like the content of the article. and that's ok. that's the part we agree on.

It's the fact that MnM has been puking this out to us via four (I think) different platforms over the last month, including UA, taking up this month's UA article as well that has me peeved. I think even if I had liked the content I would still be annoyed at the way he has handled it.

[Cybren]

The entire problem with this is that 5E as a whole is designed to spend the least amount of time possible on rolling dice. Sure, there's a few options that stray from this somewhat (Lucky feat, Great Weapon Fighting, Savage Attacker) - But even these are all rules to only apply to a die roll once, and the latter even only on the weapon's damage dice (no Flame Tongue damage, Sneak Attack etc etc) because (and I quote) "rerolling dice takes too long and slows down the pace of the game". - Jeremy Crawford, Sage Advice

This UA throws those design choices entirely out of the window (and as a mainly Two-Handed Paladin player makes me a bit salty that I can't reroll Smite Damage dice because it'd slow combat down but having every creature rolling and calculating their initiative every single round apparantly doesn't).

5E is still complex, any game with its size will be. The thing is choosing where you want to apply your complexity, which is why it's an optional rule.

[toapat]

I still need to try and test it, but I think Mearl's Greyhawk Initiative works best if you factor the weapon speed variant.

it works best if you take it, and throw it in the toxic waste receptical and set it on fire.

This variant has all of the function of Speed Factor Ini with none of the elegance in execution. Speed factor can at least be mastered and doesnt use entirely arbitrary decrees of mike mearls.

[EvilAnagram]

Your analogy doesn't quite work when you've still got 3 chocolate bars off the shelf in 3.5 compared to 5e in your analogy.

I think you're having difficulty wrapping your head around the analogy. Maybe reread it?

You see, the chocolate bars are good supplements because chocolate is good. The cow pats are the bad supplements. I am implying that the fact that they managed to put out a few decent books does not make up for all of the crap sticking to them.

There are no 3.5 chocolate bars on the shelf because 3.5 is the pasture, and they don't bother with shelves or wrappings. They just toss those chocolate bars right into the pasture. Sure, maybe that one was a Snickers, and Snickers is your favorite chocolate bar, but that chocolate bar is in the middle of a field covered in cow feces.

Now, maybe 5e doesn't have any Snickers, but they have a Milky Way right there on display for everyone to see, no cow pats at all.

Sure, they overstock on those Forgotten Realms flavored Skittles, and most of us are sick of it and want to see some Starburst or a Twizzler, but we're not about to wade through that pasture picking Twizzlers off the ground.

[strangebloke]

I don't hate this quite to the extent that everyone else does...

But I think its bad. There are some good ideas here (first and foremost being that it encourages players to actuallythink about their turn beforehand, instead of rotating around to them and having them go 'uh... let me check my spell list.') but they're buried under questionable design decisions.

A: no dice. everything has a flat cost. Rolling adds nothing to this system.
B: melee and ranged attacks should have switched costs. Such that melee attack(2) < ranged attack(4) < melee attack + move(5). This will allow ranged attackers to be faster sometimes, and melee attackers to be faster sometimes.
C: bonus actions should be something like base cost -2, since the whole point of a bonus action is that you're doing it more quickly than normal.
D: If it gets to your turn and you can't do anything, you can delay your initiative to take another action. (IE, if you had planned on just attacking, but now need to move before attacking, you can delay your turn by 3 initiative and take a move as well.)
E: Alert should just grant an -5 for the first round of combat.
F: Cantrips should have the same cost as ranged attacks.

I... think that covers it? I guess its a little more convoluted, but a fair bit more balanced and streamlined as well.

[strangebloke]

Your analogy doesn't quite work when you've still got 3 chocolate bars off the shelf in 3.5 compared to 5e in your analogy.

see, the issue wasn't that there was no good stuff.

The issue was that there were hundreds of options, which were aesthetically cool, but mechanically were total traps. This meant that new players ended up with totally horrible characters that couldn't do what they were designed to do, and got frustrated with the totally paradoxical advice.

You want to play a drunken master? DON'T use the 'drunken master' PRC. In fact, don't even play a monk. Play a swordsage who doesn't use a sword.

You want to play a grappler? Once again, don't play the PRC designed to do that specific thing. That PRC will actually make you worse at grappling.

Don't use turn undead attempts against undead. Use them to power metamagic abilities via DMM.

The very worst-balanced UA that has ever come out, the Lore Wizard, is more balanced than anything in 3e, possibly accepting Tome of Battle. 3e was sloppy work from start to finish. I liked having tons of options, but the game was basically unplayable without significant homebrew.

THE MONK WASN'T PROFICIENT WITH UNARMED STRIKES FOR CRYING OUT LOUD.

Conversely, I've introduced five players to TTRPGs using 5e. I helped them all with character creation, but in all instances I was able to say. "Don't sweat this decision, go with what you think is aesthetically cool. All the options are good in their own way." That's very valuable for players who don't obsessively memorize splatbooks.

[miburo]

I saw what I thought was a really great take on Greyhawk Initiative over at reddit's 5e site:

https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/6mlzpu/tinkering_with_greyhawk_initiative/

Basically, the poster changed it so that you only ever roll one die at any time (basically the worst initiative die out of your actions), weapon initiative is based on damage dice whether ranged or melee, and spells have a flat d12 die. Also you can change your action, but that forces you to roll an extra die (based on the action) to simulate the hesitation in changing your action. Ties are won by the creature with higher dex (or d20 roll-off if the same dex)

This proposal works a lot better. It is much simpler in terms of dice, and it doesn't unfairly penalize melee characters or the use of bonus actions. It still nerfs the use of Alert feat or things like Jack of All Trades (to add 1/2 proficiency bonus to init roll).


