Mearls On D&D's Design Premises/Goals

First of all, thanks [MENTION=1]Morrus[/MENTION] for collecting this. I generally avoid Twitter because, frankly, it's full of a$$holes.

That aside: this is an interesting way of looking at it, and underscores the difference in design philosophies between the WotC team and the Paizo team. There is a lot of room for both philosophies of design, and I don't think there is any reason for fans of one to be hostile to fans of the other, but those differences do matter. There are ways in which I like the prescriptive elements of 3.x era games (I like set skill difficulty lists, for example) but I tend to run by the seat of my pants and the effects of my beer, so a fast and loose and forgiving version like 5E really enables me running a game the way I like to.

 

[Lanefan]

Of course! It's a discussion about the nature of 5e's intitiative rules, and 5e uses turn-by-turn combat resolution very similar to 3E and 4e.

Yes it does, but it doesn't have to. Neither do 3e and 4e, for all that.

[MENTION=6787503]Hriston[/MENTION] has already discussed this - if Max loses initiative, then (among other things) we learn that he is not very quick on the draw!

Which blows up the player-intended narrative of his swing being the thing that in fact starts the fight.

It's certainly not unheard of in genre fiction for the villains to try and get the drop on the hero, only for the latter to react unexpectedly quickly and turn the tables!

True, but it's overused there too and happens far more often than random chance would dictate.

In 4e, Max might well get surprise if the others involved don't succeed on an appropriate Insight or Perception check. [MENTION=463]S'mon[/MENTION] has given some suggestions for how 5e would deal with this.

Saw those. Another option in a case like this might be to just peg Max's initiative at a flat 20 and let everyone else roll, and if anyone beats 20 then so be it; otherwise he goes first.

The problem with this in a cyclic system is that any of these solutions lock Max into a high initiative for the whole combat, where it should really only be forced high for the first swing and after that be at some random point in the round - yet another argument in favour of re-rolling each round. A further and probably messier argument can be made saying that because Max's swing is what starts the fight he should get that swing in effect as an out-of-round freebie - particularly if he catches his foe off guard - and then roll init. normally with everyone else after that.

 

[Hriston]

Ye gods, I'm having flashbacks to the rules arguments I sat through back when I was serious about M:tG...declaration of attack, resolution of attack, combat phase...next thing you'll both be on about is who's the active player and what order the reactions can happen in.

Lan-"I'm not entirely sure this represents 5e in the way the designers had in mind"-efan

I think the question is whether declaring an attack or some other action that triggers resort to the combat rules is constitutive of fiction in which the participants are in opposition to one another. I clearly think it is, as are many other sorts of action declarations such as trying to determine the true intentions of an NPC that's lying to you or trying to notice a hidden threat. [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] seems to think it isn't, due to his treatment of such action declarations as basically provisional until after initiative has been rolled. My problem with that is if there's no in-fiction conflict then why are combat rules like initiative being invoked?

 

[Jester David]

The difference in the first round is that someone (or a number of someones) might be able to act before anyone else is aware of it - as in Max's example of suddenly pulling a sword and attacking. Here some other mechanic - be it surprise or flat-footed or whatever else - is required to determine who gets to act right away vs. who is caught off guard. Otherwise what ends up happening all too often is that the dice don't match the intended-by-the-player narrative: Max pulls out a sword and swings, thus triggering initiatives, but somehow ends up near the bottom of the initiative order even though his supposedly acting first is the reason they were rolled at all! Personally, I often find this quite annoying when it happens.

In that example, most of the time I rule/ describe that people can see him going for his sword and react accordingly. They’re just a faster draw. In the tense stand-off over a poker game, no one is “surprised” by someone drawing, and the person who slaps leather first might not be the one who shoots first.
If “Max” rolls poorly in such a situation, that can be reflected in the narrative, with Max’s weapon catching in the scabbard.

In certain situations where there is more of an ambush or unexpected attack from unsurprised individuals, such as when the party is talking with someone and the unseen rogue attacks, I typically just start on their initiative turn. People who rolled better than the initiating rogue just end up unknowingly using their first turn talking or taking other actions.

 

[Hussar]

As I recall, rerolling initiative is an optional rule in 5e. IDHMBIFOM, but, I seem to recall something about that in the 5e DMG.

