I love the hell out of this game. My group and I just took a two-month break to try out Fate, and we cut that campaign short just so we could get back to Star Wars. I've been playing this game for nearly three years, and I know the system inside and out.

I believe, however, that I must be approaching the initiative system wrong. Either that, or I simply don't have the wherewithal to make rolling for turn order smooth and seamless. Every combat begins like this: someone makes a hostile move, everyone rolls Cool/Vigilance, my players hold up their number of successes in their right hands and their advantages in their left hands, and I write them down with little markings next to their names. Then I roll for all of the NPCs and write down their successes/advantages as well. Finally, I go down the list I've made and order them in rank of successes generated, with advantages used as tie breakers. At that point we are finally ready to begin combat.

This process is so slow, so clunky. It makes me wish to avoid combat altogether. Am I doing something incorrectly? Has anyone discovered a quicker way to determine turn order?

Thanks, folks!

I dont know it's clunky for you. When I do it, it's a few seconds - 30 at best. On my white board, I'll have 'em call out the numbers "2 and 3" (being two success, three advantage) or "1 and 6" or "4 and 2" and scrawl the numbers on my white board off to one side. Do the same for my NPCs and then combine the two in the upper left as PC PC, NPC, PC, NPC (or whatever). Easy peasy.

Not sure why you'll need the markings next to their name. The numbers don't matter once you figure where to slot the NPCs.

I bought a Pathfinder Initiative tracker, and it's the best thing ever. I have a blue slot for each player and go around the circle writing down their number "x/x", then I roll for the NPCs and put the bad guys on red slots and friendlies on green.

It's super helpful because I can move the actual tags to order the slots, and I can write who uses it, then erase them all once the next round starts and write the names in again when the next person uses that slot.

I can understand how it can seem slow, but, like Mr. Penguin there, it usually only takes me about 30-45 seconds to get everything set up, depending on how many bad guys are in the encounter.

Something you might do is have everyone pre-roll some initiative checks of both types and use those when combat starts. It'll speed things up, but I'm not a fan of that system, because I love to stack Boosts or Setbacks on initiative checks due to circumstance. Last night, for instance, a couple of beasties snuck into my party's camp and were trying to snack on our Twi'lek who was on watch. She failed the Perception vs. Stealth check, so she couldn't shout a warning, so everyone who was asleep got 3 setback, everyone got 2 for the darkness, and the beasties got 2 Boosts because they had surprise.

Hard to do that using pre-rolled initiatives.

I pre-roll Initiative for Adversaries/NPCs. Players roll when I call for it (usually during pre-game).

For us it's the quickest part of combat. It's even faster than a regular skill check since you don't have to calculate difficulties or resolve advantage points. Our GM asks us to roll either Cool or Vigilance (and we roll simultaneously), then he asks us one by one what we rolled. When we calculate turn order we go by something like a decimal system. If I roll 2 successes and 3 advantage, I'll tell him I rolled a "2.3". That makes it easy to rank things, because you're not comparing successes and using advantage as tie-breakers, the advantage is part of the final value. So in my example, someone who rolled a 2.4 is clearly ahead of me in the order. It feels more natural that way.

But it's just like Desslok said, it takes seconds.

I believe our GM uses the Combat Pad to do initiative. You have dry-erase magnets, and write the characters' names on them. Then after people roll initiative, you stick the magnets on the pad in the initiative order they go in. If the initiative order changes, you just rearrange the magnets. He uses this for all the games he runs.

When it comes to npcs I tend to group similar npcs together and make one roll for them ratherthan roll for them individually. This saves a lot of time. Boss characters get their own individual slots however. So if I had 3 groups of stormtrooper minions that's one roll and not three. Also if you are using planned encounters pre-roll them before the game, and just have the Pcs roll theirs.

Finally, you don't have to track which PC rolled which number, so you just need to record which rolls were PCS, since its not a fixed order list, just which slot belongs to a PC, and which slot belongs to an NPC. Since you know the system I assume you know this. The wording of your post seems to suggest that you track which PC rolled which number, this is unimportant, I just wanted to point this out in case of a any beginning players who might read it.

So ultimately I would end up with a list like this

PC 4.1

NPC 3.3

PC 2.3

PC 2.2

PC 1.4

NPC 1.3

NP 0.2

Triumphs automatically get a free maneuver(not breaking their two per turn limit still) on their own turn.

