Fixing Initiative in D&D 5e

[@stevenle9960]

this is why i really like online play, everyone has a macro that instantly rolls initiative and puts everyone in order (at least on roll20). No momentum is lost and combat begins immediately. Fixes a lot of problems with initiative without changing any rules. Everyone knows when they're going to go and have time to plan accordingly

[@IanPanth]

How about Professor Dungeon Master’s “No Initiative” initiative. Your attack roll is your initiative. Highest rolls resolved first. Everyone declares their action, everyone rolls simultaneously, and the DM narrates the results. In the case of a tie, range and spell attacks go before melee. See his KZbin video.

[@erikmartin4996]

This^^^

[@Tysto]

He abandoned that pretty quickly. You still have to figure out where non-attackers fit in & still have to juggle which attacks to resolve first. He made another video about side initiative.

[@5FlyingOstriches]

I use prerolled initiative and instant initiative. I have my players roll initiative three times in a row at the beginning of an arc. Then I use these rolls in order until we run out and need to roll again. After I finish planning combat encounters in D&D Beyond, I use the Auto-roll initiative button to get values for the enemies and write those down. When the party reaches an encounter, I add the enemy's initiative to the paper I already have player initiative written. It is a lot of work ahead of time, but it keeps things flowing during the session as long as I stay organized.

[@dungeonmasterdesign6476]

Anson: *looking for a way to prep less for sessions* Me: prerolled initiative! Anson: Aw daggumit

[@quercusmorgana]

@@dungeonmasterdesign6476 Same amount of work as regular initiative, becomes instant, and can be done at the start of the night when everyone's getting all their stuff out and just chatting before the game proper begins. My players like to "warm up their dice" anyway.

[@rickau]

@@quercusmorgana this is the system I would use if I was DM. a) doesn't ignore class features or feats b) still let's people roll so it can provide variance to order c) you could totally toll players by rolling more initiative than there are encounters* * you can always roll to see which PC initiative set is used for an encounter too.

[@gargonovich]

I took a crack at this once myself when writing a d20 system for a computer game. Most of the stuff in that system was too much faffing about for actual tabletop play, but I think the initiative system could work if you had a good tracker. What I came up with was this: Roll a d20 for initiative as normal, modifiers subtract from the roll instead of add. Lowest in the order goes first. In case of a tie, everyone rolls another d20, and the order in that position goes lowest to highest. After a creature finishes its turn, it rolls its Speed Die. For players, this is determined by their primary class. For example, Rogue and Monk throw a d6. Fighter, Barbarian, Warlock, and Ranger throw a d8. Paladin, Cleric, Artificer, and Druid throw a d10. Wizard throws a d12. For creatures, it would be a part of their stat block. Add the result of your Speed Die roll to your initiative, and that determines your position for next round. It allows for the combat to really evolve and change in terms of flow as the combat goes on, while also giving players a little more to chew on in terms of class selection as it's a standout feature for Monks and Rogues while being a drawback for Wizards. It does add some more time from rolling and a bit of crunch, but some people like that, and everyone likes rolling dice.

[@christinacooper151]

Just found your channel through this video. I’ve watched them all multiple times and really like the thoughtful, chill vibe. Looking forward to more!

[@dungeonmasterdesign6476]

Thank you so much for watching and enjoying! it means so much!

[@christinacooper151]

@@dungeonmasterdesign6476 Your video inspired me to take my homebrew initiative system to a higher level of completion, and to publish my first 5E system: arcaneartifactory.com/dnd-mods/bullet-time-initiative/

[@raeyth_]

@@christinacooper151 I just checked this out, and I'm really excited to try it in a game. It looks like a really fun way to do initiative. I've always thought that the "6 seconds per round" thing got lost in most initiative systems. Great work designing it!

[@TheFlickeringTorch]

Never heard of Maelstrom initiative sound very clever. I like the way forbidden lands handles initiative, Cards numbered 1-10 everyone takes a card, if you have certain skills you take 2 chose the highest. This is fast and requires no math as a GM you essentially just call out each number one after the other, the players instantly know where they sit in initiative aswell

[@dungeonmasterdesign6476]

Man I really like that. I need to play more niche RPGs so I can steal from them. Or I suppose I could just watch all your reviews!

