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I recently had a character die when he burst down a door in order to open the way for his allies to take down the enemies on the other side. Despite initiative not starting, all five enemies got a turn to shoot me dead. There shouldn't have been a surprise round because I knew the enemies were on the other side of the door.
Yes.
Technically I don't believe you can ready actions outside of combat.
But the GM gets to decide when combat starts. As a GM, if the enemies are aware you're coming through the door (and they probably are if it takes more than a single action to break it down, and they might still be depending on your actions before the door) then I'm also going to have the enemies ready actions to attack whatever comes through that door first.
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Assuming the enemies knew that you were coming through the door I don't see how this has anything to do with surprise rounds or readied actions.
Think of it as combat having already been initiated, but no one is doing anything because there is a barrier between the two groups. Everyone is effectively holding their action. Then one individual, your character, uses his turn to break down the barrier. That character's turn is over and the enemies all stop holding their action and attack.
That said, your allies also should have been able to act at that point. Indeed, since everyone had been holding actions it might make sense to roll initiative or allow those with the highest dex bonuses to go first.
Assuming the enemies knew that you were coming through the door I don't see how this has anything to do with surprise rounds or readied actions.
Think of it as combat having already been initiated, but no one is doing anything because there is a barrier between the two groups. Everyone is effectively holding their action. Then one individual, your character, uses his turn to break down the barrier. That character's turn is over and the enemies all stop holding their action and attack.
That said, your allies also should have been able to act at that point. Indeed, since everyone had been holding actions it might make sense to roll initiative or allow those with the highest dex bonuses to go first.
Yes, IF they had announced readied actions of their OWN beforehand. The only ones who don't get to ready are those taking actions to open (or break in) the door.
If everyone on both sides of the door has readied actions then to my knowledge you roll initiative to determine in what order the readied actions occur, assuming all readied actions have the same trigger e.g. When Boris the Strong and Fair breaks down the door.
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Pretty much what Claxon said.
Players 2-6: "We ready to cast Fireball when BSF opens the door."
BSF: "I open the door."
GM: "A green miasma fills your side of the room after BSF opens the door, but before you get your spells off. It appears to be a Stinking Cloud."
Players: "But we readied!"
GM: "Yes, but one of the enemies on the other side readied faster in Initiative. Now you may go."
Initiative should have been rolled before hand, anyway, since if both parties knew that there were hostiles present with whom they planned to fight, the combat had already begun regardless of whether or not there were a door in the way.If everyone on both sides of the door has readied actions then to my knowledge you roll initiative to determine in what order the readied actions occur, assuming all readied actions have the same trigger e.g. When Boris the Strong and Fair breaks down the door.
This is technically true, though rarely followed in my experience until people start actually harming one another.
The incident happened like this.
1. We detected via Perception there were hostiles on the other side of the door.
2. Party gets ready for combat.
3. I break down the door after three attempts.
4. Two enemies take their readied actions to attack me: one a spell and another crits me with a firearm. I die. The other enemies don't take their action because I'm dead and they can't do anything to my allies.
5. GM calls for initiative.
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The response is to have one person on your side open the door, and everyone else ready an action for when the door is opened.
Indeed, unfortunately since none of your allies readied actions I can't find anything that the GM particularly did wrong, though technically he should have called for initiative once your party became aware of the enemies.
One thing to keep in mind that having readied actions is NOT the same as a surprise round.
If they're using readied actions it means that the entire rest of the party gets to go (at full round actions) before they get to go again. They don't roll initiative: they're placed at the top of the round , take 1 standard action that they've readied, then the party goes.
This is true too
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Ready an action is found on the actions in combat table.
Ready also happens later in your turn, but before your next turn begins. You don't have turns unless you are in combat.
You can't ready an action until after initiative is rolled.
Besides that, the alternative is ridiculous. You'll have players saying "I ready..." before they've even settled down at the table if you can ready out of combat.
One thing to keep in mind that having readied actions is NOT the same as a surprise round.
If they're using readied actions it means that the entire rest of the party gets to go (at full round actions) before they get to go again. They don't roll initiative: they're placed at the top of the round , take 1 standard action that they've readied, then the party goes.
There was no surprise round. We were totally aware of the enemies on the other side of the door. The enemies didn't use Stealth either. They stood about 20 or 30 feet from the door and shot at me the moment I broke it down.
There was no surprise round. We were totally aware of the enemies on the other side of the door. The enemies didn't use Stealth either. They stood about 20 or 30 feet from the door and shot at me the moment I broke it down.One thing to keep in mind that having readied actions is NOT the same as a surprise round.
