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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Bacon Bits" data-source="post: 8605094" data-attributes="member: 6777737">Then I'm not sure how the scenario in the original question applies to a gunfight at all. That is to say, I'm not sure why the scenario in the original question isn't going to fall under surprise if the weapons involved are handguns. Not unless the GM has already called for initiative.If anything, a quick draw gunfight should involve both sides making secret decisions about what they do, having the DM make hidden checks to see if they accurately determine what their opponent is doing, and then having the results play out with the chance of a simultaneous kill. And speed should be just as important as intuition in it, so that a kind-of fast character with great intuition could win against a very fast character who chooses to draw. Because, yes, a quick draw gunfight should mostly feel like rock-paper-scissors. Wait > Sense > Draw > Wait. This doesn't fit into D&D at all.But that's not the scenario. The scenario is a conversation where one side just chooses to make an attack. I'm not sure that it matters if it's drawing an throwing a knife, casting charm person, rushing with a sword, or whatever.In D&D -- so, to be clear, I'm setting the gunfight scenario aside -- initiative exists to determine who acts first, right? Well, in this scenario, we already know who acted first and we already know that the other party wasn't planning to take any combat actions. So what is the die roll for? Unless the two sides are too far away to reach each other, I don't really understand why nobody can do anything until you stop and roll initiative to determine who acts first after someone has already acted first.You got jumped. It's not supposed to be fair.Thinking about it more the ways I can imagine handling it:1. Roll initative. Barring some kind of pre-planning via telepathy or planning to jump them before the encounter, only the acting character is not surprised.2. Roll initiative. Nobody is surprised, but the acting character automatically acts at the top of initaitive order.</blockquote>

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