First, a bunch of words nobody cares about regarding why I started poking at this rule, and where it came from. Feel free to skip if you are among the everybody that does not care.
First, an admission: I freaking HATE 5e's basic-ass initiative system. I hate it. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it. It's awful and accomplishes absolutely nothing except being fast. Sadly, "fast" is all anyone really wants from an initiative system; many attempts have been made to build a more interesting, in-depth initiative system that actually allows for interesting choices or which spices up the plodding predictability of combat, but every single one of them has eventually been shouted down using the same basic ammo: "this just bogs everything down! I wanna GO, no calculate my initiative every round!"
Blegh.
Recently though, I've been playing in an online Savage Worlds game. Savage Worlds doesn't bother with dice-based initiative. Instead, they use the Action Deck, which is just an ordinary poker deck with a pretentious name. Every round, every significant combatant (i.e. Wild Card) and every group of weenies is dealt a card from the deck. The value and suit of that card determines when it goes in the initiative order - theoretically, one could include up to fifty-two individual combatants/combat groups in a single fight without any duplication or ties. Setting the turn order every round is as easy as dealing between five to ten cards on average, which is often faster than waiting for everybody to roll a d20, do their math, and then write down the numbers and arrange them in the correct order.
The system also allows for Complications - drawing an action card of a specific suit (usually clubs, because **** clubs) means a Complication occurs on that critter's turn that it has to cope with. Great for particularly crazy or hectic battles, such as fighting on a burning frigate or a smaller skirmish amidst a giant battle of armies.
It's awesome. Combat feels much more chaotic and dangerous, and players are super engaged with that deal. Nobody slacks off or zones out after their turn, and the shifting turn order means plans are always fluid and fortunes can reverse in the blink of an eye.
Buuuuut...5e is 5e. Your initiative score is supposed to matter in 5e (it doesn't, but it's supposed to). Rogues and rangers and other nimble, skirmishy types are supposed to benefit from having higher initiative, and several classes or feats offer boosts to one's initiative score. This is not and cannot be reflected in an Action Deck format, which was a dealbreaker. Until I found myself looking through my SWADE PDF and noticing a few Edges I normally ignore, and a thunderbolt hit me. I could totally do this. And it would totally rock. Theoretically. Hopefully.
Secondly...the actual rule.
WIld Card Initiative At the beginning of every round of combat, the GM deals an Action card from a standard poker deck, including Jokers, to each significant combatant, and to each group of minor combatants. The suit and value of the card determines when the card acts in initiative order. Aces are high, deuces are low. Hearts beat diamonds beat spades beat clubs. A combatant which draws a Joker can take their turn at any time during the round, including interrupting a turn in progress to take theirs (minor enemy groups dealt a Joker move at the start of the round). A significant combatant (i.e. Wild Card) dealt the Joker also has advantage on the first roll they make during that turn.
A character can be dealt more than one action card. For each three full points of initiative modifier the character has, they are dealt an extra action card and can decide which one they would like to use. A character with +3 initiative would be dealt two action cards, a character with +6 would be dealt three, so on and so forth. When one of the character's action cards comes up, they can choose to Play or Pass. The character still takes only a single turn per round unless another ability lets them do otherwise.
At the DM's option, a character that's dealt (and acts on) a Club suffers a Complication on their turn, which may hinder their actions. Complications are dependent on circumstances, and generally encouraged only for particularly chaotic combat situations.
Any non-combat one-off use of initiative (i.e. rolling an Initiative check to determine who reaches a falling jewel first or if one character can interrupt another) is rolled normally, d20+modifier; the Action Deck is strictly for combat or similar multi-round situations. _____________________________________________
So yeah. That's my brainstorm for the day. A way to adapt Savage World's strictly and infinitely superior Action Deck initiative system to D&D 5e without totally scuppering initiative scores and disrespecting any feat or class feature that improves initiative. In fact, having a really high initiative score is vastly more valuable in Wild Card initiative since it gives you significantly more chances to draw that delicious, fight-changing Joker, with feats or features that let you go beyond just adding your Dexterity to Initiative allowing you to start pulling three or more action cards a turn and manipulate where you fall in the turn order to your best advantage.
What do y'all think? Cool way to strike a balance between fun, chaotic, super spicy variable battle initiative and not killing too much table time? Or still too slow for people used to roll-once-and-hate-life standard 5e initiative?
