Hacking 2e: Initiative and Modifiers

AD&D 2nd Edition’s default initiative rule is the tried and true side-initiative (which it calls Standard Initiative Procedure), meaning that one roll is made for each ‘side’ in a combat. Modifiers are applied only for circumstances where an effect applies to everyone on a side. This rule is easy, fast, and shared between all versions of Basic and AD&D. 2e adds two optional initiative mechanics: Individual Initiative, where each PC and monster gets its own initiative rolls and applies modifiers per participant, and Group Initiative, where side-initiative is used but modifiers are still applied per participant.

Weapon Speed is offered as an optional rule, though it’s used as a given in all the examples of Individual and Group initiative. Spellcasting speed is portrayed as apparently not optional, even though most of it wouldn’t function with the Standard method. Multiple Attacks get special rules that put the extra attacks after all the other attacks, while spells requiring a round or more to cast get shoved to the end of the round(s).

All in all, it’s a serviceable initiative system that sometimes doesn’t know which version it prefers that you use. However, if you want to use all the special modifiers available, it clunks a bit when you have to do this every round. 

 

1. New Initiative

In the previous post discussing roll-under mechanics, I proposed a new way to roll initiative. Here’s what that could look like in the rules:

Initiative

After declaration of actions for the Combat Round, the GM will call for Initiative. Each player rolls a d10 against their Initiative Score; those who roll at or under the score succeed and act before the monsters, those who roll above the score fail and act after. Players may choose to have a character act after the monsters. Characters in the same placement may resolve actions in any order.

Additional weapon attacks occur after all participants have acted once, in the same order.

Spells with casting times of one round or longer resolve at the end of the Combat Round(s), in the same order.

Each character’s Initiative Score starts at 5. It may be modified by Dexterity, weapon speed, magic, situations, and monsters.

Optional Rule:

Within each placement, characters act in the order determined the numeric result of the roll. Players may choose to have a character act later than the result. All other rules apply.

This is serviceable for now. In 2e, Standard Initiative gives either side a 45% chance of going first; here it’s 50%. Aside from eliminating ties, this pretty much emulates the same system.

However, modifiers are where the systems start to diverge heavily. Since we’re adding modifiers only to the PC, while the monster remains static at a ‘roll’ of 5, I need to look into the listed modifier options to determine how far they break things.

A good place to start might be to investigate how the current 2e initiative system affects the probability of placement, as modifiers are added. Let’s start by looking at weapon speed.

 

2. Weapon Speed in AD&D 2e

Listed below are all the weapon speeds in AD&D 2e. I’ve taken the liberty of smashing lances and polearms into single values each, which I’ll end up doing anyway once we get to fiddling with weapons and equipment.

Weapon	Speed	Weapon	Speed	Weapon	Speed
Dagger/Knife	2	Long sword	5	Footman's pick	7
Dart	2	Scimitar	5	Harpoon	7
Short sword	3	Comp. short bow	6	Morning star	7
Club	4	Horseman's flail	6	Trident	7
Hand axe	4	Horseman's mace	6	Long bow	8
Javelin	4	Sling	6	Lance*	8
Quarterstaff	4	Spear	6	2-H Bastard sword	8
Sickle	4	1-H Bastard sword	6	Whip	8
Warhammer	4	Battle axe	7	Polearm*	9
Blowgun	5	Short bow	7	Khopesh	9
Hand crossbow	5	Comp. long bow	7	Heavy crossbow	10
Horseman's pick	5	Light crossbow	7	2-H sword	10
Scourge	5	Footman's flail	7	Staff sling	11
Broad sword	5	Footman's mace	7	Arquebus	15

 

That’s our spread. Aside from the extremes, 80% of these applied penalties lie between 4 and 8. These speeds are designed to apply to both PCs and monsters, with additional modifiers for monsters with natural weapons based on creature size, as excerpted below:

Creature Size	Speed Modifier
Tiny	0
Small	+3
Medium	+3
Large	+6
Huge	+9
Gargantuan	+12

 

The next step is to determine the spread between the monster speed penalties versus PC speed penalties and how that affects probability. In other words, if one participant in the battle is faster than the other, how much does that speed change the chance of going before or after the enemy? The percentages on this spread work out as follows:

