Mixing Up Combat Like This Will Definitely Keep Things Interesting - Tumblr Posts

Homebrew Mechanic: Earlybird Initiative

Because folks seemed to like my last write up for a combat systems, I figure I'd share one of my most enduring game mods.

I've tried SO MANY different initiative systems over the years, enough that I have pretty strong opinions on what makes a good one. My primary goal was to cut down on time that players spend waiting for their turns, as slow combat is one of the primary things that bleeds fun out of the sessions: Players who are bored waiting for their turn check out, which makes them slower and less decisive when the spotlight swings back around to them, this makes it longer for imitative to circle around and creates a feedback loop where player's attention becomes further and further taxed. I needed a system that did the opposite, kept everyone on their toes, engaged, and cooperative, as well as something that was exceptionally light weight.

Step 1: DM says "roll initiative", all players roll as normal, add their modifiers, but keep the number to themselves.

Step 2: The DM Calls out " twenty and above", and then every player who got 20 or above in imitative can take their turn in whatever order they wish, splitting up actions however they wish around each other in order to coordinate.

Step 3: Enemies who got 20 or above on their initiative go. Lair actions trigger.

Sep 4: DM says "Ten and Above", Repeat steps 2 and 3 with players followed by monsters, then again saying " Everyone else" for everyone who hasn't gone.

Step 5: If combat is still going DM says "Initiative resets" and everyone rolls their initiative shuffling combat positions , repeat until "how do you want to do this?" moment.

That's pretty much it. There's a bunch of little things you can do to speed things up (like only rolling initiative for important enemies while the rank and file have static initiative based on whether they're fast, medium, or slow) but largely this simplifies the logistics of having to keep up with combat to a few lighting fast beats. Everyone's engaged because they know their turn is only one or two steps away rather than forgetting where they sit in an ever shifting round-robin.

Literally every group I've introduced this to over the past three years has loved it to the point where they find combat run by other DMs painfully slow by comparison. I don't know what's a greater endorsement than that.