Re: Initiative and Two-Handed Weapons
Posted: Mon Jun 20, 2011 8:48 am
My group has adopted a house rule for initiative in Pathfinder that goes like:
All players roll individual init on first round as normal, but the DM only rolls a single Initiative die for the baddies
All PCs that beat the DM roll get to take a turn
Then we just alternate between sides starting with the monsters. When your side is acting, players can act in any order. As mentioned above, this keeps everyone involved in the combat and actually speeds things up quite a bit as players do not tune out waiting until their turn, and then take extra time absorbing the situation again when it is there turn.
We have found that this offers the best of both worlds, individual Initiative based feats and DEX bonuses still matter, but then we get the flexibility of group based initiative with very little mechanical difference. A side effect is that it negates most of the need for delays and other Initiative based actions that tend to just bog things down.
But absolutely the best benefit is that it keeps all the players fully engaged.
All players roll individual init on first round as normal, but the DM only rolls a single Initiative die for the baddies
All PCs that beat the DM roll get to take a turn
Then we just alternate between sides starting with the monsters. When your side is acting, players can act in any order. As mentioned above, this keeps everyone involved in the combat and actually speeds things up quite a bit as players do not tune out waiting until their turn, and then take extra time absorbing the situation again when it is there turn.
We have found that this offers the best of both worlds, individual Initiative based feats and DEX bonuses still matter, but then we get the flexibility of group based initiative with very little mechanical difference. A side effect is that it negates most of the need for delays and other Initiative based actions that tend to just bog things down.
But absolutely the best benefit is that it keeps all the players fully engaged.