Alert as a Damage Feat

[strangebloke]

Just a thought experiment, but what is the point of DPR, actually? Well, to kill the enemy. With more DPR, you kill the enemy more quickly, and they have less time to kill you. Pretty simple. If you compare two simple parties, and one has 25% more damage output than the other, the one with less damage will take 5 turns to kill an enemy that the one with more damage could kill in 4.

Here's the thing: Winning initiative achieves the same effect, because the point is lowering the number of turns the enemy takes. The enemy that loses initiative will only get to take 4 turns against the lower damage team, or 3 against the higher damage team. If combat is shorter then winning initiative is way way better. If it only takes only two rounds to defeat the enemy, winning initiative is like a 100% damage increase compared with losing initiative.

Now, this is an idealized example, where damage is the only thing that either party is doing, and control effects, action denial, range, and movement are not considered. But that's the thing, in such an example, initiative is even more important. My idealized scenario is the worst case by a wide margin. Consider a spell like forcecage that completely takes over an encounter. If you go first, you can forcecage an enemy and completely take them out of the fight while you deal with their minions. If you don't go first, well. They can forcecage you. That's the difference between an encounter that's trivial and an encounter that's incredibly difficult.

The alert feat, Barbarians getting advantage on initiative, Battlemasters using ambush, dexterity builds... Initiative boosting is underrated as a determiner of build performance.

[Ionathus]

Initiative can cause huge swings in a fight, for sure. That's partially why so many people complain about DEX being overpowered (frankly, I like INT as a better metric for alertness and quick action).

I think some people don't prioritize boosting Initiative because you're guaranteed to only roll it once per fight and then most people forget about it. That makes it swingier than even a +1 to damage, which if you can get 10 attacks off in a fight (big if for some tables) you can measurably point to as an extra 10 damage. I'll always try to nab Advantage on initiative rolls though, because as much as I dislike rolling a 14, I absolutely loathe rolling a 3. I have boosted my initiative to ungodly levels before and really enjoyed it, but to me initiative is just a matter of "pain management" where I just don't wanna roll crappy.

But then, rolling first is not always great. If I go first and land a Hold Person on an enemy, but then their turn is next before my party can dogpile them, they have a chance to save. Whereas if I was immediately after the enemy in the order, we'd have the whole turn before that 2nd save can even happen.

Ultimately I think it's not a cut-and-dry optimization question: some of it is neither good or bad, and some of it is roleplay-driven. Some people really like going first, some people don't care, and some people even like having a few things to react to rather than having to start things off themselves. Is winning initiative valuable? Yes, mostly. Definitely for certain builds. Does allowing it to remain a little unpredictable (and therefore, not actively maximizing it) make the roleplay and strategy of the combat more fun? For me, definitely.

[MrStabby]

Yes, initiative is important and it is important for the reasons you suggest.
I think you can exaggerate it a bit though when looking at boosts. So a +1 in initiative will probably represent a 5% chance of mattering in initiative order. At all. At best there is one enemy and it takes you from behind 100% of all enemies to ahead of 100% of all enemies. And you might be 25% of a 4 person party?

If you average over all die rolls, the difference in what fraction of your party goes before what fraction of the enemy is pretty small for most boosts. Correspondingly the probability of you getting to deny an enemy a turn due to taking them down beforehand is pretty modest.

So alert - a good feat but probably not worth it as a "damage feat".

[Psyren]

Agree that Alert is great, but the question is not merely whether Alert is worth a feat (it is), but whether it is worth the opportunity cost of foregoing a different feat on your specific build. This will be less true in 1DnD where it is competing only with 1st-level feats (as well as being slightly stronger due to the initiative swapping mechanic) than it is currently in 5e where it's competing with every other feat in the game including your ASI and race choice, but it will still be important to consider when deciding to take it over something else like Lucky or MI.

[LudicSavant]

I think many people undervalue initiative for no better reason than that they aren't sure how to put a number on its value. Sometimes they assign it no value at all (which is wildly wrong), simply because it doesn't show up on DPR calculations (because it doesn't give you more damage per round. It instead gives you a chance at getting an extra round relative to Team Monster -- but that's still totally an offensive increase as surely as, say, Thief's level 17 ability).

So without getting too complex, here's how you can start to get an idea of how much initiative is worth. Increasing initiative is, at minimum, worth as much as a % chance to get an extra round of actions relative to Team Monster (as opposed to just, say, one extra Action from Action Surge). In practice, it's often worth even more than that because earlier turns tend to be more tactically important than later turns.

[strangebloke]

Initiative can cause huge swings in a fight, for sure. That's partially why so many people complain about DEX being overpowered (frankly, I like INT as a better metric for alertness and quick action).

I think some people don't prioritize boosting Initiative because you're guaranteed to only roll it once per fight and then most people forget about it. That makes it swingier than even a +1 to damage, which if you can get 10 attacks off in a fight (big if for some tables) you can measurably point to as an extra 10 damage. I'll always try to nab Advantage on initiative rolls though, because as much as I dislike rolling a 14, I absolutely loathe rolling a 3. I have boosted my initiative to ungodly levels before and really enjoyed it, but to me initiative is just a matter of "pain management" where I just don't wanna roll crappy.

But then, rolling first is not always great. If I go first and land a Hold Person on an enemy, but then their turn is next before my party can dogpile them, they have a chance to save. Whereas if I was immediately after the enemy in the order, we'd have the whole turn before that 2nd save can even happen.

Ultimately I think it's not a cut-and-dry optimization question: some of it is neither good or bad, and some of it is roleplay-driven. Some people really like going first, some people don't care, and some people even like having a few things to react to rather than having to start things off themselves. Is winning initiative valuable? Yes, mostly. Definitely for certain builds. Does allowing it to remain a little unpredictable (and therefore, not actively maximizing it) make the roleplay and strategy of the combat more fun? For me, definitely.
It is very swingy, and that's probably part of why its de-emphasized.

