D&D 5E A variant initiative that worked great

[cthulhu42]

I do like the idea of faster combat. To clarify a little further, do the players choose their order and set it in stone each round, or can they do it on the fly?

In other words, say you've got Dave, Chris, and Mary coming up on their turns. So it's decided that Mary goes first. Do Dave and Chris need to determine their order at the same time, before Mary acts, or can they choose who follows Mary after she takes her turn?

 

[CubicsRube]

I'm rumning dungeonworld at the moment and one of the things it takes only a few sessions to learn is that you don't need initiative at all.

At first I was unsure how to approach it, but if you use the context of the situation and make sure everyone gets a chance to act, it flows perfectly fine.

In a system with more mechanical effects there are more complexities with the approach, but if you look at shadoow of the demon lord they have 3 phases, fast turns, slow turns, and an end roubd phase. The last is where round based effects occur or expire. It wouldn't be too hard to use that for d&d (SotDL is based on d&d from an ex d&d designer), but all the interactions with spells might be hard to predict.

 

[5ekyu]

not a bad approach. Definitely adds a more serious umphh to a loss in init.

i went a different route and removed it.

Start of a non-surprise encounter where order is needed -
1 - i ask players "first or last" and they give me a quick answer. They mus agree or quickly reach an agreement. if not, they dithered and i choose.
"first" means on of your side goes first in each round AND one of the other side goes last.
"last" means one of your side goes last in each round AND one of the other side goes first.

During that first round we alternate back and forth each side putting another up to act. Alternate until (if sides are imbalanced) there may be a multiple go in a row for one side with the numbers advantage) but the side with "last" always has one last guy.

That sets the init order for the combat.

Now, obviously, in many cases, first is going to be the kneejerk answer. Everybody thinks getting our hits in first is better, but in some circumstance and over time, tactics adjust for it, they have seen going last, knowing it AND getting to choose who goes last, can play a significant role in a complex encounter for being able to "survive this round and setup the next." Honestly, in any serious encounter, i think they have fared better whenever they chose "last" and worked it. My feeling is that "first" tends to promote "quick individual acts" while "last" is usually part of a "planned" thing or a "thinking of coordination" and that is why the difference matters.

in a surprise encounter, first goes to the surprise side.

Now some might say this is de-powering Dex and to that i say "well, yeah."

Then again, i never liked Dex as init anyway and always thought "how fast do i decide what to do" should be a matter of WIS-PER or WIS-INS to reflect getting an assessment of situation or intentions... you know... situational awareness being more tied to awareness and discipline than to agility or your dagger skill.

The "Make Dex Great Again" lobby can sue me if they want.

But it allows the players and NPCs to choose their order of actions for the combat which makes a lot more sense in a "cannot delay to reset our order" mechanic than a random order does - IMO.

We even tried letting that first-last be decided round by round and order to change round by round but that seemed to lessen the importance of the choice as it only applied for a very brief moment and so the "once at start then keep" is now used as a middle road letting the decision have teeth either way it is chosen.

So far it is working out great. I wont say it is faster... decision vs roll... not necessarily faster... but they like having the decision over having the dicesion and so do I.

 

[GMMichael]

Little things that cut down on extra rolls or mental math or record keeping speeds up combat a lot in aggregate, and a session is a LOT more fun when you don't get bogged down and combat goes quickly.

I don't like theater of the mind, I think there are too many abilities that get a lot less interesting without a grid, but a grid slows down the game. I try to make up for it elsewhere.

I agree with the little things idea; faster combat is more exciting combat. Which is why I don't understand how the Sebastian system is faster than standard initiative. The standard system says: Everybody rolls (once), cycle and repeat. Your system requires determining the initiative DC, adds extra turns, and requires players to deliberate on who goes when. And still requires players to roll initiative. So, where's the time savings?

In defense of TotM, just because there's no grid doesn't mean that characters don't have positions. You can still be Engaged/In Threat Range/Provide Cover/What-Have-You, but it's more important for the GM to provide consistency, be fair, and create fun when making decisions (since the grid would normally do the consistency and fairness parts).

