Hi, I know this has been done to death, but Initiative will surely come up sooner or later with the tweaks the OneD&D team are creating and play testing.
Now, I was watching this vid about a homebrew Initiative system. Which I didn't really understand (@6:45 his chart has the high CR roll as 11 on the left side, but then seems to become an 18 on the right hand side. Wha?), but there were clear benefits to this system in his game, at least so he says.
But the point is, Initiative must change somehow. It's got some problems eh? And if this video, and the comments below it, demonstrate anything is that a lot of peeps homebrew Initiative. And, it seems a lot of these homebrew systems are similar. So, what's your system? And, what system should be the new official one?
If you want folks to comment on video content, you should provide a brief description of the changes. Lots of folks might not be places they can watch a video (or not want to watch some random person on the internet ramble for several minutes when 10 seconds of reading would have sufficed).
For myself, I just use the regular initiative system while being a bit more generous in terms of what actions folks can ready, so they can essentially ready an entire turn if they need to go later in initiative for some strategy to work. For the most part, my players do not take advantage of that system - only when they need something for expeditiously and waiting until initiative loops back around to them might not work - so it ends up working fine at my table.
I am fine with the plain old rolling for initiative, and my group sometimes even just go around the circle when we are lazy and I control about the same numbers as the party (so there is less chance of monsters overwhelming a PC at once).
If you want folks to comment on video content, you should provide a brief description of the changes. ...
The video is a Taking20 video wherein Cody describes a simple yet rather profund change he made to Initiative at his table. In short:
Players roll initiative as normal. In fact, players see no change to initiative in this system.
DM rolls initiative for the monster with the highest init on the enemy side, and no others.
Highest Init roll goes first, as per usual.
If a player went first, then the highest init monster goes second. After that, the next highest init player, followed by a DM determined monster. Battle alternates between player turn and monster turn whenever possible.
If the monster won init, it goes first, then everything goes the same as the previous step.
Fight until victory or defeat.
In effect, Cody is forcing the two sides to alternate every turn, rather than allowing initiative to produce huge clumps of one side or the other or allowing Initiative to completely stuff his Big Boss Monsters before they get to do anything. If, as one example, it's five players vs. one dragon? The dragon WILL either go first or second, depending on whether a player beats its init, because after one side goes the other side takes a turn if it has a turn to take.
Cody lays out numerous benefits this approach has yielded, including making boss monsters punchier, requiring fewer overall minions to challenge a party, and making CR actually come closer to correct. It turns out classic, timeless strategy games like chess alternate turn for turn for a reason, hueh. The biggest benefit is that this change doesn't impact or affect players at all - they know what's going on, but on the player side nothing you do changes. You roll init as normal and your init determines your place in combat. It's really a very sleek, very interesting change, and my own table will be putting it to the test as soon as next week depending on DM.
Thanks for the summery Yurei! Personally, I am not super fond of that system - I think there is some utility in having a bit more randomness to keep fights dynamic and from straight alteration. I think my players would agree—there’s a certain degree of fun when you all can wail on a bad guy because of grouped initiatives, as well as a delightful terror when you know you’re about to enter a gauntlet of enemy aggression.
That said, thinking about that does remind me that I’ll occasionally fudge initiative rolls for monsters if too many of them are stacked in the same section of the initiative order so the combat flows a bit better, which certainly isn’t RAW and probably should have been remembered and mentioned in my prior post.
Interleaving turns the way Cody recommends more closely resembles real combat, where everybody moves all at once. Apparently it also promotes more mixing and shifting of lines of battle, since characters move and countermove more often, which muddies the waters for AoE blasters/controllers. A larger number of characters have to make more tactical choices in combat, and people stay more closely engaged with the fight rather than checking out until it's their turn or until someone yells "HEY STEVE, MAKE A DEATH SAVE" at them.
I can see the argument for randomness, but I've also had too many powerful, climactic boss encounters of my own end up completely ruined by El Biggo rolling a 4 on Init and getting pounded into tuna paste before it could make a single meaningful move. Cody's system is basically systematic, formal DM init fudging in the interests of better fights, which I'm eager to try out.
If you want folks to comment on video content, you should provide a brief description of the changes. ...
The video is a Taking20 video wherein Cody describes a simple yet rather profund change he made to Initiative at his table. In short:
SNIP!
Thank you Yurei, and thx for the tip CG. I'll do so in the future.
And especially thx for making this system clearer than the video's presentation. I get it now. It is interesting, and a very good point that most games "take turns" for a reason. I bet there's a math nerd out there, sweating, right now. But yea, this system looses some randomness. I gotta think that the current system is ok at lower levels, but might become something like a nuclear strike if a party or group of monsters wins Initiative all at once.
