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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Majoru Oakheart" data-source="post: 4972323" data-attributes="member: 5143">There is not argument at all.  At least there has never been in any game I've been a part of.  You are flat footed from the time someone declares an intention to commit a hostile act and the first time you act in initiative.As other people have pointed out.  Flatfootedness only happens during a surprise round or before you've acted in initiative.  There are many other ways to deny someone their Dex modifier, but none of them make someone flatfooted.In D&D, flatfooted means "I have not yet acted since initiative is rolled, since I'm not ready for combat yet".If someone has no idea you are a threat, you get a surprise round against them.  Same as if they didn't see you.  That's the point of a surprise round.  You get attacked by someone you didn't expect to attack you.  Flatfootedness is for that split second at the beginning of combat when you haven't yet reacted to combat starting.And I think it's perfectly reasonable to say "I'm in a dungeon filled with monsters, I am ready for combat.  I have my weapon in hand.  No one should ever catch me flatfooted."  In which case, you either have to admit that they are correct and you won't have any flatfootedness for the entire dungeon....or you have to say "No, being ready for combat isn't enough to make you avoid being flatfooted."I'm not trying to bend the rules.  I disagree that it is a clear violation of any rules.  As I mentioned, I've played with a LOT of people.  Way more than the average(due to my position as a Triad member in Living Greyhawk, moving the another country for a year, and attending conventions in a number of different cities).  I've flew to Toronto and played with people I had never met before and initiative was rolled and used the way I'm saying.  I flew to Sydney(Australia), Canberra(Australia), GenCon Indy, Calgary, Edmonton, Detroit, and Fargo and played Living Greyhawk in each of these locations, each time entirely with people I had never met or gamed with before, with at least 4 or 5 different DMs in each of these locations(most of which hadn't met each other).  This all under the banner of Living Greyhawk where the primary rule was "Use the rules as written with no optional rules and no house rules."  This situation has come up a number of times.  I've only met two DMs ever who rolled initiative before the first combat action was taken.  Both of the times, the players corrected the DM as soon as he did it.  Both times the DM pulled a "I'm the DM and I can run the game however I want to."I think that if this was really a "clear violation of the intention and letter of the rules" that it would not have been independently used by hundreds of people who read the book.  Especially not by those DMs trusted by Dave Christ, the guy in charge of the major WOTC conventions(like GenCon) to give people a fun game.  I've even been one of those DMs 4 years now.And I think Rogues aren't powerful enough without it because the designers of the game said they balanced Rogues assuming they got their Sneak Attack every round of combat.  Each round you don't get Sneak Attack is a round you are less powerful than you should be.  This normally goes:Round 1: Move into melee and get an attack with Sneak Attack due to going first and the enemies being Flatfooted.Round 2: Move to flank and get another attack with Sneak Attack.Round 3, and so on: Repeat Round 2.Huh?  It doesn't lead to any arguments over the physical state of the inhabitants of the room.  At least none I've ever experienced.  We continue to roleplay and imagine the state of the inhabitants the same way we do when I say "You are in a bar and there is an Half-Orc in the corner drinking a lot and being boisterous."  No one says "Wait, we haven't rolled initiative yet...I have no idea what physical state we're all in.  I think we must be all frozen in place!"In an encounter like the bandit example I simply describe it like this:Me: "You see a bunch of armed bandits exit the forest at 300' away.  They slowly approach you, weapons in hand, pointed at you.  What do you do?"PC: "Are they attacking us?  Should we roll for initiative?"Me: "No, they appear to be approaching cautiously, but no one has made a move to attack."PC: "We wait for them to get closer and see what they do."Me: "Alright, they approach you and demand you hand over all of your treasure."PC: "What?  No way!  We refuse."Me: "They say 'Then we'll take it from your corpses' and look like they are about to attack...roll for initiative."And then whichever side wins gets the advantage over the other one since they react first.Also, it DOES say not to roll initiative until you need to keep track of who goes first.  That's a direct statement to the contrary in the rules.What?  That's not how it went at all.  The DM said that due to "realism", no one should ever be caught be surprised if they are ready for combat.  He looked at the rules, said "I think these designers are idiots for writing flatfootedness into the rules.  No one is EVER flat footed in real life, and I'm not going to use that rule."  I argued that there was a "realistic" reason for it as well as a balance reason.  The rest of the group agreed with me.  The DM told us too bad, he was the DM and what he said goes.  We shrugged and I asked him if I could switch characters if that was the case and had a lot of fun playing a Fighter instead.I don't think any game was ruined.I'm going to leave this one alone.  It's very insulting.</blockquote>

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