 

[Satyrn]

I do like the idea of faster combat. To clarify a little further, do the players choose their order and set it in stone each round, or can they do it on the fly?

In other words, say you've got Dave, Chris, and Mary coming up on their turns. So it's decided that Mary goes first. Do Dave and Chris need to determine their order at the same time, before Mary acts, or can they choose who follows Mary after she takes her turn?

At my table, it's on the fly.

Oh, and even if it's decided that Mary goes first, if she realizes she needs to look up something, or some other delay surfaces, Dave or Chris can step in and take their turn instead.

Now, that would be handled politely, with Mary saying "hey, this is gonna take a moment, go if you want." Once a player begins their turn, they have control of the conversation, and we're all polite enough to wait until they clearly signal they're done.

 

[NeutralSebastian]

My system is for a group that is not going to tactically pick an optimal turn order to focus fire etc.

What I would do with that kind of group would be to roll initiative once at the beginning of the session, and have that determine a seating arrangement around the table. Then do my system as above (with only those who roll well on that particular combat's initiative going before the monsters) but have the players go in clockwise order around the table when it is the "every player gets their turn" time in combat.

 

[CubicsRube]

My system is for a group that is not going to tactically pick an optimal turn order to focus fire etc.

What I would do with that kind of group would be to roll initiative once at the beginning of the session, and have that determine a seating arrangement around the table. Then do my system as above (with only those who roll well on that particular combat's initiative going before the monsters) but have the players go in clockwise order around the table when it is the "every player gets their turn" time in combat.

Ive played in games before where it is simple around the table and it works fine. Well even. People can see how long they have until they act and who will act before and after them.

Have even played with dual gms who sat evenly between us and handled some enemies each. So if you run a game by yourself you could put a token half way between the group if you wanted to split monsters.

Now that i think about it, it could be a good physical representation of party tactics, let the players sit in the order they want to go in combat for the rest of the session.

 

[ro]

I like the idea of group initiative a lot, but I do see some problems.

On one turn, a player could easily die and get hit multiple more times, becoming perma-dead before the players get a turn to heal. Normal initiative gives more opportunity for different players to try to save the day.

Along the same lines, under normal initiative, players have to be well-rounded: if somebody dies and it is your turn, it is up to you to save them, and you may not be able to wait for the "healer"'s turn. With group initiative, there is no reason to diversify.

What about this method? :

Readied Group Initiative

Everybody rolls initiative (P = player team). Roll once for all enemies (E). All who roll higher than the enemies get a surprise round (S). Game progresses: S E P (E P alternating until end of combat). During a team's turn, its members may take their turns in any order they wish.

However, all turns are readied by all combatants. Any time a member of the opposing team finishes a turn, a combatant may immediately spend its reaction to take its turn. Rounds reset at the start of the Enemy team's turn.​

 

[NeutralSebastian]

Readied Group Initiative

Everybody rolls initiative (P = player team). Roll once for all enemies (E). All who roll higher than the enemies get a surprise round (S). Game progresses: S E P (E P alternating until end of combat). During a team's turn, its members may take their turns in any order they wish.

However, all turns are readied by all combatants. Any time a member of the opposing team finishes a turn, a combatant may immediately spend its reaction to take its turn. Rounds reset at the start of the Enemy team's turn.​

That's very interesting!

My current group doesn't seem to be looking for that level of granularity, and the other games I run are for new players. As for the problem of enemies beating up on a fallen PC... well, I just don't do that. I generally don't have enemies focus-fire unless one character is just dominating a combat (if one player is running some crazy theorycraft build and everyone else is running straightforward characters, the monsters will certainly notice who is DPSing them to death, but otherwise, they aren't teaming up on anyone)

I like that though, and as a player who enjoys tactics, I'd be interested to play in a game that was run that way.

 

[Horwath]

Nice variant.

But how about:

Average initiative on one side vs average initiative on the other.

Higher average side goes first?