Most of my scout-type characters carry a small mirror for this purpose.
As far as readying an action to open a door, then close it if you see something, that's not how ready action works. You could, however, ready an action to close the door if you see someone if someone else in the party opens the door. That's how to do it by RAW.
However, as a GM, I'd probably allow you to do this. I don't see any reason to force two characters to engage to do something this simple. Especially since this is outside of combat.
Now, be warned, if the baddies on the other side of the door have a readied action to SHOOT whoever opens the door, they'll get their shot when the door opens, and you won't be able to close it fast enough to stop the arrows.
Aside from trying to magically look around (like scrying or some such), which would be the safest route, as a GM, I'd totally be okay with something like this.
Even letting you open the door just a teeny-tiny bit to peer through the gap to see what's on the other side.
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You enemies know of your approach? Then it is pretty reasonable that they will wait in ambush.
Well run NPC don't have the extremely artificial aggro radius of computer games, you can't move just outside the area of reaction of your targets and then unleash all your attacks while they wait patiently even if you are fully visible.
In tabletop RPGs you must use stealth, not simply game the system limits to "surprise" the opponents.
Initiative reflect the speed at which you react to situations.
Perception the speed at which you can analyse them.
Your character peek around a corner.
- he roll perception to notice the 10 semi hidden ors hidden in the room
- they roll perception to notice you
* you fail because they are well hidden and you are lousy at noticing things and they notice you: they get a free shot on you.
* they fail because you are good at hiding and you notice them: you can chose what you want to do.
* you notice them, they notice you:
- roll initiative.
* you win initiative: you get to act before them, they are slow in aiming their weapon, reacting to your presence, whatever;
* you get a lower initiative result than some/all the orcs? you are slow in reacting and they get to act before you.
You boldly walk into a room where 10 orc are waiting in ambush, warned by your approach by the sound of your clanking armor, all with a ready action to shoot the first guy that move around the corner: ouch.
Next time bring along a orc prisoner and push him ahead of you. As they are primed to fire as soon as they see something there are good chances that several of them will fire on your orc prisoner.
Thanks for the replies guys. I tested it IRL and it takes me about 2 seconds to lean my head into a room to look around as I'm opening a door and then close it again.
I love the idea of carrying a mirror. Do you guys apply any penalty to perception when using it to peek?
I am one of those "circumstance bonus/penalty" types of GMs, so, yes, I apply modifiers based on what I think the circumstances are. In general I apply a -4 penalty on perception using a mirror, but only for quick looks.
In most cases if the enemy is unaware or unprepared, the penalty is not relevant because they are fully exposed and don't require a perception check to see them. I don't tend to make my PCs roll perception checks for things that are obvious.
Mirrors are great tools for dungeoning and signaling. I highly recommend them.
Atan, there are plenty of situations where charging into rooms "makes sense" in an RPG universe sort of way, where it might not make sense to us.
For example, in the last major campaign I played in, our party carefully and cleverly sneaked around the dungeon and found a waiting party of orcs and hobgoblins, along with an Ettin or two. We felt this was a significantly dangerous group of enemies and so we went full on buff and ended up with about a dozen buffs of various types. Then we charged into the room fully buffed and wiped out the enemy in about four rounds.
But we were still fully buffed! What to do next?
CHHAAARRGGEEEEE!!!!! By the time the carnage had ended we had charged into and cleared out two more enemy parties, even at the cost of suffering a couple of sprung traps which mostly missed us, or did minor damage because of our buffs.
So, yeah, charging around in dungeons is pretty stupid.
Most of the time.
We still laugh about that session.
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1) a head that often don't have any protection. And
Cover
To determine whether your target has cover from your ranged attack, choose a corner of your square. If any line from this corner to any corner of the target's square passes through a square or border that blocks line of effect or provides cover, or through a square occupied by a creature, the target has cover (+4 to AC).
When making a melee attack against an adjacent target, your target has cover if any line from any corner of your square to the target's square goes through a wall (including a low wall). When making a melee attack against a target that isn't adjacent to you (such as with a reach weapon), use the rules for determining cover from ranged attacks.
