Side by Side Initiative

[Crazy Jerome]

As a tangent to a 5E discussion, I promised to post this house rule here after this weekend, when I'm formally trying it out. We had been using something similar, earlier, but not formally--i.e. the players didn't know any of the adjustments. However, might as well put it out here for comments in case anyone that has tried similar ideas sees a problem.

This is a mixture of how I ran a hybrid cyclic initiatiive with some ideas that were discussed here last fall.

The intention at the moment is to change all durations to "save ends"--dropping all "end of your next turn" and other such formulations. This isn't technically required by this model, but is an experiment for other game design. Also, I'm not entirely sure how I intend to handle marking with these rules, and am currently planning to experiment as problems develop. In our rotating cast of players, this week we have the paladin, with a warden potentially arriving late. Other characters are a rogue, a warlord, and a wizard. All are 10th level.

The rules thus far:

Basic Combat Sequence

1. Each player rolls an initiative check versus the lowest enemy creature initiative +10.
2. Each player that makes the initiative check takes all actions.
3. All enemy creatures take all actions.
4. Each player that fails the initiative check now takes all actions.
5. All creatures attempt saving throws versus any effects.
6. Apply any continuing effects to the creatures.
Repeat this sequence until one side has died, surrendered, fled, or otherwise finds itself incapable of resisting.
Simultaneous Actions

All the creatures that act in a step are assumed to act simultaneously. If two creatures target the same enemy, some of the damage or other effects may be effectively wasted, with one of the creatures sufficiently injuring the creature to remove it from the combat. This is deliberate, mitigating factor to slightly discourage the tactic of ganging up on a single enemy.
Delaying Action

A player character that succeeds in the initiative check may choose to delay acting until after the enemy creatures. This allows all the enemy creatures to go first, but lets the player react to the actions of those enemies and allied characters that went earlier.
Applying Damage and Other Effects

When a creature succeeds in an attack, the effect of the attack is applied immediately. If the effect has continuing effects, these are also applied immediately. Thus, all such effects are guaranteed to apply at least once before a saving throw can remove them.
Complex Combat Sequence

The complex combat sequence is used when important creatures fight for the enemies or the party has relatively unimportant allied creatures on its side. The sequence is otherwise the same as the basic combat sequence.
Important Enemies

Divide all the enemies groups, roughly by initiative modifier. Two or three groups will usually be sufficient. Make no particular effort to include the same number of creatures in each group, or group by power. For example, if a single leader enemy has a +10 initiative modifier, while the other six enemy creatures have modifiers ranging from +4 to +6, then those six creatures will make one group, and the leader will stay in a group by itself. However, if a relatively weak creature had an initiative modifier of +9, place it in the group with the leader rather than its fellow weak creatures.
Individual creatures that have borderline initiative, and thus could easily go in either group, should usually go into the lower initiative group, so as to maximize the differences between the groups.
Allied Creatures

Allied creatures act as a group, using the lowest initiative modifier, much as enemies do. With a great number of allied creatures, use multiple groups, however preferring to use fewer groups.
Important Allies

An important ally can be treated as a player character for initiative purposes, at the discretion of the game master. In particular, the game master may prefer to do this to stay in the basic combat sequence when a few important allies are the only reason that the complex sequence would otherwise be used.
Multiple Groups of Enemies and Allies

When more than one group exists, the players now have multiple target numbers for their initiative checks. The character goes before all groups that it beats, and after all groups that it fails against. That is, the initiative order of the enemies and allies is fixed based on the initiative modifiers. Then the players roll to determine where they act in that order.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Hmmm... I think I like it, but I'd have to give it a try...

 

[fenriswolf456]

I'm not seeing how this group iniative fomulation furthers the goals of your stated intentions. The idea behind "end of your next turn" effects is to give the character that applied the effect a chance to benefit from it as well as their allies. This model doesn't give that chance to the applying character. If you are dropping the 'until the end of your next turn' wordings from powers and effects, when do they in fact end? Presumably a high iniative stun lasts to step 6. But what about a low iniative stun? If it ends at step 6 too, then all 'until the end of your next turn' effects are effectively negated for the entire encounter by the result of one roll, if the character loses iniative.

Also, from your steps, you're applying ongoing damage immediately. This may be your intent, but there are going to be potential times when such damage will drop a character to 0 before any chance of lower initative assistance, as well as denying potential flanking bonuses when the character drops unconscious for those in a different iniative bracket. Is there any particular reason why steps 5 and 6 cannot be switched? This will preserve the 'effect occurs at least once' before the saving throw.

