D&D 5E When to Roll Initiative

[Hriston]

Then you have to take into account other factors. With non-identical creatures, are they all visible? Are some scouting? Are some built for initiative themselves? Does assassination feel satisfying if used on a weak minion? Non-identical creatures often mean enemy parties or an enemy party and a leader. That leads to a lot of variation in location. It's not as simple as the percentages you outline, at least not in my experience.

Sure, I was just trying to see if my math was close to correct for establishing a base chance, so I was purposely excluding details. I think it really depends on what the assassin rolls.

For example, last week I ran an encounter with a group of orcs, their orc chieftain, and a ranger.

Orcs might have lost initiative. Who cares? You don't even need a crit to kill an orc. Orc chieftain was hidden in cover. The ranger had pass without trace up and a high enough Stealth score the party couldn't see her. So even if you win initiative, if you don't see the target you can't hit the target. That's another strange effect from this ruling. The assassin could win initiative and still not be able to target someone that can't see him same as the target of his attack doesn't get to attack him until he sees him.

It sounds like the assassin doesn't know anyone is there except the orcs, so I'm not sure how the ruling effects that. If he decides to attack, it only makes sense for him to target the orcs. You seem to be saying this is a change, but from what?

What would you do if the Assassin won the Stealth roll, was prepared to attack, lost initiative negating his ability to crit on surprise, then decide to not attack because he didn't win initiative? The target doesn't see him because he is hidden. So can he reset and roll initiative again since the target can't attack him because the target hasn't seen him? How do you work that by RAW? Nothing in the RAW states that the target even if he wins initiative knows the attacker is there until the attacker actually attacks. By RAW he could choose not to attack and stay hidden. Do you just roll initiative again next round or a few rounds later?

Assuming we're only rolling initiative because the assassin has declared his intention to attack, I'd discourage "delaying" for better initiative by using the original initiative order. Another way to look at it is we've gone through steps 1-3 of setting up the encounter, but round one doesn't start until the assassin actually takes his first turn and attacks. The gap in time isn't significant enough to warrant rolling initiative again in my book.

 

[MG.0]

Hmmm, yes. The more non-identical creatures the more chances that someone will roll under your initiative. Ignoring Dex modifiers and how an individual DM might adjudicate ties then, does the probability of an opponent rolling under go up from 50%, with only one opponent, to 75% with two, to 87.5% with three, etc? If so that's pretty significant.

Why's that a problem? If an assassin dropped from the ceiling in front of a group of people *in real life*, then surely each person is surprised roughly independently of the others. A quick assassin could assess the multiple targets and quickly attack one that appears off-guard. I think the initiative thing models reality (or fantasy reality if you prefer) quite cleanly.

 

[Hriston]

Why's that a problem? If an assassin dropped from the ceiling in front of a group of people *in real life*, then surely each person is surprised roughly independently of the others. A quick assassin could assess the multiple targets and quickly attack one that appears off-guard. I think the initiative thing models reality (or fantasy reality if you prefer) quite cleanly.

I don't think it's a problem, in fact I quite like it for the reasons you've given. It makes sense for the assassin to prey on the low Dex members of the opponent party. If those also happen to be the weaker members, although there's no real reason to expect them to be, then the assassin can take them out with one blow, which I think also fits into the narrative.

 

[MG.0]

I don't think it's a problem, in fact I quite like it for the reasons you've given. It makes sense for the assassin to prey on the low Dex members of the opponent party. If those also happen to be the weaker members, although there's no real reason to expect them to be, then the assassin can take them out with one blow, which I think also fits into the narrative.

Agreed.

Not sure why I thought you thought it was a problem. Put it down to posting while tired.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Sure, I was just trying to see if my math was close to correct for establishing a base chance, so I was purposely excluding details. I think it really depends on what the assassin rolls.

Yeah, the latter is why it's not correct--the probabilities are not independent. You've got the right basic idea though.

 

[Celtavian]

It sounds like the assassin doesn't know anyone is there except the orcs, so I'm not sure how the ruling effects that. If he decides to attack, it only makes sense for him to target the orcs. You seem to be saying this is a change, but from what?

You roll initiative for everyone in the surprise round whether you can see the target or not meaning the Assassin could win initiative if multiple creatures roll, but still not be able to attack a target he beats because he is unaware the target is there. We were discussing rolling for multiple creatures and the assassin beating at least one. It could be set up that some of the targets he can't even see, but have rolled initiative meaning he may only have one target to beat on initiative even if multiple targets roll. If he fails to win, he's beat. His Assassination is useless.

Assuming we're only rolling initiative because the assassin has declared his intention to attack, I'd discourage "delaying" for better initiative by using the original initiative order. Another way to look at it is we've gone through steps 1-3 of setting up the encounter, but round one doesn't start until the assassin actually takes his first turn and attacks. The gap in time isn't significant enough to warrant rolling initiative again in my book.

