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It's new to me, anyway. Here's how it works.

This is for basic fantasy combat, by the way.

Everyone rolls three dice for initiative at the start of combat, with results averaging between 10 and 20. The roll is recorded as the player's "initiative points" for the battle.

High roll goes first, then next highest, and so on.

When a combatant takes damage, the damage is first subtracted from these initiative points. In this sense, they are like "fatigue points." But losing them has the effect of actually making he character fatigued: he's acting slower, losing the upper hand in the battle.

When your initiative points reach 0, damage you take starts coming out of your hit points, representing actual wounds to your body.

You can regain one die's worth of initiative points for each round you spend doing nothing but catching your breath.

If you and your opponent both have 0 initiative points, you will take a breather round together, sizing each other up, the way boxers do. Then, after you've each regained one die's worth, you begin fighting again.

Here's what I like about the idea:

Getting a hit on an opponent can shift the tide of the battle. Let's say you were behind your opponent in initiative, but you score a hit that brings his initiative below yours. In the next round, you attack first, effectively getting two attacks in a row, which can tip the scales significantly.

It grants the players some hit points that refresh quickly -- even during a battle, if you can dispatch a foe and take a breather before diving back in.

Because it's rolled fresh at the start of every battle, it could give an underdog an unexpected advantage if he rolls high and his opponent rolls low. It's like the low-ranked team having a really good day against the favorite.

Even if you take a big hit to hit points, it doesn't mean you have to start the next battle at death's door. You've got all new initiative points the enemy has to plow through first. But it doesn't entirely undo the effect of damage, because once the new initiative points are gone, you will be easy to kill.

It puts initiative more on par with offensive and defensive skills in combat. Having a better initiative bonus in most RPGs isn't going to help a weaker fighter beat a stronger one, but here it could make a difference.

I can imagine leadership skills that might restore your allies' initiative in the midst of battle, rallying the troops, as it were. You grab the standard, blow the horn, shout the battle cry, and everyone on your side gets to roll a little bonus initiative die. It's a way of giving charismatic fighters a sort of clerical ability. (I'm always looking for ways to make clerics unnecessary. Sorry, cleric fans.)

So, is this already a thing in a game I haven't heard of? Is there a flaw to it that I'm missing?

It sounds like it could be a good system. I like fatigue mechanics.

Your initiative roll shouldn't be generic. Faster or more energetic characters should do better. Generic would really bug me.

I like the idea that the value is like the tide of the fight but I wonder if it would be really that much a difference in a David vs. Goliath fight. As long as the bigger guy can take the first hit, the fight will still go to him because you're just trading blows. It might be cool if you could spend initiative points to get another attack that turn.

The dice for initiative would definitely vary from character to character.

I envision it being able to tip the scales as much as a really good damage roll or two.

I like it, and here's an alternate I'm considering using for my game (assuming, of course, you don't mind).

Initiative is rolled and added to a base number (this base number reduces the fact that there are 1-3 dice being used and makes things a little more level). The base number is based off of a character's speed after traits, carrying weight, and the like are applied. This includes fatigue. The dice are based off of a character's speed (probably agility with a potential to use intelligence instead with a certain trait) attribute (for the game I'm working on, 1-800-Regime Change, this is 1-3 d6 dice that can, potentially, explode on 6's).

Once initiative is rolled, it serves two purposes; it is used to determine who goes first, but it can also be spent in the time between rounds to add to dodging, or on a character's turn to aid combat (i.e. aiming). The spent initiative replenishes every turn, but the same roll lasts for the whole battle (though rerolls can be done using Guts, which basically is a pool of dice that can be rerolled, allowing the player to try to get a better initiative result). In addition, every point of initiative spent makes you go that much slower the next turn; essentially you get last turn's initiative to determine when you move and then you get your current turn's for spending on stuff, which will potentially drop your speed on the next move.

My main concern with your system as written is that damage only occurs after initiative is finished; I'm not sure what you're working on, but the system works much better for prize fights than gun battles, something that makes it

This could work really well for a cinematic system, especially from the same sort of time period as The Three Musketeers and the like. Add lots of abilities which allow a player to turn the tide of battle, and... wow, what a great idea.

How do you handle ties?

I judge all initiative systems on this one detail. You could decide that ties cause people to act simultaneously, or it might be as arbitrary as the order clockwise from the gamemaster. Just please don't rely on a roll of the dice, because that method might produce a tie again.

As for the objection by kylesgames above, the initiative system works for assassinations because the damage goes directly to hit points. Now, a non-lethal surprise attack is much more difficult. Unless, of course, you decide to roll initiative for every surprise attack, in which case assassinations become more difficult. No system is perfect.

Part of the reason I feel it works well in my more traditional simulationist style game is that it effectively allows people to elect to adopt a stance-health, damage, and the like all function independent of initiative, but since initiative allows them to choose to be more accurate (doing more damage) or more evasive (taking less) it lets them make up for weaknesses or avoid further injury if they're already on the brink.

I'm probably not going to put initiative into the health system of 1-800 Regime Change (other than the chance to dodge or redirect the blow into some body part that's less vulnerable/important), since most things that hurt a mercenary are already things like bullets or knife wounds that aren't really capable of being shrugged off.