Bats: B/X Monster Tactics

 Bats are a bit trickier than they might seem at first. They come in two varieties: normal and giant. The varieties have the same sort of habits and habitat, but giant bats are a lot tougher than normal ones. Both giant and normal bats are blinded by silence 15' radius, but not by light, and they are generally unaffected by any spells that depend on sight.

What spells do depend on sight? Here’s my list:

• Light
• Continual Light
• Invisibility
• Mirror Image
• Phantasmal Force
• Hallucinatory Terrain
• Massmorph

I almost included projected image, but the image “cannot be distinguished from the original except by touch,” so I’m going to suppose it’ll fool bats.

The fact that bats aren’t fooled by invisibility and most illusions might be useful to characters who want to figure out if something is illusory. Anyone who wants to use bats to detect illusions, however, also needs a good way to interpret their behavior. That could be speak with animals, other magic, or just a lot of familiarity with bats. Vampires, for example, should be able to interpret bat behavior.

Normal Bats

Normal bats wander the first level (or outside) of a dungeon in groups of 1–100, which is also the size of their lair inside a dungeon. In the wilderness, they might have lairs of 5–500. They don’t have treasure.

Normal bats aren’t dangerous by themselves. They can only attack in groups of 10 or more, and the only effect of their attack is confusion, imposing -2 on “to hit” rolls and saving throws, and preventing spell casting.

By the book, each normal bat defeated is worth 5 XP. But a bunch of bats by themselves aren’t a threat, and PCs who decide to fight them shouldn’t get any XP for it unless they are part of a more interesting, and challenging, encounter.

Normal bats are nuisance monsters, but they can complicate other situations. An encounter with bats might draw the attention of other monsters. Or, wandering bats might arrive during a fight with something else. The bats are probably not very picky about who they confuse: they’re mainly just panicked. But there is no save against the confusion effect, which not only penalizes attacks, but makes spell casting impossible. For that reason, vampires will certainly summon bats to harass enemy spell casters.

A ring of animal control is not very helpful for making bats work for you. The effect requires concentration, and it doesn’t control the minimum 10 bats needed to produce confusion. A potion of animal control, however, has a chance of controlling enough of them.

Normal bat reactions are simple, like the animals they are. They will usually panic or flee from danger if it’s obvious how to do so. Unless they’ve been summoned or controlled, they won’t continually confuse someone. Instead, they will confuse characters incidentally, as they try to get out of danger.

Giant Bats

Giant bats are more dangerous than normal bats. They have two full Hit Dice. Their flying movement is 180' (60'). Their morale is 8—good but not great. They occur in groups of 1–10. Their main weakness is that their bites don’t do much damage, only 1–4 points. Still, an average giant bat will have 9 hp and THAC0 18, which is enough to make them at least worrisome for low-level characters.

A giant bat is really big. Ordinarily, 2 HD animals are about 5' long. The DM has to decide if that’s body length or wingspan. If it’s wingspan, then giant bats are just a little bigger than the Indian Flying Fox. Their body is a foot long to go with their 5' wingspan. They weigh about 4 pounds.

Fortunately for the PCs, giant bats don’t usually eat or attack humans or demihumans. But they will if they are extremely hungry. As DM, your default assumption should be that the bats are not that hungry, unless you have reasons for deciding otherwise.

You’ll find giant bats in groups of 1–10 on the second level of the dungeon. On the first level, there might be 1–8. They might appear in larger groups on levels four and five, likely 2–20 and 3–30, respectively. In the wilderness, their lairs will house 5–50 bats. But they don’t have treasure of their own.

Actual tactics for giant bats aren’t sophisticated. If attacked, they flee. Don’t worry about morale. They’re animals with a survival instinct and nothing to protect.

On the other hand, if giant bats attack, they will attack like predators: going after the smallest, most lightly armored target they can reach. Of course, none of that matters if they are controlled by a ring or potion of animal control, or if they’ve been summoned by a vampire.

Giant bats aren’t strong enough to pick up even a halfling, and they don’t have a swoop attack.