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First, a bunch of words nobody cares about regarding why I started poking at this rule, and where it came from. Feel free to skip if you are among the everybody that does not care.
First, an admission: I freaking HATE 5e's basic-ass initiative system. I hate it. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it. It's awful and accomplishes absolutely nothing except being fast. Sadly, "fast" is all anyone really wants from an initiative system; many attempts have been made to build a more interesting, in-depth initiative system that actually allows for interesting choices or which spices up the plodding predictability of combat, but every single one of them has eventually been shouted down using the same basic ammo: "this just bogs everything down! I wanna GO, no calculate my initiative every round!"
Blegh.
Recently though, I've been playing in an online Savage Worlds game. Savage Worlds doesn't bother with dice-based initiative. Instead, they use the Action Deck, which is just an ordinary poker deck with a pretentious name. Every round, every significant combatant (i.e. Wild Card) and every group of weenies is dealt a card from the deck. The value and suit of that card determines when it goes in the initiative order - theoretically, one could include up to fifty-two individual combatants/combat groups in a single fight without any duplication or ties. Setting the turn order every round is as easy as dealing between five to ten cards on average, which is often faster than waiting for everybody to roll a d20, do their math, and then write down the numbers and arrange them in the correct order.
The system also allows for Complications - drawing an action card of a specific suit (usually clubs, because **** clubs) means a Complication occurs on that critter's turn that it has to cope with. Great for particularly crazy or hectic battles, such as fighting on a burning frigate or a smaller skirmish amidst a giant battle of armies.
It's awesome. Combat feels much more chaotic and dangerous, and players are super engaged with that deal. Nobody slacks off or zones out after their turn, and the shifting turn order means plans are always fluid and fortunes can reverse in the blink of an eye.
Buuuuut...5e is 5e. Your initiative score is supposed to matter in 5e (it doesn't, but it's supposed to). Rogues and rangers and other nimble, skirmishy types are supposed to benefit from having higher initiative, and several classes or feats offer boosts to one's initiative score. This is not and cannot be reflected in an Action Deck format, which was a dealbreaker. Until I found myself looking through my SWADE PDF and noticing a few Edges I normally ignore, and a thunderbolt hit me. I could totally do this. And it would totally rock. Theoretically. Hopefully.
Secondly...the actual rule.
WIld Card Initiative
At the beginning of every round of combat, the GM deals an Action card from a standard poker deck, including Jokers, to each significant combatant, and to each group of minor combatants. The suit and value of the card determines when the card acts in initiative order. Aces are high, deuces are low. Hearts beat diamonds beat spades beat clubs. A combatant which draws a Joker can take their turn at any time during the round, including interrupting a turn in progress to take theirs (minor enemy groups dealt a Joker move at the start of the round). A significant combatant (i.e. Wild Card) dealt the Joker also has advantage on the first roll they make during that turn.
A character can be dealt more than one action card. For each three full points of initiative modifier the character has, they are dealt an extra action card and can decide which one they would like to use. A character with +3 initiative would be dealt two action cards, a character with +6 would be dealt three, so on and so forth. When one of the character's action cards comes up, they can choose to Play or Pass. The character still takes only a single turn per round unless another ability lets them do otherwise.
At the DM's option, a character that's dealt (and acts on) a Club suffers a Complication on their turn, which may hinder their actions. Complications are dependent on circumstances, and generally encouraged only for particularly chaotic combat situations.
Any non-combat one-off use of initiative (i.e. rolling an Initiative check to determine who reaches a falling jewel first or if one character can interrupt another) is rolled normally, d20+modifier; the Action Deck is strictly for combat or similar multi-round situations.
_____________________________________________
So yeah. That's my brainstorm for the day. A way to adapt Savage World's strictly and infinitely superior Action Deck initiative system to D&D 5e without totally scuppering initiative scores and disrespecting any feat or class feature that improves initiative. In fact, having a really high initiative score is vastly more valuable in Wild Card initiative since it gives you significantly more chances to draw that delicious, fight-changing Joker, with feats or features that let you go beyond just adding your Dexterity to Initiative allowing you to start pulling three or more action cards a turn and manipulate where you fall in the turn order to your best advantage.
What do y'all think? Cool way to strike a balance between fun, chaotic, super spicy variable battle initiative and not killing too much table time? Or still too slow for people used to roll-once-and-hate-life standard 5e initiative?
Please do not contact or message me.