Don't make me roll for initiative.........again

[KarinsDad]

Yes, it does. The Behind the Scenes sidebar in the DMG specificly states this, and explains why. It's the underlying arguement for many rules assumptions. You yourself have said this in so many words in the past on other threads.

If you are talking about the Defensive Rolls sidebar, it is not the same area or type of randomness that we are discussing in this topic.

Multiple actions = two actions, tops. That's it. Two unanswered full attacks are bad, but so is one critical hit.

True, but this is not a discussion of doubling the damage of a single attack. It is a discussion of doubling the number of attacks in a given time frame from potentially a multitude of opponents (especially if the DM rolls multiple opponents with the same init).

Wasn't the default assumption of the CR system one in which the PCs would fight no more than 12 opponents at a time? Even saying in the DMG that if you need more than 12 foes to challenge the party, you should use less of something tougher? You are purposefully taking a non-standard, non-playtested extreme position to make a point.

My only point was that 5 on 1 is bad enough in the normal initiative system.

Also, we have 8 PCs/NPCs in the party, not the default 4 that the default assumption of the CR system is discussing. Hence, maybe you should up your statement to 24 instead of 12.

In any case, 50 on 8 sounds like a massacre waiting to happen to me, no matter what your initiative system is. Cyclic initiative may have sped things along, but good grief! You'd need to speed things up to handle that many combatants.

No. A speed up wasn't needed. It was a once in a blue moon encounter and the players were aware of the delay between their character's init.

Granted, this was an unusual case. My largest previous number of opponents was in the high 20s (IIRC). However, these opponents came in waves over 4 rounds. So, there were never actually 50 at one time, probably more like low 30s max (the PCs were fresh and very effective at often taking out one or more opponents each per round).

Btw, in this encounter, the PCs used up less than half of their resources and ended up fighting another semi-major battle (with a CR 8, CR 6, and CR 2 opponent) that same day (and wiped through that as well). The Hobgoblin encounter just happened to be a lengthy combat (3+ hours) in real time (although the combat itself probably only lasted 8 rounds).

Didn't you also state previously that you don't even roll initiative for your NPCs? That you have some numbers spread across the range already dialed in and just assign them? If I am remembering that correctly, it sounds like you using the other extreme of initiative determination.

Actually, I only do that for unusual circumstances like this combat. Typically (90%+ of the time), I roll for every individual NPC.

I also do not bother to roll when reinforcements come in. They trickle in every 3 or 4 or 5 (or more, situation dependent) inits (e.g. after turning over 4 init cards, regardless of who those were, another NCP trickles in). But, many combats do not have reinforcements.

It counts big time in any game. But many things also count just as big, like crits and saves. In a game where extra actions are more commonplace, it really makes the PCs pay more attention and plan well to survive. I played for years in a 1st ed game that was very unforgiving. If you went out wandering the countryside, the DM rolled on his wandering monster tables, and you got what you got, balance be damned! There were no CR systems to save us there, and it was very unforgiving, complete with rerolled initiative every round. Hard? Hell yes! Fair, we thought so. You had a plan or you had a nice funeral.

And gaming companies learned from the mistakes of late 70s game systems.

If a DM and his players want to reroll initiative every round, I don't see the problem with it, provided everyone knows the consequences, any rough spots are smoothed over (delaying and spell durations etc), and the DM balances the encounters appropriately.

A lot of implied "ifs" in this sentence. Sure, as long as you go out and put the proper bandaids on any system, it will work. It's finding what needs to be bandaged that's the hard part, often learned through actual gaming experiences. For example, Raven bandaged the system by changing it from a D20 init to a D10 init. This has game balance implications, one of them being that the back to back scenarios against the PCs should happen a lot less often than with a D20 init as long as the PCs tend to have better initiative modifiers than their opponents.

I think the variant rule is a bad rule as written. It could be an ok rule given the right set of house rules to prop it up.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Wasn't the default assumption of the CR system one in which the PCs would fight no more than 12 opponents at a time? Even saying in the DMG that if you need more than 12 foes to challenge the party, you should use less of something tougher? You are purposefully taking a non-standard, non-playtested extreme position to make a point.

I've run bigger battles with re-rolled init without party casualties.

It boggles the mind what some of the assumptions here are.

(1) That the goal of re-rolled init is to "save" the monsters. For what? They're monsters; they die. If not today, then tomorrow. That's like claiming that the goal of cyclic init is to "save" the players.

(2) That any playtest evidence is somehow wrong or misleading. Despite the dire warnings of terrible consequence using re-rolled init, no one who uses it has posted in to agree with this being his experience....including the OP. One person has posted that, in a previous edition, he lost a character due to the init system and bad luck. Overwhelmingly, the people effectively playtesting this system claim that it causes no probems.

