D&D 5E Concurrent initiative variant; Everybody declares/Everybody resolves [WAS Simultaneous Initiative]

[mellored]

It also occurs to me that this leaves a great opening for Warlord. Who have abilities like
change of plans: As a bonus action, you can allow an ally to make a new declaration.
And
Tactician: you gain + proficiency to your Int for the purposes of declaring actions.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Only because you called it one thing then talked about another.

Simultaneous initiative (or at least the possibility of some things being able to happen at the same time) is what I'm after; that and a way around cyclic turns.

I don't understand the confusion. Just because not all actions resolve simultaneously doesn't mean you can't have two actions that resolve simultaneously. It's a straightforward ruling to say that e.g. initiative ties will not be broken, rather both events occur simultaneously. That means that two people can kill each other exactly simultaneously.

The fact that I do break ties is a minor detail; it rarely comes up in practice, and now that you mention the idea of simultaneity I find it cool enough that I might just stop breaking ties at all. But double kills still won't happen very often. It's really just a cosmetic detail.

But what if the 4 h.p. puts you down. Did you get your swing in for the 7 in return or not, and if so did that 7 put the foe down?

As per above. You can refrain from breaking ties, but it will still be vanishingly rare for you both to put each other down. I find that appropriately realistic.

There should be three possible answers:
- the 7 got the foe first, he's down and I'm still up
- the 4 got me first, I'm down and he's still up
- the hits were simultaneous and we're both down

The game as is cannot possibly generate the third option, which to me is a very serious bug. On reading some of these other ideas I wonder if they might only generate the third option, which would be equally as bad.

Lanefan

I agree that it's nice for the third option to be at least possible. That's a good argument in favor of not breaking initiative ties.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

It also occurs to me that this leaves a great opening for Warlord. Who have abilities like
change of plans: As a bonus action, you can allow an ally to make a new declaration.
And
Tactician: you gain + proficiency to your Int for the purposes of declaring actions.

Maybe even "everyone who can verbally communicate with you gains +(your proficiency) to their Int for purposes of declaring actions."

 

[mellored]

Maybe even "everyone who can verbally communicate with you gains +(your proficiency) to their Int for purposes of declaring actions."

I would say + your int, and as a higher level ability, like 11.

But that too.

 

[Rune]

I don't understand the confusion. Just because not all actions resolve simultaneously doesn't mean you can't have two actions that resolve simultaneously. It's a straightforward ruling to say that e.g. initiative ties will not be broken, rather both events occur simultaneously. That means that two people can kill each other exactly simultaneously.

The fact that I do break ties is a minor detail; it rarely comes up in practice, and now that you mention the idea of simultaneity I find it cool enough that I might just stop breaking ties at all. But double kills still won't happen very often. It's really just a cosmetic detail.

As per above. You can refrain from breaking ties, but it will still be vanishingly rare for you both to put each other down. I find that appropriately realistic.

I agree that it's nice for the third option to be at least possible. That's a good argument in favor of not breaking initiative ties.

It's mainly the options for interruption of movement (including rendering an opponent unconscious or dead) available to 5e characters that really throw a monkey-wrench in the machinery.

Let's say that Orc Killington wants to rush 30 feet over to Wizard Squishypants and chop him up real good. Fighter McHackenslash wants to intercept Orc Killington's movement en route and shove him to the ground (and then live up to his name).

Those are mutually exclusive objectives that cannot play out simultaneously. If you have opposed initiative checks (in some form or another), but allow ties, it is clear what a success looks like for either side. I have no idea what a tie would look like for Orc Killington and Fighter McHackenslash.

This is why the way I run things, Fighter McHackenslash's declaration would have required both a readied action (or some other triggered reaction could let him do it after all declarations had been made) and a successful opposed Dexterity (Initiative) check.

The default, here, is that the outcomes do happen simultaneously. The option is to give up resources (a reaction plus extra attacks) to force an opposed check and try to make that not so. (The good news for the character is, if you have already heard an opponent's declaration, you already know your readied action will be triggered.)

 

[Lanefan]

The fact that I do break ties is a minor detail; it rarely comes up in practice, and now that you mention the idea of simultaneity I find it cool enough that I might just stop breaking ties at all. But double kills still won't happen very often. It's really just a cosmetic detail.

Ties come up for us all the time, mostly because we roll unmodified* d6 for initiative. (rerolled each round)

* - there's a very few things in our game that can modify melee initiative, mostly very rare magic items. Spells work a bit differently, representing a long explanation of something that in practice is in fact very simple.

There's still times when ties need to be broken, almost always with regards to either spell casting or spell effects. For casting, it's nearly always "did you hit the caster in time to interrupt their spell or not?" (we have casting times) and for effects it usually revolves around whether an incapacitating spell e.g. Hold Person got you before or after you did whatever you're doing. Ties in melee always remain ties; everything resolves. And for spells that affect everyone's melee e.g. Prayer we long ago simply decided those sort of things resolve first within their count (so if Prayer comes in on a '5' it happens before all the other '5's) just to save us having to roll-off all the '5's to see who got the Prayer effects and who didn't.

Also, unless you're hit by something that instantly incapacitates you (e.g. Hold Person again) you'll still get your melee attack or ranged shot in even if you're dying at the same time. Fireball hits and kills me on a '3' but I'm swinging at the Gnoll also on a '3', I'll get my dying strike in.

