My DM has tried running brutal encounters only to be completely curtailed by a single bad initiative roll (or several if the minions roll badly, too). If a substantial amount of players or monsters gets to go first, the battle's basically already won or lost. This has a tendency to make hyped up bosses end up feeling like pushovers as they only get 1 or 2 turns. For my own campaign, I've tried thinking of some potential house rules to mitigate how swingy initiative can be, but to no avail.
I thought of a system like Darkest Dungeon's multiplayer, where whichever group goes first (decided by a special group Initiative contest) picks one creature among them to have its turn, then the other group picks one creature among them to have its turn, then the first group picks someone who hasn't gone yet, and so on. I remember enjoying this system in Darkest Dungeon's multiplayer, but now I realize it was probably because I was a single player controlling four people, rather than four players arguing over who gets to go first. And even if the players all agree, players are known to optimize the fun out of a game when given the chance and will likely pick the PC who gets the most out of going first (i.e. rogue with Assassinate, bugbears, etc.), resulting in a handful of players getting fewer turns consistently. So I guess some randomness is necessary to keep the same players from going first all the time.
Ok, so maybe adjust the Darkest Dungeon system so that whichever players roll higher still go before the ones that roll lower. For instance: rogue initiative 29, kobold initiative 15, fighter initiative 17, kobold initiative 10, kobold initiative 8. This would keep either team from having multiple members act in a row (at least until towards the end of the round) while allowing that fighter with a +0 dexterity modifier to still get the occasional chance to go first. But what about settling the initiative contest between teams? Does only the highest roll matter now? And it is pretty silly that the fighter in the example is faster than all the kobolds, but one kobold still gets to go before him because the rogue rolled higher.
My goal with these house rules has been to avoid the situation where most of one side rolls higher than the other side and just automatically wins. However, one of my prospective players (the aforementioned DM, actually) doesn't want me to change the initiative ruleset at all because he enjoys how random it is. So maybe I should just leave the system alone?
Side note: legendary monsters also interact with initiative in a weird way in that they can actually be more dangerous on round 1 by NOT going first due to legendary actions. Example: "The aboleth uses 3 legendary actions to attack you, uses Multiattack to attack you 3 more times, then uses its 3 replenished legendary actions to attack you." It's beside the point, though.
Your aboleth example isn't beside the point at all. If you have fewer foes so it's more likely for initiative rolls to be lumped together, giving them more reactions and such can make the encounter more fun. The other option is ensuring the enemy team has enough members that initiative should get spread out.
One solution I have heard some people use is to simply reroll initiative every round. It’s potentially time consuming, but it works as it pulls towards the expected averages by not relying on a single roll for each combatant.
Side note: legendary monsters also interact with initiative in a weird way in that they can actually be more dangerous on round 1 by NOT going first due to legendary actions. Example: "The aboleth uses 3 legendary actions to attack you, uses Multiattack to attack you 3 more times, then uses its 3 replenished legendary actions to attack you." It's beside the point, though.
In a very small party the legendary actions are less useful, because you can only use ONE of them after each PCs turn - so with a party of 2 PCs the aboleth can only use 2 legendary actions between it's own turns.
One solution I have heard some people use is to simply reroll initiative every round. It’s potentially time consuming, but it works as it pulls towards the expected averages by not relying on a single roll for each combatant.
I've been using this system for a long time, and it is in my opinion the easiest and most effective way to get a more dynamic combat without over-complicating things. And honestly, I've heard the complaints from people about how long they think it takes, but those complaints are pure BS. It doesn't take that long to make one extra roll per player each round, lol. And players like rolling dice. Let them play with their math rocks as much as possible! :)
Messing with initiative order is a two edged blade, because there are a lot of things that run "until your next turn". Sometimes you want to delay your turn (e.g. when your spell affecting an enemy lasts longer), sometimes you want to take your turn again quicker (e.g. to get yourself out of danger when you are low on HP). I vaguely remember playing a one-shot where we had a homebrew rule that pushed you down the initiative order, when you got stunned, knocked prone or incapacitated in an other way.
