I've spent some time over the last week working on the Birthright adventure module and Urban Arcana, but also cranked out some stuff based on various discussions I've had with people regarding initiative. As many know, it was a hot topic in the D&D fanbase a couple months ago when Mike Mearls put out his Greyhawk Initiative variant. I'm personally not a fan of it, but whatever works at your table is fine.
I've fired a few ideas at the wall here, and there will also be a link up on the Completed Projects sidebar (see its new location on the right side). Neither has been road-tested yet, and both are inspired by other endeavors. Counting Initiative is based off an idea presented by the 2nd Edition of Hackmaster, which goes into frankly absurd levels of articulation that are not well-suited to a 5E table. Group Initiative is just an update of old D&D rules, and I'm hardly the first person to suggest it.
Really, this packet is something I put together for my groups as an easy reference, but figured they could be useful as a discussion piece. I wanted to run some sessions for testing these at some point. Counting Initiative in particular seems like it could be troublesome in a lot of ways, particularly as it relates to tracking spell durations (something 5E has thus far avoided apart from "concentration" and "start/end of next turn"). Spells with such durations would basically be added to the initiative count under this system and "tick" every time their number comes up.
Group Initiative is the simplest and least intrusive, and probably the way I'd actually suggest groups do things to keep the moment-to-moment activity going. It would suck if you have a group that can't decide what it wants to do on the best of days, though.
Anyway, have fun with it. Constructive feedback is welcome.
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