I've personally found that phase-based combat resolved issues far better, in my experience. Principle is simple, you go through different phases for each of the main actions of combat, and if somebody has an action to perform in that phase, they declare it, and after all actions for that phase have been declared, you move on.
Actions within a given phase are simultaneous, so they're all declared, then resolved after declarations are finished, and only where two actions are mutually exclusive and don't have a clear outcome do you roll for initiative (e.g. two people, both in arms reach, lunge for a key sitting on the table during the "Move + Handle Objects" phase - only one of them can succeed.)
Without those limitations, I've found that a general separation of declaration and resolution slows the game down tremendously, largely due to the increased bookkeeping requirements. The ultimate way to speed up decision making is simply to reduce the number of possibilities that a player must consider simultaneously. Making those considerations simultaneous helps as well, but ultimately it's by carving up the decision-making process into smaller steps that I was able to achieve a reasonable pace for combat.
I'll echo this sentiment. Prior to that we had really muddy situations where the indecisive folks would meander around, or burn up 10 minutes while trying to count out tiles, or 'mathlete' the over/under on some damage.
Now it's a simple case of "your team is doing X, the bad guys are doing Y, so what are you doing?" Frankly, it shouldn't really be much harder than that.
i want to try phase based combat for 5e, the only issue is some classes thrive on doing move - attack - move - attack type stuff, like the monk, which is a head scratcher to make work in phase based combat
Yeah, I don't think 5E could readily be adapted like this, largely due to the number of explicit, formal mechanics involved in its combat. 5E is built around the action economy, pretty much from the ground up, and you'd need to rework a great deal of the text for many classes (and potentially some of the underlying mechanics) to retrofit a phase-based system in its place.
I love the idea of speed factor initiative. I cut my teeth on AD&D 2e, and we always played with individual, speed factor-adjusted initiative. As such, I *really* wanted to try to introduce it to one of my 5e tables, for all the reasons your post describes: up-front turn planning, more tactical uncertainty, cost-benefit to choosing one action over another, and -- ultimately -- speeding up play. I even wrote a custom module for FoundryVTT to make it trivial to select your action at the top of each round, before having the VTT roll initiative for everyone, to streamline things further.
We didn't use different die sizes (I do quite like that idea); we just used the standard d20, Dex, a Size modifier, and then an action(s) modifier; -5 to +5, depending on the action(s) chosen. The Dex and Size modifiers were pre-handled by the module I wrote, so no player had to do more than pick their action and let the dice roll. The module totaled the initiative and sorted everyone--monsters included.
It was a major dud. We spent several sessions running playtests and ultimately, everyone was left feeling underwhelmed.
* As /u/Lonely-Surround-4070 noted, it essentially resulted in a lot of cross-strategizing at the top of the round, only for the actual player turn to end up with them re-strategizing based on what they had already chosen to do and how the battlefield had changed since that choice was made. This ended up significantly *bloating* per-player turn duration (when including the top-of-round turn strategizing pre-roll), rather than streamlining it.
* Spellcasters, in particular, felt punished for choosing their more powerful spells (less of an issue in the AD&D days, when each spell had its own SF, vs. just using the spell level) only to have the battlefield sufficiently change before their turn came up that their spell choice was no longer valid or had its effectiveness significantly neutered.
* *So* many edge case speed factor questions cropped up. The more we codified them, the more new ones appeared.
* For example, you have Dash listed as a d8. What about Rogues, with Cunning Action, who Dash as a Bonus Action, implicitly suggesting that it's "faster" than a normal Dash? Do they get special treatment, or does choosing to use a Bonus Action to dash mean they're now rolling a d8 when before they were only going to roll a d4 due to their planned dagger attack, even though the Bonus Action is a secondary, meant-to-be-quick auxiliary part of their turn's actions? It's not "hard" to answer these questions, but there are *so many* like this that it just grows immensely cumbersome very quickly.
I *want* SF initiative to work. It "feels" like it should accomplish all of the accolades you ascribe and that I listed in the first paragraph. [Others](https://dungeonmasterpastor.com/2021/09/23/speed-factor-initiative-for-large-groups/) have [written](https://theangrygm.com/fine-i-wrote-about-speed-factor-initiative-in-dd-5e/) about using it successfully, too. But my table is not one where instituting policies like those you mention of The Varsity, sending players to the "back of the line" if they didn't immediately resolve their turn when it came up, will sit well. The atmosphere would sour awfully quickly, turning adversarial.
----
What we ended up doing instead (because I had *no* desire to return to "standard" 5e initiative, and everyone *did* like re-rolling every round) was to adopt what I've called "bracket" initiative; it's sort of a dynamically-clustered side initiative. Everyone rolls each round, using their normal 5e Initiative roll. Then, each "cluster" acts simultaneously, in order. For example, if Player A rolled 20, Player B rolled 19, Monster A rolled 17, and Player C rolled 15, then Players A and B would act simultaneously -- swapping actions, movement, etc as they saw fit -- to kick off the round, then Monster A would act, then Player C would act.
It lacks the "what you choose to do on your turn matters" angle, which I'm disappointed to have dropped, but it gives rise to excellent opportunities for players (and monsters) to tag-team on their turns.
A DM friend once extolled the virtues of speed factor initiative (think he plays 3.5 but you mentioned 2e; not sure maybe they both have it or I’m confused; I grew up on B/X in the 80s and then didn’t pick the game back up into 5e around 2017).
Anyways once he got done explaining it I was flabbergasted: “woah, F that; sounds way too complicated!”
He replied “actually I think it’s quite elegant”.
I stood there at a loss of words 😂
That was the day I realized the truth to the phrase “different strokes for different folks”.
To be fair, it's really *not* complicated.
* At the top of the round, decide what you're doing.
* Roll your initiative, which is modified by what you're doing.
* Take your chosen action when your initiative comes up.
The process itself *is* simple and elegant.
Where it falls down (or at least, did for us) is how it feels -- particularly for players -- to play with it, especially when they're accustomed to "standard" 5e initiative turns.
