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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 5625772" data-attributes="member: 4937">No disagreement there.  I probably have one of the more extensive house rule documents on the forum.  There are probably only 3-4 active posters with a homebrew system as far diverged from RAW as I have. This is certainly true, and I've seen the FF rule applied blindly quite a bit.  But the point I'm trying to make is that the rule doesn't require you to apply it blindly.  If you apply it consistantly, it's actually a very sensible and pretty well-thought out rule.  The problem is that a lot of DMs think that they are applying it consistantly, when in fact they are applying it very arbitrarily.  What I have been describing in this thread is how to apply the rule in a consistant fashion.Where you see DMs applying the rule in an arbitrary fashion is when they decide to throw the initiative in an arbitrary fashion.  The rule makes no sense whatever if you decide to delay the throwing of initiative in to some arbitrary point after the encounter begins.  If the DM decides for whatever reason to delay initiative after the encounter has begun, then it will as you have observed lead to nonsense.  If on the other hand, you apply initiative consistantly, then plausiblity of the rule and what it is trying to describe becomes clear.Not only do I apply it in all combat situations, but I apply it to all encounters.  That's the critical thing here.  Most encounters in D&D are assumed to begin with either surprise, or else immediate hostility by both parties.  In these situations the rule works well, I think you will agree.  Where the problem gets is with DMs who begin to construct encounters in a more complicated way where hostility doesn't immediately occur on the first round of the encounter, or may not even necessarily occur at all.  These DMs get themselves in to narrating situations that as you have pointed out make no sense at all by failing to, essentially, follow the rules.  The delay the initiative until they can no longer delay it, and ignore the fact that they have delayed the initiative roll and ignore also that both parties at this point have taken actions in the encounter.What this leads to in my experience is a lot of disfunctional behavior on the part of the players who fear that every encounter is only one declaration away by the DM from turning into an ambush, and so do everything in their part to preempt the DM.  It's almost like playing a game of 'pounce' and trying to be the first one to declare, "I attack."  The natural result is a system that not only has departed from the intent of the RAW, which is to be a simulation of combat, but which as a result of that departure has forced the players into a hack-n-slash out of self-defense.  I mean, it's like playing an old west game where whoever reached for their gun first was always faster on the draw.  It's not only a violation logic, but of the genera you are supposedly emmulating.And once again, this problem is not a result of following the RAW too closely, but of not following it closely enough.  The are breaking the rules, then blaming the rules for the results of their actions. I'm not sure that it is inconsistant, and to the extent that it is inconsistant I know why it is inconsistant.  Start from the fluff and work backwards.  What does 'flat-footed' mean in terms of the fluff?  Well, it conjures up an image of someone who has been caught by surprise sufficiently that they haven't been able to move or take a defensive action of any sort.  This happens either because they were taken fully by surprise, or partly by surprise and they reacted too slowly to the danger.   So the idea here is that you and a group of goblins tumble into a clearing, you have no surprise round (either because everyone was surprised or no one was), and the guys who lose the initiative in that first round are the ones who were looking the other way at the time, and who jump at the noise, turn around and blink, and otherwise don't do what they need to do to.  In this situation, they are considered to be basically immobile, and maybe they even get hit before they fully turn around and are aware of the danger.Earlier you said that someone spends six seconds charging across the gladiatorial arena and the target illogically doesn't react.  But in 3e D&D the whole of the round is six seconds long, with the important events being abstracted to have occurred in a somewhat linear fashion.  This does not mean that nothing happens in the first seconds of the round.  The round isn't understood to mean, "I do something for six seconds while everyone else does nothing, then the next person does something for six seconds, and then the next person on their turn does something for six seconds."  This would result in a round that is two minutes long.  Rather, things can actually happen in the first second or even first moment of a round.  When you lose initiative in a meeting situation where both sides are attacking while the other side is still 'flat footed', the ones that have good initiative are attacking in the first 3/10ths of a second or so of the round.  The guy that is still flat footed, may or may not have begun whatever action that the player will delclare when we get to his turn, but its entirely possible that he's been hit in the back by an opponent he has not yet even seen clearly.You seem to feel that perfect consistancy means not denying the Dex bonus.  I disagree.  It doesn't matter how fast you are, if you aren't moving, then your speed is not yet of use to you.  I feel that perfect consistancy would be to treat flat-footed all as basically immobile targets having DEX 0 rather DEX 10.  Consistancy may not be realism, but that would be consistant.  Before this would be reasonable though, D&D would have to move to a resulution system where attacks were made against opposed rules (active defense), and that combat would be much more dangerous than D&D normally tolerates.  The only reason that D&D applies the DEX bonus to low Dex characters but not to high DEX ones is that its trying to make sure having a low DEX sucks.  The game says, "In this flat-footed situation high DEX is no help (beyond its ability to keep you out of the situation in the first place!), but low dex is still bad."  The current system is a comprimise between realism and gamability.  Not losing DEX at all when flat-footed is not to my mind more realistic.  That's why 'Uncanny Dodge' carries a supernatural connotation, you are reacting to danger that you couldn't yet know is there.  That goblin jumps out in a clearing while you are looking the other way and hurls a spear at you before you've even seen the spear and while you are just now thinking, "Goblins?!? I better draw my sword!", and yet, you uncannily sense the attack and dodge it anyway.</blockquote>

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