I'm actually a little surprised, CG, that you use Initiative without any modification, practically. Though, up to now, I have too. Hasn't been a problem so far, except I wonder if my combat wouldn't be more dynamic if I changed?
I'm not sold on this system exactly, but I'm becoming very bi-curious about other systems or homebrew!
What if you have two+ characters that are built for going first, or at least before the average enemy. They either get to waste the effort by fighting thier own party members over winning initiative, or concede to one player. Think a party that has multiple high dex / barbarian characters, with Alert and/or initiative boosting subclasses.
Or the reverse, the players go with initiative not mattering any more, I'm going 2nd at worst, no matter what.
Has anyone tried using a d10 for initiative? Reducing the swing by half means the character's bonus is a much better indicator of when it will get to take it's action.
The only problem I see with the current system is that a character that should go early could through a few bits of bad luck go very late for several combats in a row.
But this problem exists in several parts of the game. Sometimes lady luck just doesn't smile on you.
I heard about a DM that had everyone reroll initiative each turn. It made combat more luck based, but it had some problems. For example, many spell effects say, until the players next turn. In this case, a player may go late on this round, but because they go early next round, the monster doesn't suffer any effective ill effects on their turn from the spell.
I'm OK with the current system. Its easy and its fair as long as you roll enough times, lady luck will smile on you enough.
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Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
What is the problem with the current system you want to fix?
Also, I’ll throw out there that speed factor as an optional rule has been in the DMG since the very start of the edition. Does that help?
The problem this system is fixing is the fact that an eight-man PC party can all go in front of a big boss critter if the boss critter flubs initiative, pound it like a pinata, and before the boss critter gets to take one single turn in combat it's already critically wounded, if not just outright dead.
The system also fixes gangs of enemies with AoE attacks, like a pack of hellhounds, managing to fortuitously all beat the party's initiative and spend the next five to ten turns collectively dynamiting the party, causing a TPK through sheer luck of the draw that the party can do absolutely nothing about because they're all blasted to hell and dead before they can move.
Does the rule de-emphasize initiative control abilities? Yes. That's a fair criticism. I do think it fixes more issues than it introduces, though. If I never have a boss monster get init stuffed and massacred before it can accomplish one gorram thing ever again, it'll be 'bout two Awesome Boss Encounters that turned into memes instead too soon.
What is the problem with the current system you want to fix?
Also, I’ll throw out there that speed factor as an optional rule has been in the DMG since the very start of the edition. Does that help?
The problem this system is fixing is the fact that an eight-man PC party can all go in front of a big boss critter if the boss critter flubs initiative, pound it like a pinata, and before the boss critter gets to take one single turn in combat it's already critically wounded, if not just outright dead.
Which is really a problem of setting up an 8 vs 1 combat rather than the initiative system and why most boss monsters in 5E have Legendary Actions. If you have a party that large, you shouldn't be pitting them against single opponents because they will chew it into hamburger in one round regardless of how the initiative rolls go.
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.
What is the problem with the current system you want to fix?
Also, I’ll throw out there that speed factor as an optional rule has been in the DMG since the very start of the edition. Does that help?
The problem this system is fixing is the fact that an eight-man PC party can all go in front of a big boss critter if the boss critter flubs initiative, pound it like a pinata, and before the boss critter gets to take one single turn in combat it's already critically wounded, if not just outright dead.
Which is really a problem of setting up an 8 vs 1 combat rather than the initiative system and why most boss monsters in 5E have Legendary Actions. If you have a party that large, you shouldn't be pitting them against single opponents because they will chew it into hamburger in one round regardless of how the initiative rolls go.
To be fair, the CR system doesn't really detail how best to lay out an encounter for a party of any size beyond 4.
What is the problem with the current system you want to fix?
Also, I’ll throw out there that speed factor as an optional rule has been in the DMG since the very start of the edition. Does that help?
The problem this system is fixing is the fact that an eight-man PC party can all go in front of a big boss critter if the boss critter flubs initiative, pound it like a pinata, and before the boss critter gets to take one single turn in combat it's already critically wounded, if not just outright dead.
Which is really a problem of setting up an 8 vs 1 combat rather than the initiative system and why most boss monsters in 5E have Legendary Actions. If you have a party that large, you shouldn't be pitting them against single opponents because they will chew it into hamburger in one round regardless of how the initiative rolls go.
