Actions before Initiative is rolled. [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

King of Nowhere

2023-08-02, 05:27 PM

they seem fairly easy to me. of course, they are fairly easy because i don't have adversarial players.

Basically, one of my players played a rogue in the last game, and declared that he was hiding the moment he woke up in the morning, and remaining hidden all day, and that means that he shouldn't have to waste a turn in combat hiding, he should always just open combat with an automatic surprise-round backstab.

"yes, you are always trying to hide, fair enough. on the other hand, your opponents are always watching, they don't keep their eyes closed until combat starts.
so, once combat starts you roll hide, and they roll perception, no actions required. if you win, you can get sneak attack bonuses [whatever they are called in your system].
by the way, you cannot hide in an empty featureless corridor, so let's apply this thing only when it would make sense that you could be hiden. also, if the party is ambushed while traveling you take a hefty penalty, unless you want to slow down the whole party as you try to crawl under the bushes instead of walking on the road"
it's what i ruled for the rogue in my game. it just seems sensible. before combat let him describe how he would approach it stealthily. if he makes sense, let him be hidden.

This weekend, it came to a head. Spells in my system have durations measured in encounters rather than real world units of time, and he wanted to cast a spell on the turn before the players kicked in the door and initiated combat. I told him that he would need to cast a spell with a 2 encounter duration as initiative hadn't yet been rolled when he cast it, and he cried foul.

that's a problem with measuring spells in encounters. from a realism perspective, it makes sense than an actual duration is in minutes or seconds, so prebuffing is totally a thing.
on the other hand, i can see that you are trying to avoid everyone coming prebuffed to combat. it makes thing more complicated. but in practice, buffing before the fight - if you have the advantage of surprise - should totally be a thing.
i mean, the warrior does not wait combat to start before wearing his armor. he does not open combat by drawing his sword. he starts combat with armor on and sword in hand. why would the same not go for the wizards?
so, from a realism perspective, it makes absolute sense that your players should be able to prebuff. and the opponents too, when appropriate.
when there are gamist reasons to do something irrealistic, my suggestion is to propose to the players to do the gamist thing by common consensus. So you can ask your players to choose: avoid prebuffing, for the sake of simplicity, and you will refrain from prebuffing opponents; or prebuff when possible, but being wary that opponents would also be able to do it. accept their choice.
as an additional suggestion, I haven't seen you post drama stories in a while, but it's still one of your groups. So, whatever they choose, write it down. possibly open a google drive archive where you can put up some record of all such decisions, for reference.

When my group was less experienced, I proposed the party - in a fight between high level adventurers, where both sides would be prepared - that everyone would avoid buffing. From a story perspective, we would pretend that everyone did buff, and the net effect was mostly canceled both ways. this way it would not break the story, but it would simplify tracking stuff. they accepted. I made the same proposal years later, in a similar situation, and the party - now much more experienced - declined. I started tracking buffs for npcs. I discovered that simply writing them in a text file (npc name, followed by a list of buff) works wonderfully. in particular, when hit by a dispel roll the dispels in the order the buffs are written; delete those that get dispelled. move on. doesn't take much time once one is practiced.

I remember in 3.5 D&D readied actions ignored the normal initiative rules,

they don't. you need to have your turn, then you prepare an action, and you do not act right there. you act later. in fact, prepared actions are seldom used because they delay your action. it's generally better to hit the squishiest enemy with your stronger move

and we had players who would declare readied actions 24/7 to always "win initiative". Then the NPCs started doing the same, and rather than rolling initiative every combat just started out as a chain of readied actions that was a mess to resolve.

"yes, you have a readied action to attack the opponent once moving past the door. the opponent also has a readied action to attack whoever crosses the door. that's why we roll initiative, to see which of you gets to use his readied action first.
yes, you surprised your opponent and you have a readied action to attack them, and they don't. it's called a surprise round"
readied actions have a purpose in combat. outside of combat, they make no sense. initiative is what we call the way to see who gets to use an action first.
I could accept some corner case, like a sentry watching a door keeping a prepared action outside of combat, because it's an extremely focused action. but only for a few minutes, before concentration lapses.

Likewise, I have heard stories about 5E wizards casting cantrips or signature spells every round of their waking lives and the headaches that involved.

that can be great characterization. have a wizard use mages hand to pick up a pen and write instead of writing wiith his own hand to show his extreme reliance on the arcane means. have one cast the ice cantrip on a wall during summer to cool the house.

The big problem with these sort of things is that they should work both ways, and I have to keep track of it. I don't want to worry about monsters, or god forbid townsfolk, being "always stealthed" and the headaches the involves. Likewise, wouldn't NPCs take the "full defense" action every turn, thus rendering them LESS susceptible to sneak attacks from the "always stealthed" rogues?

And if the PCs are allowed to cast spells and ready actions before kicking in the door, logically wouldn't the monsters (potentially) hear them coming, and then all ready actions to watch the door and beat the crap out of the first person who stepped through?

apply common sense.
people are not always stealthed while walking a road, living their normal life. However, a party that wants to travel avoiding attention, leaving the road to pass through the undergrowth, can be always stealthed. with a reasonable penalty both to stealth and to movement speed.
people can't reasonably stay focused in full defence all day, that requires concentration. However, if there is a tense parlay with both sides having weapons drawn, then I can totally envision everyone there being in total defence, ready to try a dodge against someone breaking the truce.
it makes sense for the party to prepare as best as they can if they know there are monsters after the door. it makes sense for the monsters to prepare as best as they can if they realize there is some hostile about to break open the door.

really, my impression is that your problems here are because you want to have exact rules for everything instead of relying on common sense and trying to make some specific rulings based on specific circumstances of that encounter. I try to apply common sense. Actually, if there is some argument on such issues, I am more likely to discuss what would be a realistic outcome of the situation, and then trying to find the rules that better model it, rather than treating it all as an abstract game of chess (doesn't matter that a pawn is supposed to represent a squad of infantry and infantry can walk backwards. the pawn can't move backwards because the rules say so)

Furthermore, my impression is that you tried to have exact rules because you so often had exploitative players trying to come up with ridiculous interpretation of the rules just for their advantage. well, you can't have rules that describe perfectly an adventuring party. you can have a world of perfect rules, but then they'd be abstract and all the fluff and description would become pointless - as would the pretence that those rules are describing actual combat. or you can have a world based on interpretation, where you describe the action and try for the rules that seem to best describe it on a case by case basis. generally it's something in between.
given that the latest arguments seem to be attempts to exploit exact rules, and your latest group seems to have low toxicity, you could try to move more on the "common sense and interpretation" side.

Talakeal

2023-08-02, 05:29 PM

Frankly, it sounds like you've just found a flaw in using encounters as a duration. This doesn't seem like a particular edge case to me either, because pre-buffing for a fight is a genuine and completely normal tactic. I don't think youre an adversarial DM for not wanting it to work like that, but I do think its a bug in the system you need to get resolved soonest to be fair to the players. They deserve a specific understanding of how things work specifically so they can make plans around it.

The way my system works is that the difficulty to cast a spell is dependent upon its variables, one of which is duration. Pre-buffing is explicitly called out as being a +1 duration, while spells cast during the encounter are explicitly called out as being cast during the encounter.

By RAW its, imo, black and white, but conceptually kind of silly. The problem is we get into the gray area which comes from lack of precise units of time. If one round is ok, how about two? Three? Four? Ten? A hundred? Where do you draw the line? Likewise, just how many spells should you be able to cast in the "pre-buff" phase?

I'd rule against "constantly hiding during the day" in the first place. If they have time to prepare for an encounter, they can hide. Otherwise, no dice.

Similarly, if they can prebuff directly prior to an encounter (e.g. because the enemies don't see/hear them), I'd allow it. Otherwise, no.

Yeah. I have no problem with allowing pre-buffing before an ambush. The problem is that to count as an ambush, I would need to roll perception tests for the enemies, and if the enemies succeeded, they are going to take preparations of their own to counter the PCs.

In the one specific case of 'I want to do this thing right before we begin this encounter', I would rule that is -already in the encounter- and the other side just doesn't know they're in one yet, necessarily - the party is effectively making use of something similar to a surprise round or initiating an ambush (and presumably if you were going to have somebody ambush the party, you'd see no issue with having them prebuff, apply enhancement oils to their weapons, etc before launching the first arrow?) And yes, that would mean whatever is on the other side of the door would have a chance to hear the party casting, tossing their bags/backpacks to the ground with loud thumps so they're not encumbered during combat, loudly arguing with each over other whether or not it's worth spending extra spells to buff somebody, etc and prepare or react accordingly. Same as your players would reasonably expect to get to test their perception skills to have a chance to detect attackers before they begin combat.

If the enemy is pre-buffing, I would absolutely require them to use medium duration spells, as that is RAW. Likewise, I would not allow them to declare 1 round actions like inspire, defend, or hide unless they had specific targets to use them against.

In the more general case about taking combat-relevant actions outside of combat as a long term thing I'm inclined to say no, you cannot/should not do that. One case is, I suppose, an appeal to reality, in that doing that would be mentally and physically exhausting. Even if the game rules permit it people cannot actually spend every moment of their waking life being 100% alert for attacks, trying to defend against things that don't exist, ensuring they are making no sound or trying to always be standing in a shadow, or spend 2-3 seconds out of every 6 doing a small ritual action that requires their full attention and doesn't let them do anything else while performing it (people who try to do this are considered mentally ill and encouraged to get treatment for it because you can't have a normal life while doing this.) In much the same way you should not let people get away with 'but the rules don't actually say I ever have to sleep or eat' or 'there's no rules about excreting biological waste, so my character just never has to find a bathroom.'

I personally don't like the binary of games like D&D where conditions like total cover or invisibility make stealth automatic. It's not much fun for gameplay to have one side unopposed, nor is it realistic; there are plenty of times I hear someone moving about in another room without seeing them, and plenty of times someone walks right up to me while I was distracted and startles the heck out of me.

So, in my system, cover, concealment, etc. all give you bonuses to your stealth roll, and if you succeed by 20 or more, you can hide as a quick (free) action.

A properly built stealth character who takes care can reliably succeed by 20 or more; but that isn't good enough for Bob because the chance of him botching the roll and missing out on a turn of combat just isn't good enough.

If the pcs are set to open a door and pull off a set of actions, like a SWAT team entry, then if they would get a surprise round... well, it all works in the order they want. You know, teamwork and planning and stuff. Regular "initative" (in rolled & i-go-u-go games) takes place after that, I don't worry about rules absolutisim.

Your instance described... if they were set and preparing to start a fight on their own timing, where they control when it starts, then I'd allow the sort of "cast/hide right before initative" stuff. If its not somewhere they control when the fight starts then no. I just realized, a sort of boxing match style thing where everyone is ready and just waiting for a trigger you know is coming in the next 30 sec to a minute then I'd also allow a pre-buff.

The SWAT team example was brought up at my table, the thing is it assumes perfect and asymmetrical knowledge.

I talked to my co-worker (a Navy veteran) about this, and he said that the thing is, if there are armed targets in the building and waiting for you, they have a tremendous advantage because they can be hiding all over the house, but can hear you coming in the door, thus they have a much easier time knowing where to shoot, to the point where the Navies standard assumption is that the first person into a room will get shot while his squad-mates are trying to pick out targets, and after that it all comes down to chance.

My system tries to model this already by having initiative rolled the moment the door is opened, but with all sorts of modifiers for awareness and readied actions, but again it seems like my players don't want to risk failure.

snip.

I don't really care about placing blame, I want to find a solution to the problem.

This has happened to me with multiple systems, at multiple tables, with multiple players, and multiple game masters. And I have read stories about it on the forums without being personally involved at all. To me that indicates its a conceptual problem with turn-based initiative systems rather than the fault of any one person or rule.

You actually can't ready actions outside of combat. Ready and Delay are Special Initiative Actions. If there is no initiative order there there is nothing these actions could modify.

While AFAICT it doesn't explicitly say that, I agree that is a good common sense ruling.

Of course, people still don't accept it, because it isn't "realistic" or fair, or they will do what my players tried to do last night and claimed that they rolled initiative before the fight even started while they were out in the hallway.

Heck, I remember one time when I was on the opposite side of the argument, when the villain was giving a monologue and I reacted by pulling out my bow and shooting him mid-speech Harrison Ford style, and the GM ruled that I couldn't do so because initiative hadn't been rolled yet, and when initiative would be rolled I would receive no advantage for doing so.

For the pre-buffing, I'm waffling a bit on this but landing on the player's side if it's just one spell. This is why the various World of Darkness games mention that a 'scene' should be roughly a quarter of an hour of in-world time, and essentially has GMs ask 'does the next scene start a substantial amount of time after the last one did'.

I am also waffling. By RAW is clear, but conceptually I think I should make an exception. But then, it seems like a slippery slope to being nickel and dimed into all the prep-time in the world.

Assuming the party doesn't get ambushed I would probably rule on the rogue being allowed to attempt to hide before initiative is rolled. It's reasonable they might be used to positioning themselves in order to use the first few moments of combat to slip out of sight and be under the enemy's radar. In a point buy system that might be worth charging for, in D&D I believe it's expected of non-flanking rogues in order to get their SA at least once a combat.

Yeah, but again he doesn't want to wait or position himself, I would be fine with that. He wants to charge in with the group and start in the thick of combat undetected and able to start the fight with a backstab.

Does your game have a "passive hiding" or "passive stealth" score? If yes, then your player is at least partially correct.
If not then the player is not.

Not really no, although I can give the D&D rules a re-read for inspiration.

But if you achieve a +20 on your stealth test (which is fairly easy to do if you make sure to place yourself outside of direct line of sight) you can hide as a free action, which is more or less the same thing. But, again, the player doesn't want to risk failing the roll (man, I am starting to sound like a broken record).

On a more general level, what's the system purpose of not allowing buff actions when one side has an ambush situation? Because I could see wanting to de-emphasize ambushes in a system that was more narrative / heroic - "There should be no disadvantage to kicking in the door, announcing your name, and formally challenging the enemies to a fight" as a design principle. But from what you've said previously, HoD seems very tactical, very "manage your resources carefully and fight as smart as possible" - and to me that strongly implies "ambushes are good and you should try to be the one doing the ambushing".

Ambuses are absolutely fine and do work like that.

This isn't an ambush, they aren't sneaking, and the monsters aren't rolling to detect them. This is kick in the door combat as sport.

I told the players that we can switch to the other way if they like, but I am going to rule it both ways, to which they responded with some (IMO highly hypocritical) rhetoric about how both sides using the same rules is unfair to the players.

This is why I'm not a fan of things explicitly being based on encounters, as opposed to time-spans generally equivalent to an encounter (two minutes, say) - it creates weirdness around "exactly when does a battle start" that wouldn't otherwise matter.

Gray areas about where one encounter begins and the other begins are definitely the downside of doing things this way, but I much prefer it to having to keep track of more concrete time measurements.

Besides, it's not like real units of time don't also cause weird arguments about realism and fairness, heck how many times have you seen someone argue about how unrealistic it is that someone gets X attacks in Y seconds or that movement speed and weapon ranges don't line up to real life, or that people can sprint at full speed without worrying about exhaustion or acceleration, or (for us AD&D fans) that everyone sat around for an entire minute after attacking waiting for the wizard's to finish casting their spells!

He's casting a spell in direct preparation for that encounter he knows will happen because the party is initiating it. It's for that encounter. Its fine.

Yeah. I think I agree.

It's the follow-up assertion that this means he automatically wins initiative that I am taking exception to.

I think the main solution to your problem is "just because it's technically free doesn't mean it's actually free"

Swinging your sword and turning around doesn't cost you anything. But that doesn't mean a player can say "well, my character is constantly turning around and swinging its sword to fend off potential invisible assassins" without getting some exhaustion level or something similar.

Similarly, while "hiding" and "readying an action" are free, that doesn't mean the GM shouldn't add a cost to them when done for prolonged period of times.

As a rule of thumb, our table applies "every game feature that is intended to be used mostly within combat encounters cannot be maintained for more than 5 minutes without the character being exhausted". EDIT: hiding is kind of in a grey area so it's usually allowed for more than 5 minutes, but "hiding all day" would still be too much.

(And we don't always rely on the exhaustion methods included in the rules. It's often a "you cannot do that unless you really want to" with some improvised consequences if you do. A constitution skill check might help.)

Yeah. But honestly, the type of player who is going to do that in the first place isn't going to be too receptive to the GM coming up with seemingly arbitrary penalties.

Heck, my group thought it was unfair when I responded by telling the rogue if he was hiding 24/7 the guards were going full defensive 24/7.

IMO the bigger issue is not being aware of your opponent's and wanting to do these actions without a "target". Its less "You'er exhausted from hiding / defending" and more "You're hiding / defending from what?"

Yeah. Trying to do something like "hide" all day, constantly, is absurd. So no, you can't do that.

However, I'm going to second the idea that this could be the rogue player being frustrated by some combination of rules/rulings that effectively nullify some of his abilities. If the rogue is never able to backstab (or whatever) because he has to be hidden from the target to do so, and is never allowed to hide prior to an encounter, and can't hide once an encounter begins in most cases (enemies are alert and aware of him and we're in combat now), then that's going to be pretty frustrating to the player.

I don't think it's that. My system is pretty liberal about such things, and his build was good enough that he can *usually* hide while being observed as a free action.

The rogue was, imo, absolutely the MVP of the campaign, and I think most of the other players would agree.

But, Bob was unhappy unless he was A: un-targetable, B: getting a sneak attack, and C: going first every single round.

And this is the meat of the issue (and could resolve the issue above as well). IMO, an "encounter" starts for one "side" the moment that they become aware of an enemy and make the decision to encounter/engage them. Period. This absolutely means that for the side that detected the other first and decides to attack, their "encounter" may start many rounds earlier than the encounter does for the other side. The other side's encounter only starts once they are attacked and decide to attack back (which, usually will be pretty much simultaneous). It seems like you are trying to rule that the encounter only starts once an offesive action is taken such that both sides are now aware of and engaged in the conflict, and that said encounter starts at the exact same time for both "sides".

That's a poor methodology IMO, especially if your game system has abilities that may only be used in encounters, and with durations defined by encounters. It also has the horrible side effect of making many abilities that may be most useful when used ahead of time (ie: outside of combat), now somewhat less useless (especially in combat). If you simply drop the assumption that "an encounter" requires activity by two or more sides at all times, then you can allow for any ability use much more freely. My encounter as a rogue may be the entire time I'm sneaking past a series of guards to get inside their fort and steal their goodies. The other "side" may actually never even become aware that I'm there in the first place (kinda the objective for a rogue, right?). But they can get perception rolls to possibly detect me, which could change things. This can allow you to make all abilities "encounter based", even for things that aren't specifically "in combat" abilities. And has the bonus that some abilities that may be useful both in and outside of combat, now use the same consistent rules system for both.

I also tend to use the term "scene" when refering to ability use like that anyway. Takes things away from the assumption trap you may have fallen into. A Scene may be a combat. It could also be a conversation or interaction with NPCs. It could be just a series of related actions taken by one or more PCs to achieve a single (relatively immediate and right in front of them) objective. There's no requirement that anyone else be there at all in fact. I'm using my tracking skill, the "scene" is me tracking the enemy folks into the mountains. That scene could last all day long. I'm trying to get my party through a sealed entrace to some under ground complex/dungeon. The "scene" is all the stuff/skills I may use to detect and bypass traps on the entrance, pick the locks, figure out the code, whatever. Once we're inside and have passed this, the scene ends.

Lots of ways of managing this sort of skill/ability/spell use by using more subjective time frames rather than objective measurementts of time. And I actually tend to like them (they're flexible across a range of different types of abilities). But the GM has to keep balance and gameplay and "fun" in mind when deciding where one time period ends and another begins. And yeah, in my scene system, "walking around all day doing other things" is not a scene. Once you enter the dark forest and the rogue decides to "scout ahead and see what's there", that now becomes a scene for the rogue character. But you have to allow them to do proactive stuff like this, or the system doesn't work. If you're constantly ruliing that the rogue can't be hidden because he had no reason to think he needed to hide this moment more than any other, but you are also not providing clues or perception rolls to act as "hooks" to a "new potential scene", then the rogue is going to be frustrated.

Sure. You can't allow the rogue to be hidden all day long. But you do also have to allow the rogue character to occasionally realize that "something is up/it's too quiet/this would be a great spot for someone to ambush us", and slip into the undebrush/side passage/whatever (with some rolls needed) just before "something happens". It should not be every single time, but if this never happens at all, the rogue is going to feel like he's not playing the character he envisoned (well, unless he like dumped his perception skills, in which case it's perfectly reasonable).

This is all very reasonable, and I think I agree with everything you are saying.

There are a few specifics I would like to pick at, but this post is going on long enough, so perhaps I will get back to you later.

Kish

2023-08-02, 05:29 PM

Frankly, it sounds like you've just found a flaw in using encounters as a duration. This doesn't seem like a particular edge case to me either, because pre-buffing for a fight is a genuine and completely normal tactic.

As far as having a duration measured in encounters (really strong with the Gamist side of the Force there), why wouldn't pre-buffs count as part of that encounter? I mean, sure, you could go extreme Gamist, and have the monsters on the other side of the door notice that their actions suddenly shift to combat action logic, and hear the combat music playing in the background as the party casts their buffs... but short of the physics of the universe literally working on such logic, I don't see any reason why "I'm an assassin, I've snuck into your stronghold, I've snuck into your room, I'm prepared to stab you, but I'm silently praying to my deity of choice, but Flying Spaghetti Monster says 'sorry, the encounter hasn't started yet, you can't pray for Noodle Arms of Death and expect it to last the 3 seconds until you stab', so I have to stab you before I pray for noodle arms" would ever be a thing.

Yes, this. What's the in-world explanation for spells having "encounters" as a duration? How does "this spell doubles your speed for a variable length of time which will always be exactly long enough to finish the fight you're in, and if you cast it when you're not actually in combat it'll last a fraction of a second" make sense to anyone in that world?

tyckspoon

2023-08-02, 05:39 PM

Vahnavoi

2023-08-02, 05:44 PM

@Talakeal: One of your premises is fundamentally flawed: this is NOT system agnostic question in the slightest. Different systems have different methods of declaring and processing long-term actions, sometimes different methods of declaring and processing different types of actions within a system.

Just for one example: last stealth game I designed had automatic expiration for hiding by location and automatic expiration for perception by time. In practice: all attempts at hiding have to be redeclared after moving across an area where hiding is impossible and all attempts at spotting hidden things have to be redeclared every N minutes.

A lot of this depends on operative units of time: that is, what amount of in-game time is covered by one player decision, AKA turn. For example, when the operative unit of time is a day, player declaring "I spend the whole day hiding" is perfectly acceptable, the game master then checks if anyone spots them during that day and returns the result. In a game where the operative unit of time is 10 minutes (such as classic D&D turn), "I spend the whole day hiding" is unacceptable because it is equivalent to asking the game master to play the entire game session for the player.

Your specific issues with your own game system are a result of abstracting operative unit of time to things like "encounters", making it subjective when one period ends and another begins; this in itself wouldn't be much a problem, if your players could accept that such subjective matters are settled by referee's (=game master's) decision and cannot be contested. Your players, however, famously have issues with complaining about the referee because they (justly or unjustly) think you're biased, and you don't help things by letting them argue over it beyond all reason.

Thrudd

2023-08-02, 05:55 PM

So how does this whole process dungeon crawling and door kicking work in this game? Are you playing by the standard rules of your system, or is this a modified system for the dungeon crawl? How do they know when there's a fight behind a door to prepare for? If the players get to roll something to detect noises behind the door, then the monsters should, too, that's obvious. Why would the players challenge this?

I think it makes sense to be able to cast a buff spell seconds before entering a room and have that spell work for the encounter. However, if casting spells requires speaking out loud, then surely the occupants of the room will get a check to hear that and potentially get prepared with some sort of ambush or at least favorable positions.

Stealth all day guy makes no sense, unless it is magic ninja invisibility style stealth. I presume this is what it is, since you can't possibly have things to hide behind literally every step of the way, especially not while traveling with a party. So he's ninja invisible'd, and needs to walk through a doorway into a room with occupants aware of the party entering, that at least should warrant a new stealth roll.

Lastly, you could just let them have their way. All of them. Stealth at the start of every combat guy, buff before every fight, etc. Just beef up your enemies to make up for the advantages you're giving the players. So they come in buffed, and one guy gets a big sneak attack hit. Your enemies are tough enough to still put up an exciting fight. That's what's important in Combat as Sport, right? An exciting, close fight. Sports are boring when one side is just stomping the other.

D&D up through AD&D used a surprise roll for each party before initiative to determine if one side, the other, or neither, gets a free round of actions before combat begins. Of course, in old D&D, spells also often had longer durations in precise units of time, so there's no conflict casting before testing a door.

Here's another way you could do it. If they mull around outside a door casting spells, then the occupants get a listen check. If they kick the door down right away, they get a party surprise roll, with a chance to get a free round and the chance to get surprised themselves.

Talakeal

2023-08-02, 06:19 PM

.. should probably try harder to separate "how do you handle the shading in between combat and non-combat timing actions" from "but if I do this completely sensible thing Bob will complain at me, and I don't have the energy to deal with him whining at me any more." They're not the same problem and you appear to be conflating them. You're not gonna make Bob happy until you manage to give him the precise power fantasy he wants in exactly the right way, and you don't appear to have any real interest in running that game (and, I suspect, some significant fraction of your -other- players aren't interested in playing it.) So.. personal opinion? Stop trying. Just.. stop freaking appeasing Bob.

Yeah. Honestly, it's getting really frustrating.

I was considering starting a thread in the friendly banter section about how to deal with him.

He does this thing where he brings up an old, sometimes years or even decades old, argument in public in a really nasty and embarrassing way and hurts my feelings (like in this specific instance, he told me that my initiative rules were the "Stupidest rules in the world, and literally everyone thinks so."

And then if I want to discuss it, he gets really defensive and acts like I am stubbornly persecuting him and tells me he "is tired of fighting" or "doesn't want to rehash on old argument," and refuses to discuss it anymore, He will then pout / give me the silent treatment until I drop it, but that doesn't mean he has forgotten / forgiven, and will happily bring it up again in the coming months / years, repeating the cycle ad infimum.

(As a tangent; he also keeps refuting my arguments by saying that things are only fair / logical / realistic to me, and that makes me arrogant / unreasonable. Any idea how one is supposed to argue against that? It's like, "of course I am working on my own beliefs, if you think they are wrong, please present evidence to try and change my beliefs. Are you just unable to argue against my points and want me to do it for you?")

BUT....

That doesn't mean that there aren't foundational issues with initiative systems. I have had very similar arguments when Bob was not at the table.

Your specific issues with your own game system are a result of abstracting operative unit of time to things like "encounters", making it subjective when one period ends and another begins; this in itself wouldn't be much a problem, if your players could accept that such subjective matters are settled by referee's (=game master's) decision and cannot be contested. Your players, however, famously have issues with complaining about the referee because they (justly or unjustly) think you're biased, and you don't help things by letting them argue over it beyond all reason.

Point.

I suppose my only read options at this point are growing a thicker skin or kicking him out.

@Talakeal: One of your premises is fundamentally flawed: this is NOT system agnostic question in the slightest. Different systems have different methods of declaring and processing long-term actions, sometimes different methods of declaring and processing different types of actions within a system.

Just for one example: last stealth game I designed had automatic expiration for hiding by location and automatic expiration for perception by time. In practice: all attempts at hiding have to be redeclared after moving across an area where hiding is impossible and all attempts at spotting hidden things have to be redeclared every N minutes.

A lot of this depends on operative units of time: that is, what amount of in-game time is covered by one player decision, AKA turn. For example, when the operative unit of time is a day, player declaring "I spend the whole day hiding" is perfectly acceptable, the game master then checks if anyone spots them during that day and returns the result. In a game where the operative unit of time is 10 minutes (such as classic D&D turn), "I spend the whole day hiding" is unacceptable because it is equivalent to asking the game master to play the entire game session for the player.

Your specific issues with your own game system are a result of abstracting operative unit of time to things like "encounters", making it subjective when one period ends and another begins; this in itself wouldn't be much a problem, if your players could accept that such subjective matters are settled by referee's (=game master's) decision and cannot be contested.

I suppose I could say "mostly system agnostic" then?

I have played several editions of D&D and several White Wolf games extensively, and all of them have initiative rules, as well as time units that are listed as per scene / encounter, and in all of them I have encountered fuzzy gray areas like the above.

Yes, this. What's the in-world explanation for spells having "encounters" as a duration? How does "this spell doubles your speed for a variable length of time which will always be exactly long enough to finish the fight you're in, and if you cast it when you're not actually in combat it'll last a fraction of a second" make sense to anyone in that world?

Like most things in the game, it's an abstraction. In the fiction, spells do not last "exactly long enough to finish the fight" they last "a few minutes". One might as well ask why in Toril every suit of chainmail costs exactly 50 gold and weighs exactly 40 pounds, or why there is nobody in the world's maximum carrying capacity is divisible by 15 pounds.

In the fiction, it's no different than if it had a randomly rolled duration. As for why, who knows? Its magic. You might as well ask a medieval philosopher how long a storm will last, or a fire will burn, or milk will stay fresh; you can make predictions and approximations, but nobody has the knowledge or equipment to tell for sure.

Sigh.

So I've, IRL, been "in hide mode" "all day" before. It's not hard. And I'm not even "guy at the gym", I'm bloody1 Viking at a computer2. How lame are PCs in some games that the stealth experts are worse than me? :smallconfused:

As far as buffing right before a fight... um, it's kinda a genre trope (?), which means it's hard to be unbiased, but... why wouldn't preparing for a fight be an optimal solution? Really, which sounds more like a group of winners: combat masters who go in prepared, or idiots who blunder into the room unprepared?

As far as having a duration measured in encounters (really strong with the Gamist side of the Force there), why wouldn't pre-buffs count as part of that encounter? I mean, sure, you could go extreme Gamist, and have the monsters on the other side of the door notice that their actions suddenly shift to combat action logic, and hear the combat music playing in the background as the party casts their buffs... but short of the physics of the universe literally working on such logic, I don't see any reason why "I'm an assassin, I've snuck into your stronghold, I've snuck into your room, I'm prepared to stab you, but I'm silently praying to my deity of choice, but Flying Spaghetti Monster says 'sorry, the encounter hasn't started yet, you can't pray for Noodle Arms of Death and expect it to last the 3 seconds until you stab', so I have to stab you before I pray for noodle arms" would ever be a thing.

I can absolutely see "monsters notice the loud sound of the buff being cast" - but then, I can also see "monsters notice the loud sound of Knock being cast", or the loud sound of "guy in plate mail walking" or the loud sound of "guy who tanked Con breathing" (more gasping for breath, really). The party casting a buff is potentially noticeable, sure... but this should fall under general "monsters noticing the party" rules, not some special case just because it's a pre-combat buff. In other words, the psion concentrating, the silent prayers to Flying Spaghetti Monster, and the Rune Mage directing mana into her Runes do exactly nothing to attract (auditory) attention; Quertus (my signature academia mage for whom this account is named) digging through pouches for components, waving his arms around and making his robes rustle, and speaking in a strong voice, OTOH, might attract some attention from the other side of that door some of the time (although, obviously, everything except the verbal components is approximately the same "Listen DC" as the party walking up to the door / just standing there breathing / existing in the first place).

In short, there's no way I wouldn't have given both to the players...

... with minor caveats. Like how loud/noticeable their version of buffs is mattering (just like how loud they are mattering in general, obviously). And the associated costs of being in stealth mode (speed, stamina, ability to perform tasks, etc).

As for concerns about the rest of the world doing the same... um 1) the guards "watching a spot" are already doing the same - you're making the PCs lame and worse than the rest of the world if they can't play with the same toys some pathetic guards are using; 2) not everybody wants ta walk around being slow and taking penalties to all the rest of their rolls by focusing on Perception (yes, Perception - Perception is a key component of being in Stealth Mode) and Stealth. So... realistically, the town will just choose not to do that, problem solved?

1 Literally, atm (darn water parks being slippery).
2 And, no, it didn't look like Drax from GotG... although, for the record, at times, "just standing there, eating" can be a great form of stealth to let you fade into the background - just not the way Drax did it.

As for spell durations, short duration spells last a few minutes, and medium duration spells last a few hours.

In universe, casting a short duration spell and then immediately charging into battle means you risk your spell fading on you mid-fight (or, if something delays you, being wasted entirely).

Rules wise, this is handled by saying that a pre-buff spell should have a medium duration.

Honestly, I suppose in the fiction one could cast a short duration buff and then hope it lasts, and model it mechanically by randomly rolling to see if it fades in any given round. This might actually be a fun and dynamic rule, but probably would not actually make my players feel any happier or make my rulings feel less wicked and capricious.

But no, the length of an encounter has very little to do with awareness.

That's actually one of the big arguing points that I wasn't able to convey to Bob; it's not that doing "combat actions" makes the enemies aware of you. It's that:

A: If the monsters are aware of you, they will also be doing "combat actions" to prep and
B: A lot of combat actions need a target. You don't "hide" you hide "from something". You don't "defend" you defend against something. You don't "instruct", you instruct people to do something. Etc.

that can be great characterization. have a wizard use mages hand to pick up a pen and write instead of writing wiith his own hand to show his extreme reliance on the arcane means. have one cast the ice cantrip on a wall during summer to cool the house.

Oh sure, that's fine.

This wasn't that though.

This was a guy casting a defensive buff with a duration of 1 round over and over and over again all day every day to avoid being ambushed.

I have also seen people try create oceans by casting create water for weeks on end or clean a polluted lake by casting purify water millions of times in a row, but that's a bit different.

"yes, you have a readied action to attack the opponent once moving past the door. the opponent also has a readied action to attack whoever crosses the door. that's why we roll initiative, to see which of you gets to use his readied action first.
yes, you surprised your opponent and you have a readied action to attack them, and they don't. it's called a surprise round"
readied actions have a purpose in combat. outside of combat, they make no sense. initiative is what we call the way to see who gets to use an action first.
I could accept some corner case, like a sentry watching a door keeping a prepared action outside of combat, because it's an extremely focused action. but only for a few minutes, before concentration lapses.

Yep. That's pretty much how I see it.

But the players, mostly Bob, just don't want to leave initiative up to the dice, and any system we play they try and game to bypass initiative and automatically get the first turn (or turns).

apply common sense.
people are not always stealthed while walking a road, living their normal life. However, a party that wants to travel avoiding attention, leaving the road to pass through the undergrowth, can be always stealthed. with a reasonable penalty both to stealth and to movement speed.

That's more or less how my system works as is.

Of course... then I am told that the penalties are both unrealistic and unfair, and just proof that I am a killer GM who hates rogues.

Are you playing by the standard rules of your system, or is this a modified system for the dungeon crawl? How do they know when there's a fight behind a door to prepare for? If the players get to roll something to detect noises behind the door, then the monsters should, too, that's obvious. Why would the players challenge this?

Standard rules. Although I have mostly been hand-waiving away alertness tests on the part of the monsters for the most part and just assuming that the sides become aware of one another when the door is opened.

How do they know when there's a fight behind a door to prepare for? If the players get to roll something to detect noises behind the door, then the monsters should, too, that's obvious. Why would the players challenge this?

D&D up through AD&D used a surprise roll for each party before initiative to determine if one side, the other, or neither, gets a free round of actions before combat begins.

Here's another way you could do it. If they mull around outside a door casting spells, then the occupants get a listen check. If they kick the door down right away, they get a party surprise roll, with a chance to get a free round and the chance to get surprised themselves.

This is more or less how I see it / presented it to my players.

Bob's exact response was "No no, i think i finally understand. you want realism and fairness. realism as you see it and fairness for your monsters" and then giving me the silent treatment.

Jay R

2023-08-02, 06:29 PM

Here is how I would handle it. Since in one case I would rule against you, applying these rulings would make you look less adversarial, which will make the other rulings more acceptable.

1. A spell that lasts for one encounter shouldn’t end until it has gone through one encounter. You will never convince the player that you didn’t turn it into a zero-encounter spell unless it lasts through one encounter. He cast it specifically for the encounter of kicking open the door and dealing with what’s behind it. Until they kick open the door and deal with what’s behind it, it hasn’t gone through an encounter.

“Our enemies are behind that door. We’re going to cast a spell, kick down the door, and fight them.” In any common-sense interpretation, that is a single encounter.

Besides, even though you said it isn’t measured in real-world units of time, making a spell that is supposed to last for an entire encounter last only one action round is not logically justifiable.

2. A rogue who is hidden is not packing up his gear in front of other PCs. He isn’t talking to the party. He isn’t walking on the trail; he’s hiding in the bushes. He isn’t eating, buying items, or any other standard action. And he needs bushes or other cover to do it. So he usually can’t maintain it all day. Every time they cross a flat bridge, or go through a meadow, or go anywhere else with no cover, he can’t do it. And whenever he’s doing it, he should not take part in party discussions.

And he has to make Hide checks and Move Silently checks every round. If he’s moving at more than half speed, then each check is at -5.

I spent two summers as a Philmont Ranger, guiding people through the wilderness. I’m pretty sure I couldn’t hide all day without a break, while keeping up with a party. Obviously, I could stay hidden all day, but hiding and moving silently while maintaining a standard walking pace? No chance.

Finally, if he is successfully hidden, then the party cannot see or hear him. If something successfully sees and attacks him, and he can’t call out, they may never notice, and just keep going.

3. First, let’s deal with the misunderstanding of terminology. You can’t keep a readied action up all day; a readied action only lasts until her next round. And in 3.5e, it doesn’t ignore initiative.

You can ready a standard action, a move action, or a free action. To do so, specify the action you will take and the conditions under which you will take it. Then, any time before your next action, you may take the readied action in response to that condition. The action occurs just before the action that triggers it. If the triggered action is part of another character’s activities, you interrupt the other character. Assuming he is still capable of doing so, he continues his actions once you complete your readied action. Your initiative result changes. For the rest of the encounter, your initiative result is the count on which you took the readied action, and you act immediately ahead of the character whose action triggered your readied action. [Emphasis added]

So it starts on your action, and continues until your next action. If triggered, it changes your initiative for the rest of the encounter.

A readied action isn’t an extra, bonus action. It replaces any other action that round. So a character with a readied action is doing nothing else. He is just waiting for the trigger. If it’s a standard action, he can move, but nothing else. He isn’t active in tracking, or Hiding or Moving Silently. [If you are just focused on seeing goblins, you aren’t busy finding cover.]

Yes, he can make move actions and ready a standard action. But please note that that’s readying a new standard action every round.

To ready an action to shoot the next goblin who comes through a door requires a standard action – nocking the arrow and drawing the bow. Then, when she has a readied action for the next six seconds. A character with her bow drawn, ready to shoot the next goblin that comes through that door, has a readied action. The character carrying a bow and an arrow, wandering through the woods moving silently from bush to tree to rock for cover, who plans to shoot a goblin if one shows up, doesn’t have a readied action; she just has a plan.
You cannot take other actions while holding a readied action. You can’t take part in a discussion, follow the tracks, eat breakfast, pack up your gear, or anything else.

Again, based on my experience as a Philmont Ranger, I’m pretty sure I couldn’t keep a readied action constantly for more than a few minutes. The closest thing I’ve come to it is having my camera out, hoping to snap a picture of wildlife. I can stay focused on doing that for only a minute or two. I can certainly hold my camera longer than that, but soon I’m distracted by the trail, or the scenery, or being thirsty, or whatever. I now have a plan, not a “readied action”.

Anonymouswizard

2023-08-02, 06:31 PM

I am also waffling. By RAW is clear, but conceptually I think I should make an exception. But then, it seems like a slippery slope to being nickel and dimed into all the prep-time in the world.

RAW which, correct me if I'm wrong, you wrote? Which means you can make the decision that no, the rule isn't working, make a note and then rewrite it.

You wrote the system and you're running the game, which means you get to run it exactly as you want. But it also makes hiding behind 'ir's what the rules say' a really unconvincing argument.

Yeah, but again he doesn't want to wait or position himself, I would be fine with that. He wants to charge in with the group and start in the thick of combat undetected and able to start the fight with a backstab.

Eh, an Eclipse Caste could almost certainly pull that off.

Do you use minis and a battlemat? Is he a melee character? If yes to both I fully understand exactly why he might want that. If he has abilities that outright rely on hiding them the only solution might be to let them proc through some other circumstance.

I'm kind of getting flashbacks to your heavy armour thread where, once we learnt the rules, it became clear why an entire party might choose to forgo it. I suspect part of the issues boil down to 'Talakeal has the rules exactly as they want them, and is insisting on sticking to them even when wiggle room might be required'.

gbaji

2023-08-02, 06:48 PM

Well, and to be honest with the whole "stealth all day" thing. I do actually allow for stealth rolls (and opposed perception rolls) for normal " traveling through the wilderness" type situations. But the abstract assumption here is that folks who are better at moving silently, or hiding, are just also normally going to be better at avoiding making really loud noises while walking/moving and/or move in ways and areas so as to avoid long sight lines (walk under the trees, take the route that puts those bushes between you and that hillside over there, etc).

This is something I'll use when determining if/when a potential enemy group of people may just happen to spot/hear the similarly wandering around adventuring group. But the assumption isn't that anyone is "actively hiding/sneaking". They're just maybe doing little bits to avoid being super obvious to whatever degree is possible based on the conditions and terrain. And yeah, this may make the difference between "the bad guy spotted you from like 2 miles away when you crossed the ridge line" and "they just rounded this hill and you came the other way and ran smack into eachother". Or sometimes, the party will spot a group of people way off in the distance and decide to change their course and avoid them (assuming they're maybe wanting to avoid contact for some reason). Or set up an ambush maybe (which spawns a whole new set of skill rolls and checks). Of course, in situations like this, I'm never going to tell them whether the other group also saw them...

So yeah, that's one way that I do use stealth skills while otherwise doing "normal things". But that's always more of an adjustment to when/where/if an encounter occurs in the first place, and never about whethere someone is "hidden" and therefore able to use special skills availble when hidden or something. It's more of a count of how many people made their skils, and therefore how "sneaky" the group as a whole is, relatively speaking.

And I'll also use a similar set of rolls just to determine things like how likely (or how far away) the bad guys on the other side of that door hear the party approach said door in the first place. The party can certainly have sneaky types actively using their abilities to sneak up to said door (and will be more likely to arrive in total stealth). But if there's no specific action taken, I'll still use stealth rolls to just determine "generally" how much noise they're making, and therefore "generally" how likely the enemies are to be prepared when they come bursting through the door. Obviously, this type of method works far better in a skill focused game (where everyone has a sneak and hide skill, but some are just a lot better than others), versus a class skill/abilities/feats type system (where only sneaky types even have the skill at all).

Oh. And Talakael. I forgot to quote, but you mentioned something about them trying to avoid making initiative rolls in the first place? That's a wholely different issue. A group can (and should) be allowed to cast up buffs ahead of a planned combat, but unless they do something which give them a surprise round, they still have to roll initiative just like their opponents. I'm not sure why one has much to do with the other. Maybe it's different in your game system though, but that would be my general assumption across any game system that has initiative rolls in the first place. There's a difference beteween being prepared for a fight, and getting the timing right to be the first to act in the fight you have preparred for.

Tanarii

2023-08-02, 08:09 PM

Quertus

2023-08-02, 08:09 PM

As for spell durations, short duration spells last a few minutes, and medium duration spells last a few hours.

In universe, casting a short duration spell and then immediately charging into battle means you risk your spell fading on you mid-fight (or, if something delays you, being wasted entirely).

Rules wise, this is handled by saying that a pre-buff spell should have a medium duration.

Honestly, I suppose in the fiction one could cast a short duration buff and then hope it lasts, and model it mechanically by randomly rolling to see if it fades in any given round. This might actually be a fun and dynamic rule, but probably would not actually make my players feel any happier or make my rulings feel less wicked and capricious.

But no, the length of an encounter has very little to do with awareness.

Um, what?

Spells in my system have durations measured in encounters rather than real world units of time,

Square this circle, please. Are spell durations measured in minutes and hours, or in encounters? :smallconfused::smallconfused:

Flying Spaghetti Monster would like to know.

That's actually one of the big arguing points that I wasn't able to convey to Bob; it's not that doing "combat actions" makes the enemies aware of you. It's that:

A: If the monsters are aware of you, they will also be doing "combat actions" to prep and

Were the monsters aware of the party? If so, then of course they can be taking actions, too, while the party buffs. This is true whether or not the party is aware of the monsters, actually (ie, if they are buffing before opening a door just because, or because "of course there are guards behind the door to the guard post"). That said, not all monsters have good options for "before the party opened the door" actions (a Gelatenous Cube, a Mimic already hiding as a Treasure Chest, etc), so it can be a really good play to buff even if you know that the monsters are aware of you. Then again, I've had players take such actions when they should have known better, and, when they opened the door, they discovered that the monsters had fled (often "out the window", where the "monster" was a human, often (but not always) in a non-fantasy setting).

B: A lot of combat actions need a target. You don't "hide" you hide "from something".

Eh, yes and no. Sometimes, you hide from something. That's why Perception is so important to being in Hide Mode. OTOH, sometimes, you just hide (camouflage & a blind, turning invisible, hiding inside a suitcase, etc). If your system only acknowledges "hide from X", your system is incomplete / unrealistic in that aspect. OTOOH, if you only roll for how well you've hidden when there's something to observe you (whether you're aware of the observer or not), then that could make some sense, while still not precluding "I'm hiding all day"-style actions.

KorvinStarmast

2023-08-02, 08:12 PM

At which point the conversation just broke down into name calling.
Putting more fun into dysfunctional ... which is another game one can play. :smallcool:

TaiLiu

2023-08-02, 08:12 PM

During the argument, I was told that I don't allow combat actions to bypass initiative rules because I am an adversarial GM who wants to rule against the players, but IMO its the opposite; allowing people to take combat actions outside of initiative ultimately disadvantages the PCs if applied across the board and played fairly.

they seem fairly easy to me. of course, they are fairly easy because i don't have adversarial players.

He does this thing where he brings up an old, sometimes years or even decades old, argument in public in a really nasty and embarrassing way and hurts my feelings (like in this specific instance, he told me that my initiative rules were the "Stupidest rules in the world, and literally everyone thinks so."

.. should probably try harder to separate "how do you handle the shading in between combat and non-combat timing actions" from "but if I do this completely sensible thing Bob will complain at me, and I don't have the energy to deal with him whining at me any more." They're not the same problem and you appear to be conflating them. You're not gonna make Bob happy until you manage to give him the precise power fantasy he wants in exactly the right way, and you don't appear to have any real interest in running that game (and, I suspect, some significant fraction of your -other- players aren't interested in playing it.) So.. personal opinion? Stop trying. Just.. stop freaking appeasing Bob.

(Like, why is 'if the players halt right outside an encounter point and screw around for a bit, the enemies there might get a chance to notice them' a problem? The answer appears to be 'because Bob will whine about it if he doesn't get his perfect ambush.' That's.. not a design problem. That's a Bob problem.)

I don't really care about placing blame, I want to find a solution to the problem.
My advice is this: if Bob's been your friend for literally over a decade, and if he hasn't changed his behavior re: being a jerk, then he's probably not gonna change because of a particularly good argument on your part. The two most obvious solutions are either putting up with it (your current solution) or creating firm boundaries re: his behavior and enforcing them if he violates them. This might include the painful process of cutting him out of your life, either temporarily or permanently.

It'd be nice if he could stop, realize the harm he's doing, and change. But whether that happens or not is out of your control—you have control over only your actions.

There also seems to be consensus that spells measured in encounters are problematic for reasons related to verisimilitude or ease of play. I'm gonna politely disagree with that consensus and say that encounter- or scene-duration spells are cool and make things a lot easier for both the player and the GM.

As the player, I have a better sense of how long my spell will be useful. It's frustrating to cast a spell that lasts ten minutes and then the GM says something like: "Okay, after an hour of hiking..."

As the GM, I can track spells less minutely. Players often want to know how much time as passed in games that have abilities that last real-world units. But I'm a GM, not a world simulator. I often don't know how much time it'd take to walk across town or row to the island of Lesbos. So I'm probably guessing or making stuff up when I give players the time.

In contrast, Talakeal's system looks smoother. If a scene lasts the whole night, that's how long the spell lasts. If a scene lasts a minute, that's how long the spell lasts.

There's some loss in verisimilitude, sure. Why does fly last so long in one scene and so short in another? But it makes up for that in other areas. I no longer have to worry if fly is gonna expire before we reach the top of the tower or if my buff spell is gonna run out in the middle of combat. That reduces my cognitive burden and allows me to skip the accounting nonsense to focus on other aspect of gameplay that I find more fun.

Kane0

2023-08-02, 08:13 PM

My rogue player wants to hide every action, and now we are getting short duration spells. Why then, would the fighter also not go full defense every round? Or the bard inspire every round?

In 5e you can travel stealthily, or do something else while you move like keeping a lookout or foraging for food. Doing so just slows your pace.

Now, in this particular game, I am playing combat as sport in an old school mega-dungeon. Right now, for ease of play, I am simply having the players roll initiative upon "kicking in the door".

The players said this system is "unfair to the PCs" and now want to pre-buff, and then kick in the door.

I explained to them that if they want a "fair" system, then I need to roll to see if the monsters hear them coming, and then allow the monsters to also pre-buff.

Sounds like they want YOU to play fairly in a combat-as-sport manner, but they themselves still want to be rewarded for making smart decisions in a combat-as-war manner.
Which is pretty normal human behaviour really. I often want to know everything so i can win by gaming the system and feel smart (which I actively have to suppress at my weekly game). I have 'ruined my own fun' in the process on more than one occasion.

Vahnavoi

2023-08-03, 02:00 AM

I suppose I could say "mostly system agnostic" then?

I have played several editions of D&D and several White Wolf games extensively, and all of them have initiative rules, as well as time units that are listed as per scene / encounter, and in all of them I have encountered fuzzy gray areas like the above.

NO.

Even looking at different editions of D&D, it should be plainly obvious they:

1) Have different emphasis on tracking time.

2) Have different definitions for in-game measurements of time ("are combat rounds measured in minutes or seconds?" etc.)

3) Have different units of operative time for different tasks even within editions. This is plainly apparent even looking at the spell lists of a single edition: different spells have different casting times and different durations expressed in different units. For example, a spell with casting time of a standard action and duration in rounds only makes sense to cast immediately before or within an encounter. For contrast, a spell with casting time in turns (=tens of minutes) and duration in hours only makes sense to cast in a non-hurried situation so its effect can be reasonably be expected to apply for significant portion of a session.

Furthermore:

4) as part of the overall system, earlier editions of D&D and AD&D emphasize game master's role as referee. Those "grey areas" (which are also different in each system) you mention are explicitly up to referee decision. There's room for interpretation, but it's chiefly the game master's interpretation, and once they declare one it is not meant to be contested by the players.

All of this means that there are system specific, down to skill or move specific, processes for declaring long-term or on-going actions. To go back to the "hiding all day long" sample: you cannot do this in AD&D without explicit game master permission. Why? Because it's equivalent to stating "I attack the weakest enemy every round". It's a naked attempt to off-load decisions the player is supposed to make on their own, on per round badis, on the game master. Or, to go back to spells for a different example: a level 5 magic-user cannot declare "I use invisibility all day long" because the rules for number of spells and their durations prohibit that. They also cannot declare "I use invisibility when it would be most advantageous" because deciding when it would be most advantageous is on the player; the game master is not obligated to do that for them, they aren't even obligated to give the player perfect information to make that decision with.

At the same time, it's very rare for any game master to ask when a player character would take a bathroom break, and players very rarely have need to declare "I take a leak when I have the time"; it's just assumed this happens, because that kind of detail is implicitly uninteresting.

AdAstra

2023-08-03, 03:13 AM

In 5e you can travel stealthily, or do something else while you move like keeping a lookout or foraging for food. Doing so just slows your pace.

Sounds like they want YOU to play fairly in a combat-as-sport manner, but they themselves still want to be rewarded for making smart decisions in a combat-as-war manner.
Which is pretty normal human behaviour really. I often want to know everything so i can win by gaming the system and feel smart (which I actively have to suppress at my weekly game). I have 'ruined my own fun' in the process on more than one occasion.

Honestly, considering that players generally have to operate with limited information while the GM typically has all information on what the players are doing, if not necessarily far in advance, I think this isn't an unfair expectation. To accurately simulate a real enemy that doesn't necessarily know anything about the player characters or what they're doing, a GM does have to limit their thinking and resources artificially, balancing what a smart enemy would do with what they should actually have the wherewithal and resources to accomplish. Which is really hard, and certainly not what a PC should be expected to do in the same situation, as they have far more real limits. The GM playing dumb and/or nice compared to the players is a crude but generally good way of approximating this.

As is the overall goal is rarely to beat the players (and when it is this is usually considered bad practice). Usually it's to provide a challenge that the players will feel good about beating, with the chance of failure and competency of the enemies merely being important for certain (not all) players to feel good about the victory. Assuming equal competency, A GM basically has to be more sporting than the players do, or they'd win as often as you'd expect in a wargame where one player has arbitrary (and more flexible) resources and accurate knowledge of what their opponent is doing at all times.

The problem seems to revolve around the fact that some of Talakeal's players are huge jerks, at least in certain contexts, and that what Talakeal's players feel good about fighting is not what Talakeal is having much fun presenting to them (which would especially be the case if their view of what's fun to fight is as capricious and silly as it sometimes appears to be). But I do think it is fair for someone to want an enemy that plays dumber than they do, in the context of a tabletop RPG where the players are expected to have a good chance of victory. I mean it's either that or an enemy that's mechanically weaker than them, unless you want a rather high chance of the PCs losing every encounter.

As for the original topic, I'd just put some limits on what you can do continuously (passives vs active abilities, etc), but to keep in mind that if the players create a situation where they should logically be able to perform actions, they really should be able to, and that the "active" party tends to have a big leg up in that respect compared to someone just manning defenses, going about their daily business, or even actively searching/waiting for foes. Readying an attack for a specific time you know is coming is easier than readying an attack that might happen sometime in the next minute, that sorta thing. And that gameplay-wise PCs should generally be allowed to be the active party in most situations. Defender's advantage and stacking up loads of actions can really make an assault an unfun time for players.

Just going off instinct here, generally doing an activity like moving stealthily or guarding oneself over a prolonged period is doable, just significantly less effective compared to when you have a specific threat to hide from or defend against, and paying attention is itself fatiguing. Could apply modifiers for both players continuously performing certain actions (though just doing multiple checks can also effectively accomplish this since usually you only have to fail/succeed once) and for say, a defender waiting to shoot/stab/whatever but not actually knowing exactly when the threat might come or what form it will take. Speculative action modifier, perhaps.

GloatingSwine

2023-08-03, 07:34 AM

Sapphire Guard

2023-08-03, 08:01 AM

I think this is just one of those breaks from reality you just have to go with.

The adventuring party is inherently going to be more alert than the defenders, because they are already expecting trouble, because they are on a dungeon crawl. The defenders are going about their lives, caring for their equipment, grooming themselves, playing with shiny rocks, whatever. Even a guard at a post is not going to stay 100pc alert after six months of guarding the same door after nothing happens.

It's not impossible for the party to be noticed while buffing, but I'd save it for encounters where the monsters have reason to be particularly alert or more important encounters. Otherwise they can buff as they wish.

Quertus

2023-08-03, 08:12 AM

There also seems to be consensus that spells measured in encounters are problematic for reasons related to verisimilitude or ease of play. I'm gonna politely disagree with that consensus and say that encounter- or scene-duration spells are cool and make things a lot easier for both the player and the GM.

Eh, I’d say… more consensus that the implementation of scene (encounter) duration that Talakeal is using shows a lack of appreciation for the concept of the scene, realism, or fun.

If the rules are, “you always start the scene with your gun holstered” - a good general rule for, say, police - imagine the police unholstering their weapons before kicking in the door… then the chapter ends, the GM calls “scene!”, and the curtain rises to the police raiding the drug den with their weapons holstered. It’s just wrong on every level.

EDIT: that assumes Talakeal even uses Encounter durations, which has now been thrown into question…

To go back to the "hiding all day long" sample: you cannot do this in AD&D without explicit game master permission. Why? Because it's equivalent to stating "I attack the weakest enemy every round". It's a naked attempt to off-load decisions the player is supposed to make on their own, on per round badis, on the game master. Or, to go back to spells for a different example: a level 5 magic-user cannot declare "I use invisibility all day long" because the rules for number of spells and their durations prohibit that. They also cannot declare "I use invisibility when it would be most advantageous" because deciding when it would be most advantageous is on the player; the game master is not obligated to do that for them, they aren't even obligated to give the player perfect information to make that decision with.

I get the Invisibility, but not the stealth. Why can’t a Thief character simply declare “I’m sneaking” all day long, just as the Fighter can declare, “I’m wearing a Ring of Invisibility all day long”? They won’t succeed at hiding all day long, unlike the all day long invisible Fighter, but I’m missing why you think they can’t be making the attempt all day long.

Anonymouswizard

2023-08-03, 08:17 AM

This calls for various loony tunes situations where they're always trying to hide somewhere someone else is hiding or find someone already hiding there.

I once saw a production of Pirates of Penzance where the policemen all hide behind the same chair.

It wasn't even a particularly big chair, because it was at the front of the stage...

Slipjig

2023-08-03, 08:58 AM

Good grief, dealing with your players must be exhausting.

For the encounter duration thing, I think it's sensible that if they cast it as preparation for an encounter, then that's the first encounter.

For the Rogue who wants to hide all day every day, I'd let him do it, but he has to identify where he is hiding at any given time, and he basically can't do anything other than Hide. He can't have a conversation with NPCs, he can't talk to other PCs, he can't cross the street unless he finds a way to do so while hidden. Doing anything that requires speaking aloud or moving into a lit area ends his Hide. And when somebody rolls a Nat 20 on their Perception check and he's spotted dive-rolling from shadow to shadow or running across the rooftops, someone is going to call the guard.

I'm trying to think of what signature spells it would make sense to spam, and I'm coming up blank. But I'd do the same thing for those casters: you can do it if you want, but you are incapable of doing anything else, and your nonstop verbal components mean anybody within 50 yards knows where you are (and annoys them: if you were an innkeeper, would you want somebody yelling "SIMSALABIM!" every six seconds while waving a wand around?). You aren't allowed to talk with other PCs OOC, and you can't even communicate with gestures due to your nonstop somatic components.

For anything the PCs want to do before combat starts, that's reasonable UNLESS it would be noisy, in which case they should need to make some stealth checks or risk forfeiting their surprise round. And if they successfully achieve surprise, if they have a plan for a specific sequence of actions worked out, let them execute it. I'm generally in favor of players at least attempting to have a plan.

Vahnavoi

2023-08-03, 09:10 AM

I get the Invisibility, but not the stealth. Why can’t a Thief character simply declare “I’m sneaking” all day long, just as the Fighter can declare, “I’m wearing a Ring of Invisibility all day long”? They won’t succeed at hiding all day long, unlike the all day long invisible Fighter, but I’m missing why you think they can’t be making the attempt all day long.

What about "can't ask game master to make decisions I'm supposed to make" don't you understand?

More specifically:

Ring of Invisibility and Hide in Shadows are not at all equivalent under AD&D rules; the latter has location-based constraints (namely, there have to be shadows or other concealment) that the former does not.

So, by saying "I hide all day long", a player is asking the game master to decide for them where they are hiding, when this is in fact a decision the player is supposed to make situationally and in time intervals smaller than a day.

As for Moving Silently, that explicitly reduces movement to one third of normal. So if that is what a thief's player means by "sneaking all day long", they are asking every other party member to move at reduced speed, lest the thief get left behind. No player who understands this will make the request, because it is common for there to be situations where a thief would want to move at normal speed. Trying to circumvent this by declaring, say, "I always move silently when it would be advantageous" again asks the game master to do something that is not the game master's job. It's on the player to decide whether moving silently is advantageous and this is, again, done situationally at time intervals smaller than a day.

GloatingSwine

2023-08-03, 09:39 AM

Also on the concept of "hiding all day" IIRC I looked at this the last time this came up and it might be systemically incoherent anyway.

I'll look at the pdf when I get home.

BRC

2023-08-03, 10:10 AM

In general, I tend to follow the rule that PC's can maintain a "Combat State" for about 1-5 minutes at a time, depending on what they're doing.*

For example, in D&D 5e, a Rogue can dash as a bonus action, this might make rouges great sprinters, but it doesn't mean that they can win cross country by double-dashing each round forever.

Similarly, you can stare at a door with a readied action to attack the first person to come through the door, but after 5 minutes your focus will inevitably start to fade, people can't just sit there being ready to do something Any Second Now forever.

Going back to your initial post, if one or both sides know that the fight is about to start, then they SHOULD be able to prep. I would apply something similar if you want to measure spell duration by Encounter, a spell ticks one "Encounter" off it's duration after a minute spent outside initiative. So you can't just cast a spell when you walk into the dungeon and have it count for the first encounter, but if you know that you're about to fight, you can buff yourself to prep.

The same rules SHOULD apply to monsters. If the Monsters know the PC's are lurking outside the door about to kick it in, they should be preparing for the fight. If they're sitting unawares, even if they're On Guard, they should only be able to remain On Edge for so long.

*I consider there to be three states. Western tropes actually make this easier to explain than Fantasy tropes here.

Combat State: Actively in combat or ready to fight. Consider gunfighters in a classic mexican standoff, even if they're not currently shooting, everybody is tensed and ready to spring into action. Characters in a combat state can make use of combat abilities.

Ready: This is the default state for most monsters and adventurers. You are aware that a threat might emerge, but there is no specific threat you are braced against. Our cowboy walking through a ghost town, or just riding along the trail, is keeping an eye out for ambush and is ready to draw his gun, but is still calm and relaxed. "ready" characters roll initiative as normal, but are still capable of being surprised if enemies use stealth (Coming out of a door or around a corner isn't enough, people are Ready for threats to come around corners).

Imagine our gunfighter rides up to a stagecoach and tries to shoot the driver. The driver might not have been expecting a fight at this moment, but he's aware of the stranger on a horse and knows that he is a potential threat, so he's Ready.

Finally you have Flat Footed characters, those who are distracted or otherwise unready for a fight. These characters get surprised by default. The Stagecoach Driver and guard might be in a Ready state, but his passenger isn't.

One general way to approach it is if the PC's want to start the fight in a higher state than the enemies, they need to do something to achieve that advantage.

Kick down the door is Ready vs Ready. We can abstract out the opportunity for the monsters to hear the PC's coming and start preparing.

If the PC's want to take explicit prep beyond, like, drawing weapons, they need to test stealth to not give their foes a chance to prepare.

Quertus

2023-08-03, 11:03 AM

What about "can't ask game master to make decisions I'm supposed to make" don't you understand?

More specifically:

Ring of Invisibility and Hide in Shadows are not at all equivalent under AD&D rules; the latter has location-based constraints (namely, there have to be shadows or other concealment) that the former does not.

So, by saying "I hide all day long", a player is asking the game master to decide for them where they are hiding, when this is in fact a decision the player is supposed to make situationally and in time intervals smaller than a day.

As for Moving Silently, that explicitly reduces movement to one third of normal. So if that is what a thief's player means by "sneaking all day long", they are asking every other party member to move at reduced speed, lest the thief get left behind. No player who understands this will make the request, because it is common for there to be situations where a thief would want to move at normal speed. Trying to circumvent this by declaring, say, "I always move silently when it would be advantageous" again asks the game master to do something that is not the game master's job. It's on the player to decide whether moving silently is advantageous and this is, again, done situationally at time intervals smaller than a day.

Yup, definitely agree on the disadvantages of Move Silently - which is why I included the caveat of making sure the player was willing to eat the costs of their stated action (in a system-agnostic way).

For Hide in Shadows, yeah, that makes sense. Mostly. It just means that the Thief player and GM need some communication, and for the GM to explain things like lighting in terms of “here is where you have to be visible” rather than “here is where you can hide”, with the assumption that the Thief is always choosing to (try to) be hidden whenever possible. In most dungeon settings, in the deep deep dark dark deep dark woods, and even skirting from alley to alley in the shadow of a cloud or a passing carriage, it’s quite reasonable for a Thief to be trying to hide all day. Not so much in the middle of an open field at noon (unless they’re under the effects of Polymorph or some such).

Regardless, I agree, positioning matters, and saying “I hide all day” doesn’t change that fact. What it changes is the conversation, removing the need for the player to say, “and I hide” at the end of every action, and letting the (non-adversarial) GM know to give the Player “you realize that your stated course takes you out of the shadows, right?” prompts, to help make up for the limitations of description, and give the player the knowledge the character, living in the world, presumably would have. Alternately, the (adversarial) GM could make it a “player skill” challenge, making the players choose their path correctly to successfully remain in the shadows without GM intervention. Either way, the PCs should see the Thief blinking in and out of hiding as they make and fail their rolls randomly (or enter an area where Hide in Shadows is invalid), so the players should have (and be able to act on) similar information.

CarpeGuitarrem

2023-08-03, 11:47 AM

Definitely seems clear cut to me: if the party chooses to pre buff, the enemies get to pre buff and set up as well. Anything else, you have to earn with the dice. If you want the drop on them, you have to make that Stealth check to get the drop on them.

Talakeal

2023-08-03, 01:38 PM

RAW which, correct me if I'm wrong, you wrote? Which means you can make the decision that no, the rule isn't working, make a note and then rewrite it.

You wrote the system and you're running the game, which means you get to run it exactly as you want. But it also makes hiding behind 'ir's what the rules say' a really unconvincing argument.

That line of thinking kind of makes the whole notion of "homebrew rules" pointless, as it always boils down to "argue with the GM".

Eh, an Eclipse Caste could almost certainly pull that off.

Do you use minis and a battlemat? Is he a melee character? If yes to both I fully understand exactly why he might want that. If he has abilities that outright rely on hiding them the only solution might be to let them proc through some other circumstance.

There are no special powers that require being hidden.

The benefits are +2 on his attacks and enemies (or allies) cannot target a hidden character.

He can always just take an action to hide if it is that important. The crux of the matter is that he says a +2 bonus to hit isn't worth an action. Which is likely, depending on the length of the battle, but leaves out the fact that being essentially immune to all enemy attacks is huge.

I'm kind of getting flashbacks to your heavy armour thread where, once we learnt the rules, it became clear why an entire party might choose to forgo it. I suspect part of the issues boil down to 'Talakeal has the rules exactly as they want them, and is insisting on sticking to them even when wiggle room might be required'.

I don't recall that thread, could you job my memory?

I remember one about Bob refusing to upgrade his defenses at all and claiming it was pointless, and I have been having ongoing issues with people not liking medium armor levels and either tanking up or going commando, but I don't recall one about an entire party foregoing heavy armor.

Oh. And Talakael. I forgot to quote, but you mentioned something about them trying to avoid making initiative rolls in the first place? That's a wholely different issue. A group can (and should) be allowed to cast up buffs ahead of a planned combat, but unless they do something which give them a surprise round, they still have to roll initiative just like their opponents. I'm not sure why one has much to do with the other. Maybe it's different in your game system though, but that would be my general assumption across any game system that has initiative rolls in the first place. There's a difference between being prepared for a fight, and getting the timing right to be the first to act in the fight you have prepared for.

Yeah, I think it's a separate issue as well.

But based on some of the things Bob has said, I think he thinks that if they are outside of the room they should be allowed to take a turn unopposed. Then let the enemies take a turn (which the enemies waste doing nothing because they aren't aware of the PCs yet) and then the PCs burst into the room and attack on their next turn, with initiative never being rolled.

This ends up functioning sort of like a D&D surprise round, but without the need for stealth tests, and initiative never actually ends up getting rolled.

Which isn't really how my system is supposed to work; surprise is instead a modifier to one's initiative roll rather than a "bonus turn".

Of course, that also creates the added hassle of determining which PC has to waste their turn opening the door, and the problem of trying to synchronize movement to get into the room and attack, and the (high) possibility of the enemies having heard them coming and guarding the door, so it doesn't actually give the PCs an advantage, it just makes the whole thing much more complicated to run. But whenever I bring that up, Bob get's really angry.

1. A spell that lasts for one encounter shouldn’t end until it has gone through one encounter. You will never convince the player that you didn’t turn it into a zero-encounter spell unless it lasts through one encounter. He cast it specifically for the encounter of kicking open the door and dealing with what’s behind it. Until they kick open the door and deal with what’s behind it, it hasn’t gone through an encounter.

This isn't a surprise though.

He asked if a spell with a duration of "last until end of current scene" could be pre-cast and I said no, he would need to cast one with a duration of "lasts through the next scene". Neither of them have durations measured in X encounters.

Not that it really has any bearing on whether or not declaring it a new encounter is a good call.

Most systems that use some kind of roll initiative combat swoosh are pretty bad at handling that transition, and pretty bad at describing what happens if:
- you try to ready an action to get in a free action / higher position in the combat initiative order
- you declare an action that triggers a combat swoosh, and expect that declaration to get in a get in a free action / higher position in the combat initiative order
- you want to carry an ongoing activity of some kind (often stealth or cantrip pre-spellcasting or what might be recognizable as some kind of Stance) into a combat state, saving a first turn action.

As far as I've seen, most folks in online forums arguing about these thing assume in most of these games that the first two are some kind of cheating the system, and often the latter is also cheating for things like wanting to shave off an action to save activating an unlimited resource status effect. But they also assume you'll carry stealth forward.

And the tension between the first two points and carrying stealth forward is always fun for rules arguments. :smallamused:

For a good example of systems that tried to address the last of these three points, see PF2 exploration activities. (They also somewhat address both of the first two in the process.)

(Edit: this post is written from the assumption you want to fix your homebrew system)

Yeah. This is pretty much my view on things.

I am curious about how PF2 handles it. I tried looking at the book, but I can't even tell how many actions it takes to hide.

Um, what?

Square this circle, please. Are spell durations measured in minutes and hours, or in encounters? :smallconfused::smallconfused:

Flying Spaghetti Monster would like to know.

Game Mechanics vs. Narrative.

Durations are as follows:

Incantation: Lasts until the start of the next turn, or a few seconds of narrative time.
Enchantment: Lasts until the end of the current encounter, or a few minutes of narrative time.
Extended: Lasts until the end of the following encounter, or a few hours of narrative time.
Extended II: Lasts until the end of the adventure, or a few days of narrative time.
Extended III: Lasts until the end of the following adventure, or a few months of narrative time.
Extended IV: Lasts until the end of the current campaign, or a few years of narrative time.

Further extends increase the narrative duration by a factor of ten; decades, centuries, millennia, etc.

Eh, yes and no. Sometimes, you hide from something. That's why Perception is so important to being in Hide Mode. OTOH, sometimes, you just hide (camouflage & a blind, turning invisible, hiding inside a suitcase, etc). If your system only acknowledges "hide from X", your system is incomplete / unrealistic in that aspect. OTOOH, if you only roll for how well you've hidden when there's something to observe you (whether you're aware of the observer or not), then that could make some sense, while still not precluding "I'm hiding all day"-style actions.

What does "hiding all day" actually look like though?

Obviously, you could cram yourself in a box and stay still, but while traveling and doing other things?

I can picture sneaking from object to object and always keeping something between you and any potential observers (which still seems like it would take an action IMO), but how the heck do you do it against everyone and everything whether you know about them or not?

Hiding from the guards while crossing a crowded marketplace is easy, but how the heck would you hide from literally everyone in the market at the same time? What would that even look like? Metal Gear style crawling under a box?

In 5e you can travel stealthily, or do something else while you move like keeping a lookout or foraging for food. Doing so just slows your pace.

I also have these rules.

Sounds like they want YOU to play fairly in a combat-as-sport manner, but they themselves still want to be rewarded for making smart decisions in a combat-as-war manner.
Which is pretty normal human behaviour really. I often want to know everything so i can win by gaming the system and feel smart (which I actively have to suppress at my weekly game). I have 'ruined my own fun' in the process on more than one occasion.

Hmmm.

The players are obsessed with "balanced encounters" and throw a tantrum if something isn't balanced.

Its really hard to balance fights in CaW as the tactics of one side of the other can drastically throw things out the window. Something as simple as the monsters sending a runner to the next room and getting an extra group to come assist can turn a cake-walk into a death trap right quick.

Eh, I’d say… more consensus that the implementation of scene (encounter) duration that Talakeal is using shows a lack of appreciation for the concept of the scene, realism, or fun.

If the rules are, “you always start the scene with your gun holstered” - a good general rule for, say, police - imagine the police unholstering their weapons before kicking in the door… then the chapter ends, the GM calls “scene!”, and the curtain rises to the police raiding the drug den with their weapons holstered. It’s just wrong on every level.

Yeah, that would be a very weird rule. I don't think I have anything like it in my system.

The player chooses the duration of a spell when they cast it, if they are casting it in preparation from combat, then they need to choose to give it a duration appropriate to do so.* Guns don't "run out" of being drawn, they are either holstered or their aren't. A better analogy would be if the cops flashlights were all dim and flickering because the batteries were out of juice, and they choose to go into the darkened building anyway because they didn't want to waste the time to change out for fresh batteries.

Now, the always drawn gun might be a better analogy for always hiding, because much like trying to hide 24/7, walking around with a drawn gun all day is going to be a massive PITA because it is going to scare people, make it impossible to use the hand for anything else, and risks accidental discharge.

*Again though, I am fully open to the idea of counting casting the spell immediately before opening the door to be the same scene, that's the topic of discussion.

I'm trying to think of what signature spells it would make sense to spam, and I'm coming up blank. But I'd do the same thing for those casters: you can do it if you want, but you are incapable of doing anything else, and your nonstop verbal components mean anybody within 50 yards knows where you are (and annoys them: if you were an innkeeper, would you want somebody yelling "SIMSALABIM!" every six seconds while waving a wand around?). You aren't allowed to talk with other PCs OOC, and you can't even communicate with gestures due to your nonstop somatic components.

I don't recall the specifics, it wasn't my game, it was an advice thread someone else posted on this forum. My Google-fu is too weak to find it again, maybe someone else will have better luck, or maybe the author wil see this thread and chime in.

snip

This is pretty good. Agreed.

Tanarii

2023-08-03, 01:51 PM

I am curious about how PF2 handles it. I tried looking at the book, but I can't even tell how many actions it takes to hide.
Exploration activities. They're explicitly the thing you do while exploring the adventuring site. You choose one. Many of them determine what will happen if combat starts.

For example Avoid Notice:
https://2e.aonprd.com/Activities.aspx?ID=1

Other examples are Defend (have shield raised), Scout, Search, Investigate, Track, or Detect Magic.

icefractal

2023-08-03, 02:01 PM

Which isn't really how my system is supposed to work; surprise is instead a modifier to one's initiative roll rather than a "bonus turn".Seems like this considerably diminishes the power of an ambush - have you made it clear to the player that that's an intended design principle? Although I suspect their answer would be along the lines of: "ambushes should be extremely powerful, and also enemies should never ambush us because that would be unfair" :smalltongue:

The players are obsessed with "balanced encounters" and throw a tantrum if something isn't balanced.I'm guessing, although correct me if I'm wrong, that they only care about the enemies being balanced and operating by CaS, and consider it totally fine if they use every advantage to win. Maybe not the entire group, but it sure sounds like at least some of your players really just want a game that's entirely in their favor, where they win everything fairly easily.

MoiMagnus

2023-08-03, 02:39 PM

I'm guessing, although correct me if I'm wrong, that they only care about the enemies being balanced and operating by CaS, and consider it totally fine if they use every advantage to win. Maybe not the entire group, but it sure sounds like at least some of your players really just want a game that's entirely in their favor, where they win everything fairly easily.

I'd be a little more generous with them. They want opportunities to feel clever, but they don't want opportunities to feel outsmarted.

It's a pretty common feeling (and a lot if peoples like that hate PvP videogames and focus on PvE with "not too smart" AIs)

False God

2023-08-03, 02:54 PM

Adjust as your group likes to play.

If your group likes to "pre-pot", then be clear with them that opening the door will start combat. If they choose to walk away and buff up for 4 hours, make sure the situation on the other side of the door reflects the time your party has just spent. Maybe now there's nothing in the room, the enemies have moved on. Maybe now there's twice as many enemies in the room. Maybe the situation hasn't changed at all.

IMO, my players tend to play prepared. They state that they are doing things at the start of the day, before entering into combat, and so on. This works fine, but I use time-based measurements for my spells, except in a couple more cinematic systems. So you can "buff up" at the start of the day, after lunch, or any time thereafter, just so long as you understand that the clock starts ticking the moment you've cast your spell or activated your effect or whatever.

IMO, if you are using scene-based or encounter based timing, I would be clear and stand firm on scene and encounter transitions. IMO, this worked well in 4E to break up large combats by say, going from Room A, which was Encounter A, to Room B and Encounter B; although the break was small, it very much allowed me to have running fights and more classic dungeon-like experiences. Just stand firm on each encounter being its own unique thing. If they don't like it, well I suppose you'll keep playing with them anyway.

Quertus

2023-08-03, 07:50 PM

What does "hiding all day" actually look like though?

It varies by technique and objective.

That is, it could be a "static defense": sitting behind a blind, contorting one's self into a suitcase, crawling into the air vents, or putting on a Ring of Invisibility.

It could be active positioning: listening for (and identifying) approaching individuals, taking what you know of their routines, and moving ("silently") to where they will not see you.

It could be active hiding: ducking from hiding spot to hiding spot, adapting as the scenario around you evolves.

It could be passive hiding: Painting one's self to look like the background, and holding very still (two movies and a very cool nudist come to mind).

It could be active social engineering: sitting down and eating rather than running away, PDAs, whatever the scenario calls for.

It could be passive social engineering: dressing up and looking and acting the part of "someone who belongs".

And you can do things like perform Craft: Basketweaving and enjoy a snack just fine in many of these scenarios.

Hiding by active positioning gives you perhaps the most options for actions taken, but also arguably the most penalties to those actions, as you are always distracted, focusing on Perception checks to notice other people before they notice you.

Obviously, you could cram yourself in a box and stay still, but while traveling and doing other things?

Um... yeah? You can clear lots of levels in video games while hiding in a box. Problem is, you eventually have to come out to pee. It's best to do so when those you've replaced the contents of their box with Folger's Crystals yourself have left the vehicle, and aren't around.

I can picture sneaking from object to object and always keeping something between you and any potential observers (which still seems like it would take an action IMO), but how the heck do you do it against everyone and everything whether you know about them or not?

You'd be amazed the number of people wearing only paint I've seen... and been the only one in a crowded area to seem to notice them.

You'd probably be amazed how many people walked by someone painted as a statue without realizing it was a person.

The soldiers whom I stopped to ask directions of were amazed I hadn't been shot before reaching them, but I just looked and acted like I belonged, so nobody questioned me.

I was amazed how quickly someone could completely disappear in a single room (while I was paying for the pizza, they hid inside their suitcase).

I'm a clumsy Viking, but some of my friends can disappear into the shadows, sneak around silently, and amaze (or at least startle) anyone I know not using infrared with their sudden appearances.

Cuddles, the sweetest but dumbest dog in the world, was amazed when he discovered that there was an "up", a 3rd dimension that Squirrels had been hiding in all these years. He periodically looked up for the rest of his life.

Stealth is, to me, much more about understanding psychology than it is about physical stealth (being a clumsy Viking and all). But physical stealth against all unknown targets is as easy as an Invisibility spell. Or successful camouflage. Or being polymorphed into a form (like an insect) they don't notice / care about (some psychology there). Or moving slowly through the shadows, trusting your stealth and perception to beat anyone not actively playing hide-and-seek with you.

It gets a bit trickier in a Fantasy world, where the grandfather clock might well be an animated object, the door might be a Mimic, and the ceiling might be a Lurker Above. Or in a technological world, where (hidden) security cameras might be, well, just about anywhere. Or in a magical world, where the observer might well be invisible, or tracking you via crystal ball, or simply able to sense "intent to hide".

But against pure muggle humans? So many options, all of which are easy to pull off against most people by those who know what they're doing.

Hiding from the guards while crossing a crowded marketplace is easy, but how the heck would you hide from literally everyone in the market at the same time? What would that even look like? Metal Gear style crawling under a box?

Depends on your objective. Personally, I'd use a "soap box", Flesh to Stone, and Contingency (or an ally) to pretend to be a statue until the coast was clear. Or a disguise, and pretend to be a merchant, or someone else. Or I'd hide from everyone there by simply not being there. Or, heck, dress up as a guard (or slave) in many societies, and nobody will pay any attention to you.

Against muggles, I think a Warlock with Deeper Darkness (or whatever) could avoid anyone seeing them.

I find, if they're all dead, nobody sees anything.

It really depends on what your objectives are here, as to what, exactly, it might look like.

Game Mechanics vs. Narrative.

Durations are as follows:

Incantation: Lasts until the start of the next turn, or a few seconds of narrative time.
Enchantment: Lasts until the end of the current encounter, or a few minutes of narrative time.
Extended: Lasts until the end of the following encounter, or a few hours of narrative time.
Extended II: Lasts until the end of the adventure, or a few days of narrative time.
Extended III: Lasts until the end of the following adventure, or a few months of narrative time.
Extended IV: Lasts until the end of the current campaign, or a few years of narrative time.

Further extends increase the narrative duration by a factor of ten; decades, centuries, millennia, etc.

*Again though, I am fully open to the idea of counting casting the spell immediately before opening the door to be the same scene, that's the topic of discussion.

Yes, that does seem to be the topic of discussion. And it seems perfectly valid to take such actions before opening the door, and to expect the buffs to be as valid as if you had opened the door first.

"Before Initiative is rolled" is the problem. Not in the way you've made it out to be, but in the way that acknowledges this simple fact: if the beings on the other side of the door are aware of the PCs, they are able to use that time to take actions, too.

Now, those actions are in accordance with their understanding of the situation. For example, a busy area, where they hear that someone is outside? Most non-Drow will just assume it's "more of the same", and respond to it the same way they did for everyone else who came to their door today - generally, by doing nothing.

But, yeah, if both sides are doing something, and the order in which those "somethings" happen matters? Then it's initiative. And that's true even if those on the other side of the door are unaware that the PCs are there - for example, they just happen to be about to sacrifice the PC's deity to Flying Spaghetti Monster the round that the PCs make it to the door.

However, for your typical "cast buffs before busting down the door" scenario, forcing them to upcast the way you did is uncalled for. If the duration is plenty for the fight, it's plenty for kicking in the door and the fight.

gbaji

2023-08-03, 07:52 PM

Most systems that use some kind of roll initiative combat swoosh are pretty bad at handling that transition, and pretty bad at describing what happens if:
- you try to ready an action to get in a free action / higher position in the combat initiative order
- you declare an action that triggers a combat swoosh, and expect that declaration to get in a get in a free action / higher position in the combat initiative order
- you want to carry an ongoing activity of some kind (often stealth or cantrip pre-spellcasting or what might be recognizable as some kind of Stance) into a combat state, saving a first turn action.

It's a tricky bit to manage. And I think it's a question of how you envision what exactly initiative does in the first place. Initiative is typically dex based. So it's basically just a "who can act faster?" thing. Which works fine if we assume everyone is otherwise on an even playing field, starting the same round, at the same time, with the same level of preparedness.

Transitioning from "we know about and are preparing for an upcoming fight" to "we're fighting" can be tricky though. One could absolutely argue that if one side knows about the upcoming fight and the other does not, that the first side should have an advantage in the first round (and also arguably an even greater advantage in that they could have spent some time prepping spells ahead of time as well). To me, the best way to handle this is via some sort of "surprise round" method. If both sides know the fight is coming, one can argue that neither should be surprised, but can also argue that the side that actually initiates the fight (kicks in the door, say) should have some sort of initiative advantage (they know exactly when the round is going to start). But then, of course, this can lead to silly player actions like "I'm always reading an action just in case a fight breaks out" sort of thing. I've found most players will just drop that sort of nonsense after a single stern glance, but if they insist then I'll implement some sort of fatigue rule just for them, and just to show them how dumb that is in practice.

At my table, we'll usually manage this sort of thing with a "single initial action" sort of "mini round", which acts as our transition. The initiating side gets to take their actions first, then the defenders can. But they are partial/half rounds/actions/whatever.

This is basically just so that I can "set the stage" for the fight, and simulate that the defenders were unaware of the attackers until they appeared, and that they can't just immediately react (much less react *prior* to them appearing, which is what some initiatve systems can result in). Most game systems have some concept of action points, or half/full actions, so this can usually be wedged into the existing rules without too much difficulty. The idea is to give the initiating side a "small" advantage in terms of position and/or initial attack, but not a "we all get to take a full round of actions before you can do anything", which can be a bit too harsh.

Subsequent rounds can just proceed using normal initiative.

Just going off instinct here, generally doing an activity like moving stealthily or guarding oneself over a prolonged period is doable, just significantly less effective compared to when you have a specific threat to hide from or defend against, and paying attention is itself fatiguing. Could apply modifiers for both players continuously performing certain actions (though just doing multiple checks can also effectively accomplish this since usually you only have to fail/succeed once) and for say, a defender waiting to shoot/stab/whatever but not actually knowing exactly when the threat might come or what form it will take. Speculative action modifier, perhaps.

This is pretty case specific though. And I think can still fit in the concept of "scenes" I spoke of before (or maybe "task"?). The idea is that if you are doing a specific thing (with like a goal or objective), then saying "I'm using this skill the whole time" makes sense. I will certainly give someone who is "on guard" a greater chance of spotting/hearing someone sneaking up on them, than someone just sitting at a cafe having lunch, or hanging out chatting with friends, or shoping in a street bazaar or something. Similarly, I'll allow someone using stealth skills while "doing a specific thing" (I'm going to sneak down this alley and approach the back entrance to the bad guys lair"). But "I'm sneaking all the time", while just walking around, doing normal every day things? No. And "I'm on constant guard" while doing the same? No.

I get the Invisibility, but not the stealth. Why can’t a Thief character simply declare “I’m sneaking” all day long, just as the Fighter can declare, “I’m wearing a Ring of Invisibility all day long”? They won’t succeed at hiding all day long, unlike the all day long invisible Fighter, but I’m missing why you think they can’t be making the attempt all day long.

Sure. They "can", but I would also not hesitate to throw some potentially embarassing and "interesting" consequences at them. As you say, a thief trying to use stealth "all the time" is going to fail regularly and/or people will spot them regularly (especially if they're like just walking around town). Just statistics of requiring a roll every round or so, and giving everyone in the area a spot chance, will cause this. Folks are going to be very suspicious of the strange guy who walks down the street, not like a normal person, but rather by darting from barrel to barrel, ducking behind objects, hidding behind placards, wagons, and whatever else is nearby. The result is likely going to be the exact opposite of what the thief wants. He's going to draw a huge amount of attention to himself.

And this will almost certainly result in reports to the town guard, and questions, searches, etc will result. I've found you don't have to do this more than maybe once before a player gets the hint that this is a really dumb/silly thing to do. I mean, what would you do if you spotted someone sneaking through a parking lot, ducking behind cars, sliding under/around them, and otherwise trying to avoid being seen. Probably call the cops, right? Or whatever local mental health officials are around. That's like crazy behavior.

And, you know, it's kinda exhausting to do that, all the time, all day long. So even if they're out in a wilderness setting, this is going to significantly decrease travel rate. I suspect that most parties aren't going to put up with "we could have gotten there in a day, but with the thief contantly ducking behind things, climbing into the bushes, and slithering over/under everything in sight, it took us 3". And honestly, not for much gain anyway. The rest of the party is just as visible.

Having said that, in my game we do use a "shadowing" skill, that is basically a stealth skill, but used in urban environments. You're not hiding and sneaking, but walking and moving in ways that allow you to not be obvious and noticed by others on the street ("just fly casual"), and can follow others without them noticing you are following them (same skill works for both following, and avoiding being followed, just because we didn't want to add two different skills). This is like the spycraft stuff they show in films, and can also be used with multiple people (for greater bonuses), and with disquise skills as well.

Incantation: Lasts until the start of the next turn, or a few seconds of narrative time.
Enchantment: Lasts until the end of the current encounter, or a few minutes of narrative time.
Extended: Lasts until the end of the following encounter, or a few hours of narrative time.
Extended II: Lasts until the end of the adventure, or a few days of narrative time.
Extended III: Lasts until the end of the following adventure, or a few months of narrative time.
Extended IV: Lasts until the end of the current campaign, or a few years of narrative time.

I think the issue here is a disagreement between "Enchantment" and "Extended". You're interepreting Enchantment as something that can't be cast until you are "in the current encounter", and it ends when that's over. Your players assume that this should allow for casting buffs in preparation for the encounter, which will last for the duration of that one encounter. They (IMO rightly) don't like the idea of having to pay for Extended for this, since that seems to be intended for a "I walk around with this spell up the whole time in case someone attacks me" situations.

I actually kinda agree that spell prep for a known, about to happen, encounter should count as "the current encounter" (Enchantment). If it's being cast up ahead of time "in case there's an encounter at some point in the future", then that should require the Extended duration. Dunno. Seems like a clear demarcation to me, and would satisfy the players (and frankly, make a heck of a lot more sense). At least, that's how I would interpret it.

gatorized

2023-08-03, 11:02 PM

Basically, one of my players played a rogue in the last game, and declared that he was hiding the moment he woke up in the morning

Hiding from what?

Vahnavoi

2023-08-04, 01:22 AM

Incantation: Lasts until the start of the next turn, or a few seconds of narrative time.
Enchantment: Lasts until the end of the current encounter, or a few minutes of narrative time.
Extended: Lasts until the end of the following encounter, or a few hours of narrative time.
Extended II: Lasts until the end of the adventure, or a few days of narrative time.
Extended III: Lasts until the end of the following adventure, or a few months of narrative time.
Extended IV: Lasts until the end of the current campaign, or a few years of narrative time.

I don't see any advantage in this terminology over explicitly using seconds, minutes, hours, days, months and years. Or, alternatively, turn, scene, session, scenario, campaign.

Once again, your troubles seem to be self-created, in that you don't want to measure time, so you created abtract brackets for time that are more ambiguos than "spell's duration is in minutes, time to kick down a door is minutes, it will be over by the time you finish kicking down the door".

Anymage

2023-08-04, 11:14 AM

I think people are missing the forest for the trees here:

Rogue being in default sneaky status: Complication in normal social situations where you want to be noticed (pretty much any time you want to talk with someone), but eminently sensible in dangerous adventure locales. I'd allow the rogue to be sneaky if the situation allowed it and they were willing to accept whatever cost. (e.g: movement penalty.) Due to having read a bunch of rules light and narratively focused games lately I'd be inclined to allow the rogue to start off encounters in a good hiding spot so long as they could justify it and it was not ridiculous; someone who prioritizes being sneaky and who benefits greatly from being sneaky will tend towards areas that make good hiding places as a matter of habit.

Prebuffing before combat: Sensible if it can be done silently (like chugging a potion right before kicking in the door), but if the spellcasting makes any amount of noise there's a chance that you just made whoever was in the room aware that they should be on alert.

Spamming an unlimited resource outside of combat (e.g: the Guidance (https://www.dndbeyond.com/spells/guidance) cantrip): If the effect isn't mechanically OP but the result looks silly, I'd be okay adjusting the look to be less silly. Chanting a constant prayer of blessing over an ally looks okay, although the drawbacks (concentration, hands being kept in prayer pose, and most notably the constant chanting) might render it situationally nonsensical.

Readying actions outside of combat in order to pre-empt the initiative roll: This is the meat of the problem, because it tends to degenerate into mexican standoffs at best. Taking initiative manipulating actions when initiative is not an immediate factor is going to create odd mechanical artifacts, but I can't think of any ironclad solutions against people trying to game the system.

Telok

2023-08-04, 11:45 AM

I think people are missing the forest for the trees here:
...
Prebuffing before combat: Sensible if it can be done silently (like chugging a potion right before kicking in the door), but if the spellcasting makes any amount of noise there's a chance that you just made whoever was in the room aware that they should be on alert.

There's another thing, I don't think it likely applies here but it could. The specific game's "detect magic" isn't D&D style "must be another caster casting a spell to detect anything". Its a basic stat+skill roll modified by the power of the spell and the distance to the caster. If (although its pretty unlikely in normal game play) the prebuff is powerful enough it could alert even untrained people to "woah dude, didja feel that? someone dropped a big magic in the next room". Basically just like hearing or bright lights, only through the magic field instead of through the air. And of course the caster can dampen the 'sound' of it, but that raises the dc of casting the spell a bit more, so the usual tradeoff stuff that Tak's players tend to dislike.

Seriously though, the all day buff thing is usually worth it if you want a critical effect you can be assured of having up.

Talakeal

2023-08-04, 12:58 PM

I was curious, are there any 4E fans here?

Because 4E has encounter powers that automatically recharge, right?

Does that game have guidelines on when one encounter ends and another encounter begins? Like, if you are in a dungeon, kill the monsters in one room, and then go into the next room and fight some more monsters. When does the encounter end? When do powers fade / refresh? Is the time between killing the mobs in room A and engaged the mobs in room B part of the first encounter, the second encounter, or is it its own encounter separate from those before and after it?

Does 4E have encounter powers with effects measured in rounds? If so, is it possible to use an encounter power near the end of one encounter and then start a new encounter really quickly and have your encounter powers refreshed even though you are still under the effects of the the same powers used in the previous encounter?

Hiding from what?

That is my question exactly.

I don't see any advantage in this terminology over explicitly using seconds, minutes, hours, days, months and years. Or, alternatively, turn, scene, session, scenario, campaign.

I *do* use the latter.

Are you getting hung up on the exact terminology? That I say "act" instead of scene (or colloquially encounter) and "mission" instead of "scenario" (or colloquially adventure).

Or is the problem that some of the spell durations are current / vs. next?

Because those were actually added in an attempt to solve the very problem you seem to be saying they cause; players wanting to cast spells preemptively but not wanting to go all the way of buffing up the duration to the next category, so I put in half steps.

Once again, your troubles seem to be self-created, in that you don't want to measure time, so you created abtract brackets for time that are more ambiguous than "spell's duration is in minutes, time to kick down a door is minutes, it will be over by the time you finish kicking down the door".

I play World of Darkness more than D&D, and World of Darkness always uses abstract time brackets. Heck, 4E D&D does the same, and its one of the few things I actually prefer about the edition. This is hardly some problem I have invented whole cloth, it's a choice about which style I prefer based upon years of playing other people's games.

In addition to the annoyance of tracking timing on stuff, I find that precise times (and distances) also lend to players appealing to realism. Heck, literally the other day I had a player argue that since a handgun can fire 45 rounds a minute and that a round is six seconds, they should be allowed to make four attacks per round when using a pistol. And I see people on the forums use similar calculations all the time in the endless Martial vs. Caster D&D debates trying to divine the fictional reality behind the game. And that might appeal to some people, but not to me.

Spamming an unlimited resource outside of combat (e.g: the Guidance (https://www.dndbeyond.com/spells/guidance) cantrip): If the effect isn't mechanically OP but the result looks silly, I'd be okay adjusting the look to be less silly. Chanting a constant prayer of blessing over an ally looks okay, although the drawbacks (concentration, hands being kept in prayer pose, and most notably the constant chanting) might render it situationally nonsensical.

Primarily this is about using the defend / guard and hide / sneak / search actions. The problem with using them all day, aside from being silly from a fluff perspective; i.e its slow, mentally and physically exhausting, and again, the big one, I can't see actively defending yourself against an attacker that you don't know exists or actively hiding from an someone whose location you don't know. It's also a mechanical problem; it basically renders the whole concept of stealth and ambushes moot.

And of course, having to roll stealth and perception checks for everyone in the world every round is just not feasible OOC.

Prebuffing before combat: Sensible if it can be done silently (like chugging a potion right before kicking in the door), but if the spellcasting makes any amount of noise there's a chance that you just made whoever was in the room aware that they should be on alert.

This literally enraged my players.

The idea that I would start rolling alertness tests for the monsters if they did "combat actions" but not regular actions. Bob, in one particularly sarcastic moment said "What, so we can talk and plan normally all we want, and you actually ENCOURAGE us to plan and communicate because its good teamwork, but then you PUNISH us for casting verbal spells or using bardic inspiration before combat. What, can the monsters hear the *dice*?

Readying actions outside of combat in order to pre-empt the initiative roll: This is the meat of the problem, because it tends to degenerate into mexican standoffs at best. Taking initiative manipulating actions when initiative is not an immediate factor is going to create odd mechanical artifacts, but I can't think of any ironclad solutions against people trying to game the system.

Yeah. This is the big problem.

There's another thing, I don't think it likely applies here but it could. The specific game's "detect magic" isn't D&D style "must be another caster casting a spell to detect anything". Its a basic stat+skill roll modified by the power of the spell and the distance to the caster. If (although its pretty unlikely in normal game play) the prebuff is powerful enough it could alert even untrained people to "woah dude, didja feel that? someone dropped a big magic in the next room". Basically just like hearing or bright lights, only through the magic field instead of through the air. And of course the caster can dampen the 'sound' of it, but that raises the dc of casting the spell a bit more, so the usual tradeoff stuff that Tak's players tend to dislike.

Seriously though, the all day buff thing is usually worth it if you want a critical effect you can be assured of having up.

This is all true, although you do need some magical sensitivity or training to detect magic in my system, *most* enemies won't be able to do it by default (but a lot will).

Generally the pre-buffing isn't actually about buffs, it's about combat utility spells like summoning allies or terrain manipulation. In the specific case that caused the argument, it was using wall spells to create magical defenses just outside of the room and then opening the door, shooting the enemy, and forcing said enemy to cross said magical defenses to get to them.

Ironically, I didn't give much thought to the ruling at the time because I knew it wouldn't matter in this particular fight as the enemy in question was too big to fit through the door and trapped in the room, so I just made a conservative ruling at the time so the player wouldn't a: waste the mana, and b: throw the ruling in my face at a later point to justify some even zanier exploit, and c: it was really late and we were all tired and I was both not thinking too clearly and wanted to just get the combat done with as it was the last room of the dungeon wing and a good stopping point for the night.

snip

I agree with a lot of those examples, but a lot of them are not examples of hide. They are examples of sneaking, or bluffing, or disguising.

Bob is specifically talking about being *hidden* and un-targetable.

For example, if he was polymorphed into a rat, people wouldn't pay attention to him, but an owl might. Likewise, if he was infiltrating a military base by pretending he belonged there, and say, an enemy commando attacked the base and started shooting everyone in sight, he would still be a potential target.

Rogue being in default sneaky status: Complication in normal social situations where you want to be noticed (pretty much any time you want to talk with someone), but eminently sensible in dangerous adventure locales. I'd allow the rogue to be sneaky if the situation allowed it and they were willing to accept whatever cost. (e.g: movement penalty.) Due to having read a bunch of rules light and narratively focused games lately I'd be inclined to allow the rogue to start off encounters in a good hiding spot so long as they could justify it and it was not ridiculous; someone who prioritizes being sneaky and who benefits greatly from being sneaky will tend towards areas that make good hiding places as a matter of habit.

I don't have a problem with that either.

But again, that isn't what my players want.

They don't want to be hidden in a sneaky position, they want to charge right into the thick of combat with the rest of the party and get a first round backstab on the guy standing right in the open expecting combat.

The "fluff" justification is that the enemies are so distracted by the "big screaming guys charging at them in plate mail" that they don't notice the smaller quieter guys running past them.

Also, Someone mentioned upthread that readied actions only last one round in D&D. I didn't recall that. It's possible we missed that rule back then, more likely we just readied a new action every single round all day long, much like Bob claims to be hiding all day long.

Slipjig

2023-08-04, 03:24 PM

I don't specifically remember readied actions only lasting a round, but the clear implication is that you aren't doing anything else except waiting for the trigger to occur. You can do something different next round, but if your trigger doesn't happen, your action is wasted. And the readied action is technically your reaction, so if you perform any other reaction, it cancels your readied action.

It should probably also scuttle all Perception checks, since monomaniacal focus on the doorway to, say, fire a crossbow bolt as soon as anything appears in the doorway means you AREN'T looking at anything else.

Kane0

2023-08-04, 03:57 PM

Jay R

2023-08-04, 04:20 PM

This isn't a surprise though.

He asked if a spell with a duration of "last until end of current scene" could be pre-cast and I said no, he would need to cast one with a duration of "lasts through the next scene". Neither of them have durations measured in X encounters.

Not that it really has any bearing on whether or not declaring it a new encounter is a good call.

OK, you’ve changed the wording, while ruling on a pedantic, precise meaning of the new wording.

In your original post, you said it would last for one encounter. Specifically, you “told him that he would need to cast a spell with a 2 encounter duration” (your words).

OK, if he had cast a “spell with a 2 encounter duration,” that implies that casting the spell and kicking the door is a complete encounter. How many XPs would he get for that encounter? None, of course, because it wasn’t an encounter.

Suppose he had cast it in melee, and an enemy immediately ran through a door and shut it. So the PC kicks open the door and keeps attacking. Would that split the single encounter into two encounters?

Later, you changed the wording to a duration of “last until end of current scene”. Have you defined what a scene is in this game?

"I'm going to get as close as I can to my opponents, cast a buff spell, and use its power to attack them." Everybody will think that this is a single scene.

As near as I can tell, what you meant is that the spell needs to be cast during a melee round in which the enemies are already active. But that’s not what anybody understands from a “1 encounter spell” or "the end of the current scene". As most people will interpret English, after you locate the enemy and plan your attack, your preparations for that encounter six seconds before engagement are part of the encounter, and part of the scene.

If I were to try to define what a single encounter was, I would probably say it's from the time we start tracking rounds until we stop. I think most people would go along with that or something similar.

Getting into position for an ambush, drawing a sword, nocking an arrow, and casting a buff spell are all parts of that encounter. Making the plan might not be. But the execution of the plan with no breaks in round-by-round action is a single encounter.

Don’t bother trying to convince me or your players of anything else. You said that his “1 encounter spell" wouldn’t last for one encounter. Nothing will change that.

I suspect that the underlying problem, both here and in many other situations you’re talked about, is that you do not speak precisely. You think the crucial word is "current", not "encounter" or "scene", and you think that means something other than what they are doing right now. Then you try to interpret what you meant, rather than what the words would naturally mean to any listener. Players who trusted to what the words actually said will feel that they have been led astray.

The problem isn’t a bad DM. The problem isn’t complaining players. The problem is miscommunication. And nothing will fix it until you and your players agree on what the words mean.

Talakeal

2023-08-04, 05:04 PM

snip

I wholly admit that I often speak carelessly and imprecisely, especially on forums, and that my group does have a lot of problems with communication.

But... I don't really think that is the issue here. I don't think anyone at my table misunderstands or disagrees on what the rules are for spell durations, just on my judgement about where one scene ends and another begins.

The precise wording of the rulebook is as follows:

"Enchantments last for the entirety of the act in which they are cast, up to a maximum of about an hour of narrative time, and will automatically fade at the act's end."
"Extend ... allows an enchantment to last until the end of the following act, or up to a day of narrative time."

Kish

2023-08-04, 05:16 PM

I was curious, are there any 4E fans here?

Because 4E has encounter powers that automatically recharge, right?
4E is extensively criticized for being a tactical game with a light layer of roleplaying spackle.

As part of that, encounter powers by their definition are only supposed to be useful when actively engaged in combat. "What happens if I cast Melkoth's Mystifying Miasma before the combat starts?" is a question that never comes up because, whatever the implications of "The Wizard creates a numbing fog," the mechanics of the spell are clear that it affects a single enemy target and has no effect whatsoever beyond: this one guy gets a -2 penalty to something for one round.

Kane0

2023-08-04, 06:06 PM

I pulled out my 4e PHB!

Page 15 Sidebar:
You can use encounter powers many times during a day of adventuring, but you have to rest a few minutes between each use, so you can use them each once per encounter.

Page 259:
When an encounter begins, everyone has something to do, and it’s important for the whole group to work together to achieve success. Two kinds of encounters occur in most D&D adventures: combat and noncombat encounters.

Combat encounters rely on your attack powers, movement abilities, skills, feats, and magic items—just about every bit of rules material that appears on your character sheet. A combat encounter might include elements of a noncombat encounter. Chapter 9 provides the rules for combat encounters.

Page 263:
A short rest allows you to renew your encounter powers and spend healing surges to regain hit points.

- Duration: A short rest is about 5 minutes long.
- No Limit per Day: You can take as many short rests per day as you want.
- No Strenuous Activity: You have to rest during a short rest. You can stand guard, sit in place, ride on a wagon or other vehicle, or do other tasks that don’t require much exertion.
- Renew Powers: After a short rest, you renew your encounter powers, so they are available for your next encounter.
- Spend Healing Surges: After a short rest, you can spend as many healing surges as you want (see “Healing,” page 293). If you run out of healing surges, you must take an extended rest to regain them.
- Using Powers while You Rest: If you use an encounter power (such as a healing power) during a short rest, you need another short rest to renew it so that you can use it again.
- Interruptions: If your short rest is interrupted, you need to rest another 5 minutes to get the benefits of a short rest.

Edit:

"Enchantments last for the entirety of the act in which they are cast, up to a maximum of about an hour of narrative time, and will automatically fade at the act's end."

I would absolutely expect to be able to cast that and have it last through the act of opening a door and having a fight that might last a minute or two. Probably even with a few minutes of talking before and after as well.
Now what's on the other side of the door might notice, certainly. But that's not anything to do with the spell itself. How fast you act after potentially alerting the other side will largely determine what they do in response, ranging from just not being surprised to things like sounding an alarm, moving into position, preparing their own spells and attacks, and so on. But your group may have opinions about that.

GloatingSwine

2023-08-04, 07:26 PM

Hiding from what?

Good question. Hide is an opposed check in Heart of Darkness.

icefractal

2023-08-04, 08:33 PM

I mean, in terms of "hiding from what" or being an opposed check, I don't see it as a blocker personally, if the environment they're moving through has cover for hiding.

Say the party is traveling along a forest trail, and one member is "sneaking" - so they're moving from cover to cover, trying to stay out of sight. Obviously this slows them down, so either:
A) The whole party travels slower
B) They hustle to counter-act the stealth slowness, which probably has an endurance limit (in 3E it does, for example).
It also pre-empts them doing another "action consuming" activity, such as looking for traps, keeping watch against an ambush, or maintaining spells that cost actions (repeating cantrips in PF1, for example).

Then if an enemy shows up, they roll stealth against that enemy. Possibly at a lower bonus than if they were staying still.

Come to think of it - this kinda has to work, or else general ambushes ("we're bandits, hiding behind shrubbery to ambush anybody rich-looking who comes by", say) would be impossible in most cases. Since neither side can hide until they're aware of the other, and both become aware of the other at once (barring having different senses, like one side has darkvision and the other doesn't), then by the time they could hide, they're both aware.

Now on the specific case of entering a room - yeah, that doesn't seem so workable. The enemies inside the room will notice the door opening if they're awake, and be looking at the door. If you're moving quietly and not the first one through the door, then they probably won't know you're there ... until you come through the door. There's not really a way to plausibly "sneak right up to them" unless a party member throws a smoke bomb or does something else to impede visibility. Although I guess if the rest of the party moves in past the enemies, so those enemies are now looking away from the door to fight, then it's plausible for someone to sneak in at that point (which is probably at least round two, so it would have worked just as well to spend an action hiding).

Anymage

2023-08-05, 01:25 AM

Even in 4e, I remember a few people arguing ways around the concept of short resting after each encounter to wrap things up. Either the idea that "until end of encounter" powers lasted until your next short rest so they tried to exert themselves to avoid counting as rested, or trying to chain multiple short rests in order to make back-to-back use of certain encounter powers. 4e's balance fixation, 3e's attempt to codify all of how a world works, and massive chunks of law all show how hard it is to have rules that perfectly protect you from bad behavior.

Vahnavoi

2023-08-05, 03:19 AM

I *do* use the latter.

Are you getting hung up on the exact terminology? That I say "act" instead of scene (or colloquially encounter) and "mission" instead of "scenario" (or colloquially adventure).

Or is the problem that some of the spell durations are current / vs. next?

No. I'm saying there is no advantage to expressing spell duration as (f.ex.) "spell duration: Extended IV", as opposed to "spell duration: years" or "spell duration: campaign". All these brackets do is add special terminology that cannot be understood on basis of plain language. "Incantation" and "Enchantment" are the worst offenders, since those words don't normally measure time in any shape or form.

Because those were actually added in an attempt to solve the very problem you seem to be saying they cause; players wanting to cast spells preemptively but not wanting to go all the way of buffing up the duration to the next category, so I put in half steps.

You have seen this advice before: stop appealing to worst instincts of your players.

In trying to appease your players' naked lobbying for an advantage, you've made a system that needs more referee adjucation, which is something your player ALSO hate.

If your players were acting in good faith and you were using approximate real time units, neither you nor your players would need those half steps. In a situation such as kicking down the door, they could use real life understanding to figure out whether the door would take seconds or minutes to break through, and then select the appropriate spell.

I play World of Darkness more than D&D, and World of Darkness always uses abstract time brackets. Heck, 4E D&D does the same, and its one of the few things I actually prefer about the edition. This is hardly some problem I have invented whole cloth, it's a choice about which style I prefer based upon years of playing other people's games.

In addition to the annoyance of tracking timing on stuff, I find that precise times (and distances) also lend to players appealing to realism. Heck, literally the other day I had a player argue that since a handgun can fire 45 rounds a minute and that a round is six seconds, they should be allowed to make four attacks per round when using a pistol. And I see people on the forums use similar calculations all the time in the endless Martial vs. Caster D&D debates trying to divine the fictional reality behind the game. And that might appeal to some people, but not to me.

Meanwhile, I don't play World of Darkness, and I don't have much sympathy for anyone who prefers that design, because even the designers seem to think their own rules are rubbish and really rules in general just get in way of the story. :smalltongue:

More seriously: it's a self-created problem because YOU are your game's designer and no-body's telling you to copy WoD (or 4th edition D&D). That you prefer doing things this way does not change the diagnosis.

As for annoyance of tracking time, approximate tracking of time is not in fact any more taxing than trying to figure out where boundaries of abstract brackets are, and the ability to appeal to realism is overwhelmingly a positive, because it entails ability to use real-world sources and real-life experience to estimate durations even when those are not explicitly listed in game materials. The alternative is always just subjectively BS it, which, I reiterate, your players ALSO don't like.

Using real time units and tracking approximate time does not need to mean tracking individual time units in ticking clock manner. What it instead means that if a situation is approximated to last for seconds (such as a combat round) , the player can suggest any action that would also be approximated to last seconds(such as firing a pistol). These can be done, and can be done fast, on the spot on case-by-case basis, as long as a game master has any clue what they're talking about (so in the case of firing a pistol, a game master could point out that maximal firing speed of a weapon is not the same as a person's useful firing speed, which would reasonably already be adressed by other rules for attacks per turn).

GloatingSwine

2023-08-05, 03:55 AM

Talakeal

2023-08-05, 12:01 PM

Yeah, there's contextual information for a situation like that though that reveals who you are hiding from, "we want to hide from potential observers on the road, we won't move or change anything until our attempt is tested by there being one". You would then roll your Hide and set a bar that a traveler on the road's Alertness would have to overcome.

Just "I wake up and immediately hide and stay that way all the time in every situation" doesn't have any contextual information, as soon as you get out of bed you've changed everything that would have pertained to your original Hide roll (and should begin to use Sneak instead of Hide anyway), every time you enter some kind of new environment with a new distribution of observers your ability to Hide and Sneak in that new environment with new observers would need to be reset.

The original condition is basically a player saying "I want to remain concealed from all possible observers at all times without giving you any more information about how I intend to achieve that" (which is very much on brand for these players).

Very much this.

Even something like "hiding in a box" is pretty meaningless against someone who opens the box.

Most "universal" hiding also requires staying still and quiet, not something you can really do all day while also adventuring.

As for annoyance of tracking time, approximate tracking of time is not in fact any more taxing than trying to figure out where boundaries of abstract brackets are, and the ability to appeal to realism is overwhelmingly a positive, because it entails ability to use real-world sources and real-life experience to estimate durations even when those are not explicitly listed in game materials. The alternative is always just subjectively BS it, which, I reiterate, your players ALSO don't like.

I strongly disagree that counting time isn't any more taxing than trying to figure out the edges of brackets. Depending on the game, there are probably dozens of durations to be tracked each session, whereas arguments about the borders of a scene occur maybe once every ten sessions, if I am being extremely generous?

Personally I prefer "subjective BS" when playing a game. It's much easier, it allows for fun and fairness to trump realism, and it's not really possible to get precise results anyway because a bunch of nerds sitting around a table don't have the capabilities to measure a lot of things with the needed precision.

No. I'm saying there is no advantage to expressing spell duration as (f.ex.) "spell duration: Extended IV", as opposed to "spell duration: years" or "spell duration: campaign". All these brackets do is add special terminology that cannot be understood on basis of plain language. "Incantation" and "Enchantment" are the worst offenders, since those words don't normally measure time in any shape or form.

That may be an issue with communication to new players or people on the forum, but my players absolutely understand what the jargon means.

Incantations and enchantments are the two basic types of spells in my system, and they influence a lot more than duration, whereas extend is the name of a metamagic that increases the duration of an enchantment by one category with cumulative effects.

I honestly can't imagine a game book that goes out of its way to avoid evocative jargon in favor of plain language, it would be so clunky and immersion breaking to read.

You have seen this advice before: stop appealing to worst instincts of your players.

In trying to appease your players' naked lobbying for an advantage, you've made a system that needs more referee adjucation, which is something your player ALSO hate.

If your players were acting in good faith and you were using approximate real time units, neither you nor your players would need those half steps. In a situation such as kicking down the door, they could use real life understanding to figure out whether the door would take seconds or minutes to break through, and then select the appropriate spell.

That's a very good point.

I will, however, point out that all my durations do have approximate real time units, and that my players have no problem arguing for a GM call to override the written rules if they think it will give them an advantage.

More seriously: it's a self-created problem because YOU are your game's designer and no-body's telling you to copy WoD (or 4th edition D&D). That you prefer doing things this way does not change the diagnosis.

I get what you are saying. I just don't think referring to something as a "self-created problem" when choosing between existing options, as it would if I was inventing something whole cloth or stubbornly insisting on going with an option that was universally despised (like acquisition systems seem to be).

Like, if I had to take a trip and knew that I had to either drive or fly, and was asking people's advice for easing the pain points of either a long flight or a long road trip, I would not expect them to dismiss them as self created problems just because I was making the choice about which method of transportation to use.

I pulled out my 4e PHB!

Page 15 Sidebar:
You can use encounter powers many times during a day of adventuring, but you have to rest a few minutes between each use, so you can use them each once per encounter.

Page 259:
When an encounter begins, everyone has something to do, and it’s important for the whole group to work together to achieve success. Two kinds of encounters occur in most D&D adventures: combat and noncombat encounters.

Combat encounters rely on your attack powers, movement abilities, skills, feats, and magic items—just about every bit of rules material that appears on your character sheet. A combat encounter might include elements of a noncombat encounter. Chapter 9 provides the rules for combat encounters.

Page 263:
A short rest allows you to renew your encounter powers and spend healing surges to regain hit points.

- Duration: A short rest is about 5 minutes long.
- No Limit per Day: You can take as many short rests per day as you want.
- No Strenuous Activity: You have to rest during a short rest. You can stand guard, sit in place, ride on a wagon or other vehicle, or do other tasks that don’t require much exertion.
- Renew Powers: After a short rest, you renew your encounter powers, so they are available for your next encounter.
- Spend Healing Surges: After a short rest, you can spend as many healing surges as you want (see “Healing,” page 293). If you run out of healing surges, you must take an extended rest to regain them.
- Using Powers while You Rest: If you use an encounter power (such as a healing power) during a short rest, you need another short rest to renew it so that you can use it again.
- Interruptions: If your short rest is interrupted, you need to rest another 5 minutes to get the benefits of a short rest.

I would absolutely expect to be able to cast that and have it last through the act of opening a door and having a fight that might last a minute or two. Probably even with a few minutes of talking before and after as well.
Now what's on the other side of the door might notice, certainly. But that's not anything to do with the spell itself. How fast you act after potentially alerting the other side will largely determine what they do in response, ranging from just not being surprised to things like sounding an alarm, moving into position, preparing their own spells and attacks, and so on. But your group may have opinions about that.

Ah, so it is still tied to short rests then. That fixes a lot of the potential issues, but also creates some more weirdness if the players don't get a chance to rest between encounters.

I would absolutely expect to be able to cast that and have it last through the act of opening a door and having a fight that might last a minute or two. Probably even with a few minutes of talking before and after as well.
Now what's on the other side of the door might notice, certainly. But that's not anything to do with the spell itself. How fast you act after potentially alerting the other side will largely determine what they do in response, ranging from just not being surprised to things like sounding an alarm, moving into position, preparing their own spells and attacks, and so on. But your group may have opinions about that.

