I know there's no surprise round anymore. Still, I'm wondering how to handle the following situation:
The party and the evil count are negotiating the conditions for him releasing some hostages. There is some diplomacy and role-playing happening, but no combat. Suddenly, the party's barbarian decides he has had enough of the negotiations and declares that he charges the count's throne to attack.
Normally, I wouldn't run role-play negotiations like that in encounter mode / initiative order, but rather more free-form. Maybe that's a mistake?!
Obviously, when the barbarian charges, I have everyone roll for initiative. But does the barbarian get a head start by surprising everyone with his charge? I.e. does he still get some form of "surprise round" before everyone else gets to act? Or does he announce "I charge", then everyone rolls initiative, and then depending on the results other people possibly get to act before the barbarian even gets to go? Seems counter-intuitive not to give him a head start, doesn't it?!
Basically do the charge, and then roll initiative. That was the recommendation on one "ask the devs" Paizo stream, and how I believe Jason handled it in one Knights of Everflame episode.
Also I should note that the situation I noted is more for when one side isn't aware of the other. In this case, it'd be standard initiative.
A free turn seems a bit much, but maybe he should get to go at the top of the initiative order?
Or, to similar effect, the GM has everyone roll initiative to establish the turn order, but until the barbarian's charge actually triggers open hostilities, everyone before him has no reason to fight, so doesn't attack/draw weapons, etc. (but rather spend their actions on talking). Essentially, switch the negotiations to a regular encounter mode /initiative order, but only start actual combat once the first punch has been thrown (by the barbarian, in this case).
Yes, I think, I like that version the best. Starting combat before the triggering action has even happened (and might not even happen, should the barbarian change his mind when it's his turn finally) is way too counter-intuitive for my taste.
Of course, to prevent these nasty surprises, negotiations tend to happen at some distance between ideally unarmed parties.
Thanks for your input
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It's not like he was being sneaky. If he was he'd roll Deception and then trick them, or Stealth to maneuver in with grace. He just shouts "ENOUGH!" and starts running at someone with his axe out.
So maybe someone noticed he was getting frustrated, or someone read the room and could see he was getting impatient, or maybe someone knew or was told to watch him... so now Perception for initiative makes sense, right?
Since the PCs are just as surprised as the barbarian, I'd let the PCs also roll Diplomacy if they didn't intend to fight or wanted to disavow the barbarian and help the enemies.
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That is a difficult situation, but also why I have been running any "high stakes" situations in encounter mode, initiative and all. This also desensitizes the party to rolling initiative, which allows me an element of surprise in when there are and aren't bad guys around.
Important dialogue, especially with potential villains? Roll initiative, use your best speech skill. Characters that aren't actively taking part in negotiations are free to use Perception as they are "keeping a look out".
Picking a lock in a dangerous area? Roll initiative, use Thievery.
Party entered a mysterious glade? Somebody gets a bad feeling? Roll initiative. Whether there are baddies or not.
Try out using initiative in a broader number of situations. Not only does it allow you to obfuscate when there are actually enemies around, but it also mitigates a single character taking the entire spotlight in a given situation as everyone at the table has a turn to use to tackle a problem.
I've found it really helps with the "Battle music started guys, there are bad guys afoot," issue of calling for initiative when the party is about to get ambushed.
I am not sure why this is an issue? The barbarian starts obviously hostile movements. If the foes roll high they roll high enough to react/prepare in advance.
If the foes roll low the barbarian attacks.
Same thing for allies, they see the barbarian become aggressive.
Anything else would require a deception check for initiative and that would still handle it fine.
Yeah, I'd say this calls for rolling initiative. It is an intense situation, so everyone would be on guard, and the second the barbarian begins moving others might react. You might allow your barbarian to roll Athletics for initiative, which would represent if he can sprint and reach the throne before the enemy reacts. Given that's likely one of their highest bonuses, that should let them still benefit from their decision without giving them an automatic "surprise round."
That is a difficult situation, but also why I have been running any "high stakes" situations in encounter mode, initiative and all. This also desensitizes the party to rolling initiative, which allows me an element of surprise in when there are and aren't bad guys around.
Important dialogue, especially with potential villains? Roll initiative, use your best speech skill. Characters that aren't actively taking part in negotiations are free to use Perception as they are "keeping a look out".
Picking a lock in a dangerous area? Roll initiative, use Thievery.
