Anybody seen any attempts at reworked initiative systems? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Anybody seen any attempts at reworked initiative systems? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
flaiquiri
08-11-07, 04:48 PM I'm interested in knowing whether anyone has seen attempts to rebuild initiative from the ground up. I'm looking for this both in search of rules to use and as an exercise in building initiative systems with a view to developing a system for continuous action. My own is fundamentally fairly simple and effective, but it is very alpha, hopelessly contextual for house-rule-esque implementation or rigorous playtesting. Incidentally, if y'all have some suggestions, please do tell me that too ;).

(the aforementioned nascent system is at http://voncrown.proboards74.com/index.cgi?board=ots&action=display&thread=1170045633 if anyone has any criticism)
Thomar_of_Uointer
08-11-07, 05:33 PM I've seen a few. The main problem with this sort of thing is that the D&D system is action-centric, classes and spells are balanced assuming that everybody gets a standard and move action every round. You'd probably have to rework the whole system to use one of these.

Anyways...

A common one is rerolling initiative every round, to keep people on their toes. You've got to make sure characters are only flat-footed at the start of each fight when you use this (as opposed to flat-footed each round until their action), otherwise rogues become drastically more powerful.

Another odd one is iterative initiative. Each round, everyone rolls initiative. Characters act in order taking only a single standard or move action, then you subtract 5 or 10 from everybody's initiative count and do it again for everyone who isn't negative, and repeat it until everyone's done. A good balancing factor to still impose a limit of 1 standard action per round.

I think the second is closer to what you're looking for. I would modify it a bit, making the iterative subtraction be based on the type of action you take. Thus, a move action reduces your initiative count by 5, a standard action reduces it by 10, and a full-round action reduces it by 15. Finally, if taking actions causes your initiative to go below 0, you subtract that from your initiative on the next round (though this opens up the possibility of infinite paralyzation loops for low-Dexterity characters).

While they make combat much more fun and unpredictable, the bad thing about these sorts of systems is that they make Dexterity a hugely powerful ability. It already grants an AC bonus and a saving throw bonus, along with all of the fun skills that are based on it. I think the best fix for this is to get rid of or nerf some of the class features of Dexterity-centric classes, such as the rogue's sneak attack ability. Still, this would require a lot of playtesting. You could also offset it by making the other ability scores more powerful also, such as by implementing D20 Modern massive damage rules (making Constitution very important, and keeping a slow, high-Strength Power Attack build viable).
Neutronium_Dragon
08-11-07, 06:32 PM Another issue that they create is that they slow the game down quite a bit during combat. This is one of the reasons why the current system was set up like it was: Barring the occasional readied action or the like, you only need to worry about it once rather than every round or even constantly. It may not seem like a big thing, but that extra time taken to manage initiative starts to add up very quickly.
trapspringer
08-11-07, 07:35 PM Ain't that the fact.

The White Wolf system involves a reverse initiative. It's a more RP-centric system.

The player with the lowest initiative declares his or her action first, followed by everyone in ascending order. The DM then arbitrates those actions all at once.

This gives the fastest players the ability to address situations created by slower players, or simply head off on their own to their own ends.
Seldriss
08-11-07, 07:36 PM My house rules for Initiative :
- Initiative rolled at each round but on 1d10, representing the 10 segments of a round
- Weapons speed factors modifiers (based on weapon size)
- Spell casting time modifiers (based on spell levels)
- Bonuses (high Dex, Improved Initiative and the like) are negatives
- Penalties (low Dex, slow, weapon speed factor or casting time) are positive

The lower your Initiative total, the earliest in the round you can act, in the appropriate segment.
That's actually the only case where you need to roll low.
Lazar
08-12-07, 02:01 PM We've just started testing a form of interative initiative in my game to see how it works. You roll initiative like normal. Then you half that initiative to get a 2nd number. So if Thor rolled an 18 for initiative, he'd be on 18 and 9. When his 18 comes up he can either make a move action, or make an attack/standard action. When the 9 comes up in initiative, he can make his remaining action. If the character has two or more attacks per round, you just continue halving the number (rounding up) for how many actions he has. Thus if Thor had 3 attacks per round he'd go on 18 (1st attack), 9 (2nd attack), and 5 (3rd attack). For Full round actions, the 1st action takes place on the first initiative, and 2nd action takes place on 2nd initiative. There is no move action unless that is all you do that round.

