Encounter with multiple initiatives

[Albions_Angel]

Hi all. I was wondering how I should approach a situation where my part encounters a group of enemies with differing rolls and initiatives. From years of Warhammer, my instinct is to break up the encounter into several groups of enemies and go with either average or highest initiative for each.

For example, I hit the party with an encounter containing 2 leaders, 3 archers and a caster. My gut instinct would be to say that the leaders go together with the highest of their initiative bonuses, the archers go together and the caster goes on his own, and I make an initiative roll for each group and then slot them in to the initiative rota like that, so that the leaders move on the same turn, the archers fire on a different turn and the caster... does whatever a caster does in combat on a third turn.

Thoughts?

[Troacctid]

Your instincts are good. It's typical for monsters of the same type to move on the same initiative.

[Geddy2112]

Yes, always treat groups of the same thing as the same for rolling initiative. Roll once, call it that for all the group. If they are different in any significant way, then roll separately for each "group". Some differences such as HP or other stats might slightly different, but the guards with axes and swords can all be melee guards, while the crossbow and longbow guards can be ranged guards, etc.

[Unseenmal]

I agree with Tro and Geddy but only for different groups of foes like you have here. I do the same. Similar groups go on the initiative for that group but I don't roll for each NPC and average...I just roll once for each group using the highest INIT modifier. Otherwise, it can bog you down in minutiae.

But you'll notice that 90% of the time, initiative only really matters for the first round...after that it degenerates into party goes, foes go, party goes, foes go, repeat until one side is defeated.