Having no treasure, giant bats are a potentially dangerous nuisance monster or a complication of an encounter with another kind of creature, such as a vampire (who can summon 3 to 18 of them!).

Like robber flies, though, giant bats are also dangerous because they look like another monster, vampire bats.

Vampire Bats

Five percent of giant bat encounters are actually encounters with giant vampire bats. These bats can cause those they bite to fall unconscious for 1–10 rounds, so the bats can drink their blood at a rate of 1–4 hp per round. Those who die must save vs. spells or become undead. Unlike ordinary giant bats, vampire bats are always hungry enough to hunt humans and demihumans, but they will still hunt like predators.

The ability to cause unconsciousness with a bite should be worth an asterisk on the vampire bats' Hit Dice, making them worth 25 rather than the normal 20 XP.

When a vampire bat’s victim becomes undead, what sort does it become? The rules mention that it can be a vampire, but they don’t give much other guidance. You could base it on character level, or you could simply decide that certain bats make certain kinds of undead, based on the needs of your campaign.

Apart from vampires, ghouls and mummies are good choices for the results of a vampire bat bite, as there is no other way in the rules for them to be created, other than fiat. (Which is fine! You don’t need rules for undead origins to have great undead in your game.)

Bandits: B/X Monster Tactics

 

The Basics

Statistically, bandits look a lot like orcs. Their AC is 6, they have 1 Hit Die, and their damage is 1d6 or by weapon. The main differences are that they don’t have penalties in sunlight, and they have better treasure. Even their number appearing is not much different. So, does this mean bandits are just human-flavored orcs?

Not a bit! Let’s look at things more closely.

The first thing to notice about bandits (in B/X, but not in the LBBs or AD&D!) is that they are Thieves. The exact level of Thief they are isn’t specified, but I assume the standard bandit is a 1st-level thief — hence the 1 HD.

With Acolytes, I suggested rolling 1d8 for hit points and just living with the fact that some will have more than 6. Maybe those high-hp Acolytes have Constitution bonuses or something. I stand by that (for now), but I’m less confident taking that approach with bandits. Standard thieves have 1d4 hit points, or 2.5 on average. If bandits have 1d8, they average 4.5 hit points, and that’s too different from Thieves. After all, they get all the benefits of Thieves, including the two that are most important at low levels: Bonuses when they Strike Unnoticed from Behind (SUB), and a fairly fast movement rate. For Bandits, then, I think it’s best to give them 1 HD, but it’s a d4 rather than the usual d8.

Bandits might be Neutral or Chaotic in alignment. Either way, they make their living posing as normal humans to catch their targets off guard and relieve them of their valuables. Exactly how they pull that off will differ based on their alignments.

Chaotic bandits delight in murder and mayhem. They are apt to lure victims into ambushes, where their waiting comrades can surprise them and, hopefully, kill them before they see it coming. By chaotic reckoning, it’s fun to kill and easy to loot corpses, so they’ll try to do both.

Neutral bandits will kill if needed, but their goal is the loot. They use the advantage of surprise as leverage. (See “The Neutral Ambush” below.) Then they’re happy to take their victims’ loot, maybe keep a hostage or two for ransom and protection, and let the victims off with their lives. They might get to rob the same victims again later!

Whatever their alignment, bandits aren’t dumb enough to start fights they aren’t sure they can win. They want to outnumber their opponents, preferably by at least two or even three to one. Except to Strike Unnoticed from Behind, they’ll prefer to stay out of melee, especially against armored enemies.

One wildcard for any group of bandits is their leadership. An NPC of any class and level might be the leader of a group of bandits. As the PCs gain levels, they might come across groups of bandits with ever more dangerous leaders.

Different bandit groups might vary greatly in alignment as well. It’s convenient for a group to all have the same alignment, but there’s no reason for there not also to be mixed groups, and even some tension an rivalry between the Neutrals and their more brutal Chaotic colleagues. And while it’s highly unlikely a Lawful NPC would employ Chaotic bandits, any other combination of alignments for the leader and the bandits is possible and potentially interesting. Imagine the Neutral leader who finds he can’t control his gang anymore, but he can’t get rid of them either!