There is also going to be a good chance that the characters in the high intiative bracket will not benefit from save end effects applied by characters in the low iniative bracket. i.e. low iniative character applies Daze (save ends) in step 4, monster makes save in step 5.

Currently, I see this model encouraging/forcing players to take intiative feats so that they can consistently act in step 2, which then leads to a similar issue in that the party acts simultaneously in step 2, applies effects, then the monsters save in step 5. In general, effects become less useful.

This looks like it might be the basis of a turn sequence for mass combat, where things are a bit more abstracted. But on an individual level, it seems to increase the potentency of ongoing damage, while making other save end effects less useful overall.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Also, from your steps, you're applying ongoing damage immediately. This may be your intent, but there are going to be potential times when such damage will drop a character to 0 before any chance of lower initative assistance, as well as denying potential flanking bonuses when the character drops unconscious for those in a different iniative bracket. Is there any particular reason why steps 5 and 6 cannot be switched? This will preserve the 'effect occurs at least once' before the saving throw.

Speed of resolution is the prime intent. Everything else is secondary, though not therefore unimportant.

The issue quoted above is my biggest worry, and why I almost didn't post this until I see how it goes. I'm attempting to see just how simple I can make it, but still work well enough, both conceptually and in handling time. I find in my current 4E games that ongoing damage being applied later leads to extra handling time that I'm not at all sure is worth the cost.

Everyone doing their saves and ongoing damage at the same time is also a big handling time help. Not only are all the players going together, but I can do the monsters while they are at it. I like this kind of ebb and flow in combat handling pacing.

In order to be that extreme with it, I had to be willing to lose some fidelity to accurately modeling the current 4E results. I'm ok with some of that, because this is more an experiment in game procedures than trying to arrive at some side by side house rule that would be acceptable to most 4E groups. Plus, I don't happen to like the way "save ends" and "until the end of my next turn" are currently balanced. The idea is that if everything is "save ends", then it turns into "win some, lose some".

(It will also give our wizard some interesting decisions to make with sustain. Does she gamble that the effect will stay up and go for another one, or does she dedicate that minor action to keeping it up. Right now, she knows what will happen is she does not sustain.)

Finally, I wanted there to be good reason to sometimes delay into a later bracket, even for people winning initiative. Getting to benefit from any results imposed by an earlier bracket and/or getting to react to monster effects before the saving throw step. Winning initiative thus gives the player and important decision to make. Most of the time, they'll choose to go early, but it is not open and shut.

I'm not disputing anything you say, merely explaining. You may very well be correct, and the whole thing collapses. That's why I'm going to try it.

 

[fenriswolf456]

Another thought occurs, with the idea of everyone acting simultaneously during their iniative bracket.

How are you going to adjudicate Combat Advantage? Positioning at the beginning of the turn? Or start and end points of movement, or during entire movement? If only at the start, then CA will all but disappear as monsters move/shift on their turn. If end points/during, things could lead to abuse as characters move and shift to grant multiple CAs to other characters. It would seem to necessitate that CA applies only at the end point of movements.

This is leading into how are you going to manage everyone acting at the same time. Are the PCs going to have to declare their entire turn's worth of actions before actually doing anything? This could potentially lead to frustrations as some actions may fizzle or prove tactically unsound at the end of action phase. This does lead into your idea of 'teaming up' on something a more difficult decision.

But I can see situations where players may feel they are losing out on actions and effects unfairly. Say a defender stands his ground against an enemy, to give a striker a chance to move in and gain CA. The enemy goes down, but now the defender is out of position against other enemies. In the current game rules, the situation could have been the striker moves in for CA, downs the enemy, and then on the defender's turn, the defender moves to intercept a still active enemy.

There are also bound to be numerous situations that will be difficult to adjudicate simultaneously. One that just came to mind is the case of a defender and striker moving in on a tough enemy to gain CA, while a caster Dominates to move the creature and have it strike an ally. For it to occur simultaneously, the melee PCs have to move to the point where the enemy is supposed to end up. But if the caster misses with the Dominate, then what? Do the other two end up with no attacks this turn?

Speed of resolution is the prime intent. Everything else is secondary, though not therefore unimportant.

...

Everyone doing their saves and ongoing damage at the same time is also a big handling time help. Not only are all the players going together, but I can do the monsters while they are at it. I like this kind of ebb and flow in combat handling pacing.

It will be interesting to see if there is an overall improvement in time. I don't see any saving of time during the simultaneous actions, there will be more groups talk about how to plan out the actions of all the PCs involved in the current phase before anything is actually decided upon. Admittedly, this happens with the current rules in any case.

