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Critfall Initiative

Turn based initiative driven combat for Minecraft which is built on Critfall's d20 engine.
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When a fight starts, everyone nearby rolls initiative and takes turns. The bar at the top shows the turn order.

When a fight starts, everyone nearby rolls initiative and takes turns. The bar at the top shows the turn order.

NightsHigh | Critfall Initiative
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Description

Critfall: Initiative

Initiative turns Minecraft fights into turn based encounters. The world runs in real time until a fight starts, then everyone in it rolls initiative and takes turns in that order, while the rest of the world carries on. Critfall still rolls every attack, save, crit and fumble; Initiative decides when.

Features

Fights become encounters

When you hit a hostile mob, or one hits you, every hostile and player within 12 blocks who can see the fight joins and rolls initiative. A neutral mob you provoke joins too. Mobs wait for their turn instead of attacking in real time. The strip at the top shows the order, whose turn it is and how long they have left.

The initiative order at the top of the screen

Pick an action, then a target

On your turn, press R for the bar of actions: Attack, Dash, Disengage, Dodge, Help, Hide, Shove, Blink with an ender pearl, Reel with a fishing rod and Grapple. An action you can't take is greyed out with the reason. Click one, aim at the target and left click to confirm.

Picking a spider as the target

Contested rolls

Shove, Grapple and Reel are contests: both sides roll, and the dice play out on screen with each roller's name under them. Everyone in the encounter sees every roll, including the initiative rolls of whoever joins.

A contest between the player and a spider

A turn's budget

Each turn has an action, a bonus action, a reaction and 10 blocks of movement. Walking out of a hostile's reach gives it an opportunity attack unless you Disengage. Cover adds to Armor Class, and bows and crossbows have a normal and a long range. End Turn (or Enter) passes to the next in line, and a 30 second clock keeps the table moving.

The action bar with End Turn

For pack makers and mod developers

Other mods add actions through the action API. Each one gets a button on the bar and an /initiative command with no UI code. Actions can be tuned or switched off from a datapack. The #initiative:never_joins tag keeps a mob out of encounters, and #initiative:no_freeze lets it act in real time during one.

The action bar, with spent and unavailable actions greyed

Requirements

Requires

  • Minecraft 1.21.1
  • NeoForge 21.1 or newer, or Fabric Loader 0.16.9 or newer with Fabric API
  • Critfall 0.2.16 or newer
  • Initiative on the server and on every client.

Works with

  • Critfall: Checks: initiative adds your DEX modifier, and Shove, Grapple, Escape and Hide roll skills instead of flat bonuses.
  • Critfall: Headless Horseman: he and his steed stay out of encounters, so his fight stays real time.

Configuration

Initiative has no config screen. Every option is in config/initiative.json, which is created on first run and read when the game starts, so restart after changing it. Each mechanic can be switched off on its own. The keys for the action bar (R) and End Turn (Enter) can be changed under Controls.

Main switches

config/initiative.json. Each of these turns a whole feature on or off.

Option Default
encounters.enabled true
turns.enabled true
actions.enabled true
cover.enabled true
grapple.enabled true
hud.enabled true
action_ui.enabled true
roll_animation.enabled true
checks.enabled true

Every option, and what it does, is in docs/config.md.

Commands

Every action on the bar also has a command, for the player whose turn it is.

Command What it does
/initiative <action> Takes an action that needs no target, such as dash, dodge or endturn.
/initiative <action> <target> Takes an action on an entity, such as attack, shove or grapple.
/initiative blink <position> Blinks to a block with an ender pearl.

Modpacks

Free to use in any modpack.

Links

Critfall Initiative Team

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