D&D 5E The Gloves Are Off?

[Lanefan]

I don't think the first quoted paragraph is true in 3E, 4e or 5e. If you were to read Gygax's description in his DMG of the combat round, and ignore the half-baked initiative stuff, it wouldn't apply there either. The melee combat round is full of "swings" and back-and-forth and so on.

The initiative count dictates the order in which actions are declared, and so those who go first have a chance to dictate the action (within the constraints set by the rules). What that means in the fiction is pretty wide-open, though.

Nothing in the 3E, 4e or 5e rules says anything about pips of initiative representing any amount of time. There are not 20 segments, of 0.3 seconds each, in the 6 second round. This is an importation from Gygax's initiative rules that has no basis in the rules text of those systems, nor the game play that they support.

EDIT: Here's sufficient proof of the point that doesn't even need to point to the broader issue of rules text - suppose three characters, A with initiative 20, B with initiative 2, and C with initiative 1. Each of A, B and C can resolve 30' of movement on their turn before the next character's movement is resolved. So are you really saying that A - the most quickly-reacting of these characters who gets to have the most influence over the shape of events (by having their actions declared and resolved first) takes 5.4 seconds to move their 30 feet (just over 5' per second), while the low-DEX B moves 30 feet in 0.3 seconds (ie a speed of 100' per second)?

No, it tells me there's a gaping hole in the rules when it comes to properly reflecting the fiction.

The way movement rules work in 3e-4e-5e, a moving character reaches its destination on the same initiative as it left its starting point. Example: if A with init 20 moves 30 feet to within reach of opponent X, opponent X who has init 19 can melee attack A because somehow A got there in time for that init 19 to matter (and if you think foe X is acting later in the round in the fiction, explain how someone else on init 18 could kill that foe and yet it still gets its attack in). It's like combat movement is a little mini-teleport, and that's been an annoyance to me in the RAW of all editions thoguh the WotC editions somehow seem to make it more front-and-center.

Far FAR better would be to have movement take time within the round - if you start your 30' move on init 20 you'll get where you're going on, say init 10; and if you don't start your move until init 2 your move will roll over well into the next round.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Sigh.

When a series of reactions is triggered by one action, that series of reactions doesn't use initiative order to resolve. They're happening outside of initiative, as my immediate-previous post points out.

Oh, I'll gladly claim the game does this wrong and won't apologize for doing so, because the game does do this wrong.

Where “wrong” is defined as “not aligned with the iconoclastic preferences of a tiny (possibly N=1) group of outliers.”

 

[pemerton]

No, it tells me there's a gaping hole in the rules when it comes to properly reflecting the fiction.

The way movement rules work in 3e-4e-5e, a moving character reaches its destination on the same initiative as it left its starting point. Example: if A with init 20 moves 30 feet to within reach of opponent X, opponent X who has init 19 can melee attack A because somehow A got there in time for that init 19 to matter (and if you think foe X is acting later in the round in the fiction, explain how someone else on init 18 could kill that foe and yet it still gets its attack in). It's like combat movement is a little mini-teleport, and that's been an annoyance to me in the RAW of all editions thoguh the WotC editions somehow seem to make it more front-and-center.

Far FAR better would be to have movement take time within the round - if you start your 30' move on init 20 you'll get where you're going on, say init 10; and if you don't start your move until init 2 your move will roll over well into the next round.

Where “wrong” is defined as “not aligned with the iconoclastic preferences of a tiny (possibly N=1) group of outliers.”

What Bill Zebub said.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Sigh.

Sigh indeed. You describe the reactions as "taking place outside of initiative" to me, but then in response to @pemerton , you describe them all as happening on one specific turn in the initiative order. Which is how I explained it.

You don't even play 5e, and earlier called for someone more familiar with it to help clarify. Here I am. I've played 5e pretty much weekly since it came out.

When a series of reactions is triggered by one action, that series of reactions doesn't use initiative order to resolve. They're happening outside of initiative, as my immediate-previous post points out.

No, they are happening within the initiative structure, but reactions allow people to act on a turn that's not theirs. "Acting out of initiative" I would expect to mean before initiative is rolled.

Reactions aren't just happening willy-nilly. They do indeed interact with the initiative system as each character has one reaction they can use and then once they have, they cannot use another until after their turn in the initiative order has happened.

