D&D 5E (2024) Does your table use concentration with Ready a Spell?

[Retros_x]

This is in my experience a common rule. Yes, I also know people who houserule it differently but I am with you, like every house rule no player can expect them to be introduced mid-combat. I think you dodged a bullet with that player throwing a tantrum and leaving over such a small issue. Feels like he built himself a specific OP combo and was mad he couldn't use it. You probably had much more trouble with him later on, so be glad it sorted itself out without the need for "the talk".

 

[Plaguescarred]

The Ready action is in-combat way to act out of turn, which is fine to me. Outside combat, player characters can usually ready themselves to respond to anything, and may even prep further ahead by drawing weapons, raising shield, barricading doors etc... but when a combat encounter occur, Initiative is rolled to determine order of participants as everyone involved from this point on want to act accordingly. Initiative to me signal that many creatures want to act simultaneously and must sort out order within the next 6 seconds or so.

So no one attack or cast a spell before the first turn of combat basically as we let Initiative determine the order, which by circumstances may get Advantage or Disadvantage as well.

It's an arbitrary way to put order within chaos. It's not perfect, but it work well for most situation.

 

[Silam]

Wut? You had me until the last paragraph. This is about being a jerk and not playing well with others. Frankly, that player would benefit from learning more about participation and maybe come to understand that playing a cooperative game isn’t about winning. Maybe if they’d received a participation ribbon or two they would have learned to value it more.

Playing well with others is a good thing. I think you misunderstand what participation ribbons are about.

Point taken. My diatribe took a turn at the end there and the two sections are somewhat distinct.

I acknowledge D&D is a coop game and not being a jerk is even more important in such game than in a competitive one (though sportsmanship is a desirable trait in all games, even competitive ones).

What I would say though, is that XP and treasure are the participation ribbons. It does not matter that one of the characters contributed less to a given encounter, they still get an equal share of the XP. And if their party aren’t jerks, they’ll get dibs on an item that is especially useful to their character (again, regardless of how much they contributed in the fight that yielded that treasure). This has been in the game as far back as I remember. In 2e there was a paragraph somewhere saying something along the lines of "the character who was guarding the exit and could therefore not participate in the combat may, unbeknownst to all but the DM, have discouraged monsters hidden in the other room from joining the fight, and in that way might have contributed more than all the others combined. So everyone shares the XP equally and you just don’t really know who actually contributed the most." I’m for sure butchering the text and the actual quote must be quite different but that was the essence of it as I recall.

Anyway, the point is, in my opinion, the game has had some sufficient amount of participation ribbons in its DNA since times immemorial, and I don’t think there is an imperative to perfectly balance every build in every fight to be equally effective. On average and in the aggregate, we want balance sure, but I am fine with the ups and downs of specific fights making a character shine and another bite their nails.

Here, would it have been an excessive participation ribbon to bend the rules at the insistence of that player? I thought so at first, but maybe there is a better concept (other than participation ribbons) to describe the situation, had the DM accepted. Would the player have behaved better and been less of a jerk if they had gotten more ribbons (of that kind or another) in the game and/or in their life? I honestly don’t know.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

The Ready action is in-combat way to act out of turn, which is fine to me. Outside combat, player characters can usually ready themselves to respond to anything, and may even prep further ahead by drawing weapons, raising shield, barricading doors etc... but when a combat encounter occur, Initiative is rolled to determine order of participants as everyone involved from this point on want to act accordingly. Initiative to me signal that many creatures want to act simultaneously and must sort out order within the next 6 seconds or so.

So no one attack or cast a spell before the first turn of combat basically as we let Initiative determine the order, which by circumstances may get Advantage or Disadvantage as well.

It's an arbitrary way to put order within chaos. It's not perfect, but it work well for most situation.

You can give advantage or disadvantage on initiative to represent surprise. I think giving the initiator of combat advantage is stated somewhere in the rules. Disadvantage depending on enemies being surprised.

 

[Plaguescarred]

You can give advantage or disadvantage on initiative to represent surprise. I think giving the initiator of combat advantage is stated somewhere in the rules. Disadvantage depending on enemies being surprised.

It's in the Dungeon Master Guide:

Rolling Initiative: In any situation where a character's actions initiate combat, you can give the acting character Advantage on their Initiative roll.

 

[Plaguescarred]

For example, a player character out of combat preparing to act when something occur, as the Dungeon Master Guide suggest, might prompt DM asking for Initiative to Consider granting Advantage when...

• Previous actions (whether taken by the character making the attempt or some other creature) improve the chances of success.

 

[Reynard]

We had a whole thread on the initiative subject a while back, so I'll just reiterate my stance and the way I run it: everyone rolls initiative as normal (so that may or may not include advantage or disadvantage from surprise), but whoever initiated the action (the first shot from hiding, etc) goes to the top of the initiative order.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

We had a whole thread on the initiative subject a while back, so I'll just reiterate my stance and the way I run it: everyone rolls initiative as normal (so that may or may not include advantage or disadvantage from surprise), but whoever initiated the action (the first shot from hiding, etc) goes to the top of the initiative order.

Which is a house rule.
Not even a good one. Only in some special circumstances.

Characters in movies often reaact before the combat triggering action is resolved.

Usually advantage vs disadvantage simulates it corretly.

 

[Reynard]

Which is a house rule.
Not even a good one. Only in some special circumstances.

Characters in movies often reaact before the combat triggering action is resolved.

Usually advantage vs disadvantage simulates it corretly.

5E doesn't simulate anything correctly.

You may not like the way I do it, but it has worked for my groups for about a decade now. It is, in fact, a good house rule.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

5E doesn't simulate anything correctly.

No.

You may not like the way I do it, but it has worked for my groups for about a decade now. It is, in fact, a good house rule.

Ok. I take your word for it.

I would not like it though. Because I do not like rules that, used against PCs, negates their abilities (like champion and assassin advantage on initiative, or alert feat).

I'd be less opposed against, putting the attacker at initiative 20 or the rolled value.