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<blockquote data-quote="Brian Gibbons" data-source="post: 3584508" data-attributes="member: 7369">The &quot;hiccup&quot; method is the easiest one to live with.&nbsp; It just means that the very beginning of a combat is a strange and confusing time, and I can accept that.The alternative is to expand combat-timing systems into every corner of the game, and that way lies madness.&nbsp; Once you do that, you're going to end up with players readying and delaying (and if 3e, refocusing) at all times, to try to properly game the system.Don't let a small perceived thematic inconsistency occurring in only the first round of combat create problems for your entire game.The combat system is an abstraction.&nbsp; Combat rounds and consecutive actions exist to make the DM's life easier, and are concerned more with modeling game balance than out-of-combat reality.If the discontinuity of how the first combat round operates versus how the non-combat world works were to bother me, I'd probably be far more hung up on movement issues (e.g., &quot;How does a PC who I was describing as running side-by-side with another suddenly sprint 30' ahead and then pause to wait for the other to catch up?&quot;).</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Brian Gibbons, post: 3584508, member: 7369"] The "hiccup" method is the easiest one to live with. It just means that the very beginning of a combat is a strange and confusing time, and I can accept that. The alternative is to expand combat-timing systems into every corner of the game, and that way lies madness. Once you do that, you're going to end up with players readying and delaying (and if 3e, refocusing) at all times, to try to properly game the system. Don't let a small perceived thematic inconsistency occurring in only the first round of combat create problems for your entire game. The combat system is an abstraction. Combat rounds and consecutive actions exist to make the DM's life easier, and are concerned more with modeling game balance than out-of-combat reality. If the discontinuity of how the first combat round operates versus how the non-combat world works were to bother me, I'd probably be far more hung up on movement issues (e.g., "How does a PC who I was describing as running side-by-side with another suddenly sprint 30' ahead and then pause to wait for the other to catch up?"). [/QUOTE]

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