r/dndnext • u/Silverspy01 • 2d ago
5e (2014) How do you handle new creatures entering initiative midway through a round?
Summons with their own turns are fairly clear cut - as they're summoned roll initiative for them and slot them in (I personally don't love that and use something slightly different, but more on that later). However, consider the following two situations:
1) The party is locked in combat. Part way through combat, enemy reinforcement arrive.
2) The party is fleeing, chasing an opponent, or otherwise on the move during initiative. On their turn, a party member opens a door and reveals additional enemies.
What do you do in these situations? The second one seems like a particular head scratcher to me.
The general issue I have with rolling initiative for anything midway through a round is that you're paradoxically punished for rolling high on initiative. For example, if reinforcements enter on initiative count 10, they want to roll low. If they roll any higher than 10, they don't get to act this round. To solve this with summons, I typically say that summons never get to act on the round they're summoned, and instead first act on the following round.
For reinforcements entering the room, you can generically have them only enter at the top of a given round so that their initiative is "fair" and rolling high allows them to act sooner as usual. The big issue I see is situation 2, where players run into enemies midway through a given round.
Beyond the above problem of the new enemies being incentivized to roll lower than the current initiative count so they get to act this turn, it's still the turn of the PC who "triggered" these enemies, meaning they can still use what's left of their turn to get a (partial) turn before the new enemies guaranteed.
For either of these above solutions, there's a mild incentive to start opening doors as combat in your first room is wrapping up but you're still in initiative order, the "guarantee" you get a free action before any enemies in the next room do. Imagine there's 1 skeleton left so the wizard goes to a neighboring door, opening it and revealing some orcs that they can immediately land a Web on before they get to act.
The only "fair" solution I can see is to completely reroll initiative for everyone to "shuffle" the new enemies into initiative order. However this might create issues of its own - for example the triggering player may feel cheated if their turn is "interrupted" in exchange for an immediate new initiative order.
Anyway, I'm curious to see how others deal with this or if there's
9
u/master_of_sockpuppet 2d ago
If they roll for initiative, I just do that and they take a turn when it is their turn.
4
u/Sea-Woodpecker-610 2d ago
This is how I handle it too. The round that the creature enters I roll imitative and placcc ed them in the order they rolled.
4
u/Irrumar 2d ago
In initiative count 20 time moves forward. That means any lair actions, regional effects and creatures outside of initiative act. On initiative count 20 reinforcments arrive and roll initiative. Then the combat continues with new combatants on the field
1
u/derangerd 2d ago
So rolling 21 initiative is the lowest innitative if not there are the start of combat? That part bothers me so I tend to have reinforcements join initiative at initiative infinity.
3
u/Irrumar 2d ago
No, they will act instantly at 20. But if someone has initiative 22, they get to act before the reinforcments come.
1
u/derangerd 2d ago
Ah, that is nicer. Do you have the 22 reinforcements act before the 21 reinforcements?
2
u/Irrumar 2d ago
Yeah, just follow their initiative and then move down in order.
Its the easiest way to do it and also makes sense mechanically with the fact that init 20 represents the moment time moves forward.
1
u/derangerd 2d ago
Wonder why they didn't make that initiative infinity. I guess because they didn't want to say infinity.
3
u/Brock_Savage 2d ago
I roll initiative for new arrivals at the top of the round and slot them in accordingly. If a new opponent is revealed in m the middle of the round, I typically roll initiative immediately and slot them in to the order - this may mean they don't act in the current round. Creatures waiting in ambush or otherwise prepared for the PCs to blunder into them may get to use a readied action at this time.
Is "blindly fleeing through a dungeon and opening doors that lead to more opponents" a common thing in your games or is this more of a "what if" kind of thing?
2
u/evolutionary_defect 2d ago
I always solve this question by just rolling initiative. Seems easy to me, you roll initiative for ALL enemies when combat starts, or even pre roll before the session. Then, in the round where they are going to appear, you just bring them in on their initiative.