Lanefan

 

[Lanefan]

Those are mutually exclusive objectives that cannot play out simultaneously. If you have opposed initiative checks (in some form or another), but allow ties, it is clear what a success looks like for either side. I have no idea what a tie would look like for Orc Killington and Fighter McHackenslash.

Easy. They both succeed, after a fashion: Killy gets to Squishy just as Hacker gets to Killy. Killy then has to decide whether to turn and deal with Hacker or carry through with clobbering Squishy.

Where this would get a bit messy is if Squishy is trying to cast or resolve a spell at the same time. There you would need a tie-break to see if the spell got off or not before Killy arrived. Hacker and Killy would not need a tie-break between each other, though; they're both melee so they'd just both do their thing at the same time.

Lanefan

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Ties come up for us all the time, mostly because we roll unmodified* d6 for initiative. (rerolled each round)

* - there's a very few things in our game that can modify melee initiative, mostly very rare magic items. Spells work a bit differently, representing a long explanation of something that in practice is in fact very simple.

There's still times when ties need to be broken, almost always with regards to either spell casting or spell effects. For casting, it's nearly always "did you hit the caster in time to interrupt their spell or not?" (we have casting times) and for effects it usually revolves around whether an incapacitating spell e.g. Hold Person got you before or after you did whatever you're doing. Ties in melee always remain ties; everything resolves. And for spells that affect everyone's melee e.g. Prayer we long ago simply decided those sort of things resolve first within their count (so if Prayer comes in on a '5' it happens before all the other '5's) just to save us having to roll-off all the '5's to see who got the Prayer effects and who didn't.

Also, unless you're hit by something that instantly incapacitates you (e.g. Hold Person again) you'll still get your melee attack or ranged shot in even if you're dying at the same time. Fireball hits and kills me on a '3' but I'm swinging at the Gnoll also on a '3', I'll get my dying strike in.

Lanefan

Right, I understand that you've modified your system to be less granular. I think that's a perfectly fine idea and I thank you for expounding it. Once someone has already moved to a declare/act model, there's lots of ways you could tweak the system additionally, and doing initiative on a d6 instead of a d20 is one such way. When I said it was cosmetic, I didn't mean "it's a cosmetic detail in all possible systems you could implement." I was talking about a specific system.

You can always create a new system to give greater emphasis to something which is a cosmetic detail in another system. That's how D&D originated in fact.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

It's mainly the options for interruption of movement (including rendering an opponent unconscious or dead) available to 5e characters that really throw a monkey-wrench in the machinery.

Let's say that Orc Killington wants to rush 30 feet over to Wizard Squishypants and chop him up real good. Fighter McHackenslash wants to intercept Orc Killington's movement en route and shove him to the ground (and then live up to his name).

Those are mutually exclusive objectives that cannot play out simultaneously. If you have opposed initiative checks (in some form or another), but allow ties, it is clear what a success looks like for either side. I have no idea what a tie would look like for Orc Killington and Fighter McHackenslash.

It seems clear to me that a tie in this case means Fighter McHackenslash shoves Orc Killington to the ground just as Orc Killington reaches the wizard and starts to swing. Killington's attack is unaffected by McHackenslash's action (not made at disadvantage), and McHackenslash's shove is likewise unaffected by Killington's axe swing. (So for example, if the wizard is also a Lore Bard with Cutting Words, the wizard can use Cutting Words to impair the orc's ability to resist the shove, even if the wizardbard is a hairblink away from being decapitated by the orc.) Everything resolves in a giant simultaneous tangle.

If you're using d20 + Dex to resolve initiative, this will occur only rarely. If you are using d6, it will occur somewhat more frequently, which must mean that you like giant snarls.

 

[Rune]

Easy. They both succeed, after a fashion: Killy gets to Squishy just as Hacker gets to Killy. Killy then has to decide whether to turn and deal with Hacker or carry through with clobbering Squishy.

Where this would get a bit messy is if Squishy is trying to cast or resolve a spell at the same time. There you would need a tie-break to see if the spell got off or not before Killy arrived. Hacker and Killy would not need a tie-break between each other, though; they're both melee so they'd just both do their thing at the same time.

Lanefan

It seems clear to me that a tie in this case means Fighter McHackenslash shoves Orc Killington to the ground just as Orc Killington reaches the wizard and starts to swing. Killington's attack is unaffected by McHackenslash's action (not made at disadvantage), and McHackenslash's shove is likewise unaffected by Killington's axe swing. (So for example, if the wizard is also a Lore Bard with Cutting Words, the wizard can use Cutting Words to impair the orc's ability to resist the shove, even if the wizardbard is a hairblink away from being decapitated by the orc.) Everything resolves in a giant simultaneous tangle.

If you're using d20 + Dex to resolve initiative, this will occur only rarely. If you are using d6, it will occur somewhat more frequently, which must mean that you like giant snarls.

Both of these explanations seem to me to be good representations of what would happen if Orc Killington were to win the opposed check. Certainly, there is no degree of success in them for Fighter McHackenslash, whose purpose in initiating the check was to prevent Orc Killington from ever being able to reach Wizard Squishypants in the first place. If Orc Killington wins the check, it does not mean he won't be shoved to the ground; it means he won't be shoved to the ground in time.

Edit: I suppose the above is dependent upon the wording of Fighter McHackenslash's readied action. "I move to intercept Orc Killington and shove him to the ground before he can reach Wizard Squishypants" will look different on a successful opposed Dex (Init) check than "I try to shove Orc Killington to the ground before he can attack Wizard Squishypants" will.