Forked - Flatfooted and the beginning of combat.

[Celebrim]

Isn't this easy to understand?

Apparantly not.

Let's go right back to the example I gave at the beginning.

Bandit's on horseback ride out on the road 300' ahead of the party. Both sides roll spot checks. Neither side is surprised. We roll initiative. Round one, the PC's ready an action and move toward the bandits. The bandits ready an action and move toward the PCs. Is anyone now flatfooted? Rounds 2 and 3 the same thing happens. Rounds 4 and 5 the bandit leader and the PC spokesbeing parley. Is anyone now flatfooted?

 

[catsclaw227]

Apparantly not.

Let's go right back to the example I gave at the beginning.

Bandit's on horseback ride out on the road 300' ahead of the party. Both sides roll spot checks. Neither side is surprised. We roll initiative. Round one, the PC's ready an action and move toward the bandits. The bandits ready an action and move toward the PCs. Is anyone now flatfooted? Rounds 2 and 3 the same thing happens. Rounds 4 and 5 the bandit leader and the PC spokesbeing parley. Is anyone now flatfooted?

No, no one is flat-footed in your example, because you did initiative when the bandit group was 300' feet away. You decided it was best for your group to do the initiative then, and not until there's a hostile action initiated.

Since each group acted in initiative, no one is flat-footed. I don't think anyone is disputing this example. What I wonder is why you did initiative when there wasn't any hostile action taken. IMHO and IME, we only roll initiative if there has been hostile action taken.

What happens (in your scenario) if prior to any "attack" or hostile action, the groups have a 10 minute parley? Are you going to tick off 6 second rounds and make people talk in initiative order?

Or what if the Bandits don't appear as bandits but instead the Kings Men? Are you still rolling initiative when they are 300' away?

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

All I've been saying is that sometimes just maybe people aren't surprised and are in fact readied and on gaurd. Is that so hard to believe?

All I'm saying is that no matter how much "on guard" you are, you can still be surprised. That's why you are always flat footed at the beginning of combat. Someone can always do something you don't expect or at least do something you do expect in a way you don't expect it. And sometimes, you just aren't fast enough to stop it, even though you react to it.

All of that doesn't really matter, however. It comes down to the fact that you roll initiative at the beginning of combat and you spend the first round before you act (or 2 rounds if you are surprised) flat footed.

I am just concerned because it appears from your comments that PCs can never declare init. So, in other words, they can always be flatfooted if the DM wants them to be and the DMs can avoid flatfootedness whenever the DM wants to(by declaring init early). Meanwhile the players don't have this power. I prefer it to be equal.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Bandit's on horseback ride out on the road 300' ahead of the party. Both sides roll spot checks. Neither side is surprised. We roll initiative. Round one, the PC's ready an action and move toward the bandits. The bandits ready an action and move toward the PCs. Is anyone now flatfooted? Rounds 2 and 3 the same thing happens. Rounds 4 and 5 the bandit leader and the PC spokesbeing parley. Is anyone now flatfooted?

Depends. In this case, I'd say....do the bandits intend to attack the PCs? If they just want to demand the PCs hand over their valuables and be on their way, then no...don't roll for initiative. Of course, you tell the PCs that there a bunch of armed men coming towards them and ask them what they want to do about it. If they say attack...then roll for initiative.

If no one wants to initiate any hostile actions, and both are looking for a non-hostile encounter(at least for now), then you continue to run it out of combat. Then when someone decides to fire at someone else, you roll for initiative and everyone becomes flat footed.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Obviously, to prevent this argument over whether or not someone is flatfooted.

There is not argument at all. At least there has never been in any game I've been a part of. You are flat footed from the time someone declares an intention to commit a hostile act and the first time you act in initiative.

I know what you are saying, and you are wrong. There are actions like 'feint' and feats like 'flick of the wrist' that allow you to flatfoot even an aware opponent, but more importantly nothing I have said prevents a character from ambushing another character at which point neither of us disagree over how the game works. Additionally, as I've said, there is no reason to suppose that every one goes around ready for combat and I consider it completely appropriate that if you attack someone who has no belief that you are a threat, that if you win initiative you'll catch them flatfooted. Moreover, the rogues main source of sneak attack damage is usually flanking a foe. The only area where my interpretation elimenates flatfootedness is one narrow set of circumstances - the one you claim is 'your favorite image...ever'.

As other people have pointed out. Flatfootedness only happens during a surprise round or before you've acted in initiative. There are many other ways to deny someone their Dex modifier, but none of them make someone flatfooted.

In D&D, flatfooted means "I have not yet acted since initiative is rolled, since I'm not ready for combat yet".

If someone has no idea you are a threat, you get a surprise round against them. Same as if they didn't see you. That's the point of a surprise round. You get attacked by someone you didn't expect to attack you. Flatfootedness is for that split second at the beginning of combat when you haven't yet reacted to combat starting.

