Group Initiative

[Easy_Lee]

Group Initiative, also know as Team Initiative, also known as Side Initiative (DMG 270), is when the players roll initiative as a group and the creatures do the same. Your entire side goes all at once and so does the opposition.

Three considerations when adopting group initiative are:

Bursting down a single target is more effective for both players and creatures.
Players can adopt repetitive strategies when everyone goes at once.
Opinions differ on how to do it.

Burst is significant because, in an extreme case, a party of alert assassin rogues will probably win initiative, probably kill one target on the first round, and probably proceed to flee from combat and come back to do it again. A more reasonable (and likely) example is if the standard party all decide to attack that robed guy over there because "he's probably a spellcaster and we don't like that." Variances in initiative virtually guarantee that some or other creature will go before one of the players and can potentially thwart their plans.

Regarding repetitive strategies, the designers have commented in the past that group Initiative and overuse of held actions can lead to repetitive strategies. If it's possible to lay down AoE hell at the start of every combat or have everyone gang up on the biggest thing round after round, players will often do so. Variances in initiative and a relatively weak "Ready" action this edition ensure that turn order has a significant impact on how combats progress. On the other hand, these also slow things down.

The method also varies. In the DMG variation, Side Initiative, each side rolls a d20 with no modifiers. This means dexterity, the Alert feat, and anything else granting a bonus to initiative become less useful. Two other methods:

Average the rolls.
Take the highest roll.

The latter is faster but also means that only one person in the party having a maxed out initiative (e.g. Alert Barbarian or War Wizard) can greatly advantage the party.

What are the playground's thoughts on this? Have you used it, which variant did you use (Average, Highest Of, Side Initiative, or Other), what were the results, and did you like it?

[Tanarii]

if the DM rolls initiative once for all the enemies, it's effectively just group initiative anyway. The only difference is:
- Some players get to act once before the monsters, after which it rotates monsters, PCs, monsters, PCs, etc.
- PCs have to act in a specific order when they go.

Edit: also, if you're explicitly letting the Pcs and monsters act in any order when they get to go, it's worth noting sometimes it matters for spell durations expiring when a creature cast the spell relative to others on its side

[TMac9000]

Personally, I’ve never seen it used, and I’m curious to see how it would work. Our group has always used individual initiative.

[Doug Lampert]

Group Initiative, also know as Team Initiative, also known as Side Initiative (DMG 270), is when the players roll initiative as a group and the creatures do the same. Your entire side goes all at once and so does the opposition.

Three considerations when adopting group initiative are:

Bursting down a single target is more effective for both players and creatures.
Players can adopt repetitive strategies when everyone goes at once.
Opinions differ on how to do it.

Burst is significant because, in an extreme case, a party of alert assassin rogues will probably win initiative, probably kill one target on the first round, and probably proceed to flee from combat and come back to do it again. A more reasonable (and likely) example is if the standard party all decide to attack that robed guy over there because "he's probably a spellcaster and we don't like that." Variances in initiative virtually guarantee that some or other creature will go before one of the players and can potentially thwart their plans.

Regarding repetitive strategies, the designers have commented in the past that group Initiative and overuse of held actions can lead to repetitive strategies. If it's possible to lay down AoE hell at the start of every combat or have everyone gang up on the biggest thing round after round, players will often do so. Variances in initiative and a relatively weak "Ready" action this edition ensure that turn order has a significant impact on how combats progress. On the other hand, these also slow things down.

The method also varies. In the DMG variation, Side Initiative, each side rolls a d20 with no modifiers. This means dexterity, the Alert feat, and anything else granting a bonus to initiative become less useful. Two other methods:

Average the rolls.
Take the highest roll.

The latter is faster but also means that only one person in the party having a maxed out initiative (e.g. Alert Barbarian or War Wizard) can greatly advantage the party.

What are the playground's thoughts on this? Have you used it, which variant did you use (Average, Highest Of, Side Initiative, or Other), what were the results, and did you like it?

You can also roll once for team monster, with an appropriate modifier. Then have every PC roll and those that beat team monster go prior to team monster, then all monsters go, then all players go, and on with team initiative from there.

