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Message: <blockquote data-quote="FormerlyHemlock" data-source="post: 7020801" data-attributes="member: 6787650">In practice, I've never had it happen where they want to spend a few minutes planning. They're always more eager to declare actions to me and I'm swamped because I'm trying to process their action declarations at the same time as deciding my own action declarations for all of the monsters on the board. (Sometimes I therefore offload tracking action declarations onto a player and let HIM tell me when everyone has declared.)But if they did want to spend a few minutes planning and talking, I know how I would handle it: treat that as a virtual conversation that happened between PCs during downtime (i.e. assume that adventurers spend lots of time doing contingency planning and tactical exercises) and allow it, but still apply the rules as normal. If the players decide that Bob (Int 11) is going to tackle the Int 19 Mind Flayer while Rod (Int 20) casts an Evard's Black Tentacles to restrain it, they still have to declare Bob's action before the Mind Flayer will commit to any action itself, because it thinks faster than Bob does.In practice I don't force the players to actually, physically declare actions in order (and you see some of that in the OP as well) as long as the results are equivalent to declaring actions in order. If Rod says "I Dodge" and Bob says "I tackle it" and then Rod says, "Oh wait, then in that case I cast Evard's Black Tentacles instead" I'm fine with Rod changing his action in response to Bob's action.In answer to your second question: I don't keep track of exact Int scores, only relative Int scores. E.g. I know that Nox has a very high Intelligence (16 or 18ish) and Jandar's 9 is the lowest in the party, so if I'm using Int 7 orcs I just declare their actions first, and if I'm using six Int 11 Duergar and an Int 17 Drow Mage I have Jandar declare first, declare the Duergar's actions, and then ask Nox if he's smarter than Int 17. (In case of ties I'll either just declare first for convenience, or else both declare simultaneously without knowledge of the other.) Next round I won't have to ask again because I already know.In practice, knowing that lowest PC Int is often sufficient because I prefer when possible to use low-Int monsters that can be killed out of hand without social ramifications or moral misgivings. Setting up conflicts worth killing for between PCs and other humans is more complicated than "there's a hole in the ground with treasure and a basilisk guarding the treasure. What do you do?" (I oversimplify but you get the point.)</blockquote>

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