The issue is the action economy. The side with more creatures will usually have more actions to take. If you end up with clumping or grouping then one side gets the opportunity to eliminate or hobble opponents before they get a turn. Crowd control spells and other AoE are particularly nasty - if the caster side goes first they might be able to drop hypnotic pattern or fireball on the opposing side before they can do anything.
There are limited things that can be done.
1) Roll each creature into initiative separately instead of in groups. PCs get the advantage of everyone having a different initiative but monsters are often rolled in groups of similar creatures. Breaking up the groups disperses the action economy of the opponents so that one good or bad initiative for them doesn't influence the battle disproportionately. It also makes it less likely that everyone on one side will go before everyone on the other. This has some extra overhead but it works pretty well if you are using a virtual table top that tracks which specific creature has which initiative and will highlight them when you select them in the initiative tracker.
2) Re-rolling initiative every round can make things feel a bit more chaotic or dynamic but doesn't really get around the first round advantage and could result in one side getting two turns in a row which might be enough to overcome the opponents (becomes similar to a surprise round in some ways). Again, though, rolling every creature into initiative separately will tend to mitigate luck dominating the order.
3) Strict alternation - each side rolls initiative - the highest number gets to go first then alternate creatures on each side based on the separate initiative lists for each side. This does allow each side equal representation but when one side has a lot more creatures than the other then their remaining team members get to go in a group at the bottom of the turn. It is also a lot less random/chaotic/dynamic but it does ensure that neither side gets everyone going first.
One solution I have heard some people use is to simply reroll initiative every round. It’s potentially time consuming, but it works as it pulls towards the expected averages by not relying on a single roll for each combatant.
I've been using this system for a long time, and it is in my opinion the easiest and most effective way to get a more dynamic combat without over-complicating things. And honestly, I've heard the complaints from people about how long they think it takes, but those complaints are pure BS. It doesn't take that long to make one extra roll per player each round, lol. And players like rolling dice. Let them play with their math rocks as much as possible! :)
How though do you handle spells that rely on lasting until the players or enemies next round? It has the potential to seriously over or under power certain spells or abilities.
For instance Deep Scion stuns a player to the end of the enemies next round, it then rolls high on initiative and potentially the effect ends before the creature they affected gets a go, alternatively it could affect that creature for 2 rounds (the scion stuns them and they are due to go next, then next roll of initiative the scion rolls lower and they are still stunned so lose 2 rounds of combat).
I have tried it and these effects, and also things like shield, etc meant that combat became almost impossible to balance, with a lucky change in initiative ending in an almost TPK, or allowing the party to almost one shot the big bad. I had one combat where the wizard got to use shield for 2 whole rounds effectively because the initiative rolls worked that way.
part of the problem could be that the fight starts with everyone at maximum effectiveness.
I've rarely seen a fight (if ever, actually) where a melee character doesn't make it to melee in the first round. I did one fight where the fight was split, and the barbarian decided to run to the second fight, which was 300ft. away. They were surprised how long it took to get there.
So if you want to make the initiative less punishing on round 1, start the combat at long range and make the players (or the monsters) close the gap.
One solution I have heard some people use is to simply reroll initiative every round. It’s potentially time consuming, but it works as it pulls towards the expected averages by not relying on a single roll for each combatant.
I've been using this system for a long time, and it is in my opinion the easiest and most effective way to get a more dynamic combat without over-complicating things. And honestly, I've heard the complaints from people about how long they think it takes, but those complaints are pure BS. It doesn't take that long to make one extra roll per player each round, lol. And players like rolling dice. Let them play with their math rocks as much as possible! :)
How though do you handle spells that rely on lasting until the players or enemies next round? It has the potential to seriously over or under power certain spells or abilities.
For instance Deep Scion stuns a player to the end of the enemies next round, it then rolls high on initiative and potentially the effect ends before the creature they affected gets a go, alternatively it could affect that creature for 2 rounds (the scion stuns them and they are due to go next, then next roll of initiative the scion rolls lower and they are still stunned so lose 2 rounds of combat).
