This question is more-so aimed at those who use the Combat Tracker, but anyone should feel free to give their two cents...
Normally / traditionally, the way I've seen most games run is each PC rolls their own initiative, but monsters are grouped by type - this makes sense, it's easier to keep track, it saves time, and it's less of a pain...
However, if the monster group rolls particularly badly, it can make what should be a fun, challenging encounter turn out too easy, especially if there is only one monster type, and they go last in the turn order. This could often lead to a situation where the PCs have wiped out a number of enemies before they get a chance to act...
So, the question(s): Does anyone roll Initiative for each monster individually? If so, what are your thoughts on it? Does it make encounters more balanced? Does it lead to a more accurate CR-based challenge? Is it a lot of overhead and hassle?
I've been prepping encounters for an upcoming campaign, using placeholder PCs that I had generated to simulate the encounters as I build them, and I've found that if I have one or two groups of monsters, and they roll low initiative, the PCs can steamroller the encounter with barely a scratch... But if I add monsters as individuals, therefore giving them their own initiative, there's a better spread, and a more challenging encounter... I've no practical experience with this at the table though, so I thought I'd see if anyone else does this, and hopefully get some insight as to the pros and cons of actual play, not just my simulated tests... TIA!
I vary it by encounter. If there are only two or three monsters of the same type, they'll each get their own initiative. If there are more than 3 monsters I'll group them, but I wouldn't often run combats where they just fight 4 of the same thing. You are entirely right that a poor initiative roll swings the fight heavily against the monsters, and so I would split the initiative. I would suggest however that you try to vary fights more than having a single monster type in a combat - those combats are very easy to gimmick your way through as a party as the monsters will be weak to something. Sometimes you'll just want to stick in 3 Gorgons but aim to include at least one caster or ranged attacker.
You can't really get accurate CR based challenges using the standard CR because they're only a very basic representation. At levels 1-2, whole combats swing on a single natural 20. At CR5+ the monsters are too weak to live up to their challenge rating, and "resistance to nonmagical weapon attacks" is effectively used to treat monsters like they have double hit points, when in fact the whole party either have a basic magic weapon or are casting spells at level 5 onwards in most campaigns, so higher CR monsters are a bit of a joke all round (215 hit points on a CR15 dragon, anyone?).
It's a challenge between variety and utility. I happen to be reading up on Kobolds in 5e and I think in Volo's the DM is actually encouraged to roll for individual kobolds to make for a more dynamic encounter. With a party of 4-5 PCs, I could see rolling individual monster initiative if the monsters outnumbered the PCs up to two to one. Beyond that, it starts getting tedious, and you start grouping things into two monster elements or "squads" and the like (I also - see my other thread currently just below this one - use mob tactics to minimize dice rolling).
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
It's a challenge between variety and utility. I happen to be reading up on Kobolds in 5e and I think in Volo's the DM is actually encouraged to roll for individual kobolds to make for a more dynamic encounter. With a party of 4-5 PCs, I could see rolling individual monster initiative if the monsters outnumbered the PCs up to two to one. Beyond that, it starts getting tedious, and you start grouping things into two monster elements or "squads" and the like (I also - see my other thread currently just below this one - use mob tactics to minimize dice rolling).
I hadn't considered making them "squads," that's actually a really good way to potentially vary the initiative.
If I'm running multiple monsters (say, more than 4/5) I'll split them into 2-3 groups, just to get them dispersed throught the initiative. This serves to help give the encounter the *feel* of more enemies than there are. Rolling individual initiative for *each* monster doest get tiresome at larger quantities.
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“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
I tend to roll the same by groups of creatures, but sometimes split it up depending on locations as well. For example if you have kobolds streaming out from two different tunnels, i roll them as separate groups.
You are totally right about a low roll impacting the encounter a lot, but it is also worth remembering that grouped creatures on the same initiative roll have some advantages. For example, those kobolds stream up to surround a character, means that the second one in the group onwards now get their pack tactics advantage. It also benefits in being able to move them around in an ordered sequence controlled by the DM that makes it easier to move them a bit strategically.
If I'm running multiple monsters (say, more than 4/5) I'll split them into 2-3 groups, just to get them dispersed throught the initiative. This serves to help give the encounter the *feel* of more enemies than there are. Rolling individual initiative for *each* monster doest get tiresome at larger quantities.
When you first implemented this did your players give you any grief because "that's not raw!"?
If I'm running multiple monsters (say, more than 4/5) I'll split them into 2-3 groups, just to get them dispersed throught the initiative. This serves to help give the encounter the *feel* of more enemies than there are. Rolling individual initiative for *each* monster doest get tiresome at larger quantities.
When you first implemented this did your players give you any grief because "that's not raw!"?