Spread	PC Before Monster	PC After Monster	Tie
0	45%	45%	10%
1	55%	36%	9%
2	64%	28%	8%
3	72%	21%	7%
4	79%	15%	6%
5	85%	10%	5%
6	90%	6%	4%
7	94%	3%	3%
8	97%	1%	2%
9	99%	0%	1%

 

The spread works the same forward and backward. If a Fighter with a morningstar (speed 7) fights a Zombie throwing hands (speed 3), that’s a 4–point spread in the Zombie’s favor, giving the Fighter only a 15% chance to go first. Conversely, if the Thief with a short sword (speed 3) battles a knight wielding a massive two-handed sword (speed 10), that’s a 7–point spread in the Thief’s favor, giving that Thief a 94% chance to go first.

 

3. Revised Speed Math

I’ll need the new system to align to these probabilities. You may have noticed by now that it’s not going to be possible to meet these percentages without also having additional modifiers on the monster’s side. If we want to keep the spread, it’ll require giving monsters an equal but opposite modifier that directly impacts the Initiative Score. In this manner, a fast monster against a PC with a fast weapon will negate all modifiers and put the two on equal footing, but a fast monster against a slow weapon will disadvantage the PC even further than just the speed of their weapon. This adds a bit of extra math to the process, but the original goal was to add these types of ‘monster speeds,’ so I’ll get to kill two birds with one stone here.

It’ll also mean establishing rules on which monsters affect which PC’s Initiative Scores, which I’ll assume for now is based on which monster the PC is targeting during the declaration part of the combat round, using the modifier of the fastest monster if targeting groups of enemies.

Back to the math. As the range is 1–10 only, the goal for the new spreads should be within that. This will crush the probabilities to narrower bands, but only moderately. Let’s take the chance to tie, split it and drop remainders, and give it back to each percentage to get an idea of what these bands should be. I won’t hit these exact numbers, but I can get close.

Old Spread	Old Chance to go First	Spread Goal	New Chance to go First
–9	0%	–5	0%
–8	2%	–5	0%
–7	4%	–5	0%
–6	8%	–4	10%
–5	12%	–4	10%
–4	18%	–3	20%
–3	24%	–3	20%
–2	32%	–2	30%
–1	40%	–1	40%
0	50%	0	50%
1	59%	+1	60%
2	68%	+1	60%
3	75%	+2	70%
4	82%	+3	80%
5	87%	+4	90%
6	92%	+4	90%
7	95%	+5	100%
8	98%	+5	100%
9	99%	+5	100%

 

The question then is: where’s the base? What’s the base number at which these percentages will hang off, where no modifiers will apply? The natural candidate appears to be 3, as this is the modifier for small and medium creatures with natural weapons, innate spell ability, and the ubiquitous short sword. Certainly, this would minimize the amount of modifiers per combat. Yet that still leaves a tail of additional speeds which don’t match well to a 1–10 scale, and puts the entire spread off-balance. Instead, the better option might be 5–6, equal to the mid point of the d10 range. Using a –4 to +4 penalty/bonus range, that would give initiative results similar to AD&D’s probabilities, and would flavor more weapons with unique speeds.

Using a simplified list of iconic weapons, that would give us a conversion which looks something like this:

Weapon	New Speed Mod	Old Speed
Dagger	+3	+2
Short sword	+2	+3
Warhammer	+1	+4
Long sword	−	+5
Mace	−	+6
Battle axe	–1	+7
Long bow	–2	+8
Halberd	–2	+9
2-H sword	–3	+10

 

And a natural weapon speed list like this:

Creature Size	Speed Penalty to PC	Old Speed
Tiny	–4	0
Small	–2	+3
Medium	–2	+3
Large	−	+6
Huge	+2	+9
Gargantuan	+4	+12

 

 

4. Revised Speed Combat Comparison

Does this work? Let’s do a few comparisons on the chance of the PC going first in the round. I’ll use the previously modified percentages where I split the possible ties. For these examples, let’s assume the first weapon listed is the PC:

 

