Mike Mearls’ “Greyhawk” Initiative system has provided a welcome shake-up in the consideration of the Dungeons & Dragons rule system. It’s a completely optional system, and one that seeks to provide a little more unpredictability and tension into combat by removing the predictable order of actions that is part of the basic 5E ruleset.

I’ve now run two sessions with versions of these rules. (You can find my post on the first session here). I’ve kept the core of the system, while making a few little tweaks around the edges. In the more recent session I ran (appropriately, in my game set in the World of Greyhawk), I dropped the action die for bonus actions, as I believed it disadvantaged some classes (like monks and rogues) too much. In addition, I used the suggestion that attack cantrips use a d4 or d8 die depending on whether they were ranged or melee attacks, respectively, thus putting them on the same scale as weapon attacks. This was welcomed by the players.

There were times the system worked very well. The wizard was extremely gratified when he rolled a “1” on his initiative check when casting a fireball and cast the spell before the monsters moved. The players spent more time talking amongst themselves about the best strategies to use. As noted in the recent episode of Down with D&D that discussed this system, I did notice the tendency of one or two players to dominate the strategizing. However, I don’t think that’s a bad thing: the fact is that military groups tend to have a leader, and he or she will work out tactical considerations and aid the other soldiers in their decisions. A more unified approach to battle is something I welcome.

The discussion of actions took some time; these combats were running slower than the regular system. However, it’s hard to say how much so as the combats I was running were tactically more challenging: with well-armoured hobgoblins armed with bows and swords protecting spellcasters in easily-defended choke points. These were tricky situations, and thus required more discussion than normal.

The lack of a ready action (it instead became a “delay”) action, when coupled with the movement rules, caused odd situations in both sessions. One example: the hobgoblins won initiative, moved forward… and then couldn’t attack with their melee weapons despite having them ready. This allowed the fighters who lost initiative to move into melee and immediately attack. This seemed backwards. The problem exists in the standard rules to some extent, as a PC readying attacks in the same situation would only be able to take one readied attack instead of his or her full attack action, but at least the PC would still get an attack.

As our rogue wasn’t at this session, we didn’t revisit the problem of the bonus disengage action, which occurs when a combatant can start in melee, attack, then move away without provoking Attacks of Opportunity – either due to Mobility, a bonus Disengage action or some other manoeuvre – thus leaving their opponent who has chosen just to make a melee attack and rolled poorly for initiative to not make an attack at all! However, that remains a problem with the system.

Thus, the biggest problem with this initiative system remains movement: preannouncing actions works very badly with the way combatants do all their actions and movement at once. I think that, ultimately, this problem breaks the “Greyhawk” Initiative system.

Is there a solution to this? I’m unsure if there is. The old initiative and action declaration systems of original D&D and AD&D had a very simple model of combat. Movement was very limited: you ran from the monsters, or you moved towards them. Once in melee, you stayed into melee until all the foes were dead or you fled. The mobile manoeuvring of current editions of D&D were quite foreign to the game – monks and rogues weren’t jumping in and out of melee at the drop of a hat. Hiding was something you only did before combat started – once you were revealed, you typically couldn’t hide again until the combat ended.

The more draconian part of me longs for a return of the less mobile combats. The miniature wargamer part of me wants to see a different round resolution order. Something on the order of:

1. Actions (if not moving) resolved for both sides
2. Movement resolved for both sides
3. Actions after movement resolved for both sides

Thus, you get a situation where the movement and action resolution end up being resolved at different times. I’m sure this system would provide its own challenges and problems, of course!

The advantage of this system is it gives more control over the effects of movement. Certainly, in my more recent sessions of AD&D, I’ve judged movement to happen simultaneously; thus, if combatants moved towards each other, they’d meet in the middle. However, running a movement system where you move combatants one by one in varying orders, or using “side” initiative, is also possible.

The point of initiative and action declaration systems is to gain some balance between playable, enjoyable and realistic. The problems with the “Greyhawk” Initiative system are significant enough when coupled with the current action set that I think it needs more work – or potentially reimagining – before I’d make it a permanent part of my games.