Do the initiative rules discourage parley?

[KarinsDad]

Whoa there. This gets back into the discussion of 3 weeks ago or so that spanned multiple pages and was an argument over "but I'm watching him, how come I don't react before he does?"

Sometimes people just move faster than you thought humanly possible, and beat you to it. I don't think there's anything wrong with that aspect of the system.

To use a really bad but universally understood example, suppose three human mooks (SWAT agents, maybe) close in on Neo in the Matrix. Sure, they have their weapons readied and they know he's there, but the man is blindingly fast. (I mean, he can dodge bullets!) I see no problem with him going first, catching the SWAT team flatfooted and (via Greater cleave) taking them all out.

The position that the rules are good because they are written this way does not wash.

Your Neo example is flawed. His physical stats are 28s.

Take Joe Hobo instead. 5 PCs with good stats wake him up and have arrows pointing at him. Joe Hobo is lying on the ground, was asleep, and has 6s in his Str, Dex, and Con.

Initiative is rolled. Joe Hobo rolls a 19 and gets a 17. Everyone else rolls 12 or less for 16 or less.

Although they were watching closely, Joe Hobo moves "blindly fast", gets up, pulls a weapon, moves 5 feet closer and kills one of the PCs.

That is just plain stupid because the initiative system has a generic flaw in it. The flaw is the D20 roll modified generally by +/-4 (give or take). If it was a 2D4 roll (bell curves are better for this type of thing), at -2, Joe Hobo would never win over the prepared Rogue with Dex 18.

Or, if the D20 rule had a +10 modifier to init for those that are prepared. Or, some such.

But as written, the rule is flawed and dumb for this example.

And although this is an extreme example, it still illustrates the general point. If something this dumb can happen in an example, it will happen as well in somebody's game.

 

[KarinsDad]

The main issue here though is that DnD uses the ready action for this situation, initiative actually starts before the thieves are woken up, with the entire party readying appropriate actions to take in case of the negotiation going sour. Or if the thieves look at them funny, just depends on the group

Except that this is not what happens in a game (or via RAW).

If as DM you allow everyone on both sides to ready an action, you run into the chicken and egg problem of who really goes first.

You also still have to roll initiative BEFORE characters on either side can ready an action.

 

[moritheil]

The position that the rules are good because they are written this way does not wash.

Your Neo example is flawed. His physical stats are 28s.

My position is that the rules are as they are, and it happens to be plausible, so I accept it.

I said my example wasn't a very good example when I stated it, but hey, if his physical stats are 28s, then what's wrong with things happening that way? And if his stats were less, say, in the same range as those attacking him, then you would roll dice to see what happens, right? Right?

 

[frankthedm]

One must be the village idiot to expect a competent combatant would EVER give a spell casting foe a chance to talk. Even after capturing one, cutting off the tongue and hands and gouging out the eyes still won’t guarantee a spell cannot be cast. The only safe way to talk to an enemy caster is Speak with the Dead.

If a wizard wants to play YackMaster, he can leave behind a magic mouth, or better yet, since these are his FOES, a letter with the last sentence being Explosive Runes.

Bad news, as much as one might not like it, most fighters should seem to be sociopaths. Grateful commoners will be warned by him to stay out of arms reach and innocent maiden’s embraces, for a relative’s safe return, will be dodged to prevent a disguised assassin from getting within his guard.

 

[William_2]

The position that the rules are good because they are written this way does not wash.

Your Neo example is flawed. His physical stats are 28s.

Take Joe Hobo instead. 5 PCs with good stats wake him up and have arrows pointing at him. Joe Hobo is lying on the ground, was asleep, and has 6s in his Str, Dex, and Con.

Initiative is rolled. Joe Hobo rolls a 19 and gets a 17. Everyone else rolls 12 or less for 16 or less.

Although they were watching closely, Joe Hobo moves "blindly fast", gets up, pulls a weapon, moves 5 feet closer and kills one of the PCs.

That is just plain stupid because the initiative system has a generic flaw in it. The flaw is the D20 roll modified generally by +/-4 (give or take). If it was a 2D4 roll (bell curves are better for this type of thing), at -2, Joe Hobo would never win over the prepared Rogue with Dex 18.

Or, if the D20 rule had a +10 modifier to init for those that are prepared. Or, some such.

But as written, the rule is flawed and dumb for this example.

And although this is an extreme example, it still illustrates the general point. If something this dumb can happen in an example, it will happen as well in somebody's game.

Certainly, I agree with the idea that the faster people should have an edge. But I like the idea that once in a while, our hobo acts faster than say our 1st level Rogue. A lot of foregone conclusions can be dull. The hobo winning once does not mean that the Rogue didn’t have an enormous edge, only that fate can be fickle. The wide random margin of the d20 is really needed to provide this affect at all. Anything smaller would not provide much if any.
The 1st level Rogue is routinely going to have an initiative of 8. So he will win against someone whose is let’s say zero every time he rolls 12 or above. Only under 12 is there any room for fate, and even then, it is small. Yes, on his lucky day, the hobo springs up fast and clocks a guy that would have whipped him 90% of the time. Adds a little something to the game, I think. Isn’t the world sometimes like that, too?
If that hobo can kill you with a blow, you ought not to have been pestering him anyway, quite frankly!

 

[thebitdnd]

This bugs me a lot, because it removes even the appearance of the party's free will. Why should the PCs be forced to stand motionless and wait for him? They're supposed to be participants in the world, not spectators watching "DM Theatre".

When the evil wizard spends two minutes talking about his garden, that's twenty rounds of dead time-- practically an eternity! What stops the fighter from waltzing over and chopping his head off mid-word? Why don't all the characters use the free time to drink potions or cast defensive spells, or at least draw their weapons? Who says I have to be polite and let the villain talk before I start trying to kill him?