Party entered a mysterious glade? Somebody gets a bad feeling? Roll initiative. Whether there are baddies or not.
Try out using initiative in a broader number of situations. Not only does it allow you to obfuscate when there are actually enemies around, but it also mitigates a single character taking the entire spotlight in a given situation as everyone at the table has a turn to use to tackle a problem.
I've found it really helps with the "Battle music started guys, there are bad guys afoot," issue of calling for initiative when the party is about to get ambushed.
Do you find that bogs down your game a little? I find rolling initiative is often one of the bigger slow downs at my table. Admittedly, much of that is from me needing to roll initiative for any monsters and then compare them to my players, so it might be easier if just the players are rolling it. In fact, I know it can be-- last night I threw some "auto win" encounters at my group that I didn't bother rolling for. I just had the party roll initiative and whoever went first took their turn to see if they burned a spell slot, and then just let them dictate what they did to win.
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What did the Barbarian expect to get from charging like this? Maybe catching people unaware?
Deception check for Initiative then.
Or did he expect them to be shocked by his dominating behavior? Intimidate check for Initiative it is then.
My default roll for Initiative is Perception. If a character wants to use a skill check instead, they have to declare it and act appropriately.
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Yeah, no free action.
Everyone rolls initiative. What they roll could vary.
For everyone but the barbarian, diplomacy, or perception are probably the most appropriate.
For the barbarian intimidate, deception, or athletics (throwing the barb a bone) could be appropriate.
But basically if the enemy rolls higher they sensed the barbarians actions and reacted more quickly than the barbarian could act.
There is no surprise round anymore, you just get to go first if you roll the best. Initiating actions no longer means you automatically go first.
Which I think is better. I think it's only a problem to people who are too used to PF1 method.
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I am not sure why this is an issue? The barbarian starts obviously hostile movements. If the foes roll high they roll high enough to react/prepare in advance.
The logical issue I have with that order of events is that that would require the barbarian to announce his "triggering" action before it's even his turn and then stick to his decision regardless of the actions of everyone else. Because without the sudden charge, we would not have entered combat at all, so anything but having that action as the first action in combat doesn't really work. Instead of having an advantage by rushing the enemy by surprise, he quite possibly gets a major disadvantage that noone else in initiative order normally gets.
I generally find running encounters that are mostly roleplaying in initiave order quite cumbersome. It slows down the game too much for my taste. But obviously, for a transition to combat like this, we need to get into initiative order. Still, I think letting the opposition (potentially, depending on rolls) go first knowing combat is about to happen is wrong.
Rather, rolling intitiave to establish the order in which characters get to act when the player announces he's about to deviate from the current roleplay action and then starting combat on that player's turn feels much more appropriate to me. After all, it would've been the same if we had just run the entire negotiation in initiative order in the first place.
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I am not sure why this is an issue? The barbarian starts obviously hostile movements. If the foes roll high they roll high enough to react/prepare in advance.The logical issue I have with that order of events is that that would require the barbarian to announce his "triggering" action before it's even his turn and then stick to his decision regardless of the actions of everyone else. Because without the sudden charge, we would not have entered combat at all, so anything but having that action as the first action in combat doesn't really work. Instead of having an advantage by rushing the enemy by surprise, he quite possibly gets a major disadvantage that noone else in initiative order normally gets.
I generally find running encounters that are mostly roleplaying in initiave order quite cumbersome. It slows down the game too much for my taste. But obviously, for a transition to combat like this, we need to get into initiative order. Still, I think letting the opposition (potentially, depending on rolls) go first knowing combat is about to happen is wrong.
Rather, rolling intitiave to establish the order in which characters get to act when the player announces he's about to deviate from the current roleplay action and then starting combat on that player's turn feels much more appropriate to me. After all, it would've been the same if we had just run the entire negotiation in initiative order in the first place.
I disagree. I think the issue here is you're thinking of actions within the same round as actually happening sequentially, when turns are an abstraction and actions are happening simultaneously in fiction. Your barbarian didn't complete their Sudden Charge, thereby triggering initiative. They began to go on the attack and other people recognized it before he could reach them, or perhaps even while he was still coiling back to spring at them.
You can also not commit your player to the Sudden Charge until their turn comes around. Although most of the time that's what they will want to do anyway.