However, I sort of disagree with the idea that going first isn't important. As long as you have something you can proactively do (even ready an attack as a rogue) going first will be a huge advantage. There are some builds, mostly melee beatsticks, that can't take advantage of going first safely but the conclusion I draw there is that those builds kind of stink.

Yes, initiative is important and it is important for the reasons you suggest.
I think you can exaggerate it a bit though when looking at boosts. So a +1 in initiative will probably represent a 5% chance of mattering in initiative order. At all. At best there is one enemy and it takes you from behind 100% of all enemies to ahead of 100% of all enemies. And you might be 25% of a 4 person party?

If you average over all die rolls, the difference in what fraction of your party goes before what fraction of the enemy is pretty small for most boosts. Correspondingly the probability of you getting to deny an enemy a turn due to taking them down beforehand is pretty modest.

So alert - a good feat but probably not worth it as a "damage feat".
I mean, I answer this question in the OP.

If combat lasts two rounds, going first is a 100% boost to your damage, so winning initiative 25% more of the time is a 25% damage boost. Things scale down from there ofc and its not consistent, but in a lot of cases you WILL want to try and kill a high priority target on the first or second round, so I don't see it as unrealistic.

I think many people undervalue initiative for no better reason than that they aren't sure how to put a number on its value. Sometimes they assign it no value at all (which is wildly wrong), simply because it doesn't show up on DPR calculations (because it doesn't give you more damage per round. It instead gives you a chance at getting an extra round relative to Team Monster -- but that's still totally an offensive increase as surely as, say, Thief's level 17 ability).

So without getting too complex, here's how you can start to get an idea of how much initiative is worth. Increasing initiative is, at minimum, worth as much as a % chance to get an extra round of actions relative to Team Monster (as opposed to just, say, one extra Action from Action Surge). In practice, it's often worth even more than that because earlier turns tend to be more tactically important than later turns.

yeah its a problem caused by the 'damage per round' framing.

But if you action surge, have surprise, and win initiative, your damage on the 'first round' is functionally triple what a normal character's would be.

[ProsecutorGodot]

I myself have been guilty of undervaluing it, mostly because I thought it was a "selfish" where it was relatively easy to pick up ways to boost your initiative beyond the rest of your party even if your options to begin combat were possibly less useful.

My mindset changed, mostly because after playing enough I noticed how much of a detriment it was too have more enemies leading initiative than your party. It's also a reason why I'm very happy with the new Alert. It's taken initiative, which despite it's importance is still an inherently selfish mechanic, and given you an option of supporting with it. Oath of Watchers is similar, the aura can seem at first glance to be fairly low power but for every combat your team goes first and kills/disables at least one creature (which I don't think is an at all unreasonable assumption) it's also effectively reducing your parties damage taken.

Going first is good, having your entire party (or at least the one most capable of shortening the combat through their first action) is great. This should be a goal.

[CMCC]

I feel I should post my video here, as as to not have to regurgitate the entire thing in a post, but I'll forgo the self-promotion. Interested parties can google it.

But basically total damage matters more than DPR. DPR is a useful comparative metric, but total damage is the more functionally useful metric. And winning/losing initiative can have a major impact on total damage, even if DPR remains the same.

[Chaos Jackal]

It's a bit funny to me how people can immediately see the value of something like Action Surge but fail to see the massive importance of initiative just because the box doesn't write "you get an extra round" on the cover the way Action Surge does.

Let's look at it in as simple terms as possible.

What does Action Surge do? Well, that's very obvious. It gives you an extra action, so you get one more than your enemies.

What does initiative do? Well, it gives you an extra round, so you get one more than your enemies. What, it doesn't? In any given combat where the party takes x rounds to win, the enemies will either take x rounds as well, if they get to move before, or x-1 if they get to move after. Goes for whoever dies during the fight as well. Any enemy dying before they get to take one of their actions is one less enemy action. Same thing, just taking from the enemy rather than giving to you.

Now, granted, there are differences (two actions back-to-back open up certain combos and offer burst, while just having an extra round overall means you end up having an advantage not just in actions, but in bonus actions, reactions and movement as well), but the principle is the same. Given that most people are likely to agree Action Surge is a really good ability, I'm not sure how any of these people can deny the value of initiative.

And no, going first is very rarely a disadvantage. If you are a debuffer/controller, it means you get to affect the battlefield in the way you choose before enemies get to hurt your allies, mess up your targeting, force you to retreat or whatever. If you are a buffer, it means you get to give your allies their booster shot from the get-go. If you are setting up your defenses, it means you throw up that spell or Bladesong or transformation or Rage before you lose half your HP due to not having it in place. If you are dealing damage, it means you get to remove someone before they ever get to take an action, or fire and retreat, forcing an enemy to Dash or even double Dash to reach you and actually hurt you or run/Dash in yourself and attack/put the enemy within OA reach so they don't get to do the fire and retreat tactic on you and waste your turn. No matter the type of caster or martial you are, initiative benefits you.

The problems you might run in from moving first are the type of "but my enemy will get a second chance to save against hold person" (incidentally, don't use hold person, most of the time it's rather bad) and "but I moved before my sorcerer so I didn't get haste for my first turn", things that are really minor and with plenty of solution offered by default. Debuff or buff someone else who is lower or higher in the initiative order and can thus be taken or take full advantage of, throw down an area effect, use the time offered to set up a personal buffing ability and/or position yourself better, just fire and don't worry too much about that one extra attack, you get to kill an enemy anyway, or just have group-wide good initiative, utilize everything mentioned in the previous paragraph and watch fights get decided before the first round finishes.

There aren't many turn-based games where going first isn't inherently better. D&D is by no means an exception. In fact, if you care about maximizing performance and not just winning because hey, that's what you do in most combats anyway, going first in D&D, particularly hard fights, is even more important than it is in most games.

[Reynaert]

So without getting too complex, here's how you can start to get an idea of how much initiative is worth. Increasing initiative is, at minimum, worth as much as a % chance to get an extra round of actions relative to Team Monster (as opposed to just, say, one extra Action from Action Surge). In practice, it's often worth even more than that because earlier turns tend to be more tactically important than later turns.

