Balancing or other rulesproblems with Initiative, remarks needed.

[Darklone]

Since several friends mentioned problems with the initiative system, here's an idea.

The problem was:
You always got a lot of attacks at your initiative. Since these guys roll initiative every round, I thought about rolling for every attack, e.g. a guy with three attacks rolls 3 d20. The 5ft step can be taken at one of the different attacks.

Comment:
Naturally, you have to declare what you want to do that round before rolling initiative. If you change your mind later, they houseruled that you get a -2 penalty on all rolls.

 

[Plane Sailing]

One comment - at present you don't know until you actually take your initiative whether you are going to make a full attack, move and attack, attack and move etc. I think rolling several different initiatives at once wouldn't be helpful in any of these circumstances.

One possibility is to to divide your initiative roll by the number of attacks you are taking if doing a full attack, but this gives the anomaly where a fast person (high initiative) is unlikely to get all his attacks before the target moves away, while the slow person (low initiative) is!

What is the percieved problem with getting all your attacks on your initiative?

- another potential solution would be to eliminate initiative completely, and assume that within any given round everything is happening at more or less the same time

 

[Darklone]

What is the percieved problem with getting all your attacks on your initiative?

- another potential solution would be to eliminate initiative completely, and assume that within any given round everything is happening at more or less the same time

That kills the spellcasters absolutely

All attacks at once: Too much damage before anything else happens. At least many think so.

The problem with the enemy moving away is a good argument, though I think I like the idea...

 

[Macbrea]

This system is fine except at about 12th level and above it will make your spellcasters gods. Lets see.


Fighter: Rolls initiatives 18, 12, 6
Wizard: Rolls Initiatives 14, 4


Fighter takes a 5ft step and swings at the wizard hitting with a bastard sword doing 25 damage.
Wizard takes a 5ft step and blasts the fighter for 60 points of damage.
Fighter takes a 5ft step...but cannot make anymore attacks because he has already moved 5ft in the round.
End of round.

Fighter rolls: 19, 10, 6
Wizard rolls: 12, 11

Fighter swings at wizard doing 25 damage.
Wizard takes a 5ft step and blasts the fighter for 60 points of damage. Then waits a round and loots the dead fighter.

 

[Darklone]

Hmm a spellcaster who wants to cast could only roll once...

 

[Uller]

Seems to me that this would make it too easy to avoid being hit by a full attack even if you "lose" initiative. It also makes it easy for characters with mulitiple attacks to roll very high initiatives.

How about this: Roll once for initiative. On your count, if you decide to do a FA, you take one attack. Then you get your other attacks on the following segments. So a fighter with 3 attacks rolls a 18. On his turn, he decides he's gonna do a full attack. He attacks once on 18, 17 and 16. If at 17, he decides he no longer wishes to do a full attack, he can do an Move or MEA instead. This way, if he beats his opponent's init by only a one or two, his opponent will get an opportunity to react, but if he beats him by a lot, then his opponent has no opportunity to react. You can make the increment greater to make it even easier to react(2, 4, maybe even 5).

Personally, I've not found a problem with the rule as is...

Yes, an arcane spell caster that becomes subject to a full attack is meat with the current system, but I think that is kinda the point. That's what Mirror Image, Blur, Displacement, Fly, Levitate, Expeditious Retreat, Stoneskin, Shield, etc. etc. are for!

If you get two or three of these spells in place, it is difficult for fighters to do much damage before you can react.

 

[Lily Inverse]

Personally, from a logical perspective I strongly dislike variable initiative over cyclic initiative for a six second round. For example:

20th level Fighter, field plate (No Dex bonus), wielding great-sword

Round 1: Rolls initiative 1, takes FA option. Five smacks
Round 2: Wins initiative, Takes FA option, Five smacks.

Now, in the space of what is probably less than a second, with a 20 pound weapon, this guy has just effectively swung ten times, possibly at the same person.

Of course you could fix this by re-extending rounds to 1 minute each, but that has its own problems, esp. regarding spell durations. That's probably more work than you're willing to do.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

Having used rerolled initiative in 1e/2e I do not see the attraction; it only make things more random and vastly increases the overhead for the DM.

It also plays havoc with sensible tactics like delay and ready action.

Multiple initiatives make it worse. A Fighter with a big full attack can delay to the end of the round, unload, then is likely to sneak in another attack or two before his opponent blinks.

You are only exacerbating the problem you were trying to solve in the first place.

The cyclic initiative system also encourages things like teamwork. Tactics become haphazard if you have no idea when your ally or opponent is going to act.

 

[las]

Why try to fix something that not a probplem.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Another option:

Don't roll for intiative, but make it fixed. Everyone goes in their initiative of 10+bonuses (dex, imp init).

Further detail could be included for weapon speed (size), or reach; additional the Size modifiers to AC could be used too since smaller creatures are often lighter and quicker.

This kind of system worked for Runequest, and worked for Bushido - in the latter, particularly your actions/attacks came at equal divisions of your initiative.

Cheers