Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Necroblivion 11-01-07, 11:52 PM	Ok, I've been hearing complaints about the initiative system for a long time. It takes too long, not realistic, blah blah blah. I think I have a way to make combat rounds much more interactive and have people attentively watching in order to plan their own actions. I propose a new system that uses not "rounds" per se, but segments. Everyone would roll a die, and lets just say a d10. From their they subtract their bonuses and add a speed factor to their weapon or action. So, in a nutshell, the GM would start initiative at 1, and then begin counting upwards (no time wasted recording everyone's initiative). Then, you would go on your turn when the GM calls out that segment (6, 7, 8, etc.). Upon taking your turn, you roll again and add it to the segment you went on previously. Everyone is perpetually rolling initiative and taking actions, not feeling like they are left out. There are faults to this. Some extremely fast characters may end up taking multiple actions before a really slow behemoth character goes. Also, a round suddenly becomes 6 segments, and a turn thusly 60 segments. That way you can still track durations, etc. Also, all multiple actions are done on the same segment. So, speed factors need to be broken down as below: Small Weapons: +2 Medium Weapons: +4 Large Weapons: +6 Spellcasting would be a SF equal to the level of the spell. I'd also suggest halving the bonuses from feats and class abilities, etc. because you would use a d10 instead of a d20. This was completely off the top of my head, so please I don't want to hear any flaming. If you like it or have ideas to clarify or improve, feel free to give me feedback.
kuonji 11-02-07, 09:36 AM	So...adding more dice rolling and more modifiers to calculate will speed up the process in what way? The method I use is to have everyone roll, organize notecards with pc, npc, monster, etc names in the initiave order then just flip through them. Quick, easy, efficient. Certainly not random, but that's the tradeoff for speed. Also, another question, how do you classify monster attacks. Is a tail slap faster or slower then a bite attack? What about breath weapons? Claws? Swallow whole special attacks? There just seems to be quite a bit that would need to be evaluated in order to apply modifiers to initiative rolls. The generic spellcasting seems too simplified. A summon monster 1 spell takes 1 round to cast, and a power word: kill spell is cast by uttering a single word, but in the system you propose, the summon spell would now be the much faster cast time. The system you describe has some stuff in common with 2nd Edition initiative rules. Except it was more fine tuned with each weapon having it's own speed factor and each spell having a casting time assigned to it. But everyone still only got one turn before a new round began. (I think anyway, my 2ed knowledge is a little rusty)
Necroblivion 11-02-07, 11:34 AM	Yes, I based this heavily from the old 2e initiative rules. Most all natural attacks, or special abilities would use the medium rules. The reason this is fast is that you cut out much of the deliberation time and group rolling. The moment initiative is called for, action begins.
Nadaka 11-02-07, 11:42 AM	Awesome. I'll start my turn empty handed (+0) init. Quickdraw a greatsword, full round attack, then drop as a free action. Then I will repeat every round thereafter. This way I'll be much faster than the puny dagger wielding guy. :confused:
kuonji 11-02-07, 12:03 PM	Yes, I based this heavily from the old 2e initiative rules. Most all natural attacks, or special abilities would use the medium rules. The reason this is fast is that you cut out much of the deliberation time and group rolling. The moment initiative is called for, action begins. What deliberation time? When I call for initiative, that's the start of the fight, if my players want to sit around discussing what everyone should do, I ask them to make a decision and get on with their turn, otherwise they will get skipped over while they take time to think up what they want to do. Just because everyone rolls and you start counting doesn't mean the players turn is going to go any faster then usual when you get to their number. Also, how do you handle the count when you reach, lets pick an arbitrary number, 19 and 3 of your players and some or all of your creatures all have the same initiative. How do you determine who goes first, and won't taking the time to discuss it slow things down? It's not practical to say "everyone goes at the same time" because it makes a difference for actions such a movement, if the player approaches the large creature (with reach) first and tries to attack it in non-reach melee, the player will provoke an AoO prior to the players attack. However, if the creature approaches the players, all a player may need to do is 5 foot step in order to attack. I'm sorry if I come off as sounding negative about the issue. It's an interesting idea, but I think there is alot to consider and I am still having a hard time imagining how this is any faster then the way combat already happens. But then perhaps long turns and slow initiative rolls are common in your gaming circle where they are quick and streamlined in my circle.