Dagger vs Two-Handed Sword
AD&D: 2 vs 10; 8–point spread — 98% Chance
Revised: +3 from Dagger and +3 from Monster; +6 to Initiative Score — 100% Chance

Long Sword vs Gargantuan Natural Weapon
AD&D: 5 vs 12; 7–point spread — 95% Chance
Revised: 0 from Long Sword and +4 from Monster; +4 to Initiative Score — 90% Chance

Dagger vs Long Sword
AD&D: 2 vs 5; 3–point spread — 75% Chance
Revised: +3 from Dagger and 0 from Monster; +3 to Initiative Score — 80% Chance

Battle Axe vs Two-Handed Sword
AD&D: 7 vs 10; 3–point spread — 75% Chance
Revised: –1 from Battle Axe and +3 from Monster; +2 to Initiative Score — 70% Chance

Long Sword vs Battle Axe
AD&D: 5 vs 7; 2–point spread — 68% Chance
Revised: 0 from Long Sword and +1 from Monster; +1 to Initiative Score — 60% Chance

Long Sword vs Mace
AD&D: 5 vs 6; 1–point spread — 59% Chance
Revised: 0 from Long Sword and 0 from Monster; 0 to Initiative Score — 50% Chance

Two Handed Sword vs Huge Natural Weapon
AD&D: 10 vs 9; -1–point spread — 40% Chance
Revised: –3 from Two Handed Sword and +2 from Monster; –1 to Initiative Score — 40% Chance

Long Bow vs Large Natural Weapon
AD&D: 8 vs 6; -2–point spread — 32% Chance
Revised: -2 from Long Bow and 0 from Monster; –2 to Initiative Score — 30% Chance

Battle Axe vs Medium Natural Weapon (or Short Sword)
AD&D: 7 vs 3; -4–point spread — 18% Chance
Revised: –1 from Battle Axe and –2 from Monster; –3 to Initiative Score — 20% Chance

Long Sword vs Tiny Natural Weapon
AD&D: 5 vs 0; -5–point spread — 12% Chance
Revised: 0 from Long Sword and –4 from Monster; –4 to Initiative Score — 10% Chance

Halberd vs Dagger
AD&D: 9 vs 2; -7–point spread — 4% Chance
Revised: – 2 from Halberd and –3 from Monster; –5 to Initiative Score — 0% Chance

 

I’d say that’s pretty good. I’ve definitely overpowered daggers and knives, but I’m not unhappy about that; it makes them unique from short swords and doesn’t put them too far off our ranges. Since I’m compacting speeds 5–6 and 8–9, the probabilities get flattened between these weapons. Still, the whole thing works pretty closely to what I’m looking for.

 

5. Building Out the Other Modifiers

As you can extrapolate, we can use all these adjustments for spell speeds and magical items speeds.

As for situational modifiers, the numbers offered by AD&D may work fine here, since they were designed to be used with Standard Initiative Procedure, which doesn’t include weapon speeds. Let’s check the chance of placement versus an unmodified opponent and adjust as needed. Again, for simplicity, I’ll split the ties.

Situation	Old Modifier	Chance to Go First	New Modifier	New Chance to Go First
Hasted	–2	68%	+2	70%
Slowed	+2	32%	–2	30%
On higher ground	–1	59%	+1	60%
Set to receive a charge	–2	68%	+2	70%
Wading or slippery footing	+2	32%	–2	30%
Wading in deep water	+4	18%	–3	20%
Foreign environment	+6	8%	–4	10%
Hindered (tangled, climbing, held)	+3	24%	–3	20%
Waiting	+1	40%	–1	40%

 

That’s sorted. This means our situational modifiers run a scale of +2 to -4, though this could accommodate a bit of buffing if warranted. This also covers spells which modify initiative: i.e., Haste.

So how should this look in play?

 

6. Example of Play

The players are:
Fighter — Dex 13; two-handed sword
Primary Initiative Score is 6.
On the sheet, next to "Two-Handed Sword", Initiative Score is 3.

Rogue — Dex 17; short sword
Primary Initiative Score is 7.
On the sheet, next to "Short Sword", Initiative Score is 9.

Cleric — Dex 10; holy symbol and mace
Primary Initiative Score is 5.
On the sheet, next to "Mace", Initiative Score is also 5.

