Liquidsabre
Explorer
KarinsDad said:
Try that with 15 bad guy orcs, 10 bad guy ogres, and the two bad guy goblin adepts flying wyverns and you'll see what he means about headaches.
Improved Initiative and the wizard
- Thread starter pressedcat
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Try that with 15 bad guy orcs, 10 bad guy ogres, and the two bad guy goblin adepts flying wyverns and you'll see what he means about headaches.
Ridley's Cohort
First Post
Weaker NPCs delaying is actually highly realistic.
If you are an Orc facing a knight in shining armor across the room, you would likely hesitate unless you thought your comrades were charging in with you.
If you are an Orc facing a knight in shining armor across the room, you would likely hesitate unless you thought your comrades were charging in with you.
Liquidsabre said:Try that with 15 bad guy orcs, 10 bad guy ogres, and the two bad guy goblin adepts flying wyverns and you'll see what he means about headaches.
If you read the entire post, I did mention that it is ok to break groups up into smaller groups. The point is to have a certain amount of randomness / distribution and not have them clumped together in big groups in the initiative order. With your group here, you could do 3 orcs in a group, 2 ogres in a group and 2 bad guys for a total of 12 groups.
But, quite frankly, it is all about organization. DMs who have good organizational skills will not think this is any big deal and ones who do not, will.
You still have to go through every single NPC initiative, regardless of what it is. If you roll all the orcs as a group (or smaller semi-groups), you still have to move around the board in some fashion and have them act and not forget any of them and not do any of them twice and if a semi-group breaks up their location (e.g. one at one end of the board, two at another end, some more at a third location), you still have to make sure you remember which NPCs are in the semi-group, if a semi-group has one NPC who readied or delayed, you still have to move his initiative, etc. Similar organizational issues occur.
Just this last Sunday, I had 50 Hobgoblins, a few of which are special, against the party of 6 PCs and 2 NPC cohorts. No problem at all. No headache. The players did laugh at how thick the stack of cards was getting. And in this case, I did not roll initiative except for 4 hobgoblins. On round one, a new hobgoblin came in (from a considerable distance, so they did not actually fight on round one, just approach) after every two other cards (PC or NPC), so 18 total combatants after round one. On round two, a new one came after every card. So, 36 combatants after round two, 54 after round three, and all 58 early on round four. This emulated them stopping what they were doing, grabbing weapons, being awoken from a nap, etc. I also have a description of each orc (with colored stars on the miniatures, but numbers on the miniatures works better) and put an indicator on my sheet down when an orc approached as to direction (e.g. nw, sw, etc.). That way, I roughly know which part of the board the orc is on and can generally find him in a matter of a second or two.
But, no problems. No headaches.
So for our group, the "headache example" you listed above is a cakewalk.
It is only a headache if you make it one by how you handle it. If you are organized, the initiative order is no big deal. You still have to go through every NPC every single round, decide what they do, roll if necessary, and determine results.
If you have 50 similar orcs and want them all to act on round one, assign two of them an init of 1, two a 2, two a 3, etc. That's 40 orcs and then just roll for the other 10 orcs. 10 rolls instead of 50. You do not have to roll for all of the orcs, you can assume a certain amount of statistical average. Nobody really cares after round one anyway.
Ridley's Cohort said:
PC spell casters delay a lot as well, especially at lower levels. Why waste a valuable spell if the fighters can handle the situation? Why cast a spell on two opponents when it sounds like more are approaching, etc.?
This happens a lot in our game. Many PC spell casters delay maybe an average of once per combat and often earlier in combat when the situation is not always totally clear. So, Improved Initiative doesn't quite help a lot in those situations.
Ridley's Cohort
First Post
KarinsDad said:
While I agree that in the average combat it does not make a big positive difference -- ergo I agree it is overrated, to my mind Improved Initiative is a hedge against the unusual run of luck in the Spot/Listen/Initiative rolls before combat begins. Smart PCs do not die because of average luck. They die because a run of luck on the extreme tail of the distribution curve. Improved Initiative reduces the size of that negative tail, and as icing on the cake it substantially improves your odds of getting that devastating alpha strike in before your opponent has time to flinch.
Therefore it is a solid choice for high offense, low defense PCs.