Yeah. I think at this point it's pretty much agreed that it was a bad call.

As I said upthread, I regret making it, but it was late and pointless, and I didn't want the player wasting mana or holding it over me in the future.

However... the issue that the player thinks the ability to do "pre-buffing" before an encounter also means he gets to auto win initiative is still very troubling and argument inducing.

MoiMagnus

2023-08-05, 12:40 PM

Ah, so it is still tied to short rests then. That fixes a lot of the potential issues, but also creates some more weirdness if the players don't get a chance to rest between encounters.

Though a 5min short rest. That's not much of a constraint.

Each time I've been in a sequence of encounters where a 5min break was not an option, saying "well, it's just one big encounter" was quite reasonable.

King of Nowhere

2023-08-05, 06:04 PM

However... the issue that the player thinks the ability to do "pre-buffing" before an encounter also means he gets to auto win initiative is still very troubling and argument inducing.

in 3.5, if a side can surprise the other they get a surprise round. which is conceptually the same (and mechanically similar) as automatically winning initiative.

nothing strange here, the side that gets to hit first and catch the other unprepared always has a massive advantage in real life, i'd expect a game mechanic to reflect that. if the players earn their surprise by clever scouting, it can also be a reward for smart game.
what surprises me if how often this surprise situation occurs in your games. from you description, it seems there's lots of dungeon clearing. I would expect the bad guys enemies (just occurred me that the bad guys are probably your players) would post some sentries. if they are smart, they'd also have something in place against a party quietly taking out the sentries. My nonmagical favourites would be closed doors (the bane of every invisible character), guards regularly calling each other, and groups of guards keeping line of sight.
so I would expect that your players rarely would get the advantage of surprise. if, on the other hand, they did manage to evade all the sentries and alarms, then good job for them, they earned the surprise

Quertus

2023-08-05, 07:18 PM

Slipjig

2023-08-05, 07:40 PM

Come to think of it - this kinda has to work, or else general ambushes ("we're bandits, hiding behind shrubbery to ambush anybody rich-looking who comes by", say) would be impossible in most cases. Since neither side can hide until they're aware of the other, and both become aware of the other at once (barring having different senses, like one side has darkvision and the other doesn't), then by the time they could hide, they're both aware.

Now on the specific case of entering a room - yeah, that doesn't seem so workable. The enemies inside the room will notice the door opening if they're awake, and be looking at the door. If you're moving quietly and not the first one through the door, then they probably won't know you're there ... until you come through the door. There's not really a way to plausibly "sneak right up to them" unless a party member throws a smoke bomb or does something else to impede visibility. Although I guess if the rest of the party moves in past the enemies, so those enemies are now looking away from the door to fight, then it's plausible for someone to sneak in at that point (which is probably at least round two, so it would have worked just as well to spend an action hiding.)

That really depends on whether the hiding person is moving and what angle they are being observes from.

Hiding while stationary from anybody in a specific place is pretty straightforward, and should be easily do-able with minimal setup. Your ambushing bandits fall into this category.

Hiding while stationary from anyone approaching from any direction is trickier, but could be done with, say a foxhole or serious camouflage.

Hiding while moving against observers in a single specific direction is tricky, but do-able, so long as you keep an obstacle between you.

But hiding while moving from observers looking from any direction is going to be all but impossible absent invisibility or a trick like hiding under a tarp in the back of a moving wagon.

As for your second point, yes, if there is a guard facing the door, Hiding as you open it (or even cross a brightly-lit space) should be all but impossible unless there is a suitable distraction. Guard posts exist because they are hard to get past unobserved.

Talakeal

2023-08-05, 07:48 PM

in 3.5, if a side can surprise the other they get a surprise round. which is conceptually the same (and mechanically similar) as automatically winning initiative.

nothing strange here, the side that gets to hit first and catch the other unprepared always has a massive advantage in real life, i'd expect a game mechanic to reflect that. if the players earn their surprise by clever scouting, it can also be a reward for smart game.
what surprises me if how often this surprise situation occurs in your games. from you description, it seems there's lots of dungeon clearing. I would expect the bad guys enemies (just occurred me that the bad guys are probably your players) would post some sentries. if they are smart, they'd also have something in place against a party quietly taking out the sentries. My nonmagical favorites would be closed doors (the bane of every invisible character), guards regularly calling each other, and groups of guards keeping line of sight.
so I would expect that your players rarely would get the advantage of surprise. if, on the other hand, they did manage to evade all the sentries and alarms, then good job for them, they earned the surprise

Ok two things here.

First, they aren't talking about surprise or initiative. They are talking about walking up to a door, taking a turn, then during their next turn opening the door and engaging any monsters that might be inside. Thus the players go first and initiative is never rolled.

Second, unlike D&D surprise is handled through modifiers to initiative rather than bonus turns. However, in both my game and D&D, surprise is handled by being aware that anyone is on the other side of the door. I told my players I could start checking for surprise, but to be fair I would have to allow the monsters to utilize the same rules, and as the party doesn't have a dedicated scout, does have some big clumsy armor wearing members, and the doorway makes for a natural funnel, doing so would hurt the party more often than it would help.

It was at that point which Bob told me "No no, i think i finally understand. you want realism and fairness. realism as you see it and fairness for your monsters" and then started giving me the silent treatment.

You keep mentioning this - what, exactly, are you referencing here? What, exactly, is your player expecting, and why?

See above.

If I can follow, because they are allowed to take a turn outside the door, it is unfair of the monsters to interrupt them when they open the door during their next turn.

Keltest

2023-08-05, 08:47 PM

Why, exactly, does buffing before opening the door mean initiative is never rolled? Do you not roll initiative as soon as both parties are aware of each other?

Kane0

2023-08-06, 12:01 AM

If you are rolling to see if they notice the party or act immediately, does that take actions out of their potential first turn of initiative?

King of Nowhere

2023-08-06, 05:33 AM

Ok two things here.

First, they aren't talking about surprise or initiative. They are talking about walking up to a door, taking a turn, then during their next turn opening the door and engaging any monsters that might be inside. Thus the players go first and initiative is never rolled.

are the monsters aware they are coming? if not, they should get a surprise. imagine someone breaks into the door of your room and attacks you, they have the advantage of surprise unless you heard them. unless they are actively guarding the door, but you are not guarding your door all the time. if the people in the room are sentries on watch duty, they will be watching the door. if they are on rest because the party already passed the sentries without alarms, then nobody will likely be watching the door.

also, how do the players know if there is someone on the other side of the door? do they buff themselves before opening every door? I'd expect that would lead to wasting a lot of spells before empty rooms.

It was at that point which Bob told me "No no, i think i finally understand. you want realism and fairness. realism as you see it and fairness for your monsters" and then started giving me the silent treatment.
bob is in bad faith. like, extremely bad faith. ignore anything he says.
the easiest way for me to adjudicate rules is reciprocity. what you can do, the npcs can do too. so I let the players decide, knowing that if they pick a favorable interpretation for them, the next time some npcs are in a similar position the rules will favor the npcs. works great. but with bob that cannot be done.

surprise is handled by being aware that anyone is on the other side of the door. I told my players I could start checking for surprise, but to be fair I would have to allow the monsters to utilize the same rules,
this... doesn't seem like you want realism at all. seems a very gamist approach, where the monsters are bunched up in convenient "encounters" that the party can defeat individually. it reminds me of hero quest, which didn't have any dedicated initiative or surprise rule; and yes, the monsters always remained in the room until the room was opened, and the party always went first.

GloatingSwine

2023-08-06, 05:55 AM

Vahnavoi

2023-08-06, 08:06 AM

MonochromeTiger

2023-08-06, 12:02 PM

I strongly disagree that counting time isn't any more taxing than trying to figure out the edges of brackets. Depending on the game, there are probably dozens of durations to be tracked each session, whereas arguments about the borders of a scene occur maybe once every ten seconds if I am being generous?

Personally I prefer "subjective BS" when playing a game. It's much easier, it allows for fun and fairness to trump realism, and it's not really possible to get precise results anyway because a bunch of nerds sitting around a table don't have the capabilities to measure a lot of things with the needed precision.

The difference is mostly terminology and how vague you're being though. Both ways you're using an abstraction of time rather than actual time but in the specific times way you can have an easy estimate of how long it will actually last; if a round is six seconds and it lasts a minute you have ten rounds, if it's somehow a weird uneven number like fifty nine seconds you just accept that it's still part of that last round and say ten rounds.

Meanwhile on your side of things you've got the entire root of your "surprise round" argument where not only is the time an abstract but the clarifying points for measuring that time are subjective and abstract. It turns "okay we know the enemy is here, we're planning and preparing so we can go in to attack" into a fight over "we know they're there but they don't know we're here, the encounter is going this is just preparation before initiative goes" versus "it's only an encounter if we're already at the hitting each other with points sticks part."

It makes an entire cause for debate and argument that just flat out isn't there when you've got set measurements that you can just round up to fit within a round, and you still use timed rounds anyway. You keep the framework that timed actions are based on but toss out the reason for that framework to exist. Of course players are going to get snippy over what they feel counts as the duration because the more vague and undefined it actually is the more everyone can see their own interpretation as right, and that's not even including the fact your players in specific seem to expect the game to roll over and beg on command for them and throw fits when it doesn't.

Other games already have some abstraction and handwaving in place for certain things, the whole "talking is a free action" argument for example. As much as some people will grind their teeth and say "no, we know this takes longer so it's not allowed" that is very much a table preference thing. Meanwhile if you got rid of the time estimates for things like spells then suddenly you've got people pulling tricks to make the cheese spell casters can get up to worse, it's stricter to both allow things like prepping for surprise rounds and disallow things like "oh well I drew in more enemies before we finished this one weakened enemy so it's the same encounter" from players or "oh well they tried to negotiate so technically the fight ended and this is a new encounter" from DMs.

That may be an issue with communication to new players or people on the forum, but my players absolutely understand what the jargon means.

As Vahnavoi points out, if your goal is to make a system for other people to use then there are slight issues if the metric for success on how intuitive it is ends at "well my table that has been playing with it for years gets it." Especially when, as is demonstrated by your many threads, your table is more than happy to argue every little thing. If the example of "well we understand it" still churns out terminology and rules fights on a constant basis then there may be a problem while others seeing issues is "an issue with communication" then the issue may be more extensive than you estimated.

Incantations and enchantments are the two basic types of spells in my system, and they influence a lot more than duration, whereas extend is the name of a metamagic that increases the duration of an enchantment by one category with cumulative effects.

I honestly can't imagine a game book that goes out of its way to avoid evocative jargon in favor of plain language, it would be so clunky and immersion breaking to read.

You can't imagine most rule books then? Sure the "jargon" is used, when specifically referring to that action. They then proceed to describe its effect, duration, and conditions for success or failure in plain language. That's because the rules themselves aren't there for the flowery language of the game, they're there to tell you the bounds within the game works. If I'm playing 5e or Pathfinder I may know a feat improving Athletics made my character better at it and they can probably pull off more impressive tricks but I also know "alright it gives a +1" because that's the actual relevant information it's trying to convey and the mental image and description is up to the players and the DM.

That's a very good point.

I will, however, point out that all my durations do have approximate real time units, and that my players have no problem arguing for a GM call to override the written rules if they think it will give them an advantage.

So your duration estimates are the same kind of abstraction as "X many seconds", and yet are superior to it for reasons. And your players will argue either way to get an advantage which your system allows them to argue even more due to the subjective nature of what's actually an "encounter." And somehow the obvious issue isn't clear here?

I get what you are saying. I just don't think referring to something as a "self-created problem" when choosing between existing options, as it would if I was inventing something whole cloth or stubbornly insisting on going with an option that was universally despised (like acquisition systems seem to be).

Like, if I had to take a trip and knew that I had to either drive or fly, and was asking people's advice for easing the pain points of either a long flight or a long road trip, I would not expect them to dismiss them as self created problems just because I was making the choice about which method of transportation to use.

If you have a choice between existing options and you know the flaws of both then you're choosing to accept those flaws with your decision. That means those flaws were what you decided it was okay to go with, and by extent you felt you could navigate or avoid the problems that go with it.

It has nothing to do with "well I didn't make the system I used in the game myself" it has everything to do with making the game and choosing to use that system with the problems that come with it and no set answer in place beforehand.

Ah, so it is still tied to short rests then. That fixes a lot of the potential issues, but also creates some more weirdness if the players don't get a chance to rest between encounters.

And in the case of 4e, where that example comes from, that's kind of the assumption with encounters. Adequate space between them so the resources work as advertised, the system was designed with that in mind. Problem being the wording still implies that a DM or the players can rush into the next encounter before those "few minutes of rest" and start the next fight without the resources they're assumed to have access to for each encounter they run into. Which comes back to the matter of jargon and attempts at immersion needing some actual statements on the mechanics included for context, especially in rules where the RAW crowd can seize on whatever wording is there to make an argument.

Yeah. I think at this point it's pretty much agreed that it was a bad call.

As I said upthread, I regret making it, but it was late and pointless, and I didn't want the player wasting mana or holding it over me in the future.

However... the issue that the player thinks the ability to do "pre-buffing" before an encounter also means he gets to auto win initiative is still very troubling and argument inducing.

Then, without breaking your "encounter" lengths, if they prep for a battle they're in the encounter and you can roll initiative with your "surprise modifier" but until hostilities actually start the surprised side is assumed to be spending their turns on whatever random actions they were normally doing out of combat. It still has problems, if the players know initiative order before they engage then they can plan out their actions down to who to shoot first, but the alternative is players arguing that since they're the only ones taking action and they open up with attacks at the same moment the enemy becomes aware of them and thus they should go first. Something you're specifically trying to shoot down as a possibility.

There's no actual way to do it without someone feeling like it makes no sense or is messing with one side or the other. You want things to where the most advantage they can really get is being slightly faster than the enemy, they want things to where it's possible to catch the enemy completely off guard and get a few more shots in than would be possible in a mutually prepared engagement.

Your side basically reduces any knowledge and preparation to a very slight numerical advantage on initiative and some more planning but means that all the enemies the players encounter are on constant alert ready to gun down ambushers with a level of vigilance and readiness that is impossible to maintain indefinitely. To a player it could feel like they're being robbed of any reward for actually sneaking up on the enemy, especially if that "surprised" enemy can potentially turn around and club them half to death before they even make an attack because Initiative went against them.

Their side assumes that managing to sneak up on an enemy is impactful and can potentially end an encounter before the other side is alerted to their presence, something that does actually have a point in any appeal to "realism", and that the effort to prepare and attack an unaware enemy should have more impact than a slightly lower chance of getting hit first. Which you've stated objections to on the grounds that reacting to the ambush should still be in initiative and open the door for the people being surprised reacting much faster than the people doing the surprising.

None of the options are necessarily great for all sides but in this case you've already axed the idea of surprise rounds and decided on it being rolled into initiative. That puts it all on you to find a way to make it satisfying for the players to get one over on the enemy without sacrificing what you feel the game should be like, and it's looking like that vision of the game is that every fight is basically just a straightforward head on brawl and the idea of catching an enemy with their pants down is impossible for both sides.

Then "Bob" is just being a level of petty powergaming that, and I mean no offense, seems to be a constant at your table and in most places would've been grounds for finding a new group ages ago. In a situation where one side or the other is going to feel snubbed he's taking it farther as a personal attack, which, again, seems to be a constant from some of your players if they don't get their way.

It's important to be open to criticism and input but it's also important to maintain morale and friendship at the table. Someone throwing a fit whenever they don't get their way hits on multiple parts of that. First, there's obviously issues with table morale and friendships if someone is set off that easily that often and leaving that kind of resentment in place is going to impact the rest of your players and you. Second, the fact your table does have this many arguments about the game rules and how encounters are run and that as far as I can tell it's not just "Bob" does show some dissatisfaction with the game whether that's incompatibility with the system or incompatibility with your style of running it yourself or expectations for others running it.

We only get your perspective on this so we've really got no context except for your accounts which paint most of your group as actively antagonistic and prone to cheating and pettiness at worst and a confusing mix of people who display little in the way of actual friendship or comradery at best. It's entirely possible we're missing some big story of how you're the best of friends when not trying to snap eachothers' heads off over TTRPGs and this behavior is all completely limited to when the game is being run. Even with that possibility your group sounds so mutually hostile I really question how you expect them to get through a game without a screaming match and hurt feelings let alone test a system you made yourself that you're invested in a specific idea of that will inevitably clash with player expectations, powergaming/cheating, and hurt feelings.

TaiLiu

2023-08-06, 12:16 PM

Eh, I’d say… more consensus that the implementation of scene (encounter) duration that Talakeal is using shows a lack of appreciation for the concept of the scene, realism, or fun.

If the rules are, “you always start the scene with your gun holstered” - a good general rule for, say, police - imagine the police unholstering their weapons before kicking in the door… then the chapter ends, the GM calls “scene!”, and the curtain rises to the police raiding the drug den with their weapons holstered. It’s just wrong on every level.
You might be right. It's very possible that I've misunderstood a lot of that consensus. My sense was that Talakeal doesn't always start every fight with a new scene, but in this case it made sense to. Which affects spells. If Talakeal did in fact do that—if every fight were a new scene—I'd agree that it doesn't make sense.

I'm not sure the holstered/unholstered analogy works, though. Presumably the spellcaster still has their wand or components or whatever unholstered... It's the spell, i.e. the bullet, that hasn't been released.

EDIT: that assumes Talakeal even uses Encounter durations, which has now been thrown into question…

Game Mechanics vs. Narrative.

Durations are as follows:

Incantation: Lasts until the start of the next turn, or a few seconds of narrative time.
Enchantment: Lasts until the end of the current encounter, or a few minutes of narrative time.
Extended: Lasts until the end of the following encounter, or a few hours of narrative time.
Extended II: Lasts until the end of the adventure, or a few days of narrative time.
Extended III: Lasts until the end of the following adventure, or a few months of narrative time.
Extended IV: Lasts until the end of the current campaign, or a few years of narrative time.

Further extends increase the narrative duration by a factor of ten; decades, centuries, millennia, etc.
Oh. Yeah, that kinda defeats a lot of the benefits of narrative duration. Not to say that there aren't good aspects, but they're a lot more thin.

KorvinStarmast

2023-08-06, 02:11 PM

The problem isn’t a bad DM.
Tend to agree.

The problem isn’t complaining players.
Tend to disagree.

The problem is miscommunication.
For sure.

And nothing will fix it until you and your players agree on what the words mean. Let's start with what "is" means, shall we? :smallbiggrin:

"Enchantments last for the entirety of the act in which they are cast, up to a maximum of about an hour of narrative time, and will automatically fade at the act's end."
"Extend ... allows an enchantment to last until the end of the following act, or up to a day of narrative time." This gives me one more reason not to waste any time reading your homebrew rules. I am already trying to make sure that I have a good feel for the rules of:
BitD, Star Trek RPG, D&D 5e, and Mothership.

But I am curious: just how well versed in your rules (yes, I know that they are at the link) are your players?
On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being you (since you wrote them, you certainly understand them) where do your players fall?

Talakeal

2023-08-06, 11:37 PM

Why, exactly, does buffing before opening the door mean initiative is never rolled? Do you not roll initiative as soon as both parties are aware of each other?

Not quite sure. If I can extrapolate what my players are saying, I think its the idea that they should only have to roll initiative once per encounter, and since they are starting the encounter on their own terms before any of the monsters are involved, they will automatically win initiative and then carry the turn order over into the actual combat. But that's just my guess, my the players are kind of... not open to calm rational discussion of the situation.

If you are rolling to see if they notice the party or act immediately, does that take actions out of their potential first turn of initiative?

If they know the party is there, and if we are handling pre-fight buffing as the same combat, then the enemies would likely ready actions to attack the PCs as soon as they came through the door.

Since my system uses an initiative test to handle action order in the case of a delayed action, the only real change would be that one of the players has to waste an action opening the door and the movement into the room will be funneled through said doorway.

are the monsters aware they are coming? if not, they should get a surprise. imagine someone breaks into the door of your room and attacks you, they have the advantage of surprise unless you heard them. unless they are actively guarding the door, but you are not guarding your door all the time. if the people in the room are sentries on watch duty, they will be watching the door. if they are on rest because the party already passed the sentries without alarms, then nobody will likely be watching the door.

If they actually catch the monsters with their pants down, they will be getting such bonuses to initiative that it will, effectively, be a D&D surprise round.

But this party isn't terribly stealthy, and they are in an overcrowded dungeon where violence and the threat of invasion is constant, so this is rare.

also, how do the players know if there is someone on the other side of the door? do they buff themselves before opening every door? I'd expect that would lead to wasting a lot of spells before empty rooms.

Typically, they only waste resources if they are pretty sure there is something inside, for example having scouted ahead previously.

But standard procedure would be short term buffs that cost no resources. Cantrips, signature spells, at-will abilities, hiding, full defense, bardic inspiration, guarding, the sort of stuff that is normally done in combat for a short 1 turn benefit.

this... doesn't seem like you want realism at all. seems a very gamist approach, where the monsters are bunched up in convenient "encounters" that the party can defeat individually. it reminds me of hero quest, which didn't have any dedicated initiative or surprise rule; and yes, the monsters always remained in the room until the room was opened, and the party always went first.

Heart of Darkness isn't really meant to be a "dungeon crawler". For this campaign, I wanted an old-school mega-dungeon, and I didn't really think mine was the best system for it, but none of the players wanted to learn an new system, so sometimes its a little rough around the edges.

Normally, the game is more designed around a "western" feel with showdowns and ambushes; its not really meant to be a "home invasion simulator" and the rules kind of assume that if you are doing urban combat, its to flush out a gang that has fortified a building.

That said, entering a monster's lair and assuming that you are ready for combat but you don't know with what, and assuming that the monster heard someone coming but doesn't know who, for me is more or less of a wash on initiative that it isn't worth splitting hairs over; and the players always tell me they want "high action games with balanced combat" so I figured that rolling imitative the moment the player entered the door would have worked fine.

Yeah, they're connecting two things that are not connected.

Assuming they manage to do their pre-buffing sufficiently quietly that the monsters do not notice and begin to react*, they surely do begin to react to the door opening.

The players buff, they kick in the door, then initiative starts and we find out how fast the monsters' reactions are.

Seems right.

* And even if you decide that shouldn't happen there are ways to preserve this, by having the monsters in more or less advantageous positions on the other side of the door at the start of the fight the longer the players give them. But for your players you might want some systematic specificity that "if you do X action you risk alerting enemies you are hoping to surprise, they will be one step better prepared for you" because they'll cry foul if they have to think of it themselves.

Teamwork and communication are terrible at my table, and I always tell the players they need to talk to one another and come up with plans, and I don't penalize them for doing so, and kind of turn a blind eye to meta-gaming and time limits when they are discussing strategy.

When I told them what you said above almost verbatim, the players got mad and told me that I was cheating them, because I don't penalize them for talking to one another, but I am going to start penalizing them for buffing outside of the door. The players said that this was railroading them into playing the game my way, and made a sarcastic comment about how apparently the only thing my meta-gaming monsters can heard is the sound of the dice rolling, because they react to spells being cast and bard-song being sung, but not the players brainstorming tactics.

Ten seconds real or game time? If it's real time, you're kidding yourself, that would mean nobody at your table agrees when scenes should begin or end: If it's game time, you have to answer how much real time passes between arguments. I could buy once in ten minutes, which would still make me wonder if your players are on the ball with your rules, but plausibly functional.

Oh wow. That's a very unfortunate typo on my part.

I meant to say ten *sessions*. Wow, I feel like a fool.

But honestly, even ten sessions is kind of a very generous estimate, and I would be surprised if it came up anywhere near that often in reality, as I can only remember a few arguments over encounter duration in decades of gaming, more often its just a judgement call that I make and then we move in with no issue.

Meanwhile, in the real world, tracking dozens of durations gets hard only when your counting individual seconds in real time. For anything longer, approximating an action's duration typically takes less time than the action would take in real time. This gets back to the concept of operative time: if, for example operative unit of time is a day, then you don't need to have a ticking clock for any player actions that can be reasonably finished in a day. The players just state what they're doing and the game master returns with an updated situation for the next day. This is how I do it when running large-scale wilderness explorations and hex crawls, which leads to in-game days that literally last 5 to 15 minutes real time. That's not a flaw, it's a deliberate result of me limiting the level of detail my players can throw at me to something I can process that fast.

This is close enough to how I already do it that I am not sure what we are actually arguing about.

To clarify though; in my system basic spells either last a few seconds or a few minutes. In the case of the former, I can easily remember that they last until the next turn. For the latter, I can easily remember that it will last for the rest of the scene. Done and done.

For D&D, where spell duration are usually measured in rounds or minutes it is much more work. First we need to look up or memorize the duration of every individual spell, and many of the spells have variable duration based on levels or dice rolls that we then have to calculate. Then we have to keep track of every round, as well as when each spell fades. So if on his first turn Bob casts a spell that lasts five turns, I need to count turns and remember that Bobs spell fades on the sixth. Then on the second turn Dave casts a spell that lasts 3 and Bob casts another spell that lasts five, so I then need to remember Dave's spell fades on the fifth turn and Dave has a spell that fades on the sixth and seventh. And this only grows exponentially more complicated with more turns and more characters as there are more and more spells to keep track of, and god help us if we lose count and forget what turn we are currently on.

Some people may well prefer the latter, and that is a valid preference, but I do not, and I am unlikely to ever come around to the way of thinking that avoiding an occasional argument about where an encounter ends will ever justify that level of bookkeeping.

You are kidding yourself. The context for most character actions is people doing people things with neither equipment nor opportunity to measure them with precision greater than seconds. For real time actions, the cheapest stopwatch would be overtill, a two-minute sandglass appropriated from a board game would be sufficient. I've talked about this before: there are at-the-table actions, such as character dialogue, that you can literally time to see how long they would take. Outside of that, there are plenty of real life sources for how long various gameable actions take or have taken. It's almost certain your subjective BS approximations are based on your real life experience and vision anyway, you just don't want to own up to it.

Its funny, this is the first time I have ever seen this argument go in this direction; normally someone claims to be an armchair expert at everything and forumites have to deflate their ego and explain to them how much they don't know, or how little their book-learning matters in the real world.

Sure, my real life experience informs approximately how long actions take. Firing a gun takes a few seconds. A (fit) person running a mile takes a few minutes. A surgery takes a few hours. Driving coast to coast takes a few days. Sailing the pacific takes a few months. Etc.

And this is good enough for the game. Nothing is improved by counting miliseconds and giving the guy shooting a Glock an extra attack every seventh turn because its rate of fire is 1.3 seconds compared to the Colt's 1.5 seconds.* Especially when in reality the individual circumstances (and the individual performing the action) also add a whole level of complication that the sterile measurements we are referencing leave out.

And its a fair sight better than constantly arguing over the differences in our own lived experiences, checking wikipedia, and then finally going out to the backyard with a stop watch to settle it by recording the results of the fat-beard Olympics.

*Although if you are a bunch of gun-nuts who want to play a hyper-detailed and ultra-realistic game, this might be appropriate, and that's fine. That's just not the sort of game I am interested in playing, running, or designing.

Nevermind that neither you nor your players actually want a fair game, all of you want a game that's biased towards players, the difference is just in degree.

Bob would certainly disagree with you.

Besides, you can also have fairness between character types, even if both are PCs.

For example, my game is a fantasy western, so gunslingers, sword fighters, and magicians are all valid archetypes to play. If one combat style vastly outclasses the others, that's not fair or fun, even if it might be realistic.

Did you make an entire game system just for your specific playgroup or is it meant to be read and used by other people, hmmm?

All of my players were new to the game at some point. And I have taught dozens of people to play in the past who aren't part of my current group.

I have never noticed anymore trouble teaching Heart of Darkness players the difference between and incantation and an enchantment than I had Mage The Acension players the differance between coincidental and vulgar spells, D&D players the difference between arcane and divine spells, Magic players the difference between instants and sorceries, or Warhammer players the difference between hexes and augments.

This, I could accept, if the terms weren't bad for that purpose too. Incant and enchant have the same root, they both come from the concept of chanting or singing to do magic. You're splitting tiny hairs to create a distinction that doesn't exist elsewhere, similar to the inanity of D&D splitting warlock, wizard and sorcerer from each other. Maybe players immersed in your system will eventually get it right, but I'm going to held you accountable to the damage done to language. :smalltongue:

This may bug you personally.

It doesn't bug me, and I have never heard anyone else complain about it, either in reference to my game, or to D&D where enchantments refer to spells cast from the school of charm and incantation refers to spells cast by a warlock.

That being said, even the very top tier of fantasy authors still tend to use words like thaumaturgy, or necromancer, or mana, or enchantment in ways that are only vaguely related to their original cultural context; primarily because magic isn't real and thus the precise definitions tend to lose their punch over time.

On a related note, I did play with a guy once who got really hung up on the etymology of words, and acted confused if you used a word in a way that was not consistent with its original usage and linguistic roots. Honestly, I think it had less to do with him being legitimately confused so much as it was a way for him to show off how much he knew about linguistics. He was a pain in the butt to game with, but he was also a pain in the butt to do much of anything with. Heck, I remember one time eating pasta with him and him giving someone a tongue lashing for asking for marinara sauce because we weren't on a boat and the word literally meant sauce for sailors.

Evocative jargon is often an oxymoron. The entire issue with jargon is that it either evokes the wrong mental image in people, or fails to evoke any mental image. Immersion? Do you even know what that means in context? I'll help you: it means being surrounded and forced to use foreign terminology until a person eventually gets it. That's useful if you maybe want your players to learn an actual foreign language, culture or technical field. If you instead want your players to understand what is happening in the game and its world, with minimum hassle? That kind of immersion? Yeah use plain language. Don't equivocate: plain in this context does not mean dull. It means using words your players already understand instead of jargon, neologisms and special redefinitions of old words.

Why do you get to define my context? I was using immersion in the sense of believing in the verisimilitude of the fantasy world, not in the linguistic sense.

Fantasy worlds are going to have names for things. Even if those things aren't appropriate (and real life too. How many products are synonymous with their names, and have names that refer to something they have nothing to do with?)

Take for example Vampire the Masquerade. All of the clan names are European words that sound nice, but have very little to do with what they literally mean. For example, the Toreador are the artsy vampires with good social skills that are inspires by Anne Rice books, while the word Toreador literally means bull-fighter. It is both clunky and absurd to write out the clan as "the artsy vampires with good social skills that are inspires by Anne Rice books" every time it is referenced in the rule books, and if in character you were introduced to the Toreador primogen as the "primogen of the clan of artsy vampires with good social skills that are inspires by Anne Rice books" any sense of RP or verisimilitude is instantly out the window.

And it makes perfect sense from a realism perspective. Maybe in universe there was a famous Toreador who was a bullfighter, or maybe they had a haven under a bullfighting ring, or maybe it was a surname of a an influential vampire's mortal family, or a thousand other reasons why we use names for things that are not 100% etymological consistent with their modern image.

Of course, the best solution is probably to do what Tolkien did and invent fantasy languages for your secondary world, but few of us have the time, knowledge, or ear for linguistics for that to be feasible, even for big name fantasy authors or AAA game publishers.

You're splitting hairs to make a distinction neither me nor most of the world really cares about. The analogy is both misleading and pointless, because you are creating: you are designing your own game system. Copy another system with known flaws, and those flaws are on you.

It is not realistic for you to expect me to come up with a revolutionary new system of tracking time in an RPG that is without flaws and nobody else has stumbled upon in the previous fifty years of the hobby.

Likewise, choosing the lesser of two evils does not mean that one cannot or should not try and mitigate the problems of one's choice.

You might be right. It's very possible that I've misunderstood a lot of that consensus. My sense was that Talakeal doesn't always start every fight with a new scene, but in this case it made sense to. Which affects spells. If Talakeal did in fact do that—if every fight were a new scene—I'd agree that it doesn't make sense.

Generally we have no more than one fight per scene.

Not always, but generally.

And in this case I made a dumb call because it was late and I knew the player would be wasting many in any case.

Oh. Yeah, that kinda defeats a lot of the benefits of narrative duration. Not to say that there aren't good aspects, but they're a lot more thin.

Could you please elaborate on this?

But I am curious: just how well versed in your rules (yes, I know that they are at the link) are your players?
On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being you (since you wrote them, you certainly understand them) where do your players fall?

Well, that's a tough question.

I certainly don't have a perfect recollection of my own rules, both because there are some obscure rules that I haven't used in play since I wrote them a decade ago, and also because I tend to have lots of outdated information from older versions rattling around in my head.

I would say Bob is probably an 8 or a 9, as he has a very good head for rules, but at the same time tends not to give a crap about rules that don't directly affect his character and doesn't bother reading them.

Brian is probably a 6 or 7, he has been playing a long time, but he doesn't really care about crunch as much as Bob, and has some health issues that affect his memory.

The New Kid is probably a 4 or 5, he knows enough to play his character without referencing the book, but he still occasionally gets blind sighted by a rule he has never read before.

The New Girl is a bit of a special case. She claims to have read and memorized the entire rule-book, but will never actually admit to not knowing something or to making a mistake, and has no problem lying or cheating to appear better at the game than she really is, so I have no way of evaluating her.

(As for our extended group, I would say Johnny is about a five, and Dave and Richard were about a 7 and 5 respectively when they played with us, and Sarah is probably a three, she doesn't really have a head for games, although she can still play her character round to round without error, but still needs new situations explained to her and doesn't understand how other people's characters work).

The difference is mostly terminology and how vague you're being though. Both ways you're using an abstraction of time rather than actual time but in the specific times way you can have an easy estimate of how long it will actually last; if a round is six seconds and it lasts a minute you have ten rounds, if it's somehow a weird uneven number like fifty nine seconds you just accept that it's still part of that last round and say ten rounds.

Meanwhile on your side of things you've got the entire root of your "surprise round" argument where not only is the time an abstract but the clarifying points for measuring that time are subjective and abstract. It turns "okay we know the enemy is here, we're planning and preparing so we can go in to attack" into a fight over "we know they're there but they don't know we're here, the encounter is going this is just preparation before initiative goes" versus "it's only an encounter if we're already at the hitting each other with points sticks part."

It makes an entire cause for debate and argument that just flat out isn't there when you've got set measurements that you can just round up to fit within a round, and you still use timed rounds anyway. You keep the framework that timed actions are based on but toss out the reason for that framework to exist. Of course players are going to get snippy over what they feel counts as the duration because the more vague and undefined it actually is the more everyone can see their own interpretation as right, and that's not even including the fact your players in specific seem to expect the game to roll over and beg on command for them and throw fits when it doesn't.

Other games already have some abstraction and handwaving in place for certain things, the whole "talking is a free action" argument for example. As much as some people will grind their teeth and say "no, we know this takes longer so it's not allowed" that is very much a table preference thing. Meanwhile if you got rid of the time estimates for things like spells then suddenly you've got people pulling tricks to make the cheese spell casters can get up to worse, it's stricter to both allow things like prepping for surprise rounds and disallow things like "oh well I drew in more enemies before we finished this one weakened enemy so it's the same encounter" from players or "oh well they tried to negotiate so technically the fight ended and this is a new encounter" from DMs.

This is true, but this isn't really the issue here AFAICT.

The misunderstands stem from:

A: The players mistaken belief that the game time is divided into turns and initiative scores outside of a combat
B: My bad call that pre-buffing immediately before a fight constitutes a separate encounter
C: My players insistence that actions such as hiding, defending, or instructing an ally can be done in a vacuum and effect all potential enemies and my insistence that you need to be hiding / defending from specific threats and knowing what you are instructing an ally to do.

As Vahnavoi points out, if your goal is to make a system for other people to use then there are slight issues if the metric for success on how intuitive it is ends at "well my table that has been playing with it for years gets it." Especially when, as is demonstrated by your many threads, your table is more than happy to argue every little thing. If the example of "well we understand it" still churns out terminology and rules fights on a constant basis then there may be a problem while others seeing issues is "an issue with communication" then the issue may be more extensive than you estimated.

And that is a fine topic worthy of discussion.

I am just clarifying that the issue at my table was *not* caused by the players not understand the difference between enchantments and incantations or how the extend meta-magic works.

It may well be an broader issue with the game that could trip up potential new players, but it is tangential to trying to solve the problem of performing combat actions before initiative is rolled and without a subject.

You can't imagine most rule books then? Sure the "jargon" is used, when specifically referring to that action. They then proceed to describe its effect, duration, and conditions for success or failure in plain language. That's because the rules themselves aren't there for the flowery language of the game, they're there to tell you the bounds within the game works. If I'm playing 5e or Pathfinder I may know a feat improving Athletics made my character better at it and they can probably pull off more impressive tricks but I also know "alright it gives a +1" because that's the actual relevant information it's trying to convey and the mental image and description is up to the players and the DM.

Agreed.

A rule-book should define its jargon in plain, clear, concise language.

But the existence of jargon in the first place is not a bad thing.

Even chess calls pieces "Pawns, bishops, knights, etc." rather than "The piece that moves forward 1 space, the piece that moves diagonal, the piece that jumps in an L" even though the pieces don't actually give sermons and posses feudal titles based on their ability to fight from horseback.

So your duration estimates are the same kind of abstraction as "X many seconds", and yet are superior to it for reasons. And your players will argue either way to get an advantage which your system allows them to argue even more due to the subjective nature of what's actually an "encounter." And somehow the obvious issue isn't clear here?

See above.

Yes, fuzzier turns do occasionally lead to arguments. That is, imo, a small price to pay for metric ass-ton of record keeping and referencing that you would need to do for the alternative.

If you have a choice between existing options and you know the flaws of both then you're choosing to accept those flaws with your decision. That means those flaws were what you decided it was okay to go with, and by extent you felt you could navigate or avoid the problems that go with it.

It has nothing to do with "well I didn't make the system I used in the game myself" it has everything to do with making the game and choosing to use that system with the problems that come with it and no set answer in place beforehand.

I disagree.

IMO choosing the lesser of two evils and then trying to understand, assess, and minimize the risks is exactly what one should do.

One should not dismiss assessment and mitigation and just run in headlong because by choosing the lesser of two evils one somehow deserves the negative repercussions because they are "problems of one's own making".

And in the case of 4e, where that example comes from, that's kind of the assumption with encounters. Adequate space between them so the resources work as advertised, the system was designed with that in mind. Problem being the wording still implies that a DM or the players can rush into the next encounter before those "few minutes of rest" and start the next fight without the resources they're assumed to have access to for each encounter they run into. Which comes back to the matter of jargon and attempts at immersion needing some actual statements on the mechanics included for context, especially in rules where the RAW crowd can seize on whatever wording is there to make an argument.

Then, without breaking your "encounter" lengths, if they prep for a battle they're in the encounter and you can roll initiative with your "surprise modifier" but until hostilities actually start the surprised side is assumed to be spending their turns on whatever random actions they were normally doing out of combat. It still has problems, if the players know initiative order before they engage then they can plan out their actions down to who to shoot first, but the alternative is players arguing that since they're the only ones taking action and they open up with attacks at the same moment the enemy becomes aware of them and thus they should go first. Something you're specifically trying to shoot down as a possibility.

There's no actual way to do it without someone feeling like it makes no sense or is messing with one side or the other. You want things to where the most advantage they can really get is being slightly faster than the enemy, they want things to where it's possible to catch the enemy completely off guard and get a few more shots in than would be possible in a mutually prepared engagement.

Your side basically reduces any knowledge and preparation to a very slight numerical advantage on initiative and some more planning but means that all the enemies the players encounter are on constant alert ready to gun down ambushers with a level of vigilance and readiness that is impossible to maintain indefinitely. To a player it could feel like they're being robbed of any reward for actually sneaking up on the enemy, especially if that "surprised" enemy can potentially turn around and club them half to death before they even make an attack because Initiative went against them.

Their side assumes that managing to sneak up on an enemy is impactful and can potentially end an encounter before the other side is alerted to their presence, something that does actually have a point in any appeal to "realism", and that the effort to prepare and attack an unaware enemy should have more impact than a slightly lower chance of getting hit first. Which you've stated objections to on the grounds that reacting to the ambush should still be in initiative and open the door for the people being surprised reacting much faster than the people doing the surprising.

None of the options are necessarily great for all sides but in this case you've already axed the idea of surprise rounds and decided on it being rolled into initiative. That puts it all on you to find a way to make it satisfying for the players to get one over on the enemy without sacrificing what you feel the game should be like, and it's looking like that vision of the game is that every fight is basically just a straightforward head on brawl and the idea of catching an enemy with their pants down is impossible for both sides.

This is all more or less accurate.

One thing about my system is that I tend to prefer modifiers to binary yes / no abilities.

As a western inspired system, being a quick-draw is very important. IMO its much more interesting to roll a dice to see if Bill Hickok can draw his gun and get a shot off before being gunned down at the card table 100% of the time.

That being said, stealth is still very important, and imo a lot more powerful than in D&D. Its just that if the bad guys have a guard and know you are coming, you aren't going to pull off a great ambush by rushing in the front door,

On a related note... one other thing Bob was insisting, is that if one person is hidden, they should always go first, period. Which seems odd to me in a group game. Sure, if you are off by your own, initiative doesn't matter while you are hidden, because even if you lose, the enemies don't have any target or reason to defend, so you can just act first in the next turn. But then, why does being hidden from the enemies mean that you are perfectly synced with your allies so that you always react to the rest of the team "kicking in the door" before the enemies do, but not so far before them that you are the only target.)

We only get your perspective on this so we've really got no context except for your accounts which paint most of your group as actively antagonistic and prone to cheating and pettiness at worst and a confusing mix of people who display little in the way of actual friendship or comradery at best. It's entirely possible we're missing some big story of how you're the best of friends when not trying to snap eachothers' heads off over TTRPGs and this behavior is all completely limited to when the game is being run. Even with that possibility your group sounds so mutually hostile I really question how you expect them to get through a game without a screaming match and hurt feelings let alone test a system you made yourself that you're invested in a specific idea of that will inevitably clash with player expectations, powergaming/cheating, and hurt feelings.

Oh, but I do *expect* a screaming match and hurt feelings every time we come to the table.

The thing is, every one of my players has different flaws. Some are overly sensitive. Some are cheaters. Some are munckins. Some are argumentative. Some are on their phones the whole time.

But no one player is all of them, or even more than 1 or 2 of them. And generally I expect any given player to have a meltdown once every 5-6 sessions. The problem is, that when you have 4-6 players, that averages out to one per session, and sometimes the meltdowns all happen to sync up.

BRC

2023-08-07, 11:04 AM

Picking and choosing what I respond to based on what I have thoughts about

Not quite sure. If I can extrapolate what my players are saying, I think its the idea that they should only have to roll initiative once per encounter, and since they are starting the encounter on their own terms before any of the monsters are involved, they will automatically win initiative and then carry the turn order over into the actual combat. But that's just my guess, my the players are kind of... not open to calm rational discussion of the situation.

Initiative isn't a special type of time that passes when people start thinking about violence, it's an abstraction for tracking time in situations where precise actions and the order in which they take place become especially relevant.

Looking at your points here, but specifically point A

The misunderstands stem from:

A: The players mistaken belief that the game time is divided into turns and initiative scores outside of a combat
B: My bad call that pre-buffing immediately before a fight constitutes a separate encounter
C: My players insistence that actions such as hiding, defending, or instructing an ally can be done in a vacuum and effect all potential enemies and my insistence that you need to be hiding / defending from specific threats and knowing what you are instructing an ally to do.

Most systems have a rough "One round = X Seconds" rule in there because, narratively, time isn't passing any differently in and out of combat, it's just that in combat everything is happening quickly and we care far more about the order in which people act, as everybody is trying to move as fast as possible. So your point A, that players are mistaken in thinking that game time is divided into turns outside combat, isn't quite right. Unless you're doing some weird stuff narritively, they should be correct in thinking that the initiative system COULD apply to all game-time, and just only shows up when it's needed to track

I think we should discuss the concept of awareness of threat, specifically specific vs potential.

in this situation, the PC's are outside a door, with enemies on the other side, The PC's know, or at least can reasonably assume, that there are enemies behind the door. They are aware of a Specific Threat through the door. They might not know exactly WHAT the threat is, but they know that once the door opens, a fight will start.

The enemies are on guard, they are aware that at any moment that door might open and foes will come through, they don't know that "At any moment" is about to occur, but they are not especially focused on anything else, and they know that the door represents a potential point of threat. They are Generally Aware of the threat.

For our hypothetical, let's assume that Bob the Rogue has already slipped into the room somehow, and is hiding in the rafters above them. The enemy guards believe the rafters are safe, and therefore are Unaware of the threat of Bob.

The PC's outside the door get the benefit of some prep, so long as they can do so quietly, because they are aware of a specific threat. However, upon breaking through the door, they don't get any surprise bonuses, because the enemies are aware of the General threat that is represented by the door.

When Bob drops out of the rafters with his knives, he DOES get surprise bonuses, since he is striking from a place the enemies thought of as safe, he's in their figurative Blindspot.

If the PC's are making noise prepping before going through the door, the enemies become aware of the specific threat (somebody is on the other side of the door) and can ready actions.

Part of the issue is that by making "encounters" mechanically relevant, you've created an exploitable grey area here where the narrative and the mechanics muddle things up, and your group sounds like they love exploitable grey areas. Specifically, it seems like they're saying "Oh, we can officially start the "Encounter" on the other side of the door, and roll initiative without the monsters", because prepping is mechanically part of the Encounter, and rolling initiative is how they view the Encounter starting.

The solution is to make sure you've got a clean mechanical-> narrative translation (So things with duration in rounds can translate neatly out of initiative) , and establish that Initiative is a tool that is used when it's needed rather than a narratively distinct state that enables or disables certain actions. If PC's are ever in a position where they could act in the order of their choice without consequences by freely delaying actions, then Initiative isn't needed. Initiative gets rolled when the monsters become aware of the specific threat because that's when it's needed.

On a related note... one other thing Bob was insisting, is that if one person is hidden, they should always go first, period. Which seems odd to me in a group game. Sure, if you are off by your own, initiative doesn't matter while you are hidden, because even if you lose, the enemies don't have any target or reason to defend, so you can just act first in the next turn. But then, why does being hidden from the enemies mean that you are perfectly synced with your allies so that you always react to the rest of the team "kicking in the door" before the enemies do, but not so far before them that you are the only target.)

Eh, if Bob is aware of the specific threat (That the door is about to get kicked), he can be more ready than the enemies who are only aware of the General threat (The door might get kicked), and be holding a readied action to strike once the door gets kicked.

That shouldn't translate to "A hidden character always goes first". I feel like it's a consequence of your system using ambushes primarily as an initiative booster, turning into "striking from hiding means striking first" in his mind, regardless of context, and Bob Bobbing his way through that gray area to the absurd conclusion that a hidden character must always go first, even if their attack isn't the thing that starts the combat.

KorvinStarmast

2023-08-07, 12:28 PM

Well, that's a tough question.

The New Girl is a bit of a special case. She claims to have read and memorized the entire rule-book, but will never actually admit to not knowing something or to making a mistake, and has no problem lying or cheating to appear better at the game than she really is, so I have no way of evaluating her. OK, we've got a cheater who likes to lie. I guess you all like her for a lot of reasons that have nothing to do with the game, and that is why she's in your group.
Thanks for the answer on how well you feel the group understands the rules.

A rule-book should define its jargon in plain, clear, concise language.

But the existence of jargon in the first place is not a bad thing.
I agree. Saves, Hit Points, Stress (BitD) ... that have particular in game meanings are all over RPGs.

Oh, but I do *expect* a screaming match and hurt feelings every time we come to the table. This is the bit that confounds me.

I'd like to do a riff on something BRC posted that I agree with:
Initiative is an abstraction that lets RNG establish whose turn comes before or after someone else's turn, since the game is turn based.

Jay R

2023-08-07, 05:55 PM

Hiding from what?
Good question. Hide is an opposed check in Heart of Darkness.

Good point. When you are standing on the north side of a tree, you are hiding from people on the south side, but not from people on the north side (anywhere from east by east northeast to west by west northwest). An action to "hide" is only defined by who you are hiding from (or at least, where the people you're hiding from are).

You can presumably say, "I hide from anybody who might show up in the area the party is walking towards," but that isn't hiding from somebody who comes in from the side or from the rear. Even if it were possible to "hide" all day, you can't hide from everybody unless you're invisible. And even then, some people can see the invisible.

[To avoid the red herring: yes, you can occasionally find hiding places where you can't be seen from any direction. But you can't find a continuous stretch of such a place that follows the party for its entire day's travel.]

Talakeal

2023-08-07, 06:11 PM

Initiative isn't a special type of time that passes when people start thinking about violence, it's an abstraction for tracking time in situations where precise actions and the order in which they take place become especially relevant.

Looking at your points here, but specifically point A

Most systems have a rough "One round = X Seconds" rule in there because, narratively, time isn't passing any differently in and out of combat, it's just that in combat everything is happening quickly and we care far more about the order in which people act, as everybody is trying to move as fast as possible. So your point A, that players are mistaken in thinking that game time is divided into turns outside combat, isn't quite right. Unless you're doing some weird stuff narratively, they should be correct in thinking that the initiative system COULD apply to all game-time, and just only shows up when it's needed to track

The game isn't divided into turns outside of combat (or similar action scenes).

We don't pause a dialogue or travel scene every ~six seconds and go around the table asking everyone what they do during their turn. People just narrate or act out what they are doing, and can jump in or jump out of the sequence whenever they like.

Likewise, the idea that there is some big initiative tracker always running in the background makes no sense, because then you would never roll initiative.

If the players can bypass initiative rolls by taking their first turn when they are alone before the fight, why does initiative stop ticking when they are alone again after the fight? Wouldn't every fight in the campaign just blur together into one giant initiative tracker?

I think we should discuss the concept of awareness of threat, specifically specific vs potential.

in this situation, the PC's are outside a door, with enemies on the other side, The PC's know, or at least can reasonably assume, that there are enemies behind the door. They are aware of a Specific Threat through the door. They might not know exactly WHAT the threat is, but they know that once the door opens, a fight will start.

The enemies are on guard, they are aware that at any moment that door might open and foes will come through, they don't know that "At any moment" is about to occur, but they are not especially focused on anything else, and they know that the door represents a potential point of threat. They are Generally Aware of the threat.

For our hypothetical, let's assume that Bob the Rogue has already slipped into the room somehow, and is hiding in the rafters above them. The enemy guards believe the rafters are safe, and therefore are Unaware of the threat of Bob.

The PC's outside the door get the benefit of some prep, so long as they can do so quietly, because they are aware of a specific threat. However, upon breaking through the door, they don't get any surprise bonuses, because the enemies are aware of the General threat that is represented by the door.

When Bob drops out of the rafters with his knives, he DOES get surprise bonuses, since he is striking from a place the enemies thought of as safe, he's in their figurative Blindspot.

If the PC's are making noise prepping before going through the door, the enemies become aware of the specific threat (somebody is on the other side of the door) and can ready actions.

This is more or less correct. However, I would say that if the enemies are unaware of the threat outside of the door, then they are going to take a penalty to initiative.

Note however, that Bob does NOT want to slip into the room first and hide in the rafters; if he did there would be no argument as I am fine with that.

Instead, he wants to be hidden outside of the room before the fight starts, and then rush in through the door (before his allies) and charge the monsters with a first turn sneak attack. Which is what I am saying is absurd, if he wants to start the fight with a sneak attack, he needs to either sneak in first and hide in the room OR delay until after the rest of the party has already engaged the monsters and sneak in behind them.

Part of the issue is that by making "encounters" mechanically relevant, you've created an exploitable grey area here where the narrative and the mechanics muddle things up, and your group sounds like they love exploitable grey areas. Specifically, it seems like they're saying "Oh, we can officially start the "Encounter" on the other side of the door, and roll initiative without the monsters", because prepping is mechanically part of the Encounter, and rolling initiative is how they view the Encounter starting.

Yes, AFAICT that is how they view things.

The solution is to make sure you've got a clean mechanical-> narrative translation (So things with duration in rounds can translate neatly out of initiative), and establish that Initiative is a tool that is used when it's needed rather than a narratively distinct state that enables or disables certain actions. If PC's are ever in a position where they could act in the order of their choice without consequences by freely delaying actions, then Initiative isn't needed. Initiative gets rolled when the monsters become aware of the specific threat because that's when it's needed.

IIRC, nothing in my system has a duration in rounds.

Durations are always: Until the end of current turn / act / mission, until the start of the next turn / act / mission, or until the end of the next turn / act / mission (the last one is pretty rare).

The problem, imo, is that the players are looking at a lot of things as "conditions" rather than actions, and thus don't need any context. Which was not how I viewed it. The bard giving you a +2 coordination bonus to your next task is them specifically coaching you for the current situation, not just a generic inspired to do good, the Defend action is focusing entirely on defending yourself from your current target, not a generic armor buff, hiding is an mmo style "stealth mode" where you crouch down and turn transparent rather than attempting to keep yourself out of the enemy's line of sight, etc.

Initiative is clearly needed to determine turn order; but I don't think i just has a place when you first become aware of the threat. Showdowns and pitched battles should very much be a thing, and it should certainly be possible to out-draw your opponent or catch them with their guard down.

Eh, if Bob is aware of the specific threat (That the door is about to get kicked), he can be more ready than the enemies who are only aware of the General threat (The door might get kicked), and be holding a readied action to strike once the door gets kicked.

That shouldn't translate to "A hidden character always goes first". I feel like it's a consequence of your system using ambushes primarily as an initiative booster, turning into "striking from hiding means striking first" in his mind, regardless of context, and Bob Bobbing his way through that gray area to the absurd conclusion that a hidden character must always go first, even if their attack isn't the thing that starts the combat.

I wouldn't say that stealth is primarily an initiative booster. It does several things:

A: Makes you un-targetable. (IMO this is the big one).
B: Provides a +2 bonus to hit.
C: Provides a +4 bonus to initiative.
D: Provides a +4 bonus to pick-pocketing.
E: Allowing you to slip into a place you wouldn't normally be allowed to go for an advantageous tactical position, bypassing guards, or spying.

But yeah, why he thinks this means he should automatically go first, either mechanically or narratively, is beyond me. I think maybe he is thinking that he is imagining an equally ridiculous scenario on the other side where he takes his shot, reveals himself, but loses initiative and then they attack him before his shot lands? But that is not how either the rules or the narrative would play out.

gbaji

2023-08-07, 06:30 PM

The idea that I would start rolling alertness tests for the monsters if they did "combat actions" but not regular actions. Bob, in one particularly sarcastic moment said "What, so we can talk and plan normally all we want, and you actually ENCOURAGE us to plan and communicate because its good teamwork, but then you PUNISH us for casting verbal spells or using bardic inspiration before combat. What, can the monsters hear the *dice*?

Honestly, I'm kinda with Bob on this one. But probably not in the direction he's thinking. I'd absolutely allow for the NPCs on the other side of a door to hear the party having a conversation on the other side of the door while planning an attack, in exactly the same way I will allow for them to hear the spell casters casting spells, melee folks pulling out weapons, folks fumbling around in packs to get their potions out/ready, etc.

On the flip side though, as I've already pointed out, I consider everything from the point at which one "side" becomes aware of the other (or even the possibility of the other) to the point where there is engagement and resolution of said engagement as one "encounter" (assuming nothing else is done in between). If you are ruling that if the party sees a doorway up ahead, and then backs up around a corner in the dungeon complex, then takes several minutes planning an assault through said door, casting up buffs, summoning things, etc, and then heads back around the corner and down the hall and through the door to attack whatever is on the other side as taking "two encounters" of time (the "Extended" duration in your list), then you are:

A. Interpreting your encounter rules in the most absurd manner possible. And...

B. Creating the conflict with your players, where they feel they must be "close to the door" when doing anything, which then creates the very "what can the NPCs hear" question in the first place.

Just be more flexible with the definition of "encounter" and all of these problems disappear.

Generally the pre-buffing isn't actually about buffs, it's about combat utility spells like summoning allies or terrain manipulation. In the specific case that caused the argument, it was using wall spells to create magical defenses just outside of the room and then opening the door, shooting the enemy, and forcing said enemy to cross said magical defenses to get to them.

It doesn't really matter what statistically or mathematically the most common or likely spells are. That's just semantics and really not relevant. Clearly, your players expect to be able to cast up "some spells" (whatever effects they have) immediatelly prior to a combat, and during preparation/planning for that combat, and have that count as being cast "during the encounter", and therefore gain the benefits of those spells (again, whatever they are) during said encounter.

And I, for one, agree with them on this. Trying to force any other method is not only *not* going to resolve issues with the transition from non-combat to combat, but arguably makes those issues far worse.

I wholly admit that I often speak carelessly and imprecisely, especially on forums, and that my group does have a lot of problems with communication.

But... I don't really think that is the issue here. I don't think anyone at my table misunderstands or disagrees on what the rules are for spell durations, just on my judgement about where one scene ends and another begins.

Sure. But that's very much a linguistic issue. The words, and their meaning, does matter here. Being imprecise or inconsistent in how you label/phrase things does make things confusing. Especially for people on this forum who are trying to follow along, and who aren't experts on your game system. Also, see my point above about how your chosen method to determine where one scene ends and another begins, actually creates more problems than it solves and actually puts pressure (or creates artificial advantage) for players to try to "game the system" by playing games with you as the GM to "trick?" you into declaring an encounter to be started at differing times, so as to get some benefit for themselves.

If you just drop the whole hard "start/stop" stufff, those cease to be issues. The players get to buff/whatever in preparation for an encounter, but so do the bad guys on the occasion that they are the attackers instead. Problem solved.

The precise wording of the rulebook is as follows:

"Enchantments last for the entirety of the act in which they are cast, up to a maximum of about an hour of narrative time, and will automatically fade at the act's end."
"Extend ... allows an enchantment to last until the end of the following act, or up to a day of narrative time."

And again, my assumption for the use case for "Extended" is that by casting the spell with that extra duration, I can have some effect that just stays up and running on me, all the time, while I'm walking around, and have effect on the off chance I'm attacked (or suddenly decide to attack) without any foreknowledge or planning, and which then lasts through the duration of that encounter. It's really written to suggest a defensive mode of casting. You pay extra for that "I can walk around for a few hours doing completely unrelated stuff, and it'll be there if something happens" benefit.

Most players would absolutely not assume that casting a spell in the minute or so before initiating an attack would require that level of duration on the spell. And yeah, by interpreting the rules this way, you are creating a need/desire for the players to come up with "weird player hacks" to try to get around your ruling. I'd just say don't do that in the first place. Just assume an encounter starts for a 'side" the moment they begin taking any action for that encounter (again with no undue time taken in between, so you can't cast a spell up for "when we attack the door", if you're going to go out to lunch and wander around town for a couple hours before attacking the door. Just has to be an "imminent action" you are planning/prepping for). And I don't think most players would have any problems noodling this out.

You keep mentioning this - what, exactly, are you referencing here? What, exactly, is your player expecting, and why?

Yeah. I'm not getting the conflating of the two things either. Especially in the game system in question, where it appears as though surprise merely grants a bonus to initiative. It would seem to me that you could allow any amount of pre-buffing/prepping/whatever, and then, at the moment the door is kicked in, roll initiatve, giving the bonus to the "side" that has some surprise, and then just continue the combat.

I'll also point out that this does result from the concept that an "encounter" somehow only exists once both sides are aware of the other. As a couple people have pointed out, initiative only exists to determine "who goes first" when such is important. If you are buffing up to prepare for a fight that the other side doesn't know about, there is no initiatiive. You just get to act. The moment the other side becomes aware of you *and* both "sides" actually interact in a way that requires us to know "who goes first", then (and only then) is initiative required.

I have absolutely zero problem with playing out a situation where a PC party spends X rounds casting up spells to prepare for a fight against group of NPCs, while (perhaps unknown to the party) the NPCs are also aware of the party, and have spend the same X rounds casting up their spells (or taking other actions) to prepare for the same fight. At no point is any initiative roll required, despite the fact that both "sides" are technically having an encounter during that time period. It's only when the different sides actions actually interact with eachother do we need to know the exact order of things, and thus roll for initiative. So... Not seeing the issue here. This should be trivially easy to manage.

First, they aren't talking about surprise or initiative. They are talking about walking up to a door, taking a turn, then during their next turn opening the door and engaging any monsters that might be inside. Thus the players go first and initiative is never rolled.

Why? If the game rules say that initiative is rolled once you take an action that affects an enemy (presumably one capable of doing actions in resposne), then that's what you should do. BTW, I'm totally on board with getting free "you get to go first" actions if you do something that the NPCs have no way of knowing is happening until it happens (Your rogue sneaks up behind someone, they don't detect you, and you backstab them. Or... Your wizard uses some sort of scrying on an enemy from a distance, they don't detect this, and you drop a fireball on them from said distance. Stuff like that). Key point being: You are able to take the action with no possiblity of a reaction from the "other side" until after the action has taken effect.

For anything else (yes, like "charging through a door" situations), it sounds like your game system has rules for this.

Second, unlike D&D surprise is handled through modifiers to initiative rather than bonus turns. However, in both my game and D&D, surprise is handled by being aware that anyone is on the other side of the door. I told my players I could start checking for surprise, but to be fair I would have to allow the monsters to utilize the same rules, and as the party doesn't have a dedicated scout, does have some big clumsy armor wearing members, and the doorway makes for a natural funnel, doing so would hurt the party more often than it would help.

I'm not sure why this is a problem. Surprise should be based on being aware of what is on the other side of the door. If you burst through a door, planning to attack "whomever is on the other side", it's going to take you about the same amount of time to look around the room on the other side of the door, figure out what enemies are there, where they are, and what to do about them, as it'll take them to realize someone just came through the door and is attacking them. So yeah, everything else being equal in this scenario, then the standard initiative rolls should apply here. By whatever criteria is used for iniitative (faster reaction/recognition/whatever speed), it would seem to exactly apply to this situation.

As a GM, I might give a slight bonus to the folks bursting through the door, depending on what the folks on the other side are doing. If you just entered someone's living room, and they're lounging about, reading a book, eating dinner, chatting about something, whatever, then yeah, there should be some initiative bonus for the folks who actually did come charging through the door ready for a fight. This is, of course, going to depend on how granular your surprise/initiative rules are though. And on the flip side, I would probably put initiative on a more even footing if you actually had guards, on duty, standing on the other side of that door. They're literally doing nothing other than keeping an eye on said door, in case someone charges though it and attacks. And that would be if "they're just on guard, but otherwise not aware someone is about to break in". If the guards actually heard the PCs on the other side of the door first? Yeah. I'd actually give *them* the initiative bonus. They've had time to get out their crossbows/whatever, position themselves defensively against folks coming through the door, and are literally just waiting for the first live body to appear in front of them. That should give them a bonus IMO.

Also, I'm still not sure why the whole "NPCs can do this in response" is a problem. Heaven forbid that the party actually learns to spend some time scouting ahead, and being more stealthy when approaching potential encounters. And I think your attempts to "be nice" to the players on issues like this is clearly not solving any problems, nor is it reducing the points of contention anyway. So.... Um... Just play the rules straight for both sides. Let the players adjust to that. Trying to adjust the rules, and encounter definitions, and wing-it with intitiative/surprise and buff/prep is not helping.

The number one thing that players hate isn't specific rulings, but inconsistent rulings. And the best way to prevent this as a GM is to pick interpretations of rules that can actually be ruled in an unambiguous manner with a minimum of GM fiat. You seem to be gravitating to interpretations that maximize the amount of GM fiat, and then being surprised when your player seem to sometimes agree and sometimes disagree with different aspects of those rulings.

There are ways to avoid these kinds of conflicts in the first place.

If I can follow, because they are allowed to take a turn outside the door, it is unfair of the monsters to interrupt them when they open the door during their next turn.

Except that whether the monsters can "interrupt them" when they open the door has (should have) nothing at all to do with whether they spend the previous turn prepping on the other side of the door. This is the part that I (and I think a few other posters) are just confused over. Whether the NPCs can interrupt them when they open the door is determined by a range of three defensive conditions:

1. Were the NPCs aware that the PCs were on the other side of the door, getting ready to attack? If so, then they should have an initiative advantage, which means that, yeah, they might be able to just start shooting at the PCs the instant the door opens and the first PCs comes into view.

2. Were the NPCs unaware of the PCs, but still "on guard" in some way? In which case, a standard initiative roll should be made, with the PCs perhaps having a small advantage if they had some knowledge of the NPCs, but perhaps a more even roll if they don't.

3. Were the NPCS unware of the PCs and also not "on guard" at all (just hanging out, living their lives)? In which case, the PCs should have a significant advantage of surprise (bonus on initiative based on your described game rules)..

Note, that not one of these things has anything at all to do with how much time was spent on the other side of the door, nor what was done prior to opening the door, except to the point that the NPCs may have heard the PCs and been able to change their defensive position. So I'm just not seeing the issue here.

Initiative isn't a special type of time that passes when people start thinking about violence, it's an abstraction for tracking time in situations where precise actions and the order in which they take place become especially relevant.

Exactly correct.

Part of the issue is that by making "encounters" mechanically relevant, you've created an exploitable grey area here where the narrative and the mechanics muddle things up, and your group sounds like they love exploitable grey areas. Specifically, it seems like they're saying "Oh, we can officially start the "Encounter" on the other side of the door, and roll initiative without the monsters", because prepping is mechanically part of the Encounter, and rolling initiative is how they view the Encounter starting.

Yup. The problem appears to be conflating "start of an encounter" with "roll for initiative". Those should be two completely separate things. Doubly so if you are actualy creating spell durations based on encounters and not direct time. This problem literally does not exist if you simply use initiative as a separate thing for when "we care about the order things happen within an encounter". The rounds spent prepping can absolutely be "part of the same encounter", despite no initiative roll being made yet. That roll is made only when there is a direct interaction between two or more opposing "sides" and we need to know who's actions get resolved in which order.

Initiative gets rolled when the monsters become aware of the specific threat because that's when it's needed.

Yup. The monsters don't get to roll initiative until they become aware that something is happening to which they will want to react/respond (like a door opening). But the players don't get to roll before that point either. Both sides can simply declare what they are doing, and the exact order doesn't matter (though, how much time may if we're counting rounds of prep action maybe). It's only once the actual action starts that initiative needs to be rolled.

That shouldn't translate to "A hidden character always goes first". I feel like it's a consequence of your system using ambushes primarily as an initiative booster, turning into "striking from hiding means striking first" in his mind, regardless of context, and Bob Bobbing his way through that gray area to the absurd conclusion that a hidden character must always go first, even if their attack isn't the thing that starts the combat.

Yeah. That's a game system bit. Also, I'd strongly argue that the NPC can't roll initiative until he is aware of something to roll initiative for. Which works fine when the stealthy action *is* the initiating action that generates an initiative roll. But yeah, this can create some "odd" effects in other situations.

Example:

Bob is hiding in the shadows, waiting for his party to burst through the door to act, only to discover he rolled poorly on initiative, and the guy he's standing behind waiting to backstab, goes first and runs towards the door before he can stab him.

We can resolve this by just declaring that Bob gets to stab his intended victim before the victim can move (a plausiable ruling). Or we can give Bob a big honking initiative situation bonus (so he'll pretty much always go before his victim), and on the bizarre rare case where his victim somehow manages to still beat him, we can just chalk that up to "yeah, sometimes, you just happen to look away right at the wrong moment, and you were also surprised or off balance when the party burst through the door, and your victim just happend to react super fast, rolled away from you, grabbed his weapons and sprung to a defensive position before you could regain your composure". I can see that being a fair ruling and game mechanic to use as well.

I will say that the only action that should always happen "first" is the one initiating action that every other action is waiting on. That could be the party tank kicking down the door. It could be the rogue stabbing someone in the room. Something will be that "first action" that starts everything. That action (and only that one action) is one I would tend to allow to take effect "first" and without any intiative roll required. Everything else that happens is a reaction time question in response to that action.

And yeah, if I were running a game with an initiative system like that, I would simply determine that "kicking down the door" is not an actual round based action at all. It just happens. Done. Now we roll for initiative and determine the order in which everyone goes after the door is opened (again with possible bonuses depending on the situation and positions of folks involved). I just find that this method can better (and more fairly) simulate the kind of "sudden attack" scenario that many players may want to ochestrate (or may have NPCs use on them).

I'll also point out that I've used systems with encounter based durations and systems with strict time based ones, and just never had this much trouble or confusion with them. So.... I'm just kinda baffled by all of this. I get that players will tend to try to manipulate things to their advantage, but it just should not be that difficult to manage this. Clear, concise, and consistent rulings are the key here.

Talakeal

2023-08-07, 10:21 PM

Honestly, I'm kinda with Bob on this one. But probably not in the direction he's thinking. I'd absolutely allow for the NPCs on the other side of a door to hear the party having a conversation on the other side of the door while planning an attack, in exactly the same way I will allow for them to hear the spell casters casting spells, melee folks pulling out weapons, folks fumbling around in packs to get their potions out/ready, etc.

My group has serious problems with teamwork, trust, and communication. I am trying to encourage everyone to be open and honest and talk to one another. Being a stickler about all dialogue being in character would, imo, be the opposite of helpful for this group.

Of course, Bob hates the social aspect of the game, and especially hates it when people talk in character. So in his mind nobody ever being allowed to say anything is win-win.

Sure. But that's very much a linguistic issue. The words, and their meaning, does matter here. Being imprecise or inconsistent in how you label/phrase things does make things confusing. Especially for people on this forum who are trying to follow along, and who aren't experts on your game system. Also, see my point above about how your chosen method to determine where one scene ends and another begins, actually creates more problems than it solves and actually puts pressure (or creates artificial advantage) for players to try to "game the system" by playing games with you as the GM to "trick?" you into declaring an encounter to be started at differing times, so as to get some benefit for themselves.

I was responding to Jay R saying:

"I suspect that the underlying problem, both here and in many other situations you’re talked about, is that you do not speak precisely. You think the crucial word is "current", not "encounter" or "scene", and you think that means something other than what they are doing right now. Then you try to interpret what you meant, rather than what the words would naturally mean to any listener. Players who trusted to what the words actually said will feel that they have been led astray.

The problem isn’t a bad DM. The problem isn’t complaining players. The problem is miscommunication. And nothing will fix it until you and your players agree on what the words mean."

Which seemed to imply that the issue *at my table* was the terminology being used.

And I don't think anyone was confused about terminology, just disagreeing on whether opening the door constituted a new encounter or not.

On the flip side though, as I've already pointed out, I consider everything from the point at which one "side" becomes aware of the other (or even the possibility of the other) to the point where there is engagement and resolution of said engagement as one "encounter" (assuming nothing else is done in between). If you are ruling that if the party sees a doorway up ahead, and then backs up around a corner in the dungeon complex, then takes several minutes planning an assault through said door, casting up buffs, summoning things, etc, and then heads back around the corner and down the hall and through the door to attack whatever is on the other side as taking "two encounters" of time (the "Extended" duration in your list), then you are:

A. Interpreting your encounter rules in the most absurd manner possible. And...

B. Creating the conflict with your players, where they feel they must be "close to the door" when doing anything, which then creates the very "what can the NPCs hear" question in the first place.

Just be more flexible with the definition of "encounter" and all of these problems disappear.

I don't disagree.

As I have said repeatedly, it was a bad call that I regret making. It was late, I was rushing, and I had gotten into the "Heroquest" mentality of the dungeon grind where I was equating room = combat = act on a 1 for 1 basis despite what the rules and common sense might say.

Although, I will say, this comes with a "within reason" caveat. Spying an enemy force crossing the horizon with a telescope or something isn't going to be the same act as they fight just because the sides are aware of one another, and I am not going to let the party spend hours of prep-work just out of sight.

And again, my assumption for the use case for "Extended" is that by casting the spell with that extra duration, I can have some effect that just stays up and running on me, all the time, while I'm walking around, and have effect on the off chance I'm attacked (or suddenly decide to attack) without any foreknowledge or planning, and which then lasts through the duration of that encounter. It's really written to suggest a defensive mode of casting. You pay extra for that "I can walk around for a few hours doing completely unrelated stuff, and it'll be there if something happens" benefit.

Most players would absolutely not assume that casting a spell in the minute or so before initiating an attack would require that level of duration on the spell. And yeah, by interpreting the rules this way, you are creating a need/desire for the players to come up with "weird player hacks" to try to get around your ruling. I'd just say don't do that in the first place. Just assume an encounter starts for a 'side" the moment they begin taking any action for that encounter (again with no undue time taken in between, so you can't cast a spell up for "when we attack the door", if you're going to go out to lunch and wander around town for a couple hours before attacking the door. Just has to be an "imminent action" you are planning/prepping for). And I don't think most players would have any problems noodling this out.

Agreed. This is a correct interpretation.

Yeah. I'm not getting the conflating of the two things either. Especially in the game system in question, where it appears as though surprise merely grants a bonus to initiative. It would seem to me that you could allow any amount of pre-buffing/prepping/whatever, and then, at the moment the door is kicked in, roll initiatve, giving the bonus to the "side" that has some surprise, and then just continue the combat.

I'll also point out that this does result from the concept that an "encounter" somehow only exists once both sides are aware of the other. As a couple people have pointed out, initiative only exists to determine "who goes first" when such is important. If you are buffing up to prepare for a fight that the other side doesn't know about, there is no initiatiive. You just get to act. The moment the other side becomes aware of you *and* both "sides" actually interact in a way that requires us to know "who goes first", then (and only then) is initiative required.

I have absolutely zero problem with playing out a situation where a PC party spends X rounds casting up spells to prepare for a fight against group of NPCs, while (perhaps unknown to the party) the NPCs are also aware of the party, and have spend the same X rounds casting up their spells (or taking other actions) to prepare for the same fight. At no point is any initiative roll required, despite the fact that both "sides" are technically having an encounter during that time period. It's only when the different sides actions actually interact with eachother do we need to know the exact order of things, and thus roll for initiative. So... Not seeing the issue here. This should be trivially easy to manage.

Your interpretation is correct.

AFAICT some of my players have it in their heads that initiative is rolled the moment the encounter starts and then everyone acts in turn order until the encounter ends.

Why? If the game rules say that initiative is rolled once you take an action that affects an enemy (presumably one capable of doing actions in resposne), then that's what you should do. BTW, I'm totally on board with getting free "you get to go first" actions if you do something that the NPCs have no way of knowing is happening until it happens (Your rogue sneaks up behind someone, they don't detect you, and you backstab them. Or... Your wizard uses some sort of scrying on an enemy from a distance, they don't detect this, and you drop a fireball on them from said distance. Stuff like that). Key point being: You are able to take the action with no possibility of a reaction from the "other side" until after the action has taken effect.

For anything else (yes, like "charging through a door" situations), it sounds like your game system has rules for this.

This is correct.

However, I think there are situations where there is a moment between revealing oneself and acting that might call for initiative.

For example, if you are hidden, but then need to move into position before you can actually attack (say you were out of range or line of sight) where the enemy could conceivably get the drop on you.

I think this might be what Bob has a problem with?

I'm not sure why this is a problem. Surprise should be based on being aware of what is on the other side of the door. If you burst through a door, planning to attack "whomever is on the other side", it's going to take you about the same amount of time to look around the room on the other side of the door, figure out what enemies are there, where they are, and what to do about them, as it'll take them to realize someone just came through the door and is attacking them. So yeah, everything else being equal in this scenario, then the standard initiative rolls should apply here. By whatever criteria is used for initiative (faster reaction/recognition/whatever speed), it would seem to exactly apply to this situation.

As a GM, I might give a slight bonus to the folks bursting through the door, depending on what the folks on the other side are doing. If you just entered someone's living room, and they're lounging about, reading a book, eating dinner, chatting about something, whatever, then yeah, there should be some initiative bonus for the folks who actually did come charging through the door ready for a fight. This is, of course, going to depend on how granular your surprise/initiative rules are though. And on the flip side, I would probably put initiative on a more even footing if you actually had guards, on duty, standing on the other side of that door. They're literally doing nothing other than keeping an eye on said door, in case someone charges though it and attacks. And that would be if "they're just on guard, but otherwise not aware someone is about to break in". If the guards actually heard the PCs on the other side of the door first? Yeah. I'd actually give *them* the initiative bonus. They've had time to get out their crossbows/whatever, position themselves defensively against folks coming through the door, and are literally just waiting for the first live body to appear in front of them. That should give them a bonus IMO.

Also, I'm still not sure why the whole "NPCs can do this in response" is a problem. Heaven forbid that the party actually learns to spend some time scouting ahead, and being more stealthy when approaching potential encounters. And I think your attempts to "be nice" to the players on issues like this is clearly not solving any problems, nor is it reducing the points of contention anyway. So.... Um... Just play the rules straight for both sides. Let the players adjust to that. Trying to adjust the rules, and encounter definitions, and wing-it with initiative/surprise and buff/prep is not helping.

This is all correct and exactly how I would rule it.

The number one thing that players hate isn't specific rulings, but inconsistent rulings. And the best way to prevent this as a GM is to pick interpretations of rules that can actually be ruled in an unambiguous manner with a minimum of GM fiat. You seem to be gravitating to interpretations that maximize the amount of GM fiat, and then being surprised when your player seem to sometimes agree and sometimes disagree with different aspects of those rulings.

There are ways to avoid these kinds of conflicts in the first place.

I don't think I agree here.

The conflicts in this case are being caused by hard rulings, like "hiding is an action" and "the encounter starts when you open the door", rather than softer GM judgement calls that take the specific scenario into account.

Except that whether the monsters can "interrupt them" when they open the door has (should have) nothing at all to do with whether they spend the previous turn prepping on the other side of the door. This is the part that I (and I think a few other posters) are just confused over. Whether the NPCs can interrupt them when they open the door is determined by a range of three defensive conditions:

1. Were the NPCs aware that the PCs were on the other side of the door, getting ready to attack? If so, then they should have an initiative advantage, which means that, yeah, they might be able to just start shooting at the PCs the instant the door opens and the first PCs comes into view.

2. Were the NPCs unaware of the PCs, but still "on guard" in some way? In which case, a standard initiative roll should be made, with the PCs perhaps having a small advantage if they had some knowledge of the NPCs, but perhaps a more even roll if they don't.

3. Were the NPCS unaware of the PCs and also not "on guard" at all (just hanging out, living their lives)? In which case, the PCs should have a significant advantage of surprise (bonus on initiative based on your described game rules).

Note, that not one of these things has anything at all to do with how much time was spent on the other side of the door, nor what was done prior to opening the door, except to the point that the NPCs may have heard the PCs and been able to change their defensive position. So I'm just not seeing the issue here.

This is entirely correct.

My players are assuming that in #1 or #2, if they "start the encounter" outside of the room, then the monsters will waste their turn doing nothing having no targets, and thus the players will automatically go first upon opening the door.

My statement is that if we are going to play that way, I will need to start checking for monster awareness, and then if the monsters hear them coming (which is almost a certainty given how un-stealthy the party is as a whole) readying actions to attack anything coming through the door.

Yup. The problem appears to be conflating "start of an encounter" with "roll for initiative". Those should be two completely separate things. Doubly so if you are actually creating spell durations based on encounters and not direct time. This problem literally does not exist if you simply use initiative as a separate thing for when "we care about the order things happen within an encounter". The rounds spent prepping can absolutely be "part of the same encounter", despite no initiative roll being made yet. That roll is made only when there is a direct interaction between two or more opposing "sides" and we need to know who's actions get resolved in which order.

Yup. The monsters don't get to roll initiative until they become aware that something is happening to which they will want to react/respond (like a door opening). But the players don't get to roll before that point either. Both sides can simply declare what they are doing, and the exact order doesn't matter (though, how much time may if we're counting rounds of prep action maybe). It's only once the actual action starts that initiative needs to be rolled.

This is all correct.

Although I will admit that when I made the initial ruling I was getting a bit of "dungeon-brain" and was conflating combat and encounters, which is not appropriate either thematically or RAW.

Yeah. That's a game system bit. Also, I'd strongly argue that the NPC can't roll initiative until he is aware of something to roll initiative for. Which works fine when the stealthy action *is* the initiating action that generates an initiative roll. But yeah, this can create some "odd" effects in other situations.

Example:

Bob is hiding in the shadows, waiting for his party to burst through the door to act, only to discover he rolled poorly on initiative, and the guy he's standing behind waiting to backstab, goes first and runs towards the door before he can stab him.

We can resolve this by just declaring that Bob gets to stab his intended victim before the victim can move (a plausible ruling). Or we can give Bob a big honking initiative situation bonus (so he'll pretty much always go before his victim), and on the bizarre rare case where his victim somehow manages to still beat him, we can just chalk that up to "yeah, sometimes, you just happen to look away right at the wrong moment, and you were also surprised or off balance when the party burst through the door, and your victim just happened to react super fast, rolled away from you, grabbed his weapons and sprung to a defensive position before you could regain your composure". I can see that being a fair ruling and game mechanic to use as well.

I will say that the only action that should always happen "first" is the one initiating action that every other action is waiting on. That could be the party tank kicking down the door. It could be the rogue stabbing someone in the room. Something will be that "first action" that starts everything. That action (and only that one action) is one I would tend to allow to take effect "first" and without any intiative roll required. Everything else that happens is a reaction time question in response to that action.

This is how I would rule the events occurring. I agree with all of it. Bob does not.

And yeah, if I were running a game with an initiative system like that, I would simply determine that "kicking down the door" is not an actual round based action at all. It just happens. Done. Now we roll for initiative and determine the order in which everyone goes after the door is opened (again with possible bonuses depending on the situation and positions of folks involved). I just find that this method can better (and more fairly) simulate the kind of "sudden attack" scenario that many players may want to orchestrate (or may have NPCs use on them).

This is indeed how I have been running it.

Ok, so here is the very big vital question.

Would you allow all the player characters to use the total defense (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/actionsInCombat.htm) action the round before kicking in the door, and thus everyone who rolls low enough to go after the monsters receives a +4 bonus to AC on the first round of the fight?

I'll also point out that I've used systems with encounter based durations and systems with strict time based ones, and just never had this much trouble or confusion with them. So.... I'm just kinda baffled by all of this. I get that players will tend to try to manipulate things to their advantage, but it just should not be that difficult to manage this. Clear, concise, and consistent rulings are the key here.

To be fair, I very rarely have issues with it either. As I said up thread, there is a gray area that I have to make a ruling on maybe once every ten sessions, and that is being pretty generous. The last time I remember it actually causing a big argument was about fifteen years ago, when the PCs were storming a castle, and had a big fight in the courtyard, and then entered the castle and had another big fight in the throne room, and I ruled that both fights were separate encounters.

Also, do note that in this case, the players are not attempting to scheme to get around my judgement calls. They are saying that because I made the ruling that the encounter starts when the door is opened, I ruined their plan to bypass initiative and automatically get a first turn. They are not trying to come up with ways to game the system *because* of when I am declaring the start of the encounter; they are mad because my ruling prevents their attempt at gaming the system.

TaiLiu

2023-08-07, 10:58 PM

Generally we have no more than one fight per scene.
Makes sense. I wouldn't want multiple fights in one scene unless we were doing some kinda random encounter travel situation.

Not always, but generally.
Gotcha. As someone unfamiliar with Heart of Darkness, this surprises me and feels unintuitive.

In many cases, it makes sense—for e.g. duels or when a guard sounds the alarm. But it also feels like there's times for when a scene could end with a combat instead of starting with one—e.g. tavern fights or when searching for a hidden combatant in a dark room.

And in this case I made a dumb call because it was late and I knew the player would be wasting many in any case.
I sympathize. I've for sure made bad calls as a GM. It's hard to make these snap judgements.

Could you please elaborate on this?
Sure thing. As mentioned, the main benefits of scene- or encounter-duration abilities is that players and GMs save massively on mental bandwidth. In a game like D&D 5e, we gotta keep track of:

Multiple expendable resources—HP, hit dice, spell slots, abilities used, and so forth.
High-level problems in the game world, especially time-sensitive ones.
Scene-level problems and happenings.
Durations of any spells or abilities.
And more, especially for a GM.

If a spell or skill lasts, say, 10 minutes... Well, I'm not sure how long it's gonna be useful. I'm also not sure when I should activate it, or even if I should activate it.

For example: If I'm trying to find someone, the hunt could be minutes or hours. As the GM, I'm gonna need to tell the player when their ability ends, and it's gonna be kinda arbitrary. It's so much better to just say that their ability ends when the scene does. That way, I collapse the need to track durations and scenes together.

I dunno if this helps. Let me know if this makes sense.

gbaji

2023-08-08, 02:24 PM

I was responding to Jay R saying:

"I suspect that the underlying problem, both here and in many other situations you’re talked about, is that you do not speak precisely. You think the crucial word is "current", not "encounter" or "scene", and you think that means something other than what they are doing right now. Then you try to interpret what you meant, rather than what the words would naturally mean to any listener. Players who trusted to what the words actually said will feel that they have been led astray.

The problem isn’t a bad DM. The problem isn’t complaining players. The problem is miscommunication. And nothing will fix it until you and your players agree on what the words mean."

Which seemed to imply that the issue *at my table* was the terminology being used.

And I don't think anyone was confused about terminology, just disagreeing on whether opening the door constituted a new encounter or not.

I can't speak for Jay R, but my interpretatin was that he was saying the issue is that you seem to be focused on what counts as "current", and not what counts as an "encounter". Which seems to be exactly the issue, since you specifically ruled that they had to use the "Extended" duration since they were not "currently" in the encounter yet.

As I have said repeatedly, it was a bad call that I regret making. It was late, I was rushing, and I had gotten into the "Heroquest" mentality of the dungeon grind where I was equating room = combat = act on a 1 for 1 basis despite what the rules and common sense might say.

Right. But based on your posts on this forum, you seem to make these sorts of mistakes quite often. You're the GM. Heck. It's your game system. You should know the rules and how to interpret the rules. It does seem as though, instead of just having a consitent set of rules and following them, you are trying to "balance the encounter" at the moment, so when it seems like the players prep work is going to make the upcoming fight too easy, you start making inconsistent rulings to make it harder for them.

That's a bad habit. You need to break yourself of that. That's not to say that your players aren't also doing or demaind things that are ridiculous, but you need to respond by ruling consistently against said ridiculousness, and not yourself engaging in random seeming inconsistent rulings in order to offset them.

AFAICT some of my players have it in their heads that initiative is rolled the moment the encounter starts and then everyone acts in turn order until the encounter ends.

And part of the reason for this is that you *also* seem to be conflating "encounter" with "combat". Those are not the same thing. Initiative is rolled (typically) when combat starts (really anytime you are tracking actual "actions" by opposing sides where timing matters). But the actual "encounter" may have started some time prior to combat starting.

For example, if you are hidden, but then need to move into position before you can actually attack (say you were out of range or line of sight) where the enemy could conceivably get the drop on you.

Yes. It's really really simple. The only time anyone gets to do something against someone else without rolling initiative first is when they are able to act without the other person having any way to know about it until that action occurs. That's just normal "I'm doing stuff, and other folks don't know about it" stuff.

As I stated previously, initiative is rolled the moment that two or more "sides" are acting against eachother and we need to determine exactly which order they each act in. That's it. It has nothing at all to do with an encounter starting. It has to do with direct actions and reactions that we need to track..

I think this might be what Bob has a problem with?

I can't say, since I haven't witnessed Bob's actions directly. But I suspect that it might have something to do with your rulings that "hiding is an action", and "you can't hide unless you know what you are hiding against", which would seem to combine to make it impossible for someone to stealthily "hide" from opponents, sneak up to them, and then attack them from that position of stealth.

This ties back into the whole "encounter is not a combat" issue. You can certainly use stealth skills outside of combat, and without once rolling initiative., If I know there are bad guys in that warehouse, I'm allowed to use my stealth skills to sneak into the warehouse, spy on the opponents inside, and even sneak up behind one and attack. All without a single initiative roll being made. Now, the opponents within get to make perception rolls to determine if they detect me, and it they do *then* a combat may ensue, initiative is rolled and we proceed. If they don't? I get to take "backstab NPC #6" as an "out of combat" action basically. Once I do that, then we start combat (cause the other's are now aware of me).

So yes. If Bob is able to sneak up on someone without them knowing about him, then he should be able to attack without having to roll initiative first. But also yes, if he can't sneak up fully (cause there's no cover maybe), and can only get "close" and must then run a short distance to attack, then the moment he breaks cover is the moment the "combat" starts. We stop at that point, roll initiative (with Bob probably getting some hefty bonus) and move on. This is what I was talking about allowing a "mini-round" or "initiating action" to be done prior to start of a combat, but that this is not a full round action. It's like one move action or one standard action (in D&D terms). So one attack as your "I snuck up behind you and backstab you'. Or one move "I got close and now run up to you". But not both.

I don't think I agree here.

The conflicts in this case are being caused by hard rulings, like "hiding is an action" and "the encounter starts when you open the door", rather than softer GM judgement calls that take the specific scenario into account.

No. They are inconsistent rulings. You've already acknowledged, multiple times, that an encounter should start before you open the door if you are prepping for the attack, but then didn't actually rule that way. That's absolutely about being inconsistent.

The problem is that, in order to counter your players claim that they should automatically win initiative and get to attack first when bursting through the door, instead of making the correct ruling "that initiative is rolled after the door is opened, with possible bonuses for the attackers", you instead decided to on-the-fly change the rules on when encounters start, and then ruled in a way that affected their spell casting as well. It was correct for you to not allow your players to automatically go first. The way you did this was incorrect and creates an inconsistent ruling on your part.

This is entirely correct.

My players are assuming that in #1 or #2, if they "start the encounter" outside of the room, then the monsters will waste their turn doing nothing having no targets, and thus the players will automatically go first upon opening the door.

The encounter does start "outside the room". But the monsters are no more "wasting their turns", then the players are. Combat has not started yet. Neither side is doing anything directly to the other. The PCs can absolutely take whatever pre-combat preparations they wish to take. And if the NPCs detect the PCS on the other side of the door, they get to prep as well.

The PCs don't have targets yet either, right? Yet, they are not "wasting their turn". They are casting up buff spells, getting their weapons out, drinking potions, etc. All are "out of combat" actions.

My statement is that if we are going to play that way, I will need to start checking for monster awareness, and then if the monsters hear them coming (which is almost a certainty given how un-stealthy the party is as a whole) readying actions to attack anything coming through the door.

There should be no "if we are going to play this way". That *is* the way you play this. Period. Both PCs and NPCs get to take out of combat actions, any time they want, and based on whatever they are aware of and want to do.

You should *always* be checking for monster awareness of the party anytime the party is anywhere close enough to any monsters that they could become aware of the party. This is and should be "normal play". And yes, this means that if the players walk up to a door and hear monsters growling/whatever on the other side, they can take as much time as they want prepping for a fight against those monsters. And yes, this means that the monsters on the other side of the door get to make the same perception rolls to hear the party clanking up to the other side of the door, and spending several rounds prepping.

The monster aren't "wasting their turns" in that case. They can do the same prep (somewhat dependent on the type of monsters) that the party can do. Heck. if they are able to, they could open the freaking door and attack the party (giving *them* the initiative bonus on the party, caught mid-prep). This is not about initiative. It's about just playing the NPCs like they are actual beings that exist and are aware of the world around them and are allowed to make decisions. They don't just exist to be an "enncounter" for the PCs to fight.

Although I will admit that when I made the initial ruling I was getting a bit of "dungeon-brain" and was conflating combat and encounters, which is not appropriate either thematically or RAW.

Yes. That is exactly what you were doing. But I also think you are somehow thinking that "actions" (or even "reactions") can only be taken while in an official combat situation. There's lots of stuff you can play out by having folks roll various skills and go back and forth without having to roll initiative. It's only when we're really focusing on the timing that initiative matters.

This is indeed how I have been running it.

Ok, so here is the very big vital question.

Would you allow all the player characters to use the total defense (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/actionsInCombat.htm) action the round before kicking in the door, and thus everyone who rolls low enough to go after the monsters receives a +4 bonus to AC on the first round of the fight?

Well. This is where it kinda depends. Technically, those are "combat actions", which one could argue can't be taken until one is actually "in combat" (so after rolling initiative). Um... I think that's a bit too restrictive (at least for some actions). I would allow someone to take a defensive action like that, but honestly it would not make much difference (again, depending on how you manage initiative).

Let's imagine a case where the party has paused outside a door to prep for a fight, but the NPCs are on the other side (maybe wating, maybe not).

Every member of the party starts in a full defense position. So they get a +4 to AC until their next action. Then "Joe the tank" kicks in the door. We start the round and roll initiative. Let's imagine that somehow (maybe just really good rolls, or maybe because the NPCs were ready), all the NPCs win initiative.

What do the NPCs do? Joe the tank is standing in the doorway. So the one person they can most easily attack is Joe, who doesn't get the defensive bonus (he took an action last round of "kick in the door", right?). The rest of the party, they either have to try to charge into the hallway to attack or wait for them to move out (which means they are no longer in their defensive stance) to attack anyway.

Seems completely reasonable (and rational) for folks waiting for Joe to kick in the door, to be standing around defensively, sheilds up, etc, just in case the response to the door being kicked in is a hail of arrows or something, right? I have no issue with that. But if they want to actually move into the room and attack, they have to change that stance.

Um... I'm not sure if this is an actual 3.5 rule, or just something we've always house ruled, but we allow folks to "hold actions" to a later initiative, even interrupting folks in between their "half move" and "standard action" if needed. This is to simulate this exact situation. I'm standing in the room, weapon ready. You have to run into the room to get to me. If I won initiative, I should be allowed to wait for you to do your move, then attack you before you can attack me. I would also see no problem if the NPCs also waited to use their ranged attacks (or spells that maybe go against AC) until the PCs move into the room (and thus are less defensive/more-vulnerable) as well. Kinda depends on how tactically saavy the NPCs are.

And, of course, if the NPCs won initiative, they can do stuff like cast AE spells into the hallway where the PCs are if they want. So... Not really seeing the problem here.

Again, this is game system dependent, but there are usually very easy ways to counter "cheesy" actions by players without resorting to breaking other rules in the game to do it. And I don't think the concept of "I'm ready/waiting" or "I won initiative" should preclude someone deciding to wait until an opportune time later in the round to actually take their action. Otherwise, we get silly outcomes like "I'm waiting with my crossbow for you to come around the corner so I can shoot you, but I can't actually fire until you come around the corner, and the action/initiative rules say that you get to move around the corner *and* attack as your round, so I can never actually shoot you first". Um... That's just silly.

So yeah. You being in a defensive stance around the corner (or in a hallway) doesn't impact my ability to shoot you once you break cover and come into line of sight one bit. The moment you move, you aren't taking full defensive action anymore. Problem solved.

Another way to resolve this is to go from "single initiating action" to "initiating half round" instead. Same deal, Joe kicks in the door. Everyone who is "waiting for the door to be kicked in" gets to take a half round action immediately and in whatever order they want. So the PCs can each take a move action or ranged attack/spell if they want (but not both). If the NPCs are aware of the party and also "waiting for the door to be kicked in" they also get to take a move action or ranged attack/spell as well. Order probably doesn't matter much in terms of "sides", since we can assume that as part of their "waiting for the door to open" the NPCs have already positioned themselves where they want to be, so the only move actions are going to be the party (and they can't also attack that round, so just move where you want to be). The NPCs get to fire a "hail of arrows/spells" at the party. And yeah, in this case, no one gets a defensive bonus if they take any action at all other than just standing there defending themselves. Then you roll initiatve and start the actual combat, having "set the stage" with this initial action.

As I mentioned earlier in the thread, I use this technique sometimes to simulate a volley of "prepared actions" when combat is first initiated, but where no one is really "reacting" to what someone else is doing. It's a purely transitional "mini-round" used to get us into actual combat. But sometimes, you want to say "hey, the bad guys got the drop on you, so they can hit you with some arrows/spells or run up to you in meleee without you reacting", but don't want to give a "full surprise round" type effect (which I find to often be a bit overpowering).

Also, do note that in this case, the players are not attempting to scheme to get around my judgement calls. They are saying that because I made the ruling that the encounter starts when the door is opened, I ruined their plan to bypass initiative and automatically get a first turn. They are not trying to come up with ways to game the system *because* of when I am declaring the start of the encounter; they are mad because my ruling prevents their attempt at gaming the system.

I think that the entire issue and confusion only occurs because of a conflation of "start of encounter" and "start of combat", and when initiative is actually rolled.

The issue is that the players were trying to argue that since "the encounter" started when they began prepping for the fight (which they are correct about), that they should be allowed to roll initiative, but the NPCs, since they are unaware of the ensuing combat don't get to. The problem is that, instead of (correctly) telling them that initiative is only rolled once combat is initiated and not during pre-combat buffing, that they can't do this, you on-the-fly ruled that the actual encounter doesn't start until combat begins. Both result in the same "can't roll initiative until after the door opens" condition, but your method of ruling also means that their preparations weren't counted as "part of the same encounter".

Which, IMO, is where the real problem lay. You keep looping back to "but they wanted to automatically win initiative and act first", but that was only the starting point of a string of problems. It was how you reacted to their desire to auto-win initiative that really created conflict.

Talakeal

2023-08-09, 12:39 AM

I can't speak for Jay R, but my interpretation was that he was saying the issue is that you seem to be focused on what counts as "current", and not what counts as an "encounter". Which seems to be exactly the issue, since you specifically ruled that they had to use the "Extended" duration since they were not "currently" in the encounter yet.

I am not seeing the distinction.

The players are always in a scene. Enchantments last until the end of the current scene. Extended enchantments last until the end of the next scene.

Spells never last "1 scene."

For example, if a spell lasts "one hour" and I cast it at half past one, it will last until half past two, for a duration of one whole hour.
There is no situation in my game where you will get similar fractions; a spell cast half way through a scene will always last until the end of the current scene. They will never last until half way through the next scene to get a duration of "one whole scene".

AFAICT the dispute is about where the GM draws the line between one scene and the next. I was counting "exploring the great hall" as one scene and "exploring the dining room" each as one scene, drawing the line between the scenes at opening the dining room door.

There should be no "if we are going to play this way". That *is* the way you play this. Period. Both PCs and NPCs get to take out of combat actions, any time they want, and based on whatever they are aware of and want to do.

You should *always* be checking for monster awareness of the party anytime the party is anywhere close enough to any monsters that they could become aware of the party. This is and should be "normal play". And yes, this means that if the players walk up to a door and hear monsters growling/whatever on the other side, they can take as much time as they want prepping for a fight against those monsters. And yes, this means that the monsters on the other side of the door get to make the same perception rolls to hear the party clanking up to the other side of the door, and spending several rounds prepping.

I can't agree here.

First off the "play this way" was in reference to the players wanting to start the initiative count outside the room before either side had any specific knowledge of one another. This is not the only way to play.

Second, the idea that there is one "right way to play" is laughable. There might be one correct RAW way to play, or even one correct RAI way to play, but nothing stops us from adopting house rules about when we roll initiative. As the game designer, I could even rewrite the initiative rules if I thought the players way made any sense (I don't), and just because I am the game designer doesn't mean I can't play by something other than what is written (Monte Cook claims to have an entire binder of 3E house rules despite being the lead designer).

Third, no, as a GM I have the right not to roll for something. In this case, the party is not even trying to be stealthy, and they have a warrior with a negative stealth score. I am fully within my rights to just say that with no specific attempt at sneaking, I can take a typical result and assume that both sides are generally aware of the other, the PCs expect a fight when they kick in the door, the monsters hear someone coming and can expect trouble, and thus a straight initiative roll is called for. Its absurd that you expect me to calculate difficulties and roll a dice for each monster just because they could potentially all roll natural 1s and not hear the giant clanking knight templar coming up to their door and kicking it down, just like I don't roll alertness tests to see if the tavern-keeper mishears the PCs drink orders or the sheriff doesn't hear the PCs knocking on her door in the middle of the knight, its pointless tedium that is unlikely to ever come up.

Now, if the PCs are trying to be stealthy, and can make a group stealth test, then sure, they can try and make the roll. But they aren't going to succeed but once in a blue moon with their current party build / composition, but I am not going to go to all that work for what is essentially a foregone conclusion.

Yes. That is exactly what you were doing. But I also think you are somehow thinking that "actions" (or even "reactions") can only be taken while in an official combat situation. There's lots of stuff you can play out by having folks roll various skills and go back and forth without having to roll initiative. It's only when we're really focusing on the timing that initiative matters.

Depends.

Allowing people to "ready an action" outside of combat ruined 3.5 for my group; its one of the big reasons why surprise and the like are initiative modifiers in my game rather than granting bonus turns or bypassing initiative entirely, and I have implemented them in a way that it is actually wholly appropriate to use them in preparation for combat.

Casting a spell with combat benefits outside of combat is fine (assuming the duration is long enough). Watching someone or something is fine. Sneaking is fine. Social and craft skills are obviously fine. Searching is fine. Binding wounds is fine. Performance is fine. Heck, the list of things that are fine probably outnumbers the list of things that aren't fine by at least 100 to 1.

The abilities that I see as a problem:

Casting a signature spell or cantrip over and over again 24/7 is absurd on a thematic level, although perhaps not actively broken mechanically.

Hide; when treated as a condition rather than an opposed test. Its perfectly balanced and sensible to hide from a specific group or place either in or out of combat. To then say you are "hidden" indefinitely and can then walk right up to them (or anyone else) out in the open is both game-breaking and absurd.

Defend; this represents focusing on actively protecting yourself at the expense of everyone else. Being able to do this out of combat against unknown threats is absurd on a narrative level; raising your shield against incoming archery won't protect you from a knife in the back you never say coming or having a boulder drop on your head because you hit a trip wire. Mechanically, it greatly devalues stealth and initiative to give everyone a +4 AC bonus at all times when they aren't actively fighting or casting a spell; its supposed to be a trade-off in exchange for not doing something active during your turn, and if you haven't rolled initiative, you don't have a turn yet. And the idea that someone can be defending outside of combat, but then jump into the normal initiative order without penalty the second the fight starts is a complete betrayal of what the ability represents both mechanically and narratively.

Delay; this is used to delay your combat turn. If you haven't rolled initiative yet, you don't have a turn to delay.

Coordinate; this is an ability unique to my game that is basically a cross between D&D Bard Song and Aid Another, that allows the party face to give their allies a +2 to all rolls while they are actively coaching them (Sweep the leg! Behind you! Go for the eyes! Look out he's got a gun!). It makes no sense to do this passively before the coach has had a chance to observe or analyze the situation.

And that's all I can think of off the top of my head.

I think that the entire issue and confusion only occurs because of a conflation of "start of encounter" and "start of combat", and when initiative is actually rolled.

The issue is that the players were trying to argue that since "the encounter" started when they began prepping for the fight (which they are correct about), that they should be allowed to roll initiative, but the NPCs, since they are unaware of the ensuing combat don't get to. The problem is that, instead of (correctly) telling them that initiative is only rolled once combat is initiated and not during pre-combat buffing, that they can't do this, you on-the-fly ruled that the actual encounter doesn't start until combat begins. Both result in the same "can't roll initiative until after the door opens" condition, but your method of ruling also means that their preparations weren't counted as "part of the same encounter".

Which, IMO, is where the real problem lay. You keep looping back to "but they wanted to automatically win initiative and act first", but that was only the starting point of a string of problems. It was how you reacted to their desire to auto-win initiative that really created conflict.

Again, this is getting cause and effect backward.

I was making a ruling about spell durations. This whole weird scheme to auto-win initiative forever was something that they only told me about after I had already made the ruling.

And I didn't need to make a ruling about the start point of encounters to foil it; simply stating that the NPC's are either delaying their actions or guarding the doorway would have neutered it, and it was when I told Bob this that he give me that weird line about "realism as I see it and fairness for my monsters" and started giving me the silent treatment and refusing to discuss stealth or initiative any further.

Well. This is where it kinda depends. Technically, those are "combat actions", which one could argue can't be taken until one is actually "in combat" (so after rolling initiative). Um... I think that's a bit too restrictive (at least for some actions). I would allow someone to take a defensive action like that, but honestly it would not make much difference (again, depending on how you manage initiative).

Let's imagine a case where the party has paused outside a door to prep for a fight, but the NPCs are on the other side (maybe wating, maybe not).

Every member of the party starts in a full defense position. So they get a +4 to AC until their next action. Then "Joe the tank" kicks in the door. We start the round and roll initiative. Let's imagine that somehow (maybe just really good rolls, or maybe because the NPCs were ready), all the NPCs win initiative.

What do the NPCs do? Joe the tank is standing in the doorway. So the one person they can most easily attack is Joe, who doesn't get the defensive bonus (he took an action last round of "kick in the door", right?). The rest of the party, they either have to try to charge into the hallway to attack or wait for them to move out (which means they are no longer in their defensive stance) to attack anyway.

Seems completely reasonable (and rational) for folks waiting for Joe to kick in the door, to be standing around defensively, sheilds up, etc, just in case the response to the door being kicked in is a hail of arrows or something, right? I have no issue with that. But if they want to actually move into the room and attack, they have to change that stance.

Um... I'm not sure if this is an actual 3.5 rule, or just something we've always house ruled, but we allow folks to "hold actions" to a later initiative, even interrupting folks in between their "half move" and "standard action" if needed. This is to simulate this exact situation. I'm standing in the room, weapon ready. You have to run into the room to get to me. If I won initiative, I should be allowed to wait for you to do your move, then attack you before you can attack me. I would also see no problem if the NPCs also waited to use their ranged attacks (or spells that maybe go against AC) until the PCs move into the room (and thus are less defensive/more-vulnerable) as well. Kinda depends on how tactically saavy the NPCs are.

And, of course, if the NPCs won initiative, they can do stuff like cast AE spells into the hallway where the PCs are if they want. So... Not really seeing the problem here.

Again, this is game system dependent, but there are usually very easy ways to counter "cheesy" actions by players without resorting to breaking other rules in the game to do it. And I don't think the concept of "I'm ready/waiting" or "I won initiative" should preclude someone deciding to wait until an opportune time later in the round to actually take their action. Otherwise, we get silly outcomes like "I'm waiting with my crossbow for you to come around the corner so I can shoot you, but I can't actually fire until you come around the corner, and the action/initiative rules say that you get to move around the corner *and* attack as your round, so I can never actually shoot you first". Um... That's just silly.

So yeah. You being in a defensive stance around the corner (or in a hallway) doesn't impact my ability to shoot you once you break cover and come into line of sight one bit. The moment you move, you aren't taking full defensive action anymore. Problem solved.

Another way to resolve this is to go from "single initiating action" to "initiating half round" instead. Same deal, Joe kicks in the door. Everyone who is "waiting for the door to be kicked in" gets to take a half round action immediately and in whatever order they want. So the PCs can each take a move action or ranged attack/spell if they want (but not both). If the NPCs are aware of the party and also "waiting for the door to be kicked in" they also get to take a move action or ranged attack/spell as well. Order probably doesn't matter much in terms of "sides", since we can assume that as part of their "waiting for the door to open" the NPCs have already positioned themselves where they want to be, so the only move actions are going to be the party (and they can't also attack that round, so just move where you want to be). The NPCs get to fire a "hail of arrows/spells" at the party. And yeah, in this case, no one gets a defensive bonus if they take any action at all other than just standing there defending themselves. Then you roll initiatve and start the actual combat, having "set the stage" with this initial action.

As I mentioned earlier in the thread, I use this technique sometimes to simulate a volley of "prepared actions" when combat is first initiated, but where no one is really "reacting" to what someone else is doing. It's a purely transitional "mini-round" used to get us into actual combat. But sometimes, you want to say "hey, the bad guys got the drop on you, so they can hit you with some arrows/spells or run up to you in meleee without you reacting", but don't want to give a "full surprise round" type effect (which I find to often be a bit overpowering).

Ok. Thank you for the detailed response.

See my comments on the defend action above.

See, on one hand it makes sense, if you are in a standoff it wholly makes sense to hide behind your shield in preparation for an incoming arrow volley.

But on the other hand, its weird that this also protects you from attacks of a type or from a direction that you don't see coming, and mechanically it really neuters both stealth and initiative to allow people to just have a +4 bonus to AC all day without penalty (or even if you do limit it to when they believe combat is imminent).

Likewise, it kind of requires some narrative ret-conning; if you passed initiative, you were scrabbling to get through the door and attack as fast as possible, if you failed initiative you were hanging back and raising your shield against whatever comes out to you.

In retrospect, I probably should roll preparations for exploring a room and repercussions from exploring a room into the same act as exploring the room, but having been running a mega-dungeon all summer where it hadn't actually ever come up before, my brain had become compartmentalized to see 1 room = 1 scene, but I was too tired at the time to see that.

Right. But based on your posts on this forum, you seem to make these sorts of mistakes quite often. You're the GM. Heck. It's your game system. You should know the rules and how to interpret the rules.

I think you are setting the bar way too high.

When you say "mistake" though; that covers a lot of ground. It can be making a math error. It can be forgetting a rule. It can be getting a rule wrong. It can be a tactical error. Or, in this case, it could be making an on the spot decision based on a legitimate gray area in the rules that, upon reflection, was not the right call.

None of these are unusual. I think making several such mistakes a session is normal for everyone I have gamed with, PC and GM alike, and I don't think I am particularly prone to them. Heck, in the last session I caught players math mistakes three times, who knows how many more there were that I didn't catch?

Even excellent GM's make what I consider bad calls now and again, and I doubt I have ever had a session where someone didn't have a problem with a GM call. Heck, I am pretty sure that people disagreeing with your calls and getting mad at you is pretty much a daily occurrence for any referee.

Now, obviously, I only post threads when there is a problem, so you are going to be getting a biased sample, but I really don't think very many of my threads are caused by "mistakes" on my part. The last time I can recall a mistake being an issue was about three months ago when the players finished an encounter, and then later got ambushed in the same room, and I used their model's current locations on the map (i.e. where they finished the last fight rather than moving them to where they would realistically be resting afterwards). And this only turned into a big issue because rather than letting me know about it at the time so I could fix, Bob just kept quiet about it and then through it in my face during the next sessions as evidence of how bad a GM I was.

...instead of just having a consitent set of rules and following them, you are trying to "balance the encounter" at the moment, so when it seems like the players prep work is going to make the upcoming fight too easy, you start making inconsistent rulings to make it harder for them.

That's a bad habit. You need to break yourself of that. That's not to say that your players aren't also doing or demand things that are ridiculous, but you need to respond by ruling consistently against said ridiculousness, and not yourself engaging in random seeming inconsistent rulings in order to offset them...

Out of curiosity, are you talking about not calling for dice rolls when success or failure is not in question or interesting? Or are you talking about not requiring players to keep track of every last arrow, piece of chalk, and copper coin in their bags? Or policing the PCs table-talk and demanding that all communication be in character and free of meta-gaming?

Because unless that is the case, I have no idea what you are talking about. I consider myself a fairly by the book GM; I NEVER fudge rolls or monster HP, or pull reinforcements out of my butt, the way that a lot of people claim is good GMing. I certainly don't change the rules in order to adjust the difficulty on the fly, that's just silly.

Now, again, I do sometimes just gloss over things when failure is unimportant or unreasonable, and I guess my players do sometimes see that as unfair. Is that what you are saying?

That if you are going to follow the rules when it is important, you need to also be a hard-ass and follow them when its not important? E.G. If you are going to require the rogue to roll to hit to assassinate the emperor, you also need to require the ranger roll to hit the rabbits when hunting for supper? Or if you are going to make the mage keep track the spells in their scroll-case, you also need to make the rest of the party write down their fishing hooks and changes of underwear?

I don't *think* that is what you are saying, but that's the only way in which I can think of that I use inconsistent rulings as a matter of balance. If that is what you are talking about, we can have that discussion. But in the (very likely) event that you aren't, could you please give some more specific examples?

And part of the reason for this is that you *also* seem to be conflating "encounter" with "combat". Those are not the same thing. Initiative is rolled (typically) when combat starts (really anytime you are tracking actual "actions" by opposing sides where timing matters). But the actual "encounter" may have started some time prior to combat starting.

I am not conflating *combat* with scenes.

I was considering each room of the dungeon to be a separate scene. There are plenty of rooms which had no combat, or where combat started half-way through the scene due to uncovering / being ambushed by a hidden monster or when negotiations broke down. In these instances, I called for initiative mid-scene, and did not say that scene based durations, positive or negative, reset the moment combat began.

Now, some of the players were obviously conflating initiative with starting a new scene, but that wasn't because of any ruling I had ever made. More likely it was simply because when there are active hostiles in the room, opening the door, starting a new scene, and rolling initiative all happen to sync up.

But yes, at that moment, I had a brain fart and made the bad call that the scene started when entering a new room. I had been up for 19 hours, had worked a full shift before coming to the game, had been in a mega-dungeon for the past four months where nobody had ever tried pre-casting before, and was flat out asked by a player "do we need to use extend if we cast spells before opening the door?".

I can't say, since I haven't witnessed Bob's actions directly. But I suspect that it might have something to do with your rulings that "hiding is an action", and "you can't hide unless you know what you are hiding against", which would seem to combine to make it impossible for someone to stealthily "hide" from opponents, sneak up to them, and then attack them from that position of stealth.

This ties back into the whole "encounter is not a combat" issue. You can certainly use stealth skills outside of combat, and without once rolling initiative., If I know there are bad guys in that warehouse, I'm allowed to use my stealth skills to sneak into the warehouse, spy on the opponents inside, and even sneak up behind one and attack. All without a single initiative roll being made. Now, the opponents within get to make perception rolls to determine if they detect me, and it they do *then* a combat may ensue, initiative is rolled and we proceed. If they don't? I get to take "backstab NPC #6" as an "out of combat" action basically. Once I do that, then we start combat (cause the other's are now aware of me).

So yes. If Bob is able to sneak up on someone without them knowing about him, then he should be able to attack without having to roll initiative first. But also yes, if he can't sneak up fully (cause there's no cover maybe), and can only get "close" and must then run a short distance to attack, then the moment he breaks cover is the moment the "combat" starts. We stop at that point, roll initiative (with Bob probably getting some hefty bonus) and move on. This is what I was talking about allowing a "mini-round" or "initiating action" to be done prior to start of a combat, but that this is not a full round action. It's like one move action or one standard action (in D&D terms). So one attack as your "I snuck up behind you and backstab you'. Or one move "I got close and now run up to you". But not both.

It is trivially easy to sneak up behind and backstab someone outside of combat. Bob's rogue was so min-maxxed I would be hard pressed to go out of my way to design a scenario where he didn't have better than even odds of doing so, and I don't think he ever encountered one in the game where he wouldn't have succeeded on his stealth roll on a 2 when doing so.

The issue was, Bob wanted to travel with the rest of the party, hide once at the start of the adventuring day, and then remain hidden until combat started. He would then deploy with the rest of the party, and charge straight at the monsters for a "backstab" to their face. Mechanically, what he was doing was no different than the fighter, except he wanted a +2 to hit, +4 to initiative, and the ability to be un-targetable if he lost initiative due to starting the fight "in stealth".

I told him no, he either needs to hang back and wait for the rest of the party to engage, spend an action to hide, or sneak in ahead of the group and find a hiding place on the battlefield, and he would not accept that, threatened to quit the group if I enforced it, and has been making snide comments about it for the last two years.

He is *ALSO* complaining that it is stupid that it is possible for a hidden character to lose initiative. I am not sure if this means he wants to automatically go first when charging in with the party, thinks he is entitled to *two* rounds of actions after ambushing an enemy, or is afraid of some imagined scenario where he successfully ambushes someone but loses initiative, and the enemy somehow attacks him between the time he reveals himself but before he can land his attack; which as I said above is absurd unless he is required to move into position before attacking and blows his stealth roll to move undetected.

The encounter does start "outside the room". But the monsters are no more "wasting their turns", then the players are. Combat has not started yet. Neither side is doing anything directly to the other. The PCs can absolutely take whatever pre-combat preparations they wish to take. And if the NPCs detect the PCS on the other side of the door, they get to prep as well.

The PCs don't have targets yet either, right? Yet, they are not "wasting their turn". They are casting up buff spells, getting their weapons out, drinking potions, etc. All are "out of combat" actions.

This is correct as I see it.

This is not how my players see it though.

No. They are inconsistent rulings. You've already acknowledged, multiple times, that an encounter should start before you open the door if you are prepping for the attack, but then didn't actually rule that way. That's absolutely about being inconsistent.

This is just flat out wrong on every level.

The rulings about stealth had absolutely nothing to do with the call about whether the spell needed extend. We have been fighting about stealth for over two years, and my position has not wavered in that time. Stealth was not a factor in the encounter with the extended spell. Nobody attempted to hide or sneak. There was no surprise or ambush. There was no discussion of stealth. They literally had *nothing* to do with each other.

He had been bitching about stealth and not auto-winning initiative earlier in the night, but it was the furthest thing from my mind when I made the call about the scene starting when the door was opened.

The problem is that, in order to counter your players claim that they should automatically win initiative and get to attack first when bursting through the door, instead of making the correct ruling "that initiative is rolled after the door is opened, with possible bonuses for the attackers", you instead decided to on-the-fly change the rules on when encounters start, and then ruled in a way that affected their spell casting as well. It was correct for you to not allow your players to automatically go first. The way you did this was incorrect and creates an inconsistent ruling on your part.

