How many initiatives is too much?

[DragonLancer]

If I have a band of (say) identical Kobolds/NPC's then they all act on a single initiative, but I roll their attacks and damage seperate. Unique leaders get their own init roll.

 

[Bloodstone Press]

We usually divide it up based on location or CR, depending on how many there are.

 

[KB9JMQ]

Groups each get a roll and leaders normally get their own roll.

 

[rvalle]

We roll one die for each mob type.

But... I had a problem with that in one battle.

We were attacked by ninja gnomes (or something along those lines... they could 'hide in plain sight'). Each round a pair (I think there were 4 total) would bracket a pc and they would get sneak attacks off. Every time we tried to bracket them, they would 5 foot step out of it.

At first I could not figure out why we where having such a hard time with these guys... and then it hit me. They were all going on the same init roll! They could super-cordinate their attacks in a way that we were having a hard time doing because of our random init order.

Now, on one hand its annoying that it happened this way. On the other you could say it was because they were so well trained they could pull this sort of thing off.

Anyway, in cases like the above where a small group of bad guys gets a large advantage for flanking/postion you might consider rolling for each one.

rv

 

[Duncan Haldane]

At first I could not figure out why we where having such a hard time with these guys... and then it hit me. They were all going on the same init roll! They could super-cordinate their attacks in a way that we were having a hard time doing because of our random init order.

I definately see this as a problem. If all monsters (or a large enough group) act together, and get the jump on the PCs, it could turn it into a one round TPK. OTOH if you have a single roll for a group you could end up with them all acting last in a round which might be end of combat right there.

If I had 20 monsters of the same type I would probably break them into groups of 4 or 5. What I might do in that case is use dice to indicate each group, for instance using 4 red D6s for one group, 4 black D6s for another, with the face up number on each dice to indicate number of that creature.

But most of the time I give a roll to each. For example on the weekend I was running a fight with 8 small critters. I put down 4 red D6 and 4 black D6, each numbered 1-4. Then I picked up 4 D20, and declared the roll order (red, white, blue, black), and used that to set the initiative for each. I use init cards, with number barriers (index cards in a card box, I use a set of dividers I found which are for a calander month, and that indicates the initiative value). By rolling the D20s that way I didn't end up with number 1 is first, 2 second, in initiative, which I don't like (because you have placed them in such a way that those ones going first are in a better position to go earlier, for example).

If the creatures are supposed to be randomly spread throughout an area (if they are unaware of the PCs, for example), then I like to roll the dice onto the map to show where they are.

I like Mike Mearl's suggestion of taking 10 for initiative - Mike, if you try it out, let us know how it goes.

I would hate to play in a game where all monsters in a fight rolled a single dice for initiative - far too high a chance of having them all go before the PCs.

Duncan

 

[The Shaman]

I've been leaning towards using static initiative for my monsters lately. Basically, I assume a monster rolls a 10 on its initiative and then add in its modifiers. That saves die rolling, makes things more predictable for me as DM, plus gives monsters an interesting dimension ("Oh no, kobold scouts! Those guys are super-fast!")

I've done this a couple of times - the predictability gets old pretty fast, IMHO.