Flat-footed, surprise rounds, regular turns and delay

[Malle]

When do you stop being flat-footed in a combat that includes a surprise round?

(Or: what is a "regular turn"?)

There are three sections I can find which deals with being flat-footed:

Surprise - The Surprise Round:

Surprise - The Surprise Round
If some but not all of the combatants are aware of their opponents, a surprise round happens before regular rounds begin. [...] Combatants who are unaware at the start of battle don't get to act in the surprise round. Unaware combatants are flat-footed because they have not acted yet.

Initiative - Flat-footed:

Initiative - Flat-footed
At the start of a battle, before you have had a chance to act (specifically, before your first regular turn in the initiative order), you are flat-footed.[b]

Conditions - Flat-footed:

Conditions - Flat-footed
[b]A character who has not yet acted during a combat is flat-footed, unable to react normally to the situation. [...] Characters with Uncanny Dodge retain their Dexterity bonus to their AC and can make attacks of opportunity before they have acted in the first round of combat.

Both the surprise section and the flat-footed condition indicate that you are flat-footed until you have acted, but the initiative section specifically states that you are flat-footed "before your first regular turn in the initiative order". An important question then is what a "regular turn" is.

How Combat Works:

How Combat Works
When combat begins, all combatants roll initiative.

Determine which characters are aware of their opponents. These characters can act during a surprise round. If all the characters are aware of their opponents, proceed with normal rounds. See the surprise section for more information.

After the surprise round (if any), all combatants are ready to begin the first normal round of combat.

Combatants act in initiative order (highest to lowest).

When everyone has had a turn, the next round begins with the combatant with the highest initiative, and steps 3 and 4 repeat until combat ends.

The description of how combat works makes no mention of "regular turns", only "turn", "normal rounds" and "surprise rounds". In fact, I've only been able to find two other references to regular turns, both in the section of special initiative actions, on Delay and Ready Action

Delay:

Delay
If you take a delayed action in the next round, before your regular turn comes up, your initiative count rises to that new point in the order of battle, and you do not get your regular action that round.

Ready Action:

Ready Action
Your initiative result becomes the count on which you took the readied action. If you come to your next action and have not yet performed your readied action, you don't get to take the readied action (though you can ready the same action again). If you take your readied action in the next round, before your regular turn comes up, your initiative count rises to that new point in the order of battle, and you do not get your regular action that round.

To me, this seems to imply that "regular turn" refers to your turn without taking special initiative actions into account. However, the section on surprise mentions "regular rounds" and defines them as separate from surprise rounds. In that context it is not unreasonable to interpret a "regular turn" as a turn in a "regular round", which is still compatible with the definitions of the special initiative actions, as you cannot have more than one turn in the surprise round.

Under the first interpretation, you are flat-footed until you take your first turn (whether or not it is in a surprise round) while under the latter interpretation you are flat-footed until you take your first turn after the surprise round.

Comments?

[Majuba]

Looks like the Initiative section has some slightly wonky language. Nice catch.

You are definitely only flat-footed until you have acted, surprise round or regular. (Barring some strange ability that lets you act but you remain flat-footed - I think I've read one of those).

[fretgod99]

I don't think it makes any sense for characters to be flat-footed after having taken some sort of action (barring specific abilities that might exist saying otherwise), which is what would happen if you have to wait until the first non-surprise round to remove the flat-footed condition. The intent seems pretty clearly to be: once you have done something (either in a surprise round or a regular round), you are no longer flat-footed. "Something" in this context includes choosing to do nothing (via delaying or readying).

[Xaratherus]

I've seen\brought up this contradictory language before. I have always relied more on the text from the surprise round and flat-footed condition - the moment you have the capability to take an action, whether you take that action or delay it until later, you are no longer flat-footed.

[Lord_Malkov]

Majuba wrote:

Looks like the Initiative section has some slightly wonky language. Nice catch.

You are definitely only flat-footed until you have acted, surprise round or regular. (Barring some strange ability that lets you act but you remain flat-footed - I think I've read one of those).

Well, its important to remember that someone with Combat Reflexes can make Attacks of Opportunity while flat-footed, but even if they make an attack, they are still flat-footed until they get an actual turn of some sort (even if it is a limited turn during a surprise round).

