Do the initiative rules discourage parley?

[KarinsDad]

You are clinging to the wording of the sentence "At the start of a battle, before you have had a chance to act (specifically, before your first regular turn in the initiative order), you are flat-footed." and dwelling on the phrase "chance to act" more than was likely intended. By way of clarification, here is what the glossary of conditions says specifically about being flat-footed:

"Flat-Footed: A character who has not yet acted during a combat is flat-footed."

So, if you do not act, you remain flat-footed.

Incorrect. Ask Hyp.

If I decide to not move, my initiative STILL COMES UP. I am still not flat-footed because flat-footed only occurs BEFORE my first initiative.

I am clinging to the rules because of what the rules state.

I can do a Delay Action and that is still performing an action. I am still not flat-footed the instant my initiative comes up. Nowhere does it state that I have to physically move or somesuch in order to no longer be flat-footed.

"Flat-Footed: At the start of a battle, before you have had a chance to act (specifically, before your first regular turn in the initiative order), you are flat-footed."

Once it becomes your turn, you are no longer flat-footed. That is a game mechanic that the character has no control over.


"Readying an Action: You can ready a standard action, a move action, or a free action. To do so, specify the action you will take and the conditions under which you will take it. Then, any time before your next action, you may take the readied action in response to that condition. The action occurs just before the action that triggers it. If the triggered action is part of another character’s activities, you interrupt the other character."

You interrupt his activities, you do not prevent him from starting them. Otherwise, your Ready trigger condition could never occur.

For example, the very fact that he starts casting a spell is what triggers your Ready action. You interrupt his casting with your action, your action is resolved before his action, and your future initiative is before his, but he still STARTED casting the spell (and was not flat-footed while doing so).

 

[KarinsDad]

So, what you're saying is the would-be robber had a surprise round, "wasted" it by firing a couple shots into the air and making some demands, and then lost initiative in the non-surprise round ??

Actually, I figured (like Nail) that there was no surprise round involved.

And I said it was not exactly on topic, just humorous.

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

Doesn't this hobo have to beat 4 PC's initiative and he has a penalty to dex?

Good on him if he wins against such odds, now all he has to do is score 4 instant kill hits in a row while evading at least 6 full attacks.

 

[KarinsDad]

You have accused me of making up stuff, so allow me to ask you, where in the DMG is the passage you are you referring to? The section on Readying an Action (p. 25) does not state that the triggering condition must be a specific action, nor does it specifically discourage a condition of "I ready if he does anything".

It actually states that the ready action is "particularly open-ended" and recommends that the action that the character is readying should be very specific (e.g. the character should specify exactly what spell is being readied). But that's the readied action it's talking about, not the triggering condition. It then goes on to say the DM is "justified" in requiring a specific target to be designated, or could designate any foe that comes from a certain direction, but that's as far as the DMG's advice goes on the topic of triggering conditions, and that's not very specific at all.

Moreover, the DMG is just offering advice, so we're not even talking rules, just recommendations on how to apply them. The RAW's express requirement is that you "specify the action you will take and the conditions under which you will take it". Notice the use of plural. Contrary to your assertions, not only is specificness not expressly required, but the rules implicitly allow for vagueness if you are permitted to identify a multitude of triggering conditions.

I stand corrected on the "specific triggering condition" point.

However, the second half of my sentence there that you quoted:

"it also does not occur before the initiative of the character who caused it."

is still applicable.

The readied action occurs before the triggerin action is resolved, but not before his action (or his initiative) is started. The condition has to start before the trigger can fire off on that condition.

Hence, he is STILL not flat-footed the moment he starts his action.


You cannot ready an action if he stops being flat-footed. He cannot stop himself from no longer being flat-footed.

This is a game condition, not a game action.

This is like readying an action for when someone else's initiative comes up. Initiative is a metagaming concept that a character within the game cannot perceive or know.

 

[Plane Sailing]

And I have already explained to you (twice) that you are wrong, both in 3.0 (for which I gave you the exact page number) and in 3.5 (for which you've seen several DM's have agree with me, but you'll have to rely on them for the exact page number if you are going to keep playing rules lawyer here). Why you persist in calling it 'my house rule' I have no idea seeing that I gave you the exact page number in the PH the rule could be found on.

The problem is that you are misusing some clearly defined terminology. Putting the term in quotes just wasn't enough. "Take 20" is a mechanism for skill checks - specifically a shorthand way of saying "if you spend 20 times as long as a single check, you'll eventually end up with a 20" and it can only be done if there is no penalty for failure. I know that you know this

So if in your examples you talk about 3.0 Refocus, then you won't get flak about houserules and there will be less room for confusion all round.

FWIW I believe that the reason refocus was removed in 3.5 was that (a) it was less effective than readying - you could refocus and effectively lose an action. Thinking of melee as a continuous stream of activity rather than discrete rounds, readying means that you are still likely to get your next action before he goes, whenever it is. You're guaranteed to be that bit faster than him too. Refocus means that you give up an action now and your refocussed initiative could easily be lower than your enemies top roll... effectively letting him go before you even if you had refocussed.
(b) there is no (b) I'm too tired...

I hope I've outlined where the misunderstanding between you and others relating to 'setting initiative to a high value' lies though.

Cheers

 

[moritheil]

Surprise round is after all a gamist/rule mechanic, and not a real and discrete thing.

Levels are a game mechanic. Initiative is a game mechanic. Prestige classes are game mechanics. None of these are, strictly speaking, "real" except as written or spoken words and occasional pictures designed to lure prepubescent twelve year olds into the game.

That does not make them any less a serious subject of study on this, the Rules forum. The instant you toss out the rules because they are not "real" to you, you are in Rule 0 land, or Houserule land, and run the risk of careening wildly away from the topical area of the Rules forum.

