Grasping Initiative

[Stewbert]

Just trying to grasp exactly how combat initiates. Take the following scenario; a group of travellers encounter a gnome merchant on the road. This particular gnome happens to be rather mouthy and has a distaste for the wizard of the group, he is a harmless gnome but very obnoxious! The character the gnome winds up happens to be chaotic and eventually loses his temper and decides the gnome must pay the price! Much to the suprise of all, the wizard says nothing but casts scorching ray in an attempt to kill the gnome for his sins.

Instantly the "good" group members jump up screaming they want to be able to react and stop him from commiting murder, so I ask for initiatives, but this is where I get a little confused. The cleric wishes to counterspell the wizard to save the gnome. Which of the following is correct?

1. Since the wizard hasnt mentioned anything to anyone, he can just blast the gnome without initiatives to try and stop him or maybe as a suprise round which only he acts in.

2. Everyone rolls initiative once the wizard attempts to kill the gnome, at this point whoever wins initiative goes first, If the wizard wins he casts his spell, game over. If someone else wins they can attempt to stop the wizard before he kills the gnome. This seems wrong though as people would be stopping him before he had acted, and if he hadn't acted they wouldnt know about his desire to kill.

3. If 2. is correct, and the good cleric wins initiative, has the evil wizard made his killing intentions clear yet? Or is that only once the wizards turn begins. Again assuming the cleric wins intiative, can he ready an action to counterspell the wizard without it being considered meta-gaming because the wizard hasnt taken his turn yet so no one should know what hes going to do, until he does it?

Hope thats not too confusing to read, just trying to do it right for the group!

Thanks for any help.

[master4sword]

Pretty sure the wizard gets a surprise round that no one else acts in, then everyone acts on their initiative beyond that point. So #1.

[Karl Aegis]

Wizard gets his surprise round and becomes a bounty-head. Bounty hunters always go straight to their target and the entire campaign revolves around someone who, presumably for the first time (otherwise they would be in jail), had a violent outburst and killed someone. Really nice he spent all that time and money becoming a wizard.

[Curmudgeon]

The Wizard gets to start casting Scorching Ray. However, that doesn't mean it's a surprise round. From page 23 of Dungeon Master's Guide:
The Surprise Round
When only one side is aware of the other, the DM runs the first round of combat as a surprise round. Everybody rolls initiative. Any character with initiative superior to the Wizard has simply not taken any action, which means they've been using Delay. If they've enough Spellcraft skill to notice what the Wizard is casting, they may decide to take action immediately.
Delay

By choosing to delay, you take no action and then act normally on whatever initiative count you decide to act. When you delay, you voluntarily reduce your own initiative result for the rest of the combat. When your new, lower initiative count comes up later in the same round, you can act normally. You can specify this new initiative result or just wait until some time later in the round and act then, thus fixing your new initiative count at that point.

[Seharvepernfan]

Everybody rolls initiative, nobody gets a surprise round. If he cast a stilled, silent Scorching Ray, then yes, he would get a surprise round.

[Stewbert]

I was playing it by making everyone roll initiative, which seems to be correct!

So wizard states he wishes to cast Scorching Ray, I ask for initiatives. The wizard is technically casting a spell at this point and has initiated combat regardless of initiative outcomes. The wizard is beaten by someone else, he is vulnerable to AoO's and/or counterspells from that person, is that correct?


You never get back the time you spend waiting to see what’s going to happen. You can’t, however, interrupt anyone else’s action (as you can with a readied action).

Hmm so according to that even if you win initiative and are delaying you can't take your turn to ruin his spell once he has started his turn. What am I missing?

[Curmudgeon]

Hmm so according to that even if you win initiative and are delaying you can't take your turn to ruin his spell once he has started his turn. What am I missing?
Once initiatives are rolled, those who have been using Delay can decide that they're now going to Ready an action. That readied action can interrupt something.

[Vertharrad]

So as I was talking to the target before the wizard started chanting I was really just delaying?

I'd say the best way to deal with this is to give the wizard a surprise round as noone was suspecting it to happen and are caught slightly off-guard. It's one of a few areas I have issue with the rules. Or you could have everyone roll initiative and let the wizard go first the initial round. Either method has pretty much almost the same outcome...unless the wizard does get init after the surprise round. I have issue with PC's acting like their psychic and know something's going to happen when they don't...and that's what delaying smacks of to me in this case.