Isn't that percentage just a flat 25% ? After all, you get a +5 on your roll, so there are 5 out of 20 cases where it actually matters.

The cases being (for someone who doesn't have alert) "If I had rolled 1 higher it would have made the difference" up to "If I had rolled 5 higher ..."

(It's probably somewhat, but not much, less than 25% because of situations where some of the cases are below 1 or above 20)

[Mastikator]

Isn't that percentage just a flat 25% ? After all, you get a +5 on your roll, so there are 5 out of 20 cases where it actually matters.

The cases being (for someone who doesn't have alert) "If I had rolled 1 higher it would have made the difference" up to "If I had rolled 5 higher ..."

(It's probably somewhat, but not much, less than 25% because of situations where some of the cases are below 1 or above 20)

Only in the case of a single enemy monster.

If there are 3 enemies they will likely have spread out initiative, you are 25% more likely to be ahead of any of them. If for example without alert you are ahead of 1, and with you are ahead of 2, then that is still valuable. How valuable will depend too much on what kind of enemies you are facing so it is hard to quantify.

[da newt]

Going before the foe in turn based combat is a huge action economy advantage. This is especially true for control type effects / spells, but also helps for buffs/debuffs (including rage) and also the simplest damage dealers. For every foe that you take out of combat (via death or other action denial) they lose opportunities to do bad things to you.

Imagine if party A (5 soldiers) goes up against party B (5 thugs), and everyone is evenly matched w/ 20 hp and 10 dpr. If team A acts first they kill 2 B, then the remaining 3 B kills 1 A, then the 4 A kill 2 B, then the last standing B can finish off the wounded A, and get killed leaving 3 A soldiers standing and all of team B dead. Team A attacked 11 times, team B attacked 4 times, and the only difference between the teams was initiative.

[KorvinStarmast]

This is especially true for control type effects / spells, but also helps for buffs/debuffs (including rage) and also the simplest damage dealers. Our wizard in my brother's campaign took the alert feat and he never looked back. He gets debuffs or AoE's up early (has a 16 dex as well).

[Ionathus]

Well I have only myself to blame, for coming into a thread with anything less than a 100% optimization mindset.

I do like Alert. It's a good feat, and I enjoy it. I've taken it on a PC before and it gives me lots of options and opening moves to pick from, which I really enjoy. Overall I do think it's a good pick and many players do undervalue it.

I can also think of at least a dozen times across my last few campaigns when I wasn't actively happy to be going so early in the order. Some of that was being a melee brawler like you mentioned, but other times I just couldn't make much out of any of my spells or abilities for any number of reasons. Not every fight happened in a square white room with the enemy 30' in front of me. And sure, an extra turn is almost always better even if you can't use it for anything important. I got to cast an extra Fire Bolt or whatever (watch me find out that Fire Bolt is a suboptimal pick too) while I waited for a better window to use my good stuff, but even if that's technically more damage it didn't really feel like a fun opener to the combat.


or just have group-wide good initiative, utilize everything mentioned in the previous paragraph and watch fights get decided before the first round finishes.

See, my problem here is that I don't want the fights to be decided before my enemies have even acted. That doesn't sound fun to me. I want to optimize a cool character and then throw them against cool enemies and be scared and have to think fast and react some times. I want fights to be dynamic and unpredictable, so I can use a variety of abilities and tactics. I don't want to always buff initiative to 10+ and go first predictably every time with the same moveset. Some of the time, with certain builds? Sure.

I'm not saying that going first is actually bad. It's almost always "better" for the PC and the party. But sometimes, due to chance or the way that the initiative order shook out, I wish I could've gone later in the fight. Alert and similar initiative boosters can be really good for someone whose initiative is lacking, someone whose build is amplified by going first, and someone who just generally wants to feel a little more proactive rather than reactive in fights. But that's not always the playstyle I want. And I don't think the Alert feat should be looked at as a pure DPR improvement. There's a lot of flavor that goes into your initiative bonus too.

[Yakk]

Each +1 initiative is worth about 5% of a turn's damage over a fight. It is also front loaded, which is usually better than back.

If you start with a 3 turn damage model ("fights are decided by turn 3"), then damage on turn 1 is worth up to 3x damage on turn 3. Assuming it isn't "one big bad boss", this is because any creature you kill on turn 1 doesn't do damage for every other turn.

Which means +1 initiative is 5% first turn damage, worth .15 rounds of damage. But first turn normal damage is also worth 3x, 2nd 2x and 3rd 1x -- totalling to 6x over 3 turns. We can renormalize...

Alpha strike damage is worth 1.5x.
2nd turn damage is worth 1.0x.
3rd turn damage is worth 0.5x.

This way, steady damage gets a 1x multiplier. It also explains why action surge and gloomstalkers extra attack is so good -- action surge isn't worth an action, it is worth an alpha strike action.

So the +1 initiative is worth 7.5% of a turn's damage. Compared to steady damage, we divide by 3 (3 turns) and get 2.5% of your damage on a turn.

Advantage we can model as +3 (the rough change to mean roll), or 7.5% of a turn's damage.

Action Surge in this model is worth +50% of your DPR (1.5x / 3). Gloomstalker extra attack is worth +0.5 attacks to your DPR.

So, action surge is worth about 7x as much as alert.

...

I do agree that fights are more fun when PCs get to react to the encounter. Which is a reason why back-end abilities can be more fun than front-end ones.

And if you optimize for front-ending your oomph, the DM will scale encounters, and you end up with a lot of encounter instability; either you win on round 1, or it becomes a grind.

A concrete example is the gloom 5/BM 3/assassin 3+ archer build. You win initiative and you deal insane damage; you lose initiative, and you lose a huge percent of your damage output. If you surprise the foe, the fight is pretty much over.

This instability means that the difficulty of fights is highly variable, and when things go wrong you lack tools to fix them up.

