With the advent of VTTs, this can be easily implemented and I’ve been considering trying it out. There’s the obvious pros and cons of spell timing, durations, etc but are there additional pros or cons I may not have thought of?
Aside from what you listed, game balance assumes you roll initiative once per combat, so this rule can alter said balance in entirely context-specific ways. For example, this will make twilight clerics worse (their initiative buff is intended to last the whole combat, and now won't) and samurai better (they're only supposed to generate fighting spirit once per combat, and now they generate it every round).
For abilities that specifically trigger based on initiative, you would have to go on a case-by-case basis to rework them to make sure they have the original intent. Otherwise, it might make combat swingy, if one group rolls low, all attacks at once, and then rolls high and all attack again. This could result in some unlucky things, but it’s not terribly likely.
Aside from what you listed, game balance assumes you roll initiative once per combat, so this rule can alter said balance in entirely context-specific ways. For example, this will make twilight clerics worse (their initiative buff is intended to last the whole combat, and now won't) and samurai better (they're only supposed to generate fighting spirit once per combat, and now they generate it every round).
Ooooh. I hadn’t thought of “when rolling initiative”-triggered abilities. Thank you!
It would also really screw with death saves. If you go last in one round and first in the next, that’s two failed saves before anyone could help you. That might be interesting in helping get rid of whack a mole healing, though. Theres a lot of things happen at the start or end of your turn, taking damage from an area effect like spirit guardians or wall of fire. Or saves to end an effect at the end of your turn, and if your turn is coming up irregularly, the powers that create those effects will become much stronger and much weaker, from one round to the next.
In 1 and 2 e you rolled initiative each round. It did make for some interesting shifts in the fight, and made it much harder to metagame who was going to do what. But it really slowed things down adding in the extra step every time.
I played once with a DM who did that. He found an app that rolled initiative and he rolled initiative every round and told us who was next. It added something to the game and was a lot of fun since we couldn’t predict who was next.
I think your main con here other than some of the technical stuff is just the extra time it will take to re-sort the initiative order. It's not super hard to do in a VTT though.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
I think your main con here other than some of the technical stuff is just the extra time it will take to re-sort the initiative order. It's not super hard to do in a VTT though.
Yeah, I use Foundry and there are modules that do it dynamically - no effort required at all.
I played once with a DM who did that. He found an app that rolled initiative and he rolled initiative every round and told us who was next. It added something to the game and was a lot of fun since we couldn’t predict who was next.
This is really why I like it for sure. Combat never devolves into a “I attack this guy because he moves next” meta game. We will see how it goes. 🙂
I am used to rolling each round and I didn't even realize it was rolling for the combat in 5E until I read this post. TBH, I prefer each round, as it makes things seem more realistic to me.
I played once with a DM who did that. He found an app that rolled initiative and he rolled initiative every round and told us who was next. It added something to the game and was a lot of fun since we couldn’t predict who was next.
This is really why I like it for sure. Combat never devolves into a “I attack this guy because he moves next” meta game. We will see how it goes. 🙂
I mean to me that's just tactics, and a big part of what makes combat fun and not just random running and swinging. It's not meta game it's the actual game. It also still creates a situation where the guy who rolls highest can act knowing the order of everyone else and the one who rolls lowest knows nothing about what comes next, so you haven't really eliminated it - you're just distributing it unevenly amongst the players.
Also, I like short intense fights. With a little bad luck you could have most or all of Team Monster take two turns with no PC turns in between. Sounds like a recipe for a TPK to me unless the fight is a total pushover. This would go double for monsters that need two turns to do something, like grapple you and then eat you or spellcasters dropping powerful spell combos.
For me, the pros don't even come close to matching the cons. D&D has some mechanics that are not ideal, but the current initiative system is a good one. I feel like people mess with it just because they want to mess with things, not because it actually needs fixing.
My advice is don't, just don't it generally swings combat to your players advantage far too much. My friends and I trialled it on a table once, as in for one session, and hated it.
there are a number of reasons why.
Spells or abilities that last until the end of your next round, if you are last in initiative order on round 1, and then roll really well and go first, then all your spells end before anyone else has had a go. If that spell is something like Shield then you are in a much weaker position. Alternatively, if your wizard has rolled a 20 initiative in round 1 and then there usual low roll in round 2 then they effectively double the length of time that spell lasts. Patient Defence for a monk for instance becomes a far riskier use of a Ki point as it might actually end before the enemies attack.