This though where you may be doing it wrong, most other systems have a fixed initiative order,

Edit Draft in a PC to record the numbers as they are shouted out. This can save even more time.

I roll once for my opponent types. 1 score for all minions, rivals, nemeses. I jot down 1 thru 10 and simply pencil in everyone's name, or NPC, in the appropriate slot. PCs call out successes/advantages as I call on them and I put them in the appropriate spot, with advantages being the sub-order within each initiative slot if necessary. I don't feel it's slow at all. Sometimes the PCs want to joggle who goes when, but that's part of the mechanic.

Stan Shinn has a nice combat tracker available for free download on his page, here . One other tip is to delegate initiative tracking to one (or more) of your players, allowing you to focus on what you're doing. I started doing this whilst playing D&D as one of several steps I took to minimize the drain on "DM bandwidth."

Ask a player to be in charge of Initiative tracking.

Do it on a small magnetic whiteboard. Have a single magnet that moves down the list to keep track of where in the order things are.

Instead of asking "what's everyone's result?" Ask "who beats (insert highest NPC roll here)?" This skips you writing everything twice, it also passes the calculation from your head to the Players, this method alone can save a minute or more.

Pre roll all known NPC's.

I too have a Pathfinder Initiative tracker board and I also farm out the initiative tracking to a player.

First of all, I assign one of the players initiative tracker. Then every player's got a mini initiative card in one of those yellow-coded sleeves; they roll their initiative, write it down on the card with an erasable marker, and hand it over to the tracker. After that I'll give him the pre-rolled initiative cards for the opponents and the end-of-round card. Finally, everybody who can may change their initiative, beginning with NPCs. Et voilà, commence conflict!

The tracker is going to flip through the cards as the scene progresses, announcing the acting party and the switching of rounds.

Maybe this is one of those things that seem slow from the GM's side of things because he's concerned with the mechanics of it. From the player's side, I find the initiative rolling to be pretty fun.

I'm not saying it's the best thing since steak and ice cream ( ) but it doesn't seem to have a downside at our table. Obviously, every table is different so i'm also not saying you're doing it wrong. But check with your players. Not dealing with the crunchy part of it might make them feel very differently.

When we calculate turn order we go by something like a decimal system. If I roll 2 successes and 3 advantage, I'll tell him I rolled a "2.3".

Just remember, when you get to 5 or more dice, there is a possibility of rolling 10+ Advantages, which might cause an oddity when sorting as you'd end up with something like 2 Successes, 10 Advantages and be misreported as "2.10" which would be sorted less than "2.3" unless you catch that, heheh.

The way I've done it previously is by the normal rules:

Depending on the situation, start with rolling all initiatives for PCs and NPCs Cool or Vigilance.

Slot PC and NPC slots together.

Remind everyone constantly what turn we are on.

It's a slow, difficult process that kind of takes us out of the swing of things rather than let us jump right into combat.

I tried the optional rule today with one group, where you just have the group roll their best skill (Cool or Vigilance) and then keep those results for the remainder of the session. It worked out great.

I then slotted in enemies when appropriate by rolling for them when they joined the combat.

Given some time, I could pre-roll for all enemies that I had planned to have fight the players and only would need to roll to determine the initiative of any newcomers or unexpected combatants.

I believe I will be doing the single initiative roll from now on, right at the beginning of the session, just after rolling for Destiny.

The way I've done it previously is by the normal rules:

Depending on the situation, start with rolling all initiatives for PCs and NPCs Cool or Vigilance.

Slot PC and NPC slots together.

Remind everyone constantly what turn we are on.

It's a slow, difficult process that kind of takes us out of the swing of things rather than let us jump right into combat.

I tried the optional rule today with one group, where you just have the group roll their best skill (Cool or Vigilance) and then keep those results for the remainder of the session. It worked out great.

I then slotted in enemies when appropriate by rolling for them when they joined the combat.

Given some time, I could pre-roll for all enemies that I had planned to have fight the players and only would need to roll to determine the initiative of any newcomers or unexpected combatants.

I believe I will be doing the single initiative roll from now on, right at the beginning of the session, just after rolling for Destiny.

