D&D 5E Actions and When to Enter Initiative

[jayoungr]

I'm curious how other DMs handle the situation where you're in free roleplay, not combat initiative, and then someone does something that someone else might want to stop.

Recent situations that got me thinking about this:

1. In a game where I was a player, my character was trying to infiltrate a secure area. When her bluff attempt failed, she was placed in a room with guards while the guy who caught her went to get the boss. She used a spell that allowed her to turn into shadow* and escaped.

2. In another game where I was the DM, the PCs had tracked down a suspicious spellcaster and were threatening him. The NPC wanted to get out of the situation, so he started to cast greater invisibility on himself. The players instantly asked if they could interrupt the spell, and so I had them all roll for initiative. (The spellcaster wound up going last, so by the time his turn rolled around, there was basically no way he could escape.)

It seems like these are very much the same situation, but flipped around. The DM could easily have made my PC roll for initiative in the first instance, but didn't.

So how do other people handle these situations? Do you always go with what makes things easier for the PCs? Is there a more graceful way of handling situation #2? Is there any way of having NPCs take PCs by surprise that won't leave the players shouting "That was cheap"?

*custom spell for the setting.

 

[77IM]

I struggle with this a lot, but I've developed a process that mostly works for me. It's called "advantage/disadvantage to initiative." Let me see if I can summarize:

1. Roll for initiative, and the person initiating the action (the instigator) gets advantage. Here, your initiative represents your reaction time. It IS possible for someone to start doing something (e.g. cast a spell) but get interrupted because somebody else noticed and got the jump on them. (Sometimes, if a character is specifically watching to interrupt, I will give that character advantage too.)

2. Roll for surprise, typically either Wisdom (Insight) vs. passive Charisma (Deception) or sometimes Wisdom (Perception) vs. passive Dexterity (Sleight of Hand). Here, the surprise result indicates whether the person knows what they are seeing and can choose to try to react. I give advantage to someone who is suspicious or to a player who's told me they're scrutinizing the target.

This leads to four possible outcomes:
1. The instigator wins initiative and everybody is surprised. Best case scenario for the instigator; they can't be interrupted.
2. The instigator wins initiative, but some people are not surprised. Second best scenario, this is mostly the same as above, but may have implications for certain abilities (e.g. assassin rogues) and allows unsurprised characters to possibly react later in the round instead of waiting until next round.
3. The instigator loses initiative, but everyone ahead of them is surprised. Third best scenario, because even though the surprised characters can't act, they can take reactions once their turn has past.
4. The instigator loses initiative and doesn't surprise anyone. Worst case scenario. Instigator gets dogpiled.

This mechanic heavily favors the instigator, which I think makes sense -- it's often hard to interrupt someone. BUT it's balanced by the fact that usually there's only one instigator, and a whole party of people trying to interrupt them.

Also, this basically works exactly as 5E says it should. All I've really done is apply situational advantage/disadvantage to initiative, which is something most people overlook for some reason.

 

[iserith]

I'm curious how other DMs handle the situation where you're in free roleplay, not combat initiative, and then someone does something that someone else might want to stop.

You might say that, when someone else wants to prevent something a character wants to do, this creates uncertainty as to the outcome and a meaningful consequence for failure. In which case, an ability check is the mechanic to resolve it. In particular, initiative, being a special kind of ability check.

The only rider on that is you have to determine surprise and establish positions first.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

1) Roll initiative whenever the order of events might be important. If it's possible for one side to react to the other side, then it's almost always necessary. Players get no special treatment, aside from probably having higher stats.

2) I have a house rule that, in situations where combat (or some other time-critical situation) is initiated uni-laterally by one side catching the other off-guard, the initiator side gains a +20 bonus to initiative. If combat starts when the chancellor backstabs the king, then that should be the first action of combat. I don't think that the rule would actually apply in either of the situations described, since one side is already alerted and suspicious; but I would definitely let the player know that it's unlikely they can get the spell off before the guards react, before they commit to taking that action.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

2) I have a house rule that, in situations where combat (or some other time-critical situation) is initiated uni-laterally by one side catching the other off-guard, the initiator side gains a +20 bonus to initiative. If combat starts when the chancellor backstabs the king, then that should be the first action of combat. I don't think that the rule would actually apply in either of the situations described, since one side is already alerted and suspicious; but I would definitely let the player know that it's unlikely they can get the spell off before the guards react, before they commit to taking that action.

How does this differ from the normal surprise rules? If the chancellor backstabs the king and nobody's expecting it, I would rule that everybody except the chancellor is surprised and therefore the chancellor naturally is going to have the first action. If some people are perhaps expecting trouble, I would say initiative is rolled when the chancellor first goes for the knife -- it is certainly possible for an alert bodyguard to interrupt him before the fateful blow is struck, after all, that's what they're there for. So I guess I don't see the need for any additional +20 bonuses. What does that do that I'm missing?

