Talk:Intuitive Initiative (3.5e Feat)
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Balance[edit]
I thought this would replace/add Wis instead of Dex from the name. That said, not being flat-footed (and thus gain access to Immediate actions) is HUGE for any wizard who's surprised. I don't think this counts as "Low" at all... Maybe unquant? --Ghostwheel (talk) 17:26, 5 May 2015 (UTC)
- Alright, so, I'm not sure it counts as Low balance either (hence the comment on the article's posting summary). So, let's find out what we do know, or at least can assume, about it and go from there:
- •It's less powerful than Improved Initiative, which straight increases the range of your possible initiative rolls rather than the likelihood of rolling high within that given range (which I believe averages out to a +4 with the two rolls over a single roll, but with that lower range, just not as beefy as being able to outpace the nimble), especially in Very High games where initiative is usually king. Going first/sooner is better than immediate actions and going later. It might, however, be close enough to be within the same balance range as Improved Initiative... Whatever balance range that might be.
- •It's not Unquantifiable. That category doesn't work that way, unless there's something drastic I'm missing.
- Also, let's establish what I don't know because why not show more ways I'm dumb about D&D.
- •What is the common accepted balance range of Improved Initiative? It seems to be one of those things that almost everyone allows in all balances of games. Perhaps this is because the usefulness of high initiative scales with game balance?
- •I have no idea what the HUGE things are (I assume they are potentially game-balance-breaking and that there are a lot of them for that much emphasis) that a wizard (in likely a High or Very High game) would be doing with immediate actions that wouldn't be better served by not investing in this feat and just casting something like nerveskitter, a Dexterity-boosting spell or taking Improved Initiative and going sooner anyways.
- Also, let's try and establish a point of game theory that appears to come up a lot. Annoying that I have to address it here and now, but so be it:
- •If a lower balance article/material works and synergizes well in a higher balance game alongside higher balance material, but provides no boost in tactical situation-overcoming than that expected of it from it's given balance range, does that make it broken, well designed or actually of that higher balance range? I'm personally inclined to simply say it's well designed, but there seems some argument on this, opting instead to place articles/material at a higher balance and out of reach from games they would benefit in without disturbing the balance of. We really haven't established much in the way of "what do we do with articles/materials that have a flexible balance range?". This probably sounds like suicide from an argument standpoint, but let's use Use Magic Device as an example. So, let's say we're trying to find the balance of this skill. Casters don't need it because they can already overcome challenges with their own spells, so it's probably not Very High. Maybe it's Low, we ask. In a Low game, with only Low-balance spells accessible to use, it fits fine and allows the characters to overcome expected challenges. Does that make it Low? Of course not, that just makes it flexible. Can an article have multiple balance ranges when used with material within those ranges, allowing itself to naturally scale based on what material is around it? Do we only judge material by the highest possible optimization capable (thus the reason for why a wizard is Very High, because he gains access to all that Very High material, rather than say, Low, because if you limited a wizard to only Low spells, he too would be Low powered, assuming enough Low power material exists for him to be Low and not Dead)? The wizard example there is actually a terrible one since we're trying to retroactively apply a balance to a whole slew of different material created after the fact, by different authors, with different intent, on a system that had a fundamental paradigm shift after it came out as it moved away from 2e. With homebrew, we can actually just set that balance, and as long as it adheres to the expected challenges of that balance, that's fine enough. If it works in higher or lower balance games with other material appropriate to those games, then terrific, that's awesome, more of what everyone wants and stories to tell. How we classify that though, still comes as a point of contention around here and mostly I just prefer to go with "whatever, I'm not particularly great at analyzing balance, maybe someone else can help me out if I leave a note", and then I end up with this long, hopefully un-salted rant. I'd really love to have some people weigh in on this, even if it does seem like a dumb location for it. (Also, the article was originally going to be called Assess Situation before I changed the name right before posting, because I rather disliked it and having "Initiative" in the name makes it easier to search for people)
- So, this is what, like, probably Moderate then?--Ganteka Future (talk) 00:11, 6 May 2015 (UTC)
- Are you sure this is less strong than Improved Initiative? Rerolls are pretty nice (the secondary effect is just gravy). I wouldn't say stronger, but probably even with Improved Initiative, which IMO I consider Moderate itself. Useful, but not gamechanging. -- Eiji-kun (talk) 00:23, 6 May 2015 (UTC)
- EDIT CONFLICT:
- The average increase is +3.82, which I think is close enough to +4 to be about the same. Plus, it has a higher chance of rolling decently, but less of a chance of rolling purely high. And this stops you from EVER being flat-footed. With that said, look at Abrupt Jaunt from PHB2, a bread-and-butter defense for spellcasters. You're caught flat-footed by a pouncing, charging barbarian who's about to melt your face off, and he won initiative. He's about to full attack you to the face... and you immediately jump away. Now he's useless and you can do whatever you want. That's HUGE. And that's just one example of what you can do with an immediate action. The only thing that does anything similar in core is a level 9 spell. I think that's saying something, even with WotC's wonky sense of spell balance. --Ghostwheel (talk) 00:31, 6 May 2015 (UTC)
- You sure like capitalization for emphasis, but next time be sure you use it in a case where you're not just wrong... or spouting pointless hyperbole that helps no one. (Because that last sentence got real salty, let's turn things around) Situation Example: Wizard takes this feat, is with party walking through woods. Wizard doesn't notice baboon in tree because class skills and wizard and Wisdom or whatever. Baboon drops down and goes nuts on the wizard who is flat-footed because surprise round. Initiative is rolled. (Getting dice out). Baboon gets a 17. Wizard gets 18 and a 17 because I rolled well for once. He picks the 18 because acting first is good and he thinks that's probably enough to beat the number the baboon got, which he isn't aware of, because that number was rolled by the DM from behind a screen. Wizard does something wizardly. Druid complains about not getting a new animal companion. Everyone laughs. Roll credits.
- Also, your huge change is to use a Very High spell against a Moderate/High character? That's not a compelling argument, though if you don't ever want to be flat-footed, there's an app for that, that also doesn't have anything to do with Wisdom swapping Dexterity around. --Ganteka Future (talk) 01:34, 6 May 2015 (UTC)
