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This is something I've used in a couple battles of my Age of Ashes campaign, and it has been very well received by my players, so I thought I'd share it here. The idea is to give certain creatures - it works especially well with giant solo monsters - a more dynamic, chaotic battle style to really sell how massive and destructive they are.
Giant Monster Initiative
A creature with this ability does not act on its rolled initiative. It still rolls initiative normally for the purpose of e.g. determining when its reactions recharge, when the duration of effects counts down, or when it takes persistent damage, as well as to determine when its multiple attack penalty resets. At the beginning of combat, the creature cannot act at all until its rolled initiative.
From then on, instead of acting on its rolled initiative, the creature takes a single action at the end of each PC's turn. It cannot ready actions or hold its initiative; however, it can take multi-action activities by spending an appropriate number of actions over the course of multiple PC turns. In that case, it is often obvious after the first action that the creature is preparing some sort of complex or powerful assault; however, it does not have to make any choices related to the activity until the final action. If circumstances change by then such that the creature is no longer able to use the activity when it would take the final action, the actions spent preparing are wasted but it can choose a new final action.
If a creature with this ability becomes Stunned, it simply loses the appropriate number of actions (or rounds worth of actions if it is stunned for a duration), starting from when it becomes Stunned. If it is Slowed, then it loses actions starting from its rolled initiative each round until it has lost actions equal to its Slowed value. As usual, if it is both Slowed and Stunned, then each lost action counts towards both. If the creature becomes Quickened, it takes the extra action on its rolled initiative.
Sounds interesting! Might make for more dynamic boss fights, especially those without minions. The only downside I see to this rule is that there is less benefit for having initiative bonuses as a PC, although that is already circumvented a bit by not having the creature act until its rolled initiative.
Also curious how this would scale with different numbers of PCs. With only 1 PC, the creature would be 3 times worse than with standard rules. With 4 PCs, the creature is 33% better than with standard rules. With 3 PCs there's no big difference, except that fights would be less swingy. This would all need to be taken into account.
Sounds interesting! Might make for more dynamic boss fights, especially those without minions. The only downside I see to this rule is that there is less benefit for having initiative bonuses as a PC, although that is already circumvented a bit by not having the creature act until its rolled initiative.
Also curious how this would scale with different numbers of PCs. With only 1 PC, the creature would be 3 times worse than with standard rules. With 4 PCs, the creature is 33% better than with standard rules. With 3 PCs there's no big difference, except that fights would be less swingy. This would all need to be taken into account.
For what it's worth, my campaign typically has 5 players and it didn't seem to throw the balance too far out of whack. Maybe made the fight a little harder, but the extra actions are a bit balanced out by the PCs being able to act between each action, which means they can be a bit more proactive.
Seems to actually make the monster a little less likely to get kills, since instead of having to survive a full attack routine, PCs only have to survive one action at a time and then the next PC can try to do something to interrupt the monster or heal their ally.
As noted in the ability, it's rolled initiative is used to determine "when its MAP resets".
The actions it takes still count as "during its turn" and still suffer MAP; it would be scary OP otherwise.
I thought about this recently, but my solution may be a little more specific to my situation.
I am converting Wrath of the Righteous to 2e and approaching an Encounter with a Mythic Chimera. I was thinking of rolling initiative giving a turn to the Dragon head, then giving a second slot for the lion head at initiative -10 with 2 actions. Finally, the Goat head will get a third initiative -20 slot with 1 action.
I like your management of the multi-action activities here. Good way to telegraph a big boss strike is coming.