This preserves the importance of Dex and bonuses to initiative, prevents the "all PCs always go at once so you get repetitive tactics", and reduces or eliminates "everyone dogpiles one monster before he gets to act".

Basically, it eliminates the bulk of the problems, while retaining the bulk of the advantages.

[Waterdeep Merch]

I've been using highest, letting a player shine for being good at something and helping out their party.

Burst is a reasonably dangerous thing, which I've thus far managed by simply spreading targets around and not putting all the proverbial eggs in one basket. I've also, on the sly, upped the difficulty of these encounters pretty high to accommodate for this capability, and to prevent cheap deaths generally don't focus fire too hard behind the screen- I move all of the combatants first, deciding how many of them will go after who so that they don't cheaply blast one player down, and then start the rolling. If the players want to fight "cheaply", that's fine, it's their prerogative and so long as they're having fun, I don't care. It's wholly another thing when someone's removed from play because I wanted ruthless enemies to abuse the system in a similar manner.

I roleplay it as them using standard battle tactics instead of D&D-centric ones. No one seems to mind.

With all that in play, team efforts seem to happen more naturally, everyone seems to works together much better both in and out of combat, combat takes less time in general to finish, and players can plow through some pretty impressive set piece battles, letting you use more interesting set pieces, traps, and enemy types.

[Easy_Lee]

You can also roll once for team monster, with an appropriate modifier. Then have every PC roll and those that beat team monster go prior to team monster, then all monsters go, then all players go, and on with team initiative from there.

This preserves the importance of Dex and bonuses to initiative, prevents the "all PCs always go at once so you get repetitive tactics", and reduces or eliminates "everyone dogpiles one monster before he gets to act".

Basically, it eliminates the bulk of the problems, while retaining the bulk of the advantages.

I don't like this variation because it gives the creatures an advantage over the players. Going all at once is tactically advantageous and is even more so when there's a leader directing everyone. The DM, being in control of all NPCs, can take maximum advantage of group Initiative for the monsters. Individual DMs may or may not abuse that if using this method but the temptation always exists.

[Tanarii]

DMs rolling once for all monsters and PCs rolling individually is very common IMX. Or at least the DM rolling once for each kind of monsters, usually resulting in 2-3 monster initiatives tops.

[Sigreid]

Way back when I started AD&D this is what we did. It works fine. Only thing you have to look out for is situations where one side has a good chance of effectively obliterating the other when they win initiative.

[Requilac]

I use side initiative in my PbP and home games and it works out amazingly well. If I am being honest I have heard claims that it incentivizes repetitive strategies, and while theoretically it certainly seems so, in actual practice I have never noticed such problems. If you have a good DM than encounters should be varied enough that the same strategy should not work well every time. And while it certainly does make it so that focus fire is a better strategy to employ, that is easily countered by having semi-intelligent enemies protect the weaker members much like the PCs would. The biggest issue so far I have seen is actually that the side which wins initiative gains a massive advantage over the side who does not. And surprise rounds become very dangerous to the people on the receiving end. Both sides in the conflict receive the oppurtunity to gain this advantage though so it is more or less balanced.

Whenever I do it I prefer to roll the straight D20 for both sides. You have already acknowledged why taking he highest modifier is a poor decision. Averaging the rolls seems good in concept, but in practice it fails, at least in my experience. Whoever wins initiative gains a massive upper hand, so initiative bonuses become super mega important now, and frequently players will have majorly beefed up initiative bonuses which monsters cannot easily receive so it tips the balance way too much in the player’s favor.

In my experience it has massively improved the quality of the game. There is a lot more communication and teamwork between the players and it makes people much more engaged in the game. It also massively speeds up combat. An entire round can be finished in less than 5 minutes, so even the slowest of combats will not stretch on any longer than an hour.

I have also noticed some side effects where people are less likely to stay on their phones or otherwise tune out because the time between their turns are reduced. And when it comes to players who are not familiar with each-other, they seem to develop a much better team dynamic too. I am even under her impression that the group initiative mechanic seems to keep murderhobos or similar players with divergent tendencies in check, though I cannot fully explain why.

Over-all though group initiative seems like an immense improvement and many of the theoretical problems with it do not seem to come up nearly as much as you expect them too, but YMMV.