So while reactions allow a character to act when it is not their turn, they are still happening within initiative.

Oh, I'll gladly claim the game does this wrong and won't apologize for doing so, because the game does do this wrong.

No, the game does it the way it was designed.

You don't like the way the game does it, and that's fine. But stop mistaking your opinion for fact. Stop assuming your cobbled version of first edition rules is somehow objectively better than other games. You like it better. That's great. It doesn't sound appealing to me, but that's just my opinion... I'd never tell you that your game is wrong.

Your game does initiative how it does initiative... how could I tell you that your game does initiative wrong? If I did, you'd dismiss me as being vain and condescending to insist that your game should work the way I prefer. And that's all you're doing now. You're placing your preference above that of others, making your opinion the "right" one, instead of treating it as simply a preference. And this is all for a game you don't even play.

If you want every turn to represent X amount of time rather than looking at all the events of an entire round as occurring in a few seconds, I'm not going to say you're wrong...feel free to do that. But what I will say is that the criticisms you're making rely on your interpretation. I don't hold that interpretation, and the "problems" you claim exist simply are not present in my game.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Where “wrong” is defined as “not aligned with the iconoclastic preferences of a tiny (possibly N=1) group of outliers.”

There's really no benefit in continually casting the opinions of your rhetorical opponents as "unpopular".

 

[Irlo]

What draws me to the EN World forums is exposure to ideas. I can see here widely divergent thoughts and opinions about the game -- rules interpretations, house rules, thoughts about how the game mechanics and the imagined fiction interact, ideas about the divide between players and characters, sequential vs. simultaneous action and how to represent that in the ruleset, etc. Many of these ideas would never have occurred to me (and, yes, some seem outlandish to me even after reading detailed discussions here).

Yes, sometimes people seem to be entrenched in their own positions and seem as if they're discussing objective facts rather than preferences, and sometimes there are exasperating merry-go-rounds of arguments and counter-arguments, but I think we all know we're talking about preferences and opinions and many of those are worth dissecting.

I appreciate that thoughtful people take the time and energy to post. Thanks to all of you!

 

[Bill Zebub]

There's really no benefit in continually casting the opinions of your rhetorical opponents as "unpopular".

The point wasn't to denigrate it as being unpopular, but rather that the opinion in question was being presented as fact, and it's simply not.

It is entirely valid to hold an opinion that is unpopular. (I hold many such opinions myself.) But when you constantly present it as objective truth it's pretty hard to have a conversation.

No, it doesn't mean we have to preface every opinion with a disclaimer. But it's easy enough to write "I don't like X" instead of "X is wrong".

I will never invoke popularity as an argument if people simply say, "I like X."

 

[AnotherGuy]

Far FAR better would be to have movement take time within the round - if you start your 30' move on init 20 you'll get where you're going on, say init 10; and if you don't start your move until init 2 your move will roll over well into the next round.

Yeah that may be too detailed for D&D IMO, but I could see using various combat zones (melee 5-10 feet, close up to 10-30 feet, dash 30-60 feet, long 60-120 feet, far 120+ feet) whereby characters can expend resources in various actions such as
(a) parry & defend / dodge
(b) assist in an action
(c) distract
(d) attack
(e) cast a spell
(f) dash
...etc
And then resolve everyones actions together based on where resources were invested - that way its simultaneous. You would also have to ignore AoO which is essentially rubbish in RL, but you could keep Reach attacks by Monsters as PCs closed the distance into the melee zone for Large+ opponents.

Just some ideas I've been itching to homebrew into our game for a while now...

 

[Bill Zebub]

Far FAR better would be to have movement take time within the round - if you start your 30' move on init 20 you'll get where you're going on, say init 10; and if you don't start your move until init 2 your move will roll over well into the next round.

I agree that would be interesting, and it would be fun to work on designing such a system. (Personally I'm fascinated by games where you secretly commit to a move, and all moves are revealed at once and resolved simultaneously. Like Diplomacy, or Ace of Aces.)

But "far FAR better"? Seems to me that's measuring quality on a single dimension. Is a game really "better" if nobody wants to play it with you?

 

[Lanefan]

No, they are happening within the initiative structure, but reactions allow people to act on a turn that's not theirs. "Acting out of initiative" I would expect to mean before initiative is rolled.