Bandit Reactions

Bandits want money. If they are Chaotic, they want murder and money. Even Chaotic bandits know they can’t enjoy their loot if they’re dead, and so staying alive is their top priority. Here are some possible reaction roll results for them (2d6):

2 Immediate Attack. Bandits prefer the odds in their favor. If they don’t outnumber the enemy 3:1, “immediate attack” means “immediately go for reinforcements.” 3-5 Hostile, Possible Attack. The bandits want to rob the party, and they stall to figure out whether to attack now or go for reinforcements to attack later. 6-8 Uncertain. The bandits aren’t sure whether the party is worth robbing, and so they try to figure that out. 9-11 No attack. The bandits are not interested in attacking or robbing the party right now, but they are interested in making a deal. 12 Enthusiastic friendship. The bandits offer their cooperation to the party, probably by asking for employment.

Always remember the bandits’ agenda. If they want to rob the party, but they don’t have the numbers to win a fight, they’ll pretend to make a deal or offer assistance, with the intention of turning on the party later.

That makes bandits dangerous, and potentially very frustrating to your players. Unless your players are very skilled, think about how you’ll give them clues that a group of bandits they encounter should not be trusted. When the betrayal happens, any players who didn’t see it coming should immediately think, “Oh, no! I should have seen this coming!” Otherwise, it’ll seem arbitrary and unfair. After all, the bandits’ plan is to hit the party when the odds are strongly in their favor, which means the odds are strongly against the PCs.

Bandits in the Dungeon

Bandits wander the first level in groups of 1-8, with lairs of 3-30. They have Treasure Type U, which isn’t unusual for groups of humans, and they have that even outside their lair. Type U averages to 10 cp, 10 sp, 5 gp, and 106 gp worth of jewelery, for an average value of just over 112 gp, but more than 64% of the time, that treasure type yields nothing. It is noted that Treasure Type A occurs only in the bandits’ wilderness lairs (which have 15 to 150 bandits). Dungeon bandits aren’t rich.

The real question, though, is why the bandits are in the dungeon at all. Normal humans are rarely in the dungeon, so there’s not much point in bandits plying their trade there. But the bandits might have a dungeon lair for any of several reasons. Maybe the bandits are fugitives. They’ve been driven to the dungeon to hide out, and they’re trying to figure out when and how to leave when the heat is off outside—that is, if they can survive that long. It’s also possible that the dungeon is the bandits’ wilderness lair, albeit a small one. If there are at least 15 bandits in the lair, they have the minimum number appearing for a wilderness lair. If the dungeon is near where the bandits ply their trade, it might also be their base of operations. Finally, the bandits’ boss might have ordered them there for whatever his, her, their, or its own purposes might be.

In any case, the bandits are not actually up to banditry in the dungeon, unless they’ve figured out how to make their “normal human” schtick work on dungeon monsters — and maybe they have! Their lair will be located in an area that gives them access to food, water, and a way out. In all likelihood, the bandits have arrived as squatters, and they might have made deals with nearby monsters for their own safety. But allies for dungeon bandits are few, and they will certainly stay alert with sentries and traps to protect themselves.

The number of bandits in deeper levels increases to 2-16 on the second level and 3-24 on the third. Even in larger numbers, the bandits will need a pretty good reason to go into such dangerous areas. Whether they are Neutral or Chaotic, self-interest is much more important to bandits than any group projects might be.

Bandit morale is 8, which is good but not great. They fail any given check almost 28% of the time, and there’s about a 48% chance their morale breaks in any given encounter (which might have one or two checks). Their innate selfishness should make them susceptible to bribes and even employment by quick-thinking PCs. The PCs will need to convince the bandits to negotiate with a 9 or better on a reaction roll, and then they’ll need a 9 or better again for the bandits to accept the offer.