[Sigreid]

The risk shows up mostly in the lower levels. For example, run a 1st level 4 person party against 4 kobolds with side initiative and there is a very good chance that only the side that wins initiative will get to act because there's a good chance of being hit and being dropped in one hit for everyone involved.

[Easy_Lee]

The risk shows up mostly in the lower levels. For example, run a 1st level 4 person party against 4 kobolds with side initiative and there is a very good chance that only the side that wins initiative will get to act because there's a good chance of being hit and being dropped in one hit for everyone involved.

Agreed. I like to skip early levels and this is one reason.

[Requilac]

The risk shows up mostly in the lower levels. For example, run a 1st level 4 person party against 4 kobolds with side initiative and there is a very good chance that only the side that wins initiative will get to act because there's a good chance of being hit and being dropped in one hit for everyone involved.

That is quite an easy thing to fix though. Target your low level players with monsters that have defenses but weak offense. That is all it takes to fix that up.

Zombies are my favored enemy to use for this purpose. With their relatively high HP and undead fortitude, it almost guaranteed that they will last beyond round 1 but their puny slam attack makes it difficult for them to take out the players in one round. Not to mention that their terribly low AC gives a sense of accomplishment to your players whenever they hit it. Their undead fortitude too makes them pretty memorable, especially to new players.

If you really want to terrify your low level group though, then I have two words for you; zombie wolves :smallamused:.

[Sigreid]

That is quite an easy thing to fix though. Target your low level players with monsters that have defenses but weak offense. That is all it takes to fix that up.

Zombies are my favored enemy to use for this purpose. With their relatively high HP and undead fortitude, it almost guaranteed that they will last beyond round 1 but their puny slam attack makes it difficult for them to take out the players in one round. Not to mention that their terribly low AC gives a sense of accomplishment to your players whenever they hit it. Their undead fortitude too makes them pretty memorable, especially to new players.

If you really want to terrify your low level group though, then I have two words for you; zombie wolves :smallamused:.

Yep. But to work around something you first have to be aware it's there.

[Coffee_Dragon]

I would have thought that a fourth concern would be:


Treating each combat round as an optimization exercise by committee.


With individual initiative, the DM turns towards one player and asks, "It's YOUR turn, what do YOU do?" Benefits: a) that player gets a natural platform to make their own decisions, and b) they only have to consider the situation at hand and their own options.

When the DM asks the whole group, "It's the TEAM'S turn, what does each member of your TEAM do?" then a) a decision has to be made not only who does what but who goes when, leading to a vastly larger number of permutations of actions and outcomes to consider, and b) this interconnectedness means players aren't making their decisions independently: it won't be "Bob, you go first and do what you want" but "Bob, you go first because we need you to set the stage like this". So you either ensure everyone's input and confirmation on everything, slowing things down, or you risk one or two players dictating everybody's optimal actions as they see them, systematically shifting the balance of participation towards already active players, doubly so if they are also the resident system masters, which may not be unlikely.

For me this seems like a major strike against group initiative as laid out in the DMG.

[Easy_Lee]

I would have thought that a fourth concern would be:


Treating each combat round as an optimization exercise by committee.


With individual initiative, the DM turns towards one player and asks, "It's YOUR turn, what do YOU do?" Benefits: a) that player gets a natural platform to make their own decisions, and b) they only have to consider the situation at hand and their own options.

When the DM asks the whole group, "It's the TEAM'S turn, what does each member of your TEAM do?" then a) a decision has to be made not only who does what but who goes when, leading to a vastly larger number of permutations of actions and outcomes to consider, and b) this interconnectedness means players aren't making their decisions independently: it won't be "Bob, you go first and do what you want" but "Bob, you go first because we need you to set the stage like this". So you either ensure everyone's input and confirmation on everything, slowing things down, or you risk one or two players dictating everybody's optimal actions as they see them, systematically shifting the balance of participation towards already active players, doubly so if they are also the resident system masters, which may not be unlikely.

For me this seems like a major strike against group initiative as laid out in the DMG.

We could presumably test this with a pole of those who have used group initiative: it was faster and I liked it better, it was faster but I didn't like it, it was slower but I liked it better, it was slower and I didn't like it. I'm unsure if there are other possibilities.

