Removing Initiative

Tales and Chronicles · Dec 11, 2018

Sadras said:
Well, I won't scrap the initiative in D&D as that I believe would mess around with spell duration. I don't need or want that headache. And I would keep the monster in the initiative order. What I might experiment with is the monster's additional laundry list of actions on misses or as @Hawk Diesel describes upthread as minor and major moves.
One must be careful though as these minor/major moves + legendary actions could make an encounter super deadly.

This is what I'll do I think. Keep the popcorn initiative, then if the players equal the target number or miss it by only 1 or 2, I'll let them do their desired effect, but use an hard or soft move against them to create a complication (those moves would be in addition to the normal Reaction of the monsters). This would also help me remove a part of the feeling that PC at level 5 are a little too tough for my taste.

Maxperson · Dec 11, 2018

vincegetorix said:
Good ideas. I always try to make combat less static, but with a group of seven new players, my monster turns come so rarely that when it does, I just want to speed up the combat and be done with it .

Use multiple monsters instead of one big one. You can also roll separate initiatives for your monsters so that their turns are sprinkled among the players' turns, rather than having to wait for all 7 players to be done before it gets back to your turn.

Tales and Chronicles · Dec 11, 2018

Maxperson said:
Use multiple monsters instead of one big one. You can also roll separate initiatives for your monsters so that their turns are sprinkled among the players' turns, rather than having to wait for all 7 players to be done before it gets back to your turn.

Yeah, this is exactly what I do, but with a large party where each players takes a lot of time to resolve its turn its still very long. Even more when you take into account that they are the worst tactical players I've ever seen, so I dont want to add to many monsters because they dont focus fire or use tactic to eliminate them quickly. I dont really mind, but sometime it get a little boring to wait 3 minutes (each player) to finally just hear ''so....I attack, I think''.

Its still a great group, they just tend to use ''in character'' reasoning for the action they would take, even if tactically speaking on the meta-game side of things, its a worst choice (full action heal in combat on not-that-wounded character, looting while the party fights etc)

Maxperson · Dec 11, 2018

vincegetorix said:
Yeah, this is exactly what I do, but with a large party where each players takes a lot of time to resolve its turn its still very long. Even more when you take into account that they are the worst tactical players I've ever seen, so I dont want to add to many monsters because they dont focus fire or use tactic to eliminate them quickly. I dont really mind, but sometime it get a little boring to wait 3 minutes (each player) to finally just hear ''so....I attack, I think''.

Its still a great group, they just tend to use ''in character'' reasoning for the action they would take, even if tactically speaking on the meta-game side of things, its a worst choice (full action heal in combat on not-that-wounded character, looting while the party fights etc)

I don't see a problem with making decisions "in character" if that's how the group has fun. A buddy of mine also gets frustrated by certain players(read one player) taking forever to figure out what they are going to do, so he instituted a 1 minute to decide rule. 1 minute is more than enough time, especially since players really should be thinking about likely decisions during the turns prior to theirs.

WaterRabbit · Dec 11, 2018

Maxperson said:
I don't see a problem with making decisions "in character" if that's how the group has fun. A buddy of mine also gets frustrated by certain players(read one player) taking forever to figure out what they are going to do, so he instituted a 1 minute to decide rule. 1 minute is more than enough time, especially since players really should be thinking about likely decisions during the turns prior to theirs.

I do something like that. If I can run through the Jeopardy theme in my head before they act I default them to a Dodge action and move to the next. Do that a couple of times and they will act.

Removing Initiative

Tales and Chronicles

Jewel of the North, formerly know as vincegetorix

Maxperson

Morkus from Orkus

Tales and Chronicles

Jewel of the North, formerly know as vincegetorix

Maxperson

Morkus from Orkus

WaterRabbit

Explorer

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