Enemy becomes stunned for a round, again as above, in theory they could be attacked twice before they can recover.
It makes combat more metagamey, players start to act based on the odds that the initiative order will change next round.
It makes it much harder to be tactical and makes the combat far less interesting because of it.
It can be devastating to the party, monsters of a single type roll initiative as a group, if you as a DM roll poorly and then well it means your 8 goblins suddenly get 2 attacks effectively that can decimate a low level party, and isn't great at high levels. imagine your dragon, it moves into position to use it's breath weapon to cover the maximum of characters. the initiative order changes and it gets another go before the players have had a chance to react to the danger, recovers its breath weapon, and then TPK, all because of an initiative roll.
Alternately and more likely the players will get multiple attacks against that single roll initiative group, meaning that you need to then scale up your combats to account for that. This is what we found the result was, combat became far easier.
All these negatives far outweigh the only real pro, it makes combat feel slightly more realistic.
anything that lasts "until your next round" becomes either much much stronger, or much much weaker. If you roll really well for initiative round 1 and then really poorly round 2 you effectively take twice as much damage before you get to do anything about it.
So a monk rolled low on initiative. Went last. Uses stunning strike. It lands. Let's reroll initiative. Monk goes first. Gets some nice shots in but that stun just ended. That reroll of initiative just took away everything the other players could have done while the enemy was stunned.
anything that lasts "until your next round" becomes either much much stronger, or much much weaker. If you roll really well for initiative round 1 and then really poorly round 2 you effectively take twice as much damage before you get to do anything about it.
Yeah, I realize that - but I’m fine with not knowing the exact duration of a skill or spell necessarily. Again, it’s random but it’s definitely not a guaranteed balance disruption - there’s equal chance of longer and shorter effects for good guys and bad guys - the biggest difference being making effect durations unpredictable. I’m not sure if that’s an edge though...
anything that lasts "until your next round" becomes either much much stronger, or much much weaker. If you roll really well for initiative round 1 and then really poorly round 2 you effectively take twice as much damage before you get to do anything about it.
Yeah, I realize that - but I’m fine with not knowing the exact duration of a skill or spell necessarily. Again, it’s random but it’s definitely not a guaranteed balance disruption - there’s equal chance of longer and shorter effects for good guys and bad guys - the biggest difference being making effect durations unpredictable. I’m not sure if that’s an edge though...
Also, I don’t ever roll group intitiative.
You may not mind it as the DM, but spells and abilities and a party work together best if they can coordinate strategy. Many experienced players in combat will organize around initiative, some even determine marching order and standard operating procedures based on where folks usually fall in an initiative stack. By imposing this variant you're turning the possibility of finely tuned unit into a greased pig chase. It just sounds like you're doing this for yourself rather than the benefit of your table. I mean practically speaking, the one guaranteed thing you're doing is forcing the players to reorient their order of action foundation every single turn. That's tedious, not innovative. Maybe you as the DM get to an improvisational buzz off of narrating the action to the rhythm of actual tavern brawl realism. I hope your players find that entertaining but I just don't see player benefit to it and it's totally in the "mmm, interesting" mode of DM using their table as lab rats.
Do a meta session. Build a mock encounter that gives the players even odds. Play it RAW and in your initiative mode. See what the players think beyond the added time crunch.
My advice is don't, just don't it generally swings combat to your players advantage far too much. My friends and I trialled it on a table once, as in for one session, and hated it.
there are a number of reasons why.
Spells or abilities that last until the end of your next round, if you are last in initiative order on round 1, and then roll really well and go first, then all your spells end before anyone else has had a go. If that spell is something like Shield then you are in a much weaker position. Alternatively, if your wizard has rolled a 20 initiative in round 1 and then there usual low roll in round 2 then they effectively double the length of time that spell lasts. Patient Defence for a monk for instance becomes a far riskier use of a Ki point as it might actually end before the enemies attack.
Enemy becomes stunned for a round, again as above, in theory they could be attacked twice before they can recover.
It makes combat more metagamey, players start to act based on the odds that the initiative order will change next round.
It makes it much harder to be tactical and makes the combat far less interesting because of it.