Necroblivion 11-02-07, 04:19 PM	Yes, that's precisely it. Our gaming group is between 5-7 players on average and this just keeps people more on task between rounds. It tends to be more of a way to keep people focused because their foes and allies are constantly taking actions. I think it is hard to understand, and by no means "easier" than the current rules. Just thought I'd share in the hope any of you would like to help streamline and flesh this out.
Roog 11-02-07, 07:21 PM	I propose a new system that uses not "rounds" per se, but segments. Everyone would roll a die, and lets just say a d10. From their they subtract their bonuses and add a speed factor to their weapon or action. So, in a nutshell, the GM would start initiative at 1, and then begin counting upwards (no time wasted recording everyone's initiative). Then, you would go on your turn when the GM calls out that segment (6, 7, 8, etc.). Upon taking your turn, you roll again and add it to the segment you went on previously. Everyone is perpetually rolling initiative and taking actions, not feeling like they are left out. There are faults to this. Some extremely fast characters may end up taking multiple actions before a really slow behemoth character goes. Also, a round suddenly becomes 6 segments, and a turn thusly 60 segments. That way you can still track durations, etc. Also, all multiple actions are done on the same segment. So, speed factors need to be broken down as below: Small Weapons: +2 Medium Weapons: +4 Large Weapons: +6 Spellcasting would be a SF equal to the level of the spell. I'd also suggest halving the bonuses from feats and class abilities, etc. because you would use a d10 instead of a d20. This was completely off the top of my head, so please I don't want to hear any flaming. If you like it or have ideas to clarify or improve, feel free to give me feedback. I see a couple of problems with a system like this. Firstly, having a good initiative becomes far more important than with the regular system. If the ratios between initiatives is about 1 then a system like this works OK, but if a character can get their initiative significantly lower than other peoples the power of their character is hugely enhanced. As an example, I was recently creating a Warblade/Factorum character. Under your initiative system at higher levels he would have initiative of... Without tomes or wishes 1d10 +2 (small weapon) 0.5x(-4 (imp init) -4 (DEX) -8 (INT)) = 1d10 - 6 With one of tomes or wishes 1d10 +2 (small weapon) 0.5x(-4 (imp init) -6 (DEX) -10 (INT)) = 1d10 - 10 If the minimum initiative roll is 0 then he can act an unlimited number of times per round, if it is 1 then he still acts on every segment. While it might be fun to play a character like this for a while, I don't think that it is what your were aiming for. The problem here is that under the regular system increasing init gives diminishing returns (e.g +100 init is almost as good as +200), under your system the returns increase before diminishing. Assuming the minimum init is 1 then then following table shows the effect of changing init mod. Mod Average Actions Marginal . Init /round Increase 6.00 11.50 0.52 - 5.00 10.50 0.57 0.05 4.00 9.50 0.63 0.06 3.00 8.50 0.71 0.07 2.00 7.50 0.80 0.09 1.00 6.50 0.92 0.12 0.00 5.50 1.09 0.17 -1.00 4.60 1.30 0.21 -2.00 3.80 1.58 0.27 -3.00 3.10 1.94 0.36 -4.00 2.50 2.40 0.46 -5.00 2.00 3.00 0.60 -6.00 1.60 3.75 0.75 -7.00 1.30 4.62 0.87 -8.00 1.10 5.45 0.84 -9.00 1.00 6.00 0.55 -10.00 1.00 6.00 0.00 Secondly, this requires knowing what action you will be performing, in order to determine which action you will act. That may be fine in most cases (as long as the players are on the ball) but it becomes odd in a few cases. You do not mention a speed factor for not attacking. Without a rule for that a character with multiple weapons (most obviously a two-hander and some daggers) will be pulling out the daggers on any round he simply wants to maneuver. Similarly any character who bases their combat style on AoO would want to use a small weapon to attack on their turn, and some other weapon between turns. Thirdly, something some people have problems accepting, is that characters with good init will be able to run really really fast.