Also sidenote--did anyone notice that the example characters Mike Mearls used (Rath, Delsenora, Rupert) are some of the iconic characters in the revised 2nd edition AD&D handbook from the old TSR days? I thought that was a cool blast from the past.

[Cybren]

I'm pretty sure some form of rolling is necessary to the system working at all. Even standard initiative involves rolling.

[strangebloke]

I'm pretty sure some form of rolling is necessary to the system working at all. Even standard initiative involves rolling.

Hm. You are right. Maybe just one roll then? a d10 for everyone? Maybe only roll it once, and have it apply for all rounds? I'm just trying to figure out how to minimize the amount of rolling here.

The highest value I can anticipate for a given round using my rework would be. ranged attack(4) + movement(3) + bonus action spell(3) for a total of ten. The lowest would be a simple melee attack and nothing else.

[toapat]

I don't hate this quite to the extent that everyone else does...

i hated it as stupid design and a waste of a UA before i referenced the Angry DM and DMG 270/271. After reading the blog post linked on page i wonder if Mike Mearls shouldnt be removed from executive power

to compare, what the DMG takes a 1/2 page to do, mearls takes 3 pages.

there are advantages to standard initiative, there are advantages to speed factor, there are no advantages to making nerds roll as many impulse buy dice that have horrible readability as they roll for combat damage.


The very worst-balanced UA that has ever come out, the Lore Wizard, is more balanced than anything in 3e, possibly accepting Tome of Battle. 3e was sloppy work from start to finish. I liked having tons of options, but the game was basically unplayable without significant homebrew.

uh, no. Lore Wizard is actually more overpowered than some of the cheesiest stuff in 3.5 a properly built Lore Wizard can kill a Circle of the Moon druid at lvl 20 using just magic missile

Tome of battle isnt internally poorly balanced, its actually able to play the damn game as written. the problem is when you compare it to other books which offered real opportunity for other classes to gain access to their systems. Incarnum lets you snipe a soulbind for its passive benefit in a massive way, the Binder class is essentially irrelevant because their entire spell system is free through feats. Psionics offers many PrCs to get into.

tome of battle doesnt really offer any way of compensating anyone but the warblade, swordsage, and strictly worse paladin

[Cybren]

one of the things mearls was trying to incorporate was a count-up system. The speed factor variant in the DMG is like regular initiative, where you go from highest to lowest. The idea of count up is that it makes the variable initiative scores each round easier to parse, by just counting from one up until every character had a turn

[Steampunkette]

Different Initiative idea to play into the "Changing Combat"

Step 1: Roll Initiative Normally.

Step 2: Act Normally

Step 3: Roll an initiative dice based on what action you took.

Step 4: Reduce your initiative in the next turn by the value you rolled on the initiative die.

Step 5: When your initiative would hit 0, wrap around to 20 and continue subtracting any remaining value.


Initiative Dice Sizes
Cast a Spell: Dice based on Spell Level. Cantrip d4, 1st and 2nd d6, 3rd-6th d8, 7-8 d10, 9th d12.
Weapon Attack: Damage Dice of the Weapon (Dual Wielders or people using multiple weapons during their turn choose which die to use on a given turn)
Unarmed Attack: 1d4 or the dice of damage dealt, character's choice.
Interaction: d6 for interacting with the environment, drawing a weapon, etc.
Dodging and Combat Maneuvers: d8 (Like Grappling)
Dashing: d4

Only your "Main Action" is relevant to the initiative die. You don't wind up rolling multiple dice each turn.

Example:

Billy the Bard has an initiative count of 4. He is fighting against a group of kobolds on initiative count 10. Billy is a dual-wielder with a Rapier in his main hand and a Dagger in his offhand. He rolls his attacks normally on the kobolds, and chooses to use the Rapier's initiative die to reduce his initiative. He could've chosen the dagger, but with the Rapier he's got a better chance of looping around to a higher initiative than the kobolds, effectively getting an "Extra Turn" before they can react. In the following round he again uses dual-wielding attacks, but reduces his initiative using the Dagger's d4, prolonging his turn advantage over the Kobolds.

Mara the Magnificent plans to blast the kobolds on initiative 14. But she's worried about dropping below their initiative before Billy can get ahead of them, so rather than casting a Sleep Spell (and rolling a d6) she settles in on using a Cantrip.

Tyrone the Brutal and has an initiative of 11. He knows he'll probably go after the kobolds in the next turn, regardless of his action, so he grabs his longsword in both hands to swing with a d10 in the hopes of hurrying past their initiative count and getting ahead of them, in subsequent rounds.

Meanwhile the Valkyrie Velma knows with her initiative of 20 it'll be at least 2 rounds before the Kobolds (Using d6 weapons) can get ahead of her on initiative, so she pulls out all the stops on her spellcasting and drops a 5th level spell on them.


Benefits:
Using this system initiative positions change, increasing the chaos of combat, without shafting anyone out of their turns or requiring a bunch of pre-roll argument or debate over actions. The Drama is still there, since you could wind up trapped behind the initiative of someone hurting you, or get the break away roll you need to get out of a bad situation. It also adds a tactical choice that favors Dual Wielding characters and characters wielding Versatile weapons, since they have greater choice in how their initiative is modified.


Variants: Give classes the ability to modify die sizes. Have Barbarians in rage reduce all die sizes by 1. Let monks Dash faster than other characters by making it always a 1 point change. Allow Sorcerer Metamagics to change the impact. Make the Haste spell modify initiative. Feats might also change how much, or how little, a given activity affects your initiative.