I have tried it and these effects, and also things like shield, etc meant that combat became almost impossible to balance, with a lucky change in initiative ending in an almost TPK, or allowing the party to almost one shot the big bad. I had one combat where the wizard got to use shield for 2 whole rounds effectively because the initiative rolls worked that way.
The law of averages. Eventually everything comes out in a push over the course of an entire adventuring day.
One solution I have heard some people use is to simply reroll initiative every round. It’s potentially time consuming, but it works as it pulls towards the expected averages by not relying on a single roll for each combatant.
I've been using this system for a long time, and it is in my opinion the easiest and most effective way to get a more dynamic combat without over-complicating things. And honestly, I've heard the complaints from people about how long they think it takes, but those complaints are pure BS. It doesn't take that long to make one extra roll per player each round, lol. And players like rolling dice. Let them play with their math rocks as much as possible! :)
How though do you handle spells that rely on lasting until the players or enemies next round? It has the potential to seriously over or under power certain spells or abilities.
For instance Deep Scion stuns a player to the end of the enemies next round, it then rolls high on initiative and potentially the effect ends before the creature they affected gets a go, alternatively it could affect that creature for 2 rounds (the scion stuns them and they are due to go next, then next roll of initiative the scion rolls lower and they are still stunned so lose 2 rounds of combat).
I have tried it and these effects, and also things like shield, etc meant that combat became almost impossible to balance, with a lucky change in initiative ending in an almost TPK, or allowing the party to almost one shot the big bad. I had one combat where the wizard got to use shield for 2 whole rounds effectively because the initiative rolls worked that way.
The law of averages. Eventually everything comes out in a push over the course of an entire adventuring day.
But, and this is always my issue, you only need the luck to go against the Party a few times to cause a TPK, like i said I tried it, it seemed that far too ongoing effects went against the party and for the monsters so party and I agreed it was unbalancing combat for the players and making it less fun.
So, this isn't necessarily the 'right' way to manage this but I'll often let either enemies or players get hits in prior to rolling initiative. If the players have walked into an ambush because they failed to take caution it's only right that they aren't going to get the first attack. Likewise, no matter how big and bad the enemy is, if they can be seen, they can be hit with a ranged attack and no amount of initiative rolling would change that in a more real world circumstance.
Of course that only really works for the top end of the combat rounds and can get tiresome if it's all the time. Being honest, the thing I picked up from watching Johnny Chiodini and early explainers on Dicebreaker, was that as DM you can fudge the roll. The players never have to see the DMs rolls so I tend to wait for players to roll initiative, then roll the enemies. If there is a bunch that rolled badly I'll use a common sense approach and maybe fall back on where their dex lines up with the players. Either way, always roll initiative seperately.
I'll be honest though, I've never really seen it be a problem if the encounter is run well. Are the enemies attacking the logical person? Are they smart enough to attack the wizard rather than charge at the Tabaxi Barbarian?
One solution I have heard some people use is to simply reroll initiative every round. It’s potentially time consuming, but it works as it pulls towards the expected averages by not relying on a single roll for each combatant.
I've been using this system for a long time, and it is in my opinion the easiest and most effective way to get a more dynamic combat without over-complicating things. And honestly, I've heard the complaints from people about how long they think it takes, but those complaints are pure BS. It doesn't take that long to make one extra roll per player each round, lol. And players like rolling dice. Let them play with their math rocks as much as possible! :)
How though do you handle spells that rely on lasting until the players or enemies next round? It has the potential to seriously over or under power certain spells or abilities.
For instance Deep Scion stuns a player to the end of the enemies next round, it then rolls high on initiative and potentially the effect ends before the creature they affected gets a go, alternatively it could affect that creature for 2 rounds (the scion stuns them and they are due to go next, then next roll of initiative the scion rolls lower and they are still stunned so lose 2 rounds of combat).
I have tried it and these effects, and also things like shield, etc meant that combat became almost impossible to balance, with a lucky change in initiative ending in an almost TPK, or allowing the party to almost one shot the big bad. I had one combat where the wizard got to use shield for 2 whole rounds effectively because the initiative rolls worked that way.
The law of averages. Eventually everything comes out in a push over the course of an entire adventuring day.
