D&D 5E More granular initiative variant

[Rockyroad]

Please note this post has been edited to simplify the initiative system.

I've been inspired by 6ENow's cinematic initiative variant to come up with a more granular initiative variant which breaks down the movement and actions of a combat round into smaller increments to hopefully give more of a feeling that the action is happening simultaneously and in parallel rather than the usual I go you go in series feeling. This will of course be more complicated than standard initiative and will definitely not be for every table. But for those who want more granularity in their combat encounters this may be worth a look.

The Rules are as follows:

1. Roll initiative as usual with the exception that players have the choice of using Dex, Wis, or Int mods to add to the roll.

2. The Round is divided into 6 Impulses - starting with Impulse 1 then Impulse 2, etc. Each Impulse equates to 1 second.

3. On every Impulse, you may move up to 1/6 your speed if you have enough movement remaining and take any remaining Action and/or Bonus Action. The movement and action may be performed in any order. To speed up play, all combatants will take their move and/or actions simultaneously unless timing of actions will make a difference in which case the initiative order will be consulted.

4. The Round ends at the end of Impulse 6, and a new Round starts with Impulse 1.

Notes:

---When Dashing, you get to move double your normal movement per Impulse. So if your speed is 30 ft, normally you can only move 5 ft per Impulse, but if you Dash you get to move 10 ft per Impulse.

---For speeds other than 30 ft, adjust the movement in 5 ft increments. For example, if your speed is 35 ft, you get to move 10 ft in any one Impulse and 5 ft in the other 5 Impulses. If your speed is 25 ft, you get to move 5 ft in any 5 of the 6 Impulses but can not move in the other Impulse.

---You can attack only once per Impulse unless you are using light weapons or unarmed attacks in which case you can attack twice per Impulse.

---You must wait until 3 Impulses have past to get up from prone. For example, if you are knocked prone on Impulse 1, you can not get back up until Impulse 4. If you are knocked prone on Impulse 5, you can not get back up until Impulse 2 of the next Round.

---For any ability that calls for "until the start or end of your next turn", the start of your turn is the beginning of Impulse 1 in your initiative order, and the end of your turn is end of Impulse 6 in initiative order.

---Reactions work as normal, ie they can occur at any time when the trigger occurs.


Looking at this as I write it, it gives me the feel of a tactical hex and counter wargame. If anyone is brave or foolish enough to try this out, give it a spin and let me know how it goes. I'd like to give it a go myself but with a new baby and everything going on, it won't be for a long while unfortunately.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Well, I am very happy that my CIV inspired another to create something they might like for themselves!

I'll have to read through this further tomorrow (I just got home from work and it's already well after midnight!) but it is along the level of granularity I thought of once. I decided later on it was too much so went with CIV instead.

Anyway, if you have time, can you write up an example? It would help follow the flow. If not, I understand (baby and all) and will look into more carefully myself when I have time over the holidays.

Cheers!

 

[Rockyroad]

Hey thanks for commenting 6E. After further thought, I edited my original post to simply the system. Basically I got rid of the Phases and allowed the movement and action to be taken in either order.

Rather than run a specific example, let me explain how a combat would look like using this variant initiative. This system is really meant to break down movement into small increments so that when combatants move it sort of simulates synchronous movement whereas in the standard initiative, you can have one combatant move their entire speed before another combatant gets to move at all.

I divided the round into 6 Impulses to make the math on movement easier. Because most players and creatures have a speed of 30 ft and because each combatant in initiative order gets to move up to 1/6 their speed in any given Impulse, this basically means they get to move 5 ft for that Impulse, or 1 square on a grid if using 5 ft squares.

So when you look at this, at the start of combat the usual situation is that the player characters start at one end of the battlefield and the monsters are at the other end. In the standard initiative, depending on the distance between the 2 groups, one combatant could move all the way over to the other group to engage the enemy on the enemy's side of the battlefield before the enemy gets a chance to act. In this variant system this would not happen since each combatant will get to move 1 square at a time in initiative order in each Impulse. So melee combatants will tend to meet in the middle of the field, and it will be easier to kite for those that want to stay out of melee. I can see melee combatants using Dash actions more to try to catch non melee combatants. Dashing in this system will allow you to move 10 ft or 2 squares per Impulse instead of 1 square, if your speed is 30ft. Or you could implement a "sprinting" mechanic like you mentioned in your other thread to allow melees to catch up to non melee combatants.