[Cybren]

That's substantially more complicated than Mearls document, which, maybe it's necessary to lean into the complexity to make the system work, but i want to playtest the UA as is and see how it works

[Dudewithknives]

I find it very odd that one of the ad's Mearls put out for this was about how much he loves rogues and he loves this style because it helps them. However, it makes a rogue, who will be using a bonus action and probably movement every single turn pretty horrible.

[strangebloke]

i hated it as stupid design and a waste of a UA before i referenced the Angry DM and DMG 270/271. After reading the blog post linked on page i wonder if Mike Mearls shouldnt be removed from executive power

to compare, what the DMG takes a 1/2 page to do, mearls takes 3 pages.

there are advantages to standard initiative, there are advantages to speed factor, there are no advantages to making nerds roll as many impulse buy dice that have horrible readability as they roll for combat damage.

I mean, it is bad. Very bad, in fact. UA is always pretty bad so I don't see why this is such a big deal. Mass Combat, the lore wizard, the sucky phoenix sorcerer, the silly undying light warlock... I don't like this much at all but its hardly exceptional.


uh, no. Lore Wizard is actually more overpowered than some of the cheesiest stuff in 3.5 a properly built Lore Wizard can kill a Circle of the Moon druid at lvl 20 using just magic missile

uh, so, I realize that this isn't the place, but... I'm pretty sure to have to multiclass with other UA to do this. UA material is explicitly not balanced for multiclassing with published material, and is certainly not balanced for multiclassing with other UA. Even then, we're talking about a level 20 character killing a sorta tanky level 20 character using a 9th level spell. Overpowered, sure, but...

You ever seen an Ancient Red Dragon get one-shotted by an unoptimized fifth level wizard? Or a tarrasque die to a horde of exploding chickens, generated by a level 1 commoner? Or a hyper-optimized level 20 fighter die to a unoptimzed 10 level cleric? 3e was crazy.

[Vaz]

You ever seen an Ancient Red Dragon get one-shotted by an unoptimized fifth level wizard? Or a tarrasque die to a horde of exploding chickens, generated by a level 1 commoner? Or a hyper-optimized level 20 fighter die to a unoptimzed 10 level cleric? 3e was crazy.
No. Despite 14 years experience.

Also, that experience allows me to say no, in the same way that I don't allow Chain Warlocks to take Demilich's as a Familiar.

[strangebloke]

No. Despite 14 years experience.

Well, I have seen it in only four years of 3e so nyeh. It's a very well-documented combo that 100% works by RAW.

Yes a good DM can make 3e much more balanced by blacklisting certain combos and throwing a dash of homebrew... but I was speaking about the balance of the sourcebooks themselves.

I will reply to any further posts on the subject by PM since I'm way off topic.

[Vaz]

What Commoner? NPC class? Pun Pun? Shut down by 'noping' the wish. Shivering Touch? Spell Immunity, Spellward Shirt, Freedom of Movement, Counterspelling, Wings of Cover, (Craft) contingent lesser restoration... Cleric 10 beating Fighter 20... Eh. As a DM if you're throwing oversized CR1/4's at enemies it's no wonder that they're going to be defeated.

But yeah, sure. The Sky is falling because Warlocks allow Demilich's to be Level 3 familiars in 5e. Oh wait...

[toapat]

You ever seen an Ancient Red Dragon get one-shotted by an unoptimized fifth level wizard? Or a tarrasque die to a horde of exploding chickens, generated by a level 1 commoner? Or a hyper-optimized level 20 fighter die to a unoptimzed 10 level cleric? 3e was crazy.

3rd edition wasnt mathematically planned out like 5E is. its hard to say how broken any singular thing is in the system when we dont have any pillars to extrapolate a baseline from.

5E is built with this kind of math behind it, we can determing how much damage each class should be doing in theory on turn 1 at each level.

[Aett_Thorn]

I honestly don't get the need for a system this complex, just to make combat initiative go differently each turn.

The DM and each player are assigned a number at the start of each session, from 1-N. In this example, let's say that the DM (and therefore, the monsters) is 1, and there are five players, numbered 2-6. Each round, the DM rolls two die: 1d6, and 1d(not a d6). The d6 determines who goes first, based on the number they were assigned at the beginning. The other die tells you if the order goes clockwise or counterclockwise (evens: clockwise, odds: counterclockwise). If there is an odd number of players, they you just go with 1dN+1, and ignore the highest value on the die, rerolling it.

Simple, more effective, and doesn't force you to micromanage your turn at the beginning of each round.

[Hrugner]

Well, at least we have something new to add to those "how can I make humorously tedious rules to bog down my game" threads. This sounds just as bad as it did with the initial pitch.

[MadBear]

1. Not really, in combat. Give my players a heads up in advance so they can plan an encounter and analysis paralysis settles in. It's why games like Shadowrun often wind up with planning sessions lasting muuuuuch longer than the actual run does. A problem common enough that there are dozens of articles on how to handle it. So common that the Wikipedia article on the phenomenon has a paragraph on gaming.

Currently in combat each player makes their own independent decisions rather than conferring to decide the best use of their turn.

2. Irrelevant to the topic, degradation of the players. Don't be insulting.

3. No. It wouldn't. The "New System" is designed to encourage groups to plan things out together. I have no rule about talking on other people's turns, it's just not something that happens often because they do their own things. When someone does get into personal analysis paralysis, particularly the Immortal Mystic, they sometimes ask one player for advice, but because of the lack of 4 person crosstalk planning it tends to be very brief.

4. Good for you.

1&2. So first off, it's not irrelevant to the topic, because what you described was a situation where some players would override other players decisions taking away their agency. In a optional rule that encourages players to talk about an encouter mid-combat it's entirely fair to say that this optional rule doesn't sound right for your group. I'm sorry to be insulting, but I'm reacting to the description you gave of your playgroup.

