Nerfing Casters the 2.0 Way? Old-Style Initiative

[Lapak]

(I don't think this is quite homebrew, given that it's talking about a mix of older and newer official rules, but let me know if I'm wrong.)

There have been a few threads lately asking about how to downgrade the influence of full-casting classes, and I think that an older edition might be part of the solution. In AD&D 2.0, the initiative process differed in three critical ways. First, there was a delay between starting a spellcasting action and completing the spell called the casting time. Second, initiative was re-determined for each round of combat. Third, all actions were declared before initiative was rolled.

This method has several consequences that might help:
- By forcing action declarations before anyone knows who will be going first, you create a much greater chance that a caster will be disrupted in the process of casting a spell. You may get your spell started before an enemy is on top of you or you may not.

- You eliminate the perfect spell placement that is now the rule. The caster can say he's dropping the Glitterdust spell 80' to the north, or he can say that he's going to center it on a creature, but if he goes one way one or more of the creatures he wants may be out of the area when he finishes casting and if he chooses the other the creature he selects may be right on top of his friends when the spell goes off.

- You eliminate the perfect tactical decisions that crop up all the time. Yes, you generally want to focus fire on a creature until it drops with the existing hit point system, but this way you may end up burning a Magic Missile on a creature that's already going down to a sword blow - or you may choose another target and find that the first enemy is still standing. (This one applies to melee-types too, of course, depending on how they declared their actions.)

- In addition to not knowing when they will cast, the spell itself takes time (effectively an initiative penalty of 1 per spell level.) If I five-foot step away from an orc and start casting Disintegrate, there's a very good chance that his turn will come while I'm finishing and that he'll step right up and smack me, potentially disrupting it.

- Finally, it weakens the perfection of readied actions. I can ready an action to cast a spell when Joe comes into sight, but if I wait until then and Joe has enough movement left to get to me within his turn he's going to be in my face before I can finish casting.

What do people think? Is going back to the 2.0-style initiative viable? Even things like Celerity would be weakened if you enforce casting times; jumping into the middle of other people's actions with one of your own is less powerful if all you can do there is START casting. The only adjustments I think you'd have to make beyond just initiative is to eliminate Contingencies (which bypass the initiative process completely) and you would have to work out special casting times for spells that are useless unless they are instant-cast(like Feather Fall, say.)

[Skorj]

I've been playing Icewind Dale recently (2.0 based) and it really does do a lot to balance casters. Howvever, handling initiative that way PnP really does slow down the game, and 2.0 spells had casting times which would be compared to weapon speeds and intiative rolls and number of attacks per round in complex ways. I had a homebrew system that handled all of that once, but it was some real work to develop.

Still, if you wanted to head down that road, I'd add one tweak: a caster should be able to disrupt his own spell at the last moment, if it turns out he's about to fireball his friends because the target moves. That's worth doing just because of the amount of argument it will save.

[Lapak]

I've been playing Icewind Dale recently (2.0 based) and it really does do a lot to balance casters. Howvever, handling initiative that way PnP really does slow down the game, and 2.0 spells had casting times which would be compared to weapon speeds and intiative rolls and number of attacks per round in complex ways. I had a homebrew system that handled all of that once, but it was some real work to develop.

The weapon speeds never struck me as very accurate - they ended up having people with halberds strike AFTER people with daggers - but the spell casting times work even better in 3.x to balance casters if those are the only action-modifiers. So I'd just stick with those.

Still, if you wanted to head down that road, I'd add one tweak: a caster should be able to disrupt his own spell at the last moment, if it turns out he's about to fireball his friends because the target moves. That's worth doing just because of the amount of argument it will save.

Yes, I'd agree. That's definitely a worthwhile addition. And it will definitely add time, but I don't remember it adding that much time, particularly if you're rolling group initiative for enemy minions and goons. I think it might be time well spent.

[Cedrass]

I am myself a fan of AD&D, but you plan on using the one thing I could never get myself to use: Declaring your action before initiative.

Not only is it a clever way to make your players mad, but it does not make any sense! In an actual fight, your actions aren't decided beforehand, but right on the moment, depending on what is happening on the battlefield.

On a side note, using this variant I would ban Improved Initiative, or else it just makes casting spell level 4 and lower really easier than intended.