And I think it's perfectly reasonable to say "I'm in a dungeon filled with monsters, I am ready for combat. I have my weapon in hand. No one should ever catch me flatfooted." In which case, you either have to admit that they are correct and you won't have any flatfootedness for the entire dungeon....or you have to say "No, being ready for combat isn't enough to make you avoid being flatfooted."

For the simple reason that you claim that a being alert to a threat that has taken an action is still flatfooted, which is a clear violation of both the intention of and letter of the rules. And you've been very clear about why you want to bend the rules, because you think that rogues aren't powerful enough without your interpretation and because you are clearly emotionally invested in a certain cinematic outcome.

I'm not trying to bend the rules. I disagree that it is a clear violation of any rules. As I mentioned, I've played with a LOT of people. Way more than the average(due to my position as a Triad member in Living Greyhawk, moving the another country for a year, and attending conventions in a number of different cities). I've flew to Toronto and played with people I had never met before and initiative was rolled and used the way I'm saying. I flew to Sydney(Australia), Canberra(Australia), GenCon Indy, Calgary, Edmonton, Detroit, and Fargo and played Living Greyhawk in each of these locations, each time entirely with people I had never met or gamed with before, with at least 4 or 5 different DMs in each of these locations(most of which hadn't met each other). This all under the banner of Living Greyhawk where the primary rule was "Use the rules as written with no optional rules and no house rules." This situation has come up a number of times. I've only met two DMs ever who rolled initiative before the first combat action was taken. Both of the times, the players corrected the DM as soon as he did it. Both times the DM pulled a "I'm the DM and I can run the game however I want to."

I think that if this was really a "clear violation of the intention and letter of the rules" that it would not have been independently used by hundreds of people who read the book. Especially not by those DMs trusted by Dave Christ, the guy in charge of the major WOTC conventions(like GenCon) to give people a fun game. I've even been one of those DMs 4 years now.

And I think Rogues aren't powerful enough without it because the designers of the game said they balanced Rogues assuming they got their Sneak Attack every round of combat. Each round you don't get Sneak Attack is a round you are less powerful than you should be. This normally goes:

Round 1: Move into melee and get an attack with Sneak Attack due to going first and the enemies being Flatfooted.

Round 2: Move to flank and get another attack with Sneak Attack.

Round 3, and so on: Repeat Round 2.

No, but there is nothing that says you shouldn't either and quite abit that implies that you should. Precisely because not rolling initiative leads to this sort of argument over the physical state of the inhabitants of the room and leads the player to imagine a world that is more or less frozen in place until the player takes the initiative to launch an attack it is a very good practice to do so.

Huh? It doesn't lead to any arguments over the physical state of the inhabitants of the room. At least none I've ever experienced. We continue to roleplay and imagine the state of the inhabitants the same way we do when I say "You are in a bar and there is an Half-Orc in the corner drinking a lot and being boisterous." No one says "Wait, we haven't rolled initiative yet...I have no idea what physical state we're all in. I think we must be all frozen in place!"

In an encounter like the bandit example I simply describe it like this:
Me: "You see a bunch of armed bandits exit the forest at 300' away. They slowly approach you, weapons in hand, pointed at you. What do you do?"
PC: "Are they attacking us? Should we roll for initiative?"
Me: "No, they appear to be approaching cautiously, but no one has made a move to attack."
PC: "We wait for them to get closer and see what they do."
Me: "Alright, they approach you and demand you hand over all of your treasure."
PC: "What? No way! We refuse."
Me: "They say 'Then we'll take it from your corpses' and look like they are about to attack...roll for initiative."
And then whichever side wins gets the advantage over the other one since they react first.

Also, it DOES say not to roll initiative until you need to keep track of who goes first. That's a direct statement to the contrary in the rules.

It wrecked the one where the DM was forced to remove flatfootedness from the game. That's an extreme reaction, and my guess is the DM did it because he recognized how broken your account of the rules is and didn't realize that the world as you described it is not the world as the rules describe it.

What? That's not how it went at all. The DM said that due to "realism", no one should ever be caught be surprised if they are ready for combat. He looked at the rules, said "I think these designers are idiots for writing flatfootedness into the rules. No one is EVER flat footed in real life, and I'm not going to use that rule." I argued that there was a "realistic" reason for it as well as a balance reason. The rest of the group agreed with me. The DM told us too bad, he was the DM and what he said goes. We shrugged and I asked him if I could switch characters if that was the case and had a lot of fun playing a Fighter instead.

I don't think any game was ruined.

I don't know if there is a better word, but it conjures for me the image of a melting quivering reality.

I'm going to leave this one alone. It's very insulting.

 

[Celebrim]

No, no one is flat-footed in your example, because you did initiative when the bandit group was 300' feet away. You decided it was best for your group to do the initiative then, and not until there's a hostile action initiated.

