D&D 5E (2014) Glorious Side Initiative! With a small adjustment

[Pamphylian]

With any luck, I'll be starting a new in person 5e campaign soon, and am considering the Side Initiative variant, with a small adjustment. RAW (by the 2014 DMG), the PCs and the monsters both roll a d20 as a group, and the highest roll wins. Players go in whatever order they want. This continues until battle is done.

The theoretical appeal of Side Initiative is that it simplifies the process, lessens DM mental load, players and DMs don't have to spend as much time remembering whose turn it is, ideally all leading to faster, more fluid combat. Also, the "players go in whatever order" hopefully spurs cooperation, with the hoped-for PC turn discussion being something like "Ok what should we do, alright Bob you flank the Ogre, I'll provide covering fire, Alice what do you want to do, right yes maybe cast that spell on the guy... break!", versus the feared individual initiative failure mode of "Bob it's your turn" Bob looks up from phone "Uh what's going on again".... "Ok I attack the Ogre" Bob Goes Back to looking at phone, for 20 minutes. These are surely caricatures of the variants unfairly comparing the ideal and the worst case scenarios. Nevertheless, more time with players thinking together sounds great if it indeed works out that way. I guess if not, you can just default to clockwise around the table.

Against Side Initiative, detractors would say that 1) it is very swingy, very strongly rewarding initiative winners, who can neutralize the biggest threats before the other side gets to move, and 2) probably less importantly, character initiative bonuses become meaningless. These both seem pretty valid. Older editions using some version of side initiative get around this by interleaving some actions (fast character actions or particularly cumbersome actions might occur outside of side initiative, or things might occur in phases, with movement and missiles before melee and spells), which has its appeal, but I'm not hugely optimistic about kludging together something like this for 5e.

The easier solution seems to be to have characters roll individually as normal, make a single roll for the monsters***, let those beating the monsters go first, then let the monsters go, then everyone else, but if we are keeping the initiative in place, then after the monsters go we basically just have a full player turn before the monsters go again, so we might as well just do side initiative from that point on, starting with players, after the first monster turn, and continue from there. First mover advantage is reduced, players with initiative bonuses are rewarded, but the benefits of side initiative (if they are what people say) remain.

Anyway, feel free to critique or suggest alternatives, and in general please share your side initiative experiences!





*** Probably just by using the highest monster initiative modifier, with the versimilitudization being that the others are able to follow the lead of their fastest member. I suppose with an edge case with extreme disparity like fighting an acrobat and an ooze, you could roll separately for the ooze or use something like the Speed Factor Initiative Modifiers from the same DMG section (As a side note, has anybody used the Speed Factor Initiative variant ever? Crunchy...but intriguing)

 

[timbannock]

I've been running it thus for several years now in both 5E and some OSR games, and it works great:

Every player rolls for their character. DC 12 for most combats. Success = you go in the first group ("fast PCs"), fail = you go after the monsters ("slow PCs"). The monsters all go at once*.

*Some monsters that are noteworthily (that's not a word, is it?) slow, just go last. Period.

For legendary/boss monsters, the DC is 15. Yes, boss monster and its minions all go at once.

This system has been a breeze. It's just a DC for an initiative roll on the PCs side, and they organize into two groups. They can still chat and strategize, but are split by the monsters' turn and thus I may use metagame knowledge against them, if it's obvious to the enemies, which can ruin the slow PCs' intended tactics. I'm not a jerk about it; I rely on the monsters' INT and WIS scores, their prior knowledge (if any) of the PCs or similar adventurers, etc., and it cuts both ways. So there are times when monsters will blunder right into the PCs' strategy, if they are sufficiently ignorant (or are dummies, like ogres or mindless creatures).

I personally go this route because I find initiative to be nothing more than a speedbump on the way to the best part of the game: the fight. It's where all the mechanics and "fun" is built up in the system, so I want to get to that part, not the accounting. Initiative, no matter what you do with it, is just accounting, at least IMO. Therefore, I want it to be as painless and fast as possible.

Even with 4-6 players, remembering who succeeded and who failed among the PCs is SUPER easy, so I don't even have to keep a running list. The players will self-police turn order and ensure everyone gets their spotlight. It's beautiful.

