How many initiatives is too much?

[Oryan77]

How do you handle initiative rolls when you have multiple NPC's in an encounter?

Let's say you have 20 low lvl NPC's fighting a higher lvl group. Do you roll out all 20 initiatives, divide them in groups of say 5 and roll only 4 initiatives, or just do a group initiative?

What about rolling for attacks? How many NPC's does it take until you tell yourself, "I need to start using a mass combat system"?

Each mass combat system I've read up on just seems like WAY too much work to calculate outcomes in an encounter for smaller groups of like 10-30 NPC's. It almost seems like less work just pre rolling initiatives/attacks/damages before the game. I just can't find a KISS system for mass combat without learning an entire new set of technical rules.

 

[Lorgrom]

We have a seperate initative for each type of creature and any NPC leader types.

 

[Mark CMG]

Often I will just have all of the NPCs/Creatures as one roll, perhaps even ignoring separate bonus scores. Sometimes I'll just have the leader of a group separated. Sometimes I'll break it up by initiative bonus, where several might be faster than the rest, or slower. Sometimes, if the party has bitten off a bit more than it can chew, I'll just allow the PCs to all go first and then grind them up into . . . Well, ya know.

 

[ruleslawyer]

One roll per side is plenty for me. D20 combat is random enough without adding further "chaff" in the form of different init rolls.

 

[WayneLigon]

Usually I'll look at the type and position of the creatures. If there are 20 kobolds and 10 orcs, each type gets an initiative roll. If there were 10 kobolds to the south and 10 kobolds to the west and they were not coordinating their moves, I'd roll three initiatives.

Special NPC's get an initiative roll all their own. If it's 30 orcs, an orc ranger and an orc wizard, the 30 get one roll and the two specials get their own roll.

 

[mearls]

I've been leaning towards using static initiative for my monsters lately. Basically, I assume a monster rolls a 10 on its initiative and then add in its modifiers. That saves die rolling, makes things more predictable for me as DM, plus gives monsters an interesting dimension ("Oh no, kobold scouts! Those guys are super-fast!")

I haven't tried this in play yet, but I'm thinking of using it as a house rule. PCs would still roll.

(I've also lately had the crazy idea to combine that with an action point system - everyone gets 12 points, spend X points to move 1 square, spend Y points to attack, until you're at 0 points. I've even thought of making multi-round actions a little more robust - a spell that takes 1 round to cast requries you to spend up to 6 action points on one action to start it, then another 6 on your next action to finish it. I suspect these rules are a little more complex than they need to be, but it might work in campaigns that focus on smaller numbers of attackers on each side.)

 

[Keith Robinson]

Often I will just have all of the NPCs/Creatures as one roll, perhaps even ignoring separate bonus scores. Sometimes I'll just have the leader of a group separated. Sometimes I'll break it up by initiative bonus, where several might be faster than the rest, or slower. Sometimes, if the party has bitten off a bit more than it can chew, I'll just allow the PCs to all go first and then grind them up into . . . Well, ya know.

Yeah, this is what I follow... mostly (I never just let the players go first!). Generally, I'll keep everything under one roll, though I'll sometimes roll seperately for powerful NPCs or if the Ini modifiers are wildly different. Also, those that come in later in the combat will have their own slot in the initiative order.

 

[Orryn Emrys]

I use DM Genie!

Seriously... this kind of combat tracking was the biggest reason I chose to move into "laptop DMing". I used to avoid large-scale combats like the plague, just so I wouldn't have to keep track of so many combatants and their initiatives. Now it's a cinch.

Incidentally, the use of initiative cards, with character and monster stats on individual cards on which their initiative roll was noted, helped immensely. Just keep 'em in order, and it doesn't really matter how many of them there are.

 

[Angel Tarragon]

One roll, modified by dex and initiative improvement each monster/opponent has.

Plus, I use CMGs Initiative cards.

 

[Alhazred]

We have a seperate initative for each type of creature and any NPC leader types.

Ditto.