[5e Community Contributed] Initiative Bonus not Applied to Unrepresented Tokens

I'm using the NPC sheets for my monsters. Say I have 5 goblins in an encounter. I don't want to make a sheet for each one, I want them all to share a sheet. I thus save the sheet to a token that doesn't use the "Represents Character" functionality so each has the same attributes as the sheet but altering one token doesn't get applied to all the others. Unfortunately this seems to make it so that when I roll initiative, the overall initiative bonus doesn't get added. Is there a quick workaround for this, or is there something I'm missing?

You should  make them represent the character, just don't link the bars.

By not linking the bars I'd have to have a manual setup for tracking each monster's health. This doesn't seem very optimal, unless I'm missing some other feature or method of doing it?

Zaliron said: By not linking the bars I'd have to have a manual setup for tracking each monster's health. This doesn't seem very optimal, unless I'm missing some other feature or method of doing it? Wouldn't you want to track the health separately? If they are linked then all the health would change at the same time when you alter one.  Check the  Linking_Tokens_to_Journals section of the wiki

The opposite, actually. Here, this is what I do: 1. I make a character sheet using the NPC template 2. I set a token with "Represents Character" set to that sheet 3. I set the bar display to the monster's health 4. I remove the "Represents Character" designation. 5. Under the sheet's edit screen, I set the token. Under this method, I can create individual instances of monsters without them sharing the same health pool. However, doing this makes the initiative button not add modifiers. That's my issue.

Following Jakob and Ed's advice is best. Yes, you need to set up separate health for each token, but each token will share all other aspects. You can also set up the default token to have a set health already, so when you drag out 5 goblins to the tabletop, each one has 7 hit points automatically. Then you pick one to be the big bad leader and you manually change his HP to 12. All of them have access to weapons and macros on the sheet they are linked to, but independent health. Really, read the link that Ed posted, paying attention to the section on mooks.