If they're using readied actions it means that the entire rest of the party gets to go (at full round actions) before they get to go again. They don't roll initiative: they're placed at the top of the round , take 1 standard action that they've readied, then the party goes.
Initiative probably should have been rolled before the door was opened and the enemies were perceived in that case. Whether that would make a difference in this particular instance is another matter entirely though, considering it took you three attempts to break down the door, giving them plenty of time to ready actions.
There was no surprise round. We were totally aware of the enemies on the other side of the door. The enemies didn't use Stealth either. They stood about 20 or 30 feet from the door and shot at me the moment I broke it down.
Academic for you Might matter to the rest of the party.
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The incident happened like this.
1. We detected via Perception there were hostiles on the other side of the door.
2. Party gets ready for combat.
3. I break down the door after three attempts.
4. Two enemies take their readied actions to attack me: one a spell and another crits me with a firearm. I die. The other enemies don't take their action because I'm dead and they can't do anything to my allies.
5. GM calls for initiative.
I don't know if you can ready actions outside of combat - it's hotly debated by my regular group of players. That said, I can't help but feel that:
a) What happened to your character was rubbish. It may have been an accident on the part of the GM, or it may have been malicious (not enough contextual info to make that judgment) but it feels like a GM versus player mentality situation.
b) I can't help but feel if step 5 was in fact step 3, or even step 2 depending on what "gets ready" means, this situation would have been fine.
Ok, So what happens if the opposite situation is involved?
Let say a group of adventurers are in an enemy Orc base and are being hunted down.
They are low on resources so they go hide in a room.
Luckily the LV10 sorceror has fire breath/burning hands/AOE spell prepared.
They go into the room, and the sorceror is ready to blast them.
Are you saying that the orcs, as soon as they brake open the door, then roll initiative as well as the players?
In this circumstance, what if the orcs roll higher, bust down the door, and attack the sorceror causing him to make a concentration check/kill the sorceror.
Are the players then going to argue "But I was ready to attack as soon as they came in!"
Sometimes attack actions happen out of combat and that is okay.
One of the key examples of this is the "Betrayer Feat"
Which essentially, lets you roll diplomacy, and with success, you can as an immediate action draw a weapon and strike a foe.
What does this do? It turns the creature you attacked hostile, and they get a -2 to their initiative.
What does this imply? That some actions are the cause of combat.
After using betrayer, then everyone would roll initiative. Except the target would get a -2.
So what Do I think?
I think it is more than reasonable to have either enemies or players plan out actions for the following reasons:
1. You are aware of your enemy, but you are not aware of what specific positions they have (unless you have some sort of divination)
2. You may be aware of your enemy, but you are not aware what actions they will take.
3. You may know were your enemy is, but you do not know for a fact what the environment would look like, and even with prior knowledge, you can't be certain that the same environment has stayed the same.
4. Surprise rounds says
" In initiative order (highest to lowest), combatants who started the battle aware of their opponents each take a standard or move action during the surprise round."
Battle has not started. Why? Because Enemies and PC's do not live in a constant BATTLE INITIATIVE mentality.
One good example would also be looking at the stealth skill.
Sniping
"If you've already successfully used Stealth at least 10 feet from your target, you can make one ranged attack and then immediately use Stealth again. You take a –20 penalty on your Stealth check to maintain your obscured location."
This is a valid in combat, and out of combat tactic.
The incident happened like this.
1. We detected via Perception there were hostiles on the other side of the door.
2. Party gets ready for combat.
3. I break down the door after three attempts.
4. Two enemies take their readied actions to attack me: one a spell and another crits me with a firearm. I die. The other enemies don't take their action because I'm dead and they can't do anything to my allies.
5. GM calls for initiative.
In my opinion, there's a mixture of what's-in-the-DM's-head and a rules mistake going on here.
From the player perspective, sometimes things don't make sense. I know as a DM I have "run round-by-round" or "initiated combat" without formally asking for rolls. Not often, but when the situation doesn't require precise numbers, or I'm concealing information PCs don't know.
Giving you three rounds to break down the door, I might mentally run combat and imagine what the bad guys are doing on the other side. Combat has begun, but I haven't asked for rolls yet.
That might give the appearance that a mistake is being made, but it really isn't, because as long as you get three rounds and they get three rounds, it doesn't matter what order they're done in. Because there's no interaction between the PCs and the bad guys, initiative is irrelevant. But mentally I've declared combat.
Where there is a small mistake - in my opinion - is not asking for initiative rolls before the readied actions go off. I totally would allow readied actions in this case, but initiative is essential to resolve the order things occur in.
