Initiative & Spellcasting

[AxeMental]

So, in your understanding of Negora's BtB take on 1Es initiative system, do all actions start on segment 1 or just spell casting? In other words if PCs role a 3 and the monsters role a 5, I understand that (in Negora's take) the spell caster starts to cast his sleep spell on segment 1, and he might be interrupted on segment 1 by one or more enemy -but what about the rest of the enemy combatants, do they also go on segment 1 or do they go on segment 5 or segment 3 or some other point in the 10 segment round (perhaps randomly determined)? When precisely do the PCs go, on segment 5? Segment 3 or 1 perhaps, or some other point in the round determined at random?

[Ratbreath]

So, in your understanding of Negora's BtB take on 1Es initiative system, do all actions start on segment 1 or just spell casting? In other words if PCs role a 3 and the monsters role a 5, I understand that (in Negora's take) the spell caster starts to cast his sleep spell on segment 1, and he might be interrupted on segment 1 by one or more enemy -but what about the rest of the enemy combatants, do they also go on segment 1 or do they go on segment 5 or segment 3 or some other point in the 10 segment round (perhaps randomly determined)? When precisely do the PCs go, on segment 5? Segment 3 or 1 perhaps, or some other point in the round determined at random?

I don't think it's BtB. Movement and spell casting have a beginning (on segment 1) and end while missile fire, monster attacks, and melee are presumed to take place through the entire round but only have a telling blow at one particular point. Where this point lands is only important relative to other events. If the PCs roll a 3 and the monsters roll a 5 and an enemy is attacking the MU then that enemy gets his attack on segment 1. When the other stuff happens depends on what they're doing. Random determination is not necessary beyond the normal dice.

[AxeMental]

OK, so your tracking the order things go only (except in the case of the person who hits the spell caster on segment 1 casting sleep for instance, we know he had to hit the MU at some point in the first 5 seconds of combat as we know a segment is 6 seconds long and the spell is going off at the end of the first segment). Besides the guy who hit the MU we don't know the time other events unfold? Is that your understanding of Negora's system?

The problem is a DM needs to occasionally track time in a round (the higher the level the more this will come up). By knowing who is still up or down (at what HPs they are at etc.) and where they are standing relative to unfolding events (say a spell casted in the previous round or a delayed spell, a planned cave in taking place on segment x in the 3rd round etc.) can be the difference between a TPK of some really old PCs and glorious survival (are they in or out of range of the event, spell, cave in, dragon breath (from the dragon flying into range) etc. etc.). If Negora needs to know when (on which segment) fighter Jim goes down (after being hit by a few goblin axe blows say) is there a method of doing that (in the system OSRIC uses its baked into the die roles (side A goes on the segment side B's dice shows and visa versa).

[Ratbreath]

There isn't much in the actual books saying exactly which segment events happen on, let alone in my conception of what the silent Nagora is saying.

[Nagora]

So, in your understanding of Negora's BtB take on 1Es initiative system, do all actions start on segment 1 or just spell casting? In other words if PCs role a 3 and the monsters role a 5, I understand that (in Negora's take) the spell caster starts to cast his sleep spell on segment 1, and he might be interrupted on segment 1 by one or more enemy -but what about the rest of the enemy combatants, do they also go on segment 1 or do they go on segment 5 or segment 3 or some other point in the 10 segment round (perhaps randomly determined)? When precisely do the PCs go, on segment 5? Segment 3 or 1 perhaps, or some other point in the round determined at random?

Sorry to post and run but I've an inner-ear thing and have been seasick for two days despite being at home on solid ground.

The book only gives us segments when it makes a difference - which is if there is an action which is "with respect to opponents who ore engaged in activity other than striking blows." (p66, note that it's not specific to spell casting).

