Evil gloating


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion


Question: when a villain doing evil gloating before the fight can someone in range make an AoO against them (and mabye a sneak attack also)? I would think so. mainly because it would be funny. (particularly if said character vorpaled the bad guy's head off before he can do anything.)


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If someone is talking to the party, unless someone is somehow not being observed they can't exactly qualify for a sneak attack. It really depends on how the GM feels. Talking is a free action. Technically it takes no actions and time doesn't pass.

More realistically a GM could let someone hop in and interrupt the monologue (or conversation) with an simple "I attack!" Generally that would just be the start of combat, not a surprise round or an attack of opportunity. It would make sense to have everybody except for the person that started the fight roll initiative and just put the person that starts as the top of initiative.

But sometimes the GM has something important to tell the players and you can't let them interrupt the dialogue. You can't let an impatient player steal the limelight every time.


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Yqatuba wrote:
Question: when a villain doing evil gloating before the fight can someone in range make an AoO against them (and mabye a sneak attack also)? I would think so. mainly because it would be funny.

This is likely attempting to punish your GM for doing what they can to make it memorable. Personally I'd probably allow it for some enemies and not others. If I'm trying to set a big scene and a player is like "I run across the bridge while you're talking!" it would be kind of the same thing.

What's worse is that if your GM isn't used to this kind of behavior, they may not be good at handling it and be like "he's surrounded by a force-field!" or something lame. Worse still is removing your autonomy by saying "no you didn't do that."

IMO, it'd be best not to put your GM in this position, but I can see it going either way depending on their experience and such. I've certainly been honest with players and allowing them to do things oddly, often resulting in good memories. Last game they were going to retreat from a creekbed they jumped into, but before going one player climbed it, grabbed an opponent, threw him into the creek bed, the others manacled him and they ran off with the captured enemy! All fairly doable with only slight stretching of any rules, highly memorable, and a little odd to do given that his real intention was to kill one out of revenge since they'd had issues with that fight.


Speaking is a free action, and usually the villain monologue in pre-published adventures tend to help the party by giving important information or context. So as a GM, I usually say that the monologue is completed conveniently just before they die/the party goes down or retreats, possibly taking multiple rounds to complete instead of just one. Because while the monologue is gimmicky and not a good idea in real life, it also is occasionally an important plot piece and can help set a scene and tone of a fight. That said, ask your GM how they feel like dealing with it because it could be amusing and there are other ways to put important information out there if the monologue has some.


I mean if you think it's funny to not roleplay during a roleplaying game so that the story can not continue after you're done murdering, you gotta do you, I guess.

But keep in mind that the person running the game for you has likely looked forward to this moment, so the one person looking out for your fun likely deserves to have some too.


Talking doesn't provoke an AOO. The player could decide to just attack and interrupt the villain, but that would just call for everyone to roll for initiative since the player doesn't have any element of surprise.


Sometimes the Villian deserves to be dropped into a pit mid speech.

The resulting "naked prison escape sequence" you are put through when the Villian then kicks your party's ass is usually worth it


Someone did this in a campaign I was in once and we failed to recieve a story based clue because of it and the party ended up failing the quest and dying as a result.

I suspect that if the GM had been less annoyed at the player's tendency to interrupt flavor text with initiative rolls there would have been alternate methods of gaining the information readily available.


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Ryan Freire wrote:

Someone did this in a campaign I was in once and we failed to recieve a story based clue because of it and the party ended up failing the quest and dying as a result.

I suspect that if the GM had been less annoyed at the player's tendency to interrupt flavor text with initiative rolls there would have been alternate methods of gaining the information readily available.

This is true. I have a player who has the annoying habit of saying he attacks midway through scene descriptions or speeches. I intend to let him however I also intend to move vital information to the end of all such introductions so he attacks allies , kills of clues and generally spreads his annoyance around until he learns better.

GM's are players too and annoying them a lot can make your life more difficult


In the past I've had "Monologue Killers", too. The rest of the party might have been interested in what the villain had to say but these guys would make sure that they never got to hear it.

That's one of the things I liked about TORG. In addition to the single d20 dice mechanic it had cards that allowed a character to do various things, such as the Monologue card. If someone drew that they were allowed to finish what they were saying no matter what the rest of the party wanted to do.


The villain's monologue is the GM's role-play moment. Interrupt at your peril.


How about an evil monologue feat (semi serious here)


Depending on the gloat-level, I'll probably let someone bluff to try and get a surprise round. Lead the villain's monologue to your advantage.

It's not a free shot, exactly, so much as an opportunity to earn one.


I generally tell my players during Session Zero that one rule of my games is that villain monologues are a cinematic moment that are interrupted at the PCs' peril. This is part of my attempts to pace adventure RPGs like an action-adventure TV series. I also warn the player that the villain's monologue usually provides the PCs with some kind of important information they'll need, and that cutting the monologue short may very well prevent them from getting that info, which will make their quest harder.

That said, I often have the villain give the monologue from a position of relative safety... such as on a balcony overlooking the PCs, or while sitting on a throne on a dias surrounded by guards... or even via a project image spell.


You could borrow the Soliloquy rule from the Hero system. Monologues are done in zero time.


I'd say this is as funny as your character always being attacked when he is unprepared, without armour on, spells not prepared yet, away from weapons, without access to means of defense or retaliation.
The game relies on a few assumptions, even more so when pulling the classical tropes of adventurers having come a long way to defeat the villain, denying those assumptions breaks the game.

This isn't to say what ensues can't be interesting but make sure everyone does find it interesting before moving in this direction. Don't forget the game master is a player just as well, he is here to have a good time as well.

I'd see interrupting the villain's monologue for no other reason than lolz at the same level as I see players having their character steal/kill other P.C.s and justify it with "this is his personality", acceptable on some tables, forbidden on most, always requires explicit consent beforehand.

When what makes sense in the game is unwise or unkind in the metagame, the metagame trumps the game.

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