Bandits in the Wilderness

The default wilderness encounter tables include bandits in every environment where humans are found, except for the desert and the ocean. They wander in groups of 3 to 30, and their wilderness lairs house 15 to 150 bandits. Their lairs have Treasure Type A, which is much more generous than Type U. Bandits account for almost 11% of the encounters on the “Men” subtable. They are most common in clear areas, woods, swamps, settled areas, and cities.

A typical wilderness encounter with bandits will involve the party coming across a group posing as normal humans, intending to waylay unwitting travelers. They may or may not think the party is a suitable target. If the party is clearly well-armed and armored, and especially if the bandits don’t greatly outnumber them, the bandits might keep up their act and leave the adventurers alone altogether.

For the bandit ruse to work, there need to be normal humans in the area, and it can’t be overused. Include normal human encounters in your adventures, and make them more common than bandit encounters. Otherwise, the players will start to assume bandit every time.

A typical bandit ruse will work something like this. Some of the bandits are pretending to be normal humans, while others are waiting in ambush. The first group of bandits will try to distract their victims or, often, to lure them to another location, where the ambush has been set. The nature of the ambush will vary, but some rules issues have to be addressed too.

I used to allow thieves to benefit from making missile attacks unnoticed from behind. I’ve recently become convinced that isn’t by the book. If thieves are allowed to SUB with missile attacks, they’ll set up so that they can do so at short range (gaining +5 to hit and double damage, which is usually 1d6 x 2). Otherwise, they’ll lie in wait to charge in from 40’ behind the party with two-handed swords or polearms, enjoying +4 to hit and 1d10 x 2 damage. Either way, their intent is shock and awe. They prove their advantage, demand payment and then, unless their goal is slaughter, they take the money and run.

If the bandits don’t manage to surprise the party, or the ambush is spotted, they’ll try to rely on their superior numbers to extort payment without a fight.

Neutral Ambushes

Alignment can be a vexed topic, but it seems plain from the possibility of Neutral bandits that posing as normal humans for the purpose ambushing and robbing people is something Neutral characters might routinely do. So, it’s worth taking a moment to consider what a Neutral ambush would be like.

The purpose of the Neutral ambush is robbery, not murder. Moreover, Neutral bandits might be somewhat more discerning than others about whom they rob. They aren’t waylaying poor farmers for their last few copper pieces. They are going for richer people, who are harmed less by being relieved of some wealth. They might also focus their efforts outside the area they consider home. Kings might give them official permission, and limited support, toplunder their enemies’ trade routes.

Neutral bandits can use the tactics above, but they may also want to avoid so much murder. They will likely deal subdual damage at first, with missile-attacking reinforcements lying in reserve in case they become necessary. But once the party fights back, the kid gloves come off and the bandits will kill in order to protect themselves.

Normality

Bandits pose as normal humans, but it’s worth bearing in mind that “normal humans” are not necessarily civilians. They include soldiers. A group of bandits could imitate lightly armored mercenaries. They could easily pass for the Archer, Light Horseman, or Mounted Bowman mercenary types listed in the Expert Rules. With just leather armor and swords, they are just like Light Foot who happen not to have shields. Bandits pretending to be mercenaries might allow themselves to be hired, with the intention of turning on their employer as soon as it becomes convenient. Bandits pursuing this kind of ruse don’t need to pretend to be unarmed or unarmored.

Bandits in Combat

Actual in-combat tactics for bandits are straightforward. Even Chaotic bandits had rather live than die, so they will avoid fights until they have been able to arrange a near-certain victory. That ordinarily means an overwhelming numerical advantage (at least three to one), and surprise, and a situation set up to maximize the benefits of Striking Unnoticed from Behind. Their aim is to strike a decisive blow before the enemy knows what’s happening, either killing their targets or weakening them to the point that additional fighting would be pointless.

If they are attacking an obvious adventuring party, the bandits’ target priorities are: first, unarmored characters (assumed to be Magic-Users), then heavily armored characters without edged weapons (assumed to be Clerics), then characters with missile weapons, and finally those in heavy armor with edged weapons. In the ideal case, though, they manage to attack everyone by surprise from behind, scoring some kills along the way.

