How to Legally Overcome Flatfooted

[Gantros]

First off the main flaw in this entire argument that I have seen is expecting logic to explain any rules system perfectly.

That's not what we're doing at all. We're just trying to interpret the rules in a way that makes the most logical sense.

Prior to the initiation of combat, opponents may be aware of each other. In theory everybody is ready for something to happen. Weapons may or may not already be drawn. People are twitchy, but so far nothing has happened. You are looking at your opponents, you are looking at your companions, you are waiting for a signal, you are thinking about which one you should attack first, you are wondering which one will come after you. Once someone declares an action, suddenly everything roars to life.

What you are describing here is not what is meant by a readied action. This must be a specific action taken against a specific threat. It's not like looking at all your opponents, thinking about who you should attack first. It's like pointing your bow at a particular target, and if it takes a step in your direction, you let it fly. You may fire and miss, giving the opponent the next attack, but there's no way you're going to be caught flat-footed by someone in that position. Once combat begins and all the activity starts, the only way you can get into a ready position like that again by using a standard action to stop and focus.

As for readying out of combat, by the rules you cannot. You are premitted to ready an action on your turn in the initiative order.

Yes, the rules say you cannot ready an action outside of combat. But they do not say that intiative must be rolled immediately before the first combat round begins, if the two parties cannot immediately interact. Instead they say that in this case both parties can take preparatory actions until interaction becomes possible (DMG pg23).

I am only proposing this be clarified by including Ready as a valid preparatory action, that does not necessarily initiate hostile interaction. Triggering such an action could begin hostilities, thus forcing initiative rolls, but since combat actions already started in a previous round, the readied characters are not flat-footed against the opponent that triggered their action.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

The point is, none of these feats should be necessary for someone to avoid being flat-footed with respect to a specific, known threat. Flat-footedness represents being caught off guard. You don't need training or special abilities to be on guard. You just need to know what you're guarding against, and decide in advance what you will do if it happens. I have no combat training whatsoever, yet if I was looking and pointing a gun at someone 60' away from me, with my finger on the trigger and intending to shoot if they approached, and no other distractions, there's no way even an NFL running back could get close to me before I could pull the trigger.

Even if the guards were 1st level grunts with no feats, I don't think it's too much to expect that a would-be assassin would want to look for a better way to attack the king than to just saunter up and then try to charge 60 feet through several prepared opponents with their weapons trained on him. Unless of course, the assassin was desperate enough or high enough level to think he could ignore the guards AoOs.

If indeed the King thought someone was not trustworthy, either that person would be stripped of weapons or a couple dozen guards would have Readied Actions from the moment the would be assassin entered to room from the far end of the hall. The rules cover that just fine, and this works reasonably realistically for short & dramatically tense conversations.

If you have your gun drawn and you are pointing it at someone with the intent to pull the trigger if "anyone makes a fast move" then you have a Readied Action under D&D rules.

If the King thought the would be assassin is trustworthy, well, the assassin is likely to get his chance. Still may fail outright from a poor Initiative roll though.

The open questions in my mind are:
How long can you maintain a Readied Action? DM judgement.
What do you do when everyone has a Readied Action? DM judgement. Usually it is easiest to just reroll Initiative, but the DM does not have to do it that way if he has good reason.

 

[Nail]

In TKD, nobody could sucker punch me if I was ready for them (i.e. ready to spar) ....

Oh dear. I do hope you're not serious with this kinda statement.

 

[Bastoche]

I conceed the uncanny dodge point, it only grants dex.

But anyway:

Ready an action allow you to ready a standard action only. So anyone without the quickdraw feat cannot do anything anyway (drawing a weapon is a MEA. You could draw a weapon, but not attack).

With combat reflexes, if your weapon is sheathed you cannot take an attack of opportunity.

In the end, even allowing people to cheat initiative by reading a fudged pre-combat in-combat action could not do anything tangible against the foe unless he has quickdraw and combat reflexes or imporved unarmed strike and combat reflexes.

Basically, the fact that feats exists to "cheat" flat-footedness (someone with both uncanny dodge, combat reflexes and improved unarmed strike ca always AoO) implies that the developpers were aware of the "problem".

What I gather from your posts is that your gripe is not against FF but rather against sneak attack.

I actually consider this a positive effect instead of a negative effect when opponents are aware of an imminent attack. I don't think Rogues should be allowed to move up 30 feet and sneak attack just because they beat your init. Move up and attack, sure.

Which would be the only conscequence to your suggested house-ruling. I do not agree due to balance issue. The rules were explained. The rest of the debate belongs to the house rule forum IMO.

 

[punkorange]

KD, I feel it boils down to this really. This is the rules forum, and you are asking within the RAW how to avoid flat footedness. It cannot be done. If you want a house rule to avoid this situation, and it's fine with the rest of your group. Fine, go to the house rules forum and figure it out. There is no reason to have to adjust the rules to fit your vision. The vision should fit the rules, because those are the rules. If your group wants to get rid of the flat footedness, then house rule that FF is only in suprise round. If you are trying to find a loophole in the RAW to avoid this then you aren't going to, and frankly you should find a group that fits your needs moreso than your current group. But is a situation that seems odd once every so often, not even every session, worth finding a new group over?

I think it would be cool within the rules for casting spells to cause a physical drain on the caster, but that's not how the rules are written, and I deal with it, because I am playing by the rules. If I want to change it me and my group will house rule it, and as long as we are having fun, noone on the forums would argue it.

