So what happens is this:
- Initiative is rolled. Players roll individually, the DM makes one roll.
- The surprise round, if one occurs, is handled.
- Any PC:s that beat the DM on initiative can act. In whatever order they like.
- The monsters act in one huge block.
- It's the PC:s' turn again. With the looping initiative of 3.x and 4E, Players and DM now take turns acting.
As Ars Ludi points out, this nudges players into cooperating because it's never really "not their turn". Also, for play-by-post, it speeds up the game when players don't have to wait for each other to act. It's been working fine in the four fights we've had so far.
One downside is the potential for double-dipping: One character can go first in a round and hit a monster with an effect that lasts until the end of his next turn. Then he goes last in the next turn, letting all the other PC:s benefit from it twice. In practice, this isn't a huge deal (and monsters can sort of do this too, so it evens out), but one could enforce a policy that characters only get to benefit from such effects once. (That sounds like it would be annoying to track, though.)
Mike Mearls had a similar idea, with the added step that there is a "group cleanup phase" at the end of the PC:s' turn instead of each player's turn, where durations are tracked.
Hey, try it out. Three geniuses can't be all wrong.
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7 comments:
Cool idea, but I wonder how you handle the DM who decides that all twenty bazillion monsters, acting on the same turn, attack one PC? With different initiatives, the PC (and the rest of the party) has the opportunity at least to realize s/he is being targeted and to take steps to keep from being pummeled.
Not that I, as the DM, would ever do such a thing, of course. Mwahahaha!
Since most of the combat I run are pretty small scale, this seems like a great idea. Thanks for sharing it.
Interesting but I see too many ways this could be exploited - and since I use The Initiator on my laptop while I DM, I don't roll initiatives anymore, so the one roll really doesn't save much time for me.
Bevin Flannery, Neuroglyph:
I have only ran easy and normal encounters so far, and my players mow through them, so having the monsters act simultaneously doesn't help much. Maybe I should write a followup post when I've tried it with a harder encounter.
That said, three ghouls managed to put a major dent in the warforged bard in the latest fight. But that's a major example of monster synergy, and they'd move simultaneously under normal initiative rules too.
seaofstarsrpg:
Smaller scale is probably better, yes.
@Bevin
DMs can already delay or ready actions for the monsters to gang up on single players. Heck, players do it all the time in the reverse situation. It makes the game more interesting and keeps the party together.
Our houserule is that the DM rolls for monster initiative [with highest single bonus] and players roll for their initiative. The person with the highest total initiative goes first, and then play continues with whoever is to their right, until we've gone around the table. To delay/ready, we change seats.
Paul: Who said roleplayers don't exercise...
I have been using this rule for PbP for a while. It works great. I have modified it a little bit for more nastiness though. It goes like this.
Players roll initiative.
DM rolls initiative for all monsters.
Any surprise round happens (not all games I run have this).
All players that beat the DM go.
All monsters go.
All players go.
Monsters go.
Repeat until victory or TPK.
At any time that the DM wants an individual monster to go, then that monster goes and then loses it's next available turn, even if it is in the middle of what would be the players turn. The Monster's turn comes at 10pm every night, regardless of whether all the players have gone at that point.
The addition of these extra rules add a little unpredictability to the fight as well as puts a little pressure on the players to keep posting. I have had no complaints about it, and I don't abuse it to the player's detriment. I use the "anytime turn" only for dramatic effect, and to create tension. Most of the time I do it when it seems logical that it would happen that way. It really works great.
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