Wizard — Dex 8; spellbook and dagger
Primary Initiative Score is 4.
On the sheet, next to "Dagger", Initiative Score is 7.

DM: “The walls of tomb are hidden in shadow, from which you hear the stirrings of bone and flesh upon stone. Five Skeletons brandishing scimitars harryhausen their way from the darkness around you, followed by two shambling, rotted corpses. You’re surrounded. They’re about 30ft away and closing fast. Rogue, you’re still hidden in the southwest corner.”

(For simplicity in this example, we’ll skip the surprise roll and ignore potential weapon effects vs Skeletons. The Skeletons are wielding scimitars, which means a -1 to player Initiative Scores. The Zombies are medium creatures with natural weapons, so a -2.)

Fighter: “CROM! I close in and chop at the closest skeleton.”
DM: “It gives you a -1 to your Initiative Score.”
Fighter: “Of course it does.”
Rogue: “I’ll sneak along the wall and backstab one of the zombies.”
DM: “-2 to Initiative.”
Rogue: “Easy.”
Cleric: “I cast Turn Undead!”
DM: “That’ll pop at the end of the round.”
Cleric: “I know!”
Wizard: “I’ll stay behind Cleric and cast Magic Missile at the other Zombie.”
DM: “What’s the casting time on that?”
Wizard: “+3”
DM: “The Zombie drops that to +1. Roll Initiative.”

The results are as follows:
Fighter rolls a 4 against the modified Score of 2. Failure; Fighter goes after the monsters.
Rogue rolls a 1 against the modified Score of 7. Success; Rogue goes before the monsters.
Cleric rolls a 6. Since Cleric is Turning Undead with a casting time of 1 round, we can skip modifiers and turn order. Cleric just goes last.
Wizard rolls a 9 against a modified Score of 5. Failure; Wizard goes after the monsters.

In this first round of combat, Rogue successfully perforates the Zombie, dropping it. The Skeletons and the remaining Zombie go next, dealing some damage to Fighter and Cleric. Fighter rolled best of the second placement and disassembles a Skeleton, followed by Wizard who gets off a Magic Missile on the Zombie, wounding it. Fighter still has an attack left, so goes at the end of everyone’s actions and seriously wounds another Skeleton nearby. Finally, at the end of the round, Cleric whiffs the Turn Undead roll.

DM: “That’s three down. Rogue, the two Skeletons near you turn around and wave their scimitars at you. The remaining Skeleton and Zombie converge on the fighter. Remember, –1 Initiative Score against the Skeletons, –2 for the Zombie.”
Fighter: “The Skeleton is approaching me? It made a mistake. I swing.” [Init 3 – 1 = 2]
Rogue: “Uh oh. I circle around and swing at one of the skeletons.” [Init 9 – 1 = 8]
Cleric: “My god has forsaken me. I’ll just brain the other Skeleton near Rogue.” [Init 5 – 1 = 4]
Wizard: “I pull my dagger and try to finish off that Zombie.” [Init 7 (from dagger) – 2 = 5]
DM: “Yup. Okay, roll Initiative.”

The results are as follows:
Fighter rolls a 2 against the modified score of 2. Success; Fighter goes before the monsters.
Rogue rolls a 7 against the modified score of 8. Success; Rogue goes before the monsters.
Cleric rolls a 5 against the modified score of 4. Failure; Cleric goes after the monsters.
Wizard rolls a 1 against the modified score of 5. Success; Wizard goes before the monsters.

With only a bit more damage suffered by Rogue due to a slow Cleric, the party mops up the fight.

 

I’m happy with this. Looking at it in action, I could absolutely just apply the monsters’ penalties as a positive modifier to the roll, but that breaks everything I’m trying for and makes a positive modifier into a negative effect, which I think we should reserve for AC.

As with the example for Attack Rolls, this example again highlights how essential it will be to establish the firm edict that "Modifiers Never Apply to Rolls." How well that will work remains to be seen; once I'm at the playtesting stage, perhaps this will all fall apart. 

Alright, that’s too many words about initiative. Let me know if you see any holes. I’ll try to go easy on myself and look at Reactions next time.