How to Track Initiative in D&D 5e: A Worked Combat Round

Tracking initiative sounds trivial until round four, when nobody remembers whether the goblins already went, the cleric's spell ran out two turns ago, and the wolf that showed up mid-fight never got a turn. Keeping initiative is really three jobs: hold the order, know whose turn it is and which round you are in, and know what expires when. Do those three and you have a combat tracker — hit points and conditions are just more columns on the same list.

This guide covers the initiative rules as SRD 5.2 writes them (the 2024 revision of the fifth edition rules, which Nat20's 5E SRD ruleset is based on), three ways to keep the order at the table, and a full worked example: a party of four ambushed by goblins, with real stat blocks, a tie, two surprised characters, a wolf that joins mid-fight, a readied action and a one-minute spell.

The short version

1. When a fight starts, everyone rolls Initiative: a d20 plus their Dexterity modifier. A monster uses the Initiative modifier from its stat block, or its Dexterity modifier when there is no Initiative line.
2. The GM rolls once for each group of identical monsters, so the whole group shares one result.
3. Write every result down and sort from highest to lowest. On a tie, the GM orders tied monsters, the players order their tied characters, and the GM decides between a monster and a character.
4. A combatant who is surprised when combat starts rolls Initiative with Disadvantage.
5. Go down the list. When the last combatant has acted, the round ends and the next one starts at the top, in the same order. Count the rounds: spell and condition durations are measured in them.

The initiative rules in SRD 5.2

Rolling Initiative

Initiative is a Dexterity check. Each combatant rolls a d20 and adds their Dexterity modifier, plus anything that specifically improves Initiative. The GM rolls for the monsters, and for a group of identical creatures makes a single roll, so every member of the group has the same Initiative. SRD 5.2 stat blocks print that number as an Initiative entry — a modifier followed by a score in parentheses, like the Goblin Warrior's Initiative +2 (12). The modifier is usually just the Dexterity modifier, but some monsters add more, such as their Proficiency Bonus.

Rolling or using the Initiative score

The SRD 5.2 rules glossary lets the GM skip the roll entirely. An Initiative score is 10 plus the Dexterity modifier, increased by 5 with Advantage on Initiative and decreased by 5 with Disadvantage. Plenty of GMs use scores for monsters and let the players roll: a goblin with a +2 modifier then always acts on 12, and there is one less thing to roll at the start of every fight.

Ties

If two combatants end on the same number, the GM decides the order among tied monsters, the players decide the order among tied characters, and the GM decides when the tie is between a monster and a player character. The 2014 rules also offered an optional roll-off — each tied combatant rolls a d20, highest first. SRD 5.2 has no roll-off; it is a ruling. Whatever you decide, decide it once, when you write the order down, so it does not come up again every round.

Surprise

In SRD 5.2, if a combatant is surprised by combat starting, they have Disadvantage on their Initiative roll: they roll two d20s and keep the lower one. The rules' example is an ambusher who starts combat while hidden from a foe who is unaware that combat is starting — that foe is surprised. That is the whole effect. A surprised creature still takes its first turn normally, just probably later in the order.

This is the rule that changed the most. Under the 2014 rules, a surprised creature could not move or take an action on its first turn, and could not take a reaction until that turn ended. If your table still plays 2014, surprise is a round-one note you have to track separately; under SRD 5.2 it is already baked into the roll.

The order does not change

The order is set once and stays the same from round to round — nobody rerolls. A round represents about 6 seconds of game time, so 1 minute is 10 rounds and 10 minutes is 100. That conversion is what turns "Concentration, up to 1 minute" into something you can track.

Three ways to track initiative

1. Index cards or a sheet of paper

1. Make one card per combatant, or one per group of identical monsters that share a roll.
2. Write the Initiative in large digits in a corner, plus AC and maximum HP for monsters.
3. Sort the stack from highest to lowest and settle any tie now, by the order of the cards.
4. Add a card that says "TOP OF ROUND" behind the last combatant.
5. When a combatant finishes their turn, move their card to the back. Each time the TOP OF ROUND card comes up, add one to the round tally on it.
6. Write damage and conditions on the card itself, each condition with the round it ends.

Cards are fast, they survive a dead battery, and a folded card hung over the GM screen shows the players who is up. Their weakness is arithmetic: a creature that arrives mid-fight has to be slotted in by hand, and every duration is a subtraction someone has to remember to do.

2. A whiteboard or the inside of your GM screen

Write the names in order with their Initiative, mark the current turn with a magnet or a clip, and keep a round counter in a corner. Write each effect with its end point — "Bless → Odo's turn, round 11" — rather than a countdown. A whiteboard in view of the table does the most important job of all: every player can see who is next and plan before their turn arrives.

