D&D 5E When to Roll Initiative

[Hriston]

The only rule of initiative is it is rolled when combat begins. You can not make an attack outside of initiative.

Sometimes I use turn by turn initiative in exploration but it is rare, mostly only immediately after a fight.

The second someone is about to make a hostile action towards another you call for initiative.

EDIT: to add this image
View attachment 69660

First of all, awesome image. I always think of this scene whenever the subject of initiative comes up. It's a clear illustration of what initiative's all about. Han just had better reaction time than Greedo.

I agree with what you're saying in that no attack rolls against another creature should happen without first rolling initiative. That's clearly the intent behind the order of steps given for combat. What I'm not sure about here is whether you're saying that the only time you should roll initiative is when someone is making a hostile action, or if that's just the last possible moment by which you should have already rolled.

I use the latter understanding of initiative because, for example, in the case of PCs surprising a monster, I never know if the PCs are going to attack in the first round. Of course, if they have surprise they in all probability will, so they can attack without being attacked, but the situation arises at times when it is more beneficial for the surprising party to use the first round to better position themselves for the attack. They might opt not to attack at all but rather use the opportunity to avoid fighting if they are somehow outmatched. Because they have surprised the monster, I want to give them that first round to do whatever they want, but since surprise is determined at the beginning of an encounter the concept has no relevance outside of combat. Of course, if they remain hidden into subsequent rounds they still have the benefits of being hidden, but they lose the element of surprise. This makes narrative sense because surprise requires that you act quickly and suddenly. If you wait, you lose the opportunity. So that's why I don't tie the beginning of combat to a hostile action, but rather to the existence of a hostile attitude and a proximity between parties that would make that relevant. It leaves the choices made in the first round, after combat has begun, wide open as far as what individuals will do with their turns.

 

[Celtavian]

Han didn't have better reaction time than Greedo. He was ready to fire and fired killing Greedo in an ambush attack. Why do you think Lucas changed it? He didn't want Han being the one that ambushed Greedo, even though he did. It wasn't ambiguous at all. They show Han making a read on Greedo that he's going to have to kill him. He readies his blaster to do so. It was a ready action attack when Greedo goes for his pistol. If you were running this in D&D, you would have started initiative prior to anyone going for their blaster. Han would have at some point readied an action to blast Greedo if he went for his pistol. This was very easy to do in 3E/Pathfinder.

How would I do this?

Round 1: Have both Han and Greedo roll initiative. Then start interacting assuming both are hostile and intend to fight. Han rolls Sleight of Hand check to ready his blaster without being seen by Greedo. Greedo continues to talk confident he can outdraw Solo in a fight. Han unknown to Greedo readies his blaster pistol to blast Greedo if he goes for his blaster or shows hostile intentions.
Round 2: Continue conversation with Han having ready action to blast as soon as Greedo goes for blaster.

Complete sequences. It is fairly easy to handle in 5E.

 

[Lanefan]

My problem with this is that it sucks to be a player when this situation is reversed:

"You are standing there talking to the guy. He pulls out a sword and...crits you, you take 25 damage. I guess you die."
"Wait, I just stood there and watched him pull out a sword and stab me and I didn't have a chance to react? I have a 20 dex. I'm really fast. I want to maybe disarm him or kill him before he attacks me or at least get to use the dodge action."

Unfortunately, when rounds are 6 seconds long you were periodically run into "weirdness" with the initiative system. This is one of these cases. But if described correctly, it's not that bad.

The trick is to unlock yourself from a round always being 6 seconds and instead make it as long as it needs to be. Here, that first "round" might only be the one second it takes for a draw-and-stab action, or clench-fist-and-punch. After that, once battle is joined things can progress with the normal 6-ish second rounds.

Lanefan

 

[hatecraft]

Initiative is used to figure out the order of stuff. So, you only need to roll initiative when the order matters.

If a hidden elf is watching an unaware goblin, then snipes the lone goblin with an arrow from 100' away, killing the goblin instantly, there is no need to roll initiative.

So yeah, I think attacks can be made outside of initiative.

In the case of the goblin, if the arrow missed and shattered against a rock, I'd call for initiative *then*, because then the dice are suddenly answering a very important question: can the elf get a second arrow off before the goblin realizes what just happened and calls for help.

 

[Lanefan]

Han didn't have better reaction time than Greedo. He was ready to fire and fired killing Greedo in an ambush attack. Why do you think Lucas changed it? He didn't want Han being the one that ambushed Greedo, even though he did. It wasn't ambiguous at all. They show Han making a read on Greedo that he's going to have to kill him. He readies his blaster to do so. It was a ready action attack when Greedo goes for his pistol. If you were running this in D&D, you would have started initiative prior to anyone going for their blaster.

No I wouldn't. I'd be checking Han's stealth vs. Greedo's perception - as we know, Han's stealth wins, thus...

Han would have at some point readied an action to blast Greedo if he went for his pistol. This was very easy to do in 3E/Pathfinder. Might have problems by RAW in 5E depending on what the DM allows.

And in reaction to Greedo going for his gun Han gets a shot away. No initiative required as Han is ready and waiting; though a case could be made for Han needing to make an easy perception check to notice Greedo's move.

If Han had missed on the first shot then it's initiative as usual, probably for everyone in the Cantina.

Lanefan

 

[Hriston]

Han didn't have better reaction time than Greedo. He was ready to fire and fired killing Greedo in an ambush attack. Why do you think Lucas changed it? He didn't want Han being the one that ambushed Greedo, even though he did. It wasn't ambiguous at all. They show Han making a read on Greedo that he's going to have to kill him. He readies his blaster to do so. It was a ready action attack when Greedo goes for his pistol. If you were running this in D&D, you would have started initiative prior to anyone going for their blaster. Han would have at some point readied an action to blast Greedo if he went for his pistol. This was very easy to do in 3E/Pathfinder.

