D&D 5E House Rule: Card Initiative

[Dausuul]

So, I had an idea for an initiative house rule, and wanted to toss it out there and see what people think.

The goal: In principle, I like the idea of rolling initiative each round. I hate the predictability of side-based or regular cyclic initiative; I don't want players strategizing around knowing exactly who goes in what order. However, rolling each round and then sorting out who goes when seems like a major hassle--just not worth the effort.

I know one approach to initiative is to give each combatant a card and shuffle them, but this has the effect of negating high initiative bonuses. My party includes an assassin rogue, so that's a big deal. But... what if you could get more than one card?

The house rule: Each combatant (or, for monsters, each group of combatants) gets a number of initiative cards based on their modifier. If your modifier is +1 or less, you get one card. If it's +2 to +4, you get two cards. If it's +5 to +6, you get three cards. For each point above 6, you get an additional card.

Each round, the DM shuffles the cards, then flips them over one at a time. When one of your cards comes up, if you haven't taken a turn yet, you take your turn. The rest of your cards are simply discarded when they come up.

Why those numbers of cards? They roughly match the result of rolling for initiative by the book. There's some math involved, but the idea is that we pick any two combatants X and Y with different initiative modifiers, determine the chance that X goes before Y, and give each one a number of cards that results in a similar chance for X to beat Y. It lines up remarkably well.

The benefits, in theory:

• The benefits of high initiative are preserved.
• Rolling initiative and tracking it are combined into one system, streamlining play.
• You can't strategize around who goes when, even within a single round.
• Adds excitement with each flip of a card. Do I get to go next, or does the monster in my face?
• Opens up scope for other improvements. For instance, a limited form of "delay" could be introduced by shuffling your card back into the deck. Legendary monsters could have legendary action cards so the DM doesn't have to remember to inject an LA after each player turn. Etc.

Possible issues (edited based on feedback):

• "Start of your next turn" and "end of your next turn" durations become highly variable, and players have an incentive to use such actions when their turn comes early in a given round.
• How to handle advantage or disadvantage on initiative?
• Players have less ability to pre-plan their turns, which could slow things down.
• Players don't get to roll for initiative any more.
• In a party with a lot of Dex-based PCs, or encounters with high-Dex monsters, there could end up being an awful lot of cards.

Thoughts? Ideas? Criticisms? I'm probably going to put this to my players tomorrow evening and see if they're willing to give it a try.

 

[jmartkdr2]

An issue to address: when do effects that end "at the start of your next turn" (etc) end?

1. As written: these now have variable duration form 0-1 turns rather than exactly 1 as written. You may be okay with this.
2. You somehow track when the same initiative count comes up (which would involve re-adding the idea of initiative counts) - seems super fiddly but is more fair.
3. Effects get their own initiative card. This means even more cards, but You'll want a bunch anyways.

Also, I personally would probably like it a bit better if you could pick which of your initiative cards you want to use - there are times when going later is better, and faster-reacting characters getting to take advantage of that makes sense to me.

 

[Dausuul]

An issue to address: when do effects that end "at the start of your next turn" (etc) end?

That is an excellent point which I had not considered. I'll have to think about that one. The simple answer is that they continue to work as written. But as you point out, that results in variable durations.

On top of that, the duration depends on your place in the initiative order. If you got to go first this round, your "next turn" effects have an average duration of 1.5 rounds, whereas if you went last, the average duration is only half a round. So the smart move is to only use these effects when you go first. I want to reduce strategizing around initiative order, not add more.

Must ponder.

Also, I personally would probably like it a bit better if you could pick which of your initiative cards you want to use - there are times when going later is better, and faster-reacting characters getting to take advantage of that makes sense to me.

I thought about that. The only issue is that this increases the value of a high initiative modifier: Not only do you get to go first, you also gain the ability to delay your action, which low-initiative combatants do not get.

On the other hand, delaying your turn like this is a gamble since you don't know where your next card is in the deck. So maybe it doesn't matter that much, and it's worth it for the additional fun factor.

 

[Nebulous]

We used a card based system for several years when we had face to face game. That group really liked it, and I especially liked it as I hated the old boring initiative system. The set up to build the cards took a long time. I had a photoshop template, then import the images and type text and then print the sheets and finally laminate them. I had a big stack of about 200 monsters and PCs. For players I would print their actual picture and name and class. I also had generic PCs with either a generic pic or just a color. For example, I might have a stack of red, green, yellow, blue PCs.

The way it worked is that everyone had 1 initiative card. If you had good Dex you got another. If you had a REALLY good Dex you had a third. If you had some Feat or spell to improve Init you got a fourth. At the start of combat a player would mix up all the cards, monsters too, and I would pick of the top. We get to the end of the round and shuffle and pick again, same thing all the way to the end of the round. The more cards you have in the deck the higher the chance of you going first, so this replicated having a higher initiative score. I loved it as it became a mini-game in itself and combats were tense. Yes, sometimes players ended a round and went again first the next round. I have seen lightning bolt cast twice in a row and annihilate the baddies. But monsters do it too, it's the luck of the draw, and the system was very fast and clean.

Players would complain sometimes about "until end of your next turn" and then that happens real fast and they feel gypped. But that didn't happen often.

 

[DND_Reborn]

What about PCs who have advantage on Initiative due to class features or magic items? How many more cards should they get?

 

[Dausuul]

The way it worked is that everyone had 1 initiative card. If you had good Dex you got another. If you had a REALLY good Dex you had a third. If you had some Feat or spell to improve Init you got a fourth. At the start of combat a player would mix up all the cards, monsters too, and I would pick of the top. We get to the end of the round and shuffle and pick again, same thing all the way to the end of the round. The more cards you have in the deck the higher the chance of you going first, so this replicated having a higher initiative score.

So, basically the same system (maybe with different thresholds for number of cards). Glad to hear that it worked! (And your cards sound awesome.) From your post it sounds like you abandoned it because you moved away from face-to-face gaming; was that the only reason? Would you go back to it if you started another F2F game?

 

[Nebulous]

So, basically the same system (maybe with different thresholds for number of cards). Glad to hear that it worked! (And your cards sound awesome.) From your post it sounds like you abandoned it because you moved away from face-to-face gaming; was that the only reason? Would you go back to it if you started another F2F game?

Yes, I would go back to it, maybe with some tweaks.

 

[Nebulous]

What about PCs who have advantage on Initiative due to class features or magic items? How many more cards should they get?

Just one.

 

[Nebulous]

I found that PCs overwhelmingly had more cards than monsters, who usually had 1. PCs often had 3 in play at a time.

 

[Laurefindel]

I like the general idea.

Are players allowed to see another player initiative card? if they aren’t, how strict do you intend to be?

I could see the flipping of cards taking a lot of time. I’d suggest each player and opponent taking X cards (according to Dex), then select the one they want to keep, then put the card face up on the table. That’s your initiative. DM can keep their cards secret for more suspense.

if you eliminate the flipping, you save time, but players know each other’s initiative (which they may be tempted to share anyway).

variant: before combat, each take # of card = to Dex modifier (minimum 0). Then at the beginning of each round (including first), each participant draws 1 card, and selects one as initiative amongst the cards they have, keeping the ones they didn’t play.

as noted above, this changes the dynamics of spell duration quite a bit, and even introduce a whole new set of initiative strategies to get the best out of your spells.