Side Initiative - Improvements?

[LuccMa]

Hello guys.

My group has been playing with regular initiative rolls for the last years. Recently we tried side initiative and from both a DMs and a Players perspective: We love it. It saves us a couple of minutes every combat and makes the actual turns much more harmonic, tactical and less clunky (having to ready certain actions to actually act as a group as discussed before the fight).

Players vs. NPCs roll 1d20 each, no modifiers. Winning side goes first and is allowed to freely change the order in which players take their turn from round to round.

As you guessed, there's a "but", and it's not (just) the swingy-ness of the combat. Its the fact that side-initiative changes the power of a lot of spells and conditions. There are 3 concrete problems we have with side-initiative:

Problems:

1. Burst Damage. That one is no surprise.

2. CC. Last session, our group got hit by Hypnotic Pattern. We ordered our turns so that friendly NPC A awakened PC A, who awakened PC B, who awakened PC C, who took their turn as normal. A very powerful spell (Hypnotic Pattern) became a nuisance. Sure, it cost us a few actions but it wasn't nearly as frightening as with regular initiative. When we got hit by such a spell in the past we startet to panic. Now everything is chill.

3. Players dropping to 0 HP. You're at 0 HP? Easy. You're going last so the healer can pick you back up. You just got hit by the boss for all your HP but you dont even lose your turn. That is very anticlimactic.

(4.) If the NPC-Side wants to kill a downed PC they can and the PCs cant do anything about it. Not actually a problem in-game as i see it since this would - most of the time - just be a ****-move from the DM and can just be avoided.

Possible Solutions:

1.1 Deal with it. Combats are swingy in both directions. That's actually ok.
1.2 The "losing" side starts with a dodge-action. The side which goes first still has an advantage, being able to attack and cast buffs, but just steamrolling the other side becomes more difficult.

2.1 Whoever is CC'ed goes first. The other players can dispel the CC afterwards but the CC'ed players turn is lost.
2.2 The CC'ed PC still loses their action but is allowed to use his BA and move.

3.1 Whoever is at 0 HP goes first, even before the CC'ed ones. The turn is ofc since the downed PC made their Death Save first thing in the round.
3.2 The downed PC still loses their action but is allowed to use his BA and move.

Now i wanted to ask you guys if you have run side-initiative in your games and encountered similar problems (and have solutions at the ready?). The danger of death and CC is something we like in our games because it keeps things exiting. Still, the flow of combat using side-initiative is very fun to play. Just picking a turn order at the start of the combat which stays the same for every round would be a solution but makes the before-mentioned tactics clunky so we would like to avoid that.

Any suggestions?

Kind regards,
LuccMa

[Wizard_Lizard]

I hven't tried it, but I can see problems.
I probably wouldn't use it, but whatever works for you.

[Randomthom]

Possible fix for you: Any ability that says "at the start of your [next] turn" or "at the end of your [next] turn" applies to the Team's turn, not the individual's turn. It doesn't fix all problems (like the hypnotic pattern example) but solves some.

[Strifer]

How about ordering the combatants on each side by dex/initiative. The rogue with +5 acts before the cleric with +1, it makes it so the +initiaive bonuses are not wasted. Although I see some metagame/optimization options both ways.

[Bobthewizard]

When I DM, I have players roll initiative individually then roll once for the enemies. On the first round, some but not all of the players usually go before me, but after the first round we are taking group turns like you describe. This makes individual initiative important and makes the group initiative less of an imbalance in the first round, but still uses the system you describe after that.

I haven't let them change order within that though, they just need to ready actions. I like having them all go together after the first round so if they want to flee they can all go at once.

[Man_Over_Game]

MaxWilson has a solid side-initiative solution he uses that works well with Theater of the Mind playstyles.

My main gripe is the lack of adaptation. You gain strategy, but lose tactics. The Wombo-Combo you came up with is more important than interrupting the enemy's own strategy. It transitions the game to being Battleship instead of Texas Holdem.

You and your opponent's actions interact less, and it's more about just trying to finish your own strategies as quickly and efficiently as possible. This might be a good thing, as you're now interacting with your teammates more than your opponents, but I'm not so sure of it.



One thing I've been playing around with is static initiatives. That is, you roll initiatives after a Short Rest, and you keep it. You reroll, and keep the highest, if you accomplish things that make your character happy (Ate at a restaurant), and you reroll, keep the lowest, if you accomplish things that make you sad (failed to impress the waitress).

This is:

Making it so Initiative is changing, so that certain characters aren't always acting first.
Allowing Bonuses to initiative to make a difference.
Making roleplaying matter.
Making pre-combat strategies matter, without them being overly consistent.
Naturally loses effectiveness of higher values, as it becomes harder to surpass your original value with a higher one.
Causes the last emotional event of the character's day to have a noticeable impact.
Allows you to transition into combat or tense moments without the need to roll initiative <- The original reason I came up with the idea.

[MrStabby]

Yeah, I don't like side initiative - in part for the reasons you give, but also because it undermines some class features that give initiative bonuses (Champion, Barbarian, Bard...).

