Quick little question!

[Zaetar]

Is the order of the monster turns information that i can hide from the players?

Example: there are 3 skeletons but they dont know which one is skeleton 1 or 2 or 3. So they dont know which one is the one that goes first or last.

Or do i have to tell them which one goes after who?

Edit: We roll initiative on every turn. It's not so tedious as many think, once you get used to it you just roll it and thats all.

[Crake]

Technically, according to the dungeon master's guide, enemies of the same type are supposed to run on the same initiative order. That combined with the fact that normally after the first round of combat it doesn't matter means the rules won't really help you out much here.

Since this is a houserule, it comes down to how do you want it to work. As the DMG2 says though: "[...] they might present good arguments against your proposed changes. Hear them out." (that book has a surprisingly large amount of good reading material for any new DM actually). Make sure your players are on board with your idea, don't force it upon them.

[NevinPL]

You're the DM, so you can do anything.
Of course there are consequences, and doing things that annoy your players, are against their will, isn't a good idea.

Last group I did almost all the rolls, even some for the players, to keep the "suspense" alive, and because I prefer they do the role playing not roll playing.

[Curmudgeon]

Technically, according to the dungeon master's guide, enemies of the same type are supposed to run on the same initiative order.
Where exactly does it say that?

[Crake]

Where exactly does it say that?

Ah, sorry, it was the phb, page 136 "Monster initiative", at the bottom of the right column. I will note that I don't actually abide by this and have every character roll their initiative separately, as I feel it otherwise makes it too easy to "alpha strike" players by having perfectly co-ordinated enemies and no chance for PCs to respond to actions throughout the round. Over the course of a few rounds, more organized groups may delay/ready actions to bring their initiative closer together, but I definitely don't start combat that way.

I did however find the following quote in the DMG (along with where it actually describes the variant you're using, didn't realise it was an official variant):
"Don’t write down the NPCs’ places in the initiative sequence, at least not until they have acted once—the players shouldn’t know who’s going to act before the enemies and who will act after. It’s too easy to plan actions around when their opponents act." (DMG page 24, Keeping things moving, last 2 sentences) so take that as you will I suppose.

[Curmudgeon]

Ah, sorry, it was the phb, page 136 "Monster initiative", at the bottom of the right column. I will note that I don't actually abide by this and have every character roll their initiative separately, as I feel it otherwise makes it too easy to "alpha strike" players by having perfectly co-ordinated enemies and no chance for PCs to respond to actions throughout the round.
I always use separate initiatives for the enemies. Each of them gets their own index card with basic stats and their initiative in one corner; I have those already sorted in that order before the game starts. When players roll initiative they pencil in their initiative counts in the corners of their own index cards and hand them in; I interleave the PC cards with those of the enemies in initiative order and just run through the card stack in sequence until the encounter is over.

[Zaetar]

Ah, sorry, it was the phb, page 136 "Monster initiative", at the bottom of the right column. I will note that I don't actually abide by this and have every character roll their initiative separately, as I feel it otherwise makes it too easy to "alpha strike" players by having perfectly co-ordinated enemies and no chance for PCs to respond to actions throughout the round. Over the course of a few rounds, more organized groups may delay/ready actions to bring their initiative closer together, but I definitely don't start combat that way.


I think I saw in one of the variant notes at the foot of one of the pages in the DMG something about rolling initiative on every monster, and then there was another option of rolling all of them together. The first one would give more randomness but would make it a bit messy and take a little more time, while the second one would save you time but creating a huge gap between the player turns where all the monsters can coordinate without delay.



I did however find the following quote in the DMG (along with where it actually describes the variant you're using, didn't realise it was an official variant):
"Don’t write down the NPCs’ places in the initiative sequence, at least not until they have acted once—the players shouldn’t know who’s going to act before the enemies and who will act after. It’s too easy to plan actions around when their opponents act." (DMG page 24, Keeping things moving, last 2 sentences) so take that as you will I suppose.

Ah this is what i was asking about, must have missed it. The thing is that since I'm using the variant where I make everyone roll initiative on every turn I wasnt sure if I should or should not, show the sequence of the npc's... if i did not show the sequence, the turns of the monsters would remain a surprise for the entire duration of the fight.

Btw, I also use defense rolls. The Suspense is strong in this one. :P