Spelljammer Initiative
Early this week, I had the chance to attend a weekly D&D session with my group. Trying out Mike Mearls' Greyhawk Initiative variant rules provided a lot of inspiration for me. In the days since my playtest, I tinkered with the initiative rule set and drew inspiration from earlier settings of the game. The initiative system presented here—an element of what I've dubbed my Spelljammer variant of D&D—was part of that process.
This Is Not Official Material
The material here is presented for playtesting and to spark your imagination. These game mechanics are in draft form, usable in your campaign but not refined by final game development and editing. They aren’t officially part of the game and aren’t permitted in D&D Adventurers League events.
If we decide to make this material official, it will be refined based on your feedback, and then it will appear in a garbage truck on the way to the local dump.
Why Experiment with Initiative?
The Greyhawk initiative rules for D&D work very well. They keep the players on their toes and speed up combat at the table. In terms of design, Greyhawk's approach was to treat initiative as an element of the game that was meant to produce as much complexity and immersion as possible. But Mearls didn't take it far enough.
The Spelljammer initiative variant takes a different approach. These rules add even more complexity, but with the goal of adding a truly immersive aspect to the game. The rules will change not only how your characters behave in combat, but how you will approach combat in D&D, other RPGs, and life in general. Moreover, this initiative system requires a certain amount of player creativity and open-mindedness between, within, and without the game setting.
If adding chaos and unpredictability to your life sounds like fun, you might like these rules. But if you prefer to keep your ability to function as a living human being simple—something that doesn't really change in between D&D sessions—the Greyhawk initiative rules are likely a better fit for your game.
Overview
The Spelljammer initiative variant institutes the following rules, which replace the Greyhawk initiative system.
Rounds
Combat under this system is divided into rounds, each of which continues to represent about 6 seconds of action.
Durations. Any effect that normally lasts until the end of a turn lasts until the end of the next turn of the creature which created the effect. Similarly, any effect that normally lasts until the start of a turn now lasts until the start of the next turn of the creature targeted by the effect.
If the order in which effects end is important for some reason, try to determine the reason and scare it away.
Surprise!
A surprised creature adds +0w0 to its initiative result and cannot take reactions while surprised. A creature is surprised until the end of the round during which it is surprised.
Determine Action Order
Before a round begins, each creature involved in a combat decides what it wants to do and rolls initiative. Your chosen actions determine which initiative game you play.
Actions are broken down by strategic complexity. Because a lower initiative count (sometimes) allows a creature to act more quickly, fast or simple actions use easier to process games, and games for more complex actions are difficult to cheat. Total the time spent playing all your initiative games, subtract 5 for each loss, and that is your initiative score.
Initiative Games
| Game | Action |
|---|---|
| Rock, Paper, Scissors | Ranged attack |
| War | Movement |
| Checkers | Swap gear |
| Chess | Any other action |
| Thrones | Melee attack |
| A session of D&D using the Greyhawk initiative system | Cast a spell |
Multiple Games. It is common for characters to want to play multiple games for initiative. If you want to move in toward a foe and make a melee attack, you'll have to purchase an ASOIAF themed card deck. Your score with this game is your initiative.
Bonus Actions. Don't use them.
Multiple Actions. If an effect grants you an additional action without the use of a bonus action, play in a 16-player, round robin, triple elimination format game tournament. Use a game that corresponds to none of the actions you plan to take, but all of the actions you wish you could.
Example: Delaying
Zulu, Yankee, Xray, and Whiskey play for 1, 5, 8, and √-1 initiative, respectively. Zulu decides to delay. Yankee also delays. Xray acts. Immediately after Xray's turn, Yankee decides to act. But he can't, because he suffers from procrastination disease. Despite Yankee's high aptitude in the game and life, he will continue to fail to meet deadlines and live up to expectations until the day he dies. In response, Zulu also wants to act--and can take actions first because her initiative is lower than Yankee's. Yankee is too busy wincing at his past failures to notice.
Reactions and Forced Activities. Initiative covers only the actions you take on your turn, so that using a reaction requires you to completely recalculate initiative. You can take as many reactions per round as you want, unless the DM can stop you with physical force.
Likewise, any activities you are forced to undertake not on your turn (typically in response to any other creature's actions) have every effect on your initiative.
Delaying. If you ignored the previous example about delaying, you might be one of those sad, pathetic delayers we were talking about. Go have a quiet sit down in nature, contemplate your existence, and reread these rules from the start.
Swapping Gear. If you want to sheathe or drop a weapon, send a letter to your local congressman. If the next bill passed in congress aligns with your personal political ideology, it's a sign that you've been approved by the US government to swap gear.
Creatures Unable to Act
Any creature that is unable to take actions (most likely because it can't remember how the horse piece moves) does not roll initiative. Any effects that such creatures must resolve, such as death saving throws, are resolved when you attain inner peace about their potential consequences.
