Initiative Thoughts



I've been toying around with the idea of blogging some tips on managing initiative in a D&D 5e game. Given the July 10th release of Unearthed Arcana's Greyhawk Initiative, I thought now might be a good time to go ahead and do just that. Hopefully, other readers will chime in and add their ideas as well in the comments.

Natural 20s and Natural 1s

I am a really big fan of the concept of Natural 20s and Natural 1s in 5e. For those not familiar with D&D, you use a 1d20 for almost every roll you make to accomplish a task (adding any appropriate bonuses you might have to the result). Rolling a 1 on the d20 is referred to as a natural 1. It is always a failure. Well, it's not just a failure. It's a particularly BAD failure. Rolling a 20 on the d20 is a natural 20. It's not just a guaranteed success but a particularly stylish, interesting, or down-right awe-inspiring success worth bragging home about. Sure, there are game mechanics that are affected by these two results, but for me they also present an opportunity to spice up the story with interesting actions and unexpected twists.

One place where the Natural 20 and Natural 1 rule is not explicitly applied is as part of initiative roll. It always seemed strange to me that if a natural 1 leads to a character fumbling their shot, dropping their sword, or snapping their staff, a natural 1 on initiative should also mean something. The same goes for the natural 20. So I took to doing the following:
  • On a natural 1, the character misses their turn on the first round and then acts normally on the next round. For example, Grandhammer has an initiative of +3 and his player rolls a natural 1. Grandhammer misses his turn of the first round (maybe he got something in his eye or he tried to unsheathe his sword and it got stuck or maybe he was too busy flirting to notice a fight had broken out). He would then go on 4 for his subsequent turns per the normal rules.
  • On a natural 20, the character gets an extra round before anyone else can act. Once this free round is done, play proceeds as normal. For example, Grandhammer's player rolls a natural 20, meaning that the character acts on 23. However, because of the natural 20, Grandhammer gets a free round before the normal play begins. Once the free round is done, he gets to act again on 23 per normal initiative rules on the next turn. If more than one character scores a natural 20, simply follow the initiative order within the free round.
Neither one of these really affect the sneak attack as that occurs before initiative is made.

I use this in every game I've run and the players have responded positively. It's a rule that makes sense. It falls within the general concept of natural 1 and natural 20s (especially since I go out of my way to invent interesting results when either are rolled). It's also fair since monsters, NPCs, and anyone (or anything) else making an initiative roll is affected by it.

Lowest Initiative Declares First, Highest Initiative Acts First

I've played a lot of RPGs over the last 30 years. I know the next idea was a rule in one of those games but I don't remember which.

One of the drawbacks with scoring a high initiative is that since you're going first you don't really know what the best course of action will be. Should you attack the fighter charging toward your character or the wizard silently chanting off in the corner? Or maybe your character should tie their shoe since neither of those bad guys are actually attacking them. In some ways going first puts you at a disadvantage. This idea can help correct this.

Simply put, at the top of each round the character with the lowest initiative declares what he or she will do on their turn. Then the next highest initiative declares their action. Then the next highest and so forth. It might be counter intuitive, but this provides a very important benefit to characters with higher initiative order; they know what characters with the lower initiative will do and can therefore act to their best advantage. After everyone declares their action, the round proceeds as normal with the highest initiative order acting first.

To be honest, I actually haven't tried this yet in 5e. I can see a couple of potential issues with it though:
  • Ready action
    The Ready action is rendered meaningless here. This might not be a bad thing since by a strict reading of the rules a character who readies their action loses any additional actions they might normally be able to take if they had acted on their turn instead.
  • Slows play
    Declaring ahead of time what you're going to do slows down the game play.
  • Lost turn
    As described in the game where I stole this idea from (again, I don't remember which one it was), if you declare an action that later becomes obsolete, you basically lose your turn (or take on some sort of penalty in order to "change" what you were going to do). For example, I might go on 5 and declare that I want to attack a goblin on my turn. When combat begins, another character might kill that goblin on their turn before I get a chance to attack. As a result, there's really no point in carrying out the action I had planned to take. I get that in real life this sort of thing happens but in-game it might spoil some of the fun. Applying a penalty for changing the action might work here. For example, maybe you lose your proficiency bonus. 
There might be other problems, but again, I actually haven't tested this out in actual play. Maybe someone who reads this will give it a shot.

Screen Hangers

This really isn't an initiative rule. It's more about keeping track of initiative during combat. Sure, the old standby is to jot down everyone's initiative order on a piece of paper. This eats through the paper though and can be confusing for players since they won't necessarily be able to see said paper to tell who's going next. This is where screen hangers come in.


These are just slips of paper folded in half. You write the characters' name on each half. You do the same for each NPC and monster (or group of NPCs and group of monsters) that is rolling initiative. You then hang them on the screen in the correct initiative order, starting with the highest on your right (so that players will see the highest on their left) as I'm showing in the above picture. (If your culture reads right to left, then reverse the order you hang the slips so that it makes sense for your players.)

I actually went ahead and created mine in OpenOffice.org. Any word-processing program will work. I did a set for the characters, a set for monsters (labeling Monster 1, Monster 2, Monster 3, etc), and a set for NPCs (labeling them NPC 1, NPC 2, and so forth). I color-coded the text too (blue for players, red for monsters, green for NPCs). Regardless of whether you create them in a word processor or jot them down on a slip of paper, you'll want to make sure that when you fold the paper, the words aren't upside down. Below is another picture of the slips just sitting on a table so you can see what each side looks like.


You'll see that there is also a set that I call Mystery. This is for actors whose initiative I must keep track of but whose motives and actions I'm keeping secret from the players. I've used the mystery hangers for spies that the PCs were not aware of, invisible monsters that hadn't yet attacked, and for a bit on DM subterfuge just to make the players think something scary was happening that they didn't know about.

So, if you guys have any other ideas about initiative or if you want to discuss any of these ones, leave a comment. Also, don't forget to check out my DMs Guild offerings and follow me on Instagram, Twitter, or Tumblr.


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