[YBA Meta] Initiative: a radical proposal

Here’s an alternative initiative system for the next iteration of YBA. I think it will solve a lot of problems, along with establishing a new sort of development path.

Each character has an Initiative rating. This equals their CR/Natural Hits + their Agility. Agility may be purchased for 1 XP per point. Thus, a character with 3 natural hits and 2 purchased Agility points has an Initiative of 5.

Initiative proceeds from lowest to highest in each round. Existing powers that affect initiative will no longer affect the initiative order.

Dirty Trick will now read as follows: “Once per fight per Dirty Trick known, the fighter may, after generating an attack, play a Dirty Trick. Unless someone cancels the Dirty Trick by the end of the round, the round must be redone. Dirty Trick may be purchased more than once.”

Chi Strike will now read as follows: “Once per fight per Chi Strike known, the fighter may declare a Chi Strike against a specific opponent for the following round. During the next round, if both the fighter and the chosen opponent are still in combat, neither can use any powers other than Epic Powers during that round. Chi Strike may be purchased more than once.”

This should have the following effects:
1) Dirty Trick becomes less unbalanced, since it no longer grants the ability to act last, but it remains useful even if the fighter with it goes first, since it can be used to erase a bad move of one’s own. (And this new use of Dirty Trick actually makes Purity of Focus more useful, since you will now know what move the Dirty Trick-using fighter will have if their Dirty Trick is cancelled.)
2) Chi Strike becomes slightly more useful, since you don’t have to go first to use it, though you do have to survive until the second round.
3) Agility becomes a new character development path. High Agility grants no direct combat benefits, but dumping points into it will generally allow one to go last, with all of the benefits that accrues. And unlike Dirty Trick, just purchasing it once isn’t enough, so you can always use more.

Please let me know what you think!

- Eric

At first glance, I think that looks pretty good. I'm not the most critical thinker however, so I'll wait and see what some others say, but it sounds like a workable system to me.

I've had similar ideas, though most of them included assigning an agility rating to initiative-affecting powers. Ones that made you go last would have +2 or so, and those that made you go first would have around -2.

But I like it! If more people jump on the yea-boat, I'm quite prepaired to post in a petition thread.

What, exactly, is the problem inherent in always rotating initiative?

If player A goes first, then B goes first, what problems arise?

And since going last is almost always an advantage, why would anyone want to raise their initiative?

creamsteak said:

What, exactly, is the problem inherent in always rotating initiative?

If player A goes first, then B goes first, what problems arise?

And since going last is almost always an advantage, why would anyone want to raise their initiative?

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There's nothing wrong with rotating initiative. The problem arises from Dirty Trick and its power to guarantee going last for a very low cost. With the current rules, if any character has a Dirty Trick and holds it, then you won't see rotating initiative for that fight.

And if you read the original post, you'll see that the character with the highest initiative score goes last, not first, and so raising your initiative makes it likelier that you'll go last. If it's unclear, could you please tell me how to phrase it better?

- Eric

The problem arises from Dirty Trick and its power to guarantee going last for a very low cost. With the current rules, if any character has a Dirty Trick and holds it, then you won't see rotating initiative for that fight.

Click to expand...

No, I meant what I said. I'm asking why powers should have any affect on rotation. I don't get why a DT allows a fighter to always go last. They should continue to rotate, and they can only use their special power when they go last. That is my opinion.

The whole "powers that change initiative" thing is one of the only quirks I have with YB and YBA. I think they simply shouldn't.

CS, you don't rotate initiative in YBA..only YB. The only time people alternate going in the order is when they have the same natural hits and both have DT(or both don't have DT).

Current initiative order is lowest natural hits -> highest natural hits -> lowest dirty trick natural hits -> highest dirty trick natural hits.

I think I wouldn't mind a flat alternating system as CS proposes for YBA. Initiative is far more valuable in YBA than YB many more powers depend on it. eg Master of The Void is useless without a DT pretty much at the moment.

Do I need to say it a third time?

Why can't we rotate? What is the problem that occurs? I don't see any reason for any initiative related things as much as I would prefer it if we just rotated. Maybe use powers to set the first order (1, 2, 3, 4), but after that it just rotates forwards (2,3,4,1). I don't know what the issue is... I'm kinda curious.