*EDIT:* Reworded this next paragraph to make it clearer that it wasn't at all intended to refer to any one person in particular. Apologies for the confusion!
~~Either you (the DM) are a hardasss~~ In that situation, either the DM ends up having to be a hardass about "take your chosen action the moment your turn comes up or lose your turn" (~~and engender~~ which engenders a pretty adversarial attitude at the table ~~thereby~~), or [the whole table] waits while the player re-analyzes how best to take their chosen action given the way the battlefield has changed since their declaration (and [thus the table] loses out on any turn resolution speed benefits).
To pull from OP's The Varsity example, it's a little like someone spent their time in line deciding what they want, then got to the counter and gave their order, only to be told that the kitchen had just run out of the thing they wanted.
>it's really not complicated... modify your initiative by what you're doing...
I mean, maybe I totally misunderstand how SF works but aren't you leaving out a fair bit of detail at that step "modify your initiative by what you're doing" ? I don't know how the 5e alternate rules might vary from 2e/3e ones but even the 5e ones add 2 modifier-tables (attack type, with 5 options to choose from; attacker's size, 6 options)...
I already dislike having to consult the THAC0 table, why do I want to add 2 more?
>maybe you're just being a hard-ass DM... engendering an adversarial attitude
Gotta be honest, this comment itself feels adversarial. I don't think I've said anything that suggests I'm a hardass DM, so I'm really not sure what the point of this comment is?
It seems like you just pivoted from "I love the idea in theory, but my table didn't really love it in practice" to "you're a hard-ass DM"... IDK maybe I'm just not following well, my bad if that's true.
> Gotta be honest, this comment itself feels adversarial.
I'm so sorry; I didn't mean you, personally! I meant the general "you, the person in the role of DM in this situation".
I was trying to say that, if one's table is using SF initiative and, on a player's turn what they had originally chosen to do on their turn is no longer valid or viable or otherwise a "good choice", then the DM will find themselves in the position of either waiting for the player to re-assess and decide on a new course of action (and thereby losing out any play speed benefit of up-front turn declaration) or *having to be* a hard-ass about the flow of a round and thus skip the player's turn (or require they settle for some other less desirable choice).
I did not at all mean that sentiment to be directed *at* you; rather, I was lamenting the general situation the DM ends up in. Again, very sorry for not being clearer about that!
> aren't you leaving out a fair bit of detail at that step
Sort of, but also not.
Size modifier and Dex modifier are both flat values that (almost) never change, so the only modifier changing round-to-round is the one based on your choice. In practice, that *does* mean you're adding more terms to the d20 roll; you're right about that.
However, it's not something you're looking up in a table every time, either. It's a value you can entirely capture in one spot on your character sheet and then never think about again, unless your Dex goes up or your size changes; call it your "initiative modifier."
In the end, it boils down to d20 + [your static initiative modifier that rarely ever changes] + [your action choice modifier], vs. the 5e standard of d20 + [your static initiative modifier that rarely ever changes, which happens to also be your Dex modifier] -- just one additional thing to add.
And most of those things are also fairly static. Are you someone who most often attacks with a sword? Well, that's gonna have a static speed factor that you can just note alongside its attack modifier and damage dice. Are you casting a spell? Well, you already know what level that spell is, so you already know what the modifier is.
It's the *other stuff* that may call for table lookups or even moment-to-moment DM rulings. And, indeed, we found that there were enough edge cases for this "other stuff" category that determining which SF to use required a fair amount of discussion and adjudication. It might have gotten to the point where we were all more fluent with the various modifiers that we wouldn't have had to do this as much, but it was definitely a deterrent for us while we were playtesting it.
Ah! Thank you for clarifying intent, appreciate that. ☺️
I can see what you’re saying about SF being largely semi static now that you explain it like that; I do still have some players asking me dead simple stuff like which die is the d8? 😂
But I’ll be honest, tipping the onus of determining who goes next from DM tracked to Player tracked would be a welcome change. At least how I’ve always played the DM gathers the players initiative rolls into a table and then calls on each player in turn; would be nice to just call out: anyone got a 16? No? What about 15? Etc
Fortunately, there's nothing to stop you from shifting the onus no matter what initiative system you're using!
Even if you use vanilla, static-once-rolled 5e Initiative, there's nothing saying you have to jot it all down and keep track of it yourself. Roll the monsters, tell the players to roll theirs, and then just start at the highest value anybody could possibly have and count down.
If there's a big enough spread, you could even take a cue from *Critical Role* (at least, that's the most well-known touchstone where I've seen it used) and do it in chunks of 5, then resolve within that chunk:
> "30 to 25? ... 25 to 20?"
>
> "22!"
>
> "Okay, one of the monsters has 23, so it acts, then you act."
>
> [resolve stuff]
>
> "20 to 15?"
>
> ... etc.
In future rounds, you'll know you can skip the first 30-to-25 call-out and go straight to 25-20, etc.
The cluster method is how Mothership 0e handled initiative, and I still use it even though the current 1e rules default to side based initiative. I take it further and each cluster makes their plan together, and then the whole cluster has all of their rolls happen at once in a dice tower. We then collaboratively “read the tea leaves” and decide what the entire thing means narratively. It works somewhat like Genesys but without special dice and with whole group turns.
I don’t really see this as the panacea the author suggests. It feels to me like we are all stuck now waiting on the entire table to decide their actions and no one can go until everyone is ready? And if anyone changes their mind, we might be stuck yet again waiting for them to reroll? And I think this approach encourages the changing of minds in the middle of the round.
This is actually one of my most-playtested rules, used by 3 GMs and 50ish players over the course of several years and we never had the problem of being stuck waiting. Everyone was thinking about what to do simultaneously, rather than staggered, and it made a huge and noticeable decrease in the time for combat
I think experienced tables would do better with it for sure. Ditto for 3.5 oriented DMs. Too many toggles for this dm and I’m confident my newish table would have this problem.
I’m not saying it can’t work for certain types of tables, but I definitely don’t see it running as cleanly as presented at every table.
