The current system is fine conceptually, the real problem is the lack of reward/incentive from having the better initiative since the game forces the other team to go after the best guy. There needs to be another reason to have high initiative outside of going first such as cooldown reduction, maximum AP, Recovery AP or similar. Could also make it so characters with higher initiative have a bonus vs characters with lower initiative such as a higher chance to hit/crit them, a lower chance to be hit/crit by them. Alternatively replace The Pawn with another effect and make that the effect of initiative instead, giving the higher initiative characters some free movement each turn. Lowest initiative gets zero bonus and everything higher gets free movement ap based on how much % higher they are. Example - Lowest initiative is 20, highest 40 and rest 30 the 30 initiatives get 1/2 an ap of free movement, the 40 1 full ap.
My preferred solution would be to make it a stat that decides the effectiveness of CC effects instead of the current system of how armour no matter how little is able to block everything. As much as I like CC protection existing the current binary nature of how CC and other status effects work makes combat far duller than it should be.