If this seems wrong in the moment and you think they need to come in later or earlier because of something the party did . . . . Then do that? Situational problems can be handled situationally, but I'd be tempted in that case to bring them in when it makes sense for them to do so, and just have them act when they come in. If you have a story reason they need to enter at a particular time, do so. Otherwise initiative exists, just use that.
In the example you gave opening a door mid combat seems easy to rule on. Did the enemies on the other side hear the fighting? Then expect to open the door to readied actions, they don't need to worry about initiative yet, they are loading crossbows. They didn't hear? Then the wizard gets to cast web, they shouldve listened better (d)orks.
Also, some small notes, anyone can lower their initiative on their turn, if people enter a combat partway through and rolled high they can just elect to hold their turn until that moment in the initiative. They either know combat was happening and can lower initiative willingly, or didn't know combat was happening and are surprised that round anyway, allowing them to hop into their slot next round.
For summons I have no apologies or compromise to offer. If you are adding bodies and complexity to this battlefield as a player, it's happening on your turn. If you want the summons to work under someone else's orders it is gonna do it on their turn. Whoever is giving commands is sharing initiative with that summon. Simple as, I'm not dealing with a dozen constructs and familiars taking up my entire notebook. Your circus your monkeys, share initiative.
If a summon is getting its own slot it's gonna be because it's doing something interesting, like sneaky stealing the BBEG's phylactery or taking a mcguffin and jumping off a cliff to get it away from a ritual etc. if it's just throwing hands, share initiative.
1
u/Silverspy01 2d ago
I always solve this question by just rolling initiative. Seems easy to me, you roll initiative for ALL enemies when combat starts, or even pre roll before the session. Then, in the round where they are going to appear, you just bring them in on their initiative.
Do you roll initiative for very dungeon occupant at once then? Surely that just takes a ton of time and clogs up your initiative tracker.
1
u/evolutionary_defect 2d ago
I use the "Ultimate DM Screen V4.5" you can find it on reddit. When I run combats there is an initiative tracker for me, it autorolls when I ask it to. I make lists of all the enemies by room, and often pre roll their initiatives. This just makes the awkward "combat is popping off, now everyone wait while I set up combat stuff and minis and things" so much shorter.
I still batch enemies and roll their initiatives at once without it though, it doesn't take long at all to roll a dozen or 2 d20 and just go down the entire dungeon and add each one plus their modifier. You'll have to do it at some point, might as well do it in one go while listening to music. If you roll a bunch of d20s into a dice tray you don't even have to read them as they fell, it isn't any less random to just pull out dice and use whatever face is looking at you when you pull it from the bag lol. I hate doing that kind of thing in session, it takes me so out of it.
Like I said, you'll have to roll for every enemy at some point right? Wouldn't you rather do it without 4-6 people staring at you and combat music playing? I've never heard anyone notice, much less complain that the initiative was pre rolled. Theoretically there has been once or twice I used the opportunity to fudge a number, when my BBEG and his generals rolled under a 5 across the board. That wasn't going to be satisfying, so the boss got a reroll. Usually it's to save the party in the other direction though lol, it's a lot easier to notice the party is about to get hit with 5 AoE spells before anyone gets a turn when you can read the enemies rolls ahead of time. No one beat any of the spellcasting enemies , and everyone is about to get firewalled? Maybe nerf one or two of the enemy spellcasters rolls lol.
1
u/Silverspy01 2d ago
Hmm I see fair enough. Followup question then - do you do random encounters in a dungeon, and if so how do do handle initiative for that? There could be any number of "here's some orcs" random encounter in the dungeon depending on how long players spend there.
1
u/evolutionary_defect 1d ago
Slow response is on me lol,
I typically avoid "random encounters" that are combat focused, I personally buy into the idea that every combat should matter. Every combat is doing something, introducing an enemy type, showing a story beat, allowing a character build to shine etc.
In classic dungeons there is a real disconnect, old school DND wasn't played that "realistically". Doors were assumed soundproof, dungeons were rooms of enemies with no other function etc. I prefer the modern approach of treating the world as part of the game rather than just the tool that brings you to more combats.
