Initiative and Reaction Skills

[jmanski]

Ah, as in what's good for the goose is good for the gander.... I wasn't understanding either until you explained. Thanks for the clarification.
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Blasted rules. Why can't they just be perfect?

[Bren]

[ZzaphodD]

[garhkal]

[Barrataria]

This is more or less the thread I was looking for. Yesterday I posted some various different initiative schemes from d6 games and asked what people actually do in their games.

If anyone reading has a minute and hasn't posted in this, would you mind sharing?

We've been using PER rolled by each side, declare number of actions, then first side takes first actions, second side takes first actions, first side takes second actions, etc. Also, I use a modified MiniSix combat system, so characters have a static defense score (with the option of making a full dodge if they wish). Seems to keep things bouncing along nicely, but I'm curious how others operate.

One interesting idea I saw in the d6 System book: simultaneous combat. Still have initiative, first side rolls all actions, second side rolls all actions, then resolve. This means the second side will always get their actions in in the round, which seems good in some ways (less one-sided blowaways by the first side) and bad in others (sometimes the other side is outclassed and deserves to get blown away).

Please share your methods (and experiences with other methods that were disastrous) if you have some time to.
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"A special effect without a story is a pretty boring thing"- George Lucas

[Leon The Lion]

For initiative, what I do is roll for it.

The roll is made with Awareness, a Perceprion-based skill (used for finding and noticing hidden and non-obvious things, and also initiative).

Generally every single person involved in the combat rolls his individual initiative. I will sometimes simplify this into a single roll for a group of basically identical "mooks". Also, a leader may make the roll for his entire side / squad after first making a tactics roll (counts as an action, though).

Currently, new initiative is rolled for everyone every round. However, I am thinking of switching to rolling it once at the begining of combat, and only re-rolling when the tactical situation changes significantly (like somebody being taken out).

I know doing it this way is very unpopular these days (a lot of rolls, slowing down combat, all those other arguments against rolling initiative I could never quite wrap my head around), but it still seems to me like the "proper" way to do it, and I find it works fairly well. If nothing else, I like the unpredictability that random, round-by-round initiative introduces to combat. My players certainly never complained.


During a round, we do initiative passes, where everybody gets to act at his initiative, then the pass starts over.

One of the first things I ditched was having to pre-declare the number of actions you ware going to perform this round. I never liked this mechanic, in any system. Now, everybody just gets to choose weather to act or not at each initiative pass. If they decide not to act, they can't take any more active actions this round, only reactions. Multiple Action Penalties are assigned and accumulate progressively with each action taken, instead of being calculated all at once and applied to all actions equally. This makes it somewhat easier to perform multiple actions each round.

Typically, a character may perform one action at each initiative pass. However, I allow a single move action (of which a maximum of four may be performed per round, as normal) to be combined with another non-move action in a single initiative pass. The move action is always counted first for the purposes of calculating MAPs for the other action. Also, drawing a weapon may be done in a single initiative pass with an attack, with the same rules as above.

Generally, I allow no more than five actions per character each round. That's active actions - additional reactions are allowed. Actions used for keeping up active Force powers and similiar things do generate MAPs, but do not count towards this limit.


That's basically all, I think. I've been running things this way for more than four years, in Star Wars, and more recently also in another game using the D6 system, and had it work out quite well to my taste, with no player complaints.
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[Barrataria]

[quote="Leon The Lion"]I know doing it this way is very unpopular these days (a lot of rolls, slowing down combat, all those other arguments against rolling initiative I could never quite wrap my head around), but it still seems to me like the "proper" way to do it, and I find it works fairly well. If nothing else, I like the unpredictability that random, round-by-round initiative introduces to combat. My players certainly never complained.{/quote]

Not intended as an argument, but I'll add "laziness by GM/dislike of recordkeeping". Because that's my reason My groups happy with abstracted combat so the extra hassle is not justified. For us.

[Leon The Lion]

[DougRed4]

I do things pretty close to RAW.

I have the highest person on each "side" roll initiative, then the winner of that roll gets to decide which side goes first (or second).

Then each player rolls their own initiative roll. Sometimes I keep this for the whole combat, or just a couple of turns, but other times I have everybody roll each turn (depends on if anything changes, the combat is almost over, etc.).

Before they take their first actions, each character declares how many actions they're going to take, trying to add in a roll for defense if they plan to dodge.

Then, starting with the hightest initiative and moving to the lowest, each character takes their first action.

After all first actions are done, we move down the same list with characters doing their second actions.

If there are third actions, rinse and repeat.

This seems to work pretty well, and I always allow a reaction roll for anyone; it just might suffer a MAP based on how many other actions that person is doing that particular turn.
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Currently Running: Villains & Vigilantes (a 32-year-old campaign with multiple groups) and D6 Star Wars; mostly on hiatus are Adventures in Middle-earth and Delta Green

[Darth_Hilarious]

The only problem I can see with the initiative rules as written is that if a group of PC's round a corner and find a group of Stormtroopers not really paying attention and then the PC's have horrid luck at the dice, the stormtroopers could actually have the first attack.

[Barrataria]

[Naaman]

I prefer to allow reactionss as "free" actions. This balances itself out by making multiple actions that much harder to pull off (when opposed by a reaction skill). It also cuts down on bookkeeping and math.

[Naaman]

[garhkal]

[Tupteq]

I'm using almost RAW, to be more precise following variants:
- Each PC, important NPC and NPC group rolls initiative (PER) every round.
- For enemy groups I just roll once per group using sergeant's PER.
- I sometimes split larger groups into smaller squads (usually 5-10 men each) and roll initiative for each squad.
- To speed up rolling, 1 on Wild Die always means "subtract 1 and highest", so players always can calculate result without my attention.
- To speed up play I sometimes use the same order in few subsequent rounds.
- Number of actions is declared before first action is taken (it may be a reaction).
- Reaction skill use may tak any action left or may be declared as additional action (with additional MAP for it and all following actions).
- Actions are rolled in initiative order in passes (everyone's first action, then second etc.).
- Action may be delayed, it may be later performed after somebody else's action, or before other action if PER opposite roll is won. Action may be delayed to future initiative passes (even to next combat rounds), but no more than one action may be performed in one pass.
- Move by "Move" value is one action (so running 4xMove is 4 actions), but for simplicity is resolved in one initiative pass.

These rules are slow, but very dynamic and unpredictable (situation may look different in each round).

I tried variant of "highest PER on each side", but I didn't like it because players abused it (one PC had high PER, rest invested in STR and DEX). I also tried approach "declaration from slowest to fastest, performing actions from fastest to slowest", but it was a mess - slower ones were penalized too much and if there was many combatants, then it wasn't easy to remember all actions. I was thinking about constant initiative (in order of PER), but I never used it, it looked too predictable to me.