I'm considering adding a rule to initiative to reward people for rolling significantly higher than others, what I was thinking is a round lasts for twenty initiative points, so, if the Rogue with a Dex mod of +5 rolls a 19 Than the Rogue will go on initiative count 24 and than since the score is above 20 after their first turn 20 is subtracted from their score and so they go on initiative count 4. And so if a Cleric with an Dex mod of +1 rolls a 2 than on the first turn the Rogue will go twice before the Cleric.
Also if someone has a negative Dex mod I was thinking of just making 1 the lowest you can get on initiative in order to not make too confusing.
I don't think it will upset the balance too much, but the problems that I notice are: It could make effects that last a round difficult to keep track of, it might overpower the "alert" feat, and it might just confuse players.
And for natural 20 I was thinking that they get an additional +5 to initiative, and on a natural 1 you get a -5 but it still can't get below 1.
You'd have to factor in that you're changing the action economy of combat to some extent, however.
A party could get an entire other set of character attacks in for a high imitative roll - almost as if they had another party member. For a finesse dex-based fighter of sufficient level, the number of extra attacks per round would be significant.
Have you considered perhaps awarding an extra bonus action on their second action slot? This would allow the character to get in extra secondary actions - but not an entire set of attacks.
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Could you elaborate as to why you'd want to use this system? I'd like to offer more input, but I'm having a hard time, from a DM perspective, finding a reason I'd want to implement this into a game.
Also, just running a couple simulations on my notebook--it seems to me that this system can't just reward people for rolling high unless it punishes people for rolling really low. For instance, let's say the following occurs for initiative rolls: Rogue 24, Monk 20, Fighter 10, Orcs 15, Chimera 6. With the proposed system, this initiative work normally RAW, no "reward" to be found for the rogue rolling high. In a separate case, let's say it's this: Rogue 2, Monk 14, Fighter 1, Orcs 22, Chimera 19. So in this case, the fighter goes last and the orcs get 2 turns. It feels like the Orcs get a reward, but really it's telling the fighter, "if you'd rolled a little higher, the orcs wouldn't have gotten a second turn. Sucks for you, dude."
I hope this doesn't feel like negative criticism--I love tinkering with ideas like this.
@LightSpeed constructive criticism is generally better than approval, so I appreciate the post.
This is mainly just a "It would be interesting if..." I suppose if I had to name something specific that this rule would add it would be realism, I guess. I just felt like it seemed odd that when the Monk with the "Alert" feat gets a 28 on initiative, the Cleric gets a 6, and the roc gets a 5, there's not much benefit to the Monk getting that high of a number.
Seems like an interesting concept, but I think the extra turn reward should be downsized, maybe into a bonus action as Vedexant said. I see it as: You're giving people with high Dexterity an ability comparable to the Thief Archetype's top-out ability.
I'm considering adding a rule to initiative to reward people for rolling significantly higher than others, what I was thinking is a round lasts for twenty initiative points, so, if the Rogue with a Dex mod of +5 rolls a 19 Than the Rogue will go on initiative count 24 and than since the score is above 20 after their first turn 20 is subtracted from their score and so they go on initiative count 4. And so if a Cleric with an Dex mod of +1 rolls a 2 than on the first turn the Rogue will go twice before the Cleric.
Also if someone has a negative Dex mod I was thinking of just making 1 the lowest you can get on initiative in order to not make too confusing.
I don't think it will upset the balance too much, but the problems that I notice are: It could make effects that last a round difficult to keep track of, it might overpower the "alert" feat, and it might just confuse players.
And for natural 20 I was thinking that they get an additional +5 to initiative, and on a natural 1 you get a -5 but it still can't get below 1.
What are your thoughts?
It's an interesting idea.
You'd have to factor in that you're changing the action economy of combat to some extent, however.
A party could get an entire other set of character attacks in for a high imitative roll - almost as if they had another party member. For a finesse dex-based fighter of sufficient level, the number of extra attacks per round would be significant.
Have you considered perhaps awarding an extra bonus action on their second action slot? This would allow the character to get in extra secondary actions - but not an entire set of attacks.
Just my $0.02
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Could you elaborate as to why you'd want to use this system? I'd like to offer more input, but I'm having a hard time, from a DM perspective, finding a reason I'd want to implement this into a game.
Also, just running a couple simulations on my notebook--it seems to me that this system can't just reward people for rolling high unless it punishes people for rolling really low. For instance, let's say the following occurs for initiative rolls: Rogue 24, Monk 20, Fighter 10, Orcs 15, Chimera 6. With the proposed system, this initiative work normally RAW, no "reward" to be found for the rogue rolling high. In a separate case, let's say it's this: Rogue 2, Monk 14, Fighter 1, Orcs 22, Chimera 19. So in this case, the fighter goes last and the orcs get 2 turns. It feels like the Orcs get a reward, but really it's telling the fighter, "if you'd rolled a little higher, the orcs wouldn't have gotten a second turn. Sucks for you, dude."
I hope this doesn't feel like negative criticism--I love tinkering with ideas like this.
@LightSpeed constructive criticism is generally better than approval, so I appreciate the post.
This is mainly just a "It would be interesting if..." I suppose if I had to name something specific that this rule would add it would be realism, I guess. I just felt like it seemed odd that when the Monk with the "Alert" feat gets a 28 on initiative, the Cleric gets a 6, and the roc gets a 5, there's not much benefit to the Monk getting that high of a number.
1) Rogue
2) hard pass, initiative is already super important, this would be a buff to dex based characters and a nerf to everyone else.
Seems like an interesting concept, but I think the extra turn reward should be downsized, maybe into a bonus action as Vedexant said. I see it as: You're giving people with high Dexterity an ability comparable to the Thief Archetype's top-out ability.
I hope this helped, and good luck!
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