[strangebloke]

And no, going first is very rarely a disadvantage. If you are a debuffer/controller, it means you get to affect the battlefield in the way you choose before enemies get to hurt your allies, mess up your targeting, force you to retreat or whatever. If you are a buffer, it means you get to give your allies their booster shot from the get-go. If you are setting up your defenses, it means you throw up that spell or Bladesong or transformation or Rage before you lose half your HP due to not having it in place. If you are dealing damage, it means you get to remove someone before they ever get to take an action, or fire and retreat, forcing an enemy to Dash or even double Dash to reach you and actually hurt you or run/Dash in yourself and attack/put the enemy within OA reach so they don't get to do the fire and retreat tactic on you and waste your turn. No matter the type of caster or martial you are, initiative benefits you
...
There aren't many turn-based games where going first isn't inherently better. D&D is by no means an exception. In fact, if you care about maximizing performance and not just winning because hey, that's what you do in most combats anyway, going first in D&D, particularly hard fights, is even more important than it is in most games.
Agreed. The examples for it being bad to go first are generally

barbarians or melee types who feel they MUST dash into range no matter what (if you must run forward, I recommend javelins or dodging)
rogues who couldn't get sneak attack (but now with steady aim you almost always can)

outside of these I'm not sure what other examples people really can use reliably.

Only in the case of a single enemy monster.

If there are 3 enemies they will likely have spread out initiative, you are 25% more likely to be ahead of any of them. If for example without alert you are ahead of 1, and with you are ahead of 2, then that is still valuable. How valuable will depend too much on what kind of enemies you are facing so it is hard to quantify.
Right. And that's what I think is compelling here. Alert is compelling in a very trivial 1 PC vs. 1 enemy scenario, but becomes better and better the larger the group of enemies. A good strat in any combat is to single out a target that hasn't gone yet, and try and burst them into oblivion if you can.

If you can pull such a thing off (and if there are a lot of enemies, you often can) then you're doing your role as a damage specialist, and winning initiative materially lowered the difficulty of the fight.

Our wizard in my brother's campaign took the alert feat and he never looked back. He gets debuffs or AoE's up early (has a 16 dex as well).
IMO there's a compelling case than any control-type character should grab alert.

There's also a compelling case that initiative is among the best uses of bardic inspiration.

[LudicSavant]

Each +1 initiative is worth about 5% of a turn's damage over a fight. It is also front loaded, which is usually better than back.

If you start with a 3 turn damage model ("fights are decided by turn 3"), then damage on turn 1 is worth up to 3x damage on turn 3. Assuming it isn't "one big bad boss", this is because any creature you kill on turn 1 doesn't do damage for every other turn.

Which means +1 initiative is 5% first turn damage, worth .15 rounds of damage. But first turn normal damage is also worth 3x, 2nd 2x and 3rd 1x -- totalling to 6x over 3 turns. We can renormalize...

Alpha strike damage is worth 1.5x.
2nd turn damage is worth 1.0x.
3rd turn damage is worth 0.5x.

This way, steady damage gets a 1x multiplier. It also explains why action surge and gloomstalkers extra attack is so good -- action surge isn't worth an action, it is worth an alpha strike action.

So the +1 initiative is worth 7.5% of a turn's damage. Compared to steady damage, we divide by 3 (3 turns) and get 2.5% of your damage on a turn.

Advantage we can model as +3 (the rough change to mean roll), or 7.5% of a turn's damage.

Action Surge in this model is worth +50% of your DPR (1.5x / 3). Gloomstalker extra attack is worth +0.5 attacks to your DPR.

So, action surge is worth about 7x as much as alert.

How are you ending up with 7x, even by the assumptions of this model?

- If a +1 initiative is worth 7.5% of a turn's damage, then +5 initiative is more than that (approximately 5x more, in fact). Even under this model where you've equated Action Surge to a full Alpha Strike turn, 7.5% x5 is 1/4th of 150%, not 1/7th. I can't figure out where the 1/7th figure is coming from here.

Also,
- Action Surge is only worth alpha strike damage if you win initiative (over Team Monster).
- Action Surge doesn't actually double a turn's DPR for most Fighters, because not all of their damage comes from their Action. This is the case whether we're talking about GWM, CBE, Battle Master maneuvers, Rapid Strike, Rune Knight stuff, etc.

[Frogreaver]

I've seen some solid points in this thread but there's one I've not seen mentioned.

It doesn't just matter whether you go before the enemy, it also matters if you going before an enemy reduced the enemy's number of turns and since combat isn't 1v1 this isn't guaranteed, especially if you are doing damage instead of control. I'm looking first at the case of 4 PC's vs 1 NPC.

Thus, there's a few considerations:


Chance alert helps you go before the enemy - this changes depending on the enemies bonus vs your exact bonus.
Chance you are actually able to do something productive when going first (sometimes it can be better to go 2nd, mostly for melee characters, but still)
Chance your action when going first actually took away an enemies turn/turns.



The chance for going first is most going to be below 25% (i'll estimate at 25% for ease)
The chance you are actually able to do something producitive depends on build.
The chance you going first actually reduces the enemies turn/turns would be really high for control abilities, but for damage based ones it would probably be closer to estimate as 1/N where N is the PC's in the party.


For an Archer attacking a single NPC you might have a 25% * 100% * 25% chance you reduce the enemies turn by 1 due to alert = 6.25%
*This might be much lower for a melee character.

The equivalent amount of DPR increase to have a similar effect would most likely be something like +25% for that archer. (assumes a 4 round encounter).

However, for a Wizard casting a large control spell, going first (or at least before more enemies) can remove many more turns and can have much higher chances of doing so.

My take away is that alert is great for a wizard, mediocre for an archer and likely bad for melee.

[Yakk]

How are you ending up with 7x, even by the assumptions of this model?

- If a +1 initiative is worth 7.5% of a turn's damage, then +5 initiative is more than that (approximately 5x more, in fact). Even under this model where you've equated Action Surge to a full Alpha Strike turn, 7.5% x5 is 1/4th of 150%, not 1/7th. I can't figure out where the 1/7th figure is coming from here.
The average change in initiative from advantage is +3, not +5.