Striking unnoticed from behind, the bandits hit AC 3 on a 12 or better, which is 45% of the time. If three strike one target, the chance at least one hits is around 84%. The chance at least two hit is pretty good as well, at about 42%. Using normal swords (1d8 damage) unnoticed from behind, three bandits will deal just over 12.15 points of damage on average. With two-handed swords, they will deal 14.85, on average. And that’s against AC 3.

Some DMs may choose not to allow multiple Thieves to strike the same target unnoticed from behind in the same round. But even a single bandit with a sword can be extremely dangerous, especially to magic-users and other thieves.

Fairness to players will often require good hints that bandit ambush is coming, so they can be prepared. Remember that the bandits want a decisive advantage, and they likely think of that as a 3:1 numerical advantage. Make sure the party can survive the surprise round before springing an unavoidable ambush on them.

When the bandits aren’t on the offensive, their tactics are much simpler: Run. The bandits know that any hit can kill them, and anyone attacking the bandits can probably hit them. The bandits won’t wait to fail a morale check. But if they haven’t failed a moral check, they’ll run for reinforcements or the protection of someone or something more powerful than they are.

Animals

Many of the monsters in B/X are animals. While there are differences among them, their are enough similarities that it’s worth having a general reference.

Reaction Tables for Animals

Animals’ main priorities are survival and reproduction. Their reactions should reflect those priorities. Animals ordinarily will not fight to the death if they can escape. If an animal has been injured, is not engaged in melee, and has a route to run away, it will usually flee. Animals protecting their nests, lairs, young, or territory are less likely to flee.

Predators go for the easy prey. Their ideal target is small, weak, and separated from the group. If a party has pack animals, predators are no less likely to attack the animals than to attack the characters. In many cases, the predators are more likely to attack the animals.

Here’s my standard reaction table for animals:

Roll	Reaction	Notes
2	Immediate Attack	The animal is either attempting to eat someone, to protect its young, or to protect its territory.
3-5	Hostile, possible attack.	The PCs may have come too close to the animals young or its territory. The animal makes itself known and attempts to scare the PCs away. It will follow up and attack if the party does not leave quickly. A predator may instead want to eat someone in the party. It stalks them, waiting for an opportunity to attack someone who looks weak and who might be separated from the group.
6-8	Uncertain.	The animal is unsure whether the party is dangerous, whether it is food, or whether they can be ignored. Until it makes up its mind, it keeps its distance and waits to see what the party does, fighting only if provoked.
9-11	No attack.	The animal will leave if it can, unless offered food or some incentive to stick around. Some monsters might approach the party, looking for a handout.
12	Friendly.	The animal is not hostile, and it thinks the characters are its friends. It is likely to approach, hoping to play or expecting the party to give it food. If the characters don’t respond with friendship, the animal will eventually leave. If the party is hostile, the animal will defend itself until it can get away.

Animal Morale and Escape

An animal’s behavior in a fight depends on why it is fighting. If it is defending only itself, its aim is to get away with its life. As soon as it has a path of escape, it will run away unless engaged in melee. It won’t engage enemies in melee unless they are blocking its escape.

If an animal is on the defensive in melee, it will retreat after taking any amount of damage. There is no need for a morale check. The monster’s goal is to get away alive. Its best chance to get away is to go as fast as it can (retreating), while it has enough hit points to survive attacks it takes on the run.

Animals ordinarily aren’t smart enough for fighting withdrawals. When they want out of melee, they retreat.

Predators are trying to get a meal. Again, their aim is survival, and they can’t eat if they’re dead. These animals will try to attack weak party members (including mounts and pack animals) separated from the group. A lone predator will flee if it takes damage before it can damage its prey. Predators in groups are bolder. They’ll keep attacking a tasty target until they fail a morale check. However, injured animals without a target will run away, and their departure might trigger a morale check for those who remain. Give a +2 bonus to the morale of individuals who are about to kill their prey.

