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<blockquote data-quote="Ziggy" data-source="post: 366242" data-attributes="member: 148">That is correct, assuming that every combatant has &quot;standing orders&quot;, i.e. has a predetermined plan before combat. In a real situation this would mainly be relevant for bodyguards, but (as I noted in my post) the change I suggest don't make sense if everybody readies in the first round. I still think that would be an anomaly. And the example is not from my campaign, but based on a situation described by RangerWickett in the General Discussion Forum. My EBG's usually buff like you suggest below <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&nbsp; &nbsp; :)"&nbsp; data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Flatfooted is not really a problem, what I gripe about is the inability to ready actions. I find it irritating that standing order suddenly are forgotten just because combat starts. True, this way the EBG is not killed even though his bodyguards are useless. But consider the case where the party and some monsters are on opposite sides of a door, and both are aware of each other (I've been in this situation several times in different campaigns). If you play by the book you tend to get very strange combats, where one PC (or monster) opens the door, and the rest lingers around for a while until their initiative comes up. If you could ready action (before combat) you could have one opening the door, with the rest ready to shoot or charge through. .Ziggy[Edit: can't spell]</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Ziggy, post: 366242, member: 148"] That is correct, assuming that every combatant has "standing orders", i.e. has a predetermined plan before combat. In a real situation this would mainly be relevant for bodyguards, but (as I noted in my post) the change I suggest don't make sense if everybody readies in the first round. I still think that would be an anomaly. And the example is not from my campaign, but based on a situation described by RangerWickett in the General Discussion Forum. My EBG's usually buff like you suggest below :) Flatfooted is not really a problem, what I gripe about is the inability to ready actions. I find it irritating that standing order suddenly are forgotten just because combat starts. True, this way the EBG is not killed even though his bodyguards are useless. But consider the case where the party and some monsters are on opposite sides of a door, and both are aware of each other (I've been in this situation several times in different campaigns). If you play by the book you tend to get very strange combats, where one PC (or monster) opens the door, and the rest lingers around for a while until their initiative comes up. If you could ready action (before combat) you could have one opening the door, with the rest ready to shoot or charge through. .Ziggy [Edit: can't spell] [/QUOTE]

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