[Lapak]

I am myself a fan of AD&D, but you plan on using the one thing I could never get myself to use: Declaring your action before initiative.

Not only is it a clever way to make your players mad, but it does not make any sense! In an actual fight, your actions aren't decided beforehand, but right on the moment, depending on what is happening on the battlefield.

Well, I'd argue that this isn't always so. Forcing declaration before initiative does a better job of simulating the chaos of combat and also smooths out the choppy movement that taking turns creates. In standard 3.x combat, each person has the benefit of perfect knowledge across the entire battlefield when they decide what to do. If I'm fifth in line, I know exactly how badly PC 1 was injured by that troll, whether or not PC2 managed to hit it with a Scorching Ray, and the result of the volley of arrows launched by orcs A, B and C. And I get to make my own actions based on that knowledge - despite that fact that everyone's actions are theoretically happening within 6 seconds. That's great for the person taking the action, but how reasonable is it - especially since it allows for perfect expenditure of the limited resource that spell slots represent?

It would add verisimilitude and nerf casters slightly not to have that knowledge. In an actual battle, the caster may see that orcs A, B and C are launching a volley, and that the troll is charging and that PC 1 and PC 2 intend to kill it if they can, but he'll have to guess whether or not it will be important to drop a Cure Serious on PC 1 as a result. Yeah, it will take getting used to, but I think that a large part of caster domination comes from the perfect battlefield knowledge that rotation-based initiative gives them.

On a side note, using this variant I would ban Improved Initiative, or else it just makes casting spell level 4 and lower really easier than intended.

Yeah, we'd have to take a look at that. Though it wouldn't have quite the effect you're thinking; the caster would start casting 4 spots earlier in line, but it would still take him [spell level] initiative slots to finish.

[FlawedParadigm]

Having played through this system the first time, I'd say yes, let them auto-disrupt their own spell, if they want. At the cost of the spell slot. Better than nuking your buddies, anyhow. Also, don't forget that certain spells (Dimension Door, if I recall, and the Power Words for sure) had a lower initiative count than their spell level (and I think Feather Fall had 0).

Also, it helps if you change how init works slighty, closer to how it worked in 2E (when rounds were a full minute). Each round has 60 (or 100, if you really like) "counts", and you subtract everyone's init from that pool. So someone with 23 init acts on count 37, someone with 5 acts on count 55. There's a reason for this later.

Here's the better part; you can offer a bunch of feats to help mitigate how badly this nerfs casters to get them to blow feats on these instead of meta-magics or item creation feats too.

Examples:
A feat so that self-disruption doesn't cost the spell slot.

Another to change the spell you were casting, but a) you have to cast the full new spell and b) you only get until the last "count" (as explained above) that round to finish. If you're still casting, you have to finish next round - although probably first in the initiative order since until very high level, no one would be acting for the first several counts in a round.

Example: Phil's casting a Finger of Death at BBEG's lieutenant, and is due to finish at initiative count 57 (He rolled 10 init, so he'd normally act on 50, but the casting time "slows" him by 7), but at count 52, Jim kills him. The BBEG is undead, so Phil needs to do something else if he wants to be useful. He decides to go for Greater Dispel Magic (casting time 6), so he'd now act on count 63...but there's only 60. He acts on count 3 next turn.

Perhaps a feat to assist with all those extra Concentration checks they'll be making as they're getting mid-spell beatdown. Or if you want to be especially cruel, go 2E style and remove concentration. If you take damage, you lose your spell. Full stop.

A feat to allow them to change a targetted area to another one (you still cast the same spell though, unlike the better version above).

[Mr.Moron]

Seems overly complicated. You accomplish something similar by making all spells have casting time of one full round. If that feels like too much, allow move actions to be taken while casting.

[LibraryOgre]

I think a simple way of doing this would be that, on a caster's initiative, he declares what spell he will cast. He does not cast it until X initiative counts later, where X equals the level of the spell; quickened spells (and swift-action spells) count as level 0 for this purpose. The spell is targeted at the end of the casting time, or can be aborted. While casting, the spellcaster is flat-footed.

This does several things.

