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argh... why is it so difficult? every one wants to base ALL combat on some extreme and unusual situation.
does all combat in pathfinder start with a sucker punch in a bar? so why base all combat on that example?
I think the reason why characters and npcs are flatfooted at the beginning of combat basically there to inforce that the person with highest iniative acted first.
let me ask you this, what is wrong with simply {[i]dramatic pause[/]} letting the winner of the initiative act first?
Why does one side HAVE to be unprepared in some way. what is this insistence that loosing initiative MUST include some debilitating penalty?
Its completely reasonable to get some penalty like flat footed when one sides activities or the environment lends some tactical advantage like an ambush or something.
But the question here is not "should there be a mechanic for catching an opponent flat footed"
The question is "should EVERY combat situation assume that the person who moves second is completely unprepared and flat footed until he takes an action in rounds"
remember the rules don't even state that the person has to attack. He simply has to take an action on his turn. so a person can be last in the initiative and chose to do nothing but scratch his nose... by game mechanics he is no longer flat footed.
WHY IS THIS A UNIVERSAL MECHANIC? It is added complexity that does NOT add anything to the game.
NOTE AGAIN: I am not saying that there is no situation in which people should not be flat footed. My point is that it should not be the general purpose standard rule for EVERY combat situation.
My entire point is that the general rule should be based on the most common circumstance and special rules like surprise rounds can exist for special circumstances.
Please explain why that is wrong or unreasonable.
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Why is this so hard for people?
A high dex character naturally has higher initiative. They are agile, reflexive. They can stab you in the gut before you even finish getting your sword out of your sheath. It's what they do.
Being unable to react to their attacks, especially when they are reacting to your current action, makes sense. He's acting faster than you.
Of course, if he doesn't notice your aggressive act, then he can't react to it.
BTW, being attacked by an invisible character doesn't make you flat footed, you just lose your dexterity bonus to AC. There's an important distinction there.
Being flat footed for one round does not make you debilitated. Your easier to hit, yes, but not too much more (unless your going against a rogue...).
The dragon scenario: If they see the dragon 1000 feet away, go ahead and roll initiative. Even if the dragon when first, he can't fly 1000 feet and do a breath attack before the players can act. But if a dragon suddenly poped out of the trees and attack, then the players would be flat footed if they didn't react fast enough.
If it doesn't make sense, go ahead and make a houserule. But also know that it does make sense to a lot of players.
When I think about the "loaded crossbow" scenario, I'm reminded of one of the science of sports shows where they were showing a guy who was trained in Krav Maga. They had another trained soldier behind him, with a cocked and loaded gun, and wanted to test reflex speed for both. So here you have the "loaded crossbow" or soldier with the gun, with it pointed at the other guy's head, and all he has to do is pull the trigger. The tested this thing several times, and viewed it back in super slow motion. The soldier NEVER pulled the trigger quick enough. Both sides knew there was going to be a fight, both sides were prepared. The Krav Maga fighter was simply faster, and while he didn't "surprise" the soldier, the soldier was more or less flat footed when the Krav Maga fighter made a move. Now, if you want to go the other way and just say the soldier should have just shot first (Like Han), then you have a different scenario.
The initiative round, to me, is that point where everyone is ready for action, knows something's coming, but the "trigger moment" of the fight hasn't happened. Maybe that trigger is the fighter saying he charges, etc, but initiative just reflects that the other combatant saw something; tensing of muscles, a change in the fighter's facial expression, or whatever, and predicted when the trigger moment was going to happen faster than anyone else, which catches the other people not quite ready defend/react. The one punch knockout analogy is a great example of that, and I want to say it was Anderson Silva that I saw take out a guy with a flying knee. The other fighter actually makes the first "move" and starts forward, but before that fighter can get his feet under him or defend, Silva just bursts into action and hits the guy with a flying knee from about 5' away. Knockout, fight over.
That to me is why the first round catches some people flat footed. Everyone is expecting something, but not sure what it's going to be. Once in the fight, things become a bit more predictable, so everyone is on their toes.
