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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Nyeshet" data-source="post: 2938137" data-attributes="member: 18363">I suppose I'll play Devil's Advocate in this.My group has long rolled for initiative each round. At one time, when we learned that our method was apparently in the wrong, we considered changing to the 'standard' method. However, every player that had (or had previously had) a high Dex character was against it. A poor roll can negate a lot of the benefit of the high Dex character's initiative. If the battle is long, it just means that the penalty for a chance low roll is not balanced out later. Typically the high Dex characters have the best initiative. Even if they roll low initially, the chances are that later rolls will be higher - that on average they will do better in their initiative. Granted, most of my players like to play high dex characters: duelists are more common than heavily armored fighters, and barbarians often have a high dex since the players tend to think that rage will balance out any 12 they happen to place in Con or Str. Casters often have Dex as their medium score (ie: not among their lowest two abilities, nor their highest of course) due to the benefits to AC, reflex saves, and - yes - initiative. Battles are longer - sometimes notably so, but in the end the group decided to keep rolling initiative every round. It mixes things up a bit, allows high dex PCs a better chance of coming first on average, and it only takes a few seconds to roll and tally the next order of actions. I can understand why some would prefer only rolling once, but at least in my group the benefits are seen as outweighing the penalties.</blockquote>

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