But, and this is always my issue, you only need the luck to go against the Party a few times to cause a TPK, like i said I tried it, it seemed that far too ongoing effects went against the party and for the monsters so party and I agreed it was unbalancing combat for the players and making it less fun.
I never said it was perfect, I just said it’s a method I know some people use is all.
One solution I have heard some people use is to simply reroll initiative every round. It’s potentially time consuming, but it works as it pulls towards the expected averages by not relying on a single roll for each combatant.
I've been using this system for a long time, and it is in my opinion the easiest and most effective way to get a more dynamic combat without over-complicating things. And honestly, I've heard the complaints from people about how long they think it takes, but those complaints are pure BS. It doesn't take that long to make one extra roll per player each round, lol. And players like rolling dice. Let them play with their math rocks as much as possible! :)
How though do you handle spells that rely on lasting until the players or enemies next round? It has the potential to seriously over or under power certain spells or abilities.
For instance Deep Scion stuns a player to the end of the enemies next round, it then rolls high on initiative and potentially the effect ends before the creature they affected gets a go, alternatively it could affect that creature for 2 rounds (the scion stuns them and they are due to go next, then next roll of initiative the scion rolls lower and they are still stunned so lose 2 rounds of combat).
I have tried it and these effects, and also things like shield, etc meant that combat became almost impossible to balance, with a lucky change in initiative ending in an almost TPK, or allowing the party to almost one shot the big bad. I had one combat where the wizard got to use shield for 2 whole rounds effectively because the initiative rolls worked that way.
The law of averages. Eventually everything comes out in a push over the course of an entire adventuring day.
This is not comforting when you use an extremely limited resource, like a 7th level spell or something, and have back-to-back turns so that it had no effect. Your next round having an extra-long create bonfire does not balance that out. No, there are just too many mechanics built into the round design for this to be a good solution. Hell, the way it messes with Reactions alone is enough of a reason not to do it. It would kill a lot of the benefit from any sort of tactical planning as well.
I think the best thing to do here is look back at what the problem actually is. OP is complaining about solo BBEG encounters feeling like pushovers. There have been many gallons of digital ink spilled on this subject, and I'd argue that there are much better solutions than messing with initiative - one of which the OP literally mentions at the end. Part of the elegance of legendary actions is that they allow a monster extra actions on the first round when they roll poorly for initiative. As long as you pay attention to action economy when designing an encounter, you can avoid the ol' surround and pound. Team Monster should have roughly the same number of actions as the party, and a BBEG should have "disruptive" abilities that prevent being locked down and denied effective actions. Ultimately this is a monster design issue, not a combat rules issue.
One solution I have heard some people use is to simply reroll initiative every round. It’s potentially time consuming, but it works as it pulls towards the expected averages by not relying on a single roll for each combatant.
I've been using this system for a long time, and it is in my opinion the easiest and most effective way to get a more dynamic combat without over-complicating things. And honestly, I've heard the complaints from people about how long they think it takes, but those complaints are pure BS. It doesn't take that long to make one extra roll per player each round, lol. And players like rolling dice. Let them play with their math rocks as much as possible! :)
How though do you handle spells that rely on lasting until the players or enemies next round? It has the potential to seriously over or under power certain spells or abilities.
For instance Deep Scion stuns a player to the end of the enemies next round, it then rolls high on initiative and potentially the effect ends before the creature they affected gets a go, alternatively it could affect that creature for 2 rounds (the scion stuns them and they are due to go next, then next roll of initiative the scion rolls lower and they are still stunned so lose 2 rounds of combat).
I have tried it and these effects, and also things like shield, etc meant that combat became almost impossible to balance, with a lucky change in initiative ending in an almost TPK, or allowing the party to almost one shot the big bad. I had one combat where the wizard got to use shield for 2 whole rounds effectively because the initiative rolls worked that way.
The law of averages. Eventually everything comes out in a push over the course of an entire adventuring day.
This is not comforting when you use an extremely limited resource, like a 7th level spell or something, and have back-to-back turns so that it had no effect. Your next round having an extra-long create bonfire does not balance that out. No, there are just too many mechanics built into the round design for this to be a good solution. Hell, the way it messes with Reactions alone is enough of a reason not to do it. It would kill a lot of the benefit from any sort of tactical planning as well.
