Post
Sat Mar 17, 2018 4:30 pm
One of the benefits of the individual-style initiatives is that a group of enemies, all else being equal, will act interspersed with the player characters. Player characters, at least a few of them, will have some opportunity to do something before the all of the enemies move on them. When fighting a single big bad monster this may not matter, but imagine a whole party of four losing initiative to a party of 10 low-level monsters. The PCs might not have a chance to escape intact at all. Sure, this can still happen with the core rules method, but it's unlikely. It's also unlikely that by luck of draw the PCs will all be able to move first and wreck the monster party. But most often combat will start off to some degree without much advantage -- traps, ambushes, etc. excluded.
But if by rule it's always either one side or the other, the battle may often come down to just that one dice roll. Of course, it really comes down to how the GM plays it all out. It could work out, and if you're playing a dungeon where combat is only a secondary or tertiary aspect over role playing and puzzle-solving, such a group-by-group initiative may speed things along.