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As implied before, if the situation were reversed, PCs might be livid that the opponent got the jump on them (perhaps winning initiative too!).
Most PCs & guards are going to be vigilant to hostilities, at least in the circumstances involved. Plus, highly trained combatants (PCs, spies, bodyguards, etc.) should have their chance to Sense Motive (which falls under Perception) to detect the imminent aggression.
It's odd to think the Barbarian went from chill to kill before anybody noticed.
For the participants that are truly surprised (roll low), that's represented too. And perhaps there might be penalties to initiative involved, like if the party has established a reputation of being honorable negotiators who'd never attack under a parlay flag or the Barbarian was invisible.
I'd personally give a free action, but not activity. Going for a handshake that you intend to put Harm into? That's saying a single word. Drawing a sword? That will happen, then everyone rolls to see who noticed it first. Everyone has arrows ready to fire? Releasing your fingers is almost instant. Assume your martial stance, or cast true strike, even Hunt Prey as you narrow your focus and grit your teeth.
But anything more than that, like casting shocking Grasp instead of harm, or trying to draw while advancing, or trying to Flurry, or using anything that requires more than the single action, your opponent gets a chance to notice it, thus innitiate
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The logical issue I have with that order of events is that that would require the barbarian to announce his "triggering" action before it's even his turn and then stick to his decision regardless of the actions of everyone else.
Good news! You just need to reframe your thinking. The barbarian doesn't take or commit to the action of Sudden Charge. The barbarian starts to act aggressively by announcing they want to take a hostile action to the GM, but they don't actually perform that action.
The GM (and in this case other PCs) all roll initiative to see if they're aware of the barbarians action and can respond more quickly than the barbarian can act. That's literally what's initiative is supposed to determine, who acts more quickly.
In this case, if someone beats the barbarian they noticed the barb's aggressive actions at the first hints and started to react, and do so more quickly than the barbarian can act. That's it.
A great example of this is when Han shoot Greedo first.
If the entire negotiation phase had instead been run in encounter mode and initiative order like beowulf99 suggested, would it then not be entirely different? We're already established in initiative order and only when it's the barbarian's turn to act, he switches from his usual "intimidatingly stare at the enemy, while the face does the talking" action to "charge". No precognition for the enemy here.
So why handle the same situation differently merely because the negotiation phase was handled more free form? What it needs is a smooth transition into intiative order ahead of the triggering "incident", I think, to allow for the same sequence of events than if we had been in initiative order from the start.
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I disagree with your idea that we should have run the whole thing in init order as though it were Encounter mode, because it's clearly not encounter mode until it's combat time. Negotiation isn't combat.
It's not precognition, it's Han recognizing Greedo is about to shoot him, and pulling out his blaster and shooting Greedo first.
That point feels moot to me because initiative is a terrible way to represent back and forth dialogue.
So what happens then if the barbarian starts to charge, only for the enemy wizard to notice, get a better initiative, and fireball the party. The barbarian's turn comes up, and he... unconscious. He critically failed the saving throw and was kind of hurt from before. Now then Wizard shot first, as the barbarian wasn't conscious to do his attack on his turn. Or worse, the barbarian decides to to follow through on their original idea wont work, as he went last and cant get close enough to strike. Now the action that started the fight cant/wont happen.
Thus my suggestion of the single surprise action. One action likely wont break the game or end the fight before it starts.
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To me its basically
a) Barbarian _player_ indicates he wants combat to start
b) initiative is rolled (using the variety of relevant skills as people have posted)
c) Characters who beat the barbarian's initiative notice/can react to what's happening, whether that means the PCs try to restrain their own comrade, or delay, or warn the villain, or try to calm down the barbarian, or whether they join in the immediate assault -- that's up to them
No one gets a free action/turn out of it.
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So what happens then if the barbarian starts to charge, only for the enemy wizard to notice, get a better initiative, and fireball the party. The barbarian's turn comes up, and he... unconscious. He critically failed the saving throw and was kind of hurt from before. Now then Wizard shot first, as the barbarian wasn't conscious to do his attack on his turn. Or worse, the barbarian decides to to follow through on their original idea wont work, as he went last and cant get close enough to strike. Now the action that started the fight cant/wont happen.
Thus my suggestion of the single surprise action. One action likely wont break the game or end the fight before it starts.
Again, reframe your thinking.
The barbarian starts to act in a way that indicates they intend to take hostile actions.