[@raeyth_]

My personal take on Party Initiative is to do an average flat bonus. D20 roll + average Initiative bonus. That way a group that has an Alert feat, bardic inspiration or other bonuses, etc. all get counted into the bonus. It also deals with the "15 goblins with a +1 initiative" is dealt with, because the average of 15 +1's is...well, +1. It deals with the bonus to party initiative well, and allows all the bonus of teamwork in Party/Side Initiative.

[@artwholly]

I do this at my table too. We roll initiative at the end of combat. It gives the PCs a way to signal that they are done with looting and muckiing about after a combat encounter and that they're ready to move on. I have a list of pre-rolled initiatives in my session prep notes so all I have to do is add each baddie's DEX mod and plug it in whenever shenanigans begin

[@Tysto]

My method is side initiative that resolves both opponents before moving on. Each side rolls a d20 and adds the number of combatants on their side. If the PCs win, the players decide who logically takes the first action. Resolve that attack and any opponent's attack. Then go clockwise around the room to the next PC and his opponent. If the monsters win, decide which monster attacks which PC first, & resolve the monster's attack & the PC's attack, then go clockwise around the room to the next PC, with his opponent first then the PC. Combat is too chaotic and circumstantial for dexterity or level or weapon speed to really matter, but sheer numbers do. If you have seven guys & the other side has three, then someone on your side will probably act first. Also: area effect spells generally reset initiative.

[@DragonKingZero]

IDEA: Hourglass Initiative (inspired by FF's Active Time Battle system) - Initiative rolls determine the size of your hourglass, and you can tell the DM what you want to do either when your turn comes or before it comes (and you make the necessary rolls when it does).

[@NomNom1970]

This is a balancing act. I like many of the solutions I have heard here and elsewhere. Ultimately, for me as player and DM it boils down to chance to be "the winner." That character that did the thing that made the situation go our way. If I as DM take the opportunity for the attack order to change, for bad rolls and great rolls to happen, then to some extent, I am removing the chance for a player to shine in the story that the characters and the dice are writing. That feels less fun from my perspective. I like the idea of starting combat with declaration of actions then using attack rolls to order them high roll first. Each round would be a surprise for sure, but how do you account for team work and setting up your nuclear attacks? Maybe the first round is attack roll order followed by planned orchestrated attacks. This feels like a happy balance. But there would need to be a timer to keep the pressure on and prevent the players from "what about-ing" the fun out of the room.

[@joshuaturner4602]

So I run ad&d and the malstrom initiative is similar. Each action has a speed (spells typically have a speed equal to its level, weapons have speed roughly correlating to their physical weight, character actions/ natural weapons proportional to the characters size. GM declares monster actions in secret, then the PCs declare actions. Both sides roll a D10 add their action speeds to it and then the lowest result acts first

[@zellak-pr7pu]

Been playing since 1979....we are wargamers. So the players sit round the table in dex order (int breaks ties ). And we roll a d6 for initiative. rerolling ties. Works fine, though we now play a Runequest hack rather than D&D.

[@crimfan]

Fantasy Grounds does Instant. I actually found it kind of crazy feeling... I didn't really know that it'd happened.

[@jakynth]

There is a program called Combat Manager, its meant for pathfinder but can be modified for any system and is the answer to the instant initiative problem. Works great and ive been using it for years.

[@fortunatus1]

The initiative system I'm going to use in my next campaign in the upcoming Revised 5E (so not tested yet) is 2d6 + Initiative bonus + use of the playtest Alert feat. 2d6 v d20 means a less swingy range of rolls with the option of players switching their initiative total with that of one other player if they chose Alert for their free background feat. Most likely the high Dex pc's will be the ones to choose Alert because it synchronizes with their ability scores and the playstyle of those classes. It gives those players initial decisions to make and can get other players involved tactically... Wizard: "Let me go first so I can cast Fireball before the fighter gets in the way!" Has anyone tried something like this?

[@MrMolitov2002]

In Troika!: Each character has 2 colored tokens (unique color for each PC) added to a bag. In addition there's a "end of round" token in the bag. When your color is drawn, you take your turn. When the "end of round" token is drawn, all tokens are put back in the bag. You could get 2 actions, you might get 4 back-to-back turns if you're very lucky. You could also not get any actions that round. Keeps everyone guessing. Keeps it always fresh.

