D&D 5E Avoiding Initiative

[Bawylie]

Well I just thought of something but I’ve never tried it.

Essentially, everyone rolls initiative, but nobody can act unless their roll is greater than or equal to 20. Anyone with a 20 or better can act right away. (Higher rolls first, higher dex first in case of tie, coin toss or whatever if we’re really into the weeds here).

After a player acts, they roll initiative again. And again they can only act if their roll is 20 or better.

If someone’s roll is LESS than 20, they aren’t acting. For every action taken by another player or by an enemy NPC, they add 1 to their current roll. When their current roll hits 20, they can act. After they act, they must re-roll.

If nobody can act, everyone adds another 1 to their current roll until someone (player or NPC) hits 20.

As a variant, you might consider the weapon speed rules or a class-based initiative die.

What do you think?


Edit: ok that doesn’t “avoid initiative” but it drops the bookkeeping all the way down from recording everyone’s turn order to “who’s got 20?”

 

[Swarmkeeper]

One tip I’ve used is to roll initiative in advance (at the end of the previous combat is one approach) to avoid that artificial pause.

What techniques do you use?

I have the players roll initiative as they arrive to a session before we get started, “just in case” there might be a combat. Yeah, there usually is and we can just get down to it without any pause. I usually have rolled for the enemies ahead of time, if I have a good sense of what the PCs might encounter that session.

Then, at the end of that combat I’ll have them roll initiative again - if I remember, that is - so if another combat comes up we can dive right in.

 

[Winterthorn]

That I agree to pause to get the players to roll their individual initiative and then recording it, etc. may get the players pumped, but it seems somewhat jarring metagame-wise...

May I recommend an old school approach that may be faster: just roll side initiative. Have the DM roll behind the screen for the opponents, and the players can designate per game session in advance the player with most tactically oriented PC to roll for the party - I suggest per session if the players feel that more that one character is strong on combat tactics, it could vary for special situations too. One quick roll per side should keep things going smoother, hopefully.

 

[cbwjm]

Well I just thought of something but I’ve never tried it.

Essentially, everyone rolls initiative, but nobody can act unless their roll is greater than or equal to 20. Anyone with a 20 or better can act right away. (Higher rolls first, higher dex first in case of tie, coin toss or whatever if we’re really into the weeds here).

After a player acts, they roll initiative again. And again they can only act if their roll is 20 or better.

If someone’s roll is LESS than 20, they aren’t acting. For every action taken by another player or by an enemy NPC, they add 1 to their current roll. When their current roll hits 20, they can act. After they act, they must re-roll.

If nobody can act, everyone adds another 1 to their current roll until someone (player or NPC) hits 20.

As a variant, you might consider the weapon speed rules or a class-based initiative die.

What do you think?


Edit: ok that doesn’t “avoid initiative” but it drops the bookkeeping all the way down from recording everyone’s turn order to “who’s got 20?”

It sounds interesting but you might want to increase the number the initiative count goes up to something higher than 1 otherwise that low dexterity paladin is going to just stand there getting wailed on because they ended up with a 0.

 

[5ekyu]

I use a choice system
Players choose first or last for their side then we alternate.

The first turn's chosen order then sticks.

 

[neogod22]

Sure. And then discuss those ideas.

The reason I have for this idea is mostly strategy. Most classes that want to go first are usually DEX based classes, while healers want to go last. I find that people who are neither will add DEX based off whether or not it's beneficial to them. For example, a wizard, or barbarian will usually add DEX to improve their AC, consequently they can react faster whereas a heavily armored warrior my not put any points in DEX at all, so he consequently would be slower to react. It makes more sense than just going around the table clockwise or counter clockwise because it's going off of which characters are actually faster.

 

[fjw70]

Once I used an initiative variant where each PC and NPC had their names written on blank playing cards. Then during combat the cards where shuffled and play went in order the cards were drawn. It was quick, easy, and I loved it. However the players hated not knowing the order ahead of time.

 

[Quickleaf]

I kinda feel that if you're the low Dex guy, you'd get quite bored of going last every time. The thing with D&D is that even if you're not good at a thing, you still get a slim chance with the d20.

One "trick" I occasionally use – and perhaps you could expand on to suit your needs – is to (very roughly) allow "one shot down the hole for free", "one volley exchange for free", or "most engaged actor takes top initiative, acting immediately, and *then* everybody else roll."

What these tricks all accomplish is starting with a BANG, and *then* (once everyone is engaged and interested and planning), only *then* do you roll for initiative.

EDIT: In a way, it's kinda related to AngryGM's "click rule" for traps. Something happens (usually involving some kind of offensive action), and *then* rolling initiative is a result of that. This neatly avoids stand-off scenarios where the DM describes hostile monsters moving in...and then PCs utterly win initiative, but no player is particularly motivated to take offensive action (until they *know* for *certain* it's an attack).

 

[Fanaelialae]

The easiest way I've found was to use a program to track initiative. I could pre-load the players' values and adding the monsters was fairly quick as well. When I was doing so I could roll initiative every round without adding any overhead, but it does require having a computer on hand.

What I've been using lately is a method from AngryGM. Track initiative vertically on a sheet of paper, leaving space to add people in between. It's very quick since you can just go around the table and have folks call out their scores (without trying to mentally juggle them into order).

Another option is only players roll initiative. Those who match or beat the DC (just set a flat DC based on the monsters initiative bonus) go before the monsters, while those who roll less go after the monsters.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

But people could always do it like video games do. Use a predetermined calculation of stats and bonuses so that there is no rolling at all and all the characters always go in the same order until someone levels up and their personal number changes and the order potentially shifts. This would require all enemies to be assigned numbers in advance also, but hey, less dice rolling.

The major downside is that it makes Dexterity even more valuable than it already is. When Dexterity is only a small modifier on the d20 roll, a relative penalty isn't that big of a deal. When the entire determination comes down to the size of that modifier, a small relative penalty becomes overwhelming.