1) Slows spellcasters down. Being slower than other people is dangerous, especially since, in that 2 count time where you're casting Glitterdust, the other side may have closed with you.

2) Makes meat shields more valuable. At least for a couple rounds, where the wizards are trying to slowly get defenses in place, having a meat shield to interpose becomes much more important.

3) Makes disrupting a more viable tactic. Instead of needing to ready an action, you have to hit them sometime in their casting period (though you can still ready an action). Since the spell-caster is flatfooted during the casting, they get ganked more my rogues and the like.

If you really want to have fun, rule that any spellcasting time that can't be completed before initiative equals 0 can't be cast that round, and carry an initiative penalty onto the next round (so if the wizard rolls a 3, and wants to cast a 5th level spell, he has a -2 to his initiative next round). A low initiative roll can cripple a caster who has to keep playing catch-up. Makes Dexterity more important, or something like Improved Initiative, to give them room to cast, and keep them from always acting last.

[Lapak]

Seems overly complicated. You accomplish something similar by making all spells have casting time of one full round. If that feels like too much, allow move actions to be taken while casting.

True, but I do want low-level spells to be less of a hassle than encounter-ending high level ones.

I think Mark Hall might have a reasonable compromise if you don't like the declared-actions version. EDIT: I especially like that Quickened spells have an advantage without being the pre-emptive problems that they are now.

And while I see the advantages to FlawedParadigm's method, I think tracking that many initiative segments wouldn't necessarily add much.

[Faulty]

With the d20 initiative system in place and the 2.0 casting style...

Say a Wizard acts on initiative 8, and casts Banishment. I imagine the spell then would occur at initiative 1, and the next round the caster would act on initiative 1. If the caster next round casted Finger of Death, he would then cast on initiative 14? Would he then be able to start casting again or move or attack, or would he have to wait until next round at 14?

[Matthew]

I would say you need to get rid of concentration checks as a means to avoiding spell disruption and insist on a full round for most spells. Bear in mind that second edition had several different initiative systems, but first edition required only spell casters to declare their spells prior to initiative.

With the d20 initiative system in place and the 2.0 casting style...

Say a Wizard acts on initiative 8, and casts Banishment. I imagine the spell then would occur at initiative 1, and the next round the caster would act on initiative 1. If the caster next round casted Finger of Death, he would then cast on initiative 14? Would he then be able to start casting again or move or attack, or would he have to wait until next round at 14?

If you are aiming at an AD&D like model, then he acts on initiative 8, regardless of the when the spell culminates. The important point is when he begins his action, not when its results occur.

[Faulty]

I think you shouldn't be able to cast defensively without the Combat Casting feat, which I would give prerequisites that prevent entry until level 5 or so. Something like the ability to cast 2Nd level spells, Spellcraft 8 ranks, Concentration 8 ranks.

If you are aiming at an AD&D like model, then he acts on initiative 8, regardless of the when the spell culminates. The important point is when he begins his action, not when its results occur.

Thanks.

[Lapak]

With the d20 initiative system in place and the 2.0 casting style...

Say a Wizard acts on initiative 8, and casts Banishment. I imagine the spell then would occur at initiative 1, and the next round the caster would act on initiative 1. If the caster next round casted Finger of Death, he would then cast on initiative 14? Would he then be able to start casting again or move or attack, or would he have to wait until next round at 14?

Under my proposed system, you resolve everyone's action within the round and then re-declare and reroll initiative,so everyone DOES eventually get a turn each round. Some of the variations we've talked through so far would act more like you're describing.

[Faulty]

The one worry with that would be slowing down combat, though, everyone could roll a few initiatives at the beginning of combat, or they could roll at the end of their turn, so it's ready for next turn.

[FlawedParadigm]

Oh, right. That reminds me; unless you want to see people use the round-wrap-around effect to their benefit, you'd probably need to re-roll init per round. But you can simplify this; each team rolls one initiative die, then each person adds their own personal modifiers to their own count.

So say Team Evil rolls a 14, and Team Good an 11.

Team Evil has four people with modifiers of +14, +9, +5, and -3 (someone casting a spell).