An example of when it doesn't matter: I attack you with any weapon and you are casting a spell and I roll higher initiative than you. I interrupt you (and anyone else on your side) on "some segment". In the special case of a 1-segment spell, of course, we can say that the attack came on segment 1. But for a 7-segment spell, the system simply doesn't say. If you want to know if your attack hit the spell caster before my attack, then use weapon speeds (after all, if we're on the same side then by definition your initiative is tied with mine).

An example of when it does matter: I have a sword and you are casting a spell and I roll lower initiative than you. In that case, pp66-67 explains the procedure, which is that my attack comes on a segment equal to the difference between by weapons speed and my initiative die. I assume that a result of zero means "before a 1-segment spell completes" and a result of 1 means "ties with a 1-segment spell". It is hard to make this rule parse sensibly with a system where spell casting doesn't start at the start of the round.

Another example of when it does matter: I have a bow and you are casting a spell and I roll lower initiative than you. In that case (i.e., one where there is no weapon speed available) my attack comes on the round indicated by the die roll which is best for the caster (almost always the caster's own die). So I roll 2 and you roll 6; you have 6 segments of casting. This is as close as the book comes to the d6 delay system, but it only happens if the attacker loses initiative AND the attacking weapons is a natural one or a missile weapon.

Another example of not mattering: I'm running for cover 20' away and the dragon rolls higher initiative than I do. The dragon breaths before I make it. On a tie, I believe that a breath weapon still goes first. If I won initiative, then I get a number of segments movement equal to my die roll; the system doesn't really distinguish between spell casting and other timed actions, although it certainly focuses on it in much of the text.

The problem is a DM needs to occasionally track time in a round (the higher the level the more this will come up). By knowing who is still up or down (at what HPs they are at etc.) and where they are standing relative to unfolding events (say a spell casted in the previous round or a delayed spell, a planned cave in taking place on segment x in the 3rd round etc.) can be the difference between a TPK of some really old PCs and glorious survival (are they in or out of range of the event, spell, cave in, dragon breath (from the dragon flying into range) etc. etc.). If Negora needs to know when (on which segment) fighter Jim goes down (after being hit by a few goblin axe blows say) is there a method of doing that (in the system OSRIC uses its baked into the die roles (side A goes on the segment side B's dice shows and visa versa).

Winning initiative means that, all else being equal, you have the advantage over the other side. So if the goblins have initiative then he goes down at whatever point in the round is best for the goblins - so before the cleric casts heal on Jim, or before the planned cave-in, or whatever. If they lose initiative, then the rule on pp66-67 tells us which segment.

Having initiative is a good thing; losing it is a bad thing.

[T. Foster]

The forest that seems to be lost among the trees here is why (other than fidelity to the printed text of the DMG) it is ever considered preferable to have a web of different ad-hoc if-then scenarios to determine relative order of actions which occasionally produce counter-intuitive and seemingly-contradictory results to each other, especially when a complex combat situation makes several of them relevant simultaneously, than to just use a system that determines specific timing and let everything else flow from that. To the extent Gary or TSR ever used anything like the rules-as-printed in the DMG in actual play (and that's highly debatable), the evidence (or, as EOTB has pointed out in another thread, lack of evidence - i.e. no attempts to clarify or explain the DMG rules in any subsequent publication) strongly suggests they abandoned it almost immediately for something simpler and more consistent (d10 roll = segment). They weren't slaves to the printed text, so why should we be, 40 years later?

I mean, I suppose there's a little bit of flavor lost, particularly with weapon speed being a factor in spell interruption, but is that really worth the considerable extra mental gymnastics that using the DMG "system" (system in scare-quotes because I don't believe it was ever actually intended as a system, and is instead a collection of ad-hoc special case rules that were developed in isolation from either other and nobody ever tried to actually combine into a coherent whole) entails?

