D&D 5E Initiative should be a skill.

[The Myopic Sniper]

I didn't start following Next development until December so I didn't have the earliest packets, but I was kind of surprised that they did apply the scaling die modifiers to attack and magic bonuses. It would only need to be a column on each class and instead of +1, it would simply say d4 and +5 would get a D12. I don't really see the problem in general except for rolling extra dice (which seems to be something they are going for in this edition) and the fact that your skill dice could be at a different level than your attack, magic or initiative dice. If the math needs to be retuned a bit, it would probably only involve adding a +1 to all AC values.

My concern is that while I am having fun rolling and adding the extra dice now, I wonder if I will feel the same way in a couple of years and start craving static bonuses for the sake of simplicity. I am not sure that is anything that the playtest can account for though.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

When I discovered that Improved Initiative was still a feat, and that it still added a static +4 to initiative rolls, I immediately thought that it would be cleaner to just make Initiative a skill.

 

[Sunseeker]

I don't know if I agree that Init should be a skill....but I agree there should be some way to put points into it without have to burn a feat.

 

[Weather Report]

I do not want it to be a Skill, but I do want it separated from Dexterity.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

I don't know if I agree that Init should be a skill....but I agree there should be some way to put points into it without have to burn a feat.

If it's an ability check that you can get better at in a granular fashion through training, isn't that the definition of a skill?

 

[drothgery]

Initiative as a skill in Star Wars Saga Edition pretty quickly created a situation where effectively every class got one less trained skill, because every PC would train in initiative.

 

[Jester David]

It would open up design space to tweak initiative-monkeys and would also provide for other stats (say, intelligence and/or wisdom) to play a relevant roll in turn order.

Discuss.

Having initiative increase with level in 4e really emphasised the needless number increases. It was cool going for a 2-21 in initiative to a 18-38, but when the monsters increased at the same rate it meant nothing. The fast monster still went first and the slow monster still went second. And while a theoretically low level monster would be slow compared to the PCs, because they couldn't hit or contribute to combat, this never came up.

Too many ways of boosting initiative are also problematic. There was a rogue in my 4e game that has Improved Initiative in addition to his high Dex, so he was always 9 or 10 points higher than anyone else. The range between a fast acting character and a slow character was huge. You almost felt the rogue should act twice... But at the end of the day, being first by 1 point is functionally the same as being first by 30 points. So it's easier to keep the numbers low and have more variability.

That said...
5e will have lower level monsters monsters participating more often. So that point is moot. And skills increase at a far slower rate, and bonuses are rarer, so that's also moot. So Initiative could increase with level and be interesting.
However, there are no skills in 5e. There are ability checks that receive a bonus when certain actions are performed. Initiative could certainly be one of these.

However, Dex is already king of the ability scores in terms of skills.
And it would only decrease the variety of skills chosen, as fewer people would take other skills and instead stack Initiative.

 

[Rune]

I'm not so sure I agree that initiative is as important as some of you all seem to think it is. In cyclical turn-order, it generally matters only once. And then, far less for some character types than others. A healer, for instance, will usually want to see how a round plays out before wading in to business (although, yeah, it's fun to have that readied action heal immediately and completely negate an enemy's attack).

That said, I think the frequency with which Improved Initiative has always been passed up as a desired feat suggests that it wouldn't be that much competition for other skills--at least in games like the ones I run, wherein players can do a lot with a well-used ability check/skill.

If it is a problem, though, it could easily be a bonus skill granted to some classes (rogue, barbarian, ranger, maybe).

Or, perhaps instead of calling for an "initiative" check, it would be better to call for a relevant ability check (according to circumstance--Intelligence, if time to analyze the situation, Wisdom, if walking into an ambush, Dexterity, if both parties just bumped into each other in a dungeon corridor). Then, any applicable skill could also apply--recall military lore (or whatever), listen/spot, etc.

 

[Rhenny]

I kind of like the idea that Intelligence, Wisdom or Dexterity could be used for Initiative...different classes trained to become adventurers would use different strengths to prepare for combat.

In any event, at this point in the playtest Initiative is one of the single most important rolls in combat (if not the single most important). If the monsters get the jump on the party, it is bad news. If the party out rolls the monsters it is likely that an encounter will be a very short fight that doesn't even challenge the party. With bounded accuracy, I think that Improved Initiative granting +4 bonus is too high.

 

[Sunseeker]

If it's an ability check that you can get better at in a granular fashion through training, isn't that the definition of a skill?

Sorta, I don't want it to BE a skill, but I do want it to work similar to one. Perhaps gaining some kind of dex+level variable per level to spend on improving non-skill numbers, maybe saves. So, working like skills, but utilizing a different set of numbers to determine where your points come from, and limited on what you can spend them on.