A high dex character naturally has higher initiative. They are agile, reflexive. They can stab you in the gut before you even finish getting your sword out of your sheath. It's what they do.
again does EVERY combat start face to face with an agile reflexive character who will stab you in the gut before you even finish getting your sword out?
or does most combat start with the party recognizing a threat at some distance (be it 10000 feet or across the room) and mutually initiating combat?
if the answer is the former your absolutely correct.
if the answer is the latter I don't get why the insistence that all combat should be modeled on the former.
Kelarith, again, set piece scenario. would that Krav Maga fighter be able to do the same thing if the guy with the gun was 20 feet away?
no... specific scenarios are irrelevant. what is the norm for start of combat. that should be what the general standard rules are based on.
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It's molded to both:
Dragon is flying towards you, about 500 feet away. You know his intent, though you have two choices: Somehow communicate to the dragon and negotiate (Don't start initiative) or prepare for battle (start initiative). If you start initiative, then guess what? You won't be flat footed by the time he gets to you. If he just poped out of the trees, then he has a surprise round, and can try to get closer. In fact, he'd probably start off already acting, knowing where you are and using move actions to approach you.
Across the room is just as easy: see monster, monster sees you. You win initiative and are able to shoot the monster before it's able to really to react to you.
The ONLY time it doesn't make as much sense is regards to charging. You see opponent charge you, you win initiative, so you charge him first. But then again, many many fictional stories revolving around combat infer an ability to "predict" their enemies. The person you charged (who was just about to charge himself) is caught off guard, he was expecting you to stay where you are (or else he would have prepared an action against your charge). Rurouni Kenshin was somewhat famous for this.
A high dex character naturally has higher initiative. They are agile, reflexive. They can stab you in the gut before you even finish getting your sword out of your sheath. It's what they do.again does EVERY combat start face to face with an agile reflexive character who will stab you in the gut before you even finish getting your sword out?
or does most combat start with the party recognizing a threat at some distance (be it 10000 feet or across the room) and mutually initiating combat?
if the answer is the former your absolutely correct.
if the answer is the latter I don't get why the insistence that all combat should be modeled on the former.
You also don't seem to be getting that if the combat starts 1000' apart, then by the time the first sword swing happens NO ONE should be flat footed because everyone has acted multiple times by then. And everyone who seems to be fine with the flat footed rule doesn't espouse that the 1000' distance should still have flat footed combatants.
The only scenario where you might have a legitimate gripe against flat footed is an across the room scenario where someone rushes 30' across the room and attacks (all in that one persons turn) and catches the other person flat footed.
You have several options on that one:
1) Just accept that it is a symptom of a turn based combat system. All turn based combat systems suffer from timing issues that would never occur in the real world.
2) House rule it out for that specific scenario.
argh... why is it so difficult? every one wants to base ALL combat on some extreme and unusual situation.
does all combat in pathfinder start with a sucker punch in a bar? so why base all combat on that example?
I think the reason why characters and npcs are flatfooted at the beginning of combat basically there to inforce that the person with highest iniative acted first.let me ask you this, what is wrong with simply {[i]dramatic pause[/]} letting the winner of the initiative act first?
Why does one side HAVE to be unprepared in some way. what is this insistence that loosing initiative MUST include some debilitating penalty?
Its completely reasonable to get some penalty like flat footed when one sides activities or the environment lends some tactical advantage like an ambush or something.
But the question here is not "should there be a mechanic for catching an opponent flat footed"
The question is "should EVERY combat situation assume that the person who moves second is completely unprepared and flat footed until he takes an action in rounds"
remember the rules don't even state that the person has to attack. He simply has to take an action on his turn. so a person can be last in the initiative and chose to do nothing but scratch his nose... by game mechanics he is no longer flat footed.
WHY IS THIS A UNIVERSAL MECHANIC? It is added complexity that does NOT add anything to the game.