This is also flat out wrong.

First off, there was no "on the fly changing of the rules". I had been treating each room as a separate act all campaign. In retrospect, that was dumb, but it doesn't meant it was an "on the fly change", and indeed having suddenly come to my senses and started treating preparation in the previous room as part of the same scene would have been an "on the fly change".

Second, and far more importantly, you are putting the cart before the horse and assigning me motives about things I wasn't even aware of at the time.

Bob asked if they would need to put an extend on a spell to have it last throughout the next encounter if they cast it before opening the door, and I said yes. He didn't cast the spell (with extend) and that was the end of it that night.

Then the next day, Bob angrily texted me and said that he was pissed off that I robbed him of not one but *two* combat turns. I asked what he meant, and he said that since he failed initiative after opening the door, he lost the first turn, and then by having to spend a round casting the spell without extend. I told him that he would have failed initiative regardless, so it was only one turn, at which point he started ranting about how if he is already taking actions outside of the room he shouldn't possibly be allowed to fail initiative because doing so would mean that the monsters are potentially getting a free turn to interrupt them as soon as they open the door.

The monster aren't "wasting their turns" in that case. They can do the same prep (somewhat dependent on the type of monsters) that the party can do. Heck. if they are able to, they could open the freaking door and attack the party (giving *them* the initiative bonus on the party, caught mid-prep). This is not about initiative. It's about just playing the NPCs like they are actual beings that exist and are aware of the world around them and are allowed to make decisions. They don't just exist to be an "encounter" for the PCs to fight.

I don't disagree here.

But apparently my players consider "fairness for my monsters" to be "always making calls that screw over the PCs". Whatever that means.

Kane0

2023-08-09, 04:19 AM

The abilities that I see as a problem:

Casting a signature spell or cantrip over and over
Hide
Defend
Delay
Coordinate

And that's all I can think of off the top of my head.

I play 5e, but one thing i’ve taken to doing is getting everyone to select one skill to be passively using during travel, exploration, etc. It’s basically just an expansion of the passive perception concept, where everyone can choose one thing to be doing while they are buskwacking through the jungle, weaving through courtly intricacies or methodically sweeping darkened dungeons.

Passive Perception is the default, but each skill is capable of being set as your current passive and performs its usual functions, the trick is you generally cant have multiple running at a time so it pays for the party to diversify (the ranger is an example of an exception, who gets the benefit of always having survival passively running for free).

But you generally cant have *actions* set as your passive activity, only skills. You can be passively stealthing (putting effort into avoiding notice and being inconspicuous), but not capital H hide. You can have passsive survival (following tracks) or passive investigation (noting oddities indicative of traps) but not capital S search. etc, etc. This is of course is in addition to the normal abilities dnd characters tend to have whether they be passive (darkvision), long duration (pass without trace) or spammable (teleporting between shadows).

TL;DR all skills have a passive mode like passive perception, but under normal circumstances a PC can only make use of one at a time.

Might be helpful to you. Might not.

Morgaln

2023-08-09, 08:25 AM

This is also flat out wrong.

First off, there was no "on the fly changing of the rules". I had been treating each room as a separate act all campaign. In retrospect, that was dumb, but it doesn't meant it was an "on the fly change", and indeed having suddenly come to my senses and started treating preparation in the previous room as part of the same scene would have been an "on the fly change".

Second, and far more importantly, you are putting the cart before the horse and assigning me motives about things I wasn't even aware of at the time.

Bob asked if they would need to put an extend on a spell to have it last throughout the next encounter if they cast it before opening the door, and I said yes. He didn't cast the spell (with extend) and that was the end of it that night.

Then the next day, Bob angrily texted me and said that he was pissed off that I robbed him of not one but *two* combat turns. I asked what he meant, and he said that since he failed initiative after opening the door, he lost the first turn, and then by having to spend a round casting the spell without extend. I told him that he would have failed initiative regardless, so it was only one turn, at which point he started ranting about how if he is already taking actions outside of the room he shouldn't possibly be allowed to fail initiative because doing so would mean that the monsters are potentially getting a free turn to interrupt them as soon as they open the door.

I'm curious: how do you "fail" initiative? Initiative should determine what order you act in, not whether you act at all. Even if you're last in initiative order, you still get your action, just later than anyone else. Unless your system is so deadly that going first means you can take enemies out of the action before they had their turn.

One idea I can throw out there is to change the initiative system to something completely different, a system that doesn't even require rolling. Two variations if recently encountered come to mind off-hand:

1. Sentinels RPG: In this game, the first round is started by a combatant of the GM's choosing. After that combatant acts, they choose who acts next, and whoever acts next chooses who acts after them (choosing from everyone who hasn't acted this round) and so on. It absolutely allows the players to all go first if they want to. However, going last in a round has major tactical advantages. Whoever acts last in a round gets to choose the combatant who starts off the next round, choosing from anyone but themselves. My players learned pretty quickly that if they all act first in a round, this means the enemies have the option to go twice before any player gets to act again; that can be very dangerous. On the other hand, there are abilities that last "until your next turn." Timed right, these can be taken advantage of for almost two whole rounds. Conversely, the choice to cut the duration of an enemy's ability short at the cost of letting them act now is also available.
My group has started to discuss initiative order a lot in those sessions; questions like "who has something to take avantage of the current situation?" or "can we take that guy's attack now?" are common and do wonders for communication and teamwork.

2. Tanares Adventures boardgame: I only know this one on a theoretical level, as I have read the rules but haven't had the opportunity to try the game out yet. The players act first in any given round. They get to decide who goes first among them. However, if an enemy gets attacked, that enemy acts next in the turn order (assuming the enemy hasn't acted yet). Once all players have acted, any enemies that didn't get attacked get their turn. The twist? Those enemies get bonuses to their actions because they were not interrupted by the players.

Both of these systems give a lot of power to the players in how they want to tackle a situation, but players also have to consider the tactical implications and consequences of what they decide to do.
I'm not sure either of those systems would suit you as you are big on versimilitude and these are more gamist. But it might be an idea to try out something similar and see if that works better with your players.

Telok

2023-08-09, 11:55 AM

Right. But based on your posts on this forum, you seem to make these sorts of mistakes quite often
Sample bias. Tak only really posts when there's a problem. Given the group its likely any given session has a higher chance for a problem than many other groups' averages, but then neither do all problems rise to the level of getting posted about. Given the group has steady... weekly?... games for years and they won't play D&D in part because D&D causes more rules related arguments, I think this is likely mainly general people problems & frustration rather than any mechanical or systemic GMing issues. There'd probably be actual vitrol and anger if they were playing Monopoly.

gbaji

2023-08-09, 04:26 PM

I am not seeing the distinction.

The players are always in a scene. Enchantments last until the end of the current scene. Extended enchantments last until the end of the next scene.

Spells never last "1 scene."

For example, if a spell lasts "one hour" and I cast it at half past one, it will last until half past two, for a duration of one whole hour.
There is no situation in my game where you will get similar fractions; a spell cast half way through a scene will always last until the end of the current scene. They will never last until half way through the next scene to get a duration of "one whole scene".

AFAICT the dispute is about where the GM draws the line between one scene and the next. I was counting "exploring the great hall" as one scene and "exploring the dining room" each as one scene, drawing the line between the scenes at opening the dining room door.

Yes. That's what I was getting at. You are restricting the "current" scene to "this side of the door", and everything on the other side of the door is the "next scene".

I'm also not sure what you mean by "spells don't last based on scenes but enchantments do"? Huh? Then you later say that Bob specifically got angry because you required him to spend a round (on the other side of the door) casting a spell, or had to use extend if he wanted to cast it ahead of time.

Um... Whatever the heck you call the thing Bob was trying to do, the core issue here is that by arbitrarily deciding that the scene boundary was "the door", that they had to use an extra level of duration in order for any <whatevers> to actually continue operating through the fight they were prepping for.

That's the disagreement here. The players believe that the new scene should start the moment they begin prepping to enter the new room, and not at the moment of crossing the threshold into that new room. And to be honest, I agree with them.

I can't agree here.

First off the "play this way" was in reference to the players wanting to start the initiative count outside the room before either side had any specific knowledge of one another. This is not the only way to play.

No. It was not:

My statement is that if we are going to play that way, I will need to start checking for monster awareness, and then if the monsters hear them coming (which is almost a certainty given how un-stealthy the party is as a whole) readying actions to attack anything coming through the door.

This is what you said. This is what I responded to. At no point is initiative ever mentioned. This is 100% about when different groups detect each other and can then choose to take actions in response. And yes, the default should always be that the NPCs are perfectly capable of detecing the PCs presense and taking actions in response.

It's just strange because I keep saying (repeatedly) that I agree that the PCs should not be able to just "auto win" initiative. That's not the issue. I'm am talking entirely and only about your apparent ruling that players cannot prep at all on the other side of a door unless they use some sort of extended duration on their spells/abilities/whatever. That's what I disagree with. Not the initiative thing.

And yes. You should be checking for monster awareness. Always. Regardless of whatever initiative rules are in play.

Second, the idea that there is one "right way to play" is laughable. There might be one correct RAW way to play, or even one correct RAI way to play, but nothing stops us from adopting house rules about when we roll initiative. As the game designer, I could even rewrite the initiative rules if I thought the players way made any sense (I don't), and just because I am the game designer doesn't mean I can't play by something other than what is written (Monte Cook claims to have an entire binder of 3E house rules despite being the lead designer).

Again. Stop talking about initiative. I'm not arguing with you about initiative. You keep looping back to initiative, despite repeated statements on my part that this is not what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about when/whether you allow players to prepare for a fight, and the (odd IMO) ruling that since the enemies behind the door are in a "new scene", the PCs must cast a spell/whatever that has duration to last "to the end of the next scene" instead of one that lasts "to the end of the current scene" if they want that spell/whatever to remain in effect for the fight they are prepping for.

This is why Jay R talked about the issue being about what your defintion of "current" is. For me, the moment you are aware of a (potential) fight on the other side of a door, and decide to prep for that fight, you are now in the "scene with the whatever is on the other side of the door". That is now your "current" scene.

This is the point of contention. It's not freaking about initiative.

Third, no, as a GM I have the right not to roll for something. In this case, the party is not even trying to be stealthy, and they have a warrior with a negative stealth score. I am fully within my rights to just say that with no specific attempt at sneaking, I can take a typical result and assume that both sides are generally aware of the other, the PCs expect a fight when they kick in the door, the monsters hear someone coming and can expect trouble, and thus a straight initiative roll is called for. Its absurd that you expect me to calculate difficulties and roll a dice for each monster just because they could potentially all roll natural 1s and not hear the giant clanking knight templar coming up to their door and kicking it down, just like I don't roll alertness tests to see if the tavern-keeper mishears the PCs drink orders or the sheriff doesn't hear the PCs knocking on her door in the middle of the knight, its pointless tedium that is unlikely to ever come up.

I honestly don't care about what method you use to determine if the NPCs detect the party. That's up to you and your game system. My point (and my only point) was that allowing NPCs to detect the party and take action in response is the "norm". You seemed to be saying that if you allow the players to detect the NPCs and prep for a battle with them *before* entering the room (presumably without having to have extended duration on their <whatevers>), then you will now start rolling perception rolls for the NPCs, so they can do the same.

My response was that "Um... Duh. this is what you should always be doing by default".

I'm not sure if there's just a miscommunication going on here, or what. But I was not talking about inititive rolls there. I was talking about allowing the party to prep for the fight they are about to enter without having to cast up extended duration buffs to do so. You then responded with "if I let them do that, then I have to allow my NPCs do to so as well". To which I said "Yeah. That's exactly what you should be doing anyway". To which you then responded with "But... Initiative!!!"

/confused

Casting a spell with combat benefits outside of combat is fine (assuming the duration is long enough).

Which is problematic if you are decding that "casting spells on this side of the door" counts as being in "scene A", but "fighting on the other side of the door" counts as being in "scene B", and thus the spell must be cast with a longer duration in order to "last to the end of the next scene". That's the single point I've been trying to make here. And it's strange because half the time you seem to be saying you agree, or that your ruling was wrong, but then the other half of the time, you seem to be continuing to argue that "prepping outside the door requires longer duration".

And yes, as I stated earlier, if someone wants to wander around with a spell up and have that spell last into a combat that happens later on, they must extend the spell (wandering around being one scene, while the combat is another). But, if someone is casting that spell with the specific intention of using it in a fight they are literally about to initiate, then that should count as the "current scene" and not the "next scene". That's literally all I'm arguing about here.

Hide; when treated as a condition rather than an opposed test. Its perfectly balanced and sensible to hide from a specific group or place either in or out of combat. To then say you are "hidden" indefinitely and can then walk right up to them (or anyone else) out in the open is both game-breaking and absurd.

I agree, in general. And I suppose this is game system dependent, because you keep speaking of it being an "opposed test". But I guess my question about your game system is: "Does the PC have to already be aware of a specific group of enemies they are hiding from before attempting to hide?". And no, I'm not talking about "walking around all day long hiding from everything". I've already posted that this is absurd. I'm asking about "I'm going to go search that warehouse while remaining hidden from anyone who might be looking".

Sometimes, the way you describe this, and the specific terminology you use, makes me not completely certain where you are actually drawing that line. To me, someone can be "actively trying to avoid being seen" while doing some specific thing, without first having to know who is there and may be watching. Probably a minor quibble, but still worth mentioning.

Defend; this represents focusing on actively protecting yourself at the expense of everyone else. Being able to do this out of combat against unknown threats is absurd on a narrative level; raising your shield against incoming archery won't protect you from a knife in the back you never say coming or having a boulder drop on your head because you hit a trip wire. Mechanically, it greatly devalues stealth and initiative to give everyone a +4 AC bonus at all times when they aren't actively fighting or casting a spell; its supposed to be a trade-off in exchange for not doing something active during your turn, and if you haven't rolled initiative, you don't have a turn yet. And the idea that someone can be defending outside of combat, but then jump into the normal initiative order without penalty the second the fight starts is a complete betrayal of what the ability represents both mechanically and narratively.

None of which were the scenario we were discussing (nor the hypothetical you asked about). You're runniing to an extreme to counter the specific case.

In this case, we're talking about a group of PCs opening a door, and whether they could have "readied a full defense" action in preparation to opening the door. That's not "out of combat against unknown threats". This is "the round berfore combat" and "against threats on the other side of the door". Yeah, they may not know what is there, or what may attack them, but I don't think it's unreasonable for someone to hold their shield up, or squeeze themselves against the side of the wall, just in case someone fires arrows or whatever at them through the door once it's opened.

I'm not at all sure how this is a "betrayal of what the ability represents". So, I can switch from defending one round to attacking the next, and that's not a problem, but I can't switch from defending the round before combat (when I know it's about to happen), and attacking in the first round? Why? In neither case am I able to both get the defensive bonus and attack at the same time. The only difference is that by your ruling, the PCs can't prepare for a "likely threat" from a "likely direction" until after they have directly encounted that threat, rolled initiative, and are able to act based on that initiative.

Which, if we're going to loop back to the iniative issue, may be why the players seem to want to roll initiative early in the first place. If you are telling them that they can't take some actions until after iniative is rolled, their next step would be "Ok. We roll initiative before we open the door". I agree, that this is an absurd path to follow, but it's a path the players are going down in direct response to your own ruling on this.

Again, this is getting cause and effect backward.

I was making a ruling about spell durations. This whole weird scheme to auto-win initiative forever was something that they only told me about after I had already made the ruling.

And I didn't need to make a ruling about the start point of encounters to foil it; simply stating that the NPC's are either delaying their actions or guarding the doorway would have neutered it, and it was when I told Bob this that he give me that weird line about "realism as I see it and fairness for my monsters" and started giving me the silent treatment and refusing to discuss stealth or initiative any further.

Hmmm... Again, there may be a communication issue. Are you conflating "take a combat action (like defend) before combat begins" as "auto-win initiative" maybe?

Because this really seems to have stemmed ultimately from them wanting to do certain things as part of their combat prep, and you saying "you can't do that until you are in combat".

To me, when you say they want to 'auto win initiative", I interpret that to mean that without having to roll anything, they are insisting that they get to take actions directly against their opponents first. But entering a defensvie stance isn't doing something to an enemy. Casting up a buff isn't doing anything to an enemy. Moving around and positioniong themselves on their side of the door doesn't do something to an enemy.

I think part of the issue is that I'm trying to interpret what exactly you are saying here. But it seems like the entire issue really does derive from you being more restrictive about what and when the PCs can do certain things, than the players like. And it also seems like you are presenting the forum with the tail end of that conversation (and the most absurd requests/demands by the players) while kinda skirting around the initiating issues that lead down a path to that level of absurdity in the first place.

See, on one hand it makes sense, if you are in a standoff it wholly makes sense to hide behind your shield in preparation for an incoming arrow volley.

But on the other hand, its weird that this also protects you from attacks of a type or from a direction that you don't see coming, and mechanically it really neuters both stealth and initiative to allow people to just have a +4 bonus to AC all day without penalty (or even if you do limit it to when they believe combat is imminent).

It's weird in the same way whether you allow the PC to enter the stance ahead of a combat or not though, right? If I take a full defense action during combat, I still get the same +4AC regardless of who attacks me, right? So... this isn't at all about prepping ahead of time. It's about how we decide the defend action should work in the first place. And there certainly may be rules that provide bonus to-hit (or minuses to AC) based on using sneak attack, or blindsiding someone, or whatever terminology is in play. Those apply in both cases, right? So if that's a sufficient game mechanic to use then someone is using defend "in combat", why is it suddenly not, when someone wants to use it one round ahead of time to "prepare for the combat".

Still not seeing the problem. And no. We are not discussing "walking around defending against everything all day long". I agree that's absurd. That's not what we're discussing. We're talking about whether a character, when they know exactly when a fight is about to start (ie: Opening a door), can choose to enter that fight in a defensive stance. That's the question you asked, and my answer is "Yeah. I think they should be able to".

Likewise, it kind of requires some narrative ret-conning; if you passed initiative, you were scrabbling to get through the door and attack as fast as possible, if you failed initiative you were hanging back and raising your shield against whatever comes out to you.

I'm not seeing the need for any ret-con here. You are defending yourself right up to the moment you begin to act offensively against the opponents in the room.

You also keep using this odd terminology like "winning/passing initiative". Initiative is rolled by everyone. It just determines the order in which you get to act in the round. Yes, we often refer to rolling better than someone else as "winning initiative" (relative to that opponent). But at the end of the day, whatever actions you are taking take effect through a "rounds worth of time". So I don't "win" iniative here. I'm "doing X" when the door is opened. When my turn to act comes along (based on the order determined by initiative), I then stop "doing X" and begin "doing Y*". So, in this case, I "stop hiding behind my sheild" and "begin charging into the room".

Still not seeing the problem with this. Except that by you not allowing PCs to do this sort of thing, you are leading them to the absurd "well, then we roll initiative before we open the door, so we can take these actions a around ahead of time". And when you tell them "The NPCs aren't aware of you, so they can't roll against you, so you can't roll", they may respond with "Ok. Then that means we automatically win initiative, since they can't roll, right?". Which (maybe, since I'm guessing at the progression of events) leads to "My players want to auto-win initiative" (and somehow linking this repeatedly to "players want to prep for the fight, before the fight actually starts").

I'm speculating here, of course. But it just feels like there's something else in the progression going on. I'm having a hard time believing that the players just out of the blue declared "we should auto-win initiative". I suspect that there was some sequence of statements leading up to this, and that you are interpreting what they actualy want do to as "wanting to auto-win initiative" because in your mind, they want to do things that can only be done after initiative is rolled, but before combat starts. And yeah, some of those I probably agree with you. But some of them, based on what you've posted so far, I don't.

In retrospect, I probably should roll preparations for exploring a room and repercussions from exploring a room into the same act as exploring the room, but having been running a mega-dungeon all summer where it hadn't actually ever come up before, my brain had become compartmentalized to see 1 room = 1 scene, but I was too tired at the time to see that.

Yes. Absolutely. If you make no other change, you need to change this.

I'm also not sure I'd maintain a "1 room, 1 scene" dynamic either (again though, this may work for you based on other game factors). I tend to see a "scene" as any of a sequence of actions that are part of a single larger action. It's really more like "modes" maybe? So I might have "exploring the dungeon" be a single scene. As long as they are wandering around from room to room, searching the areas, looking for things, they are in a single "scene". The moment they encounter something of note, however, a new scene begins. Note that this begins the moment they are aware that there is something 'different" than what they've been doing previously. So they enter a room, and there's some strange glowing pedastle in it, with runes, and making odd noises, or whatever. They make note of this. May decide to take specific actions in response to it, etc. That's a "new scene". But wandering from room to room, doing the same searches, and the same movements, and encountering the same dust and cobwebs? Don't need a new scene for each of those.

Dunno. It's not a big deal to me though. Can break those up however you wish. However, I do strongly suggest that a new scene should always start the moment the PCs begin acting in response to some "new thing". Those actions should be considered part of the scnene involving said "new thing", and not the scene they were in prior to discovering its existence.

Out of curiosity, are you talking about not calling for dice rolls when success or failure is not in question or interesting? Or are you talking about not requiring players to keep track of every last arrow, piece of chalk, and copper coin in their bags? Or policing the PCs table-talk and demanding that all communication be in character and free of meta-gaming?

Because unless that is the case, I have no idea what you are talking about. I consider myself a fairly by the book GM; I NEVER fudge rolls or monster HP, or pull reinforcements out of my butt, the way that a lot of people claim is good GMing. I certainly don't change the rules in order to adjust the difficulty on the fly, that's just silly.

Huh? I mean exactly what I said (and which you quoted):

...instead of just having a consitent set of rules and following them, you are trying to "balance the encounter" at the moment, so when it seems like the players prep work is going to make the upcoming fight too easy, you start making inconsistent rulings to make it harder for them.

I'm talking about you placing NPCs into a room in your dungeon, designed to be a "balanced encounter" (or set of encounters for a whole day if we count several such rooms), but only if both sides start "from scratch" with little or no prep ahead of time. But then your players decide to stop and cast a bunch of spells and want to take actions ahead of opening the door to the room, and you realize that this will make the encounter easier than you thought it should be, so you make rulings to restrict what they can do in their prep.

That's what I'm talking about. And yes, I fully put "I'm going to create a scene break between this side of the door and ther other, so it's impossible for them to prep buffs without spending more on a longer duration" as part of "making it harder for them (the PCs)". Or not allowing them to take some actions because those are "combat actions and you can't take them until iniative is rolled", even if they are maybe actions or abilities that don't require an active NPC target to use (or, again, you require them to use some sort of extension to use these while on one side of the door, if they want to use them on the other).

I am not talking about "fudging the dice" or other such things. I'm talking about exactly the thing I've been talking about this entire time. You kinda manipulating the scene/encounter definitions in order to create extra restrictions on their ability to prep for a fight. Now maybe, as you said, you've always run it this way and it just never came up before (which I honestly find hard to believe, since "preping spells/abilities right before a fight starts' is a pretty common thing), but it's still a really odd ruling across the board.

Now, again, I do sometimes just gloss over things when failure is unimportant or unreasonable, and I guess my players do sometimes see that as unfair. Is that what you are saying?

If there's a pattern I've seen in your posts about problems with your group, it's that you seem to make snap judgements/rulings to deal with an issue "in the moment", that creates conflict and that (in most cases) you regret making after the fact, due to unforseen side effects that occur. And sure, this isn't helped by Bob, who seems to play rules lawyer on you all the time.

I don't *think* that is what you are saying, but that's the only way in which I can think of that I use inconsistent rulings as a matter of balance. If that is what you are talking about, we can have that discussion. But in the (very likely) event that you aren't, could you please give some more specific examples?

Yeah. It's not what I'm saying. I'm maybe suggesting that if the players do something you weren't prepared for, or don't have an existing rule that applies perfectly to, maybe just allow them to do what they are trying to do? Then take some time (and perhaps discussion with your group) and decide on the "correct ruling going forward".

Your game will survive the players having one "easy win because the players thought of a rule interpretation (or combination of game actions) you didn't consider". You are the GM. You can always create more monsters, more encounters, and anything else you want. What your game cannot survive (much of anyway) is a constant back and forth of "You shouldn't be able to do that, but I can't think of the right reason why at the moment, so I'll come up with some rule/decision to prevent it", followed by a series of arguments, and you then reconsidering the ruling or decision you made after the fact anyway.

Again. Maybe the whole "scene starts at the door" thing was something you already decided. But it certainly seems like this was the first time someone said "hey. Um... Shouldn't our prep for this fight on the other side of the door count as the same scene as us fighting what's on the other side of the door", and you made the decision that "No, it doesn't, so you have to extend the duration on your spells/whatever if you want them to still be up a couple rounds from now when you open the door". if the issue never came up before, then this was the "point of decision" in which you were making a ruling on that.

And IMO, you ruled poorly. The players were absolutely correct. The prep they do ahead of opening the door should count as the same scene/encounter as whatever happens on the other side of that door. And in retrospect, you seem to agree that this should have been the case (setting aside the absurdity of "auto-win initiative" whatever that actually entailed).

Next time. Just give them the win. Then adjust your rules to account for whatever you and your players decide is the best way to handle this going foward.

I am not conflating *combat* with scenes.

I was considering each room of the dungeon to be a separate scene. There are plenty of rooms which had no combat, or where combat started half-way through the scene due to uncovering / being ambushed by a hidden monster or when negotiations broke down. In these instances, I called for initiative mid-scene, and did not say that scene based durations, positive or negative, reset the moment combat began.

Ok. Then you are conflating 'scenes" with "rooms". Again, you're free to do this how you want in your game, but if I may make a suggestion: Scenes are about a single "thing" being done. Exploration is a "thing being done". An encounter (which could be with an object, or living being(s) and could involve combat or not) is a different "thing being done".

I would literally consider the entire time they are exploring, regardless of rooms entered and searched (assuming all in one dungeon/house/whatever) as one "scene". That scene lasts until they encounter something "new or different" at which point a new scene starts, detailing what they so in response to that encounter. And yes, that new scene starts as soon as they are aware of the "new/different thing", which could be "when you walk into the room and something happens", but could also be "you hear noises or see something strange up ahead, what do you do" sorts of things (and certainly includes "we walk up to a door, think there's enemies on the other side, and start prep for combat before entering").

As I mentioned earlier though, that kinda depends on the spells and abilities, with different durations, and how you manage that in your game system. But the "extended" duration seems like it's designed to "cast ahead of time, so it's avaialble if something happens that you may need the spell for without you having to cast it during the actual encounter/combat". Having to recast that every time you enter and explore an empty room in a house seems a bit strange. But maybe not? Again, not very familiar with your game system.

Now, some of the players were obviously conflating initiative with starting a new scene, but that wasn't because of any ruling I had ever made. More likely it was simply because when there are active hostiles in the room, opening the door, starting a new scene, and rolling initiative all happen to sync up.

Right. That's exactly the point. You've made a series of rulings that resulted in the "new scene" starting with "roll for initiative" whenever there are enemies on the other side of a door. And your rulings also say that they can't cast spells that last "for the current scene" until after said initiative roll when that happens.

If you allowed the new scene to start the moment they encounter the door and decide to do something with it then the entire problem (and conflation of scene and combat and initiative roll) disappears. Which is why I keep going back to this as the key initiating factor here.

But yes, at that moment, I had a brain fart and made the bad call that the scene started when entering a new room. I had been up for 19 hours, had worked a full shift before coming to the game, had been in a mega-dungeon for the past four months where nobody had ever tried pre-casting before, and was flat out asked by a player "do we need to use extend if we cast spells before opening the door?".

Well. Clearly it was more than just one question, and your answer, and then it all stopped, right? Clearly, your answer sparked some degree of disagreement, which lead to a series of back and forth and ended with an argument. I mean, at some point in that progression your table got to some point where Bob was wanting to do something that you considered "auto-winning initiative", right? So it was more than just what you are saying.

I get the brain fart. We've all had them. But at some point in this progression, there should have been some re-assessment of the snap answer you gave, which should have resulted in a better ruling and avoided the bulk of that argument.

The issue was, Bob wanted to travel with the rest of the party, hide once at the start of the adventuring day, and then remain hidden until combat started. He would then deploy with the rest of the party, and charge straight at the monsters for a "backstab" to their face. Mechanically, what he was doing was no different than the fighter, except he wanted a +2 to hit, +4 to initiative, and the ability to be un-targetable if he lost initiative due to starting the fight "in stealth".

I'm not sure what this has to do with opening a door and prepping use of skills/spells/abilities prior to doing so. Are you saying that, upon encountering a situation which may result in a combat, you are not allowing him to declare that he is "hiding in the shadows (or equivalent)" just prior to the party opening the door? Because that's a very different situation than "hide once at the start of the adventuring day, and then remain hidden until combat started".

I told him no, he either needs to hang back and wait for the rest of the party to engage, spend an action to hide, or sneak in ahead of the group and find a hiding place on the battlefield, and he would not accept that, threatened to quit the group if I enforced it, and has been making snide comments about it for the last two years.

Honestly, that would depend on the circumstances though. If there are shadows or other places to hide, Bob should be able to declare "I'm hiding in shadows" right before the door is opened. And yeah, based on his initiative roll, he should then be able to slip into the room using his stealth bonus, and, if he's not spotted, be able to sneak up behind someone and attack them with whatever bonuses that entails.

If you are insisting that Bob can't even attempt to start hiding until after combat starts, and iniative is rolled, then yeah, I think he's kinda got a point here. If he has a reason to expect they are about to get into a fight, and states "I'm going to hide in the bushes/shadows/whatever", then he should absolutely be able to do that (other conditions permitting of course). This does not mean he can simply declare "I'm hiding all day", and get those benefits if the party stumbles into a fight with no warning.

Again, I'm seeing a pattern here, where you seem to be actively preventing your players from being able to actually do anything ahead of a fight in preparation for that fight. It's also interesting that you say here that this is a disagreemnt you have been having with him for two years, yet stated earlier that the situation of when a scene starts versus combat versus skill prep just came up recently and never before.

I see this as the same exact problem. If the players have a reason to think "there might be something up ahead" (like they encounter a door and maybe hear noises on the other side maybe) and then state "we're going to take X actions to prepare for what we think is about to happen", they should be allowed to do so. The situation with Bob and stealth in combat is the same thing. You're not alllowing him to use an ability he wants to use in combat, until after the combat has begun. When, realistically, he should be able to use his hide ability any time he wants.

He is *ALSO* complaining that it is stupid that it is possible for a hidden character to lose initiative. I am not sure if this means he wants to automatically go first when charging in with the party, thinks he is entitled to *two* rounds of actions after ambushing an enemy, or is afraid of some imagined scenario where he successfully ambushes someone but loses initiative, and the enemy somehow attacks him between the time he reveals himself but before he can land his attack; which as I said above is absurd unless he is required to move into position before attacking and blows his stealth roll to move undetected.

Have you asked him? I can only go on what you say about Bob, and there's not nearly enough information here for me to figure out what's being talked about.

Um... But there are certainly situations in which someone using stealth should be able to go "first", becuase their attack is occuring before the other guy even knows there's a combat yet (it hasn't started yet). And I would absolutely expect that if I've successfuly snuck up on someone, and backstabbed them, that if there's also some surprise bonus to initiative, I should *also* have a good chance of getting my next action before anyone can react. This goes back to my comments about "initiating events" that start a fight. Those don't use initiative. They occur "before combat starts". So if that initiating action is me backstabbing someone, that action is done. It's not part of the combat. Now we roll initiative and start a new round (the first round of the actual combat).

If you are ruling that Bob's initial backstab (before anyone else is even aware of him) counts as his action in the first melee round, and now everyone else gets to act in reponse, then I'd also side with him that that's an insane ruling as well. I'm again speculating here, but you comment about "getting two rounds" during an ambush suggests this is the exact situation (or at least something very similar).

If you're going even further and stating that once Bob sneaks into position, but before he backstabs, that he and everyone else rolls initiative and all act in that order, then that's even further into "insane ruling" territory. Again, the concept (to me anyway) is not that Bob should "automatically win initiative" in that situation, but that he should not have to roll at all. There is no intiative, since there are not yet two sides both aware of the other and both trying to take actions against each other. it's just him, hiding behind someone, and stabbing them. He always gets to "go first" in that situation. And yes, then combat begins (assuming there are other enemies around aware of what just happened), and that prompts an initiative roll, and yes, Bob could certainly roll better and be able to act again before anyone reacts.

The rulings about stealth had absolutely nothing to do with the call about whether the spell needed extend. We have been fighting about stealth for over two years, and my position has not wavered in that time. Stealth was not a factor in the encounter with the extended spell. Nobody attempted to hide or sneak. There was no surprise or ambush. There was no discussion of stealth. They literally had *nothing* to do with each other.

Except, as I pointed out above, that both have a lot to do with "when a combat starts", and "when we roll initiative".

And if they don't have anything to do with each other, why are you talking about it? You don't "win" the argument over the most recent issue, by dredging up other things Bob has argued or done in the past. This is not about picking "sides" that we like or agree with in general. It's about assessing the actions and decisions made in this situation. The past just doesnt' matter.

He had been bitching about stealth and not auto-winning initiative earlier in the night, but it was the furthest thing from my mind when I made the call about the scene starting when the door was opened.

Again, both issues share the element of "I'm not going to let you enter combat already using abilities that I think might be too useful for combat". It's a valid discussion IMO.

First off, there was no "on the fly changing of the rules". I had been treating each room as a separate act all campaign. In retrospect, that was dumb, but it doesn't meant it was an "on the fly change", and indeed having suddenly come to my senses and started treating preparation in the previous room as part of the same scene would have been an "on the fly change".

This was either the first time this exact situation occured (where they wanted to prep prior to opening a door and entering combat), or it was not. You have suggested in your previous posts, that this had not come up before. So yeah, it was an "on the fly" ruling, since this was the first time it came up (or was relevant).

Bob asked if they would need to put an extend on a spell to have it last throughout the next encounter if they cast it before opening the door, and I said yes. He didn't cast the spell (with extend) and that was the end of it that night.

Then the next day, Bob angrily texted me and said that he was pissed off that I robbed him of not one but *two* combat turns. I asked what he meant, and he said that since he failed initiative after opening the door, he lost the first turn, and then by having to spend a round casting the spell without extend. I told him that he would have failed initiative regardless, so it was only one turn, at which point he started ranting about how if he is already taking actions outside of the room he shouldn't possibly be allowed to fail initiative because doing so would mean that the monsters are potentially getting a free turn to interrupt them as soon as they open the door.

And there were no other questions or disagreement at all during the actual fight? That seems... odd.

There was no discussion by him (at the table) about "taking actions outside of the room"? What was he talking about then? He sure seems to think that he was doing things prior to entering the room, and thus prior to rolling for initiative. So yeah. I can't really comment on this except to say that it feels like there's some facts missing from this description.

Talakeal

2023-08-10, 02:23 AM

Sample bias. Tak only really posts when there's a problem. Given the group its likely any given session has a higher chance for a problem than many other groups' averages, but then neither do all problems rise to the level of getting posted about. Given the group has steady... weekly?... games for years and they won't play D&D in part because D&D causes more rules related arguments, I think this is likely mainly general people problems & frustration rather than any mechanical or systemic GMing issues. There'd probably be actual vitrol and anger if they were playing Monopoly.

Yeah, mostly.

You do mostly hear about the bad sessions. While I do post bi-weekly campaign diaries, they don't generate a lot of discussion, and I only tend to post advice threads when I have a problem I am looking to solve (or just blow off steam about in a safe environment).

I am not saying I am perfect, or that some of my players aren't dysfunctional geeks who wouldn't last a week in a normal gaming group, but I don't think I (or any of my players) are especially prone to making mistakes, and I don't think I am especially prone to changing the rules on the fly. Honestly, I think if anything I am too rigid and too likely to follow RAW even if it isn't appropriate, and it is probably my biggest flaw behind an inability to read body language and the stubborn willingness to continue playing with and talking to toxic people no matter how stressed out it makes me.

And you do *not* want to play Monopoly at my house. No joking, its the most tense family board game you will *ever* play. I am *dead* serious.

I'm curious: how do you "fail" initiative? Initiative should determine what order you act in, not whether you act at all. Even if you're last in initiative order, you still get your action, just later than anyone else. Unless your system is so deadly that going first means you can take enemies out of the action before they had their turn.

My system is a bit different than D&D in that initiative and surprise are combined into a single roll, but in short, failing means that you roll lower than the monsters did, meaning that over the course of the fight you effectively get one less turn than they do.

Initiative is determined by dexterity + perception and modified by certain merits, flaws, and magic.
Hidden characters get +4.
Initiating combat unexpectedly gives +2.
Having a greater reach than your opponent gives +2.
Needing to move before acting gives -2.
Having a weapon holstered gives -2. The Quick-Draw skill can negate this penalty of even turn it into a bonus.
Having a readied action gives between -6 and +6 depending on how close your readied action adheres to what you end up doing.

Only the players roll initiative. The difficulty is equal to 10 + the most common initiative score of all the enemies present.

Success allows your character to take a turn before the enemies.
All characters take a turn together after the enemies.
Success by more than 20 creates a true surprise round, before combat you get a bonus action against which the enemies cannot defend.
Failure by more than 20 means you are truly surprised and cannot act or defend yourself until the enemy has acted twice.

Thanks for those alternate systems! While I doubt they are right for my current group / system, they do give me some good ideas for the future!

@Gbaji: It seems like we agree on 99% of stuff here. I am just being overly defensive. I will try and keep this post shorter and more friendly in tone.

Also, I a have been using the terms scene / encounter / and act interchangeably for the same concept, because that is the terminology the three games I play most often use for the same concept. Please don't read any distinction between them.

Yes. That's what I was getting at. You are restricting the "current" scene to "this side of the door", and everything on the other side of the door is the "next scene".

I'm also not sure what you mean by "spells don't last based on scenes but enchantments do"? Huh? Then you later say that Bob specifically got angry because you required him to spend a round (on the other side of the door) casting a spell, or had to use extend if he wanted to cast it ahead of time.

The semantic point I am trying to make is that no sort of spells in Heart of Darkness will ever last a "full encounter". They last until the end of encounters.

A normal enchantment fades at the end of the *current* encounter, even if you cast it with just a round left to go. An extended enchantment will last until the end of the *next* encounter, regardless of whether cast it 1 round into the current encounter, 1 round before the end of the current encounter, or somewhere in between.

Thus a normal enchantment will last some percentage of a single full encounter, and an extended enchantment will last somewhere between 1 and 2 full encounters.

Which is different than a duration measured in time, where you can expect to get the full duration regardless of what happens. So if I cast an hour long spell at 1:59, it will last until 2:59, exactly one hour. Whereas if I cast an Heart of Darkness enchantment 9 rounds into a 10 rounds encounter, it will last 1 round and end, rather than extending 9 rounds into the next encounter for a duration equal to a full ten round encounter. (I am picking 10 rounds out of their air as an example, please don't read anything into the specific number).

Um... Whatever the heck you call the thing Bob was trying to do, the core issue here is that by arbitrarily deciding that the scene boundary was "the door", that they had to use an extra level of duration in order for any <whatevers> to actually continue operating through the fight they were prepping for.

Correct.

I am just clarifying that by the rules, if the scene ends upon opening the door, the spell will only last 1 round. They PCs are not guaranteed to get a "full encounter" out of it.

I am not saying having a doorway as the scene boundary is a good idea, just stating that I had been running it that way and that it how the rules operate.

That's the disagreement here. The players believe that the new scene should start the moment they begin prepping to enter the new room, and not at the moment of crossing the threshold into that new room. And to be honest, I agree with them.

I do to. But that isn't how I was running it.

Heart of Darkness isn't really meant to be a dungeon crawler. I had been treating each room as a separate act for the whole campaign, and it hasn't been an issue. I didn't feel like changing it on the fly at 10:30PM while we were all tired and wanting to go home.

After thinking about it after the game with a clear head, I do agree that changing it is for the best and treating each room as a separate act was not a great idea in the first place. I will be changing it going forward.

No. It was not:

This is what you said. This is what I responded to. At no point is initiative ever mentioned. This is 100% about when different groups detect each other and can then choose to take actions in response. And yes, the default should always be that the NPCs are perfectly capable of detecing the PCs presense and taking actions in response.

It's just strange because I keep saying (repeatedly) that I agree that the PCs should not be able to just "auto win" initiative. That's not the issue. I'm am talking entirely and only about your apparent ruling that players cannot prep at all on the other side of a door unless they use some sort of extended duration on their spells/abilities/whatever. That's what I disagree with. Not the initiative thing.

Again. Stop talking about initiative. I'm not arguing with you about initiative. You keep looping back to initiative, despite repeated statements on my part that this is not what I'm talking about.

Ok, looking back over the thread, it looks like we have been talking circles around each other by not understanding what the other one was referring with indefinite pronouns.

What I was trying to say is that Bob wants to roll initiative before opening the door. His theory is that if the monsters go first, the monsters will all waste their turns because they have no targets. Then the PCs will be able to open the door on their next turn and the entire party will, effectively, always go first. I then pointed out that if we start playing this way (which would be a house rule we would have to adopt) whomever opens the door will be wasting a turn, the doorway will curtail their movement, and if the monsters heard them coming (which is almost a certainty given the party makeup) the monsters would just ready actions to guard the door, so doing initiative in this manner would actually disadvantage the party. Upon being told this, Bob threw a temper tantrum about biased calls and gave me the silent treatment.

You seem to be talking about starting the scene before opening the door (please correct me if I am wrong). This is fine with me. It really doesn't change anything about how the game is played except for making it slightly easier to pre-cast enchantments. It doesn't affect initiative, or have anything to do with defending against / hiding from unknown threats outside of combat as a free action, which is the real meat of what I wanted to discuss in this thread.

I agree, in general. And I suppose this is game system dependent, because you keep speaking of it being an "opposed test". But I guess my question about your game system is: "Does the PC have to already be aware of a specific group of enemies they are hiding from before attempting to hide?". And no, I'm not talking about "walking around all day long hiding from everything". I've already posted that this is absurd. I'm asking about "I'm going to go search that warehouse while remaining hidden from anyone who might be looking".

Sometimes, the way you describe this, and the specific terminology you use, makes me not completely certain where you are actually drawing that line. To me, someone can be "actively trying to avoid being seen" while doing some specific thing, without first having to know who is there and may be watching. Probably a minor quibble, but still worth mentioning.

Honestly, I don't know if a precise line can be drawn.

Generally, I would say that the act of hiding involves moving into cover / concealment and then remaining relatively motionless.

If you are standing out in the open in the middle of a battlefield, you are not hidden. But you can take an action to hide yourself, again by moving into concealment / cover, or if you are good enough (or have some sort of camouflage) just by standing still. This is the part Bob doesn't like.

Now, after you are hidden (or just not noticed by someone, although that's a bit fuzzier) you can then *sneak* past people by staying out of their line of sight and trying to make as little noise as possible.

I suppose neither hiding nor sneaking needs a target per se, but if you walk out of cover, or into their field of vision, or use a form of concealment that they can see through, you are going to have a really tough time of it compared to someone who keeps their opponent's perception in mind.

And again, this latter can be mitigated by distracting the opponent, which one's party would be able to do if one waited, but Bob also wants to always go first and be the one leading the charge.

Which, if we're going to loop back to the initiative issue, may be why the players seem to want to roll initiative early in the first place. If you are telling them that they can't take some actions until after initiative is rolled, their next step would be "Ok. We roll initiative before we open the door". I agree, that this is an absurd path to follow, but it's a path the players are going down in direct response to your own ruling on this.

Because they can't simultaneously be "hanging back with their shields drawn against potential threats" and "scrabbling to draw their weapons and get an attack of before their opponents". If they are rolling initiative normally, they are assumed to be doing the latter.

Game mechanically, the idea is you lose a turn of actions, but gain a temporary bonus to your defenses as a sort of trade-off. In this case, there is no trade-off; if you lose initiative you sacrifice nothing for a +4 bonus to AC against the enemies opening salvo. If you win initiative, well, you just don't defend and act normally, nothing ventured nothing gained. And of course, the poor guy who wins initiative and decided to use his turn to defend gains absolutely no advantage for having such quick reflexes over his comrades who lost initiative.

This really devalues both initiative and sneak attacks as game mechanics, as the winner is unlikely to do anything at all in their first turn.

And of course, if you allow it one round before combat, where do you draw the line? Why would guards not spend their entire shift in total defense? Why would adventurers not spend every free moment in the dungeon / wilderness in total defense?

Which, if we're going to loop back to the initiative issue, may be why the players seem to want to roll initiative early in the first place. If you are telling them that they can't take some actions until after initiative is rolled, their next step would be "Ok. We roll initiative before we open the door". I agree, that this is an absurd path to follow, but it's a path the players are going down in direct response to your own ruling on this.

Indeed. And this is the real discussion I intended to have with this thread. The stuff about enchantment durations was meant to be kind of a side topic that dominated everything.

As I mentioned up-thread, back in our 3E games the players would all ready actions before initiating combat for much the same benefit, rendering the entire concept of surprise and initiative meaningless.

IMO this is clearly a toxic game-play spiral rather than any form of intended play.

The easiest solution is obviously to restrict certain actions to in combat only and to say that only the DM has the right to call for initiative, but a lot of players think of that as tyrannical overreach.

To me, when you say they want to 'auto win initiative", I interpret that to mean that without having to roll anything, they are insisting that they get to take actions directly against their opponents first. But entering a defensivie stance isn't doing something to an enemy. Casting up a buff isn't doing anything to an enemy. Moving around and positioning themselves on their side of the door doesn't do something to an enemy.

Agreed. But I would argue that "total defense" is not "entering a defensive stance" it is specifically doing everything you can to defend yourselves from known enemies.

If you don't know where the enemies are or what form their attacks will take, its meaningless. Raising a shield will protect you fine from arrows, but will do nothing to bullets or dropped stones, or kobolds stabbing you in the knees, and will be actively detrimental to your attempts to dive for cover or what-not. Steeling oneself to block a punch is great, but if your enemies have knives not so much. Holding the enemies at bay with a spear works great, but will actively impede your ability to defend against enemies with slings or those that sneak up behind you or drop down from above. Etc.

I think part of the issue is that I'm trying to interpret what exactly you are saying here. But it seems like the entire issue really does derive from you being more restrictive about what and when the PCs can do certain things, than the players like. And it also seems like you are presenting the forum with the tail end of that conversation (and the most absurd requests/demands by the players) while kinda skirting around the initiating issues that lead down a path to that level of absurdity in the first place.

Way back in ye olden 3.5 days, we had people readying actions outside of combat to bypass initiative entirely and ensure they got the first turn. My ultimate ruling was that since the book specifically lists ready as a special combat action, you couldn't take it until combat had started and initiative had been rolled.

Fast forward to two years ago, and Bob is arguing that he should be able to hide (at some indeterminate point either 1 round or first thing in the morning, is varied) before combat begins and open every fight with a first turn backstab. My response to this was to say that if he wants to do that, its equally fair for the opponents to use defend as an action before combat begins, thus spoiling his sneak attack and then some.

Now, maybe in response to this, maybe not, Bob came up with a scheme to roll initiative one (or more) rounds before instigating the combat, and then hiding one one turn, and then having the rest of the party delay, and then on his next turn charging in and opening with a sneak attack and then having the rest of the party act immediately after him, thus making the initiative roll meaningless and ensuring the entire party gets to act before any of the monsters can take an offensive action.

Bob never actually did this as he isn't currently playing a rogue, he is playing a caster.

Early in the last session, I told the new kid that his rogue couldn't open a fight with a sneak attack by standing with the rest of the party and immediately charging in with the party, he would need to either hang back outside the room and sneak in after the rest of the party distracted the enemies, or sneak into the room before the rest of the party and hide inside. Bob then made some really nasty comments about how stupid and unfair my stealth rules are.

Then, in the last encounter of the session, I ruled that Bob would need to extend a spell cast before opening the door.

The next day, he told me over text that he was mad about said ruling, because it would also spoil his scheme to bypass initiative and guarantee a first turn sneak attack to the face, which he was (apparently) saving under his cap for the next time he played a rogue.

I'm not seeing the need for any ret-con here. You are defending yourself right up to the moment you begin to act offensively against the opponents in the room.

Ok. Imagine the following scenario:

GM: Ok, before rolling initiative, please tell me what your characters are planning on doing when the door opens:

Shiny Mcpaladin: I am going to enter the room and attempt to draw my foes attention, keeping my shield between me and them and parrying any blows that come way my way.
Stabby Mcbarbarian: I am going to charge headlong into the room and stab the nearest enemy as quickly as possible.
Cowardly McCleric: I am going to stay back and hide behind my shield, I can't take another hit!
GM: Ok, is anyone using "total defense" before opening the door?
All Three: Of course! there is no penalty for it, so we would be idiots not to!

*roll dice*

GM: Ok, Shiny Mcpaladin, you rolled a 20! You go first, are you sticking to your action?
Shiny Mcpaladin: Of course!
GM: Ok. Damn, what a waste of a nat 20! As you already had total defense going, you gain no benefit from winning initiative. Bet you are kicking yourself for taking improved initiative now, aren't you?
GM: Ok, Cowardly Mcleric, you rolled an 18, what do you do?
Cowardly Mcleric: Did I beat the monsters?
GM: Yep, they got a thirteen.
Cowardly Mcleric: Sweet! I charge into the room and cast power word smite!
GM: Ok. Roll for damage.
Stabby Mcbarbarian: Wait, why did he go first? I thought he was standing back and protecting himself with a shield.
GM: Total defense is a free action out of combat. Its not like it penalizes initiative or anything. Stop bitching and mark of 47 points of damage as the monsters take their turn. Good thing you are standing outside of the room hiding behind your shield!
Stabby Mcbarbarian: But I was charging into the room! I don't even have a shield...
GM: Then why did you take a pre-combat total defense?
Stabby Mcbarbarian: Because its a free defense bonus with no cost! Only an idiot wouldn't use it before every combat, and indeed every free moment! Anyway, can I charge into the room now?
GM: Yes.

Narratively that just looks silly and takes away the potential the potential to RP by having a clearly optimal mechanical solution.
Mechanically, its a really clunky rule that requires a lot of GM interpretation (how often is too often? How long can you keep it up for?) and makes both initiative and stealth a lot less important.

I'm not at all sure how this is a "betrayal of what the ability represents". So, I can switch from defending one round to attacking the next, and that's not a problem, but I can't switch from defending the round before combat (when I know it's about to happen), and attacking in the first round? Why? In neither case am I able to both get the defensive bonus and attack at the same time. The only difference is that by your ruling, the PCs can't prepare for a "likely threat" from a "likely direction" until after they have directly encounted that threat, rolled initiative, and are able to act based on that initiative.

Mechanically, the ability is trading actions for a temporary boost to defense. If you allow it to be used out of combat, it is now just a static +4 bonus against the first round of attacks from enemies who beat you in initiaitve with no downside or trade-off.

In character, it represents focusing on defending from a specific threat, which is impossible if you don't know what or where your opponents are or how they are attacking.

If you are just on guard with your shield drawn and ready for likely threats, well that's just normal AC. That's why you get your shield and dex bonus rather than being caught flat-footed.

If you are actively hiding outside of the room or behind your shield, you should absolutely not then be able to win initiative and be the first one into the room and attacking.

Now, a far more reasonable situation though, and one that is too me more of a (narrative if not mechanical) gray area is a regiment of soldiers forming a shield-wall as they stand on the battlefield waiting for the order to charge. But mechanically, that still minimizes the roll of initiative and raises the question of how long they can stay in such a state of hyper-vigilance if the order to charge doesn't come right away.

Yes. Absolutely. If you make no other change, you need to change this.

If you say so.

I agree that it should be changed, but its only come up once in the entire campaign, and is hardly the root of all problems which this thread is making it out to be.

It is really only useful for terrain manipulation magic, which is itself not terribly useful unless you already know the layout of the battlefield and the enemies that you will be fighting.

I suppose at higher levels it might become more relevant if Bob starts casting contingent or hung spells.

I think a big part of it not coming up is that the party has been strongly opposed to any sort of reconnaissance, and so they don't know what sort of preparations, if any, will be needed for the next room. Hopefully if I change it, I can make them realize the extra value of reconnaissance.

One of the reasons I ruled the way I did is because I knew Bob was just wasting his spell because the monster in the room was too big to follow them through the doorway into the area he was magically defending and I (wrongfully), assumed he would realize that once he entered said room and saw the size of the monster in question.

I'm also not sure I'd maintain a "1 room, 1 scene" dynamic either (again though, this may work for you based on other game factors). I tend to see a "scene" as any of a sequence of actions that are part of a single larger action. It's really more like "modes" maybe? So I might have "exploring the dungeon" be a single scene. As long as they are wandering around from room to room, searching the areas, looking for things, they are in a single "scene". The moment they encounter something of note, however, a new scene begins. Note that this begins the moment they are aware that there is something 'different" than what they've been doing previously. So they enter a room, and there's some strange glowing pedestal in it, with runes, and making odd noises, or whatever. They make note of this. May decide to take specific actions in response to it, etc. That's a "new scene". But wandering from room to room, doing the same searches, and the same movements, and encountering the same dust and cobwebs? Don't need a new scene for each of those.

Dunno. It's not a big deal to me though. Can break those up however you wish. However, I do strongly suggest that a new scene should always start the moment the PCs begin acting in response to some "new thing". Those actions should be considered part of the scene involving said "new thing", and not the scene they were in prior to discovering its existence.

Sorry to be nit-picky, but this method actually sounds more restrictive than equating each room with a new scene.

I'm talking about you placing NPCs into a room in your dungeon, designed to be a "balanced encounter" (or set of encounters for a whole day if we count several such rooms), but only if both sides start "from scratch" with little or no prep ahead of time. But then your players decide to stop and cast a bunch of spells and want to take actions ahead of opening the door to the room, and you realize that this will make the encounter easier than you thought it should be, so you make rulings to restrict what they can do in their prep.

Ok. I agree with you that I do that, but that is literally the opposite of "balancing on the fly". Its having consistent rules and not changing them when they would become inconvenient.

As I said above, if anything I think I am too inflexible a GM.

That's what I'm talking about. And yes, I fully put "I'm going to create a scene break between this side of the door and ther other, so it's impossible for them to prep buffs without spending more on a longer duration" as part of "making it harder for them (the PCs)". Or not allowing them to take some actions because those are "combat actions and you can't take them until iniative is rolled", even if they are maybe actions or abilities that don't require an active NPC target to use (or, again, you require them to use some sort of extension to use these while on one side of the door, if they want to use them on the other).

Ok, maybe you can give me some insight into Bob's psychology here, because he said the exact same thing.

Why is this harder for the PCs?

The NPCs have the same restrictions.

They don't start the fight with magical defenses (unless they applied the appropriate metamagic) and don't start the fight with readied actions and a +4 bonus to AC (or my system's equivalent).

(My players also bitch that the NPCs have an unfair advantage in having well-rounded builds, because unlike players they aren't hyper-min-maxed. There is nothing stopping the players the players from making more well-rounded builds, but for some reason its unfair when the NPCs do it.)

If you allowed the new scene to start the moment they encounter the door and decide to do something with it then the entire problem (and conflation of scene and combat and initiative roll) disappears. Which is why I keep going back to this as the key initiating factor here.

Despite the fact that we have been having arguments about readying actions outside of combat for twenty years, arguments about stealth outside of combat for two years, and have only been doing this dungeon crawl for about four months now, and nobody even brought up the issue until the last combat of the last session?

Well. Clearly it was more than just one question, and your answer, and then it all stopped, right? Clearly, your answer sparked some degree of disagreement, which lead to a series of back and forth and ended with an argument. I mean, at some point in that progression your table got to some point where Bob was wanting to do something that you considered "auto-winning initiative", right? So it was more than just what you are saying.

There was no more discussion at the gaming table.

The back and forth argument occurred over text the next day.

I get the brain fart. We've all had them. But at some point in this progression, there should have been some re-assessment of the snap answer you gave, which should have resulted in a better ruling and avoided the bulk of that argument.

No, not really.

The bulk of the argument was about hiding in plain sight being a free action.

My ruling that initiative is rolled when the door opens did nothing to inspire or enable Bob's crazy scheme to bypass initiative. Indeed, he was mad about the ruling because it *prevented* his initiative scheme.

If there's a pattern I've seen in your posts about problems with your group, it's that you seem to make snap judgements/rulings to deal with an issue "in the moment", that creates conflict and that (in most cases) you regret making after the fact, due to unforseen side effects that occur. And sure, this isn't helped by Bob, who seems to play rules lawyer on you all the time.

I don't see it.

I can't think of more than a handful of times when I regretted a call in hindsight, and most people seem to think that I am very stubborn and hesitant to admit I am wrong.

I guess I can look over some of my old threads to look for examples, and again if you can jog my memory about any specifics that might be helpful for future introspection.

I'm not sure what this has to do with opening a door and prepping use of skills/spells/abilities prior to doing so. Are you saying that, upon encountering a situation which may result in a combat, you are not allowing him to declare that he is "hiding in the shadows (or equivalent)" just prior to the party opening the door? Because that's a very different situation than "hide once at the start of the adventuring day, and then remain hidden until combat started".

Honestly, that would depend on the circumstances though. If there are shadows or other places to hide, Bob should be able to declare "I'm hiding in shadows" right before the door is opened. And yeah, based on his initiative roll, he should then be able to slip into the room using his stealth bonus, and, if he's not spotted, be able to sneak up behind someone and attack them with whatever bonuses that entails.

If you are insisting that Bob can't even attempt to start hiding until after combat starts, and iniative is rolled, then yeah, I think he's kinda got a point here. If he has a reason to expect they are about to get into a fight, and states "I'm going to hide in the bushes/shadows/whatever", then he should absolutely be able to do that (other conditions permitting of course). This does not mean he can simply declare "I'm hiding all day", and get those benefits if the party stumbles into a fight with no warning.

Again, let's look at this from a mechanical and a narrative perspective:

Narrative: He is outside the room. The enemy can't see him. What does it matter if there are shadows or if he spent six seconds hiding in them before the door was opened? Why does that have any bearing on his ability to slip through the door and walk up to the enemies unnoticed?

Game Play: If there is no action cost to hiding before combat, and no penalty to sneaking for walking through a watched door, why doesn't everyone do it? Sure, most people won't succeed, but roll enough dice, and a fair percentage of random mooks and party fighters will still succeed enough to make the dedicated rogue feel less special. And I don't think game-play will be improved by having both sides having a mass stealth dice off before the fight, or for each side to keep track of multiple hidden guys sneaking around the battlefield every encounter.

As I have said multiple times, if Bob (or any other character) wants to either hang back and wait until the enemies are distracted by fighting the rest of the party OR sneak into the room before combat and find a hiding place within, that is perfectly fine. But he is not going to be able to run in through the door directly at the monsters seconds after it is kicked open and at the center of attention. (Although his last rogue was good enough that he could do exactly that most of the time, but he didn't think it fair that he even had to risk failing the roll).

If you are ruling that Bob's initial backstab (before anyone else is even aware of him) counts as his action in the first melee round, and now everyone else gets to act in reponse, then I'd also side with him that that's an insane ruling as well. I'm again speculating here, but you comment about "getting two rounds" during an ambush suggests this is the exact situation (or at least something very similar).

Ok. This appears to be something we legitimately disagree about.

While it is possible in Heart of Darkness to get two turns in a row when ambushing, it is unlikely.

I don't find it "insane" conceptually, and there are a lot of games where attacking reveals you. Heck, in standard D&D this will only ever happen in a surprise round.

From a game-play perspective, it could cause some really unfun game-play; a monster attacking ambush has a really good chance of outright killing a squishy PC if it can reliably get two turns of attacks in a row on them without the rest of the party being able to help. Likewise, one could build an initiative monster PC (or NPC) who alternates sneak-attacking and hiding every other round and his opponents can never target him, meaning the entire rest of the party is best served either letting him solo every combat or (better yet) making copy-cat characters and joining in.

If you're going even further and stating that once Bob sneaks into position, but before he backstabs, that he and everyone else rolls initiative and all act in that order, then that's even further into "insane ruling" territory. Again, the concept (to me anyway) is not that Bob should "automatically win initiative" in that situation, but that he should not have to roll at all. There is no intiative, since there are not yet two sides both aware of the other and both trying to take actions against each other. it's just him, hiding behind someone, and stabbing them. He always gets to "go first" in that situation. And yes, then combat begins (assuming there are other enemies around aware of what just happened), and that prompts an initiative roll, and yes, Bob could certainly roll better and be able to act again before anyone reacts.

I agree, that would be insane, and is not how the rules work.

The only way I can see this happening is (as I said upthread) if he needs to move into position before making the attack and bombs his roll to move silently.

Except, as I pointed out above, that both have a lot to do with "when a combat starts", and "when we roll initiative".

And if they don't have anything to do with each other, why are you talking about it? You don't "win" the argument over the most recent issue, by dredging up other things Bob has argued or done in the past. This is not about picking "sides" that we like or agree with in general. It's about assessing the actions and decisions made in this situation. The past just doesnt' matter.

We have been having an ongoing fight about stealth for two years, and an ongoing fight about readying actions outside of combat for 20 years.

The stealth issue flared up early in the last session.

The issue with extended spells occurred late in the last session.

The idea that the party could roll initiative whenever they want and therefore do so outside of the door and unopposed was brought up to me the next day, and (presumably) inspired by the stealth issue, and (unwittingly) foiled by the ruling on extended spells.

They are all inter-twined, and I didn't feel like starting three separate advice threads with very similar subjects.

Again, both issues share the element of "I'm not going to let you enter combat already using abilities that I think might be too useful for combat". It's a valid discussion IMO.

Yes, they are related issues. That's why I brought them both up in the same post.

That does not mean that one directly caused the other.

This was either the first time this exact situation occurred (where they wanted to prep prior to opening a door and entering combat), or it was not. You have suggested in your previous posts, that this had not come up before. So yeah, it was an "on the fly" ruling, since this was the first time it came up (or was relevant).

Something doesn't have to be an exact situation to be a consistent ruling.

I had been treating each room as a separate act all campaign.

During the last session, Bob wanted to cast an enchantment immediately before opening the door, for the first time all campaign, and asked if it being a new act meant that he needed to extend, and I said yes, in keeping with my decision that each room counted as a separate act.

And there were no other questions or disagreement at all during the actual fight? That seems... odd.

There was no discussion by him (at the table) about "taking actions outside of the room"? What was he talking about then? He sure seems to think that he was doing things prior to entering the room, and thus prior to rolling for initiative. So yeah. I can't really comment on this except to say that it feels like there's some facts missing from this description.

If there is any additional context, I certainly didn't notice / remember it.

There was no further argument during the initial fight, although I am sure Bob said something to make his displease known at the time.

As I have said above, arguments about readied actions outside of combat have occurred on and off for 20 years (although only when we play D&D), and fights about hiding in plain sight being a free action have been on and off for the last two years (and occurred earlier in the session).

The next day Bob told me that he *would have* bypassed initiative by rolling it unopposed outside of the room before the enemies were on the board, but my ruling that each room was a separate encounter ruined that. I tried to get him to elaborate more, but he was extremely angry and refused to continue discussing the subject. Maybe I can get him to tell me more over time, but its unlikely, he tends to hold grudges for years if not decades.

Yeah. It's not what I'm saying. I'm maybe suggesting that if the players do something you weren't prepared for, or don't have an existing rule that applies perfectly to, maybe just allow them to do what they are trying to do? Then take some time (and perhaps discussion with your group) and decide on the "correct ruling going forward".

Your game will survive the players having one "easy win because the players thought of a rule interpretation (or combination of game actions) you didn't consider". You are the GM. You can always create more monsters, more encounters, and anything else you want. What your game cannot survive (much of anyway) is a constant back and forth of "You shouldn't be able to do that, but I can't think of the right reason why at the moment, so I'll come up with some rule/decision to prevent it", followed by a series of arguments, and you then reconsidering the ruling or decision you made after the fact anyway.

Again. Maybe the whole "scene starts at the door" thing was something you already decided. But it certainly seems like this was the first time someone said "hey. Um... Shouldn't our prep for this fight on the other side of the door count as the same scene as us fighting what's on the other side of the door", and you made the decision that "No, it doesn't, so you have to extend the duration on your spells/whatever if you want them to still be up a couple rounds from now when you open the door". if the issue never came up before, then this was the "point of decision" in which you were making a ruling on that.

And IMO, you ruled poorly. The players were absolutely correct. The prep they do ahead of opening the door should count as the same scene/encounter as whatever happens on the other side of that door. And in retrospect, you seem to agree that this should have been the case (setting aside the absurdity of "auto-win initiative" whatever that actually entailed).

Next time. Just give them the win. Then adjust your rules to account for whatever you and your players decide is the best way to handle this going foward.

Well, in this case the "easy win" would have been wasting a point of mana casting a spell trying to prevent a creature that was already too big to leave the room from leaving the room.

On a more general principle, I think I disagree.

As you said above, people value consistency.

If someone comes up with some weird rules exploit at the table, I would prefer the GM shoot it down right away. This is regardless of whether I am the GM, the player in question, or someone else at the table.

People get extremely upset when they feel like something is being taken away from them.

Players also get extremely jealous of one another.

Players also are often of the "give 'em an inch and they take a mile" type. I don't know how many times I have seen a player say that because the GM allowed one semi-legal rules exploit or piece of third party content, that they must allow EVERY semi-legal rules exploit or piece of third party content.

I don't know how many times I have hand-waived a rule because it was meaningless tedium at the time, but then enforced the rule later when it actually matted (for example the above mentioned rolling to hit when assassinating the emperor vs. hunting bunnies for stew) and the players threw a tantrum and called me biased or a hypocrite.

I remember one time as a teenager in my first 3E campaign we discovered how broken the item creation rules were by RAW. We had a long discussion with the DM, and he assured us that the items creation rules were fine. So I took the craft wondrous item feat, and saved up a bunch of gold and xp in game, and spent a bunch of time OOC coming up with all the cool custom items I was going to make, and got really invested in the idea of playing fantasy Iron Man. And then when it came time to start crafting them, the DM told me that upon closer consideration, that he agreed custom items were broken and would be banned in his game. So my feat, as well as all the time I had spent designing cool items, was wasted, and all my enthusiasm turned to bitter disappointment. That was just about the angriest I have ever been at the gaming table and (I say this part with shame, and please understand that I was an emotionally unstable teen at the time) I went home and punched out one of my bedroom windows in a fit of rage, and still have the scars on my arm.

Right now, if I ever run a published RPG, I generally have a "core rules only" policy, and anything beyond that is strictly "white list only" because I know how powerful disappointment can be.

Well, I failed to make a shorter post, but at least I hope I managed a friendlier tone.

Morgaln

2023-08-10, 11:20 AM

My system is a bit different than D&D in that initiative and surprise are combined into a single roll, but in short, failing means that you roll lower than the monsters did, meaning that over the course of the fight you effectively get one less turn than they do.

Initiative is determined by dexterity + perception and modified by certain merits, flaws, and magic.
Hidden characters get +4.
Initiating combat unexpectedly gives +2.
Having a greater reach than your opponent gives +2.
Needing to move before acting gives -2.
Having a weapon holstered gives -2. The Quick-Draw skill can negate this penalty of even turn it into a bonus.
Having a readied action gives between -6 and +6 depending on how close your readied action adheres to what you end up doing.

Only the players roll initiative. The difficulty is equal to 10 + the most common initiative score of all the enemies present.

Success allows your character to take a turn before the enemies.
All characters take a turn together after the enemies.
Success by more than 20 creates a true surprise round, before combat you get a bonus action against which the enemies cannot defend.
Failure by more than 20 means you are truly surprised and cannot act or defend yourself until the enemy has acted twice.

Thanks for those alternate systems! While I doubt they are right for my current group / system, they do give me some good ideas for the future!

Ah, now the the wording you used makes more sense. I also understand better why your players are trying to autowin initiative. Winning initiative is a major bonus in this game, with no tradeoff from what I can tell. You kinda did bring that on yourself by having a system where failing initiative can have major consequences. Knowing what I do about your group from previous posts, obviously they will try to prevent those negative consequences by any means necessary.

I admit I don't quite understand all the modifiers; the general description makes it sound like initiative is something players roll once at the start of combat (surprise can only happen at that time, after all). However, many of the modifiers sound like something that would apply from turn to turn, suggesting that initiative is rerolled every turn. I had to think about how this might even work; let me know if I am close here:
Players roll initiative at the start of combat. This determines base initiative order. At the start of every turn, everyone announces what they want to do this turn (my guess is, you're doing this the way WoD does, with lowest initiative announcing first). Then the above modifiers apply and change the base initiative order to the initiative order for this turn.

If this is correct, the one thing I can't quite parse is the readied action. The way I usually understand readied actions is, when your turn comes around you decide not to act right away but hold your action to react to someone who has yet to go. But that means it shouldn't apply either a bonus or penalty, because you don't know whether your readied action will actually get triggered until long after initiative has been determined. So there has to be something I'm not aware of here.

Since monsters don't roll, do they have a fixed initative score they get slotted at?

gbaji

2023-08-10, 03:29 PM

Quertus

2023-08-10, 06:46 PM

Talakeal, we’re back to the rule, “police always start a scene with their weapon holstered”. It’s a great rule, very thematic for police, and you should apply it to your understanding of a scene. If you declare a scene break in such a way that this would produce nonsensical results, then you have probably defined a scene / your scene boundaries in a way that is nonsensical.

More generally, in this thread, you seem to be switching back and forth between Simulationist and Gamist logic, and choosing whichever is worst for your players. Or, put another way, it looks like players’ plans will fail if either the rules or common sense take issue with their actions.

Now, that’s not an inherently bad thing. Don’t get me wrong. There can definitely be instances of rules and scenarios where that is perfectly valid. However, I think it’s incompatible with your group. And I also think it’s incompatible with your personal skill set, as your concept of what is “realistic”… as at least one item in the chain of your concept of what is realistic, your ability to express it, and your ability to have a reasonable and productive conversation with your players about disconnects, is lacking. And, based on your numerous threads, I’ll add that I don’t think it’s a good thing to combine with your particular argumentation style, either.

From your descriptions, what would I do in your shoes? Hmmm…

At will abilities: you say it doesn’t make sense at the Narrative level. I disagree. In the D&D cartoon, when Venger used his at will “warlock Eldridge blast” to light the way when walking down a dark corridor? That wasn’t breaking the world building, that was cool! (I think it’s why one of my players went warlock, in fact.) I see no reason not to just let them, with the following caveats: 1) Venger’s arm should have gotten tired from being held out so long… and that should matter in the game as much as the PCs bathroom breaks (ie, presumably, not at all); 2) just as Venger was limited to half speed while lighting his own way, so, too, must any associated costs of continuously casting the spell (noise, visuals, components, magic residue, arm waving, Venger holding his arm out, action cost, whatever) be paid.

Stealth: contrary to your “what good does it do to hide right before the door is opened”, if I were to apply my own sense of realism, I would argue that one can only hide if they’re hidden before the door is opened. And I would be wrong. Because I’ve seen people with the skills to remove themselves from their opponents’ perception in the middle of combat. I don’t really understand it, but I do acknowledge that it’s a thing. Sigh. And it sounds like it’s also counted for in your rules. So, ultimately, I would ignore what I personally understand about stealth, and just allow stealth “whenever”/“always”… with the following caveats: 1) “Move Silently” can be attempted approximately always, including “all day all the time”; 2) “Hide” functions / can be successfully attempted whenever there is an obstacle / distraction (so “in shadows”, “behind cover”, “in combat”, “when Aphrodite is visible”, “when someone else takes the ‘distract’ action”, etc, all qualify); 3) (if I understand your system) “Hidden” is not a state - “attempting to hide” and “hidden from X” are states -> when encountering / coming within LoS of foes (or anyone, really) they roll perception (or whatever) to see if they spot the “attempting to hide” character, producing the set of “hidden from X” states; 4) hiding from infravision, tremor sense, scent, etc, is presumed to auto-fail by those without such senses of their own (or, in the case of scent, unless explicit precautions are taken), unless otherwise noted; 5) beings who perceive a character attempting to hide will respond accordingly (this matters very little in a dungeon setting, where presumably the monsters and the party are already trying to kill one another as the default, and “Guy who hides” is less of a target than “Guy who looks like a Wizard” (and may even occasionally be intentionally ignored as a potential noncom (at least unless they are visibly armed / until they make their first attack))); 6) maintaining any active stealth stance (so not “hiding in a box”) carries roughly the same costs as maintaining any other stance (presumably, there are no rules for this, so the answer is “none” at the moment).

Also, as your concept of hiding seems most like “Hide in Shadows”, I disagree that one must hide “from someone”. Or Hunger Games cake decorator didn’t exactly intentionally hide from his ally, he just made himself camouflaged and difficult to spot. Boo didn’t intentionally hide from most of the monsters (at first), she was just small and hard to spot.

Pre-combat actions: let’s say I know Combat is about to start. I can absolutely grab my Machine Gun, and sit inside the tank, waiting for Bob to open the door before I pop my gun out and start shooting. What does sitting inside the tank give me? +infinite AC (attacks against me auto-fail) and infinite SR (spells have no line of sight and (presumably therefore) auto-fall). If I roll High (“win initiative” - for the record, I’m on your side on this turn of phrase making perfect sense in context, Talakeal) (EDIT: I just read your initiative rules - I agreed with you before reading them, and agree even more with your wording now, I guess), I pop out (or, at least, my gun pops out) before the opponents get to go, and they can attack me with their first action; if I roll low and “lose initiative”, they have to wait until their second volley before I become a valid target. Any explanation that doesn’t involve understanding this, that makes this sound more complex than what I just said, is suboptimal, and should be discarded, ignored, or upgraded.

Talking Strategy: I would explicitly tell your players that, to facilitate cooperation and to reduce misunderstandings, that I'm willing to allow (roughly unlimited) OOC conversations about tactics, including asking clarifying questions of the GM. The PCs are welcome to have any IC conversations they would like to have about tactics, and the players are welcome to tell me that they want all such conversations to be IC, if that's what they want. I would explain that I am explicitly willing to not count such conversations against stealth etc, if they so desire. (Myself, as a player, I wouldn't like this rule much, and would happily side with any other player who wanted to abolish it for realism / roleplay reasons; however, as GM, I can totally see your point for wanting to allow it, which is why I would explicitly do so, and explicitly tell the players that they have that option.)

Now, going back to the idea of multiple points of failure: it sounds (and correct me if I’m wrong) like you not only have a “raw and common sense can both cause a plan to fail / an action must pass both”, but also a “things last the lower of physical time and narrative time” double fail state. That is, as Spell can end when the GM calls “scene”, *and* it can end mid-scene if the physical duration expires. If so, I’d say that also doesn’t sound good for your group, and you should do away with one of the other.

Setting aside Bizarro World for a moment, would I want to run a system with “spells have multiple duration considerations”, “stealth works everywhere, including in the middle of combat even if you’ve already been spotted, except when walking through a doorway at the start of combat” levels of wonkiness? Well… no. And it’s not because of the complexity - I prefer rules- heavy systems. I don’t dislike complexity. It’s because I dislike needless complexity. I don’t see how the added complexity here really adds anything to the game over more simplified “you can hide, period” / “all durations are measured in the same / in exactly one way”, over pure RAW without need for GM adjudication of when a scene changes, or what conditions qualify to allow a hide check. Or even pure scene-based logic, with no calls to real time (but strong “police always start a scene with their guns holstered” checks to let players beat the GM over the head with a (verbal) clue-by-four as needed, and “Spell only ends of it fails all definitions of scene and” logic over “spell ends when it fails a single definition of scene ends” logic).

EDIT: I started this reply about 12 hours before posting it (work is the bane of the posting man); Gbaji said a lot of what I tried to say much better than I did. So, kudos Gbaji!

GloatingSwine

2023-08-11, 06:08 AM

Stealth: contrary to your “what good does it do to hide right before the door is opened”, if I were to apply my own sense of realism, I would argue that one can only hide if they’re hidden before the door is opened.

From my understanding of the rules, hiding requires at least the potential of an observer in the place where you are hiding. Hiding requires you to stay where you are hiding and is a state where the waveform doesn't collapse until someone makes an Awareness or Search check against it.

So hiding before the door is opened is incoherent *unless* you are hiding specifically in a place where they would be able to see you if the door was open.

If the player wanted to enter the room unobserved whilst the rest of the party was being a distraction I would call for Sneak not Hide, starting with the assumption that the people in the room started out unaware of them. If they wanted to stay on the far side of the door out of sight they would remain unnoticed without rolling for it until they did something which caused them to be percieved.

All reasonable points. But I guess the question I have been trying to get answered is "why does Bob want to do this?". There must be some reason why the existing initiative system isn't working for him. I can only speculate as to what that may be (although some of your comments about the hide/sneak rules, combined with the "hidden" bonus to initiative does seem to hint in a direction).

Sometimes in these threads you have to accept that the answer is "because Bob". Bob is a cheeser, he has spotted what looks like cheesy interaction in the rules and he wants it to work to make him win.

I still think that the answer here is to have a consistent approach which allows preparation within an encounter if it makes sense, and it will make sense if the party are aware of the enemies in the encounter and the enemies are not yet aware of them. This may involve defining certain actions as Quiet and others as Loud for the purposes of retaining that advantage, and possibly a skill based way for a character to take Loud actions anyway.

This would need to be in some kind of action economy and declared action order, and if anyone does anything Loud or fumbles something then you roll initiative but anyone who has spent their prep action can't act in the first turn of initiative.

gbaji

2023-08-11, 03:31 PM

From my understanding of the rules, hiding requires at least the potential of an observer in the place where you are hiding. Hiding requires you to stay where you are hiding and is a state where the waveform doesn't collapse until someone makes an Awareness or Search check against it.

Except that, from the point of view of the character attempting the hide skill, there is *always* the potential of an observer. Which leaves us with allowing people to use their hide skill to make themselves "as hidden as possible given the terrain/shadows/whatever" (which I happen to think is perfectly reasonable). The alternative is basically placing a spot skill requirement on the hide skill. You must first have spotted the enemy so you can hide against them. I think that's a bit absurd (and really hard to manage practially in a game).

I think this depends on whether you view the hide skill as proactive or reactive. I think of it as proactive ("I'm going to find something nearby to hide beyind"). In the proactive model, the character simply rolls their hide (and maybe the GM makes note of their success level, game system dependent). When someone is trying to spot them later, that character then makes their spot, with the GM appying bonuses or minuses depending on terrain and whether (and how well) someone is hidden. This system naturally provides benefits if the hiding person knows where the spotting people are (can take better advantage of terrain), but also allows for the basic fact that if I'm making a point of standing still in a shadowed area of a room, I'm going to be harder to see, even if I have no clue who else may be there, or where they are, or anything else.

So hiding before the door is opened is incoherent *unless* you are hiding specifically in a place where they would be able to see you if the door was open.

Do you think that's a good game mechanic? Cause I don't. It requies the absolutely absurd requirement that the location I'm hiding in must be visible to someone for me to actually be hidden from them. That's kinda backwards from what one would normally assume.

Worse, it plays a strange game with action economy in the game. If we're out in a field, with large rocks, trees, bushes, whatever, and there are opponents "over there", since the opponents are able to see the field, and the rocks/trees/bushes, I can take an action to "hide" right now. I then can continue to "hide" (and then even "sneak" up on them) as I wish. But! If there is a partition blocking the enemies view of the rocks/bushes/trees, then I can't take that action. I must wait until the partition is removed before doing so. That is... ridiclous.

It also creates the exact "open a door and attack" problem. if the thing that is blocking the opponents view is *also* the thing that, upon being removed/opened will trigger the start of a combat, I can't ever hide ahead of that obstacle being removed. Which means thati if I am a sneaky type, and want to be able to hide in th shadows, and sneak up on my enemies, I may never hide ahead of time in this situation. I must wait until combat starts (the door is opened, partition dropped, whatever), and then use my first round action to try to hide. Then, maybe in the next round, I may be able to sneak (into the room, or across the field), up to an opopnent. Then, now three rounds into the battle, I maybe can attack.

Worse. If I'm understanding the game system we're talking about correctly, there seems to be an initiative bonus if you are hidden, but not if you are "trying to hide". Also, from what Talakeal has said, it seems like his initiative system is really based on "how aggressive you are in a fight", so someone "trying to hide" might not be seen as getting any sort of bonus. And, also given the (frankly strange) view on hiding in general in that game, I'm reasonably certain Talakeal is also not ruling favorably in terms of "readied action" either. I'm speculating on actual play rulings, but just based on the bits I've read, I would not be surprised if "ready to run into the room and attack" gets a high bonus to initiative (that -6 to +6 range in the rules), while "waiting for the door to open so I can hide" may not. Afterall, how can you hide from opponents in the room if you don't know where they are, or where they are looking, or where the hiding spots are.

But wait! It gets worse. If you "win" initiative, you basically get two actions in a round instead of just one. So if he fails (because he's just hanging out in the dooway trying to hide, while his fellow party members are charging into the breach or something), not only does he have to take an extra action to do the "hide, sneak, backstab" combo, but he gets one fewer actions in the first round.

If even half of those rules and interpreations of rules are in effect here, I can totally see why Bob might be a bit disappointed in things. He's making the reasonable assumption that "Of course I can hide from people when I'm on the otther side of the door", And expects that his first action should be "sneak into the room, keeping to shadows, while my companions are distracting them charging into the room". At the very least, he's expecting that he should be able to do this and get himself into position (if at all possible based on how the NPCs are arranged) in the first round, and then do a backstab on round two. And yeah, under ideal conditions he might expect to be able to take that first "bonus" action from winning initiative to sneak into the room in the confusion, an take his "normal" action at the end of the round to backstab.

If the player wanted to enter the room unobserved whilst the rest of the party was being a distraction I would call for Sneak not Hide, starting with the assumption that the people in the room started out unaware of them. If they wanted to stay on the far side of the door out of sight they would remain unnoticed without rolling for it until they did something which caused them to be percieved.

Yeah. That's how I would rule it as well. Again though, if Talakeal is actually rulling that he has to take "hide" as his first turn action, then that's a heck of a negative to this style of attack.

Sometimes in these threads you have to accept that the answer is "because Bob". Bob is a cheeser, he has spotted what looks like cheesy interaction in the rules and he wants it to work to make him win.

Even the most cheesy of cheese can still be correct that something isn't fair/balanced/whatever. This isn't about Bob. I'm trying to make an objective assessment of the actual rules and how those actual rules play out in an actual game.

My understanding is that this is a home brewed game. Which suggests that this is at least to some degree about playtesting the game rules. So "the rules say X, so that's the way it is" is never the right answer.

I still think that the answer here is to have a consistent approach which allows preparation within an encounter if it makes sense, and it will make sense if the party are aware of the enemies in the encounter and the enemies are not yet aware of them. This may involve defining certain actions as Quiet and others as Loud for the purposes of retaining that advantage, and possibly a skill based way for a character to take Loud actions anyway.

Agree on the need for consistency. It's why I talked earlier about having concepts of who is aware of whom, and what they can do when in that situation.

This would need to be in some kind of action economy and declared action order, and if anyone does anything Loud or fumbles something then you roll initiative but anyone who has spent their prep action can't act in the first turn of initiative.

That's one way to do it. Honestly, I'd just allow the PCs (or whichever side has the awareness advantage) to spend rounds prepping. The longer they do this, within a range where the NPCs could detect them, the more perception rolls I give the NPCs. What happens when they are detected is based on the NPCs. I would lean away from "initiative is rolled once they detect you". IMO, initiative is rolled the moment two parties are interacting with eachother and we need to know what order their actions occur. If the NPCs hear the party prepping outside the door, we don't roll innitiative (or make folks auto lose cause they already prepped that round). We just decide what the NPCs are doing in response. Maybe they run away. Maybe they open the door and attack (and the moment the door is opened is when initiative is rolled, with the instigating/opening side having an advantage). Maybe they start prepping things themselves.

At some point *someone* will take an action that initiates direct interaction (opening the door in this case). That's when initiative is rolled. Not sooner. Whatever prep has been completed by that point is completed. Everyone rolls initiative and acts. Now if they want to continue casting up prep spells for another round or three, they are free to do that, following the initiative rules, and during combat. It's their choice. I'm just not sure where the "you prepped this round, but the door opened and we rolled initiative, so you don't get to act, comes from".

Prior to combat starting, we can count rounds (or whatever time) for purposes of seeing how much prep you do, and whether NPCs detect you, but that's normal "out of combat" time passing. IMO, initiative is always rolled at the beginning of a new round/combat. Your suggestion would assume that someohow we're getting halway through a round, some people have already acted and *now* we're rolling initiative? That seems like it's going to create more problems than it solves.

GloatingSwine

2023-08-11, 06:20 PM

Except that, from the point of view of the character attempting the hide skill, there is *always* the potential of an observer. Which leaves us with allowing people to use their hide skill to make themselves "as hidden as possible given the terrain/shadows/whatever" (which I happen to think is perfectly reasonable). The alternative is basically placing a spot skill requirement on the hide skill. You must first have spotted the enemy so you can hide against them. I think that's a bit absurd (and really hard to manage practially in a game).

I think this depends on whether you view the hide skill as proactive or reactive. I think of it as proactive ("I'm going to find something nearby to hide beyind"). In the proactive model, the character simply rolls their hide (and maybe the GM makes note of their success level, game system dependent). When someone is trying to spot them later, that character then makes their spot, with the GM appying bonuses or minuses depending on terrain and whether (and how well) someone is hidden. This system naturally provides benefits if the hiding person knows where the spotting people are (can take better advantage of terrain), but also allows for the basic fact that if I'm making a point of standing still in a shadowed area of a room, I'm going to be harder to see, even if I have no clue who else may be there, or where they are, or anything else.

"I'm going to find something to hide behind" implies a "behind" relative to a predicted observer. If you can't predict where the observer is going to be there is no such thing as "behind" something because when they arrive you might actually be in front of it relative to them.

Attempting to hide requires at least that. It requires at least a declared direction or reference point to be hiding from.

Do you think that's a good game mechanic? Cause I don't. It requies the absolutely absurd requirement that the location I'm hiding in must be visible to someone for me to actually be hidden from them. That's kinda backwards from what one would normally assume.

No, it requires the location you are hiding in to potentially become visible.

If the location can never become visible then you are unobserved whether you hide or not.

Worse, it plays a strange game with action economy in the game. If we're out in a field, with large rocks, trees, bushes, whatever, and there are opponents "over there", since the opponents are able to see the field, and the rocks/trees/bushes, I can take an action to "hide" right now. I then can continue to "hide" (and then even "sneak" up on them) as I wish. But! If there is a partition blocking the enemies view of the rocks/bushes/trees, then I can't take that action. I must wait until the partition is removed before doing so. That is... ridiclous.

If their view is blocked and cannot be unblocked your "hide" action is incoherent. From their point of view you would still be hidden if you were standing in the open flashing neon yellow. You don't need to do anything to hide.

It also creates the exact "open a door and attack" problem. if the thing that is blocking the opponents view is *also* the thing that, upon being removed/opened will trigger the start of a combat, I can't ever hide ahead of that obstacle being removed. Which means thati if I am a sneaky type, and want to be able to hide in th shadows, and sneak up on my enemies, I may never hide ahead of time in this situation. I must wait until combat starts (the door is opened, partition dropped, whatever), and then use my first round action to try to hide. Then, maybe in the next round, I may be able to sneak (into the room, or across the field), up to an opopnent. Then, now three rounds into the battle, I maybe can attack.

And that's why I put in the qualifier that the only place Hide is a coherent action is a place which can become observable through a future change in the environment (like opening a door).

If you want to be in a location which will be visible when the door is opened (knowing where those locations are doesn't require anything other than a general awareness of what can be seen through a door) but do not want to be automatically detected, you Hide. If you are in a location which will not be visible when the door is opened you will not be detected anyway unless you take an action which changes that. If you want to take such an action but still remain undetected you need to Sneak. You do not need to Hide before you Sneak because you were already hidden.

Mechanically I would represent that as any character who is in full concealment at the start of a combat is counted as hidden without a Hide check until they leave it or perform an action without a Sneak check.

Edit: The underpinning of this is that if the character cannot physically be visually observed, the outcomes of success and even critical failure on a Hide action are the same.

Talakeal

2023-08-12, 12:26 AM

Ah, now the the wording you used makes more sense. I also understand better why your players are trying to autowin initiative. Winning initiative is a major bonus in this game, with no tradeoff from what I can tell. You kinda did bring that on yourself by having a system where failing initiative can have major consequences. Knowing what I do about your group from previous posts, obviously they will try to prevent those negative consequences by any means necessary.

Yeah, I try to ensure that roll actually matter. Not sure why winning initiative could / should ever have a tradeoff.

I admit I don't quite understand all the modifiers; the general description makes it sound like initiative is something players roll once at the start of combat (surprise can only happen at that time, after all). However, many of the modifiers sound like something that would apply from turn to turn, suggesting that initiative is rerolled every turn. I had to think about how this might even work; let me know if I am close here:

Initiative is rolled once at the start of combat to determine who acts in the first turn, which is sort of like the D&D surprise round.

Initiative is rolled again if there is a conflict about when actions would be resolved; for example if someone delays in order to interrupt someone else, or if there is a disagreement about action order between to characters on the same team.

It is not rolled every turn.

After the "surprise round" all enemies take their turns in any order the GM wants, and then all PC take their turns in any order the players want, and this repeats until the conflict is ended.

Players roll initiative at the start of combat. This determines base initiative order. At the start of every turn, everyone announces what they want to do this turn (my guess is, you're doing this the way WoD does, with lowest initiative announcing first). Then the above modifiers apply and change the base initiative order to the initiative order for this turn.

No, you don't need to announce actions in advance. That's way more work than its worth imo.

If this is correct, the one thing I can't quite parse is the readied action. The way I usually understand readied actions is, when your turn comes around you decide not to act right away but hold your action to react to someone who has yet to go. But that means it shouldn't apply either a bonus or penalty, because you don't know whether your readied action will actually get triggered until long after initiative has been determined. So there has to be something I'm not aware of here.

Ready is something you can declare at any time, in or out of combat, and it doesn't take an action. It provides a modifier (from -6 to +6) to your initiative score based on how close your actions follow your stated intent. For example, if I say "I am readying to shoot the first person who comes through the door" then you will get a +6 to do that. If then someone crashes through the window behind you and you cast a shield spell to protect yourself, you would get a -6 to initiative because it was nothing like the stated action. There are guidelines for how that is determined (basically who, what, and when) but its a bit subjective.

Since monsters don't roll, do they have a fixed initative score they get slotted at?

The difficulty to act in the first turn is determined by the monster's passive initiative score.

The monsters then take their turns once all players have gone.

Yeah. I got the same impression. I get now why Bob complained that he "lost a turn", since apparently, if you win initiative in this system, you get to go twice? Or are we both misreading that?

Depends on how you are looking at it.

You only literally get an extra turn if you pass initiative by more than 20, which is extremely unlikely unless you have a quickdraw build and stack all the modifiers you can.

But, on the other hand, if it takes your party three turns to kill the monster, and the monster goes first then the monster will get three turns rather than two, so I guess the monster does effectively lose a turn if the party goes first.

Ok. That's not at all what you said in your post, but whatever. I'll respond to this.

I apologize for my miscommunication. I am not sure what you thought I said, and going back and rereading previous posts I am not quite sure what I said differently, although as I said above there are a lot of non-specific pronouns (it, that, this) which could cause confusion if read as referring to something else.

All reasonable points. But I guess the question I have been trying to get answered is "why does Bob want to do this?". There must be some reason why the existing initiative system isn't working for him. I can only speculate as to what that may be (although some of your comments about the hide/sneak rules, combined with the "hidden" bonus to initiative does seem to hint in a direction).

I can't speak for Bob, and he get's really angry and sulky if I actually try and talk to him about it, but if I could hazard a guess:

Bob usually plays wizards, and dumps his physical stats as they don't directly help him with magic. He gets really angry and considers it "cheating" or "picking on him" to exploit these weaknesses, for example for an enemy to grapple him or hit him with a poisoned weapon.

Dexterity is another dump stat for him, and initiative is really the only time he is ever *forced* to make an initiative based test. Thus he considers having to roll initiative to be picking on him, and thus looks for ways to bpass it entirely.

*lot's of stuff about defending and initiaitve*

I think we are talking past one another.

From a "gamist" perspective, my answer is simple:

Total defense is a trade-off, you lose the option to actively do something on your turn in exchange for defense. If it is allowed outside of the turn order, there is no trade-off, just a weird no brainer. This is not how I want my game to work. Someone pointed out on the 3.5 forum that in D&D you are considered flat-footed until you have acted, so unless you have uncanny dodge the whole conversation is moot.

From a narrative / simulationist perspective, simply being on the lookout for danger and having your shield readied is not total defense, that's just not being flat-footed. To me, it is really weird that the guy who is hiding in the back behind the shield will make it into the room and attack first before the guy who is right at the door with weapons drawn champing at the bit to get into the thick of things.

Also, I am stating that total defense as an action doesn't make sense in a vacuum, you need to be aware of the sort of threat. For example, raising your shield in a phalanx formation works fine against a volley of arrows, but if a dungeon door is opened and say, a tide of ochre jelly pours out and melts your feet, or a horde of kobolds rush out and stab your ankles, it will actively harm you ability to defend yourself.

Personally, I prefer games where the rules and the narrative reinforce one another, and I try and have initiative represent people out-drawing one another while acting at the same time. The scenario you are describing seems like an OoTS style fusion where the narrative where everyone politely stands still while waiting for everyone else to take their turns one at a time.

You say that this would require a house rule, but what are the current rules then? So, they kick open the door first and then "combat begins"? Then what? Everyone declares an action and we roll initiative? Or we roll initiative and folks take actions when their turn comes (question I asked above)? It would seem to me that if the bonuses for "readied actions" and "unexpected combat" (plus dex/perception) were sufficient to most often result in them winning initiative in a situation like this, then I'd assume Bob wouldn't be making such a stink about this. So something is not working. Maybe figure out what it is and address it.

Generally, I describe the scene first, we RP dialogue and exploration, and then when one side wishes to initiate hostilities against the other side, I tell them where they are allowed to place their models and what modifiers to initiative are appropriate based on the narrative.

In a dungeon crawl, if there are enemies in the room who a: can hear the PCs coming, b: are not interested in talking and c: not themselves hidden in preperation for an ambush, then I generally default to allowing players to place their models within a number of paces of the doorway equal to their perception score and allow a straight initiative, without counting opening the door as an action for anyone.

More generally, in this thread, you seem to be switching back and forth between Simulationist and Gamist logic, and choosing whichever is worst for your players. Or, put another way, it looks like players’ plans will fail if either the rules or common sense take issue with their actions.

I don't feel like I do this as a GM. I generally go with the rules as written, unless there is some game-breaking exploit or the rules as written would just be tedious to play out, in which case I will hand-wave it. I can't recall the last time a player took a legal action and I told them no because it didn't make sense from a narrative perspective (although I might if the players find a game-breaking loophole or exploit the wording of the rules to avoid the intent).

Now, as a developer, I try to find a balance between the three Fs (feasible, fast, and fair) and sometimes have to make concessions to one of these pillars in order to prop up the others, in the name of the nebulous fourth F (fun).

I have had a lot of people (mostly Bob) tell me that my rules are weighted against the players, but I really have a hard time figuring out how this is as most rules are wholly transparent between PCs and NPCs and those that aren't tend to be objective benefits in the PCs favor (like getting to reroll dice each session with destiny).

As always, specific examples would be welcome!

At will abilities: you say it doesn’t make sense at the Narrative level. I disagree. In the D&D cartoon, when Venger used his at will “warlock Eldridge blast” to light the way when walking down a dark corridor? That wasn’t breaking the world building, that was cool! (I think it’s why one of my players went warlock, in fact.) I see no reason not to just let them, with the following caveats: 1) Venger’s arm should have gotten tired from being held out so long… and that should matter in the game as much as the PCs bathroom breaks (ie, presumably, not at all); 2) just as Venger was limited to half speed while lighting his own way, so, too, must any associated costs of continuously casting the spell (noise, visuals, components, magic residue, arm waving, Venger holding his arm out, action cost, whatever) be paid.

It's generally not an issue in the short term, but as you said, his arm will eventually get tired, and it precludes him from doing a lot of other abilities.

Players tend to ignore costs like mental, physical, or spiritual exhaustion as they often don't have mechanical effects.

Stealth: contrary to your “what good does it do to hide right before the door is opened”, if I were to apply my own sense of realism, I would argue that one can only hide if they’re hidden before the door is opened. And I would be wrong. Because I’ve seen people with the skills to remove themselves from their opponents’ perception in the middle of combat. I don’t really understand it, but I do acknowledge that it’s a thing. Sigh. And it sounds like it’s also counted for in your rules. So, ultimately, I would ignore what I personally understand about stealth, and just allow stealth “whenever”/“always”… with the following caveats: 1) “Move Silently” can be attempted approximately always, including “all day all the time”; 2) “Hide” functions / can be successfully attempted whenever there is an obstacle / distraction (so “in shadows”, “behind cover”, “in combat”, “when Aphrodite is visible”, “when someone else takes the ‘distract’ action”, etc, all qualify); 3) (if I understand your system) “Hidden” is not a state - “attempting to hide” and “hidden from X” are states -> when encountering / coming within LoS of foes (or anyone, really) they roll perception (or whatever) to see if they spot the “attempting to hide” character, producing the set of “hidden from X” states; 4) hiding from infravision, tremor sense, scent, etc, is presumed to auto-fail by those without such senses of their own (or, in the case of scent, unless explicit precautions are taken), unless otherwise noted; 5) beings who perceive a character attempting to hide will respond accordingly (this matters very little in a dungeon setting, where presumably the monsters and the party are already trying to kill one another as the default, and “Guy who hides” is less of a target than “Guy who looks like a Wizard” (and may even occasionally be intentionally ignored as a potential noncom (at least unless they are visibly armed / until they make their first attack))); 6) maintaining any active stealth stance (so not “hiding in a box”) carries roughly the same costs as maintaining any other stance (presumably, there are no rules for this, so the answer is “none” at the moment).

Also, as your concept of hiding seems most like “Hide in Shadows”, I disagree that one must hide “from someone”. Or Hunger Games cake decorator didn’t exactly intentionally hide from his ally, he just made himself camouflaged and difficult to spot. Boo didn’t intentionally hide from most of the monsters (at first), she was just small and hard to spot.[/QUOTE]

One thing RPGs never really model well is "passive stealth".

Sometimes, usually because there are mitigating factors or you are focused on something else, it really is possible to not notice / recognize someone if they are right out in the open.

If someone is in the next room and not making a ton of noise, this is probably normal. If, on the other hand, they walk up to you and call your name, it's pretty rare. Both happen in real life, but I have no idea how one would model them in an RPG.

On the other hand, sometimes senses besides vision can also give things away. For example, D&D tends to assume invisibility makes someone unknowable and untargetable, but often times its easy to know where someone is without looking at them. If I hear / feel the door open, the chair next to me pull out, and someone sit in it, I know somebody is there without looking at them, invisibility doesn't factor into it.

On the other hand, actively hiding is an action. If someone knows where you are, or you want to be hidden from all potential observers, then you need to take an action to hide. Normally this involves moving into cover / concealment / camouflage and then staying still. This is a lot easier if you know who or what you are hiding from, as you only need to have cover / concealment / camouflage relative to them.

If you are outside of the room, the enemy doesn't know where you are, and won't potentially see you. There is no reason to hide. In this case, what you want to do is *sneak*. Sneaking is not an action, but sneaking into the room is *really* tough when you want to charge in and stab somebody in the face immediately after the door is kicked in and everyone is looking right at the doorway you are currently rushing through weapons drawn.

Bob thinks that sneaking into the room should be easier because, at some point in the day before entering the room or initiating combat, he spent six seconds crouching motionless in the shadows, and thus has the *hidden condition* from all potential enemies until spotted. To me, this is nonsense.

Pre-combat actions: let’s say I know Combat is about to start. I can absolutely grab my Machine Gun, and sit inside the tank, waiting for Bob to open the door before I pop my gun out and start shooting. What does sitting inside the tank give me? +infinite AC (attacks against me auto-fail) and infinite SR (spells have no line of sight and (presumably therefore) auto-fall). If I roll High (“win initiative” - for the record, I’m on your side on this turn of phrase making perfect sense in context, Talakeal) (EDIT: I just read your initiative rules - I agreed with you before reading them, and agree even more with your wording now, I guess), I pop out (or, at least, my gun pops out) before the opponents get to go, and they can attack me with their first action; if I roll low and “lose initiative”, they have to wait until their second volley before I become a valid target. Any explanation that doesn’t involve understanding this, that makes this sound more complex than what I just said, is suboptimal, and should be discarded, ignored, or upgraded.

Sounds right.

Talking Strategy: I would explicitly tell your players that, to facilitate cooperation and to reduce misunderstandings, that I'm willing to allow (roughly unlimited) OOC conversations about tactics, including asking clarifying questions of the GM. The PCs are welcome to have any IC conversations they would like to have about tactics, and the players are welcome to tell me that they want all such conversations to be IC, if that's what they want. I would explain that I am explicitly willing to not count such conversations against stealth etc, if they so desire.

I have done this.

Bob hates this, because he doesn't like conversation (either in or out of character) and wants to remove it from the game.

He also says it's unfair that the other players get to communicate without being overheard, but that he cannot cast spells / use bardic abilities without being heard.

Now, going back to the idea of multiple points of failure: it sounds (and correct me if I’m wrong) like you not only have a “raw and common sense can both cause a plan to fail / an action must pass both”...

I suppose so, but it's very rare that something actually occurs which cannot be explained by realism. (Forget common sense, I hate that term).

More often, a player doesn't like the rules, and asks me to change / ignore them because they feel the rules aren't realistic, I say the rules are fine in my opinion, and then they get mad that I my idea of realism trumps theirs.

...but also a “things last the lower of physical time and narrative time” double fail state. That is, as Spell can end when the GM calls “scene”, *and* it can end mid-scene if the physical duration expires. If so, I’d say that also doesn’t sound good for your group, and you should do away with one of the other.

Not really, no.

Spells have narrative descriptions, but those only apply when you aren't in scene. For example, a standard enchantment lasts a matter of minutes, no more than an hour, so it won't say, protect the group over-night while they sleep or all day long while traveling. But if you are actually in scene and RPing out a dialogue, exploring a room, or fighting a combat, tit won't suddenly expire because the scene is dragging on too long like it would in D&D.

Setting aside Bizarro World for a moment, would I want to run a system with “spells have multiple duration considerations”, “stealth works everywhere, including in the middle of combat even if you’ve already been spotted, except when walking through a doorway at the start of combat” levels of wonkiness? Well… no. And it’s not because of the complexity - I prefer rules- heavy systems. I don’t dislike complexity. It’s because I dislike needless complexity. I don’t see how the added complexity here really adds anything to the game over more simplified “you can hide, period” / “all durations are measured in the same / in exactly one way”, over pure RAW without need for GM adjudication of when a scene changes, or what conditions qualify to allow a hide check. Or even pure scene-based logic, with no calls to real time (but strong “police always start a scene with their guns holstered” checks to let players beat the GM over the head with a (verbal) clue-by-four as needed, and “Spell only ends of it fails all definitions of scene and” logic over “spell ends when it fails a single definition of scene ends” logic).

Just to clarify, the stealth rules have nothing to do with scene durations.

You can stay hidden all day long with a single roll if you want to lie motionless in the underbrush.

You might be thinking from this conversation that I am saying Bob's stealth is foiled by going through the doorway because its the start of a new scene, I am not. I am saying that he needs to sneak into the room unnoticed, and sneaking through an area that is being actively watched is done at a -20 penalty. And since Bob wants to rush through the door immediately after the fighter kicks it in without waiting for the rest of the party, he is almost certainly going to be watched as he is literally the center of attention.

From my understanding of the rules, hiding requires at least the potential of an observer in the place where you are hiding. Hiding requires you to stay where you are hiding and is a state where the waveform doesn't collapse until someone makes an Awareness or Search check against it.

So hiding before the door is opened is incoherent *unless* you are hiding specifically in a place where they would be able to see you if the door was open.

If the player wanted to enter the room unobserved whilst the rest of the party was being a distraction I would call for Sneak not Hide, starting with the assumption that the people in the room started out unaware of them. If they wanted to stay on the far side of the door out of sight they would remain unnoticed without rolling for it until they did something which caused them to be percieved.

This is correct as I see it.

Except that, from the point of view of the character attempting the hide skill, there is *always* the potential of an observer. Which leaves us with allowing people to use their hide skill to make themselves "as hidden as possible given the terrain/shadows/whatever" (which I happen to think is perfectly reasonable). The alternative is basically placing a spot skill requirement on the hide skill. You must first have spotted the enemy so you can hide against them. I think that's a bit absurd (and really hard to manage practially in a game).

I think this depends on whether you view the hide skill as proactive or reactive. I think of it as proactive ("I'm going to find something nearby to hide beyind"). In the proactive model, the character simply rolls their hide (and maybe the GM makes note of their success level, game system dependent). When someone is trying to spot them later, that character then makes their spot, with the GM appying bonuses or minuses depending on terrain and whether (and how well) someone is hidden. This system naturally provides benefits if the hiding person knows where the spotting people are (can take better advantage of terrain), but also allows for the basic fact that if I'm making a point of standing still in a shadowed area of a room, I'm going to be harder to see, even if I have no clue who else may be there, or where they are, or anything else.

This is also correct.

It is perfectly possible to lie quietly in the underbrush or crouch under a cloak, or to paint yourself in camouflage colors.

The problem is, hiding like this is an action, and once you start moving / talking / fighting you are going to have to make sneak tests to avoid giving away your position. Bob does not like either of those drawbacks.

It also creates the exact "open a door and attack" problem. if the thing that is blocking the opponents view is *also* the thing that, upon being removed/opened will trigger the start of a combat, I can't ever hide ahead of that obstacle being removed.

Yeah, hiding behind a door and then having the door opened would indeed spoil being hidden. Just like having the curtain you are behind or the box / closet you are inside opened. Although I would certainly give you an initiative bonus for surprise if you were waiting to ambush the person who did the opening!

The idea that you could remain hidden behind something that is no longer there is frankly absurd.

Which means that if I am a sneaky type, and want to be able to hide in the shadows, and sneak up on my enemies, I may never hide ahead of time in this situation. I must wait until combat starts (the door is opened, partition dropped, whatever), and then use my first round action to try to hide. Then, maybe in the next round, I may be able to sneak (into the room, or across the field), up to an opopnent. Then, now three rounds into the battle, I maybe can attack.

Well, no, you could already be hidden *on the battlefield* to ambush someone right away in combat. But that would involve either sneaking into the enemy's lair before the rest of your party or drawing the enemy out of their lair to your hiding spot.

If you are outside of the room, you are automatically hidden (assuming opaque walls) regardless of whether you spend an action to hide. You then need to *sneak* into the room. If you are going first, this might be very hard, if you delay until your party has engaged and distracted the enemies, it is probably very easy. You may then attack on the same turn.

The problem is Bob wants to rush into the room immediately upon the door being kicked open, meaning he will either need to take an action to actively hide or a -20 penalty to sneak for being watched.

Worse. If I'm understanding the game system we're talking about correctly, there seems to be an initiative bonus if you are hidden, but not if you are "trying to hide".

This is correct. I don't know why it really matters though.

Also, from what Talakeal has said, it seems like his initiative system is really based on "how aggressive you are in a fight", so someone "trying to hide" might not be seen as getting any sort of bonus. And, also given the (frankly strange) view on hiding in general in that game, I'm reasonably certain Talakeal is also not ruling favorably in terms of "readied action" either. I'm speculating on actual play rulings, but just based on the bits I've read, I would not be surprised if "ready to run into the room and attack" gets a high bonus to initiative (that -6 to +6 range in the rules), while "waiting for the door to open so I can hide" may not. Afterall, how can you hide from opponents in the room if you don't know where they are, or where they are looking, or where the hiding spots are.

"Aggressive" doesn't really factor into it.

Readied actions give you a bonus to initiative based on how closely they match your statement; a guy who is champing at the bit to be the first to charge into the room will get a bonus for being "agressive", but the guy who has readied an action to hide at the first sign of trouble with get the same bonus for being "timid".

But yeah, it might be tough to ready an action to move into unknown territory and hide based on the circumstances, although not significantly harder than attacking. The big issue would be lack of things to hide behind near the doorway.

But wait! It gets worse. If you "win" initiative, you basically get two actions in a round instead of just one. So if he fails (because he's just hanging out in the dooway trying to hide, while his fellow party members are charging into the breach or something), not only does he have to take an extra action to do the "hide, sneak, backstab" combo, but he gets one fewer actions in the first round.

Only if you win by 20 or more.

But wait, why are you complaining about this? Didn't you say yesterday that it was insane that sneaking doesn't grant two turns in a row?

Even the most cheesy of cheese can still be correct that something isn't fair/balanced/whatever. This isn't about Bob. I'm trying to make an objective assessment of the actual rules and how those actual rules play out in an actual game.

My understanding is that this is a home brewed game. Which suggests that this is at least to some degree about playtesting the game rules. So "the rules say X, so that's the way it is" is never the right answer.

Indeed. Underneath all the whine and cheese, Bob does have a good head for mechanics and I put (probably far too much) stock in his feedback. He was a professional game tester for Sony for a while.

That's one way to do it. Honestly, I'd just allow the PCs (or whichever side has the awareness advantage) to spend rounds prepping. The longer they do this, within a range where the NPCs could detect them, the more perception rolls I give the NPCs. What happens when they are detected is based on the NPCs. I would lean away from "initiative is rolled once they detect you". IMO, initiative is rolled the moment two parties are interacting with eachother and we need to know what order their actions occur. If the NPCs hear the party prepping outside the door, we don't roll innitiative (or make folks auto lose cause they already prepped that round). We just decide what the NPCs are doing in response. Maybe they run away. Maybe they open the door and attack (and the moment the door is opened is when initiative is rolled, with the instigating/opening side having an advantage). Maybe they start prepping things themselves.

At some point *someone* will take an action that initiates direct interaction (opening the door in this case). That's when initiative is rolled. Not sooner. Whatever prep has been completed by that point is completed. Everyone rolls initiative and acts. Now if they want to continue casting up prep spells for another round or three, they are free to do that, following the initiative rules, and during combat. It's their choice. I'm just not sure where the "you prepped this round, but the door opened and we rolled initiative, so you don't get to act, comes from".

Prior to combat starting, we can count rounds (or whatever time) for purposes of seeing how much prep you do, and whether NPCs detect you, but that's normal "out of combat" time passing. IMO, initiative is always rolled at the beginning of a new round/combat. Your suggestion would assume that someohow we're getting halway through a round, some people have already acted and *now* we're rolling initiative? That seems like it's going to create more problems than it solves.

This is correct.

Although again, most of the "prep" involves things that only last a single round and are incoherent without specific knowledge of the enemy such as defend, coordinate, or hide so there isn't a whole lot of a point.

"I'm going to find something to hide behind" implies a "behind" relative to a predicted observer. If you can't predict where the observer is going to be there is no such thing as "behind" something because when they arrive you might actually be in front of it relative to them.

Attempting to hide requires at least that. It requires at least a declared direction or reference point to be hiding from.

No, it requires the location you are hiding in to potentially become visible.

If the location can never become visible then you are unobserved whether you hide or not.

If their view is blocked and cannot be unblocked your "hide" action is incoherent. From their point of view you would still be hidden if you were standing in the open flashing neon yellow. You don't need to do anything to hide.

And that's why I put in the qualifier that the only place Hide is a coherent action is a place which can become observable through a future change in the environment (like opening a door).

If you want to be in a location which will be visible when the door is opened (knowing where those locations are doesn't require anything other than a general awareness of what can be seen through a door) but do not want to be automatically detected, you Hide. If you are in a location which will not be visible when the door is opened you will not be detected anyway unless you take an action which changes that. If you want to take such an action but still remain undetected you need to Sneak. You do not need to Hide before you Sneak because you were already hidden.

Mechanically I would represent that as any character who is in full concealment at the start of a combat is counted as hidden without a Hide check until they leave it or perform an action without a Sneak check.

Edit: The underpinning of this is that if the character cannot physically be visually observed, the outcomes of success and even critical failure on a Hide action are the same.

This is all more or less correct.

Quertus

2023-08-12, 07:44 AM

MoiMagnus

2023-08-12, 11:47 AM

Talakeal

2023-08-12, 01:27 PM

No, that's a bad mechanic, too. "I'm going to hide in these shadows.", "I'm going to hide in this box.", "I'm going to hide by painting myself to match the background.", or the ever-popular movie example of "I'm going to hide in plain sight on the ceiling (hope no one looks up).".

Those examples are all fine though, because they say where you are hiding and would take an action (or at the very least lack of an action) to pull off. And the big issue is that once the person leaves their hiding place, why are they still hidden?

Far better to just have stealth skills work with 0 prerequisites than to have bad prerequisites.

Personally I would rather just remove stealth from the game entirely. Neither is a great option, but simply allowing anyone to stealth at any time with no reason and no trade-off like Bob wants is a nightmare to actually keep track of at the table because there is no reason for every character to attempt stealth every turn.

That said, with each observer getting a perception check against them, it feels like you'll never sneak past a group of guards undetected, but will always have someone you can sneak attack in combat. Which feels really weird to me.

Sneaking past the guards is sneak, not hide, and they do not get their own rolls.

Typically, a good roll on hide will foil any number of mooks who come looking, as they will need to roll beyond a natural 20, its only the real expert trackers you have to worry about.

IMO, a better solution is to simply as "how" the person is hiding, and then apply advantages or automatic success to perception checks (including "passive perception" if that concept exists in your game) whenever someone comes "from the wrong angle".

Agreed. That is already how it works, save the automatic failure.

Passive perfection does not exist, its kind of a silly rule both narratively and mechanically imo.

In particular, when a combat start, the hide roll should be compared to the perception of the enemies to see if they immediately see you or not.

Personally I don't know why you would ever roll at the start of combat, that seems like the worst time to establish awareness.

Then, there is a small issue with hiding being a continuous action, so you need to determine how often do you need to reroll the hiding (each time you change of hiding spot?). Plus the question of whether the hiding roll is public or made by the GM secretly.

The way I do it, which people object to, is rolling hide each time you use the hide ability; either to find a hiding place against potential observers or to break awareness from someone who has already spotted you. This sets the DC to spot you, which is rolled once when someone comes into the pressence of a hiding character and again if they actively search.

Sneak is rolled each time you want to move, attack, or do something else which could draw attention to yourself (regardless of whether or not you previously used the hide action) and is rolled against a DC set by the potential observer's alertness.

Quertus

2023-08-12, 03:33 PM

IMO, a better solution is to simply as "how" the person is hiding, and then apply advantages or automatic success to perception checks (including "passive perception" if that concept exists in your game) whenever someone comes "from the wrong angle".

In particular, when a combat start, the hide roll should be compared to the perception of the enemies to see if they immediately see you or not.

Then, there is a small issue with hiding being a continuous action, so you need to determine how often do you need to reroll the hiding (each time you change of hiding spot?). Plus the question of whether the hiding roll is public or made by the GM secretly.

"Coming from the wrong angle" sounds like coming at this problem from the wrong angle, which I'm guessing is why you put that in quotes.

Yeah, if I'm hiding in the shadows, then angle doesn't matter. People casually walking by seem to auto-fail IME; someone with a torch gets a small bonus, someone intentionally shining said torch into the shadows gets a big bonus, someone with a spotlight or using infravision auto-succeeds.

When my approach to stealth is that I'm camouflaged/painted to look like the rock walls of the dungeon, I really can't think of much (besides cheating with things like infravision, again) that would give a bonus to perception against this form of hiding.

If I'm a ninja, preparing to stab you in the unprotected vitals by throwing a smoke bomb to make you momentarily lose sight of me as I walk in the door? I have 0 concept how that even works, let alone how one would defend against it.

But my point is, I wouldn't even bother with rules this finicky and high-fidelity at a normal table, so I certainly wouldn't use anything like this in Bizarro World with Talakeal's explosive group. I'd just use Hide, opposed by Perception, done. The added fidelity just isn't worth anything, afaict.

From a "gamist" perspective, my answer is simple:

Total defense is a trade-off, you lose the option to actively do something on your turn in exchange for defense. If it is allowed outside of the turn order, there is no trade-off, just a weird no brainer. This is not how I want my game to work.

In the case in point, you are giving up something - you're giving up other preparatory actions (like buff spells). It's giving those poor muggles relying on sinew and strategy something to do with the time they have before the fight starts.

Wait...

Except...

The difficulty to act in the first turn is determined by the monster's passive initiative score.