This is actually a little weird to me. More weird if they use Weapon Finesse (which many Combat Reflexes builds use.)

So a 22 dex archer with improved snap shot and combat reflexes threatens all squares up to 15ft out. 4 weak monsters charge him during a surprise round. The archer gets to make 1 aoo for the monster moving from 15ft-10ft. and one more for the monster moving from 10ft to adjacent.

So the first charger gets 2 arrows in the chest and dies before completing his charge.
The second charger gets 2 arrows in the chest and dies before completing his charge.
The third charger gets 2 arrows in the chest and dies before completing his charge.
The fourth charger gets 1 arrow in the chest (finally depleting the archer's attacks of opportunity) ad completes his charge... the archer is flat-footed and unable to adequately defend himself!? Yep.

[DM_Blake]

Not quite:

Core Rulebook, Combat, Attacks of Opportunity wrote:

Combat Reflexes:

Moving out of more than one square threatened by the same opponent in the same round doesn't count as more than one opportunity for that opponent.

So each of those charging monsters only gets one arrow in the chest.

[njharman]

What DM Blake said (1 arrow per mover) and ranger has super human reflexes, is highly trained to react quickly (multiple feats). Being able to let loose several arrows even when "surprised" seems reasonable.

[Malle]

Thanks for the input everyone. I was a bit confused before I read through the scattered rules, but after doing that and posting here I agree that RAI is clear enough. Thanks for reminding me about the rules on AoO as well because I had completely forgot that.

[Kazumetsa Raijin]

Lord_Malkov wrote:

Majuba wrote:

Looks like the Initiative section has some slightly wonky language. Nice catch.

You are definitely only flat-footed until you have acted, surprise round or regular. (Barring some strange ability that lets you act but you remain flat-footed - I think I've read one of those).

Well, its important to remember that someone with Combat Reflexes can make Attacks of Opportunity while flat-footed, but even if they make an attack, they are still flat-footed until they get an actual turn of some sort (even if it is a limited turn during a surprise round).

This is actually a little weird to me. More weird if they use Weapon Finesse (which many Combat Reflexes builds use.)

So a 22 dex archer with improved snap shot and combat reflexes threatens all squares up to 15ft out. 4 weak monsters charge him during a surprise round. The archer gets to make 1 aoo for the monster moving from 15ft-10ft. and one more for the monster moving from 10ft to adjacent.

So the first charger gets 2 arrows in the chest and dies before completing his charge.
The second charger gets 2 arrows in the chest and dies before completing his charge.
The third charger gets 2 arrows in the chest and dies before completing his charge.
The fourth charger gets 1 arrow in the chest (finally depleting the archer's attacks of opportunity) ad completes his charge... the archer is flat-footed and unable to adequately defend himself!? Yep.

Hate to break it to ya... but opponents only provoke once from movement in a threatened area, unless they move out and back through again. You would just have a 15ft threatening area is all. >_>

[Claxon]

Still, there is the point that he gets off 3 AoO during the surprise round, but somehow can't defend himself. I agree that feels wonky.

I definitely agree that if you delay or ready during a surprise round, but don't actually act you're not flat-footed because you could have acted.

I think that being able to take AoO during the surprise round feels like you shouldn't be flat-footed, but by the rules you still are. Removing flat-footed by being able to make AoO would be far to good and be a pretty big annoyance to certain classes that rely on such situations.

[DM_Blake]

Just look at it this way:

If you're flat-footed in the surprise round, it means you're not prepared to react properly to defend yourself, for whatever reason (mainly because you weren't ready for this battle at this time).

If we can accept that explanation for being flat-footed in the first place, then it's not a terrible stretch to get to this explanation:

If you can make an AoO while flat-footed in the surprise round, you're still not prepared to react properly to defend yourself, but your quick reflexes let you get of a snap attack - you do this INSTEAD of preparing to defend yourself (it's too late for that anyway, since you're actually flat-footed for a reason). So the reflexive snap shot might or might not hurt an enemy, but it doesn't help you prepare to defend yourself.

I know, still awkward, but not entirely out of the realm of plausibility.