Since each group acted in initiative, no one is flat-footed. I don't think anyone is disputing this example.

Ok, good. Because they've done alot of disputing of me so far. The problem is not with the example I think, but some of the things that it implies.

The first is that you can take 'combat actions' outside of combat if by 'outside of combat you mean' rounds when no one is taking attack actions. This shouldn't be that contriversial either, since the DMG provides an example of when you might want to do that, but it has been.

The second is that you can be talking to the BBEG, win initiative, and have a reasonable expectation that even if you win initiative that the BBEG won't be flatfooted. Conversely, and perhaps even more importantly, you can be talking to the BBEG, the BBEG will win initiative, and you won't be flatfooted. We know that this is true because we just demonstrated that it was true. No one in the conversation was flatfooted. People have gotten very upset about that as well.

What I wonder is why you did initiative when there wasn't any hostile action taken.

For the very obvious reason that both sides prepared for hostilities. The fact that both sides prepared for hostilities very drastically changed the tactical environment.

IMHO and IME, we only roll initiative if there has been hostile action taken.

With the natural result that every attack - even a meeting engagement - is in the form of an ambush with one side momentarily unprepared for the attack. Not to sterotype you too much, but I'd also guess you generally only roll initiative when the parties are within charging distance and that you've never had a battle start at a distance of 400' or 600' (or more). Moreover, I'd guess that most fights with NPC's are battles to the death, that there are fairly clearly lines drawn between who you fight and who you shouldn't, and that PC's rarely negotiate with characters 'that they should fight'. Not to sterotype your DM too much, but I bet if you tried he'd be startled and confused and eventually a fight would break out anyway. I say these things not with perfect certainty, but because I've seen the type on several occassions.

What happens (in your scenario) if prior to any "attack" or hostile action, the groups have a 10 minute parley? Are you going to tick off 6 second rounds and make people talk in initiative order?

Let's come back to that question in a bit.

Or what if the Bandits don't appear as bandits but instead the Kings Men? Are you still rolling initiative when they are 300' away?

Absolutely. Whatever I'd do in one case, I'd do in the other, because otherwise I'd be signalling to the players with a metagame action, "These are the people you should attack/not attack." The potential confusion between bandits and the King's Huntsman was an issue I brought up right from the beginning.

Let's back up a bit, because the impression I've got from alot of the pushback in this thread has been, "That Celebrim. He's a RB DM and always trying to put the PC's down." However, that's not at all true.

What I didn't tell you about the bandits was they were all high level rogues and the EL was four higher than party level, and there was a very good chance of a player death or a TPK. Now, if I didn't roll initiative when the Bandits where 300' away and waited instead for the first attack, it's quite possible that it wouldn't have occurred until the PC's were in sneak attack range and thus they would have been exposed to considerable sneak attack damage. But, because I rolled initiative when the Bandits are 300' away, there is no danger that the PC's will be flatfooted when hostilities break out.

Consider the alternative interpretation that some others in this thread have been using.

DM: Ahead on the road you see a group of men on horseback riding out of the woods. They are dressed in browns and greens and are lightly armored, but are armed with spears, swords and bows. As you are observing them, they are clearly observing you and turn their horses in your direction.
PC #1: I ready my bow in case any of them make a hostile move.
DM: You can't do that.
PC #1: Uhhh.. why not?
DM: Well, that would be a combat action and we haven't rolled initiative yet.
PC #1: Ok, can we roll initiative now?
DM: No, because no one has yet taken a hostile action.
PC #1: So you mean I can take no action to ready myself for combat so when your high level rogues get within 30' we'll still be flatfooted?
DM: Yes.

Now that would be ridiculous.

 

[Celebrim]

I am just concerned because it appears from your comments that PCs can never declare init.

Really? :rollseyes:

...my interpretation of when the game is in a combat state is when there is some character NPC or PC that wants to take a combat action. There really aren't any other guidelines in the rules. If the PC offers a combat action, its not my place to say, "No, you can't do that because we are not in combat now.

Any time the PC's think the need initiative, they can ask for it. So far as I can tell, I'm the strongest advocate here for claiming that the PC's have as much control over when initiative is thrown as the DM. I've specifically said the DM can't deny the PC's initiative if they want it. Everyone else here has been saying that the DM controls when initiative happens. I believe at best that's only a half truth.

So, in other words, they can always be flatfooted if the DM wants them to be and the DMs can avoid flatfootedness whenever the DM wants to(by declaring init early). Meanwhile the players don't have this power. I prefer it to be equal.

Me too. IMO, you've got way too much 'the DM is the adversary and I have to fight for every advantage' going on.