OK, so I used the wrong terminology.

Reactions aren't just happening willy-nilly. They do indeed interact with the initiative system as each character has one reaction they can use and then once they have, they cannot use another until after their turn in the initiative order has happened.

Got it. My point is around situations where a string of reactions are triggered by one action and-or other reactions to that one action. That string of reactions doesn't use initiative sequencing to determine order of resolution, it uses a LIFO structure (cynic not at all coincidentally /cynic) very similar to a M:tG "stack".

I've been trying to put forward the idea that better design for this string-of-reactions scenario would be FIFO.

No, the game does it the way it was designed.

You don't like the way the game does it, and that's fine. But stop mistaking your opinion for fact. Stop assuming your cobbled version of first edition rules is somehow objectively better than other games. You like it better. That's great. It doesn't sound appealing to me, but that's just my opinion... I'd never tell you that your game is wrong.

Your game does initiative how it does initiative... how could I tell you that your game does initiative wrong?

How? Any way you like, and I'd be interested in hearing what you think might be wrong with it. It's not perfect by any means, and I'm open to ideas as to how it can be improved.

If you want every turn to represent X amount of time rather than looking at all the events of an entire round as occurring in a few seconds, I'm not going to say you're wrong...feel free to do that. But what I will say is that the criticisms you're making rely on your interpretation. I don't hold that interpretation, and the "problems" you claim exist simply are not present in my game.

Not present, or handwaved away? If your players approach it as a game and just accept the rules as being what they are, that kinda handwaves away any problems or issues. But if you've got players who want to dig deeper into the rules and-or realism of it all (which is what I'm used to), then issues like this will inevitably rear their heads.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I've been trying to put forward the idea that better design for this string-of-reactions scenario would be FIFO.

There would be no reactions then.

First In First Out means not one can parry, counter, block or dodge. Things just happen with absolutely no recourse.

 

[Lanefan]

I agree that would be interesting, and it would be fun to work on designing such a system. (Personally I'm fascinated by games where you secretly commit to a move, and all moves are revealed at once and resolved simultaneously. Like Diplomacy, or Ace of Aces.)

Diplomacy is a blast!

I'm not so interested in a system where everyone secretly declares ahead of time; though I can see some clear merits to such I can also see a lot of potential headaches, all of which came out real back in the day when we tried using such a system.

I'm more looking for a system where things - particularly movement and spell-casting - happen over time within in a round rather than starting and finishing all at once; and one's positioning at any given point during the move determines whether you're in reach of someone attacking on that initiative (as opposed to AoO) and-or whether you're in the area of effect of something damaging as per the flaming sphere in the passage example from a bit upthread.

More broadly, for pretty much anything other than straight melee attacks I've always interpreted initiative as the point in time at which you start doing something, largely to avoid potential retcons such as "Oh, you were moving before your init 12? Then you might not have got there as the lightning bolt went through your path on init 15" as those can (and IME do, often) get messy.

Thus, if your init is 12 and when 12 comes around you declare your action is to move and attack, that's when you start moving. 5e (and 4e and 3e) have it that your move and attack all happens on that 12 init, but that forces the fiction to assume that you were in fact moving before your 12 came up such that you could be in place to make that attack on a 12.

 

[Lanefan]

There would be no reactions then.

First In First Out means not one can parry, counter, block or dodge. Things just happen with absolutely no recourse.

Sure there would. Reactions don't change in themselves, they'd still exist and still happen on the same initiative as the triggering action and be resolved before that action.

There (functionally) wouldn't be reactions to reactions, though; and multiple independent reactions to the same trigger would resolve FIFO.

So, if someone declares their action is to cast a lightning bolt and someone declares their reaction is to uncanny dodge (or similar) and then someone else declares their reaction is to counterspell, the uncanny dodge happens first (and that character's reaction for the round is used up) even though the triggering spell is then countered and there's nothing left to dodge.

And yes, this very intentionally means that sometimes reactions will be wasted. I'm fine with that as part of the fog of war model, where not all decisions are the most optimal.