[@crimfan]

I always hated cyclic initiative, which I think is complicated and boring all at the same time. I've switched to what I call "Alternate Side Initiative" (I live in NYC...). It's really party initiative but with modifiers. D&D had party initiative back in 1E and 2E, so this is a throwback to the old days. One of my goals was to keep as much of the existing rules as possible, particularly to allow the initiative score boosts like the Alert feat or the Gift of Alacrity spell to work. It also brings back Delay in a much less irritating way than past version of it. This seems complicated but actually works nicely and helps encourage tactical play with minimal overhead. It's been easy to learn. -Initiative is rolled every round. -Monsters have deterministic initiative that sets the players' DC: DC = 10+best monster Dex mod. Leader monsters (e.g., hobgoblin captain) or Legendary monsters are proficient. So hobgoblins set with a sergeant will have a DC 14 because Dex mod = +2 and proficiency bonus is +2. This means that killing leader monsters is worthwhile, as it should be. -The players nominate who rolls, using their ordinary Initiative modifiers. (This means a PC who took Alertness or Gift of Alacrity still has a use for those abilities). If they meet or beat the DC, they win and can choose to go first or last (as they want). If they don't, the monsters choose. Usually you'd choose to go but may want to wait if, say, the monsters are too far away to act and you want to force them to move up. Note that an initiative check is just an ability check so things like Bardic Inspiration affect it and might well be valuable. Exhaustion also really bites. -Whoever rolls initiative at a round declares first and we go around in table order. This helps cut down on the "loudest player" problem. It is possible for a PC to pass to the next person in the table order but all of a side's actions must be resolved before going to the other side. -The only way to act outside your side's turns is via a Reaction. -Allies and pets act on their side's turn but never roll initiative. Allies act when the players indicate and pets act on their controlling player's turn. -All PCs must roll before a PC can roll again. Even stunned, incapacitated, or dead PCs can roll (gives the player something to do) and this order is kept track of even across combats (sounds complicated, isn't). I don't know if it actually speeds things up a ton, but it does allow for a lot more tactics and player engagement, without being as boring and generally disengaging as cyclic initiative. It's actually possible to do things like decide "Hey we all need to charge" or "We need to RUN!" and make it happen. Finally, I don't actually need to spend a bunch of time establishing an initiative order because combat starts right away.

[@ClockworkBard]

I cobbled my own digital tracker in badly written Python, with a client for managing characters on my laptop and a Raspberry Pi on my TV that displays the results. It's about as close to that dream as I can hope for, since I was able to add every quality of life feature I wanted. But after a year of using it, I dunno. It absolutely achieves the speed and rules-accurate results desired. But it's clear the players just kind of accept it as the lesser evil. They don't feel any investment in the results. Removing the dice from their hands takes something from the experience. We're starting a new game, and rather than reconfigure the software for our new venue, I think I'm going to try "Initiative as a save". Basically, announce an Initiative DC, have them roll, then anyone who passes gets to go before the enemies and fails go after. Might roll every round to help keep people engaged. We'll see how it goes.

[@matabrennan8417]

Personally, I like Maelstrom but I'm open to tweaking it. I've also thought about a mechanical instant initiative as well, but I wonder if players would feel a loss of agency over not rolling their own dice. But if instant initiative on behalf of the player is acceptable, one could do prerolled mechanically as well - just have spreadsheets of prerolled numbers for each player, with bonuses added, and then just cross them off as needed.

[@jessegoonerage3999]

roll20 has a group initiative macro. You select all player tokens and hit the macro, then boom they all go into the turn order. I use it all the time in my games. You wouldn't really need to add in the entire group's character sheet - just the initiative. Once i've done that, I just sort the enemies by type and roll one initiative for each of them. If you were playing in person, you could use a tablet and have roll20 set up in the background with the tokens selected. Then, when you need to roll for initiative you just hit the button.

[@lucasterable]

Just go clockwise around the table and alternate players and enemies.

[@elric58]

How about not really changing anything except when you actually roll the initiative. You start the session with a recap and an initiative roll. DM prerolls initiative for all the monsters in all the planned encounters (I generally have random encounters ready to drop into the game at various points/locations, so even those initiatives can be prerolled). When the first combat happens, all the numbers are set and combat begins. When combat concludes, roll the next set of initiatives and carry on with the game. Never done this, but your video got me thinking.

