I have not found any rule on how to resolve ties in initiative. Am I missing the rule, or is there not one?
Ties in initiative if it is between players, the players decide which order they want to act in. If the tie is between aplayer an an enemy, the enemy goes first.
I can answer that one at least difinitively.
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what page is that on?
Page 304, in the later part of Step 1: Roll Initiative. The final paragraph is as follows.
"If your initiative roll result is tied with an opponent’s result, that opponent goes first. If your initiative roll result is tied with another player character’s result, you can decide between yourselves who goes first when you reach that place in the initiative order. Once you’ve resolved who goes first, your places in the initiative order usually don’t change during the encounter."
I am having a really hard time translating the rulebook from what it says in text to what it should mean at the table. The wording of the book is not easily understood when it comes to how the rules are to be applied. Examples:
1. They dying condition. Page 295-296 does not clearly lay out how a character goes from 0HP back to functional Positive HP, or a "back into the fight" condition. The wording on page 295 especially, under the section "If you are at 1 hit point or more:" it only lists a success condition.
2. Fighter Feat Two Weapon Flurry. Page 95. "Strike twice, once with each weapon. These do not count toward the multiple attack penalty until the second Strike." The "until the second strike part is messing me up. Does this mean the first hand is full bonus, and 2nd hand is -5? Or does it mean the two attacks are at the same bonus and after this activity, then apply the -5 or -10 to whatever comes after?
These are just 2 examples but all throughout the book I just feel like I'm supposed to approach the game with the same given assumptions as the writers did, but I have no idea what those given assumptions are.
I hope more people add to this post as they find confusing wording issues.
Dying is confusing that is for sure. If you are at 0 hp and make your recovery save you go to 1 hp, but are still unconscious. You can then make another recovery check to become conscious. But you still have whatever Dying you got to so say Dying 2. At the end of your turn if you are at 1 hp or higher and conscious you dying condition decreases by 1.
For the second one the attacks are both at the current minus so if it is the first attack they are both at -0, but if you attack again it is at a -10.
1. They dying condition. Page 295-296 does not clearly lay out how a character goes from 0HP back to functional Positive HP, or a "back into the fight" condition. The wording on page 295 especially, under the section "If you are at 1 hit point or more:" it only lists a success condition.
That's because nothing happens on a failure once you have positive HP.
4. Determine the Degree of Success
Comparing a result to a DC determines which of the four degrees of success you achieve—success, critical success, failure, or critical failure. This tells you whether (and how spectacularly) you succeeded or failed. Some checks don’t specify every degree of success. If no critical success or critical failure is specified, use the effect of an ordinary success or failure, respectively. If no success or failure is described, nothing happens depending on what isn’t described.
Seriously? That is how they decided to "solve" it? Rules need to be written in such a way that it doesn't matter whether participants are PCs or NPCs. In this case, how do you handle PVP? They're both players, so they should decide between them, but since they're trying to kill each other neither has any reason to let the other go first; Since they are both opponents, they both go last.
"If your initiative roll result is tied with an opponent’s result, that opponent goes first. If your initiative roll result is tied with another player character’s result, you can decide between yourselves who goes first when you reach that place in the initiative order. Once you’ve resolved who goes first, your places in the initiative order usually don’t change during the encounter."
Just get them to flat roll. Highest goes first.
PvP? Why? Does this happen often in your experience? I've found PvP experiences tend to undermine the game.
Also a good point.
And yes, I've seen PvP happen for multiple reasons. In the university gaming group it happened because there were a few players who hated each other, and I will agree that undermines a game.
In that case, it doesn't need an in-game rule, it needs an out-of-game conversation.
But I've seen both a player retain control of their character when they got mind controlled unknown to the rest of the party (which made the betrayal actually surprising and fun), and I've had two players trying to role play their characters as faithfully as possible look on in horror as a their characters refused to listen to them and got into a fight (that one was... interesting. Moral is if you are running a game with multiple heavy role players make sure to learn enough about their characters so as not to throw in a choice their characters have differing views on and willing to risk their lives for.).
If they're an enemy of the party, then they go first, as the DM rule says. If they're PVP in-game, they decide between themselves how they go first, whether that's a simple roll-off, rock-paper-scissors, coin flip, a polite request (less likely :-) ), etc. If they can't agree on anything, then there needs to be an out-of-game conversation.
I honestly feel like it's a very corner-case thing; it also happens so rarely (maybe once or twice a game, at max?) that it shouldn't even need much adjudicating. It happened to us in our first game, and I let the other player go first. It didn't matter either way, and when it does matter, it helps coordination of actions immeasurably.
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I *loathe* using different rules for players and NPCs in situations such as initiative. I can't think of a coherent in-world reason why tied initiative should always disfavor the party. Do the gods just not love them?
I would be fine with a system that was consistent for both sides - whether that's favoring whoever has the highest initiative modifier, requiring a roll off, or whatever. Did I miss the explanation, somewhere, as to why this change was made? Because it just seems arbitrary and non-immersive and kind of unfair to the party.
I will run it as written for the playtest - but if I don't have the epiphany so that I see the logic of this change, it's pretty likely to be houseruled into oblivion once I'm running non-playtest material.