Melee players would be hurt somewhat by this system and so I would implement mechanics to enhance their style of play, such as the Marking and Flanking rules in the DMG. Now this may be for another thread but a variant flanking system I would like to try with this system is as follows: If a combatant is engaged in melee with an enemy, a melee attack on the side of the enemy from a second combatant will give that second combatant a +2 to attack roll. Basically, the enemy is preoccupied by the first combatant so the second combatant gets a bonus to it's attack roll. If that second combatant attacks the enemy from behind with respect to the first combatant, then the second attacker gets +5 to attack roll.

Another twist that could be added to the system is making casting spells take time to cast. Casting a cantrip could be done immediately on that Impulse you declare that you will cast it, but casting level spells 1-3 can only be cast after waiting 1 Impluse, levels 4-6 spells after waiting 2 Impulses, and 7-9 spells after waiting 3 Impulses. For example, if you declare you are casting a level 5 spell on Impulse 1, the spell goes off on your initiative on Impulse 3. And while that caster is "waiting" to cast their spell, they are concentrating on the spell so any attack on them before the spell goes off has the potential to cause them to lose the spell before being able to cast it. Now of course this is punishing to spell casters but casters are OP compared to martials IMO anyway, at least at later levels and this might be a way to balance that power inequality.

So in summary, at the cost of being more granular and complex, I think the main effect of this initiative will be to place more of an emphasis on tactical movement and maneuverability in combat.

 

[aco175]

At first read, this appears a lot more complex and will slow combat way down. What am I missing? Is it something that is fine once we play with it a few times and it is not any longer than normal right now. It feels like the DM controlling each monster 6 times per round is a lot.

 

[DND_Reborn]

@Rockyroad

Ok, so I've had more time this morning to look things over. What you are doing is a cyclical-action initiative variant (say C-AIV?), similar to games like Shadowrun (so, I've considered this myself). The idea is you get your order of initiative, and everyone can take an action in turn, and you repeat the order until all actions have been resolved.

Now, you are adding movement in a restricted fashion to each Impulse. On some impulses, you might act, but in many of them you might only move. I think your ideas for dashing and extra movement work fine, but (personally) I like the idea of limiting attacks/multiattack to one attack per impulse. It hinders martials, but is more believable than getting in 3+ attacks in one second. shrug

Movement does get a bit tricky for creatures with speeds like 80 (flight likely), etc. You might want to allow movement to be broken into 10-foot increments instead of 5 -foot? I'm not sure, you'll have to play with that a bit more.

Finally, the reason I rejected cyclical-action for CIV was because it creates mini-rounds, which in essence means there is not a way for one creature to possibly do all it's actions before another. It won't happen often, but is something I wanted the freedom to have. With C-AIV, if you have A, B, C vs. X, Y you get something like this:

A B X C Y is the initiative order. We'll assume everyone has a speed 30. They begin 50 feet apart.

Impulse 1:
A moves 5 feet
B begins casting (will finish on Impulse 2 for a level 1 spell using that option)
X moves 5 feet
C moves 5 feet
Y moves 5 feet

B is standing back, but A is moving towards X and C is moving towards Y. A-X and C-Y are only 40 feet apart now since both moved 5 feet closer.

Impulse 2:
A moves 5 feet
B finishes casting, and moves 5 feet.
X moves 5 feet
C moves 5 feet
Y moves 5 feet

Three magic missiles damage Y, but it is still up. Distance is now 30 feet for A-X and C-Y. B start following behind A and C.

Impulse 3:
A moves 5 feet
B moves 5 feet
X moves 5 feet
C moves 5 feet
Y moves 5 feet

Distance is now 20 feet. B is 5 feet behind.

Impulse 4:
A moves 5 feet
B moves 5 feet
X moves 5 feet
C grabs his handaxe and throws it a Y then moves 5 feet
Y falls and is at 0 HP.