It can be devastating to the party, monsters of a single type roll initiative as a group, if you as a DM roll poorly and then well it means your 8 goblins suddenly get 2 attacks effectively that can decimate a low level party, and isn't great at high levels. imagine your dragon, it moves into position to use it's breath weapon to cover the maximum of characters. the initiative order changes and it gets another go before the players have had a chance to react to the danger, recovers its breath weapon, and then TPK, all because of an initiative roll.
Alternately and more likely the players will get multiple attacks against that single roll initiative group, meaning that you need to then scale up your combats to account for that. This is what we found the result was, combat became far easier.
All these negatives far outweigh the only real pro, it makes combat feel slightly more realistic.
Only in your scenarios where the rolls are not favorable to the players. Those rolls could turn out to be favorable to the players. Wizard rolls 20 on round 1 and gets off a spell, then 1 on round 2 when the spell ends, which gives effectively 2 complete rounds of effects.
To me, combat isn't as lockstep. You are swinging, thrusting, dodging, moving, etc throughout the whole round, but your initiative is when you get a chance to make an effective attack. Why should that stay the same every turn? Your quickest, most agile characters rolls low and is constantly at the end of initiative for all of combat? I like the randomness of it, and how things can suddenly go great, or not so great, for one side or the other.
My advice is don't, just don't it generally swings combat to your players advantage far too much. My friends and I trialled it on a table once, as in for one session, and hated it.
there are a number of reasons why.
Spells or abilities that last until the end of your next round, if you are last in initiative order on round 1, and then roll really well and go first, then all your spells end before anyone else has had a go. If that spell is something like Shield then you are in a much weaker position. Alternatively, if your wizard has rolled a 20 initiative in round 1 and then there usual low roll in round 2 then they effectively double the length of time that spell lasts. Patient Defence for a monk for instance becomes a far riskier use of a Ki point as it might actually end before the enemies attack.
Enemy becomes stunned for a round, again as above, in theory they could be attacked twice before they can recover.
It makes combat more metagamey, players start to act based on the odds that the initiative order will change next round.
It makes it much harder to be tactical and makes the combat far less interesting because of it.
It can be devastating to the party, monsters of a single type roll initiative as a group, if you as a DM roll poorly and then well it means your 8 goblins suddenly get 2 attacks effectively that can decimate a low level party, and isn't great at high levels. imagine your dragon, it moves into position to use it's breath weapon to cover the maximum of characters. the initiative order changes and it gets another go before the players have had a chance to react to the danger, recovers its breath weapon, and then TPK, all because of an initiative roll.
Alternately and more likely the players will get multiple attacks against that single roll initiative group, meaning that you need to then scale up your combats to account for that. This is what we found the result was, combat became far easier.
All these negatives far outweigh the only real pro, it makes combat feel slightly more realistic.
Only in your scenarios where the rolls are not favorable to the players. Those rolls could turn out to be favorable to the players. Wizard rolls 20 on round 1 and gets off a spell, then 1 on round 2 when the spell ends, which gives effectively 2 complete rounds of effects.
To me, combat isn't as lockstep. You are swinging, thrusting, dodging, moving, etc throughout the whole round, but your initiative is when you get a chance to make an effective attack. Why should that stay the same every turn? Your quickest, most agile characters rolls low and is constantly at the end of initiative for all of combat? I like the randomness of it, and how things can suddenly go great, or not so great, for one side or the other.
Because initiative order is sometimes difficult to maintain as is, that's why that should stay the same every turn. There's a side industry to TTRPG coming up with aids and accessories specifically to keep tabs on initiative order for a reason. Even with a white board with every combatant name written down in turn order, every DM knows the "shucks shame" that goes when they inadvertently pass on a players turn and the rest of the table lost the track too. And some folks want to roll that out every round?
Sure, real life violence is more often than not a messy slog; but the entirety of combat in D&D is written in broad strokes. Do you think rolling for initiative at the start of an encounter and leaving it that way for the duration of the encounter is not just a D&D but a TTRPG standard for the life of the hobby? Again all advocates should really try this out in a danger room session that doesn't effect their actual campaign. Design an "even match" for the PCs, and play it under both systems, pay attention to time, and player feedback. This again seems more for DM amusement than player enrichment, and there's spaces for DMs to amuse themselves solely, away from the table.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
My players suggested it and like it. It would be too time consuming with dice. There is no pacing impact with a VTT or combat tracker.
We find the balance averages out over time, but it can be very swingy, as mentioned. That’s how it goes, though. Sometimes you’re the windshield. Sometimes you’re the bug.