 

[Vaalingrade]

That... wouldn't be FIFO through. FIFO means the triggering action would happen before the reactions.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Not present, or handwaved away? If your players approach it as a game and just accept the rules as being what they are, that kinda handwaves away any problems or issues. But if you've got players who want to dig deeper into the rules and-or realism of it all (which is what I'm used to), then issues like this will inevitably rear their heads.

I said not present.

Here you are doing it again. You're assuming that my players and I are either mistaken about what's happening in our game and/or how we feel about it, or that these problems exist and we just ignore them. That we don't take the game as serious or are less concerned about realism than you and your players.

That is nonsense. Stop doing that.

I'll try another way to explain.

None of my players think that "initiative order" is a very "realistic" thing. They accept it as a need for the game to work, and so that's where it matters. But in the fiction... in the make-believe stuff that's happening in the game... my players and I realize that initiative order means jack, and we accept that there's a lot blurring of things... there's a lot of action happening that's not specifically noted or tracked. For the fiction, initiative is much less rigid, and just a rough approximation of the major events of the fiction.

For instance, no one I game with thinks that a trained combatant will only make one attack on his opponent every six seconds. It would be silly to think that. Six seconds is a very long time in situations like combat. Instead, they accept that the single attack and damage roll is meant to represent the ongoing battle. They understand that when a character has taken 40 points of damage of their 90 HP, they're not ripped to shreds with multiple wounds... because hit points are representative.

It's the same for initiative order. Reactions and readied actions can disrupt the standard order of initiative because that's what they're designed to do... to emulate the parry or counter, the response to an action in an attempt to thwart it.

This ability to separate the order of operations of the game from the order of events in play is what makes the fiction more realistic for them. It is not "hand waving" anything away or "twisting the fiction"... it is a different way of looking at it.

Frankly, I'm surprised you're so resistant to it since you said you'd like for the game to have as little impact on the fiction as possible.

 

[Voadam]

Sure there would. Reactions don't change in themselves, they'd still exist and still happen on the same initiative as the triggering action and be resolved before that action.

There (functionally) wouldn't be reactions to reactions, though; and multiple independent reactions to the same trigger would resolve FIFO.

So, if someone declares their action is to cast a lightning bolt and someone declares their reaction is to uncanny dodge (or similar) and then someone else declares their reaction is to counterspell, the uncanny dodge happens first (and that character's reaction for the round is used up) even though the triggering spell is then countered and there's nothing left to dodge.

First in and last out is lightning bolt in your example.

You seem to mean FILO for action followed by reaction, but FIFO for sequential reactions.

 

[Bill Zebub]

This ability to separate the order of operations of the game from the order of events in play is what makes the fiction more realistic for them. It is not "hand waving" anything away or "twisting the fiction"... it is a different way of looking at it.

Anybody who rolls a d20 and can visualize graphic combat is already generating fiction from highly abstracted mechanics.

Maybe we should go around saying that anybody who doesn't have their immersion broken dice rolls clearly isn't digging deep enough into the fiction.

 

[Lanefan]

That... wouldn't be FIFO through. FIFO means the triggering action would happen before the reactions.

I'm speaking only of the reactions themselves! The triggering action always starts first and resolves last, with reactions happening between. It's the sequencing of (only!) those reactions that I suggest should be FIFO rather than LIFO.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I'm speaking only of the reactions themselves! The triggering action always starts first and resolves last, with reactions happening between. It's the sequencing of (only!) those reactions that I suggest should be FIFO rather than LIFO.

But inside the sequence, a reaction to a reaction is still LIFO. There's not really any place in sequence where FIFO would apply.

 

[Irlo]

I'm more looking for a system where things - particularly movement and spell-casting - happen over time within in a round rather than starting and finishing all at once; and one's positioning at any given point during the move determines whether you're in reach of someone attacking on that initiative (as opposed to AoO) and-or whether you're in the area of effect of something damaging as per the flaming sphere in the passage example from a bit upthread.

That's appealing for some games. It would only work for me though with solid computer assistance to free players (and DM) to focus on what their characters do more broadly without considering tactical costs and benefits for every 0.3 second pulse on the Initiative Track. That's not the way I want to play D&D.

I played Car Wars back in the day. That system had a detailed incremental action sequence (second by second, I think) that worked well for that game. I played (briefly) a superhero RPG with a phase-by-phase combat resolution system that sucked away anything that was actually interesting about a superhero RPG.