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How do you handle someone who is not surprised but is unaware of any threats?
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<blockquote data-quote="Xetheral" data-source="post: 8032452" data-attributes="member: 6802765"><p>Thanks for clarifying! I can definitely see how that approach works.</p><p></p><p>As a matter of personal taste, I prefer houseruling so that the action that initiates combat also happens first in the turn-by-turn abstraction. It's important to me that the causal chain of events remains the same between the narrative and the abstraction of combat. So at my table, if only one character wants to go first, great, that's simple. If multiple people want to go first, then we roll initiative, and whomever rolled highest is the one whose action initiates combat in the narrative, and the first one to act in the turn order.</p><p></p><p>To show how my approach would work with the same example, if only the Barbarian wanted to go first, he would go first automatically. Everyone else would roll initiative to determine subsequent turn order. If the orcs (or another PC) also want to pre-emptively attack, then they roll initiative too. The action in the fiction that starts the combat is the action of whomever wins that initiative roll. Then everyone else (including anyone who didn't want to initiate combat) goes in initiative order, as per normal. (Note that this isn't a case where the player who speaks first gets to attack first. Anyone who wants to initiate combat has a chance of going first, regardless of the order in which they declare that intent.)</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Xetheral, post: 8032452, member: 6802765"] Thanks for clarifying! I can definitely see how that approach works. As a matter of personal taste, I prefer houseruling so that the action that initiates combat also happens first in the turn-by-turn abstraction. It's important to me that the causal chain of events remains the same between the narrative and the abstraction of combat. So at my table, if only one character wants to go first, great, that's simple. If multiple people want to go first, then we roll initiative, and whomever rolled highest is the one whose action initiates combat in the narrative, and the first one to act in the turn order. To show how my approach would work with the same example, if only the Barbarian wanted to go first, he would go first automatically. Everyone else would roll initiative to determine subsequent turn order. If the orcs (or another PC) also want to pre-emptively attack, then they roll initiative too. The action in the fiction that starts the combat is the action of whomever wins that initiative roll. Then everyone else (including anyone who didn't want to initiate combat) goes in initiative order, as per normal. (Note that this isn't a case where the player who speaks first gets to attack first. Anyone who wants to initiate combat has a chance of going first, regardless of the order in which they declare that intent.) [/QUOTE]
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How do you handle someone who is not surprised but is unaware of any threats?
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