Monster Initiative

[ExploderWizard]

It depends on the game system. For turn based systems I break up groups into manageable sizes and named NPCs each get their own turn.

For older systems, I use side based initiative with phasing re-rolled each round.

 

[TerraDave]

As per most everyone else.

When doing PBP however I tend to group the advesaries.

 

[jonesy]

If the stats are identical I group them together. (Or mostly identical)

But I sometimes have a habit of taking a few of them out and giving them different initiatives just to make the players think there's something going on there.

 

[Stoat]

I play using a VTT that automatically rolls initiative for each individual combatant and then tracks it, so that's what I do. When I play face-to-face, I usually roll initiative for each group of monsters. So if the PC's were fighting 10 orcs, 1 ogre and 1 orc warlord, I'd roll initiative three times.

 

[Sammael]

If the stats are identical I group them together. (Or mostly identical)

But I sometimes have a habit of taking a few of them out and giving them different initiatives just to make the players think there's something going on there.

This.

 

[Dausuul]

Mostly I roll by stat block. I have been known to roll for all the monsters at once, especially with a lot of players at the table. If there are just a couple identical monsters, I might roll for each individually (but probably not).

 

[webrunner]

I find rolling for "groups" to be rather unfair, because it ensures a bunch of similar (probably close together) monsters get to all act at the same time. By the time one orcish mauler or whatever acts, the players don't get to use that information on the other orcish maulers before they finish mauling for the turn. Spreading them out keeps the round fresh and fair, instead of "orc hits you with a sword and misses, other orc hits you with a sword and hits... 12 damage. other other orc hits you with a sword and misses" every round.

Also, to save "time" and bookkeeping at the table, pre-roll initiative. Very few cases the players can change monster initiative and if they can you can just change it with a pencil. If the number is going to be the same at the table anyway why not save the whole step? Note: there are some new solo monsters in 4es with pre-set multi-initiatives, so you can do that. I had a homebrew robot hand monster which had three initiatives and could do a given power once each per turn (one for each finger), that acted on 10, 15, 20.

 

[howandwhy99]

I roll by faction, which means everyone the PCs face in an encounter could share a single initiative to every monster has an individual initiative.

To be fair, the PCs are rolling by faction too. They can group up to roll initiative, or form subgroups for multiple initiatives, and any or all could be factions of 1.

The last has become bog standard for most groups.

 

[Festivus]

If I am pen and paper strictly, I use one per stat block. If I have my laptop with me, I would roll once per monster (within reason -- too many monsters makes this tedious)

 

[KidSnide]

I generally use once per stat block, but the real rule - from my perspective - is to break the NPCs up into the right number of blocks. As a GM, I want fewer initiative counts than the PCs, but I want enough to break the PCs up into 3 or 4 groups.

With 6 or 7 PCs (my usual group size), I end up breaking the NPCs into 3-5 groups. With a typical 4e encounter, breaking things up by stat blocks works well. However, it's also common to break a large set of similar monsters into two groups, or to group an artillery/controller/leader along with the creatures guard/pet/minions.

-KS