What cool ways have you found to use skills for initiative?

[Captain Morgan]

I've had a few sequences like something out of a Tarantino movie where the party has sat down with an NPC they are suspicious of but don't want the NPC to know they about their suspicions. This creates really fun moments to use ruses to try and figure each other out, and then use Deception for initiative when it inevitably leads to violence. Really love those.

Athletics has come up a few times when people are racing each other to a specific destination. Sometime this is just two PCs seeing who can out-idiot the other by charging heedlessly into the next room, and other times this is from someone trying to stop someone else from reaching a specific destination via grappling.

I'm planning one fight against Rocs. I figure the birds will spot the party from pretty far away and there aren't a lot of rules to support a bird of prey in a dive or even how quickly objects fall in general. So I plan to let them dive bomb the party and then use Acrobatics to to double as their initiative and their Arrest Fall reaction. Their acrobatics bonus is lower than their Perception score, but this will allow them to begin the combat at their ideal striking distance. Still working out the distances for players who beat them in initiative. I'm thinking either the distance of a single move which is doubled for flying downwards (120 feet) or just putting the Rocs at their arrival destination 15 feet above the ground, potentially allowing the players to strike them with close range stuff before they start snatching people.

What fun shenanigans have y'all had?

[Zwordsman]

I haven't had any yet..

but for the life of me someday. I'd love to use Craft. Maybe trying to finish crafting a defense. Or maybe use it to activate defenses. No clue.. just think that would be awesome. Maybe activating a trap.

[Appletree]

Athletics comes up a lot. E.g. When the Fighter smashed a door down, or when the Monk started a combat by leaping a 20-foot chasm between buildings.

[Corvo Spiritwind]

I got ninja'd about Athletics to kick down a door or break in through the window and saying "OH YEAH!"

[Eoni]

Does anyone know if you can use your Recall Knowledge for Initiative? I can kind of see a Wizard encountering an elemental and immediately going on the defensive and rolling Arcana since he knows what they typically do in combat.

[Captain Morgan]

Eoni wrote:

Does anyone know if you can use your Recall Knowledge for Initiative? I can kind of see a Wizard encountering an elemental and immediately going on the defensive and rolling Arcana since he knows what they typically do in combat.

I'd say I wouldn't use that as a default when encountering a creature your familiar with as that would be quite potent. (Though that would make a really cool skill feat and I might steal it.)

But I could see it in situations where there is a little foreshadowing and/or a trap. Maybe your wizard catches a glimpse of an elemental gem and realizes what is about to appear with Arcana. Maybe your druid sees an area is full of spiderwebs and uses Nature to guess where the spider must be lurking. That sort of thing.

[Rysky]

Or in a game where amnesia is at play and you start to catch on to/remember the antagonist's plans.

[Appletree]

Corvo Spiritwind wrote:

I got ninja'd about Athletics to kick down a door or break in through the window and saying "OH YEAH!"

Oh my god my fighter is obsessed with trying to make his character play like the kool-aid man and I have to watch, horrified.

[Siro]

During the playtest days, I had a player use Legendary Negotiator in a fight {the feat, in the middle of combat, can make everyone stop for a moment to engage in peaceful negotiations.) When said negotiation broke down, I had him roll a Diplomacy for his initiative {and the PC whom untimely broke the process by trying to cast an offensive spell a Deception initiative)

[Zwordsman]

for recall knowledge. I could see maybe rolling that if they see summoning sigils, or coalescing magic and they call out the roll before you finish narrating the event and call for inititive.

[Ventnor]

Obviously, what you have to do is backflip into every battle so that you can use Acrobatics for initiative.

[ChibiNyan]

Intimidate is the obvious one when 2 groups start shouting at each other before the encounter begins!

Bandits: Surrender your valuables!
Fighter: I'll give you my sword, TO YOUR FACE!

Roll initiative!

[no good scallywag]

I believe there is a chart in the book that addresses how far/fast things fall!

[RangerWickett]

Appletree wrote:

Corvo Spiritwind wrote:

I got ninja'd about Athletics to kick down a door or break in through the window and saying "OH YEAH!"

Oh my god my fighter is obsessed with trying to make his character play like the kool-aid man and I have to watch, horrified.

In 2nd edition AD&D, a friend of mine played a water elementalist wizard. The group encountered an ogre magi, which was a bit beyond their abilities. Nobody wanted to get into melee with the guy, so for a while they stalled and talked, but then the wizard cast change self to make himself look like The Kool-Aid Man.

The ogre didn't see this as an offensive gesture, so he just laughed and kept threatening the PCs.

Then the wizard cast insatiable thirst, which made the ogre feel compelled to drink anything he saw. And the wizard ran away.

The ogre chased after him as the wizard ran in circles, and the party gradually wore the ogre down with ranged attacks.