Anything like the opposite of Dual Initiative?

[Reksew_Trebla]

I’m not thinking things like Slow or the Staggered special quality, rather something where you can act normally one round, but the next round, you don’t even get a turn, thus getting half the number of turns, in other words, the opposite of Dual Initiative’s two turns a round.

It isn’t terribly important. I’m just brainstorming ideas right now, but the ideas are based off of one side getting a buff, such as the Haste spell, while the other side gets basically the opposite, which in the Haste case, would be the Slow spell.

But Slow is too, I dunno, restricting I guess. I’d still like that idea of one side speeding up but the other slows down, but only getting a single attack or move a round is really crippling, whereas, theoretically, only getting a turn every other round would technically be less so, if you have enough attacks in a full attack anyways, or are needing to move farther than a move action two turns in a row.

[Artofregicide]

Losing a whole turn is more crippling than the slow spell.

And if one side gets 2 turns and one side 1/2 turn, that's 4x turns effectively for the side at advantage.

[SheepishEidolon]

Confused is probably closer as staggered. If you want it as a permanent condition, there is the insanity spell. Might make an interesting encounter, if the creature would be overwhelming otherwise - just keep in mind the confusion dice rolls might decide the battle.

And it depends heavily on the creature how crippling slowed / staggered really is. A TWF fighter / natural attacker is handicapped way more than a full caster. It really gets odd when you go by RAW and allow pounce while staggered. Finally, slow can be neutralized by haste, dispel magic and freedom of movement.

[Derklord]

Unless you're using the 3.0 version, Haste is way weaker than Dual Initiative. For a reverse to Haste, I would just make a custom effect:

Time-Drained: An affected creature moves and attacks at a slowed rate. When making a full attack, a time-drained creature must forgo the attack at its highest bonus. Additionally, it takes a –1 penalty on attack rolls, AC, and Reflex saves. A slowed creature moves at half its normal speed (round down to the next 5-foot increment), which affects the creature's jumping distance as normal for decreased speed.