D&D 5E Handling Initiative

[Umbran]

If all monsters have gone already, it doesn't matter what order the remaining players go in.

It can matter for any instance where something lasts "until the beginning of your next turn". Allowing a change in order can allow someone to take advantage of, or avoid, certain effects. I haven't seen any such effects in Basic, but it is a pretty common construction.

There is another fine detail. Technically, you can't just hold your action for later. What you do, when your turn comes around, is take the Ready action and then use your Reaction to do what you wanted to after the trigger. But, you only get one reaction per round. So, using it to act out of order can cost you - sure, you can delay your action, but then your Shield spell won't be able to protect you later that round, and you won't be able to take an Attack of Opportunity.

 

[Boarstorm]

I just run it RAW. It's never been an issue and I don't feel like it really slows things down at all.

I usually just jot the numbers on whatever sheet of scrap paper is on hand.

 

[Uller]

I use the note card method. If I have a large goup of like monsters I divide them into groups so I end up with a similar number of groups as pcs and roll for each group. I have each group act almost like a unit...these 3 orcs move here and attack here....I dont like group initiative because a single good or bad roll can have a tremendous effect on the battle.

 

[Ainamacar]

I wrote a small program about a decade ago for initiative/condition tracking. It replaced physically rolling initiative for us, and changing the turn order manually was just drag and drop anyway. The impetus to write it, however, was so our 3.5 group could roll initiative every round without wasting time at the table. Changing the order every round was something our group really liked, it kept us on our toes. Rerolling was a non-starter in 4e due to power design, of course, but that was no reason to stop using the program.

 

[TerraDave]

RAW 3E and 4E allows combatants to hold for latter or ready action for latter. This can lead to shifting initiative, so you need something, like cards or a magnetic board, to allow for that.

RAW 5E does not seem to allow for that. Initiative is rolled, and that is it. Ready action is there, but does not shift the order. Upside is that it should make tracking initiative a lot easier.

 

[Viking Bastard]

This is generally why I like using group initiative, rolling once for each faction in the fight. Most of the time there are two sides but sometimes there are more (especially if the fight is joined later by more monsters or PC allies).

It is also why I usually discard initiative modifiers and use that factor instead to modify the chances of and effects of surprise.

I do the same, my group much prefers it to cyclical initiative (if only for ease of tracking), and it creates a rather different dynamic to fights that I like.

But do you (or anyone) have any idea what effect it might have on 5e?

It mostly worked fine in 4e, except it sometimes messed with PC powers (or more accurately, their effects), making them noticeably more or less powerful.

 

[Uller]

I do the same, my group much prefers it to cyclical initiative (if only for ease of tracking), and it creates a rather different dynamic to fights that I like.

But do you (or anyone) have any idea what effect it might have on 5e?

It mostly worked fine in 4e, except it sometimes messed with PC powers (or more accurately, their effects), making them noticeably more or less powerful.

I think the effect in 5e could be a bit profound. DPR:hp ratio is larger (or so it seems, especially as levels go up) in 5e. A hard encounter against a large number of monsters gets much harder if all the monsters get to go before any PC can act and much easier if all the PCs get to go before any monster can do anything.

I don't think it's game breaking by any means (even with individual init, it is still fairly common for one side to go entirely then the other)...it just means that playing smart, gaining/avoiding surprise and being in a good defensive position at the start of combat are all more important.

 

[Umbran]

It mostly worked fine in 4e, except it sometimes messed with PC powers (or more accurately, their effects), making them noticeably more or less powerful.

As noted above - it would mean that sometimes folks could get a reaction that they'd not get if you were running it RAW.

It would mean that some spells could be made to persist just a touch longer than they would otherwise - a cleric could then choose to concentrate on the Bless spell until the end of the round before replacing it with another concentration-spell, for example.

 

[GX.Sigma]

I've been doing the "roll once for all the monsters" thing, and while it speeds up play, it has some serious problems.

The most relevant is dying. If a character is dying, another character can heal him if he's at a higher initiative. If no one heals him before his turn, he doesn't get to take a turn. So, the exact initiative order suddenly becomes very important.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Even in finely-tuned-action-economy 4e, I and other DMs I know sometimes let players juggle order a bit. One such variant is to let PCs who roll the same initiative decide, round by round, which one goes first. Sometimes I take it further, and use a de-facto group initiative where the folks who beat the monster(s) (who I just roll one initiative for) go first in whatever order they want, then the monsters go, then all the players go in whatever order they want. With a /really/ large group I don't even do that. We roll initiative and the character with the highest initiative (or I, if a monster wins - yeah, if one monster wins, they all win) goes first, then we go around the table from there. Not 'fair,' but fast & simple to track.