Demon Idol (1e) AD&D Initiative Roundup

Post date: Feb 9, 2018 11:51:53 PM

Here's my Super Simple Initiative for 1e:

Each round d6 per side, highest goes first, all actions on a side first. (no declaration).

Just stop there if you want, that's simple. But wait, there's ties, what happens then?

A) Ties are simultaneous, so everyone tallies up their damage etc. and applies at once - really I just have the PCs do what their doing, then the monsters do what they're doing, then take effects, so it's really a 3 part initiative of PCs go, Monsters go, Monsters take damage & effects from PCs actions. This is what I do.

B) You could re-roll until there's no tie.

So now you can stop there. I like to add a little more complexity to mimic some effects of BtB:

1) charging - longest weapon goes first, don't roll, or ignore initiative.

2) if a spellcaster is hit, they can't cast a spell on their next action

I) alternately d10 vs. casting time when they've been hit for their next action if it's a spell (which gives the spellcasters a little more possibility of casting a spell.)

3) automatic first/last/simultaneous for multiple attack routines like missiles and fighter multiple attacks, zombies, and hasted/slowed combatants.

There's a couple even simpler ways I don't use:

A) PCs* roll a d12, 1-5 monsters go first, 6-7 tie, 8-12 PCs go first. *or DM, but Players prefer rolling (or just 1-6 monsters, 7-12 PCs but no ties, and I like my simultaneous combat)

B) Cyclic, initiative is rolled only once each encounter and goes back and forth (I find this boring and not reflective of the chaos of a real battle, but it does make it faster)

C) PCs* always go first. That really speeds it up, but the poor monsters never get a drop on the PCs. *Evil DMs can make that Monsters always go first! (I am tempted to make it always simultaneous, but I think that would result in a bit too many simultaneous deaths)

Other Methods of Initiative:

Gary Gygax's own initiative:

1. Roll d6 for initiative, low score going first.

2. Weapons attacks and spells with a segment cost of 1

3. Spells with more than 1 segment time involved add 1 pip to the initiative roll per segment, so 2 adds 1, 3 adds 2, and so on.

A 6-segment-long spell adding 5 meant that at best it would happen simultaneously with the opponents actions who had rolled a 6 on initiative.

*a spell-caster attacked before he or she begins the casting is not prevented from starting thereafter....if life remains

4. Moving into combat range against a longer weapon gave the opponent first attack.

5. Simultaneous attacks occurred together where adjusted initiative was the same for both sides.

* inserted line from another quote from him on how interruption works.

This is in some ways similar to the method outlined above, but requires declaration and have a little more complexity and slight variations on btb. This is similar to how I've run what I thought was btb back in the 1e heyday even including the change of counting up (low score goes first), of note is no weapon speeds, which Gary stated he did not use on more than one occasion, and that any time combat is joined initiative goes to longer weapon if the longer weapon is the one moved against, not just on a charge - this would mean most animals would lose initiative against an armed foe for the first round if they attack. If you want an official version of AD&D 1e that's reasonably easy to use, here it is, can't get much more official than EGG, sure it's not BtB, but I don't think anything really is. I find that a bit difficult to parse so here's how I would restate it:

1. Each side rolls d6 for initiative, low score goes first.

2. Spellcasting starts on their side's initiative, if hit before this, their spell is not interrupted as long as they are still conscious and can otherwise complete the spell components.

3. Spellcasting ends on initiative + CT (Casting Time) -1, if hit between their initiative and their spellcasting completing the spell is interrupted

4. A character wielding a longer weapon goes first if the opponent moves into melee with them has a shorter weapon (still needs some work on how to explain this)

5. Attacks & spells that end on the same initiative are simultaneous, allowing both to affect each other even if the other kills them.

Some examples with this:

A tiger pounces on Hackus. Hackus declares he's going to charge the tiger with a halberd. The tiger's side rolls 4, Hackus 6, Hackus hasn't charged yet, so the tiger joins melee first, but Hackus has a longer weapon and the Tiger approached him, so Hackus attacks first, the tiger shrugs it off and mauls Hackus to death.

Ivar declares he's casting fireball

Hackus declares he's attacking Ivar with his halberd

Ivar's side rolls a 3, fireball is 3 so he adds 2 to initiative and he'll complete it on 5.

Hackus' side rolls a 5.

Ivar's fireball goes off, and kills hackus, however hackus also rolled max damage with his 18:00 strength and kills Ivar. Both are now dead.

Ivar declares he's casting fireball

Abracus declares he's casting magic-missile

Ivar rolls a 2, fireball is 3 so he adds 2 to initiative and he'll complete it on 4.

Abracus rolls a 3, magic missile is 1 so he completes it on 3

Ivar is interrupted and loses fireball.

Ulan Dhor https://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=79277&view=unread#p1913950

Initiative, Black Pearl Campaign

1. Initiative Score: d6 + [casting time] + [adjusted weapon speed] – [RAA] – [magical weapon ”+”]

2. Your action starts on the segment indicated by the d6 roll, it culminates on the segment of d6+AWS/CT

3. Initiative is individual, lowest score goes first, equal scores = simultaneous attacks

4. Attackers with natural attack routines (e.g. CCB routine) have a weapon speed of 1 and all attacks occur on the same segment, e.g. d6+1.

5. Attackers with two attacks per round attack first at the beginning of the round and then second on their d6 + AWS segment. If they have 3 attacks per round they attack first at the beginning of the round and then on the d6+ AWS segment, then again at the end of the round.

6. Missile weapons have a weapon speed, and those with ROF 2 arrive on d6+AWS and the end of the round (segment 10), those with a ROF of 3 arrive on d6+AWS, halfway to the end of the round, and the end of the round.

7. Spells start casting on the segment indicated by the roll of the d6, they culminate on the segment of d6+CT, if an incoming attack hits before the segment of the d6 roll the spell was not commenced, if an incoming attack hits after that and before culmination, the spell is interrupted.

8. Charging attackers do not need to roll initiative, if they attack a melee weapon skirmisher, longest weapon strikes first, if they attack a missile user, determine how long it takes to reach the missile user, if the missile attack culminates before then, the missile strikes first.

9. Non-combat actions (e.g. unfurling a scroll, switching weapons, drinking potion) are assigned a segment cost and this is applied as a modifier to the d6 just like CT and AWS.

NOTE ON WEAPON SPEEDS

All weapon speeds listed are ADJUSTED for my campaign:

- first I halve them from the listed values, rounding up or down as is my preference, and that is the new base weapon speed

- second I make any adjustments for magical weapon “+” or RAA (from high dex), reducing the weapon speed, no weapon speed can be lower than 1

- these are all done BEFORE play, so you just have to add your AWS to your initiative roll.

- so for example, a longsword is listed in the PHB as Weapon Speed 5, half is 2.5, I round that up to three. If a fighter had a +1 longsword, that would be adjusted weapon speed 2. A thief with a DEX of 18 and a RAA of 3 using the same longsword would have an adjusted weapon speed of 1.

Other initiative interpretations:

* Bargle (PHB only) https://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=84940&hilit=PHB+Initiative

* Man in the Funny Hat https://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=78667#p1894694

* OSRIC http://www.knights-n-knaves.com/osric/

* Nagora's BTB http://nagorascorner.blogspot.com/2012/05/ad-initiative-main-event.html

* DM Prata's ADDICT https://idiscepolidellamanticora.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/addict.pdf