For my games I no longer roll initiative for NPCs. They get 10+ bonus. This speeds things up a little bit but also tends to ensure a more even spread and ensures that similar enemies go at the same time so I have to track fewer turns. This also reduces the variance of each player with respect to an enemy - if they have a three point adantage on initiative rolls with respect to an enemy they should expect to go ahead of them more frequently with this system than with each side rolling a d20.

Changing the order that players go in really helps keep combats fresh and ensures more excitement - your fighter expects the wizard to cast a wall of force... but you cant be sure if it will be countered or not.

I also find there isn't much drop in speed. If we follow a rolled order there is a single next person to take an action. No discussion needed. Fewer degrees of freedom. With turn initiative there can be debates about the order in which PCs take their actions.

[Tanarii]

Balance wisr, focus fire isnt a big issue. Side initiative isnt that much different from typical fights, since IMX most DMs roll 1 - 2 initiatives for the typical 1-2 creature types among their monsters. So its often all PCs then all Monsters anyway.

The primary advantage is on the PC side, allowing them to choose the order of their actions.

[Jama7301]

One thing I've been playing around with is static initiatives. That is, you roll initiatives after a Short Rest, and you keep it. You reroll, and keep the highest, if you accomplish things that make your character happy (Ate at a restaurant), and you reroll, keep the lowest, if you accomplish things that make you sad (failed to impress the waitress).

This is:

Making it so Initiative is changing, so that certain characters aren't always acting first.
Allowing Bonuses to initiative to make a difference.
Making roleplaying matter.
Making pre-combat strategies matter, without them being overly consistent.
Naturally loses effectiveness of higher values, as it becomes harder to surpass your original value with a higher one.
Causes the last emotional event of the character's day to have a noticeable impact.
Allows you to transition into combat or tense moments without the need to roll initiative <- The original reason I came up with the idea.


I like this. Do you try to prevent changes from being made from mid-combat, from like Intimidation attempts, or do you also allow mid-combat things affect the initiative order?

[Man_Over_Game]

I like this. Do you try to prevent changes from being made from mid-combat, from like Intimidation attempts, or do you also allow mid-combat things affect the initiative order?

If changes are made, I'll usually reserve to make those changes take effect until the following round.

I try to avoid making things too terribly complicated, but there are going to be some weird exceptions.

For example, what happens if someone attempts to do something out of Initiative order (The Barbarian attacks the prisoner! RKO OUTTA NOWHERE!)? I ruled that those with higher initiative get to act first (The fighter attempts to grapple the Barbarian to keep him from butchering their lead). It requires a bit of calibration for your own tables, but some people have said they've used something similar (https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/128895/how-can-i-keep-the-players-tense-after-combat-has-ended-and-there-is-no-longer-a/128898#comment320125_128898) and it works out really well.

[Kurt Kurageous]

Side initiative is great...for small fights that should end quickly.

Almost all of the problems described come in with mid (2:1) and higher foe to hero ratios. Use side initiative when you are close to 1:1 and it's just fine. Brutal, but fine.

I've used side initiative since it was the ONLY initiative in AD&D. You kids with your apps have it so easy. More choices doesn't always mean a better play experience. That's up to the quality of your DM.

[lperkins2]

When I DM, I have players roll initiative individually then roll once for the enemies. On the first round, some but not all of the players usually go before me, but after the first round we are taking group turns like you describe. This makes individual initiative important and makes the group initiative less of an imbalance in the first round, but still uses the system you describe after that.

I haven't let them change order within that though, they just need to ready actions. I like having them all go together after the first round so if they want to flee they can all go at once.

Rolling for the first turn and then doing side initiative might work reasonably well. If you don't let the PCs change their order up on subsequent rounds, but let the monsters go in any order, it's a serious problem. For example, the fighter/wrestler who rolls low on initiative now gets to contribute nothing, as the enemies will always go right after him and just stand back up.

As for how I handle initiative, I let players report a lower initiative score than they rolled, if they want. This means if multiple PCs want to act in concert, they can do so, but they go on the lowest initiative any of them rolled. Sure, it lets them defeat things like hypnotic pattern, but lowering your initiative score means new threats will probably get to act before you can respond to them. In practice, my players usually will only merge initiative scores if they are within a couple points anyway.

And as for killing downed PCs, if you have one PC separated from the others, so that they are facing multiple enemies, it makes sense that they'd get killed before aid can arrive if they go down. My players treat fights against intelligent enemies as serious dangers, even if they are otherwise tough enough to not be a problem, since intelligent enemies will happily finish off a helpless foe.

[SkipSandwich]

Ive been toying with a varient of popcorn initative where actions are declared in order starting with the slowest (lowest +Init mod) creatures first, but at any time a higher init character can cut in and interrupt. Once the interupt is compete, the interupted creature completes thier turn (if able) and the next turn goes to the next slowest, who can be intterupted and so on, until everyone has acted exactly once.

Ties are decided based on which side acted last, going to whichever side has gone the longest without taking a turn.