D&D 5E Alternative Initiative: try this

Have you accounted for the impact this has on the assassin? You say ignoring Dex etc is worth it, but the assassin's whole shtick relies on going first and getting the drop on enemies.

Glad to know this is liked!
[MENTION=6939]Coredump[/MENTION]: your idea about the "counter" is brilliant. I'm not completely sold on the need to track it down, but we would do like you suggest if we feel it's becoming an issue. On the granularity...just not worth it for us, but it may be for others. Also, liking a lot the Google Popcorn one! Not for my players, I think, they would probably turn this into some nightmarish optimization routine but worth a try at the table!
[MENTION=53678]Wednesday Boy[/MENTION]: sure. We thought of this but the elegance of a card with only a picture is not matched by a MTG card with some text...but of course here we delve into opinions territory
[MENTION=1210]the Jester[/MENTION]: not really, we do not have Assassins...but, if I recall correctly, an Assassin does not get an advantage to start first. If they want to, they can get the Alert feat which grants two cards in the deck. If I remember poorly and they do get some advantage to initiative rolls, two cards for them too!

Fabio Andrea Rossi said:

[MENTION=1210]the Jester[/MENTION]: not really, we do not have Assassins...but, if I recall correctly, an Assassin does not get an advantage to start first. If they want to, they can get the Alert feat which grants two cards in the deck. If I remember poorly and they do get some advantage to initiative rolls, two cards for them too!

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The assassin absolutely gets a major advantage by going first: he gets advantage on attacks against creatures that haven't yet gone in combat. It's not advantage on initiative, it's advantage from initiative- a serious reason that they want to keep that +4 bonus to initiative from Dex. I'm pointing out that assassin rogues lose out big in this system.

(They get even better bonuses when they surprise someone, but that's separate from initiative.)

the Jester said:

The assassin absolutely gets a major advantage by going first: he gets advantage on attacks against creatures that haven't yet gone in combat. It's not advantage on initiative, it's advantage from initiative- a serious reason that they want to keep that +4 bonus to initiative from Dex. I'm pointing out that assassin rogues lose out big in this system.

(They get even better bonuses when they surprise someone, but that's separate from initiative.)

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Surprise is still tied to initiative. If the creature they surprised beats their initiative then they are no longer surprised when it comes time for the assassin to act.

Maybe for each PC and significant monster put one card in the deck for each point of Dex mod (min 1) to account for high Dex (of course ignore all cards for that character after the first one).

The problem with going granular all the way to a card for each point of Dex bonus, is you are either making average people as slow as the slowest people or you have a ton of cards. To show how Dex 10 is faster than 8 (or potentially 3, if stats rolled), the 1 card benchmark has to start at Dex 8 (or 3) and go up from there.

I really like this card idea, conceptually.

DJCupboard said:

The problem with going granular all the way to a card for each point of Dex bonus, is you are either making average people as slow as the slowest people or you have a ton of cards. To show how Dex 10 is faster than 8 (or potentially 3, if stats rolled), the 1 card benchmark has to start at Dex 8 (or 3) and go up from there.

I really like this card idea, conceptually.

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Negative Dex mods are not that common in my games, at least for PCs. If I had a monster that was really slow then maybe I would just make it go last. Maybe not. I would be comfortable with Dex mod 1 and lower being treated the same for initiative.

Ok, that makes sense. So maybe, +1 card for Dex 16+, +1 card for Dex 20, +1 card for Alert feat, they all stack, and thematically slow monsters always go last.

DJCupboard said:

Ok, that makes sense. So maybe, +1 card for Dex 16+, +1 card for Dex 20, +1 card for Alert feat, they all stack, and thematically slow monsters always go last.

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I like it. Very simple.

In my opinion, while these solutions surely can work, they are more trouble than it's worth. Consider this: you are not going to match the relevance of the same bonus in standard initiative anyway.

I mean, each +1 on a D20 roll is a +5% on the total. If you give one card for a 16 DEX character, you are not matching a +15% chance unless you have around 7 total cards (more or less). But, the number of cards will not be the same each combat: the less enemies, the more relevant the bonus, which can quickly add if you give more than one additional card per character. Also, then you should do the same for monsters with high dexterity.

I never tried this so it may still work but I suspect that it will detract to the sense of tension to the table. Again, I may be wrong but I would stick to only giving one bonus card maximum to very special cases like the whopping +5 alert. The +5 DEX iguy s not losing the relevancy of accuracy and AC and saves effects. Compare it to, say, CON bonus which "only" gives HP and saves bonus. It's just a convention that DEX adds to initiative. in my humble opinion, there is no reason why initiative should not be tied to CHA instead, for instance, representing quickness of wit and spirit more than physical reflexes. So, at the end of the day you are not making huge sacrifices here by just not accounting for DEX bonus. Finally, you should then also consider to have the number of cards a dynamic one if characters get initiative bonuses (for instance due to HASTE spells or similar magic).

I really find it much easier to just handwaive different bonuses for speed and dramatic tension' sake.

Alert is different because the initiative bonus is very much the core of the feat, also, it's cool to have at least some way to increase your chances of going first. A scimitar of speed perhaps. But it should be exceptional, otherwise you should do the same for monsters with high bonuses (or spells, or items...).

For the Assassin thing: what I meant is that the Assassin does not get a bonus to determine if he goes first. He does get a substantial advantage IF he goes first, but he does not get a bonus TO go first, so he is in the same situation as other characters in this sense. Yes, he loses more than others not counting his DEX bonus as one of his features is strongly linked to winning initiatives but I'd just suggest getting Alert. A wizard could also pump his DEX to go first and, say, become invisible and get lost. But yes, an Assassin is a very specific case and probably the granular solution benifits him more, but still I would pick the greater good over this, eventually compensating the Assassin character somehow, much simpler, perhaps extending to the first two round his power. But still, as everybody is on the same boat, he still gets a good chance to be first anyway in the long run.