1.5/(0.075*3) is 6.7.


Also,
- Action Surge is only worth alpha strike damage if you win initiative (over Team Monster).
- Action Surge doesn't actually double a turn's DPR for most Fighters, because not all of their damage comes from their Action. This is the case whether we're talking about GWM, CBE, Battle Master maneuvers, Rapid Strike, Rune Knight stuff, etc.
I am using alpha strike to refer to first turn's damage. It being worth 1.5x steady damage.

And yes, it isn't a complete simulation of combat. It is a model designed for napkin math, so you can get ballpark estimates of what something is worth.

Full simulations of combat are way too complex to discuss without actually writing out code and unit testing it and the like. Finding areas the model doesn't have perfect fidelity isn't interesting unless you focus on about how big the lack of fidelity is.

As an example, I'd deal with short rest resources (like BM maneuvers) distinctly from this; I'd measure flux (how fast you can dump it) and capacity (how big the impact is per short rest).

A cute insight of the 1.5x importance of first turn is that a non-crit damage die on turn 1 (1.5x1) is worth more than a crit damage die on turn 3 (0.5x2 = 1.0) in a multi-monster situation, but a turn 2 crit (1.0 x 2) is worth more than a turn 1 normal die.

It argues that a PAM paladin who dumps 3 smites on turn 1 with 1 crit (4x1.5) might be even with a paladin who smites 1/round on a crit on round 1 through 3.

...

I'm not sure I got +1 initiative right however.

+1 initiative adds 1/20th of a turn to the combat on average. And this is indeed on the first turn that it is added.

But a 1/20 chance to get an extra turn at the start of combat feels better than +1 initiative.

But my model treats them as equal. Is that right?

In a 1:1 fight it might be. Hmm.

[da newt]

It's probably simplest to think of winning initiative as = one less attack/turn (DPR) for every creature/foe you take out of the fight (via death or other action denial) over the course of the entire combat - it's more of a reduction of the opponent's turns than an increase in your damage output.

I'm very surprised at the number of folks who are suggesting going before your foe isn't always a very good thing. Even if you choose not to attack you still have the opportunity to dodge, move, hide, ready an action, buff, etc - these are all very beneficial.

[Thunderous Mojo]

My take away is that alert is great for a wizard, mediocre for an archer and likely bad for melee.

The other benefits of the Alert feat; not being Surprised, not granting Advantage to Unseen Attackers are fairly substantial.

The PAM/Sentinel build that people have referenced for years doesn’t want to lose their Reaction from being Surprised.

Likewise, if this PAM/Sentinel PC has to charge through a cornfield full of goblins, not granting Advantage to the sneaky buggers is a nice boon.

[Reynaert]

I'm not sure I got +1 initiative right however.

+1 initiative adds 1/20th of a turn to the combat on average. And this is indeed on the first turn that it is added.

But a 1/20 chance to get an extra turn at the start of combat feels better than +1 initiative.

But my model treats them as equal. Is that right?

In a 1:1 fight it might be. Hmm.

+1 initiative is, on average, a 1/20 chance to get an extra turn. However, it's correlated to other things.

That is, with a 1/20 chance to get an extra turn you get a nonzero chance to go twice at the beginning. With +1 to initiative you do not.
This may balance out on other fronts, I'm not sure.

[LudicSavant]

The average change in initiative from advantage is +3, not +5.

Alert gives you +5, not Advantage.


I am using alpha strike to refer to first turn's damage. It being worth 1.5x steady damage.

The primary factor that makes certain turns more valuable is their relationship to the amount of turns taken by team monster.

Basically, you can think of turn order as being -> (Initiative win first turn) -> Team Monster first turn -> (Initiative lose first turn / IW second turn) -> Team Monster second turn -> (IL second turn / IW third turn) -> etc.

Your model appears to be treating (IL first turn / IW second turn) and (IW first turn) as having the same "turn value" multiplier when measuring Action Surge.


The other benefits of the Alert feat; not being Surprised, not granting Advantage to Unseen Attackers are fairly substantial.

The PAM/Sentinel build that people have referenced for years doesn’t want to lose their Reaction from being Surprised.

Likewise, if this PAM/Sentinel PC has to charge through a cornfield full of goblins, not granting Advantage to the sneaky buggers is a nice boon.

Adding to this, Alert also stops "both sides can't see each other" situations (like Fog Cloud) from cancelling out. If you have Alert, it'll leave the enemy with Disadvantage to hit.

[Frogreaver]

I'm not sure I got +1 initiative right however.

+1 initiative adds 1/20th of a turn to the combat on average. And this is indeed on the first turn that it is added.

But a 1/20 chance to get an extra turn at the start of combat feels better than +1 initiative.

But my model treats them as equal. Is that right?

In a 1:1 fight it might be. Hmm.

In a 1:1 fight +1 initiative will increase your chance of going first by a variable amount that depends upon the difference of your original initiative bonus compared to the enemies initiative bonus. This is because in initiative 2 d20's get rolled instead of just one.

For example if you have +3 dex and the opponent has +1 dex mod then you have a 57.25% chance of going first and a 4.5% chance of a tie. If that get's increased to +4 dex and opponent has +1 dex mod then you have a 61.75% chance of going first and a 4.5% chance of a tie.

The difference in this example is only a 4% chance of doing first not a 1/20 = 5% chance of doing so. (Other examples will yield different values).

In the 1:1 fight going first will on average mean the enemy gets 1 fewer turn. In our example +1 initiative would be 4% of a single turns damage. An M:N encounter is much harder to predict.

Just for fun I ran the numbers for +3 dex and alert (+5 initiative) = +8 initiative bonus in the same example and it comes to 77.25% chance of going first and a 3.25% chance of a tie. This translates into +20% chance of doing first and a -1.25% chance of a tie.

