D&D 5E Concurrent initiative variant; Everybody declares/Everybody resolves [WAS Simultaneous Initiative]

[FormerlyHemlock]

Yeah, intuitively this type of system sounds to me like it will require a bit more "work" on the part of the DM to keep things flowing correctly. Initiative can be clunky, but it's also fairly divorced from any key DM adjudications and can even be handled by a player if needed. Not the case here, I think.

I have a feeling Hemlock may have a counterargument, though.

Not a counterargument per se, but an observation: yes, initiative can get more complicated pretty quickly, especially if the players are declaring a lot of conditional actions. (That's actually pretty much the main case where I ask for initiative rolls, is to figure out whose conditional action is going to do what.)

On the other hand, separating action declaration from action resolution lets you offload work on the players. You can have one of the players keep track of the action declarations to make sure everyone declares (having that action declaration log in written form can also be useful for other purposes, such as establishing that "Thok, you can't cut the ropes tying these two ships together before you're busy attacking the Umber Hulk, remember?", especially if Thok's player is the one keeping the log) and you can also do action resolution concurrently: have players roll their attacks/damage as soon as they are ready, just as long as they don't announce them to people who haven't declared yet.

Ultimately I suspect that the total cognitive complexity of the combats you'll have under this system is somewhat higher than it would be under cyclic initiative, but it will be because the players are doing more complicated and IMO more fun things, like trying to tackle the Wolf before it can eat Peter.

 

[flametitan]

Another thing you can do to keep things simpler is to just utilize the Delay action a lot.

DM: "All the monsters Delay."

Now it's equivalent to DMG "Side Initiative": all the PCs go, then all the monsters go.

I think if you're using delay to treat it like side initiative, it'd be better to just use side initiative than to use a different initiative system the same way. (Nor am I too huge on delay. I'm not sure how crucial it is for everything to work, and I may still be thinking in Cycles, but readying seems like it covers the bases delay does while not being as broad.)

 

[Tony Vargas]

In trying to keep a good balance between the stats, which they achieve, what ultimately ends up happening is each stat loses a lot of uniqueness and verisimilitude.

Uh-huh. So a stat getting short shrift is bad. And a stat being balanced is bad. ;P

The problem I had with the 4e approach to stats, which 5e has partially avoided (IMHO, mainly by resorting to a cap of 20), was that, while it did make each stat, individually, a viable thing to invest in, it made investing in both stats in a 'pair' sub-optimal, and really - /really/ - encouraged maxxing one or two stats. You could get away with keeping up three stats, but the 'well rounded' character was prettymuch out. Yeah, that fits some visions of 'hero' nicely, but it fails others. The inability of D&D to do justice to the well-rounded sort of hero has been a perennial problem with it, for me.

But they largely use whatever stats they have in identical fashions,

Because each stat can be a primary stat for some class, and primary stat means attack stat? Meh. Everything else the stat does is still different for each stat.

and the game makes it really easy to avoid using your dump stats for virtually anything that matters.

So painfully true. One dump stat? You could almost unavoidably had at least three!
GAK!

There's very little about having a high Int or a high Cha or whatever that ever stood out to me as really defining. The high Int guy used Int for all of his attacks, even his attacks with a greataxe. The high Cha guy did the same.

The skill portfolio would've been pretty dramatically different, knowledge vs social. Also good REF vs good WILL. And, of course, they may each have viable attack rolls with their powers, but those powers will be from different classes, entirely, so unique in that way...

But, just looking at the first bit, knowledge vs social, that's held throughout D&D's history, even before there were skills. In the olden days it'd be languages & later non-weapon proficiencies and the odd 'INT roll to see if you remember something' vs a nice Reaction bonus/loyalty base; latter which skills your best stat adds to.

Ultimately this is a description of why the system didn't work for me so it will no doubt come off as overly hostile towards 4e. I don't want to start one of those threads, so I apologize for that in advance.

Nod. Which is why I initially didn't even bother going there. Having a preference is one thing, trying to justify it to someone with a very different preference tends to just spiral...

