D&D 5E What rules would you like to see come back in 5E?

[delericho]

They both move on the same initiative using the lowest common speed, and sharing one move action.

Sure, that's the obvious way for the DM to rule it. But do the rules actually address it anywhere?

Another contrived example: two characters are tied together by a 30 ft length of rope. They start back-to-back, and are each tasked with pulling a lever 30 ft from their starting position (in opposite directions). The winner lives; the loser dies.

And... go!

Under the rules as written, whichever character wins initiative takes a move action, moves 30 ft, pulls the lever, and wins.

In reality, that's an absurd outcome.

Sadly, the turn-based structure, certainly as in 3e/4e/PF, just doesn't handle simultaneous events (and especially movement) at all well.

Then we have the Quantum PC issue... am I in the area of the fireball when the fireball is actually thrown? Since our actions and movements are all taking place at the same exact time, but we artificially take turns? So does his fireball forces me to be at a particular location (after I have already had my turn or before it entirely?.. and I may only be in the area of his fireball for a very limited part of his turn but he himself moved to get in to position so is it even possible to track this back to character immersive pov?

Indeed. Of course, part of that is where the saving throw comes in - if you pass, you were obviously only on the periphery of the area and so missed the worst of the effect; if you failed, you must have been dead centre.

But also, in a real-world equivalent, the person targeting the fireball (grenade) would watch your movement, and pitch the grenade so that it is somewhat in advance of where you are now so that when it lands it meets where you are then. So it is possible to target someone in that manner. (Of course, try doing that with six different creatures all in the area of effect but all moving in different directions!)

To me it seems so fundamental how can the sim crowd not go insane.

We spend our free time pretending to be elves. What makes you think we're not insane?

 

[Garthanos]

In reality, that's an absurd outcome.

Absurd is a good word.

Sadly, the turn-based structure, certainly as in 3e/4e/PF, just doesn't handle simultaneous events (and especially movement) at all well.

nods... those multiple characters somehow on different ends of the area effect must have been in the center because each failed their save? space warps every time - for the win.

What makes you think we're not insane?

I personally wont lump myself in the group who think this is somehow a simulation rather than an evocation ... even if we all pretend we're of fae blood.

 

[billd91]

Sure you can. If a spell resolves on init. '3' this round it runs out on init. '3' next round. How hard is that?

Lanefan

Not that hard, but it can be quirky in ways that the cyclical initiative avoids. For example, depending on the initiatives rolled, a one-round buff or de-buff could totally miss affecting one of the targeted characters. Suppose a fighter goes early one round, followed by the cleric to buffs him with a 1 round duration (say that goes off on 5). Now suppose that the next round the fighter rolls poorly on his initiative and goes well after 5. He has been unaffected by the buff since his action one round was before and then the following round after the window created by the quirks of the initiative rolls. That won't happen with cyclical initiatives because the fighter's turn always comes before the cleric's turn comes around again - which is when the buff expires. He may elect do delay and thus miss the buff, but that's a result of his choice, not variation in the dice rolls.

There may be ways around that problem, but you have to step way from round by round durations to do so and even those get tricky. You could turn the buff from duration into a set number of tokens - for instance, bless gives the affected PC 6 tokens to use to modify his attacks (no more than one to be used at any time) rather than count off 6 rounds. But then, those tokens could be abused to hang around even if the PC isn't attacking simply by the player slowing down the PC's rate of using attacks or actions. Or spell durations could be set to last the duration of the encounter - bless lasts until the encounter is done. But then what happens if the encounter snowballs as the noise of a fight keeps drawing in more combatants from elsewhere in the fortress? Then the power of that buff spell (or debuff) becomes a lot more than originally expected - too much bang for the buck.

Oh, I definitely understand the lure of the cyclical initiative, the simplicity, and the benefits it brings to managing a combat even if I don't like the side effect of spell casting becoming more difficult to interrupt. I'm not at all sure rolling initiative is that much more simulative that I favor it in all ways over the fairly gamist cyclical initiative.

 

[The Human Target]

Sure, that's the obvious way for the DM to rule it. But do the rules actually address it anywhere?

