Combat in Dungeons & Dragons is not particularly realistic. Its mechanics exist to make a good game rather than accurately relate what would happen in a real fight.
The current initiative system can be described as a cyclical system. At the beginning of each combat, an initiative roll is made (a Dexterity check) by each combatant. The combatants are then ordered from highest roll to lowest, and then each takes a turn, from first to last, with the first taking a second turn after everyone has had their first turn. It cycles around and around until the combat ends.
This system was first brought into D&D by the 3rd edition of the rules. The main difference between the 3rd edition rules and the current rules is that in 3rd edition, you could delay your turn and change your position in the order. That option doesn’t exist in 5th edition.
This initiative system has the advantage of being very simple to understand. Realistic? Hardly. One of the features of real life is that everyone moves at once. (When you see an army charging at another army, does one person in the front-line move, then a second, then a third? No, everyone is moving simultaneously).
The current initiative system also has the drawback of being deterministic. Once you know the order of combatant actions, it will be the same throughout the combat.
Mike Mearls recently posted a system that he’s been trialling to remove the deterministic approach to initiative. The basic idea is that each combatant announces their action at the beginning of each round, then the order of actions is randomly determined, with each action having a dice roll determining when it happens in the round. Let’s call this a stochastic system, which just means random (although the randomness is within bounds determined by the actions chosen, each of which uses a different type of dice).
Mike Mearls’s system does a very good job of bringing tension back to combat, because you can no longer be sure that you’ll be able to act before the monster. The more complicated your actions, the later you act in the round.
One thing his system doesn’t do is allow movement to be simultaneous. This is a hard one to do. I’ve occasionally handled it in the following manner, with one interpretation of the AD&D system:
- Each combatant announces actions
- The Dungeon Master decides what happens, with a set of rules determining who strikes first through a group initiative roll and a bunch of complicated modifiers.
In such a system, like Mike’s, the combatants announce actions at the start of each round, not knowing when they’ll take them; in the current system, combatants only announce actions on their turn. (Is Mike’s system a preannounce system?)
The drawback of my interpretation of the AD&D system is that the Dungeon Master must keep track of the actions and then order them all. The advantage it has is that you get a more realistic structure for combat. Two combatants move towards each other? Then they’ll meet in the middle and exchange blows. This is something I prefer to the current system, where there is a definite disadvantage to moving to a position where the other combatant will be able to then attack you with all their attacks.
Another problem with preannouncing actions is that what happens if the situation changes? Do you lose your action? Do you lose your spell slot? If your fighter friend kills the Big Bad before you cast magic missile, is the spell still cast for no effect? Typically, I would allow the action to be retargeted, only being lost if no targets remain; in a 5E game with Mike’s system, I’d not require the slot to be expended.
Another part of earlier initiative systems that is not part of either Mike’s or the 5E system is the idea of group initiative. In such an initiative system, all creatures on one side move and act together.
The advantage of such a system is that you can maintain a defensive front. In the current initiative system, a fighter can charge out first and get surrounded, despite his companion also running into the fray – theoretically by his side.
Instead, we have an individual initiative system, where each character acts independently of the others.
All of these issues interlink to make the decisions required to design an initiative system quite a complicated one. The current 5E system has one great advantage: it’s simple. The drawbacks depend on your preferences. For me, I’m not fond of the deterministic system that doesn’t allow simultaneous or group movement.
I’ll be giving Mike’s system a try in the coming weeks. It doesn’t address all of my concerns, but it’s worth seeing how it affects things.
My previous commentary on Initiative systems:
The best and most dynamic initiative system I have ever played is Hackmaster 5’s. Everyone moves simultaneously and the type of weapon you have affects how fast you can attack with it. Daggers are much faster (but do less damage) than slower large weapons (which do more damage). Its pretty chaotic with everyone moving at the same time, but it is lots of fun. I would love to try and create a version of this for D&D, but it would be a lot of work.
I think the group needs to ready their movement to synchronize it with the others advance, to move ‘as one’. Otherwise the default is a ragged advance, not a simultaneous and synchronized forward movement. You occasionally see this in movies, where a side (not the most disciplined or well trained side, usually) simply runs forward, some much further ahead than others. The fighter just dashes forward and a few fractions of a second latter others manage to take in what has happened and move themselves.
I like some of these ideas Merric. How would initiative modifying features like Alert and Rakish Audacity work within this system?
Do I feel some experimentation coming on on Friday nights?
Some experimentation, yes. I’d allow Alert to reroll one of your initiative dice instead.
This should be interesting.