The only other option I like is Shadowdark's round robin. The way I do that is everyone rolls two initiative checks at the start of the game session: one for crawling, and one for combat. In whichever situation (crawling, combat) the PCs are in at any given moment, I start with the person who rolled the highest and just go clockwise from there. When it's my turn in the order, that's when monsters go. Easy-peasy. It does mean that a player always goes first, as I don't roll an initiative roll, but I'll (very, very rarely) have a monster or trap or something that automatically goes first to change it up, but only with plenty of notice and clarity around why that's the case.

 

[Pamphylian]

This system has been a breeze. It's just a DC for an initiative roll on the PCs side, and they organize into two groups. They can still chat and strategize, but are split by the monsters' turn and thus I may use metagame knowledge against them, if it's obvious to the enemies, which can ruin the slow PCs' intended tactics. I'm not a jerk about it; I rely on the monsters' INT and WIS scores, their prior knowledge (if any) of the PCs or similar adventurers, etc., and it cuts both ways. So there are times when monsters will blunder right into the PCs' strategy, if they are sufficiently ignorant (or are dummies, like ogres or mindless creatures).

Very cool. Do you find that after the first round it basically becomes side initiative in feel (with the "after the monsters" group merging with the "before the monsters" group of the next round), or does it maintain the distinct feeling between the before the monsters and after monsters groups? Mechanically of course there's not much difference but I can imagine their being a state of mind difference if that makes sense (all players cooperating vs just cooperating within groups?).

 

[Piperken]

...Anyway, feel free to critique or suggest alternatives, and in general please share your side initiative experiences!

I use Side Sandwich Initiative at present for my 5E game, like tim mentioned above. Players roll a d6 (instead of d20). If they roll 4 or above, they go first (fast) before the monsters; if they roll 3 or less, they go last (slow) after the monsters.

If (2) still remains a concern for you and your table, or if you find you still need a granular way to organize your players, you can allow the PC with the highest initiative bonus either in the fast or slow group to announce their decision first, followed by the next if need be.

 

[timbannock]

Very cool. Do you find that after the first round it basically becomes side initiative in feel (with the "after the monsters" group merging with the "before the monsters" group of the next round), or does it maintain the distinct feeling between the before the monsters and after monsters groups? Mechanically of course there's not much difference but I can imagine their being a state of mind difference if that makes sense (all players cooperating vs just cooperating within groups?).

Depends on the fight, really, which I think is exactly enough variety to spice things up. Simpler encounters or monsters won't affect the "feel" much, as you describe. But smarter monsters (mind flayers, vampires, even militaristic hobgoblins), or more eventful encounters (a fire breaks out on round 3! the lava begins to rise up to the line of the bridge! the ice statues are shattered by the dragon's tail, leaving debris!) can really cause hard decisions in lining up the best strategy if you're wizard and fighter are on opposite sides of the monsters' actions.

 

[BookTenTiger]

I've been running it thus for several years now in both 5E and some OSR games, and it works great:

Every player rolls for their character. DC 12 for most combats. Success = you go in the first group ("fast PCs"), fail = you go after the monsters ("slow PCs"). The monsters all go at once*.

*Some monsters that are noteworthily (that's not a word, is it?) slow, just go last. Period.

For legendary/boss monsters, the DC is 15. Yes, boss monster and its minions all go at once.

This system has been a breeze. It's just a DC for an initiative roll on the PCs side, and they organize into two groups. They can still chat and strategize, but are split by the monsters' turn and thus I may use metagame knowledge against them, if it's obvious to the enemies, which can ruin the slow PCs' intended tactics. I'm not a jerk about it; I rely on the monsters' INT and WIS scores, their prior knowledge (if any) of the PCs or similar adventurers, etc., and it cuts both ways. So there are times when monsters will blunder right into the PCs' strategy, if they are sufficiently ignorant (or are dummies, like ogres or mindless creatures).

