In which we peek behind the screen

Recently had a lengthy after-action discussion at our table about how initiative and combat timing works.  You can read the basics of our procedure here.  In response I wrote the following and figured since I WROTE it I may as well post it.

Khari kneels before an unopened chest, hoping to find something useful therein. Behind her about 15' back in an arc are Kirkas, Dakora, Castellan and Serynah. Turn's out the chest is a mimic. Mimic takes a grab at Khari, fails, and I call for initiative.

I then go around the table asking for your result. Kirkas 17, Dakora 11, Serynah 12, Khari 12 and Castellan 9. I enter these in the appropriate field on the combat sheet. The monster's initiative is already there. The dice roller and modifier were input when I “built” the encounter. The sheet is formatted to indicate who goes first, second and third. In THIS case Kirkas is first, Serynah is second and Khari is third.

Kirkas tell's me he going to attack with his bow. He rolls 2d20 to determine if he hits, then rolls to determine damage done. I update the mimics HP according AND note that Kirkas has spent 1 AP AND note that the thing Kirkas did (fire his bow) takes 8 tics. Since he STARTED on 17 the spreadsheet then indicates that Kirkas will go again at 9.

Next up is Serynah. She opts for a 3^rd level sleep spell. She rolls a d20 to see if she successfully casts the spell. She'll need to roll 10 or better (10+spell level-charisma modifier.) She's successful but a Mimic has an average of 58 HP. Even if she rolled all 8's she'd only score a 56 and be unable to Sleep the Mimic, so no joy. I note that she has spent TWO AP (to cast a leveled spell) and that it took 3 tics (one per level.) Since she started on 12 she will next go on 9.

Khari is up next at 12, followed now by Dakora (11), Kirkas (9), Sareynah (9), and Castellan (9.) Khari opts to use her wild shape. This uses all three AP and takes the rest of this turn so she's done.

Dakora opts for Witch Bolt. She successfully casts the spell and the arc of energy connects to the mimic. Since she cast it at 4^th level she'll do 4d12 damage this turn and 1d12 for every turn hereafter so long as she concentrates and takes no further actions. Casting the spell costs her 2 AP and 4 tics. She'll be up again at 7.

Kirkas decides his archery isn't strong enough so he swaps out his bow for Swiftstrike. That's an action and takes a tic. He has 1 AP left and will be back up at 8.

Serynah is up next and has only one AP left. Move? Probably not. Fire bolt. No need to check success as cantrips are always successful. She DOES need to hit on a ranged attack. BOOM! She hits. And now that she's 5^th level it does 2d10 damage. But her AP are spent so she's done.

Castellan finally gets to step up. So to speak.. He summons Selune's Strike which takes one tick but costs no AP, but he has to wait for the next tic. As the cantrip takes effect Kirkas gets to go again.

But wait! Oh no! The mimic is ALSO in at 9. That wicked tongue lashes out at the now-wildshaped Khari. It hits, does 7 points of damage. Khari gets to try to avoid the grapple with STR vs DC 13. Let's say she doesn't. The mimic only has one attack so IT'S done but it'll be biting down NEXT turn.

Kirkas and Castellan go again at 8. Kirkas casts Hunters Mark (0 AP) for 1 tic, moving to 7. Castellan realizes he probably should have cast Moonbeam so he does it NOW … spending 2 AP. He succeeds at casting it, the mimic fails it's ST at disadvantage and begins to morph back into its gloppy shape. It takes radiant damage from the beam. Kirkas now has to move to get close enough to swing, using his final AP.

Dakora maintains her concentration hoping to finish the beast next round. And unless I've missed something above thus endeth the round. Six seconds. Roll again? Doubtful. I'd likely allow Dakora's Bolt and Castellan's Beam to finish the beast without playing it out.

The initial guideline for the whole shebang was Greyhawk Initiative. And I've used Tao for guidance. And a handful of other content creators. I keep tinkering with this table to make it better. Latest iteration (NOT used above – will use next session.)

