I'm running a game with seven PCs and I have a penchant for large battles. Faced with the nightmare of tracking initiative for everyone, I started wondering what the point was in the first place. After the surprise round, it seemed to me that between delays and other actions, the party could rearrange its initiative order anyway.
Long story short, I ended up just abandoning the whole idea. We went back to AD&D style where each "side" rolls a d10 and whichever rolls low gets to go first. If a GM wanted to stay more true to D20 they could instead try to roll high on one of those, I guess. This works for multi-party battles, too, since I also like three-ways occasionally.
Surprise rounds are handled by common sense, with perception checks where necessary.
When the PCs go, they decide amongst themselves what order they'll be going in. They all go, then the other side goes.
Two major results:
1) Combat moves faster and with a lot less bookkeeping.
2) Instead of sitting around waiting for their number to come up, the party gets involved in deep collaboration involving what to do. There's much more of a teamwork dynamic going on, as everyone gets to pitch in on strategy for the round. Some DMs might not like this because of the whole "it's combat, you don't have time to talk about this" thing, but I find that it gets everyone more involved and they have a better time.
Oh, and obviously, the PCs have stopped spending feats on improving their personal initiatives.
I'm happy it works for you. Personally, I wouldn't complain if I came in to a game using such a houserule, but it's not something I would ever do as a DM.
Voiding a number of feats/traits is one reason. Mostly though I don't see the need. The order everyone goes in has never seemed to cause a bog down in games I've been involved in, or at least not to the point that I've ever felt something needed to be done about it. In my games everyone rolls, adds up their numbers, and we write it down on a dry erase board with enough room that when people delay or refocus (not sure if that still exsists, but it does in my game) and one of the player's keeps a good eye on the order and tries to keep me honest. It's people not looking up what a spell/feat/manuver does until it's their turn that slows things down for us...but that's a seperate issue.
Also, the way you do things further weakens the rogue a little. Or rather, further weakens sneak attack. Having a high initiative and catching people off guard before their initiative count comes up on the first round of combat is how sneak attack gets used most often in the games I've played in.
I moved to a "table" initiative tracker and use one initiative for monsters, two if there are multiple monster groups. For instance, in most encounters I might look at a group of four similar monsters and roll once and have them all go on that count. Sparingly, I roll separate initiatives for stronger or more prominent monsters, or monsters who have very high initiatives if they're paired with others with very low initiatives. Most of the time I just roll once with the highest modifier, or the "boss" modifier if they're close (+3 vs +5, +4 vs +6)
We used to use your method, but once we learned the table method its worked fine for us.
Table method is like...
The players, all 5, are seated at the table with the DM at one end. Like this.
````` Player
```````.-.
` Player | | Player
```````| |
` Player | | Player
~~~~~`-`
~~~~~ DM
They roll initiative, which is, for the players, 2, 4, 6, 8 and 18. The GM rolls init and gets 20.
The GM then busts out a wet erase marker and draws the table. It now looks like this.
`````` 18
```````.-.
````` 4 | | 6
```````| |
````` 2 | | 8
~~~~~`-`
~~~~~ 20
Easy to track, very little note-taking necessary. If someone delays, cross out their number and put a new number next to it. As init goes, the number at that location at the table goes. No need for like a scratch list like this,
Elric the Kind Hearted 2
Forsooth the Knave 4
Bob the Barbarian 6
Cleric of Rollington
I'm Playing an Inquisitor 11
Goblin 1 4
Goblin 2 8
Goblin 3 11 dead
Goblin 4 12
Goblin 5 13 dead
Goblin 6 4b
Goblin Boss 20
which is what we did for a long time.
I roll initiative for all the monsters separately, even if they're a large group of similar creatures. For larger groups, I use numbered markers on the board so I can track individuals according to their number.
I've never liked having all the players act, and then a five minute break in their action while I roll results for 15 orcs, then it's the players turn again, then the orcs, etc.
With enemies interspersed between the players, it gives everyone a chance to plan their actions, and gives the battles a more hectic and chaotic feel instead of having a big monolithic phalanx of enemies acting once per round (Unless, of course they are coordinating their actions and really ARE attacking like a big monolithic phalanx, in which case the enemies would all be on the same initiative).
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Ive done alot of methods over my decade-ish of rpging.
Weve done the regular method, the 'whoever rolls highest and clockwise around the table' and the reverse of that, and a couple others, and the every single monster on a different number thing.
i dont particularly like the OP suggestion. No offense, but I think it would take longer for my group than they do now with the regular method.
I do like Ice Titan's idea though. might have to try that out next time I DM.
I'm running a game with seven PCs and I have a penchant for large battles. Faced with the nightmare of tracking initiative for everyone, I started wondering what the point was in the first place. After the surprise round, it seemed to me that between delays and other actions, the party could rearrange its initiative order anyway.
Long story short, I ended up just abandoning the whole idea. We went back to AD&D style where each "side" rolls a d10 and whichever rolls low gets to go first. If a GM wanted to stay more true to D20 they could instead try to roll high on one of those, I guess. This works for multi-party battles, too, since I also like three-ways occasionally.
Surprise rounds are handled by common sense, with perception checks where necessary.
When the PCs go, they decide amongst themselves what order they'll be going in. They all go, then the other side goes.
Two major results:
1) Combat moves faster and with a lot less bookkeeping.2) Instead of sitting around waiting for their number to come up, the party gets involved in deep collaboration involving what to do. There's much more of a teamwork dynamic going on, as everyone gets to pitch in on strategy for the round. Some DMs might not like this because of the whole "it's combat, you don't have time to talk about this" thing, but I find that it gets everyone more involved and they have a better time.
Oh, and obviously, the PCs have stopped spending feats on improving their personal initiatives.