The only animals who will fight to the death are those who are protecting their territory and their young. If they are merely protecting their territory, the animals will behave like predators; their territory is worthless if they are dead, so they will leave if they get hurt. If it is protecting its young, however, an animal will likely fight until it and its young can run away, or until it dies, whichever comes first.

When an animal is protecting its young, you could give it a morale rating of 12, or you could give it a +2 bonus to its normal moral rating. In the latter case, it’s possible for the animal to fail a morale check. If it does, that means its sense of self-preservation has overcome its desire to protect its young, and it tries to run away. But it won’t abandon its young. As soon as it gets away, it will come back to see if the threat is still there. If the characters are still there when the animal gets back, make another morale check to see if it runs away again.

Fixing 5e Initiative, Part 5: Initiative with a DC

I decided the combination of speed factor and initiative scores wasn't helping the game enouhg. The declarations phase just bogged things down too much. So, I tried a different way.

The monsters use their initiative scores. At the beginning of combat, the PCs make initiative rolls. All that matters, though, is which monsters they beat. In the simplest case, the initiative rolls divide the PCs into two groups—the Befores and the Afters.

The thing is, I don't care about what order the PCs in a group go in. They can act in whatever order they like. They can even interrupt each others' turns.

Initially, I let them actually resolve their turns at the same time. I found I couldn't keep track of multiple turns at once, especially with players making automated rolls on a VTT. So now, I let them choose the turn order, and a player can interrupt another player's turn if they want to. They usually don't want to.

This injects a little bit more player choice into initiative from round to round. Using initiative scores for monsters speeds up the beginning of a combat significantly.

It isn't perfect. Since initiative is circular, it often turns into a cycle of : Fast PCs, monsters, slow PCs, fast PCs, monsters .... The PCs get bunched together, but they don't have full control over their order at that point. The fast PCs share a turn, followed by the slow PCs' shared turn. Why not one shared party turn at that point?

There are a couple of modifications I'd like to try.

Add initiative rerolling. At the beginning of each round, the players reroll their initiative. In this way, there's always a possibility that fast character goes goes with the Afters one round, or that a slow character gets lucky and goes from the After group to the Before group one round.

Initiative as a group check. If half the characters beat the monsters' initiative score, they all go before the monsters. Otherwise, the monsters go first.

Fixing 5e Initiative, Part 4: Choice, Uncertainty, and the Feel of the Game

I previously proposed combining two variants from the 2014 DMG: Initiative Scores and Speed Factor initiative. The idea was to replace the chanciness of rolled initiative with uncertainty, and to make the initiative order depend more on what characters are doing, rather than merely on how they are built.

Does it work?

My earliest experiment involved two combats in which the PCs were facing groups of identical opponents—giant spiders and harpies, to be precise. Due to their size and Dexterity, giant spiders have an initiative score of 9. Harpies have an initiative score of 11, or 13 in rounds when they plan to use their clubs. They always plan to use their clubs.

Declarations. The declarations phase tended to go smoothly, but players were worried about being locked into their actions before they knew what was going to happen in the round, potentially winding up doing nothing. That was as intended from my perspective: I wanted there to be fog of war in action selection for both sides.

There were some twists that arose and required ruling. First, a harpy was caught in the area of a web spell, and so had to make a save at the start of their turn. If the save has not yet occurred, the harpy has to make their decision about what to do before they know if they'll be restrained by the web. I decided to go ahead and make the save during declarations, but not to apply the result until the harpy's turn.

In another case, a harpy was incapacitated by a hypnotic pattern. Can that character declare actions, for the case that they are free of the pattern when their turn comes up? I ruled yes, but it couldn't declare attacks, due to its being charmed.

In both cases, I'm tempted by the other possibility—force the webbed creature to choose an action in the fog of war, and don't allow the incapacitated creature to choose an action at all.