[Doug Lampert]

I don't like this variation because it gives the creatures an advantage over the players. Going all at once is tactically advantageous and is even more so when there's a leader directing everyone. The DM, being in control of all NPCs, can take maximum advantage of group Initiative for the monsters. Individual DMs may or may not abuse that if using this method but the temptation always exists.

As Tanarii says:

DMs rolling once for all monsters and PCs rolling individually is very common IMX. Or at least the DM rolling once for each kind of monsters, usually resulting in 2-3 monster initiatives tops.
That matches my experience, and in such a case, using group initiative as stated is a pure advantage for the players as they can now chose what order they go in and go together for cooperative effects.

The monsters already have that edge if the GM wants to abuse it, and if it's player vs GM, then guess who wins.

You're not giving anything to the monsters they didn't already have, what you're doing is giving a free ability to delay or ready at no cost to the players.

[Easy_Lee]

As Tanarii says:

That matches my experience, and in such a case, using group initiative as stated is a pure advantage for the players as they can now chose what order they go in and go together for cooperative effects.

The monsters already have that edge if the GM wants to abuse it, and if it's player vs GM, then guess who wins.

You're not giving anything to the monsters they didn't already have, what you're doing is giving a free ability to delay or ready at no cost to the players.

You talk about "pure advantage" and "free ability" given to the players. The implications of your terms are that giving the players an edge is a bad thing and coordination should come at a cost. I believe most people familiar with multiplayer games, of which D&D is one, would assume that coordination with other players was an expectation, not something players should have to pay for.

This is just my experience, but I consistently overestimate player skill and and their ability to make decisions quickly. Group initiative is a useful cure to both as turns go a little faster, it's easier to coordinate, and the experienced players can more easily help the less experienced ones without slowing down the game. That's why I'm looking into it and I'm happy to see that opinions are generally positive.

Given that the GM can throw more monsters at the players at any time for any reason, I find it's much safer to err on the side of player power.

[Tanarii]

I've tried allowing players to act in any order when it doesn't seem to particularly matter. It seems to slow play down, not speed it up. It also encourages combat table talk and strategizing during combat, which both seems to further slow combat down and definitely is something I don't want to encourage.

I say seems to slow things down because it's just an impression. I've never timed it, it's not so significant I can say it does for sure, and I've it's almost always Easy or Medium combats with only one type of enemy monster anyway. Ie already very quick combats.

[Easy_Lee]

I've tried allowing players to act in any order when it doesn't seem to particularly matter. It seems to slow play down, not speed it up. It also encourages combat table talk and strategizing during combat, which both seems to further slow combat down and definitely is something I don't want to encourage.

I say seems to slow things down because it's just an impression. I've never timed it, it's not so significant I can say it does for sure, and I've it's almost always Easy or Medium combats with only one type of enemy monster anyway. Ie already very quick combats.

That's one reason I think a poll would be useful. But we do have to draw a line between slowing down combat for good reasons and for not-good reasons. Not-good reasons include slow math, looking things up in the book, asking an inordinate number of questions, etc. If combat stops for a moment while the DM describes the reinforcements that just arrived, that's likely a good reason.

I wonder whether strategizing would be a good reason or a bad reason.

[Tanarii]

I wonder whether strategizing would be a good reason or a bad reason.
It appears to be an "opinion varies" reason. Some people (like me) don't like it because it's players taking extra time Pcs don't have, destroying verisimilitude. Other people like it because they think the players should get extra time to make decisions the PCs wouldn't have, because 'the Pcs live and work together all the time and the players only meet once a month', reinforcing verisimilitude.

Like many things in gaming, it can go either way. Or somewhere in between, or possibly a third option.

[Coffee_Dragon]

I wonder whether strategizing would be a good reason or a bad reason.

I think that question can be broken down into several components to which different players and/or the DM will ascribe different weights, including but not necessarily limited to:

* Am I fine with the (presumably) increased overall attention given to tactical combat and its mastery in the game?

* Do the (assuredly) increased meta-considerations and group deliberations during combat conflict with my sense of verisimilitude and tempo? (That is, not speed, but smoothness of crunch-to-fluff translation; even when run efficiently, group initiative should lead to longer game world freezes followed by bursts of activity.)

