Moving to Side Initiative

[masshysteria]

The timing of ongoing damage is a little odd. I feel like ongoing damage should occur at the same time as the rest of the damage, but that would interact weirdly with saving throws.

If you allow a saving throw before applying on-going damage I guess you are fine.

The current RAW has on-going damage at the start of your turn and a saving throw at the end. You're just moving all the turn start and turn end effects to the end after the savings throw. So, the net effect should be the same. I guess it makes no sense to have on-going at the beginning.

I'm not sure why you would want this. For one thing, the whole reason you want to reduce an enemy to 0 hit points is to deny him his turn. For another, under this system, no pc will ever fall unconscious unless the party is out of healing or is unconscionably careless.

The idea is that you don't want the side that goes first just to go nova and win the encounter in one fell swoop. If everyone gets to act that round then you always have to consider the counter attack.

 

[masshysteria]

I think the only thing we may have missed are effects that end on your (next) turn. So adding that back in, we have:

1. Roll initiative.
2. PC's that beat the DC.
3. Monsters (DC equal to average init+10).
4. PC's that fail to beat DC or delay.
5. Savings throws.
6. Apply damage, healing, on-going damage, and regeneration.
7. Apply new conditions.
8. Effects end from previous turn.
9. Repeat from step 1.

This does give you an interesting feel like there was just a mad scramble for six seconds while everyone goes at one another.

If you take the net of the damage and healing received, you can end up with situations where a character at full HP is healed for 5 points and later in initiative hit for 3 points of damage and ends the turn at full HP. I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing, just a different way of looking at how powers interact.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I think you'll get a better flow if you apply the effects when they happen, then any ongoing ones again in step 6. This makes step 7 unnecessary, too. Otherwise, I think you need to move the saving throw step after your step 6. And that makes step 7 even clunkier. Like RW said, in this order, ongoing done at the time makes no functional difference versus later. So do it when it is the easiest.

Also, given that "end of your next turn" effects are already often better than "save ends" effects, I'd be really tempted to just change all of those to "save ends" effects. Part of the charm of a roll every time, side versus side initiative is that you don't really know how the field is going to look next round. Might as well streamline and make that even more true at the same time. (Not sure about the ramifications of this, though, for things like combat advantage, as I am far from the guy with an exhaustive knowledge of powers.)

 

[RangerWickett]

My idea was that all conditions last at least one round. If you grant someone a bonus save on a 'save ends' condition, it will still last at least until the end of the turn, because conditions and damage only . . . um, 'toggle'(?) . . . only take effect or stop working at the end of each turn.

So turn 1, Drizzt attacks and hits 2 orcs out of a group of 4, reducing them to 0 HP. Then a demon curses Drizzt so he's dazed (save ends). Those orcs then attack Drizzt, but he's not dazed vs. the attack. They hit and inflict some damage. Then the turn ends, the daze starts, and the 2 orcs die.

Turn 2, Drizzt's dazed, so he can only attack one orc; he reduces it to 0 hp. The demon sets Drizzt on fire, ongoing 5 (save ends). The two remaining orcs attack, hit Drizzt because he's dazed and easy to hit. Turn ends, Drizzt saves vs daze and fails, one orc dies.

Turn 3, Drizzt takes his 5 fire damage, which reduces him to 0 hit points, but he still gets his turn. He's still dazed, but he doesn't want to die, so he spends his standard action to second wind, and his hit points pop back up. The demon attacks and hits Drizzt, and so does the remaining orc, but the damage isn't quite enough to drop him back to 0. The turn ends, Drizzt makes his saves against fire (fails) and dazed (succeeds).

Turn 4, Drizzt takes his fire damage and drops below 0 again, so he knows he's about to die, so he goes all Drizzt-y on the demon, and reduces it to 0 hit points. The demon can't really do much extra against Drizzt, and it can't heal itself, but it attacks anyway, just in spite. The orc runs away. The turn ends, the demon dies, Drizzt fails his save against fire, falls unconscious, and starts to die.

Turn 5-7, Drizzt burns to death.

Turn 8, the orc comes back, takes the drow's swords, and claims he killed him.

 

[masshysteria]

I think you'll get a better flow if you apply the effects when they happen, then any ongoing ones again in step 6.

OK, it took me a while to wrap my head around this, but I now agree with what you are getting at.

1. Roll initiative.
2. PC's that beat the DC.
3. Monsters (DC equal to average init+10).
4. PC's that fail to beat DC or delay.
5. Apply damage, healing, on-going damage, and regeneration.
6. Savings throws.
7. Apply new conditions (conditions being blinded, dazed, slowed, etc.).
8. Repeat from step 1.

However, I have to wonder if this really speeds anything up and makes players take their actions faster. In any event, it was a great thought exercise and I'll keep noodling away at it and hopefully try it out.