[strangebloke]

To sum up

25% of the time you effectively deny the enemy their first turn against you. That's insane

If the enemy would have had surprise, you deny it, and thus effectively get your turn back. That's great

In scenarios where the event might have advantage against you, our might attack normally, you get attacked normally or with disadvantage.

Overall it's hard to hm think of a single feat that does so much. Stack of with bardic inspiration and/or cutting words for a good time

[PallyBass]

Yeah I agree it can be viewed as a damage feat. Gloomstalkers, Bugbears, and Assassin's all have abilities that key off of going before the enemy so boosting the likelihood of going first is a damage boost to their reliability to get those effects off. Then there's the more basic "acting before the enemy can act", specifically before they can run away, disable you or otherwise reduce your damage in some way before you get a turn to act. I don't know how strong of a Damage boosting feat it is, but it's a fantastic feat for being able to go first more reliably. I think of it like the Lucky feat, universally good on all characters, but unlike lucky it also synergizes with certain class/racial abilities.

[TaiLiu]

My idealized scenario is the worst case by a wide margin. Consider a spell like forcecage that completely takes over an encounter. If you go first, you can forcecage an enemy and completely take them out of the fight while you deal with their minions. If you don't go first, well. They can forcecage you. That's the difference between an encounter that's trivial and an encounter that's incredibly difficult.
This is a pretty cool thought! I’ve never thought about Alert and initiative like that before.


See, my problem here is that I don't want the fights to be decided before my enemies have even acted. That doesn't sound fun to me. I want to optimize a cool character and then throw them against cool enemies and be scared and have to think fast and react some times. I want fights to be dynamic and unpredictable, so I can use a variety of abilities and tactics.
I can relate! Like, we’re probably gonna win the fight anyway, so it’s mostly a matter of doing cool things in the fight or witnessing cool things as part of it.


The other benefits of the Alert feat; not being Surprised, not granting Advantage to Unseen Attackers are fairly substantial.
Curiously, neither surprise nor unseen attackers have been a thing that I’ve had to deal with in any campaign before (as a player). Maybe that’s one of the reasons why I’ve never looked at Alert. A lot of it just never comes up.

[yisopo]

I just want to say that I'm currently a chronurgy wizard with Alert feat. I have +11 Initiative and it is really really great! (+12 at higher levels)

[sambojin]

Is Alert a damage feat? Yes. It can let you go before enemy creatures to attack, or let you cast a good control spell early on (which can up party/your DPS quite a bit with advantage or auto-crits etc. Damage spells do exist too, and it makes targeting easier).

But, is something like Guidance (used for init) or Enhance Ability (Dex) a damage spell by the same token? They're not always on, but they do give about +2.5/~+3.3 initiative respectively.

Guidance can be cast before an encounter starts and is resourceless (other than your concentration, which is pretty big), but it's kind-of obvious when you do it without Subtle Spell or something. But there's plenty of encounters that the PCs start, you can see the bad-guys and you decide what to do, and then there's "ok, roll for initiative". Casting Guidance just before this point is doable somewhat often.

Enhance Ability might have been cast an encounter ago with its 1hr duration, and it's still advantage to that roll, possibly to multiple people at higher levels. And advantage is nice. You can also choose to stealth out, or do something impressively acrobatic or something else instead. And nearly every caster gets EE in 5e (only primal casters in the 1DnD UA though, which is kinda cool).

So, if Alert is a damage feat, are these damage spells? Not as good (Alert's +5 is amazing), but optional "class features" for plenty of builds in 5e with a 1-3lvl dip, or inherent to a class.

[LudicSavant]

So, if Alert is a damage feat, are these damage spells? Yes, they are.

[Thunderous Mojo]

Gift of Alacrity is a monster of a spell.

[LudicSavant]

Gift of Alacrity is a monster of a spell.

It’s like they took 3.5e Nerveskitter, and thought “we need that back. Also buff it.”

:/

[Thunderous Mojo]

The eight hour duration is bonkers. If Gift of Alacrity had a 1 hour duration, it would still be an awesome spell.

The fact that Gift Alacrity can be poached with the Fey-Touched feat also adds to the greatness. The spell even pairs well with the Metamagic Adept Feat: Twinned, Extend.

Extend allows you to create a 16 hour cast of Gift of Alacrity.
Time your Adventure correctly and without using a single class given spell slot, 3 people have 8 hour, Gift of Alacrity active, through use of Extend and Twinned metamagics.

If the PC in question has even a single 1st level slot, then there can be 5 active Gift of Alacrity active.

[LudicSavant]

The eight duration is bonkers. If Gift of Alacrity had a 1 hour duration, it would still be an awesome spell.

The fact that Gift Alacrity can be poached with the Fey-Touched feat also adds to the greatness. The spell even pairs well with the Metamagic Adept Feat: Twinned, Extend.

Extend allows you to create a 16 hour cast of Gift of Alacrity.
Time your Adventure correctly and without using a single class given spell slot, 3 people have 8 hour, Gift of Alacrity active, through use of Extend and Twinned metamagics.

If the PC in question has even a single 1st level slot, then there can be 5 active Gift of Alacrity active.

Back in 3.5e it only lasted one round, and ate in-combat action economy, and it was still considered a nasty power creep spell, even by 3.5e standards.

[strangebloke]

So, if Alert is a damage feat, are these damage spells? Not as good (Alert's +5 is amazing), but optional "class features" for plenty of builds in 5e with a 1-3lvl dip, or inherent to a class.
Bringing up the damage is my subtle way of indicating how impactful going first can be. In reality, damage is one of the less broken things you can do with the first turn.

You go first, you drop hypnotic pattern, 3/4 of the orcs are out of commission before they even get to take a turn. Or at lower levels you do the same thing with sleep.

It was considered a nasty power creep spell in 3.5e, back when it took in-combat action economy and only lasted for 1 round.

As always needs to be brought up here, Gift of Alacrity was never supposed to be a spell available to everyone. While waiving flavor requirements makes sense sometimes (as with bladesinger) its very silly to waive it here, since the spell is clearly so overtuned and was originally given as a quest reward in the CR campaign it appeared in. Dunamancy is supposed to be an arcane secret.