This. Or you should set up the boss to be able to handle / ignore a good chunk of what the players can throw at it (high AC / good saves, plus a stash of reactions to cover the early / critical times when the base defense fails) for at least a round or two. Shield spell, Legendary Resistance(s), terrain, & meat shield minions. And a initiative bonus high enough that only 1 or 2 PCs are likely to go before them. Pre-casting long duration spells also helps when it makes sense. Why would a fighter have those spells? Maybe a single use magic item, or (especially if the fight doesn't feel climatic enough), the fighter is not actually the mastermind, and thier caster overlord or co-conspirator cast the spells before leaving to continue the group's work elsewhere.
And if you'd don't like d10 initiative, try 2d10. Keeps the same range (almost) as RAW, but centers things considerably.
I run ten players. When life gets in the way, I run 9. I haven't seen a table of less than 8 players in over a decade. There's always one simple fix for my table.
Make shit up. It's called house ruling. Taking 20s suggestion is a house rule because it's not written in the official books.
The best thing I've ever done is change my approach to combat. Combat isn't a fight to the death. It isn't even a fight of AC, HPs, and D20 rolls that you hope roll in your favor. Yes, combat can be this - perhaps even most of the time but combat at my table follows one simple theme. It's a challenge to the players handled within initiative timing.
Initiative timing means action economy matters. It means quick thinking matters. Pacing matters. The music matters. Forced decision or 'stand there and take the dodge action' matters. It means you can't really plot, plan, and scheme. You might be able to use your reaction to tell someone off turn to change their course of action but for the most part - if you didn't plan it ahead of time, you can't bark those orders in initiative timing.
Challenge means obstacles. Terrain. Figuring out the puzzle to even harm this thing (Smaug's single vulnerability). It means "did you do enough research to learn that you can't harm the monster with anything but force damage?" Whatever it means to you, simply consider that challenge means so much more than how high AC or how many HPs it has.
Change your approach and you fix CR, number of players, timing, pacing, initiative vs. downtime, etc.
Personally, I use initiative entirely as is. I think Cody's system introduces a couple of big flaws:
Features that boost your initiative would matter far less under this system. This would mean several class features and perhaps some entire subclasses would need to be redesigned.
Predictability. Maybe it's just me, but if I were playing under this initiative system, I'd get bored real quick. Part of what I enjoy about initiative is the randomness of it, and having the monsters go around the same time every combat means that I'm not really interested in guessing when the monster will go and preparing for the different possibilities of what will happen if they go where, which takes away a lot of the fun of the game from me.
Overall, I think these changes don't need to be made and would just serve to make initiative worse. That being said, I would enjoy trying out this variant initiative system if I can convince my friends to use it for a session or two.
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Everyone rolls initiative, highest roll goes first. Turns then proceed clockwise (or anticlockwise, d4 to determine). Monsters' turns are in between players.
This means that Dexterity still affects initiative, while eliminating the need for an initiative tracker.
Everyone rolls initiative, highest roll goes first. Turns then proceed clockwise (or anticlockwise, d4 to determine). Monsters' turns are in between players.
This means that Dexterity still affects initiative, while eliminating the need for an initiative tracker.
Sorry, assassin. You rolled second in initiative, so now you're dead last and your entire subclass is largely worthless. Tough luck.
Plus, this would just make it a fight for whoever gets to sit next to the dude with +5 Dex and Alert.
If you do this, might as well just throw initiative out the window altogether.
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Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny. Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
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The only time I've seen that sort of initiative system used well has been in Battletech grinder games (which are free-for-alls that need to be kept moving). Doesn't work so well in a game like D&D.
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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.
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Hi, I know this has been done to death, but Initiative will surely come up sooner or later with the tweaks the OneD&D team are creating and play testing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXleyDvtqls&t=418s
Now, I was watching this vid about a homebrew Initiative system. Which I didn't really understand (@6:45 his chart has the high CR roll as 11 on the left side, but then seems to become an 18 on the right hand side. Wha?), but there were clear benefits to this system in his game, at least so he says.
But the point is, Initiative must change somehow. It's got some problems eh? And if this video, and the comments below it, demonstrate anything is that a lot of peeps homebrew Initiative. And, it seems a lot of these homebrew systems are similar. So, what's your system? And, what system should be the new official one?
If you want folks to comment on video content, you should provide a brief description of the changes. Lots of folks might not be places they can watch a video (or not want to watch some random person on the internet ramble for several minutes when 10 seconds of reading would have sufficed).
For myself, I just use the regular initiative system while being a bit more generous in terms of what actions folks can ready, so they can essentially ready an entire turn if they need to go later in initiative for some strategy to work. For the most part, my players do not take advantage of that system - only when they need something for expeditiously and waiting until initiative loops back around to them might not work - so it ends up working fine at my table.
