D&D 5E UA: "Greyhawk" Initiative

[Lanefan]

See, now I feel like we need to decide what is mean by “team”.

Because my first thought is “They aren’t killing each other, and they all want to take out the PCs… so yes, they do work as a team.”

However, you could be referring to the level of tactics they use. Do the brutes shove their targets back into the dangerous terrain created by the spellcaster or do all the enemies rush in and fight individually.

Yes, that's what I'm referring to - do they use co-ordinated tactics or not. Do they work as a team instead of a bunch of individuals. (same can be asked of my game's PCs more often than not)

See, but you want that to happen. Your players probably don’t want to get in each others way. Now, I’m picturing different players than you are, my group is… well, I’ve actually seen people complain about kill-stealing and had people calling dibs on killing certain enemies.

So, with that in mind, if your players get into each others way, they might find a humorous situation out of it and laugh. Mine, are going to get upset, some of them really upset, and that isn’t the sort of drama I want at the table.

Now that's something I hadn't even considered. Then again, if I'm a front-line banger in a group and someone claims an opponent as theirs alone (and will get mad if anyone interferes) I'm happy to leave 'em to it...and if said opponent proves too much and they call for help that help ain't coming from me.

Sounds like your lot take it all far more seriously than us - 'round here if there's not laughter on a regular basis we're doing it wrong.

That isn't how it works per RAW.

RAW for these rules is you roll all your dice and do all your actions when your initiative comes up. So bonus actions can add either an extra attack, move or spell die to your roll and make you act later in the initiative.

This is why people are saying Rogues and Monks will now be more likely to act last in the turn, they often move, attack, and use a bonus action, so they will be rolling three dice most turns.

Unless one interprets the RAW to mean these things each happen individually on their additive die roll - so if a Rogue rolls three dice and gets 3 - 6 - 4 then the move happens on 3, the attack happens on (3+6) 9 and the bonus comes in on (9+4) 13.

Howzat?

Lan-"or instead, on initiative 1 the Rogue just decides she's had enough and goes to the pub for a beer"-efan

 

[Tony Vargas]

After using this system for ages it doesn't seem to have nerfed melee.

Relative to standard 5e, where you can drop one enemy and move on to another & attack on the same turn, not being able to move, and thus change targets in melee, between your Extra Attacks is a nerf. It's arguably a 'harder' (never struck me before, but that's ironic) nerf that just making them roll d6+d8 vs d4 or d10 and being merely slow, but still having a fair chance of getting all their attacks, if they live that long.

 

[Lord Twig]

Two different examples of clunk:

1.) Cunning action vs shadow step. Logically rogue training should only increase your ability to confuse your opponent as to your whereabouts after teleporting; but because they were written in the bonus action paradigm they wind up being incompatible instead.

A more tailored design which allowed some combinations of compatible actions (like recent UAs for e.g. bard college with blade dancing, or whatever it's called) would be able to accommodate logical combinations like shadow stepping QUIETLY.

2.) Also, Bardic Inspiration vs. Healing Word. For some reason, even though you can inspire allies while mocking enemies with Vicious Mockery, and you can heal allies from a distance while mocking enemies with Vicious Mockery, you cannot inspire allies while healing allies from a distance. There's no good reason from a fictional perspective why you shouldn't be able to do two quick things (bonus actions) instead of one quick thing and one slow thing (regular action), and yet you cannot.

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1.) So you are talking about a Rogue/Monk multiclass. And I don't see a problem with them not stacking. Your Rogue/Monk can Shadow Step and hide just fine. He just has to use a Standard Action to hide. A standard Rogue can attack, disengage and move, but not hide. Why should your Rogue/Monk be able to attack, teleport away and hide?

But if you really want to allow it you can just say that Shadow Step allows an automatic Hide roll after the teleport. Done.*

2.) This is a problem with not allowing Standard Actions to be swapped for Bonus Actions. Which I have never understood and I know many people house rule.

So there you go. A way to improve the current system. And once again the problem is not Bonus Actions themselves, but just a rule that interacts with it.

*Edit: Actually I like this idea so much I would replace the "attack with advantage" bonus with an automatic Hide. If you succeed on the hide you could attack with advantage anyway and it is more flavorful.

