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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Philip" data-source="post: 1557090" data-attributes="member: 10993">You are correct, random is random. But this is to say: 'if you game long enough and go through many encounters with randomness (as the PCs do) even rare events will happen.' There will be a time when all the enemies in a difficult battle are the last to act in one round and first to act in the subsequent round. At that time PCs will be killed because they are unable to respond. I don't know of any properly played dragon in a challenging encounter who will not kill a single PC when given two rounds of full attacks, for example.I think you still suffer from the cyclical initiative fallacy. Going last in the first round (when rolling initiative once each combat) is effectively going first in the second and each subsequent round. Initiative only matters in the first round, really!When I played 3.0 I used small cards with the characters and monsters names on it, which I laid openly on the table so that every could see the initiative order. Whenever somebody used Refocus I purposely placed them at the end of the initiative order, just to make a point. Some players would complain, because they said they wanted to be first to act, not last. I said it they WERE first to act. It didn't make any difference between being first the next round or last this round: that's why its called cyclical. It took a lot of sessions before some players got the point and gave up using Refocus and just delayed or readied instead when they wanted another place in the initiative order.Players who roll badly for their character are never penalized 'for the whole combat'. They are just penalized the first round. When rolling initiative each round, they might possible roll badly more than once per encounter, so your method actually penalizes your players more. Although your method probably gives the players the illusion of having an advantage or 'correcting' a bad roll, so it might be psychologically more satisfying, and the game is about having fun after all.</blockquote>

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