The problem with this is you can't ready an action to interrupt someone else's action. Greedo is pulling his blaster as part of his attack action, so if Han had had to wait for the trigger to complete Greedo would have gotten his attack off. What happened instead looks like a Dexterity contest to me (Initiative), but I agree with you that that roll should have been made at the beginning of the encounter unless you're doing speed-factor initiative.

 

[Celtavian]

The problem with this is you can't ready an action to interrupt someone else's action. Greedo is pulling his blaster as part of his attack action, so if Han had had to wait for the trigger to complete Greedo would have gotten his attack off. What happened instead looks like a Dexterity contest to me (Initiative), but I agree with you that that roll should have been made at the beginning of the encounter unless you're doing speed-factor initiative.

I already illustrated how I would do it. If you roll initiative at the start, you can ready an action. Nowhere does it say an attack has to happen right after initiative is rolled. You can roll initiative and have both sides talk or ready actions on the other.

You can ready an action to go when the other person does something. You can say, "If they draw their sword, I fire my bow." If you kill them as Han did Greedo, you interrupt their action. If they live, they can follow through on their action.

 

[Hriston]

I already illustrated how I would do it. If you roll initiative at the start, you can ready an action. Nowhere does it say an attack has to happen right after initiative is rolled. You can roll initiative and have both sides talk or ready actions on the other.

Right, I just agreed with you that rolling initiative at the beginning is the way to go. I didn't say you need to attack right after initiative. I don't know where you're getting that. Initiative is a Dex check that is good for the entire encounter for the purpose of deciding the order actions are taken in. I think we're on the same page about this.

You can ready an action to go when the other person does something. You can say, "If they draw their sword, I fire my bow." If you kill them as Han did Greedo, you interrupt their action. If they live, they can follow through on their action.

This is open to some interpretation. The timing of the Ready action requires the trigger to have finished before you can take the readied action. Since drawing a weapon is part of the Attack action, my ruling was that Greedo be allowed to complete his attack before Han takes his readied shot. This is because Greedo wouldn't have been drawing his blaster if he weren't attacking with it. Drawing and firing really aren't two separate actions.

But even if you disagree with that interpretation and say that drawing the weapon in itself constitutes the trigger, Greedo would still be allowed to finish drawing his blaster. At that point both Han and Greedo are pointing their blasters at each other and are both about to press the trigger. How do you decide who gets to shoot first? Initiative answers that question very well in my opinion because it tells us who's turn it is.

 

[Hriston]

I don't roll initiative until the first hostile action is taken and the person doing it will usually go first. This can only be counteracted provided another person in the party says they are trying to stop their party-member from attacking, and at that point I'd roll initiative between the two to see if the second player could stop the first.

So for instance, the party is talking to a band of orcs and one of the rash party members says they fire their bow at the nearest orc (because that player doesn't want to parlay). Now, theoretically that would start combat and thus you'd roll initiative... but I find the idea that this particular PC who said they were starting the fight somehow ends up going AFTER every other character because they rolled poorly on initiative makes no narrative sense to me at all and thus I don't bother with initiative yet.

Instead, the PC says they are attacking, and I give any other members of her party the chance to react to this (because they notice her nocking an arrow and bringing up the bow for example). If a party member is close enough to try and stop her (by physically grabbing the bow or throwing her a look to tell her to stop what she's doing), then I'd have both of them roll initiative to see which of them got to go first and do whatever it was they wanted. If the attack was not stopped for whatever reason, at *that* point I'd have everyone else roll initiative, slotting in those two PCs who had already rolled. So even though the bowman went "first" in that out-of-initiative attack, they might not react fast enough to go first in the first round of actual combat. Which I'm fine with.

Basically it sounds like if someone in your game declares an attack before you call for initiative they get a "surprise round" and possibly get to go first in the next round as well. The way I'd do this is to roll initiative as soon as the PCs and orcs spot each other. Then if the rash PC wants to start shooting on her turn she can do that, and initiative order would continue from there.

By the same token when it comes to stealth and surprise... I run it old-style wherein you only get a "surprise round action" if you aren't surprised. If you are surprised, you don't get a "turn" in the surprise round. Which does mean it goes against the "rules" stating you get your Reaction once your spot in the initiative order comes and goes during the Surprise round, but frankly I don't care. I've never had a problem with it either way, and if doing it my way eliminates the arguments about the Assassinate ability (wherein the Rogue can't auto-crit because the person they are surprising rolls a higher initiative than they do) then so much better. The Assassinate ability isn't so strong that I feel the need to halve the numbers of times the Rogue actually gets to use it.

I didn't start this thread to rehash the arguments from the Assassinate thread, but it did bring these differences in when folks roll initiative to my attention, which is why I started it. I'll just say that running surprise this way has only two slight differences from the RAW. One, the surprised don't get to take reactions after their turns, and two, Assassinate can be used on them after their turns. Oh, that's right, they don't have turns.

 

[epithet]

Greedo already had his pistol drawn, pointed at Han. Han made a wisdom (insight) check and determined that Greedo thought "dead" was better than "alive." Greedo had an action readied to shoot Han if Han tried to escape or draw his weapon.

Han used charisma (deception) to distract Greedo, moving his hand high against the wall ("I don't have it on me.") That distraction gave him advantage on his dexterity (stealth) check to draw his blaster under the table without Greedo noticing, then fire at Greedo. Han rolled very well, scoring a critical hit to "fry poor Greedo" and killed him outright. Greedo did not have an opportunity to use his reaction to attack Han, despite having that attack readied.