Do initiative rules discourage parley (pt 2)

[tomBitonti]

Hi,

This is an attempt to restart the prior thread, without the heat, and perhaps more
on the initial track.

The point, if I understand it correctly, is that the RAW allow you to be caught
flat-footed, even if you took steps to be prepared.

That, if your side is aware of the opponent, and they are unaware of you,
you get a surprise round. You roll initiative for your side and take your action,
then begin the first full round. The other side rolls initiative and remain flat footed
until they get to go. In the first full round your side cannot be flat footed.

However, if combat starts with both sides aware of each other, both sides
roll initiative, and both sides have a chance to be flat footed.

The crux of the problem here is that if your side is aware, and the other is not,
if your side attempts to parley (which is being taken as an out of combat action),
then both sides roll initiative. That is, your side now has a chance of being
caught flat footed, because of the parley, even though if you had simply attacked
there would have been no chance of that.

I suppose the ruling could be that the parley is your side's "surprise round" action,
so your side cannot be flat footed, however, that is not how folks seem to be
ruling.

In any case, this seems to be the initial point of the prior thread, that the mechanic
imposes an overlarge penalty for attempting to parley.

My own take on this is to house-rule away the flat footed condition in many cases.
As many will note, that is not RAW.

Thx,

T Bitonti

 

[S'mon]

Yeah, I too houserule away flatfootedness where appropriate. I do like to let the Rogue PCs Sneak Attack whenever plausible, though.