**Initiative**

I am starting a new 5e campaign and I am planning to use randomised initiative. 

I feel recording initiative take too long, for both my players and me. I tried grouping monsters and pre-rolling initiative, but even with a magnetic board I am not happy with the results. In addition, they tend to get into discussions about *"I do X because the boss can't act until you are done"*, which I feel is a mechanical distraction to immersion.

I am planning to use shufflebag randomisation as initiative system: 

- Each player gets a go stone with his or her name on it. 
- I have go stones for monsters, numbered 1-9

At the beginning of each round, I will put all the stones in a bag. While there are stones in the bag, I will pull out the next one, and the selected player or monster then acts its turn.

This hope this will allow for a simple randomised initiative system without much overhead at the table.

**Balance**

I will not use the system if I find it changes 5e balance too much, or if it is specifically unfair to certain players/classes.

Known effects: 

- Dexterity as a stat is slightly nerfed
- The 'Alert' feat is nerfed
- It is not guaranteed that a monster acts between two turns of a player

I am a bit worried about the third effect, but I am not sure how strongly this will effect gameplay and balance. And since it's randomised (no fudging by me), I think that positive and negative effects affect both monsters and players in a fair matter.

So my questions are: 

- What (positive and negative) mechanical side effects do I have to take into consideration?
- How do these interact with balance between classes? 
- In what ways does it benefit or disadvantage certain spells, class features or monster powers? 


A good answer will explain the most severe changes to stock 5e balance and might potentially discuss how they could be mitigated. I am _not_ looking for a discussion of how to use non-randomised initiative in a less time-consuming way.