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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kahuna Burger" data-source="post: 3882057" data-attributes="member: 8439">HoMM is Heroes of Might and Magic, to lay some groundwork for this post. It is a turn based fantasy video game which also uses turn based combat. It is the combat initiative that I find interesting and wonder if it could be adapted to an rpg....As you play out a combat, at the bottom of the screen there is a bar showing who will be taking their turns first. At this start of combat, this seems to be somewhat randomized but with "faster" creatures going first. So in a combat between the Red and Blue armies, you would see little thumbnails lined up telling you what the combat order was going to be.[Brb] [Ftr] [Dru] [Wiz] [Sor] [Rng]Now the key difference between this and D&D initiative is that it doesn't just cycle around. Instead of everyone taking one turn a round, each combatant gets it's next turn in combat a number of initiative ticks after it's last one. This means that a faster creature can and probably will end up going twice before a very slow one.[Brb] [Ftr] [Dru] [Wiz] [Brb] [Sor] [Ftr] [Rng]Additionally, spells or morale based effects can move your initiative order. So an initiative order that looks like this...[Dru] [Wiz] [Brb] [Sor] [Ftr] [Rng] [Dru] [Brb] [Wiz] ...before the druid casts Slowing Muck on the fighter, might look like this afterwards :[Dru] [Wiz] [Brb] [Sor] [Rng] [Dru] [Ftr] [Brb] [Wiz] Giving the Ranger another chance to attack the fighter or move out of his way. If it comes up to the Barbarian's turn [Brb] [Sor] [Rng] [Dru] [Ftr] [Brb] [Wiz] [Rng] [Sor] [Dru] [Ftr]and he gets a morale boost after completing his action, it moves his space in the line up a little.[Sor] [Rng] [Dru] [Brb] [Ftr] [Wiz] [Rng] [Sor] [Dru] [Ftr]Now, in the video game, obviously the rules for doing this can be as complicated as they want because the computer is keeping track of it all. There can be a morale check before and after every character's turn and a randomized variable added to each initiative placement, and you won't have a DM or players clawing their eyes out from the tedium.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> What I've been considering is how to translate the basic idea to the tabletop. What I basicly have so far is :* Initiative counts up instead of down, and continues to increase rather than starting over.* Lower initiative modifier is better as it causes your next turn to be sooner.* When combat begins you add your initiative roll* to your initiative modifier and go when the DM gets to that count.* After each turn you take, you add your initiative modifier to your current initiative score and go next when that count is reached.* Spells or effects can add to or subtract from your current initiative score, but never bring it below the current initiative count.(*not sure this should continue to be a d20 in this situation, as a very high roll could lead to someone with a good initiative modifier going 3 or more times before you do.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f615.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":confused:" title="Confused    :confused:"  data-smilie="5"data-shortname=":confused:" /> )Things I'm not sure about - How do you actually count rounds for spells with round based durations? Counting it to the next time the caster goes could make a bad init a good thing, which seems a bit weird. Possibly a round is every X initiative 'ticks'? What should X be?What should the modifying roll be? Should it be repeated every turn? Should the morale part be included (possibly effecting repeated modifying rolls) or is that adding too much complication?***So, any thoughts, suggestions, concerns, pointers to another system that already does this?</blockquote>

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