Monster Initiative

[Beginning of the End]

Since the days I started with BECMI, I've always aggregated NPC initiative. I used to roll just once for all the NPCs, but over the past few years have gradually migrated to a "once per stat block". (So if I've got a lich, 3 ogres, and 8 orcs I'll roll once for the lich, once for the ogres, and once for the orcs.)

It's never really occurred to me to do it any other way, but over the past couple of weeks I've talked to several people who say they've always rolled initiatives for each individual creature. (So in that same scenario, they would roll 12d20 and keep track of each score independently.)

So I'm curious to see what people's actual initiative-tracking habits are. And if you do track every creature individually, how do you handle the record-keeping overhead (which seems like it could get rather prodigious)?

 

[Corathon]

One roll per side - but I'm playing an older edition of the game where that is the rule.

 

[Ahnehnois]

On the occasion that I have generic monsters with one stat block, I will sometimes group them under one initiative to save time. Typically, I have more detailed statblocks and roll everyone separately.

 

[the Jester]

Generally one roll per stat block type.

However, if an encounter is with (for example) 25 decrepit skeletons, I might roll three initiatives for them to break 'em into groups.

Also, if the party is fighting a group that includes a goblin sharpshooter and two more sharpshooters join the fight several rounds in, I'll almost always roll a separate initiative for them too.

 

[Hussar]

What The Jester said. In 3e, I would likely only roll one initiative, but that's because most of hte combats I ran were pretty small. In 4e, I've been making much larger combats, so, a few rolls means that there isn't this huge bolus of DM action in the middle of things.

 

[IronWolf]

I tend to group things together. I may break larger groups into multiple rolls (i.e. 6 bandits get two rolls, three in one roll and the other three in another). If the number of melee combatants are small in number I might roll for each of them. Or I might roll for the "named" bad guy and the minions as a separate group. I pretty much go with what feels best for that particular encounter and go from there!

 

[Lanefan]

... I'm playing an older edition of the game where that is the rule.

Ditto, but we long ago house-ruled that everybody gets their own initiative, re-rolled each round; and that goes for the monsters too. And if you (or a monster) gets more than one attack per round, each attack gets its own initiative.

If there's dozens of monsters I'll batch 'em together into groups; or if there's quite a few monsters with multi-attack sequences I'll roll just one die for each monster and it gets all its attacks at the same time, then when the numbers thin out I'll fine-tune it down to individual attack init's.

Note that we use d6 for initiative. The above does not work well at all if you're using d20; I've seen it tried. It can work, sort of, if you use d10 instead of d20 and just divide all the bonuses/penalties in half...but it's still a pain.

Lanefan

 

[Oryan77]

I usually do 1 roll per stat block. If I have around 10 or more of the same creature, I'll split it up and do a couple different initiatives for that group.

I really think doing 1 init for a big group of the same creatures is pretty harsh on the PCs. I realized this the hard way recently when I gave the players the option of having me roll 1 init for a group of 10 Flameskulls, or divide them into 2 groups of five and roll 2 inits. They told me to do all 10 at once.

Then when I realized that 10 fireballs are coming at them all at once, I just had 5 of them cast fireballs & 5 of them cast Ray of Exhaustion in the first round to give them some sort of break (2 players are kinda new to D&D). It didn't matter though, by round 2 when the other 5 got off their Fireballs and the PCs were still huddled together within the same 20ft radius, I dropped the cleric and the sorceress teleported everyone out of the room (and she had a teleport mishap that killed the unconscious cleric).

I think next time I'll split up the initiatives.

 

[PoorHobo]

I voted once per stat block, that's when I gm things. Our current GM runs one initiative and not only is there a long period where none of the players are doing anything he focuses fire on PC usually taking them down in the first round. It feels like I'm playing Final Fantasy.

 

[Krensky]

Once per PC or NPC. Tracking depends on the venue. My Spycraft game typically has a dozen values to track and I use a laminated copy of the fluid initiative tracker. My Fantasy Craft Rise of the Runelords game though has 12 PCs and NPCs (Animal Partners, Personal Lieutenants, and a Prize) so will typically have 24 or more characters to track (a standard mob is equal in size to all the characters on the player's side). For that game I have a spreadsheet with an initiative tab. It also handles damage and condition tracking. I think the record in that is 32 characters.