 

[jayoungr]

1. Roll for initiative, and the person initiating the action (the instigator) gets advantage. Here, your initiative represents your reaction time. It IS possible for someone to start doing something (e.g. cast a spell) but get interrupted because somebody else noticed and got the jump on them. (Sometimes, if a character is specifically watching to interrupt, I will give that character advantage too.)

2. Roll for surprise, typically either Wisdom (Insight) vs. passive Charisma (Deception) or sometimes Wisdom (Perception) vs. passive Dexterity (Sleight of Hand). Here, the surprise result indicates whether the person knows what they are seeing and can choose to try to react. I give advantage to someone who is suspicious or to a player who's told me they're scrutinizing the target.

Interesting idea.

Do you always roll both? Does the order of the rolls matter? I.e., if the instigator wins intiative, does it matter whether the others are surprised? Does the instigator get a free round in that case and then get to act again immediately?

 

[billd91]

So how do other people handle these situations? Do you always go with what makes things easier for the PCs? Is there a more graceful way of handling situation #2? Is there any way of having NPCs take PCs by surprise that won't leave the players shouting "That was cheap"?

These situations are pretty much what initiative and surprise were made for - you just have to determine exactly what you should use to have one side try to get the jump on the other. For the most part, initiative is flat out the right thing to check since both parties are aware of each other - probably even suspicious of each other.
There may be other situations in which opposed groups may not be suspicious of each other or at least not aware of the potential for unexpected actions. Obviously, stealth and perception are applicable in most adventuring/combat situations. But for others, if there may be a surprise maneuver taken, then Deception vs Insight or some other opposed pairs may be good alternatives.

In both of the cases you cited, I'd probably just have gone with a straight initiative roll. What I wouldn't do is give any kind of advantage to the first party to say what they're doing. The point of initiative is to handle those fairly and not privilege one simply because they make their declaration first.

 

[jayoungr]

In both of the cases you cited, I'd probably just have gone with a straight initiative roll. What I wouldn't do is give any kind of advantage to the first party to say what they're doing. The point of initiative is to handle those fairly and not privilege one simply because they make their declaration first.

Thanks for your input! One question: when do you ask for initiative? Like, in situation #2, would you have just narrated what was happening and waited for the players to ask for interrupt? Or would you have stopped narrating and asked for initiative as soon as you realized that the guy wanted to cast a spell?

 

[billd91]

Thanks for your input! One question: when do you ask for initiative? Like, in situation #2, would you have just narrated what was happening and waited for the players to ask for interrupt? Or would you have stopped narrating and asked for initiative as soon as you realized that the guy wanted to cast a spell?

In a situation like #2, it's pretty clear that the PCs would be invested in stopping him from casting the spell, so I'd just say, "He tries to get a quick spell off. Roll initiative."

Basically, whenever relative timing is important - I have them roll initiative. Could be in a fight that's starting, could be when someone falls into a raging river, any time that it becomes important (or useful) to determine in which order we should adjudicate actions.

 

[Shiroiken]

In general, I call for initiative when one creature decides they want to take a hostile action (I've had a PC start a fight in the middle of a negotiation several times). I will suggest, no matter what method you choose, NEVER allow a player to ready an action that leads into combat (although you could grant them the option of surprising their opponent instead), because 2 actions before you go is brutal, but it's worse if they also try to surprise and get 3 actions (found this out early in my first campaign).

1. In a game where I was a player, my character was trying to infiltrate a secure area. When her bluff attempt failed, she was placed in a room with guards while the guy who caught her went to get the boss. She used a spell that allowed her to turn into shadow* and escaped.

2. In another game where I was the DM, the PCs had tracked down a suspicious spellcaster and were threatening him. The NPC wanted to get out of the situation, so he started to cast greater invisibility on himself. The players instantly asked if they could interrupt the spell, and so I had them all roll for initiative. (The spellcaster wound up going last, so by the time his turn rolled around, there was basically no way he could escape.)

For situations like this, where someone wants to do something that would be considered hostile without revealing their intent, I fall back to either slight-of-hand or deception (depending on which is more relevant) as an alternative method to gain surprise. Everyone who rolls lower Perception or Insight than the actor is surprised, and cannot act (or react until their turn). This would have given the spellcaster in your case a chance of success, but with even 1 or 2 PCs making the check, he's going to be in a bit of trouble (although less than he obviously was).

Edit: I missed the part about extra guards in the 1st scenario and removed it.[/QUOTE]