[@Roi007leaf]

Foundry has roll initiative for all encounter members

[@MatthewWardprofile]

Something I've only toyed around with in simulation, but not in a game yet is the "Instant Round". This is where everyone rolls 2d20 (one initiative and first attack) + damage die (d6 for example) on the first round of combat. You could use different color dice for the d20 or they could simply choose the result for initiative vs attack. That way all dice are rolled and you are just trying to figure out what happened in the round. What's everyone's init? What was your attack roll? How much damage did you do? In theory this would really speed up the first round but after that roll Attack and Damage die together so you have the values even if you don't hit.

[@erikmartin4996]

Dungeoncrafts no initiative system gives you instant initiative

[@dreadpiratexx]

I think you kinda missed a bit of the forest for the trees. Yes the narrative gets interrupted a little bit at the beginning of combat, but my issue with Initiative is when one character gets stuck. Say the monk goes after the big bad every round. This makes strategy completely useless for that character since the whole battle will change just before their turn. If this happens before a new players turn this will slow down the middle of combat which is way worse than at the beginning. Combat already takes a long time. I subbed but this video didn't help any of the real issues of D&D. Rolling each round simulates the chaos of battle and then not everything is so static

[@garritwinans7774]

I tried prerolled initiative, however I felt it altered players decisions. I have no tangible evidence to prove this, but I justified it by internally saying "You might know if your having a good day, you feel on the ball with everything around you and have high alert/focus." The party would move with the person with highest initiative first. I personally didn't like it.

[@shadowmancer99]

Option 1 is terrible. Option 2 would be bad because it wrecks the ability to get advantage to Initiative unless you give them a plus 5 bonus. Then I think that people would get bored with never getting a chance to not always be last or first. Its not that I am against it, but honestly, with the VTT tools, rolling initiative isnt that hard. Option 3 is awful, that will make the fights even MORE swingy. I guess I just see this as a solution looking for a problem. I dont see what the big issue with just rolling as needed, its never been a problem in my 40 years of TTRG experience. Could be that I see this AS a game as much as a storytelling medium so I dont see the game the same way as younger folks or those more drama inclined...lol.

[@Batterydennis]

Tobias Funke has found his place as a dungeon master.

[@bnorberg988]

Just a comment to help the algorithm make new viewers find you.

[@dungeonmasterdesign6476]

You’re a true bro. I make videos so haphazardly I think the algorithm hates me lol

[@bnorberg988]

@@dungeonmasterdesign6476 Thanks for making videos. I've played since AD&D and initiative rolls on a d6. But I think you made some good points and solid suggestions.

[@Drudenfusz]

In D&D, which I currently barely play, I have discarded DEX as Ini Stat and replaced it with CHA. Since Charisma is usually supposed to be an indicator of force of personality, and Initiative is something I think is usually something that gets more seized and thus is more about how determined a person is and not so much how agile they are. It also made CHA more valuable to have and it allows characters who are more inclined to be leaders to actual lead the charge.

[@markhill3858]

why not simple order of DEX? skip that whole 10 + bonus, DEX order is a little more nuanced anyways, and its one more bullshit number removed from the character sheet - never a bad thing .. monsters with no DEX recorded use 10+ HD (which is only something the GM hasta calculate), roll to break ties, OR let guys with same DEX potentially both kill each other Im somewhat sure thats possible :) .. It also makes high level monsters truely formidable :) .. obviously slow things, zombies, slimes, guys under a SLOW spell, etc go last. Plenty of other games use this very effectively why not dnd? and why do you care "rules as writ" its not carved in stone, no table on earth uses rules as writ Im sure :)

[@dungeonmasterdesign6476]

When changing the rules, I try to change as few rules as possible because other rules will interact with it and then you have to change THOSE rules too. So the fewer rules you have to change the better simply because it’s less work. That’s the only reason I try to keep things as close to RAW as possible.

[@markhill3858]

@@dungeonmasterdesign6476 i hear ya .. but see to me, the whole of 5e looks like totally unnecessary, massively OP, and rather clumsy alterations to the rules .. rules i grew up with anyways lol .. i barely recognise this medieval justice league thing whats it got to do with dnd :)

[@paulnamesa]

If you want a quick Google sheet to do "instant initiative" I have put one together here: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Fobl6Bvzu8LRzP1_ZHGY-iOJqtMkXCWaagsVSo-zFHE/edit?usp=sharing You should be able to make a local copy in your own google drive. Let me know if you have any questions.