While using this system we have discovered a few changes we had to make in combat.
1st: you can make a 5' movement with any action, except a move action, regardless of how many actions you get per round. This has to be done to keep someone from taking a 5' move action after a character moves up to them, but before they take an attack action, thus taking them out of range of the attack. The only limit to this is that you can never move more than 2x you movement in a single round.
2nd: feats like Shot on the Run, Spring Attack, and Cast on the Run (which I think is a non-official feat) allows you to move and cast on the same initiative round, and still make a movement on the next initiative round (thus gaining you double movement in any given round, plus your standard action). This greatly improves these feats, but as of yet have not overpowered them in play.
3rd: attacking with two weapons still take place simultaneously, so someone using a sword/dagger will make a sword and dagger attack on their first initiative, and may take sword/dagger (assuming they have 2 attacks with each weapon per round) on their 2nd initiative.
4th: If a person can possible get 3 or more actions per round (from multiple attacks with same weapon, Haste spell, or such), and he takes a standard then move action, he gets no actions on his remaining initiative this round, as he is finished. Thus if Thor goes on 18/9/5/3 because he gets 4 attacks per round, and on 18 he moves 20', then on 9 he attacks. On 5 and 3 he does nothing, as he has no actions left. Simply ignore these initiatives this round, but keep them for later rounds.

Still working on this, but for 2 games so far, it makes combat a bit more fun, as people move around much more than before.
Kintara
08-12-07, 07:15 PM I'm not sure what you mean by "continuous action" but if you mean without rounds, then I have to say that D&D is already pretty close to this. Since initiative is only rolled once, it doesn't play an extensive role in the game past turn one. It's true that plenty of effects are in durations measuring in rounds, but all the rounds do is tick off six second intervals for everyone.

Really, when it comes down to it, pretty much any initiative system is going to have that chopped up sense of time. Games work with discrete blocks of information. Just keep that in mind when you're designing your system. You're not really going to escape the artificiality of it, unless you make the game "real time" (where every actual second of play is an second of gameworld time too, and D&D isn't designed to make that easy).
FponkDamn
08-13-07, 04:15 AM We fooled around with a decreasing-step initiative system. You got your initiative number, and got to act again every 5 off (so 18, 13, 8, 3). Some odd rules were:

1. You couldn't take full-round actions normally. If you wanted to, you had to go only once in the round, on what would have been your last action (so the above guy could only take a full-round action if he went on a 3). We liked this one - at higher levels, it kept some fighter type monsters from completely killing any given party member before he/she got to even act, which could easily happen if the battle started in close quarters and the monster had any sort of reach. As a subset of this rule, if you chose to wait and take a full-round action, it had to actually be one; you couldn't do a standard-and-move combo. So you could full attack, charge, or cast a full-round spell, but you couldn't draw a sword (a move) and then attack (a standard). You'd have to do those separately. You could take swift and immediate actions normally; they were still only once per round and you could still only take swifts on your turn (though you could take it on any one of your initiative counts).

2. You could use all of your actions to make attacks, but if you do so, they go down as per normal (first attack is normal, second attack at -5, etc.). You are still limited in number of attacks by your BA (so with a +10 BA you can only make two attacks per round, regardless of your initiative) but we liked this as well, as it gave the fighters more freedom to move around and do other things in a battle without sacrificing attacks - we saw a lot of the fighters, once they couldn't attack anymore, using Aid Another on the other fighters; the general teamwork dynamic increased a lot. Or you could just wait until near the end of the round and make your normal full attack (which might be good if your initiative is low, and you wouldn't get all your attacks).

3. Characters are flat-footed until either they act, or until the first time they are struck. This kept things from being absolutely butchered by rogues who were sometimes able to go 2-3 times before an opponent.

