D&D 5E Intiative Score (DMG variant rule)

[Morrus]

@Morrus may I suggest and initiative wiki for collecting all of these threads on initiative alternates, or would there be a place for that in he "best of" wiki?

Go for it!

 

[JeffB]

I just don't find that to be the case. D&D, and 5e is very flexible if you are flexible. We've been screwing around with it from the beginning (our latest is to use 4e powers) and it hasn't messed things up. We just keep on rolling.

Personally, I think the mistake people make when trying out variant / optional / homebrew rules is they feel the need to account for every possible scenario. That isn't needed, you just have to account for what happens at your table.

I'm probably not being clear enough-

Once I remove/change everything I dislike about 5E, the game doesn't offer anything that say C&C didn't back in 2004, other than A/D. I don't find anything more mechanically compelling than that about it's design. Bounded Accuracy maybe- But the numbers inflation on the HP and Damage side of things makes that a wash.

Certainly I can change and ignore to my heart's content- but is it just say I am playing 5E? Why bother? To keep up with the Joneses?

 

[practicalm]

I think the initiative variant that I would like to use is the one where after each character or opponent action, they can pass the initiative off to someone on their side or to the opposing side.
Thus if players win initiative they can all take their actions before the enemy but then the enemy can choose to give the 2nd turn initiative to themselves and and get two actions before the players get their second action.

 

[dave2008]

Certainly I can change and ignore to my heart's content- but is it just say I am playing 5E? Why bother? To keep up with the Joneses?

For me, it is about using the current material that is available and having access to an amazing wealth of homebrew talent and ideas. I don't know anything about C&C, but imagine I would have to make more changes to it than I do to 5e, and I would not have access to the material and active homebrew activity that I do with 5e (and hopefully PF2e).

 

[Quickleaf]

Has anyone tried this? I'm inclined to give it a try. The pros outweigh the cons for me. While it's a bummer that slow characters will always act later in order, it is frustrating to have a character with high Init be penalized by poor rolls. Plus determining order at the start of combat can be time-consuming.

I used a variation of initiative scores in my last campaign mixed with a touch of side-based initiative.

For non-named/non-boss monsters that didn't involve a surprise round, I used an initiative score for the monsters (EDIT: Just remembered! If the monster was proficient in Dex saves, I applied its proficiency bonus to its initiative score). And then had the players roll as normal. This formed natural clusters in the initiative count, for example...

19. PC #1
16. PC #2
15. Mage
13. PC # 3
12. PC #4 (higher Dex than goblins)
12. Goblins
7. PC #5
1. Zombies (always have my zombies act on initiative '1' thanks to AD&D's influence)

I would let clustered players (e.g. PC #1 and #2) go in the order they pleased, even overlapping their turns if necessary for whatever they wanted to pull off. Similarly I would let PC #3 and #4 go in the order they pleased.

This seemed to capture the best of all worlds: saving time with less rolls, letting the players enjoy rolling, and encouraged more strategizing among the players while still preserving some uncertainty.

 

[dave2008]

Go for it!

OK, I did (to the Best of wiki), but I can't figure out how to add it to the list at the top of the wiki page. That doesn't show up when I edit the wiki.

 

[dave2008]

FYI, for those who are interested I add this thread and half-dozen more initiative threads to the Best of 5e Forum wiki

 

[Morrus]

OK, I did (to the Best of wiki), but I can't figure out how to add it to the list at the top of the wiki page. That doesn't show up when I edit the wiki.

If you mean the table of contents, I’m seeing Variant Rules there. It automagically adds headers as contents entries.

 

[dave2008]

If you mean the table of contents, I’m seeing Variant Rules there. It automagically adds headers as contents entries.

I didn't realize that - sorry to bother you!

 

[JeffB]

For me, it is about using the current material that is available and having access to an amazing wealth of homebrew talent and ideas. I don't know anything about C&C, but imagine I would have to make more changes to it than I do to 5e, and I would not have access to the material and active homebrew activity that I do with 5e (and hopefully PF2e).

Understood. For me, it's the opposite. I don't find much in 5e land that floats my boat. There is far more wealth of material out there in TSR/OSR-dom than 5e and it all converts to a system like C&C directly (which is what it was designed to do)