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In one of the Paizo playtest videos they've put online the PCs were sneaking and it came time to role initiative. GM told a player he can roll Stealth. Player looked at sheet and said do I have to use Stealth. GM said no you can use Perception if you want.
Not sure if that option is represented in the book (RAW) but putting it out there.
If the game sticks with its use of different skills for initiative, I do think there has to be some mechanical difference between them. Being stealthy or diplomatic is about more than just a higher number, it's about being in a position to take them by surprise and affect the flow of the battle.
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Various variations of this have come up in several games so far, but this came to a head today.
The PCs approached a Gnoll village with one of them using a Hat of Disguise to appear as a Gnoll, and the others pretending to be prisoners. Deception checks were made successfully. After the PCs got close to the gnoll guards and established there were not many in the village, they decided to attack.
I wanted to just give them a surprise round. But being a playtest it was pointed out that I should go RAW, which means that they would roll Stealth for initiative - even though for the majority of characters, their Stealth was lower than their Perception, meaning they would be penalized for this strategy. I suppose in hindsight they could also have rolled Deception, but that would have had the same problem, and wipe out the value of the earlier critical success on Deception that the disguised PC made.
Is there a good way to deal with this? The problem is it's easy for players who know that Perception is used for initiative to focus bonuses on it, leaving them stuck when it isn't.
You didn't actually go by RAW by I'm afraid. Even setting aside my usual spiel on "how to do the PF2 surprise round," the obvious solution would have been have been to have the players use deception, not stealth. There's even an example like this in the book. You could have had the played use their previous deception rolls or roll again.
It is possible players could have rolled something else, too. Like if your rogue wants to pull a concealed knife, she could roll stealth (or is concealing an object thievery? I don't remember.)
Rolling deception or perception would have been the way to go. As their action was deceiving the gnolls to think there was no threat.
I guess preparing an action, while deceiving them could be just fine. So that would be a "surprise round". It might have just been ready weapon as they should not have been armed at the time however saving an action is still good.
Not their previous perception rolls, just let them take new rolls. Other than that I do not follow what you wrote ^^
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The way I've been running it is that if the PCs initiate combat after already having rolled skill checks against an opposition group, they just use the previous checks and the enemies use their flat (10 + modifier) skill that the PCs rolled against. For example, in a case like this, if the PCs succeeded on Deception against a group's Perception, the gnolls would use 10 + Perception as their initiative, while the PCs would use their previous Deception roll, allowing the PCs to go first. Likewise, if the PCs had instead failed, the same would apply but the gnolls would go first, and in a mix of successes and failures only the successful PCs would get to go before the gnolls. I feel like the enemy would only roll initiative when there wasn't an attempt to use skills against them prior.
I have no idea if this is correct since the RAW are confusing, it's just what seems the most sensible interpretation to me.
I've experimented with sticking with whatever skill suits the circumstance and not giving the perception option. This has the organic consequence that the bad bluffer doesn't get the drop on enemies by bluffing, however I'm trying to balance things so that attempting to bluff/sneak has an upside (better positioning) and isn't often inferior to just rushing the enemy.
How I would interpret the initiative rules is to give the player the choice of rolling any skill which is appropriate for the circumstances. Like one's acumen for noticing things doesn't shut off when they are being sneaky or duplicitous.
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Now to figure out how I can use Medicine to roll initiative...
I'm confused as to why you didn't just treat the "we fooled them into us being non-threatening" rolls as being the initiative rolls of the party.
Just like trying to set an ambush means you roll stealth and your intended targets roll perception to answer the question "do they notice you in time to ready themselves, or do you catch them off guard?", the rolls you had already asked for are answering the question "do they realize you are a threat in time to do something about it, or no?:
The new idea that Initiative can be just about any roll, as appropriate to the circumstances, is an awesome one, and it should be embraced.
This is exactly how it should be done, though I suspect it will take GMs some time to get used to the system. The easiest way to go about it is to simply write down the value for each check that could potentially be used for initiative as it comes up (have a column for each PC on a sheet of paper and just write their numbers down in order as they happen), or just ask each player to always remember their last skill check (leaving the die they rolled face up helps with this). Just last night I had the situation where a player used a Society check for initiative as they happened to make such a check right before they were attacked. The PC won initiative and I flavored it as they realized these monsters wouldn't negotiate and the PC had their spidey sense go off, allowing them to act just before the monsters drew their weapons.
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Now to figure out how I can use Medicine to roll initiative...
A PC is examining a corpse to see what killed it when the corpse (that is actually a zombie) sits up to attack. A high score indicates the PC realizes the corpse isn't quite dead before it can attack.
Now to figure out how I can use Medicine to roll initiative...A PC is examining a corpse to see what killed it when the corpse (that is actually a zombie) sits up to attack. A high score indicates the PC realizes the corpse isn't quite dead before it can attack.
I meant on living opponents.