If your players insist on RAW then they don't understand how D&D works. In the first few pages of the DMG you're advised to change or abandon the rules whenever you see fit. According to RAW, you are under no obligation as a DM to follow RAW.
If I'm running multiple monsters (say, more than 4/5) I'll split them into 2-3 groups, just to get them dispersed throught the initiative. This serves to help give the encounter the *feel* of more enemies than there are. Rolling individual initiative for *each* monster doest get tiresome at larger quantities.
When you first implemented this did your players give you any grief because "that's not raw!"?
If your players insist on RAW then they don't understand how D&D works. In the first few pages of the DMG you're advised to change or abandon the rules whenever you see fit. According to RAW, you are under no obligation as a DM to follow RAW.
It was just a question. I was just curious how the players took it that’s all mine prefer RAW so I was just asking.
Personally, I aim to have 3-4 slots in the initiative order and will group things up as needed to achieve that. I have played with DMs who roll for each individual monster and it can be extremely tedious in large fights. It also seems like most of the time the monster rolls result in them clumping together anyway.
I should say that similar to those above, I shoot for ~3 different types of monsters per encounter as well. That may include something like goblin archers and goblin skirmishers who both use the goblin stat block but behave different tactically in that battle.
When you first implemented this did your players give you any grief because "that's not raw!"?
My group adopted the "roll once for each monster type" strategy as kind of a default many years ago back in 4e, so they don't really view it in terms of RAW but rather just see it as DM preference. Honestly, I don't think any of us could tell you the RAW for 5e on this subject.
I tend to vary it some, depending on the encounter. If I have quite a few enemies, then some get grouped, but I also NEVER have all the foes use one initiative roll. I may have as an example, 2 Orcs, 4 Goblins and 2 Worgs. The Worgs would be a group, as would the Goblins, and I would have the Orcs roll an initiative each. A smaller, more common encounter of, say 4 Orcs, each gets it's own initiative, same as the party.
Breaking it up some adds to the immersion of the fight, as some foes are a little sharper than their comrades in a fight, so having them all go at the same time makes little sense. Also, it limits the chance of the party wiping out all the enemies before they even get a turn. This can be flipped as well, since 4-5 Orcs could easily drop a caster if they all went together and focused fire on him/her.
I also don't face any questions about RaW as I play with a consistent group and we all know that the rules are guidelines and some are ignored, when it best fits the campaign. If I were to DM for a different group, this truth would be revealed in session 0, with some examples being provided and specifics they might ask about being addressed as they come up.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Talk to your Players.Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
If I'm running multiple monsters (say, more than 4/5) I'll split them into 2-3 groups, just to get them dispersed throught the initiative. This serves to help give the encounter the *feel* of more enemies than there are. Rolling individual initiative for *each* monster doest get tiresome at larger quantities.
When you first implemented this did your players give you any grief because "that's not raw!"?
If your players insist on RAW then they don't understand how D&D works. In the first few pages of the DMG you're advised to change or abandon the rules whenever you see fit. According to RAW, you are under no obligation as a DM to follow RAW.
It was just a question. I was just curious how the players took it that’s all mine prefer RAW so I was just asking.
They pay far less attention to it than you do. Either that, or they enjoy the sensation of added pressure when more monsters show up. Regardless, none of my players have complained about "that not being RAW". I also don't get into encounter design discussions with them regarding things they have seen, or things they will see. For some reason, my players like playing the game, not arguing about it.
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“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
Individual monster initiative tends to slow things down a lot. The game I am in now ends up doing that a lot, as we use different types. Only thing worse is large battles with lots of NPCs.
If I'm playing with software assistance, I run creatures on individual initiative. If I'm playing physically, with just a notepad for my DM aids, I run monsters on group initiative. It simply takes too long to handle individual initiative when you don't have a program to handle it for you. It also helps that I use Foundry VTT for most of my electronic sessions, so I can hotbar my creatures' primary actions so I don't have to flip through things to look up what they can do or double check numbers, and it actually makes it less convenient to handle initiative as a group since I can't always tell which creature I've moved.
How i track monsters initiative depends on how many there is and which types Small group of a single type of monster have a single init while different types of monsters, larger group of a type, boss or named creature usually have seperate init.
I will tend towards rolling individually, but will also make them into squads when it makes sense. 2 ogres can be run individually with no issue, but if I'm running a pack of 12 wolves, who have split to come at you from 3 sides, then I will roll each group as a group (and put it down to tactics, they all act at the initiative of the slowest member, for justfication). So you'd have 6 in front acting at once, and then 3 coming from either side acting on their own.
