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<blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 8603920" data-attributes="member: 29398">This isn't the exact same thing at all, for several reasons.Climbing a wall takes time, and others thus have time to stop the climber if they want to.&nbsp; Throwing a dagger is immediate, and the odds of someone being able to stop that action are slim at best.A wall can be difficult enough to climb that a DM is within her rights to declare it's an auto-fail.&nbsp; Throwing a dagger invokes a different set of rules - to wit, combat - wherein a DM does not have the right to declare an auto-fail without a roll but must instead at the very least allow a roll to hit...quite possibly against a surprised target, if the action was unexpected.And to the point of the thread: if the throwing of the dagger is the trigger that starts the combat and thus off which everything else is timed, the pouncing killer simply shouldn't be able to cover the distance before the dagger is away.NPCs get the same break: the PCs would get a surprise roll to determine if they saw the dagger coming (in my game if you're surprised you don't have your active defenses up, which can make a big difference to your AC) but the dagger would still be thrown before anything else could happen.In the case of a player declaring an unexpected and sudden action such as whipping out a dagger and throwing it in an otherwise peaceful situation, I don't see a valid reason to not allow that action to happen and resolve.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Lanefan, post: 8603920, member: 29398"] This isn't the exact same thing at all, for several reasons. Climbing a wall takes time, and others thus have time to stop the climber if they want to. Throwing a dagger is immediate, and the odds of someone being able to stop that action are slim at best. A wall can be difficult enough to climb that a DM is within her rights to declare it's an auto-fail. Throwing a dagger invokes a different set of rules - to wit, combat - wherein a DM does not have the right to declare an auto-fail without a roll but must instead at the very least allow a roll to hit...quite possibly against a surprised target, if the action was unexpected. And to the point of the thread: if the throwing of the dagger is the trigger that starts the combat and thus off which everything else is timed, the pouncing killer simply shouldn't be able to cover the distance before the dagger is away. NPCs get the same break: the PCs would get a surprise roll to determine if they saw the dagger coming (in my game if you're surprised you don't have your active defenses up, which can make a big difference to your AC) but the dagger would still be thrown before anything else could happen. In the case of a player declaring an unexpected and sudden action such as whipping out a dagger and throwing it in an otherwise peaceful situation, I don't see a valid reason to not allow that action to happen and resolve. [/QUOTE]

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