Don't make me roll for initiative.........again

[Goldmoon]

You misunderstood me. They can vote you out as DM for that campaign and vote somebody else in for THAT group. If you choose to play in that same group, it is up to you.

Sure, you can go DM a different group, but the first group can still vote you out as DM. It doesn't have to be a formal vote, it could just be a refusal to play in your game.

Surrender your torch....the tribe has spoken.

 

[Warmage-in-Onley]

I wholeheartedly agree. And, I'm not sure if Storm Raven means to take this one step further, which I do. I use prerolled initiatives. I roll inits for all NPCs prior to the session (more than enough, maybe 3-4 of them). I make the PCs roll inits for the characters prior to the session, given their default modifiers. They give me maybe 15-20 rolls, written at the top right of the card (where all the NPCs inits are written on their respective cards). Prior to any encounter I have the cards presorted.

When an encounter starts, there's no rolling, no shuffling, no sorting. It's an immediate impact of, "Okay, Verilia, you go first, what do you do?"

That undeniably creates the most interest because players have to act/react without pause.

If a player's init changes, I already know it because they would have had to inform me that they casted a buff spell (e.g. cat's grace), and thus I take that into account.

I'm a little confused... does this allow a player knowledge of his init roll before combat takes place? If so we have a metagame problem of a player knowing that a lousy (or great) init roll will be used in the encounter, which may allow the PC to determine when to use init modifiers (the spell Nerveskitter comes to mind). I'd like to avoid a prescient change of tactics based on prescient initiative.

 

[Storm Raven]

I'm a little confused... does this allow a player knowledge of his init roll before combat takes place? If so we have a metagame problem of a player knowing that a lousy (or great) init roll will be used in the encounter, which may allow the PC to determine when to use init modifiers (the spell Nerveskitter comes to mind). I'd like to avoid a prescient change of tactics based on prescient initiative.

Only if they can remember the 10-15 prerolls they made that night, and the order in which they made them, and the DM doesn't use and of those rolls for any other purpose (like to resolve secret Spot or Listen checks, Knowledge checks, Search checks, and so on). I have considered using this system of prerolls in my current campaign, but haven't gotten around to it yet.

 

[KarinsDad]

I wholeheartedly agree. And, I'm not sure if Storm Raven means to take this one step further, which I do. I use prerolled initiatives. I roll inits for all NPCs prior to the session (more than enough, maybe 3-4 of them). I make the PCs roll inits for the characters prior to the session, given their default modifiers. They give me maybe 15-20 rolls, written at the top right of the card (where all the NPCs inits are written on their respective cards). Prior to any encounter I have the cards presorted.

When an encounter starts, there's no rolling, no shuffling, no sorting. It's an immediate impact of, "Okay, Verilia, you go first, what do you do?"

Verilia: "I'm going to the bathroom before we start this long combat. I'll be right back."

That undeniably creates the most interest because players have to act/react without pause.

If a player's init changes, I already know it because they would have had to inform me that they casted a buff spell (e.g. cat's grace), and thus I take that into account.

This seems like overkill. The rolls are still made, the cards are still sorted. It just happens at the beginning of the session instead of the beginning of combat.

But, whatever works for your game...

 

[Infiniti2000]

I'm a little confused... does this allow a player knowledge of his init roll before combat takes place? If so we have a metagame problem of a player knowing that a lousy (or great) init roll will be used in the encounter, which may allow the PC to determine when to use init modifiers (the spell Nerveskitter comes to mind). I'd like to avoid a prescient change of tactics based on prescient initiative.

No, they cannot remember the roll and they do not know the order in which I write down the values on my cards. They may recall that they have rolled a '1', but they will have no idea which encounter it will be used.

I also considered using a list of d20 rolls and taking them for Spot checks and such, but I haven't tried that yet. I think it'd be better because then they wouldn't see me roll for Spot checks on the fly.

Hmm, maybe I'll do that later this year when we swap DMs again (right now, I'm a player).