Contrary to making it easy if they roll low, it can enhance the ambush if the party are waiting for the 6 in front (which they've seen) to act again and suddenly it's initiative count 5 and these guys are breaking cover from the left. The players have all acted and are out of position, so now they need to react. If they all went at once, the players have 1 round of seeing what the wolves are doing, then every PC gets to act based on where the wolves are right now, before the wolves move again.
Running a whole combat on only one initiative count for the enemies makes it dull and predictable, which combat should be anything but!
I roll initiative for monsters as a group, by monster type, but when I have a large group of monsters, I will divide them into teams or 4-5 monsters per team.
I use a spreadsheet to manage combat. The monsters in a team get assigned initiative roll +0.1, +0.2, +0.3, ...
So in this past weekends combat against the bandits, I had a bandit captain, a team of bandit melee focused warriors, and a team of archer focused warriors. The party Bard went first. A group of bandit melee warriors went next with initiative numbers like 17.1, 17.2, 17.3, 17.4, ... Then the party fighter went, then the cleric, then the paladin. After this the bandit captain went on initiative 10. Then the bandit archers went on initiative 9.1, 9.2, 9.3, 9.4, ... Then the remainder of the party went.
In the first round, most of the archers shot their shortbows against the party fighter with an AC of 19. He took one hit. They stopped firing at him after that.
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Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
Sorry this question is so late, but what do you guys think about, for planned encounters, rolling initiative of the enemies beforehand so that every enemy could have a varied initiative?
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This question is more-so aimed at those who use the Combat Tracker, but anyone should feel free to give their two cents...
Normally / traditionally, the way I've seen most games run is each PC rolls their own initiative, but monsters are grouped by type - this makes sense, it's easier to keep track, it saves time, and it's less of a pain...
However, if the monster group rolls particularly badly, it can make what should be a fun, challenging encounter turn out too easy, especially if there is only one monster type, and they go last in the turn order. This could often lead to a situation where the PCs have wiped out a number of enemies before they get a chance to act...
So, the question(s): Does anyone roll Initiative for each monster individually? If so, what are your thoughts on it? Does it make encounters more balanced? Does it lead to a more accurate CR-based challenge? Is it a lot of overhead and hassle?
I've been prepping encounters for an upcoming campaign, using placeholder PCs that I had generated to simulate the encounters as I build them, and I've found that if I have one or two groups of monsters, and they roll low initiative, the PCs can steamroller the encounter with barely a scratch... But if I add monsters as individuals, therefore giving them their own initiative, there's a better spread, and a more challenging encounter... I've no practical experience with this at the table though, so I thought I'd see if anyone else does this, and hopefully get some insight as to the pros and cons of actual play, not just my simulated tests... TIA!
I vary it by encounter. If there are only two or three monsters of the same type, they'll each get their own initiative. If there are more than 3 monsters I'll group them, but I wouldn't often run combats where they just fight 4 of the same thing. You are entirely right that a poor initiative roll swings the fight heavily against the monsters, and so I would split the initiative. I would suggest however that you try to vary fights more than having a single monster type in a combat - those combats are very easy to gimmick your way through as a party as the monsters will be weak to something. Sometimes you'll just want to stick in 3 Gorgons but aim to include at least one caster or ranged attacker.
You can't really get accurate CR based challenges using the standard CR because they're only a very basic representation. At levels 1-2, whole combats swing on a single natural 20. At CR5+ the monsters are too weak to live up to their challenge rating, and "resistance to nonmagical weapon attacks" is effectively used to treat monsters like they have double hit points, when in fact the whole party either have a basic magic weapon or are casting spells at level 5 onwards in most campaigns, so higher CR monsters are a bit of a joke all round (215 hit points on a CR15 dragon, anyone?).
It's a challenge between variety and utility. I happen to be reading up on Kobolds in 5e and I think in Volo's the DM is actually encouraged to roll for individual kobolds to make for a more dynamic encounter. With a party of 4-5 PCs, I could see rolling individual monster initiative if the monsters outnumbered the PCs up to two to one. Beyond that, it starts getting tedious, and you start grouping things into two monster elements or "squads" and the like (I also - see my other thread currently just below this one - use mob tactics to minimize dice rolling).
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I hadn't considered making them "squads," that's actually a really good way to potentially vary the initiative.
If I'm running multiple monsters (say, more than 4/5) I'll split them into 2-3 groups, just to get them dispersed throught the initiative. This serves to help give the encounter the *feel* of more enemies than there are. Rolling individual initiative for *each* monster doest get tiresome at larger quantities.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
I tend to roll the same by groups of creatures, but sometimes split it up depending on locations as well. For example if you have kobolds streaming out from two different tunnels, i roll them as separate groups.
