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I prefer a reroll once per new round, although I understand that many don't do this due to "more dice, higher brain tax" - in our current campaign we only roll once at the start of combat.
Rolling each round with 6 players + GM: if you rolled first in one round and last in the next round, then that provides an excellent time to go and get a beer, go to the toilet, organise delivery of a pizza, etc.
Rolling last in one round and first in the next round: let's hope you don't have any Reaction abilities that you could otherwise use on a regular basis.
One table I know 5 players plus the DM just roll a D6. The dice indicates the first position for initiative and they work round the table clockwise for there. It works for them.
I found a new system that assigns die to particular classes. We tried it at our last table session and it actually worked well, but it did exist of 1 roll of initiative for each combat encounter.....think we will stick with that....I know that we still roll initiative each round of combat for our AD&D game....but to be honest if your going to declare your actions and incorporate your weapon speed into your initiative, then it has to be rerolled each round of combat....
I use a vtt in my IRL games to make re rolling init quicker. I agree with you. I like the chaotic nature of re rolling init and it really is a great equalizer on the timing of the duration of spells. I like games of chance. We came here to roll dice ... lets roll em!
While I can see the theoretical appeal the chaos in tracking things like reactions/legendary actions, and the time it takes to reroll everything would add more headache, making this cure worse than the symptoms of players sometimes gaming things in the intitaive order a bit.
While I can see the theoretical appeal the chaos in tracking things like reactions/legendary actions, and the time it takes to reroll everything would add more headache, making this cure worse than the symptoms of players sometimes gaming things in the intitaive order a bit.
"gaming things in the initiative order" == "applying a strategy"
The strategy will most likely change from fight to another, since the initiative order is likely to be different.
I have been playing a long time and was asked a question in reference to how many times do we roll initiative when engaged in combat.
According to the website, we only roll it once. That does not make any sense to me. Combat is chaotic and situations change during combat. One side may get an advantage that did not have 2 rounds prior to starting. Why would we want to suggest that combat is static and not open for change as combat progresses.
I have always required that the roll be refreshed at the beginning of each new round. I have also seen that VTT typically reroll it at the beginning of each new round of combat.
Curious how many out there just roll 1 initiative and that roll result remains the same even if combat last 10-15 rounds, for instance.
Just wondering.
Doing this would have absolutely fascinating consequences both for effects that are immune to re-rolling initiative, namely Lair Actions, and effects that move when initiative does, like anything that resolves at start or end of turn (e.g. when someone poisons you with a poison that ends at the end of your turn, now the poisoner might get a second turn with you poisoned, when they couldn't before). What it would have the most impact on is any feature that refreshes on rolling initiative, where it would make the feature at least 3 times as powerful as intended.
I think the biggest impact would actually be on the Hex spell. You could hit Dexterity with it. That's kinda neat. Usually the ability check part of the spell doesn't matter at all.
It messes them up equally for the players and the dm (if you have an honest dm). I think it lends itself to a more realistic feel.
The thing is that something that messes things up "equally" for the players and the GM tends to actually hurt players more because there's far less overall consequences long term for a random NPC suffering some bad luck than there is for a PC.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
I have been playing a long time and was asked a question in reference to how many times do we roll initiative when engaged in combat.
According to the website, we only roll it once. That does not make any sense to me. Combat is chaotic and situations change during combat. One side may get an advantage that did not have 2 rounds prior to starting. Why would we want to suggest that combat is static and not open for change as combat progresses.
I have always required that the roll be refreshed at the beginning of each new round. I have also seen that VTT typically reroll it at the beginning of each new round of combat.
Curious how many out there just roll 1 initiative and that roll result remains the same even if combat last 10-15 rounds, for instance.
Just wondering.
Doing this would have absolutely fascinating consequences both for effects that are immune to re-rolling initiative, namely Lair Actions, and effects that move when initiative does, like anything that resolves at start or end of turn (e.g. when someone poisons you with a poison that ends at the end of your turn, now the poisoner might get a second turn with you poisoned, when they couldn't before). What it would have the most impact on is any feature that refreshes on rolling initiative, where it would make the feature at least 3 times as powerful as intended.
You usually let features that happen on rolling initiative only happen on the first round with the initial initiative roll and not every round.
effect length varies with dynamic initiative, yes, it can be beneficial or not in the situation it evens out in the long run.
After playing solely with dynamic init for the last 5 years, (always with the help of tools) I can't think of going back to static init. With dynamic initiative, the start of every round feels more intense. (Also in some cases we do not only use dynamic init but actually dynamic hidden init. so you don't know who will act next.)
(Also in some cases we do not only use dynamic init but actually dynamic hidden init. so you don't know who will act next.)
Wow, you can't get much worse for slowing the game down.
Each time a player finds out it is their turn, they have to then look at the current situation and decide the best thing to use at that particular time.
With advance notice of turn order, the player can be planning what their most likely action is going to be, but this definitely won't work with hidden "dynamic" initiative.
Agreed, although it might seem 'realistic' (it doesn't add much), it would severely affect players' plans and also may seem biased, since it is kept behind the DM screen. As interesting as changing mechanics such as initiative might seem, it is a topic that can easily be changed dramatically in horrible ways.
Agreed, although it might seem 'realistic' (it doesn't add much), it would severely affect players' plans and also may seem biased, since it is kept behind the DM screen. As interesting as changing mechanics such as initiative might seem, it is a topic that can easily be changed dramatically in horrible ways.
Indeed, it isn't realistic at all.
Realistic would be where all the PCs are watching the battlefield trying to see what is happening and reacting accordingly. Not being able to make a meaningful contribution to a fight for close to 12 seconds would be very unrealistic.
