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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 5626176" data-attributes="member: 4937">Only when I'm following the rules to the letter.  If I decide not to follow the rules to the letter, then I compensate for it by assuming that the game state is equivalent to where it would be had I been following the rules to the letter.  To do otherwise would be patently unfair.Ok sure, that's fine and all so long as handwaving the rules doesn't result in an unfair ruling.  If you decide to arbitrarily handle a combat for part of its duration without rules, then you are going to have to be very careful when you switch to using rules.And I have a problem with running a combat as a 'scene' if it means that the outcome is going to be different than running it as a 'combat'.  Especially when it seems you are making it the sole progative of the DM to determine which way we are going to resolve it. What gives you the right under the rules to 'not play a surprise round' or to 'forgo throwing initiative' or 'not count rounds'?  I mean, sure, I can understand why you'd do this in situations where combat is very unlikely, like say between the PC and the NPC shield merchant, but why are you doing it in explicit combat sitautions?  And, why if you are doing it, are you content to obtain results that are radically different than what you'd obtain if you stuck to the rules?In any situation like the one you just described, yes I do.  Every single time.  I'm not going to run a clear combat situation as anything other than a combat situation.  I don't always throw initiative when the characters pop into a tavern to buy a room, or go down to the greenseller to buy some strawberries, but if combat between the PC and the greenseller occurs at some point I mitigate the effects of my decision to forgo the initiative check by ensuring that the game state matches where it would be if I had rolled the initiative as soon as the two characters are aware of each other. Ok, that's fine.  But as a side note, are you suggesting then that anyone who ambushes from behind 100% cover automatically achieves surprise?  Do your players know that?  Because even if we concede that, you are ignoring the fact that though the DC to hear the PC is only a 5 (a trivial check for your NPC), the DC to pin point the location of the sound is a 25 - a check that that NPC can only make if he gets completely lucky.  But surprisingly or not, your NPC leaps out from cover precisely when the PC is where he wants the PC to be even though he doesn't know exactly where the PC is (or for that matter who he is).So rather than following the rules and getting only a standard action, the thug took some option not in the rules that allows for more than a standard action?  And you claim this is RAW?And we clearly wouldn't want that.  I mean all these rules and restrictions on the advantages you can have when you surprise someone are suggesting that the thug might not automaticly have the advantage!Which is apparently not an action and apparently not playing out the surprise and which apparently despite this he gets to do before the player turns around and runs just as if he's won the initiative even though you haven't rolled?  Which is fine, but now you are letting the thug have his cake and eat it too. He gets to spend an arbitrary number of rounds negotiating with the PC, but the PC remains completely flatfooted with respect to the NPC the whole time.  Now we've obtained a situation that is impossible under the rules, and we are back to the ridiculous Arrowhack has been pointing out under this scenario. By the rules?  You by own admission just threw the rules out the window because they didn't obtain the results you wanted.Why doesn't the aggressive act of the thug indicate the start of combat?  You are using your stance as DM to manipulate the rules to the NPC's advantage, forgo the rules when it is to the NPC's favor to do so, and then applying them when it is in the NPC's favor to do so.</blockquote>

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