How to Legally Overcome Flatfooted

[KarinsDad]

He does know he's in combat. He had to roll initiative, remember? There's no spot check needed to know that you're rolling inititative.

That's called metagaming.

I won't bother to explain it to you since I know you already know the concept, but suffice to say that there are no "rolling inits" from the point of view of characters.

Aside from that, he's operating in a world where everyone walks around with readied actions in any situation where they expect trouble. Would you expect your players NOT to do this? Then how can you expect the NPCs not to?

Now, this is a good point.

The answer has been talked around before in the thread, but it is getting a bit long, so I'll reiterate.

First, this can only be done when you are aware of your opponents. The rules prohibit it if you are not aware of your opponents.

Second, this can only be done when neither side immediately initiates combat.

Third, the very act of readying an action itself might initiate "real combat" immediately. For example, if I ready to fire my crossbow at the head of the Thieves Guild, every thief in the guild will see me lift up my crossbow and point it at hiim. The ready action has to be more subtle or the opponents will notice. And, even then the DM might require a Spot roll. This might be more useful when one side spots the other but are not seen in return, and has multiple rounds to act first.

Fourth, most PCs and NPCs are incapable of doing Attacks of Opportunity without having weapons drawn. So, although this maneuver might prevent the Dex loss and sneak attacks, it will often not gain AoOs unless the characters already had melee weapons drawn.

Fifth, this cannot be used to ready an action all day long. The DM has to decide how long it is reasonable to ready an action. For example, as soon as they get into the Thieves guild, one PC stands in the corner and has a knife held behind his cloak ready to throw it (or, he might have gone into the guildhouse invisible or something). If none of the thieves notice, the DM might rule that this is like concentration and it is reasonable that the PC can be ready to throw for the entire 15 minute conversation. Another DM might rule that he can do it for 10 rounds, but that is why we have DMs.

Sixth, a player must explicitly declare this intention. It doesn't happen automatically.

Seventh, yes, NPCs can do this as well. But with the constraints one through five listed above (six does not matter to NPCs), it shouldn't happen a lot. If the DM allows this, he must explain it to his players carefully so that they know what to expect when NPCs do it to them.


So, I suspect that this will not be used too often. However, it does avoid the problem of flot-footed in round one for some unique circumstances. It does not solve it completely. And, it does it fairly for both sides. The PCs will not be flat-footed, but then again, neither will the NPCs. You don't just gain something here, you give something up too.

 

[Thanee]

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.

If you mean, whether you can have a ready action BEFORE actually rolling initative, then that's actually fairly simple why it does not work.

Ready is a combat action, you only have combat actions once you roll initiative and your turn came up.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Bastoche]

Quote a rule to prove this.

Combat
HOW COMBAT WORKS


Combat is cyclical; everybody acts in turn in a regular cycle of rounds. Combat follows this sequence:

1. Each combatant starts out flat-footed. Once a combatant acts, he or she is no longer flat-footed.
2. Determine which characters are aware of their opponents at the start of the battle. If some but not all of the combatants are aware of their opponents, a surprise round happens before regular rounds of combat begin. The combatants who are aware of the opponents can act in the surprise round, so they roll for initiative. In initiative order (highest to lowest), combatants who started the battle aware of their opponents each take one action (either a standard action or a move action) during the surprise round. Combatants who were unaware do not get to act in the surprise round. If no one or everyone starts the battle aware, there is no surprise round.
3. Combatants who have not yet rolled initiative do so. All combatants are now ready to begin their first regular round of combat.
4. Combatants act in initiative order (highest to lowest).
5. When everyone has had a turn, the combatant with the highest initiative acts again, and steps 4 and 5 repeat until combat ends.

So there. All combattant starts the combat flat-footed until their turn. It's point no1.

You want to ready an action to initiate combat? Roll initiative. Everyone starts flat-footed. Everyone is aware so no suprise round. When it's your turn, you can ready an action. You cannot superceed initiative merely by taking a ready action. As you stated, ready an action is a standard action, you may only take at your turn. Since you can't ready an action outside of combat, combat starts when initiative is rolled, i.e. when one character decides to ready an action.

If the theifs decide to act in the first round and they win initiative, nothing changes from your thief guild scenario above (WAY above ). I.E. the Wizard eats the sneak attack. However if nobody acts in the first round, at the DM's discretion, it may go on forever until the fight actually occurs at which point nobody is flat-footed. It is implicitly assumed IMO in the DMG that if too many rounds pass (let's say a turn) before anybody acts, initiative must be re-rolled. But at this point it's in the realm of judgement calls/house-ruling.

 

[Bastoche]

To complement my post above:

Ready an action is a standard action. You may only ready a standard action. Assuming you do not have quickdraw and do not draw a weapon before readying, you cannot ready an attack. I suppose you can make a move equivalent action before you ready (I'm not sure) but if such action is drawing your weapon, it most probably will trigger the readied actions from those who won initiative. Ready is not like delay so if the trigger never happens, you lose your turn.

 

[KarinsDad]

If you mean, whether you can have a ready action BEFORE actually rolling initative, then that's actually fairly simple why it does not work.

