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<blockquote data-quote="innerdude" data-source="post: 6969727" data-attributes="member: 85870">The Savage Worlds initiative system is hands down one of the best parts of the system. Once you try the &quot;card deck count down&quot; variant for initiative, rolling dice every round is simply boring. It also adds real tension, because the order of combat changes every round. Sometimes you get to act ahead of the enemies, sometimes you don't. The other thing Savage Worlds does is give out a +2 bonus to actions when a player gets dealt a joker. For our groups, we'll usually add 1 or 2 more jokers to a standard deck to spice things up (normal decks come with 2 jokers standard, I believe). The one thing that some people who come from a D&amp;D background don't like about it is that dexterity bonuses in D&amp;D don't really make a difference with this kind of initiative mechanic. That guy with the 18 or 19 DEX may not get to act ahead of the monsters with 11 or 12 DEX, and for some people it bothers them that this particular aspect of their character build isn't baked into initiative. One easy way around this problem is to simply say that if they ever get a card equal to or lower than their DEX bonus, they get dealt another card. If you want to be more generous you could change it to their DEX bonus + 2. Savage Worlds includes two edges (the equivalent of a D&amp;D feat) that affect initiative. One is based on Intelligence, where due to a character's innate intelligence and powers of observation they get to draw two cards for initiative and keep the higher. The other permanently sets the minimum card threshold to 6. If you'd rather use &quot;feats&quot; instead of giving an inherent DEX bonus, that's how to do it.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="innerdude, post: 6969727, member: 85870"] The Savage Worlds initiative system is hands down one of the best parts of the system. Once you try the "card deck count down" variant for initiative, rolling dice every round is simply boring. It also adds real tension, because the order of combat changes every round. Sometimes you get to act ahead of the enemies, sometimes you don't. The other thing Savage Worlds does is give out a +2 bonus to actions when a player gets dealt a joker. For our groups, we'll usually add 1 or 2 more jokers to a standard deck to spice things up (normal decks come with 2 jokers standard, I believe). The one thing that some people who come from a D&D background don't like about it is that dexterity bonuses in D&D don't really make a difference with this kind of initiative mechanic. That guy with the 18 or 19 DEX may not get to act ahead of the monsters with 11 or 12 DEX, and for some people it bothers them that this particular aspect of their character build isn't baked into initiative. One easy way around this problem is to simply say that if they ever get a card equal to or lower than their DEX bonus, they get dealt another card. If you want to be more generous you could change it to their DEX bonus + 2. Savage Worlds includes two edges (the equivalent of a D&D feat) that affect initiative. One is based on Intelligence, where due to a character's innate intelligence and powers of observation they get to draw two cards for initiative and keep the higher. The other permanently sets the minimum card threshold to 6. If you'd rather use "feats" instead of giving an inherent DEX bonus, that's how to do it. [/QUOTE]

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