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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Vegepygmy" data-source="post: 5350166" data-attributes="member: 40109">Because the whole point of a readied action is that it allows you to interrupt another character's turn. Allowing readied actions outside of combat thus allows characters to circumvent the initiative check entirely. As ValhallaGH says, players will quickly realize that what they should do is declare they are walking around constantly readied, which is lame. (And at which point, since everyone is readied, you have a tie, which you'll have to break by resorting to some fair method like rolling off against each other, maybe with a modifier based on their respective reaction speeds...ohhhhhhh!) DM makes the roll secretly. Problem solved. There is. And what you're calling "surprise rounds" aren't rounds at all. It's just time outside combat, during which you can take actions. That's perfectly fine. The only limitation is that you can't take the Ready action outside combat (for the reasons already discussed). The sequence of events you're describing is fine; you're just using the wrong terminology. Here's how it works by RAW: Greedo walks in and Spots Han; Han fails his Spot check. Greedo decides not to initiate combat, so we don't need to track rounds. Greedo slips into a shadowy corner (move action) and draws a weapon (move action or part of his move-and-hide action, doesn't really matter). Greedo stays there as long as he wants, because Han failed his initial Spot check and doesn't think to make an active Spot check, so Greedo remains hidden. Whenever Greedo finally decides to attack, he gets a single surprise round to make that attack. Now, at this point, both are aware of each other and roll initiative. Exactly as you described. So you see, you don't have to change the rules to make sense; they already do. Yes, technically Greedo can use his surprise round to ready an action and automatically go first after he and Han roll initiative. But all that actually does is screw Greedo out of the chance to attack in the surprise round and win initiative; he simply wins initiative instead. Greedo is better off attacking in the surprise round and maybe getting to attack a second time before Han can react at all. This is why correct terminology is important. If Han and Greedo both Delay indefinitely, they should drop out of combat entirely, and neither could Ready anything against the other; if one of them eventually decides to attack, they would need to roll initiative. But if Greedo declares that he is continually Readying while Han declares that he is continually Delaying (or Readying), Greedo will maintain his slight advantage as long as he keeps Readying, no matter how many rounds go by. Essentially, Greedo is declaring that although no attacks are taking place, he is remaining alert and hostile toward Han. All well and good, and all perfectly fine by RAW. Now we slip into the realm of DM discretion (which is not a bad thing). I take no issue with what you're describing, so I won't attempt to pick it apart. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> This is also fine, IMO. If I want my bad guy to give a soliloquy, and it's not going to affect anything mechanically, then he's giving a soliloquy, damn it, and the PCs are going to sit there and take it! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" /></blockquote>

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