The monsters then take their turns once all players have gone.

If the players always go first, then "total defense the round before the door opens" is a rule that would always favor the monsters. So there might be a trade-off here between realism/sanity and "making Bob's accusation correct".

And...

Ready is something you can declare at any time, in or out of combat, and it doesn't take an action. It provides a modifier (from -6 to +6) to your initiative score based on how close your actions follow your stated intent. For example, if I say "I am readying to shoot the first person who comes through the door" then you will get a +6 to do that. If then someone crashes through the window behind you and you cast a shield spell to protect yourself, you would get a -6 to initiative because it was nothing like the stated action. There are guidelines for how that is determined (basically who, what, and when) but its a bit subjective.

If the monsters are readied to shoot anyone who comes through the door, do they get a +6 bonus to their initiative "DC"? Except...

***ERROR - QUOTE NOT FOUND ***

I think you said that people don't pre-declare their actions in your system... so how do you know if anyone is going through the door, to give the bonus (or penalty) to initiative? I'm really not sure if this rule is even actionable, let alone whether it favors PCs or monsters vs being neutral.

Someone pointed out on the 3.5 forum that in D&D you are considered flat-footed until you have acted, so unless you have uncanny dodge the whole conversation is moot.

Now isn't this interesting. This is a bit of mechanics that care when you roll initiative. If both sides are aware of one another, and roll initiative several rounds before they have LoS on one another, you get different results than if you wait for Bob (or not!Bob) to open the door. Other than everything, do your rules have any hangups that care about when initiative is rolled, that produce different results based on whether you are in our out of initiative?

From a narrative / simulationist perspective, simply being on the lookout for danger and having your shield readied is not total defense, that's just not being flat-footed. To me, it is really weird that the guy who is hiding in the back behind the shield will make it into the room and attack first before the guy who is right at the door with weapons drawn champing at the bit to get into the thick of things.

"Narrative" and "Simulationist" are not the same thing.

From a Simulationist perspective, "hiding in the tank" should give me some reduced awareness of when the battering ram finally breaches the door (I can't see the door from inside the tank, after all, and my Listen check is penalized by a closed door between me and the sounds), which, translated to mechanics, likely should result in a penalty to initiative. Yes, that's despite - or in addition to - the fact that my held action is completely germane, and itself should grant me a +6 bonus in your system. Or perhaps the Perception check is an additional prerequisite to getting to act in the 1st round (although I feel that is less in sync with the way your system is designed).

I don't care about the Narrativist perspective whatsoever. I don't care whether it makes a better story for me to pop out of the tank before or after the orcs of LessDoors (thus the battering ram) charge through the breach. And, not to put too fine a point on it, I don't think your rules should care, either.

Also, I am stating that total defense as an action doesn't make sense in a vacuum, you need to be aware of the sort of threat. For example, raising your shield in a phalanx formation works fine against a volley of arrows, but if a dungeon door is opened and say, a tide of ochre jelly pours out and melts your feet, or a horde of kobolds rush out and stab your ankles, it will actively harm you ability to defend yourself.

Strongly disagree. Bo9S had a better concept with "stances".

So, IRL, I'm paranoid. A white-haired old lady doesn't walk up and talk to me without me being in "Combat Mode", being aware of her distance, where her hands are, her focus, her center of gravity, etc etc. That's... just the way I'm wired.

Well, one time, a group of such white-haired ladies walked up to me, had a friendly chat, etc. And I recognized that I'd seen them a couple times before. But like Anime Protagonist-kun, I completely failed to recognize that one of them was hitting on me, even after she sent her friends away / her friends left her alone with me (I forget the exact inciting incident here).

It wasn't until she got physical - reached out and put her hand on me - that I read the scene. But not before she read how tense my muscles were (being in combat mode and all), and concluded I was just being friendly while being terrified of her advances. Which wasn't true - I was just oblivious to them until that moment.

Before I could process my new contextualization of the conversation, she made some quick excuses and beat a hasty retreat.

The point of a stance, a mode is in how you are spending your time, how you are contextualizing the scenario. In "Total Defense", you are looking at everything, not to take action on it, not to "change the world", but to optimize your own survival. So if you see something, you are fully prepared to act in the most defensive way possible.

Look at it this way: If there are 2 characters, one of whom performed a full attack, and the other of whom went full defense, which will have a better AC when a Minotaur crashes through the far wall, and throws an axe at each? The one who is burying their swords in the Dragon, or the one who is actively trying to stay alive?

You have this really strange hang-up on only being able to comprehend actions taken in a specific context. I don't know where you get it from, but it is decidedly to your detriment as a game designer.

In a dungeon crawl, if there are enemies in the room who a: can hear the PCs coming, b: are not interested in talking and c: not themselves hidden in preperation for an ambush, then I generally default to allowing players to place their models within a number of paces of the doorway equal to their perception score and allow a straight initiative, without counting opening the door as an action for anyone.

Interesting Gamist logic. So, when the monsters are waiting by the door, you allow the party to start both in front and behind the monsters, flanking them? If so, I'd say that this rule favors the PCs.

I have had a lot of people (mostly Bob) tell me that my rules are weighted against the players, but I really have a hard time figuring out how this is as most rules are wholly transparent between PCs and NPCs and those that aren't tend to be objective benefits in the PCs favor (like getting to reroll dice each session with destiny).

How often are the monsters sneaking through a doorway towards the PCs? How often are the PCs defending a dungeon? How often does the party use their average initiative score?

That's a few ways I can imagine the rules seeming potentially weighted against the PCs (whether logically they are or not).

Players tend to ignore costs like mental, physical, or spiritual exhaustion as they often don't have mechanical effects.

And you probably should, too. IME, most groups are going to play your game such that anything without an explicit mechanical effect will, like going to the bathroom, get hand-waved away.

On the other hand, sometimes senses besides vision can also give things away. For example, D&D tends to assume invisibility makes someone unknowable and untargetable, but often times its easy to know where someone is without looking at them. If I hear / feel the door open, the chair next to me pull out, and someone sit in it, I know somebody is there without looking at them, invisibility doesn't factor into it.

D&D players often make that assumption. You presumably wouldn't know me from Adam if I invisibly pulled out the chair next to you, but you'd also presumably know something was going on (even if you, say, refused to believe in Invisibility). I strongly believe in Simulationist rules, where the Rules match the Fiction, where Invisibility doesn't make me pulling the chair out unnoticed.

On the other hand, actively hiding is an action. If someone knows where you are, or you want to be hidden from all potential observers, then you need to take an action to hide. Normally this involves moving into cover / concealment / camouflage and then staying still. This is a lot easier if you know who or what you are hiding from, as you only need to have cover / concealment / camouflage relative to them.

If I'm trying to hide a red checker in a sterile empty white room, I auto-fail.

If I'm trying to hide it in a sterile empty red room, I have much better chances, especially if I have some chewing gum.

If I'm trying to hide it in the open in a normal room, it's rough, but possible.

If it's a black checker in a normal room, any shadow could do the job (some are better than others).

Obviously, the best place to ensure nobody notices it (even when out in the open) is in with a bunch of other checkers.

Note that "relative to them" never entered into the equation.

If you are outside of the room, the enemy doesn't know where you are, and won't potentially see you. There is no reason to hide.

The reason to hide is "the door is about to be opened". It's the same reason I grabbed my gun and got in the tank. There 100% is a reason.

In this case, what you want to do is *sneak*. Sneaking is not an action, but sneaking into the room is *really* tough when you want to charge in and stab somebody in the face immediately after the door is kicked in and everyone is looking right at the doorway you are currently rushing through weapons drawn.

In a realistic simulation, everyone looking at the doorway instead of at the barbarian swinging an axe through their face is already dead. It's really easy to pull off against a *ahem* distracted target. I think I've mentioned this before.

Looks like you get this:

If you are going first, this might be very hard, if you delay until your party has engaged and distracted the enemies, it is probably very easy. You may then attack on the same turn.

The problem is Bob wants to rush into the room immediately upon the door being kicked open, meaning he will either need to take an action to actively hide or a -20 penalty to sneak for being watched.

Given that the players get to choose the order in which the PCs act, I 0% understand why Bob would mind going second, after the Barbarian (or whatever) has their attention, to sneak-attack the distracted foe. Are you sure Bob has a problem with this? :smallconfused:

Bob thinks that sneaking into the room should be easier because, at some point in the day before entering the room or initiating combat, he spent six seconds crouching motionless in the shadows, and thus has the *hidden condition* from all potential enemies until spotted. To me, this is nonsense.

Bob is absolutely correct. Because he was not accounted for in their first impression when the door opened, they do not realize to account for him until they actively perceive him. Even someone paying attention doesn't have the "I've lost sight of Bob" trigger warning them of the danger until their kidneys go up for sale on the black market.

That said, despite having witnessed it IRL, I have no idea how one goes about removing one's self from the "active threat list" of those who are already aware that you are an active combatant on the other side, and effectively hide in the middle of combat. Thankfully, that's not what we're discussing.

Still... you seem to be using 2 different reserved words - "Hide" and "Sneak" - when discussing this. Why? Ignore your system for a moment, what are these two different concepts, in your mind?

Here's a few examples of you using those terms:

Yeah, hiding behind a door and then having the door opened would indeed spoil being hidden. Just like having the curtain you are behind or the box / closet you are inside opened. Although I would certainly give you an initiative bonus for surprise if you were waiting to ambush the person who did the opening!

The idea that you could remain hidden behind something that is no longer there is frankly absurd.

Well, no, you could already be hidden *on the battlefield* to ambush someone right away in combat. But that would involve either sneaking into the enemy's lair before the rest of your party or drawing the enemy out of their lair to your hiding spot.

If you are outside of the room, you are automatically hidden (assuming opaque walls) regardless of whether you spend an action to hide. You then need to *sneak* into the room. If you are going first, this might be very hard, if you delay until your party has engaged and distracted the enemies, it is probably very easy. You may then attack on the same turn.

The problem is Bob wants to rush into the room immediately upon the door being kicked open, meaning he will either need to take an action to actively hide or a -20 penalty to sneak for being watched.

Sounds right.

My state can be "inside the tank" until my initiative rolls around, even if initiative hasn't been rolled. Just as my state could be (or, well, I suppose, "include" rather than "be") "behind a rock", or "Invisible", or any number of other things.

So why is it difficult for you to imagine someone whose state is "using their tower shield to provide best advantage against attacks", or otherwise in full defense mode, before initiative is rolled?

... ah. You have this concept of "winning" and "losing" initiative, that you're stuck on. Ah. I think I see it now.

AFAICT, your system is bumping up against the Simulation, and Bob is, in effect, calling you out on it.

So, Imagine that Initiative was actually rolled when both parties were aware of one another. The party took actions buffing themselves on their turns, and the monsters... probably twiddled their thumbs, from what you've said.

In this scenario, with your group-turn-based initiative, Bob is absolutely correct that nobody needs to roll initiative here on turn X, it's the party's turn, one person opens the door, the rest take full round actions.

Where Bob is wrong is that they still had to roll initiative X rounds ago, and see who got to act in the 1st round of buffing. Which is fine.

What isn't fine - by which I mean, what will likely make Bob explode, even if I were the one explaining it to him - is that the monsters, being aware of the party, could (and should) be using this time doing things like your "full defense action", and thus have some advantage when the party opens the door.

Normally, under a "normal" initiative system, a Playground Determinator would counter that the optimal course of action is, in fact, for both sides to go full defense the round before the door is opened, so that anyone who "loses initiative" at least has that bonus until they get to go. However, with your group initiative system, that becomes an advantage held by the monsters over the PCs, which is what would likely make Bob explode over it being "unfair"... when, in fact, it's just the natural consequence of the mechanics of the initiative system that Bob is exploiting / a natural consequence of the way that Bob wants to exploit the initiative system. Which, again, is fine for Bob to do so, and he is completely correct.

All that said? If I were a "Bob" in your megadungeon? I would have cast a campaign-duration Force effect (like a D&D Unseen Servant) session 1. Its purpose is simple: It holds doors closed until we are ready, then it opens doors. Plain and simple. So that, yes, we start combat when the entire party is buffed, with the entire party getting to take actions.

I don't think there's any way to salvage your really cool initiative system in the dungeon context, given that Bob has seen the light, aside from asking Bob if my explanation of his intentions is correct, and, if so, asking if he really wants the monsters (ones that successfully perceive the party, at any rate) on full defense (or in whatever other "stance" they choose) when the party gets to go, opening the doors themselves, and otherwise behaving as realistically (ie, completely) as his bypass of the initiative system is. Oh, and to have to roll initiative for the buff round (to see which buffs are active when, especially if the monsters do decide to open the door before the party does).

Try and find out if he's after an unfair advantage, or just the completely fair advantage of bypassing initiative by not beer-and-pretzels kicking down the door the second both sides are aware of each other's existence.

I have done this.

Bob hates this, because he doesn't like conversation (either in or out of character) and wants to remove it from the game.

He also says it's unfair that the other players get to communicate without being overheard, but that he cannot cast spells / use bardic abilities without being heard.

Lol. Ask Bob when the last time he heard his player, or anyone else around him did.

It's fine for the players to get to communicate without being overheard. I agree with him that, if the characters communicate, there should be in-game ramifications.

Make sure he comprehends the difference.

I suppose so, but it's very rare that something actually occurs which cannot be explained by realism. (Forget common sense, I hate that term).

TBF, I'm not generally a fan of the term, either. That said, "common sense" and "realism" are not synonymous - they have different (even if largely overlapping) domains.

In this particular case, I believe I was just loose with my words, and "Realism" not only works, but is arguably a better fit for most of what I intended.

More often, a player doesn't like the rules, and asks me to change / ignore them because they feel the rules aren't realistic, I say the rules are fine in my opinion, and then they get mad that I my idea of realism trumps theirs.

I'm not sure if anyone in Bizarro World should get to have a vote about what is "realistic". Your experiences, as you describe them, are so far outside the norm, I fear you and your group might get banned from using that term. :smallamused:

That said, you definitely do seem to have blind spots in your concept of what is "realistic" (like how in this thread you repeatedly seem to only conceptualize of "opposed" actions). Not knowing your players, I'm going to default to siding with them on arguments over "realism" - which, to be fair, is my default whenever anyone brings up a question of realism, because my presumption is that they may have hit one of the blind spots that everyone has. It's also a good stance to take as GM, because (with a few exceptions) most such things are indicative either of a GM blind spot, or, more often (at least outside of Bizarro World) caused by a miscommunication, a lack of a shared game state.

So, as a Player, GM, or outside observer, when a Player says, "that's not realistic", I tend to assume the player is correct, at least for the model of game state living inside their head, unless proven otherwise, and will investigate until we are both / all on the same page.

It is perfectly possible to lie quietly in the underbrush or crouch under a cloak, or to paint yourself in camouflage colors.

The problem is, hiding like this is an action, and once you start moving / talking / fighting you are going to have to make sneak tests to avoid giving away your position. Bob does not like either of those drawbacks.

Best guess? What's missing here is the +20 bonus for "opponent isn't looking for you, since you successfully hid & opponent never saw you & opponent is unaware of your existence & opponent is too busy dealing with somebody attempting to shove several feet of steal through their squishy bits to focus on looking for an unknown and presumably nonexistent threat" modifier. I'll bet that would placate Bob.

Yeah, hiding behind a door and then having the door opened would indeed spoil being hidden. Just like having the curtain you are behind or the box / closet you are inside opened. Although I would certainly give you an initiative bonus for surprise if you were waiting to ambush the person who did the opening!

The idea that you could remain hidden behind something that is no longer there is frankly absurd.

Uh, no. The door is still there, and I'm still hiding behind it. I've done this IRL. It works great (at least against kids). It also works great against me (or so insects and spiders clinging to the doors seem to believe).

I'm guessing this is another example of you getting stuck on one version of a concept (you said having examples would help you more than me making a general statement).

Kish

2023-08-12, 03:46 PM

If the players always go first, then "total defense the round before the door opens" is a rule that would always favor the monsters. So there might be a trade-off here between realism/sanity and "making Bob's accusation correct".

My understanding is that in Heart of Darkness it is possible to "fail initiative." That is--it's not actually "the monsters take their turns once all players have gone"; it's "the monsters take their turns once those players who succeeded initiative--and thus get to go at all the first round--have gone." In second and subsequent rounds it's purely block initiative. So:

Combat starts.
Some of the PCs go.
The monsters go.
All of the PCs go.
The monsters go.
Repeat the last two lines until one side is wiped out.

Talakeal

2023-08-12, 08:48 PM

But my point is, I wouldn't even bother with rules this finicky and high-fidelity at a normal table, so I certainly wouldn't use anything like this in Bizarro World with Talakeal's explosive group. I'd just use Hide, opposed by Perception, done. The added fidelity just isn't worth anything, afaict.

Opposed by *who's* perception might I ask?

Remember, the idea that I am arguing against is that the rogue hidden from everyone and will remain in that state all day until revealed.

In the case in point, you are giving up something - you're giving up other preparatory actions (like buff spells). It's giving those poor muggles relying on sinew and strategy something to do with the time they have before the fight starts.

There are very few spells with a one round duration, and of those that do exist, almost all of them are buffs for said poor muggles.

Buff spells also have a cost in mana, meaning that they have a trade-off even if it isn't measured in actions.

If the players always go first, then "total defense the round before the door opens" is a rule that would always favor the monsters. So there might be a trade-off here between realism/sanity and "making Bob's accusation correct".

It favors the defenders, which isn't always the monsters. But is usually.

Still, this isn't a real rule, this is something Bob came up with, so it shouldn't be laid at my feet if it isn't "fair".

If the monsters are readied to shoot anyone who comes through the door, do they get a +6 bonus to their initiative "DC"? Except...

***ERROR - QUOTE NOT FOUND ***

I think you said that people don't pre-declare their actions in your system... so how do you know if anyone is going through the door, to give the bonus (or penalty) to initiative? I'm really not sure if this rule is even actionable, let alone whether it favors PCs or monsters vs being neutral.

You don't need to pre-declare actions. But if you do you can get a modifier to initiative (good or bad) based on it.

Now isn't this interesting. This is a bit of mechanics that care when you roll initiative. If both sides are aware of one another, and roll initiative several rounds before they have LoS on one another, you get different results than if you wait for Bob (or not!Bob) to open the door. Other than everything, do your rules have any hangups that care about when initiative is rolled, that produce different results based on whether you are in or out of initiative?

Not quite sure what this means, but I will try and answer as best as I can.

Initiative is rolled any time two people are trying to act first, or when a character is racing against time against some environmental occurance.

I can't think of any rules that change when you are "in initiative". The only action you can't do is delaying your initiative, because you don't have any initiative to delay, or cast spells which directly modify initiative for the same reason.

"Narrative" and "Simulationist" are not the same thing.

From a Simulationist perspective, "hiding in the tank" should give me some reduced awareness of when the battering ram finally breaches the door (I can't see the door from inside the tank, after all, and my Listen check is penalized by a closed door between me and the sounds), which, translated to mechanics, likely should result in a penalty to initiative. Yes, that's despite - or in addition to - the fact that my held action is completely germane, and itself should grant me a +6 bonus in your system. Or perhaps the Perception check is an additional prerequisite to getting to act in the 1st round (although I feel that is less in sync with the way your system is designed).

I don't care about the Narrativist perspective whatsoever. I don't care whether it makes a better story for me to pop out of the tank before or after the orcs of LessDoors (thus the battering ram) charge through the breach. And, not to put too fine a point on it, I don't think your rules should care, either.

I don't care about narrativism as Ron Edwards define it.

Call it what you will "In-universe" "RP" "Fluff" "Simulation" "The Fiction Layer" "Flavor Text" "Description" "Story" "Narration". etc.

The stuff which is occuring which isn't rules and mechanics.

Strongly disagree. Bo9S had a better concept with "stances".

Agree to disagree I guess.

IMO stances are MMO style nonsense directly copied from World of Warcraft. But they do better represent how Bob wants hide to work, as he really wants it to work like World of Warcraft stealth mode which simply lasts indefinetly until cancelled or you take / deal damage regardless of circumstances.

"Stances" are of course a real thing in martial arts, but they don't work like this, don't really have anything to do with total defense, and are below the level of granularity that Heart of Darkness, Dungeons and Dragons, or World of Warcraft combat operate at.

So, IRL, I'm paranoid. A white-haired old lady doesn't walk up and talk to me without me being in "Combat Mode", being aware of her distance, where her hands are, her focus, her center of gravity, etc etc. That's... just the way I'm wired.

Well, one time, a group of such white-haired ladies walked up to me, had a friendly chat, etc. And I recognized that I'd seen them a couple times before. But like Anime Protagonist-kun, I completely failed to recognize that one of them was hitting on me, even after she sent her friends away / her friends left her alone with me (I forget the exact inciting incident here).

It wasn't until she got physical - reached out and put her hand on me - that I read the scene. But not before she read how tense my muscles were (being in combat mode and all), and concluded I was just being friendly while being terrified of her advances. Which wasn't true - I was just oblivious to them until that moment.

Before I could process my new contextualization of the conversation, she made some quick excuses and beat a hasty retreat.

The point of a stance, a mode is in how you are spending your time, how you are contextualizing the scenario. In "Total Defense", you are looking at everything, not to take action on it, not to "change the world", but to optimize your own survival. So if you see something, you are fully prepared to act in the most defensive way possible.

That's fine, but that's not what total defense represents. Total defense is actively defending yourself, it is an action which procludes other activity.

Being in a state of vigilance like that might be readying an action to take total defense, but honestly is just sounds like being in a dangerous environment like a battlefield / dungeon and not being flat-footed.

Mechanically, neither Hod or D&D would give you a total defense bonus in that situation.

Look at it this way: If there are 2 characters, one of whom performed a full attack, and the other of whom went full defense, which will have a better AC when a Minotaur crashes through the far wall, and throws an axe at each? The one who is burying their swords in the Dragon, or the one who is actively trying to stay alive?

Did the minotaur surprise them?

If so, neither gets a benefit.

If not, the person taking total defense took the minotaur into account and would get an AC bonus.

You have this really strange hang-up on only being able to comprehend actions taken in a specific context. I don't know where you get it from, but it is decidedly to your detriment as a game designer.

If you say so.

Personally, I think that having passive "modes" hurts immersion, takes away player choice, and removes strategy from the game.

I would also imagine that while my players and some of the people in this thread would prefer "stealth mode" and "defense mode" like in an MMO, I can't think of any published RPGs where that is legal. Heck, my system is way more permissible than D&D for both stealth and total defense.

But, I imagine, that just because I draw the line at hiding and defense, most people who disagree would still have a line. For example, I doubt most people would be ok with mundane characters have a lockpikcing mode that causes every door they pass to fly open or an attack mode that damages anything that comes near them.

Interesting Gamist logic. So, when the monsters are waiting by the door, you allow the party to start both in front and behind the monsters, flanking them? If so, I'd say that this rule favors the PCs.

Potentially, if there was a way for them to get there (i.e. the monsters aren't defending a choke point of forming a defensive ring around the door).

How often are the monsters sneaking through a doorway towards the PCs? How often are the PCs defending a dungeon? How often does the party use their average initiative score?

That's a few ways I can imagine the rules seeming potentially weighted against the PCs (whether logically they are or not).

Yeah, PCs are on the offensive most of the time. Not sure if that makes the rules biased, and I certainly don't think that is either unique to my system or what Bob is talking about.

I suppose using group initiative could theoretically favor the monsters, but that would probably be highly situational.

And you probably should, too. IME, most groups are going to play your game such that anything without an explicit mechanical effect will, like going to the bathroom, get hand-waved away.

Right, which is why I like to have explicit rules to disincentivize exploitive or just plain silly behavior.

D&D players often make that assumption. You presumably wouldn't know me from Adam if I invisibly pulled out the chair next to you, but you'd also presumably know something was going on (even if you, say, refused to believe in Invisibility). I strongly believe in Simulationist rules, where the Rules match the Fiction, where Invisibility doesn't make me pulling the chair out unnoticed.

Agreed.

If I'm trying to hide a red checker in a sterile empty white room, I auto-fail.

If I'm trying to hide it in a sterile empty red room, I have much better chances, especially if I have some chewing gum.

If I'm trying to hide it in the open in a normal room, it's rough, but possible.

If it's a black checker in a normal room, any shadow could do the job (some are better than others).

Obviously, the best place to ensure nobody notices it (even when out in the open) is in with a bunch of other checkers.

Note that "relative to them" never entered into the equation.

You sure relative never enters into the equation?

So, for example, someone who never enters the room will still be able to spot the check? Someone who is inside the room and watches you hide it will still be able to miss it? And, most importantly to the situation at hand, hiding the checker in the sterile room has bearing on how easy it is to notice the cheker after it has been removed from the room and placed on the table outside.

The reason to hide is "the door is about to be opened". It's the same reason I grabbed my gun and got in the tank. There 100% is a reason.

Oh, yes, if you are standing right in front of the door, obviously. I was assuming there person in question was just standing a step to their left or right so that they are wholly obscured by the wall.

In a realistic simulation, everyone looking at the doorway instead of at the barbarian swinging an axe through their face is already dead. It's really easy to pull off against a *ahem* distracted target. I think I've mentioned this before.

Indeed.

The problem is Bob wants to be the first one through the doorway after it is kicked in and everyone is staring at it to see what is coming through. If he hung back and waited until the rest of the party had already moved in to engage, there would be no problem.

Given that the players get to choose the order in which the PCs act, I 0% understand why Bob would mind going second, after the Barbarian (or whatever) has their attention, to sneak-attack the distracted foe. Are you sure Bob has a problem with this? :smallconfused:

Yes. Because hanging back would mean that he could potentially be out of range to melee the monsters, and waiting on the rest of the party could mean that he doesn't get to go in the first turn if they fail initiative.

Remember, the only goal here is first turn backstab no matter what.

Bob is absolutely correct. Because he was not accounted for in their first impression when the door opened, they do not realize to account for him until they actively perceive him. Even someone paying attention doesn't have the "I've lost sight of Bob" trigger warning them of the danger until their kidneys go up for sale on the black market.

What is the connection between him having previously hidden before kicking in the door and running through and just kicking the door in and running through? Why does having hidden at some point previously still matter after he has left his hiding spot and run through a watched doorway?

Still... you seem to be using 2 different reserved words - "Hide" and "Sneak" - when discussing this. Why? Ignore your system for a moment, what are these two different concepts, in your mind?

Hiding is finding a spot where people are unlikely to be able to see you, moving to that spot, and then staying motionless. It is an activity unto itself. It could also involve creating such a spot using camouflage or blinds.
Sneaking is a way in which you do some other activity, usually moving, where you are trying to make as little noise as possible and avoid areas that are being actively watched.

D&D makes a similar distinction between "hide in shadows" and "move silently".

My state can be "inside the tank" until my initiative rolls around, even if initiative hasn't been rolled. Just as my state could be (or, well, I suppose, "include" rather than "be") "behind a rock", or "Invisible", or any number of other things.

So why is it difficult for you to imagine someone whose state is "using their tower shield to provide best advantage against attacks", or otherwise in full defense mode, before initiative is rolled?

Because full defense is an active action. Being inside a tank or behind a rock or behind a tower shield are all passive.

A tower shield is not always the optimum way to defend oneself, and indeed in many cases is actively detrimental to defense. Besides, nothing about total defense in either HoD or D&D actually requires you to have a tower shield.

AFAICT, your system is bumping up against the Simulation, and Bob is, in effect, calling you out on it.

Are you saying that simulation is causing problems for game mechanics or game mechanics are causing problems for the simulation?

Now, keep in mind, Bob isn't calling me on it, I am calling him on it. He thinks that having hidden the round before opening the door should allow him a first turn sneak attack, to which I responded that if I allow actions taken before initiative to carry over, the monsters are just going to use total defense and counter his sneak attack.

So, Imagine that Initiative was actually rolled when both parties were aware of one another. The party took actions buffing themselves on their turns, and the monsters... probably twiddled their thumbs, from what you've said.

In this scenario, with your group-turn-based initiative, Bob is absolutely correct that nobody needs to roll initiative here on turn X, it's the party's turn, one person opens the door, the rest take full round actions.

Where Bob is wrong is that they still had to roll initiative X rounds ago, and see who got to act in the 1st round of buffing. Which is fine.

What isn't fine - by which I mean, what will likely make Bob explode, even if I were the one explaining it to him - is that the monsters, being aware of the party, could (and should) be using this time doing things like your "full defense action", and thus have some advantage when the party opens the door.

This is absolutely correct, and its not only what was likely to happen, it is what DID happen. It was me explaining this very fact to him that caused him to tell me that he "finally understands when I say realism I mean realism as I see, and when I say fair I mean fair for my monsters" and give me the silent treatment for a week.

Normally, under a "normal" initiative system, a Playground Determinator would counter that the optimal course of action is, in fact, for both sides to go full defense the round before the door is opened, so that anyone who "loses initiative" at least has that bonus until they get to go. However, with your group initiative system, that becomes an advantage held by the monsters over the PCs, which is what would likely make Bob explode over it being "unfair"... when, in fact, it's just the natural consequence of the mechanics of the initiative system that Bob is exploiting / a natural consequence of the way that Bob wants to exploit the initiative system. Which, again, is fine for Bob to do so, and he is completely correct.

All that said? If I were a "Bob" in your megadungeon? I would have cast a campaign-duration Force effect (like a D&D Unseen Servant) session 1. Its purpose is simple: It holds doors closed until we are ready, then it opens doors. Plain and simple. So that, yes, we start combat when the entire party is buffed, with the entire party getting to take actions.

[QUOTE=Quertus;25844750]Normally, under a "normal" initiative system, a Playground Determinator would counter that the optimal course of action is, in fact, for both sides to go full defense the round before the door is opened, so that anyone who "loses initiative" at least has that bonus until they get to go. However, with your group initiative system, that becomes an advantage held by the monsters over the PCs, which is what would likely make Bob explode over it being "unfair"... when, in fact, it's just the natural consequence of the mechanics of the initiative system that Bob is exploiting / a natural consequence of the way that Bob wants to exploit the initiative system. Which, again, is fine for Bob to do so, and he is completely correct.

All that said? If I were a "Bob" in your megadungeon? I would have cast a campaign-duration Force effect (like a D&D Unseen Servant) session 1. Its purpose is simple: It holds doors closed until we are ready, then it opens doors. Plain and simple. So that, yes, we start combat when the entire party is buffed, with the entire party getting to take actions.

I don't think there's any way to salvage your really cool initiative system in the dungeon context, given that Bob has seen the light, aside from asking Bob if my explanation of his intentions is correct, and, if so, asking if he really wants the monsters (ones that successfully perceive the party, at any rate) on full defense (or in whatever other "stance" they choose) when the party gets to go, opening the doors themselves, and otherwise behaving as realistically (ie, completely) as his bypass of the initiative system is. Oh, and to have to roll initiative for the buff round (to see which buffs are active when, especially if the monsters do decide to open the door before the party does).

Try and find out if he's after an unfair advantage, or just the completely fair advantage of bypassing initiative by not beer-and-pretzels kicking down the door the second both sides are aware of each other's existence.

By seen the light, you mean made up his own house rules?

Again, you don't roll initiative once you become aware of one another, that isn't a rule in my game.

If such a rule existed, it would favor the defender (which is usually but not always the monsters) but it does not exist.

Lol. Ask Bob when the last time he heard his player, or anyone else around him did.

It's fine for the players to get to communicate without being overheard. I agree with him that, if the characters communicate, there should be in-game ramifications.

Make sure he comprehends the difference.

I am not going to enforce the IC / OOC divide when it comes to play communication.

I feel that the group has enough issues with communication and self confidence that they do not need Bob or I policing them.

So, as a Player, GM, or outside observer, when a Player says, "that's not realistic", I tend to assume the player is correct, at least for the model of game state living inside their head, unless proven otherwise, and will investigate until we are both / all on the same page.

I have no problem investigating. But in my experience most people are unwilling to actually discuss their interpreations, and likewise consider consulting a third party or looking it up to be an aggressive act.

Best guess? What's missing here is the +20 bonus for "opponent isn't looking for you, since you successfully hid & opponent never saw you & opponent is unaware of your existence & opponent is too busy dealing with somebody attempting to shove several feet of steal through their squishy bits to focus on looking for an unknown and presumably nonexistent threat" modifier. I'll bet that would placate Bob.

Why does successfully having hid matter? That's the whole crux of it.

What damn difference does it make if Bob was lying still in the bushes under a camouflage 5 minutes ago or if he was dancing under a neon sign? In either case, the opponent has no ability to see him before he came through the doorway, and as far as I can tell, his activities while undetected five minutes ago have no bearing on whether or not the enemy will notice him while he is moving through the doorway.

Uh, no. The door is still there, and I'm still hiding behind it. I've done this IRL. It works great (at least against kids). It also works great against me (or so insects and spiders clinging to the doors seem to believe).

Oh, you mean physically hiding behind the door itself?

Yeah, that's possible, but given that the vast majority of doors open inwards, he is still going to have to move through the watched doorway to get into position to do so, and doing so is still going to be an action.

Quertus

2023-08-13, 04:29 PM

Talakeal, I think we’re close to something, but I feel there’s a bit of disconnect in our replies to one another, so I’d like to reframe and simplify the scope of the conversation for a minute.

Now, to facilitate this, I’ll describe some terms and boundaries, so that hopefully our meaning is clear to one another. You’re familiar with GNS (which I’ll admit I probably misuse slightly). Earlier, when you said “Narrative”, I think what you meant - I think the most common phrase for what you meant - is “Fiction layer”.

So I’d like to discuss the fiction layer for a bit. This means I’m looking at things from a Simulationist perspective. But it also means that the conversation is system-agnostic - any calls to “how it works in your system” are irrelevant for the moment. In fact, since we’re discussing the fiction layer, any talk of mechanics whatsoever is misplaced.

With me so far?

The scene is two rooms connected by a closed door, with opposing forces in each room. I think both sides are aware that something is on the other side of the door, and are preparing for potential hostilities.

Am I with you so far?

Now, “for reasons” (we’ll come back to this later, when we have a larger scope) one side (“the NPCs”) have chosen to wait for the door to open; the other side (“the PCs”) have chosen to buff, then open the door, then storm the room.

Are we with each other so far?

Now, one PC… what? Has a special skill? Wants to do something technically anyone could do (so, wants to use an Everyman skill?)?

Regardless, one PC wants to do something that requires… what? Well, I’m pretty sure it would work if he were invisible, so “that the opponents don’t see him” is sufficient. But I also think it would work if one of the “opponents” or a Boulder did it, so “that the opponents don’t perceive as a threat” would also be sufficient. And I also think it would work if the PC suddenly leapt out of the opponent’s shadow, or if the opponent wasn’t on guard (irrelevant to this scenario), or (per my watching padded weapons combat) if the opponent had lost track of that combatant. To name a few.

So, my best guess is, “that the opponent is unprepared for an attack from that vector” is the “necessary and sufficient” version of the prerequisite.

How are we doing so far?

So, at the fiction layer, what are the character’s options? Well, they have a lot of options to achieve that state, from attacking while unseen to attacking while unnoticed to attacking while disguised to attacking while their actions are disguised to…

Point is, there are a lot of options here. And it’s possible that Bob pictures his character doing one thing, while you picture them doing something else, leading to disagreements.

I, for one, have absolutely no idea what either of you are picturing happening here.

Ok, that’s not entirely true. That is, I don’t know if it’s what you’re actually picturing, but we both agreed to the image of a Rogue stealing someone’s kidneys while the target was distracted avoiding a Barbarian trying to shove several feet steel through their brain, right? So let’s start with that.

Except, while we’re still exclusively in the fiction layer, I’ve one more comment to make: by hiding (or turning invisible, or taking cover inside a tank, or whatever) before the door is opened, Bob has ensured that the curtain rises on the opponents unaware that he, specifically, even exists.

——-

Ok, now we can start discussing mechanics, but only in a system-agnostic fashion. We’re asking, “conceptually, what’s happening here?”.

So let’s say we’re looking at the Rogue and Barbarian above. For this scene to occur, the now-needing-dialysis opponent must have… what? Registered the Barbarian as a threat, but not registered the Rogue as a threat? Nah, that’s probably not right. How about “registered the Barbarian as an immediate threat, but not registered the Rogue and/or their specific style of attack as an immediate threat”?

So, how could a Rogue achieve that state? Stealth (opposed by Perception), Bluff (opposed by Sense Motive), Magic (opposed by Knowledge? By Perception with a penalty?), Disguise (opposed by Perception or Sense Motive), trick Weapon (easy to oppose with Knowledge, harder with… pure combat experience and martial skill?), and doubtless many other ways.

I think, conceptually, you and Bob are both expecting that Bob’s actions involve Stealth, opposed by Perception. That’s not bad, but it’s hardly the only option here.

Still, it sounds like there’s a disconnect. It sounds like Bob has already made a stealth check - which I strongly agree with, btw - and expects… several things.

The first is that said Stealth check is what the opponents should be rolling Perception against. From a system-agnostic PoV? Eh, from that PoV, popular opinion would say he’s probably right. That is, most people these days want to make one “roll Stealth vs the castle Perception DC” to cover the entire infiltration from start to finish. Bob isn’t asking for much compared to that. When Stealth was an unopposed roll, I was fine with it being a per room or per scene thing. As an opposed roll, with “your guaranteed to fail at some point” stats, it certainly feels harsh to require him to make Stealth checks on consecutive rounds.

But, afaict, you aren’t interested in him making multiple checks: a single check seems sufficient in your mind for Bob to be set up for… whatever it is he’s doing *ahem* his character is doing. So, it seems we’re all on the same page wrt “one roll, Stealth (opposed by perception)”.

Here - I think - is where we’re on different pages: Action economy. And, as much as it’d be easier to move to your system at this point, I think I’d like to try to remain at the system-agnostic layer as much as possible. I think.

——-

At this point, it’s hard to get away from discussing actual “crunch”, but I’m trying to keep it in “not your system” parlance.

So, Bob’s character has fulfilled the “Stealth” portion of the requirement at this point. He’s even made the roll that sets the DC for opponents to notice his character. Now he just needs to (get out there and) stab someone (or whatever it is he’s actually doing).

If “Stealth” were best thought of as an action, then Bob would be correct, in that their character fulfilled that action before the door was opened. That is, I think, at the root of (this piece of) the problem. When, instead, you view “Stealth” as more like a stance, or a mode, then it becomes obvious that one gets the benefits and pays the prices for the entire time one remains in that stance / mode.

This is especially important given the divide of “Stealth” into (functionally) Hide and Move Silently, which I expect most any gamer on this board knows can be attempted at the same time, either in most popular systems or irl. Utilizing either or both is simply a part of being in Stealth mode.

Thus, while Bob’s character has fulfilled the Stealth requirement for not appearing on the opponents’ radar in the first place, Bob’s character still needs to pay the Stealth cost of… say… moving at half speed, or remaining in shadows, or whatever else the mode explicitly calls out as a requirement for Stealth *ahem* for this particular application of Stealth.

Which, if it were me, the requirements would look like, “cling to the Barbarian’s back disguised as their backpack, which they drop (as a free action) immediately before entering combat” or something. Because I have no idea what this “Stealth” is supposed to look like at the fiction layer. But I do know that, despite Bob having fulfilled the Stealth requirements of being hidden at the start of combat, Bob still needs to have their character remain in Stealth mode until such time as they take their action (whatever that is).

——-

All that said, even if Talakeal and Bob and Quertus were to all agree on everything up to this point, there’s still a problem. And the problem is this: while Talakeal and Quertus agree that Bob’s character would be best served entering the room after “The Barbarian has everyone’s attention” (or whatever; ie, “second at earliest”), Bob and Talakeal seem to be in agreement that there is some advantage to entering the room first, and thus Bob wants his character to charge in first… while retaining Stealth… somehow. In a way that leaves Talakeal and Quertus scratching their heads.

But here’s the thing: I think that the real issue is whatever part of the rules incentivize entering the room first. My guess here is that this part of the rules is wrong, at least in the context of this being round X of both sides being aware of one another, and that this broken rule needs to be fixed.

——-

Ok, I’m tired, I hope that made sense. Short version, as a tester, I agree with Bob on most counts. However, change how Stealth is conceptualized, and remove artificial benefits from going first, and I believe Bob’s actions and the fiction layer will line up much better.

Or that’s my guess. How many times did we lose one another here?

EDIT: senility willing, after your reply, there will be a part 2, to discuss things like NPC actions and setting Bob off in this context, and a bit more on modes and Stealth and full defense.

Talakeal

2023-08-14, 12:56 AM

So we played again. Bob no longer remembers what he meant when he said he thought its stupid that hidden characters can possibly fail initiative.

There was a situation where they did try and storm a room after the initiative count had started; and as I expected, it was a bloodbath. A defended doorway does indeed function as what my navy coworkers call a "kill funnel".

Also, I officially declared to my group that I will no longer be counting each room as a separate scene. Instead, the scene ends *after* the PCs stop to bind their wounds or thoroughly search a room.

snip

We seem to be mostly on the same page.

The disconnect is viewing stealth as a "mode" with a "cost".

It isn't.

Hiding is not entering stealth mode, and it has no effect on your future ability to sneak. If Bob starts the encounter outside of the room, he is already undetected and has no reason to hide.

Sneak is a roll you make automatically to see if people who weren't aware of you become aware of you when you are taking an action that could draw attention to yourself.

Now, I know you want to be system agnostic, but that's really as far as I can go without bringing up specific mechanics.

The benefits of being unobserved:

1: The enemy cannot target you, and is unaware of your presence.
2: You receive +4 Initiative, +4 Larceny, and +2 Accuracy against enemies who are unaware of your presence.

The modifiers for sneak are:

-20 Moving through an area or interacting with a person / object that is being actively watched or guarded. A distracted observer doesn't apply this modifier.
-4 Doing something loud such as shouting, running, or firing a gun
-2 Large Size (per category)
+1-X Has Cover
+2-12 Has Concealment
+2 Small size (per category)
+2 Hiding in a crowd
+2 Large amount of ambient noise
+4 Doing something quiet such as whispering, attacking with a poisoned dart, or moving slowly. Deaf observers or magical silence effects automatically incur this modifier.
+4 Every ten paces between the sneak and their observer
+4 Observer is asleep

Success means you complete your task without being detected. Success by twenty or more is required to remain undetected after attacking, provided your target is not incapacitated by the attack.

All that said, even if Talakeal and Bob and Quertus were to all agree on everything up to this point, there’s still a problem. And the problem is this: while Talakeal and Quertus agree that Bob’s character would be best served entering the room after “The Barbarian has everyone’s attention” (or whatever; ie, “second at earliest”), Bob and Talakeal seem to be in agreement that there is some advantage to entering the room first, and thus Bob wants his character to charge in first… while retaining Stealth… somehow. In a way that leaves Talakeal and Quertus scratching their heads.

But here’s the thing: I think that the real issue is whatever part of the rules incentivize entering the room first. My guess here is that this part of the rules is wrong, at least in the context of this being round X of both sides being aware of one another, and that this broken rule needs to be fixed.

Because Bob wants to get off a sneak attack in the first turn.

If he is the only front liner to go before the opponents, that means he cannot sneak attack in the first turn as he needs to wait until someone else causes a distraction.

Likewise, if he starts outside of the room / line of sight, then he might not have sufficient movement to reach the enemies and sneak attack in the first turn.

Its that simple.

Kane0

2023-08-14, 02:47 AM

If he rolls so well that he would go before a teammate that would otherwise enable a sneak attack, can he opt to wait without penalty?

Talakeal

2023-08-14, 03:06 AM

If he rolls so well that he would go before a teammate that would otherwise enable a sneak attack, can he opt to wait without penalty?

Define "without penalty".

He can certainly delay his action freely and with no cost.

But, if he doesn't use it by the start of his next turn, he loses it (you can't just que up multiple turns with of actions and take them all at once, that would be so broken it puts all the other talk of "pre-buffing" to shame).

So, if none of the other front liners go before the enemies, he is not going to get his first turn sneak attack without making a roll high enough to sneak while watched.

Unless, of course, all the monsters come to them, which is wholly possible, but unlikely given how most battlefields are laid out.

Morgaln

2023-08-14, 04:38 AM

Because Bob wants to get off a sneak attack in the first turn.

If he is the only front liner to go before the opponents, that means he cannot sneak attack in the first turn as he needs to wait until someone else causes a distraction.

Likewise, if he starts outside of the room / line of sight, then he might not have sufficient movement to reach the enemies and sneak attack in the first turn.

Its that simple.

My question would be, who is opening the door and when are people rolling for surprise/initiative?

I can see multiple scenarios here:

1. The players decide to go through the door. They need to roll initiative before they open the door, and whoever goes first has to be the one to actively open it.
In that case, Bob would be the one who has to open the door. Now if the enemies are not alerted yet, that should still allow him to open the door quietly, slip into the room and use the shadows to sneak up to a target. If the enemies have already been alerted, it's pretty much impossible for Bob to sneak in undetected, as they will be watching that door.

2. The players decide to go through the door. Initiative is rolled after they open the door, as that is when enemies and the battlefield are revealed.
In this case, I can absolutely see someone else throwing open the door and making the enemies focus on them. That person might then lose initiative and not go before the enemies, but their dramatic entrance might still cause enough distraction that Bob can slip in behind them undetected.
This one would of course also allow Bob to open the door quietly and sneak in undetected, provided the enemies aren't on alert yet.

To me personally, option two feels much more intuitive.

Also, how would you handle it in your system if a player wants to open the door just a bit and roll in a grenade? Or if one of them throws open the door and drops down, while the guy behind him throws in a fireball right away? Would you require these characters to win initiative to perform these actions? In my eyes, they should "autowin" initiative in these cases, as even high alert enemies will need a moment to process what's happening; even more so if they want to be efficient instead of firing wildly in the direction of the door.

Talakeal

2023-08-14, 05:01 AM

My question would be, who is opening the door and when are people rolling for surprise/initiative?

Generally the person with the highest strength and / or armor opens the door.

People roll initiative as soon as one side declares an action that the other side wants to do something about and where timing matters.

Typically, this means one side decides to attack and the other side decides to defend themselves.

1. The players decide to go through the door. They need to roll initiative before they open the door, and whoever goes first has to be the one to actively open it.
In that case, Bob would be the one who has to open the door. Now if the enemies are not alerted yet, that should still allow him to open the door quietly, slip into the room and use the shadows to sneak up to a target. If the enemies have already been alerted, it's pretty much impossible for Bob to sneak in undetected, as they will be watching that door.

2. The players decide to go through the door. Initiative is rolled after they open the door, as that is when enemies and the battlefield are revealed.

If someone wants to quietly open the door and sneak inside, that is handled outside of combat before initiative is rolled.

Number two is correct.

In this case, I can absolutely see someone else throwing open the door and making the enemies focus on them. That person might then lose initiative and not go before the enemies, but their dramatic entrance might still cause enough distraction that Bob can slip in behind them undetected.
This one would of course also allow Bob to open the door quietly and sneak in undetected, provided the enemies aren't on alert yet.

This is, in my opinion, absurd. The idea that one person being "dramatic" will make their victims blind to the gang of people swarming in behind them weapons drawn is ludicrous from a narrative perspective, and a nightmare to adjudicate from a game mechanics perspective as you will have to keep track of numerous, perhaps dozens, of hidden characters.

Of course, absurd and ludicrous feats are what make larger than life heroes stand out, and it is possible to build a character who can make the test even with the -20 penalty, they just can't do so 100% of the time with no risk of failure, which isn't good enough for Bob.

Also, how would you handle it in your system if a player wants to open the door just a bit and roll in a grenade? Or if one of them throws open the door and drops down, while the guy behind him throws in a fireball right away? Would you require these characters to win initiative to perform these actions? In my eyes, they should "autowin" initiative in these cases, as even high alert enemies will need a moment to process what's happening; even more so if they want to be efficient instead of firing wildly in the direction of the door.

There is no such thing as auto-winning initiative.

In both of those cases, the attackers would receive hefty bonuses to initiative.

IMO a readied character could easily loose an arrow or rush the doorway in the time it takes for the door to open, one guy to drop down, and then for another guy to look into the room and cast a spell.

As for the grenade, that really depends on how long the fuse is and how close the character is cutting it before opening the door (if you are pre-cooking it, I hope for your sake the door doesn't turn out to be locked!)

Morgaln

2023-08-14, 05:52 AM

This is, in my opinion, absurd. The idea that one person being "dramatic" will make their victims blind to the gang of people swarming in behind them weapons drawn is ludicrous from a narrative perspective, and a nightmare to adjudicate from a game mechanics perspective as you will have to keep track of numerous, perhaps dozens, of hidden characters.

Of course, absurd and ludicrous feats are what make larger than life heroes stand out, and it is possible to build a character who can make the test even with the -20 penalty, they just can't do so 100% of the time with no risk of failure, which isn't good enough for Bob.

I didn't say one person would draw the attention so that the whole rest of the party can stay hidden. But in the commotion of throwing open the door and charging into the room, it might absolutely be possible for one person to slip to the side and stay out of attention. That's actually more likely if there's a whole gang, since the obviously aggressive people with weapons will take a lot of the attention of the enemies. Of course the layout of the room and especially lighting conditions play a big part in this.
Look up selective awareness and how it works (I recommend the famous gorilla in a basketball video), it's not actually unrealistic.

There is no such thing as auto-winning initiative.

In both of those cases, the attackers would receive hefty bonuses to initiative.

IMO a readied character could easily loose an arrow or rush the doorway in the time it takes for the door to open, one guy to drop down, and then for another guy to look into the room and cast a spell.

As for the grenade, that really depends on how long the fuse is and how close the character is cutting it before opening the door (if you are pre-cooking it, I hope for your sake the door doesn't turn out to be locked!)

Honestly, if players coordinate (along the lines of "one, two, three, go") and the planned attack is not targeted (that's why I used fireball as an example) I really don't see anyone shooting an arrow before that attack has been made. At least not an aimed arrow. Just letting fly (probably in surprise) and praying it hits someone is possible but nothing else.
Reason is, the enemy's brain needs time to process that the door just opened, while the attackers brain has already processed the go signal at that point. Which is also why you can't wait for someone to draw a gun and then outdraw them; by the time you process that they have drawn, they're already shooting. Whoever draws first wins, purely due to neurological reaction times.

Talakeal

2023-08-14, 06:28 AM

I didn't say one person would draw the attention so that the whole rest of the party can stay hidden. But in the commotion of throwing open the door and charging into the room, it might absolutely be possible for one person to slip to the side and stay out of attention. That's actually more likely if there's a whole gang, since the obviously aggressive people with weapons will take a lot of the attention of the enemies. Of course the layout of the room and especially lighting conditions play a big part in this.
Look up selective awareness and how it works (I recommend the famous gorilla in a basketball video), it's not actually unrealistic.

Sure, but again, its doing this and also being the first one in the room and the first one to attack that is the problem.

Honestly, if players coordinate (along the lines of "one, two, three, go") and the planned attack is not targeted (that's why I used fireball as an example) I really don't see anyone shooting an arrow before that attack has been made. At least not an aimed arrow. Just letting fly (probably in surprise) and praying it hits someone is possible but nothing else.

I guess it really depends on how long it takes to cast a fireball.

But man, I can see so many ways this could go wrong, any party that uses this tactic frequently is often going to find themselves blowing up their own allies (to say nothing of bystanders) or facing a swarm of angry monsters with their front line consisting of the wizard and a guy lying on the floor.

Reason is, the enemy's brain needs time to process that the door just opened, while the attackers brain has already processed the go signal at that point. Which is also why you can't wait for someone to draw a gun and then outdraw them; by the time you process that they have drawn, they're already shooting. Whoever draws first wins, purely due to neurological reaction times.

Fascinating. Any references you could point me in the direction of so I can do further reading on my own?

Morgaln

2023-08-14, 07:27 AM

Sure, but again, its doing this and also being the first one in the room and the first one to attack that is the problem.

I guess it really depends on how long it takes to cast a fireball.

But man, I can see so many ways this could go wrong, any party that uses this tactic frequently is often going to find themselves blowing up their own allies (to say nothing of bystanders) or facing a swarm of angry monsters with their front line consisting of the wizard and a guy lying on the floor.

Fascinating. Any references you could point me in the direction of so I can do further reading on my own?

You can start with the Fast Draw page on Wikipedia, which does list times for quick drawing compared to average human reaction time. I'll see if I can find you some more scientific sources for deeper information.

Kane0

2023-08-14, 08:08 AM

Define "without penalty".

He can certainly delay his action freely and with no cost.

But, if he doesn't use it by the start of his next turn, he loses it.

So, if none of the other front liners go before the enemies, he is not going to get his first turn sneak attack without making a roll high enough to sneak while watched.

Unless, of course, all the monsters come to them, which is wholly possible, but unlikely given how most battlefields are laid out.

Okay cool, sounds like a normal d&dish sneak attack ability then.

So he is reliant on himself rolling better than the enemy, plus an ally rolling better than the enemy, in order to get to use his (presumably defining) special attack?

Otherwise, he needs to spend actions/turns hiding in order to achieve the criteria to pull it off? Or gamble that the monsters will make a move sufficiently tactically unsound to enable his attack unsupported?

It just sounds like he is trying to ensure his primary 'thing' isnt rendered moot by things quite possibly out of his control. He wants to make a sneak attack. Is the exact qualifiers for the ability closer to say AD&D, 3rd edition or 5th edition sneak attack?

gbaji

2023-08-14, 04:53 PM

First off. I think you and I are more or less in agreement on hide in general. But in the case we're talking about, the person hiding does know which directioin the NPCs are, and thus can hide "behind" things based on that known directinaliy, even if he can't currently see them, and they can't currently see him.

If their view is blocked and cannot be unblocked your "hide" action is incoherent. From their point of view you would still be hidden if you were standing in the open flashing neon yellow. You don't need to do anything to hide.

It's only incoherent if we assume we know everyone who might be able to see the location we are currently in. I'll touch on this more.

And that's why I put in the qualifier that the only place Hide is a coherent action is a place which can become observable through a future change in the environment (like opening a door).

That's not quite what you said though. You said this:

So hiding before the door is opened is incoherent *unless* you are hiding specifically in a place where they would be able to see you if the door was open.

To be fair though, I still somewhat disagree with both statements, but for slightly different reasons.

"Become observable" suggests that it's something that can only occur in the future. It's also vague as to the degree of "observable". It's better than what you said first, but still problematic. I would change the language to "potentially observable". And guess what? Unless your character has perfect knowledge of everything in the world arond them, they are *always* "potentially observable". My point is that a PC should be able to "hide" (if they choose to do so and spend the time/effort to do so) at any point, in any location (with penalties/bonuses applied of course) and for any reason, you know, just on the off chance someone is looking at the group. It seems to me that there is some value for the PC to declare this (and make a roll for it), if for no other reason than there *might* be someone looking at the area the group is in, and to determine who in the group they notice, and who they maybe just don't spot. Obviously, this is terrain and direction variable, but IMO, it's something that a PC should be allowed to do.

"in a place where they would be able to see if you the door opened" (which is what you said) is problematic. Why does the door opening matter? How do we know there isn't an NPC looking through a peephole at the party? It also opens up the interpretation (as does the other statement just to a diferent degree) that if you are not "behind cover", you are Observable, and thus can't hide anyway. But if you are behind cover, you don't need to hide, becuase it's "incoherent".

It also makes this very odd case where I'm around a corner 10 feet back from the door. I'm not only hidden by the door, but also hidden from line of sight to the room even if the door is opened. But I should be able to use my hide skill to "hide". Doubly so if the action-state of "hidden" is a prerequisite for using the "sneak" ability to then approach the NPCs without them noticing me.

Again, I'm kinda flailing around here because I don't know the system, but based on Talakeal's descripitions this seems to maybe create a situation where "you can't hide if you are behind the door". Once the door is opened, you can't sneak until you first hide". Thus requiring the player to spend an extra round/action/whatever "hiding" first, before he can sneak.

It also creates a problem where, I'm not allowed to say "I'm squeezing myself flat against the all on our side of the door, where I'm in some shadows, and partially hidden by the door jam", and allow a hide skill to be used, so that when the door is opened, the NPCs will see the big burly fighter with a sword, who just kicked in the door and is charging in, and then maybe notice the robe wearer with the glowing staff folllowing in right behind, and the archer with the bow running up behind them and shooting arrows, but in all the confusion and flickering light of torches and glowing staves and whatnot, just not see that guy squeezed up against the wall, and not notice him slip through the doorway and into the room.

To me, that's a valid use of a hide skill, even though the NPCs can't currently see the location your group is in.

If you want to be in a location which will be visible when the door is opened (knowing where those locations are doesn't require anything other than a general awareness of what can be seen through a door) but do not want to be automatically detected, you Hide. If you are in a location which will not be visible when the door is opened you will not be detected anyway unless you take an action which changes that. If you want to take such an action but still remain undetected you need to Sneak. You do not need to Hide before you Sneak because you were already hidden.

Which I absolutely agree with (and covers the case I mentioned above). The problem is that it doesn't seem as though this is how Talakeal is actually running the game. I'm perfectly fine with saying that the PC squeezing against the wall (but in a location that *could* be seen once the door is opened, has to make a hide) and that the PC handing out around the corner is equally unseen when the door opens cause the NPCs just can't actually see that location. And I agree that in both cases, the PC should be allowed to simply use the sneak skill to attempt to move foward into the room.

But it appears as though Talakeal is ruling that in both cases, the PC must first actually "make a hide roll" (spending an action doing so). And that this roll may only be made after the door is opened (or after coming around the corner). Again, maybe I'm completely misreading stuff here, but what I've been getting is that Talakeal would not allow the rogue to make the hide roll prior to the door opening under any circumstances, and that this is precisely what he was labeling as Bob wanting to "roll initiative before opening the door so they will auto-win". Bob wants to start the fight in "hidden" state, but is not allowed to, so he's saying "if you're going to make me spend an action hidding, then I should get to start the combat a round earlier and take the action then.

Again though, that's me struggling to actualy interpret what I'm reading. But I'm seeing a conflicct here, and none of the explanations actually make full sense. I mean, being hidden is a +4 to initiative, but then isn't everyone hidden if they are the ones opening the door? I guess I have to ask, when does Bob get to hide here?

I'm also actually kinda leaning on Bob's direction of "we should auto-win initiative" now though. I assumed that the description was "win and get an action, then NPCs go, then PCs get their normal action, then round ends. Repeat". Apaprently, it's "winning side goes, then losing side goes. Repeat".

Um... If one side "starts the fight" I'm inclined to give them the first round in a "take turns taking rounds" style combat system. That's kinda the benefit of starting the combat. I'm not even sure how it makes sense otherwise. I was assuming an "initiative rolled each round" sort of thing (to some degree based on some of the bonuses involved). I mentioned the whole "Hidden" bonus above. But it's relevant here. If this is literally rolled one time at the very beggining of the battle, and they just swap back and forth from that point on, but Talakeal rolls that initiative after they open the door and walk in a bit, I can see the frustration. If they are now in the room, they can't hide. If they are outside the room, I suppose they can. But are a movement "behind" everyone else.

Dunno. It just seems like a really clumsy way to do all of this. Just let the freaking PC hide if they want. Ask them what they are doing to hide, and then you (the GM) decide what modifiers apply based on who may be looking and from what direction and when). Done.

And that also creates issues with PCs who maybe don't just charge into the room. Or if they do want to charge into the room and take advantage of the surprise. I mean, I guess that can be handled to some degree here, but it does seem clunky to say "Ok. You kick open the door, and run into the room a few feet. The NPCs notice you. Now let's roll initiative and see what happens". As I posted earlier, I'd give the PCs one "set of actions" related to opening the door. For free. If the NPCs are "ready" (aware of the PCs and waiting), then they also get a set of actions, in response. Then we rinse/repeat I suppose.

Eh. I'm also not a fan of eternally running in the same order action rounds. But that's just a preference. For the system in question, I suppose it works well enough. But yeah, if you are trying to do a rules light system, just let the PCs do this stuff. Getting into strict detaiils of "you can hide when ... <conditions>" just seems overly fiddly.

Talakeal

2023-08-14, 11:16 PM

I want to say thanks to everyone in this thread.

Even if I appear stubborn and argumentative (and I am) this really is helping me work out how I internalize stealth working and has given me a lot of ideas for how I can rewrite the rules in my game to present it better.

You can start with the Fast Draw page on Wikipedia, which does list times for quick drawing compared to average human reaction time. I'll see if I can find you some more scientific sources for deeper information.

Thanks.

Although reading that article, it does seem that there is some overlap in reaction and draw times, and it is only impossible to outdraw someone if you compare the elite times to the average times.

Outdrawing someone is a very important part of the whole wild west aesthetic, and as Heart of Darkness is more of a fantasy western than a medieval fantasy, its important to have the speed of your draw be an important aspect of your character, which is the primary reason why I use initiative modifiers rather than binary D&D style surprise rounds.

Okay cool, sounds like a normal d&dish sneak attack ability then.

So he is reliant on himself rolling better than the enemy, plus an ally rolling better than the enemy, in order to get to use his (presumably defining) special attack?

Otherwise, he needs to spend actions/turns hiding in order to achieve the criteria to pull it off? Or gamble that the monsters will make a move sufficiently tactically unsound to enable his attack unsupported?

It just sounds like he is trying to ensure his primary 'thing' isnt rendered moot by things quite possibly out of his control. He wants to make a sneak attack. Is the exact qualifiers for the ability closer to say AD&D, 3rd edition or 5th edition sneak attack?

Well, if he doesn't win initiative he won't get a first turn sneak attack regardless of how we are playing stealth.

But yes, if none of his front line allies act in the first turn, and there are no monsters in range of his hiding spot, he is going to have to either wait until the next turn, attack without the +2 to hit, or risk failing a stealth roll and spending a turn hiding.

I am not sure what those qualifiers are. What distinction are we talking about?

I am not really sure that a +2 to hit is "character defining".

"Become observable" suggests that it's something that can only occur in the future. It's also vague as to the degree of "observable". It's better than what you said first, but still problematic. I would change the language to "potentially observable". And guess what? Unless your character has perfect knowledge of everything in the world arond them, they are *always* "potentially observable". My point is that a PC should be able to "hide" (if they choose to do so and spend the time/effort to do so) at any point, in any location (with penalties/bonuses applied of course) and for any reason, you know, just on the off chance someone is looking at the group. It seems to me that there is some value for the PC to declare this (and make a roll for it), if for no other reason than there *might* be someone looking at the area the group is in, and to determine who in the group they notice, and who they maybe just don't spot. Obviously, this is terrain and direction variable, but IMO, it's something that a PC should be allowed to do.

I don't disagree here.

But such hiding should a: take an action, b: can be easily foiled by people who have a clear line of sight to your hiding place, and c: doesn't really have any bearing on what happens after you have left your hiding place.

Again, the idea is that hide is something you do, it isn't a switch you flip like activating a Star Trek cloaking device that leaves you undetectable indefinitely one turned on.

It also makes this very odd case where I'm around a corner 10 feet back from the door. I'm not only hidden by the door, but also hidden from line of sight to the room even if the door is opened. But I should be able to use my hide skill to "hide". Doubly so if the action-state of "hidden" is a prerequisite for using the "sneak" ability to then approach the NPCs without them noticing me.

If the people in the room don't know where you are, you don't need to hide from them. It is not a prerequisite to sneaking in at a later point.

Sure, you can hide in the hallway from potential observers, but again, that is going to take an action and isn't going to help much if they have a clear line of sight to your hiding place.

Again, I'm kinda flailing around here because I don't know the system, but based on Talakeal's descripitions this seems to maybe create a situation where "you can't hide if you are behind the door". Once the door is opened, you can't sneak until you first hide". Thus requiring the player to spend an extra round/action/whatever "hiding" first, before he can sneak.

You *do not* need to hide before sneak, you just need the enemies to be unaware of you.

In Heart of Darkness, when the game switches from a narrative scene to an action scene, you lay out the battle-board and place miniature figures. The GM then tells you where you can place your figures. In a standard dungeon, this will be near the door.

If the rogue is placed outside of the door (or has snuck into the room earlier before combat began) the enemies will start unaware of them, and thus they can sneak in behind their allies.

If the rogue is placed in the doorway with the rest of the group, the enemies will start the combat aware of them, and they will need to take an action to hide to make the enemies unaware, at which point they can sneak.

It also creates a problem where, I'm not allowed to say "I'm squeezing myself flat against the all on our side of the door, where I'm in some shadows, and partially hidden by the door jam", and allow a hide skill to be used, so that when the door is opened, the NPCs will see the big burly fighter with a sword, who just kicked in the door and is charging in, and then maybe notice the robe wearer with the glowing staff folllowing in right behind, and the archer with the bow running up behind them and shooting arrows, but in all the confusion and flickering light of torches and glowing staves and whatnot, just not see that guy squeezed up against the wall, and not notice him slip through the doorway and into the room.

To me, that's a valid use of a hide skill, even though the NPCs can't currently see the location your group is in.

That's a fine use of the hide skill, but again, its an action, and hiding will only be relevant if someone walks out of the room.

If someone is walking down the hallway, they will spot you right off as you aren't hidden from them.

Likewise, if you sneak into the room, it doesn't matter that you were hidden first, the enemy couldn't see you in either case and isn't aware of you.

Which I absolutely agree with (and covers the case I mentioned above). The problem is that it doesn't seem as though this is how Talakeal is actually running the game. I'm perfectly fine with saying that the PC squeezing against the wall (but in a location that *could* be seen once the door is opened, has to make a hide) and that the PC handing out around the corner is equally unseen when the door opens cause the NPCs just can't actually see that location. And I agree that in both cases, the PC should be allowed to simply use the sneak skill to attempt to move foward into the room.

But it appears as though Talakeal is ruling that in both cases, the PC must first actually "make a hide roll" (spending an action doing so). And that this roll may only be made after the door is opened (or after coming around the corner). Again, maybe I'm completely misreading stuff here, but what I've been getting is that Talakeal would not allow the rogue to make the hide roll prior to the door opening under any circumstances, and that this is precisely what he was labeling as Bob wanting to "roll initiative before opening the door so they will auto-win". Bob wants to start the fight in "hidden" state, but is not allowed to, so he's saying "if you're going to make me spend an action hiding, then I should get to start the combat a round earlier and take the action then.

There isn't a disagreement, this is how I am running the game.

Again though, that's me struggling to actually interpret what I'm reading. But I'm seeing a conflict here, and none of the explanations actually make full sense. I mean, being hidden is a +4 to initiative, but then isn't everyone hidden if they are the ones opening the door? I guess I have to ask, when does Bob get to hide here?

Yeah, this is a bit weird. I suppose this goes back to the specific vs. general awareness.

The entire party will get the +4 if the enemies don't hear them coming. If the enemies do hear them coming, they will not.

If Bob is currently sneaking (or has already hidden on the battlefield in an ambush position) he will also get a +4 bonus to initiative even if the rest of the party doesn't.

I'm also actually kinda leaning on Bob's direction of "we should auto-win initiative" now though. I assumed that the description was "win and get an action, then NPCs go, then PCs get their normal action, then round ends. Repeat". Apparently, it's "winning side goes, then losing side goes. Repeat".

Um... If one side "starts the fight" I'm inclined to give them the first round in a "take turns taking rounds" style combat system. That's kinda the benefit of starting the combat. I'm not even sure how it makes sense otherwise. I was assuming an "initiative rolled each round" sort of thing (to some degree based on some of the bonuses involved). I mentioned the whole "Hidden" bonus above. But it's relevant here. If this is literally rolled one time at the very beginning of the battle, and they just swap back and forth from that point on, but Talakeal rolls that initiative after they open the door and walk in a bit, I can see the frustration. If they are now in the room, they can't hide. If they are outside the room, I suppose they can. But are a movement "behind" everyone else.

Why even have an initiative system at that point?

I suppose you could still use it for "sport fights" and "duels" where everyone is waiting on the bell, but if the side who declares they are attacking first always gets the first turn, that eliminates 99% of the actual use for having initiative, and I can't think of a single RPG that does it this way.

Let me ask you, do you find this scene (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBoP2l7VBeo) from Kill Bill absurd?

Because, while I am not a combat veteran myself, I have read many articles, watched many videos, talked to my combat veteran co-workers, and played a lot of FPS video games, and all of them tell me that this is not only possible, but is indeed the most likely outcome of storming a defended doorway.

Dunno. It just seems like a really clumsy way to do all of this. Just let the freaking PC hide if they want. Ask them what they are doing to hide, and then you (the GM) decide what modifiers apply based on who may be looking and from what direction and when). Done.

Ok, so hide has no cost, doesn't take an action, and can be done while observed.

In this proposed system, why wouldn't every PC attempt to hide every single turn? That is the clearly optimal move, no?

Of course, now the system is bogged down with calculating the hide DC and watching the player roll the dice for every PC every turn, and then we also need to mark who is and who isn't hidden (and from whom!) and then the DM had to put in a bunch of cognitive load either pretending they don't know where the PCs models are, or just have the PCs on the honor system to keep track of their own position without a model.

That's a lot of time, energy, and cognitive load devoted to what is a pretty (imo) silly and unfun situation that ultimately makes the "rogue" feel less special and important.

And of course, how does this effect difficulty? Do we drastically increase the number of monsters to balance out all the stealthy PCs, or do we also let the freaking monsters hide using the same rules?

If the latter, well, now we are again doubling the time, energy, and cognitive load.

And of course, we open ourselves up to the possibility that everyone on both sides succeeds on their hide check on the same turn, and suddenly the combat ends in a stalemate as nobody has any targets anymore.

And that also creates issues with PCs who maybe don't just charge into the room. Or if they do want to charge into the room and take advantage of the surprise. I mean, I guess that can be handled to some degree here, but it does seem clunky to say "Ok. You kick open the door, and run into the room a few feet. The NPCs notice you. Now let's roll initiative and see what happens". As I posted earlier, I'd give the PCs one "set of actions" related to opening the door. For free. If the NPCs are "ready" (aware of the PCs and waiting), then they also get a set of actions, in response. Then we rinse/repeat I suppose.

And how do you determine the action order of these actions?

IMO, the obvious answer is roll initiative. At which point we are right back at square one with the system functioning identically to how it already did.

Eh. I'm also not a fan of eternally running in the same order action rounds. But that's just a preference. For the system in question, I suppose it works well enough. But yeah, if you are trying to do a rules light system, just let the PCs do this stuff. Getting into strict detaiils of "you can hide when ... <conditions>" just seems overly fiddly.

I wouldn't say I am trying to do a rules light system.

Kane0

2023-08-15, 12:36 AM

Well, if he doesn't win initiative he won't get a first turn sneak attack regardless of how we are playing stealth.

But yes, if none of his front line allies act in the first turn, and there are no monsters in range of his hiding spot, he is going to have to either wait until the next turn, attack without the +2 to hit, or risk failing a stealth roll and spending a turn hiding.

I am not sure what those qualifiers are. What distinction are we talking about?

I am not really sure that a +2 to hit is "character defining".

Well in 5e a Rogue can make a sneak attack any time they meet the following conditions:
1) You haven't already on the current turn (not round)
2) You are using a finesse or ranged weapon
3) you either A) have advantage on the attack or B) you do not have disadvantage on the attack and there is another creature threatening the target in melee

And the effect of a 5e sneak attack is bonus damage.

Now 1 and 2 are entirely under the Rogue's control basically all the time. A is consistently achievable via the Rogue's own toolkit (Cunning Action and Steady Aim being the most common, but there is the Assassin subclass specifically for 'winning' initiative) but also with party support (advantage is quite a common thing to throw around, especially if it only needs to be once per turn in the case of the Rogue), so B is the only factor outside of the rogue's control (the enemy imposing disadvantage and the presence/absense of allies in the correct location). So you can see that the Rogue under most circumstances will be able to reliably make Sneak Attacks.

So Bob's 'sneak attack' is a +2 to hit? Is that a relatively big boost? I know in 5e it is, but in say 3.5 not so much. How much did he pay for this ability, or is it a default thing everyone gets for free? Is it required for anything else his build is using or will have? I'm just trying to get a bit of context here to figure how many hoops he has to jump through in order to get what sort of benefit, in order to weigh up those two ends of the scale.

Talakeal

2023-08-15, 12:47 AM

Well in 5e a Rogue can make a sneak attack any time they meet the following conditions:
1) You haven't already on the current turn (not round)
2) You are using a finesse or ranged weapon
3) you either A) have advantage on the attack or B) you do not have disadvantage on the attack and there is another creature threatening the target in melee

And the effect of a 5e sneak attack is bonus damage.

Now 1 and 2 are entirely under the Rogue's control basically all the time. A is consistently achievable via the Rogue's own toolkit (Cunning Action and Steady Aim being the most common, but there is the Assassin subclass specifically for 'winning' initiative) but also with party support (advantage is quite a common thing to throw around, especially if it only needs to be once per turn in the case of the Rogue), so B is the only factor outside of the rogue's control (the enemy imposing disadvantage and the presence/absense of allies in the correct location). So you can see that the Rogue under most circumstances will be able to reliably make Sneak Attacks.

So Bob's 'sneak attack' is a +2 to hit? Is that a relatively big boost? I know in 5e it is, but in say 3.5 not so much. How much did he pay for this ability, or is it a default thing everyone gets for free? Is it required for anything else his build is using or will have? I'm just trying to get a bit of context here to figure how many hoops he has to jump through in order to get what sort of benefit, in order to weigh up those two ends of the scale.

In 5E, a turn means each given character's turn to act and a round is the collective sequence of everyone taking a single turn, correct?

Anyone can do it, although obviously those who have a higher stealth skill are more likely to pull it off.

The +2 to hit is a relatively minor boost, but the game still uses a d20 so it will turn a miss into a hit (or a hit into a crit) roughly 10% of the time. IMO not being targeted is a much bigger advantage of being hidden.

Kane0

2023-08-15, 01:00 AM

In 5E, a turn means each given character's turn to act and a round is the collective sequence of everyone taking a single turn, correct?

Anyone can do it, although obviously those who have a higher stealth skill are more likely to pull it off.

The +2 to hit is a relatively minor boost, but the game still uses a d20 so it will turn a miss into a hit (or a hit into a crit) roughly 10% of the time. IMO not being targeted is a much bigger advantage of being hidden.
Correct.

Alright then, pretty low investment for pretty low gain. Likely not worth precious combat actions to get.

Talakeal

2023-08-15, 01:14 AM

Correct.

Alright then, pretty low investment for pretty low gain. Likely not worth precious combat actions to get.

Generally no.

In that I agree with Bob.

Stealth's major impact is being able to get where you need to be undetected and to evade an enemies attacks by being un-targetable.

Still, if you are skilled at stealth both as a player and a character, you can pull off dozens of ambushes in a row before you are revealed and need to hide again.

gbaji

2023-08-15, 06:22 PM

But such hiding should a: take an action, b: can be easily foiled by people who have a clear line of sight to your hiding place, and c: doesn't really have any bearing on what happens after you have left your hiding place.

If the people in the room don't know where you are, you don't need to hide from them. It is not a prerequisite to sneaking in at a later point.

Sure, you can hide in the hallway from potential observers, but again, that is going to take an action and isn't going to help much if they have a clear line of sight to your hiding place.

You *do not* need to hide before sneak, you just need the enemies to be unaware of you.

Ok... Here's where my confusion is. Maybe I'm just totally misunderstanding here. But you are saying (repeatedly) that hide isn't a prerequisite for sneak, *but* you can only sneak if the enemies aren't aware of you. Which means (again, if I'm reading this right), that you either have to be hidden prior to sneaking *or* in a physical location where you can't be seen. Right?

But... You also repeatedly stated that you can't hide if the NPCs can see the location you are hiding. Which is unclear to me. Are you saying "the location" period? Or the actual direct spot the PC is trying to hide in? I'm assuming you can't just hide while standing in direct view of enemies with no obstructions present. I get that. But it sounds like you're saying that you can't hide *at all* unless you have "full cover" or something like that. Which, you then also stated you don't need to hide if your enemies are "unaware of you" (which presumably means "in a location they can't see").

Do you see why I'm wondering where the boundaries are here? Because this combination of statements seems to be saying that "you can't hide unless you are in a location the NPCs can't see". And "If you are in a location the NPCs can't see, then you are unseen and they are unaware of you, so hide is unnecessary".

so... Um... What use is the hide skill?

To me. A hide skill is precisely about "hiding" in locations that might be visible and where the NPCs could see you, if you weren't like squeezing yourself against a wall, or hunching down behind the big bulky fighter, or whatever. It's the skill of being able to avoid being noticed even when in a physical location where you should be (if you didn't make the hide). Otherwise, there's no point to the skill, right?

But the language you are using suggests that this is not the case. For example, I totally think that a sneaky person should be able to make a hide skill, while standing with his teammates, on one side of a door, just prior to it being opened, so as to minimize the chance that the NPCS on the other side "notice" him when the door is openeed. He is not invisible here. But everything else being the same, if he's using his hide skill, and his companions are not, then there should be some chance (based on other criteria of course) that he's just not spotted by the NPCs.

Dunno. Just trying to wrap my brain around what your hide skill actually does.

In Heart of Darkness, when the game switches from a narrative scene to an action scene, you lay out the battle-board and place miniature figures. The GM then tells you where you can place your figures. In a standard dungeon, this will be near the door.

If the rogue is placed outside of the door (or has snuck into the room earlier before combat began) the enemies will start unaware of them, and thus they can sneak in behind their allies.

If the rogue is placed in the doorway with the rest of the group, the enemies will start the combat aware of them, and they will need to take an action to hide to make the enemies unaware, at which point they can sneak.

Ok. But how far back does the rogue need to be for the NPCS to be "unaware of them"? 5'? 10'? If it's short enough that he can make a sneak and move up to someone to set up a backstab, then it may not matter at all. Not sure how your movement rules work. But I'm reasonably certain that Bob wouldn't be complaining if the solution was just "I'll stand a tiny bit back from the doorway, and still be able to sneak in and move far enough that it wont make any difference in the first round".

You also raise the issue I was talking about before. Ok. He's standing in the doorway. So you say "they will need to take an action to hide" before they can sneak. Um... Ok. How do they do that? You have already determined that "the doorway" is a location that they can't hide in. So....? They have to move in while fully visible (and subject to attack), and then... what? How do they hide when everyone in the room can already see them. Narratively, at the very least, it's usually easier to hide/sneak if folks don't already know about you and where you are.

So does he have to move back out of the room and down the hallway a bit (presumably as far back as the "start while sneaking" rule above requires) in order to hide?

Again. I'm seeing the hide skill as something you use when no one can see you, so you position yourself so they don't see you when they do come into the room, or happen to glance at the group, or whatever. And yeah, it's something you can use in spaces where by default you would be seen. Otherwise, there's not a whole lot of point in taking the skill.

That's a fine use of the hide skill, but again, its an action, and hiding will only be relevant if someone walks out of the room.

If someone is walking down the hallway, they will spot you right off as you aren't hidden from them.

Likewise, if you sneak into the room, it doesn't matter that you were hidden first, the enemy couldn't see you in either case and isn't aware of you.

Ok. Now I'm really confused. Because the example I was giving, the rogue was what I would consider "in the doorway". He's just squeezing himself to the side, so as to not be super obvious when the door opens.

I guess the point I'm making here, is that I don't see hide as a binary thing. Like "you found a hiding spot and are now hidden from everyone" or "you are where anyone who comes into line of sight can see you". I see it specifically as "being able to conceal yourself from view in places where the spot you are hiding isn't 100% concealment". It's specifically non-binary. You may be hidden from some people, but not others. Some people may just roll well on their perception and see you. Some may not.

And when you use this kind of non-binary approach, you can allow things like "I'm just standing in the shadow of the door jam, so that people aren't as likely to notice me, doubly so with my companions who are much more overtly obvious than I am. That should be sufficient to roll a hide skill, even while standing right in the doorway next to the rest of your group, and allowing you to make a sneak and head into the room.

You say that this is a fine use of a hide skill. Ok. So can he use this before the door opens? I would say yes. In fact, I'd argue that if you wait until the door is opened to try to hide, that you are going to suffer serious minuses (because once people are aware you even exist, it's harder to disappear). And yes. Absolutely, if someone walks down the hallway from the other direction, you may very well be spotted (though I'd still say that they will be more likely to miss the guy up against the wall in the shadow, than the other people just standing in full view and may just not notice the rogue).

Yeah, this is a bit weird. I suppose this goes back to the specific vs. general awareness.

The entire party will get the +4 if the enemies don't hear them coming. If the enemies do hear them coming, they will not.

If Bob is currently sneaking (or has already hidden on the battlefield in an ambush position) he will also get a +4 bonus to initiative even if the rest of the party doesn't.

Ok. But that's also a bit strange. So in our "we kick in the door example". If the NPCs didn't hear the party, you position the NPCs just outside the door (in the doorway? Not sure). And then you have them roll initiative, giving the party a bonus because the NPCs weren't aware of them (they were "hidden"). Ok. That makes sense. And yes, in that sense, Bob hiding before opening the door doesn't matter.

But here's the odd thing. Let's say that the NPCs did hear the party. But you're not letting bob hide outside the door, so he can't get the bonus, even though, in theory, he should be able to do this (though I'm kinda quizzicle as to how well he could "sneak into the room" if he's going first anyway, given that at least some of his cover should assume other folks charging in and making a ruckus or something). So... Ok. Odd condition.

But let's say that Bob did sneak into the room ahead of time. And he's currently hidding behind a stack of crates, with a nice NPC target just a few feet away from him, blissfully unaware of him. Prime sneak attack target, right? So I'm curious how you handle this.

If Bob declares "I'm going to backstab the NPC", all on his own, does he have to roll initiative? Or does he just get to do that. Then folks react? I'm assuming so. Just want clarification.

But what if the rest of the party is waiting to hear Bob's warcry and backstab attack, and will burst through the door when that happens? Do they also get to act "first" before the NPCs? Or do you stop and roll initiative (including the folks on the other side of the door), maybe giving them a bonus? Or no bonus? Not sure how this is handled here.

Maybe Bob doesn't want to be the one all by himself when the combat starts, so instead he is waiting to hear the party burst through the door before attacking. So, you have them open the door, position them (again just inside? or in the door way?), and then roll initiative. So do the party and Bob both get the +4 in this case? Or would you allow Bob to do his backstab coincident to the "opening the door" action, resolve that and *then* roll initiative for the actual next round (first round for the NPCs). But if you do that, then you're in the odd situation where the rest of the party maybe gets the +4, but Bob doesn't because he's no longer "hidden".

Can I also just state for the moment that I'm not sure I even agree with the idea of hidden status having anythin to do with initiative? I think maybe I'm still confused about exactly what you are measuring here. To me, it's "how fast do you act". Which, being hidden really has nothing at all to do with, except in cases where the're not fighting going on at all (combat hasn't started, NPCs completely unaware of the PCs, etc). But in that case, the attacker should just always attack first. He's hidden, he attacks. The NPC can't possibly "go first", right? But once in a combat, I'm not seeing how someone being unaware of you somehow makes you attack faster. If anything, sneaky types should attack later, but gain the advantage that they're less likely to be attacked in the round themselves, because most or all of the enemies just don't know where they are.

But yeah. That's just me. I'd toss the entire "hidden" language from the initiative rules, and just call it "you have surprise" (which seems like what you are actually using it for most of the time).

Why even have an initiative system at that point?

I'm not sure. What is the point of initiative if you just roll it once at the beginning of the combat and never again after that point, even if things change? Again, I'm still not 100% certain (You didn't directly answer the question). Is that the way your system works? You roll initiatve when combat first starts. Those who "win" get to go first, then the NPCS all go, and then all the PCS go, then each side swaps back and forth from there. It appears as though the only purpose of that system is that some folks will get a "bonus action" at the start of combat. Once it's actually going, it means nothing.

And yeah. It seems as though the only way a rogue could actually get a bonus from "hiding" that would not apply equally to everyone else "for being the ones who initiated the fight against unawares opponents" say, is if he's by himself, lurking in the shadows and initiates the fight by sneak attacking someone from a hiden ambush position (and frankly should always go before his target anyway). I'm struggling to see a scenario where that would not be the case. Which, I suppose, goes back to my earlier question of "why are you giving initiative bonus to being hidden anyway"? You either use your hidden status to "strike before the enemy knows I'm here", in which case you should really always win initiative (initiative shouldn't even be rolled), or combat has already been engaged, and the iniative was rolled to see if some party members got a bonus round, and "hiding" isn't ever going to actuallly help you.

I suppose you could still use it for "sport fights" and "duels" where everyone is waiting on the bell, but if the side who declares they are attacking first always gets the first turn, that eliminates 99% of the actual use for having initiative, and I can't think of a single RPG that does it this way.

Again. Because most RPGs that have initaitive systems re-roll initiative each round. Your previous description suggested that this was not the case here. If I'm wrong, please correct me. You literaly said that the PC's who "win" initiative get to act. Then all NPCs act. Then all PCs act. Then we alternate NPC and PCs all going as a team from that point onward. At least, that's what it seemed like you said previously.

If I"m wrong about that, then this is a different conversation. If I'm right, then your iniative is really just about whether some members of the team get a bonus "first action surprise" kind of thing. Which, yeah, I'm inclined to just hand to the "side" that initiates the combat in the first place (which I wrote about in a couple posts ealier in the thread).

Ok, so hide has no cost, doesn't take an action, and can be done while observed.

Huh. No. Not sure about "cost". But it does take an action (but should pretty much always be "out of combat", so rarely is going to matter). It must be done while unobserved. But it allows you to reduce the possiblity of being observed later when someone is in a position to potentially see you.

I have succesfully "hidden" while all by myself in the middle of a freaking empty parking lot. It's absolutely possible to do this, in locations that otherwise are in "full view", simply by taking time ahead of time (ie: before people are looking at/for you) to take advantage of even tiny bits of terrain features available. Your interpretation seems to be that unless you are stuffing yourself in a box and then closing it, you can't be "hidden". That's simply not the case.

I once personally witnessed my cousin being "hidden" from a police officer (unintentionally even), simply by standing up against a wall in front of the pizza place he worked at (where I was picking him up from), at night, during a rainstorm. Like literally, the cop pulled me over when I pulled into the parking lot to pick my cousin up (the cop assumed the sequence of turns I made was "suspicious", but was actually, due to the layout of the streets, solid curbs, and no u-turn signs, the best and most direct route to get there from the direction I was driving). The cop was literally standing at my driver side door, berrating me about how I had "tried to duck him" by pulling into the parking lot. When I told him I was picking my cousin up from work, he was like "oh really. Then where is he?". Only to have me point directly at my cousin, standing less than 10 feet to the officers left (like the length of the hood of my car, and the width of the sidewalk).

I have never before seen, and never want to witness again, a police officer literally spasm in shock, as he realized he had completely lost situational awareness and missed someone standing so near to him, directly in his patrol cars lights, and directly in "full view" of him as he had walked up to my driver side window in the first place (yeah. This is the kind of stuff that gets cops killed if things were different, and I'm sure his life did flash before his eyes in that moment). He had been so tunnel visioned on me, and so certain that my turns were purely about evading him (and not, you know, just getting to the parking lot I was going to), that it never occurred to him that there was someone else there that I was meeting with.

Funny anectdote aside (and it got more interesting after that point), the point is that it's entirely possible for people to "miss" something that is otherwise "obvious". And to me, a hide skill is not about "I'm in a sealed box that no one can see into". It's about deliberately positioning yourself in such a way as to maximize the chance that people will "miss" you. That's it. And yeah, that means that it can be used in situations well broader than you seem to be allowing.

But no. You can't do this if someone can already see you, and is paying attention to you. But you absolutely can do this, in some pretty "strange" situations (and using "cover" that might just surprise you), whenever no one is currently paying attention to you, but may turn their gaze in your direction later. You would be surprised how much of hiding is about psychology (knowing where people look and where they don't) and not just physically positioning yourself.

That's all I'm saying here.

In this proposed system, why wouldn't every PC attempt to hide every single turn? That is the clearly optimal move, no?

No. Because it takes intent and effort. And you generally can't do anything else while hiding. You can't hide from someone when they are looking right at you (but can be "hidden" from them, even in the same situation, later on). I'm not sure why you seem to be arguing that there's no middle ground between "I can hide before the door opens or someone comes in the room, so that when the door opens, or they come into the room, I'm less likely to be noticed than the other folks in the room" and "I'm able to hide, in the middle of combat, from the person I'm currently fighting". Um... No. If I'm up against a wall off to the side of the room when you enter, and the rest of my group is standing in the middle of the room, I'm "hidden" from you. Not perfectly, to be sure, but there's actually a surprisingly good chance that you won't actually notice me until I do something else to draw your attention.

Again. I think you would be surprised how little hiding is about just blocking line of sight.

Of course, now the system is bogged down with calculating the hide DC and watching the player roll the dice for every PC every turn, and then we also need to mark who is and who isn't hidden (and from whom!) and then the DM had to put in a bunch of cognitive load either pretending they don't know where the PCs models are, or just have the PCs on the honor system to keep track of their own position without a model.

Well. It's a darn good thing I never proposed that.

And how do you determine the action order of these actions?

IMO, the obvious answer is roll initiative. At which point we are right back at square one with the system functioning identically to how it already did.

Sure. I'm still unclear how you initiative system works though, so...

Me? I'd give the initiating party a bonus "half round", enough to move or attack (but not both). Then go into the normal system (whatever that is).

Your system (if I'm interpreting it correctly), seems to give this bonus round to the PCs, but only some of them, and only if they roll well in the first round.

Which does shed a bit of light on the "we should auto-win initiative" argument. At least for some circumstances.

Again. Most systems have you roll initative every round. I think 5e changed that to just at the beginning (which works fine I guess). I guess the point is that if it's just a simple dex roll, then order makes sense, and rolling each round is optional anyway. But if you are actually putting situational modifiers in there, and giving what appears to be a "bonus action", then what you are doing isn't really what most systems would call an initiative roll, but a "surprise" roll. You're determining how much you took the other side by surprise, and thus how much you get to act before they get to do anything in response. Combat from that point on just swaps back and forth (again, assuming I've got the understanding right).

But you seem to have some modifiers in there that are less "positional" and more "situational" (ie: things that could change over the course of a combat). Which suggests that it should maybe be something that is rolled fresh each round to determine order. Certainy, having longer reach doesn't help you a whole lot on the very first round (and certainly not in the "we are in the door way and need to run up and attack the folks inside the room" situation). But it's one of the modifiers.

It seems like it *should* be rolled every round, but (again by what you've said previously) is only rolled once. Which yeah, leads people to wonder why some of those things are in there, and how they may actually take advantage of them.

Talakeal

2023-08-16, 12:21 AM

Ok... Here's where my confusion is. Maybe I'm just totally misunderstanding here. But you are saying (repeatedly) that hide isn't a prerequisite for sneak, *but* you can only sneak if the enemies aren't aware of you. Which means (again, if I'm reading this right), that you either have to be hidden prior to sneaking *or* in a physical location where you can't be seen. Right?

Correct.

But... You also repeatedly stated that you can't hide if the NPCs can see the location you are hiding. Which is unclear to me. Are you saying "the location" period? Or the actual direct spot the PC is trying to hide in? I'm assuming you can't just hide while standing in direct view of enemies with no obstructions present. I get that. But it sounds like you're saying that you can't hide *at all* unless you have "full cover" or something like that. Which, you then also stated you don't need to hide if your enemies are "unaware of you" (which presumably means "in a location they can't see").

Mechanically:

You can attempt to hide at any time as a basic action.

If you are being watched while hiding or sneaking, you suffer a -20 penalty. Someone counts as watching you if they have either targeted you during their most recent turn, or been actively watching the area you are hiding in / moving through. The latter is negated if they are somehow distracted.

Distance, Cover, Concealment, Camouflage, etc. all provide bonuses to your roll, which can be enough to overcome the -20 penalty.

Narratively:

Hiding works fine, but you usually need to be hiding from something. For example, if I am pressed against the wall next to a door, I could easily ambush someone walking out of the door, but anyone walking down the hallway is going to see me pretty trivially. Likewise, if I am hiding in a ditch alongside the road, I am pretty well hidden from people on the road, but not so well from other people who are in the ditch with me. This is why I am saying that hiding is context dependent and you need to have some idea who or what you are hiding from.

But some of these intricacies are, indeed, pretty hard to model mechanically, and you sometimes need the GM to make a judgement call about whether you are hidden against any given character based on the narrative (although I honestly don't think this has ever come up at the table).

Edit: Something just occurred to me. Maybe it would be better to think about it as hiding if the enemy is coming to you, and sneaking if you are coming to them? E.G I hide from the guards who are chasing after me, and I sneak into my victim's lair.

so... Um... What use is the hide skill?

To me. A hide skill is precisely about "hiding" in locations that might be visible and where the NPCs could see you, if you weren't like squeezing yourself against a wall, or hunching down behind the big bulky fighter, or whatever. It's the skill of being able to avoid being noticed even when in a physical location where you should be (if you didn't make the hide). Otherwise, there's no point to the skill, right?

But the language you are using suggests that this is not the case. For example, I totally think that a sneaky person should be able to make a hide skill, while standing with his teammates, on one side of a door, just prior to it being opened, so as to minimize the chance that the NPCS on the other side "notice" him when the door is openeed. He is not invisible here. But everything else being the same, if he's using his hide skill, and his companions are not, then there should be some chance (based on other criteria of course) that he's just not spotted by the NPCs.

Dunno. Just trying to wrap my brain around what your hide skill actually does.

You generally use hide to become undetected by someone who has previously observed you or is about to observe you.

For example, if you are being chased, you can duck behind some crates and hide. Or you can throw down a smoke / flash bomb. Or you can have an ally get in their attention.

If you hear someone coming, you could jump into a closet, or crawl under a desk, or lie down in the tall grass, so that they won't detect you when they pass.

Or, if you are waiting in ambush, you could hide in the rafters or behind a door or in the bushes to jump out at anyone who walks by.

Ok. But how far back does the rogue need to be for the NPCS to be "unaware of them"? 5'? 10'? If it's short enough that he can make a sneak and move up to someone to set up a backstab, then it may not matter at all. Not sure how your movement rules work. But I'm reasonably certain that Bob wouldn't be complaining if the solution was just "I'll stand a tiny bit back from the doorway, and still be able to sneak in and move far enough that it wont make any difference in the first round".

Generally I would say its the GM's call depending on the circumstances.

Mostly it can be boiled down to line of sight though.

In a dungeon or urban setting, not in the same room is generally enough. Out in the wilderness, beyond the horizon or behind a significant terrain feature is almost certainly enough.

There are some rules for this in the wilderness travel section about the distances which parties become aware of one another, but generally you can boil it down to an opposed alertness test on the part of each group to see who becomes aware of who first.

I mean, how do you determine who is aware of whom when stealth isn't involved? If your ranger said "I shoot the orc with my bow," and your response is "what orc? You don't see any orc." then I would say that the closest orc is not being observed regardless of whether it is hiding or not.

Most of the complaining came from the previous campaign where the PCs were mercenaries fighting pitched battles out in the open and there were no convenient hiding places nearby. In the current dungeon crawling campaign, its much less of an issue, but Bob is still salty about it and brings it up any time it puts the rogue at a disadvantage, no matter how slight.

To me. A hide skill is precisely about "hiding" in locations that might be visible and where the NPCs could see you, if you weren't like squeezing yourself against a wall, or hunching down behind the big bulky fighter, or whatever. It's the skill of being able to avoid being noticed even when in a physical location where you should be (if you didn't make the hide). Otherwise, there's no point to the skill, right?

Notice the word "might" in there?

That's the key word.

If you are in a place where they *would* notice you, you can't hide (or rather do so at a -20 penalty). If you are in a place where they *can't* notice you, hide is not necessary.

You also raise the issue I was talking about before. Ok. He's standing in the doorway. So you say "they will need to take an action to hide" before they can sneak. Um... Ok. How do they do that? You have already determined that "the doorway" is a location that they can't hide in. So....? They have to move in while fully visible (and subject to attack), and then... what? How do they hide when everyone in the room can already see them. Narratively, at the very least, it's usually easier to hide/sneak if folks don't already know about you and where you are.

So does he have to move back out of the room and down the hallway a bit (presumably as far back as the "start while sneaking" rule above requires) in order to hide?

Again. I'm seeing the hide skill as something you use when no one can see you, so you position yourself so they don't see you when they do come into the room, or happen to glance at the group, or whatever. And yeah, it's something you can use in spaces where by default you would be seen. Otherwise, there's not a whole lot of point in taking the skill.

If he is deployed in the doorway with the rest of the party, he is being observed.

He can attempt to hide right then and there at a -20 penalty. If he waits until his allies have distracted the enemies, or he throws down a smoke / flash bomb, he can do it at no penalty. He can also move into a position where he can stack modifiers to negate the penalty (or do both and receive a bonus!). How many modifiers does he need to stack? That depends on the roll of the dice and how good his stealth is compared to the enemy's alertness.

As for hiding outside of the room, if he is out of line of sight its unnecessary. The only time I could see that being useful is if you are trying to ambush or slip past someone as they are coming out of the room. I suppose you could try and hide directly in the door's path so the people in the room have LoS to you, but why would you do that? Its just terrible. Maybe for spying into the room and observing the fight? I suppose hiding behind your allies and then popping out from behind them might work for surprise?

Ok. Now I'm really confused. Because the example I was giving, the rogue was what I would consider "in the doorway". He's just squeezing himself to the side, so as to not be super obvious when the door opens.

I guess the point I'm making here, is that I don't see hide as a binary thing. Like "you found a hiding spot and are now hidden from everyone" or "you are where anyone who comes into line of sight can see you". I see it specifically as "being able to conceal yourself from view in places where the spot you are hiding isn't 100% concealment". It's specifically non-binary. You may be hidden from some people, but not others. Some people may just roll well on their perception and see you. Some may not.

And when you use this kind of non-binary approach, you can allow things like "I'm just standing in the shadow of the door jam, so that people aren't as likely to notice me, doubly so with my companions who are much more overtly obvious than I am. That should be sufficient to roll a hide skill, even while standing right in the doorway next to the rest of your group, and allowing you to make a sneak and head into the room.

You say that this is a fine use of a hide skill. Ok. So can he use this before the door opens? I would say yes. In fact, I'd argue that if you wait until the door is opened to try to hide, that you are going to suffer serious minuses (because once people are aware you even exist, it's harder to disappear). And yes. Absolutely, if someone walks down the hallway from the other direction, you may very well be spotted (though I'd still say that they will be more likely to miss the guy up against the wall in the shadow, than the other people just standing in full view and may just not notice the rogue).

Ok. That's all fine then (assuming I am picturing what you mean by in the door jam correctly, I am still not sure why you wouldn't just move a few inches to either side out of LoS).

But again, Bob doesn't consider hide to be nonbinary or subjective. If he is hidden, he is hidden, and is thus untargettable by people in the hallway, and remains untargatable by the people in the room once he leaves the door jam and starts stabbing them.

That's pretty much the crux of the whole argument, along with the idea that hide should be a free action.

Ok. But that's also a bit strange. So in our "we kick in the door example". If the NPCs didn't hear the party, you position the NPCs just outside the door (in the doorway? Not sure). And then you have them roll initiative, giving the party a bonus because the NPCs weren't aware of them (they were "hidden"). Ok. That makes sense. And yes, in that sense, Bob hiding before opening the door doesn't matter.

Generally I wouldn't roll initiative until they were inside of the door.

You don't roll initiative until one side is actively trying to stop the other in some way, simply being aware of one another isn't enough.

Of course, if the party can somehow attack through walls, that might change.

But yes, if the party is wholly undetected, they will be getting a bonus to initiative.

If Bob starts the combat with the party in the room, he will not be hidden. If he is outside of the room, he is undetected and doesn't need to hide.

But here's the odd thing. Let's say that the NPCs did hear the party. But you're not letting bob hide outside the door, so he can't get the bonus, even though, in theory, he should be able to do this (though I'm kinda quizzicle as to how well he could "sneak into the room" if he's going first anyway, given that at least some of his cover should assume other folks charging in and making a ruckus or something). So... Ok. Odd condition.

I would treat the party of a whole for this, either everybody is going to get an initiative bonus for being undetected or nobody is, because whether or not the monsters are aware of Bob as an individual, they are aware of the group. And vice versa for the monsters.

But let's say that Bob did sneak into the room ahead of time. And he's currently hidding behind a stack of crates, with a nice NPC target just a few feet away from him, blissfully unaware of him. Prime sneak attack target, right? So I'm curious how you handle this.

If Bob declares "I'm going to backstab the NPC", all on his own, does he have to roll initiative? Or does he just get to do that. Then folks react? I'm assuming so. Just want clarification.

Bob rolls initiative with a bonus, however if he makes his sneak roll, failing initiative won't actually penalize him because the enemies don't know he is there and do not have a target.

But what if the rest of the party is waiting to hear Bob's warcry and backstab attack, and will burst through the door when that happens? Do they also get to act "first" before the NPCs? Or do you stop and roll initiative (including the folks on the other side of the door), maybe giving them a bonus? Or no bonus? Not sure how this is handled here.

The other PCs will roll initiative, with a bonus for readying an action.

Maybe Bob doesn't want to be the one all by himself when the combat starts, so instead he is waiting to hear the party burst through the door before attacking. So, you have them open the door, position them (again just inside? or in the door way?), and then roll initiative. So do the party and Bob both get the +4 in this case? Or would you allow Bob to do his backstab coincident to the "opening the door" action, resolve that and *then* roll initiative for the actual next round (first round for the NPCs). But if you do that, then you're in the odd situation where the rest of the party maybe gets the +4, but Bob doesn't because he's no longer "hidden".

Assuming the monsters are unaware of the rest of the party, everyone receives the bonus and rolls initiative normally. Bob may receive a bonus for a readied action, and should he win, he can choose to delay his action.

Can I also just state for the moment that I'm not sure I even agree with the idea of hidden status having anything to do with initiative? I think maybe I'm still confused about exactly what you are measuring here. To me, it's "how fast do you act". Which, being hidden really has nothing at all to do with, except in cases where the're not fighting going on at all (combat hasn't started, NPCs completely unaware of the PCs, etc). But in that case, the attacker should just always attack first. He's hidden, he attacks. The NPC can't possibly "go first", right? But once in a combat, I'm not seeing how someone being unaware of you somehow makes you attack faster. If anything, sneaky types should attack later, but gain the advantage that they're less likely to be attacked in the round themselves, because most or all of the enemies just don't know where they are.

But yeah. That's just me. I'd toss the entire "hidden" language from the initiative rules, and just call it "you have surprise" (which seems like what you are actually using it for most of the time).

What if you fail your sneak roll? Or don't try and make one at all?

For example, if I am walking through the woods and hear someone step on a twig right behind me, its possible I will react in time to defend myself, but unlikely.

Likewise, if a bunch of hunters are crouched in the tall grass, and then suddenly rush toward a buffalo spears drawn, it is possible that the buffalo will react quick enough to get away, but its unlikely.

But yeah, maybe the phrasing could be tightened up.

I'm not sure. What is the point of initiative if you just roll it once at the beginning of the combat and never again after that point, even if things change? Again, I'm still not 100% certain (You didn't directly answer the question). Is that the way your system works? You roll initiatve when combat first starts. Those who "win" get to go first, then the NPCS all go, and then all the PCS go, then each side swaps back and forth from there. It appears as though the only purpose of that system is that some folks will get a "bonus action" at the start of combat. Once it's actually going, it means nothing.

And yeah. It seems as though the only way a rogue could actually get a bonus from "hiding" that would not apply equally to everyone else "for being the ones who initiated the fight against unawares opponents" say, is if he's by himself, lurking in the shadows and initiates the fight by sneak attacking someone from a hidden ambush position (and frankly should always go before his target anyway). I'm struggling to see a scenario where that would not be the case. Which, I suppose, goes back to my earlier question of "why are you giving initiative bonus to being hidden anyway"? You either use your hidden status to "strike before the enemy knows I'm here", in which case you should really always win initiative (initiative shouldn't even be rolled), or combat has already been engaged, and the initiative was rolled to see if some party members got a bonus round, and "hiding" isn't ever going to actually help you.

This is all correct.

Initiative is rolled any time there is a dispute over action order.

The most common is to determine who gets the first turn when a fight starts.
It is also used during delayed actions during a fight. For example, if you are waiting for someone to step out from behind cover or into melee range. Or actively guarding something and hoping to kill or disable anyone who approaches it before they can harm / take it.
It is also used when there are disputes between allies.

Again. Because most RPGs that have initaitive systems re-roll initiative each round.

What are these "most RPGs"? I can't recall having played one that did that since the 90s.

All editions of D&D and PF since 3E in 2000 and all editions of World of Darkness since nWoD in 2004 have not had initiative rolled every round.

IMO rolling initiative every round was really tedious, especially if you had to declare actions first, and without much benefit, and I am glad to see it gone.

Which, yeah, I'm inclined to just hand to the "side" that initiates the combat in the first place (which I wrote about in a couple posts ealier in the thread).

No responses to the examples in my previous post?

This is probably the single point I disagree with the strongest, I could write an entire post, if not an entire thread, on all the ways I feel that whomever initiates combat goes first is unrealistic, unfun, and unfair.

Huh. No. Not sure about "cost". But it does take an action (but should pretty much always be "out of combat", so rarely is going to matter). It must be done while unobserved. But it allows you to reduce the possiblity of being observed later when someone is in a position to potentially see you.

I have succesfully "hidden" while all by myself in the middle of a freaking empty parking lot. It's absolutely possible to do this, in locations that otherwise are in "full view", simply by taking time ahead of time (ie: before people are looking at/for you) to take advantage of even tiny bits of terrain features available. Your interpretation seems to be that unless you are stuffing yourself in a box and then closing it, you can't be "hidden". That's simply not the case.

I once personally witnessed my cousin being "hidden" from a police officer (unintentionally even), simply by standing up against a wall in front of the pizza place he worked at (where I was picking him up from), at night, during a rainstorm. Like literally, the cop pulled me over when I pulled into the parking lot to pick my cousin up (the cop assumed the sequence of turns I made was "suspicious", but was actually, due to the layout of the streets, solid curbs, and no u-turn signs, the best and most direct route to get there from the direction I was driving). The cop was literally standing at my driver side door, berrating me about how I had "tried to duck him" by pulling into the parking lot. When I told him I was picking my cousin up from work, he was like "oh really. Then where is he?". Only to have me point directly at my cousin, standing less than 10 feet to the officers left (like the length of the hood of my car, and the width of the sidewalk).

I have never before seen, and never want to witness again, a police officer literally spasm in shock, as he realized he had completely lost situational awareness and missed someone standing so near to him, directly in his patrol cars lights, and directly in "full view" of him as he had walked up to my driver side window in the first place (yeah. This is the kind of stuff that gets cops killed if things were different, and I'm sure his life did flash before his eyes in that moment). He had been so tunnel visioned on me, and so certain that my turns were purely about evading him (and not, you know, just getting to the parking lot I was going to), that it never occurred to him that there was someone else there that I was meeting with.

Funny anectdote aside (and it got more interesting after that point), the point is that it's entirely possible for people to "miss" something that is otherwise "obvious". And to me, a hide skill is not about "I'm in a sealed box that no one can see into". It's about deliberately positioning yourself in such a way as to maximize the chance that people will "miss" you. That's it. And yeah, that means that it can be used in situations well broader than you seem to be allowing.

But no. You can't do this if someone can already see you, and is paying attention to you. But you absolutely can do this, in some pretty "strange" situations (and using "cover" that might just surprise you), whenever no one is currently paying attention to you, but may turn their gaze in your direction later. You would be surprised how much of hiding is about psychology (knowing where people look and where they don't) and not just physically positioning yourself.

That's all I'm saying here.

As I said to Quertus above, people do fail to notice things all the time. But its rare enough, and hard to model enough, that I don't really think an RPG should have rules for t, just like I don't think the game would benefit for rules over tripping over your own feet or having a heart attack brought on by exertion.

I don't really disagree with anything you are saying above. I just don't see the connection between being hidden in one area when nobody was looking at you and then walking into a different room and expecting your previous hide attempt to make you somehow undetectable from people looking right at you.

No. Because it takes intent and effort. And you generally can't do anything else while hiding. You can't hide from someone when they are looking right at you (but can be "hidden" from them, even in the same situation, later on). I'm not sure why you seem to be arguing that there's no middle ground between "I can hide before the door opens or someone comes in the room, so that when the door opens, or they come into the room, I'm less likely to be noticed than the other folks in the room" and "I'm able to hide, in the middle of combat, from the person I'm currently fighting". Um... No. If I'm up against a wall off to the side of the room when you enter, and the rest of my group is standing in the middle of the room, I'm "hidden" from you. Not perfectly, to be sure, but there's actually a surprisingly good chance that you won't actually notice me until I do something else to draw your attention.

Again. I think you would be surprised how little hiding is about just blocking line of sight.

Its funny, you are actually arguing about this from the opposite direction that Bob is.

Bob seems to think that hiding should be a free action and shouldn't interfere with other actions.

I disagree with this.

You seem to think that it is impossible to hide while being observed.

I also disagree with this.

Well. It's a darn good thing I never proposed that.

No, you didn't. But you proposed throwing out all modifiers (one of which is being observed) and "just letting the freaking rogue hide".

Combined with Bob's insistence that hiding is a free action, you get the absurd scenario outlined above.

Certainly, having longer reach doesn't help you a whole lot on the very first round (and certainly not in the "we are in the door way and need to run up and attack the folks inside the room" situation). But it's one of the modifiers.

That feels odd to me, I would think reach matters significantly more while the sides are initially approaching one another and rapidly drops off in important one the combatants have clinched.

It seems like it *should* be rolled every round, but (again by what you've said previously) is only rolled once. Which yeah, leads people to wonder why some of those things are in there, and how they may actually take advantage of them.

Except for the unused delayed action one, all of the initiative modifiers can apply on the first turn.

They can come up again over the course of the battle when delayed actions are involved.

gbaji

2023-08-16, 01:28 PM

You generally use hide to become undetected by someone who has previously observed you or is about to observe you.

Fair enough. It's the system you are using. I tend to treat hide/spot as some sort of opposed check, so I can use the amount one person made hide as a negative to the other person's chance to notice them. And this allows for situations like "I'm just using my hide skill to stand a bit off to the side, in an otherwise open area, and even with minuses this may cause some NPCS to not notice me, but just notice the rest of the group instead", sort of situations. Your system seems to have a single binary/universal "you are hidden to all" or "you are visible to all" sort of dynamic.

I guess I just conceptuatlly see hide as "an effort not to be seen/noticed". And I allow it, even in circumstances when it's not ideal (open space), just to simulate that some people are going to be less innately obvious than others. And sometimes, even when otherwise standing in a wide open space, someone might just not be noticed at all, even though they possibly should have. And I happen to think that's very relevant to "sudden encounter" types of situations (like an adventuring party kicking in a door). The NPCs are going to react, very quickly, and to the first thing they see. So the guy who's just pressing himself against the side of the hallway may just not be noticed in the flurry of activity in response to the rest of the party bursting in and charging into the room.

If you are in a place where they *would* notice you, you can't hide (or rather do so at a -20 penalty). If you are in a place where they *can't* notice you, hide is not necessary.

Right. Which makes it less a physical skill about where/how you position your body to avoid being noticed at any given moment, and more about "finding a spot to hide".

I just happen to think there's a difference between "hiding" and "being hidden from view".

If Bob starts the combat with the party in the room, he will not be hidden. If he is outside of the room, he is undetected and doesn't need to hide.

You're kinda mixing and matching positional terms here. Do they start "in the room" and then roll initiative? Or do they start "in the doorway" and then roll initiative? You've kinda stated both so far.

My point here is "when does Bob get to use his stealth stuff"? Let's say they say "we're opening the door and going inside" and you are drawing a mat with the open door, and the room, and placing the minis just a bit inside the room and then saying "Ok, you open the door and step inside and see there's a bunch of NPCs in there. Roll initiative". You've said that Bob can't start out hiding (or could, but at a serious minus). Ok. Can he "sneak" into the room that few feet or whatever?

I guess the point here is that you seem to be allowing the party to somewhat "enter the room" before calling for initiative, but then not allowing someone to say "I'm going to sneak into the room". And I'm suspecting that this may be where the "we want to roll initiative before opening the door" is coming from. If you start the action sequence at "standing in front of the door, what do you do", then each PC can take actions as though it's a combat round. One says "I'm kicking in the door". Another says, "once the door is open, I'm charging in with my weapons drawn". Another says "I'm following that player, with a spell readied in case I need it". And maybe Bob is saying "I'll slip inside using my sneak skill".

If you start the combat with them already placed in the room, and then place limits on what things they can do based on that position (ie: Can't sneak or hide, cause you're in plain view), then you are somewhat hampering their ability to make their own decisions about what exactly they do once the door is opened. I can totally see them wanting to start the round in which they kick in the door as though it's a combat round, but also expect to "auto-win" initiative, because they're the ones opening the door. Nothing can happen, nor can the NPCs do anything, until they do their sequence of actions first. By allowing the rest of the party to "start the combat" in the room (with weapons draw, etc) but not allowing anyone to "start the combat" in the room, and sneaking, you are creating an artificial negative to using stealth.

This is that "transition from non-combat to combat" problem we talked about earlier. There's no perfect way to do this btw. But IMO, if the players want to take actions prior to opening the door, or in the process of crossing the doorway, they should be allowed to do this.

Bob rolls initiative with a bonus, however if he makes his sneak roll, failing initiative won't actually penalize him because the enemies don't know he is there and do not have a target.

Wait? This is problematic. Let's recall that the scenario I presented was Bob has snuck into the room. He's behind some crates, and close to an NPC whom he plans to sneak attack/backstab/whatever. Bob's plan is to give a warcry when he does this attack, thus alerting the party just outside the room, so they will burst through the door and start attacking immediately afterwards.

This is where I side with Bob. There should be no initiative roll here. Nothing happens until he attacks. He cannot (or should not) possibly ever go anything other than "first".

But if you require him to roll initiative, even with a bonus, it's entirely possible that he could fail to win initiative, while the folks outside the door do win. So they would (somehow) crash through the door berfore he has attacked (and dong his warcry). You say this isn't a problem because his enemies don't know he's there and can't attack him, but presumably once the rest of the party crashes thorugh the door, the NPCs will take their action and likely move position to attack the party.

Which leaves Bob, hiding behind some crates, wiith the NPC he was going to backstsab now standing on the other side of the room and possibly out of backstab range (at the very least, Bob will have to figure out how to get to the NPC while still remaining unseen, in order to get the backstab off.

All of which is absurd, since none of this can happen until after Bob attacks. The party wont enter the room until they hear Bob take his action. The NPCs haven't noticed Bob, so they can't act until after the party enters the room.

I literally created a situation where the only correct answer is "Bob attacks first", and you responded by saying Bob would have to roll initiative. This is why I suspect thre are arguments about this at your game. If this is actually how you would rule this scenario, I totally understand Bob's frustration.

That's not at all to say that Bob isn't trying to cheese his way to other benefits as well. But this is not the correct way to rule on that situation IMO. Again. It's not about Bob and his play style. It's about how the rules work (or don't work in this case).

EDIT: Adding this bit:

This is probably the single point I disagree with the strongest, I could write an entire post, if not an entire thread, on all the ways I feel that whomever initiates combat goes first is unrealistic, unfun, and unfair.

I'm going to 100% disagree here. And frankly, I can't grasp how you could have this opinion (well, I can see how you could, but it makes zero sense to me). If one person (or group) are literally taking an action that "starts the encounter", they are always going first. It can't happen in any other order, since the NPCs are always reacting to what the first group did.

I honestly only see initiative as being useful in the rare case where two sides run into eachother and simultaneously decide to attack. Most of the time, one side makes the decision to attack. They should, just... attack. How on earth can the other side go first?

Running it the way you do, leads us to exactly the kind of "reversed cause and effect" outcomes that I highlighted above. I think the problem here is that you have this strong opposition to "folks who initiate the combat go first", so you contrive events to force an initiative roll. You basically take over control of their characters during the statement "we open the door", decide that they take a few steps into the room, and then call for initiative. But by doing that, you are removing the player's agency to decide how they open the door, and what they do once they open it.

I could be reading into it, but it seems like you are massaging encounters to create a "roll for initiative" situation. The door situation is at least a wobbler here. We could argue that if the PCs don't know the NPCs are there, they would have to walk into the room to be aware of them, and then potentially the NPCs could get the drop on them maybe. But that's why I contrived the scenario above, where the only actual logical conclusion is "bob attacks first. period". But you still said "they roll for initiative". Which feels like a strict adherence to "combat starts with initiative', so no combat actions can be taken without having first rolled" sort of rules.

And yeah, I get that your rules provide significant bonuses for the side with surprise, knowedge, readiness, etc. But still. What's the point here? The assumption is that those bonuses are there because they should go first. But by having the roll at all, means it's possible they might not. Despite being concealed in a perfect ambush positoin, against opponents who are completely unaware that they are even there. That was literally the condition I wrote above, and you still said that Bob would have to roll for initiative.