Of course, that leads to the result where the bad guys will still resolve first, because you didn't ready anything. You might not have realized you could, because you didn't realize you were in combat, and THAT is what the DM did wrong.
If I run "casual combat" in my head, I make it clear to each player that they are free to tell me what their PC would like to do. I do so in a way that doesn't ask for rolls yet, but ask what their PC is doing while someone is bashing down the door. I absolutely accept readied actions during this.
So anyway, again, in my humble opinion, I think your DM was running combat but neglected to tell you. Running pseudo-combat is a useful trick to speed things up from time to time and maintain suspense, but it can't be at the cost of player freedom.
Quick note: we sometimes do this in the middle of combat too. Say a bad guy goes invisible and (I know) he is chugging potions for a few rounds, and the party can't locate him, I will basically ask them what they'd like to do, which is usually "ready X for Y", ask it for the second round when nothing happens, then ask "you want to keep doing that for a few rounds?" If so, I stop tracking round-by-round and just fast-forward to when something happens. Everyone knows what is happening, and everyone appreciates not having to repeat themselves as I go 'round the table asking for actions we all know aren't changing. Players are ALWAYS permitted to interrupt me. "You know what, after four rounds or so, Dugulugubub would get tired of waiting and start stabbing his spear at random squares." Okay. Back to round-by-round.
In your situation, having the party know that there are bad guys in the room and the bad guys having FAILED their perception checks to hear you all DC18 (footsteps, 30 ft, door) or DC 8 (talking, 30 ft, door), I would have ruled a surprise round for the party.
Everyone rolls initiative and the top player kicks in the door (or other players delay for door kicker). Rest of party then gets their 1 standard action and combat continues as normal.
Considering that it took you 3 tries to break the door, the surprise round is wasted and on round 1 of combat everyone can start readying actions according to initiative. If baddies said "I will target the first seen member of the party" then you being the kicker of the door would be dead.
OF NOTE: To my knowledge there is no real way to determine who goes first in a group of readied actions that all take place at the same time (IE Good guys ready against seen enemies and bad guys do the same following the door being busted down). In one case you can fall back to initial initiative as a way to separate out the actions into a combat acceptable order. Alternatively you could process all actions at once and have the chips fall where they fall after all readied actions have completed. I prefer the later because it is more dramatic. Party dead. Bad guys dead. End scene.
Pretty much what Claxon said.
Players 2-6: "We ready to cast Fireball when BSF opens the door."
BSF: "I open the door."
GM: "A green miasma fills your side of the room after BSF opens the door, but before you get your spells off. It appears to be a Stinking Cloud."
Players: "But we readied!"
GM: "Yes, but one of the enemies on the other side readied faster in Initiative. Now you may go."
Combat started when OP took the 1st bash at the door. This was his "surprise round".
After that everyone was knowing that someone is coming through that door. PCs would rightfully cry havoc if a DM wouldnt allow then to start buffing or readying actions to shoot the 1st monster that pushed his face through the door shining-style.
Right. The problem with this scenario is that the players didn't know they were "in combat" and could ready actions for when the door opened.
Yes. In my opinion the GM didn't run it right. However, I also would not have run it the way the OP envisions the combat with his party getting off readied actions against the bad guys and not having the bad guys respond in kind.
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I don't think this is a hard one to know the rules, but it's regularly misunderstood.
Look at your Core book, pg183 at Table 8-2, "Actions in Combat". That's where you will see "Ready". Ready itself is detailed on pg203, which is within the section "Special Attacks".
If you've followed along so far, if someone is taking a readied action, then you know you're "in combat" and you're making an "attack". This isn't really debatable.
Refer to Core pg178 "How Combat Works".
1. When combat begins, all combatants roll initiative.
Thus, nothing can take a readied action unless all combatants have rolled initiative. If you're attacking or being attacked, you're a combatant.
Thus, it's honestly not possible to die to an attack roll from an enemy if you haven't rolled initiative, because you can't be in combat unless you've at least rolled initiative.
I've seen this misrun a number of times, so it's a common mistake.
The key here is separating the fluff of "I'm ready to do something" from the actual special attack action of "I ready an action". The fluff of "being ready to do something" is just flavor in how you describe your character as being ready, but grants you nothing special - when combat begins, everyone rolls initiative and acts in that order.
Readying an action should start combat, the same as attacking someone. Since combat was started by readying, then surprise and initiative should be determined at that time, the same as if someone attacked someone.