(3) That some forms of unanswered back-to-back actions are somehow worse than others. If you have two identical hobgoblins attack you sequentially, that is better than having the same hobgoblin attack you twice.

(4) That the variable in re-rolling init has more effect on combat (and hence survivability) than, say, the variable of rolling damage.

(5) That the variable of re-rolling init has more effect on time loss during combat than (say) the variable of rolling damage.

(6) That, while it seems obvious that the variable of rolling damage adds a level of excitement to combats (in part because of the extreme results possible, both pro and con), the variable of rolling init cannot do the same (again, despite explicit statements from both players and DMs playtesting exactly this system that it does exactly that).

 

[Raven Crowking]

NPCs do not play the game. Period.

Players play the game. They play PCs. The game is all about fun for players, not NPCs.

If you screw the NPCs, nobody cares. If you screw the PCs, some of your players might care to the point that they quit playing your game.

And, it is not a matter of stacking the deck in favor of the PCs. It is a matter of not stacking the deck AGAINST the PCs.

The deck is already stacked against the PCs. The PCs are in virtually every combat and the NCPs are in one or a few each. Hence, the odds are already against the PCs continued survival because there is a large finite number of NPCs that can combat against the PCs and the PCs are typically (in many campaigns) in a large finite number of combats.

This arguement would apply as much -- more so -- against rolling damage. If you keep rolling, the odds are that sooner or later an NPC will get a higher than average damage roll, and a PC might die. And that player might quit.

Using average damage would certainly be a boon for a game "designed to average x amount of damage, have as minimum of zero damage, and have a maximum of y amount of damage per round per opponent given the circumstances."

 

[DonTadow]

I've run bigger battles with re-rolled init without party casualties.

It boggles the mind what some of the assumptions here are.



(5) That the variable of re-rolling init has more effect on time loss during combat than (say) the variable of rolling damage.

(6) That, while it seems obvious that the variable of rolling damage adds a level of excitement to combats (in part because of the extreme results possible, both pro and con), the variable of rolling init cannot do the same (again, despite explicit statements from both players and DMs playtesting exactly this system that it does exactly that).

The variable of rolling damage is built into the game. You CAN add a house rule to decrease this to average damage if you're concerned with time in your game. I do this with extra attacks and their damage. Rollling dice is rolling dice. WHy create more rules to roll dice and waste the players time, when the added benefit of "chaos" doesn't seem to bode well for the players statistically. Fun wise "yay" everyone seems to love rolling dice, but I bet giving them an option of rerolling their initiative and telling them hey we can fit more action in with static initiative, will go over differently. Its one thing to see smiles on your players faces as you play its another thing to give them two choices weighing the pros and cons and seeing waht they pick. I' d bet the ranch that not all six would agree. The game is designed so each player rolls dice twice during combat, once for attack and once for damage. IN a good combat, they will only roll the damage dice 60 percent of the time.

As for 6, your only plus is that it adds excitment to combat. My thing is that's the dm's job not some dice and extra player time. There are easier and less time consuming ways to do it. I "could" hide in a different place and scare my girlfriend every time she comes in the door, that certainly would add excitement to her life. Or I could present her with flowers and various other trinkets every day.

If your combat is lacking excitement I've listed various options that don't waste the players time to do (which again, there is no getting out of whenever you're rolling extra dice). Because you're not just rolling the dice, you're rolling, their rolling, the Npcs are rolling and then someone has to track.... every round). I'd probably think it was a better option to just boost up the crit ratio if i "have" to lend myself to game mechanical crutches to increase the fun factor of the game. \

Raven I know you're a far better DM to result your players to the waste of time when your combats are already exciting enough (dino ninjas). I truly hope that in a couple days we are pulled into a room and youre sitting there asking us Freudian questions about this thread.

 

[MuL]

Init every round is bad for Pcs

The group I play with is half way through Shackled City and we roll Init every round and I'm the only one in the group that hates it. I really like the group and Dm so I put up with it.

From what I found most of the time the back to back actions favor the Pc's. More Pc's vs one BBEG means the Pcs get the back to back action and the BBEG loses out.

The problem is when that 1 time out of 10 the fire giant goes back to back and power attacks your pc from max hit points to -34 without you even getting a chance to back up or catch a heal. This just gets worst and worst as we increase in level and I'm sure the Dm will have to fudge here and there to avoid Tpks because of it.

Now if a Tpk happens for a group because of bad rolls for Init is that not reason enough to stop using this poor rule? Don't enough Pc deaths happen because of crits and missed saves why add another?

Plus it does take more time and messes up my spell durations.