The fact that there are entire articles on analysis paralysis means that there are a large group of gamer's who probably won't enjoy this type of rule. I'm fine with that, and it is not unreasonable to say that it's not for everyone.

3. This is the part that confuses me. Your saying that planning out an action as a group would lead to analysis paralysis, and part of the problem would be dominant players telling other players what they should/shouldn't do. If that is what would happen in your gaming group, then it seems it would follow that it should already happen with players being told by others during their turn what they should do. If it doesn't happen, maybe your fear is unfounded, or maybe you're right. But with the information you've given, your description of the problem isn't matching the actual issue.

[Steampunkette]

Number 2 on your little list was nothing but an insult to my players, which was irrelevant to the discussion.

It sucks you don't understand what I'm telling you. But don't use that misunderstanding to provide an argument because it's founded on nothing.

I stated that it doesn't happen in combat because there's no planning and the players respect each others turns. The analysis paralysis I referred to happens when they plan. Which was the whole point of my talking about them planning stuff and the mention of Shadowrun.

It's great that your group and some groups wouldn't be slowed by this initiative method. But your initial position that it's "Laughably Untrue" that it slows down the game is a crock, and when confronted by people telling you that their groups are not the apparent model of efficiency that your response has been to level insults and essentially roll to disbelieve.

[McNinja]

...Warlocks allow Demilich's to be Level 3 familiars in 5e.

What. Where is this and how do I do it.

[JackPhoenix]

What. Where is this and how do I do it.

Nowhere and you don't.

Unless you ignore the rules and the GM let's you.

[lunaticfringe]

What. Where is this and how do I do it.

I'm AFBs ATM but I think they are talking about the blurb in the NPC section of the MM that states any Spellcaster with Find Familiar can use a tiny monster for their Familiar instead of the ones listed in the spell description. The wording is vague iirc but I always assumed they were talking about NPCs. Like an Archmage using a Flameskull crafted from the head of his rival (which I have done).

Other monsters have a blurb in their stat block, like the Gazer in Volo's. The don't work like the spell though & can leave their master's service at anytime, like when the DM realizes his terrible mistake in allowing a player access to something stupid. No where that I can remember does anything mention allowing a player access to a Demilich familiar, that doesn't even make sense if I'm remembering the broad strokes of the description right.

Also I don't like the UA Initiative and will never use it.

[Vaz]

What. Where is this and how do I do it.

Volo's Guide; Page 213

VARIANT: FAMILIARS
Any spellcaster that can cast the find familiar spell (such as an apprentice, warlock, or wizard) is likely to have a familiar. The familiar can be one of the creatures described in the spell (see the Player's Handbook} or some other Tiny monster, such as a cranium rat, a crawling claw, a gazer,an imp, a pseudodragon, or a quasit.

[greenstone]

… along with having pre-combat strategy meetings that clog up gametime.

In my experience, the strategy meetings already clog up gametime, but scattered across everyones' turns.

Player A asks, questions, GM answers, player A dithers, then finally acts, GM desacribes results, Repeat for player B (often with exactly the same questions because they weren't paying attention< then player C, then…

From my limited playing around with Greyhawk Initiative, the same amount of talking goes on, but it happens all at once, at the beginning of the round. THe combat took the same amount of time, but because it wasn't so stop-start, it felt faster.

[lunaticfringe]

Yeah I don't wanna get into huge debate over the wording but I interpret that as an NPC rule. A hint is that it's in the NPC Appendix for one. It's a copy, paste, edit job from the MM that references the NPC mobs. Volo's added Apprentice, specialist Wizards, and various Warlocks. There is no Apprentice Class, yo. Just like there is no Mage or Archmage if you check the MM version of that Rule Variant (as in entirely optional).

[McNinja]

Nowhere and you don't.

Unless you ignore the rules and the GM let's you.

I could see a high level/epic character doing it. I agree that it'd be OP if a low level character did it, but at the same time a demilich would probably try to dominate the player character. And then kill the entire rest of the party.

[Saeviomage]

There is no part of this initiative system that suggests that Mearls is at all competent at game design. A cursory think through exposes a laundry list of problems:

1. Everyone who fights in melee needs to roll the extra d6 for movement every single round, because otherwise their opponent WILL, will take a 5 foot step, and they will end up out of range and unable to act. Mearls even explicitly references this, so apparently he thinks it's a good thing.
2. Misty step, a bonus action spell, takes more time than drawing and firing a bow multiple times, even if you choose to do nothing at all with your action and remain stationary after/before casting it. In fact it takes more time than simply running 30ft, apparently.
3. Stabbing someone with a dagger held in each hand takes more time to than swinging greatswords and greataxes at them, and much more time than getting an arrow out, loading it into a bow, drawing, aiming and firing.
4. A great many spell effects become effectively nothing, because they only work (ie - are still in effect during your target's turn) if you beat your target in initiative, and spells have the worst initiative. Again, Mearls must think this is a good thing, because he's constructed a somewhat artificial scenario where it doesn't happen.
5. Great weapon master just makes you slower all the time, because you have to budget in the potential bonus action for it's conditional attack.
6. Mucking around with cover wins, because your opponent can no longer ready his action to attack when you stick your head out. You can freely waltz around a corner, shoot a target multiple times, then walk out of sight again, and the only thing anyone can do about it is to charge you.
7. Pop up healing got a lot better. Now if you cast healing word and take another action you can basically guarantee that you'll be acting after the monsters attack, but before death saves are rolled. Also your buddy will get up and act, because he already rolled initiative, all he has to do is delay. Now that might not be RAI, but Mearls should have thought about that and noted something about it.
8. If you can, make sure that every round you do something that requires an action your foe might not have planned for. If you run through a door, and slam it shut, then your foe can't follow you if he forgot to allocate dice to open the door. He'll just run up to the door and stand there, stupidly.