I know "house rules" carries a negative connotation and all-too-often is used as a cover for people who either haven't understood the intent of the rules-as-published or want to achieve a different result, but in this case, where Gary himself openly admitted that the DMG system was a mistake (when he talked about including weapon speed factors being a mistake I assume he wasn't talking about the simple weapon-to-weapon comparison to break initiative ties but rather the cockamamie weapon speed vs casting time mishegas on DMG pp. 66-67), it's not an indication of mental weakness or insufficient hardcoreness or whatever to throw the broken bit out and replace it with something that works better. The DMG text is not perfect or infallible - it was cobbled together by a disparate team of developers trying to wrangle together a book out of a mountain of disconnected bits of text by a brilliant-but-disorganized author as quickly as possible in order to meet a release deadline that had already slipped a couple of times and they had been told under no uncertain terms would not be allowed to slip again. That so much of it is so good is nigh-miraculous, but that doesn't mean we can't also recognize the not-so-good parts and fix them. After all, we've been at this stuff for decades longer than they had - even Gary himself was working from ~7 years experience with D&D and another decade or so of wargames experience prior to that, while the other recent thread showed that even the younguns among us have all been playing D&D for at least 20 years, and most of us have been playing for close to 40.

[francisca]

DMG Afterward:

IT IS THE SPIRIT OF THE GAME, NOT THE LETTER OF THE RULES, WHICH IS IMPORTANT. NEVER HOLD TO THE LETTER WRITTEN, NOR ALLOW SOME BARRACKS
ROOM LAWYER TO FORCE QUOTATIONS FROM THE RULE BOOK UPON YOU, IF IT GOES AGAINST THE OBVIOUS INTENT OF THE GAME. AS YOU HEW THE
LINE WITH RESPECT TO CONFORMITY TO MAJOR SYSTEMS AND UNIFORMITY OF PLAY IN GENERAL, ALSO BE CERTAIN THE GAME IS MASTERED BY YOU AND
NOT BY YOUR PLAYERS. WITHIN THE BROAD PARAMETERS GIVEN IN THE ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS VOLUMES, YOU ARE CREATOR AND
FINAL ARBITER. BY ORDERING THINGS AS THEY SHOULD BE, THE GAME AS A WHOLE FIRST, YOUR CAMPAIGN NEXT, AND YOUR PARTICIPANTS THEREAFTER,
YOU WILL BE PLAYING ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS AS IT WAS MEANT TO BE. MAY YOU FIND AS MUCH PLEASURE IN SO DOING AS THE REST
OF US DO!

You want "authentic" AD&D? Sure, go ahead and try to figure out the contradictory stuff in the core books. Rationalize away. Or, let common sense trump the letter of the law, and do what the game was designed to do: provide a framework for you and your gaming friends to have fun with. I'll take Gary's words here at face value, over anything else in the DMG.

[Nagora]

The forest that seems to be lost among the trees here is why (other than fidelity to the printed text of the DMG) it is ever considered preferable to have a web of different ad-hoc if-then scenarios to determine relative order of actions

Having some weapons with speed factors, some without, and spells with set lengths would seem to make that inevitable.

which occasionally produce counter-intuitive and seemingly-contradictory results to each other,

I don't know of any such problems and I've looked at a lot of examples. The d6-delay system, on the other hand, is rife with them (see my example up-thread about continuous movement, something which happens in real play).

especially when a complex combat situation makes several of them relevant simultaneously,

Again, if you have an example I'm glad to hear it.

I mean, I suppose there's a little bit of flavor lost, particularly with weapon speed being a factor in spell interruption, but is that really worth the considerable extra mental gymnastics that using the DMG "system" (system in scare-quotes because I don't believe it was ever actually intended as a system, and is instead a collection of ad-hoc special case rules that were developed in isolation from either other and nobody ever tried to actually combine into a coherent whole) entails?

I find the DMG system to be much simpler and clearer and logical than the d6/d10 delay systems, especially with the 1-min round. Additionally, I do believe that the DMG has a system and that it's very clever. But terribly explained/laid out. When I noticed that the rules follow the pattern of A-H I nearly screamed "Why didn't you point that out in the text?"!

