Automatically Reroll Init Each Round

Discussion of initiative tool.

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Supergnome
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Automatically Reroll Init Each Round

Post by Supergnome »

Anyone here have info on how to do this? I'm talking about how init worked in AD&D 2nd edition.

I'd like it to reroll init and resort the list after the last item in a round was reached.

Thanks

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jay
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Post by jay »

This functionality isn't available yet, but there is already a tracker to add it.

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Hawke
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Post by Hawke »

We're looking at using a system in the future where each additional attack in a round would be assigned a different initiative. In other words, if a character has 3 attacks they would roll initiative three times.

Is it possible to do this in the future? Will scripting support support this sort of thing?

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Full Bleed
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Post by Full Bleed »

jay wrote:This functionality isn't available yet, but there is already a tracker to add it.
Big fan.

The two things that 1 initiative roll doesn't take into consideration:

1) Fast people can make one bad roll and find themselves at the back of the pack for a long battle. 1 roll does not accurately reflect their speed. It takes continuous rolls to fairly assess the benefit of their higher initiative.

2) Battle is rhythmic chaos. Real fighting does not follow a strictly "take turns" motion. You are always reacting to your opponents--sometimes leading, some times following. Action evokes reaction, but it's almost *never* orderly.

Those two facts have always weighed so heavily on me that I am willing to forgo the ease of rolling initiative only once. In fact, I incorporate weapon speed factors and secondary factors as well (length of spell casting/action, footing, activation time, etc.) I hate that it slows combat down, but in the end, the result is more satisfying.

A dagger should strike faster than 2H sword, on average, without mitigating circumstances. A long spell should usually fall after a quicker spell. People with high-ground and better footing should be able to choose their strike-points more accurately. And people with quick initiative should see their skill make a more significant impact (especially when it usually comes at the cost of being able to deal out raw damage or being able to sustain more personal damage.)

Hawke wrote:We're looking at using a system in the future where each additional attack in a round would be assigned a different initiative. In other words, if a character has 3 attacks they would roll initiative three times.
This would be awesome. I'd love to incorporate that into my init system with accumulating negatives for successive attacks (i.e -2 for the second roll, -4 for the 3rd, etc.) Though I would hate to complicate my system even more in manual play... but if Init Tool could take this into account I'd be loving it.


My dream initiative application would "pop-up" a modifier box for the players during initiative rolls. It would look at their base init modifier and then have check boxes for custom modifiers (high ground, footing, haste, etc) and a drop-down to select things like weapons or the length of the spell being cast. Then they could just click "Roll" to send their init into the que to be sorted for that round.

The program would naturally have a memory of defaults and/or the last action's settings, so many rounds would not need new modifiers. And I'd love to put a timer on the box so that slow/distracted players would "lose" the round automatically, falling behind people that did roll (being sorted only by their dexterity amoung the "auto losers.")

In this way I could actually speed up my game and keep all of the realistic goodness that comes with a more advanced initiative system.
Last edited by Full Bleed on Fri Jul 27, 2007 6:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Supergnome
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Post by Supergnome »

General comment, still on topic I'd say.

I'm just surprised this isn't a common (or existant) feature on the rpg helpers out there. I know d20 did away with it to streamline combat (tell that to my 8000 modifiers, buddy) but it just kills the excitement of combat IMO. No matter what fancy stuff we do (D&D 3.5 btw), i'm still bored most of the time. Now, without a helper I'd never go back but since they're around, seems like a no brainer for my game.

Looking forward to it!

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Post by Supergnome »

woah... FB snuck that awesome post in before I got mine off.

good post!

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jay
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Post by jay »

Hawke wrote:We're looking at using a system in the future where each additional attack in a round would be assigned a different initiative. In other words, if a character has 3 attacks they would roll initiative three times.

Is it possible to do this in the future? Will scripting support support this sort of thing?
This is a major change, but it is doable. Right now an item can show up in initiative order only one time unless you are using phases and then an item can only show up once in a phase. So you won't be able to write scripts to do this either. It will take a change to the underlying code. I'll add a tracker for this.

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jay
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Post by jay »

Full Bleed wrote:My dream initiative application would "pop-up" a modifier box for the players during initiative rolls. It would look at their base init modifier and then have check boxes for custom modifiers (high ground, footing, haste, etc) and a drop-down to select things like weapons or the length of the spell being cast. Then they could just click "Roll" to send their init into the que to be sorted for that round.
This you will be able to do with scripting.

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Hawke
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Post by Hawke »

jay wrote:
Hawke wrote:We're looking at using a system in the future where each additional attack in a round would be assigned a different initiative. In other words, if a character has 3 attacks they would roll initiative three times.

Is it possible to do this in the future? Will scripting support support this sort of thing?
This is a major change, but it is doable. Right now an item can show up in initiative order only one time unless you are using phases and then an item can only show up once in a phase. So you won't be able to write scripts to do this either. It will take a change to the underlying code. I'll add a tracker for this.
Not a super high priority for me. We've only really kicked it around as we're sort of unhappy with how our initiatives have been going... and I'm not sure anybody else would even care or if other systems work this way. Thanks for the tracker!

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RPTroll
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Post by RPTroll »

Hawke wrote:We're looking at using a system in the future where each additional attack in a round would be assigned a different initiative. In other words, if a character has 3 attacks they would roll initiative three times.

Is it possible to do this in the future? Will scripting support support this sort of thing?
There might be a way to incorporate this now but it would be a bit messy. You could have the same character in there three times with a 1st attack, 2nd attack, 3rd attack in the name (shortened of course). You could even have a differenent base attack bonus on each to represent the progressive negatives.

Scripting might take care of splitting the entries out for you
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dorpond
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Post by dorpond »

RPTroll wrote: There might be a way to incorporate this now but it would be a bit messy. You could have the same character in there three times with a 1st attack, 2nd attack, 3rd attack in the name (shortened of course). You could even have a differenent base attack bonus on each to represent the progressive negatives.
Brilliant!! :D

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Hawke
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Post by Hawke »

RPTroll wrote:There might be a way to incorporate this now but it would be a bit messy. You could have the same character in there three times with a 1st attack, 2nd attack, 3rd attack in the name (shortened of course). You could even have a differenent base attack bonus on each to represent the progressive negatives.
I hadn't thought of that! Good idea

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