NOTE AGAIN: I am not saying that there is no situation in which people should not be flat footed. My point is that it should not be the general purpose standard rule for EVERY combat situation.
My entire point is that the general rule should be based on the most common circumstance and special rules like surprise rounds can exist for special circumstances.
Please explain why that is wrong or unreasonable.
Because theres a difference of "before" a fight and "during" a fight. Winning the iniative means u acted before the other person even knew combat started. That person acted before the other person could react. Once that person did something by 6 secs OR less laterthe rest of everyone has the defences up and rdy to react.
Tbh if iniative was rolled WHEN a conflict could happen or will and instead of right before the first offensive or defensive move was made, itd make alot more sense.Tbh i dont have a problem with the rule, but i woukd agree i wouldnt have a problem if they decided instead of flatfooted they did the "flanking" rules instead where u get a +2 to hit in the first round against someone who hasnt gone yet. Keep flatfooted for surprise rounds and do the "flanking" rules for the firat round. Would make sense because most of the time the characters wouldnt know all the attackers until the fight was in place.
That way theirs benefits and drawbacks for surprise rounds, and first rounds u get a small benefit and a small drawback instead of having a big one of each.
if they decided instead of flatfooted they did the "flanking" rules instead where u get a +2 to hit in the first round against someone who hasnt gone yet.
although I think that no automatic penalty is necessary other than 'you didn't get to go first'
I would be happier with this than the stupid flat footed rule.
NN you had a point in your first post.
then fell in to the same trap in your second post.
don't try to rationalize it because I don't believe there is any valid rational for it other than some ones absolute determination that ANYTIME combat begins some one is cought flat footed even if both sides were completely prepared.
If its JUST a rule, WHY do we need the rule? what does it add to the game?
To help sneak attack? then give them a special rule instead of applying the rule to everything.
If its to simulate reality why simulate general reality with a relatively rare situation?
In real life, some people are caught flat-footed when hostilities erupt.
IRL SOME people SOMETIME are cought FF when hostilities erupt.
SOMETIME not EVERYTIME.
The rule should reflect the exception as an exception and not as the Norm.
Let me use another example.
In real life do people SOMETIME fail to see things that are in plain sight? yea it happens and I can provide a ton of examples, experiments and research....
Do we have a rule for missing big obvious things like trees, open paths, doors and owl bears laying in the middle of the path? YES WE DO its called Perception. but its assumed that since people would normally notice those things you don't bother with the perception check except in those situations that are unusual. such as when things are hiding, hidden, or otherwise difficult to see.
in other words general play assums the norm and the rules represent the special cases.
FF in the first round is the opposite of that.
I have said it before and will say it again be cause every one conveniently ignores this.
Does EVERY fight ALWAYS start with some one being unprepared?
or does it SOMETIME happen? if the majority of situations are covered by the assumption that neither party would generally be considered unprepared (i.e. your walking and approach another party, your approached by guards, a bear approaches through the woods, you walk into the throne room and confront the king, etc etc) then there should not be a rule that applies the special case of SOMETIME people are unprepared, except in those cases where there is a reasonable reason to assume that this is one of those times... like a surprise or ambush or feint or something else.
so again... my question and please answer it.
Do you think that the majority of combat situations include some one being unprepared.
if not then why have a rule that assumes it happens every time a battle begins?
that is the primary question of this thread.
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@blue_the_wolf
What exactly are you trying to do? What do you expect? Do you want Paizo to change the rule because you have a different opinion than they? Do you want others to agree with you? There's no point in getting angry over this, especially if you have nothing to lose. If you don't like it, then make a house rule.
(It seems like you are shouting, if you don't want to come across that way, use bolded letters instead of capitals.)
As for your question: Yes, a majority of combat situations in Pathfinder start with one character getting the upper hand right off the bat because the other was unprepared. Pathfinder evolved from DnD, which had the majority of it's fighting inside of dungeons (hence the name).
LOL. of course I'm not mad.