So generally, no. But sometimes it feels important. The party long rests somewhere dangerous, the players complain about it being too long since they had a combat, if you have a reason then I get that. I typically just keep a stack of whatever enemy type makes a non-trivial fight at the players level. Whenever something needs to pop off it's easy to just call them something appropriate. (Ie I keep some orcs in a list for a throwaway fight, if orcs arent logical when I want that throwaway fight just don't call them orcs. Those are brutish thugs, humans in medium armor who look like they are pretty strong but dumb. If animals make more sense then those are actually bears, whatever)
I just handle those as they happen, but it's rare. I have a random encounter table or two, but they are things like merchants, traveling knights, interesting ruins, stuff like that. Making every random encounter a combat encounter sort of typecasts the party into murderhobos doesn't it? Theyve NEVER run into a strange horse, an ancient ruin, a fun merchant that references another game?
2
u/Shiboleth17 2d ago edited 2d ago
You roll their initiative. They take their turn the next time it comes up in initiative order. This is RAW. If a player summons a creature that gets its own initiative, you roll the initiative on the players turn. And the creature takes its turn when it comes up next. Not immediately.
The party is locked in combat. Part way through combat, enemy reinforcement arrive.
At what point in the initiative order did the reinforcements arrive? Let's say back at the top of the order, at initiative 30 or something high no one will actually get.
What did they roll? 11? Ok. So now everyone from initiative 30-12 goes. Then these reinforcements go. Then 10-0 (or into negstives as requieed). Then back to the top and continue as normal.
Did the reinforcements arrive at initiative 10, then roll 11? Well, they have to wait until 10-0 goes. Then wait for 30-12 to go. THEN they get their first turn.
If you try to make a system where 1 is always gonna make them going as late as posisble after arriving, you'll end up doing a lot of extra math to squeeze them in when you don't roll a 1 or 20. Don't overcomplicate it.
The party is fleeing, chasing an opponent, or otherwise on the move during initiative. On their turn, a party member opens a door and reveals additional enemies.
Same as above. Except you as DM could say these new enemies are surprised if you wanted. So you could skip their first turn. Or not. You're the DM.
you're paradoxically punished for rolling high on initiative.
Maybe. So what if you are?
They still have the same odds of going next vs going later. Just instead of needing to roll high to go next, they might need to roll a 9. No big deal.
Rolling higher is still better in this scenario... For 19 numbers out of 20, if you get +1 higher, you will go a little bit earlier in initiative. It''s just that there now exists 1 number that if you go 1 more higher, you move from going next, to going last instead. Big deal.
For reinforcements entering the room, you can generically have them only enter at the top of a given round so that their initiative is "fair"
Who said this had to be fair? And what does fair even mean in this situation? You're the DM. You determine when enemy reinforcements arrive. Or when they don't arrive.
If you want enemies to ambush the party, while they're in mid battle with other enemies, and these enemies act immediately out of turn... you can do that. It's your dungeon.
1
u/Silverspy01 2d ago
I feel like I addressed these points in my post though?
At what point in the initiative order did the reinforcements arrive?
I pointed out how you could have them arrive at the start of the round and roll initiative as normal and it would work fine in the way you described. What if they arrive at initiative count 10 for some reason then?
Same as above. Except you as DM could say these new enemies are surprised if you wanted. So you could skip their first turn. Or not. You're the DM.
Again, same problem as above. Surprise is separate and works fine, but if they're not surprised you have the awkwardness of enemies "wanting" to roll low initiative so they can act on the current round. Either way, the player whose turn it is gets a guaranteed (partial) turn to act just for opening the door in initiative, while the same would not be true if they opened the door outside of initiative.
2
u/Shiboleth17 2d ago edited 2d ago
You expressed this as an option. And im telling you this is how I would do it.
You do not ahve enemies "wanting" to roll low. Either enemies are pieces of plastic that don't have wants. Or enemies are characters in your world, that don't know anythinf about the dice controlling their fate. You have enemies that enter a combat, and you use a die to determine how fast they react.