I think the best thing to do here is look back at what the problem actually is. OP is complaining about solo BBEG encounters feeling like pushovers. There have been many gallons of digital ink spilled on this subject, and I'd argue that there are much better solutions than messing with initiative - one of which the OP literally mentions at the end. Part of the elegance of legendary actions is that they allow a monster extra actions on the first round when they roll poorly for initiative. As long as you pay attention to action economy when designing an encounter, you can avoid the ol' surround and pound. Team Monster should have roughly the same number of actions as the party, and a BBEG should have "disruptive" abilities that prevent being locked down and denied effective actions. Ultimately this is a monster design issue, not a combat rules issue.
Again, I never said it was a perfect system, heck I never even said I use this system. All I said was I know that some people do use this system and it seems to work for them, and that the balancing factor was aggregated results over time. I’m just the messenger is all.
The easiest way to reduce the weight of initiative is to increase the length of combats. In a combat that ends on round 3, the high initiative people act 3 times, the low initiative act 2 times, so high initiative is a 50% damage increase. In a combat that ends on round 5, high initiative is only 25%.
I have been toying with the idea of mashing together a concept from Shadowrun and D&D around initiative. I'm not at all sure if it will work yet, but basic concept is that you roll your initiative as normal. You then get one of your combat turn options (move, action, bonus acrtion) on your first initiative roll, followed by the next one 3 steps lower in the order. So if you roll a 12 for initiative, you act on initiative step 12, 9, and 6 for example.
The player can control which of their turn options they want to employ, and may use more than one to move as long at it doesn't exceed your movement speed (e.g. Move - attack - move). You could even let high intiative rollers have more than 3 steps so that they can achieve movement, attack, bonus action, and move for example.
I'm not sure if it will get too messy, but the idea is to break up the looooong time especially higher level character ends up consuming with all movement, attacks, special/bonus actions etc. It will also do something interesting around movement and attack since you might move in first step, but the opponent now gets to attack first before you get your next step in the turn order. It will probably add quite a lot of choas :) It will certainly be a completely different way of running combat than the current chess-piece concept.
I'm hoping to test it out in a one shot at some point - it might take a bit of getting used to, and some fine tuning. But it wouldn't mess with durations since your turn starts on your first/highest initiative, and ends on your lowest step, so should fit in with effects of spells etc.
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Fudge Initiative if a group is gonna blanket beat your big boss.
If that's too dirty a word at your table I've had limited success with "Passive initiative" (10+ initiative mod), but with really high initiative PCs that only helps them if your boss is slow.
I've also given situational bonuses to initiative and subsequent conditions giving one side of combat or certain creatures advantage or disadvantage on their roll.
As Penta says, making the combat last longer should help make it feel more balanced.
At my table, the character that initiates combat ("I punch him in the face") always gets to go first no matter where the initiative roll places it in the initiative order (the actual initiative placement is ignored that first round). This often results in a PC going first, but sometimes they strike out at people who meant them no harm because they know they can't necessarily wait for a voice saying "roll initiative" to declare that they are standing in front of an enemy. Of course, if both parties realise that the other party is hostile, initiative is rolled and followed as normal.
Regarding the optional initiative rule where initiative is rolled every round, I don't think this solves the question OP is having. However I really like the unpredictability the rule brings to the table. Sure your spells might be more or less effective than you anticipated, but I find it more realistic that way (and I enjoy a bit of realism in my games). For people who prefer a certain amount of predictablity and that want to ensure their actions are as impactful as they are supposed to be, I definitely wouldn't recommend this option.
One solution I have heard some people use is to simply reroll initiative every round. It’s potentially time consuming, but it works as it pulls towards the expected averages by not relying on a single roll for each combatant.
I've been using this system for a long time, and it is in my opinion the easiest and most effective way to get a more dynamic combat without over-complicating things. And honestly, I've heard the complaints from people about how long they think it takes, but those complaints are pure BS. It doesn't take that long to make one extra roll per player each round, lol. And players like rolling dice. Let them play with their math rocks as much as possible! :)
The DM collecting all the initiative scores, as well as rolling for each group of monsters, then rearranging the combat order for the next round...
