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Friday Favourite: The New Initiative – Talk then Fight

On Friday we comb through our extensive archives to find an older article that we feel deserves another look. From September 12, 2012, Dungeon’s Master once again presents: The New Initiative – Talk then Fight.

diplomacy“Everyone, roll initiative.” When the DM speaks these magic words we all know that it’s time for combat. This is how D&D works. The players determine who goes in what order and then you have at it. Since initiative is tied to Dexterity, PCs with the highest Dex almost always go first. And what do you know, the powers for most strikers – Rogues, Rangers, Sorcerers, Monks, Vampires – are generally tied to Dex so this is usually their best stat. The result is that the PCs who have the best chance of inflicting the most damage will act first in combat more often than not. This is all well and good if your objective is to kill everything you come across, but every now and then don’t you think there should be an opportunity to talk to your opponents before the hot-headed striker does something stupid like acting first and killing something?

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Roll for Initiative… or Don’t – Alternative Approaches to Initiative

We’re all very familiar with these magic words: “Roll for initiative.” When the DM say this you know something big is about to happen. Many players live for these three magic words, because in their minds it means it’s time to fight monsters.

In D&D (and pretty much all other role-playing games) there is some kind of initiative mechanic; the means by which everyone can figure out who acts in what order. In some cases winning initiative can mean the literal difference between life and death for some characters.

Normally initiative is determined by rolling a d20 and adding your initiative modifier. The round begins with the highest initiative and proceeds to the lowest with each PC or monster acting when their initiative number is called. This has pretty much been the standard way of running initiative since D&D was first created. However, it’s not the only way to determine the order of action. In fact some of the initiative variants are proving to have noticeable in-game benefits which is causing more and more DM (me included) to adopt an alternative approach to initiative.

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Greatest Hits 2012: The New Initiative – Talk then Fight

While the Dungeon’s Master team enjoys some well-deserved vacation time, we’re breaking out the greatest hits and shining a spotlight on a few of our favourite articles from 2012. We’ve searched for hidden gems that our newer readers might have missed and our long-time readers will enjoy reading again. Enjoy a second look at these greatest hits from Dungeon’s Master.

Nothing makes me happier than hearing a player say that his PC wants to try and talk their way out of a fight. I try to encourage my players to have their PCs pursue options for resolving conflict that don’t involve combat, but it’s usually a hard sell since they want to fight monsters. When someone actually thinks talking is a better option I will go out of my way to let them have their say before the swords start swinging and the arrows start flying.

In order for the new initiative I’ve proposed to be successful the DM needs to remember the importance of saying yes. Sure it normally takes a standard action to get a bloodied opponent to surrender, but if you’re going to allow for a talking initiative then you need to be flexible enough to allow an Intimidate check done at the beginning of combat as a free action to have a similar effect. If the DM rewards creativity and demonstrates that he’s willing to bend the rules to let something cool and interesting happen, more players will try acting during the talking phase of initiative.

A good DM will let the role-playing and a solid skill check lead to results that the PCs are not used to seeing. These results can vary from an all out surrender to delaying combat for a few rounds. Different skills should result in different outcomes as well. Bluff can be used to distract or misdirect, Diplomacy to negotiate surrender or non-aggression, and Intimidate to command into submission or scare enemies away. Words can be powerful and when delivered at the right time and in the right way PCs will see that a Diplomacy check can yield better results than all of their daily and encounter powers combined.

From September 17, 2012, Dungeon’s Master once again presents: The New Initiative – Talk then Fight.

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The New Initiative – Talk then Fight

“Everyone, roll initiative.” When the DM speaks these magic words we all know that it’s time for combat. This is how D&D works. The players determine who goes in what order and then you have at it. Since initiative is tied to Dexterity, PCs with the highest Dex almost always go first. And what do you know, the powers for most strikers – Rogues, Rangers, Sorcerers, Monks, Vampires – are generally tied to Dex so this is usually their best stat. The result is that the PCs who have the best chance of inflicting the most damage will act first in combat more often than not. This is all well and good if your objective is to kill everything you come across, but every now and then don’t you think there should be an opportunity to talk to your opponents before the hot-headed striker does something stupid like acting first and killing something?

We have it so engrained in our D&D mindset that rolling initiative is the natural precursor to killing monsters that very few PCs will take a second to try and defuse a combat situation with words. And those that do usually act so far down in the initiative order that by the time they get to go the fight is already well underway. Yet talking is a free action. In-game, your PC can talk even if it’s not his turn – even if he didn’t win initiative. However, players I’ve gamed with rarely take advantage of this before combat begins. Players roll initiative and want to act in that order. So why not roll two initiatives – one for talking and one for fighting?

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Understanding Initiative and Surprise in D&D

D&D characters experience time very differently than we do in real life. Their world takes place in distinct 6-second rounds. How they can behave during these 6-second rounds is controlled by which part of the round the universe is currently in. As a player I have frequently witnessed the poor adjudication of Surprise Rounds, which is very understandable as the Surprise Round takes place in a weird moment in the already hard to fathom flow of D&D time. Beyond the problem of conceiving time in D&D, I think a deficit exists in the Surprise rules of the system, which takes Surprised to mean “has been successfully ambushed.” Due to this deficit, it is my opinion that DMs often intuitively but unknowingly house rule the Surprise Round rules to fit a variety a situations that the actual rules do not address.

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More Tips for Speeding Up Your Game

Combat in 4e D&D does take longer as PCs get tougher. But there are a lot of tips and tricks for Speeding Up Your Game. We’ve come up with a few new ideas on how to keep your game move quickly and smoothly.