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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6022564" data-attributes="member: 4937">Full agreement, and I'm glad you see that because I've been around and around on these forums with people that believe that initiative should never be rolled until physical attacks are made.  The reasoning of course is, if you roll for initiative as soon as the encounter actually begins (that is, whenever both parties are aware of each other) then sneak attacks are harder to pull off than what some group desires.  But of course, this rationalization - as you've seen - leads to nonsensical situations.First, this is an issue that requires player training as much as anything.  Players, especially long time players, are trained by experience to consider the statement, "Roll for initiative", to invariably mean that lethal frantic mortal combat is about to begin.  Therefore, any time you roll initiative a player may meta that this encounter will eventually go hostile.  It's necessary I think to correct that sentiment by playing through some encounters that demonstrate this isn't true.  Players have to be taught that parley, barter and patience sometimes pay better dividends than gutting whoever you meet without hesitation, and that not everything that is 'ugly' necessarily wants to fight to the death or is even an enemy.  Beware being that DM that punishes players for not being ruthlessly lethal at every oppurtunity.Secondly, if players understand that the initiative is thrown as soon as an encounter begins, and that it is thereafter 'too late' to regain the advantage of someone being flatfooted (for now we will leave aside the fact that there are legimate ways for converting an alert and wary person into an unalert and unwary one, that is, to cozen a victim), then you soon realize that you can still delay throwing initiative until you need to in most encounters and it doesn't effect the resolution of an encounter at all.  As long as you don't have players who are jerks, the sequence:DM: Roll for initiative.PC <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/usertag.php?do=list&action=hash&hash=1" target="_blank">#1</a> : Ok, 18... is the goblin flatfooted?DM: Not any longer, you've been conversing for at least 20 seconds now, and he was aware of you for a few seconds before that.Is perfectly acceptable.  You really only have to throw the initiative the second a target is seen all the time if your players are jerks.   Of course, you may be dealing with players trained to believe that just because they yell, "Surprise! I pull my sword", that a target that has been watching them for 15 minutes is flat footed, in which case I do pity you.</blockquote>

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