Looks like The Heroes are getting ready to make good on their plan. Unfortunately, so is Assassin. Dude has been in BBEG’s pocket ever since that last visit to the lower planes. If only there had been some clue as to his treacherous nature! We can only hope that Wizard managed to get her all-important teleport spell off before the sneak attack goes through.
Any dang way, what do you say we take the opportunity to talk initiative? Because there are some things that the neat, orderly progression of turns can’t quite capture. I’m thinking especially of those oh-so-tropey moments where two anime characters swordsmen manage a double knock-out. It would be nice to see that mess at the table, but the standard you-go-I-go formula doesn’t really allow for it. Even readied actions fail to capture the magic, as they still rely on a precise order of operations.
There are a couple of ways you’ll see games handle this. Some titles require everyone to state their intended actions up front, then play them out in initiative order. You’ll also see true simultaneous reactions, where both parties are allowed to face-punch one another. You’ll even see last-in-first-out setups, where the best initiative gets to declare their action after hearing what everyone else is up to.
Then there’s the old question of tie-breakers. Do we default to higher Dex score? Go for an epic roll-off? And what if that ties? Do we just throw up our hands and decide that both things happen in the same instant?
So what do you say, O denizens of Handbook-World? Do you have any favorite oddball initiative systems? Is turn order the best of all possible worlds? And is Wizard going to survive her assassination? Let’s hear all about your preferred orders of operations down in the comments!
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I’m glad Assassin didn’t think to use a death attack, ’cause that stuff is nasty.
I hope Thief rolls high for attack and damage. Let’s get all the contract killers off tge game board! 🙂
I mean, Wizard is a wizard. Remember that time they got taken out by a papercut?
But if we keep taking out contract killers, the price of contract killing is going to skyrocket! That’s just basic economics.
Then at least the new blood will be able to make a buck. 😉
Planert Mercenary has speak first go first, this does require GM to give players time to react but also to gently nudge them forward. My favourite moments of the sessions was when combat was about to occur I set the stage and take few deep breath giving my players time to react, when the system was still new ad unfamiliar they were still thinking and I start to go and one of them pipes up and yells, “I dive to cover and shoot!” aparently realising he and his team were going to be shot at while standing in the door way, looking like deer in headlights.
The system does also encourage GM to coax some more shy players by allowing them to take the initiative or for narrative purpose let the enemy take the first move even if you have the fastest mouth east of DC in your table.
Do you ever run into the “everybody shouts at once” problem? I could picture that getting a bit chaotic with larger groups.
Yeah,but you just habe to make call which one goes first and to be fair shouting only happened if I was about to let enemy get initiative, and then after first one piped up others let them finish. We finns are quiet and polite like that.
Eesh. I never use any system where talking over others, whether the GM or fellow players, gives a mechanical advantage.
I’ll overlook an interruption if the player just let their enthusiasm run away with them, but the moment they try to claim that their character ACTED sooner because they spoke sooner, they move to the back of the initiative queue. Keep doing it, and they won’t be invited back.
The game does give alternative for rolling initiative dice at least with the group I played with I had no problems like that with it. Only shouting was when they panicked that I was about to start shooting at them. And even then we didn’t have problem of arguing who piped up first.
I think this could be a moment for stereotypical jokes about the silent Finns and loud Yanks 😀
One of my favourite initiative systems is the warhammer fantasy rpg 3e one. Each player rolls initiative that puts a marker on the initiative track for the players; and each monster group does so to put marks for them. Then when each marker is due, the side can decide who will take that turn (who hasn’t acted in that round yet). So a character with high initiative can decide to take a lower mark, letting someone with a low init roll take the higher and prepare the turf for them. It’s predictable unpredictability – you see how many will come first, but can’t tell ahead, who exactly, which can lead to interesting choices and tactical decisions. Meanwhile it can still be used as “I rolled high, I come first”.