I played in a campaign where they rerolled initiative every round and it slowed down fights massively - and the fights were already slow from being mid-high level PCs with lots of options to choose between on each turn.
Beyond the first turn, a reliable turn order makes for being able to come up with a far better strategy to win the fight than hoping for better/worse initiative each round.
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My DM has tried running brutal encounters only to be completely curtailed by a single bad initiative roll (or several if the minions roll badly, too). If a substantial amount of players or monsters gets to go first, the battle's basically already won or lost. This has a tendency to make hyped up bosses end up feeling like pushovers as they only get 1 or 2 turns. For my own campaign, I've tried thinking of some potential house rules to mitigate how swingy initiative can be, but to no avail.
I thought of a system like Darkest Dungeon's multiplayer, where whichever group goes first (decided by a special group Initiative contest) picks one creature among them to have its turn, then the other group picks one creature among them to have its turn, then the first group picks someone who hasn't gone yet, and so on. I remember enjoying this system in Darkest Dungeon's multiplayer, but now I realize it was probably because I was a single player controlling four people, rather than four players arguing over who gets to go first. And even if the players all agree, players are known to optimize the fun out of a game when given the chance and will likely pick the PC who gets the most out of going first (i.e. rogue with Assassinate, bugbears, etc.), resulting in a handful of players getting fewer turns consistently. So I guess some randomness is necessary to keep the same players from going first all the time.
Ok, so maybe adjust the Darkest Dungeon system so that whichever players roll higher still go before the ones that roll lower. For instance: rogue initiative 29, kobold initiative 15, fighter initiative 17, kobold initiative 10, kobold initiative 8. This would keep either team from having multiple members act in a row (at least until towards the end of the round) while allowing that fighter with a +0 dexterity modifier to still get the occasional chance to go first. But what about settling the initiative contest between teams? Does only the highest roll matter now? And it is pretty silly that the fighter in the example is faster than all the kobolds, but one kobold still gets to go before him because the rogue rolled higher.
My goal with these house rules has been to avoid the situation where most of one side rolls higher than the other side and just automatically wins. However, one of my prospective players (the aforementioned DM, actually) doesn't want me to change the initiative ruleset at all because he enjoys how random it is. So maybe I should just leave the system alone?
Side note: legendary monsters also interact with initiative in a weird way in that they can actually be more dangerous on round 1 by NOT going first due to legendary actions. Example: "The aboleth uses 3 legendary actions to attack you, uses Multiattack to attack you 3 more times, then uses its 3 replenished legendary actions to attack you." It's beside the point, though.
Your aboleth example isn't beside the point at all. If you have fewer foes so it's more likely for initiative rolls to be lumped together, giving them more reactions and such can make the encounter more fun. The other option is ensuring the enemy team has enough members that initiative should get spread out.
One solution I have heard some people use is to simply reroll initiative every round. It’s potentially time consuming, but it works as it pulls towards the expected averages by not relying on a single roll for each combatant.
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In a very small party the legendary actions are less useful, because you can only use ONE of them after each PCs turn - so with a party of 2 PCs the aboleth can only use 2 legendary actions between it's own turns.
I've been using this system for a long time, and it is in my opinion the easiest and most effective way to get a more dynamic combat without over-complicating things. And honestly, I've heard the complaints from people about how long they think it takes, but those complaints are pure BS. It doesn't take that long to make one extra roll per player each round, lol. And players like rolling dice. Let them play with their math rocks as much as possible! :)
Messing with initiative order is a two edged blade, because there are a lot of things that run "until your next turn". Sometimes you want to delay your turn (e.g. when your spell affecting an enemy lasts longer), sometimes you want to take your turn again quicker (e.g. to get yourself out of danger when you are low on HP). I vaguely remember playing a one-shot where we had a homebrew rule that pushed you down the initiative order, when you got stunned, knocked prone or incapacitated in an other way.
