Giving Initiative in Certain Situations

[Water Bob]

coup de grace is a full round action while you can ready only a standard action, and she would have to be helpless anyway...

She is helpless. She's at -7 HP! (But, the PC's don't know that.)

I know about the coup de grace. I was just giving you an idea of the general plan. Who knows exactly how it will play out. As for his Ready Action, he's got a regular attack Readied, against a helpless victim, which means Stenna can't Parry or Dodge, effectively DEX 0, and is -4 to defense for being prone vs. melee attack. That makes her AC 3.

If he can't hit that, it's not in the cards for her to die at this point.

You should set an objective and give the PCs exp for meeting that objective.

Already done! In the Conan RPG, XP is completely story based. There is no formula for getting XP for killing monsters, using skills, or gaining treasure. It's all about the story. And, it's all in the hands of the GM.

What I decided was that I'd give a pretty good XP award for the goal of going after the sound of the ambush in the first place. The PC's could go back to the village first and try to get help. If they do that, no big bonus award for them, and they'll arrive too late. The ambush will be over. They'll just find the dead NPCs and be trying to piece together what happened.

That's one of my contingency plans.



If they chase him all the way back to his lair, they get another big XP award for finding the Grath cave.

If they rescue the little girl before she's sacrificed to the Grath god, they get more XP.

 

[ghostcat]

There's no need not to use initiative. Just make sure that you start the encounter more than 160' away. That way they won't be able to reach him in a single round.

So, in the worst case the following happens:

1 - Grath shouts warning (free action)
2 - Everyone rolls initiative
3 - PCs move but are still not in range for an AoO
4 - Grath performs ready action
5 - Grath heads for the hills.

Does this make sense?

 

[Celebrim]

The way I would run this would be:

1) Arrange BBEG to have at least one round to prepare, usually by setting it up so that the BBEG is alerted by minions.
2) Have the hostage helpless.
3) The BBEG ready an action to attack the hostage, with the trigger: "If anyone gets any closer", and the action be "The hostage gets the business end of my spear."
4) For bonus force, have the BBEG have feat that allowed them to make a coup de grace as a standard action.

For the cut to chase scene, run this using the rules in Hot Pursuit (which are generally superior to RAW D20) with a detailed chase layout to represent the 'rooms' in the chase.

There is no need to give Grath the initiative. If he has a readied action, he automatically goes before anything that triggers his action.

Smart PC's will be able to play havoc with this plan, probably by casting invisibility, hold person, etc, or setting up a sniper team to try to take him down (since he can't trigger to interrupt being damaged).

 

[kitcik]

Smart PC's will be able to play havoc with this plan, probably by casting invisibility, hold person, etc, or setting up a sniper team to try to take him down (since he can't trigger to interrupt being damaged).

Look back a few posts - they have no casting, and basically no magic or ranged weaponry. If the first one jumps off the cliff to certain death, the others may well follow like lemmings.

 

[Water Bob]

There's no need not to use initiative. Just make sure that you start the encounter more than 160' away. That way they won't be able to reach him in a single round.

I haven't counted the squares, but I have drawn the scenario on a grid map (we use a cork board and tacks for tactical combat). The Grath warrior is behind the upturned wagon, so even if the range allows (which I don't think it does), the PCs won't have a straight line on him.

I think I'll be safe just running the scenario normally, rolling nish, and even if the Grath goes late in the round, he'll still be able to ready his action on the downed grandma.





The other thing I'm considering is to not be a slave to the rules (as Gygax said) and just use logic. We'll roll nish for everybody, but we'll let the Grath start the round with his spear already readied (as if there were a round of combat before combat really starts).

That's not exactly by-the-book, but it makes sense.

For the cut to chase scene, run this using the rules in Hot Pursuit (which are generally superior to RAW D20) with a detailed chase layout to represent the 'rooms' in the chase.

I have the Hot Pursuit on Foot rules, and I started out thinking I'd use them. But then I created the chase area on a map, and those rules are a bit abstract. I can play out the chase using the normal movement rules--I think that better fits the situation. The players will see their marker tack move across the grid and be able to judge exact distance.