House Rule: Modified Greyhawk Initiative

This is largely based off of WOTC's Greyhawk Initiative released in Unearthed Arcana.

When implemented, the system is generally intended to be the same as published, with small adjustment for variations of melee weapon speeds and a couple of judgments about specialized capability-driven modifiers.

The full document is linked above and should be referenced for the greater details as needed.

A few of the primary points, plus the variations, are either summarized or explained below.

Announcement: Determining Action Options

Each Actor decides what Categories of Action are desired before the Round begins and then rolls dice that correspond.

The total of the dice rolled become that Actor's Initiative.

Turn Order is established Lowest to Highest.


Note: It is not necessary to announce exact Actions intended. And an Actor is not committed or required at the time of his Turn to follow through with Action in every category he originally selected during announcement. The announcement is only a selection of OPTIONS to use each Category of Action.

Initiative Dice by Categories of Action

1d4 for Ranged Attack

1d4 for Attack with Light Melee weapon or Unarmed Strike

1d6 for Attack with normal, medium, one-handed Melee weapon

1d8 for Attack with Heavy or Two-Handed Melee weapon

1d6 for Movement

1d6 for swap gear, draw/stow weapon

1d6 for Interact with Environment or any other uncategorized Action

1d10 for Cast a Spell

Miscellaneous Notes

Bonus Actions are simply additional dice rolls for whatever the Action is.

Reactions are not related to Initiative Turn Order. They occur along the sequence as their appropriate triggers dictate.

Ready Action is not available, but an Actor can simply Delay action to later in the Turn Order.

Multiple Actions, such as Extra Attack for Martial Classes, require only 1 die roll for the set of Actions. If there is a difference between the two sub-Actions within the set (example: different weapon sizes), use the largest dice of the set.

Ties on Turn Order are decided by Dexterity. The Actor with the highest Dexterity wins the tie and Acts before the other Actor at the same Turn Order.

No "Battlefield Adjustment." If Action Categories are not selected at Announcement, then at the time of the Turn there is no way to access that sort of Action, nor is there a way to adjust Turn Order position in order to gain new Action Categories in the same Round.

Special Capability-Driven Modifiers

Alert Feat: Player can choose up to two different Category of Action dice, and use the next die lower for the Initiative roll on each of them.

Rakish Audacity: Player can choose to roll only a 1d4 for Movement Initiative if it precedes an Attack Action, or can roll an Attack Initiative die as one die lower than normal.

Advantage to Initiative: if any capability or circumstance delivers Advantage to Initiative, the Player can roll total Initiative twice and keep the lower result. This is done by rolling multiple sets of Initiative dice combined in one result. It is not an Advantage at every point along the way, not a totaling of the lowest between two rolls of each die type.