The issue is the action economy. The side with more creatures will usually have more actions to take. If you end up with clumping or grouping then one side gets the opportunity to eliminate or hobble opponents before they get a turn. Crowd control spells and other AoE are particularly nasty - if the caster side goes first they might be able to drop hypnotic pattern or fireball on the opposing side before they can do anything.
There are limited things that can be done.
1) Roll each creature into initiative separately instead of in groups. PCs get the advantage of everyone having a different initiative but monsters are often rolled in groups of similar creatures. Breaking up the groups disperses the action economy of the opponents so that one good or bad initiative for them doesn't influence the battle disproportionately. It also makes it less likely that everyone on one side will go before everyone on the other. This has some extra overhead but it works pretty well if you are using a virtual table top that tracks which specific creature has which initiative and will highlight them when you select them in the initiative tracker.
2) Re-rolling initiative every round can make things feel a bit more chaotic or dynamic but doesn't really get around the first round advantage and could result in one side getting two turns in a row which might be enough to overcome the opponents (becomes similar to a surprise round in some ways). Again, though, rolling every creature into initiative separately will tend to mitigate luck dominating the order.
3) Strict alternation - each side rolls initiative - the highest number gets to go first then alternate creatures on each side based on the separate initiative lists for each side. This does allow each side equal representation but when one side has a lot more creatures than the other then their remaining team members get to go in a group at the bottom of the turn. It is also a lot less random/chaotic/dynamic but it does ensure that neither side gets everyone going first.
How though do you handle spells that rely on lasting until the players or enemies next round? It has the potential to seriously over or under power certain spells or abilities.
For instance Deep Scion stuns a player to the end of the enemies next round, it then rolls high on initiative and potentially the effect ends before the creature they affected gets a go, alternatively it could affect that creature for 2 rounds (the scion stuns them and they are due to go next, then next roll of initiative the scion rolls lower and they are still stunned so lose 2 rounds of combat).
I have tried it and these effects, and also things like shield, etc meant that combat became almost impossible to balance, with a lucky change in initiative ending in an almost TPK, or allowing the party to almost one shot the big bad. I had one combat where the wizard got to use shield for 2 whole rounds effectively because the initiative rolls worked that way.
part of the problem could be that the fight starts with everyone at maximum effectiveness.
I've rarely seen a fight (if ever, actually) where a melee character doesn't make it to melee in the first round. I did one fight where the fight was split, and the barbarian decided to run to the second fight, which was 300ft. away. They were surprised how long it took to get there.
So if you want to make the initiative less punishing on round 1, start the combat at long range and make the players (or the monsters) close the gap.
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The law of averages. Eventually everything comes out in a push over the course of an entire adventuring day.
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But, and this is always my issue, you only need the luck to go against the Party a few times to cause a TPK, like i said I tried it, it seemed that far too ongoing effects went against the party and for the monsters so party and I agreed it was unbalancing combat for the players and making it less fun.
So, this isn't necessarily the 'right' way to manage this but I'll often let either enemies or players get hits in prior to rolling initiative. If the players have walked into an ambush because they failed to take caution it's only right that they aren't going to get the first attack. Likewise, no matter how big and bad the enemy is, if they can be seen, they can be hit with a ranged attack and no amount of initiative rolling would change that in a more real world circumstance.
Of course that only really works for the top end of the combat rounds and can get tiresome if it's all the time. Being honest, the thing I picked up from watching Johnny Chiodini and early explainers on Dicebreaker, was that as DM you can fudge the roll. The players never have to see the DMs rolls so I tend to wait for players to roll initiative, then roll the enemies. If there is a bunch that rolled badly I'll use a common sense approach and maybe fall back on where their dex lines up with the players. Either way, always roll initiative seperately.
I'll be honest though, I've never really seen it be a problem if the encounter is run well. Are the enemies attacking the logical person? Are they smart enough to attack the wizard rather than charge at the Tabaxi Barbarian?
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I never said it was perfect, I just said it’s a method I know some people use is all.
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This is not comforting when you use an extremely limited resource, like a 7th level spell or something, and have back-to-back turns so that it had no effect. Your next round having an extra-long create bonfire does not balance that out. No, there are just too many mechanics built into the round design for this to be a good solution. Hell, the way it messes with Reactions alone is enough of a reason not to do it. It would kill a lot of the benefit from any sort of tactical planning as well.