4. Everything's movement speed was halved (except when making a charge, then you got your normal speed). We liked this a lot - way too often in D&D it seems like one character is running circles around a bunch of statues. Under this system, characters moved shorter distances, but more often. Characters moved on average the same amount they would have each round, but instead of a barbarian moving 40 feet while everyone holds still, he'd be moving 20 feet once, then others would move, then he'd move 20 feet again. Felt far more natural.

5. Monks don't get flurry of blows or a movement speed increase. Instead, they get to add their Wisdom bonus to Initiative at first level (in addition to their Dex bonus, up to a maximum of their level in monk to avoid 1-level dips for this very good ability; it was also limited in the same way armor class was - no armor, no encumberance, etc.). When the flurry of blows penalty would become -1 instead of -2, the monk instead gets the ability to act every 4 points of initiative instead of every 5. When the penalty for flurry would disappear entirely, they can act every 3 points of initiative.

6. You can still only cast one spell per round, but with multiple move actions, you might be able to concentrate on multiple. This didn't come into play too often, and was cool when it did.

7. Improved Initiative was not allowed. At first, we didn't get rid of it - and it was so absurd in this system that you simply had to have it or you couldn't fight, period. So we just removed it. There are also some spells that increase initiative (like Sign and Nerveskitter out of the SC). We got rid of those too - basically initiative couldn't be modified by anything other than your Dex (or Wis, for monks).

8. Towards the end of the testing, we started rolling initiative with smaller dice, testing d10s and d12s (we even tested it as a static number, but we didn't like that). We liked the d12s - there was less disparity and a smaller chance of one character getting six actions while a different character got one.

We really liked this, overall. It had a really cool effect on the game, and you lost the feel of characters doing huge chunks of things while everyone else watches (such as a fighter with quickdraw making four attacks and then staring while someone else made four attacks back, etc.). The battle-scenes felt much more interactive, with plans constantly in flux and fewer silly-powerful things being done.

One thing though - we had tested this before ToB stuff came out. Now, I like ToB, but they already want to be moving and using standards to perform strikes, rather than full-attacking. So if they were to be used in this system, you'd have to make some sort of rule about how many maneuvers could be used per round, etc. If memory serves me, they are already only allowed one per round anyway, but just in case that's not true, you should probably make that a rule. You should also rule that you can't recover maneuvers in any round where you've used any (since a Warblade could use his first init count to perform a strike, then use his second to perform the melee attack and swift action to recover them, making him able to use the same maneuver every round - no good!).

Another class that we didn't test, but is probably way too good in this system - Warlocks. It's a standard action to use their blast (not an attack action) and with the range those things can have, it's likely that a Warlock could just use every single init count to blast something. 3-4 blasts is a bit overpowered, so you'd probably have to rule blasts the same as we ruled spells (once per round).

So! That was a bit long, but hopefully it was helpful!

- Johnny

Edit: It just occured to me that I've been playing a Factotum for a while, and one of their abilities lets them spend three Inspiration to take an extra standard action. That doesn't jive to well with the above system, so if you use it with a Factotum, I would say that the ability should let them spend inspiration to gain a +1 to initiative, and you can spend as many as you like. So maybe you blow all 5 of your inspiration - you'll go before many, and you'll get one more action each round than you would have, but at the cost of all your inspiration abilities for the fight. Not a perfect fix, but reasonable.

Second Edit: Something that bears mentioning: This system worked really well for the larger group we were playing with (8+ players). In such a large group, you sometimes get the effect of waiting 10 or more minutes for your turn, even longer if people don't know the rules well (I've heard of groups with half-hour or more time spent on each round). This system really keeps the action going between players, with less between-turn downtime. Come to think of it, we never actually uses this system with any fewer than six players, so I'm not sure if that will change the dynamic any - but it seems like it would work just fine under those conditions as well.
SokenzanMarauder
08-14-07, 02:01 PM In my games we use a d10 for initiative instead of a d20. Beyond that I've only seen one other method (which is the iterative action method) used.