Would a good assassin know when he had the target surprised prior to attacking? Would he know when his ability was going to work? If so, wouldn't he be able to decide not to take the shot and wait for a more opportune time?

 

[Hriston]

You roll initiative for everyone in the surprise round whether you can see the target or not meaning the Assassin could win initiative if multiple creatures roll, but still not be able to attack a target he beats because he is unaware the target is there. We were discussing rolling for multiple creatures and the assassin beating at least one. It could be set up that some of the targets he can't even see, but have rolled initiative meaning he may only have one target to beat on initiative even if multiple targets roll. If he fails to win, he's beat. His Assassination is useless.

Oh, sure. I didn't think it was worth clarifying that only adding unhidden creatures would actually increase the assassin's chances of winning initiative on a viable target, and so didn't realize that was the point you were making. Basically, you're still talking about how the assassin can't use Assassinate on the orcs because he didn't beat their initiative. It's true that Assassinate is useless in this situation, but that doesn't make the assassin's attack useless. He still gets advantage for being unseen, and thus Sneak Attack damage.

Would a good assassin know when he had the target surprised prior to attacking?

It depends how you run Stealth. I try not to give the players the meta-game knowledge that they have beat the Perception of their target, but I do telegraph via the narrative that the target just seems to be going about its business, rather than becoming alert, sounding the alarm, etc., so the assassin would probably have a good idea if he'd been detected.

Would he know when his ability was going to work?

That would depend on him knowing the initiative order, which is very difficult to justify in the fiction. How would the assassin know how fast his target will react before the attack is made? The only way I could see this knowledge being narrated is if the assassin has observed his target in a similar situation (i.e. being surprise attacked) before, and even then would probably be expressed as a likelihood of getting the drop on his target, rather than a certainty. Something like, "From your past observations of the target, you can tell that he doesn't have the greatest reflexes." The other way you could go is to narrate that the target somehow looks like he's ready for an attack, but that doesn't sit very well with me because I don't see the fiction playing out that way.

If so, wouldn't he be able to decide not to take the shot and wait for a more opportune time?

There could be any number of reasons that he could change his mind and not do it. As a DM, I wouldn't introduce any new information between rolling initiative and the first round. The assassin declares his attack. We roll initiative. The attack is resolved. But the player could decide to change his mind for whatever reason, so I'm not going to prohibit that simply because I see it as meta-gaming based on not winning initiative. I see no reason, however, to roll a new initiative at that point. The combatants are still the same with presumably the same level of alertness. Surprise is still based on the original Stealth check, so I'd continue to use the same initiative unless the assassin stopped hiding and then set up a new ambush, perhaps at a later time. At that point I could see re-rolling for initiative.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

The problem is that initiative doesn't measure how alert to potential foes you are--that's what Perception measures. If you beat their Perception, they don't know you are there until you are given away. Now, we could assume that a high initiative means they are fast enough on the reflexes (for that particular fight) that they can react to the twang of the bow, but that's really pushing it. First, as was mentioned, Perception is its own thing, and secondly there a plenty of situations where noticing anything prior to an arrow blooming out of your chest would be highly unlikely (some where it would be impossible, but we are looking at a general rule here, not such exceptions).

The surprise rules are metagame rules that work kinda okay most of the time (assuming your party is willing to use the Ready action and lose moves or attacks to let a specific PC go first in an ambush), but interact very poorly with the rogue's Assassinate feature.

The simplest fix is really just to let the individual who initiates an ambush take his initial attack outside outside of the initiative sequence, before combat has begun, but that is difficult to justify by the rules and lets him potentially act three times before his opponents.

 

[MG.0]

Now, we could assume that a high initiative means they are fast enough on the reflexes (for that particular fight) that they can react to the twang of the bow, but that's really pushing it.

That's EXACTLY how I interpret it narratively. That's what charcters of heroic fiction DO, all the time!

The surprise rules are metagame rules that work kinda okay most of the time (assuming your party is willing to use the Ready action and lose moves or attacks to let a specific PC go first in an ambush), but interact very poorly with the rogue's Assassinate feature.

The simplest fix is really just to let the individual who initiates an ambush take his initial attack outside outside of the initiative sequence, before combat has begun, but that is difficult to justify by the rules and lets him potentially act three times before his opponents.

I don't agree that you have to let the assassin go first to assassinate anyone. He merely has to beat his target's reaction time. Other party members attacking with higher initiatives don't remove the target's surprised status, only the end of the target's turn does that. Narratively, a round is so short that the attacks can be considered to be nearly simultaneous. The target could get hit by one attack, or ten. Until his turn ends, he's standing there with a dumb look on his face, unable to react. Letting the assassin automatically go first is unnecessary and, I feel, inelegant.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

That's EXACTLY how I interpret it narratively. That's what charcters of heroic fiction DO, all the time!

Including the mooks?