I think the best thing to do here is look back at what the problem actually is. OP is complaining about solo BBEG encounters feeling like pushovers. There have been many gallons of digital ink spilled on this subject, and I'd argue that there are much better solutions than messing with initiative - one of which the OP literally mentions at the end. Part of the elegance of legendary actions is that they allow a monster extra actions on the first round when they roll poorly for initiative. As long as you pay attention to action economy when designing an encounter, you can avoid the ol' surround and pound. Team Monster should have roughly the same number of actions as the party, and a BBEG should have "disruptive" abilities that prevent being locked down and denied effective actions. Ultimately this is a monster design issue, not a combat rules issue.
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Again, I never said it was a perfect system, heck I never even said I use this system. All I said was I know that some people do use this system and it seems to work for them, and that the balancing factor was aggregated results over time. I’m just the messenger is all.
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The easiest way to reduce the weight of initiative is to increase the length of combats. In a combat that ends on round 3, the high initiative people act 3 times, the low initiative act 2 times, so high initiative is a 50% damage increase. In a combat that ends on round 5, high initiative is only 25%.
I have been toying with the idea of mashing together a concept from Shadowrun and D&D around initiative. I'm not at all sure if it will work yet, but basic concept is that you roll your initiative as normal. You then get one of your combat turn options (move, action, bonus acrtion) on your first initiative roll, followed by the next one 3 steps lower in the order. So if you roll a 12 for initiative, you act on initiative step 12, 9, and 6 for example.
The player can control which of their turn options they want to employ, and may use more than one to move as long at it doesn't exceed your movement speed (e.g. Move - attack - move). You could even let high intiative rollers have more than 3 steps so that they can achieve movement, attack, bonus action, and move for example.
I'm not sure if it will get too messy, but the idea is to break up the looooong time especially higher level character ends up consuming with all movement, attacks, special/bonus actions etc. It will also do something interesting around movement and attack since you might move in first step, but the opponent now gets to attack first before you get your next step in the turn order. It will probably add quite a lot of choas :) It will certainly be a completely different way of running combat than the current chess-piece concept.
I'm hoping to test it out in a one shot at some point - it might take a bit of getting used to, and some fine tuning. But it wouldn't mess with durations since your turn starts on your first/highest initiative, and ends on your lowest step, so should fit in with effects of spells etc.
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Fudge Initiative if a group is gonna blanket beat your big boss.
If that's too dirty a word at your table I've had limited success with "Passive initiative" (10+ initiative mod), but with really high initiative PCs that only helps them if your boss is slow.
I've also given situational bonuses to initiative and subsequent conditions giving one side of combat or certain creatures advantage or disadvantage on their roll.
As Penta says, making the combat last longer should help make it feel more balanced.
At my table, the character that initiates combat ("I punch him in the face") always gets to go first no matter where the initiative roll places it in the initiative order (the actual initiative placement is ignored that first round). This often results in a PC going first, but sometimes they strike out at people who meant them no harm because they know they can't necessarily wait for a voice saying "roll initiative" to declare that they are standing in front of an enemy. Of course, if both parties realise that the other party is hostile, initiative is rolled and followed as normal.
Regarding the optional initiative rule where initiative is rolled every round, I don't think this solves the question OP is having. However I really like the unpredictability the rule brings to the table. Sure your spells might be more or less effective than you anticipated, but I find it more realistic that way (and I enjoy a bit of realism in my games). For people who prefer a certain amount of predictablity and that want to ensure their actions are as impactful as they are supposed to be, I definitely wouldn't recommend this option.
The DM collecting all the initiative scores, as well as rolling for each group of monsters, then rearranging the combat order for the next round...
I played in a campaign where they rerolled initiative every round and it slowed down fights massively - and the fights were already slow from being mid-high level PCs with lots of options to choose between on each turn.
Beyond the first turn, a reliable turn order makes for being able to come up with a far better strategy to win the fight than hoping for better/worse initiative each round.