Post/Author/DateTime	Post
reanjr 03-30-04, 12:11 PM	Ready for shameless self-promotion? I have designed what I call a Cyclic Initiative (http://poliwatch.org/admin/articles/c01a.html) system. This is an entirely redisgned initiative system, not modifications to the current one. For those who want more realism or options in combat, this system provides alot. It does require a little bit of learning, but I think the overall system, once learned has less ambiguity and points of confusion than the standard system. It's quite a bit of text, so I won't post the entire thing here, but a quick summary: You have initiative X. You perform action with Initiative Cost (IC) Y. You now have initiative X-Y. This continues until everyone's initiative for the round is below 0. Everybody adds 20 to their initiative. Next round begins. It's a bit more complicated than that. Anyway, I am looking for comments about game balance, etc. I am NOT looking for disagreements about what the IC of a particular action is unless you have a very good explanation of why my number is wrong and a good idea of how changing it might affect balance. Anyway. I look forward to hearing some discussion on this. My players hated it at first because they thought it was complicated. Once they learned the system, though, I think they realized that the complications were fabricated in their head. All of my players now love the system, and one of them has implemented it in his campaign. I hope the system is helpful to some others.
Seeker95 03-30-04, 02:44 PM	Game balance: No real impact. Game flow: Too much to worry about. I'll stick with Roll for order, high roll goes first.
reanjr 03-30-04, 02:46 PM	I suppose it's a matter of taste. I let my players keep track of their own intiative and my battles don't tend to have a dozen NPCs in them (which could definitely get difficult to handle)
JustKim 03-31-04, 04:44 PM	With only five people in initiative this will still be very complicated. You know when the NPCs go and your players know when they go, but without constant communication you're not goint to know in what exact order. This system introduces a completely new math equation to streamlined 3E combat, and it will bog down the game. As a DM I would also be concerned about the "wired reflexes effect". In Shadowrun initiative cycles, and depending on your roll you get to act more rapidly than other characters. There's a piece of cyberware (And several variations) called wired reflexes that makes you move faster and almost guarantees another action a round. Unfortunately once characters begin to get wired reflexes, everyone needs to have them or they will simply never get to act. This is comparable to the IC system and taking actions with smaller costs, or playing as a class that can be very effective with actions that have small costs. The great equalizer of d20 initiative will be stripped away, and you'll have characters sitting around for most of a round saying "well, this sucks".
ctuttle 04-01-04, 09:18 PM	I kinda like the idea of the pre-emptive round. I'm going to bring it up to my group and see what they think.