Moving to Side Initiative

[masshysteria]

Ever since reading this point three of this Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game Official Home Page - Article (Rule-of-Three: 11/28/2011) and playing some BattleTech, I've been contemplating moving to side initiative for the next game I'd like to run. Being the next game is a light hearted short lived dungeon romp, I figure it is the perfect time to try something new to speed up combat and maximize fun. I find most combats slow down because players have to take order of events into account so there are a lot of delays and discussions about who should do what. By having the entire side go at once, the discussion is streamlined and delays are removed.

Here's what I'm thinking of proposing, any thoughts?

Side Initiative:
1. Each side rolls a d20 for initiative to determine initiative order.
2. The side with the highest roll acts with each participating member acting in any order.
3. The side with the next highest roll now acts with each participating member acting in any order.
4. Repeat step 3 until all sides have gone (only important in encounters with more than two sides)
5. Repeat from step 1 until the encounter is resolved.

Notes:
* The delay is removed.
* Surprise rounds are still available. Roll to determine who is aware of surprise. Then roll side surprise initiative. Only the surprisers and those aware get to act.
* Any interrupts actions and opportunity attacks work like normal.

I think combat could swing one way or another very quickly with a system like this. There is the possibility to go twice in a row. I was thinking about adding back in delay and inserting a step after step 4 that says anyone who delayed now acts in side initiative order in the delay step. (Edit: ) I guess another option is to not reroll initiative so that side always alternate. That might be the most elegant solution.

I'm thinking it may be good to have an initiative modifier, perhaps the side's average initiative modifier. But would you recalculated it every time an opponent was eliminated? It is more work, which slows down the game but I think it also make for some interesting tactics.

 

[RangerWickett]

One suggestion I would add is to change the timing of damage and conditions. I'd have each turn go like this:

1. Team A acts.
2. Team B acts.
3. Saves are made for existing conditions.
4. New damage and conditions take effect.

So in this method, even if you reduce an enemy to 0 hp, he still gets his turn. More importantly, conditions all start and end at the same time, which I think would drastically speed things up.

 

[Rechan]

More than likely when the PCs go first they're going to absolutely obliterate the opposition. You'll likely see a lot of nova-ing.

You also will see some confusion when the players try to figure out what order they go in.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

One suggestion I would add is to change the timing of damage and conditions. I'd have each turn go like this:

1. Team A acts.
2. Team B acts.
3. Saves are made for existing conditions.
4. New damage and conditions take effect.

So in this method, even if you reduce an enemy to 0 hp, he still gets his turn. More importantly, conditions all start and end at the same time, which I think would drastically speed things up.

Good idea!

I often run something akin to side initiative (any relatively unimportant fight in the whole scheme of the adventure). Basically, we see how the initiative order shakes out as normal, then group the characters into two or three groups. Everyone in a group acts together. Hadn't thought about the saves and conditions idea, though.

For a very streamlined version of what I do, I've seen proposed more than once something like:

1. User average monster initiative mod, add 10. This is the DC that players need to hit to go before the monsters.

2. All players roll initiative independently.

3. Any player that made the check goes first.

4. All monsters go.

5. Any player that failed the check goes.

Now, usually the way this is suggested, after the surprise/first rounds, you essentially end up with pure side. That is, the players that made the check go, then the monsters go, then all the players go, then the monsters go again, etc. But with RangerWickett's idea merged in, and your preference for reroll, you get something pretty dynamic, yet I bet still fast.

Plus, if you have a very important and/or large conflict and monsters that have widely disparate initiatives, you can used a modified version. Have fast monsters and slow monsters grouped together. Set the DCs according. Players are divided up into as many as three groups, depending upon beating both DCs only the slow one, or neither. Slightly slower, but possibly worth it if you are worried about overwhelming the system or a lot of monsters being killers before anyone can react.

Delay still works in this system--if you have beat a monster initiative. In that case, you can delay into a later group if it is important enough. But there is a real cost to using it, because a lot of monsters gets to act. So it is an option for those edge cases where it matters, but fairly rare.

I'm going to need to try that.

 

[masshysteria]

I like grouping the damage and conditions. This will definitely happen

The initiative check against a DC is a clever idea. Each player still get to roll initiative. Solos, elites could make their own check like the PC's. The check get a little more complicated in three way fight, but still manageble. Now there are just two DC's that are possible to beat.

So the new process is:

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

I like it. This also means the DM doesn't have to roll init making the DM's job easier.

 

[Rechan]

If you use average init mod + 10, then as PC level their init bonuses will increase even as the DCs stay closer to the same. They get +1 to init every other level, but monster init seems to not raise all that high.

 

[RangerWickett]

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

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.

I mean, if you were designing a system from scratch to do this, you could work out the kinks. It might just be best to have ongoing damage happen at the end of the turn with everything else. Though it slightly speeds up how fast you might kill something, is there really much difference between:

1. I hit you for 10 damage, ongoing 5.
2. Other people act, maybe.
3. You start your turn, take 5 damage, die.

vs

1. I hit you for 10 damage, ongoing 5. The 5 happens right now too, you die.

Either way, you never get your next turn.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Monsters use their DEX mod for their init mod, just like PCs do. By guidelines monster's DEX may go up by roughly +1/2 levels. In addition all their mods go up by 1 per 2 levels, just like for PCs. So in fact monsters roughly gain init bonus a bit faster than a PC that doesn't invest anything in it beyond stab boost, and appreciably faster than characters with DEX as an off stat. That being said it is like with other monster stats, things vary from what is in the guidelines. In any case the general trend is for PCs to fall further behind at higher levels, so the DC would actually get relatively harder.

 

[the Jester]

So in this method, even if you reduce an enemy to 0 hp, he still gets his turn.

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.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

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.

I think there are three main factors to consider here:

• System should be fast--else, why bother? So handling time is a premium, and conditions/ongoing damage are a big offender.
• Yet, you want something that roughly corresponds to the power balance now.
• Going before the monsters should matter, but not grossly.

I think that once you go to side versus side initiative, rolling every round actually splits the middle on those pretty well, with less side effects. You do end up with something a bit different, however.

With the order as masshysteria stated, saves happening before conditions/ongoing works perfectly, if you do apply the conditions/ongoing immediately, but do not start the "end of next turn" or similar counts until step 7, and don't apply old ones until then.

Handling time: When a character or monster does something, boom, it happens. Immediately, any condition or ongoing damage applied becomes an "old condition" to be referred to later.

Power balance: Conditions, when first applied, are a little more swingy in effect when interacting with the variable turn order. This should even out over a battle, because of rolling every time. If you don't roll every time, it becomes a predictable thing that players will work to maximize.

Plus, going first means that after you go there is chance that the monsters will go twice before you go again (i.e. you fail next round). OTOH, being stuck last means you are sure that the monsters will go at most once before you act again, and possibly not at all. This uncertainity is critical, I think to making such a system work.

Going first matters: If you go before the monsters, you are sure that any condition you manage to inflict will affect the monsters this round, before they can save. If you go after, it may affect them briefly, but not substantially. OTOH, a condition applied after the monster goes, that the monster does not save against, is one that is going to affect the monster the whole next round, and before anyone on his side is going to be able to help with. Basically, better to go first, but not so much better that you wouldn't take a shot sometimes when going last. A similar logic applies in reverse to the PCs getting hit with such stuff. Go first, then get hit, you've got no chance to use a power to bail out--but someone going last can bail you out. Go last, get hit, you can react, but someone else going last can't bail you out.

I also like it for tracking conditions. Since all conditions/ongoing are "old" at the end of the round, you just check them all.