I just told you how I feel.

Well, hugs all around.

 

[moritheil]

Doesn't this hobo have to beat 4 PC's initiative and he has a penalty to dex?

Good on him if he wins against such odds, now all he has to do is score 4 instant kill hits in a row while evading at least 6 full attacks.

Free has a very good point here. Usually all that this hobo will do when he wins initiative is try to run away in a panic (thereby giving AOOs to the party anyway), or fail miserably to injure any of the party, struggling weakly as they close in to kill him like the chaotic evil characters they are (which makes sense; in most scenes people envision the victims offering some feeble resistance.)

 

[moritheil]

I, for one, welcome our new petunia overlords.

Bwahahahahahahaha.

Your support will be noted!

 

[moritheil]

So in the "hobo" example, the PCs enter initiative order as soon as they decide to confront the hobo and once he joins the initiative order (by becoming aware of the PCs, aka someone wakes him up) they maintain the upper hand due to their readied actions.

The PCs cannot arbitrarily "enter" initiative order outside of combat. Until the hobo wakes up, there is no one who can possibly give combat against the PCs (not that the hobo can effectively give combat, but he can try). Therefore there is no initiative order. People declare what they want to do and the DM describes things happening. This is how things normally happen outside of combat, no?

If they wake him up, well, he sure as heck didn't realize they were there. The PCs therefore get a surprise round as the hobo scrambles to figure out where he is, who he is, whether or not his limbs are still attached, and what's going on. At the end of this surprise round, he can be said to be fully and competently aware of the PCs arrayed against him, inasmuch as he is able to be. Also, he is starting out prone, which is a big problem for him in and of itself.

I do not feel the need to give the PCs any additional upper hand against the poor defenseless hobo - who will, after all, simply keel over and expire as soon as a melee character lands a hit on him anyhow. For that matter, I do not feel the need to give the PCs any additional upper hand or keep track of initiatives before a potential combat even happens.

I had a PC and villain negotiating a ceasefire during combat IMC recently. I ruled that combat ceased, and tossed the initiative order away. At some point in time, the villain was distracted by the appearance of another force, and turned her back on the PCs. The party rogue, of course, immediately declared he was sneak attacking. I resolved this with a surprise round for everyone who was aware of the situation, and then a new initiative roll for everyone. It worked pretty well.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

The position that the rules are good because they are written this way does not wash.

Your Neo example is flawed. His physical stats are 28s.

Take Joe Hobo instead. 5 PCs with good stats wake him up and have arrows pointing at him. Joe Hobo is lying on the ground, was asleep, and has 6s in his Str, Dex, and Con.

Initiative is rolled. Joe Hobo rolls a 19 and gets a 17. Everyone else rolls 12 or less for 16 or less.

Although they were watching closely, Joe Hobo moves "blindly fast", gets up, pulls a weapon, moves 5 feet closer and kills one of the PCs.

Your example has worse flaws: namely, it can't happen in D&D without feats that make Joe Hobo more than Joe Hobo. To break down your example, let's go phrase by phrase:

"Initiative is rolled." Right. Someone did something stupid.

"Joe Hobo rolls a 19 and gets a 17." It can happen. It won't happen often, but it can happen.

"Everyone else rolls 12 or less for 16 or less." Obviously none of the PCs are extremely fast either for none of them have Improved Initiative or a 20+ dex, either of which would enable them to beat Joe Hobo on a roll of a 12. (Assuming at least a +1 dex bonus for Mr. Imp Init.)

"Although they were watching closely, Joe Hobo moves "blindly fast" Flavor Text

"gets up," One move action

"pulls a weapon," Another move action.

"moves 5 feet closer" No problem.

"and kills one of the PCs." At least a standard action. Joe Hobo's actions now total two move actions and one standard action which is one more action than he would be allowed under normal rules. Apparently Joe Hobo is operating under the influence of 3.0 haste. The PCs should look inside his brown bag and see if it has any of that ancient potion substance that will let their spellcasters cast two non-quickened spells per round. There are a few other ways that it could be done. Joe Hobo could have Quickdraw. But then, if Joe Hobo has quickdraw, you would expect him to be able to get the drop on people and knife them when they don't expect it. That's what the feat is for. Joe Hobo could also have Improved Unarmed Strike and attack with his fists. But if the PCs thought he was Joe Hobo and he turned out to be Joe Prizefighter, then the sequence doesn't look so ridiculous after all.

And, as for killing one of the PCs... if we assume Joe Hobo is a first level commoner (and if he isn't, then the situation requires no explanation), there's no way he can kill a PC in that surprise action given his 6 strength and dex. Even giving Joe Hobo quickdraw and a shortsword and assuming a crit he only does 2d6-4 damage for a max of 8 points. A first level wizard with a 3 con has 1 hit point and would require 11 points to actually kill. But, good luck hitting with a -2 attack bonus.

So, yes, if Joe Hobo is really Joe Quickdraw or Joe Prizefighter, and wins initiative, he can sucker punch the wizard and drop him with a lucky crit. However, that's no longer Joe Hobo.

That is just plain stupid because the initiative system has a generic flaw in it. The flaw is the D20 roll modified generally by +/-4 (give or take). If it was a 2D4 roll (bell curves are better for this type of thing), at -2, Joe Hobo would never win over the prepared Rogue with Dex 18.

Or, if the D20 rule had a +10 modifier to init for those that are prepared. Or, some such.

But as written, the rule is flawed and dumb for this example.

The rule works just fine, however, if you leave Joe Hobo out of the picture (or don't give him a round of 3.0 haste).

And although this is an extreme example, it still illustrates the general point. If something this dumb can happen in an example, it will happen as well in somebody's game.

Does that mean that if something dumb can't happen in the example (as this can't) then it can't happen in the game).