D&D 5E Weapon and Spell Speed Factor Module

[bogmad]

Although I don't use any electronic aids during my sessions I could see an application where each round every player clicks his modified iniative roll and then the dm gets his iniative lists.

Yeah, I could almost see it working if you had an electronic aid, where at the beginning of combat the DM has everyone's default initiative modifier and weapon speed inputed into an app, and instead of every player rolling each round the DM simply announces the next character's turn in sequence after the app rolls for everyone at once. If a player announces a quicker action at the beginning of the round the dm simply clicks a modifier for that round. But if everyone insists on rolling his or her own initiative (as most veteran players would probably expect) it just starts taking up more and more time. Also, you'd probably want a timer for everyone to plan their actions for that turn, lest it get drawn out interminably.

Pretty niche though.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

I think that this makes the same mistake weapon speed did in the original rules. That mistake is quite simply bigger (balanced) weapons are faster. If I want to hit you on the thigh then in the head with a dagger I need to move my entire arm about three feet. If I want to with a halberd, it's about six inches of moving my wrists. And If I have a dagger and you have a halberd, and I don't throw the dagger, the halberd attacks first. I need to get far enough beyond the point that I can reach out and stab - and to do that I need to first make it past the point then the edge. Halberd acts before dagger in just about every possible way. And certainly can reach out and touch a spellcaster from further away.

And that's before we get to the fiddliness that they add to the rules.

Nah, the rules had it right. It doesn't matter that you can move your hand a short distance to swing a pole axe. All you're going to do that way is tap the guy. If you want to do damage, you have to swing the thing, which is slower than thrusting with a tiny dagger. When you're closing, of course the big weapons have a first hit advantage due to reach. But after that the light weapon will be faster.

Your example is more about reach than weapon speed. Unfortunately, D&D has never handled reach well, and to be fair I've never seen a good, usable system that takes reach into account in other games either. I would love to see a module where combatants try to control the distance to the other guy, with the dagger having an advantage up close and the halberd having the advantage further away.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

Although I don't use any electronic aids during my sessions I could see an application where each round every player clicks his modified iniative roll and then the dm gets his iniative lists.

That sound cool, but I never had any trouble with 2E initiative the old-fashioned way. As DM, I just counted up from 1 to 20, when it was someone's turn they spoke up.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

The most important part of the 2e initiative system was sell interruption. The part where you started on segment X and ended on segment x+cast time, and being hit during that time lost the spell. I think one of the big reasons casters were viewed as overpowered in 3e was that that edition eliminated their greatest weakness from 2e without otherwise compensating.

 

[Lawngnome4hire]

Nah, the rules had it right. It doesn't matter that you can move your hand a short distance to swing a pole axe. All you're going to do that way is tap the guy. If you want to do damage, you have to swing the thing, which is slower than thrusting with a tiny dagger. When you're closing, of course the big weapons have a first hit advantage due to reach. But after that the light weapon will be faster.

Your example is more about reach than weapon speed. Unfortunately, D&D has never handled reach well, and to be fair I've never seen a good, usable system that takes reach into account in other games either. I would love to see a module where combatants try to control the distance to the other guy, with the dagger having an advantage up close and the halberd having the advantage further away.

The latest version of Hackmaster uses a "count up" initiative method which accounts for speed and reach. Everyone starts the combat by rolling initiative and the GM starts counting at 1, the players declare what they're doing when their initiative comes up, and it's resolved after a delay equal to the speed. Once everyone is used to it it moves pretty fast. The way they handle reach is when you first close into melee range whoever has the longest reach swings first, then follow up attacks happen after the speed of the weapon.

 

[Patrick McGill]

I've incorporated a very simple 'weapon speed' type of thing in a module I wrote for my blog. Essentially, initiative is rolled at the start of each round. When you attack with a weapon, your next initiative roll is affected by the weapon's initiative modifier, representing the amount of time you lost or gained by making the attack.

My post is here if any is interested, it's part of a larger module I am calling The Overly Complicated Weapons and Armor Module. I'm not really sure how well the initiative thing will work in practice, though.

 

[Lawngnome4hire]

I'm not really fond of rolling for initiative every round, that just takes up extra time unnecessarily. I'd rather use a system that throws out the concept of rounds entirely. Make one initiative roll at the start, then each action takes so many seconds and you just keep counting up until combat is over.

 

[Patrick McGill]

I'm not really fond of rolling for initiative every round, that just takes up extra time unnecessarily. I'd rather use a system that throws out the concept of rounds entirely. Make one initiative roll at the start, then each action takes so many seconds and you just keep counting up until combat is over.

I'm almost with you. Rolling each round in 4th would make me stab my eyes out with d4s. But, from what I've experienced with the playtest, I think the 5th edition combats will be quick enough to support it, though it might still be just a tad too unwieldy.

The only other thing I could think of is attacking with the weapon will move you in the initiative line for next round. Probably best to use notecards for tracking.