Ready is a combat action, you only have combat actions once you roll initiative and your turn came up.

Precisely.

Notice I used the phrase "declaring a ready action".

You don't perform it, you declare it. Just like declaring that you will swing your sword at an opponent will also initiate combat.

 

[Thanee]

But *declaring* a Ready Action *is* the combat action I'm talking about above.


Sure you can declare to swing your sword or to ready for an upcoming situation, but that doesn't really matter, since the declaration does nothing by itself (except starting combat by rolling initiative, that is ), unless you use the proper combat action (attack action and ready action respectively in this case) once your turn comes up, you have no action readied and you cannot swing your sword.

Both - readying and swinging the sword (as you mention above) - work the same way: You roll initiative and once your turn comes up you can use your action to perform one of these combat actions. Both are combat actions.

Bye
Thanee

 

[KarinsDad]

So there. All combattant starts the combat flat-footed until their turn. It's point no1.

You want to ready an action to initiate combat? Roll initiative. Everyone starts flat-footed. Everyone is aware so no suprise round. When it's your turn, you can ready an action. You cannot superceed initiative merely by taking a ready action. As you stated, ready an action is a standard action, you may only take at your turn. Since you can't ready an action outside of combat, combat starts when initiative is rolled, i.e. when one character decides to ready an action.

If the theifs decide to act in the first round and they win initiative, nothing changes from your thief guild scenario above (WAY above ). I.E. the Wizard eats the sneak attack. However if nobody acts in the first round, at the DM's discretion, it may go on forever until the fight actually occurs at which point nobody is flat-footed. It is implicitly assumed IMO in the DMG that if too many rounds pass (let's say a turn) before anybody acts, initiative must be re-rolled. But at this point it's in the realm of judgement calls/house-ruling.

You forget that not all combatants MUST be aware, just because initiative is rolled.

If PC1 declares a ready action and initiates combat and NOBODY else is aware that he has done so, then he goes on the surprise round and nobody else does.

On round one, if everyone is STILL not aware that combat has started, they pretty much are not going to declare combat actions unless they are metagaming. Read the section on Unaware Combatants and on New Combatants entering a combat.

Now what this does is prevents other PCs from not being flat-footed until they too are aware. But, this is easy to resolve with a special codeword or something in the surprise round or in round one.

The point is that it is allowable by the rules. The ready action occurs within combat, it is just a situation of the opponents being unaware that they are in combat and they become unaware combatants who are flat-footed until their first action.

 

[KarinsDad]

But *declaring* a Ready Action *is* the combat action I'm talking about above.

Both - readying and swinging the sword (as you mention above) - work the same way: You roll initiative and once your turn comes up you can use your action to perform one of these actions. Both are combat actions.

Precisely.

But if your opponents are unaware they are in combat, they won't be doing combat actions (even though they can).

Read the section on being aware of your opponents and having time to prep other actions in the DMG. You could prep an action of readying an action, just like you could prep an action of firing your bow at one of your foes. Both of these actions will immediately take you into combat, but only the second one will necessarily ensure that your opponents are aware that they are in combat.

 

[Bastoche]

Being "aware" and being "flat-footed" is not the same thing.

Look, if you want to rewrite the combat rules, knock yourself out, really. But it belongs to the house rules forum.

If some people are unaware, there's a surprise round. If not, the fight begins. re-read my quote from the SRD. The mechanics is crystal clear. If someone wants to "ready an action" in a surprise round, it demands a surprise check.

It is specified in the rules that you cannot ready an action outside of combat. Therefore, you may only ready an action at your initiative turn:

1) everybody starts flat-footed until they acted.

2) determine who is aware. You repeated over and over that in the guild scenario, everyone was aware. You may rule, as a DM, that even though everybody is aware of each other, they may not be aware there is going to be a fight. Your agrument was "Why FF if you expect to fight" therefore, no surpises, everyone expects to fight. Conclusion: no surpise round.

3) roll for initiative.

4) combattants acts in initiative order

5) when every body had their turns, goto 4 repeat until end of combat.

That's what SRD prescribes. Anything outside this turn of event is house ruling

However, it may append that in the first round everybody either delays or ready an action making nobody acts in the first round. If actual attacks/combat occurs only at round 2, nobody is flat-footed.

 

[Bastoche]

To finish my post above: I would consider a spot check vs bluff check for the surprise round. You cannot "initiate" combat unnoticed even if it's a ready action. Reading an action is an active mode in which to prepare a coordinated action. It would imply placing your hand on the hilt of your sword, taking a fighting stance (leaving flat-footedness) it is noticable (spot check vs bluff check). If you lose init and lose the spot vs bluff, the enemy see through your mask and you're screwed. That's own it works per RAW. Now if you go unoitced in the surpise round and you don't do anything in it, fine. Everyone is unaware there's a fight going on but you... until it's been long enough that you are tired being tense; ready to spring and go out of combat mode going back to FF. I would also rule that each prepared round occurs a penality to your bluff check, provoking the attack.

Assuming to expect having a chance to go out of the encounter without a fight, I would strongly advise against such tactics (cirumstance penality to dipomacy/bluff).

You cannot stay on the edge too long before you get noticed.