I still do individual init.
I have the players track init for me.When I used a large set of monsters I split them into groups.
Seems to make feats like improved initiative useless as well as few traits. Not really problem as you can choose not to take those but the Inquisitor has class feature allowing the adding of wisdom to dex for initiative. Can't really choose not to take that.
One fix though I can think of is to still use initiative but total up the each sides and roll adding the bonuses. So one side might have initiative of 12 and the other 8. Each side rolls and adds the up the results, highest side goes first.
I go in the opposite direction.
I have players roll initiative every round. Any abilities that normally allow initiative to be rerolled work for one combat per use.
I break enemies up into groups and roll their initiatives each round.
For many character, it's a big deal to win initiative against enemies. And they invest into initiative. I don't want to take that away from them. Plus, I like how in 3e, your strengths and weaknesses mean something. Flat rolls go against that.
I go in the opposite direction.
I have players roll initiative every round. Any abilities that normally allow initiative to be rerolled work for one combat per use.
I break enemies up into groups and roll their initiatives each round.
I have seen other posts with this idea. Does the extra rolling slow the game down since you have to redo init every round, or is it not enough to matter?
I always roll initiative for PCs indidividually and then break up monsters/npcs into rational groups like NPC helping the party, the goblins, the goblin captain, and the goblin priest all on different initiatives.
I do this because the old style of ADnD of 2 sides just rolling invalidates alot of things that have developed since then. There are lots of abilities and options out there that depend on going first for instance. So a rogue who really wants to get off that first sneak attack while everyone is flatfooted, a straight even d20 rolls for 2 whole groups isn't particularly fair. Neither is it fair to that evoker who would want to get a shot off at the enemies while they are all bunched up, or the buffer who wants his defensive buffs in place before the chaos of battle starts.
I personally like rolling every round best of all but dont do it because it is too cumbersome, but I would never abandon the initiative roll for each character and groups of npcs for each combat.
I have seen other posts with this idea. Does the extra rolling slow the game down since you have to redo init every round, or is it not enough to matter?I go in the opposite direction.
I have players roll initiative every round. Any abilities that normally allow initiative to be rerolled work for one combat per use.
I break enemies up into groups and roll their initiatives each round.
I haven't seen it take any appreciable more time. It usually takes only a second to roll, and because I always start at 30 and work my way down (got into the habit of doing that running Shadowrun for years) it seems to work pretty well. Plus it means one bad roll doesn't hose you for combat.
I have considered, if I wanted to speed things up, just doing a 'take 10' approach to init, and letting anyone with 'reroll' init abilities add +5 to their init instead when it's used. But I haven't actually tested that to see how it works.
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I have tweaked initiative in my home game and have since seen the house-rule spread from my personal game that I DM to one I play in, and 3 that I dont that involve my players.
It is as simple as removing the roll from initiative and assuming that everyone init mod is simply their init. This goes for monsters, PCs, NPCs, Traps, everything. The first benefit is that twitchy, jumpy, reactionary PCs get the advantage to go first almost every time, something that is often defeated by poor or good rolls. For ties I usually arbitrarily decide who goes first for my own convenience. The last benefit of this is that it keeps players from metagaming when approaching an encounter, especially when they are going into or setting up an ambush. It gives the players the feeling like they are always in initiative because... well they are. I even let it (If the timing comes up) effect things like social interactions, looting order, and so forth because these kinds of traits logically spill over.
I just don't see any reason to complicate things with more rolls, although in safe rooms when someone declares a search of the room I typically encourage taking 10's or 20's as well if that says anything.
Like Kolo, enemies that are statted the same share an initiative count. PCs START on individual initiatives, but it's very common for all the PCs to be on maybe two initiative counts by mid-combat due to delaying to cooperate.
Usually I take 10 for monsters, othertimes I assign groups and roll especially when there is a large number with the same initiative modifier or simply assume reasonable resuts like 3 groups of orcs at 5, 10 and 15.
I always let the players roll though.
I switched to something similar to the OP when I had 7 players plus myself. Players roll initiative and so do the monsters. Since I do a group initiative for the monsters I just tell the PC's what number to beat. The players with high initiative rolls go first in any order they want. Then the monsters and then all players go together. It sped things up a bit and promoted cooperative play. Players jumped in whenever they were ready.
Ive used this method with some success for 6 months or so. I've recently lost players and I'm down to 5 including myself and am now debating making initiative changes.
I have seen other posts with this idea. Does the extra rolling slow the game down since you have to redo init every round, or is it not enough to matter?I go in the opposite direction.
I have players roll initiative every round. Any abilities that normally allow initiative to be rerolled work for one combat per use.
I break enemies up into groups and roll their initiatives each round.
I haven't seen it take any appreciable more time. It usually takes only a second to roll, and because I always start at 30 and work my way down (got into the habit of doing that running Shadowrun for years) it seems to work pretty well. Plus it means one bad roll doesn't hose you for combat.
I have considered, if I wanted to speed things up, just doing a 'take 10' approach to init, and letting anyone with 'reroll' init abilities add +5 to their init instead when it's used. But I haven't actually tested that to see how it works.
Probably unrelated:
My GM does a countdown from 30 to make sure people pay attention. If you miss your number then your init drops to where ever you answer at.
Probably unrelated:
My GM does a countdown from 30 to make sure people pay attention. If you miss your number then your init drops to where ever you answer at.
I do the same, unless I just missed you saying it (backed up by other players).
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I've done 'team good' vs 'team evil' and individual initiative and 'fixed' initiative (everybody takes 10, the guy who goes first is pretty much always gonna go first, and the party learns to plan accordingly).
I prefer individual or fixed, although critters of identical type (10 orcs) all go at the same time.