Most stuff: 1

Move, per 10': 1

Spell: 1 per level

Grapple, Potion, poison: 5

Find something: 1d8+2

But the problem is weapons. How long should it take to use them? OLD system was 2 for light/finesse. 4 for versatile, 6 for heavy, 8 for bows and 10 for crossbows.

So I'm gonna try this next time: Light/finesse 1. Heavy/2-handed 3. And I'm still trying to come up with SOMETHING that makes sense for archery. Optimum real world rate of speed I've found was 12 arrows per minute which implies only 1.2 per melee round. By "rule" Kirkas could fire up to six. I need to do more research and do NOT wanna penalize Kirkas.

And after sleeping on this the long term solution becomes clear: ranged weapon attacks require 2 AP.  Suggestions welcome.

In which we get swarmed by bees

 Yup.  Bees.  Party of 6.  Average of 5th level.  And a dozen swarms of bees.  Two each in fact.  Theater of

the mind.  Lot's of dropping below 0 and MED checks and heal spells and bad rulings and stuff.  But as is the case with many sessions we did a lot that we'd never done before so the virgin territory provided most of the problems.

First the new "hits not HP" system.  Most users recommend rounding down.  But nooooo.  I couldn't do THAT.  I rounded up.  "It's only 1 more hit" I thought.  Yes.  But one extra hit over a dozen beasties with an AC of 14 has quite an impact.  So rounding DOWN from now on.  Otherwise the system worked quite well.  Next - the tactical adjustments.  Party had been complaining that since everything was attacking from a distance they could usually pick it apart with the expert marksman ranger and a smattering of spells.  So this time they stumbled on a honey thief being absolutely DESTROYED by angry bees.  And the clouds of apian hell descended upon them with great fury.  Those little buggers went earlier in the initiative order than the plodding ogre's and giant spiders had been.  Throw in the fact that they have damage resistance to most weapons and this thing became a SLOG.  Glass cannon forgot he had a magic wand.  That didn't help.  When he DID go down (quite early) I noted that the bees were no longer attacking him.  But nobody in the party acknowledge this.  And nobody tried to run!  'Cause they're heroes, dontcha know.  This was attributed to the fact that they couldn't really SEE what was going on.  So retreating wasn't an option?  Well, OK.  No more TotM.  Haven't run one of those in months anyway.  

A few other mistakes. Too many swarms.  Nine or ten woulda been better than 12.  One to the "low" characters, two to the high ones.  Mike Mearls recently recommended managing the action economy by avoiding using monsters that have move total actions per round greater than three times the number of players.  That number would by 18 for this encounter.  The bees can move and attack.  So nine swarms woulda worked better.  Lesson learned.

The LAST mistake (?) I made was in my treatment of Temporary HP.  I was treating it as healing.  It isn't.  So we'll avoid the yo-yo effect that we saw last night.  

So I gave the party what they wanted.  And then they didn't want it any more.  The fighter was barely touched but had trouble dealing damage.  The cleric did some healing and utility work and had a BALL trying to figure out what the optimum action was every round.  Druid took a beating and did OK but her spores were less than effective.  Two wizards took too much damage early to be as effective as they'd like.  And the ranger?  Without his +11 archery ability he was more or less worthless and NOT happy about it.  Party worked well as a unit, found a few holes in their procedures, and now know what they need to add/improve.  Which will lead to meaningful decisions.  

Not bad for a two-hour slugfest that didn't HAVE to happen.

In which we roll for initiative.

Have I done this before?  Feels like I've done this before.  The last 7-10 days I've seen a handful of YT's
about this topic and read at least double that in blog posts.  "Initiative is broken.  Here's how to fix it."   IMHO Initiative RAW is NOT broken (even though we don't use it.)  Execution is broken.  Implementation is broken.  But the rule itself is reasonable sound.  All of the "team initiative," "go in order around the table,"  "popcorn," etc. will NOT "fix the problem."