[LudicSavant]

As always needs to be brought up here, Gift of Alacrity was never supposed to be a spell available to everyone. While waiving flavor requirements makes sense sometimes (as with bladesinger) its very silly to waive it here, since the spell is clearly so overtuned and was originally given as a quest reward in the CR campaign it appeared in. Dunamancy is supposed to be an arcane secret.

It gives me little consolation if it's a spell exclusive to Chronurgists, which are overpowered even before considering their Dunamancy spells.

[Amechra]

It’s like they took 3.5e Nerveskitter, and thought “we need that back. Also buff it.”

:/

I haven't heard that name in years...

...

I honestly think that the reason why most people don't look at stuff like Alert when crunching damage numbers is because the utility is wildly contingent on how likely it is that you wouldn't end up going first anyway. You're a Monk fighting an Ogre? Alert probably isn't going to change the initiative order. And, given that a lot of number crunching I've seen will skip stuff like accuracy and crits entirely... I'm not surprised that people decide that that sounds like too much work.

[ProsecutorGodot]

It gives me little consolation if it's a spell exclusive to Chronurgists, which are overpowered even before considering their Dunamancy spells.

Dunamancy in general is intended to be a rare and mysterious concept the a majority of the setting.

It's one of the few things our group actually restricts at the table, even when we ran Call of the Netherdeep it was decided that none of the characters had suitable background connections to have access to these wizard subclasses.

The idea of printing high power options with hard restrictions is kinda anthema to 5e design though, so many assume that is content is printed it's fair play.

[strangebloke]

It gives me little consolation if it's a spell exclusive to Chronurgists, which are overpowered even before considering their Dunamancy spells.

Eh, fair enough. I'm not really interested in fighting over Matt Mercer's skills as a homebrewer, which are.... well, he's good at some things. Balance isn't one of them lol.

Suffice to say though I agree that its dummy overpowered.

[stoutstien]

For barbarian I always rate alert highly. Setting the extra potential damage aside they need to get rage up ASAP seeing how most of their chassis relies on it. The difference between going 2 and 5th for a AG is a massive swing in mitigation.
Anyone running "anvil" style tactics want to go first. You are setting the pace and forcing the enemies to readjust tactics that opens up angles for hammers to get in place.

[Xetheral]

It's important to remember to take into account play style differences when evaluating the power of an initiative bonus. In campaigns that often feature protracted, long-range combats with lots of obstacles to movement and visibility, denying an enemy a round of actions (by killing it one round sooner) will likely be proportionally less valuable than it would be in a short-range, 3-round slugfest.

There are exceptions though--if full cover is usually plentiful, but characters typically start combat exposed, for example, then winning initiative allows attacking the exposed enemy and moving to full cover to prevent retaliation. Getting such an asymmetric first turn can raise the tactical value of winning initiative in a protracted combat beyond the value of winning initiative in a short-ranged slugfest.

Generally, I think there are three extra playstyle-dependent parameters to consider when evaluating the effects of initiative bonuses:


The expected length of combat. Although the absolute damage avoided by killing an enemy sooner doesn't vary with combat length, the proportional impact of that avoided damage (in comparison to total damage received over the course of the fight) goes down as combat length goes up. (This parameter will matter more in combats whose outcomes are uncertain, where proportional changes in damage received can affect which side runs out of hit points first. Proportional changes in enemy damage matter very little if victory is a foregone conclusion anyway.)

The fraction of turns on which enemies attempt to deal damage. On battlefields that are large and/or feature opportunities for cover, many turns might be spent on dashing or readying attacks for triggers that never materialize. The fewer turns on which enemies are actually making attacks, the less damage one can expect to avoid by going ahead of enemies in the initiative order.

The chance of achieving an asymmetric first turn. This has been mentioned already in the context of spellcasters with encounter-altering spells, but in the right conditions any character can potentially have an outsize affect on the battle by acting first. I already mentioned attacking an exposed enemy and then getting into full cover as a basic asymmetric example, but combats with triggerable environmental effects can also easily fall into this category. In the right circumstances, for example, taking control of a door between the party and the enemy can be just as (or more) impactful as a first-turn Wall of Force.

[Yakk]

If half of the turns are nullified due to positional things, then getting 1 extra turn is just as valuable amusingly.

What matters is turns of contact.

Like, take two fights. One starts with foes next to each other. The other starts with a 3 round approach before they are next to each other.

So long as there isn't Zugzwang, the one with initiative still gets an extra turn of over the enemy, even if it is 3 rounds delayed.

I guess the problem is that the barrier to contact occurs at a random point in initiative, not at the start of rounds.

[OldTrees1]

Like, take two fights. One starts with foes next to each other. The other starts with a 3 round approach before they are next to each other.

So long as there isn't Zugzwang, the one with initiative still gets an extra turn of over the enemy, even if it is 3 rounds delayed.

I guess the problem is that the barrier to contact occurs at a random point in initiative, not at the start of rounds.

Disclaimer: Winning initative can have an advantage and Alert can be thought of as a Damage feat.

As you hint at, it is possible to inflict Zugzwang on the enemy.

If one combat starts with a 3 round approach, then I assume they are separated by 6-7 rounds of movement (each side has 3 rounds). The enemy last move put them close enough for you to start the engagement on your turn. The enemy will only do that if in Zugzwang (possibly due to low tactical assessment or pressure applied by your party). Otherwise they would halt and try to force you to make the last move before the engagement. Basically despite "initiative" having already been "won/lost", one side has the ability to declare they won initiative all along even if they "lost" the initial roll. Most cases of an approach that I can think of result in Zugzwang (although sometimes the disadvantage is minor). The enemy might be forced to approach within your "range + move" and ready an attack. You then move and attack. They get their readied attack (fractional turn) vs your multiple attacks (high quality turn).

