Goodman Games

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.

Interesting, I like this. It kind of blends the WFRP 3rd edition system with old school rules in a simple way (which is what I want).

How you deal with interrupts to spell casters? In a system like this the casters can't really be interrupted during casting as they will know if they have been hit or not that round. In one of the systems, I believe I read it in Labyrinth Lord, the two sides declare their actions and then initiative is rolled each round but it's done for the whole side (so it's still quick). Thus if a caster states they are casting a spell but their side loses initiative and an NPC attacks, they can be interrupted in mid-cast.

Can your system allow for this?

Edit: Actually I think Pathfinder just adds a penalty to the cast if you are being attacked so I probably answered that myself.

Yep, Pathfinder does just add a casting modifier to prevent a free attack on the caster if they are in a dangerous situation, or took damage.