[toapat]

There is no part of this initiative system that suggests that Mearls is at all competent at game design. A cursory think through exposes a laundry list of problems:

and this is why in the normal, not incompetently designed Speed Factor rules, you have fixed numeric modifies that add together and Dont talk about movement, instead only assessing Ini off of your primary action

[Finback]

This time the UA comes with an interview.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfSo4wVkwUw

Gods, you have made me realise that I've been somehow conflating Mike Mearls with Matt Mercer in my head.

[MadBear]

There is no part of this initiative system that suggests that Mearls is at all competent at game design. A cursory think through exposes a laundry list of problems:

1. Everyone who fights in melee needs to roll the extra d6 for movement every single round, because otherwise their opponent WILL, will take a 5 foot step, and they will end up out of range and unable to act. Mearls even explicitly references this, so apparently he thinks it's a good thing.
2. Misty step, a bonus action spell, takes more time than drawing and firing a bow multiple times, even if you choose to do nothing at all with your action and remain stationary after/before casting it. In fact it takes more time than simply running 30ft, apparently.
3. Stabbing someone with a dagger held in each hand takes more time to than swinging greatswords and greataxes at them, and much more time than getting an arrow out, loading it into a bow, drawing, aiming and firing.
4. A great many spell effects become effectively nothing, because they only work (ie - are still in effect during your target's turn) if you beat your target in initiative, and spells have the worst initiative. Again, Mearls must think this is a good thing, because he's constructed a somewhat artificial scenario where it doesn't happen.
5. Great weapon master just makes you slower all the time, because you have to budget in the potential bonus action for it's conditional attack.
6. Mucking around with cover wins, because your opponent can no longer ready his action to attack when you stick your head out. You can freely waltz around a corner, shoot a target multiple times, then walk out of sight again, and the only thing anyone can do about it is to charge you.
7. Pop up healing got a lot better. Now if you cast healing word and take another action you can basically guarantee that you'll be acting after the monsters attack, but before death saves are rolled. Also your buddy will get up and act, because he already rolled initiative, all he has to do is delay. Now that might not be RAI, but Mearls should have thought about that and noted something about it.
8. If you can, make sure that every round you do something that requires an action your foe might not have planned for. If you run through a door, and slam it shut, then your foe can't follow you if he forgot to allocate dice to open the door. He'll just run up to the door and stand there, stupidly.

Oh please, let's not confuse "Here's a list of things I don't like about this optional rule" with someone being competent about game design. You could draw up a long list of any initiative systems problems that don't function well, including the standard one.

[toapat]

Gods, you have made me realise that I've been somehow conflating Mike Mearls with Matt Mercer in my head.

the double M name doesnt help

Matt Mercer does have issues as a DM, but hes not a bad person. his most identifiable DM problem is just the "More Awesome than Thou" complex where he highjacks the player's action descriptions. But like, if he has issues, doubts, or wants a second opinion, he looks for help. he created the blood hunter as a promotional thing, and it ended up being a fairly solid deal after he rebuilt it twice and started asking for community feedback.

this UA suggests almost that Mike Mearls subscribes to the "Gygax" style of Narrative dictator DM, with none of the advantages that includes like giving players a lvl 1 Dragon because "That sounds awesome, but also lets keep it fair for the party". He brought this up in an AMA, and then expanded that and everyone immediately started to hate it, continued with the idea which people disliked even more, and then wastes a UA publishing what is really just a strictly dog**** version of Speed Factor Ini, with Pre-WotC style numeric progression which is the ONE ****ING THING no one pines over from the first 5 editions of DnD,

[ATHATH]

Aw, our Unearthed Arcana this month was wasted on this?

[tkuremento]

Aw, our Unearthed Arcana this month was wasted on this?

The Planeshift was our secret real Unearthed Arcana :P

[EvilAnagram]

1. Everyone who fights in melee needs to roll the extra d6 for movement every single round, because otherwise their opponent WILL, will take a 5 foot step, and they will end up out of range and unable to act. Mearls even explicitly references this, so apparently he thinks it's a good thing.
5' steps aren't a thing in 5e. The enemy would have to spend an action disengaging and movement to get out of reach, increasing his own initiative.

[tkuremento]

5' steps aren't a thing in 5e. The enemy would have to spend an action disengaging and movement to get out of reach, increasing his own initiative.

I don't think they mean a literal mechanic of "5' step" but rather using a move action to move 5'.

[JellyPooga]

5' steps aren't a thing in 5e. The enemy would have to spend an action disengaging and movement to get out of reach, increasing his own initiative.

If it's a choice between "making an attack, then taking an OA from the enemy" and "making an attack, then taking an Action attack from the enemy", the choice is clear. OA's are a poor substitute for taking an Action, so the point stands that in melee, at least, you'd be a fool not to take the initiative hit for the option of moving on your turn; it's that or risk doing nothing. Ranged combatants do not have this same compulsion.

[jaappleton]

Aw, our Unearthed Arcana this month was wasted on this?

One line to sum up everyones thoughts.

[DracoKnight]

One line to sum up everyones thoughts.

And such disappointed thoughts they are. I mean...seriously...the entire system he took 3 pages to lay out I grasped from him briefly talking about in his AMA. I didn't like it then, and I don't like it now.