3. A digital tracker

A digital tracker does the sorting and the counting for you. Nat20's free initiative tracker runs in the browser with no account. Here is exactly what it does:

• You add each combatant with a name and an Initiative (a whole number from −10 to 99); HP is optional, so you can track monsters and leave the players' HP to them.
• It keeps the list sorted from highest to lowest. On a tie, whoever was added first stays first, so add tied creatures in the order you ruled they act.
• "Start combat" begins round 1 at the top of the list; "Next turn" passes to the next combatant, and passing the bottom of the list starts a new round.
• Each row with HP has Damage and Heal buttons. HP never drops below 0 or rises above the maximum, and a combatant at 0 is marked Down.
• You can attach a condition with a name and a number of rounds. It loses one round at the end of that creature's turn and disappears when it reaches 0.
• Adding a combatant or changing an Initiative mid-fight re-sorts the list, and the current turn stays with the same creature.
• Everything is saved in your browser only. Nothing is sent anywhere, and Reset clears it.

It does not roll dice for you: roll physical dice, or use the online dice roller, and type in the totals.

Worked example: a goblin ambush

The party, with each character's Initiative modifier (their Dexterity modifier):

• Kira, a rogue: +3
• Bram, a fighter: +1
• Sefa, a wizard: +2
• Odo, a cleric: +0

The opposition is four Goblins and a Goblin Boss, with the stats from Nat20's 5E SRD. A Goblin has Dexterity 14 (a +2 modifier), AC 15 and 7 hit points (2d6). The Goblin Boss also has Dexterity 14 (+2), with AC 17 and 21 hit points (6d6). The GM uses the fixed hit points rather than rolling the dice in parentheses — the SRD says to use one or the other, not both.

A note for readers checking the SRD 5.2 document itself: Nat20's monster entries, as listed on November 2, 2026, carry the stat-block numbers of the earlier SRD 5.1 (2014). SRD 5.2's Goblin Warrior has Dexterity 15 and 10 hit points (3d6), and its wolf has AC 12. None of that moves anyone in this example: every monster here has an Initiative modifier of +2 in both versions, so the order below is the same. These entries have no separate Initiative line, so the modifier is simply the Dexterity modifier.

Who is surprised?

The goblins wait hidden behind an overturned cart on a forest road. Kira and Sefa spot them in time; Bram and Odo do not, and are unaware that combat is starting when the first arrow flies. Bram and Odo are surprised, so they roll Initiative with Disadvantage.

The rolls

• Kira rolls 9: 9 + 3 = 12.
• Bram, surprised, rolls 17 and 14 and keeps the 14: 14 + 1 = 15.
• Sefa rolls 15: 15 + 2 = 17.
• Odo, surprised, rolls 11 and 4 and keeps the 4: 4 + 0 = 4.
• The GM rolls once for all four goblins — identical creatures share a roll: 13 + 2 = 15.
• The GM rolls once for the Goblin Boss: 6 + 2 = 8.

Bram and the goblins are tied on 15. It is a tie between a monster and a player character, so the GM decides, and lets Bram go first. In the free tracker that only means typing Bram in before the goblins. Surprise cost the party real tempo: without Disadvantage Bram would have had 18, and Odo's 11 would have put him ahead of the Goblin Boss instead of dead last.

Round 1, turn by turn

1. Sefa (17) casts Fire Bolt at Goblin 1 and hits: 8 fire damage takes it from 7 hit points to 0. Mark it down rather than deleting it, so everyone can see what happened.
2. Bram (15) acts before the goblins thanks to the tie ruling, and hits Goblin 2 with his longsword for 6: it drops from 7 to 1.
3. The goblins (15) act together, in any order the GM likes. Goblin 2, on 1 hit point, uses Nimble Escape to Disengage as a bonus action and backs away. Goblin 3 shoots Odo with its shortbow for 5. Goblin 4 uses Nimble Escape to Hide behind the cart. Goblin 1 is down and does nothing.
4. Kira (12) cannot see Goblin 4, so she takes the Ready action: "If a goblin steps out from behind the cart, I shoot it." Write the trigger next to her name.
5. The Goblin Boss (8) whistles, and the GM decides a wolf answers from the trees. The boss attacks Bram and misses.
6. Odo (4) casts Bless on Bram, Kira and Sefa: for the duration, each adds 1d4 to attack rolls and saving throws. The spell needs Concentration and lasts up to 1 minute — 10 rounds.

Here is what the tracker holds when Odo's turn ends. Hit points are tracked for the monsters only; the players track their own.

A creature joins mid-fight

SRD 5.2 does not spell out a procedure for a creature that arrives after Initiative has been rolled. The usual practice is to roll its Initiative when it arrives and slot it into the order. The Wolf has Dexterity 15 (+2), AC 13 and 11 hit points (2d8 + 2). The GM rolls 11: 11 + 2 = 13, which lands between the goblins (15) and Kira (12).

The wolf arrived on the Goblin Boss's turn, and its slot at 13 is already behind us in round 1, so its first turn comes in round 2, right after the goblins. Do not put a latecomer at the bottom of the list "because it arrived last"; that quietly hands it a worse slot than it rolled. In the free tracker you add it during the boss's turn: the list re-sorts, the highlight stays on the boss, and "Next turn" carries on to Odo. Round 2 then runs Sefa 17, Bram 15, the goblins 15, the wolf 13, Kira 12, the Goblin Boss 8 and Odo 4.

