Wynter Ignatius's page

I don't really ascribe to the belief that wielding a two-handed weapon somehow makes you less responsive on the battlefield, but if it works for your group then more power to you.

The rule itself seems interesting, if a bit arbitrary. I'd caution against using wisdom only because that seems like adding yet another very useful feature to that stat, to the point that I would have trouble justifying choosing to boost any other mental stat. Not exactly game breaking, but it pushes int and cha further down the dump track for most characters.

Some folks have been asking about spellcasting. You could give a penalty to initiative based on spellcasting. Give the mage a penalty to their initiative result on the following round equal to half the level of the spell they cast (or simply equal to the spell level, if you think that's not harsh enough). For example, a mage who starts the combat with an initiative result of 14 casts fireball, so acts at initiative count 11 instead the next round. It's up to you whether to reset them on the following round, or maintain their lower initiative for the rest of combat.

In my games, we roll initiative every round (I have a simple program that does it), which shakes up combat a lot and makes things more interesting. I could see your system really meshing well with that.

I'm still up in the air about Wisdom, but might even consider mixing Dexterity, Wisdom and Intelligence in some equation - I have close to 50 gaming system books here so I might see what I can come up with that encompasses all three stats or more (go ahead and call me crazy; I've been called worse).

I do intend to roll initative each round, so a program might be in order for that so I can keep track of it all easier. Maybe a spreadsheet in Open Office will work as I can whip one of those up with ease.

I still am not sure what to do about those who might switch weapons mid turn or attack a with multiple weapons (worst of the two maybe might be the easiest route to go towards).

I did have a thought though just now though regarding your comment about two handed weapons as being unfairly nixed to slow initiative. Maybe incorporating base attack bonus into it might help. After all, it would be feasibly to believe that say a 16th level fighter might have a slightly better feel for combat than a 16th level rogue or even bard for that matter as combat is their primary job.

I'll do some experiments this weekend and see what I can come up with.

As a post note, your idea about spell casters: what if a caster keeps casting spells each round? eventually, their initiative might reach 0 or lower, unless those points came back with time.

Just snowballing the idea around to stimulate discussion and discourse on the matter so might come up with something that multiple people can see as fair.

Also, unless you have a feat that a has mutltiple styles as a prerequisite, you can only use the feats of one style when in the stance for that particular style, only changing with a swift action.

Style Feats (from the PFOSD)

As a swift action, you can enter the stance employed by the fighting style a style feat embodies. Although you cannot use a style feat before combat begins, the style you are in persists until you spend a swift action to switch to a different combat style. You can use a feat that has a style feat as a prerequisite only while in the stance of the associated style. For example, if you have feats associated with Mantis Style and Tiger Style, you can use a swift action to adopt Tiger Style at the start of one turn, and then can use other feats that have Tiger Style as a prerequisite. By using another swift action at the start of your next turn, you could adopt Mantis Style and use other feats that have Mantis Style as a prerequisite.

Well, unless you are a Brawler, using a weapon is only really needed or desired if you want to add an enchantment effect to your attack. I personally am going with the no weapons at all for my campaign, even if the reason I might make use of the feat is via an NPC the party might meet with and also possibly fight at some point (depends on their attitude, etc.).

I would have to say that if you feel the wording of some weapons leaves the ruling fuzzy to you do what you want with your campaign or if you are only a player, point your DM to this post and let them read and chime in on the subject. It's ultimately about fun over structure so the ruling on this is purely to keep future discussion on the subject moot.

Also, to play devil's advocate, the feat actually says it's to pool all your attack potential in one devastating punch so does that mean you need a free hand? Last I checked, Monks and Brawlers are able to attack with any part of their body, so a rules lawyer could say you need at least one free hand to perform this attack.

Just my $0.02

I found this before: http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2kqan&page=2?Adventurers-Armory-Questions#5 1

Basically Emei Piercers were the only weapons that MIGHT squeeze by.

It is for unarmed strikes only now, just to clear that up.

Pummeling Style

I actually really like this system. You'll definitely see certain character very consistently going first. But that seems to be the intent of this system and I think that's a good thing.

It would change combat pretty significantly. But one idea is taking the spells and actually making them go off +X Initiative later.