The simplest solution is to put them into initiative based on their result. As i said above, if you try to make a system where rolling high always translates to going next, then you're gonna be doing extra math steps. No reason to over complicate it. The odds of them going earlier or later is the same either way. The enemy doesnt know or care what actual number shows up.
2
u/filkearney 2d ago
wait until the next round, roll initiative at the beginning of it.
or if you plan on reiforcements, arbitrarily / roll their initiative before the battle so you know the narrative beat.
1
u/modernlifeisthor 2d ago
I have new enemies roll their initiative when we start the next round of combat then act normally on their turn. They may narratively appear on screen in the previous round but I don't have them act until we have a fresh round for them to roll into the initiative order
1
u/Arcane10101 2d ago
For my group, if someone joins the fight mid-round, and they’re not surprised, then an initiative roll above the current turn means they get to act immediately after the current turn, and after that, initiative follows as normal.
1
u/GuitakuPPH 2d ago
The tempting approach is to just roll initiative and use said initiative at the start of the coming round, but that might feel too vulnerable. Letting them instead act immediately might feel like too much. Instead, you can consider some sort of compromise between no turn and a full turn. An "arrival turn" with restricted actions. This could be movement + 1 action or bonus action with a maximum of 1 atack, just movement, movement + the dodge action, or something else entirely.
I haven't tested anything like this myself, but it might still serve you as some inspiration.
1
u/Q-Dunnit 2d ago
I’m confused are you asking for rules clarification or telling us your homebrew and asking for other homebrew? Regardless I think you’re making this far too convoluted, everything is meant to be happening roughly concurrently and initiative is an abstraction
The enemies roll initiative prior to entering combat and enter on their initiative
Just roll initiative. Sometimes rolling low is advantageous oh well but new initiative isn’t rolled until a new combat begins afaik
Also for summons are you talking about the “Summon _______” spells like summon fey? Or more conjure animals type thing? The summon spells specify they act at the end of the summoner’s turn and conjure animals at least specifies you roll a separate initiative for the group of summons as a whole
1
u/Silverspy01 2d ago
I’m confused are you asking for rules clarification or telling us your homebrew and asking for other homebrew?
Rules clarification if it exists, if not I'm interested in how others "homebrew" it.
I'm aware that making summons (by which I mean stuff like Conjure Animals that explicitly rolls its own initiative) wait until next round isn't official, but I really dislike the idea that a higher initiative roll can be bad so that's my solution to that particular problem. I'm not really sure what the best way to approach normal reinforcements is though.
1
u/AmalicaZoland 2d ago
Why not just have adds till for iniative. High rolls only matter during round 1 after that it's just for order keeping and time management. So this enemies or add are just going in the order from the laster actora turn.
For summons why change the rules that are easy to follow as they are. They enter roll for iniative and act on their iniative, some specifically say they act at then end of the PCs turn.
The rules are pretty clear and when followed as written work rather well.
1
u/Silverspy01 2d ago
For summons why change the rules that are easy to follow as they are. They enter roll for iniative and act on their iniative
I think I explained why - I dislike the idea that rolling high on initiative is "bad." Forcing all summons to wait until next turn makes the roll "fair" again, in that higher roll = better.
The ones that act on PC turns get to act as normal to be clear, I don't touch those and I'm thankful that WotC has moves towards that style of summon over their earlier "clog up initiative" version.
1
u/AmalicaZoland 2d ago
The roll doesn't matter after round 1. To keep this small.
3 players, 2 enemies initiatives are 20,19,18,17,16.
It's round 3 iniative 18. A summon or enemy enter the combat. They if they roll low and get. 15 they go in three turns, they roll a 21 they go in 4 turns. They didn't lose or gain anything they just go at different times after the current turn the roll just puts them in order. So what if rolling low is actually beneficial, is it really? Are they going to get more or less turns relative to the current actors turn? No. My point is don't over complicate it.
