Initiative: Alternative methods

[El_Jefe]

This thread is a direct bastard son of the other one I started "Bookkeeping: How to keep track of things during that Big Fight Scene".

Towards the end of that one, people started suggesting some very cool ideas for Initiative, so I thought I start a new thread to discuss just Initiative.

So thus far, the most out there ideas were "Players Go, DM goes" and just going around the table. I loved them!

Any more ideas out there?

[Sstoopidtallkid]

Roll whatever dice you want (we use 2d6) in an opposed check with the DM as a party. Whoever wins goes first, then loser goes. Improved Initiative is an automatic victory for that player, meaning they go before anyone else. It works well if you want less bookkeeping.

[ahammer]

there is always roll once keep that order too

[Douglas]

there is always roll once keep that order too

That's standard in 3.5. Anything else is a house rule.

One system I've used that works rather well:
Pass out index cards to everyone. Each person writes down his and/or his character's name on the card, along with his initiative result. Hand all these cards back to the DM, who puts them in a pile along with cards for the monsters and sorts them all by initiative. Whoever's card is on top of the pile goes first. When your turn ends, your card gets moved to the bottom of the pile. If you ready an action or delay, your card gets taken out of the pile and given to you. You give it back when you take your readied or delayed action, at which point it goes back into the cycle starting at the bottom of the pile.

If you need to keep track of spell durations in combat, you can just write it down on the appropriate character's card and use tally marks to count the rounds to its expiration, or give the spell its own card if necessary (if the caster delays at some point, for example).

[adanedhel9]

Over the Edge uses the following system: every player, plus the GM, rolls initiative. The player with the highest roll goes first, then play continues clockwise around the table. On the GM's turn, all NPCs act at once.

I've always been interested in a system that would split up different actions into initiative "costs" - so a full attack costs you 19 points, a move 8, a standard 11, etc. Whenever someone takes an action, their initiative decreases by the cost of that action. When the initiative count reaches 0, everyone adds 20 to their initiative.

Of course, that would be a huge pain to keep track of, and I don't know that any benefits would be worth it. But it'd be interesting to see in action.

Edit: Douglas, I do almost the exact same thing, except that I've never let the players touch the cards. That might be a bit faster to start up combat to do it your way though. For delaying/readying, I turn the cards sideways so I don't lose their original position.

The one problem I've had repeatedly is accidentally skipping characters. If I get interrupted right at the start of someone's turn (after I've moved the previous card to the bottom of the stack, but before I've called the character's name), when I resume I tend to move the next card to the bottom of the stack without giveng the character a chance to act. Any experience with that?

[Hal]

I recently heard of a game, Burning Wheel. IIRC, players in the game write down their actions for the round, then hand this off to the GM. After looking at everyone's actions for the round and deciding on the opponent's actions, the GM then describes the events that take place in the round.

It may or may not end up being more work for the GM, but it certainly achieves its goal of replicating the chaos of battle.

[Da King]

Rock! Paper! Scissors! I think I'll try this one sometime.

[Chronos]

Over the Edge uses the following system: every player, plus the GM, rolls initiative. The player with the highest roll goes first, then play continues clockwise around the table. On the GM's turn, all NPCs act at once.

That would be a very bad idea, if the initiative depends on anything inherent to the character. Otherwise, you'll get the party rogue with Improved Initiative making sure to sit to the DM's immediate left. There are enough things to metagame about already, without adding what chair you sit in to the list.

[Gralamin]

An alternative I've seen used is a characters initiative modifier becomes their initiative score, and you go from highest score to lowest score, keeping it relativly set.

[Curmudgeon]

You can use the seating order method, but tied to the PC initiative modifiers. Just position the players in the appropriate positions around the table, and the DM's characters get inserted into the sequence as needed. Keeps things simple and obvious, but still rewards good initiative mods as the game was designed.

[SamTheCleric]

Spycraft 2.0 has a fluid initiative system... taking certain actions may increase or decrease your initiative (being hit by a critical hit, for instance, gives you -10 to your initiative)... if you ever get at 30 initiative, you get to make a second standard action, but your initiative resest to 0 after doing so.

The character I was playing was a Gun-fu expert... every kick and pistol shot I made increased my initiative by 1... and I was making 3-5 attacks per round. :)

[Jack Zander]

Spycraft 2.0 has a fluid initiative system... taking certain actions may increase or decrease your initiative (being hit by a critical hit, for instance, gives you -10 to your initiative)... if you ever get at 30 initiative, you get to make a second standard action, but your initiative resest to 0 after doing so.

The character I was playing was a Gun-fu expert... every kick and pistol shot I made increased my initiative by 1... and I was making 3-5 attacks per round. :)

That sounds like fun, and a good fix to powerful spells. You wanna cast gate? Okay, but it's -10 initiative and you gotta sit there and wait until it's done casting while the enemies attack you.

[Armoury99]

You can use the seating order method, but tied to the PC initiative modifiers.

Me too. Works very well, speeds things up and actually makes it easier to leapfrog characters about who are readying an action or doing a lot of things in a round (drawing a sword means you attack 5pts later, etc).