Nail
First Post
I found that Impr. Initiative was valuable once my Clr was above 14th level. By that time my buffing potential was substantial and I had abilities to help move my friends around to advantageous positions and I had a few "Nuke 'Em!" spell combos that worked best if I went first.Ridley's Cohort said:
Even so, after winning initiative I would often delay until right before (or right after) a fellow party member's turn. Many really killer tactics work with that kind of set-up.
Nail
First Post
Which method is correct?KarinsDad said:
Sticking with the same problem -->
Assume the Wiz has an Init +1, and the Orcs +0. If the Wiz rolls an 18 (for a total of 19 Init), the Orcs must roll a 20 to beat the Wiz. (The Wiz wins ties.) That's a 5% chance per Orc for an Orc to win. Or a ~19% chance for at least one orc to win. (1 - .95^4)
The chance of both the Wiz rolling an 18 and yet at least 1 of 4 orcs beating him is ~0.9%. (~19% * 5%)
Liquidsabre
Explorer
To be accurate: "If you read my previous posts, I did mention..." as I see you did mention breaking them up into smaller groups in a previous post (that I hadn't noticed) and not the one I quoted from.KarinsDad said:
My statement was simply that an individual index card for each creature out of a lot of 30-40 is probably not the best way for handling numerous opponents in combat. Breaking them up into groups of the same initiative is definately the way to go here, as we see most DM's do.
Anyhow, back on topic:
Another call for grease as one of the most versatile 1st-level spells for any mage! I shy away from mage armor and shield at first level, instead spending those precious few spell slots on other spells and just play extra cautious/always behind a party member. After you gain some XP try to scribe some emergency and utility scrolls to supplement your relatively low number of spell slots. Expeditious retreat for an escape scroll, protection from evil as an emergency defense scroll (hedge outsiders, suppress mind-control, extra AC), magic weapon for those cases where a beastie appears resistant to mundane weaponry, ray of enfeeblement to weaken those big stong hitters you come across, and of course more grease and a few extra shield spells when you definately need more defense.
Along with wielding a light crossbow, I also like to go with Point Blank Shot and Precise Shot feats for my low-level mage. This also makes the mage good at ray attacks and, while within 30-ft of a foe, those 0-level ray of frost/acid splash/etc. spells deal 1d3+1 dmg, nearly as much dmg as a magic missle at 1st level.
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Ridley's Cohort said:
It is a hedge. But, it really matters little in the long run.
Wizards tend to be "well protected" in parties anyway. So, the PC Wizard going first in a round slightly more often means that he may sometimes (for example) Fireball the opposition first. However, since Fireball rarely kills any opponents on round one (unless the DM throws an NPC arcane caster with low CON against the PCs), it does not really prevent the opposition from counterattacking. In fact, it can cause the opposition to counterattack solely against the PC wizard until he is dead.
On the other hand, if a Wizard goes later in the round, that not only gives him time to analyze more of the situation (ah ha, 5 orcs came out of the woodwork, not 1) and pick a more appropriate spell, but it also tends to focus enemy attacks more on PCs that have already damaged or threatened the NPC opposition. The Wizard tends (at least if the DM is playing fair based on NPC knowledge) to often not be a threat until he casts his first spell.
A Wizard going first or early can also result in enemies running past the PC front line while it is flatfooted in order to attack the Wizard. If one or more frontline PCs go earlier than the Wizard, then not only will NPCs tend to engage them first, but if NPCs do try to run past them once the Wizard casts his first spell, then the frontline PCs are not flatfooted as often and threaten any NPCs trying to get past.
And, there are a lot of indoor enclosed situations where the Wizard cannot do anything, even if he does win initiative. For example, in many dungeon (or cave) situations with corridors (or tunnels) and doors (or doorways), the PC Wizard cannot always see into a newly opened room anyway. So, going first means he will just delay a lot of the time or at best cast a defensive spell which may or may not be needed (e.g. he could cast a spell and then the fight is over quckly and he was never truly threatened).
Improved Initiative is an ok choice for high offense low defense PCs, but I would not call it solid. There are a lot of other better feats to choose from. The problem with Improved Initiative is that it rarely affects the overall outcome of combat. There are just too many other variables. Beating one additional opponent out of six enemies on average rarely makes or breaks a combat. It is lucky if it "saves the day" one combat in ten.
Wizards (even low defense ones) do not die in round one. They die in round four when some enemy finally gets to them and can beat on them (or cast spells on them) for a round or two.
