NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Man in the Funny Hat" data-source="post: 9383958" data-attributes="member: 32740">You're asking how a watch works.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />  I'll give you MY best understanding of the general functionality of btb 1E combat, which really starts with declaration.  You need declaration because you're going to be doing a lot of determination of who is attacking whom in what way.  The three most common and important attacks are melee, missile fire, and magic, and each of the one-on-one matchups of those three have different means to determine initiative (once you DO get around to rolling initiative).  That is, melee vs. melee initiative priority is determined different than melee vs. spell, which is different from a CHARGE attack into a melee, which is different from missile vs. missile, and missile vs. melee, etc.  Most importantly, if anyone is casting a spell, you need to know that before initiative is rolled because the casting time figures into the calculation when spells are involved.So everyone declares and you sort out what those pairings will be.  THEN you roll initiative.  Follow the steps listed in order on DMG p.61 (even though it doesn't include declaration as a step).  So, Step 4, you take the side that won the roll and see who wants to flee (4a) - which they then DO; then see who wants to parley (4b) - which they then DO; then who is going to just wait around (4c) - which they then DO; then who is firing missiles/using magic items/casting spells (4d) which is when things get... interesting.  When it comes to firing missiles - use the initiative procedure called for based on how their chosen opponent is responding.  There's a procedure for missile vs. missile, missile vs. melee, and missile vs. spell.  Use the correct procedure to then determine WHICH of those actually gets RESOLVED as happening first. If the individual is shooting missiles and more than one target with more than one sort of combat being performed in response then you'll have to figure out for yourself how to prioritize ANY of that because the 1E procedures only consider 1 vs. 1 special procedures.  If a missile target isn't actually responding against the missile attacker with an attack of their own then resolve the missile attack as-is, and resolve whatever the target is doing at whatever step is appropriate or wait until their side's actions are otherwise all completed.  As each initiative winner completes their action, if it's an attack action, then you can often just have the initiative loser respond immediately with whatever their attack is and get that out of the way, rather than wait any further (unless something else WOULD potentially interrupt their counter-attack).  This is why declaration wants to determine these one-on-one pairings and the order in which you will want to resolve all of it (regardless of whether it "happens" first it may get RESOLVED with a later priority).Once done with initiative-winning missiles, magic item usage, and cast spells, then move on to the initiative winners that are simply closing (usually to merely get into melee range for the next round) or who are making charge attacks.  Closing just gets you in melee range, that's all.  That individual does nothing but that.  Charging means you actually get an attack (as does then the charged melee opponent unless they were hoping to brace in time to receive it) and if charging DOES put you in a melee exchange then you ignore the fact that anybody won an initiative roll and simply compare weapon length to determine which combatant strikes first.  After the initiative-winning charge strike is resolved, resolve the initiative-LOSER'S melee strikes in response.And so on, and so on.This shows why declaration is so important.  If during declaration someone realizes that they're going to be charged they can decide to set a weapon to receive that charge rather than do something else.  Everybody sorts out declarations first so that when it comes time to use actual initiative procedures and combat rolls nobody ever needs to change their mind about what they wanted to do and end up "accidentally" unable to do anything.  Declaration isn't supposed to be Blind-Man's-Bluff IMO, though most people think it is because the DMG at one point suggests writing your individual declaration down.  I believe it's there to help you sort out which of the many detailed mechanics will end up getting used  before you're committed to using them, and AVOIDING confusion about when to use them.Note that normal melee vs. melee is pretty simple and straightforward other than when you start dealing with multiple attacks from one or both opponents.  Initiative then determines mostly how those attacks are staggered back and forth with ALL but the first attack being resolved later in the round.  When initiative is TIED is when melee weapons break those ties with WSF's and (if I recall) it then also affects the staggering of multiple attacks.Going back to the use of Evasion, you just roll that when initiative is rolled FOR THEIR SIDE.  If their SIDE won initiative, then evasion gets checked and applies for everything that happens for the round if successful.  If the acrobat's SIDE lost initiative then they're SOL and it won't apply at all for the whole round.  If evasion was successful, then whatever melee attacks, missile attacks, or applicable spells were directed at the T/A; they fail, they miss, they don't apply, or otherwise don't work.  The opponents however don't get to change their minds about what they might want to TRY to do - because during declaration EVERYBODY knew that the T/A was going to be trying to evade and they made declarations to ATTEMPT to attack the T/A with that full knowledge.Again - that's MY best functional interpretation of the BTB 1E rules, (which I do not use, both because that interpretation is not just debatable but openly disagrees with a lot of other people's interpretations, and because I have my own hopefully much easier procedure to achieve similar outcomes anyway).  The BTB is still quite vague, and confusing, if not completely silent in many areas (like when multiple attacks are spread against separate opponents who all respond with different kinds of attacks of their own) and no matter what, the DM will need to fill in those gaps fairly and consistently.</blockquote>

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