Dimension Door and Initiative

[StreamOfTheSky]

How can a person's turn end if it never started? They didn't even take ANY actions. I'm trying to think of comparable things existing IN the rules.

White Raven Tactics changes the target's initiative to immediately after yours, so he goes right then, the opposite of waiting an entire combat turn.

Readying gives you an ACTION before switching your initative to before the incident that triggered it.

Reactive Counterspell lets you take a standard action to counterspell without having readied one previously, and pay for it later with your next turn's standard action.


What part of the rules sets a precedent for this "all involved lose a turn" houserule? Explain why it happens other than as a game balance fix.

EDIT: More on convoluted...

As written, even IF the spell negatively affected the riders along with the casters...there's no mechanical effect. Say a Wizard goes on Init 15 and a Rogue on Init 13. W takes R with him for Dim Door. The rogue can now not act until his next turn. *Initiative 13 rolls around* Hey, look at that! It's the Rogue's next turn. He can act finally again!

The only way this isn't the case is if moving with Dimension Door somehow makes it your turn. Even though every single other teleportation and movement spell in the entire game...anywhere... that moves another creature doesn't do this. And all without any explicit or implicit mention in the Dimension Door spell description that having the spell alter other people's initiative counts was even intended.

 

[Persiflage]

Amen, brother. What you said.

Besides, what about other spells that achieve short-range teleportation effects? Particularly those that are arguably better for teleport-into-position tactics, such as dimension step? Dimension step, dimension hop, dimension shuffle, regroup, baleful transposition and benign transposition all fail to mention any kind of disorientation or action loss for affected parties. Dimension step is a straight-up free movement gift for all affected subjects, doesn't cause action loss, is a level lower than dimension door and doesn't even require the caster to go along.

Given how much harder it is to even set up the dimension door attack compared to these other spells, I hardly think it's worth the effort of introducing further confusion to the initiative rules. Not to mention that most of the proposed fixes run the risk of either doing nothing, or even making matters worse... auto-resetting the teleportees' initiative counts to "immediately before the wizard's next turn" is asking for trouble. At least if you leave things as they are, the others have to wait for their initiative to come up. In a similar vein to the "solution" to the five-foot step "exploits" discussed in another thread, the cure is worse than the disease!

 

[green slime]

achieve short-range teleportation effects? Particularly those that are arguably better for teleport-into-position tactics, such as dimension step? Dimension step, dimension hop, dimension shuffle, regroup, baleful transposition and benign transposition all fail to mention any kind of disorientation or action loss for affected parties. Dimension step is a straight-up free movement gift for all affected subjects, doesn't cause action loss, is a level lower than dimension door and doesn't even require the caster to go along.

So, if someone has access to all the extraneous spells and abilities not contained in the Core three, it could be seen as problematic and inconsistent. Right...

Given how much harder it is to even set up the dimension door attack compared to these other spells, I hardly think it's worth the effort of introducing further confusion to the initiative rules. Not to mention that most of the proposed fixes run the risk of either doing nothing, or even making matters worse... auto-resetting the teleportees' initiative counts to "immediately before the wizard's next turn" is asking for trouble. At least if you leave things as they are, the others have to wait for their initiative to come up. In a similar vein to the "solution" to the five-foot step "exploits" discussed in another thread, the cure is worse than the disease!

What's confusing about the initiative rules?

 

[Empirate]

What's confusing about the initiative rules?

This made me crack up...

Wait, you weren't joking? Every single effect that changes your Initiative (by changing your Dex, for instance) messes up the whole combat. I can't count the times we argued about in-battle castings of Cat's Grace or Nerveskitter. Imagine a one-on-one combat, combatant A has Ini 14, B has 13. A takes a move and a standard action, then B takes a move and a standard action, then casts quickened Cat's Grace as a swift. Now B's initiative is 15, so next round he goes before A. So basically he gets in two turns to A's one, or what?

This is the simplest example and doesn't even take into account combatants newly entering combat in later rounds, readying an action or White Raven Tactics. Imagine you're aware that in the next round of combat, new guys will arrive and delve in. Why do they get higher Initiative than you? Can you ready an action to use White Raven Tactics on one of them, even though they haven't "entered" combat yet? What happens to your initiative if you could do so, do you act before or after them? What if you've been first to act in previous rounds, so their Ini will be set to 1 higher than yours next round, but you cast Cat's Grace now? And so on.

And don't get me started on the order of action in a surprise round. Or what happens if two people are tied in initiative and start full-round actions. And so on.


Initiative is a necessary abstraction to allow a turn-based combat system to work at all. It is much less useful to let it work well. But this is rather a tangent to the OP's questions, sorry to digress so much.

 

[green slime]

This made me crack up...

