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.