Let me present another scenario. let's assume the same "we open the door" situation. But let's also imagine that the party has used some magical scrying to see into the room, and know exactly what is there and have decided to attack. Let's also assume that the NPCs are completely unaware of the party. IMO, they should be able to simply declare their combat actions and then do them. One guy opens the door and charges in a bit (action and movement). Another charges into the room, moving to the right and attacks a group of NPCs standing there (movement and action). Another PC charges into the room, moving to the left a bit and attacks a group standing there (movement and action). The last member walks into the room, stands behind the door-kicker guy, and casts a spell at the NPCs.

In this scenario, I would never call for an initiative roll. In fact, I'd allow the PCs to move and act in whatever order they wish. It's their attack. It's their plan. Now we *could* then call for initiative for the next round (calling this some kind of surprise/bonus round or something). But if we're in a "take turns each round" style game, I'd just have the NPCs act in response, and then repeat the cycle. The point is that, in this situation, the PCs have effectively "auto-won" initiative. And I have zero problem with that.

Again. If the only purpose of your initiative roll is to determine who goes first in the first round, and we're just alternating from that point on. Then there's simply no reason to roll it at all, in cases where "who goes first" is already obvious. In systems where it's a round by round thing, or determining the specific order in which people go in each round, based on what actions they are taking, then that's a different story. I'd still give them the first round as the initiating action, but roll for the rest normally. But in a game sysstem with just one roll at the beginning of combat? There's no need to roll if you already know who/what is starting the combat. Just run it from there.

Reversefigure4

2023-08-16, 03:56 PM

If one person (or group) are literally taking an action that "starts the encounter", they are always going first. It can't happen in any other order, since the NPCs are always reacting to what the first group did.

I honestly only see initiative as being useful in the rare case where two sides run into eachother and simultaneously decide to attack. Most of the time, one side makes the decision to attack. They should, just... attack. How on earth can the other side go first?

If you picture the classic Western quickdraw duel routine, you get closer. Two groups - the outlaws and the sheriff and his deputies, are squaring off in the saloon, insulting each other. The scenario does not come to combat until Outlaw A goes for his gun, an action visible to all. Classic Westerns could easily have the Sheriff draw faster (winning initiative) and shoot first, despite the action being initiated by the Outlaw. Of course, you also might well argue the encounter has already started, because everyone is aware of each other and everyone is just delaying and readying until somebody begins the combat (at which point you need an initiative test, because how else do you determine who manages to draw first?).

Naturally, this example doesn't hold up to the 'sniper on a rooftop' or 'party hiding outside the door from unaware NPCs' version. Most systems I've seen there have "party gets a 'free' round to attack, then initiative is rolled normally' - the NPCs fight back, and the faster of them may be quick enough to move before the party's second attack, but not the first they didn't see coming.

gbaji

2023-08-16, 05:30 PM

If you picture the classic Western quickdraw duel routine, you get closer. Two groups - the outlaws and the sheriff and his deputies, are squaring off in the saloon, insulting each other. The scenario does not come to combat until Outlaw A goes for his gun, an action visible to all. Classic Westerns could easily have the Sheriff draw faster (winning initiative) and shoot first, despite the action being initiated by the Outlaw. Of course, you also might well argue the encounter has already started, because everyone is aware of each other and everyone is just delaying and readying until somebody begins the combat (at which point you need an initiative test, because how else do you determine who manages to draw first?).

Exactly. You've got two groups, both aware of each other, more or less holding actions going "I'm going to draw and shoot when he draws and shoots". Which, yeah makes initiative work just fine for a "who goes first" type thing. That's similar (but from the other direction) to "two groups stumble upon each other and start fighting". In both cases, you have more or less simultaneous actions going on, but for game purposes have to resolve those actions in some order. Who initiated it doesn't matter as much, since neither initiated it as the only "knowing party" so to speak.

But the cases we've been talking about (and the ones that seem to keep coming up in Talakeal's game and causing drama), are specifically *not* those kinds of encounters. In these cases, we've got one party and only one party who is aware of some upcoming encounter, is prepared for it, and initiates it on their own time table and terms (opening the door and charging in, or "backstab the NPC and holler for my team to come in").

I get that HoD really wants things to be the "gunfight draw" type of combat start, and maybe that's what's fueling my speculation that Talakeal is maybe forcing things into that mode even when it doesn't make sense. Not sure. But the point is that IME, in most RPGs, most of the time that kind of encounter isn't the most common one. Most of the time, one "side" knows about the other and initiates an attack. Most of the time, the initiating party starts the attack intentionally when/where they do so as to maximize their advantage. Even if you've got guards at a defensive position, on guard, waiting for attack, they don't know the party will attack "right now", so will always be reacting. And in those situations, as a GM, I feel the initiating party should always get a round (or half round, which I've posited a number of times now) as a free "initiating action" kind of bonus thing.

Basically, my experience is that it's quite rare for two sides to go into a fight equally prepared at the moment the fight starts. I mean, we may love that sort of drama in a TV show or film, but that's just not how most combats actually start. And I'm not even faulting HoD for focusing on that sort of combat as a stylistic choice. But there should be a limit to it at some point, right?

Naturally, this example doesn't hold up to the 'sniper on a rooftop' or 'party hiding outside the door from unaware NPCs' version. Most systems I've seen there have "party gets a 'free' round to attack, then initiative is rolled normally' - the NPCs fight back, and the faster of them may be quick enough to move before the party's second attack, but not the first they didn't see coming.

This sort of thing is my assumption as well. Which is why I posited the specific case I did. And was somewhat suirprised when Talakeal's answer was to have Bob roll for initiative even when he's basically in that exact "combat doesn't start until I attack" situation. I actually added in the "party waits for Bob's warcry before kicking in the door" bit, kinda expecting maybe that the only queston was going to be over whether the party kicking in the door would happen before or after initiative was rolled. Never even expected the actual response I got though.

Which yeah. If that's actually the correct ruling in that game, I would seriously suggest making some changes. That's just unworkable and not at all what most players (all players?) will expect.

Talakeal

2023-08-16, 07:12 PM

Fair enough. It's the system you are using. I tend to treat hide/spot as some sort of opposed check, so I can use the amount one person made hide as a negative to the other person's chance to notice them. And this allows for situations like "I'm just using my hide skill to stand a bit off to the side, in an otherwise open area, and even with minuses this may cause some NPCS to not notice me, but just notice the rest of the group instead", sort of situations. Your system seems to have a single binary/universal "you are hidden to all" or "you are visible to all" sort of dynamic.

I guess I just conceptually see hide as "an effort not to be seen/noticed". And I allow it, even in circumstances when it's not ideal (open space), just to simulate that some people are going to be less innately obvious than others. And sometimes, even when otherwise standing in a wide open space, someone might just not be noticed at all, even though they possibly should have. And I happen to think that's very relevant to "sudden encounter" types of situations (like an adventuring party kicking in a door). The NPCs are going to react, very quickly, and to the first thing they see. So the guy who's just pressing himself against the side of the hallway may just not be noticed in the flurry of activity in response to the rest of the party bursting in and charging into the room.

No.

No. No No.

I have said fifty times in this thread that hide is NOT a binary. That is the whole crux of the argument, that Bob thinks that because he is *hidden* he in invisible and undetectable to everybody in the world regardless of circumstance.

And again, if he is hanging back and pressing himself against the side of the hallway, there is no issue. The issue only arises because Bob insists on being the first person into the room after the door is opened.

Likewise, as I said above, it is absolutely possible to hide in plain sight or while being watched, it is just very difficult.

I just happen to think there's a difference between "hiding" and "being hidden from view".

What is the functional difference between the two?

Why am I any better able to defend myself against someone who steps out of the shadows to strike when I am not looking vs. someone who steps around a blind corner to strike when I am not looking?

And, the more pertinent question to what Bob is trying to do, why is the guy who was hiding in the shadows in the hallway when I didn't even know he was there and is now stepping around a blind corner to strike when I am not looking at such a huge advantage over the guy who was acting casually and taking a breather because he (correctly) knew he was already completely out of sight before stepping around a blind corner to strike when I am not looking?

You're kinda mixing and matching positional terms here. Do they start "in the room" and then roll initiative? Or do they start "in the doorway" and then roll initiative? You've kinda stated both so far.

They start within a number of paces of the doorway equal to their perception score. This can be inside or outside of the room, although I may veto certain areas that they had no way of getting to.

If the rogue deploys in plain sight, he is observed until he hides.

If the rogue does not deploy in plain sight, he is not observed and can then sneak normally.

I guess the point here is that you seem to be allowing the party to somewhat "enter the room" before calling for initiative, but then not allowing someone to say "I'm going to sneak into the room". And I'm suspecting that this may be where the "we want to roll initiative before opening the door" is coming from. If you start the action sequence at "standing in front of the door, what do you do", then each PC can take actions as though it's a combat round. One says "I'm kicking in the door". Another says, "once the door is open, I'm charging in with my weapons drawn". Another says "I'm following that player, with a spell readied in case I need it". And maybe Bob is saying "I'll slip inside using my sneak skill".

They don't need to roll initiative before the battle begins. They can act however they like without rolling initiative. They can kick in doors, ready spells, sneak into rooms, etc. just fine.

The only things they can't do are things that require a specific target or situational awareness based on information they don't yet have.

Do note, however, that allowing them to kick in the door and enter the room as a "free action" is a huge mercy on the part of the system / GM. Just last session we had a scenario where the group decided not to enter a room because they had a pair of giant cat companions that couldn't fit inside. This turned a fairly standard fight into an absolute massacre because it is freaking hard to storm a defended chokepoint, both in game and in real life.

Wait? This is problematic. Let's recall that the scenario I presented was Bob has snuck into the room. He's behind some crates, and close to an NPC whom he plans to sneak attack/backstab/whatever. Bob's plan is to give a warcry when he does this attack, thus alerting the party just outside the room, so they will burst through the door and start attacking immediately afterwards.

This is where I side with Bob. There should be no initiative roll here. Nothing happens until he attacks. He cannot (or should not) possibly ever go anything other than "first".

But if you require him to roll initiative, even with a bonus, it's entirely possible that he could fail to win initiative, while the folks outside the door do win. So they would (somehow) crash through the door berfore he has attacked (and dong his warcry). You say this isn't a problem because his enemies don't know he's there and can't attack him, but presumably once the rest of the party crashes thorugh the door, the NPCs will take their action and likely move position to attack the party.

Which leaves Bob, hiding behind some crates, with the NPC he was going to back-stsab now standing on the other side of the room and possibly out of backstab range (at the very least, Bob will have to figure out how to get to the NPC while still remaining unseen, in order to get the backstab off.

All of which is absurd, since none of this can happen until after Bob attacks. The party won't enter the room until they hear Bob take his action. The NPCs haven't noticed Bob, so they can't act until after the party enters the room.

I literally created a situation where the only correct answer is "Bob attacks first", and you responded by saying Bob would have to roll initiative. This is why I suspect thre are arguments about this at your game. If this is actually how you would rule this scenario, I totally understand Bob's frustration.

This is only problematic because the rest of the party has decided to ignore the plan and charge in before the signal. This is somewhat realistic I guess, people do panic and jump the gun in stressful situations, but it is really a player problem rather than a rules problem.

The only way Bob isn't going first here is if he somehow manages to fail both his sneak and his initiative rolls in the same turn, which, while possible (both mechanically and narratively) is extremely unlikely.

I literally created a situation where the only correct answer is "Bob attacks first", and you responded by saying Bob would have to roll initiative. This is why I suspect thre are arguments about this at your game. If this is actually how you would rule this scenario, I totally understand Bob's frustration.

Yes, but not in the way you are thinking.

These scenarios don't actually come up in game. The players get mad because they fail a dice roll in a normal scenario, and then come up with some insane hyperbolistic scenario that would never come up in actual play to prove that the normal working as intended rules should be thrown out to give them an automatic success in their current situation.

As I said above, the rules work fine for the scenario you are describing, what is screwing the rogue there is not poor initiative rules, but players who don't follow the plan.

I'm going to 100% disagree here. And frankly, I can't grasp how you could have this opinion (well, I can see how you could, but it makes zero sense to me). If one person (or group) are literally taking an action that "starts the encounter", they are always going first. It can't happen in any other order, since the NPCs are always reacting to what the first group did.

I honestly only see initiative as being useful in the rare case where two sides run into eachother and simultaneously decide to attack. Most of the time, one side makes the decision to attack. They should, just... attack. How on earth can the other side go first?

First off, I can't think of any RPGs that do it this way. I guess this goes back to the "I brought it upon myself" problem upthread, but you really aren't arguing against me or my system so much as the concept of initiative rolls in general.

I have posted dozens of examples in this thread about situations where it is reasonable to get the drop on someone who is initiating combat from a realism perspective.

Aside from that, the fast draw article linked above shows that record drawing spins are 20 times faster than the average. And there are animals with reaction speeds well beyond anything human.

Likewise, this is a fantasy game. There are mind readers. Oracles that can see the future. Vampires that can move so quickly the rest of the world seems to be in slow motion. Chronomancers who can alter the flow of time with a snap of their fingers. Magic swords that move of their own volition or teleport into their bearer's hands. Creatures that can see through walls or see by the vibrations in the floor.

Narrative aside, it's not fun or fair to just say that whomever declares an attack first goes first.

If a player decides to make an alert quick-draw fastest gun in the west character, its no fair that those build points are meaningless 90% of the time because someone else decided to attack him.
It encourages the players to be super jumpy and shoot everything on sight, because if they give the GM the chance to speak, they could all die before acting.

I have played tons of board / card games where timing was important, usually in the form of interrupt moves of some type, and you always have the guy who is really anal about "no take-backs" and you then get into a contest of taking your turn as quickly as possible and people immediately playing two cards in a row or playing a card and then stating their turn is over as fast as possible so that nobody else gets a chance to counter them. I would hate to see this attitude brought to an RPG.

...and the ones that seem to keep coming up in Talakeal's game and causing drama...

Literally never.

Let me present another scenario. let's assume the same "we open the door" situation. But let's also imagine that the party has used some magical scrying to see into the room, and know exactly what is there and have decided to attack. Let's also assume that the NPCs are completely unaware of the party. IMO, they should be able to simply declare their combat actions and then do them.

At this point the party would have so many modifiers stacked that it would be impossible for them to fail initiative barring being massively outclassed (for example a bunch of ordinary joes going up against a vampire who can move faster than the human eye can see) or rolling a natural 1 on their initiative roll (and sometimes, people get un/lucky and weird things happen).

At this point you effectively have a D&D surprise round, except that it is actually an emergent property of the rules rather than arbitrary GM fiat.

Running it the way you do, leads us to exactly the kind of "reversed cause and effect" outcomes that I highlighted above. I think the problem here is that you have this strong opposition to "folks who initiate the combat go first", so you contrive events to force an initiative roll. You basically take over control of their characters during the statement "we open the door", decide that they take a few steps into the room, and then call for initiative. But by doing that, you are removing the player's agency to decide how they open the door, and what they do once they open it.

They can open the door however they like. There is no agency lost there.

I suppose giving themselves the option to freely reposition themselves before combat starts is a sort of loss of agency in the "give 'em an inch and they'll take a mile sort of way. If they don't want to reposition, they don't have to, but I can see the argument that if they have time to reposition they should be allowed to do something else instead. The answer, of course, is to take away the free move, not to also give them a free round of attacks.

KorvinStarmast

2023-08-17, 05:52 PM

Why am I any better able to defend myself against someone who steps out of the shadows to strike when I am not looking vs. someone who steps around a blind corner to strike when I am not looking? Nice job. (I am referring to your whole post). You have taken arguing with your players and doubled down, so now you are arguing with people on line.

Do you prefer to argue or to play?

Talakeal

2023-08-17, 05:59 PM

Nice job. (I am referring to your whole post). You have taken arguing with your players and doubled down, so now you are arguing with people on line.

Do you prefer to argue or to play?

One enables the other.

If you settle the issue away from the table, you can then apply the resolution at the table rather than wasting precious game time bickering over how to resolve something.

Bob is unable and unwilling to debate the issue without resorting to pouting and name calling, so forum debates are the next best thing, and offer a wider array of opinions which ensures, if not a better final ruling, at least a better understanding of why the rules are the way they are.

As I said a few days ago:

...this [thread] really is helping me work out how I internalize stealth working and has given me a lot of ideas for how I can rewrite the rules in my game to present it better.

Kish

2023-08-17, 06:13 PM

Do note, however, that allowing them to kick in the door and enter the room as a "free action" is a huge mercy on the part of the system / GM. Just last session we had a scenario where the group decided not to enter a room because they had a pair of giant cat companions that couldn't fit inside. This turned a fairly standard fight into an absolute massacre because it is freaking hard to storm a defended chokepoint, both in game and in real life.

Absolute massacre for whom? Did not entering the room benefit the PCs or hurt them?

Talakeal

2023-08-17, 06:23 PM

Absolute massacre for whom? Did not entering the room benefit the PCs or hurt them?

Hurt them.

It wasn't a TPK, but it was damn close.

Basically, the enemies formed a semi-circle around the doorway, and left just enough room for one PC to enter at a time.

It turned a standard 6 on 6 battle into a sequence of 6 on 1 slaughters.

neriana

2023-08-17, 06:36 PM

6 on 6? It is hard to storm a defended checkpoint in real life, but not as hard as you're saying, if the "defended checkpoint" is just "a door." Unless the enemies had some serious artillery or equivalent, in which case I'd normally assume your players would be given a chance to figure out a way to deal with that.

Kish

2023-08-17, 06:43 PM

Hurt them.

It wasn't a TPK, but it was damn close.

Basically, the enemies formed a semi-circle around the doorway, and left just enough room for one PC to enter at a time.

It turned a standard 6 on 6 battle into a sequence of 6 on 1 slaughters.
So wait, how is that a huge mercy? I don't follow...

Wait, I think I might. Could what you're saying be accurately paraphrased as:

Because this previous time when the PCs did not use their combat actions to move into a room they nearly got killed, I changed from what I consider to be the logical and reasonable default, where opening a door is a combat action for the PCs, to a hugely merciful rule where they can do so for free.

?

gbaji

2023-08-17, 06:51 PM

I have said fifty times in this thread that hide is NOT a binary. That is the whole crux of the argument, that Bob thinks that because he is *hidden* he in invisible and undetectable to everybody in the world regardless of circumstance.

I'm using non-binary in the sense that a single roll can mean many different things. You seem to be approaching the hide skill as "You use it to hide, using this cover, against this specific group of NPCs".

I'm using it as a general "I'm trying to be less noticable than everyone/everything else in the room" thing. Which means that whether any single specific NPCs sees and/or notices the rogue is based on a roll, which may have different modifiers depending on where the NPC is, and what they are doing. If you stop and think about it, one does not have to be "perfectly hidden" in a scenario where all you're worried about is for NPCs not to take action against you for the duration of a single 6 second round.

It's like the old adage: I don't need to run faster than the bear. I just need to run faster than you. I don't need to be perfectly hidden from the NPCs. I just need to be less obvious than other people or objects in the room. And only for long enough to <do something>. That's what I mean by "non-binary" hiding.

And again, if he is hanging back and pressing himself against the side of the hallway, there is no issue. The issue only arises because Bob insists on being the first person into the room after the door is opened.

And I'd agree that this should not work (cause he's making himself the "most obvious thing in view" when he does that). But is there a middle ground here? Is it possible for Bob to say "I want to advance into the room with the rest of the group, but do so stealthily"? Even if the result is "yeah, they saw you, so you don't get your stealth benefits" (based on some peception roll), having the ability to do this seems reasonable. This goes back to my statement about the "binary" application of this. You are saying "you are either in the room with the group, but can't be hidden in any way *or* you are outside the room and can be hidden".

If you are allowing the rest of the group to advance through the door, and into the room berfore you have them roll initiative and start combat, why can't someone say "I'm advancing into the room, while keeping to the side/shadows, corners, whatever". At least make this a roll that can be attempted, and then apply appropriate adjustments to NPC perception rolls to see if this actually works.

Just saying "you can't do that" is a binary decision.

What is the functional difference between the two?

Why am I any better able to defend myself against someone who steps out of the shadows to strike when I am not looking vs. someone who steps around a blind corner to strike when I am not looking?

That's not what I'm saying. Obviously, at the moment in quesiton, the person attacking you is either seen or unseen. The question is "what leads up to that determination?". "Being hidden" means you are in a physical location where you cannot be seen. "hiding" means you are potentially able to be seen, but are doing things to reduce the odds of that.

And, the more pertinent question to what Bob is trying to do, why is the guy who was hiding in the shadows in the hallway when I didn't even know he was there and is now stepping around a blind corner to strike when I am not looking at such a huge advantage over the guy who was acting casually and taking a breather because he (correctly) knew he was already completely out of sight before stepping around a blind corner to strike when I am not looking?

Because you are not taking into account the guy handing around the corner, and what happens when someone walks around the corner. The guy who is "hiding" may still not be noticed, because he's not just around the corner counting on LOS preventing folks from seeing him, but is *also* intentionally standing in deep shadows around that corner. So when the NPC runs around the corner, they will immediately notice the person/people who didn't decide to try to "hide", but may not immediately (or at all) notice the guy who did.

You seem to have this idea that if you are not in a place that can be seen by the NPCs, that there's no reason to use a hide skill. And you seem to even go further to say that since hide isn't needed, you're not even going to allow the PC to use his hide skill in that situation (can't hide unless there's someone to hide from). But, again, this fails in the case of "Me and my friends are standing around in a room, but they are out in the open, and I'm intentionally standing up against the wall, in the shadows, where I may not be noticed as easily". That is still a hide roll. And I would allow a player to decide to do that. What effect it has will depend on a number of other factors, but I will still always allow it.

And yeah, the similar situation: "Me and my friends are walking into a room, but they are out in the open, and I'm intentionally walking up against the wall, in the shadows, where I may not be noticed as easily". These are the conditions you seem to simply disallow in your game. Whereas, if a player wants to do this, states they are doing this, and has an appropriate skill (which in your game actualy might be sneak instead of hide), I would totally allow it. Now, this may only have the effect of "on the first round, the NPCs notice the obvious folks first, and aren't really paying attention to you", rather than "You are completely invisible and may act in any way you want without them noticing you". That's going to depend on what other terrain features are in the room. How deep are the shadows? Are there ceiling supports/collumns? Are there furnishings that this PC, having been not noticed for the first 6 seconds the NPCs became aware the party has entered the room, can now take advantage of to extend that "I'm not noticed" for longer?

They start within a number of paces of the doorway equal to their perception score. This can be inside or outside of the room, although I may veto certain areas that they had no way of getting to.

If the rogue deploys in plain sight, he is observed until he hides.

If the rogue does not deploy in plain sight, he is not observed and can then sneak normally.

Why can't he "deploy" while sneaking? I mean, the entire thing assumes that if he was outside the room he can sneak into the room once combat starts ("not observed, and thus can sneak normally"). Then why can't he be outside the room, and sneak into the room *before* combat starts?

Your entire thing seems to be assuming that the group opens the door and begins walking into and exploring whatever is beyond, and then at some point they notice the NPCs in the room, and the NPCs in the room notice them. Then we roll initiative and start taking actions. So.... why can't Bob say something really sensible like "I'm going into the room, with my fellow party members, but I'm making an effort to stick to the shadows as much as possible, so that if there are enemies in here somewhere, they maybe wont notice me right off the bat".

I guess my follow up is: If Bob could head out on his own and sneak/hide while exploring the room (which I'm assuming you would allow), why can't he do that if the rest of the group is there? This goes to the "binary" nature of this. You seem to be making a determination that Bob can't sneak into the room unless he's the only person entering the room when not in combat. But he can sneak into the room while his fellow party members are in the room, but only once combat has begun. Which is a big "huh?' moment for me. Again, there are different types of stealth:

1. I'm sneaking into somewhere, and I don't want anyone to even know that anyone is there at all (like I'm there to steal stuff or spying or whatever).

2. I'm sneaking into somewhere, and other people are there and being loud and obvious, so I just don't want to be noticed and targeted myself.

Case 1 is fine. I think we all can handle that.

But case 2 is where it appears your going off the rails here. If we've already given up on "no one's aware anyone has entered the room at all", then having the cover of "loud and obvious fellow party members" should make it somewhat easier for Bob to avoid being noticed (at least from a "targeted in combat" pov). And what's strange is that you seem to allow this once combat starts, but not before combat starts. Which makes zero sense to me. And, I suspect, makes zero sense to Bob either.

The only things they can't do are things that require a specific target or situational awareness based on information they don't yet have.

Which was not the case in the example I mentioned previously about Bob sneaking into the room and backstabbing someone. Bob does have awareness to target the person he's backstabbing, yet you required him to make an intitiative roll anyway. That's a "huh?" moment for me.

That wording, combined with other wordings you've used previously, also leads one to suspect that you may also apply this to the hide/sneak ability (you can't use them unless you know who you are hiding from). Again, that's something I somewhat disagree with. To me, the player should be able to use those skills even if he has no clue if there are others around, or where they are. You, as the GM, may then decide based on where the NPCs are, and what their point of view is, what bonuses or minuses they have to spot the person sneaking or hiding.

So yeah. If I stated that I'm going to use my hide in the room, using some crates for cover, then you can decide that "this group of NPCs will have a minus to spot you because of the crates", while "this other group over there has an easier time spotting you, because the crates aren't in the way". It's not me rolling my skill and addding in the crates as a modifier. It's you rolling the perception skill and using the crates as a modifier (and perhaps some modifier based on how successful I was at my hide/sneak skill).

Again though, that's game system dependent. I tend to prefer to use opposed rolls for this, precisely because you can do things like factor in "how much one person succeeded by" (as well as other factors like obstructions) as modifiers to perception rolls to determine who is aware of whom. It actually makes it easier to run. Player say's "I'm hiding". He rolls and tells me how much he made it by (let's say 4 points). So any perception roll has to make it with a -4 modifier to see him. To that, I can make adjustments for how out in the open the person hiding is, how much time the viewer has to try to notice them, and whether there are other things that may distract the viewers attention or block their view. Then I roll the die to see if any given NPC (or group if I want to do it that way) notice the person using the hide skill.

Your method requires that there be prior knowledge of the existence of a group of NPCs, where they are in realtion to the PC, and the factors that apply, and then the player rolls to see if he's hidden successfully. And it also creates these really odd "you can't use your skill until you're aware of who you are using it against" rulings that you seem to be making.

This is only problematic because the rest of the party has decided to ignore the plan and charge in before the signal. This is somewhat realistic I guess, people do panic and jump the gun in stressful situations, but it is really a player problem rather than a rules problem.

Huh? No. It's problematic because you are even allowing the party to roll an initiative roll against Bob in the first place. Bob's action should go first. Period. If the party's statement is "we're waiting until we hear Bob's war cry, and then kick in the door", then they can't actually go before Bob. Ever. How would they know to kick in the door "this round" if they don't hear Bob? This isn't a matter of impatient players "not sticking to the plan". This is a matter of you applying meta-knowledge (the combat is starting), and then dogmatically applying rules (at the start of combat everyone rolls initiative), and not really paying attention to what is actually happening. The PCs have no way to know in which 6 second time period Bob is going to strike, so how well they roll their initiative is meaningless. Why not just have them kick in the door 2 minutes ahead of schedule then? I mean, if your excuse is that they somehow got impatient, why actually wait until the actual same round that Bob attacks?

It does make me curious that you label this as "decided to ignore the plan". You've used that exact language when describing many situations your players have gotten themselves into. And it makes me wonder if these are also cases where you're just requiring them to make mechanical game choices that don't make any sense.

In this case, if you require your players to roll initiative, the assumption is that "we go in the order of intiative". That's literally what you are telling them. So if they kick in the door before Bob attacks, it's not because they didn't "'stick with the plan", it's because you made them roll initiative at the wrong time.

Just don't do that. Have Bob backstab the NPC. Period. Done. Then you roll initiative, giving a bonus for surprise to the PCs, letting them kick in the door and move into the room to attack first if they win. And yeah, meaning that Bob may very well also win that initiative as well, and be able to scoot himself to a less exosed position (or find another place to hide, or whatever). If the plan is "we wait until Bob attacks", then you don't roll initiative until after Bob attacks. Period. Full Stop.

The only way Bob isn't going first here is if he somehow manages to fail both his sneak and his initiative rolls in the same turn, which, while possible (both mechanically and narratively) is extremely unlikely.

We've already assumed he made his sneak though. He's already in the room. He snuck in, right? He's in position. He's got a target. Again. There should be no initiative roll at all here. We should not even allow for "extremely unlikely". The only way you'd roll initiative is if someone else noticed him before he attacks. But that's about making perception rolls out of combat and is an entirely different thing. If Bob gets to the point of "Ok. I'm atacking now" without anyone having noticed him, then he just gets to attack.

These scenarios don't actually come up in game. The players get mad because they fail a dice roll in a normal scenario, and then come up with some insane hyperbolistic scenario that would never come up in actual play to prove that the normal working as intended rules should be thrown out to give them an automatic success in their current situation.

I don't think a rogue sneaking into some location, getting behind someone, and attacking them while they are unaware of them, is an "insane hyperbolistic scenario that would never come up". Do you?

As I said above, the rules work fine for the scenario you are describing, what is screwing the rogue there is not poor initiative rules, but players who don't follow the plan.

Sorry. Wrong. What's causing the problem there is you requiring the rogue to roll initiative at all when conducting a backstab in what is otherwise an "out of combat" situation. The player's are simply following what you are telling them to do. They roll inititive and then act in the order that roll determines. If that creates problems, it's 100% because you are calling for an initiative roll before the event that starts combat has even occurred.

First off, I can't think of any RPGs that do it this way. I guess this goes back to the "I brought it upon myself" problem upthread, but you really aren't arguing against me or my system so much as the concept of initiative rolls in general.

Huh?

The Surprise Round
If some but not all of the combatants are aware of their opponents, a surprise round happens before regular rounds begin. Any combatants aware of the opponents can act in the surprise round, so they roll for initiative. In initiative order (highest to lowest), combatants who started the battle aware of their opponents each take a standard action during the surprise round. You can also take free actions during the surprise round. If no one or everyone is surprised, no surprise round occurs.

This is the specific case we're talking about here. Bob is aware of the NPCs he's about to attack, but the NPCs aren't aware of him. There is no intiiative rolled. He just goes. D&D even has more or less what I was talking about earlier (a "half round" bonus action). IME, most games have some sort of similar mechanic as well.

The only relevant question here is whether just Bob gets the surprise round, or whether the rest of the party (waiting on the other side of the door for Bob's signal) get to engage in said surprise round as well. Now, the rules as written are designed to include the possibility of multiple people on multiple sides of a combat being aware or unaware of what's happening, but in this case, it's actually much simpler. If we decide that "Bob and the party get a surprise round due to their excellent planning, coordination, and execution", then we don't actually need to even roll among them either. We can simply state that Bob goes first (cause, duh). Then someone kicks in the door and moves say 5 feet inside as a free action. Then the rest of the party each take a single standard action (most likely moving into the room) as their surprise round. Then we roll initiative, and start the actual battle. There's no need for rolling for order, because we already know the order they are going (it's Bob, then the order the party is standing on the other side of the door).

Initiative ordering only matters, when it actually matters. Otherwise, it's a useless mechanic. Insisting on rolling it, and then insisting on characters acting in that order, when it's not needed, is counter productive.

I have posted dozens of examples in this thread about situations where it is reasonable to get the drop on someone who is initiating combat from a realism perspective.

The fact that there are cases where is is appropriate to do so, does not mean that there aren't cases where it is not.

I would also point out that pretty much all of those cases involve someone who has made some kind of perception roll and is aware of the person trying to initiate combat. That's absolutely fine. But what about the cases where they are not aware, and not ready? How on earth can someone attack someone else before they are even aware that the other person is there in the first place?

Likewise, this is a fantasy game. There are mind readers. Oracles that can see the future. Vampires that can move so quickly the rest of the world seems to be in slow motion. Chronomancers who can alter the flow of time with a snap of their fingers. Magic swords that move of their own volition or teleport into their bearer's hands. Creatures that can see through walls or see by the vibrations in the floor.

Um... Ok. So what? I'm talking about how you apply your rules when those things are not factors. It's just Bob, hiding behind an NPC that is utterly unaware of him, trying to backstab the guy. You're saying Bob would still have to roll initiative in that situation. To me. That's a huge problem.

Narrative aside, it's not fun or fair to just say that whomever declares an attack first goes first.

If the other guy is completely unaware of the attack until after it happens? Yes. It's completely fair. What is not fair is allowing even the tiniest chance that the NPC, despite not actually percieving Bob at all, could just decide to "run over to the door", again, not because he's aware of or trying to avoid Bob's attack, but because "the GM had us roll initiative, so there's a combat, so I'm running to my combat position instead of standing here with my back to a dark shadowy corner of the room".

If a player decides to make an alert quick-draw fastest gun in the west character, its no fair that those build points are meaningless 90% of the time because someone else decided to attack him.

The fastest quick draw artist in the world can't draw first against someone who he's not aware of until he hears the sound of the other guys gun being fired. Again. Cause and effect. He can't start trying to draw his weapon until after he hears the shot. At which point the other guy's attack has already occurred.

I'll also note you put "alert" in there. Yes. If he notices the other guy, that changes things. But it's not about his quick draw skills. It's about whether he become aware of the threat before the other guy shot at him. It's just strange that you're actually arguing this.

It encourages the players to be super jumpy and shoot everything on sight, because if they give the GM the chance to speak, they could all die before acting.

OMG. Stop strawmanning this. it's not about who says "I attack" first. It's about the out of combat conditions and skill rolls, and what that leads to. if the result is "NPC is completely unaware of Bob, and Bob is in position to attack", then Bob gets to attack before the NPC can do anything in response. Precisely because, since he's not aware of Bob, he can only "respond" once he's aware of Bob, which only happens after Bob attacks him.

And no. It does not encourage players to be jumpy. It encourages players to build characters with decent perception skills to reduce the likelihood of someone getting the drop on them. That's it. If you see the threat before it attacks, you get to roll initiative if/when an attack is declared. If you don't see them, you don't. It's really that simple.

At this point the party would have so many modifiers stacked that it would be impossible for them to fail initiative barring being massively outclassed (for example a bunch of ordinary joes going up against a vampire who can move faster than the human eye can see) or rolling a natural 1 on their initiative roll (and sometimes, people get un/lucky and weird things happen).

Then why call for the roll? The only possible reason to have them roll is for the chance that they fail anyway. And again, at the risk of bringing this back to the actual proposed scenario, it's not actually possible for Bob to go anything other than first, since everything else that can happen happens in response to his action. The PCs don't open the door until they hear his war cry. The NPCs can't counter attack Bob (or the party) until Bob attacks (and/or the party kicks in the door). You are literaly arguing that the "effect" (PC's kick in the door, and NPCs react to being attacked) can occur before the "cause" (Bob backstabs the NPC and gives a loud warcry to tell his party members to kick in the door).

No amount of saying "but I'm giving them a ton of bonuses, so that it's almost impossible for them not to succeed" changes the fact that you are requiring a roll for no reason at all.

At this point you effectively have a D&D surprise round, except that it is actually an emergent property of the rules rather than arbitrary GM fiat.

Um... That (or something similar) is what I've been talking about all along. What I've been trying to get to here is whether your game system has something similar (and if it does, when do you allow it to be used)? That's precisely why I proposed a scnenario which, in D&D would automaticaly grant a surprise round to at least Bob, and perhaps the rest of the party as well.

I suppose giving themselves the option to freely reposition themselves before combat starts is a sort of loss of agency in the "give 'em an inch and they'll take a mile sort of way. If they don't want to reposition, they don't have to, but I can see the argument that if they have time to reposition they should be allowed to do something else instead. The answer, of course, is to take away the free move, not to also give them a free round of attacks.

Or just play out the "Move in the door" like most games handle it. If the players are opening the door, and the NPCs within don't know the PCs are about to open the door, just let the PCs have the equivalent of a "suprise round". Which, usually just means they get to take one action (move/attack/whatever). Then you roll initiative and start the fight.

If the NPCs are aware of the party outside the door, and are waiting for them to open it, then *they* get to immediately act the moment the door opens. They can start positioned on the other side of the door how they want (which could include blocking access to the room), and we just roll initiative at that moment. Which will usually result in the PCs being blocked up in the door way, while the NPCs hit them with melee and missile attacks from within the room.

Alternatively, you can run the party into the room, and if there are hidden NPCs waiting in ambush or something, and the PCs fail to detect them, then you can allow them to walk into the room, down the hallway, whatever, and then the NPCs get a "surpise round" against the PCs. Again. It's always about peception rolls made outside of and before combat starts that determines this. Trying to contrive situations so that an initiative roll is always done before any combat action can be taken just makes things a lot more complicated than they need to be.

It's just not that hard to manage this. I really think you are allowing the game mechanics to get in the way of common sense. I get that maybe you really want this "elegant" initiative system that manages all sorts of different things, including surprise. But the result seems to be a system that allows for some pretty nonsensical outcomes. You really do have to be willing to recognize and allow for situations when an initiative roll just does not need to be rolled to determine who goes first.

Talakeal

2023-08-17, 09:35 PM

So wait, how is that a huge mercy? I don't follow...

Wait, I think I might. Could what you're saying be accurately paraphrased as:

Because this previous time when the PCs did not use their combat actions to move into a room they nearly got killed, I changed from what I consider to be the logical and reasonable default, where opening a door is a combat action for the PCs, to a hugely merciful rule where they can do so for free.

?

The sentiment is correct, but the details are all wrong.

I don't roll initiative until the battle starts. I do not consider it logical or reasonable to start the battle with the doors closed and the PCs outside of the room.

I have always allowed the players to open the door and move into the room before combat starts if they so choose.

The players have the option to stay outside of the room if they so choose, but doing so is, in most cases, a huge tactical disadvantage, as evidenced by an encounter in my last session where they chose to do so and turned a straight forward fight into a bloodbath as a result.

6 on 6? It is hard to storm a defended checkpoint in real life, but not as hard as you're saying, if the "defended checkpoint" is just "a door." Unless the enemies had some serious artillery or equivalent, in which case I'd normally assume your players would be given a chance to figure out a way to deal with that.

When you are a bunch of guys armed with swords and arrows, a door is as serious a chokepoint as anything else.

There are plenty of historical battles where a small group, sometimes even an individual, held off a force many times their size because they controlled the choke-point and forced their enemies to engage them a few at a time.

Telok

2023-08-17, 10:06 PM

The players have the option to stay outside of the room if they so choose, but doing so is, in most cases, a huge tactical disadvantage, as evidenced by an encounter in my last session where they chose to do so and turned a straight forward fight into a bloodbath as a result.

Let me guess: they didn't fall back to try luring the enemy out, didn't try to have the toughest person blitz through to flank, didn't try to acrobat over to flank, didn't close the door, didn't throw grenades or smoke bombs, didn't talk to the enemy at all. Right? Just walk in one at a time and start sucking the 6-on-1 beatings until they fell down?

Talakeal

2023-08-18, 04:49 AM

Let me guess: they didn't fall back to try luring the enemy out, didn't try to have the toughest person blitz through to flank, didn't try to acrobat over to flank, didn't close the door, didn't throw grenades or smoke bombs, didn't talk to the enemy at all. Right? Just walk in one at a time and start sucking the 6-on-1 beatings until they fell down?

They tried most of this, it just didn't work out great.

Heck, they tried the acrobat over the flank and throw in grenades at the same time, with predictable results.

My players aren't terrible at tactics (just communication), and they were able to salvage the situation, but it still required all sorts of unusual tactics just to put the party back to an even playing field.

I'm using non-binary in the sense that a single roll can mean many different things. You seem to be approaching the hide skill as "You use it to hide, using this cover, against this specific group of NPCs".

I'm using it as a general "I'm trying to be less noticeable than everyone/everything else in the room" thing. Which means that whether any single specific NPCs sees and/or notices the rogue is based on a roll, which may have different modifiers depending on where the NPC is, and what they are doing. If you stop and think about it, one does not have to be "perfectly hidden" in a scenario where all you're worried about is for NPCs not to take action against you for the duration of a single 6 second round.

It's like the old adage: I don't need to run faster than the bear. I just need to run faster than you. I don't need to be perfectly hidden from the NPCs. I just need to be less obvious than other people or objects in the room. And only for long enough to <do something>. That's what I mean by "non-binary" hiding.

I don't disagree with any of this, and this is exactly how I would run it.

Again, the only thing I am arguing against is the ability to hide in one location, and then walk to a different location and assume you are still undetectable because you were able to hide before in a different time and place.

And I'd agree that this should not work (cause he's making himself the "most obvious thing in view" when he does that). But is there a middle ground here? Is it possible for Bob to say "I want to advance into the room with the rest of the group, but do so stealthily"? Even if the result is "yeah, they saw you, so you don't get your stealth benefits" (based on some peception roll), having the ability to do this seems reasonable. This goes back to my statement about the "binary" application of this. You are saying "you are either in the room with the group, but can't be hidden in any way *or* you are outside the room and can be hidden".

If you are allowing the rest of the group to advance through the door, and into the room berfore you have them roll initiative and start combat, why can't someone say "I'm advancing into the room, while keeping to the side/shadows, corners, whatever". At least make this a roll that can be attempted, and then apply appropriate adjustments to NPC perception rolls to see if this actually works.

Just saying "you can't do that" is a binary decision.

Agreed.

The door being kicked open is basically a giant flashing warning sign that says "Danger! Look here!". Anyone attempting to sneak through it is doing so at a -20 penalty for being observed.

But it can be attempted, it isn't a binary. Bob's rogue was good enough to pull this off ~70% of the time, but that's not 100% and therefore not good enough.

Once the defenders are distracted and no longer watching to door (for example being engaged by the other PCs) then that penalty goes away.

But again, there is the possibility Bob will be the only front-line PC to pass initiative, and therefore not good enough.

That's not what I'm saying. Obviously, at the moment in quesiton, the person attacking you is either seen or unseen. The question is "what leads up to that determination?". "Being hidden" means you are in a physical location where you cannot be seen. "hiding" means you are potentially able to be seen, but are doing things to reduce the odds of that.

All right then. Again, it seems like we are in agreement.

Bob's satement is that he can hide in the hallway and activate stealth mode which functions like a romulan cloaking device; undetectable until you attack, and then walk into the room. This is what I am disagreeing with.

If he is hiding in the hallway, it will give him a good chance to ambush people walking out of the room, a small chance to avoid notice by people walking down the hallway, and does jack all to help him after he stops hiding and decides to walk into the room.

Again though, he is welcome to try sneaking into the room, but his having used the hide ability first is irrelevant because he was already hidden from view by the wall.

Because you are not taking into account the guy handing around the corner, and what happens when someone walks around the corner. The guy who is "hiding" may still not be noticed, because he's not just around the corner counting on LOS preventing folks from seeing him, but is *also* intentionally standing in deep shadows around that corner. So when the NPC runs around the corner, they will immediately notice the person/people who didn't decide to try to "hide", but may not immediately (or at all) notice the guy who did.

You seem to have this idea that if you are not in a place that can be seen by the NPCs, that there's no reason to use a hide skill. And you seem to even go further to say that since hide isn't needed, you're not even going to allow the PC to use his hide skill in that situation (can't hide unless there's someone to hide from). But, again, this fails in the case of "Me and my friends are standing around in a room, but they are out in the open, and I'm intentionally standing up against the wall, in the shadows, where I may not be noticed as easily". That is still a hide roll. And I would allow a player to decide to do that. What effect it has will depend on a number of other factors, but I will still always allow it.

He can absolutely hide in the hallway.

As I said above, it is an excellent idea if he is trying to ambush or slip past someone as they enter the hallway, and even doable if he is trying to hide from someone else in the hallway with him.

But again, it isn't going to help him sneak into the room in the future.

And yeah, the similar situation: "Me and my friends are walking into a room, but they are out in the open, and I'm intentionally walking up against the wall, in the shadows, where I may not be noticed as easily". These are the conditions you seem to simply disallow in your game. Whereas, if a player wants to do this, states they are doing this, and has an appropriate skill (which in your game actualy might be sneak instead of hide), I would totally allow it. Now, this may only have the effect of "on the first round, the NPCs notice the obvious folks first, and aren't really paying attention to you", rather than "You are completely invisible and may act in any way you want without them noticing you". That's going to depend on what other terrain features are in the room. How deep are the shadows? Are there ceiling supports/collumns? Are there furnishings that this PC, having been not noticed for the first 6 seconds the NPCs became aware the party has entered the room, can now take advantage of to extend that "I'm not noticed" for longer?

If he is with the rest of the group, he is welcome to attempt sneaking, but he is going to suffer the -20 penalty for being observed and / or have to take an action to hide.

He can bypass these restrictions if he waits until his allies have entered the room, but again, there is the possibility that he is the only front liner who passes initiative and won't get his first turn sneak attack.

Why can't he "deploy" while sneaking? I mean, the entire thing assumes that if he was outside the room he can sneak into the room once combat starts ("not observed, and thus can sneak normally"). Then why can't he be outside the room, and sneak into the room *before* combat starts?

Your entire thing seems to be assuming that the group opens the door and begins walking into and exploring whatever is beyond, and then at some point they notice the NPCs in the room, and the NPCs in the room notice them. Then we roll initiative and start taking actions. So.... why can't Bob say something really sensible like "I'm going into the room, with my fellow party members, but I'm making an effort to stick to the shadows as much as possible, so that if there are enemies in here somewhere, they maybe won't notice me right off the bat".

Moving quietly and sticking to the shadows is just so much meaningless blather if what you are mechanically doing is being the first one through the watched door after it is kicked open and going straight for the closest enemy weapons drawn.

But he can absolutely try, he will just do so at a -20 penalty for being observed.

One the other hand, he can also choose to either slip quietly in before or after the rest of the party at not penalty and at no action cost.

And again, if you can stealth at no cost and no penalty and as part of a group, why doesn't everyone, both PC and NPC, do it every time?

But case 2 is where it appears your going off the rails here. If we've already given up on "no one's aware anyone has entered the room at all", then having the cover of "loud and obvious fellow party members" should make it somewhat easier for Bob to avoid being noticed (at least from a "targeted in combat" pov). And what's strange is that you seem to allow this once combat starts, but not before combat starts. Which makes zero sense to me. And, I suspect, makes zero sense to Bob either.

So, imagine you and I are in real life, and we walk into a crowded library together. You really don't want the librarians to notice you, because they know your face and know that you owe a bunch of fines for overdue books.

I slam open the door and walk in, talking loudly. A bunch of people are going to look up and glance in our direction, right?

Now imagine the same scenario, but you are alone, and you quietly open the door and then shut it softly, and then silently tiptoe into the stacks.

Are you honestly telling me that you don't see how the first scenario might not be the more difficult one, even if you are doing your best to stick to the shadows as we walk in together?

Which was not the case in the example I mentioned previously about Bob sneaking into the room and backstabbing someone. Bob does have awareness to target the person he's backstabbing, yet you required him to make an initiative roll anyway. That's a "huh?" moment for me.

No, it's not relevant to that example.

That wording, combined with other wordings you've used previously, also leads one to suspect that you may also apply this to the hide/sneak ability (you can't use them unless you know who you are hiding from). Again, that's something I somewhat disagree with. To me, the player should be able to use those skills even if he has no clue if there are others around, or where they are. You, as the GM, may then decide based on where the NPCs are, and what their point of view is, what bonuses or minuses they have to spot the person sneaking or hiding.

So yeah. If I stated that I'm going to use my hide in the room, using some crates for cover, then you can decide that "this group of NPCs will have a minus to spot you because of the crates", while "this other group over there has an easier time spotting you, because the crates aren't in the way". It's not me rolling my skill and addding in the crates as a modifier. It's you rolling the perception skill and using the crates as a modifier (and perhaps some modifier based on how successful I was at my hide/sneak skill).

Again though, that's game system dependent. I tend to prefer to use opposed rolls for this, precisely because you can do things like factor in "how much one person succeeded by" (as well as other factors like obstructions) as modifiers to perception rolls to determine who is aware of whom. It actually makes it easier to run. Player say's "I'm hiding". He rolls and tells me how much he made it by (let's say 4 points). So any perception roll has to make it with a -4 modifier to see him. To that, I can make adjustments for how out in the open the person hiding is, how much time the viewer has to try to notice them, and whether there are other things that may distract the viewers attention or block their view. Then I roll the die to see if any given NPC (or group if I want to do it that way) notice the person using the hide skill.

Your method requires that there be prior knowledge of the existence of a group of NPCs, where they are in realtion to the PC, and the factors that apply, and then the player rolls to see if he's hidden successfully. And it also creates these really odd "you can't use your skill until you're aware of who you are using it against" rulings that you seem to be making.

That's how I generally do it as well.

But, there can be some weirdness if you don't know who or what you are hiding from.

For example, if I am breaking into a building and I hear someone coming, and I decide to hide behind a stack of crates. That's great, right? But now, imagine there is a security camera located on the ceiling pointed straight at me. Now, the same hiding spot isn't so good anymore. But, if I had known about the camera, I could have just as easilly picked a different crate which wasn't in its field of view.

And then when you add in statements like Bob where he says he hides once in the morning and remains hidden all day (while traveling) or hides in a hallway and should still be hidden when he waltzes into the room, you get an incoherent mess.

But again, we seem to be at 99% agreement here.

Huh? No. It's problematic because you are even allowing the party to roll an initiative roll against Bob in the first place. Bob's action should go first. Period. If the party's statement is "we're waiting until we hear Bob's war cry, and then kick in the door", then they can't actually go before Bob. Ever. How would they know to kick in the door "this round" if they don't hear Bob? This isn't a matter of impatient players "not sticking to the plan". This is a matter of you applying meta-knowledge (the combat is starting), and then dogmatically applying rules (at the start of combat everyone rolls initiative), and not really paying attention to what is actually happening. The PCs have no way to know in which 6 second time period Bob is going to strike, so how well they roll their initiative is meaningless. Why not just have them kick in the door 2 minutes ahead of schedule then? I mean, if your excuse is that they somehow got impatient, why actually wait until the actual same round that Bob attacks?

It does make me curious that you label this as "decided to ignore the plan". You've used that exact language when describing many situations your players have gotten themselves into. And it makes me wonder if these are also cases where you're just requiring them to make mechanical game choices that don't make any sense.

Ok. I am really confused here.

What is this "mechanical game choice"?

Are you under the impression that I am somehow compelling the players to burst into the room prematurely?

You came up with the scenario, you tell me, why did the players burst into the room as soon as their initiative came up rather than waiting for Bob?

Because the only way I can see that happening is if the players chose to do that.

They outroll Bob on initiative, the GM tells them "You are in position and ready to go, but you haven't heard the signal yet, what do you do?" and if they are sticking to the plan, they tell the GM they are delaying and readying an action to wait for the signal. If they decide to ignore the plan and decide that they are bursting into the room before they have heard the signal, how is that on either the GM or the rules?

The only thing I can figure is that you are thinking that my system has OoTS style readied actions which must be declared in advance before the turn and then the players must execute them mechanically, which is very much does not.

Edit: You are also saying its problematic because I am "allowing" the players to roll initiaitve. Which confuses me further. Why shouldn't I allow this? If one of the players says "I am tired of waiting for the signal I am going now!" Why shouldn't they have that option?

We've already assumed he made his sneak though. He's already in the room. He snuck in, right? He's in position. He's got a target. Again. There should be no initiative roll at all here. We should not even allow for "extremely unlikely". The only way you'd roll initiative is if someone else noticed him before he attacks. But that's about making perception rolls out of combat and is an entirely different thing. If Bob gets to the point of "Ok. I'm atacking now" without anyone having noticed him, then he just gets to attack.

In such a scenario, initiative does not matter. If the enemy wins, they have no targets, and can't do anything with their win.

The only way it could matter is if there is some sort of "ticking clock" where every second matters, in which case it could very well be possible that initiative is failed; I have played plenty of stealth video games where I took to long waiting for the perfect moment to strike that I lost my opportunity, and seen plenty of movies where an assassin doesn't get into position in time and misses their window.

But yes, if the roll truly does not matter, than the general rules of the game tell you not to bother making the roll. This isn't a stealth / initiative specific rule, but a general rule of the game.

I don't think a rogue sneaking into some location, getting behind someone, and attacking them while they are unaware of them, is an "insane hyperbolistic scenario that would never come up". Do you?

No. It's the players bursting into the room without waiting for the signal and then blaming the GM for their decision that is weird.

But having a solo rogue waiting to backstab someone is pretty dang rare.

Add onto this that the rogue likely has to roll a natural 1 to fail initiative in this situation, and that there is no consequences for failure, but people are still being worked up about the possibility, and it becomes a weird hyperbolistic scenario.

And, considering that if you succeed initiative by twenty or more you get a bonus attack against a vulnerable opponent, and then you realize the GM is actually doing the rogue a favor by calling for an initiative roll.

The only relevant question here is whether just Bob gets the surprise round, or whether the rest of the party (waiting on the other side of the door for Bob's signal) get to engage in said surprise round as well. Now, the rules as written are designed to include the possibility of multiple people on multiple sides of a combat being aware or unaware of what's happening, but in this case, it's actually much simpler. If we decide that "Bob and the party get a surprise round due to their excellent planning, coordination, and execution", then we don't actually need to even roll among them either. We can simply state that Bob goes first (cause, duh). Then someone kicks in the door and moves say 5 feet inside as a free action. Then the rest of the party each take a single standard action (most likely moving into the room) as their surprise round. Then we roll initiative, and start the actual battle. There's no need for rolling for order, because we already know the order they are going (it's Bob, then the order the party is standing on the other side of the door).

Initiative ordering only matters, when it actually matters. Otherwise, it's a useless mechanic. Insisting on rolling it, and then insisting on characters acting in that order, when it's not needed, is counter productive.

And 99% of the time, this is exactly how it would play out in Heart of Darkness as well, although in HoD the party would get a +4 bonus to their initiative roll on the following turn, so I guess my system is slightly more forgiving than D&D.

Um... Ok. So what? I'm talking about how you apply your rules when those things are not factors. It's just Bob, hiding behind an NPC that is utterly unaware of him, trying to backstab the guy. You're saying Bob would still have to roll initiative in that situation. To me. That's a huge problem.

Why is this a "huge problem"? It doesn't come up often, it's just rolling a single d20, and there are no consequences for failure. To me, that rates as a mild inconvenience as best.

The primary reason to roll here is to see if Bob rolls well enough on initiative to get two turns in a row; which is in effect also how D&D surprise rounds work.

Again, unless there is a ticking clock situation, in which case it is both realistic and interesting for Bob to take too long getting into position and making his strike.

OMG. Stop strawmanning this. it's not about who says "I attack" first. It's about the out of combat conditions and skill rolls, and what that leads to. if the result is "NPC is completely unaware of Bob, and Bob is in position to attack", then Bob gets to attack before the NPC can do anything in response. Precisely because, since he's not aware of Bob, he can only "respond" once he's aware of Bob, which only happens after Bob attacks him.

It's not a strawman, it's a miscommunication.

If you are talking about a situation where one side is completely unaware of the other, then I agree with you, you don't need to make an initiative roll.

But you kept saying "let whomever acts first go first" as a general with no qualifiers, and you said that such situations were the vast majority. Someone else even used the example of a barfight in a saloon where someone decided to draw a gun, so clearly I wasn't the only one who didn't realize you were only talking about hidden characters, and you responded to them and didn't correct them at the time afaict.

Again, I thought you had a huge problem with the whole "group initiative" system I use where initiative is used primarily to see who acts in the first turn, and were suggesting that I replace it with a system where the person who acted first went first.

Speaking of which, I reread my 3.5 PHB, and D&D actually functioned a lot more similarly to my system than I realized, because the DM is supposed to take a single turn for all of their NPCs, and players are allowed to drop their place in the initiative order freely, so it really does boil down to the same thing as HoD most of the time. Can't say if that is still the case in 5E.

Then why call for the roll? The only possible reason to have them roll is for the chance that they fail anyway. And again, at the risk of bringing this back to the actual proposed scenario, it's not actually possible for Bob to go anything other than first, since everything else that can happen happens in response to his action. The PCs don't open the door until they hear his war cry. The NPCs can't counter attack Bob (or the party) until Bob attacks (and/or the party kicks in the door). You are literally arguing that the "effect" (PC's kick in the door, and NPCs react to being attacked) can occur before the "cause" (Bob backstabs the NPC and gives a loud warcry to tell his party members to kick in the door).

If the other PCs win initiative and choose to open the door before the signal, they can do that.

If the other PCs win initiative and decide to delay and wait for the signal, they can do that as well.

In no case does cause ever come before effect.

Um... That (or something similar) is what I've been talking about all along. What I've been trying to get to here is whether your game system has something similar (and if it does, when do you allow it to be used)? That's precisely why I proposed a scenario which, in D&D would automatically grant a surprise round to at least Bob, and perhaps the rest of the party as well.

That's just not my design philosophy.

I prefer a unified mechanic, and I prefer modifiers rather than binary yes / no. It allows for less DM FIAT, and the potential for more interesting and unexpected situations to arise.

As it turns out, HoD and D&D will, in this situation, produce a situation that is effectively identical the vast majority of the time, but I like the possibility of weird outliers to occur, both in terms of player builds and freaky dice rolls.

Or just play out the "Move in the door" like most games handle it. If the players are opening the door, and the NPCs within don't know the PCs are about to open the door, just let the PCs have the equivalent of a "suprise round". Which, usually just means they get to take one action (move/attack/whatever). Then you roll initiative and start the fight.

So, exactly like I do handle it?

Again though, D&D explicitly says you don't get a surprise round if the monster on the other side of the door hears the PCs coming, not knowing when they are going to open the door doesn't factor into it. So unless you have a party of ninjas, my system will actually perform more like your proposed ideal scenario than D&D will.

It's just not that hard to manage this. I really think you are allowing the game mechanics to get in the way of common sense. I get that maybe you really want this "elegant" initiative system that manages all sorts of different things, including surprise. But the result seems to be a system that allows for some pretty nonsensical outcomes. You really do have to be willing to recognize and allow for situations when an initiative roll just does not need to be rolled to determine who goes first.

Does it? What nonsensical outcomes are these?

This is what I mean by insane hyperbolic scenarios; 99/100 times these nonsensical outcomes won't actually come up in play, and even when they are used in arguments people tend to forget or make up weird rules, like the party members somehow being compelled to prematurely enter the room in the example above.

EDIT: Also, rereading my 3.5 DMG carefully, and it makes it abundantly clear that in a dungeon you do not roll initiative or even take surprise rounds until after the door has been opened. One of the examples has a cleric hear orcs, open a door, and then cast a spell on the orcs in the surprise round.

I know it's not terribly relevant to this discussion, but the idea that the combat doesn't start until after the door has been opened isn't some cooky new idea I thought up on my own either.

Telok

2023-08-18, 10:31 AM

They tried most of this, it just didn't work out great.

Heck, they tried the acrobat over the flank and throw in grenades at the same time, with predictable results.

Ha! My guys did that last game too. One person went inside the fight room then the other tossed a stun grenade in and closed the door. Bad guy made the save, PC didn't. We laughed about it. A couple more times and it might become a table in-joke.

So they weren't 100% idiots, just uncoordinated and getting in each others ways. That's fine, happens occasionally

Talakeal

2023-08-18, 05:18 PM

Ha! My guys did that last game too. One person went inside the fight room then the other tossed a stun grenade in and closed the door. Bad guy made the save, PC didn't. We laughed about it. A couple more times and it might become a table in-joke.

So they weren't 100% idiots, just uncoordinated and getting in each others ways. That's fine, happens occasionally

Nah, my players aren’t dumb, just antisocial.

Although locked and hidden doors do inexplicably stymy them for hours at a time…

But still, my point remains that storming a defended doorway is much more challenging than a straight fight.

Lvl 2 Expert

2023-08-18, 05:31 PM

Basically, one of my players played a rogue in the last game, and declared that he was hiding the moment he woke up in the morning, and remaining hidden all day, and that means that he shouldn't have to waste a turn in combat hiding, he should always just open combat with an automatic surprise-round backstab.

For this particular case, let him do that for a day. Then at his next long rest have him find he's infested with ticks, leeches, poison ivy bumps, itchy bits everywhere and maybe a birds nest or two for comical effect. Next time he'll try it in a city, where you can randomly hit him with spider venom, fits of sneezing and all sort of effects from these abandones needles he keeps stepping in all day.

(No, that probably wouldn't be fun to actually try and play out, but it's funny in my head so I'm posting it anyway.)

gbaji

2023-08-18, 11:51 PM

Again, the only thing I am arguing against is the ability to hide in one location, and then walk to a different location and assume you are still undetectable because you were able to hide before in a different time and place.

It's your game rules. I'm responding to you, repeatedly stating that someone can sneak if they are already hidden. Which suggests that if you "hide", then you can "sneak" from that hidden location, to somewhere else. Again. I don't know your system. I can only respond to what you write.

Example:

If he is hiding in the hallway, it will give him a good chance to ambush people walking out of the room, a small chance to avoid notice by people walking down the hallway, and does jack all to help him after he stops hiding and decides to walk into the room.

Again though, he is welcome to try sneaking into the room, but his having used the hide ability first is irrelevant because he was already hidden from view by the wall.

Instead of saying it's irrelevant "because he was already hidden", why not say "because his chance of being spotted when he enters the room is the same regardless of how well hidden he was before". When you use language like this, it makes me assume that there's some function of "hidden" that is relevant here. I get that it shouldn't make a difference, but you've made that connection enough times now, that I'm terribly confused now. Combine that with multiple points where you've focused on "hiding is unnecessary if you are already hidden", it leads me in the direction of the status of "hidden" being important somehow.

But again, it isn't going to help him sneak into the room in the future.

Ok. But I'm pretty sure that previously you said something to the effect that he could not sneak into the room first because then he would be in plain sight, but had to remain hidden outside the room, and then he could sneak in.

I guess the question I'm going after here is whether it's just the timing that is the issue here. You'll allow him to sneak into the room if he hangs back and waits a round or so until the rest of the group has engaged (NPCs are highly distracted and occupied), or if he sneaks in by himself before the group has entered (NPCs are unaware that anyone is around, so aren't on guard), but not if he goes in during the same round that everyone else goes in?

I think that's the point here. Just taken a while to get there. But please correct me if I'm wrong.

If he is with the rest of the group, he is welcome to attempt sneaking, but he is going to suffer the -20 penalty for being observed and / or have to take an action to hide.

He can bypass these restrictions if he waits until his allies have entered the room, but again, there is the possibility that he is the only front liner who passes initiative and won't get his first turn sneak attack.

And yeah. Seems like that's the interpretation. Er... Except you once again put in the "or have to take an action to hide". What does that mean? Hide where? Outside the room? Inside the room? In the doorway? Where is he hiding?

And once again you are indicating that in order to sneak without some huge minus to his skill, he must first hide. Which begs the question: If "hide" and "hidden from view" are the same, then what's the difference between sneaking from a hidden position (around the corner), and sneaking from a different hidden position (behind a potted plant inside the room say)?

If, as you seem to be ruling, the NPCs are hyper aware of the entire party the moment they walk into the room, it seems strange that Bob can "shake them" by ducking behind a potted plant in the room for a round, and then can proceed to sneak around and behind people in the middle of combat. And yeah, this does feel a lot like you're just stacking arbitrary time sinks into using his stealth skills. As a GM I would either rule that "you can't sneak at all in the middle of a combat, because everyone is paying lots of attention to what's around them", or "you can sneak in the middle of combat as long as there are other things occupying the NPCs attention that aren't you". Pick one and stick with it. Allowng a bonus (or at least what appears to be fewer minuses) to sneak, but only if you hide first, just seems... odd to me.

And again, if you can stealth at no cost and no penalty and as part of a group, why doesn't everyone, both PC and NPC, do it every time?

Because it takes effort to do this, and you have to know there's a reason to sneak. You can't just say "I'm sneaking all the time". You can (or should be able to) say "I'm sneaking into the room". And yeah, you can apply restrictions to that if you want, by say restricting where he can move while still sneaking (along one of the walls, standing behind pillars, etc).

In this case, we're talking about a specific action involving a specific location. If Bob wants to stealthily move into the room, why not let him? And sure, you can apply whatever minuses or plusses you want based on conditions that are present.

So, imagine you and I are in real life, and we walk into a crowded library together. You really don't want the librarians to notice you, because they know your face and know that you owe a bunch of fines for overdue books.

I slam open the door and walk in, talking loudly. A bunch of people are going to look up and glance in our direction, right?

Now imagine the same scenario, but you are alone, and you quietly open the door and then shut it softly, and then silently tiptoe into the stacks.

Are you honestly telling me that you don't see how the first scenario might not be the more difficult one, even if you are doing your best to stick to the shadows as we walk in together?

That's not a great analogy. The NPCs aren't looking for Bob specifically, nor do they know what he looks like, or are going to recognize his face. They are assuming that anyone who walks thorugh that door is an enemy to be paid attention to. The question here isn't "Do you see someone you recognize", but "do you remember how many people walked in the door?". And there's a number of psychological studies that show that when an event occurs which draws our attention, we tend to miss anything that isn't just as "loud". You have four people wearing clown suits walk into a room, loudly blowing horns and waving their hands around. At the same time, you have another person just walk in with them and immediately step to the side. Then ask the bystanders: "how many people walked in?". They will all remember the four clowns. None of them will remember the fifth person.

On the flip side, if that fifth person walks in the door, by himself, into a room full of people who are waiting to see if someone walks in the door? Every single one of them will notice the door open, and see the person who came through.

Again. It's not a great analogy, because you are assuming that "people walking in the door" is otherwise a normal thing, and it's just the appearance of one specific person that the librarians are looking out for. But in the actual case we're examining, anyone entering the door is a threat to be responded to. I'd argue that trying to stealthily open the door without the NPCs noticing would be extremely difficult all by itself, much less trying to sneak around in the room.

Doing so with a group of other people drawing the attention of the NPCs seems like it would work reasonably well. Obviously depending on the lighting in the room, whether there are areas to the side he can slip to, etc.

Ok. I am really confused here.

What is this "mechanical game choice"?

Having them roll for initiative before Bob attacks. I thought I was pretty clear about that.

Are you under the impression that I am somehow compelling the players to burst into the room prematurely?

You came up with the scenario, you tell me, why did the players burst into the room as soon as their initiative came up rather than waiting for Bob?

Because you had them roll for initiative.

Don't players normally have their characters take actions in the order their initiative rolls indicate? When you have them roll for initiative, you are instructing them to follow that standard proceedure.

I'm saying: Don't do that. Resolve Bob's attack first and *then* start the combat and call for initiative. Then there's zero chance of the events occuring out of order.

They outroll Bob on initiative, the GM tells them "You are in position and ready to go, but you haven't heard the signal yet, what do you do?" and if they are sticking to the plan, they tell the GM they are delaying and readying an action to wait for the signal. If they decide to ignore the plan and decide that they are bursting into the room before they have heard the signal, how is that on either the GM or the rules?

Again. Why are you having them roll initiative in the first place? They have no reason to think this 6 second period of time is any more likely to be when Bob attacks then the previous 6 seconds, or the 6 seconds that follow, or the one 2 minutes from now. Initiative is to be rolled when an encounter has occurred, where two sides (at least) are in conflict, and are taking actions against eachother, and we need to know what order their actions occur in, right? When the PCs are standing outside the door, waiting for Bob's signal, have they yet encountered NPCs, who are also aware of them, and both they and the NPCs are taking actions against eachother and need to know which order those actions should occur in?

The answer is "no". Those conditions have not yet been met. Therefore, they don't roll for initiative. The PCs are aware of the NPCs in the room (presumably, since they sent Bob in to enact this whole plan, right?). But the NPCs (also presumably) aren't aware of them. The NPCs also aren't aware of Bob either. Ergo, there's no initiative. Only one "side" is aware of the other. But in this case, only Bob is taking an action. Everyone else is waiting fo Bob. Until he attacks, there is no "two sides" to the encounter. There's just one. Once Bob attacks, now the NPCs are aware that the party is there (or at least that Bob is). And since Bob gave his signal while attacking, the rest of the party is now aware that the combat has started and to take actions of their own against the NPCs.

That's why you should never roll for initiative until after Bob's attack. This isn't about the players "ignoring the plan". This is you calling for initiative before there is reason to do so. The players are going to roll if you tell them to, and they're going to go in the order their initiative indicates, since that's just what folks normally do with their initiative rolls. Yes. They could hold their actions (I'm not sure how your rules handle delaying if you won initiative though, so please educate me on this). But again, most players are just going to assume "my initiative comes up. I act". And to be honest, most of the time, it's not going to matter (as you said).

But what about the rare case where it does matter? What if Bob rolls a 1 on his initiative and fails? It's a one in 20 chance, right? So now, we're in the strange territory where Bob is the one initiating the action, and the other PCs are supposed to be waiting for him to attack before reacting, but maybe they all win initiative and he doesn't. So.... Do they delay until he goes? What happens then? Let's imagine that none of them kick down the door, since they're waiting for Bob. Bob can't go yet, cause he lost initiative. Does this mean that the NPCs go first? How? They should be no more aware that an attack is immenent this round as they were last round, or 5 rounds ago. Why are they suddenly leaping to action?

Worse, if this happens, by your own statements, they can't attack Bob (he's still hidden), but they won initiative, so... they charge at the door to attack the party (that they, in theory aren't aware of yet). Er, wait. If, as you have stated, they are also "hidden", then they can't do anything in respose to the party either. So... what happens? The NPCs just stand there for a round, doing nothing? Um... And then Bob sneak attacks, then the party bursts in the door? And then... what? We continue swaping rounds?

There's no benefit to doing it that way. Best case, it affects nothing. But the players will perceive that as them "losing their bonus initiative action". So yeah, the folks at the door would be tempted to just charge in first, berfore Bob has attacked, even though it makes zero sense for them to do that. All because you called for an intiative roll before it made sense to do so.

Edit: You are also saying its problematic because I am "allowing" the players to roll initiaitve. Which confuses me further. Why shouldn't I allow this? If one of the players says "I am tired of waiting for the signal I am going now!" Why shouldn't they have that option?

Huh? The assumption here is that you are calling for initiative to be rolled for the same round that Bob makes his sneak attack. If your interpretation of the other PCs beating Bob and going first is "they got bored", then why not ask them every round for the 10 minutes Bob took sneaking into the room and positioning for the sneak attack "It's been <x seconds> and you haven't heard Bob yet, do you just charge through the door now"? You didn't do that, because you are (rightly) assuming that they aren't going to get bored and just arbitrarily charge through the door before they hear Bob's signal. Why then assume they wait all that time, but then have them roll for initiative before Bob gives the signal?

They are waiting to attack until they hear Bob's signal. Thus, you should wait to have them roll for initiative until... after they hear Bob's signal. Seems very straightfoward to me.

In such a scenario, initiative does not matter. If the enemy wins, they have no targets, and can't do anything with their win.

Yes. That's the point. So why roll initiative? The only possible outcome can be to cause strange "cause and effect" problems in the game. And guess what? If you let Bob attack first and then declare combat started (and roll for initaitive), then Bob actually gets an advantage for having successfully pulled off his sneak attack. He rolls as well, and may very well get to take a second action before the NPCs can react (which can be to move away from the NPCs maybe). Via your method, even if everything goes according to plan, and Bob wins initiative, and everyone else waits for his attack before entering, he now finds himself deep inside the room, when the NPCs get to take their actions, while everyone else is one round action/move inside the door.

But yes, if the roll truly does not matter, than the general rules of the game tell you not to bother making the roll. This isn't a stealth / initiative specific rule, but a general rule of the game.

And yet, when I presented you with a scneario which clearly falls under this general rule, you decided to rule differently. I'm really curious why. I mean, this is as textbook a case of "initiative should not be rolled yet" you can get.

And, considering that if you succeed initiative by twenty or more you get a bonus attack against a vulnerable opponent, and then you realize the GM is actually doing the rogue a favor by calling for an initiative roll.

Then have Bob (and Bob alone) roll for initiative, and give him the bonus if he rolls well enough. Then, have the rest of the party roll intitiative, and enter the room the next round.

Does your game system not have any means to handle combats in which different participants arrive and join the combat at different times? What do you do if the party is in a bar, and one of them goes out to use the privvy, and finds himself in an altercation with some thieves or something who try to rob him, he gets into a fight, and yells for help, then the rest of the party hears this and comes running out a round or two later? Do you make the entire group of PCs roll for initiative on the same first round that the combat started? Or do you have them roll their own intiative when they run outside, see the fight going on, and decide to jump in?

Again. If the rest of the party can't possibly know that a fight has started until after one of their members has already begun fighting, then you should not be having them roll intiative at that point. If you do, then you are going to create all sorts of weird problems with the flow of the combat itself.

The primary reason to roll here is to see if Bob rolls well enough on initiative to get two turns in a row; which is in effect also how D&D surprise rounds work.

Except that's the same if you wait too. If you just let him do the attack "for free", and then roll for initiative, he can win that initiative and then get to take an action again before the NPCs can react. And apparently, if he wins by 20 points, he gets to take two actions before they get to go.

So no. You are taking potential actions away from him by making him roll initiative before he gets to take his sneak attack against an unaware opponent.

The D&D surprise round is automatic. You get if if you are aware of the enemy and they are not aware of you. Always. Then you roll initiative. And if you win, you get to go again before they can react. That's the way the system works.

But you kept saying "let whomever acts first go first" as a general with no qualifiers, and you said that such situations were the vast majority. Someone else even used the example of a barfight in a saloon where someone decided to draw a gun, so clearly I wasn't the only one who didn't realize you were only talking about hidden characters, and you responded to them and didn't correct them at the time afaict.

Huh? I have been absolutely clear that I was talking about situations where one side is aware of the other, and the other side is not aware of them.

That qualifier has always been mentioned, over and over and over in my posts on this topic.

Very first mention:

Oh. And Talakael. I forgot to quote, but you mentioned something about them trying to avoid making initiative rolls in the first place? That's a wholely different issue. A group can (and should) be allowed to cast up buffs ahead of a planned combat, but unless they do something which give them a surprise round, they still have to roll initiative just like their opponents.

Me talking a bit more about "transitioning from non-combat to combat":

Transitioning from "we know about and are preparing for an upcoming fight" to "we're fighting" can be tricky though. One could absolutely argue that if one side knows about the upcoming fight and the other does not, that the first side should have an advantage in the first round (and also arguably an even greater advantage in that they could have spent some time prepping spells ahead of time as well). To me, the best way to handle this is via some sort of "surprise round" method. If both sides know the fight is coming, one can argue that neither should be surprised, but can also argue that the side that actually initiates the fight (kicks in the door, say) should have some sort of initiative advantage (they know exactly when the round is going to start). But then, of course, this can lead to silly player actions like "I'm always reading an action just in case a fight breaks out" sort of thing. I've found most players will just drop that sort of nonsense after a single stern glance, but if they insist then I'll implement some sort of fatigue rule just for them, and just to show them how dumb that is in practice.

At my table, we'll usually manage this sort of thing with a "single initial action" sort of "mini round", which acts as our transition. The initiating side gets to take their actions first, then the defenders can. But they are partial/half rounds/actions/whatever.

This is basically just so that I can "set the stage" for the fight, and simulate that the defenders were unaware of the attackers until they appeared, and that they can't just immediately react (much less react *prior* to them appearing, which is what some initiatve systems can result in). Most game systems have some concept of action points, or half/full actions, so this can usually be wedged into the existing rules without too much difficulty. The idea is to give the initiating side a "small" advantage in terms of position and/or initial attack, but not a "we all get to take a full round of actions before you can do anything", which can be a bit too harsh.

Subsequent rounds can just proceed using normal initiative.

I'll note in this one, I even mentioned (cause I'm apparently prescient!) the potential of some initiative systems allowing the unaware targets to act before the action which they are reacting to.

Why? If the game rules say that initiative is rolled once you take an action that affects an enemy (presumably one capable of doing actions in resposne), then that's what you should do. BTW, I'm totally on board with getting free "you get to go first" actions if you do something that the NPCs have no way of knowing is happening until it happens (Your rogue sneaks up behind someone, they don't detect you, and you backstab them. Or... Your wizard uses some sort of scrying on an enemy from a distance, they don't detect this, and you drop a fireball on them from said distance. Stuff like that). Key point being: You are able to take the action with no possiblity of a reaction from the "other side" until after the action has taken effect.

Yup. Pretty clear with the qualifiers, that you are now claiming I never used.

I'm not sure why this is a problem. Surprise should be based on being aware of what is on the other side of the door. If you burst through a door, planning to attack "whomever is on the other side", it's going to take you about the same amount of time to look around the room on the other side of the door, figure out what enemies are there, where they are, and what to do about them, as it'll take them to realize someone just came through the door and is attacking them. So yeah, everything else being equal in this scenario, then the standard initiative rolls should apply here. By whatever criteria is used for iniitative (faster reaction/recognition/whatever speed), it would seem to exactly apply to this situation.

As a GM, I might give a slight bonus to the folks bursting through the door, depending on what the folks on the other side are doing. If you just entered someone's living room, and they're lounging about, reading a book, eating dinner, chatting about something, whatever, then yeah, there should be some initiative bonus for the folks who actually did come charging through the door ready for a fight. This is, of course, going to depend on how granular your surprise/initiative rules are though. And on the flip side, I would probably put initiative on a more even footing if you actually had guards, on duty, standing on the other side of that door. They're literally doing nothing other than keeping an eye on said door, in case someone charges though it and attacks. And that would be if "they're just on guard, but otherwise not aware someone is about to break in". If the guards actually heard the PCs on the other side of the door first? Yeah. I'd actually give *them* the initiative bonus. They've had time to get out their crossbows/whatever, position themselves defensively against folks coming through the door, and are literally just waiting for the first live body to appear in front of them. That should give them a bonus IMO.

Here I examined a few cases. Note, I specifically stated that surprise can't be used if you aren't yet aware of who is on the other side of the door, and that normal initiative rolls should apply. I then examine potential cases for giving bonuses to initiative based on the different degrees of preparation of the two sides, but note that I did not at all say that in these cases, either side should get to automatically attack first.

You know. Just to avoid confirmation bias here. I'm also quoting me pointing out the cases where you *don't* get to always go first, and consistent with what I've been saying all along.

Yeah. That's a game system bit. Also, I'd strongly argue that the NPC can't roll initiative until he is aware of something to roll initiative for. Which works fine when the stealthy action *is* the initiating action that generates an initiative roll. But yeah, this can create some "odd" effects in other situations.

Example:

Bob is hiding in the shadows, waiting for his party to burst through the door to act, only to discover he rolled poorly on initiative, and the guy he's standing behind waiting to backstab, goes first and runs towards the door before he can stab him.

We can resolve this by just declaring that Bob gets to stab his intended victim before the victim can move (a plausiable ruling). Or we can give Bob a big honking initiative situation bonus (so he'll pretty much always go before his victim), and on the bizarre rare case where his victim somehow manages to still beat him, we can just chalk that up to "yeah, sometimes, you just happen to look away right at the wrong moment, and you were also surprised or off balance when the party burst through the door, and your victim just happend to react super fast, rolled away from you, grabbed his weapons and sprung to a defensive position before you could regain your composure". I can see that being a fair ruling and game mechanic to use as well.

I will say that the only action that should always happen "first" is the one initiating action that every other action is waiting on. That could be the party tank kicking down the door. It could be the rogue stabbing someone in the room. Something will be that "first action" that starts everything. That action (and only that one action) is one I would tend to allow to take effect "first" and without any intiative roll required. Everything else that happens is a reaction time question in response to that action.

And yeah, if I were running a game with an initiative system like that, I would simply determine that "kicking down the door" is not an actual round based action at all. It just happens. Done. Now we roll for initiative and determine the order in which everyone goes after the door is opened (again with possible bonuses depending on the situation and positions of folks involved). I just find that this method can better (and more fairly) simulate the kind of "sudden attack" scenario that many players may want to ochestrate (or may have NPCs use on them).

In this case, I'm actually flipping things around. Bob is the one waiting for the signal to attack, and it's the party outside that is initiating the fight by kicking in the door. Again, this also assumes that the NPCs are unaware of both the party outside *and* Bob. And in this case, I even allow for the possiblity that Bob rolls poorly, and his target moves away so he can't get his backstab, and even accept that as "well, sometimes you blink".

And yes, consistent with my statements all along, when in this situation, the one "initiating action" just goes first. No initiative roll required. Once it's done *then* we start the combat, roll for initiative, and go from there. And also as I've said all along, you really need to do it this way, because otherwise you can have people reacting to that event before the event actually happens.

Yes. It's really really simple. The only time anyone gets to do something against someone else without rolling initiative first is when they are able to act without the other person having any way to know about it until that action occurs. That's just normal "I'm doing stuff, and other folks don't know about it" stuff.

As I stated previously, initiative is rolled the moment that two or more "sides" are acting against eachother and we need to determine exactly which order they each act in. That's it. It has nothing at all to do with an encounter starting. It has to do with direct actions and reactions that we need to track..

Here's me again, making the same point, with the same qualifier.

So yes. If Bob is able to sneak up on someone without them knowing about him, then he should be able to attack without having to roll initiative first. But also yes, if he can't sneak up fully (cause there's no cover maybe), and can only get "close" and must then run a short distance to attack, then the moment he breaks cover is the moment the "combat" starts. We stop at that point, roll initiative (with Bob probably getting some hefty bonus) and move on. This is what I was talking about allowing a "mini-round" or "initiating action" to be done prior to start of a combat, but that this is not a full round action. It's like one move action or one standard action (in D&D terms). So one attack as your "I snuck up behind you and backstab you'. Or one move "I got close and now run up to you". But not both.

Here's me (again) using the same qualifier. And as a bonus, I examine what happens if Bob can't actually sneak up behind someone, and what limits on what you can do "first" could be.

Another way to resolve this is to go from "single initiating action" to "initiating half round" instead. Same deal, Joe kicks in the door. Everyone who is "waiting for the door to be kicked in" gets to take a half round action immediately and in whatever order they want. So the PCs can each take a move action or ranged attack/spell if they want (but not both). If the NPCs are aware of the party and also "waiting for the door to be kicked in" they also get to take a move action or ranged attack/spell as well. Order probably doesn't matter much in terms of "sides", since we can assume that as part of their "waiting for the door to open" the NPCs have already positioned themselves where they want to be, so the only move actions are going to be the party (and they can't also attack that round, so just move where you want to be). The NPCs get to fire a "hail of arrows/spells" at the party. And yeah, in this case, no one gets a defensive bonus if they take any action at all other than just standing there defending themselves. Then you roll initiatve and start the actual combat, having "set the stage" with this initial action.

And here I am exploring a possible resolution method when both sides are "waiting for the intiating action". Note, that while the door being kicked in happens first, everyone who is waiting for it, gets to act immediately as a "bonus half round". Note, that in this case, I'm allowing both sides to take a half round action here, but saying that if there's no conflict in those actions, they can all just be assumed to occur simultaneously. Again, just exploring options here, but you'll note that I absolutely did not say that those who merely declare an action first get to resolve their actions first. Eh. This was also in the side conversation about prepparing a defensive action, so it's a bit off topic. Just included it because even this tangential statement doesn't match up with what you claimed I said.

Um... But there are certainly situations in which someone using stealth should be able to go "first", becuase their attack is occuring before the other guy even knows there's a combat yet (it hasn't started yet). And I would absolutely expect that if I've successfuly snuck up on someone, and backstabbed them, that if there's also some surprise bonus to initiative, I should *also* have a good chance of getting my next action before anyone can react. This goes back to my comments about "initiating events" that start a fight. Those don't use initiative. They occur "before combat starts". So if that initiating action is me backstabbing someone, that action is done. It's not part of the combat. Now we roll initiative and start a new round (the first round of the actual combat).

If you are ruling that Bob's initial backstab (before anyone else is even aware of him) counts as his action in the first melee round, and now everyone else gets to act in reponse, then I'd also side with him that that's an insane ruling as well. I'm again speculating here, but you comment about "getting two rounds" during an ambush suggests this is the exact situation (or at least something very similar).

If you're going even further and stating that once Bob sneaks into position, but before he backstabs, that he and everyone else rolls initiative and all act in that order, then that's even further into "insane ruling" territory. Again, the concept (to me anyway) is not that Bob should "automatically win initiative" in that situation, but that he should not have to roll at all. There is no intiative, since there are not yet two sides both aware of the other and both trying to take actions against each other. it's just him, hiding behind someone, and stabbing them. He always gets to "go first" in that situation. And yes, then combat begins (assuming there are other enemies around aware of what just happened), and that prompts an initiative roll, and yes, Bob could certainly roll better and be able to act again before anyone reacts.

And here, again, I'm using the same qualifier. If one side is unaware of the other, the side that is aware, may take an initial "initiating action" against the other, without having to roll initiative. I even repeat what I've said previously, that initiative is to be rolled only once two sides are both aware of eachother and are taking actions against eachother, and we need to determine the order those actions occur in.

As I've stated repeatedly, this cannot be the case with the first action, because the unaware target has no way to know it's going to happen until after it happens. Thus, initiative should not be rolled. I've been extremely consistent with this.

The only thing that close to me not using the qualifier is here:

If one person (or group) are literally taking an action that "starts the encounter", they are always going first. It can't happen in any other order, since the NPCs are always reacting to what the first group did.

Note that this included the phrase "that starts the encounter". This was specifically to one action starting things off, specifically because the NPCs aren't aware that an encounter is starting until it happens, which was made clear earlier in the same post:

Wait? This is problematic. Let's recall that the scenario I presented was Bob has snuck into the room. He's behind some crates, and close to an NPC whom he plans to sneak attack/backstab/whatever. Bob's plan is to give a warcry when he does this attack, thus alerting the party just outside the room, so they will burst through the door and start attacking immediately afterwards.

This is where I side with Bob. There should be no initiative roll here. Nothing happens until he attacks. He cannot (or should not) possibly ever go anything other than "first".

Note, again, I'm clearly using a case where the NPC is unaware of the attack until it happens. That's the context for "starts the encounter" which I used later.

And yes, you are correct. Someone did mention the whole quickdraw situation (in response to my statement above), and I responded thusly:

Exactly. You've got two groups, both aware of each other, more or less holding actions going "I'm going to draw and shoot when he draws and shoots". Which, yeah makes initiative work just fine for a "who goes first" type thing. That's similar (but from the other direction) to "two groups stumble upon each other and start fighting". In both cases, you have more or less simultaneous actions going on, but for game purposes have to resolve those actions in some order. Who initiated it doesn't matter as much, since neither initiated it as the only "knowing party" so to speak.

But the cases we've been talking about (and the ones that seem to keep coming up in Talakeal's game and causing drama), are specifically *not* those kinds of encounters. In these cases, we've got one party and only one party who is aware of some upcoming encounter, is prepared for it, and initiates it on their own time table and terms (opening the door and charging in, or "backstab the NPC and holler for my team to come in").

Ignoring the bulk of my posts to zero in on this one quote, seems a bit silly at this point, right? Doubly so, since I immediately (and clearly) clarified what I was talking about. Claiming now that I "kept saying" this with "no qualifiers" is more than a bit of a stretch here.

It just feels like we're talking over eachother at this point. You are free to run your game however you want. However, if you run into issues, and post them here, I'm going to observe where there may be rules problems that are contributing to those issues. And here, I'm seeing what I see as a flaw in the way you are handling initiative in your game. You can ignore that if you want, but my advice is that if you handle things the way I recommend, then you wont have problems resolving situations like this in a way that is fair and makes everyone happy.

This does not mean that your players are magically going to become sane reasonable people. But it's probably a good idea not to contribute to the insanty. And IMO, implementing an initiative system that can actually result in people reacting to something they are not aware of, before that thing even happens, falls squarely in the "adding to the insanity" category.

Talakeal

2023-08-19, 01:27 AM

It just feels like we're talking over eachother at this point.

Indeed. It seems like most of the last few posts have just been us misunderstanding one another.

Let me try and say this very succinctly:

Anyone can attempt to hide at any time to become undetected*. If you are actively watched, you suffer a -20 penalty, so you won't be likely to succeed without mitigating factors or a distraction unless you are very good. Hiding is an action.

Anyone can attempt to sneak if they are currently undetected (for any reason, including previously using hide or being behind a wall) to remain undetected. If you sneak through an area that is being actively watched, you suffer a -20 penalty, so you won't be likely to succeed without mitigating factors or a distraction unless you are very good. Sneaking is not an action.

If a door is kicked open, everyone in the room is likely to turn and look at it. The first person through that door is almost certainty going to suffer the -20 penalty for being watched.

The major disconnect at my table is that Bob believes that once he has hidden, nobody should be able to detect him, even if he leaves his "hiding place" and walks through a watched area, and this lasts indefinitely until he attacks.

You are free to run your game however you want. However, if you run into issues, and post them here, I'm going to observe where there may be rules problems that are contributing to those issues. And here, I'm seeing what I see as a flaw in the way you are handling initiative in your game. You can ignore that if you want, but my advice is that if you handle things the way I recommend, then you wont have problems resolving situations like this in a way that is fair and makes everyone happy.

This does not mean that your players are magically going to become sane reasonable people. But it's probably a good idea not to contribute to the insanty. And IMO, implementing an initiative system that can actually result in people reacting to something they are not aware of, before that thing even happens, falls squarely in the "adding to the insanity" category.

That seems like a very odd viewpoint.

Sure, every game system has some issues, and these issues can contribute to a problem.

But coming up with a very strange situation and then saying the RAW is slightly annoying in that situation (not even broken, just slightly annoying) and then assuming those obscure issues that have never actually come up in the game are contributing to issues that have come up in the game is, well, illogical to say the least.

I am kind of curious how your proposed system would handle events occurring in separate rooms though. Or heck, how you would resolve someone getting the drop on the rogue and engaging him prematurely, especially if for whatever reason the rest of the party couldn't hear it.

Again, I think the D&D surprise rules are kind of arbitrary and dumb. They have way too many absolutes. For example, by RAW they run on pure FIAT (the DMG flat out says that while the GM may incorporate roles or skills if they choose, their judgement alone determines who acts in a surprise round).

And likewise, they are so binary. For example, if you are within thirty feet and jump out of the bushes and charge someone, they have a 0% chance of reacting in time. But if they are 35' away, they can react normally, and your ambush provides zero benefit whatsoever over standing in the open. That just isn't fun or interesting gameplay to me.

Edit: Been thinking about this some more, as well as reading some D&D books.

Again, I can't recall ever having had a situation where a hidden character was acting alone, so it's really hard for me to accept that the rules for doing so are causing any issues in my game.

But, in both 3E and 5E D&D hidden characters are required to roll initiative during the surprise round.

If they weren't, there are so many weird scenarios that could cause.

Like, imagine you come across a wounded ally, and unbeknownst to you they are being stalked by an invisible predator. You cast a heal spell on them, and the monster, realizing they are no longer alone, decides to finish them off. Why wouldn't you roll initiative here to see if your spell goes off before the monster's sneak attack does?

Or to use your own scenario, what if one of the guys in the hallway consciously decides he is tired of Bob having all the fun, and actively states that he is going to bust in before waiting for the signal?

What if you are waiting for the rogue to ambush the enemy before joining in the battle, but then either the rogue or the rogue's allies is noticed and attacked first, either by the enemy you were deciding to ambush or some third (fourth?) party you weren't aware of?

What if you already have an ongoing battle where some of the combatants are hidden? Especially if they are on both sides.

Heck, there are also some issues that both methods would face. For example, in HoD you can't use defend until you have spotted the enemy, but if you have spotted the enemy, you still get the bonus against an unseen third party. AFAICT, in D&D you gain no benefit from total defense until you have acted, so you can't use it if you are jumped by a hidden enemy outside of combat, but you can still benefit from it if you are jumped during combat by an unseen third party.

No initiative system is perfect, it's a model for a game, and I can think of plenty of scenarios where doing it a certain way doesn't make sense. I can't say any of them have ever actually happened at my table though. But for regular play that actually comes up, I personally like initiative modifiers for stealth more than surprise rounds, you may disagree. But I don't think that decision is causing any of the issues at my table.

But I do agree that my players are likely to point to some obscure hypothetical situation where the rules would be awkward / dysfunctional as a means of arguing that they shouldn't have to face the consequences of failure in a more normal situation. This kind of exists on the forums to, how many times have you seen someone bring up "but what about Pun-Pun" in a conversation about class balance between the PHB classes in 3.5?

Morgaln

2023-08-21, 08:42 AM

Talakeal

2023-08-21, 05:07 PM

It's actually the other way around; only people with elite times have a chance of outdrawing people with average times. People with elite times are pretty much impossible to outdraw.
The reason is purely mathematical:

The average times for drawing are measured as the time between a signal and the bullet hitting the target. Which mean, all measured drawing times include reaction time (RT) and shooting time (ST).
So in order to determine who would win in a modern contest of people who do fast drawing as sport you would compare the time of the first person (RT1 + ST1) to the time of the second person (RT2 + ST2). If one person is a little bit faster than the other, they will win the contest (provided they hit the target, of course).

However, a duel works differently; the first person who draws doesn't have reaction time, as they don't react to anything. They decide to draw at some time. So their overall time is (ST1). For the second person, they are reacting to the first person, so the first person drawing is their signal to start drawing. Which means their time is (RT2 + ST2), starting the moment the other person draws. So they will always be their RT behind the first person.

In order for the second person to outdraw the first, their (RT + ST) would have to be faster than the first person's ST. This is only possible if they vastly outclass person 1

Agreed. That is what I what I was trying to say.

This was in response to what I incorrectly thought Gbaji was saying, that the person who initiates the combat always goes first, to which I said it is possible to get a shot off on someone who draws first if you outclass them. But Gbaji has since clarified that he was only talking about in the case of a hidden opponent.

Thane of Fife

2023-08-21, 06:01 PM

Talakeal

2023-08-21, 06:51 PM

Just out of curiosity, Talakeal, how would you handle the situation where new enemies joined a fight already in progress?

That is, we can imagine the PCs bursting into a room to attack some guards, and then one of the guards raises an alarm, and a few rounds later (while the fight is still ongoing) more guards arrive in the room to back-up the ones that the PCs are already fighting.

Supposing that it's a silent alarm or something, and the PCs are not aware that these new guards are coming, how would you slot them into the turn order? Would it change if the PCs were aware of the alarm but did not do anything to prepare?

Generally, I place reinforcements (and summons) on the board during their side's turn, but do not let them act until their side's following turn, giving those on the board one turn to respond to them.

Of course, if they snuck onto the board, they couldn't be targetted.

It might make more sense to allow them an initiative test to act in the turn they arrived though. Hm...

gbaji

2023-08-21, 08:30 PM

If a door is kicked open, everyone in the room is likely to turn and look at it. The first person through that door is almost certainty going to suffer the -20 penalty for being watched.

Sure. I've acknowledged that. But what about the second person? Or the third? Or the fourth? What if the first two or three people charge into the room, brandishing weapons, and yelling warcries, and then a additioinal person surrepticiously slips in along the wall, staying quiet and keeping to the shadows? I guess maybe my issue is with the very singular (-20) adjustment here. And that's maybe why I keep calling it a "binary" methodology, since it seems like it's either "people are looking in this direction, so you have the maximum negative" or "No one's looking that direction, so you are fine". To me, there can and maybe should be ranges in between based on the specific conditions and stated actions.

But coming up with a very strange situation and then saying the RAW is slightly annoying in that situation (not even broken, just slightly annoying) and then assuming those obscure issues that have never actually come up in the game are contributing to issues that have come up in the game is, well, illogical to say the least.

Except that the "strange condition" I outlined is a case example. It applies to any situation in which one person is initiating an action and everyone else is either waiting for that action to be made, or is unaware of the action until it is made. And to me, this is far more common than you seem to think. It's just a placeholder, that I'm trying to make as absolutely obvious as possible as to what the "correct" answer is.

I am kind of curious how your proposed system would handle events occurring in separate rooms though. Or heck, how you would resolve someone getting the drop on the rogue and engaging him prematurely, especially if for whatever reason the rest of the party couldn't hear it.

For the first, you handle them separately. That doesn't mean that you can't also go round by round back and forth, but until someone in one room actually states that they're going to move into the other, it really doesn't matter. Obviously, if there's any chance of interaction, then you should handle both round by round. But if I'm managing two different fights on opposite sides of the city, that just happen to occur at the same time, I'll probablky just do one and then the other. Again, it's all dependent on whether it's possible for one to interact with the other.

As to the second, first there would be perception rolls involved. If someone spots Bob, but Bob doesn't realize he's been spotted, then now Bob is the "unknowing party", and the guy sneaking up beyind him is the one initiatiing the fight. The NPC gets to take a surprise attack on Bob, we resolve that, then Bob and anyone who is aware that the attack just occurred get to roll initiative. So if Bob yells out while being attacked, the folks on the other side of the door may hear and charge in, so they roll initiative now. If not, just Bob does (your system is asymetrical in that only the PCs roll initiative, right?). Then we resolve the fight between "Bob and the room full of NPCs". Assuming at some point Bob yells out and/or the party hears the scuffle going on and burst into the room, then at that point they roll initiative when coming in, exactly as the would if entering normally. Which could result in them getting some additional bonus action or whatever your system allows.

Again, I think the D&D surprise rules are kind of arbitrary and dumb. They have way too many absolutes. For example, by RAW they run on pure FIAT (the DMG flat out says that while the GM may incorporate roles or skills if they choose, their judgement alone determines who acts in a surprise round).

Eh. GM fiat often works better than dogmatically applied die rolls IMO. And this would seem to be one of those cases. I've been habitually applying GM fiat for this for decades and have literally never once had someone become upset at the way I've handled things. Heck. I do this for just about every system I play, regardless of what their specific initiative rules say. If one side is unknown to the other and takes the initiating action, I just always resolve that one action first. Then we go into whatever the normal rules for starting combat are. To me, that's how you transition from non-combat to combat. At some point, we have to figure out where narrated actions by the PCs stop, and rolled interactions with the NPCs start. And for me, that should always start *after* the point at which both sides are aware hostilities have begun. Otherwise, you can get odd cases where the unaware "side" technically gets to act first. Or the folks waiting outside the door can act before they hear the call to battle from the other side.

And likewise, they are so binary. For example, if you are within thirty feet and jump out of the bushes and charge someone, they have a 0% chance of reacting in time. But if they are 35' away, they can react normally, and your ambush provides zero benefit whatsoever over standing in the open. That just isn't fun or interesting gameplay to me.

Of course they have a chance. That chance is rolled out of combat via perception roll. If they didn't notice the folks hiding in the bushes until after the folks in the bushes jump out and attack them, then yeah, the folks jumping out should get to go first. That's somewhat the point of an ambush. And yeah, there is going to be a distance factor to this, where if their ambush spot is too far away, then even if they got surprise, by the time they get to their opponents, said opponents will have time to react, defend theselves, whatever.

I guess it's just strange that you make this point and say that ambushing from 35' away is useless, but your rules makes ambushing at any distance potentially useless.

Um... You're also missing that I tend to apply a "half round" (or single standard action in D&D terms) to the "surprise round" (which, btw is exactly what D&D does). So if your ambush spot is 30' away (or technically any farther than the 5' free movement action in D&D), you are spending your surprise action moving to the opponent. You don't get to move and attack. So an ambush either must be from very close distance (which would usually be a rogue sneaking up behind someone type scenario) *or* at a distance, but using ranged weapons for the first attack. Otherwise, the only thing you get from it is the ability to position yourself first.

Again, I can't recall ever having had a situation where a hidden character was acting alone, so it's really hard for me to accept that the rules for doing so are causing any issues in my game.

You've never had a sneaky type go up ahead of the party to scout things out, and then come across something and taken some action by himself that then draws the rest of the group into the battle? Huh. Happens all the time in my game. Is it possible that the reason this doesn't happen in your game is because your rules (or your rulings) make this into something that is not worth doing? Again, from your descriptions, your party seems adverse to any form of scouting or information gathering at all anyway, but to me this is a scenario (or at least type of scenario) that happens all the time.

But, in both 3E and 5E D&D hidden characters are required to roll initiative during the surprise round.

Except that in the surprise round rules I quoted, only the "aware of the opponents" characters get to act, and they roll initiative to see what order they act in. But in the scenario we're discussing only Bob is aware of the opponents and is taking action. The rest of the party is on the other side of a door, waiting for his signal. So only Bob gets a surprise round, so while I suppose we could have him roll initiative, there's no real point in doing so. At the very least, he should not be rolling initiative against anyone else (allowing for your rules which provide benefits for winning initiative with a high enough roll). Though, again, I'd just have Bob do his one action (backstab the person in front of him, and yell for help). Then we start the combat proper, and the entire party rolls initiative the next round. It's by far the most direct and simple way to handle this.

Like, imagine you come across a wounded ally, and unbeknownst to you they are being stalked by an invisible predator. You cast a heal spell on them, and the monster, realizing they are no longer alone, decides to finish them off. Why wouldn't you roll initiative here to see if your spell goes off before the monster's sneak attack does?

Is the healer aware of the invisible NPC? No. So no intitiative is rolled. How could it be? The PC doesn't know there's an NPC hanging around waiting to attack, and therefore doesn't know they are in any sort of hurry. I mean, this is a normal non-combat situation. How do you resolve that anyway? If the NPC doesn't decide to attack until after the heal spell is cast, then the heal spell is cast first. If the NPC notices the second PC show up and head towards their prey, they may just attack first (depending on where they are). In any situation where there's an unknown opponent and a decision about when that opponent attacks, then this is just some combination of non-combat rolls. I would never use initiative to resolve this, if for no other reason than the very act of having the player roll initiative tells them there's an enemy in the area, so they may rush their spell, or do something other than what they were doing to do. Assuming they literally can't know the invisible opponent is there until it attacks, then the only thing is for the GM to determine if that attack occurred before or after the heal.

And yeah. That's 100% up to GM fiat. I'm not sure why that's a problem. The PC literally has no reason to think there's a hurry here.

Or to use your own scenario, what if one of the guys in the hallway consciously decides he is tired of Bob having all the fun, and actively states that he is going to bust in before waiting for the signal?

Then why assume that happens the same moment that Bob attacks? If someone outside the room gets impatient, then that is, again, a non-combat decision. And it's one that initiates combat. So the guy kicking in the door, just kicks in the door (assuming that's his "action", then maybe he walks 5' into the room or something, depending on game rules being used). If the rest of the folks outside are in agreement (and equally impatient), then they also get to take a "suprise action", because they were ready for the door to be kicked in and coordinating their actions. Bob, inside the room, is not. He's just as surprised when the door opens as the NPCs are.

Again. Not a trick question and easy to resolve. The person or people who knowingly initiate action get to take the first action(s). Everyone who is aware of the potential of that action and are stated as waiting/ready for it (like if Bob was instead waiting for the party to kick in the door, or the NPCs heard the party outside and are standing around the door waiting for the immenent attack), also get to act. And if this includes members of opposing "sides", then they all roll initiative. And yeah, there's a few variations in terms of how to handle this. You could call the door kicking the "initiating action", and then call for an inititative roll, giving all prepared people a bonus. Or you could allow everyone who is prepared to get a surprise round (half round). But you pick one, and stick with it.

But IMO, what you never do is call for initiative before resolving the event that triggered initiative in the first place. In the example above, no matter what method we use, the person who actually kicks in the door always goes first. Has to. That's the event that starts everything off. Same deal with Bob on the inside. His backstab always has to go first, because that's what everyone else is reacting to.

What if you are waiting for the rogue to ambush the enemy before joining in the battle, but then either the rogue or the rogue's allies is noticed and attacked first, either by the enemy you were deciding to ambush or some third (fourth?) party you weren't aware of?

Again. That's a non-combat decision then. It's entirely possible that in the several minutes it takes Bob to sneak into the room and position himself behind a nice juicy target, a random group of wandering monsters comes up beyind the party and a fight breaks out. Eh... So what? How do you handle a wandering monster encounter? You just do that, but only with the party outside. Now yeah, maybe Bob and the NPCs inside the room hear the fight outside. Then they get to decide what to do. Which could be Bob deciding to backstab. Or maybe he just stays hidden and waits. Maybe the NPCs start arming themselves and heading to the door to attack whomever is causing a ruckus on their front doorstep? Dunno. That's for the GM to determine.

And yeah, I think I already covered the case if Bob is spotted and attacked in the room earlier. Same deal.

What if you already have an ongoing battle where some of the combatants are hidden? Especially if they are on both sides.

I'm not sure how that matters. If Bob is hidden, but lets say not in position to attack, and his party gets bored and bursts though the door, we resolve that based on them bursing through the door. But Bob doesn't get to roll initiative with the rest of the party (in your system) because he wasn't actually waiting for that as his signal to act. As I mentioned above, Bob is just as surprised by this as the NPCs. He can, of course, continue to skulk around in the shadows waiting to attack. And if it's 2 rounds later, who cares? Two rounds later, he's positioned and jumps out from his hiding place and backstabs someone. I'm not sure what the deal is. The biggest problem is that the NPCs are in combat mode, while those hiding are not. So they're likely going to be moving around each round, which can make it difficult to get the drop on them. Then again, I would assume that someone hidding could just ready/hold an action like "I'm going to stab anyone who walks by my hiding spot". Again, I don't know if your game has AoO rules or not, but I'd apply them here (or just say "yeah, you can interrupt their movement and attack cause you've been waiting to do just that"). And then we move on.

I think maybe part of the problem is that you're trying to hard code rules to fit every possible situation. I've found that more broad/general rules, even ones that are "GM decides what makes the most sense", often tend to actually work better.

Heck, there are also some issues that both methods would face. For example, in HoD you can't use defend until you have spotted the enemy, but if you have spotted the enemy, you still get the bonus against an unseen third party. AFAICT, in D&D you gain no benefit from total defense until you have acted, so you can't use it if you are jumped by a hidden enemy outside of combat, but you can still benefit from it if you are jumped during combat by an unseen third party.

That's game system specific though. Most games have some kind of significant negative if you are caught unawares. Which I would include (at a minimum) something like "you don't get the total defense bonus against this attack". IIRC, our earlier discssuion about the total defense option was whether you could take that action in preparation for an attack you expect to come in the future (I'm opening a door, and expect a hail of arrows from the enemies on the other side). That's not the same as having an "unseen enemy" attack. If the person is actually using some kind of stealth or invisibility and doing some sort of backstab attack, then yeah, you should not be allowed to defend against that. But if "unseen enemy" just means "wasn't seen until he ran around the corner and attacked, but is otherwise fully visible", then I'd say that the character gets to use their defense against them. The assumption is that you are in combat, aware that you are fighting, aware that there are enemies around, and actively defending against anything that may come up and try to attack you. You are allowed to look in multiple directions during a single round, and be aware of things happening in those multiple directions. So unless the NPC is using some abilities to thwart the normal level of "I'm looking around me and defending against anything that attacks", then I'm not sure why they wouldn't get the defensive bonus.

Again. I think you are being far too literal with your rules interpretations. You always have to allow for common sense.

No initiative system is perfect, it's a model for a game, and I can think of plenty of scenarios where doing it a certain way doesn't make sense. I can't say any of them have ever actually happened at my table though. But for regular play that actually comes up, I personally like initiative modifiers for stealth more than surprise rounds, you may disagree. But I don't think that decision is causing any of the issues at my table.

But I do agree that my players are likely to point to some obscure hypothetical situation where the rules would be awkward / dysfunctional as a means of arguing that they shouldn't have to face the consequences of failure in a more normal situation. This kind of exists on the forums to, how many times have you seen someone bring up "but what about Pun-Pun" in a conversation about class balance between the PHB classes in 3.5?

Again. I'm not present in the room when these "obscure hypotheticals" are brought up. But there is such a thing as "reductio ad absurdum". A player may be presenting a clear hypothetical case, not because that's the exact case at hand, but to illustrate that the methodology you are using to make a ruling doesn't make sense when taken to a logical extreme. Responding to that with "but that's not what's happening, so it doesn't matter" somewhat misses the point. The point is to argue that your rules don't work well, and to illustrate that (as I did) by taking a clear case where the exact faliure in question applies without any ambuguity. The actual case at hand may be much more nuanced, but from your players perspective may still fall into a "this doesn't make sense" or "this doesn't seem fair" category.

I can't say for sure that is happening, but I also wouldn't just dismiss their concerns out of hand either.

Talakeal

2023-08-21, 11:24 PM

Sure. I've acknowledged that. But what about the second person? Or the third? Or the fourth? What if the first two or three people charge into the room, brandishing weapons, and yelling warcries, and then a additional person surreptitiously slips in along the wall, staying quiet and keeping to the shadows? I guess maybe my issue is with the very singular (-20) adjustment here. And that's maybe why I keep calling it a "binary" methodology, since it seems like it's either "people are looking in this direction, so you have the maximum negative" or "No one's looking that direction, so you are fine". To me, there can and maybe should be ranges in between based on the specific conditions and stated actions.

It depends on whether or not the enemies left someone whose sole job it is to watch the door and do nothing else. In that case you are watched by those enemies, and those enemies alone. The enemies who reacted

Mechanically, its really super simple. If the rogue delays, they don't have to worry about this ambiguity, and they have the added benefit of going for flanking and picking off wounded monsters so they can't raise the alarm. But again, Bob has to go *first* which creates a situation he finds unfair and unrealistic.

I am kind of puzzled by the fact that in this case you dislike a binary modifier, but then in all other cases seem to support D&D's binaries which run purely on FIAT and don't even care what the dice say.

Except that the "strange condition" I outlined is a case example. It applies to any situation in which one person is initiating an action and everyone else is either waiting for that action to be made, or is unaware of the action until it is made. And to me, this is far more common than you seem to think. It's just a placeholder, that I'm trying to make as absolutely obvious as possible as to what the "correct" answer is.

Ok, but what is actually the problem in your example?

Is it the annoyance of having to physically roll the dice when there is no consequence for failure? Because A: D&D has that too, and B: you are doing it to see if you get a critical.

Is it the meta-gaming? The other PCs can potentially steal Bob's spotlight by bursting in the door just before he is in position? That's cheating, because the rules say you act on in character knowledge.

Is it poor teamwork and impatience? Because that's an RP/OOC issue that has nothing to do with the initiative rules.

Is it something else I am still not understanding?

Also, you probably said this earlier, but are the other PCs aware of the enemies in the room? Because if so, they would get to act in the surprise round and potentially beat the rogue on initiative in D&D too. If not, then they would receive no benefit in D&D, despite having a pre-arranged signal. I still prefer my rules in either case.

If someone spots Bob, but Bob doesn't realize he's been spotted, then now Bob is the "unknowing party", and the guy sneaking up beyind him is the one initiatiing the fight. The NPC gets to take a surprise attack on Bob, we resolve that, then Bob and anyone who is aware that the attack just occurred get to roll initiative. So if Bob yells out while being attacked, the folks on the other side of the door may hear and charge in, so they roll initiative now. If not, just Bob does (your system is asymetrical in that only the PCs roll initiative, right?). Then we resolve the fight between "Bob and the room full of NPCs". Assuming at some point Bob yells out and/or the party hears the scuffle going on and burst into the room, then at that point they roll initiative when coming in, exactly as the would if entering normally. Which could result in them getting some additional bonus action or whatever your system allows.

Ok, but who strikes first? Bob wants to ambush the enemies, and the monster stalking bob wants to ambush bob. How do you determine resoltion?

In both Heart of Darkness and D&D, you would resolve this with initiative. Barring that (or some similar mechanic), we are back to just letting whichever player shouts out their attack first, which I hope we agree creates a toxic play environment.

But, in D&D, you could have an even weirder situation where Rogue A sees and wants to attack Rogue B, Rogue B sees and wants to attack rogue C, Rogue C sees and wants to attack Rogue A. But Rogue C doesn't see rogue B, and Rogue A doesn't see Rogue C. With a D&D style surprise round, I can't think of any way to resolve this situation, but in Heart of Darkness its fairly simple and straightforward.

Except that in the surprise round rules I quoted, only the "aware of the opponents" characters get to act, and they roll initiative to see what order they act in. But in the scenario we're discussing only Bob is aware of the opponents and is taking action. The rest of the party is on the other side of a door, waiting for his signal. So only Bob gets a surprise round, so while I suppose we could have him roll initiative, there's no real point in doing so. At the very least, he should not be rolling initiative against anyone else (allowing for your rules which provide benefits for winning initiative with a high enough roll). Though, again, I'd just have Bob do his one action (backstab the person in front of him, and yell for help). Then we start the combat proper, and the entire party rolls initiative the next round. It's by far the most direct and simple way to handle this.

By RAW in Heart of Darkness, 3.5 D&D, and 5E D&D, Bob (and everyone else) must roll initiative during the surprise round.

It might be easier to roll initiative each round as people are allowed to act, but I don't really see an issue either one way or the other.

I'm not sure how that matters. If Bob is hidden, but lets say not in position to attack, and his party gets bored and bursts though the door, we resolve that based on them bursing through the door. But Bob doesn't get to roll initiative with the rest of the party (in your system) because he wasn't actually waiting for that as his signal to act. As I mentioned above, Bob is just as surprised by this as the NPCs. He can, of course, continue to skulk around in the shadows waiting to attack. And if it's 2 rounds later, who cares? Two rounds later, he's positioned and jumps out from his hiding place and backstabs someone. I'm not sure what the deal is. The biggest problem is that the NPCs are in combat mode, while those hiding are not. So they're likely going to be moving around each round, which can make it difficult to get the drop on them. Then again, I would assume that someone hidding could just ready/hold an action like "I'm going to stab anyone who walks by my hiding spot". Again, I don't know if your game has AoO rules or not, but I'd apply them here (or just say "yeah, you can interrupt their movement and attack cause you've been waiting to do just that"). And then we move on.

Is the high-lighted above a typo? Because AFAICT he would get an initiative role in Heart of Darkness but not in D&D (well, in D&D he would get a role, but couldn't act due to surprise).

The biggest problem is that the NPCs are in combat mode, while those hiding are not. So they're likely going to be moving around each round, which can make it difficult to get the drop on them.

You know, this is one of the biggest reasons why failure on initiative would make sense for someone hidden; they wait too long for the perfect moment to strike that their opportunity passes and their target moves out of range or otherwise does something to foil the ambush. I know in video games getting the timing right is probably the hardest part of an ambush, and I don't see why it would be any different IRL.

Of course they have a chance. That chance is rolled out of combat via perception roll. If they didn't notice the folks hiding in the bushes until after the folks in the bushes jump out and attack them, then yeah, the folks jumping out should get to go first. That's somewhat the point of an ambush. And yeah, there is going to be a distance factor to this, where if their ambush spot is too far away, then even if they got surprise, by the time they get to their opponents, said opponents will have time to react, defend theselves, whatever.

They are hidden. They are silent and motionless, either in total darkness, behind a curtain, or camouflaged. You do not see them until they start moving. But, at the same time, you are looking right at them with weapons drawn.

At <30' away, you have 0 chance to react quickly enough to do anything about it.

At >30' away, their ambush was meaningless and they have no better chance of catching you by surprise and attacking first than if it were a showdown at high noon.

I guess it's just strange that you make this point and say that ambushing from 35' away is useless, but your rules makes ambushing at any distance potentially useless.

The key word there is *potentially*. Which is why I prefer dice modifiers to DM FIAT, they allow for things that could come up to influence the odds, without negating them entirely.

Um... You're also missing that I tend to apply a "half round" (or single standard action in D&D terms) to the "surprise round" (which, btw is exactly what D&D does). So if your ambush spot is 30' away (or technically any farther than the 5' free movement action in D&D), you are spending your surprise action moving to the opponent. You don't get to move and attack. So an ambush either must be from very close distance (which would usually be a rogue sneaking up behind someone type scenario) *or* at a distance, but using ranged weapons for the first attack. Otherwise, the only thing you get from it is the ability to position yourself first.

D&D allows the "partial charge" action to move and attack in the same round.

And, Heart of Darkness also allows people to place their models and reposition when combat starts, so if you are playing without partial charge, they resolve pretty much the exact same and I don't know what all the feuding and fussing is about.

Is the healer aware of the invisible NPC? No. So no intitiative is rolled. How could it be? The PC doesn't know there's an NPC hanging around waiting to attack, and therefore doesn't know they are in any sort of hurry. I mean, this is a normal non-combat situation. How do you resolve that anyway? If the NPC doesn't decide to attack until after the heal spell is cast, then the heal spell is cast first. If the NPC notices the second PC show up and head towards their prey, they may just attack first (depending on where they are). In any situation where there's an unknown opponent and a decision about when that opponent attacks, then this is just some combination of non-combat rolls. I would never use initiative to resolve this, if for no other reason than the very act of having the player roll initiative tells them there's an enemy in the area, so they may rush their spell, or do something other than what they were doing to do. Assuming they literally can't know the invisible opponent is there until it attacks, then the only thing is for the GM to determine if that attack occurred before or after the heal.