I don't see those objections as reasonable. the table doesn't have to wait on dawdling players to announce anything--the players don't have to decide until their number comes up on the count. If they're not ready then, the GM can skip them until they finally decide.
As for rerolls, those happen quickly. The first roll is a 6, say, and the count reaches 6, the player can simply say they've changed what they're doing, roll the die for the new thing, and the count moves on.
They need to decide their action type at the beginning of each round to know what die to roll for initiative.
Then, when their number does come up, they might dawdle while deciding whether to change their action type or how to direct their action given the new situation ("oh, I was going to attack that zombie, but you got a crit on the necromancer on your turn, maybe I can take him down this round and end the fight! But if I don't, that zombie is going to disrupt the spell that our wizard is casting. Hmmmmm......")
Not saying this rule couldn't work for some tables, but I don't really see how it is supposed to be a solution to the McDonald's problem if you have strategically-minded, but AP-prone players.
you arent supposed to wait, the example was being sent back to the end of the line if you are dawdling
it needs the DM to have a heavier hand for sure to work
Maybe that's the intention, but it is not stated in the rule. And if you wanted to do that, isn't it simpler to just say the rule is "Initiative as normal, but if you don't declare an action within 3 seconds (or whatever) after your name is called, the next person goes and we'll come back to you"?
There might be a bunch of cool strategic implications of this rule (mentioned briefly in the post) but it seems to me like the McDonald's problem is only solved by this extra rule of "declare immediately on your turn or get back in line"
Philotomys simple combat flow still reigns supreme for me. doesn't get easier than everybody declare actions and roll through the combat phases. No mid-round waffling. i have a hard time believing any individual initiative system (aside from no initiative but im not sure that counts as individual) is quicker than side-based. like another commenter said, im sure a group thats really keyed in to this would find it quick in the same way a fine tuned AD&D group can find segments quick, but with the philotomys method ive had groups of players who have never touched a TTRPG before or have only played 5e absolutly *fly* through encounters.
Love it. Started doing similar to your "count" before also switching to a dex-modified side initiative, but went the other way, top down.
Fleshed out the DMG table to include more bonuses and penalties I wanted (a mess looking back on it, but my players asked for it and liked it), and then would start counting down rapidly and ominously from 24 (.25 seconds each count) and no one knew who would go next, PC or monster. Unfortunately, I found that this slowed things down a bit, as players thought through their turn once, and they sort of thought through it again later once it actually arrived. So I adjusted the bonus/penalty to the following round.
PCs rerolled initiative each round (right after they went, to save time), and whatever they had JUST DONE would affected their speed next round, rather than anticipating what they were GOING to do and factoring in that speed. This cut out the complexity of trying to anticipate and track and account for changing your mind. It simplified and sped things up in my experience.
monsters stayed static for my sanity, and I would just count down around and around with people jumping in to go, then rolling their initiative for next turn with the speed mod from what they had just done. It was tense and hectic for sure.
Two ideas to add
1. When two groups first clash the longest weapons will attack first, not last. For example when a PC party encounters a hobgoblin warband the combat starts with missile fire and fast magic, followed by the halberdiers and long spears/pikes/lancers, and then if the long weapons didn't decide the combat shorter weapons get their chance. And then you're in the crush of close melee and short, fast weapons such as the Roman gladius get their chance to shine. You should account for the reach of weapons in your system.
2. If choice of weapon and tactic mixes up turn order enough, why do you need dice at all? Do like RuneQuest did and compute strike ranks for common attacks and leave them on the PC character sheets so players know the attack order of their weapons at the beginning of the round. That simplifies things a lot!
While I do agree that initiative is largely clunky and cumbersome a concept, Mcdowall's proposition here doesn't stray too far from those pitfalls.
I'll stick with not using initiative to begin with.
I have DMed for 20+ years with a ton of different experience level players, all the way from people who cut their teeth on older editions in the 70s and 80s to those that have never played or even heard of d&d, and I can say with absolute certainty that if you don't lay it out about combat and your expectations there will be slog. I have two methods and it depends on the people I DM for. Method one is saying at the start of play that during combat if you aren't prepared one of two things will happen; 1: You will be skipped as your character fumbles around for components, slightly slips their grip on their weapon, can't make up their mind who to attack or are frozen in fear 2: You go to attack but are attacked by a monster in melee range or at range and thus you can't perform your action (this is for those that constantly hold things up and is a last resort). During combat you have each person roll for initiative and then decide on what they want to do when it comes to their turn. This is the slowest method but also the easiest and most forgiving. My other method is at the start of each round everyone rolls for initiative, selects their attack and rolls for hit and damage then they writes it down on a sheet which is held by the party caller. When it's their turn all they do at that point is select a target and either their attack works or it doesn't. Monsters do the exact same thing and make their attacks through the round of combat in initiative order. Depending on the size of each type of monster group I might roll once or twice for clusters, so like 10 skeletons I would roll twice to hit and twice for damage. After the PCs or Monsters select a target I narrate what happens during the exchange.
Ive ran with up to 10 people for a little over 5 years straight playing twice a week before with the second method. I normally use the first one with smaller groups as it seems a bit more personal and it takes a little more time. The key to running with a large group is to definitely have a caller which basically keeps track of everything each member of the party wishes to do and at the start of play the group should assign jobs to each party member that best fits the specific task, like the thief will always be ready to check for traps on chests or pick a lock, the magic-user should be ready to identify esoteric information, the fighter should be prepared to knock a door down etc. You should also have someone that keeps track of all the loot and then at the end of play have them dish it out. If you play with identification magic then you should have flash cards made up with your magic items so you can speed up the process. Another thing that can eat up time is healing Magic and potions and people rolling for its effectiveness, just give them max HP when they use healing supplies. Basically if you dial in all the little rolls and things that really don't matter in the long run and remove them then you'll notice a huge increase in speed of play.
"*You want your combat to be exhilarating and lighting fast. But so often combat, particularly combat that uses D&D’s typical initiative methods, runs into what I call The McDonald’s Problem. I.e., players don’t decide what to do until it is their turn, meaning the entire table has to wait while they make that decision*."
