Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Distracted DM" data-source="post: 9506739" data-attributes="member: 6894926">The "alternative initiative stat" thread got me thinking along this line... it really depends on what you're trying to improve as far as initiative goes- for me, it's getting the party to communicate and strategize at the start of an encounter. I'd love feedback and thoughts!So what if you were to just tell party "OK it's combat- you all go. Who's going first, second, third, etc" and let them sort it out? That forces them to talk and plan out the round. But that'd invalidate some features that deal with improved initiative.Then the GM secretly rolls for the enemies, and they go in-between the PC turns... Or you use passive 10+Initiative bonus for enemies. Either way, the PCs don't know when the enemies are going 'til said enemies act.PC initiative features could still be made useful in some fashion so they don't go to waste. Ideas for that:PCs with initiative features could react to enemies taking their "surprise" turns. Say it's: Archer, Warrior, Thief, Mage. Archer goes, then before Warrior goes, INTERRUPT, Goblin assassin goes. Thief can choose to go after the goblin goes, and before the warrior- A G T W M. Or maybe if the Thief's initiative feature would trump the goblin assassin's initiative (use passive v passive initiative to determine this?) then the thief could even go BEFORE the assassin would go. So it ends up A T G W M. Should this use/require a use of reaction on the PC's part? Nah, that's probably too much of a penalty.Re: disagreements/settling on initiative and differing opinions: 1. The group elects a Caller. The Caller has final say on the plan.2. People don't agree? Roll off to see who gets their way.3. Set a timer. If the timer runs out and they can't come to agreement, either you use passive initiative or the enemies go first :'D4+ ???Finally, this seems like something to at the start of each round, rather than keep the same order throughout the combat. Thoughts?Initiative as it stands is always so... crappy. There's always so little communication because people are going to be going when they rolled to go, so why bother planning/talking it out when the order of battle is decided by the dice? This'd mean that the fight literally couldn't start until they talked it out and decided who was going to go when, and presumably why they're going then. I've considered "popcorn initiative" where a player goes, then decides who goes next etc. but that doesn't have quite the same result.</blockquote>

Verification