 

[Hriston]

This is untrue. They declare their action, which includes signaling that the other side can pick up. Initiative is rolled. When the player gets his turn, he tells me what they do in the fiction, which doesn't have to be what they declared initially as things may have changed. At no point am I dictating what the PCs do. It's astounding that you could actually end up there from what I said.

You said it was nothing more than a declaration, which is something a player says at a table in the real world. To me that sounds like you mean it has no effect on the fiction, but now you've included the detail that it "includes signaling that the other side can pick up". That's pretty vague, but it clearly means that the action declaration does establish in the fiction that the PC is "signalling" the intent to commence hostilities, i.e. action that may provoke opposing action from the other side.

Opposition to what? He's just reaching for a sword.

Assuming the merchant wants to keep living, it establishes opposition between the PC and the merchant on which s/he's planning on using the sword.

If it's after initiative, yes. If it's before, you haven't taken a swing. You can't take the attack action, which is what a punch is, until after initiative is rolled.

Then the answer is "yes", isn't it? As a DM, you don't allow the punch-swinging character's arms to move until after initiative has been rolled, and that's fine for your games. But once it's that character's turn, and s/he takes his/her swing, before the attack hits or misses, there's a moment in which the swing is in process and the character is attacking. That moment can be established in the fiction before rolling initiative in my games. All I'm concerned with happening after initiative is the resolution of the attack, the hit or the miss. I believe that initiative exists as a mechanic to tell us the order in which events are resolved, not when they're initiated.

No it doesn't. It presents them in the context of determining order of turns. It explicitly says this. It's the first line for God's sake, "Initiative determines the order of turns during combat."

It's the "during combat" that gives you the context that initiative takes place in a situation where sides in a conflict are opposing one another.

Nothing to do. Conservation of resources. I don't agree with attacking these people. Other reasons. Opposing the enemy hasn't ever been a consideration when I decide to do nothing.

Forgive me if that doesn't sound like a very interesting battle. Why isn't there anything to do, and why are you in a battle with people you don't want to attack?

Opposition doesn't happen(and then only possibly) until someone takes the first action. Before that, when one or both sides do something to cause the perception if imminent combat, you determine surprise, then establish positions, then roll initiative. It's a pretty lame order as far as I'm concerned. If you don't know the positions, you can't really determine surprise, but whatever. That's the order they pick. Once initiative has been rolled and people start taking actions, they can opt to take actions that pull them into opposition, like attacking or grappling. Or they can take an action that doesn't involve opposition, like searching for an object, drinking a potion, casting a spell that doesn't oppose anything, moving and stopping and much much more!!

It's in what they do "to cause the perception of imminent combat" that I'm interested. That's what throws the sides into opposition.

 

[pemerton]

Which blows up the player-intended narrative of his swing being the thing that in fact starts the fight.

This is where other aspects of action resolution methodology come into play.

For instance, in a "say 'yes' or roll the dice" framework, the GM can just "say 'yes'" and allow Max's sword blow to hit and/or kill the opponent (depending exactly what the action declaration is to which "yes" is being said).

In 5e, the GM could simply rule that there is no uncertainty and hence Max hits and deals damage.

But in a system like 5e - in which the rules are not a simulation but rather a device for managing changes in the fiction (this is evidenced by the fact that the GM is obliged to invoke the rules only if s/he thinks the situation warrants it) - once the rules are invoked then player intent is not going to contribute to the outcomes except as mediated through those rules. So Max's player might want to be the one who strike first, but if the rules have been invoked then that outcome is precluded unless he gets the best initiative check.

Ye gods, I'm having flashbacks to the rules arguments I sat through back when I was serious about M:tG...declaration of attack, resolution of attack, combat phase...next thing you'll both be on about is who's the active player and what order the reactions can happen in.

Lan-"I'm not entirely sure this represents 5e in the way the designers had in mind"-efan

You can't introduce a turn-by-turn resolution system, with rules for actions and reactions and bonus actions and the lilke, and yet not intend this sort of discussion to arise. They go together!

For more discussion on pretty much the same channel, drop into the currently active "Shield Master" thread!

 

[Maxperson]

You said it was nothing more than a declaration, which is something a player says at a table in the real world. To me that sounds like you mean it has no effect on the fiction, but now you've included the detail that it "includes signaling that the other side can pick up". That's pretty vague, but it clearly means that the action declaration does establish in the fiction that the PC is "signalling" the intent to commence hostilities, i.e. action that may provoke opposing action from the other side.