I had precalculated initiative scores for most of the things the PCs would be doing, and it wasn't unwieldy. One player did wonder if there were time savings overall, because this system requires me to write down what everyone is doing each turn, while the standard system doesn't require any writing. I try to write fast, but it's a good point. The procedure of getting everyone's declarations each round, without resolving them yet, was as annoying as getting everyone's initiative results each round would have been.

What's more, after the declarations phase, there are very few additional decisions to be made. Players we not more engaged during combat while others' turns were being resolved.

Decision-making for Declaration. The point of the system is to make initiative order depend more on player choices. My experiment had only three players, with initiative scores of 14, 11, and 10. The 11 was an artificer who could go as late as 9 (casting a 2nd-level spell), but usually just went on 11. The 14 was a bard who had no action options that would put him later in the initiative order than the artificer. The 10 was a cleric who was sure to go last among the PCs, unless the artificer cast a 2nd-level spell.

So, the only decision in the fight that affected PC initiative order relative to each other was the artificer's decision whether to cast a 2nd-level spell; which wasn't much of a decision, generally speaking.

What about their position relative to the monsters?

The giant spiders have an initiative score of 9, due to size (-2) and Dexterity (+1). The init 14 bard could not possibly go after them. The init 11 artificer goes after them if and only if casting a 2nd-level spell. The init 10 cleric goes after them if and only if casting a non-cantrip spell. So, two players' decisions make a difference to their order with respect to the spiders. Neither the artificer nor the cleric were even tempted enough to cast leveled spells for the question of "cast X before the monsters or cast Y after them?" to come up much.

The harpies were much faster than the spiders: Base initiative 11, 13 when using their clubs (which they always used). In this fight, none of the PCs were affected by the harpies' songs.

The harpies were always going on 13. That meant that they went before all PCs except when the bard cast a 2nd-level spell. So, the decision of what to do again didn't have much effect on turn order round to round.

Fog of War. While player decisions rarely made a difference to turn order, the need to declare action did introduce uncertainty for spell casters. They had to anticipate whether the enemy would be in position to target with their spells. If they weren't going before the enemy—either because they were slower innately or because they were casting spells with long enough casting times—declaring the spell meant risking the loss of action for the round. In the harpy fight, both casters had to adapt on their turns to new conditions in order to cast the spells they had initially declared. There is no equivalent, commonly occurring complication that non-spell casters have to deal with.

Actions. The actions phase gave me some, but not all, of what I hoped for. It was pretty quick to resolve, as almost all the decision-making had been done ahead of time. It was just movement and dice rolls to resolve the previously declared actions. It felt frenetic because turns went by so quickly. On the other hand, because movement was involved, it still felt like everyone was taking their turns in order, but much more quickly.

Future investigation. So far, the fixedness of the initiative scores looks more significant than the variability from action choice. The declarations phase introduces fog of war to action selection, and the jury is still out as to whether that enhances or detracts from the game. Even with the fog of war, it only presents some PCs with interesting choices, and only in some circumstances.

The declarations phase alone did not introduce the feeling of simultaneity I was hoping for, but it came close. Next time: Can anything do that?

Fixing 5e Initiative Part 3: The Solution?

We've looked at what's wrong with the default 5e initiative system and several alternatives that won't solve the problem. Now it's time for a proposed solution. Here's what I tried. (It didn't work, but it was a valiant effort.)

Here's what we need from a solution:

Initiative as player-managed risk or uncertainty. The initiative order should respond to players' decisions during the combat encounter itself, but the players' decisions should be subject to risk or uncertainty. That is, their decisions should make it more or less likely that they go before or after others, but it should rarely be a matter of certainty.

Initiative should reflect both dimensions of player agency. The consequences of player decisions about Dexterity scores and anything else that affects Dexterity checks should still matter in the background, even as player decisions in the combat round itself matter.

Initiative order should be a consequence of action selection. Player's shouldn't choose their initiative position directly. Instead, their initiative position should be a predictable (but not determinate) consequence of the action decisions they are making anyway.

Initiative resolution should not interrupt game flow. Stopping the game for the initiative ceremony must end!