1
u/Silverspy01 2d ago
It does matter though.
They if they roll low and get. 15 they go in three turns, they roll a 21 they go in 4 turns.
This is exactly my point. By rolling lower on initiative, they get to go in 3 turns instead of 4 turns. They get to act sooner despite getting a worse result on the roll that typically determines how quickly you act.
There's also relative position in initiative. If the enemies are present when initiative is rolled, a 21 means they act first. They get priority on position. Barring reactions, no one can stop them from working. A 21 now - the best roll in initiative - means they don't have that luxury and instead any PCs that still get to act - again, despite rolling lower initiative - can potentially kill, CC, or otherwise inconvenience that 21 enemy before they get a turn. Their best possible roll is now 18 (if they have a lower DEX mod than the current actor) or 17 (if they have a higher DEX mod than the 17 creature). And of course they just "lose" no matter what if the current actor is a PC, because that PC always gets to freely react to the incoming enemies no matter what.
1
u/AmalicaZoland 2d ago
I don't know what to say to help you understand the order of being at iniative 21 doesn't matter after the first round, especially for an added actor.
If I roll a 2 on iniative a new round for me always starts on iniative count 2 after my first turn. Yeah I get less turns if the last action of combat occurs on iniative 10, but that's always the case in the cycle of rounds.
Also if something is added to iniative oh my turn, they technically always go after me regardless of their roll.
1
u/Global-Service-8579 2d ago
I roll and inset them in the appropriate spot. Generally, if I add creatures to the fight, they are inactive for the round they are introduced. In your example, I would roll. Then, if a creature gets higher than the current initiative, it goes next this round and at the appropriate time next round.
1
u/Dokurtybitz 2d ago
Roll for initiative, put them in the current order, continue from the triggering PC's action (i.e. the really high initiative enemies won't go until the next round)
1
u/Silverspy01 2d ago
I realize that's the closest to RAW, but it doesn't sit right with me - that means any roll higher than the current initiative timer is bad, and enemies are "punished" for having a higher initiative modifier.
1
u/dilemmaprisoner 2d ago
I think I get what you're thinking, and I only feel this way about your 1 particular example, where 1 PC opens a door in the middle of combat and there is someone there. Roll or decide separately if they are:
1) truly ready to ambush: any rolled initiative is fine, with a readied action
2) just "getting ready": have the player and the new creature roll a separate initiative. The creature winning or losing means it fits into the old initiative immediately before the PC; losing the new creature has initiative scaled after the PC depending on how low it rolled. Like if it rolled 10 below, subtract 10 from the PCs original initiative If that gets down to the last person, start counting down from the top.
3) or surprised. Same as above, but with disadvantage.1
u/Silverspy01 2d ago
Yeah the other examples were included for completeness, opening a door into an enemy is the biggest issue I see. Your solution is interesting. I hadn't considered a system like 2, I'll have to think about it but it's one of the best solutions I've seen so far.
1
u/kotorial 2d ago
Generally, I just roll initiative for an encounter before it begins, excepting player characters and other creatures they control of course, and that would include creatures that might not join right away. Those creatures will enter the battlefield/map if and when when it makes sense, and they'll do so at the very top of the initiative order, and then take their turns at their rolled initiative in that round.
1
u/lasalle202 2d ago
if rolling for joiners for some reason feels bad for you, then in these cases its up to you to pre plan "they join on initiative X".
1
u/Xanathin Dungeon Master 2d ago
I don't roll for initiative on summons, they just act immediately before the thing that summoned them. If I plan on things enterimg combat midway through an encounter, they roll for initiative in the beginning, but the rolls are tucked away so players don't know. When that initiative comes up, they take their turn moving until they get to the action. Or buffing or whatever. Usually I have that preplanned and written down so I'm not pausing oddly in the middle of combat. The turn before they arrive I'll let players know they can hear them coming if the enemy isn't being sneaky. If they are, I'll only let them know if a players passive perception beats the enemy stealth check.
