When to roll initiative?

[Quasqueton]

When do you roll initiative? Immediately upon contact, or when someone declares a combat action, or only after someone takes a (surprise) action?

This quote comes from another thread, but it illustrates the conundrum:

The ranger / assassin was spotted in an alley and five city guards approached him. They told him to "hug the wall" and the character complied. Next they formed into a solid ring around him (the wall covered the character's backside, so they just occupied the 5 remaining squares around him), and told him to strip. At this point the character did mind, and he called for an Initiative Roll. I have to admit that I should have called for the initiative check myself the moment the guards spotted him, but I hadn't. So, the high-dexterity ranger / assassin scores highest, and declares a sneak attack on one of the "flat-footed" city guards.

Should the DM call for initiative as soon as the city guards and assassin encounter each other? -- Which would have all the city guard readied or on total defense because the assassin didn't act immediately upon first encountering them.

Or only roll initiative when the assassin declares an action? -- Which could see the assassin coming last in the initiative count even though he is the only one declaring an action.

Or allow the assassin a surprise action and then roll initiative for the guards? -- Which could see the assassin slaying two or more guards before they could act even though they are surrounding and threatening him.


I used to have initiative rolled as soon as the PCs encountered anything. Then we went through the turns even for talking for a couple rounds until it was generally felt/understood that there would be no violence. But I've found that cumbersome.

If action didn't start on the first round, then everyone was readied or on total defense or delayed. This made it so that the first person to start violence was at a disadvantage -- declare an attack and then all those readied actions hit you first. So everyone ended up in a stand off. And although a stand off situation is dramatic, it drags an encounter to a solid stop as whoever starts the action could die immediately. It also tripped up the back and forth talk between the characters on either side of the encounter as one person says something at the top of the round, but the reply might not come til the bottom of the round.

Lately I've been waiting on initiative until someone actually takes a combat action, basically giving the first acter a surprise action. But that gets weird sometimes too, as the assassin vs. city guards situation shows. The guards are surrounding the assassin, watching him closely, weapons ready, yet the assassin could up and slaughter a couple of them before they could react. Kind of makes surrounding and watching and being ready a useless gesture before action starts.

What do you do?

Quasqueton

 

[heirodule]

I wold not roll intiative in that situation until an interest in violence was raised, either by player request or DM decision.

And when I did have initiative rolled however, I would NOT have anyone be considered flat footed, since the guard and assassin both knew they were in a potentially dangerouns situation.

The only exception would be if the assassin were attempting some specific bluff check (basicly a form of Feint) to get the guards to lower their guard. But that would be opposed by their sense motive (+ BAB probably, like Feint)

Paul

 

[robberbaron]

I wold not roll intiative in that situation until an interest in violence was raised, either by player request or DM decision.

And when I did have initiative rolled however, I would NOT have anyone be considered flat footed, since the guard and assassin both knew they were in a potentially dangerouns situation.

The only exception would be if the assassin were attempting some specific bluff check (basicly a form of Feint) to get the guards to lower their guard. But that would be opposed by their sense motive (+ BAB probably, like Feint)

Paul

Agreed. Everyone is aware and ready so no surprise round and no-one is flatfooted.

I think the Initiative Roll should happen at the moment the action kicks off.

 

[Stalker0]

Initiative is rolled when there are combat actions or skills to be made. If a rogue wants to tumble past guards to get away, you roll initiative. The rogue just wants to talk, but the guards want to swing, you roll initiative. If the guard and rogue go out for tea, you don't roll initiative. When the rogue spills tea on the guard's lap and insults his mother, causing the mother to pull out her crossbow, you roll initiative

I think people really get mixed up with initiative vs surprise. Losing iniative doesn't mean your surprised, it just means you weren't as quick to react to someone.

Just because the guard has the rogue on the wall, and is expecting the rogue to escape, doesn't mean he can always instantly react to it. What determines whether he can or not is initiative.

Now if a guard comes up to talk to a guy just to ask him a polite question, and the guy takes off running, the guard will probably be surprised.

 

[RigaMortus]

I agree with Stalker. Our DM usually asks us ahead of time what we plan to do. If it's something offensive (whether it be an attack or not complying with orders), we roll init.

 

[Rel]

Agreed. Everyone is aware and ready so no surprise round and no-one is flatfooted.

I agree there should be no surprise round in the guards vs. assassin situation. But I still say that, by the rules, the guards should be flat footed. If they wanted to be not-flat footed then initiative should have been rolled before they first approached (initiative called for by the GM on behalf of the guards) and they should have taken the Total Defense action. I wouldn't expect they would do this in all cases though, just when approaching someone they believed to be immediately dangerous.

