Is it just me...or do all monsters have insane initiative?

[Stalker0]

My group has done its fair share of mumbling and grumbling about monsters that have higher attack rolls and do more damage than we do...but for the most part we've moved past that.

One thing we are noticing though, is that monsters seem to have REALLY high initiatives. We are 1st level, and many of the things we fight have +5-+7's in their initiative.

While initiative is not as important as it used to be, pretty much everything we fight goes before the rest of us, and when your ambushed that can be a lot of attacks before we can go. So is it we have picked all the super fast monsters in the PHB, or do monsters just tend to have big inits?

 

[hong]

The +1/2 level counts for init.

 

[Zurai]

The +1/2 level counts for init.

Which does nothing to explain how the average initiative for a level 1 monster is 4.

 

[Dog Moon]

Some monster types also have a bonus to initiative, like the Skirmisher, iirc, gets +2 bonus.

 

[Yaezakura]

It's probably the fact you're simply picking fast monsters. Shifty, agile enemies like kobolds, goblins, bandits, etc tend to have pretty high Iniative modifiers. But if you started looking at low-level Zombies, they have negative modifiers.

Their speed is one of their balancing factors. They go fast because they're not very durable, so to be a threat, they need to act first. And if the PCs are always getting ambushed, there's something amiss more than Initiative modifiers.

 

[Saeviomagy]

While initiative is not as important as it used to be, pretty much everything we fight goes before the rest of us, and when your ambushed that can be a lot of attacks before we can go. So is it we have picked all the super fast monsters in the PHB, or do monsters just tend to have big inits?

So far my group hasn't noticed being out-initiatived at all. Our initiatives range from a +1 to a +9. Admittedly we do have a warlord (boosting us all by +2).

Having a flick through the monster manual +5 to +7 is definately on the extremely quick side of things. At level 1, only the fastest kobold (out of the kobolds) is doing that for instance.

 

[shadowguidex]

Lurkers get a +4 bonus. Skirmishers get a +2 bonus. Soldiers get a +2 bonus. (DMG 184).

All monsters get their Dex modifier, plus half level, plus role bonuses as shown above, and all of them work out correctly with that math in mind.

 

[pogminky]

Yeah, low-level humanoid monsters (Kobolds/Goblins) seem to go first.
That's why you need a 20 DEX Elf Ranger/ Halfling Rogue with Impr. Init.