Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 mattaddhall Jun 08, 2015 11:09:56	My DM wants to make a new rule about rolling for initiative. He wants us to roll at the beginning of a session, and what we roll will then be our initiative for the whole session. He is very open minded and won’t do this if we don’t want it.   What are some of the Pros and Cons you can think of for this rule?
#2 jaappleton Jun 08, 2015 11:43:03	Speeds things up. But if you're gonna have it predetermined, why not just go by your natural Dex score? That should be all the testament to a characters speed that you need. However, ask him to keep an open mind regarding surprising circumstances, such as the stealth Ranger initiating a fight by sniping an opponent.
#3 FrogReaver Jun 08, 2015 11:45:26	mattaddhall wrote:
#4 mellored Jun 08, 2015 12:04:37	Pros: Slightly Faster   Cons: Locks you in.   Net result won't change though.  You'll still have the same number and chance of going first and going last.
#5 SterlingRat Jun 08, 2015 12:08:30	I could definitely see this houserule before we started hanging folded index cards over the DM screen to track initiatives... we would always lose track of who goes next and someone would get skipped and one person would write down the initiative and then someone would wait and so on and so on...   however, once we started tracking initiative correctly, it settled those problems better than just using the same order for the whole session.
#6 whatisaman Jun 08, 2015 14:21:18	Why not just have each character's intiative be an unchanging number, like AC? 10 + your Dexterity modifier, or just use your Dexterity modifier.
#7 Greenstone.Walker Jun 08, 2015 16:17:08	+1 for the folded tent cards. I have 10 of them, numberd "1" to "10" in big red handwriting. At the beginning of each combat I hand them out and each player puts it on the table in front of them.   For a while I was using popcorn initiative (see AngryGM), where each player just picked who goes next. That makes fights quite interesting and tactical.
#8 Setzer_G Jun 08, 2015 16:21:15	I have my players just roll at the beginning a handful of initiatives and put them on index cards with their character names on them (while we're in pre-session BS mode). Organize them by initiative order when its time. Go to the next card after someone has acted. Saves a ton of time.
#9 Veleria Jun 08, 2015 17:46:22	This can hurt classes like rogue that gain benefits for acting before an enemy. While they will certainly lose initiative from time to time having a bad roll cause you to lose your class functions for a full session can really suck.
#10 Horwath Jun 09, 2015 8:10:28	IMO it's better to have dex score as initiative than one roll for entire session. It will hurt some classes more that others and if you know that you initiative is low/high before you roll it, you might be cought in metagame playing.
#11 QwertyAzerty Jun 09, 2015 10:41:22	at our table (and it work great and it's easy) we all roll initiative, then the highest goes first, then we go clock wise from there no matter what everyone else rolled.   This allow us to make group strategy. The sorcerer will sit first since he want to go first if possible in order to cast fireball before the barbarian rush in melee or cast greater invisibility on the rogue before he goes in melee. Then the range character would sit next, then my shield master fighter who will drop teh main target prone, then the other melee character after me so they can benefit from me droping the monster prone, then it's the monster turn who will most likely get back up on his feat so the range character are not penalize attacking prone targets.   The monster also get a bonus as they all attack at the same time.   we never forget who is next, since when the player next to you is talking and rolling dice you know that you are next.   it's a very simple technic that even the new player joining us for the first time can understand it and enjoy it.