I know "house rules" carries a negative connotation and all-too-often is used as a cover for people who either haven't understood the intent of the rules-as-published or want to achieve a different result, but in this case, where Gary himself openly admitted that the DMG system was a mistake (when he talked about including weapon speed factors being a mistake I assume he wasn't talking about the simple weapon-to-weapon comparison to break initiative ties but rather the cockamamie weapon speed vs casting time mishegas on DMG pp. 66-67),

Another great example of making things sound complicated - when i tell people the rule is "difference between speed and your initiative die" they don't even blink. Read the exact same rule using the words in the DMG and people just don't believe that anyone would play that way. But its the same simple effect.

The DMG text is not perfect or infallible - it was cobbled together by a disparate team of developers

I agree and I find it hard to believe that Gary wrote the DMG combat system, but whoever did really thought about it and tried to make casting times work. Whether Mike Carr is responsible for the mess in the book or the manuscript he was handed was already a mess and no one checked it (like they never checked the examples of combat in the text - which I'd bet Gary did write) I don't know.

trying to wrangle together a book out of a mountain of disconnected bits of text by a brilliant-but-disorganized author as quickly as possible in order to meet a release deadline that had already slipped a couple of times and they had been told under no uncertain terms would not be allowed to slip again. That so much of it is so good is nigh-miraculous, but that doesn't mean we can't also recognize the not-so-good parts and fix them.

But does it mean that we can't recognize that the mangled text was hiding a gem? It's not without its flaws, of course and I doubt that anyone will ever have a convincing explanation for "Attacks directed at spell casters will come on that segment of the round shown on the opponent's or on their own side's initiative die, whichever is applicable."

[rogatny]

The actual text of the DMG can be summarized as follows:

Roll a d6 for each side. High number goes first and ties go at the same time.

Then, over the course of several pages, it notes eight exceptions to the main rule. Most of these are quite clear and pretty easily implemented individually - dex bonus/penalty when firing missiles, charges determined by weapon length, psionic attacks resolved first, weapon speed to break ties, multiple attack routines go first and last, unarmed attacks go after armed attacks, relation of weapon speeds to casting time... These are all noted individually and there’s no language integrating the various exceptions nor indicating which should be given priority in complicated situations.

Then there’s the 8th exception that’s really unclear... that casting time should be factored into initiative... somehow. How is unclear except that it’s clear that casting spells in combat is supposed to be perilous, with little chance to defend oneself and a good chance for spells to be disrupted. It further notes that other actions (such as digging into a backpack to pull out a potion) can be given casting time equivalents and that these should be factored into initiative somehow as well. This 8th factor is also not integrated with the other factors.

So, the only true SYSTEM that is given is roll d6, high goes first. Everything else can necessarily only be applied by DM judgement call any time more than one of the relevant factors occur in the same combat round. Thus they are more situations that the DM could decide to take into account than actual prescriptions for how the DM should run a combat. So, as long as a DM is somehow taking casting time, for example, into account, it can’t be said that he’s doing it wrong.

[EOTB]

I definitely agree that this is all just internet jousting about minutia.

But there are no contradictory results with using d6+. At best, there's "the book doesn't explicitly tell me that a total time-to-cast of 13 segments goes off on segment three of the next round".

Which is at best an omission of something that isn't complicated to determine without the explicit direction, but not a contradiction.

Nagora's system is fine, works great, etc. I have no idea why it can't stand by itself, instead of also requiring that d6+ be falsely categorized as having breakdowns.

Seems like Nagora's system is treated as "OK, we admit there's no system in the DMG without adding at least one presumption, but other than this one any others are definitely all false".

I've been running d6+ for years. If anyone throws a combat scenario out I'd be able to diagnose the round in a few seconds, exact order, timing, etc. FOR EVERYTHING.

And anything not explicitly explained will be consistent either with implicit connection to other text, or really common sense (like something taking 13 segments goes off on segment 3 of the next round).

But none of it would lead to a DM sitting at the table muttering "what am I supposed to do in this circumstance."

[francisca]

Yeah.