Quick recap:  I'm old.  There were only 48 US states when I was born.  I began playing the 1977 or 78.  Stopped in the mid-80's.  Picked up again about five years ago.  Missed out on 2, 3.5 and 4 but I'm familiar with the rule sets.  And here's the thing - I'm also COMPUTER LITERATE.  And I do NOT understand why more DM's do NOT use a computer to assist running their game.  I'm not talking about on-line players (although in many cases, yes, them too.)  

The idea is to reduce the time spent on simple, repetitive, mundane tasks that detract from player (and DM) enjoyment.  The tabulating and collating of initiative order is a GOLDEN example of this.  No matter what fancy named system you're using at your table it could probably be faster with the use of a laptop to hand basic repetitive computation and collation.

I implemented this procedure three years ago, players love it and I've never had a problem.  It's allowed me to keep a brisk pace during combat while keeping the players involved.  It is VERY adaptable to whatever style of initiative you prefer.  And I'm gonna give it to you free, gratis for the mere price of your continued love, affection and admiration.

Let's start with a bit of background about the homebrew that I manage to run via this sheet.  Hopefully the benefits will be obvious.   We roll initiative every round.  Players roll 3d6 and apply their initiative factor.  Takes seconds.  If they have advantage they roll 4d6b and drop the lowest.  Now to the spreadsheet. Column 1 lists the characters in no particular order.  Further down the column I list (as part of my game prep) the creatures they'll likely be encountering.  I also keep brown bear stats handy because they can stand in for a LOT of things.  Column 2 I enter the players results.  Opponent results are generated by the sheet.  I then apply any encumbrance penalty (because we USE encumbrance rules.)  So now I have a column of numbers generally ranging from 3 to 18, tailored and matched to everyone in the encounter.  

Nothing surprising there.  Any DM might do that.  Simple.  But the NEXT step is where the magic happens.  I apply a little conditional formatting to those numbers.  Whoever goes next is highlighted in green with those on deck in yellow.  When combat hits I can open with "Jutoris, you go first.  Kharkon is next."  Party knows that I don't tell them who's next, it's a critter.  

NOW is where it get's spicy.  Everything that the might do has a cost.  Daggers are fast.  Crossbows are slow.  Etc.  And you can't do everything at once.  So let's say Jutoris goes first.  He does his thing (be it moving, casting, or any other action.)  The cost of that thing goes in column 3.  Column 2 reflects that cost and the number goes down.  The conditional formatting then changes Kharkon to green (next) and whatever initiative is next to yellow.  I'll describe Jutorus' action/outcome, mention which player is on deck (if one IS) and then proceed to Kharkon.  Jutorus is NOT done and doesn't know when he will be up next. All players have to maintain focus on the situation because they aren't sure when they'll be called upon to act.  Lather, rinse, repeat.

We do more but for the purpose of THIS post that's all that matters.  Once everyone has done all of their things in the action economy we re-roll and fire it up again.  Easy peasy lemon squeezy.  Player involvement and agency.  Cinematic action resolution.  Quicker combat.  And crunchy rule implementation.     

In which we playtest

 Welcome to 2024.

First session of the year went pretty well.  The relief column was played quickly with some nice flavor.  Our ranger who began as a bombastic embellisher has caught a lot of flak from our high elf fighter.  This column is partly mounted and our three heroes have been given horses for the task.  Only the ranger HAS horsemanship as a skill.  The wizard wisely led her animal or allowed it to be led but the steed of the haughty fighter kept wandering off the trail and onto the side of the road to graze, only to be retrieved by the ranger, who is now leading her like a kids pony ride.  Sweet.