No, they aren't aware of the hidden monster. But they do see their ally dying, and are trying to heal them as quickly as possible.

I think this might be the source of the disagreement between you and I (and maybe also between Bob and I?) is that you are seeing initiaitve as the divide between combat and non-combat, whereas I see it as a tool used to determine reaction times and action order.

Not only would I use initiative to determine how fast the healer can get their spell off in the above example (out of curiosity, what "non-combat roll" would you use for that?), but I would also use it to see who can escape from a collapsing building in time, or who can pickpocket a mark first, or who is the first in line when the dinner bell rings.

Again. I think you are being far too literal with your rules interpretations. You always have to allow for common sense.

Funny, Quertus said the exact opposite upthread.

But yeah, I agree, the GM should be allowed to step in and ignore the rules in favor of common sense if something truly absurd happens. Which is why such absurd examples shouldn't be used to point out flaws in the rules (see below).

Again. I'm not present in the room when these "obscure hypotheticals" are brought up. But there is such a thing as "reductio ad absurdum". A player may be presenting a clear hypothetical case, not because that's the exact case at hand, but to illustrate that the methodology you are using to make a ruling doesn't make sense when taken to a logical extreme. Responding to that with "but that's not what's happening, so it doesn't matter" somewhat misses the point. The point is to argue that your rules don't work well, and to illustrate that (as I did) by taking a clear case where the exact faliure in question applies without any ambiguity. The actual case at hand may be much more nuanced, but from your players perspective may still fall into a "this doesn't make sense" or "this doesn't seem fair" category.

I can't say for sure that is happening, but I also wouldn't just dismiss their concerns out of hand either.

Any most of these reductio absurdums are irrelevant to actual game play because they rely on weird rulings and ignore not only the context, but basic rules like players not being allowed to metagame or the DM only calling for dice roles when success is in question and failure is interesting. Saying "I don't want to drive the Toyota to work because it isn't fast enough to compete in NASCAR" isn't actually a logical argument and making it doesn't actually prove anything.

I see them a lot arguing against very forms of fumble rules. People take the rules meant for dramatic action scenes and apply them to everyday life to show how absurd they are. For example, a character rolls a natural 1 and auto misses, and then demand to know why people aren't falling over their own feet while walking every 20th step. Or take rules that give a 1/1000 chance of shooting an ally in the back, and say that in an average day of training, each army must have dozens of fatalities from friendly fire accidents on the shooting range.

Again, your example above seems to be a weird edge case (again though, I can't actually tell what you think the dysfunction is, because to my eyes by RAW it is working as intended).

You've never had a sneaky type go up ahead of the party to scout things out, and then come across something and taken some action by himself that then draws the rest of the group into the battle? Huh. Happens all the time in my game. Is it possible that the reason this doesn't happen in your game is because your rules (or your rulings) make this into something that is not worth doing? Again, from your descriptions, your party seems adverse to any form of scouting or information gathering at all anyway, but to me this is a scenario (or at least type of scenario) that happens all the time.

Very rarely. And the few times I can, it didn't end well regardless of initiative.

First off, nobody in my group much likes playing rogues, so often we don't have one. (Oh boy, its a tangent, but do I have a horror story about the time they tried to get the monk to scout because they lacked a rogue).

And of course, as you pointed out, my players are extremely averse to information gathering of any type, be it scouting, research, scrying, divination, or talking to NPCs.

I would say the rules/rulings of most games, and of reality, tend to make sneaking off on your own extremely dangerous. If you go to attack someone without support, and you aren't *sure* you can disable them in one attack, you are now fighting him (and any other enemies within earshot) on your own.

When you don't have a party to fall back on, a few bad dice rolls can easily kill a character.

Also, players tend to get bored and jealous when one person has an extended solo scene, so as a group we try and avoid / minimize them as much as possible.

BRC

2023-08-22, 09:35 AM

Re: Initating the Fight

Not sure if this solution is ever relevant, but if I'm ever in a situation where some specific action is going to "initiate" the fight, but I don't feel that a proper "Surprise" round is deserved (Say, ending a mexican standoff by starting the shooting) is to roll initiative as normal, but giving the "Initiater" the first action on the first round.

So, in an example situation (Let's use a Western)

Alice, Bob, and Charlie are facing off against the Badger Creek Gang over the contents of a strongbox. Right now they're posturing and trying to get the other side to back down.

The fight initiates when Alice decides to start shooting.

In this case, everybody would roll initiative as normal, the trigger to start the fight is Alice shooting. They roll as follows: Bob gets 18, Alice gets 16, The Badgers get 10, Charlie gets 8.

So, first round order goes

Alice (Taking the shot she declared before inititive was rolled)
Bob
Badgers
Charlie

And every round after goes

Bob
Alice
Badgers
Charlie

If you want, you could give the Badgers some sort of check to see Alice about to shoot and react, thus enforcing normal initiative all along.

Similarly, let's say the Badger Creek Gang knows that our gunslingers are lurking nearby, but don't know exactly where (They're ready for a fight, but not prepared for a specific threat), I could do the same thing. A.B and C don't get a full surprise round, since their enemies are not caught off-guard, but they've got the luxury of all being perfectly coordinated. Everybody is aiming, and once one of them takes the shot, the others shoot as well.

In which case our initial order goes

Bob
Alice
Charlie
Badgers

And we revert to the "Rolled" Turn order for subsequent rounds.

This is my method for recognizing an action that is declared before initiative is rolled without giving out actions.

The key is to recognize the trigger for the fight. If everybody is equally aware, any single character can start things on their own, but their allies are just as surprised as their enemies. In that first scenario, Bob and Charlie can't say "I'm ready to take my turn as soon as somebody starts shooting" and jump to the top of the initiative order because literally every character in that scene has such an action ready. In the second scenario, where the gunslingers are in hiding, the badger gang can't be "Ready" since they don't know where the threat is coming from, they're just ready to React in general.

Either way, once the first round is done, action order settles on rolled initiative.

gbaji

2023-08-22, 01:52 PM

The key is to recognize the trigger for the fight. If everybody is equally aware, any single character can start things on their own, but their allies are just as surprised as their enemies. In that first scenario, Bob and Charlie can't say "I'm ready to take my turn as soon as somebody starts shooting" and jump to the top of the initiative order because literally every character in that scene has such an action ready. In the second scenario, where the gunslingers are in hiding, the badger gang can't be "Ready" since they don't know where the threat is coming from, they're just ready to React in general.

Either way, once the first round is done, action order settles on rolled initiative.

Yup. That's exactly what I'm talking about. It all hinges on the degree to which the participants are aware and "ready" for action. And yeah, while we can vary things up a bit in terms of post initiating action order, that first action kinda has to go "first" if that's either what everyone is waiting for, or what everyone is reacting to.

It's just strange, because I've been doing this for as long as I can remember runnning any RPG, and have never had a problem with this method. No one complains, or says it's unfair, or produces strange results. It's consistent. It's easy. And it works. Most importantly, it allows us to transition from non-combat to combat, which was the sticking area being discussed.

I just think that trying to dogmatically place initiative rolls into everything, and trying to make it all about adjustments or modifiers to that initiative roll is creating more problems than it solves. But to be fair, HoD has a kind of "odd" initiative system, with just the PCs rolling, and where it's not really determining the order of action within a round (each "side" seems to act in order after the initial action), but just which specific PCs get an extra "bonus round" at the very start of the fight. So it's kinda trying to smush the concept of a surprise round into the initiative roll itself.

But the inevitable conflict comes when the person taking the initiating action is also being required to roll for initiative. And when that player balks at this (which IMO, they kinda should), it's being dismissed as wanting to "auto win initiative". Er... That's not really accurate. That character wants to get a surprise round (which is what initiative is actually doing in this game), because they actually did the action by surprise and there's no rational way for them *not* to go first.

And yeah, when that character doesn't get the best initiative roll, you now have characters acting in odd order that make no sense, and dorking everything up. IMO, all could be resolved by just declaring that one action to always act at the top of the initiative order. Either as a separate actoin (with initiative to follow for all), or as the first action during the initiative round with everyone else rolling based on their knowledge/preparation of that initiial action. It's an easy fix to the rules IMO, and would solve a lot of problems and conflict.

Talakeal

2023-08-22, 04:54 PM

Just to be clear; in BRC's example, stealth is not involved, but Alice still goes first because she is the first one to declare that she starts shooting, correct?

And Gbaji does *not* support this sort of system, correct?

And again, in both Heart of Darkness AND Dungeons and Dragons, if one person is initiating the fight and the opponents are unaware of their presence, they will automatically go first, and the initiative roll is just to determine if they get two turns in a row. Barring some sort of external time pressure of course.

Edit: That's not actually true. If there are multiple unaware people in Dungeons and Dragons, they will all roll initiative normally and act in initiative order regardless of who initiated the combat.

But the inevitable conflict comes when the person taking the initiating action is also being required to roll for initiative. And when that player balks at this (which IMO, they kinda should), it's being dismissed as wanting to "auto win initiative". Er... That's not really accurate. That character wants to get a surprise round (which is what initiative is actually doing in this game), because they actually did the action by surprise and there's no rational way for them *not* to go first.

That's not what happened. The "auto-win initiative" idea that my players came up with was deliberately rolling initiative outside of the room when no monsters were present, waiting outside during their first turn, and then walking into the room at the start of their second turn and taking a full turn, whether or not monsters were actually inside.

I agree there is no way for someone who remains hidden throughout their action and who initiates the combat to not go first. IMO rules are actually HoD better about this than D&D is.

Still curious why you think it's bad to use initiative to determine action order outside of combat or what mechanic you think is better.

gbaji

2023-08-22, 06:56 PM

Just to be clear; in BRC's example, stealth is not involved, but Alice still goes first because she is the first one to declare that she starts shooting, correct?

And Gbaji does *not* support this sort of system, correct?

You are misunderstanding what BRC wrote, and missed this part:

If you want, you could give the Badgers some sort of check to see Alice about to shoot and react, thus enforcing normal initiative all along.

The key point is "do they see that Alice is about to shoot". It's an out of combat perception roll (the kind of thing I've mentioned several times now). If the enemy sees Alice is about to shoot and is ready in case she does, then we could call for a normal initiative roll (they could see her tensing and start firing themsleves first).

The assumption behind "Alice gets to shoot first" is that the enemies don't know she's about to shoot. That's the point. It's the exact point I've been arguing this entire time. And it's also the same case where Bob sneak attacks someone in a room and gives out a war cry to call his party members in to attack from the other side of the door. As long as the NPCs don't know he's there and/or don't know he's about to attack them, he always gets to go first. The rest of the folks use initiative to determine when/whether they act after that point.

And again, in both Heart of Darkness AND Dungeons and Dragons, if one person is initiating the fight and the opponents are unaware of their presence, they will automatically go first, and the initiative roll is just to determine if they get two turns in a row. Barring some sort of external time pressure of course.

You are now saying the exact opposite of what you said previously. You said that Bob would not always go first, and had to roll initiative, and could fail initiative (unlikely, but possible), and could certainly roll worse than his fellow party members, resulting in them kicking in the door before he actually attacks. Heck. You even dismissed this as aa problem, because even if the NPCs went before Bob, he would still be hidden, so they could not attack him.

Which is it?

Edit: That's not actually true. If there are multiple unaware people in Dungeons and Dragons, they will all roll initiative normally and act in initiative order regardless of who initiated the combat.

Yes. Which makes sense. Some people will be aware that the initiating event is imminent and are prepared for it, and others will not. Doesn't matter if they are PCs or NPCs. Same rules apply to everyone.

That's not what happened. The "auto-win initiative" idea that my players came up with was deliberately rolling initiative outside of the room when no monsters were present, waiting outside during their first turn, and then walking into the room at the start of their second turn and taking a full turn, whether or not monsters were actually inside.

You're being oddly literal. That's what started the question. I then wanted to explore the boundaries of what you would reject as "auto-win initiative", and came up with the "Bob in the room, doing a sneak attack" case. And in that case, you still argued that he would have to roll initiative instead of just automatically going first. I posed this hypothetical, not because it's something that actually happend in your game, but as a tool to determine what "rules" you are using to make your rulings on the question of initiative.

Your answer tells me that the issue with you and your players is that you are never giving them any conditions underwhich they get to just "go first", even when common sense says that they should. You are downplaying this by using a more questionable case, but if the really obvious common-sense violating case shows you making the same ruling, then that's the problem.

I agree there is no way for someone who remains hidden throughout their action and who initiates the combat to not go first. IMO rules are actually HoD better about this than D&D is.

Then why, when I proposed this exact situation, did you say that Bob still needed to roll intiative? And you even stated that he not only had to roll initiative, but roll it at the same time as the rest of the party, standing outside, waiting for his signal. And why, when I pointed out that this could easily result in the PCs outside entering the door before Bob actually attacked and gave the signal, did you just dismiss this as them "not following the plan"?

Still curious why you think it's bad to use initiative to determine action order outside of combat or what mechanic you think is better.

Because initiative is about determining the order of events when in combat. Or at least, when two opposing sides are taking actions against each other and we need to determine which one goes first. I mean, even the modifiers you have in your rules make it clear this is about combat, right? They don't make a lick of sense if we're not in a combat situation. Out of combat, you just determine this stuff narratively. It's not that hard.

I mean, I guess we could use initiative to determine out of combat actions, but that would get really tedious really fast. And frankly, if you are ok with using initiative for out of combat stuff, then why aren't you letting the party roll for initiative outside the door, before they enter? If the question is "do we open the door before the NPCS just randomly happen to <do something>", then why not let them roll initiative at that point? BTW: That's another reductio ad absurdum argument from me. It's not meant to be serious. Just to show how silly your argument is.

Initiative is rolled when there are multiple different characters who are knowingly and inteintionally taking actions in direct conflict with each other, and we need to resolve the order in which those actions occur. That's almost always going to be a combat situation (there are exceptions, but they are rare).

Talakeal

2023-08-22, 10:07 PM

The assumption behind "Alice gets to shoot first" is that the enemies don't know she's about to shoot. That's the point. It's the exact point I've been arguing this entire time. And it's also the same case where Bob sneak attacks someone in a room and gives out a war cry to call his party members in to attack from the other side of the door. As long as the NPCs don't know he's there and/or don't know he's about to attack them, he always gets to go first. The rest of the folks use initiative to determine when/whether they act after that point.

Ok, so let me see if I got this straight:

Two groups are talking to one another. They are hostile but not fighting yet. They can all see one another and nobody is hidden. They are talking; posturing, taunting, threatening, monologuing, or even trying to diplomatically smooth things over. Alice decides she has had enough talk, and without warning draws her gun and starts firing.

In real life, she is likely to get her shot off before anyone can react, but an elite quick-draw expert could interrupt her.

In Heart of Darkness, initiative is rolled, but Alice gets a bonus for acting suddenly and without warning.

In Dungeons and Dragons, initiative is rolled as normal because everyone is aware of everyone else and there is no surprise round.

At Gbaji's table, Alice would act in the surprise round, but anyone on either side who made a perception test could also act in the surprise round.

Is this right?

You are now saying the exact opposite of what you said previously. You said that Bob would not always go first, and had to roll initiative, and could fail initiative (unlikely, but possible), and could certainly roll worse than his fellow party members, resulting in them kicking in the door before he actually attacks. Heck. You even dismissed this as aa problem, because even if the NPCs went before Bob, he would still be hidden, so they could not attack him.

Which is it?

Everyone rolls initiative.

However, unless there is some external time pressure, there is no consequence for failure.

If the enemies roll higher than Bob, they cannot do anything about it because Bob is there. They cannot target him, and any defensive actions they take would be vetoed as meta-gaming.

The dice still needs to be rolled to check to see if Bob will get to act two turns in a row.

The above is RAW whether we are talking about Heart of Darkness or Dungeons and Dragons.

Again, you clearly think this is a problem, but I have no idea WHY you think its a problem.

Yes. Which makes sense. Some people will be aware that the initiating event is imminent and are prepared for it, and others will not. Doesn't matter if they are PCs or NPCs. Same rules apply to everyone.

Wait, but haven't you spent the last week saying its stupid that people can go before a hidden character?

This is exactly what would happen in D&D if you had someone hidden in the room and people waiting outside to burst in the door; they all get to act in the surprise round and they all roll initiative to determine the order they act in, and odds are the rogue will not be going before the rest of his party. (Assuming the defenders don't know the attackers are outside but the attackers do know the defenders are inside).

Then why, when I proposed this exact situation, did you say that Bob still needed to roll intiative? And you even stated that he not only had to roll initiative, but roll it at the same time as the rest of the party, standing outside, waiting for his signal. And why, when I pointed out that this could easily result in the PCs outside entering the door before Bob actually attacked and gave the signal, did you just dismiss this as them "not following the plan"?

Because "not following the plan" is the only way this could happen.

Everyone rolls initiative. If the rogue rolls low, that means the rogue took a moment to get into position. If the rest of the party rolls high, that means they are ready to go before the rogue strikes.

The rest of the party then has to make the conscious decision to ignore the plan and burst into the room without waiting for the signal.

I don't think this is a problem with the rules. This is perfectly fine by both the RAW and RAI in both Heart of Darkness and Dungeons and Dragons, and I could easily see it happening in real life.

Again, what is the problem here? Why do you think this is such a ridiculous situation?

I have no idea what you are thinking here.

The only guesses I could come up with are that you have it in your heard that people are somehow compelled to act against their will when initiative count comes up.

Please, I have asked over and over again, what is it specifically about the situation that bothers you so much?

You're being oddly literal. That's what started the question. I then wanted to explore the boundaries of what you would reject as "auto-win initiative", and came up with the "Bob in the room, doing a sneak attack" case. And in that case, you still argued that he would have to roll initiative instead of just automatically going first. I posed this hypothetical, not because it's something that actually happend in your game, but as a tool to determine what "rules" you are using to make your rulings on the question of initiative.

Your answer tells me that the issue with you and your players is that you are never giving them any conditions under which they get to just "go first", even when common sense says that they should. You are downplaying this by using a more questionable case, but if the really obvious common-sense violating case shows you making the same ruling, then that's the problem.

But you specifically said I was "dismissing their concerns because they want to auto-win initiative". Which is a very different thing.

Saying you can't pre-roll initiative before the enemies are present is trying to stomp out an exploit.
Telling them that they still have to roll the dice when there aren't any consequences for failure but still need to check for degree of success is not the same thing.

Its like in D&D saying that because my DM considers the "wet = immune to fire damage" wording from the 3.5 to be an exploit that he also considers playing a half-fiendish character an exploit; after all both make you immune to fire.

Initiative is rolled when there are multiple different characters who are knowingly and intentionally taking actions in direct conflict with each other, and we need to resolve the order in which those actions occur. That's almost always going to be a combat situation (there are exceptions, but they are rare).

This is absolutely true and correct.

I am not sure what the previous two paragraphs were for, as they seem to be contradicting and mocking this idea.

Vyke

2023-08-23, 05:49 AM

Ok, so let me see if I got this straight:

Two groups are talking to one another. They are hostile but not fighting yet. They can all see one another and nobody is hidden. They are talking; posturing, taunting, threatening, monologuing, or even trying to diplomatically smooth things over. Alice decides she has had enough talk, and without warning draws her gun and starts firing.

In real life, she is likely to get her shot off before anyone can react, but an elite quick-draw expert could interrupt her.

In Heart of Darkness, initiative is rolled, but Alice gets a bonus for acting suddenly and without warning.

In Dungeons and Dragons, initiative is rolled as normal because everyone is aware of everyone else and there is no surprise round.

At Gbaji's table, Alice would act in the surprise round, but anyone on either side who made a perception test could also act in the surprise round.

Is this right?

NO! I've literally just made this account to specifically explain this point because this conversation is infuriating. In the example you give everyone is ready to fight. They are all watching and prepared. The initiating event is "Alice goes for her gun" not "Alice fires her gun". At that point it is obvious to everyone that combat is on and everyone scrambles to do what they need. Some will be faster that others and some may be fast enough that they clear their holster before Alice (they get higher initiative than her). But no one goes for their gun before Alice because that's the initiating event even if they complete the task faster.

HOWEVER if Alice is hidden on a nearby rooftop while the others talk, threaten etc down below and the other side can't see her she will absolutely get to fire her gun before everyone else because there is no way anyone can respond to her. So there is no sense rolling for initiative until after she's fired because no one can do anything until it happens.

This is the thing you seem to be ignoring. It is impossible for something to happen before the thing that made it happen. Because of causality.

Everyone rolls initiative.

However, unless there is some external time pressure, there is no consequence for failure.

If the enemies roll higher than Bob, they cannot do anything about it because Bob is there. They cannot target him, and any defensive actions they take would be vetoed as meta-gaming.

The dice still needs to be rolled to check to see if Bob will get to act two turns in a row.

The above is RAW whether we are talking about Heart of Darkness or Dungeons and Dragons.

Again, you clearly think this is a problem, but I have no idea WHY you think its a problem.

Because it produces the exact scenario we're discussing. Talakeal, you can't raise a concern about a problem your group has had and then spend 5 pages saying there isn't a problem. Presumably there is or you wouldn't have made a post in the first place. You are aware that there is strangeness and ambiguity in the rules, the clue was that the event that started this discussion happened. (I know this started with spells before rolling initative but this is where we are now because of issues you've raised.)

Look, let's use DnD for a second (I'll come back to HoD). Let's say you just give Bob a sneak attack. He has one action and initiates combat. Everyone rolls initiative. If he rolls high he gets another attack. There's his two attacks. If he rolls lower he may be interrupted by his allies or even attacked by his enemies before his second attack. So he's definitely getting one attack before everyone else, maybe two. And he earned that guarantee by sneaking into position in a way that was potentially dangerous.

In the scenario that actually happened Bob, presumably, had to roll to sneak into position. You then made his roll initiative which he lost. Then the party, who won initiative, came into the room because you had made it clear that combat had started. Then the enemy attacked. Then Bob went. Now Bob MIGHT have got two attacks before anyone.... but now he's got zero. Before he was guaranteed one at least. But zero is possible now. That's worse. And he put himself at risk to do it. You looked at him doing something difficult and said "If you do it super well you will generously receive no benefit and at worst will be worse off". This is likely why people don't play rogues in your game. If he'd just gone with the party he'd be in the exact same position. Scouting is a potential detriment not a potential win.

And what's the benefit for the whole party? Well, my immediate gut response is that I'd have said "Well we've rolled initiative now so my 1 scene buffs work normally now right? They're no longer more expensive for a 1 sec extra duration?" But that's me. If they hadn't bothered coming through the door for any reason then what. The monsters stand around and do nothing then Bob stabs them then the party comes in and then the monsters fight the bob goes again. WHICH IS WHAT HAPPENED ANYWAY! The only thing you added was you made Bob feel useless for being a rogue.

Wait, but haven't you spent the last week saying its stupid that people can go before a hidden character?

This is exactly what would happen in D&D if you had someone hidden in the room and people waiting outside to burst in the door; they all get to act in the surprise round and they all roll initiative to determine the order they act in, and odds are the rogue will not be going before the rest of his party. (Assuming the defenders don't know the attackers are outside but the attackers do know the defenders are inside).

Because "not following the plan" is the only way this could happen.

Everyone rolls initiative. If the rogue rolls low, that means the rogue took a moment to get into position. If the rest of the party rolls high, that means they are ready to go before the rogue strikes.

The rest of the party then has to make the conscious decision to ignore the plan and burst into the room without waiting for the signal.

I don't think this is a problem with the rules. This is perfectly fine by both the RAW and RAI in both Heart of Darkness and Dungeons and Dragons, and I could easily see it happening in real life.

Again, what is the problem here? Why do you think this is such a ridiculous situation?

I have no idea what you are thinking here.

The only guesses I could come up with are that you have it in your heard that people are somehow compelled to act against their will when initiative count comes up.

Please, I have asked over and over again, what is it specifically about the situation that bothers you so much?

Ok there's a lot of stuff here that you are right on but without really thinking about how the scenario actually looks. You're imagining two sides, the party waiting outside the door with Bob inside positioning himself as the first and the monsters as the second.

That really isn't what's happening here. You have three groups. The party. Bob. The monsters.

The party is aware both other groups exist but can't specifically locate them.
The monsters are not aware either group exists but are on guard,
Bob is aware both groups exist and can locate the monsters.

Now here's where you are right. Bob will get to go first unless the party kick the door down. They said they wouldn't, but they might. If they do then the monsters and Bob are surprised because the monsters are now being attacked by people they, until a moment ago, didn't know existed. Bob is surprised because they said they'd wait outside. Sucks to be Bob.... guess he'll have to take that up with the party IC.

But here's the thing. Why would anyone follow the plan in this situation? They've seen initiative. They know Bob is going last. They could wait outside and, assuming they trust you not to move the bad guys, have them go look outside the door, move away from Bob etc, they could just wait, have Bob act, have them all act and then have the monsters go. They could even buff in their first turns while they wait outside.

BUT that assumes trusting the GM. And Talakeal.... you don't have that. Because you're already telling them that "Well if you cast the spell inside the door it will has maybe eight turns. If you cast it outside it will last 3 seconds and vanish as you go thorough the door". You're saying "Sure if you sneak up on people really carefully I might give you the same number of attacks as you'd normally get but I might also make you have less and you'll be isolated". And you're saying "Well, I wrote these rules and, I know, they put you at a disadvantage but what can I do, my hands are tied, I've already written them down....". You've said they don't play rogues or scout.... it's because they don't believe it's valuable. So, truthfully.... it doesn't sound they trust you not to take things away from them. And if that's the case then getting three guaranteed actions at the cost of one is absolutely better than risking those three actions to maybe get four.

But you specifically said I was "dismissing their concerns because they want to auto-win initiative". Which is a very different thing.

Saying you can't pre-roll initiative before the enemies are present is trying to stomp out an exploit.
Telling them that they still have to roll the dice when there aren't any consequences for failure but still need to check for degree of success is not the same thing.

Its like in D&D saying that because my DM considers the "wet = immune to fire damage" wording from the 3.5 to be an exploit that he also considers playing a half-fiendish character an exploit; after all both make you immune to fire.

What? You know that analogy is ridiculous right? Hyperbole doesn't make your position sound sensible. Links and evidence please of people saying that being wet made you immune to fire damage. Because I've been playing this game for, let's say generously, a long time and that is the first time I've heard that.

They want the person who initiates combat to go first. They want the people ambushing to go first. This is reasonable. Now monsters might spot them and turn an ambush around, that's also reasonable.

Talakeal, before you respond ask yourself a few things seriously. Why are you playing this game? Why are your players? Are they the same? If not can you reach a compromise that, importantly, both of you are happy with? If not, what other activity could you spend time with your friends doing? Because there is a long and documented history on this site of something happening in your game, you come on this site raise the problem, people make suggestions and then comment after comment is spent on you saying the problem you went out of your way to raise is not a problem or that people are arguing in bad faith with unlikely one in a million scenarios. And I'm not blaming you or your players for anything, from what I've read I agree with both sometimes... but it doesn't sound healthy for you. If you do want to play and you think your way is the way to play then that is fine. You are allowed to think that. But you need to communicate that to your players, not us. Make it clear that that is how you are doing things and stress that, if they want to play, they are accepting that. Then when Bob or whoever moans you can say "You accepted this... get with the programme or we stop playing". You can also say "This rule isn't working as I wanted it so I'm changing it." You're the GM. If this matters to you stop trying to convince us. We're not at your table.

Talakeal

2023-08-23, 07:34 AM

Because it produces the exact scenario we're discussing. Talakeal, you can't raise a concern about a problem your group has had and then spend 5 pages saying there isn't a problem. Presumably there is or you wouldn't have made a post in the first place. You are aware that there is strangeness and ambiguity in the rules, the clue was that the event that started this discussion happened. (I know this started with spells before rolling initative but this is where we are now because of issues you've raised.)

In the scenario that actually happened...

Woah, woah, woah, hold on a second.

This scenario *did not happen*.

It is a hypothetical that Gbaji made up to illustrate a potential problem with my initiative system (and I am still not seeing why it is problem).

The scenario that actually happened was that I said that if Bob wanted to start the fight hidden, he would need to either start out of the enemy's line of sight or succeed at a stealth test at +20 difficulty. While he was ranting about how stupid that rule was, he commented about how he also thinks it's stupid that a hidden person can lose initiative (but refused to elaborate at the time, and now that he has calmed down, doesn't remember saying it in the first place, leaving us to speculate, hence the hypotheticals).

Then Bob went. Now Bob MIGHT have got two attacks before anyone.... but now he's got zero. Before he was guaranteed one at least. But zero is possible now. That's worse. And he put himself at risk to do it. You looked at him doing something difficult and said "If you do it super well you will generously receive no benefit and at worst will be worse off". This is likely why people don't play rogues in your game. If he'd just gone with the party he'd be in the exact same position. Scouting is a potential detriment not a potential win.

I don't follow. How is he getting zero attacks? Why is there no potential for winning?

And again, the situation should play out the exact same in D&D. I mean, why aren't you saying that nobody plays in rogues in D&D unless they have a DM whom they trust to ignore the rules in their favor?

What? You know that analogy is ridiculous right? Hyperbole doesn't make your position sound sensible. Links and evidence please of people saying that being wet made you immune to fire damage. Because I've been playing this game for, let's say generously, a long time and that is the first time I've heard that.

Whoops, my bad. I misremembered, it was that being wet made you immune to *lava* damage (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?428306-Cantrip-Abuse).

NO! I've literally just made this account to specifically explain this point because this conversation is infuriating. In the example you give everyone is ready to fight. They are all watching and prepared. The initiating event is "Alice goes for her gun" not "Alice fires her gun". At that point it is obvious to everyone that combat is on and everyone scrambles to do what they need. Some will be faster that others and some may be fast enough that they clear their holster before Alice (they get higher initiative than her). But no one goes for their gun before Alice because that's the initiating event even if they complete the task faster.

HOWEVER if Alice is hidden on a nearby rooftop while the others talk, threaten etc down below and the other side can't see her she will absolutely get to fire her gun before everyone else because there is no way anyone can respond to her. So there is no sense rolling for initiative until after she's fired because no one can do anything until it happens.

Ok then. I agree.

Gbaji, is this your perspective as well?

But here's the thing. Why would anyone follow the plan in this situation? They've seen initiative. They know Bob is going last.

Ok. So it's seeing the dice rolls before it happens that's the issue?

Is that what you have been trying to say Gbaji?

Talakeal, before you respond ask yourself a few things seriously. Why are you playing this game? Why are your players? Are they the same? If not can you reach a compromise that, importantly, both of you are happy with? If not, what other activity could you spend time with your friends doing? Because there is a long and documented history on this site of something happening in your game, you come on this site raise the problem, people make suggestions and then comment after comment is spent on you saying the problem you went out of your way to raise is not a problem or that people are arguing in bad faith with unlikely one in a million scenarios. And I'm not blaming you or your players for anything, from what I've read I agree with both sometimes... but it doesn't sound healthy for you. If you do want to play and you think your way is the way to play then that is fine. You are allowed to think that. But you need to communicate that to your players, not us. Make it clear that that is how you are doing things and stress that, if they want to play, they are accepting that. Then when Bob or whoever moans you can say "You accepted this... get with the programme or we stop playing". You can also say "This rule isn't working as I wanted it so I'm changing it." You're the GM. If this matters to you stop trying to convince us. We're not at your table.

As I said above, this simply wasn't the scenario.

The last time we had a rogue sneak off and try and backstab someone solo was ~5 years ago, and Bob wasn't involved in it and there was no issue with initiative.

It simply is not an issue at my table. It doesn't happen.

What good would it do for me to accept that the problem was caused by a hypothetical that didn't happen?

Saying that my problems are caused by how I handle initiative when a solo rogue is involved is about as much use to me as decided to blame them on the giant invisible rabbit that is sitting at the table with us.

Vyke

2023-08-23, 08:44 AM

Woah, woah, woah, hold on a second.

This scenario *did not happen*.

It is a hypothetical that Gbaji made up to illustrate a potential problem with my initiative system (and I am still not seeing why it is problem).

Ok, then it didn't happen. The point I've made is just as valid as a hypothetical explanation as to why it's a problem.

The scenario that actually happened was that I said that if Bob wanted to start the fight hidden, he would need to either start out of the enemy's line of sight or succeed at a stealth test at +20 difficulty. While he was ranting about how stupid that rule was, he commented about how he also thinks it's stupid that a hidden person can lose initiative (but refused to elaborate at the time, and now that he has calmed down, doesn't remember saying it in the first place, leaving us to speculate, hence the hypotheticals).

That doesn't help communication of your problem. State your problem. Discuss that problem.

Was Bob in the corridor? If yes he was out of sight. So he could hide. He might have to make another stealth check to enter the room later but that's a different task. Obviously.

I don't follow. How is he getting zero attacks? Why is there no potential for winning?

And again, the situation should play out the exact same in D&D. I mean, why aren't you saying that nobody plays in rogues in D&D unless they have a DM whom they trust to ignore the rules in their favor?

Sigh. Did you read the explanation I wrote?

If Bob would have attacked first as the instigator and THEN had initiative roll then he would have definitely got at least one attack before the enemy. Maybe 2. Now he gets to instigate the fight and maybe get zero. Might get one or two, but might also get 0. I feel I made that clear. 0-2 attacks before the enemy acts is flat out worse than 1-2 acts before the enemy attacks.

Also, dunno about anyone else but people play rogues in my games because they're useful, fun and straightforward to use. I don't need to ignore the rules. I just use my brain to adjudicate their actions in ways that are narratively sensible and satisfying.

Why don't people play them in yours?

Whoops, my bad. I misremembered, it was that being wet made you immune to *lava* damage.

Ok. Sure. Ok. It's a comment in a thread 8 years ago about an optional rule in a book published 22 years and 2.5 editions ago. It must be a really burning* issue. And you say Bob drags up irrelevant events years after they've become meaningless.

*Pun!

As I said above, this simply wasn't the scenario.

The last time we had a rogue sneak off and try and backstab someone solo was ~5 years ago, and Bob wasn't involved in it and there was no issue with initiative.

It simply is not an issue at my table. It doesn't happen.

What good would it do for me to accept that the problem was caused by a hypothetical that didn't happen?

Saying that my problems are caused by how I handle initiative when a solo rogue is involved is about as much use to me as decided to blame them on the giant invisible rabbit that is sitting at the table with us.

Fine. I'm right back out of this conversation. If the rogue sneaking was the hypothetical you and someone are using to discuss the situation then it seems odd to me to say that discussing hypotheticals is meaningless to you. It's being used to discuss a similar situation with similar causes and solutions. If that's too nuanced, just say you won't discuss hypotheticals. Additionally don't add hypothetical analogies from 22 year old books to clog up your discussion. Stay on target.

I have no idea what you want out of this. I assume you want someone to tell you you are the rightest on the internet because there doesn't appear to be the slightest effort to try to understand a different viewpoint. Just a bad faith need to to be vindicated. Good luck with the game.

BRC

2023-08-23, 09:05 AM

NO! I've literally just made this account to specifically explain this point because this conversation is infuriating. In the example you give everyone is ready to fight. They are all watching and prepared. The initiating event is "Alice goes for her gun" not "Alice fires her gun". At that point it is obvious to everyone that combat is on and everyone scrambles to do what they need. Some will be faster that others and some may be fast enough that they clear their holster before Alice (they get higher initiative than her). But no one goes for their gun before Alice because that's the initiating event even if they complete the task faster.

HOWEVER if Alice is hidden on a nearby rooftop while the others talk, threaten etc down below and the other side can't see her she will absolutely get to fire her gun before everyone else because there is no way anyone can respond to her. So there is no sense rolling for initiative until after she's fired because no one can do anything until it happens.

This is the thing you seem to be ignoring. It is impossible for something to happen before the thing that made it happen. Because of causality.

My original image was that guns were already out, but your point stands.

If you want to break it down, the precise order of events is:

Alice decides to start shooting

Alice tenses, taking aim preparing to shoot

Alice pulls the trigger.

The Badger Gang's Test is to spot one of the first two events before Alice actually pulls the trigger, at which point they can shout and start shooting and initiative begins as normal.

Technically, what starts the fight, and therefore the initiative roll is the moment everybody knows the fight is on. Whether that's the sound of the gunshot, Alice tensing, or Alice shouting "Screw this, let's just shoot them".

But, if we assume that Alice gets her shot off to initiate the fight, then the fight MUST begin with Alice firing her gun. How I would run that in D&D is "Initiative is rolled as normal, but Alice gets to take her first turn early"

In the case where Alice is starting by drawing her gun, giving her an initiative bonus makes more sense, as somebody could see her moving and react faster than her, although that's unlikely. What starts the fight is "Somebody notices the fight is on", and that can mean a lot of things.

Mind you, what this means changes pretty dramatically depending on the mechanics of initiative. In D&D, Going First is a minor bonus, so it's not a big deal to give Alice the first action because she says she shot first.

Kish

2023-08-23, 05:17 PM

He does this thing where he brings up an old, sometimes years or even decades old, argument in public in a really nasty and embarrassing way and hurts my feelings (like in this specific instance, he told me that my initiative rules were the "Stupidest rules in the world, and literally everyone thinks so."
So wait, I just thought of something about this.

You've mentioned that at least one of your players, at least once in his life, ran an actual game of Heart of Darkness, with you as a player.

Did he use the same initiative rules, or did he house rule them into something else?

gbaji

2023-08-23, 05:33 PM

Talakeal. The point of the hypthetical case I wrote is to test the point at which you will allow a PC to simply act first. You started with "they want to auto-win initiative and always go first". So my response is to test where the point of change from "you have to roll initiative" to "you just get to go first" exists. And in the same way that in my professional carreer, I would start with what is called a "known good test", I started with a hypothetical that (IMO) should always result in a "PC just gets to go first" response.

So yeah. Imagine my surprise when your response was "Bob would have to roll initiative". At that point, the rest of the issue is irrelevant. You have already shown that your rulings will never allow any conditions in which the PC gets to act first. So, even if the actual case the PCs were complaining about is different, it doesn't matter. The method you are using is broken.

Countering that very relevant test with completely unrelated hypotheticals of your own is just missing the point. My hypothetical served as a test of your rules. Your rules failed the test. And yeah, it may very well be that your players and you will still have some disagreement as to where the "you have to roll initiative" vs "you get to go first" line should actually be drawn. But we can't even get to that conversation because you've already set that line so far off to the side that it's not even inside the scope for discussion.

I had fully expected that you would respond with a "of course Bob should go first in that case", and then we'd walk from there to less clear cases, and find where your line is (which is how you test things like this). But that didn't happen. So yeah. All I can say is that your initiative rules just appear to be broken. I can't say that this is the exact cause of the disagreements between you and your players, but it certainly isn't helping. If the players feel like they can't ever take actions that are proactive and effective, then they will start doing other srcrewy things to try to get around your rulings. I suspect (but can't prove, of course) that this is the behavior your are describing to us. But that behavior may very well be a symptom of other problems, and not the actual core problem itself.

Talakeal

2023-08-23, 07:30 PM

So wait, I just thought of something about this.

You've mentioned that at least one of your players, at least once in his life, ran an actual game of Heart of Darkness, with you as a player.

Did he use the same initiative rules, or did he house rule them into something else?

My original image was that guns were already out, but your point stands.

If you want to break it down, the precise order of events is:

Alice decides to start shooting

Alice tenses, taking aim preparing to shoot

Alice pulls the trigger.

The Badger Gang's Test is to spot one of the first two events before Alice actually pulls the trigger, at which point they can shout and start shooting and initiative begins as normal.

Technically, what starts the fight, and therefore the initiative roll is the moment everybody knows the fight is on. Whether that's the sound of the gunshot, Alice tensing, or Alice shouting "Screw this, let's just shoot them".

But, if we assume that Alice gets her shot off to initiate the fight, then the fight MUST begin with Alice firing her gun. How I would run that in D&D is "Initiative is rolled as normal, but Alice gets to take her first turn early"

In the case where Alice is starting by drawing her gun, giving her an initiative bonus makes more sense, as somebody could see her moving and react faster than her, although that's unlikely. What starts the fight is "Somebody notices the fight is on", and that can mean a lot of things.

Mind you, what this means changes pretty dramatically depending on the mechanics of initiative. In D&D, Going First is a minor bonus, so it's not a big deal to give Alice the first action because she says she shot first.

Ok. Thanks for the clarification. AFAICT Vyke, Gbaji, and I all interpreted the situation differently.

I don't enjoy games where someone can automatically go first by (no pun intended) jumping the gun. It makes for a toxic environment OOC.

I (incorrectly) thought Gbaji was advocating for such a system.

Ok. Sure. Ok. It's a comment in a thread 8 years ago about an optional rule in a book published 22 years and 2.5 editions ago. It must be a really burning* issue. And you say Bob drags up irrelevant events years after they've become meaningless.

Pretty sure it was more than one thread, that's just the first one I found on Google.

It's not a burning issue in any way. I was making an analogy, and it was the first D&D rules exploit that came to my head, because I thought the logic of "the DMG reprint trumps the rules cyclopedia" logic that people used to justify it at the time was particularly egregious logic so it stuck out to me.

But it was just an analogy, it has no bearing to anything that ever happened in my group. Using an outdated analogy =/= bringing up old arguments.

So wait, I just thought of something about this.

You've mentioned that at least one of your players, at least once in his life, ran an actual game of Heart of Darkness, with you as a player.

Did he use the same initiative rules, or did he house rule them into something else?

No, he played it as written and nobody complained.

Again, my initiative system is functionally the same as the D&D system except that:

A: The enemies use their passive initiative scores and only the PCs roll the dice.
B: Rather than being a binary, surprise and readied actions are bonus to your roll, and you only get the "extra turn" if you beat the enemies score by 20.

So, unless it is one of those two things you are arguing against, the system works like the one that most people have been using without complaint for over 20 years rather than the broken mess that people are making my version out to be.

The thing about my players though, is they don't like failing roles, and will often complain about how the rules are unfair / unrealistic when they do fail a roll, and will look for loopholes to bypass the rolls. In 3.5, it was to declare that they were readying actions outside of combat. Now, in Heart of Darkness where that doesn't work, they proposed starting combat before enemies were present and then continuing on the same turn count so that enemies never get the chance to interrupt them.

All this stuff about a hidden character is more or less a red herring as it has never actually come up in my game, it was just a weird hypothetical that Bob and Gbaji are bringing up to "prove my system is broken" but, afaict, wouldn't actually be a problem if it did come up because it is both fair and realistic and working as intended.

If Bob would have attacked first as the instigator and THEN had initiative roll then he would have definitely got at least one attack before the enemy. Maybe 2. Now he gets to instigate the fight and maybe get zero. Might get one or two, but might also get 0. I feel I made that clear. 0-2 attacks before the enemy acts is flat out worse than 1-2 acts before the enemy attacks.

There is no way for Bob to get zero attacks. Bob will always get the first turn, barring some outside action by a third party(such as his allies ignoring the plan and prematurely bursting through the door before Bob is ready).

Was Bob in the corridor? If yes he was out of sight. So he could hide. He might have to make another stealth check to enter the room later but that's a different task. Obviously.

Right. If Bob was in the corridor he was out of sight and could hide. If he was not in the corridor and in plain sight, he could not hide (this latter was what he objected to).

So you agree with me? Then why all the hostility and argument then?

Also, dunno about anyone else but people play rogues in my games because they're useful, fun and straightforward to use. I don't need to ignore the rules. I just use my brain to adjudicate their actions in ways that are narratively sensible and satisfying.

Again, the initiative rules in D&D clearly state that you have to roll initiative even if you are hidden.

If this is a huge issue for you and/or your players, as it appears to be for Gabji and Bob, then there is no way to come to a sensible and satisfying resolution without ignoring those rules.

Why don't people play them in yours?

Mostly aesthetics, most people like magic, those that don't tend to prefer mighty thews and big-ass swords to sneaking around.

On a more mechanical level, I tend to have more passive players who like to roll dice and go along with the group, where as being a scout often involves a lot of solo play and independent decision making.

Talakeal. The point of the hypthetical case I wrote is to test the point at which you will allow a PC to simply act first. You started with "they want to auto-win initiative and always go first". So my response is to test where the point of change from "you have to roll initiative" to "you just get to go first" exists. And in the same way that in my professional carreer, I would start with what is called a "known good test", I started with a hypothetical that (IMO) should always result in a "PC just gets to go first" response.

So yeah. Imagine my surprise when your response was "Bob would have to roll initiative". At that point, the rest of the issue is irrelevant. You have already shown that your rulings will never allow any conditions in which the PC gets to act first. So, even if the actual case the PCs were complaining about is different, it doesn't matter. The method you are using is broken.

Countering that very relevant test with completely unrelated hypotheticals of your own is just missing the point. My hypothetical served as a test of your rules. Your rules failed the test. And yeah, it may very well be that your players and you will still have some disagreement as to where the "you have to roll initiative" vs "you get to go first" line should actually be drawn. But we can't even get to that conversation because you've already set that line so far off to the side that it's not even inside the scope for discussion.

I had fully expected that you would respond with a "of course Bob should go first in that case", and then we'd walk from there to less clear cases, and find where your line is (which is how you test things like this). But that didn't happen. So yeah. All I can say is that your initiative rules just appear to be broken. I can't say that this is the exact cause of the disagreements between you and your players, but it certainly isn't helping. If the players feel like they can't ever take actions that are proactive and effective, then they will start doing other srcrewy things to try to get around your rulings. I suspect (but can't prove, of course) that this is the behavior your are describing to us. But that behavior may very well be a symptom of other problems, and not the actual core problem itself.

That is kind of disappointing.

I generally like and respect you on these forums, and assumed you were actually going somewhere with that specific scenario and wanted me to analyze it in depth to find flaws in my system.*

I had no idea that it was just a "test to see if your rules were broken" that brooked no further discussion.

Both Dungeons and Dragons and World of Darkness would also fail that test btw, yet millions of people play them without issue.

Again, you roll initiative any time action order is in doubt.
Like all dice rolls, you can ignore it if failure / success is not reasonable or interesting, but as in that specfiic case Bob is only rolling to see if he gets a critical success, it does not meet that criteria.

I really don't see why that counts as a failure for your test, but I think you decided on the criteria before actually listening to my response, so I don't think I will ever understand your criteria of your test or change your mind as to the results.

*: I actually did find one in your scenario, but I am almost certain it wasn't the one you had in mind. It requires the monsters to be in a sort of quantum state of delay based on the actions of the outside group.

Kish

2023-08-23, 08:19 PM

Defensiveness is pointless. I can also turn what you're saying directly around on you: if your initiative rules are functionally identical to unchallengeable* D&D initiative rules, why not just use D&D initiative rules? There must be something in your initiative rules that you consider meaningfully different from D&D's initiative rules.

*Beyond the fact that "the one that most people have been using without complaint for over 20 years" is an argument from authority. People have not been using "D&D's initiative system" for over 20 years because the current edition of D&D hasn't been out for even ten years yet and their initiative rules do change between editions. And even if they had, it would not be immune to criticism.

Both Dungeons and Dragons and World of Darkness would also fail that test btw, yet millions of people play them without issue.
Again--argument from authority. Incorrect argument from authority because your initiative rules aren't like either of those game sets. But when gamemasters find rules in D&D or in White Wolf games which they consider clearly broken, which of these do they do?

1) Make house rules to fix them.
2) Proclaim that millions of people play them without issue so clearly the rule is not broken.

The answer, of course, is "some do each of these," but that doesn't change the fact that one of these is a much better approach than the other.

gbaji

2023-08-23, 09:14 PM

The thing about my players though, is they don't like failing roles, and will often complain about how the rules are unfair / unrealistic when they do fail a roll, and will look for loopholes to bypass the rolls. In 3.5, it was to declare that they were readying actions outside of combat. Now, in Heart of Darkness where that doesn't work, they proposed starting combat before enemies were present and then continuing on the same turn count so that enemies never get the chance to interrupt them.

Has it occured to you that what you are labeling as "loopholes to bypass the rolls", most people see as "rewarding the PCs for good prep before a battle". It's just strange, because you also complain that your players never spend time planning or prepping ahead of time for a fight, which inevitably leads them to disaster, but you're also seeming to actively remove any rewards for them doing that.

One of the rewards for "you guys scouted ahead, and discovered the bad guys, so you know where they are, and they don't know you are around, and now you are in perfect position to attack them", is that they have the ability to get the drop on the bad guys, and potentially attack them via surprise (gaining an actual in game benefit for this). But, even under the best of circumstances, your system still requires them to make a roll to actually gain the benefit of all of that planning and prep, leading to situations where they may still "fail" despite it. Why are you surprised that they "don't like failing rolls"? You're forcing them to roll, even in situations when they maybe should not have to. Thus, when they do fail a roll, it hurts that much more because, iin their minds, they should have simply succeeded automatically.

There should absolutely be cases where, if sufficient out of combat prep and rolls are made, that in-combat initiative rolls should not be the sole determinant of "who goes first".

There is no way for Bob to get zero attacks. Bob will always get the first turn, barring some outside action by a third party(such as his allies ignoring the plan and prematurely bursting through the door before Bob is ready).

Except that, based on the setup here, there should be zero chance of that happening. Not "low chance". Not even a die roll. Zero. If the party is waiting for Bob to attack before coming in the door, then the party cannot enter the door until after they hear Bob's attack. Period. Unless a player just out of the blue says (prior to any initiative rolls) "I'm not waiting for Bob. I'll just charge in now", then it should not happen.

You are literally causing this to happen by having Bob and the party all roll initiative at the same time, when you should be resolving Bob's sneak attack first and *then* rolling initiative for the party (and giving them bonuses because they are ready and waiting for the signal, while the NPCs presumably are not).

Again, the initiative rules in D&D clearly state that you have to roll initiative even if you are hidden.

If this is a huge issue for you and/or your players, as it appears to be for Gabji and Bob, then there is no way to come to a sensible and satisfying resolution without ignoring those rules.

Yes. but it also says that you get a surprise round if you attack by surprise, with initiative only required of those who are both "aware of the opponents" and "in the battle". In the case I brought up, the only person who meets both criteria is Bob. So Bob should not need to roll any initiative at all. He just goes. Once he attacks, now the battle is started for those outside the door (they hear Bob), and those inside (they hear Bob, and maybe see him in the room as well). Now, we roll initiative to see who goes in what order. The DM could, alternatively, allow the party to also act in the surprise round, but they would still always act after Bob.

That is literally how every single D&D DM would run that scenario. Your point about being hidden isn't relevant here. What is relevant is who knows about the enemy and who has actually entered combat. The party isn't in combat yet. They are standing outside the door, waiting to hear Bob's attack.

We could also use the "Alice using a sniper rifle from 500 yards away" scenario as well. If the party is hiding around the corner in side street, while Alice lies in wait with her rifle waiting for Duke fancypants and his entourage to arrive at a specific spot on the road, and everything goes according to plan (Duke reaches the section of road near where the rest of the party is, and is unware of Alice or the party), Alice just gets to fire first. It's the sound of her shot that the party is waiting for, so they can run around the corner quickly after that. But her shot will always go first. Right?

Or would you have Alice and the party all roll initiative at the same time in that situation as well? And if someone other than Alice rolls better, and runs in to engage the Duke's men, do you dismiss this as them "not following the plan"?

I generally like and respect you on these forums, and assumed you were actually going somewhere with that specific scenario and wanted me to analyze it in depth to find flaws in my system.*

I had no idea that it was just a "test to see if your rules were broken" that brooked no further discussion.

I'm confused by this response. I presented the hypothetical to test where your line between "roll initiative normally" and "take action without having to roll" is. And yes, I do want you to use this as a means to find flaws in your system. And you have multiple posters telling you "this is a flaw in your system". That's "going somewhere". The scenario and your ruling on it, clearly demonstrates a flaw. That's not me engaging in some evil nefarious thing. I just presented the hypothetical case. You're the one who provided the ruling you would make in that case.

If that reveals a flaw, and you're playtesting the game, isn't that a good thing?

Both Dungeons and Dragons and World of Darkness would also fail that test btw, yet millions of people play them without issue.

Can't speak to World of Darkness (never played it), but D&D would not fail that test. Most DMs would simply rule that Bob gets a surprise round, then we start the combat and everyone rolls initiative. Some DM's might rule that the party's preparation for Bob's attack also gives them a surprise round, and would call for initiative among the party, but would still always have Bob go first in the surprise round regardless of actual roll.

Again though, there's a certain amount of common sense that has to be applied to these rules here.

Like all dice rolls, you can ignore it if failure / success is not reasonable or interesting, but as in that specfiic case Bob is only rolling to see if he gets a critical success, it does not meet that criteria.

Except you aren't just using the roll to determine if Bob gets 1 or 2 attacks before the NPCs react. You are using it for two things:

1. To determine if Bob gets 0, 1, or 2 attacks before the NPCs react (which is a problem since "0" should not be possible).
2. To determine if members of the party actually go before Bob does (which is a problem since the party can't react to Bob until after Bob has done the action they are reacting to).

You're leaving out some really important problems here, all of which are resolved by simply stating "Bob goes first", and leaving any other rolls to just determine what else happens in that first round: Does Bob get two attacks? Do the other party members also get a bonus attack or two? All are valid, but "Bob goes first" should also always happen.

I really don't see why that counts as a failure for your test, but I think you decided on the criteria before actually listening to my response, so I don't think I will ever understand your criteria of your test or change your mind as to the results.

Because you've ignored the parts of this that create a falure. Any result in which Bob may go after anyone else, represents a fail condition. That's why I constructed the test the way I did. It's specifically supposed to be a condition in which there is no possible answer other than "Bob's sneak attack goes first". The fact that you have answered with something which can result in Bob's sneak attack not going first means there is a problem.

I guess maybe I should come at this from the other direction: Can you describe for me a case where Bob would be able to do a sneak attack with zero possiblity of anyone else acting before his sneak attack goes off (let's add that there must be other PCs in the area, since your rules only have PCs roll for initiative)? What conditions must Bob set up to ensure this? Because I certainly thought that the scenario I presented should meet that criteria. But maybe I missed the mark somehow.

*: I actually did find one in your scenario, but I am almost certain it wasn't the one you had in mind. It requires the monsters to be in a sort of quantum state of delay based on the actions of the outside group.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. The NPCs are doing whatever it was they were doing prior to the combat starting. Standing around in the room. Having a cup of coffee. Talking about office gossip. Whatever. Until either one of them makes a perception roll and spots Bob *or* Bob attacks, they have no way of knowing anything is out of the ordinary, so they are otherwise just going about their normal business. They are in no sort of delay state at all. They just aren't in combat yet, so they have no reason to act as though they are.

Now sure. If (also as an out of combat roll) the NPCs in the room hear the party shuffling around outside the door, they may certainly decide to do something, despite the fact that Bob is in the room perparing to do his sneak attack. Again though, this is all out of combat perception roll stuff, and has nothing to do with rolling for initiative. The assumption in my hypothetical case is that the NPCs have not noticed Bob, and are unaware of the rest of the party outside the room. You are inserting additional factors to the equation, that serve only to muddle things up. I'm presenting this to test a specific set of conditions. Changing the conditions in order to avoid the test conditions seems like an odd response ("well, it works fine as long as those conditions never actually occur").

Do you allow your players to ever just get the drop on enemies?

Talakeal

2023-08-24, 12:17 AM

Has it occured to you that what you are labeling as "loopholes to bypass the rolls", most people see as "rewarding the PCs for good prep before a battle". It's just strange, because you also complain that your players never spend time planning or prepping ahead of time for a fight, which inevitably leads them to disaster, but you're also seeming to actively remove any rewards for them doing that.

Remember, the exploit in question is "Moving up to the door without stealth. Yelling "Fight!" and rolling initiative against a difficulty of zero. Waiting precisely 12 seconds. Then kicking in the door and taking a full turn without rolling a second initiative".

This is not "good prep before a battle" this is doing something that is both against the letter and spirit of the rules and makes no sense in the fiction layer.

Defensiveness is pointless. I can also turn what you're saying directly around on you: if your initiative rules are functionally identical to unchallengeable* D&D initiative rules, why not just use D&D initiative rules? There must be something in your initiative rules that you consider meaningfully different from D&D's initiative rules.

Again--argument from authority. Incorrect argument from authority because your initiative rules aren't like either of those game sets. But when gamemasters find rules in D&D or in White Wolf games which they consider clearly broken, which of these do they do?

1) Make house rules to fix them.
2) Proclaim that millions of people play them without issue so clearly the rule is not broken.

The answer, of course, is "some do each of these," but that doesn't change the fact that one of these is a much better approach than the other.

I don't disagree that "D&D did it first" isn't a sound logical argument or defense. On the other hand, saying that the majority of other people do X and don't have problem Y, is pretty strong (but not conclusive) evidence against the hypothesis that doing X causes Y.

But what the people in this thread are doing is a weird combination of "special pleading" and "non-sequitur" fallacies.

They are insisting that my rules are creating an issue, and that said issue is what is making my players mad.

If it were an issue, for me or my players, then I would house rule it. But it isn't.

The issues are:

1: Bob thinks that rogues should be able to hide in plain sight as a free action.
2: Spells with a duration in encounters should not fade if cast immediately before the encounter.
3: The players want to start combat before the enemies are present, and then keep the turn counter rolling so the enemies never get a chance to oppose their initiative when they do show up.

(As an aside, I think 1 is a non-issue as Bob could just stay out of line of sight and delay his initiative. Two he has a good point and I have changed my encounter guidelines. And three is just absurd and is wrong by both the letter and spirit of the rules).

None of these issues have anything to do with the fact that my system has surprise as a chance rather than an absolute, and none of them have anything to do with hidden people still having to roll initiative.

*Beyond the fact that "the one that most people have been using without complaint for over 20 years" is an argument from authority. People have not been using "D&D's initiative system" for over 20 years because the current edition of D&D hasn't been out for even ten years yet and their initiative rules do change between editions. And even if they had, it would not be immune to criticism.

The issues which Gbaji has with D&D initiative exist in 3E, 3.5E, PF1 and 5E. I suspect they also exist in 4E and AD&D, but I can't say off the top of my head.

And, of course, there is nothing stopping people from playing older editions.

One of the rewards for "you guys scouted ahead, and discovered the bad guys, so you know where they are, and they don't know you are around, and now you are in perfect position to attack them", is that they have the ability to get the drop on the bad guys, and potentially attack them via surprise (gaining an actual in game benefit for this). But, even under the best of circumstances, your system still requires them to make a roll to actually gain the benefit of all of that planning and prep, leading to situations where they may still "fail" despite it. Why are you surprised that they "don't like failing rolls"? You're forcing them to roll, even in situations when they maybe should not have to. Thus, when they do fail a roll, it hurts that much more because, in their minds, they should have simply succeeded automatically.

There should absolutely be cases where, if sufficient out of combat prep and rolls are made, that in-combat initiative rolls should not be the sole determinant of "who goes first".

Again, you like certainty and GM FIAT. My players and I do not.

Yeah, my players bitch and whine when they fail a roll. But you know what's worse? When they fail by GM FIAT OR when the NPCs auto-succeed without a roll.

If I ever make a ruling against the players, there is hell to pay. There is shouting and name calling and threatening and walking away from the table. There might even be throwing things and smashing other people's property.

Also, correct me if I am wrong, but even in D&D aren't there dice rolls that determine surprise? Like I know in AD&D elves could roll a d6 to act normally in the surprise round and monsters all had percentage chances to be / not to be surprised in the MM. Did none of that carry on to more recent editions?

Except that, based on the setup here, there should be zero chance of that happening. Not "low chance". Not even a die roll. Zero. If the party is waiting for Bob to attack before coming in the door, then the party cannot enter the door until after they hear Bob's attack. Period. Unless a player just out of the blue says (prior to any initiative rolls) "I'm not waiting for Bob. I'll just charge in now", then it should not happen.

This is 100,000% correct. Unless some third party decides to spoil Bob's ambush, he will go first every single time.

What are we even arguing about?

You are literally causing this to happen by having Bob and the party all roll initiative at the same time, when you should be resolving Bob's sneak attack first and *then* rolling initiative for the party (and giving them bonuses because they are ready and waiting for the signal, while the NPCs presumably are not).

Again, every edition of D&D has had everyone present roll initiative at the start of the surprise round, and I have never heard anyone else complain about this, either in person or on the forums. I really feel like this is just your personal pet-peeve rather than some deep seated issue that is causing conflict in my gaming group without ever being said aloud.

That being said, I suppose I do see how knowing what the dice rolls are before the fight starts could incentivize some of Bob's allies to decide it is in their best interests to ignore the plan and burst into the room prematurely.

I'm confused by this response. I presented the hypothetical to test where your line between "roll initiative normally" and "take action without having to roll" is. And yes, I do want you to use this as a means to find flaws in your system. And you have multiple posters telling you "this is a flaw in your system". That's "going somewhere". The scenario and your ruling on it, clearly demonstrates a flaw. That's not me engaging in some evil nefarious thing. I just presented the hypothetical case. You're the one who provided the ruling you would make in that case.

If that reveals a flaw, and you're playtesting the game, isn't that a good thing?

Yes it is a good thing.

As I said above, though I am argumentative, I really do appreciate the insight into the rules that this thread has given me, and as I said in the footnote below, your example did reveal a dysfunction in the system (just not the one I think you meant).

Again though, I really want to engage with you here, but I can't figure out what specifically you see as the flaw in this scenario, and you don't seem willing to help explain it to me; your previous response read to me like "It was only a test. And you failed. There is nothing more to discuss."

Which isn't helpful. And is the sort of thing Bob did that prompted the creation of this thread in the first place; telling me I was wrong, but refusing to discuss how or why and leaving me (and now you) to grasp at straws looking for the issue.

Again, what exactly is the flaw here?

The only thing I can figure is that you are assuming that Bob's party are somehow compelled to ignore the plan and burst into the room when their initiative comes up rather than delaying to act immediately after him or that the enemy is somehow able to pierce Bob's stealth and act before him if they win initiative. But again, those are just wild guesses.

Can't speak to World of Darkness (never played it), but D&D would not fail that test. Most DMs would simply rule that Bob gets a surprise round, then we start the combat and everyone rolls initiative. Some DM's might rule that the party's preparation for Bob's attack also gives them a surprise round, and would call for initiative among the party, but would still always have Bob go first in the surprise round regardless of actual roll.

Again though, there's a certain amount of common sense that has to be applied to these rules here.

Right. But that would be a house rule, not RAW. The GM is free to do the same thing in HoD, although I would advise against it as the initiative roll in Bob has degrees of success which can only help Bob.

And again, this situation is really only interesting if there is some third party or hard time deadline, which, afaict, my system can handle just fine, but which D&D would simply break down under and require the GM to improvise new rules on the spot.

Because you've ignored the parts of this that create a failure. Any result in which Bob may go after anyone else, represents a fail condition. That's why I constructed the test the way I did. It's specifically supposed to be a condition in which there is no possible answer other than "Bob's sneak attack goes first". The fact that you have answered with something which can result in Bob's sneak attack not going first means there is a problem.

I guess maybe I should come at this from the other direction: Can you describe for me a case where Bob would be able to do a sneak attack with zero possibility of anyone else acting before his sneak attack goes off (let's add that there must be other PCs in the area, since your rules only have PCs roll for initiative)? What conditions must Bob set up to ensure this? Because I certainly thought that the scenario I presented should meet that criteria. But maybe I missed the mark somehow.

If other PCs are present, they can always choose to jump the gun and not wait for Bob, they have that agency. (Unless of course they are tied up or something).

If there is no third party interference or hard time deadline, as there won't be in 90+% of encounters, and Bob's party agrees to let him go first, then there is never a consequence for a hidden character failing an initiative roll and the hidden character will always go first; the dice roll is just there to check if he gets a critical success and acts twice.

Except you aren't just using the roll to determine if Bob gets 1 or 2 attacks before the NPCs react. You are using it for two things:

1. To determine if Bob gets 0, 1, or 2 attacks before the NPCs react (which is a problem since "0" should not be possible).
2. To determine if members of the party actually go before Bob does (which is a problem since the party can't react to Bob until after Bob has done the action they are reacting to).

You're leaving out some really important problems here, all of which are resolved by simply stating "Bob goes first", and leaving any other rolls to just determine what else happens in that first round: Does Bob get two attacks? Do the other party members also get a bonus attack or two? All are valid, but "Bob goes first" should also always happen.

Again, zero is only possible if one of Bob's allies decides to ignore the plan and rush into the room before Bob is ready.

And I don't see this as a problem; on a gamist layer telling the other PC's that they *must* wait for Bob attacks is taking away their agency, and on a fiction layer, there is nothing physically stopping Bob's teammates from ignoring the plan and rushing in prematurely.

Now, on a teamwork layer this is pretty bad; they should stick to the plan and not try and steal Bob's spotlight unless they have good reason to suspect something has gone wrong and Bob is in trouble.

But I don't see why this situation should be impossible on either a fiction or rules level.

And again, its such an edge case, that I really don't think any of my players have ever even considered something like this coming up, let alone having it color their attitude toward the initiative rules in general.

Think about it; You have to A: decide on the plan of sending the rogue in first and everyone else waiting outside the door for his signal. B: Bob has to make his stealth roll, and the rest of the party either has to make their stealth rolls or the enemy decides to let them make the first move. Then C: Bob has to fail initiative despite his incredible bonuses. Then D: One of Bob's allies has to succeed on initiative. Then E: That ally has to make the conscious decision to ignore the plan and rush into the room rather than delaying and waiting for Bob's signal before it was agreed upon.

This is like, 1/1,000,000 here.

Do you allow your players to ever just get the drop on enemies?

Depends on what you mean by "allow".

Do I set up situations where the PCs are likely to get the drop on the NPCs, such as having them sleeping or distracted? Sure. Its not the norm, but it does happen.

In a more general sense, I usually follow the rules and let the players decide on the tone of the scenario. If the party is moving slowly and sneaking as a team, or has hidden and set up an ambush for the enemies, I allow the dice to fall where they may.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. The NPCs are doing whatever it was they were doing prior to the combat starting. Standing around in the room. Having a cup of coffee. Talking about office gossip. Whatever. Until either one of them makes a perception roll and spots Bob *or* Bob attacks, they have no way of knowing anything is out of the ordinary, so they are otherwise just going about their normal business. They are in no sort of delay state at all. They just aren't in combat yet, so they have no reason to act as though they are.

Now sure. If (also as an out of combat roll) the NPCs in the room hear the party shuffling around outside the door, they may certainly decide to do something, despite the fact that Bob is in the room perparing to do his sneak attack. Again though, this is all out of combat perception roll stuff, and has nothing to do with rolling for initiative. The assumption in my hypothetical case is that the NPCs have not noticed Bob, and are unaware of the rest of the party outside the room. You are inserting additional factors to the equation, that serve only to muddle things up. I'm presenting this to test a specific set of conditions. Changing the conditions in order to avoid the test conditions seems like an odd response ("well, it works fine as long as those conditions never actually occur").

Basically it works like this.

Scenario A:

Bob does not go before the enemies.
Brian goes before the enemies and delays.
Enemies have no targets and pass.
Brian uses his delayed action to burst into the room and attack.
Bob, Brian, and the rest of the party take their turn.
Enemies take a turn.

End Result: Brian got two turns in a row a critical success on initiative.

Or:

Scenario B:

Bob does not go before the enemies.
Enemies have no targets and delay.
The other PCs do not burst into the room prematurely, either because they also rolled poorly on initiative or because they stuck to the plan.
All PCs, including Bob takes their normal turn.
All NPCs use their delayed actions.
Enemies take their normal turn.

End Result: Monsters got two turns in a row without a critical success on initiative.

Basically, someone could potentially get two turns in a row, and which side that is depends on whether or not the enemies with no targets count as delaying or passing.

It is a dysfunction, albeit one that is unlikely to actually come up in play, but I don't think it is the one you were thinking of when you presented the scenario.

BRC

2023-08-24, 09:40 AM

Ok. Thanks for the clarification. AFAICT Vyke, Gbaji, and I all interpreted the situation differently.

I don't enjoy games where someone can automatically go first by (no pun intended) jumping the gun. It makes for a toxic environment OOC.

I (incorrectly) thought Gbaji was advocating for such a system.

To be fair, I am advocating for such a system, so long as that's the situation.

If guns are holstered, and the first move is Alice going for her gun, than that's a very different story.

That said, if what you hate is people "Automatically" going first, your approach, where the initiator gets a bonus to their initiative, is a valid one. If anybody else rolls better, you just need to make sure there's a clear narrative justification for why that person got to go first, even if it didn't quite match up with other mechanics.

Alice decides to initiate the fight by shooting, she rolls initative with a large bonus, but Dan Badger rolls even higher despite having no bonus.

In this case, you have to rule that SOMETHING happened that let Dan trigger the fight, even though the initiating action was Alice saying she was going to shoot. Maybe Dan saw Alice grit her teeth and take aim, or maybe even though Alice's PLAYER may have said "I shoot" to start the fight, whatever exchange made Alice decide to start shooting also made Dan make the same decision.

"If some action causes the fight to begin, that must be the first action in the initiative" is true, but you can bend what exactly that event is to make things work.

Of course, this approach is not Bob-Proof as some might say, players are likely to object to the idea that Alice can declare the action that starts the fight, but still not go first.

Mind you, part of this is that HoD puts more emphasis on initiative than games like D&D which simply use it to determine turn order, since "Going First" can mean "Getting an extra action".

A: The enemies use their passive initiative scores and only the PCs roll the dice.
B: Rather than being a binary, surprise and readied actions are bonus to your roll, and you only get the "extra turn" if you beat the enemies score by 20.

So, unless it is one of those two things you are arguing against, the system works like the one that most people have been using without complaint for over 20 years rather than the broken mess that people are making my version out to be.

The thing about my players though, is they don't like failing roles, and will often complain about how the rules are unfair / unrealistic when they do fail a roll, and will look for loopholes to bypass the rolls. In 3.5, it was to declare that they were readying actions outside of combat. Now, in Heart of Darkness where that doesn't work, they proposed starting combat before enemies were present and then continuing on the same turn count so that enemies never get the chance to interrupt them.

I think this is the point of contention.

Your players are pursuing that elusive Extra Action that comes from beating the enemies score by 20. If my understanding is correct, you've built your system such that achieving that is nigh impossible except in situations where other systems would grant a full surprise round automatically. Which is fine. However, since the extra action now comes from the results of a dice roll rather than the narrative of "Are the enemies surprised", you get this weird "We Start combat when there are no enemies, THUS we are rolling vs initiative 0" situation. Your initiative system treats the extra action as a reward for beating a DC set by the enemies, rather than a narrative consequence of the scenario. So your players become focused on trying to game that system mechanically, rather than setting up ambushes.

Meanwhile, a lot of people in this thread (myself included) are mostly thinking in D&D terms, where going first is a pretty minor benefit, and it's easy enough to just hand it out if somebody takes the narrative action that initiates the fight rather than build more complex systems around "Okay you did the thing that started the fight but we still need to roll to see if you go first".

Talakeal

2023-08-24, 08:31 PM

I think this is the point of contention.

Your players are pursuing that elusive Extra Action that comes from beating the enemies score by 20. If my understanding is correct, you've built your system such that achieving that is nigh impossible except in situations where other systems would grant a full surprise round automatically. Which is fine. However, since the extra action now comes from the results of a dice roll rather than the narrative of "Are the enemies surprised", you get this weird "We Start combat when there are no enemies, THUS we are rolling vs initiative 0" situation. Your initiative system treats the extra action as a reward for beating a DC set by the enemies, rather than a narrative consequence of the scenario. So your players become focused on trying to game that system mechanically, rather than setting up ambushes.

Meanwhile, a lot of people in this thread (myself included) are mostly thinking in D&D terms, where going first is a pretty minor benefit, and it's easy enough to just hand it out if somebody takes the narrative action that initiates the fight rather than build more complex systems around "Okay you did the thing that started the fight but we still need to roll to see if you go first".

I don't think so.

Their exploit precludes the possibility of getting that extra attack at all, because if there are no enemies present when they roll initiative, there is nothing to attack.

gbaji

2023-08-25, 06:52 PM

Going to just zero in on this part here.

I don't think so.

Their exploit precludes the possibility of getting that extra attack at all, because if there are no enemies present when they roll initiative, there is nothing to attack.

This is why I'm asking so many questions about not just the rules in your game but how you apply them. Because decades of experience running RPGs tells me that the players would not be wanting to do this if they didn't believe it was better for them to do so than the alternative. Which is why I've asked so many detailed questions about how you handle "opening the door and walking inside" (I think you said you just draw the room, and place their minis inside a short distance (half their perception I think?)). And ask how you manage initiative (your answer says that you then roll initiative, potentially providing a bonus to the party for having just burst through the door). Ok. Fine so far. On paper, this would seem to put the PCs in the room, with 0, 1, or 2 actions they can take before the NPCs get to react.

So... Why do the players want to roll initiative outside the door? There must be something about the process you are doing that is missing in the description, because otherwise it makes no sense. That they are wanting to do this at all tells me that I'm missing some key piece of information.

From that, I can only go on clues you've provided along the way. Which yeah, I can speculate as to their meaning, but still am having a difficult time trying to figure out. It's why I presented my hypothetical case. I'm trying to figure out how "hard" you are making "winning initaitive" under what I would consider "ideal conditions", to get a sense of what might be leading to the "roll initiative outside the room" desire by your players. Maybe it's because their odds of getting more than one bonus action is so low, they'd rather get a guaranteed 2 actions, and use one of them opening the door and entering the room, then getting one while already in the room (or sometimes, none). It could be as simple as even wining one bonus action requires them spending it moving to the NPCs, or casting a spell for the encounter, so the NPCs are still often actually attacking first, where they feel that if they used a movement action from outside the door, they could more efficiently use that one action to move up to the NPCs, and then have their second one to actually attack first.

I don't know the answer. But there must be one. Figuring out why your players want to do this is probably a good first step.

Talakeal

2023-08-25, 08:52 PM

This is why I'm asking so many questions about not just the rules in your game but how you apply them. Because decades of experience running RPGs tells me that the players would not be wanting to do this if they didn't believe it was better for them to do so than the alternative. Which is why I've asked so many detailed questions about how you handle "opening the door and walking inside" (I think you said you just draw the room, and place their minis inside a short distance (half their perception I think?)). And ask how you manage initiative (your answer says that you then roll initiative, potentially providing a bonus to the party for having just burst through the door). Ok. Fine so far. On paper, this would seem to put the PCs in the room, with 0, 1, or 2 actions they can take before the NPCs get to react.

So... Why do the players want to roll initiative outside the door? There must be something about the process you are doing that is missing in the description, because otherwise it makes no sense. That they are wanting to do this at all tells me that I'm missing some key piece of information.

Pretty sure I already addressed this back on page one.
Bob is a min-maxxer who likes playing spellcasters. As dexterity doesn't help him cast spells he dumps it.
Initiative is a dexterity-based test which one is forced to test at the start of every combat.
Bob does not like failing rolls.
Therefore, Bob looks for ways to avoid rolling initiative entirely.

From that, I can only go on clues you've provided along the way. Which yeah, I can speculate as to their meaning, but still am having a difficult time trying to figure out. It's why I presented my hypothetical case. I'm trying to figure out how "hard" you are making "winning initiative" under what I would consider "ideal conditions", to get a sense of what might be leading to the "roll initiative outside the room" desire by your players. Maybe it's because their odds of getting more than one bonus action is so low, they'd rather get a guaranteed 2 actions, and use one of them opening the door and entering the room, then getting one while already in the room (or sometimes, none). It could be as simple as even wining one bonus action requires them spending it moving to the NPCs, or casting a spell for the encounter, so the NPCs are still often actually attacking first, where they feel that if they used a movement action from outside the door, they could more efficiently use that one action to move up to the NPCs, and then have their second one to actually attack first.

Under normal rules, opening the door and moving into the room are done automatically before initiative is rolled.

Characters who roll higher than the enemy's initiative may then take a turn, which allows them to both move and attack (or cast spell etc.). Those who win by 20 or more get two full turns.

Then all enemies get a full turn (both moving and attacking).

Then all players get a full turn (both moving and attacking).

And repeat.

Now, obviously, if you roll initiative outside of the room before the enemies are present (which is illegal, but let's just assume) you wouldn't have to deal with initiative failures at all. The party could simply move into the room on their collective turn. Of course, you wouldn't get to open the door and move in as free actions, and if the enemy was aware of your presence they would almost certainly have readied actions to guard the doorway, which makes this strategy a hindrance more often than a help even if it were legal.
And, as I said before, when I told Bob this, he get mad and gave me that weird line about "realism as I see it and fairness for the monsters" and then gave me the silent treatment for a week.

Lvl 2 Expert

2023-08-26, 02:11 AM

Rolling initiative is like reacting to the chaos of battle. Everyone's running and screaming and dodging and weaving, so who gets the first hit in? Keep in mind that a low level martial is not incapable of making a stabbing motion more than ones every 6 seconds, that would be silly. They're just incapable of making a serious attempt at stabbing an opponent while jumping around and parrying like a Pirates of the Carribean character. Rolling initiative before the battle has started is therefore silly.

What I do see is that players kicking in a door and charging into a room want to do so in a predetermined order. This doesn't combine well with the concept of rolling initiative, in several ways. Because even rolling for initiative outside the door and entering in that order is not what you would want. You want the fighter to be in the front, catching any readied crossbow shots on his armor. Then you want the cleric, because you're expecting undead etc. So going in order of initiative is essentially sending the bard in first, because he feels like he's incredibly fast to react this morning.

I'd almost be tempted to make some sort of exception in the initiative order for the first round, let them act in the order they want, still with enemies going in between them according to the enemies' own initiative rolls at reasonable points, then make the party roll. Or grant them all (except for the rogue who wants to start fighting hidden outside the door 4 other combatants just charged through, that'll certainly surprise them) 20 foot of free movement into the room as some sort of pseudo-surprise round. That's how far you get before the enemy starts reacting. Because the order in which you charge through the door is a prepared and rehearsed action, reacting doesn't start until you're inside. And if the wizard is adamant they're not charging inside, the first thing they want to do is fire off a spell, consider letting them. Even if it turns out that he can actually see the enemy from outside the door, it just means the party gets a spell off in the pseudo-surprise round in return for one of their members being out of position for reactions. Wait, shouldn't the rogue be the only one to get a free sneak attack, not the wizard?

Maybe I'm already overcomplicating this.

Talakeal

2023-08-26, 03:54 AM

I'd almost be tempted to make some sort of exception in the initiative order for the first round, let them act in the order they want, still with enemies going in between them according to the enemies' own initiative rolls at reasonable points, then make the party roll. Or grant them all (except for the rogue who wants to start fighting hidden outside the door 4 other combatants just charged through, that'll certainly surprise them) 20 foot of free movement into the room as some sort of pseudo-surprise round. That's how far you get before the enemy starts reacting. Because the order in which you charge through the door is a prepared and rehearsed action, reacting doesn't start until you're inside. And if the wizard is adamant they're not charging inside, the first thing they want to do is fire off a spell, consider letting them. Even if it turns out that he can actually see the enemy from outside the door, it just means the party gets a spell off in the pseudo-surprise round in return for one of their members being out of position for reactions. Wait, shouldn't the rogue be the only one to get a free sneak attack, not the wizard?

Yeah. This is why I don't generally roll initiative until they are inside of the room.

Its dumb that the party would go through the door in a random order, and its dumb that the enemies would let a whole conga line of people march into the room single file before any of them get a chance to react.

Talakeal

2023-08-27, 09:27 PM

So, we played again today:

Bob remembered the complaint about initiative. Basically, it is easier to get two turns in a row in Dungeons and Dragons by starting the fight with the enemies surprised and winning initiative than it is in Heart of Darkness where you have to succeed by twenty. This is undoubtedly true, although I would be hesitant to say it hurts the PCs as a monster ambushing the casters and getting two turns in a row is really really bad. I also pointed out that ambushing in Heart of Darkness also gives you a bonus on subsequent turns of the fight and gives you a chance of acting before your allies, neither of which are possible in Dungeons and Dragons.

Had a couple of other issues unrelated to iniative, if anyone wants to chime in.

First, everyone was pretty grumpy and sleep deprived. I had several times when the players would jump in and interrupt me while I was narrating or talking in character. For example, an old man whom the previous party had met mistook their current party for the previous party and addressed them as such, and the group had to interrupt me mid sentence to shout me down OOC and tell me that I made a mistake, which I felt was pretty dang rude.

Then later they came up with a plan to buy some potions for a plan, which I didn't think would work as they described it. So I asked them to tell me what they were planning on doing so I could forewarn them, at which point they all insisted that it was too late, no take backs, they had already bought the potions and used them. So I proceeded to let them waste their money on a plan that wasn't going to to work. I suppose that counts as a gotcha?

Finally, the big one. Bob cast an illusion spell as a distraction. The spell he used created a free-willed illusion that does its best to imitate its subject, and for a subject Bob chose himself. Now, when the big monster the illusion was distracting caught the illusionary Bob, I had it cower and try and try and evade the monster, as the real Bob would do in this situation. Bob insisted that the illusion knows its an illusion, and thus knows that monsters can't hurt it. And since the real Bob only cowers when in danger, the illusion would not do such because it isn't in any real danger and it knows this.

I was unsure of whether or not I agreed with that logic, and Bob told me that if I sided against him he would suicide his character out of spite (and this is mid-combat, so there was a chance of his suicide snow-balling into a TPK).

In the end, I just retconned the situation and let Bob have cast an illusion without free-will instead and order it to distract the monsters at all costs.

Edit: Oh, and I did make one of those rulings where I used common sense to void the RAW, in this case saying that they would receive no benefit from a mirror image that the enemies could not possibly target because there was a wall between them.

GloatingSwine

2023-08-28, 06:56 AM

Finally, the big one. Bob cast an illusion spell as a distraction. The spell he used created a free-willed illusion that does its best to imitate its subject, and for a subject Bob chose himself. Now, when the big monster the illusion was distracting caught the illusionary Bob, I had it cower and try and try and evade the monster, as the real Bob would do in this situation. Bob insisted that the illusion knows its an illusion, and thus knows that monsters can't hurt it. And since the real Bob only cowers when in danger, the illusion would not do such because it isn't in any real danger and it knows this.

Did this prevent the illusion from being an adequate distraction?

Vahnavoi

2023-08-28, 07:24 AM

As general advice: if a player ever says they will suicide their character as a form of coercion (as happened here), call their bluff, let them suicide their character and if it leads to players losing a scenario, so be it. You aren't there to keep players from killing their own characters.

With this said, in this specific case it would've been perfectly appropriate to let Bob decide how Bob's illusion works, given the illusion is a copy of Bob and I'd trust only Bob to truly be able to explain Bob's insane troll logic.

gbaji

2023-08-28, 03:12 PM

Bob remembered the complaint about initiative. Basically, it is easier to get two turns in a row in Dungeons and Dragons by starting the fight with the enemies surprised and winning initiative than it is in Heart of Darkness where you have to succeed by twenty. This is undoubtedly true, although I would be hesitant to say it hurts the PCs as a monster ambushing the casters and getting two turns in a row is really really bad. I also pointed out that ambushing in Heart of Darkness also gives you a bonus on subsequent turns of the fight and gives you a chance of acting before your allies, neither of which are possible in Dungeons and Dragons.

Yes and no. In D&D, the surprise round is a single standard action, not a full round of actions. Then you roll initiative normally, which is just based on dex alone.

So in D&D, if you've managed your pre-combat skills/sneaks/whatever, and get the drop on the enemy, you are guaranteed a single standard action in the surprise round, but everything after that is just normal initiative dex-based order. Which could result in some PCs getting the first standard action and then getting a full round of actions before the NPCs, with some just getting the single standard action first, but all of them get some action first.

In HoD, you reallly have a very powerful all-or-nothing kind of initiative system, in which, if they do the pre-work and get surprise, the may get a full round of actions before the NPCs go, with the potential to roll really well and get two full rounds first. But given how extreme and advantage this is over the D&D (and other game systems IME), I can understand why the players are really pushing to get that bonus.

Also, given that it's a full "win/lose" situation, in the event that a player rolls poorly, they may go after the NPCs even in situations where they "got the drop" on the NPCs. So I can also see why players might want to figure out ways to get at least that first round whenever possible. I'm not sure if there's a way to address this, without introducing some sort of less powerful 'suprise round' mechanic. One where it's enough of an advantage to be worth getting, but not so much of one that as a GM you feel like you need to limit how often PCs actually get it.

So on the one hand, HoD's system provides the potential for a heck of a lot more actions before the NPCs get to go. But on the other hand, since the "2 full rounds" is a very difficult roll, most of the time, you're basically just getting the one. And since the system does a full "each side goes in order" bit, if all you get is that one first attack, it's not really any different than just going in initiative order in a system like D&D. There's only actually a "bonus" if you win by 20 points. Otherwise, it's just "we go, then they go, repeat". So I can kinda undersand the players somewhat hoping/expecting that if they've done the out of combat due dilligence to get the drop on the enemies, that they should expect that hitting that +20 roll should be something that happens at least fairly regularly.

Finally, the big one. Bob cast an illusion spell as a distraction. The spell he used created a free-willed illusion that does its best to imitate its subject, and for a subject Bob chose himself. Now, when the big monster the illusion was distracting caught the illusionary Bob, I had it cower and try and try and evade the monster, as the real Bob would do in this situation. Bob insisted that the illusion knows its an illusion, and thus knows that monsters can't hurt it. And since the real Bob only cowers when in danger, the illusion would not do such because it isn't in any real danger and it knows this.

Eh... Just as a general rule of thumb, if the player casts a spell with some kind of behavior and for a specific purpose, let the player decide how the illusion acts. Doubly so if this is the "smart" version of the illusion (don't know the rules specifically, but it would seem as though the "free willed" version of an illusion would be a more advanced version than the "without free-will" version, yet you're making it actually less functional by *you* deciding how the illusion should act rather than the person who cast it.

I'm going to second someone else's question: Did it's "evade and cower" versus <some other behavior> make any actual combat difference in terms of how the monster acted? Unless this was just a Bob-ego thing, where he didn't like the idea of his illusionary self cowering or something, I can't see how it matters. Unless you were also ruling that since the monster couldn't get to the illusion (cause it was running away or something), that it quickly turned and attacked the party, in which case that is a case of you taking control of something that should be under the player's control in a way that reduces its effectiveness. Which you should not be doing.

There is a flip side, I guess, where if the illusion just stands there and lets itself be hit, then the monster may realize that it's not real, or taking damage, or tasty like it expects, and therefore gets bored of its false chew toy and move towards other targets instead. So I'm not sure how this actually played out. But presumably Bob wanted this illusion to act as the maximum amount of distraction it could, so presuambly wants it to stay in reach, but appear to dodge its attacks, but otherwise act in ways to keep the monsters attention. At least, that is how I would interpret the intent.

Again. Not sure exactly how your illusion rules work though.

I do agree that Bob threatening to blow up the game to get his way is extreme behavior. But that's between you and Bob.

In the end, I just retconned the situation and let Bob have cast an illusion without free-will instead and order it to distract the monsters at all costs.

Edit: Oh, and I did make one of those rulings where I used common sense to void the RAW, in this case saying that they would receive no benefit from a mirror image that the enemies could not possibly target because there was a wall between them.

Again, not sure what the difference between free-willed and not actually means in the game rules. Is there some other limitation on the not-free-willed version that you are requiring to be applied here? Because, again, my assumption of the free-willed version is that Bob gives it instructions and it intelligently carries out those instructions. If he says "Keep the monsters occupied and focused on you", then the illusion should do whatever works best in the current situation to accomplish that.

I'm not sure in your edit, where the wall in between comes in here. Unless this was something that was introduced as a negative to converting the illusion from the free-willed version to the non-free-willed one, in which case my response would be for you to allow the more advanced version to just work however the caster wants it to work. I'm assuming his objective was to create an illusion of himself, in the room, in front of the monster(s), so as to get the monsters to attack the illusion instead of the party. Whichever spell you decide is the correct one to use there, it should actually work as he intends it. Saying "if you use this illusion, it'll be visible to the enemy, but I'll control its actions instead of you", but then saying "if you use this other illusion, it'll stand over in this other room and not actually work at all", then you're probably doing something wrong here.

I can't say for sure what that is, but I'll repeat: Just let the caster decide how his free willed illusion behaves. Pretend it's another illusionary character under his control. The point being it should never be under your control, otherwise, intentional or not, you may give the impression that you are having it behave in ways that are less effective than what the player would want.

Talakeal

2023-08-28, 07:11 PM

Did this prevent the illusion from being an adequate distraction?

It definitely reduces its effectiveness.

Basically, there are two actions you can take, challenge and cower, the former, to use MMO parlence, draws aggro and the latter dumps aggro.

When Bob is attacked by a monster, 99% of the time he immediately cowers, and so I had the illusion do the same.

I can understand why the players are really pushing to get that bonus.

Also, given that it's a full "win/lose" situation, in the event that a player rolls poorly, they may go after the NPCs even in situations where they "got the drop" on the NPCs. So I can also see why players might want to figure out ways to get at least that first round whenever possible. I'm not sure if there's a way to address this, without introducing some sort of less powerful 'suprise round' mechanic. One where it's enough of an advantage to be worth getting, but not so much of one that as a GM you feel like you need to limit how often PCs actually get it.

Oddly enough, my players care very little about the mechanics of initiative. They never make initiative focused characters, never use the quick-draw ability, and forget to even apply initiative bonuses most of the time (let alone go out of their way to stack them).

Instead, they tend to just complain when they fail initiative and say that they they shouldn't have to roll at all they should just go first for whatever narrative or mechanical reason applies at the the time.

As general advice: if a player ever says they will suicide their character as a form of coercion (as happened here), call their bluff, let them suicide their character and if it leads to players losing a scenario, so be it. You aren't there to keep players from killing their own characters.

Yeah. But then they get the rest of the party of killed. And then often try and convince the rest of the party to blame me.

And then they get mad at me IRL and that ruins the potential for future games and hurts friendships away from the table.

But yeah, my players have long since learned that since I care way more about their characters than I do that they can use threats of (IC) suicide to try and compel behavior that they want from me. Honestly, I think I have called Bob's bluff on it close to half a dozen times and he has gone through and suicided his character. Heck, he had one character who died three three times (and was ressurected twice) and all three deaths were essentially "Death by Cop" where he didn't like having to follow the rules and so he attacked a powerful NPC.

Eh... Just as a general rule of thumb, if the player casts a spell with some kind of behavior and for a specific purpose, let the player decide how the illusion acts. Doubly so if this is the "smart" version of the illusion (don't know the rules specifically, but it would seem as though the "free willed" version of an illusion would be a more advanced version than the "without free-will" version, yet you're making it actually less functional by *you* deciding how the illusion should act rather than the person who cast it.

There are three levels of illusionary creatures.

Level one follows a pre-programmed script.
Level two is free-willed and will act like whatever it is an illusion of.
Level three is a puppet that you can control.

Level two can be worse than level three, but it is also has some additional functionality. For example, you get the possibility of a Frankenstein scenario where it turns on you, but you also can use it for stuff when you aren't present; for example foiling an assassination attempt or simply being in two places at once.

Keep in mind that the second level acts like whatever it is an illusion of. In this case, I was having it do what Bob would do in the same situation. Bob didn't disagree with this. The thing is, Bob was arguing that since it knew it was an illusion, it shouldn't act like Bob does act, but like Bob *would act* if he knew he was an illusion.

Which is a plausible argument.

But, on the other hand, it can create some pretty weird situations if applied across the board, like if I make an illusion of a waiter to take my guest's order, will it refuse because a real waiter would only be doing this in exchange for wages, and the illusionary waiter knows that the spell will expire before payday. Or an illusionary dog who refuses to do tricks for treats because it knows it is an illusion and thus isn't motivated by food. Etc.

I'm going to second someone else's question: Did it's "evade and cower" versus <some other behavior> make any actual combat difference in terms of how the monster acted? Unless this was just a Bob-ego thing, where he didn't like the idea of his illusionary self cowering or something, I can't see how it matters. Unless you were also ruling that since the monster couldn't get to the illusion (cause it was running away or something), that it quickly turned and attacked the party, in which case that is a case of you taking control of something that should be under the player's control in a way that reduces its effectiveness. Which you should not be doing.

He created an illusory copy of himself so that he could get two actions a turn.

It happened to be behind the party when a monster attacked them from the rear.

Cowering is a charisma roll to get the enemy to attack someone else. It is what Bob does if he is targeted 99% of the time, and as it was an illusion of Bob that is supposed to act like Bob, I had it do the same.

Bob's argument was that since the illusion knew it was an illusion, and therefore had no fear of attack, it would not only not cower, but actively challenge the monster to get the monster to attack it as much as possible to serve as a distraction while the rest of the party ran away.

And again, it isn't a terrible argument. But the idea of meta-thinking on the illusion's part opens a lot of cans of worms. An illusion that acts like an orc is very different than an illusion that acts like an illusion of an orc.

Again, not sure what the difference between free-willed and not actually means in the game rules. Is there some other limitation on the not-free-willed version that you are requiring to be applied here? Because, again, my assumption of the free-willed version is that Bob gives it instructions and it intelligently carries out those instructions. If he says "Keep the monsters occupied and focused on you", then the illusion should do whatever works best in the current situation to accomplish that.

By RAW it doesn't follow instructions at all, it instead acts as if it were a real creature. Although RAI it should probably be friendly toward the caster.

If you just want an illusion to stand there and be a distraction, this is not the right spell, as either the level 1 pre-programmed illusion or the level 3 puppet illusion are better choices.

Unless this was something that was introduced as a negative to converting the illusion from the free-willed version to the non-free-willed one, in which case my response would be for you to allow the more advanced version to just work however the caster wants it to work. I'm assuming his objective was to create an illusion of himself, in the room, in front of the monster(s), so as to get the monsters to attack the illusion instead of the party. Whichever spell you decide is the correct one to use there, it should actually work as he intends it. Saying "if you use this illusion, it'll be visible to the enemy, but I'll control its actions instead of you", but then saying "if you use this other illusion, it'll stand over in this other room and not actually work at all", then you're probably doing something wrong here.

I can't say for sure what that is, but I'll repeat: Just let the caster decide how his free willed illusion behaves. Pretend it's another illusionary character under his control. The point being it should never be under your control, otherwise, intentional or not, you may give the impression that you are having it behave in ways that are less effective than what the player would want.

Again, that's what the level three illusion is for.

I am curious how you would rule an illusion (or any summoned / conjured creature) would act when the caster wasn't present though.

I'm not sure in your edit, where the wall in between comes in here.

Earlier in the thread people, Quertus and others, were saying that one of my flaws as a GM is that I often override the rules in favor of my common sense, and I responded that I rarely do that, if anything I am too "by the book" and may players often complain that I stick to RAW when they believe it shouldn't apply to them for whatever reason.

Last night, there was a situation where a character was defending a doorway, and had a mirror image inside the room on either side. I ruled that creatures outside the building would not have the usual chance of striking a mirror image, as there was a solid wall between them and they had neither line or sight nor line of effect to the images.

icefractal

2023-08-28, 07:46 PM

I really doubt that Bob would want "level 2" illusions to work like that in general.

Bob: Creates a L2 illusion of an Ogre to scare off or draw fire from some soldiers.
Illusion: "Hey soldiers! I'm on your side. That ******* there brought me into existence knowing that I'm going to disappear in a few minutes, without ever getting to enjoy myself!"
Soldiers: "... what?"
Illusion: "Yeah, so I want him to get beat up for dooming me to this crappy situation. I'm not even solid, you can totally walk through me."

It's only beneficial if:
1) You're making a clone of yourself or an ally.
2) That person has the kind of "the mission comes first" or "helpful no matter what" personality where they won't mind being an illusion doomed to a very short 'life'. Not a given at all, but since it's possible I'll give Bob the benefit of the doubt and assume his character does think that way.

... huh, same phenomenon as the "fanatics get the most mileage out of alpha forks in Eclipse Phase" thing, now that I think of it.

All that said, while Bob's threat of character suicide was poor sportsmanship, I think the final outcome (retcon to cast the spell that did what he thought the other spell did) was a reasonable way to handle it. People make mistakes but their characters don't necessarily need to make the same ones.

Vahnavoi

2023-08-28, 10:40 PM

Yeah. But then they get the rest of the party of killed. And then often try and convince the rest of the party to blame me.

The rest of the party getting killed is rest of the party's problem and you should alwayd answer such blatant blameshifting with "if you don't want Bob to do this in the game, do something about it in the game".

And then they get mad at me IRL and that ruins the potential for future games and hurts friendships away from the table.

[. . .]

Honestly, I think I have called Bob's bluff on it close to half a dozen times and he has gone through and suicided his character. Heck, he had one character who died three three times (and was ressurected twice) and all three deaths were essentially "Death by Cop" where he didn't like having to follow the rules and so he attacked a powerful NPC.

You don't see the contradiction here? Let me help you: if you've honestly called Bob's bluff a half dozen times and that wasn't enough to drive Bob away, putting your foot down doesn't cause enough hurt even to Bob. Also, if friendships away from the table are being hurt by players losing in minimal consequence game? You don't need those friendships.

But yeah, my players have long since learned that since I care way more about their characters than I do that they can use threats of (IC) suicide to try and compel behavior that they want from me.

You shouldn't care more about your players' characters than they do. All it does is make you a sucker for base manipulative behaviour. Stop falling for it.

Talakeal

2023-08-28, 10:59 PM

... huh, same phenomenon as the "fanatics get the most mileage out of alpha forks in Eclipse Phase" thing, now that I think of it.

Could you please explain that reference?

I think I get the gist of it, but not having played Eclipse Phase I would appreciate some more context.

The rest of the party getting killed is rest of the party's problem and you should alwayd answer such blatant blameshifting with "if you don't want Bob to do this in the game, do something about it in the game".

You don't see the contradiction here? Let me help you: if you've honestly called Bob's bluff a half dozen times and that wasn't enough to drive Bob away, putting your foot down doesn't cause enough hurt even to Bob. Also, if friendships away from the table are being hurt by players losing in minimal consequence game? You don't need those friendships.

I think maybe you are assuming something different than what I am saying.

I deal with a lot of immature / emotionally closed off people who would rather throw a temper tantrum and ruin everyone's good time (including their own) rather than actually talking about their issues. So when I hear these over the top threats, I interpret it as "something you are doing is making me really angry".

At that point, I think its better to pause the game, discuss the issue, and see if we can't reach a compromise / come to an understanding.

IMO, this is preferable to either calling their bluff or letting them have their way.

You shouldn't care more about your players' characters than they do. All it does is make you a sucker for base manipulative behaviour. Stop falling for it.

That's an interesting perspective. Are you able to avoid developing attachments to fictional characters you have spent a lot of time watching? Because I'm sure not.

icefractal

2023-08-29, 12:54 AM

Could you please explain that reference?

I think I get the gist of it, but not having played Eclipse Phase I would appreciate some more context.In Eclipse Phase, an Alpha fork is a complete copy of your mind, where-as a Beta or Gamma fork are heavily edited-down versions with less of your skills and memories. And Alpha forks aren't merely better, they're also easier and faster to make.

But the downside is that they are you - you're creating a complete copy which (ethically at least, legality varies by location) is entitled to your life as much as the original is. And they're no more willing to be cannon-fodder than you yourself would be. You can re-merge forks, allowing you to have done two things at once with neither lost, but it's not trivial and gets harder the longer the two are separated.

So for an average person, whether to make an Alpha fork is a weighty question, and if they wanted to, say, send one on a dangerous mission for no reward:
Original: Ok, now go sneak into that lab and bring back the blueprints.
Fork: And get captured and taken apart? Yeah, no thanks, you do it.
Original: Well then I'm going to delete you.
Fork: You'd do that to yourself?! Well consider this ... *deletes original first* ... if you're a cold-blooded backstabber then so am I, sucker.

But if you're a fanatic who's entirely willing to die for the cause, then so are your forks. A single agent sent on a suicide mission could quickly turn themselves into hundreds/thousands/millions of agents, and the fact that there's no way to re-merge that many forks even if they did survive won't bother them, because they already accepted this was a one-way mission.

That said, sending out tons of Alpha forks does have downsides other than the ethical ones - they all have a full set of memories, so if even one gets captured that's all your plans (and passwords) known. But that's less of a problem for someone who knows what they're getting into and had selected memories removed in advance.

GloatingSwine

2023-08-29, 03:13 AM

It definitely reduces its effectiveness.

Basically, there are two actions you can take, challenge and cower, the former, to use MMO parlence, draws aggro and the latter dumps aggro.

When Bob is attacked by a monster, 99% of the time he immediately cowers, and so I had the illusion do the same.

So the player declares an action with intent A (known to you), and after he has acted you decide that the outcome is B instead?

This is one of those situations where as a DM you might want to suggest the modified behaviour before the action so that the player gets their intended outcome, which you know and you know is available to them.

So when Bob says "I want to cast a level 2 illusion of me as a distraction" the sense check is "the level 2 illusion will act like you, that means it will cower if targeted, would you like to use a level 1 illusion that challenges instead?"

Talakeal

2023-08-29, 03:29 AM

So the player declares an action with intent A (known to you), and after he has acted you decide that the outcome is B instead?

This is one of those situations where as a DM you might want to suggest the modified behavior before the action so that the player gets their intended outcome, which you know and you know is available to them.

So when Bob says "I want to cast a level 2 illusion of me as a distraction" the sense check is "the level 2 illusion will act like you, that means it will cower if targeted, would you like to use a level 1 illusion that challenges instead?"

Correct.

Except for the "known to me" part.

The problem is that my players never tell me (or one another) what they are intending to do until after they have already done it, let alone why they are doing things. If they were more willing to communicate these things, arguments like this could be headed off at the pass.

We had the same issue with them buying potions that I suspected weren't going to work like they hoped, but rather than talk it over, they insisted the potions were already bought while I was in the kitchen and that there were no take backs.

Edit: Also, its not like I have a firm policy against rewinding if someone makes a mistake if there is a misunderstanding. The issue was not that the spell was wasted or anything like that, it was that Bob didn't like my ruling at all and was going to kill off his character to show me how much he disagreed with it.

Vahnavoi

2023-08-29, 03:41 AM

I think maybe you are assuming something different than what I am saying.

I deal with a lot of immature / emotionally closed off people who would rather throw a temper tantrum and ruin everyone's good time (including their own) rather than actually talking about their issues. So when I hear these over the top threats, I interpret it as "something you are doing is making me really angry".

There is no confusion over that. Also, these aren't over-the-top threats. A player threatening to kill their character is equivalent to threatening to quit a game. That's a normal and trivial reaction and the standard solution is to let the angry person quit the game and go be angry somewhere else.

At that point, I think its better to pause the game, discuss the issue, and see if we can't reach a compromise / come to an understanding.

IMO, this is preferable to either calling their bluff or letting them have their way.

You are playing a low-stakes game. The standard solution to an angry player, if they're unwilling or unable to control their emotions, is to remove that player from the game. Discussion can happen after the player is no longer angry, because you can't have an intelligible discussion with an angry person.

The reason to call their bluff is because, like little kids, your players are capable of acting angry or upset to get their way. Every time thet get their way, that reinforces the notion that performing anger or upsetness gives them control over the game and control over you. That is why, when you have a good reason to think they're doing this, the correct choice is to not given them any sway and calmly move on with the game.

That's an interesting perspective. Are you able to avoid developing attachments to fictional characters you have spent a lot of time watching? Because I'm sure not.

I was talking of degrees, not absolutes. As game master, I tend to be much less invested in each player character than their players are. The times I've been more invested in a character than the original player, mostly in context of freeform roleplay, the logical and simple solution has been for the disinterested player to give that character to me, and 95% of the time this has involved none of the drama you have with Bob.

As for how this interacts with character death,. there are two main types of game I play when it comes to character death:

A) each player has final say over whether their character lives or dies

B) the game master has final say over whether a character lives or dies and significant part of the time this is subject to random chance.

Both paradigms exists to stop pointless discussion, complaining and bargaining over character death.

In the former paradigm, if a player says their character dies, it dies, and other players are just meant to accept it and deal with it. Letting another players use this to coerce you out of game is being a sucker. This kind of toxic behaviour is best left to Chick tracts making mockery of roleplayers.

In the latter paradigm, since you are the game master, you don't have to accept a player's decision if it's made in anger or in attempt to manipulate. You can literally say "you are angry/being coercive and I'm going to ignore such decisions. Take a break and come back when you're less angry / when you're willing to play in good faith". But, as noted above, player suiciding their character is typically equivalent to them wanting to quit the game. Since participation is voluntary, a player can quit anytime, for any reason. The only necessary question is a confirmation prompt "are you sure?", no different from a player quitting a computer game.

Since character death can happen in the game anyway, there is no reason for a game master to stop to negotiate over this. Again, you as the game master don't exist to keep the characters from dying. Keeping characters alive is a game problem for the players, a dead character is their game loss. Get it? Their game loss. Not yours. As a game master, it is trivial to restore dead characters to life and let players try the same scenario again. The in-game stakes for you are non-existent. Letting the players use these non-existent stakes and a trivial game move to coerce yourself is, again, being a sucker.

GloatingSwine

2023-08-29, 04:57 AM

Correct.

Except for the "known to me" part.

The problem is that my players never tell me (or one another) what they are intending to do until after they have already done it, let alone why they are doing things. If they were more willing to communicate these things, arguments like this could be headed off at the pass.

So did Bob just say "I summon a level 2 illiusion of me" and give you no further information?

Because it sounded from your first description that he said he was doing it as a distraction. Which means you do know the intent of the action, it's a distraction.

Talakeal

2023-08-29, 05:46 AM

So did Bob just say "I summon a level 2 illiusion of me" and give you no further information?

Yeah, it did. Sorry that my previous post wasn't more clear.

He said he cast the spell on his turn. I asked what the illusion was of, and he said himself.

We had previously discussed the possibility of him using bard song through the illusion, so I figured that's what he was doing here.

On the monster's turn I had the illusion cower when it approached, at which point Bob said that the illusion wouldn't do that, it would challenge it.

At which point I told him that the illusion is explicitly called out as free-willed and does its best to mimic what it is an illusion of, and that his character would definitely cower if a monster came near.

He presented his opinion that illusions know they are illusions, and should take that into account when they act.

I said that was a decent point, but that's not how I am going to play it right now, we can discuss it further after the game.

His turn was next up, and I asked him what he was doing to do, and he said that he doesn't even care anymore and is just going to lie down in front of the monster and let it kill him.

GloatingSwine

2023-08-29, 06:05 AM

Kish

2023-08-29, 08:22 AM

At which point I told him that the illusion is explicitly called out as free-willed and does its best to mimic what it is an illusion of,
If that's what Heart of Darkness explicitly says then he doesn't have a good point by any means.

In any event, and various people's advice to stop playing with Bob aside, it sounds like Bob is either continually on the brink of giving up playing with you, or he's being completely manipulative. In the first case, this should resolve itself soon. In the second...well, if he's trying to get you to make rulings he likes whether they make sense or not, and you're responding by doing it, he has no reason at all to stop doing exactly what he's doing.

BRC

2023-08-29, 10:07 AM

Yeah, it did. Sorry that my previous post wasn't more clear.

He said he cast the spell on his turn. I asked what the illusion was of, and he said himself.

We had previously discussed the possibility of him using bard song through the illusion, so I figured that's what he was doing here.

On the monster's turn I had the illusion cower when it approached, at which point Bob said that the illusion wouldn't do that, it would challenge it.

At which point I told him that the illusion is explicitly called out as free-willed and does its best to mimic what it is an illusion of, and that his character would definitely cower if a monster came near.

He presented his opinion that illusions know they are illusions, and should take that into account when they act.

I said that was a decent point, but that's not how I am going to play it right now, we can discuss it further after the game.

His turn was next up, and I asked him what he was doing to do, and he said that he doesn't even care anymore and is just going to lie down in front of the monster and let it kill him.

Bob's toxicity aside, I feel like he does have a point here. You might be TECHNICALLY correct, but I can't really side with you here.

His goal: Cast an illusion to distract the monster, which seems like a pretty straightforward use of an illusion spell, as does making an illusion of yourself. This isn't really a shenanigan or stretch of the spell. If he'd summoned the illusion of an Honorable Knight, you could reasonably argue that an intelligent monster wouldn't be fooled by a knight suddenly appearing (As opposed to summoning an illusion of himself, thus raising confusion about which one is real).

The "Free Willed" clause is a weird one, because it means this otherwise fairly straightforward ability becomes entirely dependent on the GM's interpretation of how the Illusion would act. I can't speak to the game design goal with making the illusion free willed, but as written/interpreted here, it makes what should be a fairly straightforward spell incredibly complicated. You can't just conjure an illusion to do what you want, you have to conjure an illusion of something that WOULD do what you want. Even if the spell description is accurate, it's a really counterintuitive way to make the spell work, and fights against how players will imagine the spell.

If I was playing HoD, had an Illusion spell, and said "I conjure an illusion of that guard we killed earlier so the other guards think he's still standing watch" and the GM said "Your illusion sees you and sounds the alarm, because it's Free Willed and that's what a guard would do here" I'd be furious.

That's the sort of magic words/ GM Gotcha gameplay that I hate. If Bob had said "I summon the illusion of a hypothetical identical twin who can perfectly impersonate me and whose primary goal is to distract the monster" would that have worked?

gbaji

2023-08-29, 03:52 PM

Basically, there are two actions you can take, challenge and cower, the former, to use MMO parlence, draws aggro and the latter dumps aggro.

When Bob is attacked by a monster, 99% of the time he immediately cowers, and so I had the illusion do the same.

So you chose to have his illusion act the way you thought he should act in that situation instead of the way Bob wanted his illusion self to act? And you don't see the problem with this?

Let me ask a question: Can the illusion be harmed (don't know how illusions work in your game)? If not, then the question becomes: "is the 1% of times Bob doesn't cower maybe in situations where he's unlikely to be harmed?"'. You know, exactly like the illusionary version of himself in this situation?

Oddly enough, my players care very little about the mechanics of initiative. They never make initiative focused characters, never use the quick-draw ability, and forget to even apply initiative bonuses most of the time (let alone go out of their way to stack them).

Instead, they tend to just complain when they fail initiative and say that they they shouldn't have to roll at all they should just go first for whatever narrative or mechanical reason applies at the the time.

From a playtesting point of view, if a rule is being ignored, or some on-paper advantage not being pursued by the players, there's probably a reason why. Either the rule or the implementation of the rule is such that the players don't actually feel it worth the cost to take advantage of. On paper, based on how you have described the initiative system in your game, this seems like it would be a massively beneficial thing to focus a character on. To always go first, sometimes twice before the enemies, seems like a no-brainer.

If your players aren't going for it, then something isn't meeting up with that on-paper description. You might want to spend some thought figuring out what that is. It could be as simple as the combat system itself. If it's less "sudden strike kills enemy" and more "wear them down over a few rounds", then the advantage of "going first" is fairly minimal. And if the +20 to get an actual extra round is too difficult or expensive to get frequently enough to be worth the investment in <whatever> to get, then at the end of the day, you're still just going back and forth attacking, with each side taking turns. Initiative has no actual benefit after the first round, so unless that first round can be critical to the outcome of the battle, it may just not be worth it.

But yeah. I don't know the system well enough to know how combat tends to flow, so I can't say if that's the case.

There are three levels of illusionary creatures.

Level one follows a pre-programmed script.
Level two is free-willed and will act like whatever it is an illusion of.
Level three is a puppet that you can control.

Ok. But here's my take on this. Bob created an illusion of his own character. Which, to me means, Bob gets to decide what the illusion does, just as he does with his own character. Right? It's an illusion of Bob's character. Bob decides when his character cowers or is brave. But you are arbitrarily taking that choice away from him.

Don't do that. It's really high up on the list of "things GMs should not do". And frankly, any such intelligent illusion like this should behave the way the caster says it behaves. They created it. They decide what sort of personality it has, and how it acts, and should make all decisions about how it behaves. Otherwise, you get yourself into exactly this kind of conflict (for no real gain either).

He created an illusory copy of himself so that he could get two actions a turn.

It happened to be behind the party when a monster attacked them from the rear.

Cowering is a charisma roll to get the enemy to attack someone else. It is what Bob does if he is targeted 99% of the time, and as it was an illusion of Bob that is supposed to act like Bob, I had it do the same.

It's not about what Bob does "99% of the time". You don't control Bob's character. Bob does. He gets to decide that this is that 1% of times when he stands bravely and fights the monster.

This is not a D&D wish spell where the DM is supposed to twist the purpose and intent of the player to foil their plans. This is a basic spell. Why are you hijacking the players ability to decide what their own spell should do.

I mean, sure, you can interpret it that way, but then that's a heck of a lot of "GM takes control of what the player is trying to do". If the player casts this illusion with the intent of it behaving a specific way, then it should behave that way. The player should always make that decision, not the GM.

If you actually have it written the other way around in the rules, then that's a terrible rule/spell/whatever and should be changed. It will cause nothing but conflict at any table it is played at. There's an infinite number of ways I can screw over my players if I decide that their indepdenent illusion spell will do what I want rather than what they do. That's not a realy fun game for the players to play.

He cast the spell. Let him decide how it acts.

Bob's argument was that since the illusion knew it was an illusion, and therefore had no fear of attack, it would not only not cower, but actively challenge the monster to get the monster to attack it as much as possible to serve as a distraction while the rest of the party ran away.

And again, it isn't a terrible argument. But the idea of meta-thinking on the illusion's part opens a lot of cans of worms. An illusion that acts like an orc is very different than an illusion that acts like an illusion of an orc.

You are grossly overthinking this. Yes. The illusion does presumably know its an illusion, but also presumably has specific intructions it's given as to why it was created. Otherwise, the entire thing is just silly. An illusionary waiter waits tables because that's what it was created to do. An illusionary ogre attacks the enemies of the party because that's what it was created to do. And an illusionary Bob will distract the monster away from attacking the rest of the party (including the real Bob) also because that's what it was created to do.

By RAW it doesn't follow instructions at all, it instead acts as if it were a real creature. Although RAI it should probably be friendly toward the caster.

If you just want an illusion to stand there and be a distraction, this is not the right spell, as either the level 1 pre-programmed illusion or the level 3 puppet illusion are better choices.

It sounds like that's never the right spell to cast. Maybe get rid of it entirely then. If the only effect of the spell is "GM decides what effect your spell has", that's not a good spell.

Again, that's what the level three illusion is for.

I am curious how you would rule an illusion (or any summoned / conjured creature) would act when the caster wasn't present though.

If I've included a "free-willed" illusion spell, it would continue to act as its caster wants. In other words, treat it like it's another character being run by the player. That's the only way this sort of spell can possibly make sense. And yeah. Summoned creatures as well (subject to the limitations of the spell, which may preclude having it do things that are directly suicidal maybe).

It just never works well to have the GM control these things. Just let the players make the decisions. Done. Problems all solved.

And yeah. I'd actually order the illusions differently. Level 1 would be pre-programmed. Level2 would be "actively controlled by the caster" (requires concentration, actions, whatever), and level 3 would be "acts independently" (but with the caster decding how it acts, just like if they were running an additional character). You've created this really weird level of illusion that seems just designed to do nothing but create conflict in the game. Get rid of it.

Take it from me. There are very few things players dislike more than having the GM decide how their actions/spells/whatever work. While specific uses of things should always be subject to GM approval/veto, the default should always be "it works the way the player wants". Write your game that way. The more stuff that is subject to GM interpretation, the more the players are going to feel subject to the whims of the GM at the moment. And given your own proclivity to make snap decisions without thinking things through, and then later regretting them, this is probably really not a good idea.

Last night, there was a situation where a character was defending a doorway, and had a mirror image inside the room on either side. I ruled that creatures outside the building would not have the usual chance of striking a mirror image, as there was a solid wall between them and they had neither line or sight nor line of effect to the images.

Again, can't speak to your specific implementation of the mirror image spell, but the usual assumption is that the additional images blur around back and forth across the actual player, meaning that at no point can an attacker be certain which one is "the real person". Your interpretation is basically the same as having the mirror images always stand to the sides of the caster, and then having the NPCs just always attack the center person because that's always the "real one".

Is the doorway 100% as wide as the character? Presuambly not. So the character could be standing slightly to the left, or the right, with a mirror image standing just to the side (mirror image, as well as just combat in general, assumes that characters don't just stand perfectly still the entire time while in battle). The character shifts to their left, and a mirror image fills in the space to the right, leaving an opponent with at least a second image to think might be the target. I might reduce the odds of hitting a mirror image in this situation, but would not totall nulllify it. And I'd still allow it to be fully effective against ranged attacks (again, is the PC just standing there in the door way while people shoot at them, or are they ducking back and then stepping back to fire, then back, etc).