Repositioning and reacting first to the changing landscape is another way "losing" initiative results in winning initiative. Although this is harder to predict with the enemy and easier to predict within your party. Which of your party members do you want to beat you in initiative? Which do you want to lose to you in initiative? A common pattern might be 1) enemy makes a forced mistake 2) "set them up" or divide 3) "take them down" or conquer.


Of course the common thread is characters generally know if they are better at benefiting from acting first vs acting second. If the character is better at benefiting from acting first, then Alert is a strong contender for a damage feat.

[Witty Username]

Initiative does have a "speed stat" issue. For those unfamiliar with Pokémon, it is (almost because trick room) always better to have a higher speed than your opponent. But 1 point higher is a much as you need, so their is a whole calculation on how many Pokémon you can outspeed and how much speed investment is worthwhile.

Alert is a great example of both ways this can go, +5 is useful to every build some of the time, but that will be of varying value to builds with high and low initiative.
Heavy armor fighter with 10 dex, Alert brings them in line with a dex build comfortably. Decent selection
Wizard, 14-16 dex, Alert will mean going first more often than not, and round 1 is very control sensitive. Good option
Rogue, 20 dex, Alert, you will almost always go first, but without Alert you weren't doing poorly. Decent selection
Watcher dexadin, 20 dex, +6 aura, you are almost always going first, Alert you will always go first, but how often will that come up. Arguably over invested.

[ProsecutorGodot]

Initiative does have a "speed stat" issue. For those unfamiliar with Pokémon, it is (almost because trick room) always better to have a higher speed than your opponent. But 1 point higher is a much as you need, so their is a whole calculation on how many Pokémon you can outspeed and how much speed investment is worthwhile.

Alert is a great example of both ways this can go, +5 is useful to every build some of the time, but that will be of varying value to builds with high and low initiative.
Heavy armor fighter with 10 dex, Alert brings them in line with a dex build comfortably. Decent selection
Wizard, 14-16 dex, Alert will mean going first more often than not, and round 1 is very control sensitive. Good option
Rogue, 20 dex, Alert, you will almost always go first, but without Alert you weren't doing poorly. Decent selection
Watcher dexadin, 20 dex, +6 aura, you are almost always going first, Alert you will always go first, but how often will that come up. Arguably over invested.

I mean this might be true if a D20 wasn't involved. A higher initiative score is insurance against bad luck and variance, the only time you can truly over invest is when you've guaranteed a higher possible initiative than any other creature and then take more.

[Yakk]

Its value varies from 5% of a turn (identical initiative) down to 0.25% (your initiative is already +19 over your opponent; you only go 2nd if you roll a 1 and they roll a 20 (here we assume the other team wins ties; if you do, count it as an extra +1), I think linearly?

So yes, 5% of a turn per +1 is an over estimate.

[Witty Username]

I mean this might be true if a D20 wasn't involved. A higher initiative score is insurance against bad luck and variance, the only time you can truly over invest is when you've guaranteed a higher possible initiative than any other creature and then take more.

That is why it is always useful, at least some of the time.

A watcher dexadin will periodically roll a 1, and only get a 8 to 12 depending on your level initiative. Most enemies without a dex penalty can beat that, about half the time, in that case Alert is going to come up. But your already starting to get into gating enemy types out of this, low dex enemies like zombies for example are going to be hard pressed to match this initiative, and we are only going with a 1, a mid roll like 10-11, and your starting to see actually unbeatable initiative for even some enemies with a dex bonus. It is important to keep in mind what the returns are, since other options may be more valuable in comparison.

For example let's take an extreme, watcher paladin 8/bard 2 with alert and a dex+2. This is getting a +15 (assuming dex is 18 at this point) initiative. As of this point for the character, and roll higher than about a 3 will start to be completely unbeatable for monsters (roll a 13 and your initiative is actually unbeatable, if I remember my monsters right). And in a few levels, 20 dex, +5 prof, this will increase to +17 and eventually to +19. We could even take blessed warrior for guidance or the enhance ability spells for an extra 1d4 or advantage respectively.
But by this point enemies with all but the absolute best dex scores can't beat this number at all reasonably. A 14 dex enemy can still beat this number technically (1/400 chance).
This build but dropping alert, in favor of +2 dex and the numbers shift to +11, +12, +14, which still is a very difficult to beat initiative for most monsters. Alternatively we could drop bard for a multiclass like sorcerer, and initiative changes to +13, +15, +16. is a -3 to initiative worth it to access the shield spell and/or metamagic, when you have a half chance of winning initiative on a 1 anyway, probably.

[Chaos Jackal]

Yeah, you can most certainly over-invest. It's difficult with bounded accuracy and d20 variance, but it's there. At some point, you'll just have very small returns from your buffs. Outright zero returns are borderline impossible however, unless you're exclusively fighting enemies with 10 or lower on the relevant stat - in this case, Dex - and no other buffs while you've hit +20. Which is so fringe as to be a moot point.

And then there's of course the issue of what you expect the DM to spring on you in general. To take Witty Username's Pokemon example further, on a Scarf mon, general revenge killer or standard sweeper, you'll run maximum speed investment because, even though you might be outspeeding most enemies with a lower speed tier than yours by default or after your buffs, you still need to account for those who have the same speed tier and buffs or even outright mirror matches, in which case that one point matters again. You can't afford to go below the speed tie there - you'll lose your ScarfChomp to the enemy ScarfChomp if you do and while not every team will carry a ScarfChomp, it's still something common enough that you need to account for when building your own.

So if your DM's big bads and generally nasty opponents tend to sport +10 initiatives... yeah, over-investment is definitely not a thing.

[RSP]

I like this thread: I’ve always liked Alert as a Feat , but appreciate it a bit more after reading through this.

I didn’t see any discussion about it preventing Surprise though: not only is Alert nice is getting Actions in before enemies, but getting a turn when you’d otherwise be doing nothing is pretty nice as well, for all the same reasons discussed in this thread as to why it’s nice to go first.

Surprised not to see that mentioned here (pun intended).