Team Good has four people with modifiers of +22, +11, -1, and -4 (two casters with low dex)

So we end up with;
33 (Good +22)
28 (Evil +14)
23 (Evil +9)
22 (Good +11)
19 (Evil +5)
11 (Evil -3)
10 (Good -1)
7 (Good -4)

So all the action takes place between counts 27 and 53, unless someone delays/readies/changes their action. In the even of a tie, the person with the higher modifier goes first. If still a tie, you can either compare dex modifiers, or do some sort of tiebreaker die roll.

[LibraryOgre]

With the d20 initiative system in place and the 2.0 casting style...

Say a Wizard acts on initiative 8, and casts Banishment. I imagine the spell then would occur at initiative 1, and the next round the caster would act on initiative 1. If the caster next round casted Finger of Death, he would then cast on initiative 14? Would he then be able to start casting again or move or attack, or would he have to wait until next round at 14?

Assuming you're using my version...

The wizard would start casting at 8, and finish casting at 8-7, or 1. The next round, he would start casting at 8, and finish casting at 1. If he tried to throw Disjunction, he would start casting at 8, and finish casting at -1... meaning his spell goes off at the end of the round, but he starts casting next round at 7... which isn't a huge penalty, maybe, but if he were tied for initiative with someone at 8, that person now goes first... and he may lose out to a faster person who rolled a 7.

Incidentally, it also makes Metamagicked spells that aren't quickened a good choice for higher-level spell-slots... they are quicker for the slot. Heighten would be the only one that slowed down to actual level.

[Haven]

I am myself a fan of AD&D, but you plan on using the one thing I could never get myself to use: Declaring your action before initiative.

Not only is it a clever way to make your players mad, but it does not make any sense! In an actual fight, your actions aren't decided beforehand, but right on the moment, depending on what is happening on the battlefield.

On a side note, using this variant I would ban Improved Initiative, or else it just makes casting spell level 4 and lower really easier than intended.

Well, keep in mind, a round is supposed to represent the same six seconds of time for everyone. So I think that conceptually it's supposed to represent that everyone starts acting at about the same time, but some people are a little

Oh wait, in AD&D rounds were like a minute long each weren't they?

[Eldariel]

Well, I know I mentioned this in the other thread, but might as well say it here too:
I did something to this effect in this thread so take a look and see if you find anything useful there.

[Keld Denar]

AD&D TURNS were 1 minute. AD&D ROUNDS were 10 seconds, IIRC. There were 6 rounds in a turn, and 60 turns in an hour. Turns were only really used for spell durations, which were simply changed to minutes in 3.x.

I do like 3.x's converting of rounds to 6 seconds instead of 10. That gives you a nice round 10 rounds per minute, because counting on a base 6 system is confuzzling!

As far as everything else discussed here...combat is slow enough as is, even with a well practiced group who knows all the rules and actions possible. Resolving spell effects, totaling full attacks, and a host of other things bog down combat enough already.

I'm willing to sacrifice a degree of verisimilitude in the name of combat efficiency because then we can get done with the killing and move on to more important things...like RPing or more killing!

[Lapak]

AD&D TURNS were 1 minute. AD&D ROUNDS were 10 seconds, IIRC.

I think you don't quite have it right. Rounds were a minute; turns were 10 rounds and thus 10 minutes.

EDIT: I realized how lazy this response was when I thought about how I have the relevant books in the next room. I'm going to go double-check.

RE-EDIT: Yep. In AD&D 1, 10 segments = 1 round = 1 minute. 10 rounds = 1 turn equals 10 minutes. 2nd edition is the same, more or less.

[Quxelopqr]

This makes it feel like you're playing a turn based rpg like dragon warrior. Everyone says what they're doing that turn, then they go based on speed (initiative). It even gets the whole 'my fighter just died so the clerics heal spell is worthless' bit in there.

In short, I love it.

[Matthew]

I think you don't quite have it right. Rounds were a minute; turns were 10 rounds and thus 10 minutes.

EDIT: I realized how lazy this response was when I thought about how I have the relevant books in the next room. I'm going to go double-check.

RE-EDIT: Yep. In AD&D 1, 10 segments = 1 round = 1 minute. 10 rounds = 1 turn equals 10 minutes. 2nd edition is the same, more or less.