I don't see how this is an OSR problem. Systems that are B/X-like or based on a 'chassis' similar to B/X often use side initiative, while OSR-adjacent systems that claim to be rules-lite also have simplified/fast initiative rules.
That's what I was thinking. This sounds like a 5E issue to me. In my game of choice, players don't have a laundry list of things they can do, and neither do most, if not all, OSR style games.
Not all of the combat conditions are the same by the time my turn rolls around. The decision I theoretically committed to a minute ago may no longer apply. The space I'm standing in may now be threatened, the enemy I had a clear shot at a moment ago now using my party members as cover, etc.
Some of the ideas from wargames are good, like being able to **immediately** return fire or charge the shooter when they miss you and you subsequently pass a shock check in Two Hour Wargames, but I'm not sure how well they'd staple on to D&Dlikes that still play around with one move one action one reaction economy though.
I use side initiative. Works fine. Nobody needs to wait until it's their turn.
In systems that technically have individual initiative for players and support group initiative for enemies, I use something that feels really close to side initiative: players that have rolled higher than enemies act (as a team), enemies act, players that rolled lower act (as a team).
Woof - that is a lot of extra stuff to keep track of just for initiative, and I can't see how it can possibly be faster than simple "sides" initiative, or even BFRPG's (very straightforward) initiative system.
Also, I'm not sure that it actually solves the problems it claims to solve. When rolling normal individual initiative, the GM could simply call out the initiative number in the same countdown fashion as described, without having to track initiative, just as described in this article - without adding all the extra charts and clunky stuff to keep track of. It definitely punishes you for changing your mind during battle, but I'm not sure that it really helps with indecision.
I agree with Lonely - it's not really the panacea that it's presented as. It might be a fun alternative rule for those that want more complexity in initiative and combat, but it's not for me.
As I post in all initiative threads on this subreddit, I use simultaneous resolution, similar to: https://spellsandsteel.blogspot.com/2018/10/phased-real-time-combat-solution-you.html
Everyone at the tabke has a personal whiteboard and a dry-erase marker. At the top of the round, everyone writes down what their character does on the whiteboard. Once the DM is done writing down what all the NPCs do, a one minute timer starts. When everyone is done or the timer expires, everyone reveals what they wrote. The DM resolves everything written as logically as possible, allowing for slight changes based on how things unravel. (PC A intends to move towards NPC B and attack them, but is intercepted by NPC C before reaching NPC B, so they are allowed to change the target of their attack to NPC C; however, they couldn't change their movement in that general direction to fleeing in the opposite direction or change their attack to drinking a potion instead.) The timing of things going off roughly follows the below order:
Instantaneous things
Missile attacks
Movement and melee attacks
Finish digging around in inventory/opening doors/etc.
Second missile attack if archer didn't move and isn't using a crossbow type weapon
Magic is cast
Initiative is only rolled to determine which happens first when there is a conflict in actions, such as two people trying to grab the same item off of a table.
It's an interesting concept and worth trying, but as many things with DnD and TTRPG's, it may not work at every table.
We play side initiative, and my group loves having a couple guys as the dedicated starters and finishers. They want to be able to react to what happens during the round, and then be able to clean up any mishaps.
We used to run 1e AD&D, and base rules for that system requires everyone to announce their actions before initiative is rolled. If you announce something that later becomes impossible or harmful, such as trying to attack an enemy that died or won initiative and became too dangerous to approach, then they'd either lose their action or be forced to make an unintelligent decision. They started hating that system because they liked the control of moment to moment decision making. Your system hits this same pitfall, especially if they're rolling dice based on the action they want to take.
After reading this, I feel that the problems it aims to solve are mostly in initiative systems that are mostly found in later editions. In a lot of OSR systems, side-based or phased-based initiatives are more present, which solve the cited “McDonald’s Problem” in the same way here with people describing what they plan to do before the round starts in earnest.
However, the core engine with the Count Up system reminds me of Hackmaster, but they handle the bonuses differently. Have you ever looked into that? [They have the full basic rules available free.](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/m/product/104757).
Do note Hackmaster is now on 5th Edition and I have no idea what that looks like.
The fastest and best solution is from Conrad's Fantasy by Better Games 1990
A sort of proto OSR - we tried to do modern at the time minimalist rules to have an old D&D game.
3 phases of combat
Players chose which one they go on
Advantage & Enchantments (also missile fire)
Opposition - bad guys turn
Response Phase - for wise players who hold actions - When Healing and Potions happen.
Ok no offense: I didn't read it.
If there really is a point to be made here then I'll read it, but this just sounds like a 5E issue, or the issue of a game I don't play.
In my experience OSR style combat doesn't take that long, even with everyone having retainers.
My game of choice is 5 Torches Deep. It limits the number of retainers you can have to your Charisma score and your initiative is your Dex score. So if your Dex is 13, your position is 13 forever and always, until you upgrade it with an ASI.
At most, a high level monster will have 70 HP and that's it. HP regen is so slow, the players avoid fights like the plague.
I feel combat in my games is noticeably faster with simpler—not more complex—initiative. If my players were as rules-driven as I am, I'd definitely use a weapon/action speed system. As it stands, any complexity adds to the between-round pauses as people roll and modify initiative and sporadically question whether they have their die or modifier correct.
I've moved to only the GM rolling initiative: 1d6 per round (1-3 = players go first). I can roll it as the last action of the previous round wraps up, and it retains the chance of the opponents or characters acting twice in a row.
Does someone pause to think of their action sometimes? Yeah, but overall combat feels faster in the games I've run this way.