[A_S]

I've run into a lot of these situations in my games, where one side seems like it should be getting the jump on the other because they're starting combat unexpectedly, but both sides do know the other is there. My players have sometimes been dissatisfied with simply rolling initiative...there's a certain cinematic appeal of being able to get an advantage at the beginning of the fight by being the first one to draw on an unsuspecting target ("The guard frowns at you, clearly confused by something on the papers you handed him." "Okay, I stab him in the neck.")

One solution I've found is to introduce opposed Bluff vs. Sense Motive checks for these cases. The surprise attacker gets to roll Bluff to represent how well they hide their intentions, opposed by the potential victim's Sense Motive. If the attacker wins, they successfully get the jump and get a surprise round. If the defender wins, then they saw it in his eyes or something, and get to act on initiative count as normal.

This is a pure house rule, though, designed to shore up something my players didn't like about the rules. As written, it works like Curmudgeon has laid out.

[Larrx]

Curmudgeon is right (of course, is he ever not?). Everyone is aware of everyone else, there is no surprise round. The wizard made a mistake by declaring his action at all. He should have just done what I always do when I DM. Just saying "everybody roll initiative" removes any metagaming concerns, and characters with high initiatives who see others readying spell pouches or unsheathing weapons can delay or ready or act rashly at their discretion.

[Deophaun]

The character the gnome winds up happens to be chaotic evil
Fixed that for you. CG and CN don't do that, so the fault cannot be in the chaotic portion of the alignment.

[Crake]

I think the key part that would make me disagree with curmudgeon on this is that it says "When one side is aware of the other" Implying that there requires awareness of "sides" to begin with. Since the wizard is the only one who is aware that he is not infact on the same "side" as the gnome, he gets a surprise round. Now on the other hand, if two hostile parties meet and are parlaying, but are both equally aware that the other side could attack at a moment's notice, then I wouldn't allow for a surprise round.

The way I see it, it requires awareness of hostilities, not simply awareness of the person in general.

[Larrx]

I think the key part that would make me disagree with curmudgeon on this is that it says "When one side is aware of the other" Implying that there requires awareness of "sides" to begin with. Since the wizard is the only one who is aware that he is not infact on the same "side" as the gnome, he gets a surprise round. Now on the other hand, if two hostile parties meet and are parlaying, but are both equally aware that the other side could attack at a moment's notice, then I wouldn't allow for a surprise round.

The way I see it, it requires awareness of hostilities, not simply awareness of the person in general.

What does 'side' mean exactly? It says "When on side is aware of the other", but what if there are 3 sides? Or 4 or 12? When the barbarian, who has been my stalwart companion through many dangers, loosen the ties on his greatsword I don't know whose 'side' I'm on until he chooses a target. There are a lot of things that make this kind of assessment ambiguous.

I've always imagine it like this: there's a tonal shift in the conversation, or a sense of menace in the air, maybe muscles tense and balance shifts. Everyone has a chance to notice that something's about to go down. The initiative roll represents who notices first, and how fast they can react. Remember, initiative order is an abstraction to enable tactical play. In actuality everybody is reacting at once with split second differences in timing.

It doesn't require hostile parties, this can happen at a charity auction.

[Crake]

What does 'side' mean exactly? It says "When on side is aware of the other", but what if there are 3 sides? Or 4 or 12? When the barbarian, who has been my stalwart companion through many dangers, loosen the ties on his greatsword I don't know whose 'side' I'm on until he chooses a target. There are a lot of things that make this kind of assessment ambiguous.

I've always imagine it like this: there's a tonal shift in the conversation, or a sense of menace in the air, maybe muscles tense and balance shifts. Everyone has a chance to notice that something's about to go down. The initiative roll represents who notices first, and how fast they can react. Remember, initiative order is an abstraction to enable tactical play. In actuality everybody is reacting at once with split second differences in timing.

It doesn't require hostile parties, this can happen at a charity auction.

I get that, I'm more referring to expectations. If nobody's expecting the wizard to do that, I'd say he gets the surprise round. How well the others know him might determine if they'd notice this behaviour oncoming, but from the sounds of it, this was something he's never done before, so nobody could really expect it.

Think about it more this way, you have a friend, who's never attacked anyone in his life, but someone manages to push him over the edge. He'd still get the first punch in, because you wouldn't have expected it from it. You'd be able to stop him after the fact, before he throws any more, but that first punch, you never saw it coming, hence why I'd call it a surprise round.

To bring it back to your example, I would say that, if the barbarian suddenly turned on you, he would also get a surprise round, unless, say, he was dominated, and you passed your DC15 sense motive check to know that was the case.