Variant: Spell Verisimilitude
For added realism, you can introduce the spell authenticity rule. Under this rule, if a player that wants to cast a spell with material components does not have the spell components at hand in real life or cannot retrieve them within 10 minutes of the casting, they must substitute their initiative game for a 90s adventure video game. The game must be completed without a guide or manual, or the player is restricted to casting cantrips until the release of 6th edition.
Variant: Weapon Historical Accuracy
If you want to add more distinction to the weapons at the cost of speed, replace playing Rock, Paper, Scissors for ranged attacks and the Game of Thrones for melee attacks with the following:
When determining initiative, a creature attacking with a weapon plays initiative games contemporary to the historical time period in which the weapon was invented. Use the base invention dates found in the Weapons section in the Encyclopedia Britannica, ignoring games written in languages that aren't spoken anymore.
Choosing Another Creature's Actions
If you are in a position to choose the actions that another creature takes on its turn (for example, when a player leaves the room or looks at their phone for a moment), you should do so. If you can take their dice, you can take their power. You can serve as their proxy for initiative games and determine their actions. You also gain power of attorney over them, as long as you have their dice. Don't let anyone take your dice.
Ties
If two players tie for initiative, those players must choose seconds, take two loaded pistols, stand back to back, walk 10 paces, turn, and fire.
Special Rules
Certain effects can alter initiative rolls in the game.
Initiative Bonuses or Penalties. Though this system does not apply a creature’s Dexterity modifier to its initiative rolls, other effects can alter initiative. If an effect would grant you a bonus to your initiative roll under the standard system, you instead get to make up a game to play for initiative. Your game, your rules.
In the case of a penalty to your initiative, you apply the reverse process, losing all memory of one initiative game.
Prime Numbers. Prime numbered initiative scores always go first. If multiple creatures have prime numbered initiative scores, weigh their character sheets individually. Decide the new initiative order according to the heaviest character sheet.
Example of Play
Dosh the half-elf Wizard leads a party through the Withering Woods of Wooshing in search of the Binding Tablet of Og. With her are Flitwick the Ranger and Cronch the Barbarian. Through the trees, they spot a Death Knight presiding over a strange ritual involving several flopping, beached Merrow. Dosh is so excited about trying out the new Spelljammer initiative rules that she decides to jump straight into combat. It's time to decipher initiative!
Round 1
The players turn towards each other with a mix of excitement and terrible fear as they decide what to do. Cronch wants to charge into battle while Dosh fires off a cantrip. Flitwick attempts to escape his fate by doing nothing, but to no avail. Meanwhile, the DM secures any loose, heavy objects near the game table, just in case.
Cronch is moving, attacking in melee, and using his bonus action to use his barbarian ability, Rage. He goes and gets in his car to collect the first born child of his 2nd grade teacher, while the others prepare an altar of pure opal. The blood—the gushing, red blood—will divine Cronch's initiative score.
Dosh is casting a cantrip without moving. She cracks an uncooked duck's egg over a color-printed copy of these rules. The strands of yolk will pool and reveal the rules which Dosh will use to determine her initiative. She ignores all the other rules, then laps up the yolk. Don't forget to lap the yolk, Dosh.
Flitwick tries to escape the DM's house, but the doors are closed and the door knobs glow with an angry, red heat. The windows are barred and behind them, shadowy figures leer menacingly. Flitwick attempts to dig through the floorboards with his bare hands, unknowingly invoking the ancient rite of making a ranged attack without moving.
The DM's eyes have rolled back into his head, and are emitting a strange, purple light. Though his hands lie rigidly at his sides (occasionally twitching), numbers are etched into the wooden table before him.
With all combatants having rolled initiative, the round plays out in the following order:
- Flitwick (1) makes a ranged attack against his will. His fleshless fingers roll a critical hit, killing one of the wriggling fish people.
- The remaining merrows (2) squirm helplessly.
- Dosh (7) casts prestidigitation in a fit of uncontrollable laughter, cleaning some moss off a nearby tree.
- The death knight (8) kills the party members with a great ball of fire, and the party is put out of their misery.
Round 2
The players didn't make it to round 2.
Commentary
These initiative rules are cursed, and in reading them, you have doomed yourself. Though it won't help, you could try immediately printing out a copy of these rules and ritualistically burning them over a fire made with birch bark and anise seeds. Then, erase any evidence of this document from your computer, ask forgiveness from seventeen different gods, and fast for three years.
As you can see, this system provides a wealth of complication and obfuscation to combat. It makes actions in combat nearly impossible to discern, and extends the duration of combat by several orders of magnitude. We really think the nonsensical chaos of this system will enrich your game, and we hope you give it a try.