I personally go this route because I find initiative to be nothing more than a speedbump on the way to the best part of the game: the fight. It's where all the mechanics and "fun" is built up in the system, so I want to get to that part, not the accounting. Initiative, no matter what you do with it, is just accounting, at least IMO. Therefore, I want it to be as painless and fast as possible.

Even with 4-6 players, remembering who succeeded and who failed among the PCs is SUPER easy, so I don't even have to keep a running list. The players will self-police turn order and ensure everyone gets their spotlight. It's beautiful.

The only other option I like is Shadowdark's round robin. The way I do that is everyone rolls two initiative checks at the start of the game session: one for crawling, and one for combat. In whichever situation (crawling, combat) the PCs are in at any given moment, I start with the person who rolled the highest and just go clockwise from there. When it's my turn in the order, that's when monsters go. Easy-peasy. It does mean that a player always goes first, as I don't roll an initiative roll, but I'll (very, very rarely) have a monster or trap or something that automatically goes first to change it up, but only with plenty of notice and clarity around why that's the case.

I like this idea too, with the addition that environmental effects happen on 0 (fire spreading, wind pushing folks around, etc) and some powerful monsters will go on 20.

 

[Li Shenron]

The easier solution seems to be to have characters roll individually as normal, make a single roll for the monsters***, let those beating the monsters go first, then let the monsters go, then everyone else, but if we are keeping the initiative in place, then after the monsters go we basically just have a full player turn before the monsters go again, so we might as well just do side initiative from that point on, starting with players, after the first monster turn, and continue from there.

I've never used side initiative for the PCs (but typically I run all monsters of the same type together) but I think it should work fine, also with your variant.

It is a little bit like allowing to delay your own turn but in a limited way, so the only thing that might be appalling is to see your players starting to exploit changing order each round to make some effects "until the end of your next turn" last effectively longer on your allies than they're meant to.

 

[Pamphylian]

Depends on the fight, really, which I think is exactly enough variety to spice things up. Simpler encounters or monsters won't affect the "feel" much, as you describe. But smarter monsters (mind flayers, vampires, even militaristic hobgoblins), or more eventful encounters (a fire breaks out on round 3! the lava begins to rise up to the line of the bridge! the ice statues are shattered by the dragon's tail, leaving debris!) can really cause hard decisions in lining up the best strategy if you're wizard and fighter are on opposite sides of the monsters' actions.

I've never used side initiative for the PCs (but typically I run all monsters of the same type together) but I think it should work fine, also with your variant.

It is a little bit like allowing to delay your own turn but in a limited way, so the only thing that might be appalling is to see your players starting to exploit changing order each round to make some effects "until the end of your next turn" last effectively longer on your allies than they're meant to.

All good points - I like the idea of some simpler fights were things sort of devolve into side initiative (after-monsters players can cost free delay/intermingle their turn order with the upcoming before-monsters players), but then every once in a while a lair action or specific timing of some effect makes that decision really matter a lot more.

 

[Mannahnin]

I like simple side-based initiative quite a bit. My last long campaign (three years) I used that with d6s, with the variation that if the sides tied, everyone went in descending Dex order, representing a confusion of battle situation where they weren't able to coordinate as well as normal that round.

In that game I also had initiative rolled every round, so it was deliberately swingy, and common for one side to get two turns in a row, if they, say, lost the initiative roll-off on round 1 but then won it on round 2. But this swinginess also made the roll suspenseful nearly every single round- all the players unified waiting on that roll with bated breath, cheering or cursing at the result. It was a source of excitement.

I also like the "sandwich" initiative described above. The Nightmares Underneath uses that, and IME it works well. Each player makes an initiative check against the bad guys' static DC, which can basically be a Passive Initiative score (10 + their initiative bonus).

I'm currently running Shadowdark by the book, which is kind of both, as noted. Highest roll goes first and then it goes around the table, so if I as DM win it's all the monsters first, then all the PCs will go, etc., but if any player other than the one to my immediate left rolls highest, then I'm somewhere in the middle of their turns.

One neat variant to the Shadowdark system which I encountered at a convention this year was to vary the direction- instead of always going clockwise, go after the high roller in the direction of the second-highest roller. Not as predictable as always going clockwise.