Initiative

Combat in the D&D game world is assumed to be simultaneous, but the game uses the concept of a combat round to govern the chaos that would otherwise ensue if actual simultaneous actions were used (PHB189). The default initiative system (each player rolls their own initiative and initiative does not change thereafter) has several flaws:

• Players use their knowledge of the events in the next round to take actions in the current round that would be incredibly risky if they were not assured of the future order of events
• Per-player initiative leads to use of the Ready action to better synchronize activities among party members, but the Ready action denies the delaying character either a Move or an Action, which makes things that should be easy to coordinate when done simultaneously much more difficult to implement because of the artificial limitations placed by the order of initiative
• A fixed initiative order means players can 'disengage' from the game when it is not their turn
• A fixed initiative order reduces uncertainty (alternately, increases predictability), making combat far less dramatic and intense

To address this, the combat round (see the inset on PHB 189) is changed as follows:
1. Determine Surprise per RAW
2. Establish Positions per RAW
3. Roll Initiative:

• The players choose one person to roll initiative. This is a d20 roll that represents the players' collective initiative. No Dexterity, feat or other modifiers apply to this roll.
• The DM rolls a d20 for any monsters or NPCs as appropriate. No Dexterity, feat or other modifiers apply to these rolls.
• Rolls are ranked highest to lowest. Ties are resolved with a roll-off or some other reasonable method

4. The groups act in initiative order, highest to lowest. Individual members of the group may act in any order that seems reasonable but an actor must finish all of its actions before another actor begins to take action. This is an important constraint that admittedly does not model the simultaneous nature of combat well. It is only to maintain a sense of order around the table, so a bunch of characters aren't taking "some" of their actions all at the same time. That is nightmare territory for the DM to manage so we just can't do things that way despite how good of an idea it is in principle.
5. Once all groups have acted, repeat Steps 3 & 4 until combat is resolved.

Ready Action Replaced by Delay Action
The Ready Action is no longer available. Coordinating with teammates can be done without significant issue because we are using Group Initiative rather than Individual Initiative. This allows team members to act in any order that best suits what they are trying to accomplish.

The Delay Action can be used to 'surrender' initiative to the other side in combat. This action is aonly available if you won initiative; the side(s) losing initiative cannot Delay (but see below). Taking this action allows the character to take both of its actions after all other characters on the opposing side(s) have completed all actions. It does not allow the character to interrupt the actions of the other side. A few corner cases are worth noting here:

• Who goes first when two characters on the same side both Delay? Whatever the characters decide is fine, just like in normal initiative
• Can you Delay if you lose initiative? Yes, but only in one special case: if the initiative winners have at least one character that has first declared a Delay. In this case, initiative losers may in turn Delay to see what the initiative winner will do. The initiative winner cannot Delay a second time - only one Delay action is allowed per character; characters that have chosen to Delay must either act when it is their turn or spend the round doing nothing; Delays are not carried over round-to-round.