I use bold letters for emphasis because I fundamentally think that some people just skim without processing.
what do i expect? ... I expect people to read the debate and eventually over possibly many debates opinion may be changed.
because its actually a big deal to me.
having said that. I was done a few times but when some one makes a point that has, what I believe to be, glaring flaws. I feel obligated to respond.
Im not trolling, I am not insulting, I am not arguing for the sake of argument. But I do enjoy the debate.
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Do we have a rule for missing big obvious things like trees, open paths, doors and owl bears laying in the middle of the path? YES WE DO its called Perception. but its assumed that since people would normally notice those things you don't bother with the perception check except in those situations that are unusual. such as when things are hiding, hidden, or otherwise difficult to see.
in other words general play assums the norm and the rules represent the special cases.
FF in the first round is the opposite of that.
What it sounds like here is that you have a group which rigidly enforces one half of a rule while only bringing the other half up situationally.
If you're constantly playing under the assumption that every living thing in the area is generally being noisy enough that all creatures are aware of each other, and therefore you're skipping any sort of stealth vs. perception checks and just taking it for granted that they were made, you should also assume that on becoming aware of the danger, you officially went into initiative order right then, and have just been assuming everyone was spending their turns moving along until the dangerous creature they are aware of is close enough to properly engage, a round or two after when init would have been rolled if you were really strictly enforcing everything.
The whole flat-footed on the first round thing should only ever be coming up as something you need to deal with when fights break out suddenly, either totally spontaneously, or because one side gets the drop on the other. If you're fully following the rules, in completely obsessive fashion, those perception checks you don't generally bother making actually dictate how far away monsters are before the party notices. We have a base DC to notice a big fight going on (-10), something standing in plain view (0), something walking around (10), and something burrowing towards the party (25). There are a lot of modifiers to this, the most significant one of which is that the DC increases by 1 per 10' away you are.
So... let's say, for sanity's sake, we're just passively taking 10 on all these per checks we don't care about because nobody involved is sneaking around or anything, we just rolled up a random encounter while traveling or we're exploring a monster filled dungeon, whatever. And let's assume everyone in the party has 10 wis and no ranks in perception:
We have some monster just standing around in an open field chilling out? OK. That's a DC of 0+1 per 10'. We're taking 10, so the earliest we can make that is at a distance of 100'. When we set up a map for this encounter, the GM places the monsters so that the closest of them is exactly 100' away from the closest PC, and then we roll init. Everyone involved here is flat footed for the first round, but it's almost a total non-issue, because nobody's within charging range. Someone with a bow can get a quick potshot off, but hey, if you're being shot by someone literally the instant they come close enough to notice they're there, you aren't going to be ready to dodge.
Let's say we're in a dungeon, and there's a bunch of orcs chilling out behind a door we're coming up on. With a +0 per, we aren't going to know they're there until someone opens the door (hearing them pacing about is a DC of 10, the door in the way adds 5), so yeah, again, everyone's caught with their pants down there. Someone with a +10 per though gets a 20 when taking 10, which is enough to hear them 50' away away with an intervening door. Plenty of reaction time to stop everyone and signal that there's trouble. Take that person outside, and hey, now we're starting our big open field battles at a distance of 200'! Range increments on bows suddenly make more sense.
Again, it is totally reasonable not to play this rule properly, because it's kind of a pain, but if you're using such a quick and dirty version that you're encounter starting distances are way off, you need to play similarly fast and loose with flat-footedness, and how many buff spells people have time to get up.
Why is this so hard for people?
A high dex character naturally has higher initiative. They are agile, reflexive. They can stab you in the gut before you even finish getting your sword out of your sheath. It's what they do.
Being unable to react to their attacks, especially when they are reacting to your current action, makes sense. He's acting faster than you.
Of course, if he doesn't notice your aggressive act, then he can't react to it.
BTW, being attacked by an invisible character doesn't make you flat footed, you just lose your dexterity bonus to AC. There's an important distinction there.
Being flat footed for one round does not make you debilitated. Your easier to hit, yes, but not too much more (unless your going against a rogue...).