Meanwhile back at the keep the newbies spent an hour trying to figure out how to get a lit torch through an arrow slit without being seen.  Was a GREAT example of the adage "when all you have is a hammer everything looks like a nail."  They insisted on trying to physically relocating the torch then lighting it with magic (fire bolt.)  Eventually they realized they could LIGHT it first (with their tinder box) then transport it via Mage Hand.  Even then it didn't work as the bandits merely threw it back out, but it killed a fun hour.

So what got playtested?  I'm using the Open Multiple Files app again, which was helpful.  My magic and encumbrance sheet came in handy.  And I'm still learning the in's and out's of my own combat sheet and improving it's use.  Unbeknownst to the party I've been using Tracy & Curtis Hickman's combat damage table from XDM.  Mooks were going down with relative ease until the player rolled max damage but the table only gave them 50%.  They were shocked and panicked and they realized they were facing "Mongo" and not EVERY bandit was a pushover.  Nice moment.  The Players/DMs Handbooks I assembled worked as designed as well.

Which bring us to Nimble.  LOTS of good ideas but many aren't worth the walk: the solutions they offer to several problems are no more elegant than the problem they solve AND they're a step to far in some instances.  Attacking is FAR too simplified. Exhaustion is what many tables are already using.  Dying rules are too forgiving.  Our resting rules are better but they do have some interesting mechanics to use on the backside.  Mana is nice but our current spell slot system is "better."  And by better I mean my players like it, have bought into it and I don't wanna throw ANOTHER system at them.  

But their brew for Action Points is simple, elegant, makes sense, provides more player agency and got pretty quick buy in from my players.  Instead of move, action, bonus action and reaction you get three (or more) Action Points.  Almost everything costs 1 AP.  Exceptions are leveled spells that take 1 action to cast, which cost 2 AP, and special abilities or features that allow bonus actions (eg. step of the wind, action flurry) cost 0 and may only be done once per round.  Doing anything a second or third time adds stacking disadvantage (so you COULD attack three times but the second would be 2d20 and the third would be 3d20.)  The exception to THIS is ST spells.  The target would instead get advantage on the ST.  Done.  Almost.  High WIS gives a bonus to the #of AP's you have in the first round, improving not how EARLY you act but rather how OFTEN.  Might peel this one off.

And there's some "heroic" stuff as well.  PC may use 1 AP to block (reduce damage by your AC modifier.)  Opportunity attacks are now made at disadvantage and mooks don't have them.  Should make the battle field a little more fluid.  Also added a called shot critical.  On any attack you decide what a critical hit is (up to +10) (rolled with disadvantage) but a critical miss becomes just as big.  Essentially you can take a 50/50 shot with amplified failure.  This one needs more work.

 So how did all of this go in actual play?  Meh.  I had three casters fighting bowmen at range most of the time so a lot of this stuff didn't matter.  Until members of the party got close to 0 hp.  Blocking prevented a death.  There was a discussion while the party was pinned down about using the Called Shot Crit and the more I've thought about it the more I don't like it.  But here's a fix.  You can still do it BUT it's limited to 1 point (5%) per level AND there's a critical miss with multiple effects (ie roll twice on the critical hit table and double the results .... or triple .... etc.) 

A good session but further testing needed for the AP change.  AND the Called Shot Critical. 

<edit 1/12 to add> also got a chance to use "our new" fumble table.  Druid defending a section of keep wall.  Lizardfolk breeched the wall and melee ensued.  Druid Nat1's her first attack.  Rolled a 6 for a CHA ST - her penultimate state.  Failed ... and the free attack misses.  Was quite dramatic.  Player actually insisted on acting out her botched feint.  And the party agreed this (so far) was a GREAT mechanic!

In which we return and ask a big question.

 No show.  At least for me anyway.  Auditions left us half a dozen actors short.  Board beat the bushes and found me a few more but not enough.  I'm not willing to just take whatever wanders in and try to make it work.  So I resigned.  So be it.  Moving on.