[Larrx]

I get that, I'm more referring to expectations. If nobody's expecting the wizard to do that, I'd say he gets the surprise round. How well the others know him might determine if they'd notice this behaviour oncoming, but from the sounds of it, this was something he's never done before, so nobody could really expect it.

Think about it more this way, you have a friend, who's never attacked anyone in his life, but someone manages to push him over the edge. He'd still get the first punch in, because you wouldn't have expected it from it. You'd be able to stop him after the fact, before he throws any more, but that first punch, you never saw it coming, hence why I'd call it a surprise round.

To bring it back to your example, I would say that, if the barbarian suddenly turned on you, he would also get a surprise round, unless, say, he was dominated, and you passed your DC15 sense motive check to know that was the case.

I get what you're saying too, I just don't think that it merits the mechanic of surprise. Consider that fred, bob, jane, and sarah are sitting around a table discussing current events. Bob decides to punch Fred. Jane wants to interfere to prevent the punch in whatever way she can.

This can be handled in two ways.

A) Normal initiative is rolled. If Bob wins, the punch happens. If Jane wins she intercedes.

B) Bob gets a surprise round. He can make a partial charge, running 30 feet and punching Fred. Then we roll initiative. If Bob wins that roll, he makes a full attack against Fred. Best case scenario for Bob is one charge and a full attack. Worst case is that he attacks once and without contingencies nothing can stop him.

I think A is a more accurate portrayal of how conflict begins absent ambush from the ceiling. Fiction is rife with examples of characters attempting to murder the guy in front of them, and simply getting out-drawn. This is what I imagine 3.5 is trying to model.

Surprise rounds are for ambushes. Situation when you don't even know people/creatures are there at all. For everything else we have initiative.

Although maybe a circumstance bonus to the initiative roll would be appropriate.

[HighWater]

Although maybe a circumstance bonus to the initiative roll would be appropriate.

I think this is pretty good advice. It's so easy to forget about circumstance bonusses...

[Sliver]

Look at it this way:

Bob wants to cast scorching ray at the gnome, while Chris wants to stop him. You tell them to roll Initiative. Chris wins.

Did Bob start casting Scorching Ray? Not yet, it's not his turn.

Does Chris ready an action to interrupt Bob? Bob didn't start casting Scorching Ray yet, and you said there was no indication, so there's no reason to do it. Chris delays.

Bob starts casting Scorching Ray. Chris can't take his delayed action before Bob finishes. Without knowing, through Spellcraft, that Bob is casting an offensive spell, Chris has no reason to turn on Bob. At the point that the casting started, Chris and Bob had no issues with each other.


An enemy that takes certain actions while in a threatened square provokes an attack of opportunity from you.

That's how things probably should go at the point of the actual casting.

Now, most people do actually show some sign of hostility before raining down vengeful fire, so Sense Motive vs Bluff to decide whether or not the others are actually aware that Bob isn't as calm as he tries to appear. However, even if he looks angry, they might not suspect that he is going to use lethal means. How they react depends on what they think of Bob.

Chaotic doesn't mean murder everybody who doesn't like me, because that attitude will only cause that list to increase until you are dead due to being a menace. Heck, Evil doesn't mean that either. Restraint isn't really related to alignment...

How can such a person reach adulthood? Who in the right mind will train such an unstable individual in the art of reality manipulation?

[Suddo]

Someone else brought it up but with many actions a bluff v sense motive or stealth v perception would be an appropriate way to gain the jump on someone. This however would probably be extremely hard to manage for a spell caster.

[KillianHawkeye]

I'm going to quote the description of the situation because it really is quite telling.


a group of travellers encounter a gnome merchant on the road. This particular gnome happens to be rather mouthy and has a distaste for the wizard of the group, he is a harmless gnome but very obnoxious! The character the gnome winds up happens to be chaotic and eventually loses his temper and decides the gnome must pay the price! Much to the suprise of all, the wizard says nothing but casts scorching ray in an attempt to kill the gnome for his sins.

Okay, now note that what is being described here is some sort of social encounter involving a gnome crapping all over the wizard character's ego. Pay particular attention to the phrase "the character the gnome winds up." Clearly, the wizard is loosing his cool, and is not, in fact, stoically deciding to murder somebody like an emotionless psychopath. This winding up is something that the other characters in the scene will be aware of and, in the case where it eventually seems to get out of hand, react to. In this kind of disagreeable situation, everyone is aware of the tension, should be capable of reading the emotional state of the persons involved, and can totally notice what is about to happen.