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I think if you're using delay to treat it like side initiative, it'd be better to just use side initiative than to use a different initiative system the same way. (Nor am I too huge on delay. I'm not sure how crucial it is for everything to work, and I may still be thinking in Cycles, but readying seems like it covers the bases delay does while not being as broad.)

Delay comes from my experience with fencing, and the fact that you sometimes want an opponent to commit to an action before choosing your response; so you wait a beat. Delay is about gaining an information advantage when declaring actions, whereas Readying is about gaining a speed advantage when resolving actions. Ready lets you win any relevant initiative contests except against someone else who's already got a Readied action on the same trigger.*

There's a big difference between doing Delay to emulate side initiative because it simplifies your workload in this particular large combat, and actually adopting side initiative. For one thing, if you adopt side initiative, you can't spontaneously switch back on Round 3 of the combat because you see an opportunity. Round 3, Peter has fallen prone because the wolf knocked him down, and instead of Delaying, all of the monsters this time try to hammer Peter before he can get up.

Delay is also important for helping combat and non-combat flows to mesh together smoothly. Since everyone is implicitly Delaying unless they say they're not (and if everyone Delays then the round ends), players can have a shouted conversation with the bandits on the other side of the barricade, negotiating a surrender, without feeling like not declaring an Attack at every opportunity is granting the bandits a needless advantage. If the players talk, and the bandits treacherously storm the barricade and attack, the PCs haven't lost a full round of combat--they've only lost initiative. I like the effect this has had on my game.


* As a side note, even under PHB rules, you're still going to need a resolution procedure like an initiative contest for resolving multiple Readied Actions on the same trigger. Does "I, Ron, stab Harry as soon as the handkerchief drops" happen before or after "I, Harry, shoot Ron as soon as the handkerchief drops"? No matter whether you're using PHB initiative or declare/act system like mine, you still need some resolution procedure, even if it's just "they both happen simultaneously."

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Ultimately I suspect that the total cognitive complexity of the combats you'll have under this system is somewhat higher than it would be under cyclic initiative, but it will be because the players are doing more complicated and IMO more fun things, like trying to tackle the Wolf before it can eat Peter.

So you admit that your system is more complex, harder to run, and sometimes results in the PCs taking pointless actions (like overkilling one target instead of choosing a new target). And you think that this is all a worthwhile trade-off, because it will encourage your players to sometimes declare more complicated actions?

That's a tough sell.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

So you admit that your system is more complex, harder to run, and sometimes results in the PCs taking pointless actions (like overkilling one target instead of choosing a new target). And you think that this is all a worthwhile trade-off, because it will encourage your players to sometimes declare more complicated actions?

That's a tough sell.

That's not quite what I said. I said I believe your players will declare more fun and interesting actions, which will wind up being somewhat harder to run than the simple actions the PHB encourages, but not unmanageably so. If players stick to simple actions I don't think it's harder to run at all; but I like the fact that they take advantage of their opportunities to be interesting.

Obviously if you don't find fun and desriable things like negotiating with bandits or tackling wolves in the nick of time to save another character, you won't want to pay the cost involved in enabling them. Enjoy your game.

 

[flametitan]

Delay comes from my experience with fencing, and the fact that you sometimes want an opponent to commit to an action before choosing your response; so you wait a beat. Delay is about gaining an information advantage when declaring actions, whereas Readying is about gaining a speed advantage when resolving actions. Ready lets you win any relevant initiative contests except against someone else who's already got a Readied action on the same trigger.*

Right, I get it. Like I said, I was probably getting some biases from how Delay works in Cyclic initiative, wherein it potentially becomes a game of getting everything right, rather than the frenzied mess initiative is supposed to represent.

There's a big difference between doing Delay to emulate side initiative because it simplifies your workload in this particular large combat, and actually adopting side initiative. For one thing, if you adopt side initiative, you can't spontaneously switch back on Round 3 of the combat because you see an opportunity. Round 3, Peter has fallen prone because the wolf knocked him down, and instead of Delaying, all of the monsters this time try to hammer Peter before he can get up.

I see what you're getting at, though personally I still wouldn't try meshing the two initiatives. Just a matter of preference, nothing against the implementation or the idea.