Wakedown, I agree with you that readied actions should only happen in combat. However, I think your logic might be faulty. Just because its in a table that gives actions in combat doesn't PRECLUDE those actions outside of combat. Or do you not let players stand up or draw weapons outside of combat?
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You'd need to apply common sense here. "Cast a spell" is listed here as an action in combat. However, if you've just woken up with no enemies in sight and cast Ant Haul on yourself, you're certainly not in combat.
In all of the examples given by the OP and other folks, there's certainly a context of combat happening as there are combatants involved. You don't get a hall pass when you see combat about to happen and yell real fast and quick at your table "Iwanttodosomestuffbeforethiscombathappens!" and take actions that aren't in a combat context.
(Unless your GM was handwaving a narrative where he's doing something like "Three days pass and on the morning of the third day after you finish your breakfast...". Clearly there's a good window to explain you apply your 8 hours of Mage Armor before breakfast, thus you're reminding him/her that it's up after breakfast for purposes of any post-munching combat).
Thus, presence of combatants leads you to run Combat rules versus not run combat rules!
Since it took multiple attempts to open the door, nobody knew when combat would begin even though everyone knew that it would happen very soon. I would probably proceed as follows:
Prior to combat: Everyone positions themselves as desired, gets out their weapons, and does anything else they want to do that does not require being in combat.
Surprise round: Occurs when door opener succeeds in opening door. The door is now open and the surprise round is over. The door opener used his standard action to open the door.
Then roll initiative and proceed normally.
Once again I agree wakedown. But you invoked "common sense" as the thesis of your argument. Many people will have a different impression of what is reasonable, such as most of the posters on this thread. You don't have an explicit rule to cite to point to readied actions only being available in combat.
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Surprise round: Occurs when door opener succeeds in opening door. The door is now open and the surprise round is over. The door opener used his standard action to open the door.
Then roll initiative and proceed normally.
I don't think anyone is going to be surprised be a guys taking 18 seconds to bash through the door, so I don't know why there would be a surprise round.
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You don't have an explicit rule to cite to point to readied actions only being available in combat.
Hmm? Except you do. If you want the chunk of text and the mechanical benefits that come from what it means to "Ready" on Core pg203, then you are operating in initiative/combat.
... after your turn is over but before your next one has begun .. Your initiative result changes .. for the rest of the encounter, your initiative result is the count .. Initiative Consequences .. initiative result becomes the count ..
If one reads this block of rules, it's pretty darn clear you're in turns/initiative/combat, since all the text references this, and this whole section is under "Special Initiative Actions".
Want the specific crunch for that rule, which is basically all about modifying initiative under 'Special Initiative Actions'? Yeah, you need to be in initiative.
It's just like you can't take a random sentence from a spell and say "yeah I want that, but without casting the spell" - you can't ignore the context in which the rule's mechanical effect is presented.
None of this has any bearing on the "normal stuff" one does that isn't codified in rules with mechanical effects (like breathing normally, blinking normally, smiling, drawing a weapon to show to the blacksmith, being "ready" for your first day of school, etc).
The incident happened like this.
1. We detected via Perception there were hostiles on the other side of the door.
2. Party gets ready for combat.
3. I break down the door after three attempts.
4. Two enemies take their readied actions to attack me: one a spell and another crits me with a firearm. I die. The other enemies don't take their action because I'm dead and they can't do anything to my allies.
5. GM calls for initiative.
I would say that your first attempt to break down the door initiated combat. At that point, the enemies were certainly aware of your presence and what you were trying to do. Since it took you three attempts, they had at least 2 rounds to prepare and ready.
I think the GM's only mistake was not getting your initiative order before you started breaking down the door. That would have made it clear that your allies could have also readied actions.
Generally, I'll call for initiative as soon as people start prepping for combat, certainly after someone says, "As soon as the door opens, I will..." That's the definition of a readied action, and if someone wants to do that, we need to be in initiative order.
Whether or not the enemies are doing the same thing depends on how quiet you guys are.
The incident happened like this.
1. We detected via Perception there were hostiles on the other side of the door.
2. Party gets ready for combat.
3. I break down the door after three attempts.
4. Two enemies take their readied actions to attack me: one a spell and another crits me with a firearm. I die. The other enemies don't take their action because I'm dead and they can't do anything to my allies.
5. GM calls for initiative.
I think the enemy preparing to attack the first person seen at the door is perfectly reasonable in this case - particularly because you revealed yourself quite thoroughly with 2 unsuccessful attempts and gave them plenty of warning. If they aren't readying to repel invaders, I'd be surprised.