C hits Y, and the damage finished him off, so he falls. C turns towards X and moves the 5 feet in that direction. Distance is now 10 feet.

Impulse 5:
A moves 5 feet and readies his action to attack X when X moves in the last 5 feet.
B moves 5 feet
X, seeing Y fall, stops and moves 5 feet away, keeping 10 feet of distance to A
C moves 5 feet in pursuit of A.

Impulse 6:
A, seeing X retreating, begins moving again and moves 5 feet
B moves along with A
X moves 5 feet in retreat
C moves 5 feet after A.

So, something like this maybe:

Potential Issues:
A wasted their action on a readied attack.
B still has 5 feet of movement left, but the last impulse (#6) is done.

Overall, if I am following it correctly, I think it is too granular, but I encourage you to keep working on fine-tuning it. If you think you are happy with it as is, I don't think it would be too hard to use once you played it for a while.

 

[Rockyroad]

At first read, this appears a lot more complex and will slow combat way down. What am I missing? Is it something that is fine once we play with it a few times and it is not any longer than normal right now. It feels like the DM controlling each monster 6 times per round is a lot.

You're not missing anything. This is definitely not for everyone. My idea was to simulate a more realistic flow to combat but at the expense of being more complex. I have not tested this system, but I have to guess it will be much more time consuming to run, although with some practice it may be tolerable because most of the Impulses will just involve moving your character 1 square on the grid so you may be able to quickly run through the initiative order.

@Rockyroad

Ok, so I've had more time this morning to look things over. What you are doing is a cyclical-action initiative variant (say C-AIV?), similar to games like Shadowrun (so, I've considered this myself). The idea is you get your order of initiative, and everyone can take an action in turn, and you repeat the order until all actions have been resolved.

Now, you are adding movement in a restricted fashion to each Impulse. On some impulses, you might act, but in many of them you might only move. I think your ideas for dashing and extra movement work fine, but (personally) I like the idea of limiting attacks/multiattack to one attack per impulse. It hinders martials, but is more believable than getting in 3+ attacks in one second. shrug

Movement does get a bit tricky for creatures with speeds like 80 (flight likely), etc. You might want to allow movement to be broken into 10-foot increments instead of 5 -foot? I'm not sure, you'll have to play with that a bit more.

Finally, the reason I rejected cyclical-action for CIV was because it creates mini-rounds, which in essence means there is not a way for one creature to possibly do all it's actions before another. It won't happen often, but is something I wanted the freedom to have. With C-AIV, if you have A, B, C vs. X, Y you get something like this:

A B X C Y is the initiative order. We'll assume everyone has a speed 30. They begin 50 feet apart.

Impulse 1:
A moves 5 feet
B begins casting (will finish on Impulse 2 for a level 1 spell using that option)
X moves 5 feet
C moves 5 feet
Y moves 5 feet

B is standing back, but A is moving towards X and C is moving towards Y. A-X and C-Y are only 40 feet apart now since both moved 5 feet closer.

Impulse 2:
A moves 5 feet
B finishes casting, and moves 5 feet.
X moves 5 feet
C moves 5 feet
Y moves 5 feet

Three magic missiles damage Y, but it is still up. Distance is now 30 feet for A-X and C-Y. B start following behind A and C.

Impulse 3:
A moves 5 feet
B moves 5 feet
X moves 5 feet
C moves 5 feet
Y moves 5 feet

Distance is now 20 feet. B is 5 feet behind.

Impulse 4:
A moves 5 feet
B moves 5 feet
X moves 5 feet
C grabs his handaxe and throws it a Y then moves 5 feet
Y falls and is at 0 HP.

C hits Y, and the damage finished him off, so he falls. C turns towards X and moves the 5 feet in that direction. Distance is now 10 feet.

Impulse 5:
A moves 5 feet and readies his action to attack X when X moves in the last 5 feet.
B moves 5 feet
X, seeing Y fall, stops and moves 5 feet away, keeping 10 feet of distance to A
C moves 5 feet in pursuit of A.

