Pulling out another optional rule from the DMG, let's talk about Speed Factor.
Once initiative is rolled in a typical D&D combat, it becomes a predictable rotation that goes around to each combatant before looping back to the first, at the "top of the round."
There are ways to simplify this with other optional rules. For example, you can change initiative rolls to initiative scores, where your "passive Initiative" is used, which means that you'll generally have your party acting in the same order each fight. You can also do "side initiative," where you treat the initiative check as a group check and have the party alternate with all the monsters.
But then there's speed factor.
I'll come right out and say that I think you need to be really, really into crunchy math to do this, as it's almost certainly going to slow your fights down significantly. But it also introduces some new elements that could be fun, if only to experiment with.
Here's how it works:
Every combatant rolls initiative each round. However, rather than taking turns in order based on those rolls (though that seems like it could work as well,) instead each combatant decides what they're going to be doing with their turn before the round begins, and they're committed to those acts.
This actually makes a fair amount of sense, as it simulates the simultaneity of a party's moves. In the "lore" of a round of combat, people aren't patiently waiting for their turn, but are all engaging in various acts at the same time.
Here's where it gets super, super crunchy:
Depending on what your action does, you'll get a modifier to your initiative roll that can speed you up, or in most cases, slow you down.
Also, your size will modify it as well (giving gnomes, halflings, and goblins a real nice advantage.)
I'm not going to go into every single modifier (it's on page 270 of the DMG if you want to look it up) but here are a few examples:
A melee attack with a light weapon will give you a +2 bonus to your initiative - you can get your strike in quickly thanks to how light your blade is. If you attack with a two-handed melee weapon, though, you get a -2 modifier.
Different modifiers also stack, so a weapon that's both heavy and a two-handed melee weapon will add up to -4, but a longbow, which is heavy and two-handed, but not a melee weapon, will only be penalized for the heaviness, so -2.
However, the modifiers don't stack on themselves: a player who makes a main-hand and off-hand attack with, say, a pair of shortswords, will only get the single +2 bonus.
If a creature doesn't take their chosen action on the turn, they don't take any action (but can still move.) I'd rule that you could, say, target a new target as long as it's the same action, but if you, say, want to try to use dominate person on the berserker and he dies before you can, leaving only the priest who is very likely to save out of it, you could simply not take your action and save the spell slot.
Spells take longer depending on their level. So while a cantrip has no speed factor modifier, each level of the spell dips your modifier down by 1, so if you're casting some massive 9th level spell, that will reduce your initiative for that round by 9.
People decide their actions before they roll initiative for the round, so while they'll know their total modifiers, they won't know the precise order of things until the rolls are resolved.
So let's talk about this, and how it would work:
Again, it's going to mean a whole lot more bookkeeping. It's going to make every round of combat a little more puzzle-like, and it's definitely going to make combat go slower.
What you get out of it, though, I think, is two things:
The first is that it's very flavorful. Given that Dex-based characters are usually the ones swinging around light weapons and Strength-based ones are more likely to use heavy two-handers, you're already going to get a bit of this. But I actually love the idea that casting something massive like Cone of Cold takes longer than simply blowing out a quick Burning Hands. And for something as god-like as a 9th level spell, it makes sense to me that you'd have a whole bunch of stuff happening while the wizard in the back is waving her hands around, creating a bunch of glowing runes in the air in front of her that then spread out into the sky and conjure a hail of meteors. (I guess technically meteorites if they hit the ground?)
It also feels to me that this really encourages more considered play (which, again, will slow things down.) For example, three rounds into a fight, if that wizard is sitting at 10 hit points, they might calculate that it's fine for them to sit still and cast the big spell because they know that the two death knights coming for her are after her in initiative - she knows she'll get the spell off before they can get into range, and that the cleric can get to her even if they do somehow survive the spell.
But with speed factor, it's a real gamble. Those dudes are attacking with longswords, which don't affect their initiative, so there's actually a decent chance that they could get a higher initiative this round. Maybe she needs to just dash and get away asap.
Much like spell points, this would seriously change the game. While I think spell points ultimately would probably just make the game's tempo a bit unbalanced,
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