[Logosloki]

They should go back and revisit the previous Plane shifts to bring them up to almondcat's standards. Maybe polish almondcat a little first. How many Plane shifts do you think they will do before they think to collect them all into a volume with some extra setting and pretty art? Because I bought The Zendikar artbook just on the strength of someone trying to do something new with D&D and would be totally down for a physical planeshift copy.

On topic. This initiative system is not for me. Then again I dislike most speedforce or clearly speedforce but with extra cogs initiatives because they never feel right. I do however re-roll initiative every round because I like to make a little chaos.

[Lombra]

I'll try to defend it in the bolded parts, because I think that it is not bad for the target players, I am no game designer tho:


There is no part of this initiative system that suggests that Mearls is at all competent at game design. A cursory think through exposes a laundry list of problems:

1. Everyone who fights in melee needs to roll the extra d6 for movement every single round, because otherwise their opponent WILL, will take a 5 foot step, and they will end up out of range and unable to act. Mearls even explicitly references this, so apparently he thinks it's a good thing.
besides 5ft steps not being a thing to consider like 3.5 days, this is a faurly reasonable comparison: fighting in the front line is much more busy than shooting from the back raw, hence the decision making leads to more time spent to think and ready for more possibilities. Preparing extra movement is not useless to a ranged character tho: it does give him the option to run away in case of danger or to keep line of sight on a potentially escaping target.
2. Misty step, a bonus action spell, takes more time than drawing and firing a bow multiple times, even if you choose to do nothing at all with your action and remain stationary after/before casting it. In fact it takes more time than simply running 30ft, apparently.
this initiative system no longer only represents the physical swiftness of the characters, it tries to simulate the complexity of managing a fight: you spend 2d10 to misty step and cast firebolt, casting misty step is arguably much more complex then walking, hence it compromises your initiative score more than sheer walking
3. Stabbing someone with a dagger held in each hand takes more time to than swinging greatswords and greataxes at them, and much more time than getting an arrow out, loading it into a bow, drawing, aiming and firing.
I am personally a fan of the weapon damage die alternative rule, but the default is not completely ridiculous: an archer is much more likely to hit someone across the room quicker than a swordsman that has to run and engage in melee combat, ultimately, it is a meta-tool to ensure a much more constant coverage of preventive ranged attacks, which realistically should work.
4. A great many spell effects become effectively nothing, because they only work (ie - are still in effect during your target's turn) if you beat your target in initiative, and spells have the worst initiative. Again, Mearls must think this is a good thing, because he's constructed a somewhat artificial scenario where it doesn't happen.
I agree with this. If you cast a spell that lasts until the start of the target's next turn and you cast it when you are last in the round, the target may go first the next round, effectively nullifying the spell. I feel like I'm missing something here...
5. Great weapon master just makes you slower all the time, because you have to budget in the potential bonus action for it's conditional attack.
this is not covered very well by the rules as written, but reading it strictly it looks like this, which may or may not be very bad, it's a bet that you don't want to lose, indicatively you can plan to finish off a creature (especially grunts) with your action to then make a bonus action attack, but critical hits are a constant bet that I don't feel right to be gimped for. Ultimately I'd say that since it's playtest material it's probably not very intended to work with optional rules such as feats, as useless as this sounds.
6. Mucking around with cover wins, because your opponent can no longer ready his action to attack when you stick your head out. You can freely waltz around a corner, shoot a target multiple times, then walk out of sight again, and the only thing anyone can do about it is to charge you.
you can delay until the start of the target's turn, interrupting your DM before such target takes his turn, it doesn't allow the same actions of the previous system, obviously since it's a different system, but that situation does need more attention while refining this system
7. Pop up healing got a lot better. Now if you cast healing word and take another action you can basically guarantee that you'll be acting after the monsters attack, but before death saves are rolled. Also your buddy will get up and act, because he already rolled initiative, all he has to do is delay. Now that might not be RAI, but Mearls should have thought about that and noted something about it.
why do you pretend that monsters go first? They too may have actions and bonus actions to fill, and often have more stuff to do than normal PCs, like more attacks or other special actions. I agree that your interpretation of the healing and death saving throws may need a more explicit call out in the writing, both if it is intended and if it is not intended to work like that
8. If you can, make sure that every round you do something that requires an action your foe might not have planned for. If you run through a door, and slam it shut, then your foe can't follow you if he forgot to allocate dice to open the door. He'll just run up to the door and stand there, stupidly.
you are chasing someone and that someone slams a door behind him while you both are running. If you are nor prepared you are going to hit the slammed door, trust me. Although, closing the door requires effort, and more dies than the pursuer, so it's a gamble that you have to weigh based if you think that your opponent may or may not expect it.

There probably are typos but I'm on my phone so please sympathize with me.

[excommunicated]

I remember that AMA. I remember thinking that sounds fiddly and time consuming. The opposite of what I want in 5e. So I'll Read the UA, but I'm not excited about.
We tried a session using it the other night. Just three Characters, but I would judge the combat was as slow as a 6 character combat. Players need to analyse and decide twice each round, once deciding what initiative dice to add in, then again as normal when their turn in the initiative order comes up. Analysis paralysis sets in. If you want Fog of War feel, just reroll monster initiative each round, You don't even need to do it for the players.
It was especially bad for my Moon Druid as I can fairly well Melee (after beast form) and Spell cast so what to do???