Impulse 6:
A, seeing X retreating, begins moving again and moves 5 feet
B moves along with A
X moves 5 feet in retreat
C moves 5 feet after A.

So, something like this maybe:
View attachment 130447

Potential Issues:
A wasted their action on a readied attack.
B still has 5 feet of movement left, but the last impulse (#6) is done.

Overall, if I am following it correctly, I think it is too granular, but I encourage you to keep working on fine-tuning it. If you think you are happy with it as is, I don't think it would be too hard to use once you played it for a while.

Wow, excellent analysis. Better than I could have done lol. You've got it right. This is pretty much the way I pictured it when I was coming up with the rules.

For movement, I wanted to make it easiest to run speeds of 30 ft so going with 5 ft increments made the most sense. Much greater speeds are less common but the idea is to divide the movement into 6 equal parts as much as possible because as you've figured out, the Impulses are really simulating time with each Impulse representing 1 second in the round. When the speed does not divide into 6 equal parts, adjust by adding movement to each Impulse in 5 ft increments until the proper total speed is allocated.

For multiple attacks, I didn't want to get into the situation where you finally reach your target on Impulse 6 and then you can only make 1 attack, but then again limiting attacks to 1 per Impulse is more realistic and maybe in the chaos of battle you can't always do everything you want to so I think this may not be a bad idea. You've said before that you don't like weapon speed, but this may be an opportunity to introduce that idea. For example, you could say that for light or finesse weapons you can attack twice per Impulse instead of once.

For me, the situation where a creature can not perform all it's actions before another is actually a feature of the system that I was going for, to simulate a more simultaneous flow to the action which I feel is more realistic. I don't think one creature should be able to blow through all it's abilities before another gets to react at all.

The potential issues of wasted actions and unspent movement is a bit problematic, but I guess I would have to chalk it up to the random chaos of combat. Not so satisfying to the individual player but I think it is more realistic. Obviously, players would have to be on board with this thinking.

Your excellent analysis has brought a couple of concepts to the fore:
Ranged attackers are king in this system.
It will be difficult for melees to run down enemies. It may be better for them to form a defensive line in front of the archers and ready their attacks.
Because of the granularity in the system, you have the opportunity to react to the changing conditions on the battlefield.

Anyway, at this point it's just a thought exercise until I get the time to actually test it out. Thanks for your thoughts.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Wow, excellent analysis. Better than I could have done lol. You've got it right. This is pretty much the way I pictured it when I was coming up with the rules.

Thanks, glad it helps and hopefully makes things clearer for everyone.

For movement, I wanted to make it easiest to run speeds of 30 ft so going with 5 ft increments made the most sense. Much greater speeds are less common but the idea is to divide the movement into 6 equal parts as much as possible because as you've figured out, the Impulses are really simulating time with each Impulse representing 1 second in the round. When the speed does not divide into 6 equal parts, adjust by adding movement to each Impulse in 5 ft increments until the proper total speed is allocated.

Hmm... I see where you're going here but part of the issue (as I see it) is that not everyone will move (or even want to) on each impulse. Movement at 30 feet in 5E, divided into seconds, is only 5 feet per second or about a normal walking pace. In combat, I imagine sometimes it will happen that way (sizing up an opponent maybe) but other times you will have a short burst of 30 feet over only 2 seconds.

With 6 seconds and 6 impulses, the natural observation is to equate 1 second = 1 impulse, but I don't think that was really what you were going for. While I can make a quick leap/dash of 15 feet in a single second, that might not equate to 1 impulse. You have to decide for yourself if you want that connection or not. In CIV, I decided early on I didn't want it. CIV only dictates and breaks up the flow and order of actions, not necessarily how long they took to accomplish.

You might want to consider something more along these lines: You can move up to half your speed on an impulse, with a minimum of 5 feet.

So, a "cautious" approach could literally be 5 feet per impulse like you suggest, but a couple quick jumps into the fight could get you there much more quickly. If you know you still have a long way to go, when you dash, don't double the speed--keep it at half--but allow it for two more impulses.

Ex. You're speed is 40 (mobile feat). You move 20 on impulse #1, 20 more on impulse #2, but still need to more more so elect to take the dash action and gain another 40 feet of movement, allowing you to move 20 on impulse #3 and 20 more on impulse #4.

