[Suggestion] No more + initiative weapons

Nice idea. I hadn't thought of that. 

This reminds me of this post:  https://forums.elementalgame.com/393547

It also started with a semi-sarcastic example.  It never went anywhere, just like this thread probably won't.  It's too bad, because the fix makes so much sense.

Pluses to Initiative needs to be scaled back across the board.  Impulsive needs to be eliminated completely.

Even the AI recognized that spears are overpowered.  That's about all they use as well.

I really hope they at least consider this. It's an easy fix and makes so much sense.

You would still cast just as fast as if they were holding a knife, just without the actual knife...  said that wrong

It would be like every wand was also a knife, unless it wasn't....

Basically it would make magi have really high initiative anyway, they would just be able to hold a staff as well, unless staffs lowered initiative. In which case you would still cast faster unarmed or with a knife.

My post on prefered solution: https://forums.elementalgame.com/418569

Yea ...  so base Initiative is 26 ...

daggers (and magical staves) have no effect

most weapons give around -6

and Bows give -12

Initiative should only impact weapon attack rate, that's it.   Spells should fire at a set rate, impacted by skills/items/intelligence.

How exactly does initiative work?

I assume that the game based off of some some x pulses being standard.

The system does need to be reworked some for the sake of balance.

I was thinking that staves should reduce Initiative and daggers should not effect Initiative at all. The reason to hold a staff would be to benefit from a bonus to spell damage, spell mastery, and spell resistance. This would add some nice differentiation choices to mages. 

One sloppy fix idea:  weapon modifiers to initiative get disabled when a spell is cast.  In its place, INT and special bonuses to spell initiative  would impact initiative.  (Staffs might be 0 initiative, but +5 spell initiative)

Armor should be - spell initiative , -1 for a leather piece, -2 for a chain piece, -3 for a plate piece.

Maybe traits would be split up in the same way- impulse would be physical only, quick-witted might be magical.

You could make injuries based on this concept also.

Basically actions could dynamically reduce your initiative for the following round.

For example:

Moving during a turn cost 5 initiative

Casting a spell could cost spell level squared (maybe modified by intelligence)

Attacking costs the rating of the weapon (daggers would be low, two handed weapons would be high)

Special actions could also have a cost attached to them

Leaving a ZoC during combat could also carry a bonus 5 point in addition to the 5 for moving.

So if you have you have a character who has an initiative of 30 who leaves a ZoC to attack another enemy with a sword (initiative rating 8) he would then only have an initiative of 30-5(move)-5(leave ZoC)-8(attack with sword)=12 to decide when he next gets to move.

This would then make a defensive line much more viable, since when the enemy does attack you will have a massive initiative advantage on the following rounds to counter. Also it would reduce kiting etc.

Unfortunately this would require a re-write of a lot of the combat mechanics though.

Bonuses to initiative should be a rare thing. Daggers shouldn't give a bonus (even though they are faster than other weapons to use when fighting). How about bonuses to Accuracy (easier to wield) and/or Dodge (not heavy, so easier to jump past a blow)?

To me, the real issues are

higher init makes you cover more ground faster- minor

higher init makes you cast faster- major

That's what needs to be solved

No weapon should make you increase your casting speed - as people have said before.

No weapon should allow you to act faster than your barehands.

Casting spells, should always be quicker thany any weapon. (And still, as per most posts, spells are underpowered at everything except the very earliest levels when compared to melee/ranged heroes).

I fully support the high initiative, and weapons only reduce/lower initiative format.

Aye, initiative is broken. 

There should also be very few insta-cast spells in the game as most spells should reduce initiative for the next (casting) round, instead of the spells actually taking multiple rounds to cast.

Try doing your chores whilst holding a two hannded axe as opppsed to bare handed or with a little pocket knife.  Clearly you can get more done faster with a smaller or no weapon.

Can anyone make an argument why my proposed solution is flawed?

Thought I did

Yours system is better than the current one, mage running around barehanded is better than running around with knives. I just think that what your saying is basically a new encumbrance system that depends on individual pieces and penalties instead of looking at the overall weight of a character, balancing the original system would work better.

No no. I don't mean: Is there any better ways to do it? I mean is there anything wrong with my way?

That said I agree and disagree. I think initiative bonuses/penalties should be far less common overall and the encumberance system should definitely be used to the full. That said it's perfectly reasonable for some weapons/armor to have some direct initiative penalties for example plate armor irregardless of it's weight is going to be somewhat difficult to move in. And holding a polearm or awkward weapon like a flail that you have to be careful how you move with is likely to slow you down.

Yes. Two reasons:

(1) Most items in the game don't do anything to initiative.  That is because the system is balanced around a bell curve so that most items have no effect on initiative to remove "screen dirt".  Your solution would result in most items now having an initiative effect which would be a big negative to UI approach ability.

2) From a balance point of view, if everything was decreasing it, it would greatly stack up the penalties.  For instance, going from an initiative of 19 to 18 is a lot less of an issue than going from a 9 to an 8.  The net result is that you would quickly run into situations where the system could be gamed such that some units were vastly faster (relatively) to others.

When putting together a statistical game model, the objective is to always try to fit close to a bell curve distribution when trying to balance something. That is, after all, why it's called "Balancing" in the first place.

So? You can still have your bell-curved initiative distribution. Instead of being centered around "unarmed", it'll be centered around an average weapon. Say, axes or spears.

And if initiative penalty stack is an issue becauce 19->18 is less of an issue than 9->8, just increase the base initiative of everybody by a certain amount - say, for instance, equivalent to the initiative loss of the aforementioned average weapon.

Problem solved, no more 'Mundane knife of haste'.

If we keep the current system (centered around 20 with 20 being the natural)

 Then perhaps add a weapon to all champions called "bare hands" which gives as much initiative bonus as the highest non-magical/non-special weapon does (in this case, daggers, so +6)

Not necesserly a weapon but a game modifier : When your hands are empty, earn the "bare hands" tag and get +6 init. There could even be a trait "unarmed combat" that would add to attack (not strength, so a weakened player would still get that bonus) and init. Flurry of blows anyone ? There could be gloves that would give more attack and fire/ice/electric/pink pony damage (I loved playing a monk in D&D).

True ... monk types in DnD are pretty cool.

I'll address point 2 first because it's the easiest by saying that you must have misunderstood me as I was suggesting a mathematically equivalent model where all the plus modifiers are rolled into the base stat so only the smallest weapons would not decrease initiative standard weapons would decrease it such that the initiative would be equivalent to a unit with a standard weapon now and heavy weapons even more so. Basically everything statistically would be exactly the same without the counter-intuitive immersion breaking issue of your characters being faster with a knife than with their bare hands. This in itself is a major usability issue as new players won't get it.

As to point 1 I agree that could be an issue. The thing is though I think it only highlights the issue of having two separate systems for managing initiative. After all every weapon and armor has a weight associated with it and that's not a UI issue. Personally an even better solution would be to consolidate the two systems into one either have encumbrance be the primary modifier to initiative with rare direct modifiers or drop the encumbrance altogether and replace the weight on every item with an initiative modifier (usually a penalty).

tl;dr; 1. The root issue of the screen dirt is two systems for one thing

2. My suggestion has no effect on balance at all and is purely to make the concept feel more logical to the player.

I like your idea.  Frogboy, please consider it!