* Am I fine with the (potentially) altered levels of activity and influence among players?

[Requilac]

I wonder whether strategizing would be a good reason or a bad reason.

I would classify it as a good reason to really. To many of the tables I play in and DM have minimal sense of creativity and strategy. My players need to communicate more with each other, not less with each other. I mean sure it is a little unrealistic to plan during the fight, but it can easily be fluffed as the characters simply retroactively discusssing such things during downtime or the like. I know there are more realistic choices to go with, but so far the last thing I need is less careful thought and communication between player.

[Arcangel4774]

My dm occasionally uaed group initiative, frankly i wasnt a fan. Grouping *some* enemies together can work but thats about as far as it seems to function without the mentioned drawbacks. This can make certain enmies (or friendly npcs) into single unit like squads, epecially so when they are fodder like.

[JackPhoenix]

I use something sort-of similar to group initiative out of laziness when I GM. Players use normal initiative, NPCs of the same kind run on the same initiative... so, in encounter with, say, 3 guards with spears, 3 guards with crossbows and one acolyte, acolyte had his initiative, spear guards acted with the same initiative, crossbow guards acted on the same initiative. I tend to mix opponents, so having *every* enemy acting at once is rare to non-existent, and it makes things easier for me.

[Sigreid]

I use something sort-of similar to group initiative out of laziness when I GM. Players use normal initiative, NPCs of the same kind run on the same initiative... so, in encounter with, say, 3 guards with spears, 3 guards with crossbows and one acolyte, acolyte had his initiative, spear guards acted with the same initiative, crossbow guards acted on the same initiative. I tend to mix opponents, so having *every* enemy acting at once is rare to non-existent, and it makes things easier for me.

I did that until I started using an online tool that tracks initiative and whose turn it is for me.

[Pex]

The DM for my paladin game doesn't even bother rolling. He arbitrarily decides who goes first then proceed around the table. Sometimes everyone goes before the bad guys the first round. Sometimes a few players go, then the bad guys, then the rest of the players. Sometimes technically all the bad guys went first. It depends on the combat as it happens. When the campaign started there were a lot of players, 9 let's say. The number fluctuates, gotten lower, and we're back to 9 again with some new players. It's complicated why this happens, but it's not related to the topic.

The point is he went with arbitrary initiative for ease of keeping track of whose turn it is. If everyone rolled individually the focus of whose turn it is would be jumping around a large table. For the next combat it would all get jumbled up again with different turn orders. It would slow the game down trying to remember whose turn it is or take the time to write down the order only to start over for a new combat.

Because I'm an experienced player and like a bit of complexity that I'm not enamored with this method. I get it why he does it, but it is part of his love of trains in DMing that can grate on me sometimes. I can honestly say I'm having fun with the campaign and get enjoyment out of it more than the gripes I have about it, but I cringe in annoyance when the gripes crop up such as arbitrary initiative.

[strangebloke]

Greyhawk initiative, accept no substitutes. :P

I just allow a full delay in the initiative order. Basically, right after rolling initiative you can pick any number lower than the one you rolled when you start combat.

If the party thinks that they've got an awesome wombo combo, they'll delay to make it happen, but this allows the (usually 2-3) enemy initiative crews to align as well. The more everyone has a good initiative roll, the more rewarded everyone is for doing this.

I haven't tried team initiative, but overall I'm just not a fan of ultra swingy d20 rolls where there is no way to interact with them. I think my system gives most of the pros and none of the cons.

[Requilac]

The DM for my paladin game doesn't even bother rolling. He arbitrarily decides who goes first then proceed around the table. Sometimes everyone goes before the bad guys the first round. Sometimes a few players go, then the bad guys, then the rest of the players. Sometimes technically all the bad guys went first. It depends on the combat as it happens. When the campaign started there were a lot of players, 9 let's say. The number fluctuates, gotten lower, and we're back to 9 again with some new players. It's complicated why this happens, but it's not related to the topic.

The point is he went with arbitrary initiative for ease of keeping track of whose turn it is. If everyone rolled individually the focus of whose turn it is would be jumping around a large table. For the next combat it would all get jumbled up again with different turn orders. It would slow the game down trying to remember whose turn it is or take the time to write down the order only to start over for a new combat.