[toapat]

They should go back and revisit the previous Plane shifts to bring them up to almondcat's standards. Maybe polish almondcat a little first. How many Plane shifts do you think they will do before they think to collect them all into a volume with some extra setting and pretty art? Because I bought The Zendikar artbook just on the strength of someone trying to do something new with D&D and would be totally down for a physical planeshift copy.

to be fair, Innistrad doesnt do anything unique from Ravenloft, which is why its kinda a flop. that planeshift should have had statblocks for the 4 Angels and Grizelbro, and maybe even warlock patrons for all of them. But mechanically speaking the world is just Ravenloft, but more German. Oh, and a vampire created the sole Goddess

Zendikar basically needs a total rewqork because it was entirely phoned in, besides the races there wasnt alot of real material to work with in the UA

Kaladesh could do with fixing the ****ty world rules and give a statblock for Baral, Chief of Hitlering

I dont think the planeshifts will really become a book in their own right. Other than Ravnica most MTG planes arent really deep enough of a world to set actual DnD campaigns in. Oh, and to just make an awesome example for Ravnica in DnD, Rakdos the Defiler (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=107438) is God, and Razia the Archangel (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=205362) is The Devil.

[Psikerlord]

I prefer this new system to the original 5e one, it's more random/dangerous, which 5e sorely needs.

It has it's own issues however, including: being slower, too hard on casters (auto interrupts via damage) and I didnt really like declaring actions up front.

I would prefer simply rolling init each round. You get the random/danger without the extra complexity.

In fact I prefer card deck init altogether. No-one knows who will be drawn next. Simple, quick and increased random/dangerousness.

[Psikerlord]

We tried a session using it the other night. Just three Characters, but I would judge the combat was as slow as a 6 character combat. Players need to analyse and decide twice each round, once deciding what initiative dice to add in, then again as normal when their turn in the initiative order comes up. Analysis paralysis sets in. If you want Fog of War feel, just reroll monster initiative each round, You don't even need to do it for the players.
It was especially bad for my Moon Druid as I can fairly well Melee (after beast form) and Spell cast so what to do???

Jusr rerolling monster init is a nice idea. Quicker. Hmm I must ponder further.

[Chaosmancer]

I mentioned some of this on ENworld, but I'd really dread this system as a DM.

Multiple monsters, different roles and reacting to different players means I'm going to have 5 to 6 different groups at Best for most of my combats.

And, heres a big glaring flaw

Legedary Actions?

I guess you could have the Lich roll 5d10 for their initiative and cast 4 spells in a row at the end of the round.

Or you could theoritically treat them like reactions and just ignore initiative.

But, since both choices are RAW and we took the time to lay out dominated creatures actions, we could take time to talk about monsters, Lair Actions (no idea how those will work), legendary creatures, there is a lot not covered here

[MadBear]

I mentioned some of this on ENworld, but I'd really dread this system as a DM.

Multiple monsters, different roles and reacting to different players means I'm going to have 5 to 6 different groups at Best for most of my combats.

And, heres a big glaring flaw

Legedary Actions?

I guess you could have the Lich roll 5d10 for their initiative and cast 4 spells in a row at the end of the round.

Or you could theoritically treat them like reactions and just ignore initiative.

But, since both choices are RAW and we took the time to lay out dominated creatures actions, we could take time to talk about monsters, Lair Actions (no idea how those will work), legendary creatures, there is a lot not covered here

Well, considering Legendary actions specifically state "Only one legendary action option can be used at a time and only at the end of another creature's turn" I don't think it's an issue at all.

Lair actions go on Initiative 20, which you could either keep the same, or since initiative 20 is supposed to be early in the count have lair actions go on a 1d4.

I mean, it's not like this stuff is hard to reason out. It's an UA that addresses 95% of cases. I can see the kind of criticism given here if this was part of a published book, but as playtest material, it's fine.

[Saeviomage]

I'll try to defend it in the bolded parts, because I think that it is not bad for the target players, I am no game designer tho:

besides 5ft steps not being a thing to consider like 3.5 days, this is a faurly reasonable comparison: fighting in the front line is much more busy than shooting from the back raw, hence the decision making leads to more time spent to think and ready for more possibilities. Preparing extra movement is not useless to a ranged character tho: it does give him the option to run away in case of danger or to keep line of sight on a potentially escaping target.

I just meant "spends 5 ft of movement to be out of melee range", not "employs a mechanic from 3rd ed". And I agree: not useless to a ranged character, but at least they have an option. Any melee creature with more than a single attack MUST spend a die on movement every round, or they are going to lose turns.


this initiative system no longer only represents the physical swiftness of the characters, it tries to simulate the complexity of managing a fight: you spend 2d10 to misty step and cast firebolt, casting misty step is arguably much more complex then walking, hence it compromises your initiative score more than sheer walking

You can't misty step and cast firebolt. If you cast a bonus action spell, you cannot cast a second one. Misty step is literally a spell you can cast at the same time as firing a bow and arrow, yet it takes more time and has more complexity than firing a bow and arrow even if you do it on it's own.


I am personally a fan of the weapon damage die alternative rule, but the default is not completely ridiculous: an archer is much more likely to hit someone across the room quicker than a swordsman that has to run and engage in melee combat, ultimately, it is a meta-tool to ensure a much more constant coverage of preventive ranged attacks, which realistically should work.

Even with the weapon damage die alternative rule, a bow is 1d8, 2 daggers are slower at 2d4.
Also - we're not talking about running across the room and engaging, we're talking about already standing next to your target, daggers in hand and stabbing them.


4. A great many spell effects become effectively nothing, because they only work (ie - are still in effect during your target's turn) if you beat your target in initiative, and spells have the worst initiative. Again, Mearls must think this is a good thing, because he's constructed a somewhat artificial scenario where it doesn't happen.
I agree with this. If you cast a spell that lasts until the start of the target's next turn and you cast it when you are last in the round, the target may go first the next round, effectively nullifying the spell. I feel like I'm missing something here...