The world is controlled by the DM, but the PCs are controlled by the players. Arbitrarily screwing with that makes for (IMO) a bad game.

Speaking as a player who, every time the DM wants to interject a little personality to a BBEG, sees another player blurt out "That's it, I shoot him with my crossbow", I like the idea that combat indeed can wait until the BBEG has his fill and everyone has an opportunity to roleplay in the exchange.

I don't know about your game, but when someone interrupts a BBEG's rant with a hostile action, we roll init. No surprise involved if both parties are observing each other (and let's face it, if you are if you're engaged in a parlay with an enemy, you're on your guard). At least that's how our party plays it. So the guy who states he's shooting his crossbow (for example) doesn't get the drop, he just starts the battle. He might go last in the round despite being the instigator of the conflict. Who knows, maybe he fumbles his crossbow long enough to let everyone act.

In these instances, the ONLY thing he has served to do is deprive us of possible information, or at least a really cool speech by the DM. Roleplaying is not everyone's cup of tea, and perhaps your group has precious few hours to get together and play. But for the sake of the story, I'd just as soon hear the guy out and put up with a few insults thrown our way by the BBEG. Heck, for all the time a DM takes creating the stuff, let him have his moment.

Free will is nice for the PC who wants to cut short a speech, but it'll trump my PC's free will to listen to the speech everytime.

That being said, if your DM takes each encounter as an opportunity to wax nostalgic about the good ol' days of being a BBEG, then I say let loose the hounds of war. But if it's a rare occurrance or a climactic battle, I'm going to give my DM the benefit of the doubt and assume he has something useful to say. But then, Destan is my DM and his little asides are generally top notch.

I guess my point is, every game is different. Do the players like to roll the bones, or do they like heavy roleplaying, or a bit of both? The DM owes it to his players to give them what they want. If they ask for roleplaying then interrupt every attempt a DM makes to give the BBEG personality (via a speech), then I guess they really don't want to roleplay.

I can only speak from my experience, but if you enjoy roleplaying (and I do), let the BBEG speak his fill. If it serves to anger your PC, well then it'll be all the more gratifying when you've laid him low.

Again, just my opinion, YMMV.

 

[devilish]

No one wants to go back to the tavern with tales about being sucker-punched
by the town hobo!

The last time this whole thing cheesed me off (as I complained about here) was the BEG started his
"Haha! You fools -- let me tell you how my zombie army...."
The party went "Feh, let's just kill him." and the tank of the group ( who
normally rolls horrible initiative) rolled high, crossed the room past all of the
zombie guards, and crushed the BEG.

In that case, it wasn't the fact that the attacker got a surprise round but
that everyone was flatfooted (no AoO) --- which is almost as bad!! -- and
that you can't ready an action until combat begins, not during your soliliquy.

 

[William_2]

"and that you can't ready an action until combat begins, not during your soliliquy."

Nothing in the SRD about readying during a soliliquy?! I tell you, these rules don't cover the most obvious situations that come up...

 

[AuraSeer]

Free will is nice for the PC who wants to cut short a speech, but it'll trump my PC's free will to listen to the speech everytime.

It doesn't harm your free will at all. You're still perfectly free to listen to the speech; that's your choice to make and no one can unmake it for you. Whether that speech happens to end in a sudden wet gurgle is a whole other question.

But that's life isn't it? You're free to choose your actions, and so is everyone else. When you go adventuring or gaming with people whose worldview is not identical to yours, you will occasionally run into difficulty when their decisions conflict with your own. There's no way around it, unless you want to run a solo game for yourself.

You can't force your friends to make exactly the same decision as you, but there are ways to encourage their cooperation. For starters, try this folk remedy: "Hey Bob, don't shoot him yet, I want to know what he's talking about!" (Adjust as necessary if your crossbow-wielding ally is not named Bob.)

 

[Celebrim]

No surprise involved if both parties are observing each other (and let's face it, if you are if you're engaged in a parlay with an enemy, you're on your guard)

Because this isn't the first time that someone has said something that seemed to imply that there was some other possibility, I just want to point out that if both parties are observing each other that under the rules no surprise is possible no matter how suddenly either side acts. So again, the above reads "No surprise is ever involved if both parties are observing each other."

Morever, if the observation has been going on more than one round, no side can catch the other one flat footed either - even if neither side has taken an attack action - simply because it can be assumed that both sides have at least readied an action. Normally, you need feats like Flick of the Wrist to draw a weapon and catch the opponent flat footed, and at the very least if the PC's are planning by some deception to lure thier opponents into dropping thier gaurd the NPC's should recieve a Sense Motive check opposed by the Bluff check of every PC planning hostile action in order to aware that the PC's are being cunning. And even then no surprise round is possible and the PC's must still win initiative in order to catch anyone flat footed.

No one - NPC or PC - is so blindingly fast that they get a surprise round on any opponent that is aware of them. I'm sure that at least 99% of the people on this thread understand that, but just in case anyone doesn't, I'm repeating it here in case that misunderstanding is part of the problem.

I also wonder whether part of the problem is that DM's for the sake of convience end up using something like the cRPG convention that what goes on in one room has absolutely no bearing on what goes on in neighboring rooms. No party with fighters and clerics clunking around in plate mail should ever be eligible for a surprise on anyone, because if you forced them tediously make 'move silently' checks for the 20 rounds previously, you can be pretty darn sure that everyone within at least 100' had a pretty darn good ideal that they were coming and roughly where they where even if 'contact' hasn't yet been made.