You are totally right about a low roll impacting the encounter a lot, but it is also worth remembering that grouped creatures on the same initiative roll have some advantages. For example, those kobolds stream up to surround a character, means that the second one in the group onwards now get their pack tactics advantage. It also benefits in being able to move them around in an ordered sequence controlled by the DM that makes it easier to move them a bit strategically.
When you first implemented this did your players give you any grief because "that's not raw!"?
If your players insist on RAW then they don't understand how D&D works. In the first few pages of the DMG you're advised to change or abandon the rules whenever you see fit. According to RAW, you are under no obligation as a DM to follow RAW.
It was just a question. I was just curious how the players took it that’s all mine prefer RAW so I was just asking.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
I tend to vary it some, depending on the encounter. If I have quite a few enemies, then some get grouped, but I also NEVER have all the foes use one initiative roll. I may have as an example, 2 Orcs, 4 Goblins and 2 Worgs. The Worgs would be a group, as would the Goblins, and I would have the Orcs roll an initiative each. A smaller, more common encounter of, say 4 Orcs, each gets it's own initiative, same as the party.
Breaking it up some adds to the immersion of the fight, as some foes are a little sharper than their comrades in a fight, so having them all go at the same time makes little sense. Also, it limits the chance of the party wiping out all the enemies before they even get a turn. This can be flipped as well, since 4-5 Orcs could easily drop a caster if they all went together and focused fire on him/her.
I also don't face any questions about RaW as I play with a consistent group and we all know that the rules are guidelines and some are ignored, when it best fits the campaign. If I were to DM for a different group, this truth would be revealed in session 0, with some examples being provided and specifics they might ask about being addressed as they come up.
Talk to your Players. Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
With a VTT it is very easy to have all creatures on their own initiative since the VTT will track each individual token's initiative for you.
When using figures or theatre of the mind it is more difficult, since the DM has to remember which initiative applies to which figure.
They pay far less attention to it than you do. Either that, or they enjoy the sensation of added pressure when more monsters show up. Regardless, none of my players have complained about "that not being RAW". I also don't get into encounter design discussions with them regarding things they have seen, or things they will see. For some reason, my players like playing the game, not arguing about it.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
I roll initiative for each unique monster. If there are 3 or more of the same monster type, I roll one initiative for all of them.
Individual monster initiative tends to slow things down a lot. The game I am in now ends up doing that a lot, as we use different types. Only thing worse is large battles with lots of NPCs.
If I'm playing with software assistance, I run creatures on individual initiative. If I'm playing physically, with just a notepad for my DM aids, I run monsters on group initiative. It simply takes too long to handle individual initiative when you don't have a program to handle it for you. It also helps that I use Foundry VTT for most of my electronic sessions, so I can hotbar my creatures' primary actions so I don't have to flip through things to look up what they can do or double check numbers, and it actually makes it less convenient to handle initiative as a group since I can't always tell which creature I've moved.
How i track monsters initiative depends on how many there is and which types Small group of a single type of monster have a single init while different types of monsters, larger group of a type, boss or named creature usually have seperate init.
I will tend towards rolling individually, but will also make them into squads when it makes sense. 2 ogres can be run individually with no issue, but if I'm running a pack of 12 wolves, who have split to come at you from 3 sides, then I will roll each group as a group (and put it down to tactics, they all act at the initiative of the slowest member, for justfication). So you'd have 6 in front acting at once, and then 3 coming from either side acting on their own.
Contrary to making it easy if they roll low, it can enhance the ambush if the party are waiting for the 6 in front (which they've seen) to act again and suddenly it's initiative count 5 and these guys are breaking cover from the left. The players have all acted and are out of position, so now they need to react. If they all went at once, the players have 1 round of seeing what the wolves are doing, then every PC gets to act based on where the wolves are right now, before the wolves move again.
Running a whole combat on only one initiative count for the enemies makes it dull and predictable, which combat should be anything but!
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I roll initiative for monsters as a group, by monster type, but when I have a large group of monsters, I will divide them into teams or 4-5 monsters per team.
I use a spreadsheet to manage combat. The monsters in a team get assigned initiative roll +0.1, +0.2, +0.3, ...
So in this past weekends combat against the bandits, I had a bandit captain, a team of bandit melee focused warriors, and a team of archer focused warriors. The party Bard went first. A group of bandit melee warriors went next with initiative numbers like 17.1, 17.2, 17.3, 17.4, ... Then the party fighter went, then the cleric, then the paladin. After this the bandit captain went on initiative 10. Then the bandit archers went on initiative 9.1, 9.2, 9.3, 9.4, ... Then the remainder of the party went.
In the first round, most of the archers shot their shortbows against the party fighter with an AC of 19. He took one hit. They stopped firing at him after that.
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
Sorry this question is so late, but what do you guys think about, for planned encounters, rolling initiative of the enemies beforehand so that every enemy could have a varied initiative?