I did even play an elf cleric with Combat Expertise and Improved Disarm to abuse the rule. Many times I would fight total defense and full expertise then delay to take advantage of the +7 AC. Or delay then disarm my opponent and hope for a fast Init so I could pick up his weapon before he could even act. Yet my group still wanted to roll for Init every round so I killed my cleric off because I felt too dirty abusing this dumb rule.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Raven I know you're a far better DM to result your players to the waste of time when your combats are already exciting enough (dino ninjas). I truly hope that in a couple days we are pulled into a room and youre sitting there asking us Freudian questions about this thread.

Not gonna happen.

If 4e came out, and was exactly like 3e except that they did away with random rolls for damage, going to an average, would you switch? If so, why? If not, why?

 

[Raven Crowking]

The group I play with is half way through Shackled City and we roll Init every round and I'm the only one in the group that hates it. I really like the group and Dm so I put up with it.

How many people are in your group? It seems to me that, assuming an average group of 4 players + 1 DM, 80% of the people are okay with it, and 20% hate it. Back when we were doing (I was doing) the Sense of Wonder threads, a higher percentage of people claimed that their sense of wonder was reduced with 3.x, (over 30%) and that percentage was deemed insignificant.

Don't enough Pc deaths happen because of crits and missed saves why add another?

Why not eliminate crits and saves?

I did even play an elf cleric with Combat Expertise and Improved Disarm to abuse the rule. Many times I would fight total defense and full expertise then delay to take advantage of the +7 AC. Or delay then disarm my opponent and hope for a fast Init so I could pick up his weapon before he could even act. Yet my group still wanted to roll for Init every round so I killed my cleric off because I felt too dirty abusing this dumb rule.

Why is that abuse?

RC

 

[Twowolves]

If you are talking about the Defensive Rolls sidebar, it is not the same area or type of randomness that we are discussing in this topic.

No, that isn't the sidebar I am talking about. But since I don't have my books handy and I'm getting ready for work, I'll have to look it up later.

True, but this is not a discussion of doubling the damage of a single attack. It is a discussion of doubling the number of attacks in a given time frame from potentially a multitude of opponents (especially if the DM rolls multiple opponents with the same init).

Multiple opponents with the same init? First of all, what difference does it make if 5 orcs go on a 10, or if one orc goes on each count of 13, 12, 11, 10, 9 and 8, assuming no PC actions in the middle? The issue of a DM rolling "batch initiative" is a seperate issue, throwing it in here just muddies the waters. Secondly, I don't disagree that double attacks is more lethal than double damage. It's the same principle, different scale. Combat is potentially more lethal, perhaps much more so. Ok, it becomes an underlying theme for that game.

Also, we have 8 PCs/NPCs in the party, not the default 4 that the default assumption of the CR system is discussing. Hence, maybe you should up your statement to 24 instead of 12.

Well, ok, then you only went over two times the reccomended number of foes, instead of four times.

And gaming companies learned from the mistakes of late 70s game systems.

Calling it a "mistake" is a judgement call. We sure didn't think it was a mistake at the time, and plenty of people would call the current system a mistake.

I think the variant rule is a bad rule as written. It could be an ok rule given the right set of house rules to prop it up.

I agree 100% The sidebar describing it didn't even give it much credit, but the "tweaks" that would shoot down the developers reasons against it were already in place in previous editions, but they ignored them. Certainly, if I were to use a system like this, it would be a lot more detailed than just "re-roll every round", to prevent the problems many have proposed in this thread.

 

[PallidPatience]

The only issue I really have with all the people defending the rerolling of initiative every turn is that they keep mentioning their games. At the risk of sounding hostile, we're not discussing your games. If you and your players like it, that's fine. We're not going to stop your using it.

However, Goldmoon asked us to give him ammunition to use against a DM who is using that optional rule without any of the fixes that you guys use in your games. He also doesn't keep track of spell durations, except as part of their casters' initiatives, so spells can end early or last longer than usual. At the same time, and Goldmoon can correct me if I'm wrong, the players in that game seem to NOT be having fun.

All of these reasons make all of your arguments invalid... WHEN IT COMES TO GOLDMOON'S GAME, which is the issue here.

As for me... It would really depend on the kind of game I wanted to play, whether or not I'd want to use a system of rolling every round. It has its benefits for supporting certain styles, but it detracts from others...

 

[KarinsDad]

Sure - but my point was to illustrate the difference between a combat you *know* is coming (i.e. the rogue scouted ahead) and one you don't know is coming (party is surprised, foolishly charged into a room before listening at the door, etc.)

But how does your point apply to adventurers?

Them using Delay and Readying are signs of a mature group of PCs taking advantage of their abilities. It matters not if they are suprised or not, it is their job to fight, fight often, and fight to the best of their abilities.