Another contrived example: two characters are tied together by a 30 ft length of rope. They start back-to-back, and are each tasked with pulling a lever 30 ft from their starting position (in opposite directions). The winner lives; the loser dies.

And... go!

Under the rules as written, whichever character wins initiative takes a move action, moves 30 ft, pulls the lever, and wins.

That falls under skill challenges.

 

[delericho]

That falls under skill challenges.

You've missed my point. What I'm getting at is that any turn-based combat system with individual, discrete turns, and with everything taking place on a square grid will necessarily have areas where the simulation breaks down. The frequency and the severity of those breaks will depend on the turn length and on the size of the squares (or, indeed, hexes), but they will be there.

 

[Vael]

I don't really like rerolling initiative. Lately, I've become a fan of the Marvel Heroics style-initiative system So, a player's last choice is deciding who goes next, and the last person to go chooses who goes first next round. I've used it in FATE and 13th Age, and it works pretty well. It breaks up the cyclic initiative, and keeps the table a bit more involved as they can set up combos by controlling the flow of actions, and it's still a simple system to use.

Honestly, from the items listed ... only followers and clerical domains/spheres really intrigue me. Most of the other stuff ranges from "No" to "Oh, please No." to "For the Love of all that's Holy/Unholy, NOOOO."

 

[Mishihari Lord]

You've missed my point. What I'm getting at is that any turn-based combat system with individual, discrete turns, and with everything taking place on a square grid will necessarily have areas where the simulation breaks down. The frequency and the severity of those breaks will depend on the turn length and on the size of the squares (or, indeed, hexes), but they will be there.

Your statement is slightly too narrow. I'm a controls engineer, so I design and use simulations professionally. Every simulation breaks down under some circumstances. The question isn't "does the simulation break down sometimes," because the answer is "yes it does." The right question is "does the simulation do the job you want it to?" Any initiative system, turn based or otherwise will break down. But for me, my house-ruled 2E initiative hit the right balance of fidelity and cost of use.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

I don't really like rerolling initiative. Lately, I've become a fan of the Marvel Heroics style-initiative system So, a player's last choice is deciding who goes next, and the last person to go chooses who goes first next round. I've used it in FATE and 13th Age, and it works pretty well. It breaks up the cyclic initiative, and keeps the table a bit more involved as they can set up combos by controlling the flow of actions, and it's still a simple system to use.

That's an interesting system. When do the bad guys go?

 

[MJS]

In case you haven't noticed, most DMs and players don't like interrupt tactics of any kind unless they are the ones doing the interrupting; they make for great cinematics, but if you just want cinematics, why use any rules at all? Delaying and readying an action have long been in the game, but most people don't use them for a reason. They are a simple enough concept, but at the table, they become anything but. Interrupting spells has the same problem; it becomes very, very messy when you are trying to get through a combat if everyone is constantly trying to do something at the same time. It's the same reason that initiatives became per battle instead of per round; players and DMs as a whole found the reduction in paperwork and chaos to be worth the cost paid in losing the randomness of doing it every round. It's the reason that PF has very few interrupt abilities; they just don't work at the table if they become the rule, not the exception. The original subset of nerds and geeks that liked the original editions may not have been bothered by it, but you'd never get it past today's player base.

you need shovel, in case you hadn't noticed.
Reduction of paperwork? While adding tons of rules? Generalizations about what players and DMs like according to what, interweb polls?
Nope, sorry. There are many abandoned rules by the original authors that play well and are great fun reg rdless of age of players. All that is old will be new again...

 

[JRRNeiklot]

Not that hard, but it can be quirky in ways that the cyclical initiative avoids. For example, depending on the initiatives rolled, a one-round buff or de-buff could totally miss affecting one of the targeted characters. Suppose a fighter goes early one round, followed by the cleric to buffs him with a 1 round duration (say that goes off on 5). Now suppose that the next round the fighter rolls poorly on his initiative and goes well after 5. He has been unaffected by the buff since his action one round was before and then the following round after the window created by the quirks of the initiative rolls.

That's why bless and most other buffs don't have a one round or one round per level duration in 1e. So that result never happens (bless has a 6r duration in 1E.)