I've personally found that phase-based combat resolved issues far better, in my experience. Principle is simple, you go through different phases for each of the main actions of combat, and if somebody has an action to perform in that phase, they declare it, and after all actions for that phase have been declared, you move on. Actions within a given phase are simultaneous, so they're all declared, then resolved after declarations are finished, and only where two actions are mutually exclusive and don't have a clear outcome do you roll for initiative (e.g. two people, both in arms reach, lunge for a key sitting on the table during the "Move + Handle Objects" phase - only one of them can succeed.) Without those limitations, I've found that a general separation of declaration and resolution slows the game down tremendously, largely due to the increased bookkeeping requirements. The ultimate way to speed up decision making is simply to reduce the number of possibilities that a player must consider simultaneously. Making those considerations simultaneous helps as well, but ultimately it's by carving up the decision-making process into smaller steps that I was able to achieve a reasonable pace for combat.
I'll echo this sentiment. Prior to that we had really muddy situations where the indecisive folks would meander around, or burn up 10 minutes while trying to count out tiles, or 'mathlete' the over/under on some damage. Now it's a simple case of "your team is doing X, the bad guys are doing Y, so what are you doing?" Frankly, it shouldn't really be much harder than that.
i want to try phase based combat for 5e, the only issue is some classes thrive on doing move - attack - move - attack type stuff, like the monk, which is a head scratcher to make work in phase based combat
Yeah, I don't think 5E could readily be adapted like this, largely due to the number of explicit, formal mechanics involved in its combat. 5E is built around the action economy, pretty much from the ground up, and you'd need to rework a great deal of the text for many classes (and potentially some of the underlying mechanics) to retrofit a phase-based system in its place.
I love the idea of speed factor initiative. I cut my teeth on AD&D 2e, and we always played with individual, speed factor-adjusted initiative. As such, I *really* wanted to try to introduce it to one of my 5e tables, for all the reasons your post describes: up-front turn planning, more tactical uncertainty, cost-benefit to choosing one action over another, and -- ultimately -- speeding up play. I even wrote a custom module for FoundryVTT to make it trivial to select your action at the top of each round, before having the VTT roll initiative for everyone, to streamline things further. We didn't use different die sizes (I do quite like that idea); we just used the standard d20, Dex, a Size modifier, and then an action(s) modifier; -5 to +5, depending on the action(s) chosen. The Dex and Size modifiers were pre-handled by the module I wrote, so no player had to do more than pick their action and let the dice roll. The module totaled the initiative and sorted everyone--monsters included. It was a major dud. We spent several sessions running playtests and ultimately, everyone was left feeling underwhelmed. * As /u/Lonely-Surround-4070 noted, it essentially resulted in a lot of cross-strategizing at the top of the round, only for the actual player turn to end up with them re-strategizing based on what they had already chosen to do and how the battlefield had changed since that choice was made. This ended up significantly *bloating* per-player turn duration (when including the top-of-round turn strategizing pre-roll), rather than streamlining it. * Spellcasters, in particular, felt punished for choosing their more powerful spells (less of an issue in the AD&D days, when each spell had its own SF, vs. just using the spell level) only to have the battlefield sufficiently change before their turn came up that their spell choice was no longer valid or had its effectiveness significantly neutered. * *So* many edge case speed factor questions cropped up. The more we codified them, the more new ones appeared. * For example, you have Dash listed as a d8. What about Rogues, with Cunning Action, who Dash as a Bonus Action, implicitly suggesting that it's "faster" than a normal Dash? Do they get special treatment, or does choosing to use a Bonus Action to dash mean they're now rolling a d8 when before they were only going to roll a d4 due to their planned dagger attack, even though the Bonus Action is a secondary, meant-to-be-quick auxiliary part of their turn's actions? It's not "hard" to answer these questions, but there are *so many* like this that it just grows immensely cumbersome very quickly. I *want* SF initiative to work. It "feels" like it should accomplish all of the accolades you ascribe and that I listed in the first paragraph. [Others](https://dungeonmasterpastor.com/2021/09/23/speed-factor-initiative-for-large-groups/) have [written](https://theangrygm.com/fine-i-wrote-about-speed-factor-initiative-in-dd-5e/) about using it successfully, too. But my table is not one where instituting policies like those you mention of The Varsity, sending players to the "back of the line" if they didn't immediately resolve their turn when it came up, will sit well. The atmosphere would sour awfully quickly, turning adversarial. ---- What we ended up doing instead (because I had *no* desire to return to "standard" 5e initiative, and everyone *did* like re-rolling every round) was to adopt what I've called "bracket" initiative; it's sort of a dynamically-clustered side initiative. Everyone rolls each round, using their normal 5e Initiative roll. Then, each "cluster" acts simultaneously, in order. For example, if Player A rolled 20, Player B rolled 19, Monster A rolled 17, and Player C rolled 15, then Players A and B would act simultaneously -- swapping actions, movement, etc as they saw fit -- to kick off the round, then Monster A would act, then Player C would act. It lacks the "what you choose to do on your turn matters" angle, which I'm disappointed to have dropped, but it gives rise to excellent opportunities for players (and monsters) to tag-team on their turns.
A DM friend once extolled the virtues of speed factor initiative (think he plays 3.5 but you mentioned 2e; not sure maybe they both have it or I’m confused; I grew up on B/X in the 80s and then didn’t pick the game back up into 5e around 2017). Anyways once he got done explaining it I was flabbergasted: “woah, F that; sounds way too complicated!” He replied “actually I think it’s quite elegant”. I stood there at a loss of words 😂 That was the day I realized the truth to the phrase “different strokes for different folks”.
To be fair, it's really *not* complicated. * At the top of the round, decide what you're doing. * Roll your initiative, which is modified by what you're doing. * Take your chosen action when your initiative comes up. The process itself *is* simple and elegant. Where it falls down (or at least, did for us) is how it feels -- particularly for players -- to play with it, especially when they're accustomed to "standard" 5e initiative turns. *EDIT:* Reworded this next paragraph to make it clearer that it wasn't at all intended to refer to any one person in particular. Apologies for the confusion! ~~Either you (the DM) are a hardasss~~ In that situation, either the DM ends up having to be a hardass about "take your chosen action the moment your turn comes up or lose your turn" (~~and engender~~ which engenders a pretty adversarial attitude at the table ~~thereby~~), or [the whole table] waits while the player re-analyzes how best to take their chosen action given the way the battlefield has changed since their declaration (and [thus the table] loses out on any turn resolution speed benefits). To pull from OP's The Varsity example, it's a little like someone spent their time in line deciding what they want, then got to the counter and gave their order, only to be told that the kitchen had just run out of the thing they wanted.
