Solo Monster Initiative

[stamhaven]

I have a vague memory of some design and dev articles talking about 4E solos using two initiative rolls but can't find any rules to that effect. I had chalked it up to a delusion or abandoned design parameter, but the most recent
October and Beyond alluded to that same design concept in the bit about dragons:

Taking a cue from Wizards of the Coast minis games, designers took the straightforward route, giving dragons and other solo monsters multiple turns each round. A whole suite of immediate actions makes a dragon a dynamic foe.

So am I missing something and solos get to roll initiative twice and some sort of multi activation similar to the minis game or is this just a refrence to them often having standard actions that involve multiple attacks?

Stamhaven

[Paradisio]

Originally Posted by stamhaven

I have a vague memory of some design and dev articles talking about 4E solos using two initiative rolls but can't find any rules to that effect. I had chalked it up to a delusion or abandoned design parameter, but the most recent
October and Beyond alluded to that same design concept in the bit about dragons:



So am I missing something and solos get to roll initiative twice and some sort of multi activation similar to the minis game or is this just a refrence to them often having standard actions that involve multiple attacks?

Stamhaven

It's the latter. Elites and solos typically have abilities that grant multiple attacks even if they aren't really multiple actions (action points aside).

Edit: Ettins aside

[Zsig]

Yeah, Ettins works like that, 2 initiative rolls and such... I think it's quite interesting.

[Benimoto]

Originally Posted by Paradisio

It's the latter. Elites and solos typically have abilities that grant multiple attacks even if they aren't really multiple actions (action points aside).

Worlds and Monster, IIRC, has a section where they talk about how they abandoned that concept. When they had multiple initiative rolls, monsters' turns tended to "clump" either through simple coincidence, or whenever either the players or the monster used any kind of initiative-changing action, like readying or delaying. The end result was that the multiple initiative counts were kind of waste of effort.

It's still in place for the ettins, since it makes sense for them, but overall, it's not the default way solo monsters operate.

[Plane Sailing]

It might have been mentioned in the 'rethinking the beholder' article some time ago too

[Tallarn]

I'm really looking forward to using an ettin, purely because of the 'twin initiative' idea that they put on it.

Wonder if Demogorgon will have the same mechanic?