If you're looking to save time on the whole saving throw matter, why not keep the initiative/turn order as it, but just have an End of Turn phase where all saving throw effects are handled like your steps 5 and 6?

Plus, I don't happen to like the way "save ends" and "until the end of my next turn" are currently balanced. The idea is that if everything is "save ends", then it turns into "win some, lose some".

(It will also give our wizard some interesting decisions to make with sustain. Does she gamble that the effect will stay up and go for another one, or does she dedicate that minor action to keeping it up. Right now, she knows what will happen is she does not sustain.)

Ah, ok, so you're changing "until the end of next turn" to "save ends", as well as sustain? Wouldn't this make 'until end of next turn' abilities potentially much more powerful than intended?

I'm not familiar enough with wizards to know what the decisions are with sustaining abilities. Are there sustained effects that can be saved against?

Finally, I wanted there to be good reason to sometimes delay into a later bracket, even for people winning initiative. Getting to benefit from any results imposed by an earlier bracket and/or getting to react to monster effects before the saving throw step. Winning initiative thus gives the player and important decision to make. Most of the time, they'll choose to go early, but it is not open and shut.

I'm not disputing anything you say, merely explaining. You may very well be correct, and the whole thing collapses. That's why I'm going to try it.

But is there a way for low iniative to delay until next turn and get into the high iniative bracket? One bad roll could potentially really hurt a character for an entire encounter. For example, I play a Swordmage, and I have a couple of powers currently that apply a mark until the end of my next turn. I also have +2 initiative, so I'm virtually always going to be in the low iniative bracket. If my temporary marks go away at the end of the turn, those powers are now essentially useless or certainly subpar.

It would seem that certain character types will want to be in certain brackets. Those who impose status effects will certainly want to be in the high bracket, while I think strikers oddly will mostly want to be in the lower, to take advantage of effects at least once before they disappear.

Interested to see how the playtest goes.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Combat Advantage: That's another one of those interesting decisions I want them to deal with. The rogue will often win initiative, and then will need to gain combat advantage with nothing but the situation that exists at the time and whatever the characters moving in that bracket can do. But of course, since it is presumed simultaneous, if the paladin and rogue team up, the rogue can probably get it. The paladin is already committing to smack that target, and they are rolling at the same time. If the rogue getting a major lick in was enough to kill it, well that was part of the gamble. Of course, when they can, the paladin will try to move next to multiple enemies, while still providing a way for the rogue to get CA. Since the paladin wants to do this anyway, that gives the paladin more interesting things to do, too.

It may help in our particular case that my wife plays the rogue. Because she isn't that tactically savvy, she chose to get a boatload of powers that give her CA independent of flanking. So on those rounds where someone can't help her, she can still hit hard. It's not unlimited, but it is mitigating.

With the wizard domination example, I'd have the dominated monster, paladin, and rogue all move to the same spot. Adjudicating those kind of movement issues has always been an issue for side by side intiative in a turn-based game, and this is no different.

We don't have a lot of table chatter on plans, because that is not the way we roll. In fact, if someone shows a strong inclination to try something, the rest will probably follow right along. So if the paladin announces that he is going after the orc leader, the rogue will probably follow along to help. We tend to have a single leader, everyone else follows dynamic, albeit one where the "leader" shifts from round to round.

Everything as "save ends" should average out about even, because statistically, end of turn effects in RAW are slightly more powerful than save ends effects. If anything, this is a nerf to end of turn effects (something I'll need to watch). This most affects the wizard in our group, because she has an inordinate amount of sustain, or end next turn effects. Even if it does nerf slightly, however, I think she'll be ok with it. The player doesn't like keeping track of the rounds, but she does like uncertainty. The rogue (and warden player if she shows) will be less thrilled with indeterminate lengths on walls of fire and the like.

I had considered putting in language for delaying from one round to the next, but decided to see how it goes first. That implies losing a turn (the current one) to insure going early next turn, which I think will rarely come up. I may be wrong. My inclination right now is to allow it, but perhaps find some additional way to compensate for the lost turn. Perhaps a bonus to the next two or three initiative checks would be fair.

Something else we have done in our ad hoc versions of these group actions is let characters form "teams" of their own, as a way to ensure acting together. In this case, I'd probably have the low init character on the team roll for the team, with the other characters do an Aid Another roll based on their initiative (DC for the latter scaling by level instead of by monster initiative).

 

[fenriswolf456]

With the wizard domination example, I'd have the dominated monster, paladin, and rogue all move to the same spot. Adjudicating those kind of movement issues has always been an issue for side by side intiative in a turn-based game, and this is no different.