Because I'm an experienced player and like a bit of complexity that I'm not enamored with this method. I get it why he does it, but it is part of his love of trains in DMing that can grate on me sometimes. I can honestly say I'm having fun with the campaign and get enjoyment out of it more than the gripes I have about it, but I cringe in annoyance when the gripes crop up such as arbitrary initiative.

I apologize if I sound descending or arrogant, such is not my intention at all.

That is not what group initiative is. Side initiative is where each opposing party in a conflict acts consecutively after each-other before switching towards another party's turn, it has nothing to do with DM fiat on who acts when. If you need a refresher on the subject refer to page 270 of the DMG. You are talking about a different topic than we are it appears.

[Tetrasodium]

I switch off by having everyone roll initiative & then sticking in the monsters around 10 +/- 1-2ish so it's a bit of a mix, but sometimes I'll stick the critters all in a bit low in side initiative. I tried openly doing side initiative, but for whatever reason my players suddenly collapsed into an undecided gordian knot where they did extreme metagaming planning to the point of paralysis no matter how obviously trivial & one sided a fight was so I just wet to doing it secretly when it seemed like it would spice things up

[PhoenixPhyre]

Or at least the DM rolling once for each kind of monsters, usually resulting in 2-3 monster initiatives tops.

This is how I do it, mainly because keeping track of all of it is too much of a pain otherwise. I have an app that helps now, but it defaults to each identical creature getting the same initiative. I've also done the "roll to see who goes first, then we go clockwise. Monsters go when it gets to me" variant of side initiative.

If I let them go in whatever order they wanted, one group would be fine, the others would slow down tremendously as they argued. And there's people who aren't good about respecting other players' agency, so that would turn out badly.

[Laserlight]

You can also roll once for team monster, with an appropriate modifier. Then have every PC roll and those that beat team monster go prior to team monster, then all monsters go, then all players go, and on with team initiative from there.

This preserves the importance of Dex and bonuses to initiative, prevents the "all PCs always go at once so you get repetitive tactics", and reduces or eliminates "everyone dogpiles one monster before he gets to act".

Basically, it eliminates the bulk of the problems, while retaining the bulk of the advantages.

That's what we were doing.

[Pex]

I apologize if I sound descending or arrogant, such is not my intention at all.

That is not what group initiative is. Side initiative is where each opposing party in a conflict acts consecutively after each-other before switching towards another party's turn, it has nothing to do with DM fiat on who acts when. If you need a refresher on the subject refer to page 270 of the DMG. You are talking about a different topic than we are it appears.

It is group initiative with the DM deciding who goes first instead of a die roll deciding. After the first round of combat in case of interruption all PCs go then all bad guys go. I'm sharing for the sake of sharing to provide an anecdote of conversation of a different perspective on how it's done. I don't need your permission.

[Easy_Lee]

I apologize if I sound descending or arrogant, such is not my intention at all.

That is not what group initiative is. Side initiative is where each opposing party in a conflict acts consecutively after each-other before switching towards another party's turn, it has nothing to do with DM fiat on who acts when. If you need a refresher on the subject refer to page 270 of the DMG. You are talking about a different topic than we are it appears.

I think he's just using an example to say that there are many ways of handling initiative. I attempted to cover the major ones that could be called group Initiative in the OP post. Of them all I prefer the Highest Of method as long as it's done for both sides since it encourages good team building and lessens the penalty of having low dexterity.

I do understand his gripes with his DM. Regardless of the specific method, my biggest thing is consistency. Inconsistent DMs and inconsistent ruling drive me up the wall. I'm not crazy about it, but that's my pet peeve when I'm a player. It would bug the hell out of me for the DM to arbitrarily decide initiative.

[Requilac]

It is group initiative with the DM deciding who goes first instead of a die roll deciding. After the first round of combat in case of interruption all PCs go then all bad guys go. I'm sharing for the sake of sharing to provide an anecdote of conversation of a different perspective on how it's done. I don't need your permission.