Have been experimenting with some “more realistic” initiative systems, where your action kinda decided how fast can you act again (a melee attack allowed you to act again sooner than casting a 1 round spell), but came to the conclusion, that these systems would be awesome for a computer game, but slows down a tabletop combat waaay too much.
I kinda like the initiative system from Savage worlds, where you are dealt cards, and you act on that order, while you can always “hold” an act any time later (but you don’t get a new card until you use your turn) and how edges can affect how many cards you get to choose from, or how you can redraw low cards (or have to redraw high cards) giving a flexible system that is also quite fast as there’s no maths involved, and the cards easily indicating the turn order for everyone. (And I also like how if you want to interrupt someone’s action with your held round, you need to make an opposed agility check)
And I also liked Earthdawn, with initiative rolled every round, some classes having talents that improves your rolls, then announcing your general intent reverse initiative order (also faster characters can preempt he slower ones’ intention), which you could change when it was your turn but at a cost of a temporary penalty on your rolls during the turn. It seemed fast enough at the time, but dnd 5e spoiled me a lot.
These days we just do dex as tie breaker (almost never happened that we needed a second tie breaker on that); but I could probably go with simultaneous actions on tied initiatives, with some extra opposed rolls if one actor wants to be faster than someone else on the same round. (Well, allowing actors on the same side to decide without rolling).
So if a player is fighting a gnoll on init 11 both, I’d allow them to just take their turns, but any damage or status effect would only applied at the end of both turns (including triggering effects like hellish rebuke or concentration checks); and if the player wants to make sure their damage is applied before the gnoll can act, it’s an opposed dex (or acrobatics) roll, which can still result in a tie, or even in the gnoll acting faster.
I should point out for those unfamiliar with wfrp3e that while it seems this system could lead endless arguments on who will take each turn, the system has an inherent “parry tension” mechanics, which tracks each time the players (!) or characters argue too much, giving small temporary hindrances each time it hits a certain limit, discouraging endless player arguments disturbing the game too much, and also showing how party tension affects working together, without straight up saying no. (The debuffs are hindering but not debilitating, ao the players can decide if it’s worth it for them). It really integrates with the whole party approach in wfrp3e, where the party itself has its own sheet that grants abilities to every party member…
Savage Worlds was a favorite of mine for western-themed games. There’s just something so thematically pleasing about getting dealt a poker hand in Firefly or Deadlands.
Yeah, it’s quite obvious that the Savage Worlds system grew out of Deadlands, and I do agree with the strong thematic ties, and I also love it – but I’ve run a short game of Savage Pathfinder, and it worked so well there too and didn’t feel out of place either.
…I might even replace the 5e initiative with it as well…
This would be a *really* good time for Thief to get some much-overdue good luck on her rolls…
As to initiative, I usually prefer to keep it simple, even if that does miss some scope for drama. But there are some systems (the names of which escape me right now) where a character who hasn’t yet acted in a round can essentially use their action to clash an incoming attack… attack and defense essentially become an opposed roll, where the loser takes damage. That’s kind of fun, though works best when fighting one-on-one… not so well against mobs.
What system invokes those dueling rules? I’ve seen opposed roles used to good effect in Silver Age Sentinels, but that’s just their basic combat system.
I’ve seen variants of it in a few systems, but the one I’m thinking of is probably Victoriana. It’s part of the basic combat system there, too… not a specific dueling rule.
It’s been a while, but as I recall, someone would initiate a melee attack, and the defender could either evade or counter. Both were opposed rolls; the former being merely to avoid damage, the latter with the possibility that the attacker will be taking damage instead.
But it’s also one of those systems where you’re splitting dice pools to take multiple actions — including defense — which is why I say it works better for one-on-one fights… getting attacked by multiple opponents means you’re probably defending some of those attacks with no dice.
I think I have always liked more reactive combat in so many ways; I’m thinking Blades in the Dark, but lots of other systems have a similar feel.
