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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ainamacar" data-source="post: 5625320" data-attributes="member: 70709">Ehhh, there are various ways to interpret flat-footed, and some of them will fit better or worse with the rules and the rules' various goals/simulations/abstractions, but it seems a bit premature to excoriate the rules (or other posters) when the very act of interpreting adds a whole heap of YMMV to the matter.  In any case, some of the recent comments veer pretty close to invective, and accurate or not they aren't as constructive as they could be.In my opinion the initiative system/flat-footed condition meets some very important measures of consistency, whatever its other weaknesses.  For example, a creature with higher dexterity will always perform, statistically speaking, at least as well as an otherwise identical creature with lower dexterity on initiative checks.  I consider a violation of this rule far more worrying than one in which the precise nature of the scaling doesn't match our expectations.  (Rules that meet this measure only on average, but not in every possible individual case, like with exploding die weirdness in Savage Worlds, are an intermediate case.  I personally find that aspect of SW maddening from a design standpoint, even though I'd absolutely play the system without alteration.)Secondly, a surprise round is strictly worse for the surprised creature compared to a normal combat.  That doesn't mean there aren't better rules, but flat-footed is really only one aspect of the surprise round, and in almost all cases much less significant than being unable to take an action.  If "flat-footed" means something different in those rounds, as long as the surprise-round one is strictly worse than the normal-round one the rule is still met.  So if someone wants to have flatfooted apply only during a surprise round, I find that perfectly consistent, but not necessary, by this measure.The discontinuity in behavior below and above 10 Dex permit some interpretations that I feel are acceptable, if one is demanded.  For example, the base assumption may that before combat a creature is only as dextrous as the behavior it was performing beforehand.  Just standing/walking around, even if expecting combat, the creature may not be utilizing its Dexterity because there is no need.  For a humanoid, even those with Dexterity greater than 10, perhaps they react as those with 10 Dexterity because that's more-or-less how they were acting beforehand.  For those with less than 10 Dex, that is also how they were acting beforehand, because they can never do better.  I'm not saying this is "true", only that it is short-sighted to look at the usual linear progression of the math and assume that it must always hold.  Discontinuous behavior despite a small continuous change in some variable is, in fact, a very common feature of the real world and many areas of math/science.  With small discrete steps, as in RPGs, it is even less troublesome.  In fact, "critical hits" almost always have just that kind of feel.  How much better than 19 is a 20?Here's a similar case.  Earlier in the thread there were examples of how initiative makes no  sense as a consistent measure of reaction time since anyone could get  into a "fighting mode" in the time it took someone else to charge 30'  and then attack.  That being the case, it would be better to ditch flat-footed in normal rounds.  Now, if increments of initiative were explicitly fractions of seconds that would be necessarily be troublesome.  However, the only thing initiative is actually required to determine in the rules is turn order, and the "gaps" between these actions is undefined.  I personally don't care for that interpretation, but it is defensible.But even if some result of using the rules were objectively terrible, any "brokeness" could be from a rule itself, or another rule(s) it interacts with, or specifically the interaction of those rules.  For example, whether or not the preceding example with moving the first round is actually a problem, it isn't immediately clear whether any inconsistency is due to the nature of initiative and flat-footedness, the discrete turn-based action economy of D&D, or the specific interaction of those rules.  In my opinion the turn-based nature of the game is much more responsible since I can imagine playing the game using a continuous-time approach (though not while having much fun at the table) and exactly the same initiative rules to determine who goes first to remove the seeming inconsistency.  The turn-based nature of D&D is one of its central conceits, and when that leads to something weird, it is at least worth considering whether that conceit should extend to the situation in question.My main point is that when we can't imagine how the game makes any sense sometimes it is worth changing the rules (or the entire system) and sometimes it is worth changing how we view the rules.  Away from the table both can be a fun and worthwhile exercise, but at the table it is usually better to let it ride.  In RPGs, and much else of life, I've learned that a paucity of imagination or knowledge is my problem more frequently than my pride would like.  Finally, George Box (a statistician) is attributed with a saying I also find commendable in RPG design: "All models are wrong, but some are useful."  How wrong and how useful are the relevant open questions, and I hope my comments are taken in that spirit.</blockquote>

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