Initiative in 4E

[unipus]

I like phased actions like that in concept. In practice? Not so much.

@Raellus -- you're not entirely wrong with your question about initiative, but your example doesn't seem to play. In this case, the PC has drawn the worst card. It doesn't matter whether the NPCs act all on the same initiative, or individually, they're all going to go before him anyway.

(personally, I recommend grouping NPCs in no more than fireteam size, and usually no more than pairs, and at the price/convenience that they all move and fight in the same hex unless numbers are whittled down so much that I decide to split them)

I think that you’ve identified a potential issue with initiative system. I haven’t had an experience yet where the enemy get the drop on the PCs but I have had an encounter where the PCs had a surprise round and it was a slaughter. That’s probably realistic but it could potentially be a TPK very easily if the enemy either achieve complete surprise or act first as a block at the start of the combat round.

I actually don't think it's all that realistic. I've been a part of exercises involving ambushes. Even a perfect ambush at close range has a lot of potential to work out sub-optimally. One snapping twig or one person opening fire a second before everyone else means that some targets will escape the kill zone or be able to react while others will not. And this is the norm, not the exception (unless you're part of Ghost Recon).

That's why I said I liked that aspect of your system, which could instead just grant advantage/disadvantage on initiative rolls. An ambusher has a much better chance of acting first, but it's not guaranteed. And a very experienced target of an ambush might have their spidey sense go off just that half second before it all goes to shit...