My question is - what were your fellow PCs doing? Were they readying to do anything once the door was opened? Were they assuming they couldn't do anything until initiative was rolled?
You don't have an explicit rule to cite to point to readied actions only being available in combat.Hmm? Except you do. If you want the chunk of text and the mechanical benefits that come from what it means to "Ready" on Core pg203, then you are operating in initiative/combat.
... after your turn is over but before your next one has begun .. Your initiative result changes .. for the rest of the encounter, your initiative result is the count .. Initiative Consequences .. initiative result becomes the count ..If one reads this block of rules, it's pretty darn clear you're in turns/initiative/combat, since all the text references this, and this whole section is under "Special Initiative Actions".
Want the specific crunch for that rule, which is basically all about modifying initiative under 'Special Initiative Actions'? Yeah, you need to be in initiative.
It's just like you can't take a random sentence from a spell and say "yeah I want that, but without casting the spell" - you can't ignore the context in which the rule's mechanical effect is presented.
None of this has any bearing on the "normal stuff" one does that isn't codified in rules with mechanical effects (like breathing normally, blinking normally, smiling, drawing a weapon to show to the blacksmith, being "ready" for your first day of school, etc).
I want to ready an action to cast featherfall on my ally in case he doesn't jump the gap.
Or.
As soon as the king and his knights ride closer to us, I would like to ready an action to cast a quickened Wall of stone to ready the ambush.
Are you saying that neither of these attempts can be readied?
There are plenty of rules that just make sense, 1 guy bursting through a door and getting peppered with arrows seems pretty clear cut to me.
Mind you a lot of people are saying "well the other PC's should have prepared an action! And rolled their initiative!"
To do what exactly?
They are huddled around the corner, and all the information they have is that there is enemies on the other side.
From the enemy perspective, they were probably fan out around the room, and they only know 1 thing: Release your arrow into whatever comes through that door.
I don't think anyone is going to be surprised be a guys taking 18 seconds to bash through the door, so I don't know why there would be a surprise round.Surprise round: Occurs when door opener succeeds in opening door. The door is now open and the surprise round is over. The door opener used his standard action to open the door.
Then roll initiative and proceed normally.
I was suggesting that only the guy actually opening the door actually knows when it is going to open, so only he gets to act in the surprise round (barring special abilities to the contrary possessed by any of the combatants). The alternative would be to go into initiative or a surprise round (assuming that the foes are alerted to the PC party's presence by the failed attempt to open the door) as soon as the door opener makes his first attempt to open the door, but that somehow doesn't seem right since the party still has the option to avoid the combat completely unless the foes on the other side are thinking about opening the door to pursue them.
The key point is that the opening of the door should occur before people start acting in initiative order -- otherwise, you are back to the whole readied actions fiasco.
You don't have an explicit rule to cite to point to readied actions only being available in combat.Hmm? Except you do. If you want the chunk of text and the mechanical benefits that come from what it means to "Ready" on Core pg203, then you are operating in initiative/combat.
... after your turn is over but before your next one has begun .. Your initiative result changes .. for the rest of the encounter, your initiative result is the count .. Initiative Consequences .. initiative result becomes the count ..If one reads this block of rules, it's pretty darn clear you're in turns/initiative/combat, since all the text references this, and this whole section is under "Special Initiative Actions".
Want the specific crunch for that rule, which is basically all about modifying initiative under 'Special Initiative Actions'? Yeah, you need to be in initiative.
Okay, I am not disagreeing with you, because your logic is totally sound. I just want to get clear how this operates in a certain situation. The corner cases with this are going to be situations where things might turn hostile. For the purposes of imagination say a ranger sees a gnome, that he suspects is evil, about to take off on a sleigh full of children that the ranger is certain will be used in devilish sacrifices to some dark god. They're not in initiative yet, because nothing hostile has happened.
Ranger nocks arrow and draws bow: Freeze Gnomey-Mcgnomepants! You so mutch as twitch a hand on those reins and I'll drop this arrow in your eyesocket.
Now, is the initiative rolled right there? If so, what if the ranger botches the roll? Clearly the gnome isn't going to be surprised, so there's no surprise round. But, according to your logic, the ranger can't ready a standard action to fire the arrow, because initiative has not been rolled yet.
Or, does initiative get rolled before the ranger makes his hostile statement? If so, how the hell could that be, because nobody knew the ranger was going to be hostile until he made the hostile statement...?
Again, I agree that the fact that the ready action is listed under special initiative actions definitely speaks to it having to be used while in initiative, but there has to be a way to "ready" an action outside of combat for situations like that listed above. So how would that operate?