So for instance Quicken is +0; Standard is +3 and Full-Round is +5. (Off the top of my head. So grain of salt and all that). Then you'd do your action say "Oh, I move over here and cast this spell" then the effects of the spell happen a bit later on.

And issue I can see with this could be certain situations involving the normal move action for spellcasters. Before a wizard could cast a fireball then step into the area they cast into after the effects. That wouldn't be as easy anymore. Also it makes "readying" against spell effects simpler since you could delay your action until after the spellcaster then try to whack them to make them lose the spell.

But that's one option you could try

Indeed, I want this system to show the uencumbered as being faster and more likely to go first, but this applies to monsters as well when it comes to natural attacks. I have to admit I like the idea you have for spellcasters there and might have to run the numbers to see how it works out.

As for your ideas Ciaran Barnes to each their own as I want to add a sense of realism to the game with a more political and dialogue driven game (combat is not gone, just not always the only solution). The CMB idea I like and might have to use now that you brought it up and wisdom over intelligence is actually not a bad idea as I already toyed with than change myself.

On a side note, I forgot to mention I am pulling an old idea from White Wolf Games with this initiative system and do a reverse declaration initiative. This means that after initiative is rolled, the creature/player/npc with the lowest result declares their intention for the round all the way to the highest place. Then, initiative is run normally from highest to lowest. This means that the person at the top as command over the battlefield and can shape the battle a bit with their sense of all that is going on.

Other considerations I am looking into (but am open to suggestions though) is is a person changes their weapon in the middle of the round. For those that don't know the old White Wolf system, if you changed your declared actions, it cost you a point of Willpower (1-10) to change you action or you were stuck with it.

Talked a friend and fellow RPG enthusiast about this and he suggested using a similar system for spellcasters based on casting time (as if it were the weapon for melee focused characters in above rules)and then treating any modification to that time (expect maybe Quickened) as if it were similar to the armor penalty (trade-off for the effects).

Still not sure how to work spell level into it but I am open to suggestions.

Certainly curious and will be looking into this. Thank you for sharing with us all.

Saying thank you seems too little for the work you have done here, so I will simply bow and borrow this for my Pathfinder world as it was one of the classes I was saddened to not see converted over (second being the Scout, simple as it may be) to Pathfinder. I only made a cursory glance at it but with all the comments I see it seems to be well designed and balanced based on it's role within the party.

People often forget that if a class carries a stigma with it, you need to role-play that out in game for those that walk into places and announce "look at me, I'm an all powerful Warlock, fear me" every place they go.

In my world, most all arcane classes that do not use a spellbook carry a stigma with them as you can't take their power away from them - Bards receive the least stigma while Sorcerers and Witches (even if their power can be taken away) are actively hunted by a nation of human wizards.

Amazing work here and please, keep it up.

I'm curious to hear how you handled spellcasters in this system. So far, it looks like the rules set is incomplete regarding spellcasters, but if it is not, then I feel a lot of Save-or-Suck casters will have quite an initiative advantage being unarmed, unarmored, and often a smaller size-category than normal. Also Intelligence to Initiative.

I am missing part of it as the original text file I had was somewhere around 8-10 pages long and had something for spellcasters as well. I found this after over an hour of scrounging the internet and came up empty on the rest.

I've seen some systems that do something like subtracting the spell level, but then there are quickened spells and other considerations like extraordinary and spell-like abilities as well.

OK, so I am getting a campaign book together for my Pathfinder world and wanted to use an initiative system I used to use in D&D 3.0/3.5 but my external drive crashed some time ago, taking many of my digital notes with it. I found pieces of it, but wanted to try and find it again or modify it a bit on my own so it works in my world. Yes, this system appears clunky, but I have found it work out just fine for the most part but even I am open to suggestions.

This works for melee and ranged right now but is missing the magic end of things and more than likely could use some work (especially with the release of Unchanined).

Here is the part I found after a great deal of searching today:

FreeGamers' Initiative (For use with 3.x D&D):

There is literally a 1% chance the Paladin would go before the Monk, and a 2% chance they would act simultaneously - barring initiative enhancements, alternative armors, ability enhancements, etc... In a normal d20 Init system like D&D has the Paladin would actually act first 40% of the time - which is basically just flat-out random and doesn't properly reflect one's weapons and armor being used as a means of being slower to act.

Any help on this will be greatly appreciated.