Turn Order (Initiative)

[Phoenix]

For years, decades, actually, I've always played the original turn order recommended in the rule book (Barbarian, Dwarf, Elf and Wizard). For me, this always seemed the logical, unquestionable choice (I mean, it is in the RULE book).

However, I recently hosted a game (at GenCon) and one of the player's suggested rolling initiative. They had always played where, at the beginning of the Heroes' turn, all Heroes roll their movement dice and the highest roll goes first, ties are between the players. Then, they would get into lengthy tactical discussion (i.e. "Don't stop moving in front of the door, you may not win initiative next round", or "I'll go first and kill the monster and then you can search for treasure").

I found this fascinating (I'm not new to initiative or RPGs, but surprised that I hadn't previously heard or thought of such a thing). If I'm being honest, I can't say that it is necessarily a house rule that I will definitely adapt, but I'm not morally opposed, either.

What are some other home brew turn orders out there?

[MonsterMotor]

A while ago I had compiled a small list of useful initiative rules, taken mostly from other games, and intend to include these as optional (serving different purposes) in my own ruleset, in which no movement dice are used and turn order matters a lot more than in standard HQ.

These rules are basically:
- Free choice of their turn order among the heroes (my current standard). Can slow the game down sometimes but works generally well.
- Same free choice as above but supplemented with a leader token, which the owner can use to decide which eligible hero goes next, but must then pass the token to the player to the right. Useful for accelerating the game and in competitive situations.
- Initiative cards as in the D&D board game (or another randomizer device), where turn order changes randomly when a new door is opened or a special situation occurs. This may or may not include the Morcar/Zargon player, which influences the difficulty a lot.

[Gold Bearer]

I posted an initiative rule in the topic literally just below this one, I need to separate that topic into three, it's too much for one topic.


Turn Order
0BP and/or 0MP Adventurers go last, otherwise Adventurers with the Initiative Ability (eg Barbarian and Dwarf) go first, then (for multiple Adventurers both with and without the Initiative Ability) Elvens go first and Dwarvens go last then for the same race they go in current BP order (highest to lowest), for the same BP use current MP and if they're the same decide randomly once until their order changes.

Before every Hero's (and any of their Followers) turn roll a combat dice: Skull = The next Adventurer takes their turn then roll again, White Shield = The remaining Adventurers take their turn before the EWP, Black Shield = EWP takes their turn.

A Hero (and any of their Followers along with them) can choose to Delay their turn, moving it to the end of the round. This means Hero players can always decide in which order they take their turns but if they Delay their turn they go after the EWP in that round. Hero players can only Delay their turn once per round and the EWP cannot Delay their turn. Delaying a turn doesn't extend the duration of a beneficial spell or other beneficial effects, for example a spell that lasts until the end of your next turn will end as soon as you delay your turn but negative spell effects still apply and any spell that affects a target on their next turn will still work.


I wanted elves to be first and dwarves to be last but without messing up the barbarian, dwarf, elf, wizard turn order of the original characters so I gave the barbarian and dwarf an initiative ability, that's also nice for a couple of my heroes.

[Kurgan]

Sorry I missed you at GenCon, Phoenix! Rolling off to choose roles in first edition was kind of a cool idea. When it comes to turn order, we listened to the booklet as well back in 1991 and had the Barbarian go first, Wizard go last, Elf got the Earth spells. Now listening to lots of the community feedback and playing more games as a grown up I've felt more free to experiment.

But while Jungles of Delthrak does allow variable hero turn order each round, in actual practice this causes confusion for the players (and Zargon). Usually sticking to the same order every round is ideal, except occasionally it will make more sense for the heroes to tactically allow a different order in a few instances during a quest. This I think is why Avalon Hill encouraged people to try it out.

Outside of this I've found when using the four classic heroes, having the Wizard go first is often a much better idea than having him go last. In fact, having the spell casters go early in the turn order gives them more opportunities for their magic to have maximum effect before Zargon has a chance to start moving his monsters. The Dwarf going last isn't always the best if you're going to have him disarm a trap, so maybe the Barbarian last makes a bit of sense. Now the strategy of casting Courage upon the Barbarian to have him attack doesn't quite work as well with him going last (I still play Courage the old 2nd edition way... he can keep doing boosted attacks as long as he has any monster(s) within LOS).

So spell casters first, trap disarmer not quite last.

Rolling for initiative is cool but using a D6 means there will be some ties and roll offs that take more time. One suggestion is to use a D&D style die like a D8, D10, or even D100 instead. Highest goes first.