D&D 4E Initiative in 4E

[I'm A Banana]

No, you wouldn't have to declare in advance. The DM would say "Anybody doing ranged attacks?" Then ranged attacks are resolved. "Anybody doing melee attacks?" Then melee attacks are resolved. "Anybody doing Movement?" Movement is resolved. "Anybody doing anything else?" Spells, potions, extra movement, etc is resolved.

Hmm...now I'm interested. The guy who wants to move up and attack the guy with the bow won't be able to ever do it before the bow guy fires, though?

 

[dmccoy1693]

I don't like any of the ideas posted in this thread. They all seem either too complicated or too limited.

I'm with Mourn. The Exalted system is easy and smooth. And surprisingly fast. In truth, the Exalted/Scion tick system sounds complicated, but it is no more complicated then a player that gets stunned for 1d4 rounds, and reduce the number by 1 every round until you go again. The only difference is is that the DM calls out "Tick" and everyone reduces their die by 1 at the same time, and players know how long they are waiting depending on which action they take.

EDIT: Another advantage: The DM has less book keeping (he only has to worry about the NPCs and not about the PCs combat order). Asside from that it is similar to 3.5's combat system.

Here's how it would work if applied to 3.5 (at least my interpretation):

Each weapon would have their own speed (Bows - speed 6, Most Light Weapons - speed 4, Most 1-handed weapons - speed 5, Most 2-Handed Weapons - speed 6)

Magical weapons could have their speed reduced by 1 for an equivilent of a +2 bonus. This would stack if you wanted to make to reduce its speed another 1.

Spell would fall into different categories (Swift/Quickened - speed 2, Standard action spells - speed 4, Full Round Action Spells - speed 6).

EDIT #2: So here's how it would work. I'm going to build on Mourn's Example from post #9.

Joe has a bow, Sara has a rapier, and Norm is a wizard. Joe and sara are fighting Norm. Norm cast mage armor and shield before the battle. Sara has her counter die set to 2 and Norm has his set to 5. Joe goes first. He fires his bow at norm and misses. Joe sets his counter die to 6.

The DM calls, "Tick." Joe lowers his to 5, Sara lowers hers to 1, and Norm lowers his to 4. No one has reached 0 so the DM calls, "Tick," again. Joe lowers his die to 4, Sara's die reaches 0 so she goes this round, and Norm lowers his to 3. Sara slashes with her rapier and she sets her die counter to 5. Don decides to join so he rolls and (as described above) has to wait 4 ticks. He sets his die to 4.

DM calls "Tick." Joe: 3, Sara: 4, Don: 3, Norm: 2. No one goes. DM calls "Tick." Joe: 2, Sara: 3, Don: 2, Norm: 1. No one goes. DM calls "Tick." Joe: 1, Sara: 2, Don: 1, Norm: 0. Norm goes. Norm 5 foot steps away (speed 0) from Sara and casts Slow on Joe (speed 4). Joe adds 2 to his die counter (raising it from 1 to 3) and does that after every action he takes for the next X actions. Thing to note here is now Joe goes after Sara instead of before. Another note is that instead of allowing the target of a Slow spell to take only 1 kind of action, they have their counter increased. Norm resets his counter to 4.

I think you get the idea.

 

[Simplicity]

Maybe they should just make everyone move at the same time.
The DM would just call out for each round: 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30.
And everyone either moves 5 feet, takes an attack, or does nothing.
It'd make everyone pay attention, and combat would go pretty darn
fast with everyone moving simultaneously...

 

[The Little Raven]

2nd edition D&D used weapon speed during combat. While I found weapon speed to be cool in theory--made me grunt with interest the first time I read a 2E PHB--in practice, I found it to be cumbersome. Another complication to an already tedious combat system. I wouldn't want to see weapon speed or movement action speed (what you refer to above as "ticks") included in 4E.

Well, unlike 2e's weapon speeds, which ranged from 1-10, Exalted's weapons only range from 4 (short swords and quick weapons) to 6 (great swords and heavy weapons), so it's not really that complicated to use a very small range of numbers like that.

The only thing I really agree with you about is that the tick-based system does take some time to learn (you mainly have to put it through it's paces), which may be a barrier to new players. But once you get over that initial hump, I've found it to be incredibly intuitive.

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

I'm with Mourn. The Exalted system is easy and smooth. And surprisingly fast. In truth, the Exalted/Scion tick system sounds complicated, but it is no more complicated then a player that gets stunned for 1d4 rounds, and reduce the number by 1 every round until you go again. The only difference is is that the DM calls out "Tick" and everyone reduces their die by 1 at the same time, and players know how long they are waiting depending on which action they take.

I've found the best way to keep track of the Battleque system is with an old board game spinner. Just cut it off the board and glue a simple piece of construction paper with ten big pie-shaped sections marked 0-9 onto the base. Then you use old minis or other figures placed onto it to track initiative. They start on the appropriate tick at the beginning of combat and move clockwise around the counter as they act, when the pointer catches up to them again they act again.

 

[The Little Raven]

I've found the best way to keep track of the Battleque system is with an old board game spinner. Just cut it off the board and glue a simple piece of construction paper with ten big pie-shaped sections marked 0-9 onto the base. Then you use old minis or other figures placed onto it to track initiative. They start on the appropriate tick at the beginning of combat and move clockwise around the counter as they act, when the pointer catches up to them again they act again.

Bastardo! I was writing this exact post up when I hit preview and saw this. This is exactly how I handle it, and it works wonderfully.

 

[Stalker0]

One thing I'd like to see is the return of a little rule from (gasp!) 2e:

Creatures get an initiative modifier based on size (smaller creatures get a bonus, larger creatures get a penalty). The AC modifiers should suffice.

In general, they already do. Large creatures suffer dex penalties, and so slower initiatives.

 

[Testament]

I've found the best way to keep track of the Battleque system is with an old board game spinner. Just cut it off the board and glue a simple piece of construction paper with ten big pie-shaped sections marked 0-9 onto the base. Then you use old minis or other figures placed onto it to track initiative. They start on the appropriate tick at the beginning of combat and move clockwise around the counter as they act, when the pointer catches up to them again they act again.

Kind of like the example shown in the "Scion: Hero" book?

 

[Lanefan]

But I really don't want the combat round broken up into smaller chunks, or <shudder> to see the reintroduction of weapon speeds and spell casting segments.

It's already broken up into smaller chunks - each person's turn.

Weapon speeds are a nuisance. Spell casting times are trivially easy to handle - you start casting on your initiative (say, 18); if your spell takes 5 segments (or ticks, or universal time units) to cast that just means you resolve on a 13; any foe with an initiative of 17-13 can potentially interrupt you. Next round, you act again on 18.

One thing I'd like to see is the end of this odd design-based fear of simultaneity. Realistically, things can and do happen at the same time...why not in the game? With this, you could go to a smaller die for initiatives (say, a d10; with correspondingly smaller bonuses/penalties) and from there it's easy to get to a time-based system where movement, casting, etc. don't start and finish at the same time.

Lanefan

 

[IceFractal]

I find it very unlikely they would go to a tick-based or even single-action system, for two reasons that they've stated as 4E goals:

1) Fast Play. Tick based systems are slower. Not incredibly slow, if you know them well, but still not as fast. And for newbies, they are much slower.

2) Encouraging Movement. If you go to a single-action system or tick system, then you have the choice to move OR attack. Most people will just move up to their foes and stand there attacking, which is exactly what they were trying to eliminate by getting rid of full-attacks.