 

[Lord Twig]

I didn't use the word "issues" to be a synonym of "problems" I used it as "topics" or "subjects". Look it's one thing to be unsure if I am following your logic and it's another to just assume I am not and be didactic about it as if I am a student. I fully grokked the issue we are both talking about. There is no problem with using polearm master and another bonus action (you spent a precious feat and use a two-handed weapon with a lower damage bonus than other two-handed weapons, that's hard to find as a magic weapon as well, all to use the opposite end which had a d4 damage bonus). There is no problem with using another bonus action with a spell (it's just a cantrip, it's not very powerful). There is no issue with using another bonus action and doing something like hiding after a move as well. There isn't much of an issue with using multiple bonus actions in a round for most bonus actions. Hence, two weapon fighting is pretty representative of this issue.

Most bonus actions probably SHOULD be free actions as part of a special action.

Actually I think there is a problem with using multiple bonus actions in a round. The main one being that, as a player, I don't want to sit around and wait for the guy with 8 different bonus actions to finish them all.

But, yes, in addition to two weapon fighting, the extra attacks from Polearm Mastery and Martial Arts should not be bonus actions. I would add a rule that Martial Arts does not work with two weapon fighting or Polearm Mastery, however.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Yes, that's what I'm referring to - do they use co-ordinated tactics or not. Do they work as a team instead of a bunch of individuals. (same can be asked of my game's PCs more often than not)

Yeah, both sides tend to have little to no coordinated tactics. I've tried to train them to do better, and it hasn't gone well. I have yet to give up hope though.

Sounds like your lot take it all far more seriously than us - 'round here if there's not laughter on a regular basis we're doing it wrong.

It's all college kids. I'm the oldest at 26 more often than not and I generally have one player who is as emotionally mature as... 12?

Great people all, but generally very serious.

 

[Miladoon]

Thinking of a simple alternative.

Action-1d6
Movement-1d6
Bonus Action-1d6

Attack of opportunity-Free

Maximum Initiative -18
Minimum Initiative -1

 

[jrowland]

I didn't read the whole thread, so excuse me if it came up

I think these are fine with one small tweak:

You roll d20 as usual at the beginning of combat, but substract things like dex and improved initiative (so you want to roll low)

Then you take round actions as normal

Then for every subsequent round, you ADD as per these rules for the actions you took.

Once everyone takes a turn, a new round begins.

I *think* you could keep spells ending (at the end/beginning of your turn) without getting too wonky, but having them go by round is fine.

Narratively if you did a bunch of stuff/rolled poor so you go last the following the round might seem weird. "im going last this round because I did a bunch last round" and all that, but D&D combat has enough of those I don't think he break it for most tables.

 

[Mistwell]

Actually I think there is a problem with using multiple bonus actions in a round. The main one being that, as a player, I don't want to sit around and wait for the guy with 8 different bonus actions to finish them all.

Fair enough but that argument applies just as well to the two weapon fighting argument that you claimed was an exception to the rule. Seems like it's not.

 

[Lanefan]

I didn't read the whole thread, so excuse me if it came up

I think these are fine with one small tweak:

You roll d20 as usual at the beginning of combat, but substract things like dex and improved initiative (so you want to roll low)

Then you take round actions as normal

Then for every subsequent round, you ADD as per these rules for the actions you took.

Once everyone takes a turn, a new round begins.

Could you expand on this a bit - I'm missing something (probably obvious) and thus don't understand how this works.

Lanefan

 

[Leatherhead]

I didn't read the whole thread, so excuse me if it came up

I think these are fine with one small tweak:

You roll d20 as usual at the beginning of combat, but substract things like dex and improved initiative (so you want to roll low)

Then you take round actions as normal

Then for every subsequent round, you ADD as per these rules for the actions you took.

Once everyone takes a turn, a new round begins.

I *think* you could keep spells ending (at the end/beginning of your turn) without getting too wonky, but having them go by round is fine.

Narratively if you did a bunch of stuff/rolled poor so you go last the following the round might seem weird. "im going last this round because I did a bunch last round" and all that, but D&D combat has enough of those I don't think he break it for most tables.

Did you just suggest a format where people could get multiple turns per round?

Or did you suggest a format like I did: You pick your actions, and then roll to "recharge" your turn next round, based on what you did in the current one?