Initiative, Healing, and Fairness in Old School D&D
I received a complaint about group initiative in my games and in old school style games in general, I suppose. The complaint when like this: when you roll initiative every round it’s possible the monsters will get two rounds of attacks in a row before the PCs can take a turn. This is unfair because it means the PCs cannot heal before the monsters get to attack again.
I blinked several times as I read this comment as it was the first time I can ever remember hearing something like this. In combat healing in old school games has always been very rare in my experience. TSR-era healing spells require the cleric to touch the person to be healed in most cases. Healing magic that works at a distance is rare. In games I’ve ran and played in, clerics healed between combats unless a party member was obviously about to die or something rather than both give up an attack (perhaps more than one if they have to move to the victim to touch them). Healing potions could be taken in combat, but they were always costly and requiring one not to be in melee combat to grab, open, and take safely.
I can see why some would object to rolling initiative every round as it does mean that sometimes one’s enemies will get two back-to-back sets of attacks. Of course, it also means that sometimes the PCs will get two back-to-back sets of attacks before their opponents can respond. Real life combat is seldom neat and orderly and rolling initiative every round helps prevent it from being too orderly in the game.
I’m curious about in combat healing in other old school D&D (or D&D-like) games, however. I’d like to hear how often clerics or other healers cure people in the middle of combat in your games.