baradtgnome
First Post
Let's say it's the 5th round of combat. If there was no surprise, you might see an initiative order like:
Enemy 1
Player 1
Player 2
Enemy 2
Player 3
Enemy 3
The players and enemy actions are interleaved. However, if there was surprise in the first round, the fifth round would still look like
Enemy 1
Enemy 2
Enemy 3
Player 1
Player 2
Player 3
This means that the three enemies can hit a single player before any player has a chance to respond, and vice versa, even deep into the combat. Combat becomes very swingy,
Basically, interleaved actions leads to more interesting combat, and the surprise rules makes it very likely that the resulting combat will not be interleaved, but rather group sides together.
It is a fair concern, but many DMs will not feel the additional overhead of having managing multiple enemy initiatives will be worth it. IME it is very common in all versions of D&D for DMs to just have the enemy go on a single initiative step most of the time.
There is also another view point which says smart combatants will work together for advantage and combats ARE 'swingy'. Some see this as desirable. I do not agree that interleaved actions are more interesting. They are different. What is interesting to me is mixing it up; some interleaved, some not. Each might require different tactics to be successful, or might evoke a different feel for combat. For example, interleaved might feel more chaotic and be more appropriate for conditions where the DM wants a bit of confusion spawned chaos. While bunched initiative might better represent an organized combat fought by trained soldiers.