D&D General The Problem with Individual Initiative

[Mage of Spellford]

I find that one rather simple trope from almost any action/sf story feels unnecessary difficult to port to 5e D&D: the knight that guards everyone's back allowing their team mates to retreat. I understand why delaying was sacrificed on the Altar of Speeding up play for 5th edition but for example I have player who's knight always refused to retreat until he's sure his companions are safely away. Under 5e this means that depending upon his character's initiative he will often be left alone until his next turn. Does anyone else find that the cyclical initiative precludes reasonable group tactics? At least in pre-5e the players could agree to all delay until they could retreat as a group, it led to them losing better placement in the initiative order but it was still an option.

I'm really noticing this because since it isn't really practical to manage the enemy's initiative individually this provides the 'bad guys' with an advantage of sorts because they can act as a unit and the PC's cannot. How do you deal with this?

M

 

[Quickleaf]

Yeah, it's actually two separate issues though: (1) artificial constraints imposed by initiative & (2) D&D 5e not having rules for escaping/withdrawing from combat.

I use a whole variety of house rules, which may or may not suit your table/tastes, but these are some of them...

Dynamic Initiative
Dynamic initiative acknowledges that there are degrees of combat scenes, and they are served by different approaches to initiative.

Snap Scenes: When there’s just a few monsters of the same type, like a quick guard scene, it can be resolved with the active/leading player rolling initiative against a DC of 10 + the monster’s DEX. PC wins? They go first. PC loses? Monsters go first. Sometimes, the combat is so secondary to the scene that it can be resolved simply as “resolve the PC’s hostile action.”

Typical Scenes: For most combat encounters, initiative is not rolled and the round begins with whoever triggered the scene (if in doubt, have one PC roll versus one monster to determine who goes first). When that character finishes their turn, they choose the next creature/group to act, and so on. The last person to act in the current round decides who starts the new round – but they can't pick themselves. A creature/PC that hasn’t taken a turn yet this round may interrupt the order if it took damage (or if it spends Inspiration or a Legendary Resistance).

Climax Scenes: For climactic / set-piece / boss encounters, everyone rolls initiative. If the PCs are not surprised, the players may have one minute to make their plan of attack. During initiative, players who have consecutive turns with no monsters in between them may act in any order they wish, including overlapping their turns.

Retreat
When the party chooses to retreat from danger, at any point on a player’s turn they make a group initiative check versus the passive initiative of their foes. A PC who is unable to move does not roll. A PC who is encumbered, carrying another PC, or slowed suffers disadvantage on the roll. A PC who had an escape plan in advance or who took action during the scene to facilitate escape gains advantage. Same goes for the monsters/NPCs.
If half or more of the PCs succeed, they escape. Otherwise, the scene continues and escape is no longer an option unless circumstances change. However, if they escape, for each PC who failed the check, the party must pick one:

• The party has been split up, and possibly lost.
• The party abandons the treasure or loses a significant item.
• Each PC takes damage equal to a single opportunity attack from the monsters/NPCs.
• Even if the monsters/NPCs could not, or chose not to, immediately pursue, they’re out there looking for the party.
• The party lands in some new sort of trouble.

 

[iserith]

My take on the initiative rules is similar to what Churchill said about democracy - it's the wost form of initiative... except for all those other methods that have been tried from time to time.

 

[overgeeked]

Yep. Individual initiative dramatically slows down play as do many of the convoluted “fixes”. Side-based initiative is the fastest. The players can decide amongst themselves who goes in what order. Whatever makes sense for their actions and the situation. No extra rules or guidelines required. Nice and simple.

 

[GMMichael]

The D&D justification for this is that everything in the round happens at, more or less, the same time. It's a big leap of the imagination, but if the knight's teammates decide to flee, then all the foes chase them, and then the knight gets to take his turn, it's because the knight 1) got the memo too late and/or 2) was too flat-footed to affect the outcome. It's not because everyone "ran around him while he did nothing."

An initiative system better suited to handle the OP scenario might allow PCs to react when they want, not just when their turns come up. If there's a concern about low-rolling-initiatives getting to act too early with this rule, then you just need to rank reactions by their initiative scores - a low-rolling reaction is still subordinate to higher rolls who act concurrently.

 

[Shiroiken]

I find that one rather simple trope from almost any action/sf story feels unnecessary difficult to port to 5e D&D: the knight that guards everyone's back allowing their team mates to retreat. I understand why delaying was sacrificed on the Altar of Speeding up play for 5th edition but for example I have player who's knight always refused to retreat until he's sure his companions are safely away. Under 5e this means that depending upon his character's initiative he will often be left alone until his next turn. Does anyone else find that the cyclical initiative precludes reasonable group tactics? At least in pre-5e the players could agree to all delay until they could retreat as a group, it led to them losing better placement in the initiative order but it was still an option.

Simply add Delay back into the game. It's not game breaking in any way, so long as you use the 4E rules for "start/end of your next turn."

I'm really noticing this because since it isn't really practical to manage the enemy's initiative individually this provides the 'bad guys' with an advantage of sorts because they can act as a unit and the PC's cannot. How do you deal with this?