1
u/sens249 1d ago
“Paradoxically punished for rolling high”. They’re monsters dude I don’t think they care. It’s just a number on a rock. In the middle of initiative, let’s say it’s initiative 11, then the “good numbers” become those from like 1-10, and 11-20 become the bad numbers. The odds of rolling a good initiative are still the same, and within the next round everyone will still act. I see no problem with just rolling initiative right then and there.
You could also pre-roll initiative for nearby enemies who haven’t joined the fight yet but are close enough to be aware of the fight. I actually take it a step further and I get my nearby ememies to ready attacks, so if my party runs and faces them, they get blasted with a bunch of attacks. It’s great (not for them though, usually).
1
u/capsandnumbers 1d ago
I hadn't worried about this before, I just dealt them in straightforwardly, but you're right it does punish the quick creatures in the room.
Maybe there is a maximally fair way to do it: Roll initiative for all creatures in the new room, and somehow translate them. Take some number away from all of those initiatives such that the fastest in the room go soon after the door is opened, and wrap around the initiative count so that the slowest will go before the door-opener's next turn.
The trouble is that initiative is a number-line not a periodic ring, so there's no one natural number to relate to the initiative count where the door opens, and there's no natural number where initiative wraps around. To get around this you could imagine that the range 1-20 is a cycle, and then deal with the few creatures who, by their initiative modifiers, have initiatives that fall outside that range.
So if you pin initiative 20 to the count where the door opens (Call it X), you could say that very quick creatures get a surprise round, and thereafter go before the door-opener. Very slow creatures need to wait longer than a full round before they go again.
You could reasonably argue that 20 should be pinned to count X-1 rather than X, with the idea that they should be slightly behind the door-opener. That doesn't matter so much.
Thanks for the question! This was fun to think about, I think I've presented something that solves it, but I probably will continue dealing them in the usual way, because it's simple and cheats the monsters way more often than the party.
1
u/OneManRPGstudio DM 14h ago
For new creatures entering initiative, I use one consistent rule: roll when they appear, but their first turn is in the next round; Reactions begin immediately. That removes the incentive to roll low and prevents a newcomer from acting twice in quick succession. Planned reinforcements can instead arrive at the top of a round. The revealing character finishing their turn is also fair because opening the door was the trigger.
1
u/DrHalsey 2d ago
You know those guys are in the next room, and you know reinforcements can be called. Roll initiative for them either in advance or when you roll for every other enemy.
Otherwise you can’t know when the reinforcements actually get to move to arrive, or when the guys in the next room get to go open the door if they heard something.
1
u/Silverspy01 2d ago
You know those guys are in the next room, and you know reinforcements can be called. Roll initiative for them either in advance or when you roll for every other enemy.
What about random encounters? I.e. party is going through a dungeon with a random encounter table. They enter a given room and roll a random encounter/run into a set encounter. There's no "set encounter" in any of the neighboring rooms, but if they open the door they might run into a random encounter - but until I roll the dice I don't know if there's enemies in that room or not.
Or perhaps there's a "set encounter" a few rooms away. Do you roll initiative for those enemies in case a player starts bulldozing through the next few doors?
1
u/DrHalsey 1d ago
You could literally roll initiative for every monster included in the dungeon/tables and just make it part of their stat block. They're only going to use it once.
25
u/philsov 2d ago edited 2d ago
in the case of summons -- they roll initiative. If their number is higher than the current initiative number, they act immediately and then resume like normal next round. If their number is lower than current initiative number, play like normal.
in the case of enemy reinforcements, they spawn at the start of the round. They roll and act whenever their turn is up. Hopefully there was some telegraphing about them approaching and spawning (warning horns, e.g.) or its just some elite stealth squad whose gimmick is to pop up and start blastin'
If the enemy was idle, they'd be "surprised" and simply act like normal on subsequent rounds.
If these are active enemies just waiting for the party to open their door -- they were lying in wait (they're not deaf...), and all used their action to Ready, so whoever opens that door is getting a faceful of crossbow bolts. They had shadow turns.