D&D 5E Ideas for Initiative house rules

[LuisCarlos17f]

Longer weapons can attack before than shorters. Try to fight with toy weapons and you will notice who dares to be the first one to attack

 

[BookTenTiger]

Each player gets a number of playing cards equal to their character's Dexterity or Intelligence bonus. At the beginning of each round, the players all place one card face down on the table. The cards are turned over, and initiative order is set from highest card value to lowest. Before the round starts, each player can swap out one card in their hand.

At the end of the round, each player draws a card to refill their hand.

The DM always has cards equal to double the number of enemies.

 

[Monayuris]

I use over under initiative.

Players all roll their normal initiative.

I roll for monsters.

Player who equal or beat monsters go first (any order), then monsters go, then players who lost go (any order)

Roll initiative every round.

 

[Vael]

For some games, I've been using "popcorn initiative" aka "elective action order". It means you can't really invest in getting a good initiative, but you also never again have to worry about pesky "hold actions", and it makes action order into a tactical choice the players get to make.

I used Popcorn Initiative in FATE, but haven't tried it in DnD. I will say, I like it in FATE a lot, it lets players (and the DM) set up more interesting combos and in addition to not dealing with hold actions, it tends to keep the whole party more engaged, because figuring out who to pass initiative to becomes an interesting choice.

 

[Inchoroi]

I'm tempted to borrow from Pathfinder 2E and allow PCs to use skills to make initiative checks (Stealth if you're sneaking, Deception if you're trying to sucker punch, etc).

Oh, man...that's actually a great idea...

 

[tetrasodium]

I've tried side initiative (some hardcore metagaming went on where it was more used to screw over the baddies than help the pc's strategize anything other than soloing near each other) The results were sad even though the same group had used similar without issue in fate game. I've tried using int rather than dex & it really didn't make any notable difference. Darker dungeons is a 5e suppliment withan interesting "active initiative" where there are ways of interrupting a pseudo side initiative & seizing control of initiative. The one that really shook things up was when I used combat manager & rolled initiative for all of the players & baddies at the top of each round with the click of a button but that is unreasonable without an app and had trouble with spells & abilities with durations of "the start/end of your next turn" Using relevant skills might be interesting

 

[Stalker0]

We recently adopted a flat d20, no DEX (or INT or anything). You still add bonuses granted by class features, such as War Mage's Tactical Wit and the Alert feat.

We made this decision in the spirit that your opportunity to act comes randomly in the round is the biggest factor, more so than anything else. shrug

I've been interesting in trying this as well. After all, it can be argued that acting in combat is the biggest expersion of fun in combat, so why should classes get to more often have fun "act more often" than other characters?

I currently allow initiative as using either dex or int.

 

[Umbran]

I'm tempted to borrow from Pathfinder 2E and allow PCs to use skills to make initiative checks (Stealth if you're sneaking, Deception if you're trying to sucker punch, etc). Though monsters don't tend to have the skill arrays that PCs have.

And, it does require declaring what you're going to do before rolling initiative.

 

[DND_Reborn]

I've been interesting in trying this as well. After all, it can be argued that acting in combat is the biggest expersion of fun in combat, so why should classes get to more often have fun "act more often" than other characters?

I currently allow initiative as using either dex or int.

It is simple, works well, and we enjoy it.

FWIW, we used to do a d20 + DEX (or INT or WIS, player's choice), using a single roll and repeat for the combat. It worked fine, too, but to us if you think about all the stuff going on in combat, your moment or chance to get your strike in, or the time it takes to get your spell components in hand, etc. all varies so much that really anyone could act at any time.

Anyway, if you give it a try I am sure it will work fine for you, too. Whether you like the simplicity or not, only you can judge. In the two games were are playing currently (one in person, one online), only one PC has a modifier via the Alert feat--everyone else just rolls a d20 and that's it.

 

[Lanefan]

Triggering a combat -- if you're the one launching it, you get advantage on your check. You'll probably go first, but somebody fast might manage to anticipate or interrupt that action.

I like this idea, and in many cases would even take it a step further to say - given that combat is all in reaction to the launching event - the launching action always happens before initiative is even rolled.

It's always bugged me that while a combat is in theory triggered by the occurrence of specific-action X, all too often that action gets bumped so far down in the initiative order that by the time it comes up it no longer makes sense...and yet the character's already kinda committed to that action as without it all the other stuff retroactively wouldn't have happened.