I never meant to say that you couldn’t that, I am sorry if I came across that way. I misinterpreted what you said. What I thought you claimed was that side initiative was where the DM decided who went in what initiative order by choice and I thought they were applying that rule to normal initiative, not side initiative. To me it seemed like you were confused as to what side initiative actually was, Your planned meaning though makes much more sense now. I apologize if I seemed to insult you, such was not my intention.




I do understand his gripes with his DM. Regardless of the specific method, my biggest thing is consistency. Inconsistent DMs and inconsistent ruling drive me up the wall. I'm not crazy about it, but that's my pet peeve when I'm a player.

May I ask for what specific actions you count as a DM being inconsistent? When you brought it up I couldn’t help but recognize that I, as a DM, might easily be emplying inconsistent behaviors and possibly inadvertently miffing my players. What specific things would you get upset about?

[xen]

Our group switched to side initiative and won't go back. It fixed several issues. It massively sped up combat for us. It really has encouraged more teamwork. It encouraged players to learn and think about what the other characters can do, and how that might help them be more effective. It eliminated the "play on my phone til it's my turn, now what's been happening?" syndrome, which has increased immersion in the game.

For us it's been great. Though i can see that it might cause issues in a group with trust issues. We've been playing together for many years now.

[Armored Walrus]

DMs rolling once for all monsters and PCs rolling individually is very common IMX. Or at least the DM rolling once for each kind of monsters, usually resulting in 2-3 monster initiatives tops.

I was under the impression that this was the most commonly used method. It's how I run my live games. (each named NPC in the fight gets their own initiative roll, and each monster type. So all skeletons go at once, all zombies go at once, and that necromancer gets its own roll) It's how I've seen nearly every live stream D&D game work, too.

I've not seen anyone use true group initiative, but in the PbP games I've played, it's very common to see individual initiative for PCs, then one roll for the monsters. Those that beat the monsters go first, then it's side initiative from there. But that's mostly due to the limitations of PbP, IMO.

[Tanarii]

I was under the impression that this was the most commonly used method.
Me too, but I didn't want to make a strong statement like its the 'default' way of doing D&D initiative. Even though IMx that's exactly what it is. I held back, for once. :smallwink:

[Easy_Lee]

May I ask for what specific actions you count as a DM being inconsistent? When you brought it up I couldn’t help but recognize that I, as a DM, might easily be emplying inconsistent behaviors and possibly inadvertently miffing my players. What specific things would you get upset about?

Here's an example I've seen in play. Players sneak up on the enemies and beat their passive perceptions. Surprise round, right? No, the enemies were on "high alert" and could not be surprised. Later in the same campaign, an entire troupe of bandits surround and surprise the players, apparently all individually beating our highest passive perception of 19, and they did it while one player was in the process of setting up cordon of arrows and had specifically stated that she was on "high alert."

That example combines two of my biggest pet peeves: inconsistent ruling and the DM deciding for something bad to happen to the players with no possibility for the players to avoid it.

[Requilac]

Here's an example I've seen in play. Players sneak up on the enemies and beat their passive perceptions. Surprise round, right? No, the enemies were on "high alert" and could not be surprised. Later in the same campaign, an entire troupe of bandits surround and surprise the players, apparently all individually beating our highest passive perception of 19, and they did it while one player was in the process of setting up cordon of arrows and had specifically stated that she was on "high alert."

That example combines two of my biggest pet peeves: inconsistent ruling and the DM deciding for something bad to happen to the players with no possibility for the players to avoid it.

Well I do not think I have ever done something like that, but I have definitely been inconsistent before. As a player would you be upset if I made any of the following rulings? They have been spoilered so that it takes up less space on the screen and is less likely to de-rail everything. The names of the monsters have been altered as most of them are homebrew so I just picked the closest approximation.


1) When a caster in the party was fighting against a wizard and its half-sentient golem I allowed the caster to use a suggestion to get the golem to attack the wizard, but when the caster tried to get a hobgoblin legionnaire to fight one of its allies via suggestion I said that it was not possible.

