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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Primitive Screwhead" data-source="post: 2207821" data-attributes="member: 20805">What the?Howdy folks.  4 pages and many examples later I feel compelled to post this. Perhaps y'all are looking at the wrong thing. The question before you is 'when does combat start'. Consider this. The group sneaks up on a Hobo sleeping at a campfire. The draw weapons and whatnot preparing to dastardly slaughter said Hobo in his sleep.Then, Joe steps on a twig, waking the Hobo. The Hobo, now being aware of the enemy at hand, *intiatates combat*.Spot checks, to which the PC's should get hefty bonuses to.Surprise round if any of the PC's failed to notice the Hobo's sudden intent on combat.Normal Initiative rounds.Now, can the DM require phased movement/actions by the PC prior to the 'start of combat'? Sure. The better to set the stage. But combat itself has not started yet. As such, you can parley, ambush, etc.. but cannot ready actions. Prepare for? Sure. Expect? Sure. Keep a close eye out (bonus to not being surprised )? Sure. I also HR a 'delay' in this pre-combat phased time, where a character can say 'I wait for Joe to move, then I will act'. This allows the party to stack and do room clearing style techniques, with the team supporting each other. The disadvantage is that if Joe misses his que, the entire team losses out. {if their initiative roll was higher, they drop to right behind Joe in the battle order, and can act in the surprise round if Joe acts.} Makes for really nasty ambushes when it works.I have a table rule that sets this concept up with my players. They know that the first instants prior to combat may be spent with parley/speech. They also know that the parley/speech does not invalidate any ambush or surprise attacks. Works quite well.If the DM uses control of when combat starts, the whole ready/flatfooted deal never comes into play. You cannot ready an action outside of combat. Readying an action in a surprise round is generally pointless unless you intend on disrupting a spellcaster.If that happens, based on what the sequence of actions, you may or may not be able to take advantage of your opponents condition of 'flat-footed'. A Readied action, as many people have quoted, occurs before the triggering action. If thier first action is the trigger, they still are flatfooted.   Before everyone yells and screams {more} about how unfair this is. Consider.. during a surprise round or at a higher initiative in the first round of combat, the character chose to not strike a flatfooted opponent in exchange for maybe being able to strike a flatfooted opponent on thier action. This won't really come up in play very often anyway.A number of posters have agreed that 'flat-footed' is realistic for the purposes of a game.Anyway, to wrap this all up, the DM needs to control when 'combat starts' in order to allow parley and ambushings. Failure to do so teaches the players to attack first and 'speak with dead' later. Let your players know that the game rules of combat can allow for ambush advantage even tho you stop to talk. Its all a matter of defining the start of combat as *not* being the moment the parties involved lay eye on each other.Okay, I go back to my hiding place now   <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/paranoid.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":uhoh:" title="Paranoid    :uhoh:" data-shortname=":uhoh:" /></blockquote>

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