What is your way for doing Initiative?

This should be a poll

We roll every round, makes things exciting. We use Roll20 to track initiative (we play in person, but with Roll20, a lot faster!).

James Grover said:

So far then you guys are using only one roll for the entire encounter and simply repeating the order every round?

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Yup.

I use my own system.

First, let me explain what I wanted:

• Order to change round to round
• A sense of the chaos of battle
• Something really fast

What we do is this:

First round, everyone rolls initiative as per the normal rules, but only the highest roll matters. That person (or monster) "anchors" the initiative. They go first every round.

Everyone else is completely random, rolled by me, behind the screen. No modifiers, no Dex, nothing.

So, for instance, if I have six combatants (enemies of the same type are grouped as one)...

Start of combat: Everyone rolls initiative, the rogue wins. She goes first. Everyone else is on a list alphabetically.

As the rogue's turn ends, I roll a d6 (rerolling sixes, since there are only five "slots" besides the rogue). If I get a 4, the fourth person on the list goes.

I'll switch to a d4 (since there are now only four combatants who haven't gone), roll again toward the end of the next person's turn, and so forth. Nobody can go again until we're back to the top of the round; that is, nobody gets an "extra" turn.

Since I'm doing it all and there are no modifiers, it's not really any slower than not rolling. Nobody but the "anchor" goes at the same time every round, so it's unpredictable, people have to pay attention, and it feels more chaotic.

Yes, it makes Dex mod a tad less valuable, since the only person it actually helps initiative is whoever rolled highest, but let's face it, Dex can stand to be a tad less valuable.

LordEntrails said:

It depends on the players. I have one player who is a damn near genius. If we don't shuffle initiative and I don't do anything crazy with the NPCs and he can predict the other players actions then by the end of the first round he can pretty have the entire encounter resolved in his head.

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That's... really not that difficult. The uncertainty in combat is not in guessing what the other participants will do, trebly so if you know the player. The uncertainty is in how successful their actions will be. The vast majority of combatants actions in D&D will be unchanged in any given encounter regardless of initiative with the sole exception of the first round (i.e., when spells are likely to be their most potent).

It's not that I don't like the default initiative or think it's flawed, I just have trouble keeping track of the list. I'd entrust it to another player, but every one of my players is bad at it too.

What I do is shuffle and deal out playing cards (54 cards, jokers included) in front of each player (and one for each group of monsters/NPCs). Highest goes first, reverse alphabetical suits if tie. Once someone acts, they put their card in a discard pile; or if readied action, flips their card over. Deal cards out again at the beginning of each round. Once a round ends in which a Joker has been played, shuffle the discard pile back into the deck before dealing the next round. Yes, I lifted it from the Savage Worlds system. I like doing it this way because I (and everyone else) can immediately glance around the table, see who's going in what order, how many people have acted that round and how many are left, etc. without consulting a table.

It does make Dexterity less important a little, but it's used elsewhere so much that I don't think it'd be too badly missed in this one instance. Interactions with other systems so far hasn't come up at my table, such as anyone wanting to take the Alert feat.

I prefer to roll every round to make initiative matter more, but it doesn't actually play out well, since it takes up more time. It also makes Dex more important, which a lot of people take issue with.

One thing I would recommend if you do this is to have all effects end at the end of the next round. Meaning that a high initiative might have a duration of 2 rounds, but a low initiative will limit it to 1;I considered it to the end of the current round, but that makes a lot of abilities useless if you roll low.

Maxperson said:

Rolling every round takes virtually no time if you do it right. We have one person track initiative. When a person is done with his turn, he is asked to roll for the next round while the next player it taking his turn. By the time you get to the last player, that player is the only one who has not rolled yet and it takes all of about 2 seconds to roll and get his initiative.

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I can see how that might save *some* time, but it's still going to slow the game down a little bit, as the person tracking the initiative will still have to call for everyone's new initiative rolls at the start of each round and then reorganize the list, which is slower than just saying, "OK, new round, back to the top, X is up." And we may be talking seconds here, rather than minutes, but they still add up over the course of a session.

I run two games. One game consists of relative newbies who still struggle to take their turns quickly. My other game has six players in it. Anything that slows down combat is not worth bothering with in my book.

I have them roll Initiative for the first encounter. I also allow players to delay their Initiative and thus change the order (as it was in 4E). All subsequent encounters for the session use the same Initiative. We can have up to 8 players, so we like to save that time.

I've experimented with having a player manage initiative (write it down, call out turn order), but it takes away a bit of the mystery of it all. This is the same group that begged me to use a DM screen so I could roll in secret, too.

Outsourcing initiative can save on crucial DM brain capacity, but it's also a bit of a crutch; taking a more deliberate approach to rolling initiative can help a lot as well. Having two minutes of dice-rolling and number-shouting mania after I say 'roll initiative' can be a bit much.

I like Mearl's Greyhawk initiative idea he put out awhile back, but I changed it up a little bit. You roll a die based on your DEX and INT scores every round, modified by weapon and armor type. The DM immediately begins taking the monsters' turns, but can be interrupted by anyone who rolled lower AND is ready to take an action. I like this system because we can immediately get right into the action, everyone is paying attention on when's the best time to take their turn, and it makes combat feel more "real time" and exciting. There is nothing I hate more than waiting for what seems like forever to get to my turn again after just going (especially after a miss).

I've played through two campaigns this way (DM and as a player) and haven't noticed any timing issues yet, but will keep an eye out for them.