D&D says everyone takes their turn according to some sort of abstraction of reaction time and luck. BitD says that something will happen if the party don’t prevent it and there’s more flexibility about who that person is. Someone swinging a huge hammer at a player? Well, the natural assumption is that the player would respond, but sometimes the narrative is better served by another player shoulder-barging the assailant or just taking the blow. I mean, those sorts of system don’t often have great solutions for intra-party betrayal, but at least they let story trump arbitrary mechanics.
In the case above, D&D has too many rules possibilities. Did the Assassin have a readied action for ‘Wizard is distracted by the spell’? Okay, he goes before the spell resolves. Did Rogue have a readied action for his sudden by inevitable betrayal? Okay, she goes before even he does. She’d better incapacitate him though, because by RAW he’ll still hit Wizard afterwards.
If it’s a sudden call of ‘I sneak attack’ without any sensible preparation — even ‘I move up behind Wizard as she prepares to cast is at least something — then I’d rule as DM that Wizard already declared her action and Assassin didn’t have a readied action prepared. Yeah, he can go in the surprise round of combat, but that surprise round starts after the spell goes off.
And of course, readied actions are tough to do when you’re prepping a sneaky betrayal. I guess that’s where secret note passing comes into play.
There’re a few initiative systems I like: the Savage Worlds method of drawing cards from a deck, with ties broken by suit (reverse alphabetical).
Also the Monsters and Other Childish Things method, where you declare actions in order of the “out-think” skill (in order from lowest to highest, so clever-clogs can state their action knowing what everyone else is planning). Then, everyone rolls their actions at the same time, and the actions are resolved in width order. See, the goal is to roll a dice pool to get sets of matching numbers, and the more dice in a set, the faster/stronger the action (the face number indicates the precision/quality of the action).
Finally, there’s the Paranoia method, where you [INFORMATION REDACTED BELOW ULTRAVIOLET CLEARANCE] (protip, it never hurts to suck up to the GM)
Friend Computer says you may go now, but only if you say, “Mother may I?”
back in 2nd edition (I believe it was also introduced in the ‘oriental adventures’ book) there was a rule that if two people have the exact same initiative they declare what they do and it can happen at the same time, what might even lead to two opponents slaying each other at the same moment.
Called it ‘Karmic strike’ if I recall.
Seemed very cinematic to me but we never got to get it to happen.
Heh. I appreciate that they added that rule to the oriental adventures book. Full on samurai duel.
At our tables, identical initiative results were resolved in decreasing order of Dexterity bonus, but were still judged to be simultaneous (making a mutual KO an exceedingly rare but theoretically possible result).
In our 3.5 Samurai campaigns, high initiative is so crucial to so many character builds that we wind up resolving all of the mid double-digit initiatives first, then have what amounts to a second combat round for all the classes and monsters not swinging their zentetsuken at the speed of thought.
I continue to be amused that “samurai” is a running theme in this thread. Kind of makes me wonder if there’s a more complex “showdown” system out there that makes “who draws first” more mechanically interesting.
And now I’m getting terrible memories of the odd system Avatar: Legends used, and is the premier source of JANK in that system. In concept, it’s simple: you have three kinds of action you can take and which one you pick determines where in the order you go. The problem I found is that trying to organize the entire party to figure out the poking order was a supreme nightmare that everybody at the table agreed was a BAD idea the one time I used it for a meaningful encounter. …which means that the combat system suffers very badly from scaling and the Decker problem.
The Decker problem?
https://www.reddit.com/r/RPGcreation/comments/np6v14/solutions_for_the_decker_problem/
Ah. I see then. I’m guessing that bending is much slower than everything else?
It’s less that bending is slower than everything else, as so much as the combat sputters to a halt EVERY round because I have to check in “okay, when is everybody going in this round?” Trying to get everyone’s attention at the same time, especially when one of the players had a bad habit of spacing out, was a repeatedly frustrating experience, to the point where I think all of us just kinda went “never again”.
Am I crazy or is Cleric’s book o’ rules mirrored?
It’s only a model.