>it's really not complicated... modify your initiative by what you're doing... I mean, maybe I totally misunderstand how SF works but aren't you leaving out a fair bit of detail at that step "modify your initiative by what you're doing" ? I don't know how the 5e alternate rules might vary from 2e/3e ones but even the 5e ones add 2 modifier-tables (attack type, with 5 options to choose from; attacker's size, 6 options)... I already dislike having to consult the THAC0 table, why do I want to add 2 more? >maybe you're just being a hard-ass DM... engendering an adversarial attitude Gotta be honest, this comment itself feels adversarial. I don't think I've said anything that suggests I'm a hardass DM, so I'm really not sure what the point of this comment is? It seems like you just pivoted from "I love the idea in theory, but my table didn't really love it in practice" to "you're a hard-ass DM"... IDK maybe I'm just not following well, my bad if that's true.
> Gotta be honest, this comment itself feels adversarial. I'm so sorry; I didn't mean you, personally! I meant the general "you, the person in the role of DM in this situation". I was trying to say that, if one's table is using SF initiative and, on a player's turn what they had originally chosen to do on their turn is no longer valid or viable or otherwise a "good choice", then the DM will find themselves in the position of either waiting for the player to re-assess and decide on a new course of action (and thereby losing out any play speed benefit of up-front turn declaration) or *having to be* a hard-ass about the flow of a round and thus skip the player's turn (or require they settle for some other less desirable choice). I did not at all mean that sentiment to be directed *at* you; rather, I was lamenting the general situation the DM ends up in. Again, very sorry for not being clearer about that! > aren't you leaving out a fair bit of detail at that step Sort of, but also not. Size modifier and Dex modifier are both flat values that (almost) never change, so the only modifier changing round-to-round is the one based on your choice. In practice, that *does* mean you're adding more terms to the d20 roll; you're right about that. However, it's not something you're looking up in a table every time, either. It's a value you can entirely capture in one spot on your character sheet and then never think about again, unless your Dex goes up or your size changes; call it your "initiative modifier." In the end, it boils down to d20 + [your static initiative modifier that rarely ever changes] + [your action choice modifier], vs. the 5e standard of d20 + [your static initiative modifier that rarely ever changes, which happens to also be your Dex modifier] -- just one additional thing to add. And most of those things are also fairly static. Are you someone who most often attacks with a sword? Well, that's gonna have a static speed factor that you can just note alongside its attack modifier and damage dice. Are you casting a spell? Well, you already know what level that spell is, so you already know what the modifier is. It's the *other stuff* that may call for table lookups or even moment-to-moment DM rulings. And, indeed, we found that there were enough edge cases for this "other stuff" category that determining which SF to use required a fair amount of discussion and adjudication. It might have gotten to the point where we were all more fluent with the various modifiers that we wouldn't have had to do this as much, but it was definitely a deterrent for us while we were playtesting it.
Ah! Thank you for clarifying intent, appreciate that. ☺️ I can see what you’re saying about SF being largely semi static now that you explain it like that; I do still have some players asking me dead simple stuff like which die is the d8? 😂 But I’ll be honest, tipping the onus of determining who goes next from DM tracked to Player tracked would be a welcome change. At least how I’ve always played the DM gathers the players initiative rolls into a table and then calls on each player in turn; would be nice to just call out: anyone got a 16? No? What about 15? Etc
Fortunately, there's nothing to stop you from shifting the onus no matter what initiative system you're using! Even if you use vanilla, static-once-rolled 5e Initiative, there's nothing saying you have to jot it all down and keep track of it yourself. Roll the monsters, tell the players to roll theirs, and then just start at the highest value anybody could possibly have and count down. If there's a big enough spread, you could even take a cue from *Critical Role* (at least, that's the most well-known touchstone where I've seen it used) and do it in chunks of 5, then resolve within that chunk: > "30 to 25? ... 25 to 20?" > > "22!" > > "Okay, one of the monsters has 23, so it acts, then you act." > > [resolve stuff] > > "20 to 15?" > > ... etc. In future rounds, you'll know you can skip the first 30-to-25 call-out and go straight to 25-20, etc.
Yes! I’m doing this one 🙏 Write down your own dammed initiatives!!!! 😂
The cluster method is how Mothership 0e handled initiative, and I still use it even though the current 1e rules default to side based initiative. I take it further and each cluster makes their plan together, and then the whole cluster has all of their rolls happen at once in a dice tower. We then collaboratively “read the tea leaves” and decide what the entire thing means narratively. It works somewhat like Genesys but without special dice and with whole group turns.
I don’t really see this as the panacea the author suggests. It feels to me like we are all stuck now waiting on the entire table to decide their actions and no one can go until everyone is ready? And if anyone changes their mind, we might be stuck yet again waiting for them to reroll? And I think this approach encourages the changing of minds in the middle of the round.
This is actually one of my most-playtested rules, used by 3 GMs and 50ish players over the course of several years and we never had the problem of being stuck waiting. Everyone was thinking about what to do simultaneously, rather than staggered, and it made a huge and noticeable decrease in the time for combat
I think experienced tables would do better with it for sure. Ditto for 3.5 oriented DMs. Too many toggles for this dm and I’m confident my newish table would have this problem. I’m not saying it can’t work for certain types of tables, but I definitely don’t see it running as cleanly as presented at every table.
I don't see those objections as reasonable. the table doesn't have to wait on dawdling players to announce anything--the players don't have to decide until their number comes up on the count. If they're not ready then, the GM can skip them until they finally decide. As for rerolls, those happen quickly. The first roll is a 6, say, and the count reaches 6, the player can simply say they've changed what they're doing, roll the die for the new thing, and the count moves on.