You resolve each bad guy individually. One has to finish his turn before doing the next, preventing any shenanigans. If you only have 1 group of opponents, it turns into Side Initiative by default, since all PCs will go before the enemy goes again anyway, you just might get some PCs going before the the first round.

 

[Greenstone.Walker]

Possibly-controversial opinion: Side initiative dramatically slows down play. It's not the worst method, but it's close.

Side initiative starts with two minutes of blank stares as no-one wants to go first, then ten or more minutes of discussion as everyone argues why they shouldn't go first then ten more minutes or arguing why they should go last.

Group tactics sounds good, but in practice if the GM hands off the action ball to the players, they just drop it.

Also-possibly-controversial: As does allowing delay.

I attended a game at uni where every single player had their character delay, in order to try and react to what the foes were doing I guess. The GM responsed by delaying ever single monster, and then forcing the players to go. Wasting several minutes. Every. Single. Round. You would have thought after the first round or two they would have given up, but they treated it as some sort of game against the GM, not realising (or caring) that all they were doing was wasting their own time.

Weird things like this happen when you try to model simultaneous activities in a turn-based game.

 

[overgeeked]

Possibly-controversial opinion: Side initiative dramatically slows down play. It's not the worst method, but it's close.

Side initiative starts with two minutes of blank stares as no-one wants to go first, then ten or more minutes of discussion as everyone argues why they shouldn't go first then ten more minutes or arguing why they should go last.

Group tactics sounds good, but in practice if the GM hands off the action ball to the players, they just drop it.

Weird. I’ve done both individual and side-based for decades and never once has side-based go slower. About half the players typically race to go first. They have a plan and want to execute it. The other half have no idea what to do and flail while everyone else goes. By the time it’s their turn, they’ve figured it out and get on with it. The result being the players just go with minimal if any delays between them.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I find that one rather simple trope from almost any action/sf story feels unnecessary difficult to port to 5e D&D: the knight that guards everyone's back allowing their team mates to retreat. I understand why delaying was sacrificed on the Altar of Speeding up play for 5th edition but for example I have player who's knight always refused to retreat until he's sure his companions are safely away. Under 5e this means that depending upon his character's initiative he will often be left alone until his next turn. Does anyone else find that the cyclical initiative precludes reasonable group tactics? At least in pre-5e the players could agree to all delay until they could retreat as a group, it led to them losing better placement in the initiative order but it was still an option.

I'm really noticing this because since it isn't really practical to manage the enemy's initiative individually this provides the 'bad guys' with an advantage of sorts because they can act as a unit and the PC's cannot. How do you deal with this?

M

So, what I prefer, and use in my own system, is a phases in place of rounds, and initiative is a thing you win at the start of combat and by doing so gain the ability to decide who goes when in each phase, as a team.

Basically your team has the initiative, and so you control the board, giving you a distinct tactical advantage.

From there, you choose a stance in the first phase, and a general type of action. Eg, attack aggressively or protect the mage defensively, or do complex magic.

Complex actions start in phase one and resolve in phase 3, aggressive is a forward stance which means you go immediately in phase 1, defensive is a ready stance and thus goes in round 3 unless a trigger allows them to go sooner. Usually that would be “someone moves to attack the mage” and then you would take your turn after the trigger, but can spend a quick action to interrupt them and try to stop them reaching the mage.

I’m working on traits that let you protect several allies or let you hold ground rather than focusing on defending a specific character.

 

[Lanefan]

I find that one rather simple trope from almost any action/sf story feels unnecessary difficult to port to 5e D&D: the knight that guards everyone's back allowing their team mates to retreat. I understand why delaying was sacrificed on the Altar of Speeding up play for 5th edition but for example I have player who's knight always refused to retreat until he's sure his companions are safely away. Under 5e this means that depending upon his character's initiative he will often be left alone until his next turn. Does anyone else find that the cyclical initiative precludes reasonable group tactics? At least in pre-5e the players could agree to all delay until they could retreat as a group, it led to them losing better placement in the initiative order but it was still an option.

I'm really noticing this because since it isn't really practical to manage the enemy's initiative individually this provides the 'bad guys' with an advantage of sorts because they can act as a unit and the PC's cannot. How do you deal with this?

First off, the bad guys should get individual initiatives just like the PCs, even if it's a pain for you-as-DM to do.

After that, though, while there's certainly problems with cyclical initiative the problem you're facing isn't due to it being cyclical, it's due to characters not being able to delay such that they are acting simultaneously with other characters. In this case, they'd all want to delay or hold until the lowest PC's initiative (except the Knight who would want to be one pip slower), then all except the Knight could move away together as a group with the Knight moving one pip behind them as cover. (and yes, delay doesn't exist in 5e RAW but houseruling it back in is IMO a no-brainer)

The problem is in fact the ban on tied initiatives and thus on simultaneous actions. The same issue prevents a group of archers from firing a co-ordinated volley.

As written, they can't move or shoot all at once as a group.