I am fine with the plain old rolling for initiative, and my group sometimes even just go around the circle when we are lazy and I control about the same numbers as the party (so there is less chance of monsters overwhelming a PC at once).
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The video is a Taking20 video wherein Cody describes a simple yet rather profund change he made to Initiative at his table. In short:
In effect, Cody is forcing the two sides to alternate every turn, rather than allowing initiative to produce huge clumps of one side or the other or allowing Initiative to completely stuff his Big Boss Monsters before they get to do anything. If, as one example, it's five players vs. one dragon? The dragon WILL either go first or second, depending on whether a player beats its init, because after one side goes the other side takes a turn if it has a turn to take.
Cody lays out numerous benefits this approach has yielded, including making boss monsters punchier, requiring fewer overall minions to challenge a party, and making CR actually come closer to correct. It turns out classic, timeless strategy games like chess alternate turn for turn for a reason, hueh. The biggest benefit is that this change doesn't impact or affect players at all - they know what's going on, but on the player side nothing you do changes. You roll init as normal and your init determines your place in combat. It's really a very sleek, very interesting change, and my own table will be putting it to the test as soon as next week depending on DM.
Please do not contact or message me.
Thanks for the summery Yurei! Personally, I am not super fond of that system - I think there is some utility in having a bit more randomness to keep fights dynamic and from straight alteration. I think my players would agree—there’s a certain degree of fun when you all can wail on a bad guy because of grouped initiatives, as well as a delightful terror when you know you’re about to enter a gauntlet of enemy aggression.
That said, thinking about that does remind me that I’ll occasionally fudge initiative rolls for monsters if too many of them are stacked in the same section of the initiative order so the combat flows a bit better, which certainly isn’t RAW and probably should have been remembered and mentioned in my prior post.
Interleaving turns the way Cody recommends more closely resembles real combat, where everybody moves all at once. Apparently it also promotes more mixing and shifting of lines of battle, since characters move and countermove more often, which muddies the waters for AoE blasters/controllers. A larger number of characters have to make more tactical choices in combat, and people stay more closely engaged with the fight rather than checking out until it's their turn or until someone yells "HEY STEVE, MAKE A DEATH SAVE" at them.
I can see the argument for randomness, but I've also had too many powerful, climactic boss encounters of my own end up completely ruined by El Biggo rolling a 4 on Init and getting pounded into tuna paste before it could make a single meaningful move. Cody's system is basically systematic, formal DM init fudging in the interests of better fights, which I'm eager to try out.
Please do not contact or message me.
Thank you Yurei, and thx for the tip CG. I'll do so in the future.
And especially thx for making this system clearer than the video's presentation. I get it now. It is interesting, and a very good point that most games "take turns" for a reason. I bet there's a math nerd out there, sweating, right now. But yea, this system looses some randomness. I gotta think that the current system is ok at lower levels, but might become something like a nuclear strike if a party or group of monsters wins Initiative all at once.
I'm actually a little surprised, CG, that you use Initiative without any modification, practically. Though, up to now, I have too. Hasn't been a problem so far, except I wonder if my combat wouldn't be more dynamic if I changed?
I'm not sold on this system exactly, but I'm becoming very bi-curious about other systems or homebrew!
What if you have two+ characters that are built for going first, or at least before the average enemy. They either get to waste the effort by fighting thier own party members over winning initiative, or concede to one player. Think a party that has multiple high dex / barbarian characters, with Alert and/or initiative boosting subclasses.
Or the reverse, the players go with initiative not mattering any more, I'm going 2nd at worst, no matter what.
Has anyone tried using a d10 for initiative? Reducing the swing by half means the character's bonus is a much better indicator of when it will get to take it's action.
What is the problem with the current system you want to fix?
Also, I’ll throw out there that speed factor as an optional rule has been in the DMG since the very start of the edition. Does that help?
The only problem I see with the current system is that a character that should go early could through a few bits of bad luck go very late for several combats in a row.
But this problem exists in several parts of the game. Sometimes lady luck just doesn't smile on you.
I heard about a DM that had everyone reroll initiative each turn. It made combat more luck based, but it had some problems. For example, many spell effects say, until the players next turn. In this case, a player may go late on this round, but because they go early next round, the monster doesn't suffer any effective ill effects on their turn from the spell.
I'm OK with the current system. Its easy and its fair as long as you roll enough times, lady luck will smile on you enough.
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
The problem this system is fixing is the fact that an eight-man PC party can all go in front of a big boss critter if the boss critter flubs initiative, pound it like a pinata, and before the boss critter gets to take one single turn in combat it's already critically wounded, if not just outright dead.