-Gene
Stormonu
08-14-07, 04:34 PM My house rules for Initiative :
- Initiative rolled at each round but on 1d10, representing the 10 segments of a round
- Weapons speed factors modifiers (based on weapon size)
- Spell casting time modifiers (based on spell levels)
- Bonuses (high Dex, Improved Initiative and the like) are negatives
- Penalties (low Dex, slow, weapon speed factor or casting time) are positive

The lower your Initiative total, the earliest in the round you can act, in the appropriate segment.
That's actually the only case where you need to roll low.

Have you considered "reversing" this

- Roll 1d20, every 2 points of initiative represents 1 segment (1/2 of the segment for the standard action, 1/2 of the segment for the move action, if you need that scale of detail)
- Use 2E weapon speed factors (or size-based), double the value and they subtract from initiative
- Spell casting time modifiers, double your current values
- Bonuses remain bonuses (Dex, improved init and the like)
- Penalties remain penalties (Dex, slow, weapon speed factor, casting time)

This way rolling high is still good and you're still using 1d20, but getting the same effect.
Carwyn_Nhung
08-15-07, 09:17 PM Ain't that the fact.

The White Wolf system involves a reverse initiative. It's a more RP-centric system.

The player with the lowest initiative declares his or her action first, followed by everyone in ascending order. The DM then arbitrates those actions all at once.

This gives the fastest players the ability to address situations created by slower players, or simply head off on their own to their own ends.

That's a really ingenious system, but I can't help but wonder what happens in the following situation:

1 I charge the spell caster.
2 I cast hold person at him.
3 I shoot the spellcaster (2) to distract him.
4 I charge the bow-weilder to stop him firing.

Charging is a full round action, so I might expect the standard actions to take precedance, but that means that (4) is at a disadvantage compared to the original system, as before he could charge the bow weilder and get some Attack of oppertunities in. How do WOD GMs deal with these kind of issues?
trapspringer
08-16-07, 10:36 AM I'm not as fluent in d10 as I am in d20, but I believe that their are a few ways to adjudicate that.

If you, as the DM, don't think he could make it to the archer in time to stop the shot, then he can't and doesn't.

Remember you've got these two guys doing stuff at the same time, though. The full round action takes the whole round, and the standard action takes less of it, but it isn't like loading a flash game. They don't stand their waiting and then the first guy to load suddenly blinks over to their target location and inflict damage. The one guy is running over while the other is firing off arrows as part of rapid shot, and when he gets their (whenever that it), he swings. The archer would probably get a shot off, I'd say.

This is why I think d20 is better for combat. It takes abstractions like this out of the hands of the DM and lets him focus on comin' up with unique and memorable battles. White Wolf fights are more about story and drama. Their both valid, 'course, I just like the mechanical feel of d20 combat. I feel I can work within the more mechanical d20 system to provide that same level of excitement in my combats without angering players by ruling for or against on a whim.
Senevri
08-16-07, 10:50 AM IMO, exalted 2e has a brilliant initiative system, but it really isn't portable.

The default initiative system... doesn't really model anything. Those directly involved in the combat want a high init sos they can do the hurtin' while those on the sidelines want a smaller init so they can react appropriately for the round.

game-mechanically it works and doesn't take too much effort. esp. with initiative cards.

Here's a pattern which doesn't really require much in the way of rules changes.

1. Everyone declares their intention, from the smallest init to the largest.
2. The declared actions can be aborted, but not arbitrarily changed.
3. Actions are resolved in the normal way. Aborting characters should still be allowed a single standard action on their turn.

Downside: additional phase may slow down the game a bit.
Upside: Might encourage planning and the use of prepared actions.
Sciphan
08-22-07, 04:01 PM My group rolls init. every round. like 2nd edition. It creates variance.

3rd ed. initiative is VERY stagnant. It makes fights very fast... and very, very boring (verily!). Player A goes after Player B, who goes after Player C... without ever changing.

Of course we made very minor rule changes to make sure spells & such work properly.

