Unearthed Arcana Unearthed Arcana: "Greyhawk" Initiative

schnee · Jul 11, 2017

I'm glad the designers of 5E didn't listen too much to the message board posts of players of 3E when they were designing Bounded Accuracy. Or Concentration.

I can just imagine the teeth gnashing and whining that would have happened on message boards back then.

Before even playing it, they would have condemned it utterly.

Good thing that doesn't happen now, right? Right?

Jhaelen · Jul 11, 2017

Henry said:
I don't like it, myself. While I applaud the 1st and 2nd Edition feel (hello, Rath, Rupert, and Delsonora!) it has a few flaws as-is

Ditto, minus the applause for being retro for the sake of being retro.

Caliburn101 · Jul 11, 2017

The idea that you will have to declare whether you are going to stay glued to the spot or move yourself AHEAD of what your opponents do FOR A WHOLE 6 SECONDS is utterly ridiculous.

I played every edition of D&D as it came out, and AD&D initiative was crunchy and unwieldy, noticeable as particularly being so even back in the day when all rpg's were crunchy and to some extent unwieldy.

The good idea amongst the less useful here is the initiative every round idea.

It is one that I introduced years ago in GURPS, which has one-second rounds and a tight action economy. It did indeed inject drama.

By all means try Mearl's initiative system, but stop thinking of him as the guru of gurus when it comes to ideas. Go with what works around your table and understand that if you try this at the table it will slow play down. Yes, it will make it more tactical, and more dramatic, but it will also frustrate those requiring a suspension of disbelief in their imagining the action.

Besides - good use of the situational application of advantage and disadvantage by the GM encourages more tactical play, and that works without slowing the game down at all...

Far better in my opinion to re-roll initiative each round and leave it at that - you get the extra drama without the fuss.

schnee · Jul 11, 2017

Trollish joke aside, I've been thinking about this a lot, and a lot of great questions have come up.

I think the issue with a system like this is it attempts to add a bit more 'simulations' feel with the different dice sizes, but once you do that - add a bit of simulation in to the D&D mix - it opens up Pandora's box about how simulationist you should be before you stop and just accept the game-ishnes of it.

Those rules always seem to create more and more underneath unless the table is *very* disciplined.

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But, all that said, I like what he's doing with it - adding a bit more chaos and uncertainty into the mix, making people really think like they would when their lives are on the line instead of the initiative order being some predictable assembly line.

It IS a UA. It IS supposed to be tried at tables, and feedback given. And, I think it does a disservice to blow it off before trying it. Or, even worse, encouraging other tables not to try it.

I've been a designer for 25 years, and I see this from time to time. Someone has an idea, and some old-timer says 'we tried that before, it didn't work', and shuts it down. The thing is, between then and now, a lot of things have changed. In the software field, we might have new languages available, or new hardware, or customers may be more open to new things now. The biggest break-throughs I've seen personally are due to those 'we tried it before' ideas actually working this time.

This is a really different game than AD&D or 2E. It might work this time.

So, I'm gonna try this at my table, first with a group of 4. And I'll report back.

MagicSN · Jul 11, 2017

I don't like it due to some reasons:

- Nerf for classes relying on Bonus Actions, Bonus Action Cast + Standard Action Attack is avg. 10 initiative, a surprised (!) ranged character is 12.5. So a cleric doing Spiritual Weapon Attack + Melee Attack is nearly as slow as a surprised ranged character...
- If I have a Mobile character who hits and then moves away he is slower with his attack than the character who just attacks. And that is double weird with something like a Mobile Rogue who is supposed to be fast (same issues with Monks I guess)
- Caster Nerf is not needed!
- Often a move only happens if I killed my current enemy. How does this work with the initiative? Or what with Bonus Actions which happen due to certain circumstances?
- Is a Ranged Attack really faster than a Melee Attack? I personally would think it is the other way round, due to putting an arrow on the bow. If you watch fantasy movies people usually drop their bow, once melee ranges in - for this very reason!

schnee · Jul 11, 2017

Also, a few mechanical thoughts.

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I like the idea of 'roll the damage die as your initiative'. The thing is, it *does* mean you are tied to using *that* weapon when your turn arrives, and the 5E concept of a 'free' weapon draw before acting gets nerfed. So, I can see why all the melee rolls are the same. It preserves 5E action economy and closes a loophole of (rolls d4 for dagger) (draws and attacks with greatsword).

Maybe if you declare you attack with a weapon, you choose which one, and get your free draw when you roll initiative?

But, 5E does try to create a lot of fluidity and eliminate the 'tactical square-based board game' feel of 3E and 4E. People can move, draw, attack, move. So, again, back to just having one roll for all melee weapons, even if that does gloss over the whole 'dagger vs. pike' everyone argued about in 2E.

Then again, after having witnessed and participated in a lot of different things like Kendo, SCA combat, martial arts, etc. the idea of different weapons having different speeds is a bit less cut and dried as you might imagine, so IMO the abstraction level of combat can take that into account.

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If a ranged attack gets a smaller die than a melee attack, then any ranged attack that would be made at disadvantage in combat - i.e. a short bow user with a sword wielder in their face - means the initiative roll should be made at disadvantage too.

But, again, more complexity.

It's tempting fix it by going back to the idea of 'size of damage dice is your initiative', so longbows would actually be more unwieldy than daggers, short bows would have a functional advantage vs. long bows for once, etcetera, but the 'free draw and attack' issue is still bad.

What if melee ranged attacks rolled like melee (d6), and bow/crossbow attacks rolled like spells (d10)?

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I think some things might be simplified a bit, too.