Readied actions do not move anyone

In round 2, Goblin 4 steps out from behind the cart to shoot Odo. That is Kira's trigger. Right after the goblin finishes stepping out, she uses her Reaction to shoot it for 6, leaving it on 1 hit point, and then the goblin's turn continues: it shoots Odo for 4. Kira still takes her normal turn on 12 later in round 2. A Reaction cannot be taken again until the start of your next turn, and a readied action that never triggers is simply lost when your next turn starts — so cross the note out at the start of Kira's turn either way.

There is no Delay action in SRD 5.2. A player who cannot decide is pointed to the Dodge action, or to the Ready action to act later in the round. Some tables house-rule a delay that moves a character down the order permanently; if yours does, that is a table rule, not the SRD.

The Concentration check

Odo just took 4 damage while concentrating on Bless. To keep Concentration he makes a Constitution saving throw against a DC of 10 or half the damage taken (rounded down), whichever is higher, up to a maximum of 30. Half of 4 is 2, so the DC is 10. If he fails, Bless ends at once for all three targets — which is why the effect belongs on Odo's line, next to the name of the creature whose Concentration it depends on.

Tracking conditions and durations

Most "wait, is that still going?" moments come from durations. Four habits remove them:

• Convert to rounds. 1 minute is 10 rounds, 10 minutes is 100. Anything longer rarely ends inside a single fight.
• Write the end, not the countdown. Odo cast Bless on his turn in round 1, so the minute runs out on his turn in round 11. "Bless → Odo's turn, R11" needs no mental arithmetic; "7 rounds left" needs updating every round, and somebody always forgets.
• Put it on the right line. A spell's duration runs from its caster's turn, so it goes on the caster's line. An effect that lasts "until the end of its next turn" goes on the creature it affects.
• Mark saves, do not count them. A creature paralyzed by Hold Person repeats its saving throw at the end of each of its turns and ends the spell on a success. There is nothing to count down: mark "save at end of turn" on the target's line and the 1-minute cap on the caster's.

In the free tracker, a condition loses one round at the end of the turn of the creature it is attached to, and the turn you add it on counts as the first. So for Bless, added on Odo's line during Odo's turn in round 1, enter 11 rather than 10: the chip then reads 1 on Odo's turn in round 11 — the moment the minute is up — and disappears when you press "Next turn". Enter 10 and it would vanish a full round early, while the spell is still running.

Legendary actions

Big monsters break the one-turn-per-round pattern without changing the order. The Adult Red Dragon in Nat20's 5E SRD can take 3 legendary actions: one at a time, only at the end of another creature's turn, and it regains the spent ones at the start of its own turn. SRD 5.2 phrases it as "immediately after another creature's turn". Track them with three tick boxes on the dragon's line, refilled when its turn comes up, and glance at them every time a turn ends — the moment a legendary action can happen.

Running the same fight in Nat20

The free tracker, no account

To run the ambush above in the free initiative tracker, type the party in first, then Goblins 1 to 4 on 15 with 7 HP each and the Goblin Boss on 8 with 21 HP, and press "Start combat". Damage goes on the goblins as it lands, the wolf is added on the boss's turn with 11 HP, and Bless goes on Odo's line with 11 rounds. It works on its own on a laptop or a tablet next to a physical table.

Inside a live session

When the group plays online, the combat tracker in a Nat20 session does the same job and shares it with the players:

• The GM adds each combatant with a name, an Initiative and optional current and maximum HP. "Throw for initiative" rolls a d20 in the session's 3D dice tray and fills in the result; add the modifier before saving.
• Players can roll themselves into the order from their own screen with their character, and enter their HP.
• The order is sorted by Initiative, and ties stay in the order the combatants were added. The round counter goes up after the last combatant acts.
• Status effects take a name and a number of turns. They count down by one each time a new round starts — not at the end of the creature's own turn, as in the free tracker — and disappear at 0.
• Players see the order, the round, whose turn it is and each Initiative on their own screen. When the GM shares the combat card, they also see a health bar for each combatant. They never see status effects; those stay on the GM's screen.

Joining a session needs a free account; the free initiative tracker does not.

Five initiative mistakes to stop making

• Rerolling every round. The order stays the same from round to round.
• Skipping a surprised creature's first turn. That is the 2014 rule. Under SRD 5.2, surprise means Disadvantage on the roll and nothing else.
• Rolling for every goblin separately. A group of identical creatures shares one roll. Track their hit points separately, but let them act together.
• Dropping latecomers at the bottom. Roll their Initiative and slot them in where they belong.
• Counting durations from memory. Write the end point, or let a tracker count it.

Where to go next

Tracking the order is half of a fast fight; the other half is what happens between turns. Read how to speed up D&D combat for nine fixes that cut the waiting without touching a rule, then try the order from this example in the free initiative tracker.