Taking Initiative of Initiative

Despite everything that has been happening, I have been trying to keep up on my six-month plan for OverBurn. While my notes are a scattered and unrefined, I have to call a success for May. I was able to finish my three goals for that month.

May

• 6 month Plan
• Chapter Outline
• Core mechanics

I wanted to have more of an actual rough draft for the the core mechanic, but I have found that putting my ideas to cohesive words to be more difficult than I thought. To recap, here are my goals for this month.

June

• Archetypes
• Races
• Skills

I am well on my way with this section as I have nine basic archetypes, or classes if you will, and four unique species; I don't know why we call them races.

The mechanic I wanted to discuss in this article is 'Initiative'. Initiative plays a crucial part in combat and there are several types to consider: Fixed rating, roll once per combat, roll every round, count down (rolled or fixed), count up, speed or advantage. The initiative that I am leaning to is a simple d6 roll and you count down from 6, this is different that the count down method, but it gives a pecking order to initiative. Why did I choose this method? because it is quick and easy. It allows for the round to be more dynamic as different people take the lead each round and must contend with unexpected combat shifts. It also keeps initiative quick so that it is not another aspect that bogs down combat.

There are some additional rules that I am adding to make combat more interesting. For one, a character cannot take an action against someone who is die-a-metrically opposed on the die. This means your init and your opponents init can not add up to seven. If you are going on a 6, you cannot attack someone going on a 1; if you are going on a 3, you cannot attack someone going on a 4; etc. I do not think this will be overly detrimental to players, but should add a few interesting situations. I am curious as to peoples opinions of Initiative and what they prefer to use. Also, if you have any questions on the ones I have listed, I will be happy to elaborate.