High Initiative?

[Nine Hands]

What might be cool is if your init exceeds the next lowest init by 20, you get to act twice.

Something like that would be neat, but I'd tie it specifically to rolling a 20 (since rolling a 20 is supposed to be an awesome thing now).

So if you roll a 20 AND you are the first to act in combat you get an extra action.

That seems balanced enough.

 

[half-dragon dragon]

In regards to using Initiative to avoid a trap is an example of being able to use a variety of skills to defeat a trap that seems to have been hinted at in the traps article. In general I'm seeing this as possibly saying characters might get a sort of "double-layered" defense against traps. Whether its skill before defense or defense before skill I'm not sure, but in the instance of initiative I could see being able to make an initiative roll to see if you can act before the trap goes off (though this might also require a perception roll) and if you don't beat the trap in initiative, then the trap would be able to attack your defenses.

 

[GreatLemur]

I'm going to guess that 4E reflex defense is much different than 3E reflex saves. I think you're thinking in terms of 3E... Touch AC has been replaced with the reflex defense. Does it make sense for a pit trap to make a touch attack? To me, combining them makes little sense. Initiative makes much more sense to me.

Yeah, I realized after typing that that the distinction wasn't just a question of active vs. passive hazards, but that Initiative is more about being aware of surprises in your surroundings and reacting quickly to them, while Reflex is about dodging things you can already see coming. (Ironically, this would mean that Initiative is arguably more about reflexes than Reflex Defense is, but there's definitely a meaningful distinction between the two.)

 

[Voss]

We are assuming that 4e is using the SAGA method of initiative, which is to make it a skill.

So characters get half their level as a bonus to their initiative.

Therefore, high level characters will likely go first against lower level ones, and will go about the same against equal level characters.

Unfortunately, however, initiative as a skill makes it essentially a must-have, no-brainer type of skill for everyone, since it comes up in every single combat.

Take the ice archon for example. The 4e version looks to be 18th level, and has +21.
A PC who isn't trained in init and doesn't have a dex bonus (a fighter, cleric, paladin or warlord seem to be the most likely candidates) is at a +9. Thats a huge penalty to be suffering under, and even training or a high still leaves a significant gap. (+7).

Between combat advantage, encounter and per day powers (and potential nova-ing), the initiative score is a huge thing. Not maxing it out is essentially gimping yourself and your party. A party that can reliably strike first and coordinate their actions can potentially drop one or two opponents before they can act. Thats a huge advantage that can mean the difference between a challenging fight and an easy one.

Unless, of course, all monsters have high initiative, and that just means that a party with a spread of initiatives or low initiative is at a disadvantage...

 

[Lord Ernie]

Not necessarily. In 3.x, a melee specialist can have an advantage going after the monsters, depending on the type of monster you're fighting. After all, a full attack (the most powerful attack option available) only works if you use a full-round action, so that leaves at most a 5-foot step to move. If the enemy is first and moves over to you, chances are you can actually do that rather than having to charge in first. Not to mention, giving the mage time to cast Haste (or the bard, or whomever) can really help that too. Really, the ones that benefited most from high iniative were ranged characters (archers, mages) and rogues (for sneak attack).

As we've really not much of an idea of how this will play out in 4th (except that probably a lot of the same types of characters will benefit from a high initiative), I think that's a little too early to judge.

As for initiative as a skill: not sure how that will play out, myself. Depends entirely on the skill system .

 

[Kaisoku]

Higher modifiers means you are less reliant on the dice. It's the reverse of why they have everything at 1/2 level... cuz at 30, +30 to a check as a base dwarfs the d20 role.

Same applies here, the d20 roll in 3e is dwarfing the modifiers. This means, even if you try and build a character around it... you're still a slave to the d20 roll. Also, lvl 1 Fighter with 14 Dex and a lvl 20 Fighter with 14 Dex was exactly the same.

Initiative just feels like it should have some "experience" behind it... so a lvl 1 person is inherently less skilled at going first in combat than the lvl 20 or 30 person, even those untrained in it. It's kinda like a Barbarian being at least half-assed good at Diplomacy at lvl 30.


Plus, it's keeping with the current mechanic, which means it can interact with the current mechanic if it needs to (Attacks against Initiative... skill checks opposed by Initiative), without rules bloat like "add base attack bonus", etc.

 

[Voss]

The randomizer is supposed to dwarf the modifiers. If its the other way around, there isn't much point in the roll- you're taking chance out of the game, which makes combat pretty pointless, as you already know who's going to win, barring statistical anomalies.

 

[Delta]

Nonsense. Everybody knows that the worst thing to ever happen to D&D combat involved THACo, weapon speed, and a pants full of gerbils. By comparison, an extra action isn't even in the same (gerbil-related) league.

Of course, 1E weapon speed rules actually had a clause where you might get 2 or even 3 attacks on someone if things worked out right.

 

[AZRogue]

Initiative doesn't have to BE a Skill (maybe it is, I don't know), but I think it's TREATED like a Skill, as in the mechanic is the same.

Probably 1/2 level + ability modifier + Improved Initiative Feat (instead of, say, making it a Trained Skill, but with same effect)?

As the PCs level they will be reacting more quickly than those lower level, and be on par with creatures of the same level. Makes sense to me. Adventuring would make anyone paranoid. And the mechanic, since it is the same as the one used for Skills, will be easy to remember and easy to do.

 

[Kaisoku]

The randomizer is supposed to dwarf the modifiers. If its the other way around, there isn't much point in the roll- you're taking chance out of the game, which makes combat pretty pointless, as you already know who's going to win, barring statistical anomalies.

That is only true to an extent. It's not good to have either extreme.

If the randomizer dwarfs the modifiers, you end up with "skill" having little to no bearing on the result. This means someone who wants to devote skill to this aspect of combat is being artificially "nerfed".
Also, it means that "experience" has no bearing on this particular aspect of combat.

If the randomizer is dwarfed by the modifiers, you end up with little to no chaos occuring during combat, so that most outcomes can be figured by simply comparing stats. This is also bad, because combat is not nearly that cut and dry.


With a d20, modifiers ranging from ~5 in the low end, and ~20-25 at the high end make for a happy medium. If it always stays at the low end, and never gets better... things stay too chaotic. If it exceeds the high end too much (getting into the 40s and 50s, etc), then things become too predictable and gaps between high trained and low trained start ruining combat.


Having Initiative based on experience, allowing a person to focus on it, but also keeping it within the "Sweet Spot" like the rest of the system makes for a better mechanic IMO. Also, since it has the same ranges as everything else, rules can interact with it without needing to be a corner case.

This is the very thing I think they meant by "Streamlining" the system.