When I have game time off I use what WAS prep time to update me trade tables and explore new mechanics.  I I find something I bounce it off the table and then we either adopt it immediately, reject it immediately or play test it for a month.  It was doing some of this exploration that the question popped into my head: at what point does D&D stop being D&D? I've tinkered with home brew and added mechanics for things the game rules (RAW) seem to hand-wave away. Am I still playing D&D?

I reached out to my DM Brain Trust and they offered “when you can no longer drop a character sheet/monster stat block/item from the system without a great deal of rework.” Which isn't bad.  But I'm not sure that's the line.  So I asked ChatGPT.  The crux of its response was "As long as the core elements of storytelling, role-playing, and the collaborative nature of the game are present, you can consider it a form of Dungeons & Dragons." Definitely don't agree with that, but perhaps it could be combined with the brain trust answer to move us closer.  I've floated this question to at least one other prominent DM and await their input.

I've done away with spell slots and components to "clean up" magic use while still imposing costs and decisions.  Use a modified initiative system which the table really likes.  And I'm giving serious consideration to tinkering with the action economy as suggested by The Dungeon Coach and others.   But with every step I wonder if I've take a bridge to far (from the RAW?)

If you're one of the few, the proud, the ones who actually wander by here and read this stuff I'd appreciate your input!

In which we get circular with the action economy, encounter balance, magic items and the action economy

 The steepest learning curve when I made my foray back into D&D was absorbing all the nuances with the action economy.  And I'm sure I'm still absorbing but the WORST of it has been realized and I'm dealing with it.  Here are the problems I'm cramming into this post - how do magic items impact party level for using CR to achieve encounter balance and what role does the action economy play therein?

As a baseline, I rely on the Sly Flourish encounter benchmark.  This will tell me roughly what CR the "bbg" would be to be deadly, hard, etc.  The PROBLEM was I was taking THAT number and plugging in a relevant creature to be that bbg.  And they were getting thumped in short order, largely because each character could do four things each while the bbg could only do four things.  Period.  Even with a lair action they were slammed.  

So here's my first modifier:  once the formula determines the suggested CR I cut it in half.  THAT'S my bbg.  The OTHER half I divide by the number of party members so that each of them "gets a minion" to oppose. My favorite use of this was a vrock accompanied by a handful of quasits.  Good combat variety and the party had their hands full fighting not just the vrock but the action economy problems presented by a handful of minions.  As deadly as those ancient red dragons are they can be action economied to death quite quickly.  But a young red dragon with four wyrmlings is a MUCH tougher problem.  So suggested CR, divided by 2 to get the bbg, and divided again by party number to get supporting cast.  Hat tip to Ginny Di for her recent vid which kinda got this ball rolling in my head

The OTHER problem that I recently brushed up against is that is SEEMS that everybodys encounter balance guide is based on party/character level per se, but doesn't really incorporate magic items.  Example:  my current party has thee 2nd lvls and a 4th.  That's a total of 10.  A suggested deadly encounter would be a 2.5.  So an ankheg or a basilisk.  But what if your barbarian has a +2 weapon, your rogue's AC is buffed and one of your casters has a staff of X that increases it's DPR.  It's no longer an average of 2.5.  Closer to 3.5 or better.  That ankheg is now quite a bit easier.  The basilisk isn't the bbg it was GOING to be and maybe a banshee or barghest would be more threatening.  Lesson here is that IF the party is perhaps "overmagiced" you'll need to juice that CR suggestion a bit.  IMHO this is where many of the complaints about CR and encounter balance originate.

Edit to add:  OK - HERE'S an interesting solution I'm gonna play around with a bit:  Trekiros recently began popping up in my suggested playlist and here are TOW vids related to this topic - first the intro to a new aid and the second reviews some updates.  Here's a link to the tool.

To recap (TL:DNR): almost ALWAYS use multiple opponents for that deadly encounter and juice the CR to allow for magic items.  And if you use that tool, drop in here and leave a comment!