This shows how it took you "time" to move a full 80 feet because you covered the ground over 4 impulses. Additionally, someone like a rogue could use Cunning Action for that dash, and still have another dash action to take, allowing them to further move on impulses #5 and 6, covering a total of 120 feet of movement. Or, since they still have their action, the rogue could actually attack a target.

For multiple attacks, I didn't want to get into the situation where you finally reach your target on Impulse 6 and then you can only make 1 attack, but then again limiting attacks to 1 per Impulse is more realistic and maybe in the chaos of battle you can't always do everything you want to so I think this may not be a bad idea. You've said before that you don't like weapon speed, but this may be an opportunity to introduce that idea. For example, you could say that for light or finesse weapons you can attack twice per Impulse instead of once.

I think allowing light weapons to attack twice would be ok. I would avoid finesse, though as it ties even more into DEX-based builds which are already to much in 5E IMO. Unarmed strikes could also be twice, so a monk could use Extra attack and strike twice on an impulse and then flurry of blows for two more attacks on the next impulse.

For me, the situation where a creature can not perform all it's actions before another is actually a feature of the system that I was going for, to simulate a more simultaneous flow to the action which I feel is more realistic. I don't think one creature should be able to blow through all it's abilities before another gets to react at all.

I suppose this is just a matter of taste and preference. I want both scenarios to be able to happen, which is why I went another direction.

Is it likely in CIV for one creature to do everything first? Not really. But I did already find a flaw through play testing. If the opponents rolls poorly, the PCs definitely have a much better chance of taking all their actions first. So, I amended CIV (not online yet) that instead of rolling a d20 for the first initiative roll, everyone rolls d10+10. This way, it is still possible for a PC to roll well and take all their actions before me as DM, but worst case I'll have an 11 or so, and likely get in something before the PCs finish their actions.

The potential issues of wasted actions and unspent movement is a bit problematic, but I guess I would have to chalk it up to the random chaos of combat. Not so satisfying to the individual player but I think it is more realistic. Obviously, players would have to be on board with this thinking.

Wasted actions won't happen much IMO. Play-testing will show more if you ever get to. As for the movement, if you change movement to my suggestion above, the action will happen sooner as the combatants close in more quickly and I doubt you'll see much unspent movement (at least, not anymore than you already see in 5E).

Your excellent analysis has brought a couple of concepts to the fore:
Ranged attackers are king in this system.
It will be difficult for melees to run down enemies. It may be better for them to form a defensive line in front of the archers and ready their attacks.
Because of the granularity in the system, you have the opportunity to react to the changing conditions on the battlefield.

I'm glad it helped. But, IRL closing in on a foe was often preceded by a volley of ranged attacks. It is also a reason why a bowman could hold up someone on the road if they had a beat on the target. A readied attack and as soon as the target moves, you shoot. Pretty good incentive to just hand over your purse.

Anyway, at this point it's just a thought exercise until I get the time to actually test it out. Thanks for your thoughts.

Sure, you're most welcome. This sort of stuff is obviously fun for me--working on game mechanics--so I hope you'll eventually get a chance to try it out and report back. If you have any more tweaks and such, I'll more than happy to look over things and offer constructive feedback.

 

[dave2008]

For the OP and @6ENow! you guys may be interested in the EnWorld alternate initiative wiki. I would suggest you each add your threads to the list. I think you guys might like the Simultaneous Initiative option.

 

[DND_Reborn]

For the OP and @6ENow! you guys may be interested in the EnWorld alternate initiative wiki. I would suggest you each add your threads to the list. I think you guys might like the Simultaneous Initiative option.

LOL if you look at Simultaneous Initiative, I was the first responder to the thread.

But I haven't kept up with the wiki so I'll check it out again.

 

[Rockyroad]

For the OP and @6ENow! you guys may be interested in the EnWorld alternate initiative wiki. I would suggest you each add your threads to the list. I think you guys might like the Simultaneous Initiative option.

Ah nice, thanks. Didn't know that was there. Will have to check it out.