The declaration is by the player. The signaling is occurring in the game.

Assuming the merchant wants to keep living, it establishes opposition between the PC and the merchant on which s/he's planning on using the sword.

The merchant in my example did nothing. He's a weak NPC putz. That's why he has guards. The action was over before he realized that he came close to death.

Then the answer is "yes", isn't it? As a DM, you don't allow the punch-swinging character's arms to move until after initiative has been rolled, and that's fine for your games. But once it's that character's turn, and s/he takes his/her swing, before the attack hits or misses, there's a moment in which the swing is in process and the character is attacking. That moment can be established in the fiction before rolling initiative in my games.

That moment doesn't exist by RAW. You don't get to attack until after initiative. It's okay for you to do it that way in your games of course, but I'm discussing the rules as they are written. Not the rules as they are changed. By RAW, there is never a point in which a character can be attacking until after initiative is rolled.

And the arm can move. It just can't attack. The PC draws back to punch and ends up knocked out because he loses initiative to the 5 friends of the guy he was about to punch. He pulled back his arm to launch the attack, but the attack never came. Or alternatively, he does manage to attack AFTER initiative is rolled.

It's the "during combat" that gives you the context that initiative takes place in a situation where sides in a conflict are opposing one another.

Sides opposing one another does not make initiative an opposed ability check. I've already demonstrated several things that you can do while sides are opposed to one another that don't involve opposition of any kind.

Forgive me if that doesn't sound like a very interesting battle. Why isn't there anything to do, and why are you in a battle with people you don't want to attack?

Perhaps the rest of the group has it easily in hand and I don't want to waste resources. Perhaps there is simply no gain in it or me personally. Perhaps we are being attacked by a group we know to be innocent or allies, but which aren't aware that we are with them and I don't want to harm them. Perhaps hundreds of other reasons. Use your imagination a bit. It's not hard to see many reasons why you would do nothing that don't involved boredom.

 

[S'mon]

In certain situations where there is more of an ambush or unexpected attack from unsurprised individuals, such as when the party is talking with someone and the unseen rogue attacks, I typically just start on their initiative turn. People who rolled better than the initiating rogue just end up unknowingly using their first turn talking or taking other actions.

I don't like that at all since it penalises characters for having high Init, and a DEX bonus or Alertness feat become negatives.

Leaving aside RAW, I think it makes a lot more sense to keep the init roll as always higher-is-better, and allow unexpected attacks prior to the init roll if necessary.

 

[Jester David]

I don't like that at all since it penalises characters for having high Init, and a DEX bonus or Alertness feat become negatives.

Leaving aside RAW, I think it makes a lot more sense to keep the init roll as always higher-is-better, and allow unexpected attacks prior to the init roll if necessary.

Having a high initiative is good for the first round of combat at best. Then initiative stops being a linear progression and becomes a cycle where it doesn't matter who rolled high or low.

The thing is, starting with the initiator doesn't necessarily punish those with a high Dexterity, because the initiator *might* roll really high. Or really low and those with a high initiative follow them anyway. Realistically, people also roll poorly for initiative all the damn time, so I'm also "rewarding" people who had bad luck. There's even a decent chance a character with a normally high initiative rolled poorly in any given fight since the Alert rogue only gets a +10 and the dice add 1-20.
Plus, characters with a high Dexterity has a high probability of being one likely to be hiding and starting trouble anyway, so this allows them to act first even if their initiative roll betrays them. Which is especially useful for assassin rogues.

Also, there's generally a tactical advantage from an ambush, so the players are being rewarded by enabling that. I like to reward smart, strategic play and not handicap cool strategies by slavishly adhering to RAW.

This is also not the "norm" of initiative. Most fights have initiative rolled normally. I only do this when it would be weird and disrupting the narrative for that character to come later in the initiative order. So those with bonuses still get to act sooner (on average) in the majority of normal fights.

 

[SkidAce]

In certain situations where there is more of an ambush or unexpected attack from unsurprised individuals, such as when the party is talking with someone and the unseen rogue attacks, I typically just start on their initiative turn. People who rolled better than the initiating rogue just end up unknowingly using their first turn talking or taking other actions.

I clicked laugh when I meant XP.