I highly recomend ditching the book's init. system... unless of course you play d&d like you play monopoly... in which case, why not just play monopoly.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
flaiquiri 08-11-07, 04:48 PM	I'm interested in knowing whether anyone has seen attempts to rebuild initiative from the ground up. I'm looking for this both in search of rules to use and as an exercise in building initiative systems with a view to developing a system for continuous action. My own is fundamentally fairly simple and effective, but it is very alpha, hopelessly contextual for house-rule-esque implementation or rigorous playtesting. Incidentally, if y'all have some suggestions, please do tell me that too ;). (the aforementioned nascent system is at http://voncrown.proboards74.com/index.cgi?board=ots&action=display&thread=1170045633 if anyone has any criticism)
Thomar_of_Uointer 08-11-07, 05:33 PM	I've seen a few. The main problem with this sort of thing is that the D&D system is action-centric, classes and spells are balanced assuming that everybody gets a standard and move action every round. You'd probably have to rework the whole system to use one of these. Anyways... A common one is rerolling initiative every round, to keep people on their toes. You've got to make sure characters are only flat-footed at the start of each fight when you use this (as opposed to flat-footed each round until their action), otherwise rogues become drastically more powerful. Another odd one is iterative initiative. Each round, everyone rolls initiative. Characters act in order taking only a single standard or move action, then you subtract 5 or 10 from everybody's initiative count and do it again for everyone who isn't negative, and repeat it until everyone's done. A good balancing factor to still impose a limit of 1 standard action per round. I think the second is closer to what you're looking for. I would modify it a bit, making the iterative subtraction be based on the type of action you take. Thus, a move action reduces your initiative count by 5, a standard action reduces it by 10, and a full-round action reduces it by 15. Finally, if taking actions causes your initiative to go below 0, you subtract that from your initiative on the next round (though this opens up the possibility of infinite paralyzation loops for low-Dexterity characters). While they make combat much more fun and unpredictable, the bad thing about these sorts of systems is that they make Dexterity a hugely powerful ability. It already grants an AC bonus and a saving throw bonus, along with all of the fun skills that are based on it. I think the best fix for this is to get rid of or nerf some of the class features of Dexterity-centric classes, such as the rogue's sneak attack ability. Still, this would require a lot of playtesting. You could also offset it by making the other ability scores more powerful also, such as by implementing D20 Modern massive damage rules (making Constitution very important, and keeping a slow, high-Strength Power Attack build viable).
Neutronium_Dragon 08-11-07, 06:32 PM	Another issue that they create is that they slow the game down quite a bit during combat. This is one of the reasons why the current system was set up like it was: Barring the occasional readied action or the like, you only need to worry about it once rather than every round or even constantly. It may not seem like a big thing, but that extra time taken to manage initiative starts to add up very quickly.
trapspringer 08-11-07, 07:35 PM	Ain't that the fact. The White Wolf system involves a reverse initiative. It's a more RP-centric system. The player with the lowest initiative declares his or her action first, followed by everyone in ascending order. The DM then arbitrates those actions all at once. This gives the fastest players the ability to address situations created by slower players, or simply head off on their own to their own ends.
Seldriss 08-11-07, 07:36 PM	My house rules for Initiative : - Initiative rolled at each round but on 1d10, representing the 10 segments of a round - Weapons speed factors modifiers (based on weapon size) - Spell casting time modifiers (based on spell levels) - Bonuses (high Dex, Improved Initiative and the like) are negatives - Penalties (low Dex, slow, weapon speed factor or casting time) are positive The lower your Initiative total, the earliest in the round you can act, in the appropriate segment. That's actually the only case where you need to roll low.