The system also fixes gangs of enemies with AoE attacks, like a pack of hellhounds, managing to fortuitously all beat the party's initiative and spend the next five to ten turns collectively dynamiting the party, causing a TPK through sheer luck of the draw that the party can do absolutely nothing about because they're all blasted to hell and dead before they can move.
Does the rule de-emphasize initiative control abilities? Yes. That's a fair criticism. I do think it fixes more issues than it introduces, though. If I never have a boss monster get init stuffed and massacred before it can accomplish one gorram thing ever again, it'll be 'bout two Awesome Boss Encounters that turned into memes instead too soon.
Please do not contact or message me.
Which is really a problem of setting up an 8 vs 1 combat rather than the initiative system and why most boss monsters in 5E have Legendary Actions. If you have a party that large, you shouldn't be pitting them against single opponents because they will chew it into hamburger in one round regardless of how the initiative rolls go.
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.
To be fair, the CR system doesn't really detail how best to lay out an encounter for a party of any size beyond 4.
This. Or you should set up the boss to be able to handle / ignore a good chunk of what the players can throw at it (high AC / good saves, plus a stash of reactions to cover the early / critical times when the base defense fails) for at least a round or two. Shield spell, Legendary Resistance(s), terrain, & meat shield minions. And a initiative bonus high enough that only 1 or 2 PCs are likely to go before them. Pre-casting long duration spells also helps when it makes sense. Why would a fighter have those spells? Maybe a single use magic item, or (especially if the fight doesn't feel climatic enough), the fighter is not actually the mastermind, and thier caster overlord or co-conspirator cast the spells before leaving to continue the group's work elsewhere.
And if you'd don't like d10 initiative, try 2d10. Keeps the same range (almost) as RAW, but centers things considerably.
I run ten players. When life gets in the way, I run 9. I haven't seen a table of less than 8 players in over a decade. There's always one simple fix for my table.
Make shit up. It's called house ruling. Taking 20s suggestion is a house rule because it's not written in the official books.
The best thing I've ever done is change my approach to combat. Combat isn't a fight to the death. It isn't even a fight of AC, HPs, and D20 rolls that you hope roll in your favor. Yes, combat can be this - perhaps even most of the time but combat at my table follows one simple theme. It's a challenge to the players handled within initiative timing.
Initiative timing means action economy matters. It means quick thinking matters. Pacing matters. The music matters. Forced decision or 'stand there and take the dodge action' matters. It means you can't really plot, plan, and scheme. You might be able to use your reaction to tell someone off turn to change their course of action but for the most part - if you didn't plan it ahead of time, you can't bark those orders in initiative timing.
Challenge means obstacles. Terrain. Figuring out the puzzle to even harm this thing (Smaug's single vulnerability). It means "did you do enough research to learn that you can't harm the monster with anything but force damage?" Whatever it means to you, simply consider that challenge means so much more than how high AC or how many HPs it has.
Change your approach and you fix CR, number of players, timing, pacing, initiative vs. downtime, etc.
All things Lich - DM tips, tricks, and other creative shenanigans
Personally, I use initiative entirely as is. I think Cody's system introduces a couple of big flaws:
Overall, I think these changes don't need to be made and would just serve to make initiative worse. That being said, I would enjoy trying out this variant initiative system if I can convince my friends to use it for a session or two.
BoringBard's long and tedious posts somehow manage to enrapture audiences. How? Because he used Charm Person, the #1 bard spell!
He/him pronouns. Call me Bard. PROUD NERD!
Ever wanted to talk about your parties' worst mistakes? Do so HERE. What's your favorite class, why? Share & explain
HERE.Everyone, I very much appreciate all your comments. Food for thought! :)
Has anyone tried this:
Everyone rolls initiative, highest roll goes first. Turns then proceed clockwise (or anticlockwise, d4 to determine). Monsters' turns are in between players.
This means that Dexterity still affects initiative, while eliminating the need for an initiative tracker.
[REDACTED]
Sorry, assassin. You rolled second in initiative, so now you're dead last and your entire subclass is largely worthless. Tough luck.
Plus, this would just make it a fight for whoever gets to sit next to the dude with +5 Dex and Alert.
If you do this, might as well just throw initiative out the window altogether.
Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny.
Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
How I'm posting based on text formatting: Mod Hat Off - Mod Hat Also Off (I'm not a mod)
The only time I've seen that sort of initiative system used well has been in Battletech grinder games (which are free-for-alls that need to be kept moving). Doesn't work so well in a game like D&D.
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.