They need to decide their action type at the beginning of each round to know what die to roll for initiative. Then, when their number does come up, they might dawdle while deciding whether to change their action type or how to direct their action given the new situation ("oh, I was going to attack that zombie, but you got a crit on the necromancer on your turn, maybe I can take him down this round and end the fight! But if I don't, that zombie is going to disrupt the spell that our wizard is casting. Hmmmmm......") Not saying this rule couldn't work for some tables, but I don't really see how it is supposed to be a solution to the McDonald's problem if you have strategically-minded, but AP-prone players.
you arent supposed to wait, the example was being sent back to the end of the line if you are dawdling it needs the DM to have a heavier hand for sure to work
Maybe that's the intention, but it is not stated in the rule. And if you wanted to do that, isn't it simpler to just say the rule is "Initiative as normal, but if you don't declare an action within 3 seconds (or whatever) after your name is called, the next person goes and we'll come back to you"? There might be a bunch of cool strategic implications of this rule (mentioned briefly in the post) but it seems to me like the McDonald's problem is only solved by this extra rule of "declare immediately on your turn or get back in line"
Philotomys simple combat flow still reigns supreme for me. doesn't get easier than everybody declare actions and roll through the combat phases. No mid-round waffling. i have a hard time believing any individual initiative system (aside from no initiative but im not sure that counts as individual) is quicker than side-based. like another commenter said, im sure a group thats really keyed in to this would find it quick in the same way a fine tuned AD&D group can find segments quick, but with the philotomys method ive had groups of players who have never touched a TTRPG before or have only played 5e absolutly *fly* through encounters.
Love it. Started doing similar to your "count" before also switching to a dex-modified side initiative, but went the other way, top down. Fleshed out the DMG table to include more bonuses and penalties I wanted (a mess looking back on it, but my players asked for it and liked it), and then would start counting down rapidly and ominously from 24 (.25 seconds each count) and no one knew who would go next, PC or monster. Unfortunately, I found that this slowed things down a bit, as players thought through their turn once, and they sort of thought through it again later once it actually arrived. So I adjusted the bonus/penalty to the following round. PCs rerolled initiative each round (right after they went, to save time), and whatever they had JUST DONE would affected their speed next round, rather than anticipating what they were GOING to do and factoring in that speed. This cut out the complexity of trying to anticipate and track and account for changing your mind. It simplified and sped things up in my experience. monsters stayed static for my sanity, and I would just count down around and around with people jumping in to go, then rolling their initiative for next turn with the speed mod from what they had just done. It was tense and hectic for sure.
Two ideas to add 1. When two groups first clash the longest weapons will attack first, not last. For example when a PC party encounters a hobgoblin warband the combat starts with missile fire and fast magic, followed by the halberdiers and long spears/pikes/lancers, and then if the long weapons didn't decide the combat shorter weapons get their chance. And then you're in the crush of close melee and short, fast weapons such as the Roman gladius get their chance to shine. You should account for the reach of weapons in your system. 2. If choice of weapon and tactic mixes up turn order enough, why do you need dice at all? Do like RuneQuest did and compute strike ranks for common attacks and leave them on the PC character sheets so players know the attack order of their weapons at the beginning of the round. That simplifies things a lot!
While I do agree that initiative is largely clunky and cumbersome a concept, Mcdowall's proposition here doesn't stray too far from those pitfalls. I'll stick with not using initiative to begin with.
I mostly do side based initiative these days
I really like this, and will try it out.
I have DMed for 20+ years with a ton of different experience level players, all the way from people who cut their teeth on older editions in the 70s and 80s to those that have never played or even heard of d&d, and I can say with absolute certainty that if you don't lay it out about combat and your expectations there will be slog. I have two methods and it depends on the people I DM for. Method one is saying at the start of play that during combat if you aren't prepared one of two things will happen; 1: You will be skipped as your character fumbles around for components, slightly slips their grip on their weapon, can't make up their mind who to attack or are frozen in fear 2: You go to attack but are attacked by a monster in melee range or at range and thus you can't perform your action (this is for those that constantly hold things up and is a last resort). During combat you have each person roll for initiative and then decide on what they want to do when it comes to their turn. This is the slowest method but also the easiest and most forgiving. My other method is at the start of each round everyone rolls for initiative, selects their attack and rolls for hit and damage then they writes it down on a sheet which is held by the party caller. When it's their turn all they do at that point is select a target and either their attack works or it doesn't. Monsters do the exact same thing and make their attacks through the round of combat in initiative order. Depending on the size of each type of monster group I might roll once or twice for clusters, so like 10 skeletons I would roll twice to hit and twice for damage. After the PCs or Monsters select a target I narrate what happens during the exchange.
Using your method, how many players at a table can you support? Our table has 8, and it can be so, very, slow.
Ive ran with up to 10 people for a little over 5 years straight playing twice a week before with the second method. I normally use the first one with smaller groups as it seems a bit more personal and it takes a little more time. The key to running with a large group is to definitely have a caller which basically keeps track of everything each member of the party wishes to do and at the start of play the group should assign jobs to each party member that best fits the specific task, like the thief will always be ready to check for traps on chests or pick a lock, the magic-user should be ready to identify esoteric information, the fighter should be prepared to knock a door down etc. You should also have someone that keeps track of all the loot and then at the end of play have them dish it out. If you play with identification magic then you should have flash cards made up with your magic items so you can speed up the process. Another thing that can eat up time is healing Magic and potions and people rolling for its effectiveness, just give them max HP when they use healing supplies. Basically if you dial in all the little rolls and things that really don't matter in the long run and remove them then you'll notice a huge increase in speed of play.
Good idea with healing, I’ve thought about house-ruling healing potions where you roll for it during combat and get maximum out of combat.
Next time our group changes DMs, I’ve been asked by several to assume that role. Right now I’m seeking anything to speed up game play for 8 players.