Lazar 08-12-07, 02:01 PM	We've just started testing a form of interative initiative in my game to see how it works. You roll initiative like normal. Then you half that initiative to get a 2nd number. So if Thor rolled an 18 for initiative, he'd be on 18 and 9. When his 18 comes up he can either make a move action, or make an attack/standard action. When the 9 comes up in initiative, he can make his remaining action. If the character has two or more attacks per round, you just continue halving the number (rounding up) for how many actions he has. Thus if Thor had 3 attacks per round he'd go on 18 (1st attack), 9 (2nd attack), and 5 (3rd attack). For Full round actions, the 1st action takes place on the first initiative, and 2nd action takes place on 2nd initiative. There is no move action unless that is all you do that round. While using this system we have discovered a few changes we had to make in combat. 1st: you can make a 5' movement with any action, except a move action, regardless of how many actions you get per round. This has to be done to keep someone from taking a 5' move action after a character moves up to them, but before they take an attack action, thus taking them out of range of the attack. The only limit to this is that you can never move more than 2x you movement in a single round. 2nd: feats like Shot on the Run, Spring Attack, and Cast on the Run (which I think is a non-official feat) allows you to move and cast on the same initiative round, and still make a movement on the next initiative round (thus gaining you double movement in any given round, plus your standard action). This greatly improves these feats, but as of yet have not overpowered them in play. 3rd: attacking with two weapons still take place simultaneously, so someone using a sword/dagger will make a sword and dagger attack on their first initiative, and may take sword/dagger (assuming they have 2 attacks with each weapon per round) on their 2nd initiative. 4th: If a person can possible get 3 or more actions per round (from multiple attacks with same weapon, Haste spell, or such), and he takes a standard then move action, he gets no actions on his remaining initiative this round, as he is finished. Thus if Thor goes on 18/9/5/3 because he gets 4 attacks per round, and on 18 he moves 20', then on 9 he attacks. On 5 and 3 he does nothing, as he has no actions left. Simply ignore these initiatives this round, but keep them for later rounds. Still working on this, but for 2 games so far, it makes combat a bit more fun, as people move around much more than before.
Kintara 08-12-07, 07:15 PM	I'm not sure what you mean by "continuous action" but if you mean without rounds, then I have to say that D&D is already pretty close to this. Since initiative is only rolled once, it doesn't play an extensive role in the game past turn one. It's true that plenty of effects are in durations measuring in rounds, but all the rounds do is tick off six second intervals for everyone. Really, when it comes down to it, pretty much any initiative system is going to have that chopped up sense of time. Games work with discrete blocks of information. Just keep that in mind when you're designing your system. You're not really going to escape the artificiality of it, unless you make the game "real time" (where every actual second of play is an second of gameworld time too, and D&D isn't designed to make that easy).
FponkDamn 08-13-07, 04:15 AM	We fooled around with a decreasing-step initiative system. You got your initiative number, and got to act again every 5 off (so 18, 13, 8, 3). Some odd rules were: 1. You couldn't take full-round actions normally. If you wanted to, you had to go only once in the round, on what would have been your last action (so the above guy could only take a full-round action if he went on a 3). We liked this one - at higher levels, it kept some fighter type monsters from completely killing any given party member before he/she got to even act, which could easily happen if the battle started in close quarters and the monster had any sort of reach. As a subset of this rule, if you chose to wait and take a full-round action, it had to actually be one; you couldn't do a standard-and-move combo. So you could full attack, charge, or cast a full-round spell, but you couldn't draw a sword (a move) and then attack (a standard). You'd have to do those separately. You could take swift and immediate actions normally; they were still only once per round and you could still only take swifts on your turn (though you could take it on any one of your initiative counts). 2. You could use all of your actions to make attacks, but if you do so, they go down as per normal (first attack is normal, second attack at -5, etc.). You are still limited in number of attacks by your BA (so with a +10 BA you can only make two attacks per round, regardless of your initiative) but we liked this as well, as it gave the fighters more freedom to move around and do other things in a battle without sacrificing attacks - we saw a lot of the fighters, once they couldn't attack anymore, using Aid Another on the other fighters; the general teamwork dynamic increased a lot. Or you could just wait until near the end of the round and make your normal full attack (which might be good if your initiative is low, and you wouldn't get all your attacks). 3. Characters are flat-footed until either they act, or until the first time they are struck. This kept things from being absolutely butchered by rogues who were sometimes able to go 2-3 times before an opponent. 