And hey. Why are the images only to the sides and inside the building? They could be slightly in front, or to the side but outside the building (leading an opponent to be suddenly faced with an enemy and maybe react to that instead of to the person in the doorway). It would depend on how crowded the space is, but honestly if you try to think too hard about miirror image and fitting stuff into battle hexes on a map, you're going to get yourself in trouble no matter what you do.

I do find it interesting that it seems like you are constantly trying to reduce the effectiveness of what your players try to do in the game. Maybe do less of that.

Talakeal

2023-08-30, 12:03 AM

Then you need to make your players communicate more. Ask questions so you know what they want to achieve, not just assume that what they told you they were going to do will achieve it.

Especially if them achieving what they want relies on you taking actions as part of the plan.

Preaching to the choir here.

If I was playing HoD, had an Illusion spell, and said "I conjure an illusion of that guard we killed earlier so the other guards think he's still standing watch" and the GM said "Your illusion sees you and sounds the alarm, because it's Free Willed and that's what a guard would do here" I'd be furious.

Of course it would sound the alarm if it saw you.

Why on Earth are you choosing to give it free will in that situation?

Making an illusion of a known enemy and intentionally granting it free will and then being furious when it turns on you makes about as much sense to me as fire-balling yourself and getting mad when you took damage.

Out of curiosity, if you summoned a Balor, and then took no actions to bind or compel it, would you also be mad when the CE greater demon went on an indiscriminate rampage that included your party?

The "Free Willed" clause is a weird one, because it means this otherwise fairly straightforward ability becomes entirely dependent on the GM's interpretation of how the Illusion would act. I can't speak to the game design goal with making the illusion free willed, but as written/interpreted here, it makes what should be a fairly straightforward spell incredibly complicated. You can't just conjure an illusion to do what you want, you have to conjure an illusion of something that WOULD do what you want. Even if the spell description is accurate, it's a really counterintuitive way to make the spell work, and fights against how players will imagine the spell.

Again, there are three levels.

The first level is a simple automaton that can only follow pre-programmed commands.
The second is a free-willed being that does its best to imitate the being it is impersonating.
The third level is a minion that follows your commands.

Don't use the level 2 version if a level 1 version would suffice or you require the precise control the level 3 version would provide.

That's the sort of magic words/ GM Gotcha gameplay that I hate. If Bob had said "I summon the illusion of a hypothetical identical twin who can perfectly impersonate me and whose primary goal is to distract the monster" would that have worked?

Yes.

But that doesn't allow him the versatility he wants.

That's the sort of magic words/ GM Gotcha gameplay that I hate.

Again, everything is a "gotcha".

Why is it the GM's job to be a mind reader?

Isn't springing a plan that hinges on an incorrect reading of the RAW on the GM a "PC Gotcha"?

If my plan hinges on casting hold monster on a 3.5 dragon (where dragons are immune to paralyzation) then why should the GM compelled to ignore the printed rules to allow my spell to work (but only if I didn't run it by him before hand)?

I am perfectly happy to let my PCs do a take-back if they make a rules mistake, which is a lot more than most people I have gamed with.

It wasn't the "gotcha" that Bob was mad about, but the ruling itself.

So you chose to have his illusion act the way you thought he should act in that situation instead of the way Bob wanted his illusion self to act? And you don't see the problem with this?

No. I don't see a problem with this.

Conjuring something does not (be default) give you control over it.

Spells do what the book says the spells do.

Fire-ball doesn't suddenly start dealing cold damage just because I am fighting a fire-elemental and I really want it to; even if it was a legitimate good faith mistake on my part.

Let me ask a question: Can the illusion be harmed (don't know how illusions work in your game)? If not, then the question becomes: "is the 1% of times Bob doesn't cower maybe in situations where he's unlikely to be harmed?"'. You know, exactly like the illusionary version of himself in this situation?

As an illusion, it is incorporeal.

This was the question Bob raised. And I admit it is a good one. But again, it raises just as many problems as it solves.

The Ogre example above is one of them. Likewise, an illusion isn't going to fool many people if it starts walking through doors and refusing invitations to dinner by telling people it doesn't need to eat because it is only an illusion.

TBH, if you just want a distraction (which Bob didn't, he wanted a distraction AND a buff bot AND a scout, AND whatever else) I would say its better to make an illusion of a helpless and terrified, but somewhat quick on their feet victim for the monster to chase rather than someone who just stands there and lets the monster realize that it is an illusion as soon as their weapons pass right through it.

The spell says the illusion does its best to bluff people into believing it is the genuine article, and that is how I ruled it at the table, although it was open to discussion and revision later.

From a playtesting point of view, if a rule is being ignored, or some on-paper advantage not being pursued by the players, there's probably a reason why. Either the rule or the implementation of the rule is such that the players don't actually feel it worth the cost to take advantage of. On paper, based on how you have described the initiative system in your game, this seems like it would be a massively beneficial thing to focus a character on. To always go first, sometimes twice before the enemies, seems like a no-brainer.

If your players aren't going for it, then something isn't meeting up with that on-paper description. You might want to spend some thought figuring out what that is. It could be as simple as the combat system itself. If it's less "sudden strike kills enemy" and more "wear them down over a few rounds", then the advantage of "going first" is fairly minimal. And if the +20 to get an actual extra round is too difficult or expensive to get frequently enough to be worth the investment in <whatever> to get, then at the end of the day, you're still just going back and forth attacking, with each side taking turns. Initiative has no actual benefit after the first round, so unless that first round can be critical to the outcome of the battle, it may just not be worth it.

But yeah. I don't know the system well enough to know how combat tends to flow, so I can't say if that's the case.

I generally chalk it up to gamesmanship on Bob's part.

He knows its easier to whine, complain, and appeal to "fairness" or "realism" when he doesn't get his way than it is to actually build a well rounded character.

Generally, he builds around one thing, and then complains that the GM is cheating and picking on him when he is forced to make rolls that fall outside of that one thing; be they initiative, strength to resist grapple, fortitude to resist poison, alertness to resist an ambush, or whatever.

It sounds like that's never the right spell to cast. Maybe get rid of it entirely then. If the only effect of the spell is "GM decides what effect your spell has", that's not a good spell.

It sounds like you are assuming adversarial GMing again.

Most conjuration, charm, illusion, and divination spells give the GM the option of how exactly they play out. And yet they are used to great effect at thousands of gaming tables across the world without issue.

Heck, most rules in most RPGs are ultimately down to the GM to decide how they play out.

And, even if you ignore all the GM interpretation and fluff, the spell still has mechanical utility. Just, for example, conjuring a bard and having them sit in the corner and play to inspire the party is an awesome buff spell.

You are grossly overthinking this. Yes. The illusion does presumably know its an illusion, but also presumably has specific intructions it's given as to why it was created. Otherwise, the entire thing is just silly. An illusionary waiter waits tables because that's what it was created to do. An illusionary ogre attacks the enemies of the party because that's what it was created to do. And an illusionary Bob will distract the monster away from attacking the rest of the party (including the real Bob) also because that's what it was created to do.

That is a spell one could create. That is not the spell I have created.

The spell I have written is:

An illusionary waiter waits tables because that's what a real waiter does. An illusionary guard guards a door because that's what a real guard does. An illusionary ogre fights and eats because that's what an real ogre does. An illusionary Bob follows the party around and acts as a buff bot and then cowers when attacked because that is what a real Bob does.

Again, the spell does what the spell does, and the caster makes the choices called on by the spell. The spell does not shape itself to the casters wishes. If a caster summons a demon or raises an undead abominations and takes no precautions to control or restrain it, would you also say that the chaotic evil creatures who live only to spread death and destruction would intrinsically devote themselves to serving the caster's best interests.

If I've included a "free-willed" illusion spell, it would continue to act as its caster wants. In other words, treat it like it's another character being run by the player. That's the only way this sort of spell can possibly make sense. And yeah. Summoned creatures as well (subject to the limitations of the spell, which may preclude having it do things that are directly suicidal maybe).

It just never works well to have the GM control these things. Just let the players make the decisions. Done. Problems all solved.

Really? Problems all solved?

So, for example, if I summon a messenger to deliver an important letter to a distant kingdom, but the journey is far too perilous for me to undertake.

So, do you think I (to say nothing of the other players!) will be perfectly happy to spend the next three months playing out the journey?

Now, say when they get their, the person who receives the message gives a response, and that response includes that the BBEG is super weak to water wicked witch of the west style.

But, on the way back, the messenger is snatched up by a wandering wyvern, carried to its lair, devoured, and the message used to make a nest for its young, never having been read to the PCs.

So, two months later, they are fighting the BBEG. And then one of my fellow PCs decides to pull out his canteen and pour it over the BBEG's head.

Why would he do this? He doesn't know the BBEG is weak to water. But his player does.

The player insists he isn't metagaming, he had always planned on using water on the BBEG, he swears, but the rest of the table rolls their eyes and assumes meta-gaming.

Or heck, what about the opposite of that? What if the summoned creature knows something important that the controlling player doesn't?

Or, lets combine all of these, and say the PC wants to have a conversation with the thing they have summoned. Are they really supposed to talk to themselves and be unable to glean any information from it that they don't already have?

This is not a D&D wish spell where the DM is supposed to twist the purpose and intent of the player to foil their plans. This is a basic spell. Why are you hijacking the players ability to decide what their own spell should do.

I mean, sure, you can interpret it that way, but then that's a heck of a lot of "GM takes control of what the player is trying to do". If the player casts this illusion with the intent of it behaving a specific way, then it should behave that way. The player should always make that decision, not the GM.

If you actually have it written the other way around in the rules, then that's a terrible rule/spell/whatever and should be changed. It will cause nothing but conflict at any table it is played at. There's an infinite number of ways I can screw over my players if I decide that their independent illusion spell will do what I want rather than what they do. That's not a realy fun game for the players to play.

He cast the spell. Let him decide how it acts.

This is more or less Bob's argument exactly.

I talked to him a bit more today, and he elaborated his position, and it is very close to this.

A level 1 illusion lacks versatility. A level 2 illusion lacks control. A level 3 has both versatility and control.

Bob thought he could effectively get a level 3 version for the cost of a level 2 version by making a copy of himself and that meant that I would hand the free-willed minion over to him. When I said that even if it was a copy of him, its still an NPC under the control fo the GM, he decided to pout.

This is a basic spell. Why are you hijacking the players ability to decide what their own spell should do.

I mean, sure, you can interpret it that way, but then that's a heck of a lot of "GM takes control of what the player is trying to do". If the player casts this illusion with the intent of it behaving a specific way, then it should behave that way. The player should always make that decision, not the GM.

If you actually have it written the other way around in the rules, then that's a terrible rule/spell/whatever and should be changed. It will cause nothing but conflict at any table it is played at. There's an infinite number of ways I can screw over my players if I decide that their indepdenent illusion spell will do what I want rather than what they do. That's not a realy fun game for the players to play.

He cast the spell. Let him decide how it acts.

First off, this isn't a "basic spell". Creating a sentient being is a difficult, complex, and dangerous task regardless of the way in which it is accomplished.

You can "upcast" a spell to bind its will to your own, but by default NPCs are still under the GM's control, be they called animals, summoned monsters, hired mercenaries, animated dead, crafted golems, gated spirits, or beings created out of whole cloth by powerful magic.

This is intentional from both a narrative and a game balance perspective. There are way to many stories that depend on a "Frankenstein" narrative where something turns upon its creator to say that this is flat out impossible in my rule set. Likewise, these are very powerful spells. You are, essentially, doubling your PC's power for the cost of a single spell slot, there needs to be some drawbacks here.

That being said, you and Bob seem to assume a confrontational GM who looks for any excuse to screw the PCs. The GM doesn't need a spell to do that. The GM can just pull whatever monsters out of his or her ass are needed to TPK the party, or just have Elminster teleport in and magically bind them to his will and force them onto whatever railroad the GM has planned.

The goal is to play the NPCs as they would really act.

Take it from me. There are very few things players dislike more than having the GM decide how their actions/spells/whatever work. While specific uses of things should always be subject to GM approval/veto, the default should always be "it works the way the player wants". Write your game that way. The more stuff that is subject to GM interpretation, the more the players are going to feel subject to the whims of the GM at the moment. And given your own proclivity to make snap decisions without thinking things through, and then later regretting them, this is probably really not a good idea.

You know, people often ask why I am so stubborn and reluctant to admit I am wrong (see Kish's posts in my stunting thread).

This quote is basically a text-book example of why that is.

If one ever admits to a mistake, people will be sure to leverage it against them in the future and say something like, well, "And given your own proclivity to make snap decisions without thinking things through, and then later regretting them, this is probably really not a good idea."

I have never met a GM, or really anyone else, who always makes the right decision on the spot. Heck, even real life judges often come to regret their decisions in hindsight. That doesn't mean that someone shouldn't be allowed to make decisions at all.

Although, I will say that my players work *really* hard to bring it on themselves by being so secretive and trying to "pull a fast one" on me. For example, the event that I mentioned up thread where I went into the kitchen to check on dinner, and heard the players discuss a plan involving potions which sounded like it wouldn't work by RAW, and when I came back into the room to talk it over with them, they shut me down and said it was too late, they had already been bought while I was out of the room (despite me explicitly telling them not to buy anything without telling me first several sessions ago).

I really feel like the vast, vast, majority of issues with "gotcha GMing" are actually caused by paranoid PCs who mistake impartial GMing for adversarial GMing.

Again, can't speak to your specific implementation of the mirror image spell, but the usual assumption is that the additional images blur around back and forth across the actual player, meaning that at no point can an attacker be certain which one is "the real person". Your interpretation is basically the same as having the mirror images always stand to the sides of the caster, and then having the NPCs just always attack the center person because that's always the "real one".

This puzzles me. I have never assumed that the images are constantly blurring back and forth across the real person, and I don't see any text to support that. If it did work that way, wouldn't you just always target the person standing still?

Is the doorway 100% as wide as the character? Presuambly not. So the character could be standing slightly to the left, or the right, with a mirror image standing just to the side (mirror image, as well as just combat in general, assumes that characters don't just stand perfectly still the entire time while in battle). The character shifts to their left, and a mirror image fills in the space to the right, leaving an opponent with at least a second image to think might be the target. I might reduce the odds of hitting a mirror image in this situation, but would not totall nulllify it. And I'd still allow it to be fully effective against ranged attacks (again, is the PC just standing there in the door way while people shoot at them, or are they ducking back and then stepping back to fire, then back, etc).

Pretty much. She is a 6'4 fighter in full plate with a shield, and its a standard sized door (actually maybe a bit smaller as it was probably built by dwarves) and she is intentionally blocking it so that the enemies cannot get past her.

And hey. Why are the images only to the sides and inside the building? They could be slightly in front, or to the side but outside the building (leading an opponent to be suddenly faced with an enemy and maybe react to that instead of to the person in the doorway). It would depend on how crowded the space is, but honestly if you try to think too hard about miirror image and fitting stuff into battle hexes on a map, you're going to get yourself in trouble no matter what you do.

Sure they could. And that would allow the spell to work normally.

She intentionally placed them inside the building so that they would have total cover, assuming that 2/3 of shots coming at her would instead go toward a mirror image and then bounce harmlessly off the wall without revealing the image or lessening the protection.

By RAW it is a perfectly valid exploit, but within the fiction it makes no dang sense.

I do find it interesting that it seems like you are constantly trying to reduce the effectiveness of what your players try to do in the game. Maybe do less of that.

I feel like there are a number of biases at play in this assumption.

Primarily, you only hear about conflict.

You don't hear about the dozens of times a night when I remind a player of a bonus they are forgetting or suggest a course of action (unless they explode because they think I am calling them stupid).
You don't hear about the times I don't nerf an exploit.
You don't hear about the times I rule in their favor.
You don't hear about the times they point out a mistake I have made with an enemy.
You don't hear about all the times when I tell them to just go ahead and succeed without rolling or do something that is technically against the rules but makes perfect sense in the fiction.

Likewise, as the GM, I am the arbiter. If I think something is stupid or doesn't work, I don't try it.

And (hyperbolic example):

I have one player who cheats, and five who don't.
I have one player who murders every NPC, and five who don't.
I have one player who is a munchkin and five who aren't.
I have one player who rules lawyers, and five who don't.
I have one player who is always on the phone, and five who aren't.
I have one player who steals from the party, and five who don't.

So, I could say that I have six normal people who each have a single flaw that I occasionally have to call them on.

But, you could also say I have a group if cheaters, murder-hobos, munchkins, rules lawyers, and thieves who are always on their phones. What a terrible party! And likewise, one GM who is always telling six people what to do! What a jackass!

Reversefigure4

2023-08-30, 02:37 AM

It's well worth noting at this point that Heart of Darkness' Mirror Image spell works very, very differently to most versions of the DnD spell.

Mirror Image
Difficulty: 20
Type: Enchantment (Augment)
Subject: Any
Mirror image creates an illusionary copy of the spell's subject. The image appears in contact with the subject, but may then move about independently. Unless commanded to do otherwise, it will follow the subject about and appear to assist them in whatever tasks they undertake.
The mirror image is the caster's thrall and the illusionist can communicate with it in the same manner as a spell with the link property.
It is virtually impossible to distinguish the mirror image from the spell's subject but, as the images cannot actually interact with the world, hitting one with an attack will usually reveal it to be false, and any changes to the subject's appearance will not retroactively alter the image.
If the mirror image ends its turn in the same zone as the subject, it will sync up with their current visage and it will be necessary to once more identify which is the original and which is the copy.
Metamagic Notes:
Each level of the empower metamagic creates an additional image.

So as each image occupies it's own 'zone' (square?), apparently things next to the caster in another square wouldn't be visible behind doorframe walls or capable of intercepting blows. Although even that I'm confused about, since "the image appears in contact with the subject but may then move about independently".

As written, it really doesn't answer the question of where the caster is relative to the image - presumably you have to cast in front or behind or to one side of you if it has to occupy a battlemap space, and the spell seems quite limited - an illusory copy next to you that only 'appears to assist you' (yet presumably can't actually swing a sword in combat, because hitting the enemy would reveal it's an illusion).

I can't make out which 'free willed Level 2 illusion spell' Talakeal is talking about. Perhaps it's Spectre:

Specter
Difficulty: 30
Type: Enchantment
Subject: Calling
A specter is similar to a glamer that has been given a life of its own. A specter can act independently and move freely, and although it cannot interact with the world physically, it can perceive its surroundings and make decisions accordingly and can travel freely. The specter will operate on its own without direction from the caster, and will have whatever personality, motivation, and knowledge that the caster gives it. Note that the caster cannot impart any knowledge that they do not themself possess, but most specters are adept at
bluffing

That's the closest I can find to a 'free willed illusion' spell.

Morgaln

2023-08-30, 03:09 AM

What even is the point of an illusion with completely free will? What will that accomplish that any other illusion can't do more reliably?
Also, Talakeal, we've long since established in past threads that your party doesn't trust you as a GM. Spells that rely purely on the interpretation of the GM are the last thing you should be giving to your players. If you don't have their trust, you need abilities with effects that are very clearly and unambiguously spelled out.

I feel like there are a number of biases at play in this assumption.

Primarily, you only hear about conflict.

You don't hear about the dozens of times a night when I remind a player of a bonus they are forgetting or suggest a course of action (unless they explode because they think I am calling them stupid).
You don't hear about the times I don't nerf an exploit.
You don't hear about the times I rule in their favor.
You don't hear about the times they point out a mistake I have made with an enemy.
You don't hear about all the times when I tell them to just go ahead and succeed without rolling or do something that is technically against the rules but makes perfect sense in the fiction.

Likewise, as the GM, I am the arbiter. If I think something is stupid or doesn't work, I don't try it.

And (hyperbolic example):

I have one player who cheats, and five who don't.
I have one player who murders every NPC, and five who don't.
I have one player who is a munchkin and five who aren't.
I have one player who rules lawyers, and five who don't.
I have one player who is always on the phone, and five who aren't.
I have one player who steals from the party, and five who don't.

So, I could say that I have six normal people who each have a single flaw that I occasionally have to call them on.

But, you could also say I have a group if cheaters, murder-hobos, munchkins, rules lawyers, and thieves who are always on their phones. What a terrible party! And likewise, one GM who is always telling six people what to do! What a jackass!

You've also said that you have, on average, one meltdown per session. In 25 years of playing TTRPGs, I can remember experiencing maybe five meltdowns. Even if I assume I only remember half of them, that's still a tiny amount compared to yours. Your group is not normal and your group is not healthy.
I've had an abusive friend like that for ten years. He would take advantage of me, cheat on me in games and during card trading (it was my M:tG phase), emotionally abuse me into doing things I didn't want and if I tried to defend myself, he would gaslight me into thinking I was the bad guy. He was also my only friend during that time, so I didn't have any comparison. The way to get out of this is to find new friends and realize that this is not normal.

Satinavian

2023-08-30, 03:37 AM

And (hyperbolic example):

I have one player who cheats, and five who don't.
I have one player who murders every NPC, and five who don't.
I have one player who is a munchkin and five who aren't.
I have one player who rules lawyers, and five who don't.
I have one player who is always on the phone, and five who aren't.
I have one player who steals from the party, and five who don't.

So, I could say that I have six normal people who each have a single flaw that I occasionally have to call them on.

But, you could also say I have a group if cheaters, murder-hobos, munchkins, rules lawyers, and thieves who are always on their phones. What a terrible party!
That is a terrible party. I would not run any games for such a group.

If you have a player with a horrible flaw that would get them kicked from 80% of all groups, they are not a good player for not also having 5 other flaws that would each be kickworthy in most groups.

Talakeal

2023-08-30, 04:26 AM

What even is the point of an illusion with completely free will? What will that accomplish that any other illusion can't do more reliably?

Anything other than follow a pre-programmed set of instructions.

Primarily, you would use it for impersonating someone for a prolonged period of time, but it can also scout, have conversation, conduct negotiations, deliver messages, etc. Heck, it can even think creatively.

In this particular case, Bob uploaded it with all of his tactical knowledge so it could lead the party while he was incapacitated or busy casting a spell.

Also, Talakeal, we've long since established in past threads that your party doesn't trust you as a GM. Spells that rely purely on the interpretation of the GM are the last thing you should be giving to your players. If you don't have their trust, you need abilities with effects that are very clearly and unambiguously spelled out.

I didn't write out the spells with them in mind. Most of them I hadn't even met yet.

In this case, Bob chose to cast a spell which *explicitly* says in its description that though the caster determines its general personality, it has free will and is *not* under their direct control, and then he was apparently trying to rules lawyer it by saying that since he copied his own personality, then that limitation obviously wouldn't apply. (As if there aren't a thousand sci-fi stories about clones who try and kill and usurp their maker)*.

You've also said that you have, on average, one meltdown per session. In 25 years of playing TTRPGs, I can remember experiencing maybe five meltdowns. Even if I assume I only remember half of them, that's still a tiny amount compared to yours. Your group is not normal and your group is not healthy.

I've had an abusive friend like that for ten years. He would take advantage of me, cheat on me in games and during card trading (it was my M:tG phase), emotionally abuse me into doing things I didn't want and if I tried to defend myself, he would gaslight me into thinking I was the bad guy. He was also my only friend during that time, so I didn't have any comparison. The way to get out of this is to find new friends and realize that this is not normal.

I appreciate the sentiment, I really do.

Yeah. I have heard that before, I just don't know how people manage to find dedicated gamers without serious personality flaws.

The vast majority of gamers I have ever met either get bored of the game and disappear within a few months or have pretty severe personality issues. The vast majority of my horror stories involve Bob because he is right above the line of tolerable, but he is by no means the worst person I have ever gamed with, and he isn't really that much of an outlier.

*: Not saying that is what would happen. Just that its odd that Bob had it in his head that a perfect copy of himself would be an obedient slave that ignored the spell's normal limitations.

Vyke

2023-08-30, 06:15 AM

Again, there are three levels.

The first level is a simple automaton that can only follow pre-programmed commands.
The second is a free-willed being that does its best to imitate the being it is impersonating.
The third level is a minion that follows your commands.

Don't use the level 2 version if a level 1 version would suffice or you require the precise control the level 3 version would provide.

The level 3 version doesn't provide precise control. You can tell that because it didn't do what Bob wanted. It did the opposite. It is, in fact, incentivised to get Bob killed because Bob doesn't want to die so neither does the duplicate. They both would rather someone else die. For the duplicate that might mean Bob.

This is as far as I'm going to agree with Bob.

As an illusion, it is incorporeal.

This was the question Bob raised. And I admit it is a good one. But again, it raises just as many problems as it solves.

The Ogre example above is one of them. Likewise, an illusion isn't going to fool many people if it starts walking through doors and refusing invitations to dinner by telling people it doesn't need to eat because it is only an illusion.

TBH, if you just want a distraction (which Bob didn't, he wanted a distraction AND a buff bot AND a scout, AND whatever else) I would say its better to make an illusion of a helpless and terrified, but somewhat quick on their feet victim for the monster to chase rather than someone who just stands there and lets the monster realize that it is an illusion as soon as their weapons pass right through it.

The spell says the illusion does its best to bluff people into believing it is the genuine article, and that is how I ruled it at the table, although it was open to discussion and revision later.

For clarity, I agree. That is what the spell says. It's a bad spell though. It conjures something that is incentivised to prioritise it's own safety over the caster's and doesn't have any apparent failsafe.. It's the down side of free willed creations.

I will point out that it you may think it's a better plan for it to act a certain way and, truthfully, I agree with your assessment.... but it's not your job to make plans for the players. Remember that GM Fiat you said you hate?

That is a spell one could create. That is not the spell I have created.

The spell I have written is:

An illusionary waiter waits tables because that's what a real waiter does. An illusionary guard guards a door because that's what a real guard does. An illusionary ogre fights and eats because that's what an real ogre does. An illusionary Bob follows the party around and acts as a buff bot and then cowers when attacked because that is what a real Bob does.

Again, the spell does what the spell does, and the caster makes the choices called on by the spell. The spell does not shape itself to the casters wishes. If a caster summons a demon or raises an undead abominations and takes no precautions to control or restrain it, would you also say that the chaotic evil creatures who live only to spread death and destruction would intrinsically devote themselves to serving the caster's best interests.

As I say. A bad spell.

Really? Problems all solved?

So, for example, if I summon a messenger to deliver an important letter to a distant kingdom, but the journey is far too perilous for me to undertake.

So, do you think I (to say nothing of the other players!) will be perfectly happy to spend the next three months playing out the journey?

I mean. This is a ridiculous argument. As the GM would you really create a journey that is too perilous to be attempted, is absolutely necessary and then provide no work around except having one player go alone for three months of solo play?

Now, say when they get their, the person who receives the message gives a response, and that response includes that the BBEG is super weak to water wicked witch of the west style.

But, on the way back, the messenger is snatched up by a wandering wyvern, carried to its lair, devoured, and the message used to make a nest for its young, never having been read to the PCs.

So, two months later, they are fighting the BBEG. And then one of my fellow PCs decides to pull out his canteen and pour it over the BBEG's head.

Why would he do this? He doesn't know the BBEG is weak to water. But his player does.

The player insists he isn't metagaming, he had always planned on using water on the BBEG, he swears, but the rest of the table rolls their eyes and assumes meta-gaming.

I mean. Yeah. 'Cos it's clearly meta gaming. But what can you do? People either play in good faith or they don't. I guess what you could do is not spend 3 months detailing the events of a programmed illusion that never returned to a group of players. If I'd decided by GM Fiat that a wyvern would kill them on the way back then I'd just go "Yeah illusion sets off, I'll let you know when they get back. What are you doing now?". Giving them control of the illusion for three months of wasted time is ridiculous and any sensible GM and players know this is the time to not do that. If your players think otherwise, then you have bigger problems.

That being said, you and Bob seem to assume a confrontational GM who looks for any excuse to screw the PCs.

No offense... but I'd think you were a confrontational GM. You mention making it so Mirror Image doesn't work in a doorway. Where does it suggest that in the rules. So you have looked at it and chosen to make the spell useless. If that kind of ruling happened repeatedly, I'd assume that's a you thing. And don't delude yourself.... that's your choice to pull DM Fiat to screw the player.

Although, I will say that my players work *really* hard to bring it on themselves by being so secretive and trying to "pull a fast one" on me. For example, the event that I mentioned up thread where I went into the kitchen to check on dinner, and heard the players discuss a plan involving potions which sounded like it wouldn't work by RAW, and when I came back into the room to talk it over with them, they shut me down and said it was too late, they had already been bought while I was out of the room (despite me explicitly telling them not to buy anything without telling me first several sessions ago).[/QUOTE}

Ah, now here we go and here, in core, is your problem. You are the GM. Not your players. If you didn't say that they bought the potions.... they did not buy the potions. Nothing happens in the world without your acknowledgement. Nothing. The players can tell you what their characters are trying to do. That is it. You then either adjudicate it yourself or you can roll dice to adjudicate it and the YOU say what happens. Their character doesn't wake up in the morning until you say they do. When they say "I walk across that room" their characters only do so when you say "You step into the room. Because maybe they don't. Maybe there's an invisible force field over the door. they don't know. It's only real when you say it's real. This is something they certainly, and, you probably don't seem to accept. And you all need to accept it. Otherwise they're telling you how your world works.

[QUOTE=Talakeal;25857246]This puzzles me. I have never assumed that the images are constantly blurring back and forth across the real person, and I don't see any text to support that. If it did work that way, wouldn't you just always target the person standing still?

The DnD one? I don't see any text saying that it doesn't work in an enclosed space. As you yourself say in the stunting thread.... it's unreasonable to assume that every possible scenario will be covered in the text nor should it be (and I 100% agree with you on that). You will always have to adjudicate it. The concern is that you immediately nullified the players intent. Why? You had a choice one way or the other. Why make the player feel useless? Will it unbalance the game that much?

She intentionally placed them inside the building so that they would have total cover, assuming that 2/3 of shots coming at her would instead go toward a mirror image and then bounce harmlessly off the wall without revealing the image or lessening the protection.

By RAW it is a perfectly valid exploit, but within the fiction it makes no dang sense.

It is not a valid exploit. Assuming you mean the HoD version, there's no roll to randomise attacks anyway. If there's only you visible and you've obscured your duplicates, well done! You've invalidated your own spell.

And (hyperbolic example):

I have one player who cheats, and five who don't.
I have one player who murders every NPC, and five who don't.
I have one player who is a munchkin and five who aren't.
I have one player who rules lawyers, and five who don't.
I have one player who is always on the phone, and five who aren't.
I have one player who steals from the party, and five who don't.

So, I could say that I have six normal people who each have a single flaw that I occasionally have to call them on.

But, you could also say I have a group if cheaters, murder-hobos, munchkins, rules lawyers, and thieves who are always on their phones. What a terrible party! And likewise, one GM who is always telling six people what to do! What a jackass!

One GM who is always going to forums to moan about the players. You are the GM. That, whether you like it or not puts you in charge. Serious question time.

Are you getting what you want out of the game?

So first, because I have heard both things and it's important. Is your campaign a playtest of your rules or a genuine campaign with a narrative intended to be an engaging play experience? Because it cannot be both.

If it's a playtest, then you need to murder your darlings, be prepared to rewrite the rules when they raise a weird interaction and accept that your players will do weird thangs that will stretch narrative credibility. You need to make it clear that you are grateful when players find weird rules quirks but that you'll be updating them to avoid that. You need to get everyone's ego out of the way. And you need to understand that any fun you have will be the satisfaction of refining a product. I have published a game. The playtests included some genuinely miserable games, games where we nearly threw in the towel. You just have to power through. Because the reward is the joy of publishing it. If you don't hate the game at least a little by that time you probably haven't playtested it enough. That's fine. You're not the audience. You're the shop.

If it's an actual game played for fun, then your players need to get social contracts and they need to get that you, as a human being, are as entitled to fun as they are. You deserve a good time, not balancing the fragile egos of a bunch of people who should know better. And that sounds unlikely due to their immaturity. You need to tell them how your game will be and how much you'll tolerate. You need to set out your expectations.

If your expectations are not being met.... why are you still playing? You are literally wasting your time on something unfulfilling. Because your players don't seem invested. One literally said he'd kill his character if you didn't do things his way. He doesn't care about his character, your game or your fun. So why do you keep doing it?

GloatingSwine

2023-08-30, 06:27 AM

The level 3 version doesn't provide precise control. You can tell that because it didn't do what Bob wanted. It did the opposite. It is, in fact, incentivised to get Bob killed because Bob doesn't want to die so neither does the duplicate. They both would rather someone else die. For the duplicate that might mean Bob.

This is as far as I'm going to agree with Bob.

Bob was using the level 2 version.

That said, the progression feels weird when it goes programmed agent > free agent > controlled agent.

Technically level 2 to 3 is a drop in capability of the summoned agent, even if it's an increase in the reliability of the agent for the summoner.

I would probably have had the progression go programmed agent > controlled agent > free agent.

Vyke

2023-08-30, 06:35 AM

Bob was using the level 2 version.

That said, the progression feels weird when it goes programmed agent > free agent > controlled agent.

Technically level 2 to 3 is a drop in capability of the summoned agent, even if it's an increase in the reliability of the agent for the summoner.

I would probably have had the progression go programmed agent > controlled agent > free agent.

Misread. My bad.

MonochromeTiger

2023-08-30, 04:03 PM

Anything other than follow a pre-programmed set of instructions.

Primarily, you would use it for impersonating someone for a prolonged period of time, but it can also scout, have conversation, conduct negotiations, deliver messages, etc. Heck, it can even think creatively.

In this particular case, Bob uploaded it with all of his tactical knowledge so it could lead the party while he was incapacitated or busy casting a spell.

When people see "it thinks for itself and goes off your personality" they expect "it has the same goals as me and it's aware that as an illusion it can't actually be hurt so it should act like me at my most brave" or even "it has the same goals as me and is aware its existence is entirely to aid me so it should act on that." They generally do not think "it has the same goals as me and is just as messed up as I am and will absolutely throw me and the entire party under the bus to avoid damage it can't actually be dealt anyway."

Have to second the people who say that, yes Bob may be a powergaming cheapskate but it's still a DM failure to dictate "this is what your character would do." At least for any circumstances outside of "you're literally being mind controlled right now because of that save you failed, you aren't being given a choice, this is what your character is doing until the mind control ends or you pass a save again."

I didn't write out the spells with them in mind. Most of them I hadn't even met yet.

In this case, Bob chose to cast a spell which *explicitly* says in its description that though the caster determines its general personality, it has free will and is *not* under their direct control, and then he was apparently trying to rules lawyer it by saying that since he copied his own personality, then that limitation obviously wouldn't apply. (As if there aren't a thousand sci-fi stories about clones who try and kill and usurp their maker)*.

Except that argument makes the level 2 version of the spell a worthless trap anyway. He copies a Knight? "Oh well that knight was a notorious traitor, you just didn't know about it, it cowers the monster goes for you." He copies a Wizard? "Oh that Wizard can't cast under pressure and it's definitely not taking the hit with more tanky people around, it cowers, monster goes for you."

If the players have no control over the illusion's behavior and it's working entirely off a personality dictated by the DM then it's just a tool for the DM to use to get whatever result they want. You chose to use it in a way that would send the monster after the party despite their goal being to use it as a distraction, you revealed this by having that result actually happen, as messed up as your group is it's still somewhat justified for them to be upset at "DM decided this screws us over, even if it's based on something entirely under our control."

I appreciate the sentiment, I really do.

I'm not sure that's true though. Every time I see a thread like this from you someone brings something like that up and every time it's dismissed.

Yeah. I have heard that before, I just don't know how people manage to find dedicated gamers without serious personality flaws.

It helps to actually look for them instead of trotting out "well we're friends outside the context of the game so I can't just end the game" or "well the handful of people I've added over time have joined a group that was already comprised entirely of problem players and, weirdly enough, when they got used to the group they turned out to be problem players."

The vast majority of gamers I have ever met either get bored of the game and disappear within a few months

Might be because the behavior from the rest of the group that you keep inviting drove them off, if not then yes some people do have other things come up and it's possible they just ghosted you over the system or your DMing but honestly the way you describe your group makes it way more likely they just can't stand your other players.

or have pretty severe personality issues. The vast majority of my horror stories involve Bob because he is right above the line of tolerable, but he is by no means the worst person I have ever gamed with, and he isn't really that much of an outlier.

And this is again running into the issue. There's two possibilities that come to mind from your statements.

First is that you've just had really bad luck with players and you've decided that luck is completely unavoidable so you're settling for people who you've admitted drive you up a wall on a regular basis because they're "not as bad as they could be" despite them being pretty terrible. That's not keeping options open it's giving up and justifying to yourself that a group you're willing to acknowledge is a constant source of horror stories is the best you'll ever get.

Second is that something in the way you're running your game is pushing your groups toward either cutting and running or adopting a problem player mentality, in which case the only way you'd ever know is if you dropped all your current problem players anyway and got a group willing to actually call you out on things without it being a fight.

What's strange is that those options aren't even mutually exclusive. It could very well be the case that something in the way your game has been structured and you've been running it has been driving your players up a wall and they've responded by doing the exact same thing to you. Then the petty fights and arguments are just everyone involved talking past each other because there's too little social awareness to acknowledge a decent way of saying "we feel like X is arbitrarily punishing us" and "I feel like Y is forcing me to be more controlling of your behavior and options or the game doesn't progress and I get yelled at for every little thing."

*: Not saying that is what would happen. Just that its odd that Bob had it in his head that a perfect copy of himself would be an obedient slave that ignored the spell's normal limitations.

Because "I dictate my character's personality" and "the spell's limitations go off the personality of the person it's copying" do kind of imply that, yes, its actions would be his choice. Meanwhile the way you've set up the spell makes every other option a massive pointless risk because every other personality is determined entirely by the DM in a way that it could screw over the party at any given time. So he put it in his own hands and then got told "no, doesn't work like that, I've decided what you would do in this situation for you."

It makes the second level of the spell one big game of russian roulette because if you pick the image being based off anything else you're blindly picking off aesthetics and what little behavior you've personally seen if any without any real insight into how they behave. If you base it off yourself you do have insight into how they behave because it's your behavior and it makes way more sense convincing an enemy with an illusion of something that's already there than it does to pull a knight out of thin air; but if the DM decides as you did that it's based on their understanding of your personality and devoid of all the context of it being an illusion made with a specific purpose in mind then you're right back to the DM having the ability to arbitrarily say it does something completely at odds with the entire reason to have the illusion in the first place, IE: it's a distraction so the people who can actually die don't get hit and have time to do things.

gbaji

2023-08-30, 06:51 PM

Well. Just had a big long post eaten and don't feel like re-writing it.

My broad point is that the spell as it's written does exactly specify that it has the personality the caster wants it to have, not the one the GM wants it to have. The caster should absoultely be able to create an illusion of a guard, but which is on "my side" rather than that of the enemies. You claiming that the illusion would be loyal to the enemy because it's an illusion of "one of the enemies guards" is just flat out freaking wrong and bizarre.

You may have intended for the spell to work differently (and frankly your three "levels" of illusions just seem wrong/strange as they are written), but that's not what you actually wrote in your rules. And I'll repeat what I said earlier (and someone else did as well), the levels should really be:

1. pre-programmed/simple illusion. No control. No versitility. It just does what you said it would do and nothing more. Can't change its behavior after casting.
2. Direct controlled illusion. Like above, but the caster can mentally control its actions to change the programming.
3. Free-willed illusion. Like above, but the illusion will changes its own actions to adapt to changing situations based on what the caster wants it to do.

So each level of illusion is a direct step above the other, with the final version basically allowing for the illusion to do exactly what the caster wants, but without the caster having to directly consciously control it. Key point being "what the caster wants". It's their illusion. Let them control what it does.

There should never be a "you cast the illusion but I decide what it does". That's just a terrible, player agency destroying, way to create a spell. Just don't do that. It's a conflict creator. Doubly so since your players clearly don't trust your judgement as to what "the illusion would do". And fankly, I don't blame them given the two examples you've provided so far. If I spent points for that spell and cast it and you had it operate that way? I'd be pissed too.

Also, the fact that you are interpreting this massive gap between what your spell actually says and how you are saying it should work, as your players trying to "exploit a rule" speaks volumes here. They aren't exploiting anything. They are reading the spell description and coming to exactly the correct expectation about how the spell should work, and you are arbitrarily, and after the fact, nullifying this expectation during play.

Oh. I'll also point out that players do not feel the need to conceal what they are doing if they believe the GM is actually impartial. So at least their perception is that you are an adversarial GM. That may or may not be an accurate perception, but you need to at least acknowledge that they believe this. And you need to do some honest self reflection and conversation with them to determine why. There's something going on here. I can't say what it is, but it's definitely there, and it's definitely a problem.

Talakeal

2023-08-30, 11:56 PM

I will point out that it you may think it's a better plan for it to act a certain way and, truthfully, I agree with your assessment.... but it's not your job to make plans for the players. Remember that GM Fiat you said you hate?

I don't follow. Are you sure you are using FIAT correctly?

I mean. This is a ridiculous argument. As the GM would you really create a journey that is too perilous to be attempted, is absolutely necessary and then provide no work around except having one player go alone for three months of solo play?

I didn't say any of that though.

In this example the GM created the game world and set the players loose in it. The player decided that they wanted to contact someone, but then decided based on their knowledge of the game world route was too long and perilous to go themself, so they chose to send a summoned minion in their place.

I mean. Yeah. 'Cos it's clearly meta gaming. But what can you do? People either play in good faith or they don't. I guess what you could do is not spend 3 months detailing the events of a programmed illusion that never returned to a group of players. If I'd decided by GM Fiat that a wyvern would kill them on the way back then I'd just go "Yeah illusion sets off, I'll let you know when they get back. What are you doing now?". Giving them control of the illusion for three months of wasted time is ridiculous and any sensible GM and players know this is the time to not do that. If your players think otherwise, then you have bigger problems.

Right. The whole thing was given as an example of why Gbaji's suggestion that letting players play summoned creatures as if they were a second PC can actually create problems.

Also, again, I said nothing about deciding a wyvern killed the character by FIAT. That was just an example something that could happen over the natural course of play which would mean that they never found out what the summoned creature learned on its journey.

No offense... but I'd think you were a confrontational GM. You mention making it so Mirror Image doesn't work in a doorway. Where does it suggest that in the rules. So you have looked at it and chosen to make the spell useless. If that kind of ruling happened repeatedly, I'd assume that's a you thing. And don't delude yourself.... that's your choice to pull DM Fiat to screw the player.

Again, I don't think that's what FIAT means, although its closer. Also, I am not sure why this is "confrontational".

In this case, it was a weird case that the rules don't account for; having a mirror image within reach but out of the enemy's line of sight.

By RAW, the enemy javelins would phase through the walls and pop the mirror images. This is clearly ridiculous. So I ruled that the mirror images have no effect.

The players could have placed the mirror images in front of the wall or behind the doorway so that the spell functioned normally, but they wanted to have their cake and eat it to.

I really don't think a GM making a common sense ruling when it comes to weird edge-cases the rules didn't think of is the either FIAT or being confrontational, and I think the vast majority of players on both sides of the screen would prefer to play at a table without bucket healing, and commoner rail guns, and pun-pun, and locate city bomb, and self-resetting magical conjuration traps, and XP free wishes from Zodars that are technically RAW by clearly not RAI.

The DnD one? I don't see any text saying that it doesn't work in an enclosed space. As you yourself say in the stunting thread.... it's unreasonable to assume that every possible scenario will be covered in the text nor should it be (and I 100% agree with you on that). You will always have to adjudicate it. The concern is that you immediately nullified the players intent. Why? You had a choice one way or the other. Why make the player feel useless? Will it unbalance the game that much?

YES!

Having a hidden-mirror image meaning that half* of all attacks automatically fail blows away every other protective spell in the game, and renders it virtually impossible to lose a fight.

And again, telling my players "no" isn't the same as nullifying their intent; I am perfectly happy to let them take a do-over or to discuss a ruling before a spell is cast or a plan enacted.

But my players are, afaict, too proud and petulant to ever go along with that because doing so would admit that they either made a mistake or that I had sound judgement, which they can't do.

*: And that's at base level. By end game its more like 5 out of every 6 attacks, and can be even higher if you build a character around mirror images, which is probably a dominant build in this case.

Although, I will say that my players work *really* hard to bring it on themselves by being so secretive and trying to "pull a fast one" on me. For example, the event that I mentioned up thread where I went into the kitchen to check on dinner, and heard the players discuss a plan involving potions which sounded like it wouldn't work by RAW, and when I came back into the room to talk it over with them, they shut me down and said it was too late, they had already been bought while I was out of the room (despite me explicitly telling them not to buy anything without telling me first several sessions ago).

Ah, now here we go and here, in core, is your problem. You are the GM. Not your players. If you didn't say that they bought the potions.... they did not buy the potions. Nothing happens in the world without your acknowledgement. Nothing. The players can tell you what their characters are trying to do. That is it. You then either adjudicate it yourself or you can roll dice to adjudicate it and the YOU say what happens. Their character doesn't wake up in the morning until you say they do. When they say "I walk across that room" their characters only do so when you say "You step into the room. Because maybe they don't. Maybe there's an invisible force field over the door. they don't know. It's only real when you say it's real. This is something they certainly, and, you probably don't seem to accept. And you all need to accept it. Otherwise they're telling you how your world works.[/QUOTE]

While I am not nearly so overbearing as this, I have told them time and again to tell me before shopping, and to run plans which rely in questionable readings of the rules past me first, and they never do.

In this case, I knew their plan wouldn't work as I overheard it (although as I was in the other room I may well have misheard it) so I decided to just sigh and say ok, and hope they might learn a lesson when it went wrong.

Yeah, that was a bit passive aggressive, but I am just so tired of being the bad guy for trying to save them from themselves over and over again.

It feels like a no win situation, if I do warn them its a railroad, if I don't warn them its a gotcha. There doesn't seem to be any way to win.

When people see "it thinks for itself and goes off your personality" they expect "it has the same goals as me and it's aware that as an illusion it can't actually be hurt so it should act like me at my most brave" or even "it has the same goals as me and is aware its existence is entirely to aid me so it should act on that." They generally do not think "it has the same goals as me and is just as messed up as I am and will absolutely throw me and the entire party under the bus to avoid damage it can't actually be dealt anyway."

Have to second the people who say that, yes Bob may be a power-gaming cheapskate but it's still a DM failure to dictate "this is what your character would do." At least for any circumstances outside of "you're literally being mind controlled right now because of that save you failed, you aren't being given a choice, this is what your character is doing until the mind control ends or you pass a save again."

The debate is over whether the spell acts as the subject would act, or acts as as the subject would act if it new it was an illusion.

Bob created an NPC with a copy of his personality that is *explicitly* under the GM's control, and I did my best to RP Bob's character and have it act as he would.

The idea that you created a character so you get to control it is kind of a slippery slope. Like imagine one of the players was given one of the settings signature NPCs to play as a one shot, or Brian has to miss a session and gives his character to Nick; once the character is out of your hands, you lose the OOC right to dicate how the character behaves.

Also, its not really throwing the party under the bus for Bob to cower, he is an unarmored party face, its just good tactics.

Except that argument makes the level 2 version of the spell a worthless trap anyway. He copies a Knight? "Oh well that knight was a notorious traitor, you just didn't know about it, it cowers the monster goes for you." He copies a Wizard? "Oh that Wizard can't cast under pressure and it's definitely not taking the hit with more tanky people around, it cowers, monster goes for you."

If the players have no control over the illusion's behavior and it's working entirely off a personality dictated by the DM then it's just a tool for the DM to use to get whatever result they want. You chose to use it in a way that would send the monster after the party despite their goal being to use it as a distraction, you revealed this by having that result actually happen, as messed up as your group is it's still somewhat justified for them to be upset at "DM decided this screws us over, even if it's based on something entirely under our control."

The caster chooses the personality, not the GM.

Although yeah, if he copies a specific person, that is a risk you take. IF said character was already established as being a coward or w/e then that could well happen, but if the GM just decides to add that complication on the spot, that's a pretty antagonistic thing to do.

Again, I advocate for impartial GMing. Which is not antagonistic GMing.

At the table, the spell in question was not in any way a "worthless trap" as it effectively buffed the party for many rounds and turned many of their actions into critical successes. It more than made up for the spell slot. It just didn't provide one specific benefit in one specific round.

And, TBH, if you are expecting antagonistic GMing, isn't everything a worthless trap? Like, even a healing potion could be secretly poisoned if the GM is out to get you.

So first, because I have heard both things and it's important. Is your campaign a playtest of your rules or a genuine campaign with a narrative intended to be an engaging play experience? Because it cannot be both.

If it's a playtest, then you need to murder your darlings, be prepared to rewrite the rules when they raise a weird interaction and accept that your players will do weird thangs that will stretch narrative credibility. You need to make it clear that you are grateful when players find weird rules quirks but that you'll be updating them to avoid that. You need to get everyone's ego out of the way. And you need to understand that any fun you have will be the satisfaction of refining a product. I have published a game. The playtests included some genuinely miserable games, games where we nearly threw in the towel. You just have to power through. Because the reward is the joy of publishing it. If you don't hate the game at least a little by that time you probably haven't playtested it enough. That's fine. You're not the audience. You're the shop.

If it's an actual game played for fun, then your players need to get social contracts and they need to get that you, as a human being, are as entitled to fun as they are. You deserve a good time, not balancing the fragile egos of a bunch of people who should know better. And that sounds unlikely due to their immaturity. You need to tell them how your game will be and how much you'll tolerate. You need to set out your expectations.

This is surprisingly insightful. Thank you.

If your expectations are not being met.... why are you still playing? You are literally wasting your time on something unfulfilling. Because your players don't seem invested. One literally said he'd kill his character if you didn't do things his way. He doesn't care about his character, your game or your fun. So why do you keep doing it?

That's just Bob. He does this in every game, regardless of genre or system. He is really into cutting off his nose to spite his face.

There are tons of PC games which he uninstalls and refuses to play ever again because of a single "cheap death" or because an NPC told him what to do.

For whatever reason, he views characters only as ego-boosters and power-trips, and a character who has an embarrassing failure hanging over its head is, in his mind, literally better off dead.

I would prefer he didn't do it at tabletop games because it disrupts the whole campaign for no good reason, but he will still be back at the table in two weeks with a new character once he has gotten it out of his system.

Because "I dictate my character's personality" and "the spell's limitations go off the personality of the person it's copying" do kind of imply that, yes, its actions would be his choice. Meanwhile the way you've set up the spell makes every other option a massive pointless risk because every other personality is determined entirely by the DM in a way that it could screw over the party at any given time. So he put it in his own hands and then got told "no, doesn't work like that, I've decided what you would do in this situation for you."

It makes the second level of the spell one big game of russian roulette because if you pick the image being based off anything else you're blindly picking off aesthetics and what little behavior you've personally seen if any without any real insight into how they behave. If you base it off yourself you do have insight into how they behave because it's your behavior and it makes way more sense convincing an enemy with an illusion of something that's already there than it does to pull a knight out of thin air; but if the DM decides as you did that it's based on their understanding of your personality and devoid of all the context of it being an illusion made with a specific purpose in mind then you're right back to the DM having the ability to arbitrarily say it does something completely at odds with the entire reason to have the illusion in the first place, IE: it's a distraction so the people who can actually die don't get hit and have time to do things.

This whole conversation just seems like rules lawyers trying to out rules lawyer one another.

The spell is pretty simple, you create an illusion of something and it acts like what its an illusion of. That's it.

If you create an illusion of a guard, it guards something. Create an illusion of a messenger, it delivers a message. Create an illusion of a terrified commoner, it runs from the monsters and screams. If you create an illusion of a blood hound, it sniffs around and follows trails. Create an illusion of a guard dog, it barks when a stranger comes near. Create an illusion of a bartender, and he provides an ear to talk to. Create an illusion of a minstrel, he plays music.

The whole idea of "well, its a trap spell because what if the GM decides to have it betray us for no reason?" or "if I make it a copy of me, that means I get a second PC" belies an adversarial attitude that virtually no rule could stand up to.

Well. Just had a big long post eaten and don't feel like re-writing it.

Ouch. I hate when that happens.

My broad point is that the spell as it's written does exactly specify that it has the personality the caster wants it to have, not the one the GM wants it to have. The caster should absolutely be able to create an illusion of a guard, but which is on "my side" rather than that of the enemies. You claiming that the illusion would be loyal to the enemy because it's an illusion of "one of the enemies guards" is just flat out freaking wrong and bizarre.

If you are specifically giving it the personality of one of the enemy guards, then it will act as that guard would act.

You are free to tweak the spell to change its motivation or make it think it is a double agent.

So each level of illusion is a direct step above the other, with the final version basically allowing for the illusion to do exactly what the caster wants, but without the caster having to directly consciously control it. Key point being "what the caster wants". It's their illusion. Let them control what it does.

There should never be a "you cast the illusion but I decide what it does". That's just a terrible, player agency destroying, way to create a spell. Just don't do that. It's a conflict creator.

Much like your earlier argument that an ambushing character shouldn't roll initiative, this seems like a house rule that you have created and that you then deem all other RPGs inferior because they don't adopt it.

The vast majority of games I have played do not give control of minions to their master's player. Looking through the rule books on my shelves, the various summoning spells typically give some degree of control over the summoned creatures, but very few of them actually say "your player controls these as if it was a second player".

For example, by RAW, D&D summoned monsters obey verbal commands (but only if they can speak the caster's language) and will otherwise attack what the caster is attacking. Nothing says that the caster or their player gets to choose their tactics or even roll their dice. And in 5E, if the caster's concentration is broken, the summoned creatures will actively turn on them.

Like, I have played Mage more than any other game, and my character is a master of life magic. I have *literally* cloned myself multiple times at multiple tables. And nobody, not I, not the GM, not any of the other players, ever though that the clone would be a second PC under my control, it was always played as an NPC under the DM's control.

Heck, IIRC in AD&D the rules explicitly say that the most likely outcome of cloning yourself is your clone attempting to kill you and usurp your life.

I have been gaming for over three decades now, and this weekend was the first time I can recall ever having seen anyone upset over this at the table or online.

Also, the fact that you are interpreting this massive gap between what your spell actually says and how you are saying it should work, as your players trying to "exploit a rule" speaks volumes here. They aren't exploiting anything. They are reading the spell description and coming to exactly the correct expectation about how the spell should work, and you are arbitrarily, and after the fact, nullifying this expectation during play.

When you say "exactly the correct expectation" what precisely are you referring to?

Bob's initial (and imo much stronger argument) that the illusion acts upon the knowledge that it is an illusion?

Because that seems to be a gray area which I am not sure which side to go with (both can create problems for the caster depending on the situation) there doesn't seem to be a consensus of at my table or on the forum, so I think it is pretty arrogant of you to insist that Bob's is "exactly the correct expectation".

If you mean Bob's later argument that I should have given him the illusion as a second PC, well:

The spell *explicitly* says that the caster creates the personality and motivation, but that they do not have any direct control over it.
It is not a PC, and the general rules of the game *explicitly* say that the GM makes decisions for and rolls dice for NPCs.

So I really don't think Bob (or you if you are siding with him) has a leg to stand on by RAW.

Oh. I'll also point out that players do not feel the need to conceal what they are doing if they believe the GM is actually impartial. So at least their perception is that you are an adversarial GM. That may or may not be an accurate perception, but you need to at least acknowledge that they believe this. And you need to do some honest self reflection and conversation with them to determine why. There's something going on here. I can't say what it is, but it's definitely there, and it's definitely a problem.

Yep. Absolutely. But they don't want to talk about it, if they were open to communication it wouldn't be an issue in the first place.

Self reflection is hard. I am not empathic, and I have no other players to use as a control group. I will say, however, that when other people are GMing for them, they are far worse about it than they are with me, so it can't be exclusively a self created problem.

So, thinking back about it, it seems like Bob has a defiant streak about anyone telling his character what to do. Even though he isn't an RPer at all, he really likes to use his characters as a vehicle to "stick it to the man".

Some quick examples:
His psychic was caught mind controlling shop-keepers into giving him equipment for free. He was caught by with hunters, put on trial, and given probation. He immediately returned to the scene of the crime and did the exact same thing again, surrendered to the witch hunters, and told them to burn him at the stake.
He was in the middle of a desolate wasteland, and a goddess' avatar led him to a sacred shrine and told him he was free to rest within as long as he didn't harm the shrine or its inhabitants. He immediately attacked the shrine's defenders, and was killed when the rest of the party refused to help.
He was on an enchanted island, and the island's guardian spirit asked him to refrain from destructive magics while on the island. Bob immediately conjured up a volcano in front of the guardian spirit and was killed in the ensuing battle.
He missed a session, and one of the other PCs asked him if he could craft something for them and I Oked it. When Bob came back, he said the rest of us "literally robbed and enslaved" his character and if we didn't retcon the crafting (which cost him nothing but IC time) he would murder the rest of the party in their sleep.
Recently, the party surrendered to some monsters and agreed to pay them a ransom. When the rest of the party wanted to go through with the ransom instead of betraying and murdering the monsters, Bob said that he would never have allowed himself to be taken alive and wanted me to retroactively kill his character.

Basically, all of these stories have the common thread of someone telling Bob's character what to do, and he acts with over the top violence that is both reckless and totally out of proportion for what is asked of him.

I suspect, that in telling him that a copy of his character would be an NPC under the GM's control, I inadvertently hit upon the same nerve.

MonochromeTiger

2023-08-31, 01:34 AM

Right. The whole thing was given as an example of why Gbaji's suggestion that letting players play summoned creatures as if they were a second PC can actually create problems.

There's a difference between "I made this and should have some influence and knowledge on how it's going to act in certain situations" and "I'm playing this like a second character" though.

Also, again, I said nothing about deciding a wyvern killed the character by FIAT. That was just an example something that could happen over the natural course of play which would mean that they never found out what the summoned creature learned on its journey.

Then the answer is "don't narrate everything the summoned character does when it's off on its own where no one can see it." The metagaming of the situation isn't player control over a summon or an illusion, it's them getting information that the summon or illusion had no viable way to share with them, and thus by extent it's the DM choosing to share that information they had no way of discovering at all instead of simply saying "ok you sent it on its way" and moving on with the parts of the game the players are actually part of.

While I am not nearly so overbearing as this, I have told them time and again to tell me before shopping, and to run plans which rely in questionable readings of the rules past me first, and they never do.

In this case, I knew their plan wouldn't work as I overheard it (although as I was in the other room I may well have misheard it) so I decided to just sigh and say ok, and hope they might learn a lesson when it went wrong.

Yeah, that was a bit passive aggressive, but I am just so tired of being the bad guy for trying to save them from themselves over and over again.

It feels like a no win situation, if I do warn them its a railroad, if I don't warn them its a gotcha. There doesn't seem to be any way to win.

That's because there isn't. You've already hit the point where a bunch of problem players have decided they know better than you, and at the same time that you're the one making all their plans crash and burn. That's not something you fix with "a lesson." Everything you do at that point is just fuel on the fire with that group, which is why it's even more confusing that you seem to be defending the idea of sticking with them so often.

The debate is over whether the spell acts as the subject would act, or acts as as the subject would act if it new it was an illusion.

Bob created an NPC with a copy of his personality that is *explicitly* under the GM's control, and I did my best to RP Bob's character and have it act as he would.

Correction: how you believe he would. That's kind of where this entire issue is coming from, especially when we bring in the fact that both Bob and Illusion-Bob would have information that changes their behavior in this context.

The idea that you created a character so you get to control it is kind of a slippery slope. Like imagine one of the players was given one of the settings signature NPCs to play as a one shot, or Brian has to miss a session and gives his character to Nick; once the character is out of your hands, you lose the OOC right to dicate how the character behaves.

I'm not seeing where "somebody else is playing your character because you willingly ceded control of them" is a slippery slope. Or where a setting's signature NPCs being played by them would be. It's really far less complex than you're making it sound.

They make something to serve a purpose. Help the party. They're working on the understanding that its actions will be focused on that task. Suddenly failing to do that task is thus a jarring departure for them from its entire purpose for existing. Logically if you make something for a task, if it's literally the very reason it exists, you're going to be a little annoyed when the DM tells you it doesn't do that because "it's what your character would do."

That isn't saying they should have full control of every single summon and pet in the game, though honestly there are plenty of games where controlling your summons and companions is actually normal. It means when somethings actions are based on what a player's character would do and the player character's actions are dictated by the player they are the arbiter of what their character is actually like.

You circumvented that to shut down what you considered power gaming. Issue being that you yourself saw some validity in Bob's argument, you just keep looping it back to "Frankenstein" instead of exploring its merit.

Also, its not really throwing the party under the bus for Bob to cower, he is an unarmored party face, its just good tactics.

For flesh and blood Bob. Not for Illusion Bob. Which severely undermines the point of having an illusion trying to help the party when it arbitrarily decides "oh no something will hit my illusory body, better send it after everyone else instead."

The caster chooses the personality, not the GM.

You're not really making this better by pointing that out. That just makes it even more galling for any illusion they make to go from helpful to pointing at everyone else and saying "them first" at the earliest sign it might get hit.

Although yeah, if he copies a specific person, that is a risk you take. IF said character was already established as being a coward or w/e then that could well happen, but if the GM just decides to add that complication on the spot, that's a pretty antagonistic thing to do.

Again, I advocate for impartial GMing. Which is not antagonistic GMing.

You're advocating for the option that ended up getting the party used as meat shields for an illusion. I can understand how they might not see that as "impartial."

At the table, the spell in question was not in any way a "worthless trap" as it effectively buffed the party for many rounds and turned many of their actions into critical successes. It more than made up for the spell slot. It just didn't provide one specific benefit in one specific round.

Alright then. Allow me to correct with this different information. "A trap that was useful only so long as they didn't rely on it to do something it makes sense for an illusion to do."

And, TBH, if you are expecting antagonistic GMing, isn't everything a worthless trap? Like, even a healing potion could be secretly poisoned if the GM is out to get you.

Sure, sometimes. If you're expecting antagonistic DMing you shouldn't even be playing with that DM. Thing is if for whatever reason you're still playing with them anyway then something with clear rules for what it does, healing potions to use your example, is something concrete you can rely on and know that if the DM does decide to spite you on it you can point it out to the other players with confidence.

Trap options in those circumstances aren't as simple as the DM deciding your healing potions are poison all along because that's an undisguised and unambiguous act of spite. Trap options are when something can arbitrarily go from working as intended to getting everyone killed or making life much harder for the group at a moment's notice while the DM shrugs it off.

That's just Bob. He does this in every game, regardless of genre or system. He is really into cutting off his nose to spite his face.

There are tons of PC games which he uninstalls and refuses to play ever again because of a single "cheap death" or because an NPC told him what to do.

For whatever reason, he views characters only as ego-boosters and power-trips, and a character who has an embarrassing failure hanging over its head is, in his mind, literally better off dead.

I would prefer he didn't do it at tabletop games because it disrupts the whole campaign for no good reason, but he will still be back at the table in two weeks with a new character once he has gotten it out of his system.

Then, again, why keep letting him join? If his presence causes repeated disruptions, if he's so unreliable that an illusion literally letting its flesh and blood allies get hit to cover itself is something you consider in character for him, and if he's the source of so many of your table's maddening arguments even when he's not throwing a fit, why keep letting him join?

You know he causes problems. You know that he has issues with being called out on things. You still invite him back to do it all again knowing that any inconvenience will lead to another horror story and another fit.

This whole conversation just seems like rules lawyers trying to out rules lawyer one another.

And yet only one side is being dismissed as power gaming.

The spell is pretty simple, you create an illusion of something and it acts like what its an illusion of. That's it.

If you create an illusion of a guard, it guards something. Create an illusion of a messenger, it delivers a message. Create an illusion of a terrified commoner, it runs from the monsters and screams. If you create an illusion of a blood hound, it sniffs around and follows trails. Create an illusion of a guard dog, it barks when a stranger comes near. Create an illusion of a bartender, and he provides an ear to talk to. Create an illusion of a minstrel, he plays music.

And we're getting inconsistent with what you said before. Does the person casting the spell decide the personality or not? You said earlier they did, but right here you're saying they do what the illusion looks like it will do. You can't exactly say both because if it's the former then the appearance of the illusion is just that, an appearance, while if it's the latter then the appearance defines the illusion and the only decision of personality the players are making is "well what action that we've seen do we want to have an illusion parrot."

The whole idea of "well, its a trap spell because what if the GM decides to have it betray us for no reason?" or "if I make it a copy of me, that means I get a second PC" belies an adversarial attitude that virtually no rule could stand up to.

Please note, I haven't been advocating for "I make a copy so I get a second character", I've been advocating for "well they made it for a reason (help the party) and it decided to cower right when that's the least helpful option for the party." Whether someone should have full control or not is an entire different discussion, but since you brought it up a few times I've already hinted at my view that controlling summons really isn't as devastating as you're implying and plenty of games have made it work fine.

As for it being a trap spell or not? Again, I absolutely can see where from their perspective it would be. It did some helpful things then when its illusory nature was most relevant to what it could do to help them that's when you decided it would go with something to get them all hit first. How can you not see where that would probably be taken as "DM decided to have it betray us"?

Sure you point out it's based on Bob's behavior, but again touching on a player character's behavior is a minefield at best and a massive DMing red flag at worst. But then you've actually given ways it could arbitrarily betray the party in this thread. You keep coming back to mentioning "Frankenstein" and how something can go out of its creator's control. You're entertaining the notion of an illusion or summon going against the players while simultaneously saying it's just them using it wrong and that trying to get more control, something that literally everyone with any sense should be trying to figure out in a world where illusions and summons can do that is an attempt to exploit the rules or power game.

And again, from their perspective it looks an awful lot like trying to get more control was warranted because when the illusion had to do something other than sit back and cast it failed them.

If you are specifically giving it the personality of one of the enemy guards, then it will act as that guard would act.

You are free to tweak the spell to change its motivation or make it think it is a double agent.

So the player doesn't decide its personality, they can just make small alterations.

Much like your earlier argument that an ambushing character shouldn't roll initiative, this seems like a house rule that you have created and that you then deem all other RPGs inferior because they don't adopt it.

Or, you know, it's feedback that you're dismissing out of hand.

The vast majority of games I have played do not give control of minions to their master's player. Looking through the rule books on my shelves, the various summoning spells typically give some degree of control over the summoned creatures, but very few of them actually say "your player controls these as if it was a second player".

For example, by RAW, D&D summoned monsters obey verbal commands (but only if they can speak the caster's language) and will otherwise attack what the caster is attacking. Nothing says that the caster or their player gets to choose their tactics or even roll their dice. And in 5E, if the caster's concentration is broken, the summoned creatures will actively turn on them.

Like, I have played Mage more than any other game, and my character is a master of life magic. I have *literally* cloned myself multiple times at multiple tables. And nobody, not I, not the GM, not any of the other players, ever though that the clone would be a second PC under my control, it was always played as an NPC under the DM's control.

Heck, IIRC in AD&D the rules explicitly say that the most likely outcome of cloning yourself is your clone attempting to kill you and usurp your life.

I have been gaming for over three decades now, and this weekend was the first time I can recall ever having seen anyone upset over this at the table or online.

You've been gaming for over three decades and you've never once, until right now, had anyone argue "this thing that I literally made to do what I want should do what I want"? How do you go from groups being so passive that none of them consider controlling something that is effectively an extension of their own character's abilities to groups that are so hostile (from all sides apparently) that I haven't seen them mentioned once without it being explanation for something else causing a massive fight.

Yep. Absolutely. But they don't want to talk about it, if they were open to communication it wouldn't be an issue in the first place.

Self reflection is hard. I am not empathic, and I have no other players to use as a control group. I will say, however, that when other people are GMing for them, they are far worse about it than they are with me, so it can't be exclusively a self created problem.

I seriously suggest looking for other players to be a control group. Personally I suggest looking for other players in general and avoiding introducing them to your current group entirely just to be safe, if nothing else it greatly reduces the odds of Bob passing on ways to exploit you. I even suggest dropping your current group completely for the sake of your patience if nothing else.

So, thinking back about it, it seems like Bob has a defiant streak about anyone telling his character what to do. Even though he isn't an RPer at all, he really likes to use his characters as a vehicle to "stick it to the man".

Some quick examples:
His psychic was caught mind controlling shop-keepers into giving him equipment for free. He was caught by with hunters, put on trial, and given probation. He immediately returned to the scene of the crime and did the exact same thing again, surrendered to the witch hunters, and told them to burn him at the stake.
He was in the middle of a desolate wasteland, and a goddess' avatar led him to a sacred shrine and told him he was free to rest within as long as he didn't harm the shrine or its inhabitants. He immediately attacked the shrine's defenders, and was killed when the rest of the party refused to help.
He was on an enchanted island, and the island's guardian spirit asked him to refrain from destructive magics while on the island. Bob immediately conjured up a volcano in front of the guardian spirit and was killed in the ensuing battle.
He missed a session, and one of the other PCs asked him if he could craft something for them and I Oked it. When Bob came back, he said the rest of us "literally robbed and enslaved" his character and if we didn't retcon the crafting (which cost him nothing but IC time) he would murder the rest of the party in their sleep.
Recently, the party surrendered to some monsters and agreed to pay them a ransom. When the rest of the party wanted to go through with the ransom instead of betraying and murdering the monsters, Bob said that he would never have allowed himself to be taken alive and wanted me to retroactively kill his character.

Basically, all of these stories have the common thread of someone telling Bob's character what to do, and he acts with over the top violence that is both reckless and totally out of proportion for what is asked of him.

Sounds to me less like it's about telling his character what to do and more about telling him personally he can't do something or any loss of personal agency over his character.

The first is definitely a problem which leaves me asking why you keep letting him join a game where rules will restrict what he can and can't do, or more specifically why are you having him test the rules for a game system where you made the rules? Not only is that just going to fuel even more conflict when you've got some personal investment in the rules being as they are (and it's showing even in this thread where others like gbaji reach different conclusions than you) but it's also giving Bob someone to blame directly when those rules stop what he wants and someone to target to try changing those rules to fit what he wants. And no matter what he seems to do you let him back in, which is just going to tell him that as much as you push back he still has leverage.

The latter is something I can actually sympathize on though not nearly to the extent that would be needed to see Bob as anything but a problem player. I've mentioned it before, and so have others for that matter, taking agency away from a player on what their character does is generally considered a bad move.

I suspect, that in telling him that a copy of his character would be an NPC under the GM's control, I inadvertently hit upon the same nerve.

There's plenty of other reasons to be annoyed at how that entire scenario played out but sure. Given everything else you've said about Bob I'm not sure he'd really grasp on those reasons immediately when it's much easier to fixate on how "he" was being made to do something he didn't want. Even though that does touch on other reasons to be annoyed there is such a thing as running into a good argument with the wrong logic.

Reversefigure4

2023-08-31, 02:13 AM

For example, by RAW, D&D summoned monsters obey verbal commands (but only if they can speak the caster's language) and will otherwise attack what the caster is attacking. Nothing says that the caster or their player gets to choose their tactics or even roll their dice.

I've been GMing for a long while now, and it's never come up as an issue having the players run their own summons. It's my GM preference, in fact - why would I want to make more tactical decisions and roll more dice when I've already got a bunch of NPCs and monsters at the table to run myself? I let players run their own summons, their illusions, absent PCs, allied NPCs... heck, I've even given players enemy monsters to run when their character is KOed so that the player is still getting to participate at the table and rolling dice, and they're quite happy to attack other PCs characters. Mind Controlled PCs get instructions in the ilk of "The Enchantress wants you to murder the other PCs. You believe she is a goddess and desire to serve her. Follow her instructions in the way your character considers the most efficient".

My players run the summons as if they were characters by roleplaying their decisions. If the summoner can't instruct them, they tend to default to "attack what caster is attacking / attack closest thing". Summoned wolves flank and trip people. I've had players themselves say "The Earth Elemental moves across the room and pulls the lever... actually, never mind, I've just realised it's got an Int of 3 and probably doesn't know what a lever is, let alone work out what it would do. Instead it Bull Rushes, that's more Earth Elemental-y".

I retain the right as GM to overwrite them if one of them ever leads off with something bizarre like "the Allied NPC hands me all his money then kills himself", but it's never come up as an actual problem at the table, only a theoretical one. The closest I've come to is the other players - not me - frowning at a decision a player made for an absent PC, saying "I don't think Redgar the Fighter would do that, it's not how he's been playing his character" following by the player running him agreeing and changing the action. On one occasion I've stopped a player from taking a specific action with an NPC saying "You have no way of knowing this as a player, but that NPC not only has no ranks in swim, she's terrified of water", followed by the player course-correcting.

But, you know, I trust the players to make calls that will the game the most fun for the table, and they trust me to do likewise. It's amazing how far it gets you.

MonochromeTiger

2023-08-31, 02:42 AM

I've been GMing for a long while now, and it's never come up as an issue having the players run their own summons. It's my GM preference, in fact - why would I want to make more tactical decisions and roll more dice when I've already got a bunch of NPCs and monsters at the table to run myself? I let players run their own summons, their illusions, absent PCs, allied NPCs... heck, I've even given players enemy monsters to run when their character is KOed so that the player is still getting to participate at the table and rolling dice, and they're quite happy to attack other PCs characters. Mind Controlled PCs get instructions in the ilk of "The Enchantress wants you to murder the other PCs. You believe she is a goddess and desire to serve her. Follow her instructions in the way your character considers the most efficient".

My players run the summons as if they were characters by roleplaying their decisions. If the summoner can't instruct them, they tend to default to "attack what caster is attacking / attack closest thing". Summoned wolves flank and trip people. I've had players themselves say "The Earth Elemental moves across the room and pulls the lever... actually, never mind, I've just realised it's got an Int of 3 and probably doesn't know what a lever is, let alone work out what it would do. Instead it Bull Rushes, that's more Earth Elemental-y".

I retain the right as GM to overwrite them if one of them ever leads off with something bizarre like "the Allied NPC hands me all his money then kills himself", but it's never come up as an actual problem at the table, only a theoretical one. The closest I've come to is the other players - not me - frowning at a decision a player made for an absent PC, saying "I don't think Redgar the Fighter would do that, it's not how he's been playing his character" following by the player running him agreeing and changing the action. On one occasion I've stopped a player from taking a specific action with an NPC saying "You have no way of knowing this as a player, but that NPC not only has no ranks in swim, she's terrified of water", followed by the player course-correcting.

But, you know, I trust the players to make calls that will the game the most fun for the table, and they trust me to do likewise. It's amazing how far it gets you.

This. Thank you. This entire post is everything I wish I could say on the topic of player control for summons. It's even what I would say on player control while mind controlled.

As long as everyone at the table is willing to trust each other and buy into the fantasy of the game nothing is lost by allowing this kind of control and it can even lower the amount of bookkeeping and time that has to be devoted to managing all the player-made summons in a fight. Taking control of monsters a player character summons, or companions like a pet or familiar, is a method of control for if you don't or can't trust your players to not be as cheap as possible.

Even a mind controlled character can be left to the players if they actually take the effect seriously, sometimes there's room for interpretation in an order given to them by the character controlling them but it's on them to notice that and check if that can be taken advantage of or not. If the players are actually invested in the game and not just their character winning they may surprise whoever is running the game with their willingness to act against their own interests to fit the scenario.

That said as much as I fully support that view Talakeal's got a built in rebuttal with the fact that his players can't be trusted to keep to what a summon or companion would reasonably know to do or to work against their own interests if affected by some kind of control. All of it works fine with players who are actually interested in the game and not just trying to "win" it but from the sounds of it that's all Talakeal's group is focused on.

Talakeal

2023-08-31, 05:02 AM

So, to clarify, the initial conflict with Bob was about whether an illusion that is made to act like a perfect copy of an existing being acts as the creature normally would, or how the creature would act if it is an illusion. Its a good question, and I can see drawbacks to either side, and I could have ruled either way.

The only reason there is drama here is that Bob threatened to kill of his character if I didn't rule in his favor.

The question itself is a perfectly reasonable one IMO and I would not begrudge a GM for ruling either way.

There should never be a "you cast the illusion but I decide what it does". That's just a terrible, player agency destroying, way to create a spell. Just don't do that. It's a conflict creator. Doubly so since your players clearly don't trust your judgement as to what "the illusion would do". And fankly, I don't blame them given the two examples you've provided so far. If I spent points for that spell and cast it and you had it operate that way? I'd be pissed too.

Out of curiosity, when you say "two examples" what is the second one?

Is it the mirror image?

Because playing it by RAW, the arrows would simply phase through the wall and pop mirror images that the enemies couldn't possibly target, and that really immersion. Likewise, having mirror images which cannot be seen provide massive accuracy penalties hurts both the narrative and the game balance.

What would you do in that situation?

There's a difference between "I made this and should have some influence and knowledge on how it's going to act in certain situations" and "I'm playing this like a second character" though.

Absolutely.

Then the answer is "don't narrate everything the summoned character does when it's off on its own where no one can see it." The metagaming of the situation isn't player control over a summon or an illusion, it's them getting information that the summon or illusion had no viable way to share with them, and thus by extent it's the DM choosing to share that information they had no way of discovering at all instead of simply saying "ok you sent it on its way" and moving on with the parts of the game the players are actually part of.

Agreed.

Again, this hypothetical was posted as a response to Gbaji's statement that simply giving players complete control of their character's summons solves all problems, even when said characters aren't around to give the commands. I posted a scenario where doing so actually creates problems rather than solving them.

snip.

So, you keep saying its whole point in existing was to protect the party. That isn't quite the case (and I admit, I could have made that more clear in my previous post).

In the past, on two occasions he has created illusions specifically to serve as distractions, and both times I have said yes, and they have served as distractions admirably.

In this case, Bob specifically asked if he could create a perfect copy of himself that would lead the party while he was indisposed, and I said yes. So he said he was doing so.

Then on the monster's turn, I asked him again what the illusion's personality was to determine how it would react, and he clarified that it would acct exactly as he would.

Bob would cower if he was attacked, so I ruled that the illusion would also cower if it were attacked.

Bob then said, but if I were an illusion, I wouldn't cower if I were attacked.

I said this is a good point. I hadn't considered that an illusion that knows it is an illusion would take this into account when planning its behavior. I can see drawbacks to either way; for example most of the time, you are using an illusion as some form of deception, and thus if the illusion suddenly starts acting differently because it knows its an illusion, it will have a hard time pulling off the act. And if it knows it only has an hour of life, it probably doesn't want to spend it doing whatever menial task you assigned it.

At which point, instead of saying something like "Ok, well, I didn't know that, can we say that I specified that this specific illusion will always act as a version of me that knows its an illusion rather than a perfect copy" to which I would have obliged, he said "Fine then. I don't care anymore. I am laying down in front of the monster and letting it eat me." And now we have drama.

And yet only one side is being dismissed as power gaming.

I don't believe I ever said the word power gaming.

I said that when you are explicitly told that the illusion is not under your control, trying to get around that by saying "well, its a perfect copy of me, and since I control my character, I have perfect control anyway" is an exploit / loophole.

Likewise, the GM who randomly invents personality traits to screw the party or has the illusion betray the party is a complete straw man.

And we're getting inconsistent with what you said before. Does the person casting the spell decide the personality or not? You said earlier they did, but right here you're saying they do what the illusion looks like it will do. You can't exactly say both because if it's the former then the appearance of the illusion is just that, an appearance, while if it's the latter then the appearance defines the illusion and the only decision of personality the players are making is "well what action that we've seen do we want to have an illusion parrot."

So the player doesn't decide its personality, they can just make small alterations.

The spell creates an independent illusion that does its best to imitate a being. The caster decides who and what that being is, and then has no further control. And like all NPCs, it is up to the GM to decide how they act given their motivations and knowledge.

If the caster decides to create an illusion of a dog, it might well keep them up at night barking because that is what dogs do.
If the caster decides to create an illusion of an enemy guard, it will sound they alarm if it spots the party, because that is what enemy guards do.
If the caster decides to create an illusion of the devil, it will tempt you toward evil and give you self destructive advice because that is what the devil does.
If the caster decides to create an illusion of Bob, it will cower when attacked, because that is what Bob does.

And again, Bob's argument that the illusion should know it is an illusion and modify its behavior appropriately is a reasonable one, and is only causing drama and conflict because it was presented in an unreasonable manner.

And again, having it know its an illusion and act upon that knowledge can utterly ruin the spells usefulness. For example, if I kill one of the villain's henchmen in a sneak attack and then replace him with a perfect illusionary copy of said henchman to avoid raising suspicion, it is in my best interest that he acts normally. If, instead, he knows that he has been replaced by an illusion, he is going to go tell the villain that he has been replaced by an illusion, making the spell pretty worthless.

Or, you know, it's feedback that you're dismissing out of hand.

It is also that, yes.

People have been playing RPGs for 50 years, and I have never heard anyone proclaim that any summoning spell which doesn't allow the caster's player to control it like a second PC is stupid, yet mine is. Likewise, I have never heard anyone say hidden characters having initiative is stupid, yet my system is stupid for doing this.

That's not really valuable feedback.

For example, if I ask your opinion on whether I should buy a Toyota, and you tell me that it is a terrible car because it requires expensive gasoline to run and could be dangerous in a collision, and instead I should hitch-hike everywhere, do you really think that is feedback that I should take seriously?

Now, I suppose part of it is just the hostility in the phrasing. For example, I imagine saying something like "Maybe you should challenge the root assumptions, and see if you can't come up with a new and better way to do things if the old methods aren't working" sounds a lot more positive and easier to swallow than "Your ideas are stupid and wrong despite other people having successfully implemented them for decades."

As for it being a trap spell or not? Again, I absolutely can see where from their perspective it would be. It did some helpful things then when its illusory nature was most relevant to what it could do to help them that's when you decided it would go with something to get them all hit first. How can you not see where that would probably be taken as "DM decided to have it betray us"?

I don't consider a spell working the way it works to be a "betrayal".

The spell does its best to replicate the behavior or the being it is copying. Not the hypothetical behavior of how the thing it is copying would act if it new it were an illusion.

Like, I assume you wouldn't say a magic missile "betrayed the party" if I tried to use it to blast open a lock and the DM informed me that magic missiles cannot harm objects.

You've been gaming for over three decades and you've never once, until right now, had anyone argue "this thing that I literally made to do what I want should do what I want"? How do you go from groups being so passive that none of them consider controlling something that is effectively an extension of their own character's abilities to groups that are so hostile (from all sides apparently) that I haven't seen them mentioned once without it being explanation for something else causing a massive fight.

I have never once once had a player state that the GM is obligated to hand control of an NPC over to a player.

I seriously suggest looking for other players to be a control group. Personally I suggest looking for other players in general and avoiding introducing them to your current group entirely just to be safe, if nothing else it greatly reduces the odds of Bob passing on ways to exploit you. I even suggest dropping your current group completely for the sake of your patience if nothing else.

I would love. I just have no idea how to do it.

It seems like every group I find a: plays D&D exclusively, b: has a steady GM who will not let go of the reins, and c: has trouble finding enough players to stick together as people join for a few months and then ghost us.

A couple years ago my FLGS had a meetup day specifically to help people in finding new groups. We played one session together, as far as I could tell everyone was nice and had a good time, afterward we created a discord group and scheduled another session the next week. A few people said they couldn't make it, most said nothing, and I was literally the only person who showed up. The following week, nobody even bothered making an excuse before not showing up. The third week I didn't bother showing up, and nobody ever posted to the Discord again.

In my experience, that is pretty typical.

Even in college when we had a steady stream of new players, we never managed to actually hold a campaign together for more than a few sessions. Most people never show up at all, and those who do only show up once or twice before ghosting the group, and then the game quietly dies.

And again, this is why I put up with so much crap from my players. I really love gaming, and it seems like the only people who actually stick around are the weirdos, so that is a sacrifice I have to endure if I want to play.

I've been GMing for a long while now, and it's never come up as an issue having the players run their own summons. It's my GM preference, in fact - why would I want to make more tactical decisions and roll more dice when I've already got a bunch of NPCs and monsters at the table to run myself? I let players run their own summons, their illusions, absent PCs, allied NPCs... heck, I've even given players enemy monsters to run when their character is KOed so that the player is still getting to participate at the table and rolling dice, and they're quite happy to attack other PCs characters. Mind Controlled PCs get instructions in the ilk of "The Enchantress wants you to murder the other PCs. You believe she is a goddess and desire to serve her. Follow her instructions in the way your character considers the most efficient".

My players run the summons as if they were characters by role-playing their decisions. If the summoner can't instruct them, they tend to default to "attack what caster is attacking / attack closest thing". Summoned wolves flank and trip people. I've had players themselves say "The Earth Elemental moves across the room and pulls the lever... actually, never mind, I've just realised it's got an Int of 3 and probably doesn't know what a lever is, let alone work out what it would do. Instead it Bull Rushes, that's more Earth Elemental-y".

I retain the right as GM to overwrite them if one of them ever leads off with something bizarre like "the Allied NPC hands me all his money then kills himself", but it's never come up as an actual problem at the table, only a theoretical one. The closest I've come to is the other players - not me - frowning at a decision a player made for an absent PC, saying "I don't think Redgar the Fighter would do that, it's not how he's been playing his character" following by the player running him agreeing and changing the action. On one occasion I've stopped a player from taking a specific action with an NPC saying "You have no way of knowing this as a player, but that NPC not only has no ranks in swim, she's terrified of water", followed by the player course-correcting.

But, you know, I trust the players to make calls that will the game the most fun for the table, and they trust me to do likewise. It's amazing how far it gets you.

This is generally how I do it as well.

But only if the PCs have some control over the characters, be it magical, financial, or even just an oath or bond of loyalty. Likewise, they need to actually be present to give orders, and I never make anyone talk to themselves when in a conversation with a minion.

By default, said illusion spell is not under the caster's control. The caster chooses what to create, and then it acts on its own instincts.

Just like if the players chose to summon a demon or animate an undead monster without controlling it and let it go on a rampage. Its not in their control, either in or out of character, and thus I play it just like I would any other NPC.

This. Thank you. This entire post is everything I wish I could say on the topic of player control for summons. It's even what I would say on player control while mind controlled.

As long as everyone at the table is willing to trust each other and buy into the fantasy of the game nothing is lost by allowing this kind of control and it can even lower the amount of bookkeeping and time that has to be devoted to managing all the player-made summons in a fight. Taking control of monsters a player character summons, or companions like a pet or familiar, is a method of control for if you don't or can't trust your players to not be as cheap as possible.

Even a mind controlled character can be left to the players if they actually take the effect seriously, sometimes there's room for interpretation in an order given to them by the character controlling them but it's on them to notice that and check if that can be taken advantage of or not. If the players are actually invested in the game and not just their character winning they may surprise whoever is running the game with their willingness to act against their own interests to fit the scenario.

That said as much as I fully support that view Talakeal's got a built in rebuttal with the fact that his players can't be trusted to keep to what a summon or companion would reasonably know to do or to work against their own interests if affected by some kind of control. All of it works fine with players who are actually interested in the game and not just trying to "win" it but from the sounds of it that's all Talakeal's group is focused on.

Nah. This generally works fine.

There are situations where it doesn't, but they are few and far between.

Please note, I haven't been advocating for "I make a copy so I get a second character", I've been advocating for "well they made it for a reason (help the party) and it decided to cower right when that's the least helpful option for the party." Whether someone should have full control or not is an entire different discussion, but since you brought it up a few times I've already hinted at my view that controlling summons really isn't as devastating as you're implying and plenty of games have made it work fine.

Ok, but do note that Bob absolutely thinks that, atleast in this case, he is entitled to a second character. And AFAICT Gbaji claims that it is always best practice to give players complete control of their character's summons.

In character, I don't think the player's motives for casting a spell should change how the spell functions. Now, if a player tells me what they want, and they are casting a spell that won't do that, I will inform them ahead of time (or even let them do a take-back and ret-con it) I will absolutely let them cast a different spell or try and work with them to achieve the result they want.

In this case, Bob asked me if he could create a copy of himself to serve as a leadership bot, and I said yes. And then he got sulky when I told him a copy of him (which was made to be a leadership bot) would react to danger like he does rather than tanking blows for him.

And I then let him retroactively bind the spell to his will to bypass the debate entirely.

GloatingSwine

2023-08-31, 05:50 AM

The spell creates an independent illusion that does its best to imitate a being. The caster decides who and what that being is, and then has no further control. And like all NPCs, it is up to the GM to decide how they act given their motivations and knowledge.

If the caster decides to create an illusion of a dog, it might well keep them up at night barking because that is what dogs do.
If the caster decides to create an illusion of an enemy guard, it will sound they alarm if it spots the party, because that is what enemy guards do.
If the caster decides to create an illusion of the devil, it will tempt you toward evil and give you self destructive advice because that is what the devil does.
If the caster decides to create an illusion of Bob, it will cower when attacked, because that is what Bob does.

And again, Bob's argument that the illusion should know it is an illusion and modify its behavior appropriately is a reasonable one, and is only causing drama and conflict because it was presented in an unreasonable manner.

That's because Bob can't see the wider picture which is that the spell is absolutely useless to the players because absolutely nothing links their intent in using it with the outcome it has.

This is a spell which says "something happens". Those exact words in that order and no more.

Is it a good something? A bad something? A completely irrelevant something? Who knows! Certainly not the player casting it.

Talakeal

2023-08-31, 06:20 AM

That's because Bob can't see the wider picture which is that the spell is absolutely useless to the players because absolutely nothing links their intent in using it with the outcome it has.

This is a spell which says "something happens". Those exact words in that order and no more.

Is it a good something? A bad something? A completely irrelevant something? Who knows! Certainly not the player casting it.

And this is different than every other spell ever written how?

Keltest

2023-08-31, 07:05 AM

And this is different than every other spell ever written how?

Because when they say "something" happens, they're particular about the something. If I cast a spell to set the floor of a room on fire, I know what I'm going to get out of that.

GloatingSwine

2023-08-31, 07:53 AM

And this is different than every other spell ever written how?

Because every other spell tells you what the something is.

This one doesn't. It looks like it does, but it doesn't because there's a clean break between the player's intent and the spell's outcome.

This is "spend a spell slot and visual theme, the DM decides the rest".

Vyke

2023-08-31, 08:32 AM

I don't follow. Are you sure you are using FIAT correctly?

Yes. Are you sure you are?

I didn't say any of that though.

In this example the GM created the game world and set the players loose in it. The player decided that they wanted to contact someone, but then decided based on their knowledge of the game world route was too long and perilous to go themself, so they chose to send a summoned minion in their place.

{Scrubbed} You introduced the example. I responded. You now say the example was irrelevant.

And It still isn't by the way. The players can absolutely send the illusion North, for example, but literally nothing exists to the North until you say it does. There isn't a game world. It doesn't exist. Your job as GM (one of them anyway) is to make you players ignore that fact.

Right. The whole thing was given as an example of why Gbaji's suggestion that letting players play summoned creatures as if they were a second PC can actually create problems.

Also, again, I said nothing about deciding a wyvern killed the character by FIAT. That was just an example something that could happen over the natural course of play which would mean that they never found out what the summoned creature learned on its journey.

Badly explained example then. Fine. But again, the wyverns only exist because you say they do.

Also, and I'll come back to this.... the illusion isn't a person. Even in game world. Would you describe something burning from a Fireball if it was out of sight of the players?

Again, I don't think that's what FIAT means, although its closer. Also, I am not sure why this is "confrontational".

In this case, it was a weird case that the rules don't account for; having a mirror image within reach but out of the enemy's line of sight.

This one's partially on me so I'll cover the miscommunication first. I started writing about the DnD Mirror Image first (notice I reference that in the quote later in the post). Then I read the HoD one and realised it worked differently. I thought I'd scrubbed all the 5e stuff but must have missed this one. That's my bad. The point I was making was valid but about something we weren't talking about.... so was unhelpful.

By RAW, the enemy javelins would phase through the walls and pop the mirror images. This is clearly ridiculous. So I ruled that the mirror images have no effect.

No, by RAW they hit the caster. There is no part of the HoD Mirror Image spell that says hits are randomised and the RAW rules for attacking say you can attack a visible target (well one you are aware of)

The players could have placed the mirror images in front of the wall or behind the doorway so that the spell functioned normally, but they wanted to have their cake and eat it to.

No, they still hit the caster. Hits aren't randomised. That's why you need to fix the spell.

I really don't think a GM making a common sense ruling when it comes to weird edge-cases the rules didn't think of is the either FIAT or being confrontational, and I think the vast majority of players on both sides of the screen would prefer to play at a table without bucket healing, and commoner rail guns, and pun-pun, and locate city bomb, and self-resetting magical conjuration traps, and XP free wishes from Zodars that are technically RAW by clearly not RAI.

Now first off, it is GM fiat. Don't worry about it. That's your job. You are looking at the rules and going "This does not make sense to me, I am doing it this way so that's how it works". That's your job. You seem to think GM fiat is somehow a problem. It isn't. Bad decisions supported by GM Fiat are bad. Good decisions supported by GM fiat are good.

Second all the stuff with the Theoretical optimisation stuff? {Scrubbed} Because people don't do those things outside thought experiments and the ones that do, you tell them to stop or you tell them to leave. And the reason it doesn't happen is as you say.... because no one really wants it. You can't litigate for a tiny percentage being tools. You just have to tell them to leave.

YES!

Having a hidden-mirror image meaning that half* of all attacks automatically fail blows away every other protective spell in the game, and renders it virtually impossible to lose a fight.

And again, telling my players "no" isn't the same as nullifying their intent; I am perfectly happy to let them take a do-over or to discuss a ruling before a spell is cast or a plan enacted.

But my players are, afaict, too proud and petulant to ever go along with that because doing so would admit that they either made a mistake or that I had sound judgement, which they can't do.

*: And that's at base level. By end game its more like 5 out of every 6 attacks, and can be even higher if you build a character around mirror images, which is probably a dominant build in this case.

But RAW the HoD Mirror Image doesn't do that. RAW it does nothing, the caster still gets hit. Also I was talking about the DnD one, that's why I specifically said DnD

While I am not nearly so overbearing as this, I have told them time and again to tell me before shopping, and to run plans which rely in questionable readings of the rules past me first, and they never do.

In this case, I knew their plan wouldn't work as I overheard it (although as I was in the other room I may well have misheard it) so I decided to just sigh and say ok, and hope they might learn a lesson when it went wrong.

Yeah, that was a bit passive aggressive, but I am just so tired of being the bad guy for trying to save them from themselves over and over again.

It feels like a no win situation, if I do warn them its a railroad, if I don't warn them its a gotcha. There doesn't seem to be any way to win.

It's not overbearing. It's being the GM. It's your responsibility. I stress again. There is no world of Eberron, Faerun, whatever. They don't exist. The characters can't go to the potion shop without you. There is no potion shop. There are no characters. You have to make them forget that. You do it multiple ways, your narration, your style of game, the rules you adhere to and ignore. But there is no world without your explicit permission. That's the power of the GM.... and with that power... something, something.... boiled rice.

The debate is over whether the spell acts as the subject would act, or acts as as the subject would act if it new it was an illusion.

Bob created an NPC with a copy of his personality that is *explicitly* under the GM's control, and I did my best to RP Bob's character and have it act as he would.

Sure. RAW you are right. It's a bad spell though. I notice that you changed the specifics of events in a later post saying it was there as a stand in leader and party face not a distraction. Putting that aside for now that means the duplicate Bob knows what Bob knows. So can I duplicate the King? The BBEG? Their minions? Can I use it to intimidate an illusion of them into telling me the layout of the cult's secret base? They feel fear afterall.

However I suspect Bob thought it would behave in a way that helped the real, killable party members. Then you decided it didn't.

The idea that you created a character so you get to control it is kind of a slippery slope. Like imagine one of the players was given one of the settings signature NPCs to play as a one shot, or Brian has to miss a session and gives his character to Nick; once the character is out of your hands, you lose the OOC right to dicate how the character behaves.

Also, its not really throwing the party under the bus for Bob to cower, he is an unarmored party face, its just good tactics.

If it's a one shot then I don't see the problem. By definition it won't matter after that night. But yeah I agree I wouldn't give an NPC to a player either.

BUT.... and I think this is a sticking point. You know the illusion isn't an NPC right? It's a spell effect, a game function. It's a resource a player used for an advantage.

Also, and it really matters. You know NPCs aren't real right? They're a skin you pull over a narrative event so players don't see the game sticking out. The friendly local potion vendor with a child he worries about studying in a nearby town. Not real. You just need the players to change one arbitrary resource (money), into a system that allows them to recover from mistakes (healing potions). But if you just do that it seems a bit "gamey" so you pull a skin over them and pretend they're real. NPCs only have value that you imbue them with, and they exist only so you can make them ignore the cogs and gears.

At the table, the spell in question was not in any way a "worthless trap" as it effectively buffed the party for many rounds and turned many of their actions into critical successes. It more than made up for the spell slot. It just didn't provide one specific benefit in one specific round.

How did it do so? You were light on these details until you wanted to disprove a point.

And, TBH, if you are expecting antagonistic GMing, isn't everything a worthless trap? Like, even a healing potion could be secretly poisoned if the GM is out to get you.

I mean. I just wouldn't play that game.

This is surprisingly insightful. Thank you.

I'm amazing. Don't be fooled by my bluntness. There's a reason I have friends from high school who, after all this time still want to come around to mine to play games I run. And it's not my charm.

(It's because I do the driving so they can have a beer. I understand me....)

That's just Bob. He does this in every game, regardless of genre or system. He is really into cutting off his nose to spite his face.

There are tons of PC games which he uninstalls and refuses to play ever again because of a single "cheap death" or because an NPC told him what to do.

For whatever reason, he views characters only as ego-boosters and power-trips, and a character who has an embarrassing failure hanging over its head is, in his mind, literally better off dead.

I would prefer he didn't do it at tabletop games because it disrupts the whole campaign for no good reason, but he will still be back at the table in two weeks with a new character once he has gotten it out of his system.

Then stop playing with him. Just stop. There are other players. I know you said you find groups where the GM is set and they won't immediately hand over the reigns. It might mean you have to sit and play while someone else GMs for a bit until you've integrated a bit. That's fine they don't know you and (reasonably) can't trust that you have their enjoyment at heart until they get to know you... but you can get the experience you want. But you have to be better and saying what doesn't work for you and stop making excuses for what doesn't.

And, I did say it last time but it bears repeating. Even disagreeing with you it is obvious that this is something you love and are passionate about. That's why you post. And that's great. Genuinely. But it's wasted on your group. Find a group that would benefit from it.

If you create an illusion of a guard, it guards something.

What if I threaten it? What if I say I'll kill its family? Then it won't guard things. Not so simple.

Create an illusion of a messenger, it delivers a message.

What if I intercept it and tell it the recipient is dead? Then it will go home. Not so simple.

Create an illusion of a terrified commoner, it runs from the monsters and screams.

What if that commoner responds to terror by running into combat? Or curling into a ball? Or siding with the monster? You getting the point here?

The whole idea of "well, its a trap spell because what if the GM decides to have it betray us for no reason?" or "if I make it a copy of me, that means I get a second PC" belies an adversarial attitude that virtually no rule could stand up to.

Your players don't trust you. That is the world you live in. Whether it is justified or not is irrelevant.

Much like your earlier argument that an ambushing character shouldn't roll initiative, this seems like a house rule that you have created and that you then deem all other RPGs inferior because they don't adopt it.

The vast majority of games I have played do not give control of minions to their master's player. Looking through the rule books on my shelves, the various summoning spells typically give some degree of control over the summoned creatures, but very few of them actually say "your player controls these as if it was a second player".

Weird. Most games I have do. Anecdotes be what they are.

However this is a different issue. Again. The illusion isn't a creature. It's a spell effect. It's a piece of Bob's character's mind interacting with light and magic create a picture that moves. Without Bob's character's mind it doesn't exist.

(This is getting meta now....)

When you say "exactly the correct expectation" what precisely are you referring to?

Bob's initial (and imo much stronger argument) that the illusion acts upon the knowledge that it is an illusion?

Because that seems to be a gray area which I am not sure which side to go with (both can create problems for the caster depending on the situation) there doesn't seem to be a consensus of at my table or on the forum, so I think it is pretty arrogant of you to insist that Bob's is "exactly the correct expectation".

I'm arrogant enough. I suspect Bob's expectation was "I will use this resource and it will help the party". Instead it "dropped aggro" and put the party at risk.

If you mean Bob's later argument that I should have given him the illusion as a second PC, well:

You seem to be stuck in a binary. Either the player has zero input OR they get a full additional PC with all that entails. I think "Actually, I'd prefer it stay in the fight rather than try to drop out" falls somewhere between these.

The spell *explicitly* says that the caster creates the personality and motivation, but that they do not have any direct control over it.
It is not a PC, and the general rules of the game *explicitly* say that the GM makes decisions for and rolls dice for NPCs.

Not an NPC. Spell effect.

So I really don't think Bob (or you if you are siding with him) has a leg to stand on by RAW.

Probably not once you ignore all the irrelevant stuff about NPCs. So it's a bad spell. It's causing issues. You wrote it. Fix it.

Yep. Absolutely. But they don't want to talk about it, if they were open to communication it wouldn't be an issue in the first place.

Self reflection is hard. I am not empathic, and I have no other players to use as a control group. I will say, however, that when other people are GMing for them, they are far worse about it than they are with me, so it can't be exclusively a self created problem.

It is hard. Here we can 100% agree. You need it though, and you can't see what of the problem is on your end and what is on them in that group. There ae too many moving parts.

So, thinking back about it, it seems like Bob has a defiant streak about anyone telling his character what to do. Even though he isn't an RPer at all, he really likes to use his characters as a vehicle to "stick it to the man".

Some quick examples:
His psychic was caught mind controlling shop-keepers into giving him equipment for free. He was caught by with hunters, put on trial, and given probation. He immediately returned to the scene of the crime and did the exact same thing again, surrendered to the witch hunters, and told them to burn him at the stake.
He was in the middle of a desolate wasteland, and a goddess' avatar led him to a sacred shrine and told him he was free to rest within as long as he didn't harm the shrine or its inhabitants. He immediately attacked the shrine's defenders, and was killed when the rest of the party refused to help.
He was on an enchanted island, and the island's guardian spirit asked him to refrain from destructive magics while on the island. Bob immediately conjured up a volcano in front of the guardian spirit and was killed in the ensuing battle.
He missed a session, and one of the other PCs asked him if he could craft something for them and I Oked it. When Bob came back, he said the rest of us "literally robbed and enslaved" his character and if we didn't retcon the crafting (which cost him nothing but IC time) he would murder the rest of the party in their sleep.
Recently, the party surrendered to some monsters and agreed to pay them a ransom. When the rest of the party wanted to go through with the ransom instead of betraying and murdering the monsters, Bob said that he would never have allowed himself to be taken alive and wanted me to retroactively kill his character.

Basically, all of these stories have the common thread of someone telling Bob's character what to do, and he acts with over the top violence that is both reckless and totally out of proportion for what is asked of him.

I suspect, that in telling him that a copy of his character would be an NPC under the GM's control, I inadvertently hit upon the same nerve.

He is an RPer. He is making choices as his character. So he's playing a role. That role is annoying, abrasive and disruptive. It is also very likely deliberate disrespect. It's "What are you going to do about it." And every time you go back to the game you say "Nothing Bob. I like playing and won't look elsewhere so you have power over me. Doesn't matter if you spoil the game for others, I'll tolerate it rather than make a change". He won't change. Why would he. You'll accept it. You can't "fix" the problems of your group. You can only get another one.

Vyke

2023-08-31, 08:55 AM

gbaji

2023-08-31, 11:33 AM

Ok. We're running around in circles. Someone posted this earlier. I will quote it again:

Specter
Difficulty: 30
Type: Enchantment
Subject: Calling
A specter is similar to a glamer that has been given a life of its own. A specter can act independently and move freely, and although it cannot interact with the world physically, it can perceive its surroundings and make decisions accordingly and can travel freely. The specter will operate on its own without direction from the caster, and will have whatever personality, motivation, and knowledge that the caster gives it. Note that the caster cannot impart any knowledge that they do not themself possess, but most specters are adept at bluffing

Is this the spell Bob was using?

If the answer is yes, then the description says: will have whatever personality, motivation, and knowledge that the caster gives it.

the personality the caster gives it. Not the personality that matches its appearance. So if Bob wants to create a dog that doesn't bark all night, then that illusinary dog doesn't bark all night. If Bob wants to create an illusion of the enemy's guard, but who is loyal to the party, then that illusionary guard will *not* raise an alarm, but will let the party in through a back door.

This is what I was talking about earlier. The spell description does not match what you keep saying the spell should do and how it should behave.

If this is the wrong spell, please post the actual spell he was using with the full spell description. Because it feels like you are being evasive in terms of what the spell actually does versus what you are claiming it should do (or how you chose to rule the spell worked).

Because based on the description above, if Bob wanted his illusion to engage and occupy the monster, then that's exactly what it should have done. No exploit. No cheating. That's what should happen. Period.

And yes. By far the easiest way to run this at a table is to just let the players run these things themselves. And sure, if we're talking about summoned creatures (which are not the same as created illusions btw, despite you trying to equate them), then you may inject some reasonable restrictions if the players are trying to get them to do something absurd.

But yeah. It's quite reasonable for a spell caster to expect that the illusion they cast, which cannot itself be harmed by a monster, should interpose itself and attempt to distract/occupy said monster if that's what they want it to do. May only work for a round until the monster realizes it's an illusion, but that's one less round of the party getting whaled on. I guess what's strange to me is that you decided to make this ruling in the first place. It's such a non-issue if you just let the illusion work the way Bob wants it to. But you artificially create conflict by doing what you did. It's not just about the one round of monster occupation here. It's about player agency.

And yeah. If you just let the players make these decisions, then it never puts you, the GM, in the position of trying to "read their minds". Just let them make the decision. Conflict resolved. It's just funny because you keep countering this suggestion with some kind of suggestion that this would be harder for you, but I just don't see it. It's vastly easier. And yeah, you do have final arbitration (you are the GM, afterall), but most of the time, just let them do what they want. What's the harm?

You are seeing the harm doing it the way you did. It created a conflict over what should have been a very minor issue.

Also, if you think the spell is too powerful for the cost (apparently, illusions can cast spells that have real effect in your game?), then change the spell. To be honest, having an illusion casting buff spells is the questionable and problematic element here. It's not having an illusion that will act to protect the party from attack. You're allowing the more powerful (arguably silly) use of an illusion, while disallowing what should be an expected basic function.

EDIT: One final thing.

Right. The whole thing was given as an example of why Gbaji's suggestion that letting players play summoned creatures as if they were a second PC can actually create problems.

Let's be absolutely clear. *I* did not inject summoned creatures into the discussion. You did. I was talking about the expected behavior of an illusion. You then engaged in what I call "scope shifting" by expanding the discussion from the specific (one illusion spell) to the general "illusions and summoned and controlled creatures" (which are all, you know, actually different things), then, when I responded (still trying to keep this on track with Bob's illusion) with "the player should control it", you have now scope shifted from general to specific (but a different specific) and are claiming I said that summoned creatures should behave this way. I did not make that statement specifically about summoned creatures, and I'd appreciate it if you didn't claim that's what I said, much less base additional arguments on that claim.

Having said that: Summoned creatures are different, and it depends on the game system and what you have summoned (and what forms of control spells exist). How they should behave varies. If I'm playing Call of Cthulhu, it's a good bet that things I summon are going to do their utmost to destroy me if they can based on the letter of what I've commanded them to do. On the other hand, if I'm playing RuneQuest and have summoned an allied spirit from my deity to aid me in an adventure, I totally expect to have full control over what that spirit does (and the rules actually say for the player to run these spirits as a secondary character, within specific limits). So yeah. Summons are different.

And they are not ever going to be the same as an illusion. An illusion is created by the caster. It is not a pre-existing thing. Thus, the caster determines everything about the illusion when they cast the spell. Since the conflict in question was about an illusion Bob cast, how about you not try to rationalize how you rulled on an illusion by arguing about how summoned creatures would act? They are not the same.

Oh. Huh. You must be using dynamic domain or something. Can't read your rules from my work system.

Kish

2023-08-31, 07:33 PM

So, thinking back about it, it seems like Bob has a defiant streak about anyone telling his character what to do. What happens if an NPC orders him to kill himself?

MonochromeTiger

2023-08-31, 07:37 PM

{Scrub the post, scrub the quote}You created something, asked for feedback and repeatedly discussed issues that caused real life tension. You invited this. There is substantial excellent, well presented feedback in this thread. It just doesn't say what you want it to. If people seem hostile can I suggest it might be frustration that you refuse to consider the feedback you requested for an issue you identified. This leads to one place only. The only feedback you'll get is from your group because no one else will be bothered. I won't spend a day telling a wall to be a table. There's only so much time I'll spend telling you your spell is badly written and needs rewriting or clarification. Do it or don't. I don't play your game.

Pretty much where I'm at on the whole thing. The explanation of the spell has bounced around three different things, all with vastly different implications of its actual capabilities and effects. Whenever those descriptions are questioned another scenario is brought up in which the spell goes out of control ("illusion of an ogre just attacks things"), does something completely counterproductive to having an illusion in the first place ("illusion of an enemy guard that knows it's an illusion will just inform its boss"), or otherwise causes as many if not more problems than it solves because they all depend on the GM deciding what's actually meant. Then whenever someone comments on how so many of those scenarios seem to be more of a punishment to the players for using the spell than any reason to use the spell either more details pop up of "but it was useful" that weren't elaborated on before until it looked bad or they're dismissed as antagonistic scenarios despite being based on things Talakeal said as possibilities.

So much of this could've been avoided by a quick fix, some of it probably wouldn't have even happened at all if a simple illusion wasn't given powers to act like a combatant, but because it was and because it caused problems pointing out issues we see becomes problematic. Among other things it feels like pointing out any issue we see is getting taken as choosing a side, it's not, everything I've read on Bob has thoroughly convinced me he is an unpleasant person toward whom my only gut response is to leave the area and hope I don't meet again. But that doesn't change that the spell seems flawed and the description, even attempted further descriptions by the writer of it, feels inconsistent and unclear.

And yes, having a discussion like that is definitely making me less inclined to look into the game where that problem got as extensive as it has. It saps enthusiasm a little when the attempt to point out an avoidable problem is met by multiple arguments of how it's definitely not a problem despite all evidence and multiple people pointing out they see issues.

Everyone else is random people on the internet (with respect to this game... I'm sure you're all lovely). You must get your ego and feelings out of the way. Doesn't matter if they do.

Oh no, even at my most reasonable and friendly I am still a random person on the internet. Hard to not be when the qualifiers are being a specific person known outside of the internet.

That said, random criticism isn't going to sound friendly outside of the most extensive efforts to make it seem as such which often robs it of any actual criticism in order to spare feelings. We're picking at Talakeal's baby, something he's highly invested in and wants to succeed, and that's going to hurt. But I'd hope we're doing it in the attempt to give him something he can actually work on, pointing out flaws we see because they actually look like flaws and not because we just feel like arguing.

Kish

2023-08-31, 07:50 PM

gbaji

2023-09-01, 12:28 AM

I'm kind of puzzled by the description of the spell, to be honest. It can cast spells and it's invulnerable? That's powerful enough that I'm wondering if Grod's Law (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?p=17613518#post17613518) is the issue here.

That's why I re-quoted the Spectre spell. To see if that's actually the spell that Bob was using. I can't seem to load up the actual HoD rules on my laptop, and don't feel like firing up the home computer just to see what other spells might actually apply.

But if that is the spell (which mentions being able to act on its own, and being insubstantial, both of which fit), then I'm struggling to see where "is able to cast spells" comes in. There's nothing to indicate this at all. Unless there are some other modifications that are being used to enhance the spell, maybe? It does seem as though HoD has some tools in it to modify and combine effects to do things, so that may be the case.

But yeah. I would think being able to cast a spell that creates an insubstantial/invulnerable being, that travels with me, and can cast the same set of spells I can, independently and in addition to myself, would seem to be the big blaring exploit here. Not me using it to draw the attacks of a monster in combat.

Vyke

2023-09-01, 11:52 AM

That said, random criticism isn't going to sound friendly outside of the most extensive efforts to make it seem as such which often robs it of any actual criticism in order to spare feelings. We're picking at Talakeal's baby, something he's highly invested in and wants to succeed, and that's going to hurt. But I'd hope we're doing it in the attempt to give him something he can actually work on, pointing out flaws we see because they actually look like flaws and not because we just feel like arguing.

My point is that if you're going to try to be a professional writer you have to handle criticism as a professional. Even if you feel the feedback isn't professional. Because it's not their job (unless it is). It's yours. You can ignore it, and if you dislike the feedback and how it's delivered you can just say "Thanks for that, I'll note it" and move on without reading their feedback again. But you have to stay professional... which is hard. That's why there's money involved.

But you're quite right, I genuinely mean the points I've raised with regard to fixing a problem. Hopefully they're considered.

MonochromeTiger

2023-09-01, 01:36 PM

That's why I re-quoted the Spectre spell. To see if that's actually the spell that Bob was using. I can't seem to load up the actual HoD rules on my laptop, and don't feel like firing up the home computer just to see what other spells might actually apply.

But if that is the spell (which mentions being able to act on its own, and being insubstantial, both of which fit), then I'm struggling to see where "is able to cast spells" comes in. There's nothing to indicate this at all. Unless there are some other modifications that are being used to enhance the spell, maybe? It does seem as though HoD has some tools in it to modify and combine effects to do things, so that may be the case.

But yeah. I would think being able to cast a spell that creates an insubstantial/invulnerable being, that travels with me, and can cast the same set of spells I can, independently and in addition to myself, would seem to be the big blaring exploit here. Not me using it to draw the attacks of a monster in combat.

It could be that the "buffs" were from it effectively using Bob's leadership based skills that I assume improved the team's rolls, which would explain it being referred to as a "leadership bot." Though that still leaves the question of why an illusion would get access to the skills of someone it's a copy of if that's so powerful as to be able to buff people and the label of "leadership bot" came well after it being called "buff bot" first making it more of a personal guess than anything.

Without specifics of the exact spell and its description, as you state, we are left with speculation due to the original account being light on details and the later more detailed accounts still lacking specificity and context that only gets added when different parts of the story are questioned.

I'm assuming from how many of Talakeal's posts seem to be strictly against giving the players "too much" control or something they can exploit that it wouldn't be as simple as making an illusion of a spell caster that can then freely cast spells which bypass its inability to physically interact. Problem is that same assumption would make me think it's unlikely the illusion would get access to skills beyond those absolutely required for it to convince people it isn't an illusion, let alone ones that could let it effectively fill Bob's role while he's indisposed as Talakeal has mentioned; unless of course Bob really contributes so little that his presence could be emulated by something sitting back and giving the equivalent of "good job" and "remember to hit them with the sharp end" without touching on actual skills and that's enough to sway the tide of combats in the game.

Talakeal

2023-09-01, 03:54 PM

gbaji

2023-09-01, 06:39 PM

Specter was the spell Bob was using. However, the precise version of the spell on my website isn't the same as the one we are playing with; when Bob decided to play an illusionist we went through the spell list and added a bunch of clarifications to make them less ambiguous in play.

Ok. So you guys decided on some alternate versions of the illusion spells. That at least solves that mystery.

My initial point was more about "there was a disagreement of whether an illusion to emulate a specific person would act as if it were the real person or act as if it knew it was an illusion" which was a reasonable question, but Bob's statement that he would kill off his character if I didn't rule in his favor was unreasonable drama. Then we kind of went down the rabbit hole of specific details I wasn't expecting to be analyzed with such a fine tooth comb.

Honesty? And please take this as an attempt to assist with your game design. That's a dangerous direction to go in with a spell like this (as I think you are discovering). The original spell, as written, is pretty workable and unambigous as to how it works. The version you and Bob seemed to have worked out and are testing is, to quote a classic film: "fraught with peril".

The original spell specifically restricted the illusions to only being able to act based on what the caster wanted and based on what the caster has knowledge of. Which works great. But that is completely incompatible with the concept of being able to cast an illusion that would "emulate a specific person" and "act as if it were the real person". Forget the issue of whether illusionary Bob would behave a specific way in a given combat situation. That's not even close to the biggest problem here.

The core problem is that for this to work, you must remove the "illusion can only act based on what the caster knows" bit. The caster can't possible know everything about the specific person they are creating an illusion of (themselves excepted, but again, let's set aside that case). If I cast an illusionary version of "that gate guard over there", I can't know every detail of that guards personality, and thus can't make my illusion have that information in order to correctly act like the guard. So the spell must magically copy that guards entire personality and knowledge for it to actually work as stated. Which is problematic because I could then question the illusion I just created to use this as an information gathering spell.

Ok. Maybe a bad example, cause the guard isn't going to tell me anything (cause I'm the enemy maybe). And presumably I can't force it to, since it's insubstantial and I can't harm it. Though, of course, if we assume that it acts as though it doesn't know it's an illusion (ie: like the "real" guard would), then I could maybe threaten to harm it, and it might tell me stuff like the code to the back gate or something.