 

[Infiniti2000]

Verilia: "I'm going to the bathroom before we start this long combat. I'll be right back."

She's pregant atm (due Sept), so this is not far off.

This seems like overkill. The rolls are still made, the cards are still sorted. It just happens at the beginning of the session instead of the beginning of combat.

But, whatever works for your game...

Well, of course, it has to happen somewhere. This just lessens the impact of the non-RP related stuff at the beginning of a combat. Fwiw, my players love it and I strongly recommend it. You'll still have to resort prior to the next encounter (unless you use the same initiative for a session), if you have a second encounter, but I find that that can easily be done during a bathroom break or what have. At worst, you do it immediately prior to the encounter as you normally would--and you gain little (no rolling).

 

[KarinsDad]

Only if they can remember the 10-15 prerolls they made that night, and the order in which they made them, and the DM doesn't use and of those rolls for any other purpose (like to resolve secret Spot or Listen checks, Knowledge checks, Search checks, and so on). I have considered using this system of prerolls in my current campaign, but haven't gotten around to it yet.

It seems like a lot of work to write down 10-15 prerolls for every single PC and NPC cohort and presumably fewer for each NPC opponent.

In our game, that would be 70 to 105 rolls written down just for the PCs and the NPC cohorts alone, let alone for the NPC opponents. Plus, you still have to cross them off and modify those numbers when you use them anyway.

It just seems like an excessive amount of drudgery work ahead of time to save a few seconds later on each time or to not let a player know how well he rolled on a skill check or a save or whatever. Life's too short to be so particular over that kind of stuff.

 

[Goldmoon]

No, they cannot remember the roll and they do not know the order in which I write down the values on my cards. They may recall that they have rolled a '1', but they will have no idea which encounter it will be used.

I also considered using a list of d20 rolls and taking them for Spot checks and such, but I haven't tried that yet. I think it'd be better because then they wouldn't see me roll for Spot checks on the fly.

Hmm, maybe I'll do that later this year when we swap DMs again (right now, I'm a player).

I have a set of cards that I can hand out at random. Ill have a player roll a d20 and hand him a card that says "You notice a rogue attempting to pick the pocket of (characrer name). Or another card that might say "This card intentionally left blank". Just to keep them from knowing anything is happening for sure.

 

[Infiniti2000]

It just seems like an excessive amount of drudgery work ahead of time to save a few seconds later on each time or to not let a player know how well he rolled on a skill check or a save or whatever.

Actually, when you do them all at once, it's undeniably faster. You have to do it anyway, so you might as well speed it up. When you don't do it all at once, you are taking the overhead and spreading it out.

And, remember that I said that it doesn't just speed things up, it (for lack of a better word) "cleans" up the game from a minor amount of (necessary) metagame discussion (init rolls, writing them down, sorting). IMO, it improves combat by strengthening the impact of a start of encounter. The start of an encounter is IMO the most important, noticeable, and engaging part of the encounter.

So, I think this method is a great improvement and I encourage you to try it for a few sessions. If then you still don't like it, no big deal. It definitely works for me.

 

[Storm Raven]

It seems like a lot of work to write down 10-15 prerolls for every single PC and NPC cohort and presumably fewer for each NPC opponent.

In our game, that would be 70 to 105 rolls written down just for the PCs and the NPC cohorts alone, let alone for the NPC opponents. Plus, you still have to cross them off and modify those numbers when you use them anyway.

Well, I currently have six PCs and one NPC in the party, so that would be exactly 70-105 rolls. But it doesn't take that long to do them. If I were to use this, I would just put them on index cards and attach them to the DMs screen with paperclips for easy reference.

It just seems like an excessive amount of drudgery work ahead of time to save a few seconds later on each time or to not let a player know how well he rolled on a skill check or a save or whatever. Life's too short to be so particular over that kind of stuff.

Most of those skill checks should be rolled by the DM in secret anyway., so you are going to be doing the work in any event.