4. Everything's movement speed was halved (except when making a charge, then you got your normal speed). We liked this a lot - way too often in D&D it seems like one character is running circles around a bunch of statues. Under this system, characters moved shorter distances, but more often. Characters moved on average the same amount they would have each round, but instead of a barbarian moving 40 feet while everyone holds still, he'd be moving 20 feet once, then others would move, then he'd move 20 feet again. Felt far more natural. 5. Monks don't get flurry of blows or a movement speed increase. Instead, they get to add their Wisdom bonus to Initiative at first level (in addition to their Dex bonus, up to a maximum of their level in monk to avoid 1-level dips for this very good ability; it was also limited in the same way armor class was - no armor, no encumberance, etc.). When the flurry of blows penalty would become -1 instead of -2, the monk instead gets the ability to act every 4 points of initiative instead of every 5. When the penalty for flurry would disappear entirely, they can act every 3 points of initiative. 6. You can still only cast one spell per round, but with multiple move actions, you might be able to concentrate on multiple. This didn't come into play too often, and was cool when it did. 7. Improved Initiative was not allowed. At first, we didn't get rid of it - and it was so absurd in this system that you simply had to have it or you couldn't fight, period. So we just removed it. There are also some spells that increase initiative (like Sign and Nerveskitter out of the SC). We got rid of those too - basically initiative couldn't be modified by anything other than your Dex (or Wis, for monks). 8. Towards the end of the testing, we started rolling initiative with smaller dice, testing d10s and d12s (we even tested it as a static number, but we didn't like that). We liked the d12s - there was less disparity and a smaller chance of one character getting six actions while a different character got one. We really liked this, overall. It had a really cool effect on the game, and you lost the feel of characters doing huge chunks of things while everyone else watches (such as a fighter with quickdraw making four attacks and then staring while someone else made four attacks back, etc.). The battle-scenes felt much more interactive, with plans constantly in flux and fewer silly-powerful things being done. One thing though - we had tested this before ToB stuff came out. Now, I like ToB, but they already want to be moving and using standards to perform strikes, rather than full-attacking. So if they were to be used in this system, you'd have to make some sort of rule about how many maneuvers could be used per round, etc. If memory serves me, they are already only allowed one per round anyway, but just in case that's not true, you should probably make that a rule. You should also rule that you can't recover maneuvers in any round where you've used any (since a Warblade could use his first init count to perform a strike, then use his second to perform the melee attack and swift action to recover them, making him able to use the same maneuver every round - no good!). Another class that we didn't test, but is probably way too good in this system - Warlocks. It's a standard action to use their blast (not an attack action) and with the range those things can have, it's likely that a Warlock could just use every single init count to blast something. 3-4 blasts is a bit overpowered, so you'd probably have to rule blasts the same as we ruled spells (once per round). So! That was a bit long, but hopefully it was helpful! - Johnny Edit: It just occured to me that I've been playing a Factotum for a while, and one of their abilities lets them spend three Inspiration to take an extra standard action. That doesn't jive to well with the above system, so if you use it with a Factotum, I would say that the ability should let them spend inspiration to gain a +1 to initiative, and you can spend as many as you like. So maybe you blow all 5 of your inspiration - you'll go before many, and you'll get one more action each round than you would have, but at the cost of all your inspiration abilities for the fight. Not a perfect fix, but reasonable. Second Edit: Something that bears mentioning: This system worked really well for the larger group we were playing with (8+ players). In such a large group, you sometimes get the effect of waiting 10 or more minutes for your turn, even longer if people don't know the rules well (I've heard of groups with half-hour or more time spent on each round). This system really keeps the action going between players, with less between-turn downtime. Come to think of it, we never actually uses this system with any fewer than six players, so I'm not sure if that will change the dynamic any - but it seems like it would work just fine under those conditions as well.