 

[Viking Bastard]

If the aim is to speed things up, it would seem speediest to me to not split the PCs into multiple groups and just let people take their turns in a clockwise fashion. Make the Initiative check into a group check, maybe? If half the party passes the check then they go first, else they go second.

You could assign some monsters to be Slow Creatures who would always act last in the initiative order. In case you wanted to spread the action a bit more (or wanted to punctuate the end of each round with an attack of the Big Bad Brute or tentacle grab from the depths of the Underdark).

If the party fails the check:
a. Fast creatures
b. PCs
c. Slow creatures

Else if party succeeds:
a. PCs
b. Fast creatures
c. Slow creatures

 

[RangerWickett]

I'd just go:

Determine if anyone is surprised.
Have a surprise round.
Start normal rounds.
1. PCs all go.
2. Enemies all go.
3. Make saves, old conditions end.
4. New conditions and damage take effect.

Eliminate 'rolling initiative' entirely.

If you have to have it, make it a flat stat. Maybe whenever a creature is reduced to 0 hit points, if its initiative is lower than that of the attacker, it only gets a single action on its final turn.

 

[Fanaelialae]

OK, it took me a while to wrap my head around this, but I now agree with what you are getting at.

1. Roll initiative.
2. PC's that beat the DC.
3. Monsters (DC equal to average init+10).
4. PC's that fail to beat DC or delay.
5. Apply damage, healing, on-going damage, and regeneration.
6. Savings throws.
7. Apply new conditions (conditions being blinded, dazed, slowed, etc.).
8. Repeat from step 1.

However, I have to wonder if this really speeds anything up and makes players take their actions faster. In any event, it was a great thought exercise and I'll keep noodling away at it and hopefully try it out.

While I'm interested in trying out side initiative myself, I don't think this particular implementation works well.

Because new conditions are applied at the end of the round, players (and monsters) are quite limited in what they can tactically accomplish.

For example, if I'm crit at the end of round one and I know I can only take one more hit, then even if I go first on round two, my options regarding what to do are significantly limited. Under the normal system, I might try blinding my attacker, imposing a -5 penalty to his next attack. Since conditions aren't applied til the end of the round, however, I can't do this under your proposed system. The monster would get to attack me in round two without penalty, and wouldn't be blinded until round three (when it may no longer be of help to me).

I expect it would wreak havoc with marking mechanics as well.

While a consolidated condition phase would be both convenient and a time saver, I think the better way is to have timing occur normally (conditions are applied immediately following the attack that causes them). This allows players (and monsters) to play tactically without having to try to think an entire round ahead (which is part of why the current system takes as long as it does to resolve, IMO).

 

[Crazy Jerome]

While a consolidated condition phase would be both convenient and a time saver, I think the better way is to have timing occur normally (conditions are applied immediately following the attack that causes them). This allows players (and monsters) to play tactically without having to try to think an entire round ahead (which is part of why the current system takes as long as it does to resolve, IMO).

That is an issue. I don't have so much of the analysis paralysis in our group (because most of them aren't that tactically savvy) as process and handling overload. Fortunately, your solution dovetails with mine.

I think RW's applying conditions only at the end of the turn will cause more slowdown than it helps. You have to record what happened. And then at the end of the turn, you have to apply it. This is exactly like "picking up the same piece of paper multiple times"--which, as any efficiency expert can tell you, should be avoided when possible.

This is not true, however, of doing the saves, ending conditions, applying stuff from ongoing effects, etc. By definition, it has to be handled "later". So handling it all at one time in the round is convenient.

As for the everyone taking their turn problem, having spent many combats running with group initiatives, I can say that the DM and players pretty quick to pick up on an optimal flow for that. I've found with us that I can have two or three players going at once, because the natural variations in decision making, rolling the dice, and communicating the results provide windows to handle it. (That is, one player is nearly always ready before the others.)

Having sometimes nine players, I'll occasionally get more than 3 going at once. In that case, I'll divvy them up by some ad hoc termination that makes sense in context and resolve it that way. "OK, you two are going after the lizardman. So we'll do that first, and then come back to you other two holding off the shaman." By the time I get over to the latter group, they've resolved everything and are ready to report/narrate.

I do think it is important in a system like this to not try to exactly mirror the likely results. But you do want to be in the ballpark.

 

[Ryujin]

We've done the 'side initiative' thing. If I said that it saved us as much as 5 minutes, per hour+ long combat, I would be grossly exaggerating. It also removed a good chunk of the "chaos of the battlefield", that so enhances the experience in my opinion.

Net negative.

If the goal is to save time then there are far better ways of doing so. I'm thinking of trying the egg timer method, for my players. In practice it will likely only effect one player, who seems to contribute perhaps as much as 50% to delays as he pretends to not hear me calling for his action, while he tries to choose his next move.