Post/Author/DateTime	Post
dvlsadvct 10-23-06, 12:46 PM	So our group recently came up with a alternate initiative mechanic and I thought I would run it across the board members before play. Basically, instead of rolling initiative once per encounter, you roll it on every round where you do not take a full round action. Our thought process on this was that we felt it would make things a bit more interesting when it came time to decide your actions. Now for your thoughts.
RobbyPants 10-23-06, 02:57 PM	It could work. When you mention "a full round action" are you refering to just full-round actions, or would a standard action and a move action count? I think the reason it's rolled once is that everyone gets 6 seconds to act, and they always act in the same time of the round, because their actions all took 6 seconds. In the original system, you can change your order in initiative by waiting until that spot comes along in the next round... Your system would add a bit more varience to combat, which could be a good thing, if that's what you're after. You may run into some odd situations, like someone rolling a 1 followed by a 20. It would seem like they get two actions within a second or two, whereas the guy who rolled a 20 followed by a 1 would get two actions within about 10 to 11 seconds.
Wayside 10-23-06, 03:26 PM	In my games we roll initiative every round. Sure it adds a little more time to the combats, but like robby said, it makes the combat more varied. The main reason we switched to round by round was so combat wasn't so structured. Having the same initiative every round leads to planning your actions based on when other people are going to do things. "I can attack and then tumble back because the cleric will go before the enemies next round." assumptions like this can no longer be made. My group and I are tossing the idea back and forth of having characters declare their actions before they roll, after declaring their intended action (something general, not too specific) changing it based on the situation results in a penalty to that round's initiative, probably -5 or -10 (or we were considering limiting a player who changes their action to a standard action).
RobbyPants 10-23-06, 04:18 PM	Having the same initiative every round leads to planning your actions based on when other people are going to do things. Good point. I remember the Combat & Tactics system in 2E. There were several things different about it, but one big one: When determining your actions for the round, first the DM would decide what the monsters are doing (before hearing form the players). Then the players would decide. You had to stick to what you planned, with few options for deviating, without losing your round. That made it harder to plan. If you really wanted to mess with them, have them write their actions on paper. They'd have to set up a play-book or something, so they could quickly communicate intent in a single round!
theotherdraxen 10-23-06, 04:35 PM	Making things harder to plan takes away from the tactical perspective of D&D. Combat is pretty chaotic, but tactics are supposed to work. I'm not saying it's bad, I'm saying that it promotes a less cooperative style of play, as tactics in such a random environment, will likely cause more failure (as their coordination will be thrown awry when the enemies take two actions when they were supposed to only be able to take one, and another enemy that was goaded into charging rolls low and has to wait too long before he can move) than players just rushing in and trying to take as many full attacks as possible. In D&D, players are supposed to work together. Tactilessness should be a disadvantage, not the norm.
The_Levitator 10-23-06, 07:04 PM	I agree with theotherdraxen in regards to keeping the tactics flowing and useable in D&D. I know there are other systems out there that use action points, where actions have individual values and the actions themselves determine the play order. I think D&D does try to allow for some variety by allowing delaying and readying actions. Our group uses the delay action quite often, so combat tends to be more varied than normal. We tried rolling initiative every round, and while it didn't take any more time (we use DM Genie and we play diceless), the players found it much more difficult to work together as a team as they couldn't coordinate actions as well. All that said, I would be interested in hearing how this new system works in real game situations. Please keep us updated! :D
dvlsadvct 10-23-06, 10:36 PM	To further elaborate on the situation; we had been rolling initiative every round, no matter what, previously. We decided to change it to the way as said above with regard to many of the game altering affects as mentioned. However, the main reason was spellcasting, the other was to sway those of the melee persuasion into thinking about other things than full attacks. All in all we are trying to add a little drama to the battles.
bruiserdeck 10-23-06, 11:21 PM	I like my players to play a more tactical game. I want them to outsmart their enemies rather than just say "i swing my sword" and roll dice until the enemy is dead. at the same time i don’t like to see the static me then you unless some one holds an action. so I have implemented the following. i have split turns into 2 phases. the quick phase and the long phase. a quick phase is when ever a player makes an action that is less than a full round action. and a long phase is a full round action. thus a person can make a single move, OR make a standard attack OR cast a standard spell (spells are given a casting time for the purpose of this systems and some take longer than a standard action to cast) during a quick phase. if they do so they get their turn on their initiative. OR they can chose to take a full action such as a full attack, a long spell, a double move, or a move and attack. if they do so all of those moves are held in a queue according to their initiative and go off in order after all the quick phase actions have happened. this takes a little longer (kind of like rolling new initiative every turn.) but it allows players to think about their actions more. a fighter, seeing his enemy wind up a full attack (because the enemy is higher on initiative and chose to do a full attack) may chose to do a standard action (swing the sword once) in hopes of taking out his enemy with a quick surgical strike rather than waiting for his turn and swinging wildly. an archer or caster seeing an enemy running at him has the option to shoot of one attack at the closing enemy before the guy gets to him. a character seeing an enemy winding up some big full round spell like fireball can try to counter attack with a faster spell like magic missile or shield. of course this is all balanced by the fact that the guy who takes the longer action is going to have the chance to do much more damage. i really like the way this balances out for characters especially after the first 5 to 8 levels (when characters have more options) on a side note. i also implement a rule that certain actions trigger a partial re-roll of initiative. for example if a character rolls a 1 regardless of if its a critical failure or not they have to re-roll their initiative but cannot get a score higher than what ever initiative they are fighting at. (a guy fighting at initiative of 15 rolls a critical failure threat. their next is an 18 thus they don’t have a critical failure and simply miss. but since they almost failed and had to recover a bit they have to roll a new initiative roll. if the roll is 15 or more they stay at their initiative of 15 but if its less they move down to that initiative.) I do the same for a roll of 20 critical threat. if some one rolls a 20, regardless of if they make a critical hit or not, their opponent is forced to make a new initiative roll in which they are unable to get a better initiative than they have now but may move down in the initiative list) This has lead to some AWESOME battles. in one battle a player was going toe to toe with an NPC fighter of similar power. The player charged into combat, took a bad hit when the enemy attacked and on the next round the enemy started full attacking. the player instead of attacking (afraid that he would be brought down by a few lucky attacks) went on full defensive. after a few rounds the enemy had a critical failure and moved down below the player on initiative giving the player the opportunity to start attacking the enemy wildly. unfortunately after taking a few hits the enemy decided to make a single attack instead of a full attack and that single attack really hurt the player character. He was then forced to retreat and call his friends for support. it was an awesome battle and re-enacted many times by the players long after the campaigns. (gods that was a lot of writing.)
batmanjr 10-24-06, 10:30 AM	In one of my games the party is basically split into three groups: the two front line fighters, the casters with their body guard, and the rogue. What they do is they all roll initiative, but they all hold their action to the lowest roll of the group they are in. That way both frontline fighters go at the same time, the healer moves and heals without worrying about losing their bodyguard. And yes this makes the improved initiative feat pretty much worthless. It has worked out REALLY well and made the encounters easier.
bruiserdeck 10-24-06, 10:37 AM	its cool when players work out little systems like that. course when i DM that i am a nasty bastard that works out a few encounters that specificly challenge that system. LOL not being a mean GM I just like keeping players on their toes.