Team Initiative
Teams
An alternative to traditional 5E combat initiative is to use a variant rule called team initiative. Players and enemies are separate teams that roll initiative for their respective team. When initiative is rolled, it determines which team goes first, not the order in which each player character or enemy acts.
The team with the highest initiative goes first as a team. They get to act in any order they choose among themselves until everyone on their team has taken a turn. They can go based on their individual initiative, whoever is ready, or go in partial turns, such as using an action but saving their bonus action for later.
After the highest initiative team acts, the second highest initiative team acts, and so on. This allows for team tactics, speeds up initiative, and eliminates the need to keep track of turns throughout combat.
Mechanics
All player characters roll for initiative. The DM rolls initiative for the enemy with the highest initiative, not for all enemies. However, initiative can be rolled for all enemies, and the highest among them can be used to represent the enemy team. Enemies are entities that are hostile to the player characters. At least half of the players must beat the enemy’s initiative to go first.
Extra Teams
In the case of there being third-party teams, which can include allies or NPCs controlled by the DM, they also roll initiative as a team. Allies are entities that aid the player characters. When this happens, the turn order is determined by the highest initiative among all teams.
