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Message: <blockquote data-quote="KarinsDad" data-source="post: 2922109" data-attributes="member: 2011">Sure. Assuming I have no bugs in my program (Orcs have Dex 10), it comes out (truncated to 1/10th of one percent) with Improved Initiative being the right hand column:Beat 4: 27.5 47.5Beat 3: 19.9 19.4Beat 2: 19.9 17.3Beat 1: 19.0 11.6Beat 0: 13.5 03.9I also calculated for this case how many extra Orcs the Wizard would beat using Improved Initiative over not using Improved Initiative on average given the exact same rolls:Beat 4: 00.1Beat 3: 01.9Beat 2: 12.3Beat 1: 34.8Beat 0: 50.6This is more telling than the previous data here. Half of the combats, you do not beat a single extra Orc. In other words, half of combats like this, the initiative order is exactly the same (with respect to the PC and the NPCs, not the PC and other PCs). This is why I state that Improved Initiative is overrated. Half of the time with this example, it does not really help at all (except maybe by beating another PCs init).A third of the time, you beat one extra Orc. And an eighth of the time, you beat two extra Orcs. You beat three extra Orcs one combat in 50+. You almost never beat all four Orcs (when you would not have beaten any of them without Improved Init).And, most of the data above in the "Beat 4 Improved Init" case comes from the "Beat 3 no Improved Init" case. Ditto for most of Beat 3 II coming from Beat 2 no II, etc. In other words, the data often tends to shift up one extra Orc.So, like I mentioned earlier in this thread, you tend to beat (less than) a single extra opponent. In this case, the average works out to 0.652 extra opponents that you beat (i.e. not even one on average).Granted, the more opponents you have, the more Improved Initiative will average closer to one opponent or even more. With 4 Orcs in this case, it was 2/3rds of an opponent on average. With 20 Orcs, it would be closer to 3 or 4 extra Orcs on average.Btw, you can see how rolling the Orcs in a group totally increases how worthwhile Improved Initiative is by this data. You will often (1 time in 5, 70% versus 50%) beat all 4 orcs with II over not beating them with no II if you roll all 4 Orcs in a group. This happens less than 2 times in 1000 if you roll individual initiatives.</blockquote>

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