Correct, no doubt what Keld Denar is thinking of is Classic Dungeons & Dragons, where rounds were 10 seconds, but turns still 10 minutes. However, in Combat & Tactics the AD&D round was changed from one minute to 10-15 seconds.

The actual time a round takes up matters very little indeed, as things either occur too quickly or too slowly regardless.

[Mulletmanalive]

If we're going to be borrowing from 2nd Ed and keeping the Vancian magic, i'd suggest actually looking through the magic rules of your AD&D books once more to notice the thing that actually made casters less powerful back then.

That's right, the recharge times. In AD&D, as in Vance, spells took a hell of a lot of effort to replenish. The fact that you could anihilate entire rooms full of people with a wave of the hand [Death spell, now roughtly equalled by Circle of Death] was all well and good but it would take an entire hour to get that spell back. That's right, one whole hour, for one spell.

Wizards in their infinite wisdom [I blame Skip Williams (though as the instigator of the 'Official rules' mindset amongst non-GM players, i blame him when it rains) for this] decided to set the spell recharge time to one hour.

About 3 weeks to replenish a full spread for a 20th level character, cut down to one hour.

People wonder why casters seem so much more powerful these days...

[Lapak]

If we're going to be borrowing from 2nd Ed and keeping the Vancian magic, i'd suggest actually looking through the magic rules of your AD&D books once more to notice the thing that actually made casters less powerful back then.

That's right, the recharge times.

You make an extremely good point, though you can't ignore the different saving throw mechanism either. Casters were less dominant across the board while still being very powerful. But I was trying to find a method that hit them during combat - partially because 3rd edition introduced so many ways for them to fort up or escape and prepare their spells in absolute safety.

[Mulletmanalive]

3rd edition introduced so many ways for them to fort up or escape and prepare their spells in absolute safety.

True, though many of the abilities that allow a caster to hide elsewhere were present in 2ed. One of the big shifts was that pocket dimensions needed an anchor in the form of either a magic item or concentration. Then again, off hand, i can't actually come up with a way of getting more than 24 hours of protection, given that once you cast, you can't regain any spells.

Well, nothing below epic anyway [the obvious level 11 Persistant Wall of Force, shrinking onion like around the characters]

[Gaiyamato]

I would simply subtract (Spell level*Round) from a casters initiative and leave it at that, where Round based on Casting time is:

Instant: 1
Standard: 1.5
Full Round: 2

So the Wizard is often going last.

[LibraryOgre]

If we're going to be borrowing from 2nd Ed and keeping the Vancian magic, i'd suggest actually looking through the magic rules of your AD&D books once more to notice the thing that actually made casters less powerful back then.

That's right, the recharge times. In AD&D, as in Vance, spells took a hell of a lot of effort to replenish. The fact that you could anihilate entire rooms full of people with a wave of the hand [Death spell, now roughtly equalled by Circle of Death] was all well and good but it would take an entire hour to get that spell back. That's right, one whole hour, for one spell.

I've been pointing that out for a while.
http://rpg-crank.livejournal.com/26021.html

Wizards in their infinite wisdom [I blame Skip Williams (though as the instigator of the 'Official rules' mindset amongst non-GM players, i blame him when it rains) for this] decided to set the spell recharge time to one hour.

I think I love you.

[AstralFire]

What did Skip Williams do? Though I don't really like him either.

[woodenbandman]

The problem with this is that it is trivially easy to get initiative modifiers of +15, +20, or even higher, which means that basically everyone EXCEPT the wizard is in total chaos while he casts his spells all over the battlefield. Plus, it takes way too much bookkeeping and makes people angry when they start casting a spell, the guy moves, and they can't track him and re-aim it in his direction. My 2.0 group doesn't even bother with all of these because it's just too much bookkeeping. We roll initiative once, and then do battle.

[LibraryOgre]

The problem with this is that it is trivially easy to get initiative modifiers of +15, +20, or even higher, which means that basically everyone EXCEPT the wizard is in total chaos while he casts his spells all over the battlefield. Plus, it takes way too much bookkeeping and makes people angry when they start casting a spell, the guy moves, and they can't track him and re-aim it in his direction. My 2.0 group doesn't even bother with all of these because it's just too much bookkeeping. We roll initiative once, and then do battle.

All of which are fixed by my system.