Like, the Dominate spell issue. If you control someone, they act on your turn, after you. Period. No dice rolling.

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I think to make this really fly, I'd like to set up an on-table initiative board. Slots numbered 1-20, and everyone has a unique counter for their player (maybe even two of them, so they have one they hold for reference and one on the board), and they just put their counter on the slot with the right number.

Stuff like delaying would be faster to figure out.

My players are all avid board gamers, so adding a prop like this to the table would go over well. They're not tied to 'this is NOT MY D&D' and are wiling to try new things. I think I'll try it in my game when I beta test this system.

Li Shenron · Jul 11, 2017

This variant initiative system is actually a pretty complex change, so many facets make it difficult to judge...

I think the system is going to work as a whole. On the surface, it sounds like it largely favors ranged attackers and penalizes spellcasters, because of the obvious dice difference, however the truth is going to be more complicated than that.

A few things to consider or keep in mind:

- between the d4 and d10 there is an average difference of 3, significant but less than the equivalent bonus of advantage; let's make we sure we don't think that ranged attackers always go first

- Dex doesn't change your initiative; typically ranged attackers have higher Dex on average and thus higher initiative, so this might after all make it more acceptable that ranged attacks use the smallest init dice

- melee attacks will require a move action (+1d6 init) more often than spells and ranged attacks; in order not to risk losing the whole turn, melee attackers should probably always choose to take the move action, making them slower than spellcasters; if not sniping, ranged attackers and spellcasters will probably opt to not move so as to get better initiative, resulting in less mobile combat

- Mearls instead actually suggests everyone taking the move action, pretty much because if you don't take it and then something changes in the battle so that you can't do your declared action, at least you can move -> but if everyone always takes the move action, then it would actually be simpler to just not have it cost 1d6 but instead assume everyone anyway gets to move during their turn (and by the standard 5e rules, you can't give up the move in exchange for something else, as in 3e)

- disengage would be hard to use within this system, except for really running away: it won't be useful for getting away from an unexpected danger because you won't likely "prepare" it since it would mean to have no attack or spell

- cantrips are treated as spells, but attack cantrips are designed to be mostly equivalent to ranged attacks, should they get a lower init dice?

- it is kind of reminded that you are limited to choosing actions as with standard combat rules (i.e. max 1 move + 1 action), but how about swapping the weapons? does it replace the move, or can you do it in addition to both by adding an extra d6 to init? at first sight it sounds to me that the latter is the case, but in the example there is no move anyway so it's hard to tell

Lanefan · Jul 11, 2017

Does Mearls' system allow for what-if's or on-the-fly changes? If no, it's lacking something.

As an example:

Orc1, Orc2 and Orc3 have met Huey, Duey and Louie in a cavern; and combat is nigh.

The first round goes by just fine - Orc1 goes ranged with a bow and Huey goes ranged with spells, while Orc2 and Orc3 melee with Duey and Louie respectively. Everyone survives. But on the second round...

Louie knows that Huey will be targeting his foe (Orc3) with a spell, as Huey just yelled that to him. Louie wants to make sure Orc3 is down but also wants to get at Orc1, but he has to declare what he's doing before initiative is rolled (if for no other reason than it determines what dice he rolls) and doesn't know whether he or Huey will go first. So is Louie allowed for his declaration to say this:

"My action for the round is a melee and move but the order will depend on what happens to Orc3. If Orc3 is still standing I will melee with it then (if it falls) move to Orc1, but if Orc3 is down before I act then I will move to Orc1 and melee with it"

Personally, for realism's sake I think this sort of thing has to be allowed for; the ability to react to changes that happen within the round provided you maintain your stated actions (in this case, a move and a melee) so as to preserve the integrity of your initiative roll(s).

Thoughts?

Lanefan

Psikerlord# · Jul 11, 2017

I like this variant better than standard D&D init - more random, more dangerous - which 5e sorely needs - and I like how small damage dice weapons are faster. Spells are already pretty weak in 5e however, also lumping them with d10 init and interrupted by damage is too much. Would've worked fine with earlier edition spells however.

It's going to make combat slower too with players conferring each round, which is a big no no given how long combat already takes. And I'm not sure I like the declaring actions up front bit.

Overall... I like it better than standard initiative, but it's got its own issues. Good on them for putting out a variant.

Psikerlord# · Jul 11, 2017

Lanefan said:
Does Mearls' system allow for what-if's or on-the-fly changes? If no, it's lacking something.

As an example:

Orc1, Orc2 and Orc3 have met Huey, Duey and Louie in a cavern; and combat is nigh.

The first round goes by just fine - Orc1 goes ranged with a bow and Huey goes ranged with spells, while Orc2 and Orc3 melee with Duey and Louie respectively. Everyone survives. But on the second round...

Louie knows that Huey will be targeting his foe (Orc3) with a spell, as Huey just yelled that to him. Louie wants to make sure Orc3 is down but also wants to get at Orc1, but he has to declare what he's doing before initiative is rolled (if for no other reason than it determines what dice he rolls) and doesn't know whether he or Huey will go first. So is Louie allowed for his declaration to say this:

"My action for the round is a melee and move but the order will depend on what happens to Orc3. If Orc3 is still standing I will melee with it then (if it falls) move to Orc1, but if Orc3 is down before I act then I will move to Orc1 and melee with it"

Personally, for realism's sake I think this sort of thing has to be allowed for; the ability to react to changes that happen within the round provided you maintain your stated actions (in this case, a move and a melee) so as to preserve the integrity of your initiative roll(s).

Thoughts?

Lanefan