 

[Bastoche]

The open questions in my mind are:
How long can you maintain a Readied Action? DM judgement.
What do you do when everyone has a Readied Action? DM judgement. Usually it is easiest to just reroll Initiative, but the DM does not have to do it that way if he has good reason.

The readied action last one round. If nothing triggers the readied action, you lose your round. Next round, you can ready the same action again. So I would conlcude that as long as everybody "doesn't move", you can keep the readied action forever... or until the DM consider that a new initiative should be rerolled. If everyone ready the action "if somebody moves, I attack", then it goes in order of initiative. The last in initiative being the first to "act" assuming he doesn't ready an action too. Which would be fine by me for a few rounds but not forever.

One could delay instead of reading an action so at the end of the round, he would be the only one to act "freely" but with nobody being flat-footed. I could consider that being the situation with the group above. However, the first rogue to win initiative will must assuredly spend his sneak attack either being first to act, if he won initiative, or triggering the readied actions by those who won initiative.

Winning the initiative over one guy is one thing. Over everyone is most probably a rare event (even with 18 dex and improved init). It should append one time or the other. If it appends too often against the player, it should be a lesson to pick up improved init and/or combat reflexes and/or improved unarmed strike for those events, just like a fighter tired of being held by hold person takes Iron Will.

 

[ThirdWizard]

KD, I feel it boils down to this really. This is the rules forum, and you are asking within the RAW how to avoid flat footedness. It cannot be done. If you want a house rule to avoid this situation, and it's fine with the rest of your group. Find, go to the house rules forum and figure it out.

The floor seconds this motion.

This discussion isn't really going anywhere. Some of the tangents are interesting, but since they're more of a "how should the DM rule this" they might be better served in their own threads in the General forum than in this long thread in the Rules forum.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

What you are describing here is not what is meant by a readied action. This must be a specific action taken against a specific threat. It's not like looking at all your opponents, thinking about who you should attack first. It's like pointing your bow at a particular target, and if it takes a step in your direction, you let it fly. You may fire and miss, giving the opponent the next attack, but there's no way you're going to be caught flat-footed by someone in that position. Once combat begins and all the activity starts, the only way you can get into a ready position like that again by using a standard action to stop and focus.

Yes, but I was not talking about readied actions in this part. In this part of my response I was making the assumption that everyone was following the rules as written and that as a result there were no readied actions. I was looking to explain my thoughts on the idea of being caught flat-footed in the first combat round.

Yes, the rules say you cannot ready an action outside of combat. But they do not say that intiative must be rolled immediately before the first combat round begins, if the two parties cannot immediately interact. Instead they say that in this case both parties can take preparatory actions until interaction becomes possible (DMG pg23).

I am only proposing this be clarified by including Ready as a valid preparatory action, that does not necessarily initiate hostile interaction. Triggering such an action could begin hostilities, thus forcing initiative rolls, but since combat actions already started in a previous round, the readied characters are not flat-footed against the opponent that triggered their action.

Well if you keep reading, on page 26 they clarify this about as much as you could ask. By the rules as written this is not permitted. I believe the idea is that if you cannot interact, you cannot really have a readied action that is worth anything. Using the example in the DMG, You are covering the door. Another party member moves up to the door to open it. The rest of the party states that they are readying an action to shoot the first orc they see. On the other side of the door, the orcs ready actions to shoot the first PC they see. The door opens and...what? Everyone shoots at the same time? Was everyone looking at the correct spot at the same instance, or was one person looking to the left side of the doorway, another to the right. The orcs have the same problem. You do not know exactly where to look and aim in that first instant. This is what the initiative roll is supposed to simulate. One orc targets you before you target it. He shoots first because he had a better reaction time. I will grant that it stretches logic to think one could run 60 feet at you before you can shoot a bow at him, but what if your readied action was to charge the first orc you see? Which goes first? The orcs bow shot or your charge?

 

[KarinsDad]

KD, I feel it boils down to this really. This is the rules forum, and you are asking within the RAW how to avoid flat footedness. It cannot be done.

Quote a rule to prove this.

There have been a lot of claims that a player cannot initiate a combat by declaring a ready action, but not a single rule has been quoted to prove it.

As per your own words, this is a rules forum. You do not get to pass go for free without quoting a rule that prohibits this.


Btw, you cannot perform ANY combat-only action out of combat (i.e. you cannot swing your sword at someone without initiating combat).

What is so special about readying an action? It is a combat action. It should immediately start initiative.

 

[IcyCool]

Quote a rule to prove this.

There have been a lot of claims that a player cannot initiate a combat by declaring a ready action, but not a single rule has been quoted to prove it.

As per your own words, this is a rules forum. You do not get to pass go for free without quoting a rule that prohibits this.

Fair enough. You asked how to avoid flat-footedness. Several people said "Combat Reflexes". Now here's another one:

Running your entire game in 6 second combat rounds. There is nothing (to my knowledge) to prevent this. You could, in your examples, have everyone enter combat rounds and play out the conversation at the thieve's guild or the assassination of the king. You can do this per the RAW, with the DM's permission (As Rule 0 always takes precedence). Aside from being horrendously tedious (who wants to play the entire night in 6-second chunks?), it opens the door to abuse if you allow the players to use it often. If you do this, Combat reflexes is a feat you will be unlikely to see in your game. Fewer people will play rogues (as you are lessening their power). There is a section in the DMG that says doing this is a bad thing, but it isn't specifically against RAW (although as you can see, several people treat it that way). If you can run your game this way, and your players like it, then there you go.

Those are the RAW ways to get around flat-footedness in round one. Was there anything else you wanted?