Inspired by “Greyhawk Initiative”, I made up a version for ACKS. This initiative system encourages players who want to be “fast” to do faster actions, rather than just being fast. Dex bonuses for initiative are removed, and initiative is counted upward, instead of downward.
At the beginning of each round, each character declares their intention. Each character may declare a move action and an attack action. Casting spells counts as both actions.
Characters roll initiative for each of their actions, and act on the higher of the two counts.
As an option, a character can abandon the action associated with the higher roll, and perform only the action associated with the lower roll (stop moving to get the thing out of your pack faster, or whatever)
Attack rolls use the die type of the attack to determine their initiative. This applies to monster attacks, as well.
Getting things out of a pack or sack (counts as either move or attack action) uses the capacity of the container (pack is 1d4, large sack is 1d6, etc). Items stowed loose on the body or belt count as 1.
Spells use the lower of 2 identical dice, determined by the spell level:
1st level: highest of 2d4
2nd level: highest of 2d6
Etc…
Movement initiative is determined based on movement rate:
60: 1d2
50: 1d3
40: 1d4
30: 1d6
20: 1d8
10: 1d10
Characters with class powers which improve initiative decrease the size of all initiative dice by one step.