Rolling for intiative only once

[Effex Seven]

Is is really necessary to roll initiative every round?

One thing I like about d20 and the New World of Darkness system is that you only roll initiative once at the start of combat, and it remains constant from round to round.

At first I thought this would make combat too predictable, but in practice it really doesn't. It makes it quicker. And you can always take a round to "regroup" which allows you to reroll initiative, which is a neat tactical option.

Thoughts?

[Gry Sarth]

Humm.. I don't know... There are certain combat situations where the person with first initiative is at a great advantage. To have this advantage stick through an entire combat could be disastrous. However, on accasions where winning initiative is not all that important, I usually roll initiative only once and let it stick. You have to be flexible, and this is a house that's really simple to employ whenever you feel it will be beneficial. I just wouldn't make it the standard rule.
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[Krayt]

Well, let's see...

Usually the person with init is at a great advantage, especially round to round (say, an AT-AT wins init...), but they also don't know what then enemy might do. Rerollong round to round is a hassle I usually dont deal with, but rather I rol Init any time something important happens, and if nothing happens, just once a combat.

But it's your house rule. Rolling Init every round is a bit more fare, but takes forever.

Another thought I use sometimes is just decide who goes first. ("Joe, your first. No, I dont care that you didn't make a roll, your first!").
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"Your lack of faith disturbs me." - Vader

[Grimace]

I sit in the same field as Krayt in that I usually roll initiative at the start, and then again ONLY if situations change that would reflect a possible shift in initiative...like reinforcements arriving, bombardment incoming, stuff like that.

I also tweak things a little and do initiative by group. Let me give an example.

Player group consists of 5 players. They're going into a situation in a landing pad that they figure is a trap, so 1 guy decides to climb the wall and come in from a different angle than the others. As the other four enter, one guy decides to break right and seperate himself from the group. On the opposite side of the landing pad, 5 bad guys wait, looking tough.

Words are exchanged as the first PC gets into position on the wall overlooking the whole landing pad. Bad guys holler out and busting in from another doorway come 6 more bad guys, blasters drawn, looking for trouble.

So I have 5 "groups" rolling for initiative. 1 PC on the wall. 3 PCs in a group on one side. 1 PC off to the right, almost directly across from the door where the bad guys just entered. 1 batch of bad guys opposite the PC group, and 1 new batch of bad guys coming in the door. They all roll, and I begin combat based on initiative rolls. For the combat, unless anything substantially changes, the order that they go in will be the order that they stay in. Like, for example, if the lone "flank" PC decided to get back with the other three and work with them. I'd dissolve his roll and make that group reroll to see if they could act anytime differently.

So yes, in order to keep things more fluid, I never rolled every round for initiative. But do what works best for your style of game play.

[cheshire]

I don't do a lot with initiative. There are some combat scenarios where I just assign initiative rather than have them roll for it. Most of the time my players would rather just get into the fighting and let me worry about order. Rolling to see who goes first isn't big on their adgenda.

[Effex Seven]

[Liam (Gunman) Kissane]

[MA-3PO]

In blaster fights it might not matter so much but I would always roll initiative every round for Lightsaber duals.

[vong]

I do kind of a combined approach. I beleive it doesnt matter which order the players go in their 'initiative turn' so i let them go in any order. normally one person has an idea, so they go first, and that spawns another idea and so on. but i do make them roll each round. for example. the person with the highest perception in our party has 4D. so i say: "someone roll 4D" and throught various superstisious approaches, they dictate someone to roll. i roll for the baddies and see which group goes first. that way group order can change, but you dont get to the nitty gritty each round of everyone rolling. it leads to some interesting situations, like loosing initiave to Stormtroopers by rolling a 1 in a round and such but that bad luck wont carry through the whole combat, just the one round (altho, they have gone on in a firefight and rolled a 1 every time they tried to shoot anything )
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[garhkal]

I am the same way. No individual init, unless in seperate groups, but group init. Which eve side get it, goes first..
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[Ankhanu]

Classically we've always gone initiative each round. However, recently we've begun using a single initiative roll for the entire combat.

The switch is partially due to the GM not having a good grounding in the d6 rules, the group having picked up D&D in the past couple years and GM laziness
It does speed up combat a little bit, but not a whole lot. Initiative is a pretty quick element of the combat process, so I never found it caused things to chug.

I do agree with what has been said about it normally being a good way to go, but turn by turn initiative is probably best for unarmed and melee/lightsaber combat where turn order can have a profound effect on outcome.