 

[Celebrim]

And I think it's perfectly reasonable to say "I'm in a dungeon filled with monsters, I am ready for combat. I have my weapon in hand. No one should ever catch me flatfooted." In which case, you either have to admit that they are correct and you won't have any flatfootedness for the entire dungeon....or you have to say "No, being ready for combat isn't enough to make you avoid being flatfooted."

Right. Because you can still be surprised by something you didn't know was there, in which case all your preparation goes to not. But we haven't been arguing over what happens in a surprise round. We've been arguing about whether you can be prepared for battle when you are not surprised. You insist that its impossible. I insist that its possible. I've provided at least one example that proves its possible. You've spent the whole thread going through backflips claiming the whole thing is wrong because the DM has no right to declare initiative at that point.

I've flew to Toronto and played with people I had never met before and initiative was rolled and used the way I'm saying.

In a tournament situation using typical encounters, it almost always will be. If you are in a dungeon environment with static or semi-static set peice encounters with monsters that attack at the first oppurtunity and PC's that attack at the first oppurtunity, it will work the way you are used to every time. Then, because that's 'the way we've always done it', you get into a habit and you forget that there are other possibilities. Then because you normally play with people in the same boat, when someone comes along who has been playing a different way, you scream, "You're doing it wrong!!! You are cheating rogues!!!" etc.

And I think Rogues aren't powerful enough without it because the designers of the game said they balanced Rogues assuming they got their Sneak Attack every round of combat. Each round you don't get Sneak Attack is a round you are less powerful than you should be.

The biggest achilles heel of rogues is that too many things are immune to sneak attack. If it can be sneak attacked though, a decent rogue player is going to find a way. The second biggest problem with them is that like all martial classes, they really suffer compared to spellcasters at higher levels. There are other problems as well, but that's the subject of a different thread. However, in general, I've found rogues to be a popular and effective class.

No one says "Wait, we haven't rolled initiative yet...I have no idea what physical state we're all in. I think we must be all frozen in place!"

I didn't say that you said that. I was refering to this: "you quick draw your dagger and slash his throat... even before he has a chance to raise his sword in defense" Helplessly frozen in place.

In an encounter like the bandit example I simply describe it like this:
Me: "You see a bunch of armed bandits exit the forest at 300' away. They slowly approach you, weapons in hand, pointed at you. What do you do?"
PC: "Are they attacking us? Should we roll for initiative?"
Me: "No, they appear to be approaching cautiously, but no one has made a move to attack."
PC: "We wait for them to get closer and see what they do."
Me: "Alright, they approach you and demand you hand over all of your treasure."
PC: "What? No way! We refuse."
Me: "They say 'Then we'll take it from your corpses' and look like they are about to attack...roll for initiative."

I figured.

What? That's not how it went at all. The DM said that due to "realism", no one should ever be caught be surprised if they are ready for combat.

He is right. And leaving aside that by the common definition of the words no one can be both surprised and ready, I just demonstrated under the rules that he's right. Once you've prepared yourself for combat, you cannot be caught flatfooted by anything you are aware of. However, if he thought the rules said what you think they say, it's no wonder he thought the designers were idiots.

 

[Hussar]

Apparantly not.

Let's go right back to the example I gave at the beginning.

Bandit's on horseback ride out on the road 300' ahead of the party. Both sides roll spot checks. Neither side is surprised. We roll initiative. Round one, the PC's ready an action and move toward the bandits. The bandits ready an action and move toward the PCs. Is anyone now flatfooted? Rounds 2 and 3 the same thing happens. Rounds 4 and 5 the bandit leader and the PC spokesbeing parley. Is anyone now flatfooted?

Ah ah ah. Right there, the bolded part, that's where you are wrong by the rules.

From the SRD:

You can ready a standard action, a move action, or a free action.
...
You can take a 5-foot step as part of your readied action, but only if you don’t otherwise move any distance during the round.

If you ready an action, you cannot move.

There is, of course, other huge problems with playing in "combat mode" all the time. For one, 5 people can't fit in a 10x10 room. Tables in your bar would have to be ENORMOUS, since no one can end their turn in an occupied square. Man, I'd hate to see ballrooms in this world.

But, anyway, Celebrim, your example is flawed. You cannot ready an action and then move along, "holding" the readied action. A readied action precludes movement.

 

[Hussar]

He is right. And leaving aside that by the common definition of the words no one can be both surprised and ready, I just demonstrated under the rules that he's right. Once you've prepared yourself for combat, you cannot be caught flatfooted by anything you are aware of. However, if he thought the rules said what you think they say, it's no wonder he thought the designers were idiots.

However, you and the DM are both wrong in that you are using the Ready an Action rule incorrectly. You can certainly be caught flat footed by something you are aware of. There is absolutely no line in the definition of (the game term) Flat Footed which refers to awareness. You have added that line. It does not appear anywhere in the Flat Footed rules.

Now, it DOES appear in the surprise rules, but, that's a different story.