And here's a bonus criterion I haven't said anything about so far: The initiative system should reinforce the idea that, in combat, everything is happening all at once, not one turn at a time.

With those things in mind, here's my proposal for a solution. It is probably deceptive in its simplicity. I think that's good.

Drum roll .....

Use both the Initiative Score and Speed Factor Initiative variants from the 2014 DMG. Together. At the same time.

Here's how that will play out.

• At the start of each round, the DM decides what the monsters are going to do and notes their modified initiative scores, usually 10 + Dexterity modifier + speed and size factors. At the same time, players are deciding what they are going to do that round and noting their modified initiative scores.
• Next, the DM asks the players for their actions and modified initiative scores, noting them all down.
• Then, all the actions get resolved, from highest initiative to lowest. Ties get broken by Dexterity score or by random roll.
• Then, we move to the next round and start over.

This system should reduce disengagement in two ways. First, players spend less time waiting for others to make decisions about what to do on their turn. Almost all decisions about what to do in a turn are made by everyone all at once. Second, the initiative-rolling ceremony is replaced by players telling the DM what they are going to do, which is something that happens on each player's turn in the default system already.

The system replaces randomness with uncertainty. Your decision about what to do tells you what your initiative score for the round will be, but you don't know what the other side is going to do. So, you have to make an educated guess as to whether that will be higher or lower than the other side's modified initiative score for the round. You are, in effect, choosing your actions based on the calculated gamble that you can take them at the most opportune time.

The system makes a PC's precise initiative score entirely a matter of player choices each round. It is determined by choice of action and other decisions that affect Dexterity checks.

In theory, then, this system will meet all the criteria for solving the problem. It even meets the bonus criterion. Everyone decides what to do at the same time. Action resolution is orderly and turn by turn, but it amounts to just the systematic resolution of things we all understand to be happening over the same six-second time span.

Later, I'll report on why this didn't work.

Fixing 5e Initiative Part 2: More Solutions that Don't Work

Last time, I talked about what's wrong with 5e initiative, and why none of the variants in the DMG solve all the problems. Now we're going to solve it.

Let's start by looking at what a couple of recent games have done to address the problems.

In Shadow of the Demon Lord, there are fast or slow actions. Your choice of action determines whether you go before or after the opposition. This is not disengaging, and it makes initiative depend on what it should: player decisions about what they are going to do.

The trouble is that there isn't an obvious way to convert that system to 5e. You could look at every possible action and decide whether it's slow or fast. But when you do that, you'd also break everything that is supposed to interact with initiative by modifying characters' Dexterity checks, and you eliminate the advantage of high Dexterity for initiative. It might work, but it's a lot of work.

In the upcoming Delve RPG, player characters get three actions per round, and monsters go first each round. Player characters can sacrifice one of their actions to go before the monsters do. This system does away with the disengagement of rolling initiative, but your choice of action doesn't have a lot of effect on the decision whether to go before the monsters. The main questions for players are (a) is there a good reason to make the monsters go between my turn and another player's turn?, (b) do I need to do three things this turn anyway?,  and (c) will it be good for me, having gone last this turn, to go first next turn?.

Unlike Shadow of the Demon Lord, Delve doesn't make your place in the initiative depend on your action choice. However, Delve asks the player to think about and make decisions about their initiative directly, in conjunction with their choice of action. For anything you can do with one or two actions, you ask yourself, "Should I do this before or after the other side's next turn?" That can be an interesting decision, but it's also a deterministic interaction with a purely mechanical aspect of the game, turn order. Those decisions would be more interesting and immersive if they involved risk or uncertainty derived from player choice.

The Delve system could, maybe, be implemented in 5e. You could try having the monsters always go first, unless players sacrifice their bonus action, movement, or action, to go first instead. That would probably have unintended bad consequences. For example, characters such as rogues are likely to use their movement, bonus action, and action each turn. In unmodified 5e, they are also likely to go early in the round. In the 5e-converted Delve system, they'd go last. The system also removes any initiative benefits that come from high Dexterity or bonuses to Dexterity checks.

Next: The Solution?