"Roll d6. If weird, fucked-up situations occur, try some of this shit. Hope that helps. --Cheers, Gary"

[grodog]

The actual text of the DMG can be summarized as follows:

This may also be useful as a distilled reference: http://greyhawkonline.com/grodog/temp/t ... rts-03.pdf

Allan.

[Nagora]

The actual text of the DMG can be summarized as follows:

Roll a d6 for each side. High number goes first and ties go at the same time.

Yep. Everything else revolves around trying to fit that in with simultaneous movement and spell casting, without ending up with the unusable mess that was EW initiative. I think the idea of anchoring the non-abstract parts (movement and spell casting) at the start of the round is what makes it work where EW didn't.

Then, over the course of several pages, it notes eight exceptions to the main rule. Most of these are quite clear and pretty easily implemented individually - dex bonus/penalty when firing missiles, charges determined by weapon length, psionic attacks resolved first, weapon speed to break ties, multiple attack routines go first and last, unarmed attacks go after armed attacks, relation of weapon speeds to casting time... These are all noted individually and there’s no language integrating the various exceptions nor indicating which should be given priority in complicated situations.

Then there’s the 8th exception that’s really unclear... that casting time should be factored into initiative... somehow. How is unclear except that it’s clear that casting spells in combat is supposed to be perilous, with little chance to defend oneself and a good chance for spells to be disrupted. It further notes that other actions (such as digging into a backpack to pull out a potion) can be given casting time equivalents and that these should be factored into initiative somehow as well. This 8th factor is also not integrated with the other factors.

I think the main issue is actually spell casters Vs spell casters. In that case, starting at 1 is unsatisfyingly clockwork. But once you actually take on board the description of the one-minute round, where everyone acts throughout the round, it makes semi-perfect sense.

So, the only true SYSTEM that is given is roll d6, high goes first. Everything else can necessarily only be applied by DM judgement call any time more than one of the relevant factors occur in the same combat round. Thus they are more situations that the DM could decide to take into account than actual prescriptions for how the DM should run a combat. So, as long as a DM is somehow taking casting time, for example, into account, it can’t be said that he’s doing it wrong.

I agree, but this was a BtB thread so I felt okay about defending my position when challenged.

I definitely agree that this is all just internet jousting about minutia.

But there are no contradictory results with using d6+.

Well, I gave an example earlier but on the other hand people who espouse d6+ don't often explain all the details, particularly how they handle movement. So maybe the way you run it doesn't have issues. In any case, the idea that everyone acts on the segment indicated by the dice is not one that appears anywhere in the book, which was more to the point of my comment about it being "wrong". I wasn't making a moral issue of it. Well, not on purpose.

[EOTB]

Yes, but you've acknowledged to me in the past that "the idea that everyone acts <at the beginning of the round> indicated by the dice is not one that appears anywhere in the book", either. But you're OK with that because you feel it's a minor inference required to make everything work.

What I don't understand is minor inference for me, but not for thee. I don't think there's any stones to cast regarding interpretative license, here.

The only minor inference required for d6+ is that "Thus, all such attacks will occur on the 1 st-6th segments of the round." does tie back to a rolled result, which is the d6 initiative die result, and is an extension of what is being done elsewhere - not special.

That's not a gigantic leap of inference. It's pretty minor.

[Ska]

The repeated references to initiative determining when an important action can be attempted in the PHB and DMG make it clear that spell casting occurs per the initiative dice and not on segment 1. This also makes casting more dangerous as longer casting times lead to a greater chance of spell disruption.

I am in no way saying Gygax was clear and the writing is not disastrous at times, but nowhere is it written initiative is not considered for spell casting to start.
As this is a btb thread (trying to discover what the original rules were) I think we can say that casting always starts on segment 1 is incorrect.

I agree with Foster's statement that everyone trying to make sense of the rules likely came up with their own modified rules and had fun. I am not saying Nagora's way is invalid, I am saying it is clearly not btb.