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Message: <blockquote data-quote="KarinsDad" data-source="post: 2110207" data-attributes="member: 2011">One of the problems I have with the DND initiative system is that you are flatfooted both in the surprise round and in round one until your initiative comes up.There are many situations where I think this does not make sense. For example, the PCs are talking to the head of the Thieves Guild and one of his lieutenants suddenly decides to attack. All of the PCs were there, all of them were aware of the thieves in the room, all of them were ready for an attack, but suddenly the lieutenant gets to catch a PC totally flatfooted just because he won initiative.What is worse is that if he wins initiative, the lieutenant can weave through all of the PCs and sneak attack the PC Wizard and none of the Wizard’s allies can so much as get an Attack of Opportunity against him.Imagine how illogical it sounds for the PCs to melee assassinate the King by rushing 30 feet to his throne, and none of the King’s guards who are 5 feet away from the king can interpose in time, even though they were alert.Ditto for the bandits shooting arrows from ambush during the surprise round and again on round one if they have a better initiative. You could get upwards of 5 arrows from a bandit (1 on a surprise round and 4 on round 1 for a 16th level bandit) fired before a PC can react.So to avoid this issue, I have come up with a plan for the PCs to sidestep this rule within the rules.As a surprise action, one PC declares that he is readying to attack (or pull out his weapon, or whatever) if anyone attacks him. This automatically puts the situation into combat, regardless of whether anyone is actually fighting.So, any situation where the PCs meet a group of people and are unsure of their intentions, one PC could ready an attack if he is attacked.PCs could also do this when they come to a dungeon door. One PC declares that he will attack if anyone attacks him and it puts it into combat, even if they are unaware of any enemy. Then, the PC who is opening the door merely waits for a round or two before opening it.Now, this does not help against the two attacks by a bandit with surprise in a surprise round and in round one and a PC might still be flatfooted, but it helps in other situations. Personally, I prefer a rule that you are only flatfooted in the surprise round and not in round one to solve the problem, but that is a house rule.</blockquote>

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