The dragon scenario: If they see the dragon 1000 feet away, go ahead and roll initiative. Even if the dragon when first, he can't fly 1000 feet and do a breath attack before the players can act. But if a dragon suddenly poped out of the trees and attack, then the players would be flat footed if they didn't react fast enough.
If it doesn't make sense, go ahead and make a houserule. But also know that it does make sense to a lot of players.
Um... my position is that the rules make absolute perfect sense if you start combat at the right time.
Starting combat when the dragon is 1000ft away is the right time.
Why agree with me, and then tell me to make a house rule?
if not then why have a rule that assumes it happens every time a battle begins?
Because combat starts... or rather should start... at the moment of awareness.
Some people ignore that bit in the rules about checking for awareness, and instead start combat at an artificial time of their own choosing, when the first attack takes place.
That isn't always the right time to start combat. Can it be? Sure, in some situations that really is when some parties involved become aware of impending conflict... when it smacks them in the face.
Is that always the case? No. Very much no.
Sometimes both sides, and all participants, are fully aware of the fight about to take place. In these cases, combat should already be ticking by. Round by round. The first actual attack may not take place until many rounds into combat. The flatfooted phase is long gone by now. Rightly so, everyone is prepared for this.
The rules play out perfectly if people simply follow the instructions given. Check for awareness. Start combat. Flatfooted until you act.
Sometimes there are outliers to the normal starting combat rules, sure. Like, say you and your party get ambushed at night camping in the woods. Only two of you are on watch, and the rest are sleeping. The Ambushers move in stealthily and attack your buddy. You and your party all fail the perception check to notice.
What happens? Well, combat starts. But you and your party aren't involved yet. Just your buddy and the ambushers are. He failed his perception check to notice them, but he is automatically aware of being shot. So they acted on the surprise round, he joins in at the full first round.
Now, likely you and your party will become aware of this scuffle, and a new perception check is made. You make it, your party, being asleep, doesn't. So now you are considered a new combatant in the ongoing combat, and join in, but you are flatfooted until you get your first turn, even though it is round 2.
A couple rounds or so later your party wakes up finally, and they're considered new combatants and get to join in as well. They’re flatfooted until they get their first turn, even though we're already in round 4 or 5 by now.
The GM controls when combat starts, sure. Some GMs are good at this, others aren't. If your game feels like the timing is wrong, if you feel it doesn't make sense for someone to be flatfooted in the first round of some combat event you play in... it might simply be that the GM is starting combat at a less than optimal timeframe.
While the rule has some basis in reality e.g. getting sucker punched, don't get sucked into believing there is some plausible explanation for everyone who starts combat as being flat-footed. The implementation of being "denied your dex bonus" is nonsensical and is merely a mechanic necessary to create design space for other feats.
It isn't nonsensical.
You start off flatfooted because you are unable to react.
If someone comes up to deck you. For example. You roll sense motive vs bluff. You fail. They seem perfectly harmless. Then BAM, sucker punched in the side of the head.
... now you can react.
You don't get to react before you are aware there is even something to react to.
You and I are talking about two completely different things. When I said nonsensical, I'm talking about how the "no dex bonus" rule works. I'm not talking about the concept of being caught flat-footed.
Well, nearly all of the 'no dex bonus' situations are similar to being flat footed in some regards. They seem to occur when either you cannot react because of a lack of awareness or you cannot react because of some sort of physical impediment. Care to elaborate what you mean by "When I said nonsensical, I'm talking about how the "no dex bonus" rule works."?
It's not so much that he's less prepared for the fight, it's that he simply does not react fast enough. The 'fluff' behind adding your DEX to AC is that you're actively defending yourself. If you can't move faster than your attacker to attack him first, then why would you be able to move to actively defend yourself against that attack?
(late to the discussion, but don't like this rule either)
The argument for the boxer not reacting fast enough, if true, would apply for every round. So you would be flat footed until your turn every round.