2) A caster is fighting against a group of dwarves (with advantage on saving throws against being poisoned) and casts stinking cloud and the spell behaves as normally. Later, The same caster throws a stinking cloud against a group of , umm, lets call them "half-ghouls" (who have advantage on saving throws against being poisoned) though and I said that they got advantage against it. Stinking cloud only fails to function if the target has immunity to being poisoned, but I thought that since the half-ghouls had advantage against being poisoned that they should thusly get advantage against spells and features which such clauses. I did not believe that the dwarves' resilience was as powerful as the corpse eating half-ghouls, so I did not give the dwarves advantage against stinking cloud.

3) When the party faces off against a group of ghosts (that have the death throes feature) their death burst feature triggers whenever their next turn would normally be, but when they soon fight a group of mephits their death burst occurs immediately after death instead. The players all suspected that the death burst of the mephits would behave like the ghosts' and based their strategy around it just to find that it would not work the same way.

4) When an enemy vampire attempts to uses spell-casting to misty step away I allow the it to be counter-spelled but when a minor eldritch abomination like creature uses innate spell-casting to misty step away I make it so that it cannot be counterspelled. My justification behind this was that one could not counterspell spells cast by innate spellcasting as it worked differently than normal spell-casting like the vampire had.

5) When a player tries to hit an earth elemental (with resistance to damage from mundane weapons) with his light-hammer I halve the damage, but when another player picks up a pick-ax and uses it as an improvised weapon i let the attack bypass the elemental's resitance.

[lperkins2]

Side initiative is fine, especially if you give the players a moment to confer on strategy to decide who goes in what order. Making the players roll for initiative, then having the enemies all go at once is terrible. When they split the players' actions, they will often render various tactics useless. Last time I encountered this, we had a grappler in the party with good initiative, the rest of us had bad initiative. He'd push someone prone, who would then stand back up immediately. This would go on for multiple turns in a row sometimes, rendering the character with the neatest tactical abilities useless (especially since there is no simple 'delay' in 5e, to let him drop his initiative down in the ballpark of the rest of us).

[Easy_Lee]

Well I do not think I have ever done something like that, but I have definitely been inconsistent before. As a player would you be upset if I made any of the following rulings?

Those seem like edge cases for the most part. Inconsistency bothers me. It's not something I choose to be bothered by; it just happens. So for me, consistency is great. But transparency is better. If I know why a DM rules the way he does, I'll start to learn how his world works. That's what's important.

[Requilac]

Those seem like edge cases for the most part. Inconsistency bothers me. It's not something I choose to be bothered by; it just happens. So for me, consistency is great. But transparency is better. If I know why a DM rules the way he does, I'll start to learn how his world works. That's what's important.

Edge cases? All of these events occurred over five sessions, a cumulative 10 hours. As a player, Would you be fine with me making those rulings so long as you understood my mentality behind them. Or better question, what are you more concerned about; inconsistency in the rules or inconsistencies with the mentality behind those rules?

[Slayn82]

I've always liked the method of rolling 1d10 for side initiative, modified by each individual's own initiative modifier. It was one of the initiative methods in AD&D 2nd edition, and it was pretty good at allowing quick and dynamic initiative.

Players would know among their team who goes before who. And the DM can write down the enemies in his notes already in the initiative order. That's neat, and many other rpg systems adopt something like it.

It gives a feeling of both sides smashing into each other. With initiative modifiers usually ranging from -2 to +5, the D10 variance means those bonuses are pretty significant, while still keeping enemy and players actions intercalated.

The D20 range with side initiatives quite often allows often for one side to get a result so much better than the other (ex. 4 vs a 17), that even the quickest guy having a +10 to initiative, he will act after the Zombie with -2. That's, as someone pointed, like getting a free surprise round.

[Doug Lampert]

You talk about "pure advantage" and "free ability" given to the players. The implications of your terms are that giving the players an edge is a bad thing and coordination should come at a cost.

How so? I'm advocating giving players EXACTLY that advantage, and don't advocate for any cost.

I'm reply to YOU claiming that it weakens players by pointing out that it does no such thing in any way shape or form.

[MrStabby]

I tried group initiative. It was crap, for exactly the reasons the OP describes. One further reason is that some classes get initiative bonuses to help them stand out. Taking away class features sucks.

Sometimes as a DM I just give all my bad guys 10 + bonus for speed (as long as there is a gap between them).

I do group bad guys, I generally cap initiative rolls at about 4 or 5 and will group similar bad guys together.