To me, this is exactly the sort of thing a Ranger/Assassin should be able to do. Can't you hear one of the guards explaining this to his captain?

"We walked up to him carefully and had him up against the wall but then, before we could even move, he had put a dagger into Bob's eye and hamstrung Wally! But after that he didn't stand a chance once we surrounded him."

 

[Quasqueton]

I agree there should be no surprise round in the guards vs. assassin situation.

But what about if the assassin rolls somewhere in the bottom of the initiative? Then you have a situation where the person starting the combat can't actually take an action until after others who don't yet even know combat is upon them.

What do the high initiative guards to do with their actions that come before the assassin provokes them?

Say the guards are the PCs, and the DM tells them, "Roll initiative." They then know the assassin is *going* to do something, but he hasn't actually done anything yet. They could kill him before he gets his action, and well, how does that look?

"You guys killed him when he was unarmed?"

"Well, he was going to go for his weapon in a moment if we didn't act."

"How do you know?"

"We had to roll initiative."

Quasqueton

 

[nikolai]

When do you roll initiative? Immediately upon contact, or when someone declares a combat action, or only after someone takes a (surprise) action?

This quote comes from another thread, but it illustrates the conundrum:Should the DM call for initiative as soon as the city guards and assassin encounter each other? -- Which would have all the city guard readied or on total defense because the assassin didn't act immediately upon first encountering them...

What do you do?

This is a problem: when "talking" encounters turn into violence and the initiative system is geared around smashing down doors in dungeons. I don't think the situation by-the-rules is entirely clear.

You could:

(1) Roll initiative at the very begining. You describe the guards taking their actions (total defense or ready), shouting "stay where you are!", etc. The assassin gets to react. As combat is go, the assassin probably wouldn't let his strategic position deteriorate as badly as it did.

(2) You could say combat begins then (when the assassin call it) and let the assassin have a surprise round, and initiative rolled. Roll bluff vs. sense motive. This is a way of figuring out who gets "surprise" even though everyone knows everyone else in there: does the attacker catch the other side unprepared? If it works the guards don't see the assassin's stance change for combat and are caught off-guard. The assassin gets the surprise round, then normal combat begins with initative.

(3) You could assume that combat has started, the guards are ready to wack the assassin with their clubs, but have surprise (bluff vs. sense motive) interupt the normal initiative cycle: surprise, guard's readied actions, assassin's first round, guard's first round.

It depends on a judgement call of whether the guards are in talking mode or ready for action. With (1) people are ready to fight from the start, with (2) the guards aren't expecting anything until the assassin strikes (pretty improbable considering they're ganging up on him), and with (3) they're ready to fight, but can still be caught off guard by sudden action. The trick is to let the PC know what's happening by describing what's going on. I think the problem was the assassin got in a very difficult position, because he wasn't sure what was happening. If he'd he'd have realised he was being surrounded by five people with readied attacks, he would have done things differently.

You can also "roll initative" but back date it. So once people start wacking each other, look back to when the situation went from talking to getting ready to fight and work out how you got to where you did, and what that means for who gets to act, from there.

 

[Rel]

But what about if the assassin rolls somewhere in the bottom of the initiative? Then you have a situation where the person starting the combat can't actually take an action until after others who don't yet even know combat is upon them.

What do the high initiative guards to do with their actions that come before the assassin provokes them?

This is something we've talked about in our group recently and it is an unfortunate artifact of the system. But I don't feel like trying to fix it and I'm willing to live with the explanation that something the person who "provoked" the initiative roll did was a telltale sign of hostile action. In the case of the assassin, I'd guess that he started to push away from the wall and turn around or moved a hand toward a weapon some something like that.

Regardless, the guards still have options. They can simply say (in the GM's mind of course) "I ready an action to smack that guy if he draws a weapon." or "I go on Total Defense." That way, he's taken an actions, is no longer flat footed, and doesn't get sneak attacked.

I have however been known to grant a +2 circumstance bonus to initiative to a PC who does something slightly tricky or unexpected, even in a situation where everyone has their guard up.

 

[Stalker0]

But what about if the assassin rolls somewhere in the bottom of the initiative? Then you have a situation where the person starting the combat can't actually take an action until after others who don't yet even know combat is upon them.

What do the high initiative guards to do with their actions that come before the assassin provokes them?

This is exactly what the delay tactic is for.

PC: Okay I got a 20 on my initiative, can I go? Cool, alright I move past the guards!!
DM: Okay they take an AOO.
PC: But aren't they flatfooted?
DM: No they won initiative, they just delayed

Basically, the advantage of rolling good initiative for the guards in this case is they will not be flatfooted when the rogue tries something. If he tries to move away he provokes an AOO. If the guards roll bad initiative, then the rogue can get away without any AOO, that's the difference.