D&D 5E Ideas for Initiative house rules

[Blue]

There's three possibilities: 0 effect, 1-action effect, or 2-action effect. In theory 1 should happen most often, with 0 or 2 happening less often and with an equal chance of either.

And though there's an ever-growing sense that casters expect their spells to work as intended (as in, always exactly hit their target area, always run their full course, etc.) every time, I don't buy that line of thought. Spells, particularly those cast under duress e.g. in almost any combat situation, should be able to fail, or miss (or hit the wrong target), or otherwise not quite go as intended; similar to someone shooting missiles into combat - most of the time it works but sometimes things go wrong.

Here, where there's an equal chance of getting more bang for your buck as there is of less, I fail to see any reason for complaint.

If you happen to get double effect, it feels cool. Nice thing.

On the other hand, if you use your action and your spell slot and there's NO effect, you feel like naughty word. It is a greater negative than the bonus round. This is why lots of spells still do half damage on a save - because otherwise you are using your action and a limited resource for no effect.

Plus, your evaluation that they happen about the same is flawed. Combat in D&D is about dropping foes. That the foe will still be around for a second effect is a less likely than he was around for the first effect.

To sum up, the positive happens less and has less psychological effect, then the completely wasted effect.

 

[Blue]

Question: do your players ever make tactical decisions based on that locked-in turn order?

If yes, then you've a) lost the fog-of-war effect and b) are letting meta-game considerations affect play. Great if that works for you and your group, but it doesn't work for me.

I'll give you the fog of war.

I won't give you even an inch of the meta game. It is entirely observable in world that everyone does their actions at the same speed. It's part of their "laws of physics" as in this case the model is their reality. So that's something the characters should know.

Anyway the same thing happens, though to a lesser effect, with turn based initiate. You don't get more actions than anyone else, and you still know what order you are acting in regards to allies and foes, you just have a smaller scope of a round.

 

[Blue]

I've been playing random initiative each round for roughly 15 or so years and also played d20 rolls for 10. It's super rare that a player ever "loses" a turn in randomized initiative because players tend to pick actions that have a realistic shot of occurring. It's a style of play for gamers who like tension and unpredictability. Instead of picking the perfect action, you pick the best one as you see it. You may not always get what you want the way you want it, and some gamers like that.

Alternately, some like the predictability and board game strategic situation that cyclical initiative provides. You always know A goes before B and plan accordingly. There's no inherent right or wrong to either one, and historically initiative was a major headache for the designers when putting out 3rd edition. Rather than debating who's right and wrong, I tend to adhere to Tasha's Cauldron's #10: Have Fun. "Each group has its own style."

What I heard was: players will limit their options and not take single round effects because they understand they have a chance of not having any effect.

If avoiding a bunch of valid options because your homebrew initiative system can mess them up is okay with you, more power to you. I've rather not limit myself like that.

Also, you seem to have some mistaken belief that I am against per round initiative. At least that's what the defensiveness of your second paragraph implies. Please read the post earlier in here, where my comment was not that it was bad, but that because 5e used "my next turn" as a shorthand for 1 round, it interacted badly with per-round initiative and should be rewritten to work with it. Your scree about how people like different things literally has no baring on the point I was making - I'm not putting down the system, I'm putting down 5e working unmodified with it.

 

[Don Durito]

Yeah. I tried Greyhawk initiaitive and was intrigued by it, but I felt it really needed a game that was designed to work around it. Bonus actions really didn't work with it and even multi-attacks sat oddly. By moving some of the tactical complexity to inititaive you really need to move complexity out of other parts of the system.

It's interesting that these days there's now a tendency to revisit what for about at least 15 years seemed to have been widely regarded as a solved problem.

 

[Dragonblade]

I have seen two alternative initiatives that I think are worth trying. But I have not tried them myself and don't know what sort of problems or edge cases might be encountered with them. They are presented here as ideas to explore, not necessarily as fully baked or playtested systems.

Initiative Card Deck Method:

Every PC, NPC, or monster has an initiative card that represents their turn in combat. All cards are shuffled together in a deck and placed face down. First card is drawn and flipped over to determine who goes first. That character acts, then next card is drawn and so on. This keeps initiative random, and unpredictable. No dice rolling needed. Deck is shuffled and set aside, ready to go for each combat. You can reshuffle for every round, or only shuffle and draw in the first round to establish initiative order (this then works like standard D&D initiative after the first round). If you redraw every round, its important to keep track of which 'tick' in the initiative order a per round spell or effect was started so that it can be ended at the appropriate time.

Variant 1: Add extra cards for each point of initiative bonus you have. This means more cards in the deck if you have a higher initiative bonus making it more likely your card is drawn earlier. Once your card is drawn the first time, additional draws of your card later in the round are ignored and another card is drawn to see who goes next.

Variant 2: Savage Worlds style poker deck initiative. I won't reprint those rules here, but its easy enough to look them up. Use a poker deck to draw cards ahead of time instead of rolling dice. Initiative then goes in reverse suit order. Redraw every round. Keep the same deck and shuffle the deck as soon as someone draws a joker. Jokers trump other cards and give you advantage on your first action. This method essentially ignores the traditional Dex based initiative bonus. That could be a feature for some. Can keep initiative the same after the first round, or redraw every round. If redraw, then important to keep track of which 'tick' in the round a round by round effect is initiated so it can be ended at the appropriate time.

