Handling Initiative and Combat

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    I'm back again! To help make up for the content I didn't make the last couple of weeks, I have decided to make this week a double post week! Hope you all enjoy.

    It shouldn't come as much of a surprise to anyone who has played any version of Dungeons and Dragons (or most of its spawn) that many RPGs have a large focus on combat. It makes sense, considering the game's roots of dungeon crawling and exploring the wilderness while fighting off the monsters that call it home. So lets spend some time working through design decisions to sketch out the broad strokes of a new(?) combat system.

Some Quick Background

    There are many, many ways to simulate combat in an RPG. Most fantasy RPGs all come up with their own way of handling it too, so there are a lot of things to pull from. For brevity, I will only pick out a few particularly notable examples.

    First, in 5th Edition D&D, combat works by having every character and monster take full turns in an order decided by a d20 roll, modified by their Dexterity bonus. This is basically the standard at the moment, and most people will be able to pick up something like this with minimal instruction.

    Original D&D, was very different. It had its own alternative system (and references back to Chainmail), but it basically sums down to everyone rolls a d6 for initiative and then various phases such as Movement, Missiles, Magic, and Melee all occur. Everyone has their own take on this if they even use it.

    There are also systems that don't rely on rolling. Some people do initiative based on each character and monster's dexterity score, and others just declare that PCs go first and Monsters go second. Shadow of the Demon Lord has an interesting take on this, where PCs and Monsters are both offered the chance for a fast turn where they get 1 action for the round or a slow turn (2 actions) if they don't take that. PC fast turns go first, then Monster fast turns, then PC slow turns and finally Monster slow turns. It is honestly pretty neat, and elegantly gives some complexity and choice to a no-roll initiative system.


Rolling for Initiative

    While there is definitely much philosophy and debate to be held about rolling for initiative vs not rolling, I will just be going with rolling for it. I want to be able to say "roll for initiative" in a game, so I will start from the basis of rolling and see how this ripples out in my design.

    So, now initiative is rolled for. What is being rolled? Rolling a d20 might be the modern fashion, but d6s also have worked well in the past. Now, because I am going to be using the older style of Attribute Bonuses (-3 to +3 instead of -5 to +5), I believe the d6 will work best. I want randomness in initiative, but I don't want it to be completely random either. On the scale of a d20, a +3 bonus is basically nothing (and the same can even be said of the +5 really), but on a d6 it is equal to half the scale; it's huge. It is possible to do initiative modified by the Attribute itself, but that would be very strange compared to how I was thinking the game would run. It would be possible to multiply the bonus by 2 or 3 so that it is meaningful on a d20, but I want to streamline things by reducing math or things to write down. 

    Ok, so for initiative we are rolling a d6 and modifying it from -3 to +3. What attribute should be used? Dexterity is certainly traditional, but I think everyone knows that Dexterity is a very powerful statistic. It normally affects ranged attacks, Armor Class or getting hit in combat, sometimes dodging nasty traps or spells, and initiative too. So, I will instead use Acuity, from back here where I reworked the attributes. 

    Next question is: Who rolls for initiative? Group and individual initiatives are the main options here, and they both present benefits and drawbacks. Group initiative is much faster to roll (just once), but presents the problem of figuring out the modifier on the roll. Individual initiative gives much more granular detail in the initiative, but it takes more time to roll and determine the results. Since I already decided to go with Acuity bonuses for the initiative, I will follow the easier path and go with individual initiative. It would be possible to have people select one person's bonus, or average them all together, but this way everyone gets to feel the effects of their high or low Acuity. Additionally, I personally feel like phased combat systems don't handle PCs doing non-phase actions like interacting with the environment or using objects very well. 

    With these questions answered, the skeleton of the initiative system is set, but it isn't done yet. It presents the very obvious problem of how to handle people who get the same initiative, and hasn't yet addressed the very ubiquitous concern of surprise. The way I am beginning to envision this system, each round there will be a countdown from the highest initiative (max 9) down to the lowest initiative (min 0?). On any individual count, you might have multiple people acting. In this case, the people are going to be acting simultaneously. This sort of makes sense, but it also seems like a bit of a bad idea because the entire purpose of initiative systems is to help adjudicate lots of parties acting at the same time. So, more needs to be said than "everyone acts at the same time". To help illustrate this, I have developed what is hopefully a comprehensive list of edge cases:

  1. A PC kills a monster that is also attacking them
  2. A PC is trying to run and a monster is trying to grab them
  3. A monster charms a PC and they fail their saving throw
  4. A monster petrifies a PC and they fail their saving throw
  5. A PC is casting a spell and a monster attacks them

    So, I will go through these and adjudicate them based on my preferences and see how they come out as a final system. For 1, I would say that since these actions are supposed to happen at the same time, the monster still gets an attack even though it will die this count. For 2, I would test the success first. If the PC is grabbed, then they need to do something else to keep running. If the PC dodges, they can run normally. For 3, I believe it would be most impactful (for example, if a PC charms an enemy) if the charm occurs "first" in the count and the charmed creature acts as if they are charmed, since otherwise there will effectively be a full round delay in effect which can make a massive difference in a fight. For 4, I would follow the pattern I set up in 2 and 3 to say that the PC is petrified and loses their turn. Personally, I do petrification as a two-step process which just slows PCs down the first time and then fully petrifies them, so this feels fair. Finally, we come to 5. This one is a bit strange, since on the one hand I have already said that spells should basically get priority within a count, but on the other I feel like it is important for everyone to have a chance to interrupt spellcasting. 

    To basically sidestep this, I will split spellcasting into the casting and the activation. On a count where a magic-user casts a spell, they can be attacked and interrupted. On the next count, the spell activates before anything else in the round. Alternatively, you could consider the spell to activate between counts. And if we are willing to split the casting and activation in to different counts, it should be fine to say that more powerful spells take more time to cast and therefore activate at later counts instead of just the next one! This would tie in very well with this countdown style system I have and make positioning in the initiative important for everyone, since a magic-user would need several counts of safety in order to cast a truly powerful spell. 

    Back on topic, however, I think I have nailed down something like a priority of events within a count:

  1. Magic or Effect Activation - Spells, Magic Items, Traps, Environmental Hazards, etc.
  2. Successful Interruptions - Paralyzation, grappling, tripping, or anything else like that
  3. Normal Actions - most stuff you do in a round
  4. Failed Actions - If stuff has effects even if they fail, it should happen after stuff that worked successfully
  5. Death - no one dies until everything else gets resolved
    With that handled, I think the initiative is pretty well fleshed out. It still needs to figure out surprise, but I think that is dependent enough on what every person's turn in combat looks like to put off for now. As always, I am very interested in hearing your thoughts about this! Did I make good choices? Have I overlooked anything? Would you have made different choices?

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