It fits our style. We allow minimal tactical discussion once combat has begun (it is “combat,” of course) and it lends to the chaos that we imagine for combat. Some awesome moments come out of this.
We play fairly “narratively” and don’t have any “rules lawyers” at the table. If you’re not willing to put your finger on the scale as a DM occasionally, it’s probably not for you.
With the advent of VTTs, this can be easily implemented and I’ve been considering trying it out. There’s the obvious pros and cons of spell timing, durations, etc but are there additional pros or cons I may not have thought of?
Thanks!
Aside from what you listed, game balance assumes you roll initiative once per combat, so this rule can alter said balance in entirely context-specific ways. For example, this will make twilight clerics worse (their initiative buff is intended to last the whole combat, and now won't) and samurai better (they're only supposed to generate fighting spirit once per combat, and now they generate it every round).
For abilities that specifically trigger based on initiative, you would have to go on a case-by-case basis to rework them to make sure they have the original intent. Otherwise, it might make combat swingy, if one group rolls low, all attacks at once, and then rolls high and all attack again. This could result in some unlucky things, but it’s not terribly likely.
Ooooh. I hadn’t thought of “when rolling initiative”-triggered abilities. Thank you!
It would also really screw with death saves. If you go last in one round and first in the next, that’s two failed saves before anyone could help you. That might be interesting in helping get rid of whack a mole healing, though. Theres a lot of things happen at the start or end of your turn, taking damage from an area effect like spirit guardians or wall of fire. Or saves to end an effect at the end of your turn, and if your turn is coming up irregularly, the powers that create those effects will become much stronger and much weaker, from one round to the next.
In 1 and 2 e you rolled initiative each round. It did make for some interesting shifts in the fight, and made it much harder to metagame who was going to do what. But it really slowed things down adding in the extra step every time.
I played once with a DM who did that. He found an app that rolled initiative and he rolled initiative every round and told us who was next. It added something to the game and was a lot of fun since we couldn’t predict who was next.
Professional computer geek
I think your main con here other than some of the technical stuff is just the extra time it will take to re-sort the initiative order. It's not super hard to do in a VTT though.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
aaaaAAAAAAHHHHhhhh
My brain hurts just thinking about it.
Yeah, I use Foundry and there are modules that do it dynamically - no effort required at all.
This is really why I like it for sure. Combat never devolves into a “I attack this guy because he moves next” meta game. We will see how it goes. 🙂
I am used to rolling each round and I didn't even realize it was rolling for the combat in 5E until I read this post. TBH, I prefer each round, as it makes things seem more realistic to me.
I mean to me that's just tactics, and a big part of what makes combat fun and not just random running and swinging. It's not meta game it's the actual game. It also still creates a situation where the guy who rolls highest can act knowing the order of everyone else and the one who rolls lowest knows nothing about what comes next, so you haven't really eliminated it - you're just distributing it unevenly amongst the players.
Also, I like short intense fights. With a little bad luck you could have most or all of Team Monster take two turns with no PC turns in between. Sounds like a recipe for a TPK to me unless the fight is a total pushover. This would go double for monsters that need two turns to do something, like grapple you and then eat you or spellcasters dropping powerful spell combos.
For me, the pros don't even come close to matching the cons. D&D has some mechanics that are not ideal, but the current initiative system is a good one. I feel like people mess with it just because they want to mess with things, not because it actually needs fixing.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
My advice is don't, just don't it generally swings combat to your players advantage far too much. My friends and I trialled it on a table once, as in for one session, and hated it.
there are a number of reasons why.
Spells or abilities that last until the end of your next round, if you are last in initiative order on round 1, and then roll really well and go first, then all your spells end before anyone else has had a go. If that spell is something like Shield then you are in a much weaker position. Alternatively, if your wizard has rolled a 20 initiative in round 1 and then there usual low roll in round 2 then they effectively double the length of time that spell lasts. Patient Defence for a monk for instance becomes a far riskier use of a Ki point as it might actually end before the enemies attack.
Enemy becomes stunned for a round, again as above, in theory they could be attacked twice before they can recover.
It makes combat more metagamey, players start to act based on the odds that the initiative order will change next round.
It makes it much harder to be tactical and makes the combat far less interesting because of it.