SokenzanMarauder 08-14-07, 02:01 PM	In my games we use a d10 for initiative instead of a d20. Beyond that I've only seen one other method (which is the iterative action method) used. -Gene
Stormonu 08-14-07, 04:34 PM	My house rules for Initiative : - Initiative rolled at each round but on 1d10, representing the 10 segments of a round - Weapons speed factors modifiers (based on weapon size) - Spell casting time modifiers (based on spell levels) - Bonuses (high Dex, Improved Initiative and the like) are negatives - Penalties (low Dex, slow, weapon speed factor or casting time) are positive The lower your Initiative total, the earliest in the round you can act, in the appropriate segment. That's actually the only case where you need to roll low. Have you considered "reversing" this - Roll 1d20, every 2 points of initiative represents 1 segment (1/2 of the segment for the standard action, 1/2 of the segment for the move action, if you need that scale of detail) - Use 2E weapon speed factors (or size-based), double the value and they subtract from initiative - Spell casting time modifiers, double your current values - Bonuses remain bonuses (Dex, improved init and the like) - Penalties remain penalties (Dex, slow, weapon speed factor, casting time) This way rolling high is still good and you're still using 1d20, but getting the same effect.
Carwyn_Nhung 08-15-07, 09:17 PM	Ain't that the fact. The White Wolf system involves a reverse initiative. It's a more RP-centric system. The player with the lowest initiative declares his or her action first, followed by everyone in ascending order. The DM then arbitrates those actions all at once. This gives the fastest players the ability to address situations created by slower players, or simply head off on their own to their own ends. That's a really ingenious system, but I can't help but wonder what happens in the following situation: 1 I charge the spell caster. 2 I cast hold person at him. 3 I shoot the spellcaster (2) to distract him. 4 I charge the bow-weilder to stop him firing. Charging is a full round action, so I might expect the standard actions to take precedance, but that means that (4) is at a disadvantage compared to the original system, as before he could charge the bow weilder and get some Attack of oppertunities in. How do WOD GMs deal with these kind of issues?
trapspringer 08-16-07, 10:36 AM	I'm not as fluent in d10 as I am in d20, but I believe that their are a few ways to adjudicate that. If you, as the DM, don't think he could make it to the archer in time to stop the shot, then he can't and doesn't. Remember you've got these two guys doing stuff at the same time, though. The full round action takes the whole round, and the standard action takes less of it, but it isn't like loading a flash game. They don't stand their waiting and then the first guy to load suddenly blinks over to their target location and inflict damage. The one guy is running over while the other is firing off arrows as part of rapid shot, and when he gets their (whenever that it), he swings. The archer would probably get a shot off, I'd say. This is why I think d20 is better for combat. It takes abstractions like this out of the hands of the DM and lets him focus on comin' up with unique and memorable battles. White Wolf fights are more about story and drama. Their both valid, 'course, I just like the mechanical feel of d20 combat. I feel I can work within the more mechanical d20 system to provide that same level of excitement in my combats without angering players by ruling for or against on a whim.
Senevri 08-16-07, 10:50 AM	IMO, exalted 2e has a brilliant initiative system, but it really isn't portable. The default initiative system... doesn't really model anything. Those directly involved in the combat want a high init sos they can do the hurtin' while those on the sidelines want a smaller init so they can react appropriately for the round. game-mechanically it works and doesn't take too much effort. esp. with initiative cards. Here's a pattern which doesn't really require much in the way of rules changes. 1. Everyone declares their intention, from the smallest init to the largest. 2. The declared actions can be aborted, but not arbitrarily changed. 3. Actions are resolved in the normal way. Aborting characters should still be allowed a single standard action on their turn. Downside: additional phase may slow down the game a bit. Upside: Might encourage planning and the use of prepared actions.
Sciphan 08-22-07, 04:01 PM	My group rolls init. every round. like 2nd edition. It creates variance. 3rd ed. initiative is VERY stagnant. It makes fights very fast... and very, very boring (verily!). Player A goes after Player B, who goes after Player C... without ever changing. Of course we made very minor rule changes to make sure spells & such work properly. I highly recomend ditching the book's init. system... unless of course you play d&d like you play monopoly... in which case, why not just play monopoly.