But that assumes an adversarial situation. Maybe I want to ask the local blacksmith some quest related questions, but I know that the evil bad guys minions are searching the town and preventing us from talking to them (or will themselves root out anyone who talks to us, perhaps using some spells to compel any townsfolk who help us into giving us up maybe). Problem solved. I create an illusion of the blacksmith, and have my conversation with the illusion. He tells me every quest/plot related bit I need to know, and then the illusion ends, and there's no evidence I ever talked to the guy.

It opens up a huge can of worms in terms of the question: "What must the illusion know in order to actually emulate the real person?". So, if I want to ask someone out on a date, but am concerned they will reject me, I can practice on an illusion a bunch of times until I get the right sequence of pick up lines? There's just a ton of ways to use this in unanticipated ways, and not really any good, much less well defined, boundary line here. In the latter case, I'm not even looking for actual information, just discovering how the "real person" would react to specific things.

Heck. I want to learn if someone is a secret spy for an enemy. So I cast an illusion of that person and present them with an opprortunity to steal some vital data and provide it to the enemy. If the illusion takes the bait, does that confirm that the real person would too?

I can understand the concept behind this. You're trying to allow for "psudeo-real" creations. But yeah. There are a lot of problems with that. And frankly, you are probably going to create a whole lot more exploitable situations with this along the way.

I will post some more context and respond to some individual points made in the next couple of days; but atm I am kind of busy and getting a little too worked up.

Yeah. Some of the posts here could feel like folks dogpiling on you. So I get that. But I think we're all really trying to understand the details of what is going on here, but also to help you make your game better. And the best advice I can give you, especially given the... um... exploitative nature of players like Bob, is to try to avoid spells and abilities that have amiguous and/or broad interpretations.

I think that you write these things, having a specific idea in mind as to how they should be used. But one of the hardest things to do is to see things from other people's perspectives. And when someone like Bob comes along, reads the same thing you wrote, and says "Ok. So this says I can do <something you totally didn't expect>", that's likely a result of the fact that different people can interpret things differently. And yeah. The first step is to tell Bob "that's not how the spell is supposed to work", but then the second is to work out exactly how to best write the spell so that it is unambigous to anyone who reads it, how it's actually supposed to work.

I get that this can sometimes lead to a loggerhead situation, where you are certain that your description clearly states what you think it does, and Bob seems like he's just being an ass or something (and I'm not precluding that possiblity at all). But you should still probably think of re-writing it, just to make it absolutely abundantly clear where the boundaries are. If you don't want this spell to be used in specific ways, you need to make absolultely clear in the description that it can't be used in those ways.

And yeah. I'm not sure where the power points are in your game (though it seems at least like it's somewhat moderate in terms of magic power maybe?), but I'd also be really cautious of any spell that allows someone to create an artificial <something> that allows them to increase their own spell casting capability. Heck. Any spell that increases your ability to cast spells is usually a very dangerous thing to do in a game system. There's a reason why D&D only has a few of these, and they are all basically tradeoff effects (cast more lower level spells at the cost of a higher level for example). You always actually lose total power in return for greater specific flexibility. Same deal with enhanced versions of spells. But if you create something that in turn can cast more somethings, that can spiral out of control pretty easily.

If Bob can cast an illusion of himself that can cast the same spells that he can, can his illusion cast another illusion as well? So for the cost of a single spell each, we get an entire remaining set of spell casting ability (not sure how you manage spells/day or whatever). That seems infinitely exploitable right there. I could see Bob creating an infinitely long chain of illusionary Bobs and more or less taking over the world just through sheer numbers alone. I think the world has enough Bobs in it, don't you? :smallbiggrin:

Reversefigure4

2023-09-03, 02:56 PM

If you are specifically giving it the personality of one of the enemy guards, then it will act as that guard would act.

You are free to tweak the spell to change its motivation or make it think it is a double agent.

It seems as if the spell would be a lot simpler if you didn't have to take this step. Why would PCs want an illusory hungry Ogre that attacks people at random when you could also give it the personality of "is my friend"? Why would PCs want an enemy guard that would sound the alarm on them when you could give it the personality of "secret double agent"? Does it cost extra resources to alter it's personality (presumably not, since it's still "free willed"). Why would PCs ever want an unhelpful illusion? And forcing the players to walk through each step to make the spell beneficial has too much in common with "I attack with my sword" / "Well, you didn't explicitly say you were unsheathing it first, so you hit him with the sheath, and it does 3 points less damage".

I can't know every detail of that guards personality, and thus can't make my illusion have that information in order to correctly act like the guard. So the spell must magically copy that guards entire personality and knowledge for it to actually work as stated. Which is problematic because I could then question the illusion I just created to use this as an information gathering spell.

Ok. Maybe a bad example, cause the guard isn't going to tell me anything (cause I'm the enemy maybe). And presumably I can't force it to, since it's insubstantial and I can't harm it. Though, of course, if we assume that it acts as though it doesn't know it's an illusion (ie: like the "real" guard would), then I could maybe threaten to harm it, and it might tell me stuff like the code to the back gate or something

I'm not sure you'd need to bother with forcing it, since you could define the personality as "exactly like the gate guard, but helpful to me because he's a secret traitor to my side". The sky seems like the limit here - most obviously, casting "I summon the Illusory BBEG, but his personality is such that he's regretful about his evil scheme and wants to tell us all about it and how to foil it and all his weaknesses".

And of course, it's rife with opportunity for the appearance of abuse from "things the GM knows that the PCs don't"... that look exactly the same to a No-Trust Table as "the GM is arbitrarily screwing us". The BBEG is already driven by regret, so nothing changes. If the BBEG got regretful, he'd instantly turn into a suicide bomber and take the party with him. The BBEG is an avatar of hate who can't feel regret. The BBEG is always flanked by his loyal lieutenant, so you accidentally summon Illusory Lieutenant as well, but you didn't define his personality. The BBEG has a mind controlling parasite in his brain controlling his actions, so his personality doesn't matter.

Talakeal

2023-09-03, 11:16 PM

Ok, got some time now to respond.

First, let me state again that I was very brief in my initial summary, the "drama" I was reporting was that Bob disagreed with my ruling and told me he would kill his character if I didn't side with him, the context was more or less irrelevant as I already said it was a gray area that could go either way, and I admit I was not careful enough in my wording, and I think I inadvertently poisoned a lot of the resulting conversation by making it about subverting a player's intent when casting a spell.

Bob had cast several spells to serve as distractions in the past, his intent was clear, and the spells worked admirably.

In this case, he specifically said he was making an exact copy of himself to serve as a leadership bot. I said ok, and in this case it worked admirably.

There was no GM-screw job or player cheese. He stated his intent, and I had the illusion follow said intent.

However, once the party was attacked and the illusion was in the closest spot, I ruled that it would cower just like the real Bob was, and then Bob said that an illusion should act with the knowledge that it is an illusion.

I said I don't think so, because that would spoil the spell in a whole lot of applications, as the primary purpose is as a deception to convince other people the illusion is the real deal.

Bob then said that if I ruled that way, he was just going to lie down and let the monster eat him because he no longer wanted to play an illusionist.

I told him that he could retroactively "upcast" the spell to bind it to his will so the spell would do whatever he wanted, and he did.

The next day he told me that he was pissed off that he wasn't allowed to just play the illusion as a second PC. I told him the spell explicitly says the illusion has free-will and the caster has no direct control, and he told me that since it is a copy of his character, allowing anyone else, even the GM, to determine its behavior is a breach of player agency and an insult to him as a player because it presumes that I know his character better than he does.

Because when they say "something" happens, they're particular about the something. If I cast a spell to set the floor of a room on fire, I know what I'm going to get out of that.

Because every other spell tells you what the something is.

This one doesn't. It looks like it does, but it doesn't because there's a clean break between the player's intent and the spell's outcome.

I can't think of a lot of spells where intent matters, normally that's more on the OOC level.

It is fully possible to cast a fireball on a fire-immune monster or to nuke your own allies, or to heal an undead creature with negative energy, or block off your own escape with a wall of stone; spells don't care about your intent.

There are certain spells, particularly divination and mind control spells, where it is possible to twist the wording of the caster's instructions, but that is a separate issue.

This is "spend a spell slot and visual theme, the DM decides the rest".

Not really, no.

The spell instructs the GM to play the assigned roll to the best of their ability just like they would any other NPC.

I mean, yeah, a GM can just ignore the spirit of the rules and choose to have NPCs act out of character to spite the PCs, but I would say that is really a problem with the GM rather than the spell.*

*: Or, at least, no more so than any other spell that involves an NPC like the vast majority of summoning and mind control spells.

{Scrub the post, scrub the quote} You introduced the example. I responded. You now say the example was irrelevant.

I gave an example, you refuted it by adding a bunch of stuff to it that I never said to make it look absurd, and yet I am the one being disingenuous?

Let me restate my point without the example, because I clearly wrote it in a way that emphasizes the wrong details:

Gbaji said that allowing a player to play their summoned minions as if they were additional PCs solves all problems.
I said that not only does it not solve all problems, it actually can introduce some severe problems.
One of the big ones is a situation where the PC and the summoned minion are not together, and thus you run into problems with both giving the players information their characters shouldn't have as well as boring the rest of the group by giving the summoner's player disproportionate spotlight time.
The longer the separation is, the more extreme these problems can become.

Also, and I'll come back to this.... the illusion isn't a person. Even in game world. Would you describe something burning from a Fireball if it was out of sight of the players?

No, you wouldn't.

That was the whole point of my example; that the longer the minion is away from their master, the harder it is to handle, and the more problems having them directly controlled by the master's player creates.

I notice that you changed the specifics of events in a later post saying it was there as a stand in leader and party face not a distraction.

As I said a couple of times already, I glossed over the description because I didn't really think it mattered to the conversation. The debate was about whether or not an illusion acts as if it were the real thing or acts as if it knows that it is an illusion, and Bob's reason for casting it didn't really play into that debate, or the drama of him wanting to suicide his character as a result.

Putting that aside for now that means the duplicate Bob knows what Bob knows. So can I duplicate the King? The BBEG? Their minions? Can I use it to intimidate an illusion of them into telling me the layout of the cult's secret base? They feel fear afterall.

The duplicate does not have possess any knowledge that the caster doesn't. This is spelled out in the description.

However I suspect Bob thought it would behave in a way that helped the real, killable party members. Then you decided it didn't.

I suppose so.

But I don't know where Bob got that idea; nothing in the spell description says anything about it always helping its creator (let alone the other party members whom even the caster considers disposable pawns).

It reminds me of one time in mage when a shaman talked to the spirit of his opponent's gun and was then shocked when his foe was still able to shoot him, having made the mistake of assuming that speaking to something gives you control over it and motivates it to ignore its nature.

Now first off, it is GM fiat. Don't worry about it. That's your job. You are looking at the rules and going "This does not make sense to me, I am doing it this way so that's how it works". That's your job. You seem to think GM fiat is somehow a problem. It isn't. Bad decisions supported by GM Fiat are bad. Good decisions supported by GM fiat are good.

You use FIAT very differently than I do.

To me, DM FIAT is when the rules / scenario parameters are ignored (or absent) and instead just replaced with a GM judgement call.

To me, this is sloppy design. And while it is unavoidable to some extent, it should be minimized.

The rules for determining surprise in 3E are pretty much the textbook example of DM FIAT as far as I am concerned, and how the term got introduced to this thread.

"The DM determines who is aware of whom at the start of a battle. He may call for Listen checks, Spot checks, or other checks to see how aware the adventurers are of their opponents."

Second all the stuff with the Theoretical optimisation stuff? {Scrub the post, scrub the quote} Because people don't do those things outside thought experiments and the ones that do, you tell them to stop or you tell them to leave. And the reason it doesn't happen is as you say.... because no one really wants it. You can't litigate for a tiny percentage being tools. You just have to tell them to leave.

Those are examples of places where the letter of the rules contradict the spirit. They are not in bad faith.

The idea that a mirror image hidden behind a wall will still be hit by arrows is also a place where the letter of the rules contradict the spirit.

I do not believe that interpreting RAI in the face of broken RAW is the same thing as DM FIAT.

But, you know, there is no formal definition of GM FIAT, and as the GM is the authority figure, I suppose you could label anything they do as FIAT and be technically correct, so there isn't really much point debating where the borders of the term lie.

How did it do so? You were light on these details until you wanted to disprove a point.

Bob is playing what D&D would call a bard, and the illusion duplicated his "bardic inspiration" ability to give the rest of the party bonuses to their roles through instruction and inspiring words.

I mean. I just wouldn't play that game.

Nor would I.

Which is why I don't think "its a broken spell because it can be abused by an antagonistic GM" is very persuasive logic.

What if I threaten it? What if I say I'll kill its family? Then it won't guard things. Not so simple.

What if I intercept it and tell it the recipient is dead? Then it will go home. Not so simple.

What if that commoner responds to terror by running into combat? Or curling into a ball? Or siding with the monster? You getting the point here?

Your players don't trust you. That is the world you live in. Whether it is justified or not is irrelevant.

If you add in confounding factors then you have an interesting RP scenario.

Doesn't mean the spell is confusing or useless when those confounding factors are absent.

Weird. Most games I have do. Anecdotes be what they are.

Care to give some examples?

However this is a different issue. Again. The illusion isn't a creature. It's a spell effect. It's a piece of Bob's character's mind interacting with light and magic create a picture that moves. Without Bob's character's mind it doesn't exist.

No, not at all.

This spell IS a creature, which is why it is able to do what Bob needs it to do; act creatively without his direct input.

To use a RL analogy, the spell is basically an AI, which is originally programmed by the caster but can think independently and learn and grow beyond its original programming.

Mechanically, it is a summoned creature. The closest D&D equivalent would be the Shadow Conjuration spell, which uses illusions to replicate a summoned creature.

I'm arrogant enough. I suspect Bob's expectation was "I will use this resource and it will help the party". Instead it "dropped aggro" and put the party at risk.

Ok then.

Yes, it is correct that he used a resource to help the party. It is correct it dropped aggro.

I don't think anyone is disputing that.

I assume there is some underlying and more controversial assumption here like that players should always expect their spells to help them in every situation even if it contradicts the RAW or RAI?

You seem to be stuck in a binary. Either the player has zero input OR they get a full additional PC with all that entails. I think "Actually, I'd prefer it stay in the fight rather than try to drop out" falls somewhere between these.

Sure, I don't disagree here.

But that isn't what Bob said; Bob said that because it is a copy of his PC, he alone controls it as a second PC.

Not an NPC. Spell effect... ...Probably not once you ignore all the irrelevant stuff about NPCs...

A spell effect that summons an NPC.

So it's a bad spell. It's causing issues. You wrote it. Fix it.

I have rewrote it twice, and plan on doing so again.

The central issue of whether or not the illusion acts as if it knows its an illusion still remains though; there are drawbacks to both and I am not sure which one to go with.

No one has said that. I have probably been among the more critical of the spell and said you wrote a bad spell that you need to fix. If this is a playtest you MUST learn to take criticism. The fact this is generating this much conversation is the evidence you need to know you need to go back to the rule and rewrite or clarify. Cut the hyperbole. It does you no favours and won't help you be published. You are not your work.

Bad faith analogies don't do you favours either. You know no one suggested anything of the sort. Hyperbole is there to allow you to feel victimised. You created something, asked for feedback and repeatedly discussed issues that caused real life tension. You invited this. There is substantial excellent, well presented feedback in this thread. It just doesn't say what you want it to. If people seem hostile can I suggest it might be frustration that you refuse to consider the feedback you requested for an issue you identified. This leads to one place only. The only feedback you'll get is from your group because no one else will be bothered. I won't spend a day telling a wall to be a table. There's only so much time I'll spend telling you your spell is badly written and needs rewriting or clarification. Do it or don't. I don't play your game.

Gbaji suggested exactly that, and that is primarily what I have been disagreeing with.

Yes, there is a lot of valuable feedback in this thread, and I am taking it under advisement and revising the spell.

This is an odd and frustrating conversation; you seem to be misunderstand a lot of what I (and others afaict) are saying, and then projecting motives onto me that just aren't there.

I'm kind of puzzled by the description of the spell, to be honest. It can cast spells and it's invulnerable? That's powerful enough that I'm wondering if Grod's Law (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?p=17613518#post17613518) is the issue here.

It can't cast innately (although a caster could use another spell to imbue it with some of their power). It is buffing through speech and song like a D&D Bard or Warlord.

Its a powerful spell, but I don't think its particularly OP or annoying to use until we get caster's trying to create logic flowcharts to dictate its behavior.

RAI, you just summon an illusory copy of someone / something and then it acts as if it were the real deal; that's not really very complicated.

I'm not sure you'd need to bother with forcing it, since you could define the personality as "exactly like the gate guard, but helpful to me because he's a secret traitor to my side". The sky seems like the limit here - most obviously, casting "I summon the Illusory BBEG, but his personality is such that he's regretful about his evil scheme and wants to tell us all about it and how to foil it and all his weaknesses".

And of course, it's rife with opportunity for the appearance of abuse from "things the GM knows that the PCs don't"... that look exactly the same to a No-Trust Table as "the GM is arbitrarily screwing us". The BBEG is already driven by regret, so nothing changes. If the BBEG got regretful, he'd instantly turn into a suicide bomber and take the party with him. The BBEG is an avatar of hate who can't feel regret. The BBEG is always flanked by his loyal lieutenant, so you accidentally summon Illusory Lieutenant as well, but you didn't define his personality. The BBEG has a mind controlling parasite in his brain controlling his actions, so his personality doesn't matter.

This is all true.

But afaict this issues would all be significantly worse if the caster did directly control everything the illusion did.

@Gbaji: Ok, I think I see the misunderstanding. A specter *is* a summoned creature, albeit one made of light and sound rather than flesh and blood, and the rules treat it as such. It is not a simple magical effect like a glamer it, it is a free-willed, sentient, thinking being.

Reversefigure4

2023-09-04, 12:05 AM

The duplicate does not have possess any knowledge that the caster doesn't. This is spelled out in the description.

The spell description, keep in mind, which nobody here except you has seen. The closest we can operate from at the moment is "it's sort of like Spectre, but different". So this spell merely duplicates the physical appearance of an object, not it's mental capacities?

So... if it doesn't possess information the caster doesn't have... that removes several of the larger problems with it, since you can't summon and interrogate people (since, ultimately, you're just talking to yourself). But where does the illusion derive it's free-willed personality from? What the caster guesses the guard would behave like, since it isn't using any real information from the guard other than the appearance of the Spectre? Is there some benefit to the players to making a free-willed one, as opposed to "looks like the guard, personality matches mine and thus it wants to help me?"

This is all true.

But afaict this issues would all be significantly worse if the caster did directly control everything the illusion did.

/

Its a powerful spell, but I don't think its particularly OP or annoying to use until we get caster's trying to create logic flowcharts to dictate its behavior.

RAI, you just summon an illusory copy of someone / something and then it acts as if it were the real deal; that's not really very complicated.

It shouldn't be complicated, but you've certainly made it so. There's a lot of transparency and clarity in a simple "caster decides the illusion's intent", because at least then you can rely on it doing what the players actually cast it for the purpose of it doing. Since the caster either gets a default personality based on the thing they're copying (say, the door guard), or they specify in an effort to avoid the GM arbitrarily deciding the illusion is hostile, you end up with all the problems of an open-ended Wish spell that the players have to try and game around with a 500 page contract to the annoyance of both players and GM, for something that should be pretty straightforward.

Instead of the caster just saying "I summon an illusion of the guard, it wanders over and tries to lure the other guards away with a bluff" (events follow from player intention) you end up needing to have the bizarre logic flowchart you're trying to avoid. "I want to summon a thing that is like (or, looks like) the guard, and I want it to behave like the guard so it doesn't seem too suspicious, but I also want it to behave as if it were a double agent working for me, but not the sort of double agent that might sell us out for money even though it's treacherous, so it has a background of being loyal to me because it believes I saved it's father's life, but not so much that it'll be openly grateful towards me while other guards are watching. That sort of personality". (Players try to guess at what the antagonistic GM might perceive the problems to be and cut them off before they get there). Is there anything gained from the later scenario that isn't gained by "Illusory ally is helpful and follow's casters intent to the best of it's ability?"

Talakeal

2023-09-04, 12:28 AM

The spell description, keep in mind, which nobody here except you has seen. The closest we can operate from at the moment is "it's sort of like Spectre, but different". So this spell merely duplicates the physical appearance of an object, not it's mental capacities?

Well, Gbaji atleast has seen a version of the spell that does include that text.

But my point is not to "gotcha" the forum with a shifting goalpost description, its to say that this particular case won't be an issue in play and players, both current and potential, are explicitly told so.

It shouldn't be complicated, but you've certainly made it so. There's a lot of transparency and clarity in a simple "caster decides the illusion's intent", because at least then you can rely on it doing what the players actually cast it for the purpose of it doing. Since the caster either gets a default personality based on the thing they're copying (say, the door guard), or they specify in an effort to avoid the GM arbitrarily deciding the illusion is hostile, you end up with all the problems of an open-ended Wish spell that the players have to try and game around with a 500 page contract to the annoyance of both players and GM, for something that should be pretty straightforward.

Instead of the caster just saying "I summon an illusion of the guard, it wanders over and tries to lure the other guards away with a bluff" (events follow from player intention) you end up needing to have the bizarre logic flowchart you're trying to avoid. "I want to summon a thing that is like (or, looks like) the guard, and I want it to behave like the guard so it doesn't seem too suspicious, but I also want it to behave as if it were a double agent working for me, but not the sort of double agent that might sell us out for money even though it's treacherous, so it has a background of being loyal to me because it believes I saved it's father's life, but not so much that it'll be openly grateful towards me while other guards are watching. That sort of personality". (Players try to guess at what the antagonistic GM might perceive the problems to be and cut them off before they get there)."

And much like a D&D wish, the GM can just ignore the contract if they don't like it and still be following the letter of the rules.

Antagonistic GM's and rules-lawyer players are both problematic people, trying to write the rules so that they appeal to them is a fool's errand.

Is there anything gained from the later scenario that isn't gained by "Illusory ally is helpful and follows casters intent to the best of it's ability?"

Generally no.

But... it still requires the GM to read the player's mind as they can never know what the caster's intent is.

Like in the scenario that occurred during my game, when he explicitly told me it was a perfect copy of himself to lead the party, but I was also supposed to know that it was supposed to serve as a decoy for the party as well without being told.

And the question of whether it should choose to "blow its cover" in order to help the caster in the moment is still unanswered.

Vyke

2023-09-04, 03:36 AM

@Talakeal.

Fair enough, you are seemingly content that there's no problem. It's between you and your group. Good luck.

MonochromeTiger

2023-09-04, 06:01 AM

Ok, got some time now to respond.

First, let me state again that I was very brief in my initial summary, the "drama" I was reporting was that Bob disagreed with my ruling and told me he would kill his character if I didn't side with him, the context was more or less irrelevant as I already said it was a gray area that could go either way, and I admit I was not careful enough in my wording, and I think I inadvertently poisoned a lot of the resulting conversation by making it about subverting a player's intent when casting a spell.

Bob had cast several spells to serve as distractions in the past, his intent was clear, and the spells worked admirably.

Pretty much baseline for what illusions are there for. Makes sense.

In this case, he specifically said he was making an exact copy of himself to serve as a leadership bot. I said ok, and in this case it worked admirably.

I understand the spell is supposed to be powerful but, well others more eloquent than myself have already pointed out where "self aware" opens up a big can of worms to begin with so I'll instead focus this specific comment on the other question that jumps to mind. How is player control so worrying when you're already giving an illusion the ability to greatly affect combat through skills?

Worst case they find some slightly cheesy use for it that you as GM can shoot down because you're the GM and have that option. If running something they're trying to make as an extension of their own spells is too much there's other things they can do, or they could just not use the Specter spell and stick to the rest of their options.

Best case they have the illusion act how they want and any errors they make are on them while you don't have to do nearly as much micromanaging of a limited use NPC and avoid the entire issue of player intent. Maybe they use it slightly more or less efficiently than you would but if that comes back to bite them you're in the clear because it was entirely their own actions rather than your interpretation of them.

There was no GM-screw job or player cheese. He stated his intent, and I had the illusion follow said intent.

However, once the party was attacked and the illusion was in the closest spot, I ruled that it would cower just like the real Bob was, and then Bob said that an illusion should act with the knowledge that it is an illusion.

I said I don't think so, because that would spoil the spell in a whole lot of applications, as the primary purpose is as a deception to convince other people the illusion is the real deal.

Really depends on how you take an illusion knowing it's an illusion to be.

To use your earlier example an illusion of an enemy guard will guard something, according to your "creation gone out of the creator's control" example it would alert its "boss" of the players' presence if they forgot to switch it to recognize them as friends or if it knew it was an illusion. The problem being an illusion exists in the first place for subterfuge, to distract from something whether it's a presence being hidden or the absence of something looking filled, to me "it knows it's an illusion" would mean that it's trying not to draw attention to its illusory nature but it is trying to draw attention away from whatever it was made to cover.

So in my opinion that guard illusion, knowing that it's an illusion, is unlikely to invalidate its existence by running off to its "boss" shouting "hey I got knocked out/killed and replaced with an illusion, look you can put your hands right through me, we've been attacked." It would be more likely to do everything in its power to keep up the act, deflect suspicion, and "guard" in a way that won't get it dismissed early or figured out.

All of that is somewhat benefited by the text gbaji quoted earlier in the thread for the Specter spell being that they're adept at bluffing. Because what purpose does an illusion have for bluffing other than to further the deception it was made for?

Bob then said that if I ruled that way, he was just going to lie down and let the monster eat him because he no longer wanted to play an illusionist.

And here's where, even if I agree on some other points, Bob places the blame for the drama squarely on himself. He escalated it to a "give me what I want or I quit" situation, which by your accounts is apparently a normal occurrence for him. Of course this is also annoying because any otherwise good points raised in the entire situation become much easier to dismiss when they've been raised by a person who quickly leaps to unreasonable behavior.

I told him that he could retroactively "upcast" the spell to bind it to his will so the spell would do whatever he wanted, and he did.

The next day he told me that he was pissed off that he wasn't allowed to just play the illusion as a second PC. I told him the spell explicitly says the illusion has free-will and the caster has no direct control, and he told me that since it is a copy of his character, allowing anyone else, even the GM, to determine its behavior is a breach of player agency and an insult to him as a player because it presumes that I know his character better than he does.

Grey area. Which is likely what he was aiming for, as you've implied a couple times in the thread.

Yes it does run into the argument of player agency being violated by assumptions of how a character the GM doesn't control would think. If you're set on no player control of illusions or summons then that's more of an argument to disallow copying player characters than anything. Otherwise it likely will eventually run into the same issue of a player trying to use this trick and by extent the same kind of backlash that happened in the thread. Could also repeat the question of why it's able to effectively copy skills or abilities that actively affect combat beyond "taunts" and "cower" or creative uses of its own bluffing abilities but that's secondary to the issue of player agency vs intentionally uncontrolled personality copying illusions.

Although another counterpoint against Bob here is his first argument, that it should know it's an illusion, undermines the idea that it would truly be a perfect copy of him. On one hand it would get the result he wanted originally, it would draw attention of the attacking monster instead of cowering as Bob is wont to do because an illusion Bob that knows it's an illusion would also know it can't be hurt. On the other hand it then defies Bob's argument that since it's his character as an illusion it should be under his control because, well, his character isn't an illusion and the personality copy would deviate from him in various ways with that knowledge.

All of this, of course, does run into the issue that it's a massive over-complication but then so does granting an illusion free will in the first place. Especially if it's the middle point between "scripted illusion" and "illusion under caster's direct control" which is basically just scripted illusion with the caster changing the script on the fly. But it's complicated mostly because people are looking at it really closely trying to get it to make sense in the way they specifically want it to, not because it's actually so complex that it would need a long complex thought exercise every time it's used.

I can't think of a lot of spells where intent matters, normally that's more on the OOC level.

It is fully possible to cast a fireball on a fire-immune monster or to nuke your own allies, or to heal an undead creature with negative energy, or block off your own escape with a wall of stone; spells don't care about your intent.

Spells that launch fire, channel negative energy, or create walls of stone do care about your intent. They care about the intent to cast a spell. They just don't happen to care that your intent was also the complete wrong application of that spell or well beyond what the spell is capable of.

Illusions however are one of those types of magic where some people will really argue that intent is quite possibly the most important part, well aside from aesthetics, hard to fool someone that there's totally not something wrong with part of the ground if you've put a hot pink patch of illusory grass over a pit trap surrounded by normal barren dirt. But illusion is where the purpose of the illusion, especially in the case of one where the caster has to put detailed thought into things like personality or knowledge granted to it, really is something the spell should care about because that's literally what the illusion is for.

A fireball is for firing out a particularly nasty chemical reaction attached to some D6es, it does what it's for even if the caster says "oops" and nukes their own team without a way to make them immune. Negative energy channeling spells are for sending out a specific type of energy, they do what they're for even if the caster isn't aware something reacts differently than they expected to it. Earth walls are for putting great big slabs of rock in something's way, they do what they're for even if the thing it's in the way of is the caster. Illusions however are a balancing act of agency and buy in from both GM and player and if both aren't on the exact same page then one or the other may very quickly come out of the situation feeling they didn't do what they were for.

Illusion magic is such an annoying thing in games partially for this reason. You keep it to concrete effects like D&D Mirror Image where it's just a defense spell with percent chances and you know what you're getting. You get into players trying to pull things off with the more free form illusions or illusions with more than one strictly defined moving part and it becomes player imagination vs GM imagination and a recipe for disagreements.

Actually it makes me a little more surprised Bob would go with an Illusionist if he's so set on getting his way or else, safer choice there would be going with more clear cast A, get B, everybody knows how it works because it's just numbers kinds of magic.

Not really, no.

The spell instructs the GM to play the assigned roll to the best of their ability just like they would any other NPC.

I mean, yeah, a GM can just ignore the spirit of the rules and choose to have NPCs act out of character to spite the PCs, but I would say that is really a problem with the GM rather than the spell.*

*: Or, at least, no more so than any other spell that involves an NPC like the vast majority of summoning and mind control spells.

And this is one of the points of GM and player being on the same page I mentioned really gets tested, on multiple levels.

First, a GM would generally be expected to play the role of anything under their control to the best of their ability. Sure they might not have every single monster be a tactical genius but "the best of their ability" is playing it out within character not playing it at an absolutely optimal level. Putting a requirement to play it to the best of their abilities is just saying "play it like you normally do" and that may be vastly different from the behavior and knowledge the players actually indicated for the spell.

Second, it does kind of turn into a "GM decides the rest" situation because unless you specifically go for the controlled version you're handing off what you want the spell to do the moment you cast it and getting what the GM expects you to want in return. The only way for that not to be the case with a spell that's as open ended as "you make something with free will and you have no control over it" is if that's just flavor text and it's shortly followed by the real instructions of "and have a script and detailed instructions for the GM to read so they actually know the specifics of the personality you say it has instead of making their own guess."

That's a problem that happens with just about any effect like this where there's the built in potential for a massive expectations mismatch, but in this case it's more glaring because the inevitable disagreement already happened and was aired on a forum full of RPG players who have nothing better to do with some of our spare time than descend upon the matter to pick it apart.

No, you wouldn't.

That was the whole point of my example; that the longer the minion is away from their master, the harder it is to handle, and the more problems having them directly controlled by the master's player creates.

And the simple solution to that is a range limit from the caster before it fizzles. Actually there's any number of easy solutions involving time away from direct control or distance from the controller, the complication still isn't giving the player control of it the complication is that it's unusually capable for an illusion and it's evidently not restricted in ways that prevent it being sent off to the other side of the world to deliver a message in any way except saying it's not player controlled.

Plenty of other ways players could probably achieve the same effect without a sentient illusion.

I suppose so.

But I don't know where Bob got that idea; nothing in the spell description says anything about it always helping its creator (let alone the other party members whom even the caster considers disposable pawns).

Because he expected the thing he made to be involved in the party's success would value the party's success.

It reminds me of one time in mage when a shaman talked to the spirit of his opponent's gun and was then shocked when his foe was still able to shoot him, having made the mistake of assuming that speaking to something gives you control over it and motivates it to ignore its nature.

But that's still not really in line with the situation. Your Mage example is the player overvaluing the value of speaking with objects, they're objects and as such speaking with them isn't going to do the slightest thing to prevent someone using it as the object it is. They saw a situation of the fantastical and the mundane interacting and assumed, despite it never being implied that they had and were using anything to make it so, that the fantastical takes precedence in all circumstances.

Bob however is in a different situation, he made the Specter, he dictated its nature in the act of creation, the misunderstanding was that you and he had different ideas of what that nature actually was in the moment.

You use FIAT very differently than I do.

To me, DM FIAT is when the rules / scenario parameters are ignored (or absent) and instead just replaced with a GM judgement call.

That's one use of the term. I've also heard it used for times where a DM claims final say on something during a disagreement or changes something they personally dislike in the rules or events of the game.

Bob is playing what D&D would call a bard, and the illusion duplicated his "bardic inspiration" ability to give the rest of the party bonuses to their roles through instruction and inspiring words.

So the Specter spell is able to emulate the equivalent of Class Features? Because if that comparison is a direct one then the Specter aided the party by spending a finite daily resource copied from Bob completely independent of his own uses. There's powerful spell then there's literally able to replace someone for anything short of physical interaction.

Nor would I.

Which is why I don't think "its a broken spell because it can be abused by an antagonistic GM" is very persuasive logic.

But whether people would play it or not that's basically the trust level your players seem to have, and given you've actively included cheating, argumentative behavior, and rules lawyering in your description of them it's also about the level of trust they receive in turn.

Like it or not sticking with them means that's the metric that's doing most of the leg work testing your system, and any changes made to accommodate them will be tinged with that dynamic.

To use a RL analogy, the spell is basically an AI, which is originally programmed by the caster but can think independently and learn and grow beyond its original programming.

AI comparisons just bring it back to the question of how "self aware illusion" was supposed to avoid overcomplication issues to begin with. Considering the "AI" we have now is just a program to scrape the grime off every bit of the internet it can access, recognize some key words, and vomit out something related to it, both the Specter spell and AI have a self learning potential that's largely speculative. Forget your earlier point of it being harder to manage the longer it's away from a player if it's player controlled, it would be harder to manage the longer it's around at all simply because of the eventual drift away from its original parameters and the ideas behind the spell being cast to start with.

I assume there is some underlying and more controversial assumption here like that players should always expect their spells to help them in every situation even if it contradicts the RAW or RAI?

If a player does something specifically stupid with a spell that's on them. If a player literally makes a life form with the specific purpose of helping and it doesn't continue to help in a situation where it is uniquely capable of such that's on whoever made the decision not to have it do so.

A spell effect that summons an NPC.

A spell effect that creates an illusion that you're treating as an NPC. Which is why boosting the effect all the way up to free will is a big leap up in complication from the comparatively much simpler "under player control" or even "does one preset task."

I have rewrote it twice, and plan on doing so again.

The central issue of whether or not the illusion acts as if it knows its an illusion still remains though; there are drawbacks to both and I am not sure which one to go with.

I'm biased, as you can tell from my comments on the matter further up in this post, my opinion on the matter is that a self aware illusion should be more helpful to its creator rather than throwing more wrenches in their way.

It's actually one of the reasons I'm continuously disagreeing on some of these things with you, most of the times you've brought up your stance against it have been different ways that knowing it's an illusion immediately makes it turn on the caster and make things worse for them. The "guard knows he's an illusion and goes to warn his boss the real one got replaced" example for instance. To me the scenario defaulting to "illusion of a guard has all the same loyalties as that guard" is a "gotcha" moment, it's looking for things that people can trip up on to spiral the situation into something worse instead of making basic safe assumptions like that the player wouldn't intentionally give an illusion a personality that's truly hostile to them and their goals.

It can't cast innately (although a caster could use another spell to imbue it with some of their power). It is buffing through speech and song like a D&D Bard or Warlord.

Its a powerful spell, but I don't think its particularly OP or annoying to use until we get caster's trying to create logic flowcharts to dictate its behavior.

RAI, you just summon an illusory copy of someone / something and then it acts as if it were the real deal; that's not really very complicated.

So it can spend resources but not spells. It can influence a fight using effects that, in another game, are equivalent to some spells but it can't cast other effects itself without effectively being used as storage for the spells it's using.

That still sounds pretty strong for something that's effectively immune to all physical attacks.

This is all true.

But afaict this issues would all be significantly worse if the caster did directly control everything the illusion did.

Except your own point that they can't apply knowledge the caster doesn't know kind of counters the issue. Presumably that would also mean not copying the parts of the character's personality that the caster isn't aware of, it would be copying them as the caster knows them then altering from there.

With that in mind how is player control worse? By your points on not copying knowledge the caster doesn't have they couldn't simply say "and it tells me all its plans" and because it can't cast spells I'm assuming (because I really hope you didn't throw in something even stronger than bardic inspiration on the resources it can emulate) that "I make a Specter of the BBEG and have it force its followers to let us through the BBEG's base" isn't going to be any more effective just because a player is controlling it than "I make a Specter of the BBEG but tweak its personality to really want us to get to its room in its lair" would; in both cases not very, because it wouldn't even know the location or the layout of its lair unless the player characters do already and it would still rely on bluffing its way past any minions who have likely already been told the player characters and BBEG aren't the best of friends.

So what about player control makes this inherently worse in any way except tossing out the second level of the spell that, due to the complexity needed to make a living (if immaterial) intelligent being, probably should've been the third version anyway?

Talakeal

2023-09-04, 06:51 AM

@Talakeal.

Fair enough, you are seemingly content that there's no problem. It's between you and your group. Good luck.

Of all the things you are reading into my posts that I never actually said, this certainly tops the list. :smallsigh:

I am, however, still really curious for examples of specific RPGs that let a caster's player control summoned / conjured minions as if they were additional PCs. You say they are the majority in your experience, but I sure can't recall ever having played / read one.

icefractal

2023-09-04, 02:03 PM

I am, however, still really curious for examples of specific RPGs that let a caster's player control summoned / conjured minions as if they were additional PCs. You say they are the majority in your experience, but I sure can't recall ever having played / read one.This is true but also false, IME.

That is to say, there are few games that explicitly allow players to control their minions / followers / etc that way, and many even do say that the GM controls them. For example, in D&D 3.x, by RAW, you don't control your summoned creatures, your animal companion, your cohort, your eidolon, or even your familiar.

But, IME, the more common case in practice (by a lot) is that the player does control those characters, sometimes with the GM having veto power. Especially in combat. I have been at zero tables where the GM wanted to control the creatures summoned by Summon Monster, and that includes a few tables with fairly "strict on the details" GMs.

I can't speak for every GMs motivations, but for me it comes down to two factors:
1) Logistically, I already have plenty to do when a battle is happening, I don't want more monsters I have to run (which unlikely the ones I put in myself, I probably don't have the stats at hand). That's the player's job (and regarding new players, I would recommend against a new player choosing a summoner-type character, and it'd be up to other players to help them run it if they did).

2) For most players (including myself), they get more enjoyment out of running it themselves. There's very seldom* a meaningful balance difference between "the summoned creature does the thing" and "the PC orders them to do the thing, then they do it" given they're on the same initiative anyway, and so it's not IMO worth adding friction.

* Fortunately I've mostly had players who were mature enough that if there was no way for a minion to know something (Silence effect prevents the summoner giving orders about something non-obvious, say) then they'd take that into account themselves rather than try to weasel around it.

GloatingSwine

2023-09-04, 02:08 PM

I can't think of a lot of spells where intent matters, normally that's more on the OOC level.

It is fully possible to cast a fireball on a fire-immune monster or to nuke your own allies, or to heal an undead creature with negative energy, or block off your own escape with a wall of stone; spells don't care about your intent.

These are not useful comparisons, because they do what they say on the tin and no more. Whether the way you choose to deploy them actually helps or hinders is emergent from them doing that.

An illusion which is controlled by the GM does what the GM wants. The text of this spell reads "hand the GM a loaded gun."

Not really, no.

The spell instructs the GM to play the assigned roll to the best of their ability just like they would any other NPC.

I mean, yeah, a GM can just ignore the spirit of the rules and choose to have NPCs act out of character to spite the PCs, but I would say that is really a problem with the GM rather than the spell.*

*: Or, at least, no more so than any other spell that involves an NPC like the vast majority of summoning and mind control spells.

However, the GM has unlimited license to interpret that instruction however they see fit. As you have repeatedly demonstrated in this thread by discussing how various example summons would harm the players. Almost every possible thing the player can think of to summon can be used to their detriment within that instruction.

The spell hands the GM a loaded gun, which they can use to kneecap the players in any way they see fit or simply refuse to use in the way the players assume it would be used to their benefit.

Talakeal

2023-09-04, 10:52 PM

These are not useful comparisons, because they do what they say on the tin and no more. Whether the way you choose to deploy them actually helps or hinders is emergent from them doing that.

Again, if you don't trust the GM to play NPCs impartially, you have a much bigger problem than spells which summon NPCs.

Merchants can sell you cursed items and poisoned rations, powerful thieves can rob you, wizards can mind-control you, and anyone of sufficient power can attack you when you least expect it and threaten to kill you if you don't do what they want.

Even going by spells, there are plenty of spells that require the GM to interpret an NPCs actions reasonably. NPCs under Mind-Control spells can twist the wording of their instructions or otherwise find loopholes to harm the PCs; or just declare that everything is against their nature. Likewise planar summoning spells do nothing to prevent the GM from having treacherous angels, pacifist demons, or those who are so lazy they consider lifting a finger to help the PCs to be an unreasonable task.

And the biggest irony is that the spell is already an illusion, and illusions already require the GM to play NPCs impartially for them to have any effect at all as they are primarily used to trick, distract, or mislead NPCs, and the GM is already well within their rights to say "the NPC is not fooled, your illusion did nothing but waste a spell slot and alert the bad guys to your presence".

An illusion which is controlled by the GM does what the GM wants. The text of this spell reads "hand the GM a loaded gun."

Handing someone a loaded gun isn't really that big of a deal when they already have a nuclear weapon on a dead-man's switch.

However, the GM has unlimited license to interpret that instruction however they see fit. As you have repeatedly demonstrated in this thread by discussing how various example summons would harm the players. Almost every possible thing the player can think of to summon can be used to their detriment within that instruction.

Any spell can harm the players if used poorly.

Fireball in an enclosed space? Mind controlled enemy in a circle of protection? Wall of Stone to cut off your escape? Fly through an anti-magic zone? Inflict damage on the undead? Polymorph into a red dragon against ice wielding foes? Resurrecting someone before the danger has passed? Wall of Flame in a wooden house? Contagion in a crowded community? Summoned monsters in an area where concentration is likely to be broken? Creating undead and blowing the command roll?

This is true but also false, IME.

That is to say, there are few games that explicitly allow players to control their minions / followers / etc that way, and many even do say that the GM controls them. For example, in D&D 3.x, by RAW, you don't control your summoned creatures, your animal companion, your cohort, your eidolon, or even your familiar.

But, IME, the more common case in practice (by a lot) is that the player does control those characters, sometimes with the GM having veto power. Especially in combat. I have been at zero tables where the GM wanted to control the creatures summoned by Summon Monster, and that includes a few tables with fairly "strict on the details" GMs.

I can't speak for every GMs motivations, but for me it comes down to two factors:
1) Logistically, I already have plenty to do when a battle is happening, I don't want more monsters I have to run (which unlikely the ones I put in myself, I probably don't have the stats at hand). That's the player's job (and regarding new players, I would recommend against a new player choosing a summoner-type character, and it'd be up to other players to help them run it if they did).

2) For most players (including myself), they get more enjoyment out of running it themselves. There's very seldom* a meaningful balance difference between "the summoned creature does the thing" and "the PC orders them to do the thing, then they do it" given they're on the same initiative anyway, and so it's not IMO worth adding friction.

* Fortunately I've mostly had players who were mature enough that if there was no way for a minion to know something (Silence effect prevents the summoner giving orders about something non-obvious, say) then they'd take that into account themselves rather than try to weasel around it.

As I said to ReverseFigure4 up thread, this isn't totally alien to my way of thinking.

When someone is fighting alongside the party, I generally let one of the players make tactical decisions for them and roll dice for them. If its a summoned creature, the caster is usually said player.
Likewise, when someone is traveling along with the party, I generally allow the party to include them in their descriptions of who is carrying what, who is standing where, who is taking first watch, etc.

But I almost never actually have a player RP an NPC in the first person in a dialogue scene or let a player get inside of an NPCs head and determine their thoughts and motivations.
Likewise, I would never let a player control an NPC when their PC isn't present. (Although I suppose I have occasionally run a session with some or all of the PCs running NPCs as their characters while their main PCs are otherwise occupied).

How is player control so worrying when you're already giving an illusion the ability to greatly affect combat through skills?

It's not terribly worrying from a power level. It is certainly very strong, but its a high level so spell and that goes with the territory.

But on the fiction level, having summoned / created creatures that lack free will and have to obey the caster's wishes all the time is just so boring. A huge chunk of fiction and drama is about children not turning out how their parents wanted them to, and in the sci-fi / horror / fantasy genres that is ramped up to 11 with rogue AIs, clones who try and usurp the original, transcendent beings who eclipse their creators, demons who betray their summoners, etc. that it leaves the setting really bland if you cut off that possibility.

Likewise, there is a lot of RP to be had in dialogue with said creatures; negotiations, contests of will, and their treatment and that hands of others shaping the person whom this new life will turn out to be in the end.

But this doesn't really show up on the tactical / combat level; its more about giving the GM the freedom to design scenarios or long term character driven dialogue scenes.

Really depends on how you take an illusion knowing it's an illusion to be.

To use your earlier example an illusion of an enemy guard will guard something, according to your "creation gone out of the creator's control" example it would alert its "boss" of the players' presence if they forgot to switch it to recognize them as friends or if it knew it was an illusion. The problem being an illusion exists in the first place for subterfuge, to distract from something whether it's a presence being hidden or the absence of something looking filled, to me "it knows it's an illusion" would mean that it's trying not to draw attention to its illusory nature but it is trying to draw attention away from whatever it was made to cover.

So in my opinion that guard illusion, knowing that it's an illusion, is unlikely to invalidate its existence by running off to its "boss" shouting "hey I got knocked out/killed and replaced with an illusion, look you can put your hands right through me, we've been attacked." It would be more likely to do everything in its power to keep up the act, deflect suspicion, and "guard" in a way that won't get it dismissed early or figured out.

All of that is somewhat benefited by the text gbaji quoted earlier in the thread for the Specter spell being that they're adept at bluffing. Because what purpose does an illusion have for bluffing other than to further the deception it was made for?

Right. This was exactly my point.

If you created an illusion to replace the guard you killed, by my RAI he would continue to stand watch and try to pretend he is the real thing. By Bob's interpretation, he knows he is an illusion and acts on that knowledge, so he would immediately go and report that he has been replaced by an illusionary duplicate, thus rendering the spell useless.

In my game, Bob created a perfect copy of himself for the purpose of leading the party when he was indisposed. Bob was then mad when it didn't try and distract the enemies and then laughing while their attacks passed harmlessly through its illusory body, which would have immediately blown its cover as pretending to be the real Bob.

Actually it makes me a little more surprised Bob would go with an Illusionist if he's so set on getting his way or else, safer choice there would be going with more clear cast A, get B, everybody knows how it works because it's just numbers kinds of magic.

Bob wanted to play a wizard, and I asked him to play a type he hasn't played before for the play-testing data.

The choices were Conjurer, Illusionist, and Diviner.

Sine Bob hates Divination with a passion, and the new kid is playing a Conjurer in the next campaign, that left illusionist.

Bob said he didn't want to play illusionist because it was so subjective, and I told him that even if he just stuck to the concrete spells it was still a very powerful and versatile school, but we could go through the spells and make the text a bit more concrete before he played it; hence why the rules on my web-site don't include the latest updates to the RAW that we are playing with.

And the simple solution to that is a range limit from the caster before it fizzles. Actually there's any number of easy solutions involving time away from direct control or distance from the controller, the complication still isn't giving the player control of it the complication is that it's unusually capable for an illusion and it's evidently not restricted in ways that prevent it being sent off to the other side of the world to deliver a message in any way except saying it's not player controlled.

The range isn't really the issue.

Heck, using it as a form of messenger, herald, or ambassador is probably one of the best uses for the spell.

The issue is that allowing the player to have direct control of an NPC when they aren't present causes issues with meta-game information and with uneven distribution of spotlight time at the table, and those can happen just as easily in the next room (or in the same room while the caster is asleep or distracted!) as on the other side of the world.

Because he expected the thing he made to be involved in the party's success would value the party's success.

I suppose so.

But nothing in his instructions or the spell description implies that.

Like, if a necromancer animates a zombie, nobody expects it to do anything but stand around moaning and looking to eat brains. If the necromancer is ambushed and unable to order the zombie to intervene, I don't think anyone would be surprised if the zombie just stood there and watched its master die.

But when he creates an illusion solely for the purpose of imitating him and leading the party, he expects it to jump in and intervene not only unbidden, but in a way that directly interferes with its ability to imitate him and lead the party.

To me, its an odd mismatch of expectations.

That's one use of the term. I've also heard it used for times where a DM claims final say on something during a disagreement or changes something they personally dislike in the rules or events of the game.

Yeah.

Its not a term with a formal definition so opinion will vary.

But Vyke was using it as a sort of "gotcha" that because I said earlier that I didn't like the D&D surprise rules because the relied on DM FIAT, that I should also not be able to make a ruling when the RAW is ambiguous or even create a map of the campaign world or populating it with creatures because doing so also relies on GM FIAT, when to me they are fundamentally different things.

So the Specter spell is able to emulate the equivalent of Class Features? Because if that comparison is a direct one then the Specter aided the party by spending a finite daily resource copied from Bob completely independent of his own uses. There's powerful spell then there's literally able to replace someone for anything short of physical interaction.

Yes.

It is a powerful spell, but because it is limited to social and mental actions that rely on the caster's skills and knowledge, its really more of an action economy buff than anything.

It is not capable of replicating limited use abilities, in my system leadership and inspiration work more like an "aura" that is active only while the character is actively speaking / singing and does not have limited usage.

AI comparisons just bring it back to the question of how "self aware illusion" was supposed to avoid overcomplication issues to begin with. Considering the "AI" we have now is just a program to scrape the grime off every bit of the internet it can access, recognize some key words, and vomit out something related to it, both the Specter spell and AI have a self learning potential that's largely speculative. Forget your earlier point of it being harder to manage the longer it's away from a player if it's player controlled, it would be harder to manage the longer it's around at all simply because of the eventual drift away from its original parameters and the ideas behind the spell being cast to start with.

Indeed.

Like all living creatures, it will change and grow over time in response to its experiences.

Which is why it is kind of silly to try and come up with an flow-chart of instructions for it; in the short term it isn't necessary, and in the long term it won't matter.

Although I wouldn't put too much stock in comparisons to modern AI, the technology is in its infancy and isn't really an AI in any meaningful sense of the word.

If a player does something specifically stupid with a spell that's on them. If a player literally makes a life form with the specific purpose of helping and it doesn't continue to help in a situation where it is uniquely capable of such that's on whoever made the decision not to have it do so.

This really comes down to a "role-play" vs. "roll-play" conundrum, with Bob and myself clearly on different sides of the spectrum.

In my mind, helping the party is below imitating Bob on the list of priorities for the illusion.

You could be in the same situation with PCs or NPCs who have any number of personality traits; indecision, fear, pacifism, greed, etc. that prevent them from taking the most optimal tactical action in any given situation.

Of course, you also have the issue of imperfect knowledge and tactical ability on both Bob's part and my own, which means that even if we think we are helping the party, we might not be.

And again, Bob created it specifically with the instructions that its purpose was to use leadership, not to distract enemies. In the past, he has cast illusions to serve as distractions that have served that goal without issue because he was open about it in his communication.

A spell effect that creates an illusion that you're treating as an NPC. Which is why boosting the effect all the way up to free will is a big leap up in complication from the comparatively much simpler "under player control" or even "does one preset task."

Indeed.

This is sort of a "best of both worlds" scenario.

Bob needs an illusion that can think and act independently so that it can lead the party through any situation they might come across. But, the drawback is that he needs to sacrifice simplicity and control to achieve that level of performance.

*If by "you" you mean as the game's author, I don't think by RAW you can describe a sentient being with free-will and the capacity to learn and adapt as anything but an NPC.

It's actually one of the reasons I'm continuously disagreeing on some of these things with you, most of the times you've brought up your stance against it have been different ways that knowing it's an illusion immediately makes it turn on the caster and make things worse for them. The "guard knows he's an illusion and goes to warn his boss the real one got replaced" example for instance. To me the scenario defaulting to "illusion of a guard has all the same loyalties as that guard" is a "gotcha" moment, it's looking for things that people can trip up on to spiral the situation into something worse instead of making basic safe assumptions like that the player wouldn't intentionally give an illusion a personality that's truly hostile to them and their goals.

If you create someone who is aligned with the enemy, they will treat you as the enemy. Its a dumb thing to do without precautions.

Just like in D&D if you create undead or summon demons, you need to take precautions or they will turn on you.

But yes, if the player just didn't realize that replicating something loyal to the enemy without altering its loyalty could result in betrayal that is kind of a gotcha, and a reasonable DM should probably warn them.

On the other hand, if used as some sort of long-con or to cover up a larger deception, it might actually be more useful to have a guard who appears to thwart you than one that immediately turns traitor the moment its summoner gets in trouble.

Except your own point that they can't apply knowledge the caster doesn't know kind of counters the issue. Presumably that would also mean not copying the parts of the character's personality that the caster isn't aware of, it would be copying them as the caster knows them then altering from there.

With that in mind how is player control worse? By your points on not copying knowledge the caster doesn't have they couldn't simply say "and it tells me all its plans" and because it can't cast spells I'm assuming (because I really hope you didn't throw in something even stronger than bardic inspiration on the resources it can emulate) that "I make a Specter of the BBEG and have it force its followers to let us through the BBEG's base" isn't going to be any more effective just because a player is controlling it than "I make a Specter of the BBEG but tweak its personality to really want us to get to its room in its lair" would; in both cases not very, because it wouldn't even know the location or the layout of its lair unless the player characters do already and it would still rely on bluffing its way past any minions who have likely already been told the player characters and BBEG aren't the best of friends.

So what about player control makes this inherently worse in any way except tossing out the second level of the spell that, due to the complexity needed to make a living (if immaterial) intelligent being, probably should've been the third version anyway?

Answering this would take more time and energy than I have right now as I need to go bag and dig through a quote of a quote to find the initial context. Let's put a pin in this.

GloatingSwine

2023-09-05, 02:20 AM

Again, if you don't trust the GM to play NPCs impartially, you have a much bigger problem than spells which summon NPCs.

Player summons aren't supposed to be impartial! They're supposed to be partial to the players, that's the point of using them in place of something else you fully control like "where does the explosion go?"

Handing someone a loaded gun isn't really that big of a deal when they already have a nuclear weapon on a dead-man's switch.

The fact that the GM has the power to screw up the game on their own account doesn't mean they should also do so with the players' own class features.

Any spell can harm the players if used poorly.

But the difference between using others poorly or well is in the domain of the players. There is no way to use this spell well. None. Not at all. There is only the hope that the GM doesn't feel like it should screw you over because they decided that your illusion is on their side at the moment.

Like you did.

Which is why this is happening.

Talakeal

2023-09-05, 03:29 AM

Player summons aren't supposed to be impartial! They're supposed to be partial to the players, that's the point of using them in place of something else you fully control like "where does the explosion go?"

That's just a difference of opinion then. I disagree.

Its not like not having full control over a conjured / summoned creature is something that I am coming up with for the first time though, it appears to be more or less the standard.

This spell creates a duplicate of a human, demihuman, or humanoid creature. This clone is in most respects the duplicate of the individual, complete to the level of experience, memories, etc. However, the duplicate really is the person, so if the original and a duplicate exist at the same time, each knows of the other's existence; the original person and the clone will each desire to do away with the other, for such an alter-ego is unbearable to both. If one cannot destroy the other, one will go insane and destroy itself (90% likely to be the clone), or possibly both will become mad and destroy themselves (2% chance). These events nearly always occur within one week of the dual existence.

Created undead are not automatically under the control of their animator. If you are capable of commanding undead, you may attempt to command the undead creature as it forms.

This spell summons an extraplanar creature (typically an outsider, elemental, or magical beast native to another plane). It appears where you designate and acts immediately, on your turn. It attacks your opponents to the best of its ability. If you can communicate with the creature, you can direct it not to attack, to attack particular enemies, or to perform other actions.

Casting this spell attempts a dangerous act: to lure a creature from another plane to a specifically prepared trap, which must lie within the spell’s range. The called creature is held in the trap until it agrees to perform one service in return for its freedom.

To create the trap, you must use a magic circle spell, focused inward. The kind of creature to be bound must be known and stated. If you wish to call a specific individual, you must use that individual’s proper name in casting the spell.

The target creature is allowed a Will saving throw. If the saving throw succeeds, the creature resists the spell. If the saving throw fails, the creature is immediately drawn to the trap (spell resistance does not keep it from being called). The creature can escape from the trap with by successfully pitting its spell resistance against your caster level check, by dimensional travel, or with a successful Charisma check (DC 15 + ½ your caster level + your Cha modifier). It can try each method once per day. If it breaks loose, it can flee or attack you. A dimensional anchor cast on the creature prevents its escape via dimensional travel. You can also employ a calling diagram (see magic circle against evil) to make the trap more secure.

If the creature does not break free of the trap, you can keep it bound for as long as you dare. You can attempt to compel the creature to perform a service by describing the service and perhaps offering some sort of reward. You make a Charisma check opposed by the creature’s Charisma check. The check is assigned a bonus of +0 to +6 based on the nature of the service and the reward. If the creature wins the opposed check, it refuses service. New offers, bribes, and the like can be made or the old ones reoffered every 24 hours. This process can be repeated until the creature promises to serve, until it breaks free, or until you decide to get rid of it by means of some other spell. Impossible demands or unreasonable commands are never agreed to. If you roll a 1 on the Charisma check, the creature breaks free of the binding and can escape or attack you.

Once the requested service is completed, the creature need only so inform you to be instantly sent back whence it came. The creature might later seek revenge. If you assign some open-ended task that the creature cannot complete though its own actions the spell remains in effect for a maximum of one day per caster level, and the creature gains an immediate chance to break free. Note that a clever recipient can subvert some instructions.

And that's just examples pulled from D&D off the top of my head, World of Darkness, Delta Green, and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay are much less forgiving when it comes to summoned creatures.

But the difference between using others poorly or well is in the domain of the players. There is no way to use this spell well. None. Not at all.

I literally don't follow.

I don't see how "I conjure a perfect copy of myself to use leadership on the party" and then being mad when it does exactly that is any different than "I cast a fireball on the orcs 5' in front of the party" and then being mad when the party takes 10d6 fire damage.

Not at all. There is only the hope that the GM doesn't feel like it should screw you over because they decided that your illusion is on their side at the moment.

Like you did.

Which is why this is happening.

This never happened.

The illusion didn't "decide it wasn't on their side". It followed its orders to both the letter and the spirit.

The conflict here was that there was a grey area about whether or not the illusion acts as the real creature it is duplicating or acts as the creature it is duplicating would act if they knew they were an illusion.

The issue is not the GM ignoring the player's wishes and coming up with tortured explanation for why the conjured creature acts bizarrely and unexpectedly.

Why are you so focused on attacking a hypothetical that never happened and then telling me that I don't know what happened in the story I am recounting to you?

My group is terrible when it comes to trust and communication. Yet we have been playing with summoning spells for decades without the sort of conflict you are describing. Millions of other people have been playing other RPGs for half a century without the issue you are describing (or at least, if they have, I have never heard of it).

Vyke

2023-09-05, 03:47 AM

Yeah.

Its not a term with a formal definition so opinion will vary.

But Vyke was using it as a sort of "gotcha" that because I said earlier that I didn't like the D&D surprise rules because the relied on DM FIAT, that I should also not be able to make a ruling when the RAW is ambiguous or even create a map of the campaign world or populating it with creatures because doing so also relies on GM FIAT, when to me they are fundamentally different things.

I didn't say that. {Scrubbed}

I said:

"Now first off, it is GM fiat. Don't worry about it. That's your job. You are looking at the rules and going "This does not make sense to me, I am doing it this way so that's how it works". That's your job. You seem to think GM fiat is somehow a problem. It isn't. Bad decisions supported by GM Fiat are bad. Good decisions supported by GM fiat are good."

{Scrubbed}

Talakeal

2023-09-05, 03:58 AM

I didn't say that. {Scrub the post, scrub the quote}

I said:

"Now first off, it is GM fiat. Don't worry about it. That's your job. You are looking at the rules and going "This does not make sense to me, I am doing it this way so that's how it works". That's your job. You seem to think GM fiat is somehow a problem. It isn't. Bad decisions supported by GM Fiat are bad. Good decisions supported by GM fiat are good."

{Scrub the post, scrub the quote}

I didn't quote you.

Tiger quoted my response to you, and I was giving him the gist of our conversation to provide context to the quote he was responding to.

Didn't you already say you were dropping out of the thread last week?

truemane

2023-09-05, 09:25 AM

Metamagic Mod: thread re-opened. Everyone dial the hostility back one full notch, please. If you can't engage in the assumptions of good faith and best intentions on all sides, don't engage at all.

Talakeal

2023-09-16, 07:47 AM

Well, the thread is open again, if anyone still wants to respond to my previous points.

So, we played again, and I talked to my players about the issues.

I think for both initiative and minions, most people play it wrong and don't realize they are playing it wrong. My group has played AD&D, D&D 3.X, Old World of Darkness, and Heart of Darkness extensively and a few other systems now and again. AFAICT, none of these games allow a hidden character to ignore the initiative rules, or give a summoner's player complete control over their minions, but as we typically hand wave this for streamlined play, it seems like a new and unexpected rule when we don't.

Bob has clarified that his problem with initiative is that is is much easier for a D&D rogue to get two turns in a row than one in Heart of Darkness, which while true, isn't quite accurate, as surprise rounds in D&D are partial turns that can only be taken once an encounter. Its also much easier to build / plan around winning initiative, which could make for some truly monstrous builds in my system.

As for minions, my players pretty much agree that they aren't worth using if you don't have complete control over them as the GM can simply decide to screw you. Which still strikes me as odd, as trusting the GM to play NPCs impartially is a pretty fundamental part of RPGs. They don't expect the innkeeper to poison their drinks and let assassins into their rooms at night for no reason, but a summoned minion isn't given the same level of trust.

Bob has continued using his illusory doppelganger, and it has proven to be an exceedingly useful spell even if it isn't always serving as a super-charged mirror image and eating all of the enemies attacks.

On the subject of illusions, I still think the whole issue of an illusion acting as if it knew it was an illusion is a conundrum, and it can exist without illusions or summonings at all. Imagine, for a second, that I am playing D&D and I cast Dominate Monster on an Erinyes. I am trying to, say, lure out an assassin, and so I command it to assume my form, pretend it is me, and do exactly what I would do. It comes across a wall of fire with treasure on the other side. Now, the real me would die walking through a wall of fire, so I would pass up the treasure. But, the Erinyes knows it is immune to fire, and that the real me would never pass up risk free treasure. So does it walk through the wall of fire and pick up the treasure?

In other news, after the incident a few months ago where my players surrendered to the monsters and then spent the next two sessions moping about how they should have suicided their characters instead (and then more or less did so), I wrote a letter to The Angry GM about how to deal with players who refuse to be captured, and he actually answered it in his monthly Ask Angry column. Of course, rather than dealing with the specific problem, he more or less told me what a lot of you are, that I need to stop bending over backward to accommodate players and simply show them the door if they don't like it. My players, of course, now have a grudge against Angry and disagree wholeheartedly.

Finally, a new issue has cropped up that I don't quite know how to deal with.

The party used a long-term charm spell on a monster, and has been using it to great effect. In the last session they fought an enemy wizard who attempted to dispel said charm. The players said that since they have been training the monster to fight with them, it would have become loyal to them naturally "under" the charm and dispelling it should do nothing.

This has brought up larger questions about how training animals should work and how many minions the players should be allowed to have at once, which my system (or AFAICT any other system) doesn't have great guidelines for. What stops your typical druid / ranger from having dozens of animal companions following them around at all times? How do you maintain combat balance when you have a beguiler who simply casts a long term charm / dominate spell on every foe they come across?

Keltest

2023-09-16, 08:11 AM

Talakeal

2023-09-16, 09:05 AM

How well have they been treating the monster? How intelligent is it? If its as smart or smarter than a cat, it might stick around if its come to associate them with being its primary food source, but it probably wouldn't fight for them unless it's own life was in danger.

The monster's own disposition would come into play too. If its a predator or something else that kills for fun and profit, once the charm is gone it may still not be interested in distinguishing between any two humanoids. The fact of the matter is, you frequently can't just "tame" wild animals. That's why they're wild.

It is exactly as smart as a cat, being a giant mutated cat.

The ranger slipped it a potion that charmed it into indefinitely believing the ranger is its master.

There hasn't been any "role-play" involving it.

Between adventures the ranger has been buying food for it, and has spent time training it to only attack what he tells it to.

In the dungeon they are basically just treating it as a piece on the game board, having it fight for them, healing it up afterward, and letting it eat what it kills.

The ranger's player is saying that even if the charm is removed, the training should stick, and at the very least he should still be able to tell it what to attack and what not to attack, but it really should have developed a genuine loyalty to him by now.

Keltest

2023-09-16, 10:47 AM

My first response is that your ranger has clearly never interacted with a real cat.

More seriously, absent the charm, it sounds like this monster probably wouldnt actively look at them as food, but may or may not stick around except when it actively wants something from them. Cats as a rule are not super big social pack type animals (unless this one is for some reason), and very much only want companionship on their terms.

Crake

2023-09-16, 11:31 AM

As for minions, my players pretty much agree that they aren't worth using if you don't have complete control over them as the GM can simply decide to screw you. Which still strikes me as odd, as trusting the GM to play NPCs impartially is a pretty fundamental part of RPGs. They don't expect the innkeeper to poison their drinks and let assassins into their rooms at night for no reason, but a summoned minion isn't given the same level of trust.

I'm not sure what exact wording your players used, but poor positioning can quite easily lead to your team mates getting screwed over, and so you might not do it intentionally, but lacking the ability to precisely control where and how a summoned creature moves and acts, when all other actions are precisely calibrated and tactically laid out, it introduces a wildcard that they appear to deem not worth the benefit.

My main issue though, would be the needless slowing down of the turns by having you, the DM, who is already controlling up to or sometimes even more than four times as many creatures as the players, suddenly you're having to add an ADDITIONAL creature to your calculations, PLUS you need to spend extra time communicating with the player their intentions and orders to the summoned creature so that it can act accordingly, it honestly just seems needlessly controlling, and the fact that you so insistently want to maintain control over them, despite the downsides of doing so just... feels suspicious. Like, as a player, i would be questioning your intentions, which is probably why they feel unsettled and wary of you screwing them over.

Like, if I were you, I would just allow them to control the summons, with the caveat that you reserve the right to veto any choices they make on behalf of the summons, which I think is honestly an implicit agreement that people who play with player-controlled summons anyway.

The ranger's player is saying that even if the charm is removed, the training should stick, and at the very least he should still be able to tell it what to attack and what not to attack, but it really should have developed a genuine loyalty to him by now.

I would probably agree with the ranger here, however, I would make it clear that MAINTAINING the creature as a companion will require more work than before, now that it's not charmed, as it's "default" disposition toward them will be neutral now, not friendly, and so they need to actually put some work into keeping it friendly, rather than the bare minimum.

Talakeal

2023-09-16, 11:56 AM

I'm not sure what exact wording your players used, but poor positioning can quite easily lead to your team mates getting screwed over, and so you might not do it intentionally, but lacking the ability to precisely control where and how a summoned creature moves and acts, when all other actions are precisely calibrated and tactically laid out, it introduces a wildcard that they appear to deem not worth the benefit.

My main issue though, would be the needless slowing down of the turns by having you, the DM, who is already controlling up to or sometimes even more than four times as many creatures as the players, suddenly you're having to add an ADDITIONAL creature to your calculations, PLUS you need to spend extra time communicating with the player their intentions and orders to the summoned creature so that it can act accordingly, it honestly just seems needlessly controlling, and the fact that you so insistently want to maintain control over them, despite the downsides of doing so just... feels suspicious. Like, as a player, i would be questioning your intentions, which is probably why they feel unsettled and wary of you screwing them over.

Like, if I were you, I would just allow them to control the summons, with the caveat that you reserve the right to veto any choices they make on behalf of the summons, which I think is honestly an implicit agreement that people who play with player-controlled summons anyway.

This is more of a meta-game level than I was talking about.

Generally, I do allow the players to control their various minions at the tabletop level.

But that is only once they have established control over them somehow be it through magic, diplomacy, a contract, bribery, etc.

What my players are saying is that a spell which summons / creates / animates an NPC and does not also automatically make it the PC's mind slave is never worth casting.

So, for example, spells which create an illusory monster to ward away villains, or an illusory victim to distract a predator, or animating mindless undead that attack the nearest living creature, or gating in an outsider and negotiating a contract with it, or summoning a medic and paying / convincing him to treat your wounds, etc. simply shouldn't be in the game as my players consider them to be 100% trap options as there is nothing stopping the GM from having the summoned creature ignore its natural motivation and turn on the PCs.

As a tangent, I must say, you must fight a lot of hordes at your table. I find the players outnumbering the monsters by 4 to 1 is a heck of a lot more common than the reverse.

Crake

2023-09-16, 12:08 PM

As a tangent, I must say, you must fight a lot of hordes at your table. I find the players outnumbering the monsters by 4 to 1 is a heck of a lot more common than the reverse.

Actually, i was more thinking in a 4v4 scenario, the DM is controlling 4 enemies, while the players each control 1 PC, so the DM is controlling 4x as many characters as each individual player controls themselves.

The rest of what you said though, if that's true, well... I dunno, seems a bit over the top to me. If they will only settle for literal mindslaves because they don't trust you, either they have severe trust issues, or you've done something to foster that mentality in them. But, as others have said, the DM doesn't need summoned creatures to have NPCs ignore their normal motivations and just attack the PCs, they can do that with anything in the game, seems weird that they expect that to happen more with summons than just any npc they interact with.

Talakeal

2023-09-17, 12:41 PM

The rest of what you said though, if that's true, well... I dunno, seems a bit over the top to me. If they will only settle for literal mindslaves because they don't trust you, either they have severe trust issues, or you've done something to foster that mentality in them. But, as others have said, the DM doesn't need summoned creatures to have NPCs ignore their normal motivations and just attack the PCs, they can do that with anything in the game, seems weird that they expect that to happen more with summons than just any npc they interact with.

I can't recall them ever having had a bad experience with summoned monsters.

As I said though, I think its more a case of them assuming that the players directly controlling creatures is RAW because most GM's play that way, so when they encounter a summoning spell that doesn't work that way, it seems like an extreme departure from the norm.

gbaji

2023-09-18, 02:59 PM

I think for both initiative and minions, most people play it wrong and don't realize they are playing it wrong. My group has played AD&D, D&D 3.X, Old World of Darkness, and Heart of Darkness extensively and a few other systems now and again. AFAICT, none of these games allow a hidden character to ignore the initiative rules, or give a summoner's player complete control over their minions, but as we typically hand wave this for streamlined play, it seems like a new and unexpected rule when we don't.

It's not that those rules allow a hidden character to "ignore the initiative rules", but that attacking while hidden or against unaware targets is included in the initiative rules by default, and provides some sort of "surprise round" effect. Which appears to be missing from your rules.

Bob has clarified that his problem with initiative is that is is much easier for a D&D rogue to get two turns in a row than one in Heart of Darkness, which while true, isn't quite accurate, as surprise rounds in D&D are partial turns that can only be taken once an encounter. Its also much easier to build / plan around winning initiative, which could make for some truly monstrous builds in my system.

Yes. Because in D&D, a rogue attacking from concealment would first get a "surprise round" (one action). Then normal initiative would be rolled, and if the rogue has a high dex (which is likely), has a good chance of going first in the normal round order, resulting in one half round action first, then a fulll round of actions, all before the NPCs can do anything in response.

I'm not sure why you speak of surprise rounds in D&D being once per encounter as though this detracts from them somehow. Don't your initiative rules also provide just a one per encounter bonus? My understanding of your rules is that it works this way:

1. PCs roll initiative, with adjustments based on various cirucumstances (which can include being hidden).
2. PCs who win initiative by 20, take an action
3. PCs who win initiative take an action (including those who won by 20, meaning they get two)
3. All NPCs go.
4. All PCs go.
5. Repeat 3 and 4 until combat ends.

From what you've written, this is my understanding of the flow of initiative and start of combat sequence in your game. If I'm incorrect, please write in detail how it actualy works.

If that is correct, then your system also only provides a bonus action (or actions) once per encounter. The rest is just PCs and NPCs taking turns acting. So the real question is how much of an advantage does one system provide versus the other? I don't know how difficult the "win by 20" result is, so it's hard for me to assess it. But at least most of the time, we're looking at a rogue, who has presumably successfuly made their various stealth skills to get into position to attack by surprise, still being required to roll initiative, which at least has a chance of him failing to go before his targets can act. Something which simply does not happen in other games.

Now. I'm as amused as anyone by the potential of "you sneak into position, are ready to attack, but then epically fail initiative, step on a twig, alerting the guards, who all turn around, and spot you standing there, knife in hand..." scenario. But yeah, I can see how the rogue player might expect that testing for this outcome should be in the stealth rolls themselves and not in the initiative roll.

My understanding is that you also have a "roll 1 equals fail initiative" rule. Correct? Which means that, no matter how skilled the rogue is, or how well positioned, or how absolutely impossible it should be for the NPCs to detect anything before "someone sprouts a weapon from their body" occurs, there's still always a 1 in 20 chance that all that work and all those skill checks will mean nothing at all.

And yeah. One can argue that if "PCs win initiative" is relatively easy to do (with a decent/normal roll), one might question the value of spending that time/effort sneaking into position if just walking in the door would result in the exactly same (I get one action before the NPCs go) result 99% of the time. Again, this is dependent on how easy the basic "win initiative" is versus the "win initiative by 20 points" is. If the first level of "win" is relatively likely with decent circumstances and anything other than a terrible die roll, but "win by 20" requires significant skills/ability purchases, and multiple skill checks and still requires a really lucky die roll, I could see the problem presented by this.

Again though. I don't know enough about how these bonuses actually play out during a game session to make an accurate assessment.

On the subject of illusions, I still think the whole issue of an illusion acting as if it knew it was an illusion is a conundrum, and it can exist without illusions or summonings at all. Imagine, for a second, that I am playing D&D and I cast Dominate Monster on an Erinyes. I am trying to, say, lure out an assassin, and so I command it to assume my form, pretend it is me, and do exactly what I would do. It comes across a wall of fire with treasure on the other side. Now, the real me would die walking through a wall of fire, so I would pass up the treasure. But, the Erinyes knows it is immune to fire, and that the real me would never pass up risk free treasure. So does it walk through the wall of fire and pick up the treasure?

Of course it would. Turn the example around:

You (the player, playing your own character), disquise yourself (or cast illusion on yourself) to look like one of your enemies guards, so you can sneak into the palace. You pretend to be a guard to the other guards. Waving at them while walking by. Greeting them normally, and otherwise pretending to be one of them. Maybe you bribed someone for the passphrase, so you say that as you walk up to the door, so you can get in. The point is that by wearing a disquise, you don't "become the guard". You are "pretending to be the guard". So yeah, if you then find something that the guard would not be able to handle, but your PC can (a lock needs to be picked, say), you would never roleplay this out as "I'm pretending to be a guard, and it's known that the guards don't have lock picking abilities, so I guess I can't use my lockpick skill here". Never happen.

Same deal here. The illusion isn't actually the thing. It's something pretending to be the thing, but is actually following the PCs commands. The dominated monster, using illusion to appear to look like you, isn't actually you. It's a dominated monster, disquising itself to look like you. It may even try to act like you (to whatever ability it has to do that), but at no point does it actually think it *is* you. And just as if you disquised yourself to look like someone else, it doesn't result in you losing or forgetting about abilities you possess, this monster doesn't somehow forget that it's immune to fire.

The illusion or dominated creature should act however the person creating it wants it to act. Period. And the easiest way to manage this from a game perspective is to just allow the PC to decide what the illusion/creature does. Trying to arbitrate this as the GM is only going to create problems. Now, yes, in a scenario where they have created a semi-sentient illusion (or dominated a creature) and instructed it to go off to accomplish some task by itself, you may not want to play that out with the player (cause the player doesn't know what happened until the creature or illusion returns and tells them maybe). But, even then, just play it as the illusion/creature is going to do whatever it's capable of doing to accomplish whatever task the PC commanded them to do. If the command is "go into the vault", and the vault is protected by a wall of fire, but the dominated monster has immuniaty to fire, then this is really not a problem. It walks though the fire. The general rule is that dominated creatures will not do something that will automatically cause serious injury or death, and a wall of fire wont do either to this creature.

The party used a long-term charm spell on a monster, and has been using it to great effect. In the last session they fought an enemy wizard who attempted to dispel said charm. The players said that since they have been training the monster to fight with them, it would have become loyal to them naturally "under" the charm and dispelling it should do nothing.

This has brought up larger questions about how training animals should work and how many minions the players should be allowed to have at once, which my system (or AFAICT any other system) doesn't have great guidelines for. What stops your typical druid / ranger from having dozens of animal companions following them around at all times? How do you maintain combat balance when you have a beguiler who simply casts a long term charm / dominate spell on every foe they come across?

Honestly? Does your system have some rules for characters training creatures/animals/whatever? If not, then you maybe have to wing it here. My initial assumption is that any wild animal being dominated wants to get away. Even if the PCs have fed it and otherwise treated it well, it's not going to magically become their friend (it's literally "magically" being compelled to do what it's doing). The instant that spell drops, I would expect it to just bolt away as fast as it can to go back to its natural non controlled condition.

Kinda depends on the creature though. I can absolutely also see some creatures being really really pissed off that they've been forced to do stuff via magic, and the moment they realize they're no longer under control, they're going to make a beeline to whomever has been commanding it to do things and start ripping and tearing that person to bits. Obviously, the more intelligent the creature is, the more it's going to be aware of what is going on with it, and the more it's going to be basically plotting what it will do if it ever breaks free from control.

So, for example, spells which create an illusory monster to ward away villains, or an illusory victim to distract a predator, or animating mindless undead that attack the nearest living creature, or gating in an outsider and negotiating a contract with it, or summoning a medic and paying / convincing him to treat your wounds, etc. simply shouldn't be in the game as my players consider them to be 100% trap options as there is nothing stopping the GM from having the summoned creature ignore its natural motivation and turn on the PCs.

Yeah. It's hard to say where the players fears with this regard come from.

You mentioned them not having a problem with summoned creatures earlier. But have they had positive experiences with it (specifically summons that don't include controls)? Assuming that there's at the very least an opportunity cost to summoning something (could have learned/used a different spell instead), then anything less than "this gained us a benefit equal to what we'd have gotten using a different spell/ability/whatever" is a net loss for the players.

So if "cast a heal spell" results in healing someone. But "summon a healer" result in someone showing up who will heal them, but who has to be talked into it and/or paid to do so, I'm not surprised that they might think that the summon is less than useful relatively speaking. If "animating a nearby undead to attack things" results in them being attacked as often as the enemies, that's a net zero gain right there. But remember, they had to learn and use this spell, and presumably didn't learn and use some other spell instead. So just having a direct attack spell might be preferrable in that situation. Heck. Even if it attacks their enemies primarily, but they can't control which enemies may be considered less useful. If I just cast a direct damage spell at my enemies, I can target exactly who I want killed. Maybe the guy causing us the most difficulty. But if every time I animate the dead to attack the enemies, it goes wandering off to go attack targets that aren't really a problem...

Things don't have to be completely negative to be a "trap". If it's a spell/ability that the PCs are using, then just not being as useful as something else makes it not a "trap", but at least "less useful". Which means that players are unlikely to select and use them.

As a tangent, I must say, you must fight a lot of hordes at your table. I find the players outnumbering the monsters by 4 to 1 is a heck of a lot more common than the reverse.

I'll tangent your tangent. I find that combats often tend to take one of two forms:

1. Hordes of wimpy opponents (sometimes with one or two more powerful leader types in there, usually doing something that you want to stop, but can't easily/quickly get to them due to the horde in the way).
2. Small number (sometimes just one) really powerful/tough opponents.

Which often results in a dogpile one way or the other. And to be perfectly honest, I've found that my players tend to enjoy the former type more. It allows for greater flexibility during the fight, as advantage can ebb and flow. While the "dogpile on a super powerful bad guy" tends to occur occasionally, for one because such really powerful creatures/enemies should be rare anyway, but also because it can frankly be tedious HP count down fights. The PCs surround the big bad monster, and whale on it. It's hitting out with it's attacks. And it's just "can we wear down its HPs before it kills us" sort of situation. Fun every once in a while, but really boring if done often.

And to be fair, the "lots of weaker enemies" scenarioes can vary by numbers and relative toughness. But I've found that players kinda like it when their characters are able to actually succeed. So defeating opponents (especially multiple opponents) in a fight gives them a sense of accomplishment. Barely beating one really tough bad guy, and only by the whole group combining against it, provides a group success, but is no substitute for the satisfaction players get when their characters are able to individually defeate opponents.

Dunno. That's just my obseravation of what players tend to want.

Talakeal

2023-09-18, 06:33 PM

It's not that those rules allow a hidden character to "ignore the initiative rules", but that attacking while hidden or against unaware targets is included in the initiative rules by default, and provides some sort of "surprise round" effect. Which appears to be missing from your rules.

Right, but in D&D you still need to roll an initiative test when hidden.

In my system being hidden provides you +4 bonus to your initiative roll.

In both systems, a hidden character is guaranteed to go first, but still have to roll a dice to determine if you get two turns in a row or just one.

Yes. Because in D&D, a rogue attacking from concealment would first get a "surprise round" (one action). Then normal initiative would be rolled, and if the rogue has a high dex (which is likely), has a good chance of going first in the normal round order, resulting in one half round action first, then a fulll round of actions, all before the NPCs can do anything in response.

Correct.

I'm not sure why you speak of surprise rounds in D&D being once per encounter as though this detracts from them somehow. Don't your initiative rules also provide just a one per encounter bonus? My understanding of your rules is that it works this way:

1. PCs roll initiative, with adjustments based on various cirucumstances (which can include being hidden).
2. PCs who win initiative by 20, take an action
3. PCs who win initiative take an action (including those who won by 20, meaning they get two)
3. All NPCs go.
4. All PCs go.
5. Repeat 3 and 4 until combat ends.

From what you've written, this is my understanding of the flow of initiative and start of combat sequence in your game. If I'm incorrect, please write in detail how it actually works.

You would roll initiative again if someone new joined into the fight or if someone uses a delayed action.

If you have, say, an ambushing character using hit and run tactics, they might be rolling initiative every single round.

AFAICT D&D surprise rules can't handle a three-way fight, especially with asymmetrical knowledge of the enemies, and provides no sort of initiative bonus for hidden people joining the fight later on.

But at least most of the time, we're looking at a rogue, who has presumably successfuly made their various stealth skills to get into position to attack by surprise, still being required to roll initiative, which at least has a chance of him failing to go before his targets can act. Something which simply does not happen in other games.

Incorrect.

In both D&D and my system, the hidden character will have to roll initiative, and if the enemy has a target, they will can act before the hidden character does if they out roll him or her.

The only difference is that my system gives the hidden character a +4 bonus to their roll, while D&D does not.

Of course it would. Turn the example around:

You (the player, playing your own character), disquise yourself (or cast illusion on yourself) to look like one of your enemies guards, so you can sneak into the palace. You pretend to be a guard to the other guards. Waving at them while walking by. Greeting them normally, and otherwise pretending to be one of them. Maybe you bribed someone for the passphrase, so you say that as you walk up to the door, so you can get in. The point is that by wearing a disquise, you don't "become the guard". You are "pretending to be the guard". So yeah, if you then find something that the guard would not be able to handle, but your PC can (a lock needs to be picked, say), you would never roleplay this out as "I'm pretending to be a guard, and it's known that the guards don't have lock picking abilities, so I guess I can't use my lockpick skill here". Never happen.

Same deal here. The illusion isn't actually the thing. It's something pretending to be the thing, but is actually following the PCs commands. The dominated monster, using illusion to appear to look like you, isn't actually you. It's a dominated monster, disquising itself to look like you. It may even try to act like you (to whatever ability it has to do that), but at no point does it actually think it *is* you. And just as if you disquised yourself to look like someone else, it doesn't result in you losing or forgetting about abilities you possess, this monster doesn't somehow forget that it's immune to fire.

The illusion or dominated creature should act however the person creating it wants it to act. Period. And the easiest way to manage this from a game perspective is to just allow the PC to decide what the illusion/creature does. Trying to arbitrate this as the GM is only going to create problems. Now, yes, in a scenario where they have created a semi-sentient illusion (or dominated a creature) and instructed it to go off to accomplish some task by itself, you may not want to play that out with the player (cause the player doesn't know what happened until the creature or illusion returns and tells them maybe). But, even then, just play it as the illusion/creature is going to do whatever it's capable of doing to accomplish whatever task the PC commanded them to do. If the command is "go into the vault", and the vault is protected by a wall of fire, but the dominated monster has immuniaty to fire, then this is really not a problem. It walks though the fire. The general rule is that dominated creatures will not do something that will automatically cause serious injury or death, and a wall of fire wont do either to this creature.

First off, this is a house rule. It is explicitly contrary to RAW.

You can control the actions of any humanoid creature through a telepathic link that you establish with the subject’s mind.

If you and the subject have a common language, you can generally force the subject to perform as you desire, within the limits of its abilities. If no common language exists, you can communicate only basic commands, such as “Come here,” “Go there,” “Fight,” and “Stand still.” You know what the subject is experiencing, but you do not receive direct sensory input from it, nor can it communicate with you telepathically.

Once you have given a dominated creature a command, it continues to attempt to carry out that command to the exclusion of all other activities except those necessary for day-to-day survival (such as sleeping, eating, and so forth). Because of this limited range of activity, a Sense Motive check against DC 15 (rather than DC 25) can determine that the subject’s behavior is being influenced by an enchantment effect (see the Sense Motive skill description).

Changing your instructions or giving a dominated creature a new command is the equivalent of redirecting a spell, so it is a move action.

By concentrating fully on the spell (a standard action), you can receive full sensory input as interpreted by the mind of the subject, though it still can’t communicate with you. You can’t actually see through the subject’s eyes, so it’s not as good as being there yourself, but you still get a good idea of what’s going on.

Subjects resist this control, and any subject forced to take actions against its nature receives a new saving throw with a +2 bonus. Obviously self-destructive orders are not carried out. Once control is established, the range at which it can be exercised is unlimited, as long as you and the subject are on the same plane. You need not see the subject to control it.

If you don’t spend at least 1 round concentrating on the spell each day, the subject receives a new saving throw to throw off the domination.

Protection from evil or a similar spell can prevent you from exercising control or using the telepathic link while the subject is so warded, but such an effect neither prevents the establishment of domination nor dispels it.

But on a broader level, RAW aside, this is only an answer on a "meta" level and doesn't actually explain how this works at the table or on the fiction layer.

The issue is that you have a spell / NPC making a cost / benefit analysis on the part of the caster; in this case what is more important; collecting a bit of treasure or serving as a decoy.

The command was not "go into the vault" it was "do exactly what I would do in your place". The caster's intent when casting the spell was clear, they wanted a decoy to draw out assassins, and they didn't even know the treasure existed. And if someone happens to be watching the decoy walking through fire, that could very well spoil the ruse by letting any observers know that something is off.

Heck, let's take a less ambiguous situation. An (NPC) necromancer animates a mindless (NPC) zombie. The necromancer it out of spells and doesn't want to be disturbed, and commands the zombie to kill anyone who attempts to disturb him, and then goes into the next room to take an eight hour nap. There is no contradiction or ambiguity here, right?

Now say that four hours later, while the necromancer is deeply asleep in the other room, his long lost (NPC) granddaughter knocks on the door to tell him she miraculously survived the shipwreck that killed the rest of the necromancer's family five years before.

Does the zombie attack the girl when she attempts to wake the necromancer?

The necromancer wouldn't want his last surviving kin killed, but he isn't there to make that decision, and is indeed totally unconscious and unaware of the situation.

Does the mindless zombie ignore its unambiguous orders based on what the necromancer would have done with additional information?

You mentioned them not having a problem with summoned creatures earlier. But have they had positive experiences with it (specifically summons that don't include controls)? Assuming that there's at the very least an opportunity cost to summoning something (could have learned/used a different spell instead), then anything less than "this gained us a benefit equal to what we'd have gotten using a different spell/ability/whatever" is a net loss for the players.

So if "cast a heal spell" results in healing someone. But "summon a healer" result in someone showing up who will heal them, but who has to be talked into it and/or paid to do so, I'm not surprised that they might think that the summon is less than useful relatively speaking. If "animating a nearby undead to attack things" results in them being attacked as often as the enemies, that's a net zero gain right there. But remember, they had to learn and use this spell, and presumably didn't learn and use some other spell instead. So just having a direct attack spell might be preferrable in that situation. Heck. Even if it attacks their enemies primarily, but they can't control which enemies may be considered less useful. If I just cast a direct damage spell at my enemies, I can target exactly who I want killed. Maybe the guy causing us the most difficulty. But if every time I animate the dead to attack the enemies, it goes wandering off to go attack targets that aren't really a problem...

Things don't have to be completely negative to be a "trap". If it's a spell/ability that the PCs are using, then just not being as useful as something else makes it not a "trap", but at least "less useful". Which means that players are unlikely to select and use them.

Not every spell is going to be optimal in every situation.

If I memorized magic missile in the morning and then fall off a cliff in the afternoon, I am going to be wishing I had memorized feather fall instead.

Likewise, summoning a healer may well be less effective than just healing directly, but as a conjurer I don't have the latter option open to me.

As for the zombies, they have the potential to be a lot more powerful than a direct damage spell, but could also backfire. That's an issue with a lot of spell, not just summoning, but really anything which targets an area, especially if it has an ongoing duration. These spells require a lot more finesse and player skill than direct damage, but have a lot more potential if used correctly.

Someone mentioned Grod's Law upthread, and am kind of curious where one would draw the line between "annoying to use" and "requires player skill to use effectively".

gbaji

2023-09-18, 08:24 PM

Right, but in D&D you still need to roll an initiative test when hidden.

No. Only those who are participating in the surprise round roll initiative, and only then if they need to determine in which order they act (we could assume in a properly coordinated ambush, the players could just say which order each character acts in if they wish).

A lone rogue, sneaking into a room with a lone NPC in it, who then attacks from surprise (NPC not aware of him) does not have to roll initiative at all, since he's the only person able to particpate in the surprise round. Period. He gets a single standard action as his surprise round as a benefit for successfully sneaking up on the enemy. Period. Fully stop. No addtional dice rolling needed.

Then we start combat, at which point we roll initiative, which, if the rogue has a high dex, he's got a good chance of going before the NPC, giving him a full round of actions in addition to the surprise round.

I think the confusion here is that in your system, only the PCs roll initiative at all, so all initiative rolls are "I go twice before the NPCs" (+20 roll), or "I go before the NPCs, or "The NPCs go before me". So all initiative rolls come with the potential for the NPCs to "win". In D&D, the GM rolls initiative for the NPCs. So if they don't get to roll (because they are surprised), then they just don't get to go that round.

What Bob is saying (which I kinda agree with here) is that the equivalent to a surprise round in your game would be "I automatically get a single action before we roll initiative". That's an exact dupllication of the surprise round concept in D&D (and other games), but which is completely lacking in your game.

In my system being hidden provides you +4 bonus to your initiative roll.

In both systems, a hidden character is guaranteed to go first, but still have to roll a dice to determine if you get two turns in a row or just one.

That's not really correct though. In D&D, the hidden character(s) are guaranteed to go before the characters who are surprised by their actions. But in your game, it's just a +4 to initiative, and if they fail to win initiative anyway (really bad die roll maybe?) they will *not* go before the NPCs.

As I said above, this is a side effect of your "only the PCs roll initiative" system. It's an easier/faster system, but has the negative that any initiative roll comes with the chance of the NPC going first, even in situations when it makes no sense for that to be the case.

A +4, in a D20 roll system, is not sufficient to guantee the win. And, the bigger point is that it absolutely doesn't guarantee succeess by +20, which is the only case in your system in which the rogue would get to act twice before the NPC gets to go. In D&D, if the rogue gains surprise, and has a high dex, he has a very very high chance of getting a standard action in the surprise round, and then a full round of actions in the first "real" round, due to rolling higher on initiative than his opponents.

These are not remotely equivalent systems. And yes. I would argue that your system seriously disadvantages someone trying to attack using surprise. They would literaly be better off spending their points on various initiative gaining abilities, and just kicking in the door and announcing themselves, instead of spending them on stealth and sneaking in to gain surprise.

Correct.

Ok. So am I also correct that it is possible for the rogue, having snuck into position, to roll poorly and fail initiative, resulting in the NPCS going first?

Because that's the case that Bob is questioning. And frankly, I kinda agree with him.

AFAICT D&D surprise rules can't handle a three-way fight, especially with asymmetrical knowledge of the enemies, and provides no sort of initiative bonus for hidden people joining the fight later on.

Only one "side" can have surprise, since only one "side" initiates the surprise attack. I mean, I suppose we could assume that two separate groups of people just randomly happen to sneak up on a third group, and neither of them are aware of each other, and both of them just happen to randomly decide to initiate their surprise attack at the exact same time. But that's a highly highly unlikely thing to happen. But that's the only case that the D&D surprise rules has even a slight difficulty managing this. The point is that everything up to that point is handled via non-combat movement and skills. The GM can arbitrate (sometimes maybe by just rolling a die), to determine which group in that situation actually goes first.

And yes, it doesn't provide initiative benefits for folks joining a fight later on. Why would it? The fight is already in progress. They join in when they join in. There's no need for an initiative bonus, since if they are also hidden when joining in, then no one else knows they are there until they attack. It literally doesn't matter when their attack actually occurs (though I would likely houserule it that if they had sufficient time, they could delay from a previous round and basically act whenever they want in the round they first engage in, which could be "before everyone else" if they want). Again though, it's irrelevant, since no one can target them, since they are unware of them to that point.

What they do get is the flat footed bonus when attacking targets who are unaware of them (at least I believe that they do). Which is far far more important than when they actually go in a given round.

Incorrect.

In both D&D and my system, the hidden character will have to roll initiative, and if the enemy has a target, they will can act before the hidden character does if they out roll him or her.

Um... But only in situations where the hidden character is engaging into a combat that is already in effect (that's the only way the NPC could have an initiative value and a target to attack). That's not the case that any of us (nor Bob) were talking about.

In a case where there is no combat going on, and the NPCs are unaware of any danger, and the rogue sneaks up behind an NPC and sneak attacks or backstabs him, the rogue gets a surprise round. There is no initiative roll.. The rogue just goes. Then we start the combat, and initiative is rolled. That's how D&D handles this situation. Same deal if an entire party gets the drop on a group of NPCs and attacks from surprise. The NPCs don't roll intitiative. The PCs do, but only to determine their order. Under no cirucumstances can the NPCs ever go before the PCs in this situation.

Your system does not handle this. It requires that the rogue roll initiative, leading to the potential of a bizarre outcome where the NPC reacts to the backtsab before it has happened.

The only difference is that my system gives the hidden character a +4 bonus to their roll, while D&D does not.

D&D doesn't need to because the hidden character automatically gets to go first without rolling initiaitve. Again, if this is the initial action of the combat (which was the actual scenario being discussed)

You're adding "joining a combat already in progress" into this conversation for some reason, even though that has never been a scenario any of the rest of us have been talking about. But, for the record, as I stated above, the effect of that would be the hidden person basically joining in whenever they want in the round (they're sitting there waiting for an oportunity, effectively taking a delayed action, right?), *and* get a bonus to hit.

First off, this is a house rule. It is explicitly contrary to RAW.

You can control the actions of any humanoid creature through a telepathic link that you establish with the subject’s mind.

If you and the subject have a common language, you can generally force the subject to perform as you desire, within the limits of its abilities. If no common language exists, you can communicate only basic commands, such as “Come here,” “Go there,” “Fight,” and “Stand still.” You know what the subject is experiencing, but you do not receive direct sensory input from it, nor can it communicate with you telepathically.

Once you have given a dominated creature a command, it continues to attempt to carry out that command to the exclusion of all other activities except those necessary for day-to-day survival (such as sleeping, eating, and so forth). Because of this limited range of activity, a Sense Motive check against DC 15 (rather than DC 25) can determine that the subject’s behavior is being influenced by an enchantment effect (see the Sense Motive skill description).

Changing your instructions or giving a dominated creature a new command is the equivalent of redirecting a spell, so it is a move action.

By concentrating fully on the spell (a standard action), you can receive full sensory input as interpreted by the mind of the subject, though it still can’t communicate with you. You can’t actually see through the subject’s eyes, so it’s not as good as being there yourself, but you still get a good idea of what’s going on.

Subjects resist this control, and any subject forced to take actions against its nature receives a new saving throw with a +2 bonus. Obviously self-destructive orders are not carried out. Once control is established, the range at which it can be exercised is unlimited, as long as you and the subject are on the same plane. You need not see the subject to control it.

If you don’t spend at least 1 round concentrating on the spell each day, the subject receives a new saving throw to throw off the domination.

Protection from evil or a similar spell can prevent you from exercising control or using the telepathic link while the subject is so warded, but such an effect neither prevents the establishment of domination nor dispels it.

Huh? Nothing in there contradicted what I said. What are you saying is a "House Rule"?

You're also missing the core point. It's that the player, and not the GM, decides what the dominated NPC will do. And sure, within reason the GM should interpret how the dominated NPCs acts, but it should always be "to follow the instructions", not "let me find ways to twist things to do the opposite of what I was instructed to do". It just seems like you are really trying to find ways to have dominated/summoned creatures or illusions not do what the caster wants them to do. That's probably not a great approach to these sorts of spells.

But on a broader level, RAW aside, this is only an answer on a "meta" level and doesn't actually explain how this works at the table or on the fiction layer.

The issue is that you have a spell / NPC making a cost / benefit analysis on the part of the caster; in this case what is more important; collecting a bit of treasure or serving as a decoy.

Why not both?

The command was not "go into the vault" it was "do exactly what I would do in your place". The caster's intent when casting the spell was clear, they wanted a decoy to draw out assassins, and they didn't even know the treasure existed. And if someone happens to be watching the decoy walking through fire, that could very well spoil the ruse by letting any observers know that something is off.

Are you actually saying that the order(s) were "do exactlly what I would do in your place" and nothing else. So the spell caster dominates this creature just to have it stand around looking like him, but doing nothing else? I'm reasonably certain the actual instructions are more like this:

"I want you to use your illusion ability to look and sound like me and make every attempt to convince anyone who sees you that you are me. Then I want you to go into that area, seaching for and retrieving any valuables to the best of your abilities". It's not like dominate means you give one and only one command, and that's it. You can certainlly tell a dominated NPC how you want them to behave *while* they are carrying out other orders. Heck. You could even tell the NPCs "oh. and if you find the missing princess, you need to rescue her and return her to us as well".

It's not a binary thing. And if this fire immune creature encounters a wall of fire, they will walk right through it, all the while looking exactly like you. Why not? Does this creature know that you don't have immunity to fire as well? You are counting on the spell somehow transferring perfect knowledge to the NPC. It doesn't. It's just using an illusion to look like you, and making every effort to walk the same way you do, and talk the same way you do (if it talks at all), but it's not like it's going to know what items you posses, and what abilities you have, and imitate those as well.

I also think ths is a really silly example. I'm unsure why I'd ever send a dominated creature in to search someones home/dungeon/palace/whatever while using an illusion to look like me. I'd have it use an illusion to look like someone else (perhaps a known rival of the person who's home I'm invading here). Um... But under no circumstances would I expect a fire immune creature to balk at walking through a wall of fire, simply because I'd told it to adopt an illusion to look like someone else.

Again. Read the spell description: "you can generally force the subject to perform as you desire, within the limits of its abilities".

The limit of its abilities, not the abilities of something it's using an illusion to look like. What's the worst that happens? Someone sees the creature who looks like you walk unharmed through a wall of fire and thinks 'OMG. That wizard also has immunity to fire? We're in trouble". Right?

Again, I think the core problem here is that you are trying to assume that NPCs or summoned things or illusions should somehow be able to exactly duplicate the knowledge and abilities of someone else. They should have the powers and abiliites and knowledge that they have, not the person who summoned/dominated them. And in the case of illusions, they just do whatever the person who created the illusion wanted it to do. Period. It's not really that complicated.

Heck, let's take a less ambiguous situation. An (NPC) necromancer animates a mindless (NPC) zombie. The necromancer it out of spells and doesn't want to be disturbed, and commands the zombie to kill anyone who attempts to disturb him, and then goes into the next room to take an eight hour nap. There is no contradiction or ambiguity here, right?

Now say that four hours later, while the necromancer is deeply asleep in the other room, his long lost (NPC) granddaughter knocks on the door to tell him she miraculously survived the shipwreck that killed the rest of the necromancer's family five years before.

Does the zombie attack the girl when she attempts to wake the necromancer?

The necromancer wouldn't want his last surviving kin killed, but he isn't there to make that decision, and is indeed totally unconscious and unaware of the situation.

Does the mindless zombie ignore its unambiguous orders based on what the necromancer would have done with additional information?

Huh. No. You're still trying to have the (in this case actually mindless) creature determine what the "intent" was. It's about what they are ordered to do. And in this case, the necromancer unambigously ordered the zombie to kill anyone who attempts to disturb him, which absolutely includes the long lost granddaughter. Tragic, but there you go.

The Zombie doesn't figure out what the PC wanted it to do, or intended for it to do, in the same way the creature with an illusion on it, doesn't try to figure out what the person it's an illusion of would do when faced with a wall of fire. It's the same thing. The NPC doesn't know what it doesn't know. You tell the creature to go into the vault while disguised as you, and it goes into the vaut while disguised as you "to the best of its ability", which includes walking throguh fire. It does not attempt to determine if the person it's disquised as would be able to walk through fire. You tell the zombie to kill anyone who disturbs you, and it also does that to the best of its ability, which includes killing the long lost granddaughter. It does not attempt to determine what disturbances you really wanted to allow or not allow.

If the necromancer wanted to place exceptions to who the zombie should kill, he should have stated them in the instructions. And if you wanted your dominated fire-immune creatures to act as though it was not immune to fire while disquised as you, you should have told it not to walk through fire.

Not every spell is going to be optimal in every situation.

If I memorized magic missile in the morning and then fall off a cliff in the afternoon, I am going to be wishing I had memorized feather fall instead.

Likewise, summoning a healer may well be less effective than just healing directly, but as a conjurer I don't have the latter option open to me.

As for the zombies, they have the potential to be a lot more powerful than a direct damage spell, but could also backfire. That's an issue with a lot of spell, not just summoning, but really anything which targets an area, especially if it has an ongoing duration. These spells require a lot more finesse and player skill than direct damage, but have a lot more potential if used correctly.

Sure. But if a whole set of spells (like summons) are consistently less useful in most situations then other spells, that might just be the source of why your players consider them "useless". Which means you may be balancing their utility a bit too low.

Reversefigure4

2023-09-18, 10:35 PM

This has brought up larger questions about how training animals should work and how many minions the players should be allowed to have at once, which my system (or AFAICT any other system) doesn't have great guidelines for. What stops your typical druid / ranger from having dozens of animal companions following them around at all times? How do you maintain combat balance when you have a beguiler who simply casts a long term charm / dominate spell on every foe they come across?

The answer, alas, won't work for your group at all, but a 'gentleman's agreement' that we're all here to have fun at the table instead of win or break the game is by far and away the best answer rather than getting bogged down in legalese. While 3.5 has Animal Companions as a class feature (ergo, one per character), there's nothing stopping the ranger from taking 12 months off from adventuring and training dozens of wolves to follow him around at all times and attack his enemies (but it's never a problem I've seen at an actual table, despite the lack of rules). There's nothing preventing dominating every enemy you come across and forming them up into your own vast army. But most people - players included - want to have fun rather than 'win' the game, so they'll routinely come to some sort of compromise so combat doesn't take endless hours, like "no more than one mindpuppet on the go at a time" or "The GM will allow us to overuse this, but tells use we should expect to run into enemies that dispel or counter-dominate" or "we wouldn't like our characters being kept dominated for days on end, so let's not do it to our enemies" or "this doesn't feel like something heroes would do, and our characters no longer feel like the protagonists of the story, so let's stop dominating everyone". Note that none of these are rules solutions, just common sense that we're all here to work together for a fun game.

That might not seem like enough of a guideline, but keep in mind there's also no rules forbidding the GM from throwing a CR20 dragon at a level 1 party (merely CR guidelines pointing out this is overwhelming), or rules preventing the party from taking their "50 gold to kill goblins in cave" quest and instead seeing if they can find other adventurers who will do it for 40 gold and pocket the profit, because these scenarios just translate into frustration and boredom at the table.

In your case, though, you'd need to set your rules to state clearly whatever limitation you want to put on it. "A character cannot divide their attention to have than one sidekick/companion/trained animal/thrall at a time, unless it is purely a riding horse which cannot take actions other than riding, and no, Bob, you can't order all of them to follow you just out of sight so that technically you're only paying attention to the one that's right next to you."

Talakeal

2023-09-18, 10:57 PM

No. Only those who are participating in the surprise round roll initiative, and only then if they need to determine in which order they act (we could assume in a properly coordinated ambush, the players could just say which order each character acts in if they wish).

A lone rogue, sneaking into a room with a lone NPC in it, who then attacks from surprise (NPC not aware of him) does not have to roll initiative at all, since he's the only person able to participate in the surprise round. Period. He gets a single standard action as his surprise round as a benefit for successfully sneaking up on the enemy. Period. Fully stop. No additional dice rolling needed.

Apologies, but I am starting to get a bit frustrated that you keep using "period" after stating something that directly contradicts the printed rules.

At the start of a battle, each combatant makes an initiative check. An initiative check is a Dexterity check. Each character applies his or her Dexterity modifier to the roll. Characters act in order, counting down from highest result to lowest. In every round that follows, the characters act in the same order (unless a character takes an action that results in his or her initiative changing; see Special Initiative Actions).

If two or more combatants have the same initiative check result, the combatants who are tied act in order of total initiative modifier (highest first). If there is still a tie, the tied characters should roll again to determine which one of them goes before the other.

Flat-Footed
At the start of a battle, before you have had a chance to act (specifically, before your first regular turn in the initiative order), you are flat-footed. You can’t use your Dexterity bonus to AC (if any) while flat-footed. Barbarians and rogues have the uncanny dodge extraordinary ability, which allows them to avoid losing their Dexterity bonus to AC due to being flat-footed.

A flat-footed character can’t make attacks of opportunity.

Inaction
Even if you can’t take actions, you retain your initiative score for the duration of the encounter.

Surprise
When a combat starts, if you are not aware of your opponents and they are aware of you, you’re surprised.

Determining Awareness
Sometimes all the combatants on a side are aware of their opponents, sometimes none are, and sometimes only some of them are. Sometimes a few combatants on each side are aware and the other combatants on each side are unaware.

Determining awareness may call for Listen checks, Spot checks, or other checks.

The Surprise Round
If some but not all of the combatants are aware of their opponents, a surprise round happens before regular rounds begin. Any combatants aware of the opponents can act in the surprise round, so they roll for initiative. In initiative order (highest to lowest), combatants who started the battle aware of their opponents each take a standard action during the surprise round. You can also take free actions during the surprise round. If no one or everyone is surprised, no surprise round occurs.

Unaware Combatants
Combatants who are unaware at the start of battle don’t get to act in the surprise round. Unaware combatants are flat-footed because they have not acted yet, so they lose any Dexterity bonus to AC.

There is nothing in the rules that I can find that excuses a lone ambusher from these rules.

Now, I suppose you could read it in a way that says non-surprised characters don't roll initiative until after the surprise round (it's a bit ambiguous there), but I can't see any reading that excuses aware characters from rolling initiative during the surprise round.

Now, again, the only purpose of said roll (in both D&D and HoD) is to see if they are going to get two turns in a row before their opponents can react.

A +4, in a D20 roll system, is not sufficient to guantee the win. And, the bigger point is that it absolutely doesn't guarantee succeess by +20, which is the only case in your system in which the rogue would get to act twice before the NPC gets to go. In D&D, if the rogue gains surprise, and has a high dex, he has a very very high chance of getting a standard action in the surprise round, and then a full round of actions in the first "real" round, due to rolling higher on initiative than his opponents.

Correct. This is what Bob is upset about.

Of course, as someone who plays delicate caster characters far more than he plays rogues, I imagine his tune would change pretty fast if he were on the receiving end of two sneak attacks in a row.

And yes. I would argue that your system seriously disadvantages someone trying to attack using surprise. They would literally be better off spending their points on various initiative gaining abilities, and just kicking in the door and announcing themselves, instead of spending them on stealth and sneaking in to gain surprise.

It depends on what their goal is.

If your goal is to win initiative, then you should invest in iniative.

If you want to move into a tactically advantageous position, hit the enemies when and where they are vulnerable, and then escape without retaliation, you should invest in stealth.

Ok. So am I also correct that it is possible for the rogue, having snuck into position, to roll poorly and fail initiative, resulting in the NPCS going first?

Because that's the case that Bob is questioning. And frankly, I kinda agree with him.

Yes, it is possible.

But keep in mind, they don't know the rogue is there, so combat hasn't started yet.

Frankly, the idea that everyone freezes in place because a rogue is present is kind of silly. If, for example, multiple people are racing to grab a dropped coin purse, the fact that a hidden character automatically interrupts them and grabs it first is absurd to me.

Note, however, that this isn't (afaict) the situation Bob is complaining about, he has since clarified that he was only upset because it was harder to for a hidden character to get two turns in a row in Heart of Darkness than in Dungeons and Dragons.

In a case where there is no combat going on, and the NPCs are unaware of any danger, and the rogue sneaks up behind an NPC and sneak attacks or backstabs him, the rogue gets a surprise round. There is no initiative roll.. The rogue just goes. Then we start the combat, and initiative is rolled. That's how D&D handles this situation. Same deal if an entire party gets the drop on a group of NPCs and attacks from surprise. The NPCs don't roll intitiative. The PCs do, but only to determine their order. Under no cirucumstances can the NPCs ever go before the PCs in this situation.

Your system does not handle this. It requires that the rogue roll initiative, leading to the potential of a bizarre outcome where the NPC reacts to the backstab before it has happened.

This is not how D&D handles this. Please read the excerpt I quoted above.

But again, if they don't know the rogue is there, they cannot target him. They are not "reacting to the backstab" before it has happened. They are continuing to do whatever (likely inconsequential) thing they were doing before the rogue showed up.

Let's try another scenario where the D&D style surprise round is weird:

My party and I are in a room. I am a hidden rogue. I notice a man sneak into the room; he doesn't see me, but I see him. As I try and figure out what he is doing, I see him draw a knife and approach one of my allies. I, realizing he has murder on his mind, draw my crossbow and attempt to fire.

Who is allowed to roll initiative here? My party is unaware of the interloper, but the interloper is unaware of me.

Now, one could resolve this fairly simply with house rules, but by RAW I don't think there is a satisfactory solution.

Likewise, one could make it even more complicated where we have a three way rogue battle, where Rogue A is aware of Rogue B, Rogue B is aware of Rogue C, and Rogue C is aware of Rogue A, but Rogue A is not aware of rogue C and rogue C is not aware of rogue B.

Huh? Nothing in there contradicted what I said. What are you saying is a "House Rule"?

You're also missing the core point. It's that the player, and not the GM, decides what the dominated NPC will do. And sure, within reason the GM should interpret how the dominated NPCs acts, but it should always be "to follow the instructions", not "let me find ways to twist things to do the opposite of what I was instructed to do".

The house rule is that the caster's player controls the NPC, and that the NPC acts in accordance with the caster's wishes.

This is not the case.

The NPC remains and NPC, and is thus still controlled by the GM.

It follows the caster's instructions (with some major caveats); there is no license to ignore the instructions because the caster finds them inconvenient at the moment.

HIt just seems like you are really trying to find ways to have dominated/summoned creatures or illusions not do what the caster wants them to do. That's probably not a great approach to these sorts of spells.

Let's put a pin in this for a moment, because I am feeling the same way about what you say next.

Are you actually saying that the order(s) were "do exactlly what I would do in your place" and nothing else. So the spell caster dominates this creature just to have it stand around looking like him, but doing nothing else?

Having to specifically order a creature to "do nothing else" to prevent it from taking actions that could jeopardize its ability to complete its assigned task is exactly the sort of thing I would expect a GM to say if they are trying to "gotcha" a PC and have a summoned creature subvert their wishes.

"I want you to use your illusion ability to look and sound like me and make every attempt to convince anyone who sees you that you are me. Then I want you to go into that area, seaching for and retrieving any valuables to the best of your abilities". It's not like dominate means you give one and only one command, and that's it. You can certainlly tell a dominated NPC how you want them to behave *while* they are carrying out other orders. Heck. You could even tell the NPCs "oh. and if you find the missing princess, you need to rescue her and return her to us as well".

It's not a binary thing. And if this fire immune creature encounters a wall of fire, they will walk right through it, all the while looking exactly like you. Why not? Does this creature know that you don't have immunity to fire as well? You are counting on the spell somehow transferring perfect knowledge to the NPC. It doesn't. It's just using an illusion to look like you, and making every effort to walk the same way you do, and talk the same way you do (if it talks at all), but it's not like it's going to know what items you posses, and what abilities you have, and imitate those as well.

I also think ths is a really silly example. I'm unsure why I'd ever send a dominated creature in to search someone's home/dungeon/palace/whatever while using an illusion to look like me. I'd have it use an illusion to look like someone else (perhaps a known rival of the person who's home I'm invading here). Um... But under no circumstances would I expect a fire immune creature to balk at walking through a wall of fire, simply because I'd told it to adopt an illusion to look like someone else.

The example was, you are having a highly intelligent, mind-reading, shape-changing, socially adept demon impersonate you while you lay low in an attempt to draw out an assassin.

You are not sending it into a dungeon or commanding it to search for treasure, you are telling it to act like you would to serve as a decoy.

And if it is using fire immunity (and a whole host of other demonic powers you don't normally possess) it is going to raise suspicions, which IMO could easily compromise its mission and violates both the letter and the spirit of the orders telling it to impersonate you.

And saying "Well the demon doesn't know that humans aren't immune to fire!" really seems like a DM trying to put one over on the players as an excuse to have their spell fail to accomplish the desired goal.

If the necromancer wanted to place exceptions to who the zombie should kill, he should have stated them in the instructions. And if you wanted your dominated fire-immune creatures to act as though it was not immune to fire while disguised as you, you should have told it not to walk through fire.

Yeah, having to list out all the things the monster *shouldn't do* makes the spell all but unusable, and is frankly, both antagonistic and absurd.

"Well, you told me to heal the rogue, so I cast inflict critical wounds, after all, I don't know that he isn't a zombie! And while I was at it I cast inflict critical wounds on the rest of the party, because you didn't explicitly tell me not to!"

Again. Read the spell description: "you can generally force the subject to perform as you desire, within the limits of its abilities".

The limit of its abilities, not the abilities of something it's using an illusion to look like. What's the worst that happens? Someone sees the creature who looks like you walk unharmed through a wall of fire and thinks 'OMG. That wizard also has immunity to fire? We're in trouble". Right?

Again, I think the core problem here is that you are trying to assume that NPCs or summoned things or illusions should somehow be able to exactly duplicate the knowledge and abilities of someone else. They should have the powers and abiliites and knowledge that they have, not the person who summoned/dominated them. And in the case of illusions, they just do whatever the person who created the illusion wanted it to do. Period. It's not really that complicated.

Again, it was specially ordered to do what its caster would do to avoid raising suspicion. Saying that the monster goes of script because it doesn't know what you can or can't do really screams of hostile GMing to me.

Like, imagine you ordered an enemy to "act like a chicken" and then rather than clucking and strutting around, he merely said "Odd, I appear to be a chicken in a human body with the full mental and physical capabilities that go with it!" and then continued attacking you at full effectiveness. To me that is a completely unreasonable interpretation that will make the spell useless in the vast majority of cases.

Sure. But if a whole set of spells (like summons) are consistently less useful in most situations then other spells, that might just be the source of why your players consider them "useless". Which means you may be balancing their utility a bit too low.

No, they have been using summoning spells to great effect for years without any of the problems you are listing above.

It was only recently, when I actually pointed out to them that every summoning spell has some limitations on control that they then decided the spells were worthless.