D&D General Rerolling Initiative each Round

[Xeviat]

Hi everybody!

I've been reading some OSR stuff, really enamored by the turn structure for exploration and gearing up to do a hexcrawl and dungeon crawl game. But it's got me thinking about other old rules.

Who has played with rerolling Initiative each round and weapon speeds? It seems like it will drastically slow down games, but it may also feel more tactical. How does it end up changing the way the game is played? How do the players change their play?

 

[Zaukrie]

It doesn't drastically slow things down. Heck, after a player takes a turn, have them roll initiative for the next round if you want.....

It reduces metagaming stuff like healing. If you KNOW that the BBEG won't act until after your fellow players, you are less likely to heal and instead attack. OTOH, if you don't know what's going to happen next round, you might play defense. It also increases the drama.

I Don't Like Cyclical Initiative! - Mike's Thoughts

Things I don't like about cyclical initiative, the first in a long series on initiative in role playing games.

mikesixel.com

 

[Vaalingrade]

I'm of the exact opposite line of thinking as Zaukrie.

Maybe it's the platform we use, but readding initiative takes up time, and I'm against removing the tactical advantage of knowing what you can spare in terms of knowing when the enemy will act.

Of all the talk of initiative, rerolling every turn is my least favorite so far aside from the sub idea of putting people on timers.

I'd honestly rather do the work of rejiggering the game for multiple pass initiative.

 

[abirdcall]

In my last 2 campaigns we did it.

It actually sped things up because we also implemented a rule to have the players deliberate on their plan at the beginning of the round.

Then the turns themselves went very quickly.

It was certainly more chaotic and sometimes things changed so that people didn't want to do the thing they planned so then they went at the end.

It was an a abuseable system but so is the ready action. We played by the honour system.

Less needed if there isn't a table of analysis paralysis.

It was fun and made for cinematic and exciting combat.

We have gone back to regular now as it is not as confusing.

 

[Gorck]

I've never been a fan of rerolling initiative because:

A) I have a hard enough time tracking initiative at the beginning of combat. To have to do it each round would make things more tedious.

B) Players quickly learn the initiative order and can then plan their next turn before it arrives. Rerolling would make it harder to do that, reducing (or hampering) strategy.

C) Some abilities last until the beginning or end of your next turn. If you were to go at the end of the 1st round, then the beginning of the 2nd round, your ability might get wasted. Likewise, if you were to go at the beginning of the 1st round, then the end of the 2nd round, your ability might last an overpowered amount of time.

 

[Zaukrie]

I'm of the exact opposite line of thinking as Zaukrie.

Maybe it's the platform we use, but readding initiative takes up time, and I'm against removing the tactical advantage of knowing what you can spare in terms of knowing when the enemy will act.

Of all the talk of initiative, rerolling every turn is my least favorite so far aside from the sub idea of putting people on timers.

I'd honestly rather do the work of rejiggering the game for multiple pass initiative.

I'm glad we can politely disagree!

 

[Vaalingrade]

I'm glad we can politely disagree!

The thread is still young, my friend

 

[Zaukrie]

The thread is still young, my friend

Ya, past about page 3 is where they usually get unreadable (though the other initiative one has stayed pretty clean/good, I think. I've blocked 5-6 people now and my life is better).

 

[Brotton Goodfellow]

I run initiative every round. But I also run it as side initiative so I’m not having to slow things down by figuring out what order everyone goes in. Basically a player rolls a D6 and so do I as the DM. If the player ties or beats my roll, the players go before the enemies.

I’ve found this to be a great way to add a little tension into fights. If the enemies went last the previous round, the players really don’t want them to go first in the new round and have back to back turns. So at the start of every round there’s this moment of tension to see who keeps or seizes the initiative. There’s been times when the players know if they don’t keep or seize initiative, it’s gonna get bad for them.

I don’t do weapon speeds because I think that’s too granular and will just slow down the action. I also understand that some people might bemoan their characters high initiative score, but it doesn’t matter if numbered initiative doesn’t exist.

 

[Zaukrie]

I run initiative every round. But I also run it as side initiative so I’m not having to slow things down by figuring out what order everyone goes in. Basically a player rolls a D6 and so do I as the DM. If the player ties or beats my roll, the players go before the enemies.

I’ve found this to be a great way to add a little tension into fights. If the enemies went last the previous round, the players really don’t want them to go first in the new round and have back to back turns. So at the start of every round there’s this moment of tension to see who keeps or seizes the initiative. There’s been times when the players know if they don’t keep or seize initiative, it’s gonna get bad for them.

I don’t do weapon speeds because I think that’s too granular and will just slow down the action. I also understand that some people might bemoan their characters high initiative score, but it doesn’t matter if numbered initiative doesn’t exist.

This is basically how DnD did it in the beginning times.