Also, I agree with Deophaun. Deciding to melt the face off of somebody just because their attitude offends you is not Chaotic, it's Evil with a capital E!

[Stewbert]

Quite a few responses here so i'll expand a little more. The wizard is infact a sorcerer, a kobold sorcerer at that! In our campaign gnomes and kobolds do not get along, kobolds also have different mind sets to the rest of civilized folk! Thats not really the point though, evil or chaotic the chap played his character true enough, his actions were certainly evil and there are substantial consequences for him!

As for the build up and eventual action, which is what i'm more concerned about, yes there was steadily increasing atmosphere of agitation, which i suppose warrants initiative checks earlier to allow other characters to prepare to react etc. I left my initial post quite vauge though, as I wanted to explore the situation when it is a sudden unexpected act, not one with a build up.

In the actual session there was some vocal abuse exchanged making the kobold agitated, he then wanted to cast invisibility and I as DM allowed the cleric to roll initiative to counterspell the kobolds invisibility spell. The cleric did not anticipate the kobold casting invisibility ahead of time, it was unexpected, but upon a spellcraft check the cleric knew it would only lead to bad things having been around said kobold for 6 months. The cleric did win initiative and I allowed a reactive counterspell, later however I pondered whether it was a fair decision, after all to counterspell you need to ready an action, and in this instance the cleric was responding to an unexpected act, not pre-planning for it with a readied action.

So was that a fair counterspell or not? Going by some of the above posts, it could have been the cleric delaying, then taking his turn to ready a counterspell on the initiative before the kobold, but is that fair given the cleric does not know invisibility is going to be cast until it IS cast.

[Surpriser]

It is important to note that counterspell does not require you to know the spell in advance. So your cleric was completely justified in saying "I'm going to ready an action to counterspell anything stupid the sorcerer might do" - the Spellcraft check to identify the spell happens only after the sorcerer has started casting.

For the "unexpected attack" situation, I would handle it just like many others: Sense Motive vs Bluff (if the sorcerer tried to conceal his plans somehow) or even Sense Motive vs flat DC 15 (to get a "hunch" that the sorcerer is about to explode). If the Sense Motive succeeds, the character gets to roll initiative, otherwise the sorcerer gets a surprise round.

[Stewbert]

So your cleric was completely justified in saying "I'm going to ready an action to counterspell anything stupid the sorcerer might do" - the Spellcraft check to identify the spell happens only after the sorcerer has started casting.


That all makes sense and I agree, but the way it actually went down was like this; Sorcerer gets angry, tension is in the air. "Sorcerer: Im going to cast invis on myself." then the cleric responds "Cleric: I will counterspell that if possible as I know trouble will come from it" I then asked for initiative which the cleric won, he then readied a counterspell (and later won spellcraft). So the cleric wasn't readied initially, but instead readied once he knew the sorcerers intentions, as a reaction upon winning initiative, is that still acceptable, or is that abuse of metagaming knowledge?

[Verikus]

That last one seems like metagaming. Now the cleric could attempt to charge and grapple immediately after the sorcerer goes invisible (if they're within 10 feet of each other it's likely the sorcerer wasn't fast enough to move).
A big component is 'how' do your guys cast spells. I make my group explain how their characters initiate spells (vocal, hand gestures, etc), but never "my brain causes it it happen" because that's not (how I understand) magic works in 3.5.

So if your sorcerer starts saying a spell it will probably go off, but maybe your cleric starts carrying around a 'revealing' powder. My issue is that you can't have an action readied continuously, but your cleric won't just stand by and let stuff happen.

Let them conflict, but if a member of the group 'turns' evil just remember you reserve the right to NPC them into a 'bad guy'. Explain the difference between CN and CE.

My situation was this. Party needed to ferry across a river. Dwarf charged everyone 5 coppers, but charged the elf 2 silvers. He is CN, he thought that was stupid, so he casts 'sleep'. Notice how he didn't cast 'burning sphere', and try to kill the guy, just wanted to make a point. The good character (a knight) left a gold for the trouble and chastised the wizard.

IF the wizard had cast a harmful spell I would bring the law down hard. If you have a bounty you might not be able to buy/sell goods, may not even be allowed access to certain towns. You could always have the wizard 'jailed' and lose XP to make up for the infraction (which is what I would do, otherwise if he keeps killing he's clearly an evil character and hey, free NPC)