It can be devastating to the party, monsters of a single type roll initiative as a group, if you as a DM roll poorly and then well it means your 8 goblins suddenly get 2 attacks effectively that can decimate a low level party, and isn't great at high levels. imagine your dragon, it moves into position to use it's breath weapon to cover the maximum of characters. the initiative order changes and it gets another go before the players have had a chance to react to the danger, recovers its breath weapon, and then TPK, all because of an initiative roll.
Alternately and more likely the players will get multiple attacks against that single roll initiative group, meaning that you need to then scale up your combats to account for that. This is what we found the result was, combat became far easier.
All these negatives far outweigh the only real pro, it makes combat feel slightly more realistic.
anything that lasts "until your next round" becomes either much much stronger, or much much weaker. If you roll really well for initiative round 1 and then really poorly round 2 you effectively take twice as much damage before you get to do anything about it.
So a monk rolled low on initiative. Went last. Uses stunning strike. It lands. Let's reroll initiative. Monk goes first. Gets some nice shots in but that stun just ended. That reroll of initiative just took away everything the other players could have done while the enemy was stunned.
So yeah. Go for it.
Yeah, I realize that - but I’m fine with not knowing the exact duration of a skill or spell necessarily. Again, it’s random but it’s definitely not a guaranteed balance disruption - there’s equal chance of longer and shorter effects for good guys and bad guys - the biggest difference being making effect durations unpredictable. I’m not sure if that’s an edge though...
Also, I don’t ever roll group intitiative.
You may not mind it as the DM, but spells and abilities and a party work together best if they can coordinate strategy. Many experienced players in combat will organize around initiative, some even determine marching order and standard operating procedures based on where folks usually fall in an initiative stack. By imposing this variant you're turning the possibility of finely tuned unit into a greased pig chase. It just sounds like you're doing this for yourself rather than the benefit of your table. I mean practically speaking, the one guaranteed thing you're doing is forcing the players to reorient their order of action foundation every single turn. That's tedious, not innovative. Maybe you as the DM get to an improvisational buzz off of narrating the action to the rhythm of actual tavern brawl realism. I hope your players find that entertaining but I just don't see player benefit to it and it's totally in the "mmm, interesting" mode of DM using their table as lab rats.
Do a meta session. Build a mock encounter that gives the players even odds. Play it RAW and in your initiative mode. See what the players think beyond the added time crunch.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Only in your scenarios where the rolls are not favorable to the players. Those rolls could turn out to be favorable to the players. Wizard rolls 20 on round 1 and gets off a spell, then 1 on round 2 when the spell ends, which gives effectively 2 complete rounds of effects.
To me, combat isn't as lockstep. You are swinging, thrusting, dodging, moving, etc throughout the whole round, but your initiative is when you get a chance to make an effective attack. Why should that stay the same every turn? Your quickest, most agile characters rolls low and is constantly at the end of initiative for all of combat? I like the randomness of it, and how things can suddenly go great, or not so great, for one side or the other.
Because initiative order is sometimes difficult to maintain as is, that's why that should stay the same every turn. There's a side industry to TTRPG coming up with aids and accessories specifically to keep tabs on initiative order for a reason. Even with a white board with every combatant name written down in turn order, every DM knows the "shucks shame" that goes when they inadvertently pass on a players turn and the rest of the table lost the track too. And some folks want to roll that out every round?
Sure, real life violence is more often than not a messy slog; but the entirety of combat in D&D is written in broad strokes. Do you think rolling for initiative at the start of an encounter and leaving it that way for the duration of the encounter is not just a D&D but a TTRPG standard for the life of the hobby? Again all advocates should really try this out in a danger room session that doesn't effect their actual campaign. Design an "even match" for the PCs, and play it under both systems, pay attention to time, and player feedback. This again seems more for DM amusement than player enrichment, and there's spaces for DMs to amuse themselves solely, away from the table.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
My players suggested it and like it. It would be too time consuming with dice. There is no pacing impact with a VTT or combat tracker.
We find the balance averages out over time, but it can be very swingy, as mentioned. That’s how it goes, though. Sometimes you’re the windshield. Sometimes you’re the bug.
It fits our style. We allow minimal tactical discussion once combat has begun (it is “combat,” of course) and it lends to the chaos that we imagine for combat. Some awesome moments come out of this.
We play fairly “narratively” and don’t have any “rules lawyers” at the table. If you’re not willing to put your finger on the scale as a DM occasionally, it’s probably not for you.