Dimension Door and Initiative

[radmod]

I have never seen anyone do it the way Empirate does.

???

Which was why I was agreeing with Dross.
Init wouldn't change once combat has begun (except for the obvious delays).

 

[Dandu]

Yes, I am agreeing with you two.

 

[radmod]

Yes, I am agreeing with you two.

Sometimes I hate the written word. Where's the inflection!

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

All players delaying to act at the same time is a good counterbalance but only for a battle in progress.

When the party starts delaying outside of the encounter so that they can dimension door into the encounter and immediately all act in sequence, it's broken, IMO.

 

[Empirate]

Wow, I feel dumber than [insert whatever can't get simple initiative rules to work right]. So initiative is only changed by actions that specifically change it, not by changing stats it's derived from. Otherwise it's only checked once at the beginning of combat. News to me, to be honest. Apologies for derailing through not reading the freakin' manual...


Concerning delaying: it would make sense if you could only take the delay action (which specifically affects your pre-rolled initiative) after the order of initiative is established. That is, only after combat has begun. Outside of combat, you could of course make it so your whole group dimdoors to attack at the same time. If your enemy doesn't have prior awareness of your tactic, you'd get a surprise round, after which initiative would be rolled normally.
So before combat starts, there's no way to make sure you'll all act on the same initiative count after combat has started. You can take a coordinated standard action in the surprise round, but after that, you'd have to use delay to act in concert again.

 

[Vegepygmy]

Concerning delaying: it would make sense if you could only take the delay action (which specifically affects your pre-rolled initiative) after the order of initiative is established. That is, only after combat has begun.

Yep. This is discussed on page 25 of the DMG, "Combat Actions outside Combat" and "Adjudicating the Ready Action."

Outside of combat, you could of course make it so your whole group dimdoors to attack at the same time. If your enemy doesn't have prior awareness of your tactic, you'd get a surprise round, after which initiative would be rolled normally.

Exactly.

So before combat starts, there's no way to make sure you'll all act on the same initiative count after combat has started. You can take a coordinated standard action in the surprise round, but after that, you'd have to use delay to act in concert again.

By Jove, I think he's got it!

 

[Empirate]

By Jove, I think he's got it!

Seems I deserved that...