Actions before Initiative is rolled.

[Kane0]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.


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.

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

[Talakeal]

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]

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?

[Talakeal]

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]

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.