Low Obstacles and Cover: A low obstacle (such as a wall no higher than half your height) provides cover, but only to creatures within 30 feet (6 squares) of it. The attacker can ignore the cover if he's closer to the obstacle than his target.
Cover and Attacks of Opportunity: You can't execute an attack of opportunity against an opponent with cover relative to you.
Cover and Reflex Saves: Cover grants you a +2 bonus on Reflex saves against attacks that originate or burst out from a point on the other side of the cover from you. Note that spread effects can extend around corners and thus negate this cover bonus.
Cover and Stealth Checks: You can use cover to make a Stealth check. Without cover, you usually need concealment (see below) to make a Stealth check.
Soft Cover: Creatures, even your enemies, can provide you with cover against ranged attacks, giving you a +4 bonus to AC. However, such soft cover provides no bonus on Reflex saves, nor does soft cover allow you to make a Stealth check.
Big Creatures and Cover: Any creature with a space larger than 5 feet (1 square) determines cover against melee attacks slightly differently than smaller creatures do. Such a creature can choose any square that it occupies to determine if an opponent has cover against its melee attacks. Similarly, when making a melee attack against such a creature, you can pick any of the squares it occupies to determine if it has cover against you.
Partial Cover: If a creature has cover, but more than half the creature is visible, its cover bonus is reduced to a +2 to AC and a +1 bonus on Reflex saving throws. This partial cover is subject to the GM's discretion.
Total Cover: If you don't have line of effect to your target (that is, you cannot draw any line from your square to your target's square without crossing a solid barrier), he is considered to have total cover from you. You can't make an attack against a target that has total cover.
Improved Cover: In some cases, such as attacking a target hiding behind an arrowslit, cover may provide a greater bonus to AC and Reflex saves. In such situations, the normal cover bonuses to AC and Reflex saves can be doubled (to +8 and +4, respectively). A creature with this improved cover effectively gains improved evasion against any attack to which the Reflex save bonus applies. Furthermore, improved cover provides a +10 bonus on Stealth checks.
2) Improved initiative (that is exactly what that goblin use to get his +6 to initiative), traits that increase initiative, other feat that increase initiative, dexterity.
If you have 14 dexterity like the goblins you can get +8 at first level. " point of difference against a fast adversary (more against slow adversaries) make a lot of difference.
3) a) it swing both ways, it can be very good or very bad for the enemies;
b) generally a GM do that if there are several different groups of enemies (as an example a group of goblins with bows, a group with swords and a group trying to flank the PC) and he will roll at least 1 initiative for each group. It is still fairly lazy unless he is running big or very coordinated groups.
It can be a good way to depict a very coordinated group of warriors.
Atan, on the "lean my head around a door" thing...
Unfortunately Pathfinder does not have a mechanic for that. To actually see into the room following the strict Pathfinder rules, you have to move into a square that gives you line of sight. You can then move back, but that means you've done two move actions so you couldn't do anything else, like shoot a bow for example.
Most GMs will allow you to "peek around" a corner, but those that do will usually say it's a full round action (move action 1: poke your head in and look, then move action 2: pull your head back) then they will treat any attack as you having full cover.
Atan, the reason for "all these rules" is because people felt that just winging it was creating too many opportunities to exploit things in the game, so players demanded more mechanics to deal with things like that.
As an example, way back in the early days in my very first campaign as a GM, one of my players got a "wish" and wished to be "ambidextrous". At that time there were no rules in place for fighting with two hands, and in his mind that meant that he simply could attack twice as much as before, effectively doubling his damage output. We had a long discussion about the importance of maintaining some sort of balance and I eventually worked out something sort of like today's TWF rules. But I'm sure he wasn't the only "ambidextrous" player, and so rules for TWF were created and added.
One of the areas of the current game where people debate the rules pretty vigorously is precisely where "non-combat" ends and "combat" begins. Exactly what is it that triggers initiative? At what point is it required to start tracking things in rounds and in initiative order?
Some GMs are very good at just figuring this sort of thing out as they go, and some really prefer having rules defined.
There's no reason your game can't deal with this the "old" way if they prefer. The ghost of Gary Gygax is not going to appear in your living room if you rule that peeking around a corner is a viable game mechanic. If that works, then great.
