Initiative has nothing to do with Speed.
Initiatice is the "who goes first?" coin toss at the start of a sporting event, but it has been extrapolated to include more than two opponents and tied to character stats.
In the link posted above, an argument is made that if INIT bonuses and penalties are included, it doesn't make weapons faster because characters don't get more attacks. These are two totally separate concepts and, moreover, attacks in D20 don't represent individual swings of a weapon at someone. An attack roll encompasses many swings, of which some may have rendered damage. INIT only announces in what order each combatant gets to participate in the combat and in no way is it trying to simulate or add to the number of attacks.
More simply, the "Faster?" argument is based on a false assumption that INIT mods are meant to make weapons faster. On the contrary, it
simulates a lighter or heavier load allowing for freedom of movement overall.
Also, the idea of combat order is dumb in and of itself, and only exists as a means of keeping things straight anyway. Coming up with "weapon speed factors" (which is what we old-school Gygaxian D&Ders remember) to adjust INIT in D20 is just to have weapon construction have a bearing on that order, even though Character A may have an INIT +8 and rolls a 3 for his INIT, but character B has an INIT +2 but rolls a 10, beating the "faster" or "quicker" Character A anyway, even without bringing "weapon speed" into it.
That point above speaks to the concern that getting a good INIT with dagger will "carry over" into other types of actions that combat.
So what?
If I'm armed with a Greatsword and start off a combat going first with
no INIT mods from any sort of weapon speed I can still choose to run away first. I can do the same with the "thrown dagger" scenario. If one cant react more fluidly and quickly with some certain type of weapon, it ceratinly doesn't have any bearing on reaction time (INIT) in D20 now, so I could climb a ladder, cast a spell, tie a knot, or make a search check solely based on my INIT count based on the rules as written. I don't need weapon speed to make that seem weird, so to use that as an argument
against a weapon speed rule is falacious too.
What's been suggested is that some weapons are easier to ready and/or move around with, in and out of combat, and so should probably impact INIT. However, this impact would have little true impact on the game as a whole (if the system is simple and universal) because the weapon weilded
already has no bearing on who goes first and, m ore importantly, what actions they may want to take that combat with or without thier weapon of choice.
In the other
thread, which I'd begun with the exact same concerns under which this one got started I imagine, I came to this simple conclusion.
- Two-handed simple weapons will strike last in a given initiative count if there is a tie.
- Two-handed martial weapons are at -2 Initiative.
- Two-handed exotic weapons are at -4 Initiative.
- Two-handed Akbitanan weapons only suffer a -2 penalty for two-handed exotic weapons.
Since bows require two hands to use, they also suffer the Initiatve penalties above, but this can be mitigated if the archer is able to ambush or otherwise have his bow ready for firing prior to the start of combat.
This way, Improved Initiative negates the exotic penalty, netting zero. That's also a typical bonus/penalty progression.
I'd also advocate the following co-opted from the Stargate SG-1 rules:
Aiming:
For each round spent aiming a projectile weapon, the weilder gains a +2 Initiative count modifier the round he does so. This bonus can be regained in subsequent rounds and requires a Move Action or equivalent (due to a feat allowing a move action as a free action, for example).
I'd initially toyed with this:
- [*]Weapon speed = STR mod - (Weapon AP value)
[*]Initiative - Weapon Speed = Effective Inititive bonus
...but the point was raised that the first equation needed to be
Speed=(AP-STR mod) (duh!), but this still didn't satisfy that lighter weapons should have better INIT, which is the point of weapon speed rules.
I still feel that STR should probably play a factor, but just applying a -2 or -4 based on the weapon classification seems the simplest and least intrusive. It helps break INIT ties based on weapon type, and in that light in makes good sense to me. :wink:
, but I see how akward it could be in round based comat. It's a shame, I feel, because in the real world I think lighter weapons are faster to weiled and quicker to strike. Perhaps it is just a limitation of the rules that this cannot be refelcted in game play.