Agreed, although it might seem 'realistic' (it doesn't add much), it would severely affect players' plans and also may seem biased, since it is kept behind the DM screen. As interesting as changing mechanics such as initiative might seem, it is a topic that can easily be changed dramatically in horrible ways.
Indeed, it isn't realistic at all.
Realistic would be where all the PCs are watching the battlefield trying to see what is happening and reacting accordingly. Not being able to make a meaningful contribution to a fight for close to 12 seconds would be very unrealistic.
To summarise the pros and cons of the variant intiative system versus standard:
Pros:
Reduces metagaming since you don't know who will go when on the next turn.
Adds a period of suspence as people wait to find out who will go first, if plans will work, etc.
Abilities, spells etc will have varied value, depending on turn order, mixing things up.
Abilities that recharge upon rolling initiative refresh each round.
Abilities that affect initiative (eg Hex, which can affect Dex) are used more often.
Cons:
It slows combat down even further when it's already a complained about problem in 5e.
It reduces tactical complexity due to reduced knowledge.
It's more maths.
Sometimes it can leave no planning time for players (eg if you go last in one round then first the next, others will have almost the entire encounter occur between turns.
Since you're rolling Dex more often, chance plays a lesser role and that stat plays a bigger. In other words, an already strong stat is made even more important.
Effects that are started on a turn and end on the creature's next turn will have varying length and therefore value depending on the new initiative compared to the old one.
Anything I missed out?
I'll edit in any suggestions to create a single resource.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
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True.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
I prefer a reroll once per new round, although I understand that many don't do this due to "more dice, higher brain tax" - in our current campaign we only roll once at the start of combat.
Altrazin Aghanes - Wizard/Fighter
Varpulis Windhowl - Fighter
Skolson Demjon - Cleric/Fighter
Rolling each round with 6 players + GM: if you rolled first in one round and last in the next round, then that provides an excellent time to go and get a beer, go to the toilet, organise delivery of a pizza, etc.
Rolling last in one round and first in the next round: let's hope you don't have any Reaction abilities that you could otherwise use on a regular basis.
One table I know 5 players plus the DM just roll a D6. The dice indicates the first position for initiative and they work round the table clockwise for there. It works for them.
I found a new system that assigns die to particular classes. We tried it at our last table session and it actually worked well, but it did exist of 1 roll of initiative for each combat encounter.....think we will stick with that....I know that we still roll initiative each round of combat for our AD&D game....but to be honest if your going to declare your actions and incorporate your weapon speed into your initiative, then it has to be rerolled each round of combat....
I run my games with the Speed Factor variant rule found within the DMG
As it makes more sense to me + add more realism to the game in my opinion
Which is my personal main goal: bringing realism to D&D
I use a vtt in my IRL games to make re rolling init quicker. I agree with you. I like the chaotic nature of re rolling init and it really is a great equalizer on the timing of the duration of spells. I like games of chance. We came here to roll dice ... lets roll em!
just my opinion.
It messes them up equally for the players and the dm (if you have an honest dm). I think it lends itself to a more realistic feel.
While I can see the theoretical appeal the chaos in tracking things like reactions/legendary actions, and the time it takes to reroll everything would add more headache, making this cure worse than the symptoms of players sometimes gaming things in the intitaive order a bit.
"gaming things in the initiative order" == "applying a strategy"
The strategy will most likely change from fight to another, since the initiative order is likely to be different.
Doing this would have absolutely fascinating consequences both for effects that are immune to re-rolling initiative, namely Lair Actions, and effects that move when initiative does, like anything that resolves at start or end of turn (e.g. when someone poisons you with a poison that ends at the end of your turn, now the poisoner might get a second turn with you poisoned, when they couldn't before). What it would have the most impact on is any feature that refreshes on rolling initiative, where it would make the feature at least 3 times as powerful as intended.
True, but as far as I know, the only things that do that are 20th level capstone features, AND they're total trash. So... That's fine.
I think the biggest impact would actually be on the Hex spell. You could hit Dexterity with it. That's kinda neat. Usually the ability check part of the spell doesn't matter at all.
The thing is that something that messes things up "equally" for the players and the GM tends to actually hurt players more because there's far less overall consequences long term for a random NPC suffering some bad luck than there is for a PC.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
You usually let features that happen on rolling initiative only happen on the first round with the initial initiative roll and not every round.
effect length varies with dynamic initiative, yes, it can be beneficial or not in the situation it evens out in the long run.
After playing solely with dynamic init for the last 5 years, (always with the help of tools) I can't think of going back to static init.
With dynamic initiative, the start of every round feels more intense.
(Also in some cases we do not only use dynamic init but actually dynamic hidden init. so you don't know who will act next.)
Wow, you can't get much worse for slowing the game down.
Each time a player finds out it is their turn, they have to then look at the current situation and decide the best thing to use at that particular time.
With advance notice of turn order, the player can be planning what their most likely action is going to be, but this definitely won't work with hidden "dynamic" initiative.
Agreed, although it might seem 'realistic' (it doesn't add much), it would severely affect players' plans and also may seem biased, since it is kept behind the DM screen. As interesting as changing mechanics such as initiative might seem, it is a topic that can easily be changed dramatically in horrible ways.
Homebrew: Creatures | Magic Items | Races | Spells | Subclasses
Indeed, it isn't realistic at all.
Realistic would be where all the PCs are watching the battlefield trying to see what is happening and reacting accordingly. Not being able to make a meaningful contribution to a fight for close to 12 seconds would be very unrealistic.
What is your definition of realistic?
To summarise the pros and cons of the variant intiative system versus standard:
Pros:
Cons:
Anything I missed out?
I'll edit in any suggestions to create a single resource.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.