Taking Initiative: Streamlining?

[MonkeySage]

Until recently, I would always roll initiative for every single enemy, but recently got into a game where they take initiative differently.

If I have 5 ghouls, I roll initiative for each one. This has presented problems in the past, and I've sought out ways to streamline the process, like for example rolling enemy initiative before the game starts, and counting enemy and player initiatives separately. In this method, Players roll their initiatives, I roll mine, and to settle any ties, we roll 2 d20s, the highest roll wins all ties.

But this new game that I joined, the Dm rolls initiative once for each type of enemy we're facing: if we're fighting 3 ghouls and 2 shadows, he'll only roll initiative twice- Once for the ghouls, once for the shadows.

So which of the three is best?

[Vhaidara]

For face-to-face games, my groups generally go with Everything that uses the same statblock goes on the same initiative. So if you have three ghouls, a drow necromancer, and a drow diviner, the enemies go on the counts of "Ghouls", "Necromancer", and "Diviner". Class-based adds (animal companions, familiars, mounts) act with the player bringing them in.

For PbP, I'm partial to the DM simply rolling all initiatives, since it eliminates the need to wait on everyone to post before the first person gets to go.

[DJroboninja]

Yeah, I've always played that groups of similar creatures act on the same initiative count -- you have enough numbers and statistics to deal with without having to worry about which of the nine skeletons acts at which point.

Similarly, as Keledrath said, it really streamlines things for companions, summons, and other PC allies to act on the initiative count of the PC that brought them to the fight.

I've always played face-to-face, so I can't speak for PbP games

[Curmudgeon]

I use individual initiative for everything. However, I roll it before the game starts so I don't slow down game play.

[jjcrpntr]

I use individual initiative for everything. However, I roll it before the game starts so I don't slow down game play.

I do a mix of both. I do monsters in groups or if the players are fighting a large group I'll split it in to 2 or 3 smaller groups. Then I roll init beforehand.

[Milodiah]

I tend to group initiative for enemies and friendly NPCs tactically. Last encounter saw a chain devil sic a bunch of hell-hounds on the players, and the hell-hounds all shared their median initiative score while the chain devil was a separate entry. However, I avoid situations where it would be "and now the bad guys' turn", I make sure there's never a single solid block of hostiles.

Also, as for friendly NPCs...it's become a running joke in the current dungeon that the dwarven Darkrunners they bumped into are completely ADD and get distracted by shiny objects when initiative gets rolled, simply because I have a bad habit of forgetting to put them on the list.

So now I've pretty much taken to grouping them and writing DWARVES at the bottom of the order chart and hoping I don't somehow miss that.

[LTwerewolf]

I use individual initiative for everything. However, I roll it before the game starts so I don't slow down game play.

I do this. At the start of each game I have a list of prerolls (actually rolled with dice, not dice roller) and simply go down the list. Usually have around 200 done (and almost always go through them all). This makes it take about 4 seconds to do all monster initiatives with their own initiative.

Also invest in whiteboards if you're not doing pbp. They're amazing. Have several 10x20's that we pass out to players. I use two when I dm, one for combat one for secret messages and such, and the players use them for a number of things, secret messages to dm included.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

Online chat-based games have the advantage of automation. For instance, roll-20 has an initiative tracker where the DM could just type #Init, then add baddie initiative rolls, and have the order prominently displayed for everyone to see. This can partially overcome the speed/coordination disadvantage of chat-based games over live games... sometimes players just don't live in the same continent.

[HighWater]

I preroll enemy initiative individually and plug it into a chart that counts down from 30-something to -10, I then add the players at their respective positions when they roll during the actual game (I'm still doubting between highest modifier wins or 2nd roll without modifier wins as a tie-breaker). Players are responsible for making sure I don't forget about their animal companions and summons (same turn as owner)...

If I expect a tactically complicated situation, I might group the enemy high rollers and low rollers by geographical location...

[jjcrpntr]

Also, as for friendly NPCs...it's become a running joke in the current dungeon that the dwarven Darkrunners they bumped into are completely ADD and get distracted by shiny objects when initiative gets rolled, simply because I have a bad habit of forgetting to put them on the list.

So now I've pretty much taken to grouping them and writing DWARVES at the bottom of the order chart and hoping I don't somehow miss that.

My NPC's all have serious ADD because they'll go almost entire encounters without doing anything. I'm good at putting them on the initiative list but I always forget to have them act. Which is fine because generally speaking they don't do anything unless the party is really f'd up, or I want to throw a harder encounter at them.