Delay is also important for helping combat and non-combat flows to mesh together smoothly. Since everyone is implicitly Delaying unless they say they're not (and if everyone Delays then the round ends), players can have a shouted conversation with the bandits on the other side of the barricade, negotiating a surrender, without feeling like not declaring an Attack at every opportunity is granting the bandits a needless advantage. If the players talk, and the bandits treacherously storm the barricade and attack, the PCs haven't lost a full round of combat--they've only lost initiative. I like the effect this has had on my game.

I see a difference in our viewpoints now. Unless surprise is relevant, I'd probably instead telegraph something to the effect of how the bandits have stopped caring and then use the round system, but I can see the flow in yours might work better for some situations.

* As a side note, even under PHB rules, you're still going to need a resolution procedure like an initiative contest for resolving multiple Readied Actions on the same trigger. Does "I, Ron, stab Harry as soon as the handkerchief drops" happen before or after "I, Harry, shoot Ron as soon as the handkerchief drops"? No matter whether you're using PHB initiative or declare/act system like mine, you still need some resolution procedure, even if it's just "they both happen simultaneously."

Fair. That'd be a case where I would roll initiative to resolve; otherwise I'd just go with the trigger.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I see what you're getting at, though personally I still wouldn't try meshing the two initiatives. Just a matter of preference, nothing against the implementation or the idea.

FWIW, I don't really mesh them either. Even if I tell myself, "Oh, this time I'm just going to Delay each round so I can focus on resolving the PCs' actions correctly first," it always winds up that I see an opportunity to declare at least one action that will be awesome if I manage to beat the PCs' initiative.

So using it to mechanically emulate side initiative is more of a theoretical exercise than something I really ever do.

 

[MostlyDm]

The problem I had with the 4e approach to stats, which 5e has partially avoided (IMHO, mainly by resorting to a cap of 20), was that, while it did make each stat, individually, a viable thing to invest in, it made investing in both stats in a 'pair' sub-optimal, and really - /really/ - encouraged maxxing one or two stats. You could get away with keeping up three stats, but the 'well rounded' character was prettymuch out. Yeah, that fits some visions of 'hero' nicely, but it fails others. The inability of D&D to do justice to the well-rounded sort of hero has been a perennial problem with it, for me.

...

So painfully true. One dump stat? You could almost unavoidably had at least three!
GAK!

The skill portfolio would've been pretty dramatically different, knowledge vs social. Also good REF vs good WILL. And, of course, they may each have viable attack rolls with their powers, but those powers will be from different classes, entirely, so unique in that way...

But, just looking at the first bit, knowledge vs social, that's held throughout D&D's history, even before there were skills. In the olden days it'd be languages & later non-weapon proficiencies and the odd 'INT roll to see if you remember something' vs a nice Reaction bonus/loyalty base; latter which skills your best stat adds to.

Winding this tangent down, I promise. But...

In theory you're right, but in my experience what often happened during important skill challenges was that every PC tried as hard as possible to finagle some way to use the skills that keyed to their good stats, even if it strained credulity.

My memory is that the rules guidelines sort of encouraged this, but it's been like 5 years so I could be totally wrong. Also, obviously, if it bothered me that much I could have tried to discourage it. It wasn't a deal breaker, just a reason I think contributed to the "samey" quality.

And yeah, both 3.x and 4e shared the same stat bloat issues, I would never lay that on 4e alone. 5e instituting stat limits was an excellent choice.

I don't think I can ever go back to 4e, but if someone was running it I'd totally play a 4e-inspired game that cadged stuff like bounded accuracy. I'm not a purist.

Minor actions were a great idea.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

In the initiative system presented in the 5E PHB, however, the DM is likely to say, "No, you can't. Your move is only 30', and you can Dash for 30' more, but you can only run to here this turn. Next turn you can Dash again to the lever and pull it."

But if that's a bad thing to say, why is the DM likely to say it? Why can't the DM just say...

"Okay, that will take you two turns,"

the same as in your system? You don't need a to be using one initiative system over the other for that sentence to parse. Don't you think your DM here might be made of straw just a bit?