Troll Lord Games

This is why, for me, the order is the order and when you're up, just do it based on everything you know right up to when its you're turn. Some of your action could be, dropping your bow and pulling out spell components or the other way around... changes in course usually are at most half moves. So if the mage, from protection in the third round of combat runs out of spells, he knows that and must change his tactics, likely putting away spells, hiding behind something, moving, tossing daggers or darts, or whatever... details can all be worked on the fly with limited "logic", not a lot of rules and just keep it moving.. I find if everyone gets a turn in a multi round combat in the end everyone is pretty happy.. key for me is keeping it moving and keeping everyone doing something. Its great fun to tangle them up on their actions and if one gets in the way of the other.. so be it...

I think, as written, the method in the PHB needs to have a pre-declaration (albeit, it can be somewhat general) simply to have things like (charging, spell disruption from the caster taking damage, etc.) work properly. I've used two different methods that have both worked well.

First method, as written with declaration. The only flaw in this is the possibility to get a double move by being last in initiative order one round and being first the next round. Mid-high level rogues can ruin your day with quadruple or quintuple damage!

Second method, everyone rolls individually once (d20 modified by dex bonus and +3 if dex is prime). Spell casters who take damage since their previous action can make a concentration check (d20 +constitution bonus + caster level to beat 12 + total damage received) to still cast the spell. Failure of check means spell is lost.

Either system works and both were easy to administer.

I've never tried the first method with a set order, as in only one roll for initiative and then stay constant throughout the battle. I may try that to eliminate the above mentioned problem.

Edit: The number to beat in the second method was 12 because all of the casters took constitution as a prime. It would be 18 otherwise.