Sounds like you've found one solution. Another is some of the game aids that have been mentioned that also help with tracking what slot you're on and who's gone already in the turn that might help to speed things up without removing the rolling at the beginning of a Structured Encounter for all actors in the game.

I threw out the concept of rolling to determine Initiative slots from the start. I use a narrative/plot determined system when Initiative is only rolled to determine who goes first when necessary.

I.e. Combat starts when the first action is declared, whether Initiative is rolled depends on the situation. A successful ambush for example allows free hits in the first round without having to roll Initiative, but if the a character (PC or NPC) is aware of that action and wants to act first, then Initiative is rolled to see who acts first.

Initiative is generated as usual with a Contested Simple check using the appropriate skill (with the above example if the Ambush had 'failed' - the attackers were spotted - they would use Cool vs Vigilance as usual in the first round).

Those only involved with that particular situation need roll, so if someone wanted to close into Engaged and use a melee attack or move out of Engaged to shoot a weapon, the parties involved would roll Initiative to see who goes first. Usually this would be between two opponents, but with large combats you may have three or four combatants rolling to see the order of that particular situation.

Again I put the plot first, so tend to deal with important activities/situations first in the combat round and then less important activities (which don't usually require an Initiative check).

I know this system may seem a bit disorganized and weird, but I have found that this works for me and my group and saves a whole bunch of additional unnecessary dice rolling.

You do only roll initiative once per encounter don't you? Not once per round. Whilst players are free to choose different initiative slots each round the structure of PC/NPC remains the same throughout

Stan Shinn has a nice combat tracker available for free download on his page, here . One other tip is to delegate initiative tracking to one (or more) of your players, allowing you to focus on what you're doing. I started doing this whilst playing D&D as one of several steps I took to minimize the drain on "DM bandwidth."

That's the one I use and it works very well, especially with dry erase markers.

As our game isn't tabletop, we simple have the person with the highest relevant skill roll on both parties; the side with the highest result goes first, or second if they choose. This speeds up play considerably, but there are drawbacks - namely that the side that wins the initiative is normally far better off throughout the conflict than the other.

As our game isn't tabletop, we simple have the person with the highest relevant skill roll on both parties; the side with the highest result goes first, or second if they choose. This speeds up play considerably, but there are drawbacks - namely that the side that wins the initiative is normally far better off throughout the conflict than the other.

Yeah, that's what I started doing but fell into the same pitfall - as soon as one side starts getting Initiative/Vigilance boosting Talents (as well as stuff like Foresee) that side tends to go first all the time. So went back to individual Initiative checks - but only when it was relevant to the scene/activity (a combatant who hasn't acted yet needs/wants to go before an opponent either as a first strike or performing 'timing sensitive' action, for example).

I don't mind if the heroes tend to go first more often - it's fitting, given the setting and their role within it. However, I've warned them not to simply leave the burden of Cool/Vigilance building to a single PC, as there may be times ahead when said PC isn't among their number...

If normal initiative system doesn't seem too smooth, then don't forget there are alternative initiative systems in Edge of the Empire core book, page 322. They are passive initiative (no dice rolling) and once per session initiative.

I also use the Combat Tracker that's been linked above. Though I don't delegate initiative tracking, I do have my players roll for NPCs. I ask for their rolls first, then give them the NPC dice pools. They can roll all of those at once instead of me rolling over and over while also trying to record the players' results. We can usually have initiative done in a minute or so at most.

Our system is that we roll the PCs, leaving the dice on the table. Then the gm rolls dice and simply asks "who beats 1success 3advantage", everyone who does raises a hand. Then, after all the npcs are slotted, any thrumph Is resolved. Usually doesn't take any longer then 30/45 seconds to resolve.

Sure, compared to systems like fate, Marvel Heroic Roleplay, Feng Shui and Truth & justice (pdq) it might feel slow, but those are tough comparisons and hard to beat. Ffg star wars is by no means a slow game. And every combat situation doesn't have to be a full combat encounter with initiative order and all that! You can use a single skill roll for combat too, as explained in the alternate rules in the CRB. Was it in the gm chapter?...

Edit: With narrative dice, the system also shows that the mechanics focus on other things than fast mechanics. This game is narrative and has storytelling/improv tools to get across the gameplay experience they are going for.