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Multiple initiative rolls.

Roll20 Tech Wiz's, is there any way of selecting a group of tokens and rolling initiative for all of them with just one click, rather than selecting individual tokens and then hitting the initiative button on the character sheet? (I'm using D&D 5E by Roll20 character sheets). It's a real pain as GM when you have 20 creatures attacking the party, takes AGES to roll for init.!  
There's an API available if were to have PRO subscription which I think does this for you. The alternative solution is to use the "one initiative per creature type" rule.
Yeah, I had thought of doing that Farling, however, my group (quite rightly, IMO) doesn't take tooooo kindly to a small army all having a 'go' at the same time :(
The GroupRoll API works great for this but yeah you have to have Pro.  You can also number your "army" members to make it even faster when the turn order is up
Doesn't answer your question, but then you have to do 12 saves when your player casts fireball into your small army.  The GroupCheck API makes multiple saves faster (like the GroupInitiative API which makes multiple initiative checks faster), but I would find playing a large number of enemies more difficult without a Pro account. >.>
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Edited 1608587432
Andreas J.
Forum Champion
Sheet Author
Translator
One way to make init rolling quicker without API is to save a macro to your quick macro bar: %{selected|initiative} For any tokens that are linked to a 5e character sheet, it will roll initiative for it if you select a token and then press the button on the quick macro bar. if you instead use: %{target|initiative} you can press the button and then select the token afterwards. This should be a bit quicker than opening the sheets for each token and rolling initiative for each. I think you might be able to make the macro roll for more than one token at a time if you use the extended the target method and save it to the macro: %{target|target1|initiative} %{target|target2|initiative} %{target|target3|initiative} Nah that seems to only roll the last one, even if multiple ones can be selected. Worth a try. Anyway, the select/target stuff can be done for any sheet roll, not just initiative, so saves and ability rolls should work out as well. repeating section stuff is ab it more tricky, with having to target 1st, 2nd 3rd etc entry without knowing which is which.
Thanks,  ᐰndreas J. , is there any way that I can make that second suggestion put the result into the turn order bar?
From a game play perspective:- Since initiative is random it is unconnected from anyone else's roll. So you can roll initiative for each monster before the game. Also the grouping of character initiatives depends on the size of the party. If a party has 5 characters there is only 5 "gaps" for NPC to fit in. So its convenient to make this the maximum number of groups and bundle your pregenerated rolls together to suit. In practice you can just create a list of 30 initiative numbers in a random order. Start somewhere on the list (roll a d20 for the start row) and just write the monsters in each row. When you get to row 30 you just continue on row 1. If a monster is likely to be encountered more than once then on the prepared sheet have a couple of columns of different random initiatives. So the 1st column is combat 1, second is combat 2 etc. If you monsters are of mixed type it shouldn't matter if you do 5 orcs followed by 5 cobolds or alternate them, or any other sequence. You can then order them by initiative and divide them into a manageable number of monster "batches" if you want. That method is up to you but 5 batches could simply be all those with initiative 1 to 4, those 5 to 8, 9 to 12, 13 to 16, 17 to 20. Then take the highest initiative in each group as the position in the turn order. Then if the batches are called A,B,C,D,E you just create entries in the tracker for those groups with their initiatives Note that each token has a unique name so you can use the row number from the sheet in the name. This also prevents players knowing exactly how many may be about. Also include the batch letter so you know where it is in the order. e.g Orc15A This seems complicated but its basically saying you can do the initiative before play and get yourself organized.
1608649585

Edited 1608649671
Andreas J.
Forum Champion
Sheet Author
Translator
Dave L. said: Thanks,  ᐰndreas J. , is there any way that I can make that second suggestion put the result into the turn order bar? I guess the %{target|initiative} version is a bit pointless, because you need to select a token before rolling initiative, for it to appear on the Turn Tracker. If you don't select a token, any initiative roll isn't added to the Turn Tracker. Mel C. has a good point about pre-rolling initiative, worth considering at least for prepared encounters.