The Avatar Legends roleplaying system (which I think is a Powered by the Apocalypse system) has a combat system where everyone chooses an “approach” (defensive, offensive, staying back) and then all combatant’s actions are worked out based on the action type (all defensive combatants go first, then all offensive combatants, then all evade/observe combatants). However, damage doesn’t actually apply until the end of the round, so even if you are alpha striked before your turn, you still get to perform your action. In effect, the order really affects the amount of information you have when you make the detailed decisions of your move – characters using Advance and Attack (offensive) know who has engaged in Defend and Maneuver (defensive) before they pick their targets, and Evade and Observe (staying back) characters have the most information, as they have prioritized paying attention to what everyone else is doing.
Regarding ties, the Youtuber Seth Skorkowsky was once reviewing a Wuxia RPG system where you roll a pool of d10s, take the highest and compare it to your opponent’s highest d10. If that’s a tie, you each go to the second highest d10. Skorkowsky noted that the rules don’t actually say what happens if all of the d10s are the same, but he offered the house rule that you reroll them all, but only after the GM has spent a minute describing the absolutely insane clash of perfectly-matched skill everyone has just witnessed.
My familiarity with Wuxia is mostly based in using it as a rules lite alternative for running Exalted. And in that sense, elaborate descriptions sound very much on brand.
this is the eternal problem. an player does a cinametic moment to get everyone away or an great moment and an npc or another player goes for the great betrayal. an now the entire table is shouting a million actions per minute.
regardless of the results the truly scary thing is what will happen to wizard. almost no matter what she casted a single action greater teleport spell while nobody is holding hands with her. at best she is teleported alone to the BBEG and the worst case senario is with a backstab that damaged her for a lot. no matter what assassin did his job
I enjoyed the initiative system in Gloomhaven: Each of your ability cards has its own initiative value with lower ones going first, and when you reveal your two cards each round, you can choose which one is your initiative for the turn (e.g. if you play a 09 and a 94, you can either act very early or very late). There’s a lot of strategy to it, especially since enemies prefer to target characters who act first – you might aim to go first to draw fire or take out monsters before they can act, or delay to let allies get into position and tank attacks for you. You can also do tricks like acting early, putting up a defensive buff that lasts until your next turn, then going as late as possible the following round to make it last longer.
Initiative is fluid in Scion, since after the initial Join Battle roll, different actions will take different amounts of time (typically 3-6 “Ticks”). Every action fully resolves on the tick it starts, buy you must spend its Speed in Ticks recovering. Any actions that occur on the same tick resolve simultaneously.
I crib from BG3 in that I’ll allow the opening action(s) that start off combat to basically come “before” initiative, but then remove that action when that character comes up in the proper initiative. They would need to have a clear means of “no one else expects combat” situation to be able to get that. Otherwise I might allow them to roll initiative for their turn, and then roll a second time and take the higher number for the “temporary initiative” of that specific action that kicked off combat.
I use stealth and passive perception to figure out surprise. In order to be surprised, a group check by the stealth team must be passed. If they fail the group check, that doesn’t mean they are automatically spotted, but that the perceiving group can then make an active perception check, which even if they fail the active check, they can still be suspicious and considered “not surprised” if the stealth group still goes through with the attack.
In situations where the attacker is in the open, but presumably trustworthy, the similar rules would apply with a performance/insight contest.
For cases where two people roll the same initiative, if they are on the same side, they can then act in tandem, taking each of their action/bonus/move/free in any combined order. If they are against each other, higher dex bonus(plus any other bonuses to initiative) goes first, with a rolloff acting as a tiebreaker.
I also allow creatures to use their entire turn and reaction to drop in initiative (which they get back when initiative ticks down to their new place in the order) but they have to choose a specific initiative that does not use an filled initiative value, so if there are creatures in 14,13,12 position, they have to choose either 15 or 11, not between. The exception is that they can choose the same initiative as someone who they have previously shared a turn with. You cannot share initiative with more creatures than your proficiency.