Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="mkletch" data-source="post: 396296" data-attributes="member: 3396">Here is my problem with the initiaitve system: readied actions.  First of all, the DMG recommends no readied actions before initiative.  This is absurd.  Look at the example under initiative in the DMG.  Orcs on one side of a door, the adventurers on the other, and both aware that the other is there.  They take several rounds to prepare, cast spells, etc.  But, an orc cannot ready an action with a bow to shoot the first person coming through the doorway.  So, this orc archer has had two rounds to get set, draw the bow and wait.  But the door opens, the rogue that beat him on initiative charges him, sneak attacks and kills him before he fires.  The orc should even be allowed to fire before the door is all the way open.  All of this because you do not roll initiative until the door is opened.  Initiative does not get rolled until the door is all the way open - an on/off state system like an early '80s computer game (Telengard, anybody?).Such patently absurd results should either 1) not be possible under the rules (perhaps too lofty a goal), or 2) be explicit exceptions, where the DM or the players can negate or avoid these stupid results.  A simplistic (not simple; that is a different meaning), rigid system does not make the game easier.  The mind rebels against things that simply cannot be.  Initiative kills me intellectually, though my current character has a +20 to initiative, and I almost always go first (+11 Dex, +4 imp. init, +5 for an item duplicating Kaupaer's Skittish Nerves from MoF).Now, I can see one reason for not having the roll before actual contact (i.e. the door opening), and that is the refocus action.  If you can refocus before the contact occurs, that screws things up a bit.  But if you disallow refocus until after the actual contact, you might as well roll for initiative when both sides are aware.  If both sides want to open the door, who actually does it?  No way to tell, because there has been no initiative roll.Why no readied actions?  Some 'flavor' reason that either Monte or the 3E rules committee had, but no mechanics reason I can see.  If the party is sneaking down the hall, and a barbarian wants to ready an action to throw an axe at anything that comes around the nearby corner, why not allow that readied action?  Same goes for the monsters, also, of course.So we have the roleplaying aspect of the game, which is not really a rigid system like combat, but it fairly well covered by the rules.  Then there is the combat system, which is a rigid, cyclic system.  The real problem is that there is not a single rule that governs how you switch from one to the other.  If you trump the roleplaying with the combat system, then you might as well play a CRPG.  If you allow the roleplaying piece to trump the combat system, then it is a chaos that is open to abuse by players and DM.Any discussion of intiative will simply put gamers on either side of this split.  IMO, more of the 'situation' should be applicable to the start of combat.  Otherwise, there is no reason to do any of the roleplaying.  As it is, you set up your situation via roleplaying, lose the die roll anyway, and all was for naught.  Pure hack and slash - which is fine if that is all you want, but if you want even a tiny bit of roleplaying, that initiaitive-based trainwreck presented in the DMG is not going to give it to you.  It will only be more difficult to accommodate as you want to add roleplaying to your game.Annoying.  Almost, but not quite enough to give up 3E, unless house rules bend the iron decree of the DMG, and the other gamers accept it.  If you have gamers who are powergaming, reality-phobic rules lawyers, you are SOL.-Fletch!</blockquote>

Verification