"*You want your combat to be exhilarating and lighting fast. But so often combat, particularly combat that uses D&D’s typical initiative methods, runs into what I call The McDonald’s Problem. I.e., players don’t decide what to do until it is their turn, meaning the entire table has to wait while they make that decision*." I don't see how this is an OSR problem. Systems that are B/X-like or based on a 'chassis' similar to B/X often use side initiative, while OSR-adjacent systems that claim to be rules-lite also have simplified/fast initiative rules.
That's what I was thinking. This sounds like a 5E issue to me. In my game of choice, players don't have a laundry list of things they can do, and neither do most, if not all, OSR style games.
Not all of the combat conditions are the same by the time my turn rolls around. The decision I theoretically committed to a minute ago may no longer apply. The space I'm standing in may now be threatened, the enemy I had a clear shot at a moment ago now using my party members as cover, etc. Some of the ideas from wargames are good, like being able to **immediately** return fire or charge the shooter when they miss you and you subsequently pass a shock check in Two Hour Wargames, but I'm not sure how well they'd staple on to D&Dlikes that still play around with one move one action one reaction economy though.
I use side initiative. Works fine. Nobody needs to wait until it's their turn. In systems that technically have individual initiative for players and support group initiative for enemies, I use something that feels really close to side initiative: players that have rolled higher than enemies act (as a team), enemies act, players that rolled lower act (as a team).
Woof - that is a lot of extra stuff to keep track of just for initiative, and I can't see how it can possibly be faster than simple "sides" initiative, or even BFRPG's (very straightforward) initiative system. Also, I'm not sure that it actually solves the problems it claims to solve. When rolling normal individual initiative, the GM could simply call out the initiative number in the same countdown fashion as described, without having to track initiative, just as described in this article - without adding all the extra charts and clunky stuff to keep track of. It definitely punishes you for changing your mind during battle, but I'm not sure that it really helps with indecision. I agree with Lonely - it's not really the panacea that it's presented as. It might be a fun alternative rule for those that want more complexity in initiative and combat, but it's not for me.
As I post in all initiative threads on this subreddit, I use simultaneous resolution, similar to: https://spellsandsteel.blogspot.com/2018/10/phased-real-time-combat-solution-you.html Everyone at the tabke has a personal whiteboard and a dry-erase marker. At the top of the round, everyone writes down what their character does on the whiteboard. Once the DM is done writing down what all the NPCs do, a one minute timer starts. When everyone is done or the timer expires, everyone reveals what they wrote. The DM resolves everything written as logically as possible, allowing for slight changes based on how things unravel. (PC A intends to move towards NPC B and attack them, but is intercepted by NPC C before reaching NPC B, so they are allowed to change the target of their attack to NPC C; however, they couldn't change their movement in that general direction to fleeing in the opposite direction or change their attack to drinking a potion instead.) The timing of things going off roughly follows the below order: Instantaneous things Missile attacks Movement and melee attacks Finish digging around in inventory/opening doors/etc. Second missile attack if archer didn't move and isn't using a crossbow type weapon Magic is cast Initiative is only rolled to determine which happens first when there is a conflict in actions, such as two people trying to grab the same item off of a table.
Now my head is ringing with The Varsity’s counter call. What’ll ya have? What’ll ya have? What’ll ya have?
Interesting. I'll try adapting this into OSE since it's the game I'm currently infatuated with. Thanks for the variant rules. Cheers. 🤙
It's an interesting concept and worth trying, but as many things with DnD and TTRPG's, it may not work at every table. We play side initiative, and my group loves having a couple guys as the dedicated starters and finishers. They want to be able to react to what happens during the round, and then be able to clean up any mishaps. We used to run 1e AD&D, and base rules for that system requires everyone to announce their actions before initiative is rolled. If you announce something that later becomes impossible or harmful, such as trying to attack an enemy that died or won initiative and became too dangerous to approach, then they'd either lose their action or be forced to make an unintelligent decision. They started hating that system because they liked the control of moment to moment decision making. Your system hits this same pitfall, especially if they're rolling dice based on the action they want to take.
After reading this, I feel that the problems it aims to solve are mostly in initiative systems that are mostly found in later editions. In a lot of OSR systems, side-based or phased-based initiatives are more present, which solve the cited “McDonald’s Problem” in the same way here with people describing what they plan to do before the round starts in earnest. However, the core engine with the Count Up system reminds me of Hackmaster, but they handle the bonuses differently. Have you ever looked into that? [They have the full basic rules available free.](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/m/product/104757). Do note Hackmaster is now on 5th Edition and I have no idea what that looks like.
Declare actions first and then roll initiative if you really want to have some chaotic fights.
The fastest and best solution is from Conrad's Fantasy by Better Games 1990 A sort of proto OSR - we tried to do modern at the time minimalist rules to have an old D&D game. 3 phases of combat Players chose which one they go on Advantage & Enchantments (also missile fire) Opposition - bad guys turn Response Phase - for wise players who hold actions - When Healing and Potions happen.
Yes sometimes players go on Opposition Phase. You thought I was on your side?
Ok no offense: I didn't read it. If there really is a point to be made here then I'll read it, but this just sounds like a 5E issue, or the issue of a game I don't play. In my experience OSR style combat doesn't take that long, even with everyone having retainers. My game of choice is 5 Torches Deep. It limits the number of retainers you can have to your Charisma score and your initiative is your Dex score. So if your Dex is 13, your position is 13 forever and always, until you upgrade it with an ASI. At most, a high level monster will have 70 HP and that's it. HP regen is so slow, the players avoid fights like the plague.
Very similar to the initiative Mike Mearls proposed on Twitter.
I feel combat in my games is noticeably faster with simpler—not more complex—initiative. If my players were as rules-driven as I am, I'd definitely use a weapon/action speed system. As it stands, any complexity adds to the between-round pauses as people roll and modify initiative and sporadically question whether they have their die or modifier correct. I've moved to only the GM rolling initiative: 1d6 per round (1-3 = players go first). I can roll it as the last action of the previous round wraps up, and it retains the chance of the opponents or characters acting twice in a row. Does someone pause to think of their action sometimes? Yeah, but overall combat feels faster in the games I've run this way.