Interrupt Initiative Order Method:

Roll initiative normally, but then start with the PC/NPC who would go last. After the character or monster with the slowest initiative declares their action but before they resolve it. Any other PCs/NPCs with a higher initiative can choose to interrupt and take their action first. If multiple characters choose to interrupt then those with a higher initiative can trump the interrupter or let them act before they act. Once all the interrupts go, then the original PC/NPC resolves their action. Then next slowest character goes (unless they already interrupted), declares their action, sees if there are any new interrupts, and so on until the initiative order is established for that round and everyone takes their turn. Repeat the process the next round. Start with the slowest actor and see if there are any interrupts. Keep track of which 'tick' of the round a spell or other round by round effect started so you can determine when it should realistically end. It can be helpful to use tokens or cards to establish order and who has interrupted and who has not yet taken an action.

 

[Lanefan]

I'll give you the fog of war.

I won't give you even an inch of the meta game. It is entirely observable in world that everyone does their actions at the same speed. It's part of their "laws of physics" as in this case the model is their reality. So that's something the characters should know.

Interesting take. I'd never considered it this way, mostly because it's so far removed from how things work in the real world.

Anyway the same thing happens, though to a lesser effect, with turn based initiate. You don't get more actions than anyone else, and you still know what order you are acting in regards to allies and foes, you just have a smaller scope of a round.

It's the knowledge of the order that bugs me.

 

[Lanefan]

Interrupt Initiative Order Method:

Roll initiative normally, but then start with the PC/NPC who would go last. After the character or monster with the slowest initiative declares their action but before they resolve it. Any other PCs/NPCs with a higher initiative can choose to interrupt and take their action first. If multiple characters choose to interrupt then those with a higher initiative can trump the interrupter or let them act before they act. Once all the interrupts go, then the original PC/NPC resolves their action. Then next slowest character goes (unless they already interrupted), declares their action, sees if there are any new interrupts, and so on until the initiative order is established for that round and everyone takes their turn. Repeat the process the next round. Start with the slowest actor and see if there are any interrupts. Keep track of which 'tick' of the round a spell or other round by round effect started so you can determine when it should realistically end. It can be helpful to use tokens or cards to establish order and who has interrupted and who has not yet taken an action.

This sounds a bit cumbersome.

One perhaps-unintended side effect here is that allowing the slowest combatant's action to resolve first (if not interrupted) could take a faster combatant out of action before that individual gets a chance to do anything.

For example, I'm a archer shooting into the battle from range. I roll the lowest initiative, but as I'm remote from the combat nobody can really interrupt me; and so my shot resolves, taking out the Orc who had rolled a much higher initiative than me.

Doesn't make sense somehow.

 

[Dragonblade]

This sounds a bit cumbersome.

One perhaps-unintended side effect here is that allowing the slowest combatant's action to resolve first (if not interrupted) could take a faster combatant out of action before that individual gets a chance to do anything.

For example, I'm a archer shooting into the battle from range. I roll the lowest initiative, but as I'm remote from the combat nobody can really interrupt me; and so my shot resolves, taking out the Orc who had rolled a much higher initiative than me.

Doesn't make sense somehow.

Yes, its a bit of theory craft I read online (maybe reddit?). Not sure how well it would work in practice. But I thought it was interesting and worth sharing.

 

[Redwizard007]

This sounds a bit cumbersome.

One perhaps-unintended side effect here is that allowing the slowest combatant's action to resolve first (if not interrupted) could take a faster combatant out of action before that individual gets a chance to do anything.

For example, I'm a archer shooting into the battle from range. I roll the lowest initiative, but as I'm remote from the combat nobody can really interrupt me; and so my shot resolves, taking out the Orc who had rolled a much higher initiative than me.

Doesn't make sense somehow.

It is cumbersome, but this looks like what Shadowrun(i think) used a few decades ago. It was definitely one of the non d20 games I played in the 90s. Maybe Battletech.

The part that we are missing is that it can seriously bone the slower characters.

Example:
Init 1: I shoot guy A.
Init 5: I run to guy A and stab him.
Int 7: Guy A - I run behind that building.
Int 10: I shoot guy A.

It resolves like this
Int 10: shoots guy A
Int 7: guy A runs behind building
Int 5/1: twiddle thumbs.


It is possible that I am missrembering something from 30 years ago

 

[Lanefan]

It is cumbersome, but this looks like what Shadowrun(i think) used a few decades ago. It was definitely one of the non d20 games I played in the 90s. Maybe Battletech.

The part that we are missing is that it can seriously bone the slower characters.

Example:
Init 1: I shoot guy A.
Init 5: I run to guy A and stab him.
Int 7: Guy A - I run behind that building.
Int 10: I shoot guy A.

It resolves like this
Int 10: shoots guy A
Int 7: guy A runs behind building
Int 5/1: twiddle thumbs.


It is possible that I am missrembering something from 30 years ago

In a situation like this somebody's going to be left doing nothing no matter what, as all are focusing on a target that has the option of making itself not a target at some point during the round.

That said, in such fluid situations I'd always allow 5 and 1 to change their actions and-or targets given that their declared action no longer makes any sense.