Wait, you weren't joking? Every single effect that changes your Initiative (by changing your Dex, for instance) messes up the whole combat. I can't count the times we argued about in-battle castings of Cat's Grace or Nerveskitter. Imagine a one-on-one combat, combatant A has Ini 14, B has 13. A takes a move and a standard action, then B takes a move and a standard action, then casts quickened Cat's Grace as a swift. Now B's initiative is 15, so next round he goes before A. So basically he gets in two turns to A's one, or what?

Yep. I'm not seeing the confusion here.

This is the simplest example and doesn't even take into account combatants newly entering combat in later rounds, readying an action or White Raven Tactics. Imagine you're aware that in the next round of combat, new guys will arrive and delve in. Why do they get higher Initiative than you? Can you ready an action to use White Raven Tactics on one of them, even though they haven't "entered" combat yet? What happens to your initiative if you could do so, do you act before or after them? What if you've been first to act in previous rounds, so their Ini will be set to 1 higher than yours next round, but you cast Cat's Grace now? And so on.

Don't know enough about ToB shennanigans. Didn't like it, don't use it.

And don't get me started on the order of action in a surprise round. Or what happens if two people are tied in initiative and start full-round actions. And so on.

Still not seeing the problem here. The Surprise round can feel awkward on occassion, but that can usually be worked out. We always worked out ties at the table amicably. IIRC we used to base it on Raw DEX stat first, and if that was still tied, a second unmodified roll... wasn't really a huge issue.

Initiative is a necessary abstraction to allow a turn-based combat system to work at all. It is much less useful to let it work well. But this is rather a tangent to the OP's questions, sorry to digress so much.

*shrug* Initiative in and of itself isn't so abstract as much as a 6 second turn... 6 seconds in a life-or-death struggle is an eternity. Still, breaking it down into even smaller segments would probably lengthen the amount of time to resolve a combat, without adding much in the form of enjoyment for the players. 1 second rounds, would see a move action as 5-ft...

 

[Dross]

Every single effect that changes your Initiative (by changing your Dex, for instance) messes up the whole combat. I can't count the times we argued about in-battle castings of Cat's Grace or Nerveskitter.

Nerveskitter kicks in when you roll for initiative, so if you have already rolled for init it doesn't do any good (my problem is with timing issues about when to cast it). Changes in DEX would work the same way. You've lost 4 points of DEX, so your initiative modifying is -2 from normal when you roll for initiative, which you don't do when already in combat.

Maybe pedantic, but removes all these problems and is RAW valid.

 

[radmod]

Nerveskitter kicks in when you roll for initiative, so if you have already rolled for init it doesn't do any good (my problem is with timing issues about when to cast it). Changes in DEX would work the same way. You've lost 4 points of DEX, so your initiative modifying is -2 from normal when you roll for initiative, which you don't do when already in combat.

Maybe pedantic, but removes all these problems and is RAW valid.

Makes sense to me and how I (would) do it.

 

[Dross]

I would not force inaction on those carried by DD, but I would enforce hard the:

• Physical contact between all those traveling: a mage needs to touch only one, but all others must be linked to that one. This means (even if a free action to grab, which I'm inclined to make a move "equivalent" action like picking up an object) you need to move into a suitable place.
• The grouping/orientation of the travelers needs to be the same (I don't see why line of people should suddenly become a circle*). So if there isn't room, what happens to those traveling with you?*
• Any foe of reasonable intelligence should be aware that something is up if all its enemies start holding hands.

* (for both) The spell description only mentions if the caster ends up in a solid body, not those traveling with you. To me this leaves 3 possibilities:

1. Everyone ends up in the same square as the caster with the appropriate problems for fighting in cramped spaces, or
2. Passengers are treated the same as casters, which means damage and pushed to some available space.
3. Passengers are stuck in the solid body (and if an actual creature?) so are potentially lost, with the person holding on to those inside having their arm stuck as well. (I would note that nothing in the description indicates this possibility though.)

 

[Dandu]

Makes sense to me and how I (would) do it.

I have never seen anyone do it the way Empirate does.

 

[Vegepygmy]

Wait, you weren't joking? Every single effect that changes your Initiative (by changing your Dex, for instance) messes up the whole combat.

What game are you talking about?

I can't count the times we argued about in-battle castings of Cat's Grace or Nerveskitter. Imagine a one-on-one combat, combatant A has Ini 14, B has 13. A takes a move and a standard action, then B takes a move and a standard action, then casts quickened Cat's Grace as a swift. Now B's initiative is 15,

No, it isn't (in 3rd edition D&D, at least).

...so next round he goes before A.

No, he doesn't.

And don't get me started on the order of action in a surprise round. Or what happens if two people are tied in initiative and start full-round actions.

What's confusing about the former, and how exactly can two people be "tied" in initiative?