It's worse than that. Mearls explicitly states that all spells with a duration that end on someone's turn now end at the end of the round (if they finish at the end of a someone's turn) or the beginning of a round (if they end at the start of someone's turn). So if you cast ray of frost last in a turn, it never slows the target, no matter what happens next round. It always ends at the start of the next round.


this is not covered very well by the rules as written, but reading it strictly it looks like this, which may or may not be very bad, it's a bet that you don't want to lose, indicatively you can plan to finish off a creature (especially grunts) with your action to then make a bonus action attack, but critical hits are a constant bet that I don't feel right to be gimped for. Ultimately I'd say that since it's playtest material it's probably not very intended to work with optional rules such as feats, as useless as this sounds.

It's the third iteration of material from someone who does this as his job. I've not even played with it, and it's immediately obvious that this (and the rest of the list) are niches the rules don't cover, or they cover in a stupid way.


you can delay until the start of the target's turn, interrupting your DM before such target takes his turn, it doesn't allow the same actions of the previous system, obviously since it's a different system, but that situation does need more attention while refining this system

Scenario:
When the round begins, a monster is out of sight. It rolls initiative with a 1d4 and 1d6 so it can move.
On it's turn, it moves into sight, attacks, then moves out of sight.
It doesn't matter what initiative you roll, you can never interrupt it's turn, and therefore can never attack it without negating it's cover.

This is already a problem with the current "you can only ready a single attack" mechanism: a creature can pop into sight, unload it's attacks, then move out of sight, and the best recourse is to ready and make a single attack.

This also applies for melee attackers with obnoxious amounts of movement (hello eagle barbarian with mobility!): the inability to respond to someone mid-action is extremely limiting.


why do you pretend that monsters go first? They too may have actions and bonus actions to fill, and often have more stuff to do than normal PCs, like more attacks or other special actions. I agree that your interpretation of the healing and death saving throws may need a more explicit call out in the writing, both if it is intended and if it is not intended to work like that

First up, they may have those things, but most of the time they won't have a melee attack, plus movement, plus object interaction, plus a bonus action spellcast. Second up, the cleric can simply delay. Since this really only applies to foes who are going to do significant damage, if they also choose to delay, and both the cleric and the monster end up losing their turn, the cleric has achieved what he wanted anyway!


you are chasing someone and that someone slams a door behind him while you both are running. If you are nor prepared you are going to hit the slammed door, trust me. Although, closing the door requires effort, and more dies than the pursuer, so it's a gamble that you have to weigh based if you think that your opponent may or may not expect it.

I'm not talking about chasing someone, for which the combat rules are awful. I'm talking about being in melee combat, taking all your attacks, then running 30ft and slamming a door behind you, because that prevents your opponent from making his melee attacks (I mean sure, he gets an OA, but compared with a full round of attacks, it's nothing). I'm talking about attacking things with alchemist's fire, because suddenly they're almost guaranteed not to have an action to stop the flames prepared. Or disarming someone because they don't have an action lined up to change gear. I'm talking about open-door, attack, close-door shenanigans.

I mean sure, it is sort of cool that combat is encouraging (some of) these things, but the reality is that monsters do weird tactics BETTER than PCs, and so the PCs are the ones who are going to end up unable to act on multiple rounds (or worse, die) because they didn't reserve an action to remove custard from their pants, or whatever.

[Jerrykhor]

You can't misty step and cast firebolt. If you cast a bonus action spell, you cannot cast a second one. Misty step is literally a spell you can cast at the same time as firing a bow and arrow, yet it takes more time and has more complexity than firing a bow and arrow even if you do it on it's own.

I'm pretty sure you can. Firebolt is cast with the Action, not Bonus Action.

[JumboWheat01]

I'm pretty sure you can. Firebolt is cast with the Action, not Bonus Action.

Firebolt is also a Cantrip. You can cast a Bonus Action Spell, and then a Cantrip, but not a Bonus Action Spell and a regular Action Spell. This primarily comes into play with Sorcerers with the Quickened Spell Metamagic, but said rule is true for everyone.

[Dudewithknives]

Firebolt is also a Cantrip. You can cast a Bonus Action Spell, and then a Cantrip, but not a Bonus Action Spell and a regular Action Spell. This primarily comes into play with Sorcerers with the Quickened Spell Metamagic, but said rule is true for everyone.

Yes you can. There is no such thing as an action spell.

Cast misty step as a bonus, now you can only cast a cantrip, but you have not used your regular Action so now just cast firebolt, or whatever cantrip goes with your class.

[DKing9114]

Having read the rules for alternative initiative, I do not intend to bring them up in my weekly game. The main reason for this is that game is 5-6 players plus GM, with one player calling in via roll20, some players need reminding on the rules, and we leave a few mechanics fuzzy (like drawing/stowing weapons). However, I would like to try it in a series of smaller sessions. As an abstraction that models the "characters meet characters, violence ensues" scenario, basic initiative operates rather well; however, in a number of other situations, it gets pretty absurd. When my character can close 30 feet and kill three people before the enemy can even attempt to attack, just because negotiations broke down, it gets a bit ridiculous. I feel like more tweaking needs to be done to this system (does every +1 to initiative count as a bonus and therefore downgrade a die? What if I need to trade out my attack action for an "oh crap" action like putting out the fire on my pants? Can I trade my extra action for 10 feet of movement? How do we differentiate between full actions and bonus actions?), but I do appreciate the attempt at an initiative system and possible alternative action economy that will model the non-"dungeon crawl" scenarios and throw a little more uncertainty and realism into the system (because nothing says roleplaying like knowing you can hold off on healing that teammate because he goes before the orc next to him).