Tag Archives: combat

Musings on Dexterity-based Initiative

02 Saturday Dec 2023

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I’ve been running a Swords & Wizardry play-by-post game for the past year or so and have been using dexterity (DEX)-based initiative. In the S&W Core and Complete rules, this is the “Blue Book” combat method, so-called as it is based on the blue covered Holmes Basic D&D, which described using DEX to order combat actions (while the 1977 Holmes Basic book is not freely available, the BLUEHOLME Prentice rules are both free and a decent clone of the original).

When combat begins, I’ll roll DEX on the spot for the monsters, and proceed from there. So rolling DEX and ordering the combatants is done just once – then, during each combat round, actions proceed in DEX order. In the event of tied dexterities, I consider the attacks to be simultaneous. The only exception to the DEX order is that prepared spells are always cast first in the round (this is part of the S&W rules-as-written). Because the DEX rolls and ordering are done up-front, after the first round, combat tends to be fast. I’ve noticed, however, some problems.

  1. Luck tends to have a longer lasting impact on combat, when compared to side-based initiative that is rolled every round. If the referee rolls high for monster DEX, and you have even average DEX rolls in the party, you will get stuck going last each round.
  2. Conversely, if the players got lucky and have PCs with a lot of high DEX scores, most of the combats will be unbalanced in favor of the party. This isn’t normally bad by itself, but you want the players to survive combats by using good tactics, not solely through one lucky roll at character creation.
  3. OD&D, upon which S&W is based, describes abstract combat. DEX-based initiative is at odds with that unless you treat all the monsters of the same type as having the same DEX (this is a suggested rule in S&W). It feels a little too precise to have an explicit order for every combatant in each round.
  4. OD&D also minimized the impact of both high and low ability scores, but using DEX-based initiative inflates the importance of DEX.

Compare this to the standard side-based or individual initiative, where the players and monsters roll every round and the order can change from round-to-round. This allows luck (good or bad) effects to happen at any time, and as a player feels more meaningful (or surprising), in my opinion.

A method I’ve settled on when I’m running games for my gaming group is to use side-based, d6 initiative, but allow players with a high DEX (13 or more) to act first, or to make players with a low DEX (8 or less) act last, but only in the event of tied d6 rolls. This gives some players a slight advantage (or disadvantage), but doesn’t amplify the affects of a high or low DEX score either way.

If you wanted to keep DEX-based initiative, but fix some of the issues I listed above, you could use the method described in the Holmes rules – forego simultaneous attacks for matching DEX scores, and roll a d6 for scores within 1-2 points of each other, each round. This results in a lot more rolling (the average 3d6 roll is 9-12, so a good portion of the total initiative rolls will end up being be d6 opposed rolls with this method, and not all strictly DEX-based).

Ready Ref Sheets – Weapon Priority

15 Saturday Apr 2017

Posted by in DM Resources

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I’ve been considering using the Judge’s Guild Ready Ref Sheets to streamline initiative in my White Box games.  If you haven’t seen the Ready Ref Sheets, they were released in 1978 as a referee’s aid for OD&D. They have some really great random tables and include the usual monster listings and attack tables. I bought two physical copies a few years ago at the original cover price.

ready-ref-cover

Anyway, one of the  tables in the book is titled  ‘Weapon Priority’. Here it is:

ready-ref-weapon-priority

The way I would use it as a player would be to pre-calculate my priority number by weapon. That probably won’t change much, unless the character’s dexterity changes, or they lose their armor to a rust monster, say. For spellcasters, I would write down my priority number by spell level, or note what it is when reading a scroll. As a referee, I would make the priority number part of a monster’s stat block. That would speed up combat a bit, by removing the need for an initiative roll. But what I really think is neat about this is that it would allow players to make tactical decisions around weapon choice. If I were playing a fighter, I would make a point to carry a longer weapon like a spear, and a missile weapon, in addition to a sword. As a M-U I would favor memorized spells over reading a scroll, given a choice.

The note at the bottom “In case of a tie compare actual dexterity ratings” is interesting. That seems to imply that monsters have a dexterity, which implies this table was created with Holmes Basic in mind. The copyright date supports that, although the combat tables reference the Greyhawk OD&D supplement, not Holmes. Both would have been in print at the time the Ready Ref Sheets were published (note in comments – according to Zach Howard/Zenopus, this table first appeared in 1976, in JG’s Thunderhold, so it pre-dated Holmes Basic).

Has anyone used this system in their games? I’d be interested to hear how it plays.

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