ppirilla 11-02-07, 09:33 PM	Get rid of re-rolling every round, and this starts to look nice Players roll 1d10 and subtract their modifiers. Now add 10 to get rid of the possibility of negative numbers. That's the player's first initiative. From here, just take 6 as the average roll. This makes most actions "cost" 10, so the math is simple. Explicitly: add 8 for attacking with a finesse weapon add 10 for attacking with a 1-handed weapon or most range weapons add 12 for attacking with a 2-handed weapon, multiple weapons, or slow range weapons such as the crossbow. add 8 + 1/2 spell level (rounded up) for casting a spell. (I think your spellcasting initiative was too harsh on high-level spellcasters, but to each their own) Add 10 for just about any other full-round action. I think this gets the general feel you were going for, but is much quicker and easier to keep track of. Thoughts?
Xaer 11-02-07, 10:40 PM	Expanding on an idea presented earlier in the thread, I think the biggest problem with this system is how great the returns are for bumping up init score. Rather, I think the general idea behind a ChargeTime system like you're presenting would be that players with lower speeds get a good return out of raising their init mod, but higher level characters would need to use a lot more of(insert Init raiser here) to get the same boost: Case(FFX ChargeTime system): All party members and monsters are assigned an init value based on their agility. This starts out at an Init of 28 at agility 0, and goes down to an init of 3 at agility 170. However, it's rather curved, as to get an init of 4 only needs an agility of 98 compared to the 170 of init 3. This holds logically, as the different between 4 and 3 is much greater than the difference between 28 and 26(the inits of AGI-0 and AGI-1, respectively). tl;dr - Make the system exponential somehow, not linear, else it's too easy to break the system as Roog pointed out.
Necroblivion 11-03-07, 07:46 PM	Good feedback gentlemen! This was an idea literally floating in the back of my head for a couple years. I was never able to perfect it without someone breaking it. So, what if the d10 was static, the best you could do between "turns." Then, if your total modifier was positive, perhaps you would add that. If negative, then you have a +0 modifier. If somehow you reached a -5 modifier then use a d8 for initiative, and a -10 modifier, perhaps a d6. This at least then gets you past the "I go every segment" character. I will also heavily consider the above proposed modifiers. Thanks again for the help, I know this is clunky, I'm would like to see this at least somewhat plausible by the time we are done.
Cornelius 11-05-07, 05:11 PM	Awesome. I'll start my turn empty handed (+0) init. Quickdraw a greatsword, full round attack, then drop as a free action. Then I will repeat every round thereafter. This way I'll be much faster than the puny dagger wielding guy. :confused: I realize this would work on the first turn, but can you really pick up a greatsword from off the GROUND using Quickdraw, and still get a full round attack? Unless by "drop", you meant sheathing it every round, but I don't think you can sheath a weapon as a free action (I might be wrong). So this would be a good way to cheat the system the first round but I don't think the "rinse/repeat" portion of it would work.
kuonji 11-06-07, 04:39 AM	I realize this would work on the first turn, but can you really pick up a greatsword from off the GROUND using Quickdraw, and still get a full round attack? Unless by "drop", you meant sheathing it every round, but I don't think you can sheath a weapon as a free action (I might be wrong). So this would be a good way to cheat the system the first round but I don't think the "rinse/repeat" portion of it would work. There's nothing that says you can't carry more then one greatsword.