In my games the only time this would matter is if the enemies were readying an action in case something like this happened. In that case I would go into combat mode and we'd use the combat mechanics precisely to avoid arguments about what happened. If there was no readied action I'd let you peek and give the enemies a perception check to see you. Then your head would be safely back around the corner and we'd move on with the game with the next step depending on whether your head had been spotted or not.
But that's just me.
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AD&D had rules for ambidexterity
D&D had something in the green (companion?) expansion I think.
Old round was 1 minute (AD&D, no idea on how it was codified in D&D) and you could do a lot more and a lot less in that round.
A turn, the time frame you used while moving, was 10 minutes and you where moving very slowly. That was why you were capable to make maps with the precision of a survey team. 120' in 10 minutes ...
So "out of combat" actions were much more free than in the 3.x version of the game where 1 round is 6 seconds.
Atan, I hear you. But the market seems to disagree with you. The more the rules get explicit, the more people seem to like the game. There are some who still play the game without a grid, without miniatures and sitting around the living room visualizing the whole thing in their heads as the GM paints a vivid story.
But that's a very distinct minority these days.
For a lot of reasons, not the least of which is that some people demand some authority other than "I'm the GM and I say so."
In ye olden days, opening a door was much more engaging of an act, including listening at it, checking for traps, checking to see if it is locked.
Opening a door was like playing a round of jeopardy.
Unless these guys are literally sitting there for extended periods of time, training their cross bows at anyone who is going to open the door, there is a good chance of hearing something happening in the next room. Like people talking or moving around.
If they are set up that way, that means they must know you are already coming.
Is there only one way into a room? If there is only one way and they are set up this way you have to have done something to deserve the ambush.
I've had players listen at a door, make a stealth roll. pick a lock, stealth again, sneak up on the occupant, peer over their shoulder, stealth again, leave, close the door and stealthily relock the door.
There are also tons of things to do at doors.
open door, slightly, Insert tower shield, huddle behind tower shield, open door wide, cast spells or fire arrows by maneuvering behind character with tower shield.
Open door slightly, toss in coin with light cast on it (if a dark room), or cast darkness if a lit room.
If the door isn't just thrown open widely and the party doesn't barge in, the door it's self can be used for cover/concealment. So they would have a good chance of missing you with crossbows in the first place.
Don't open doors from the front if you can help it - the squares to either side should work just as well and provide some cover.
Ready your own actions - "I shoot any hostiles in the room on sight".
If you're just going up to a door and tearing it open, without stealthing up to it, opening from the side, checking for traps, detecting magic, etc...then you deserve the arrows to the face that the kobolds had waiting for you.
You are just as capable of using a move action to open the door with a readied standard action of "shoot bad guys if they exist".
Our standard party actions:
Rogue - stealths to door, checks for traps, opens door
Sorcerer - waits behind the door to survive any ambushes
Fighter - stands in doorway with readied action to charge
Barbarian - stands behind Fighter with bow readied
Cleric - stands on other side of door ready to heal arrows to the face
Bard - holds action to fill in the blanks
You can tell right away if the room is full of goblins with crossbows aimed at the door, a huddle of shivering prisoners, or a robed man behind a desk with his eyebrow arched.
I assume he means hostiles to be the crossbow bolts flying at your face or the ogre hook swinging at you.
I normally use perception checks for a surprise round if the room's denizens were not expecting the PC's. If the PC's beat a fairly good DC, they get an action during the surprise round. If not, well, rez spells are good.
But would the "ambiguous" npcs the pcs spot behind the door (goblins without weapons drawn, or a npc "hero party" with weapons drawn looking at the door.. Or a cloud of dust that may or may not be sentient) trigger the "****! Shut it!" Response that I view a readied response to be?
The trigger would be whether the party readies an action to close it upon "noticing a threat", and whether they consider the contents of the room a "threat" or not. It's up to them to decide that. It's not some mechanical trap that they cannot stifle.
Let's say I'm Trygr the fighter. I'm ready to charge the baddies. My rogue opens the door. I see a human with a wand in his hand.
There is no mystical force that REQUIRES me to execute my readied action to charge. Although I would if he turned that wand towards me and started casting.