But doesn't this bring up more issues? The wizard has to attack and hit first before the enemy creature is dominated, which interrupts the simultaneous acting as now everyone has to react to that outcome first. But then what if the wizard had to move first (say to get in range for the spell). You'd have to adjudicate the wizard's actions first, then move everyone else and resolve their actions.

Or does the final set up depend on success/failure. So in our example, if the wizards does Dominate, the monster moves and all the melee end up in their positions around it, but if the wizard doesn't hit, then though the monster doesn't move, the melee still move to the positions they want where it is?

It seems like something that works fine for your group, which is cool. Just for me I'm looking at it more from 'how does this work in general' and see these issues coming up, like my Swordmage wanting to be in the first bracket, etc.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Or does the final set up depend on success/failure. So in our example, if the wizards does Dominate, the monster moves and all the melee end up in their positions around it, but if the wizard doesn't hit, then though the monster doesn't move, the melee still move to the positions they want where it is?

You have to be flexible, but not allow just everything. A round is kind of an abstract thing, still even at 6 seconds. So in this particular case, I'd allow this if the wizard shifted or didn't move, and thus cast while the movement from the other characters was started. They've heard the wizard cast before, they see the monster glow and start to move, they stay on course. If the monster saves and doesn't move, they might change direction. Then while they are attacking at their final destination, the wizard can be using the rest of her actions.

But what I would not allow is the wizard to do make a full move, whip out an item, cast the spell, and then the other characters wait to see what happens before they do anything. If the wizard needs to do that, then they have to delay until after the monster moves. (And note that with many dominate effects, this is how it would play out, because the monster won't act until its turn comes up anyway.)

Basically, cut everyone a lot of slack on order of operations, but not infinite slack. If you can squint, and kind of, sort of, see that working--allow it.

Some side-by-side systems get around a lot of these problem by having a separate movement phase (or separate movement phases). Everyone moves. Everyone attacks in some order (similar to mine). Everyone moves again. I considered it. But given all the other changes, that seemed a bit too much to tangle with, and still keep a lot of the 4E rules in place. And it is not as if that kind of movement doesn't have its own set of issues, too.

Edit: Keep in mind with simultaneous actions, intent is far more important than plotting a tactical course on the map. If the paladin says he is "charging the nearest orc as soon as the wizard's spell goes off", then it doesn't matter exactly which orc that is until after the spell has taken effect. If the spell moves a bunch of the orcs, it might change. And if the spell moved a bunch of rubble between the paladin and the now nearest orc, he might stumble or not make it--because he was already running as the blast hit. You picks ya poison, ya takes ya chances.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Quick report on how this went: Unfortunately (for evaluation purposes), we didn't end up with much fighting. The players spent most of their time in "investigate and recon" mode, got incredibly lucky with skill checks, and thus managed to systematically avoid several fights entirely and bluff their way out of a couple more. (Not that this was bad. We had a blast. We just didn't give the initiative house rules much of a work out.)

Also, only having 4 characters this sessions, instead of our normal 6 or 7, took a lot of wind out of the process. The idea behind side by side initiative is that it scales better than cyclic initiative, as you add players. But with 4, it makes very little difference.

Those large caveats aside, what little impression we got was positive enough to keep trying it. One guy wasn't familiar with the old way well enough to compare, but liked the flow well enough. One was neutral so far, while the wizard and rogue players thought it gave a little more interesting flow. They both felt like it was a more natural way for them to realize when their turn was about to happen, than trying to remember when they would come up in the cyclic order.

Changing everything to "save ends" definitely hurt the party a couple of times, but sped up play noticably. It was just so much easier to jot down every condition, forget about duration, and roll to see what went away at a given moment. Will be interesting to see how they feel about this when the monsters are dishing out more conditions than they are (which certainly wasn't true this fight).

There were three or four times when the "everyone in a bracket moves together" caused significant decisions--either to consider delay, order of actions, or the action chosen. But only once did it lead to the player feeling a bit constrained.

Unfortunately, also found out that we have to cancel our session next month due to a bunch of scheduling conflicts. So it appears it will be awhile before we can try again.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I thought of a variant for those not willing to go all the way to this:

The "Buddy" System

Roll init as normal and have every 2 players go at once. Any conflicts could easily be resolved by by judging who "really" went first, or by whatever is more fun, or makes more sense. For simplicity, if a monster group goes along with a PC, you could do 'em together, separate, or add the PC in with previous group of 2 players (making a group of three) and play the monster separately. Watever floats your boat.