Everyone else reacts first.
There's nothing wrong here with it playing out as you describe.
Think of it like this, the barbarian slaps the table and yells "Enough!" Our barbarian friend wants to fight. But the wizard standing in the corner notices this and fireballs his ass before he can finish even standing up. It works just fine.
You just have to understand there is more to the game than combat actions.
To take your narrative:
The barbarian starts to move, deciding he wants to charge, only for the enemy wizard to notice , having better reactions, get a better initiative, and fireball the party. The barbarian's turn comes up, and he... unconscious. He critically failed the saving throw and was kind of hurt from before. Now then Wizard shot first, as the barbarian wasn't conscious to do his attack on his turn but it doesn't matter because there were aggressive signals to notice.
Or worse, the barbarian decides to to follow through on their original idea wont work, as he went last and cant get close enough to strike. Now the action that started the fight cant/wont happen.
This simply isn't a problem, the barbarian gave off hostile signals, others reacted. The enemy's perception represents noticing those hostile signals and reacting to them for init.
What if the Barbarian and the (hypothetical) ranger both wanted to make attacks? If you give out free attacks at the start of combat to whoever declares them it's likely to happen that the other players try to jump in on them too. You detract from roleplaying as you encourage players to declare combat actions out of combat so they can get a free hit in.
The Barbarian becoming hostile, drawing their weapon or moving threateningly, prompted the Fireball. Not the Barbarian doing a Sudden Charge. The turn is not static, with people standing around patiently for others' actions, so the Barbarian probably took a couple menacing steps forward before being blown away. As you note the Barbarian might not even get to Sudden Charge for a number of reasons, so the better fix is to not get hung up on the specific action the player might choose in a turn, but instead to read the intent behind the actions.
While I agree that the turns in Pathfinder are not static and everything is happening simultaneously and all that, I will say that I am a firm believer in the old adage: Action beats reaction every time.
In Star Wars, Han was preparing to shoot Greedo for the entire scene. He unsnaps the thumb catch on his blaster while gesturing with his other hand to keep Greedo's attention away from his gun hand. Han in that scene is the Barbarian in the hypothetical from above: The conversation goes south, Han intuited that Greedo was going to try to shoot him and so he drew and shot first. (Well, so long as you disregard all of Lucas' attempts at making that go the other way. Silly special editions.)
This is why I'm a proponent of running so many situations already in encounter mode. After all, while in theory everything is happening simultaneously, in practice we resolve actions in a one by one manner. If we didn't every entity would get to end their turn no matter what else happened during a round sort of like Battletech. For those who've never played it, basically a common occurrence was a dead unit firing every weapon they have despite that being a generally bad idea due to heat generation because they already knew they were dead.
Read the Social Encounters section of Game Mastering in the Core Rulebook:
Most conversations play best as free-form roleplaying,
with maybe one or two checks for social skills involved.
Sometimes, though, a tense situation or crucial parlay
requires a social encounter that uses initiative, much like
a combat encounter. As with any other encounter, the
stakes of a social encounter need to be high! A failed social
encounter could mean a character is imprisoned or put to
death, a major rival becomes a political powerhouse, or a
key ally is disgraced and ostracized.
Using the structure of an encounter is helpful because
it makes the timing clearer than in free-form play, and
each character feels like they’re contributing.
Note that this is an excerpt and not the rule in it's entirety, but it generally gets the point across.
And no, this does not specifically address the Barbarian charge mid conversation. But it does support the idea that any tense situation should be run already in encounter mode to make timing a non-issue.
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So what happens then if the barbarian starts to charge, only for the enemy wizard to notice, get a better initiative, and fireball the party. The barbarian's turn comes up, and he... unconscious. He critically failed the saving throw and was kind of hurt from before. Now then Wizard shot first, as the barbarian wasn't conscious to do his attack on his turn. Or worse, the barbarian decides to to follow through on their original idea wont work, as he went last and cant get close enough to strike. Now the action that started the fight cant/wont happen.
The barbarian gets ready to charge. The enemy wizard, quickly noticing and reacting to the Barbarian's movements, springs into action faster and hurls a fireball at the Barbarian, knocking him out before he can even finish the first step of his charge.
I honestly don't see anything confusing or unintuitive about that.
It's the equivalent of that scene in every Western ever where one character reaches for their gun and a second character draws and shoots the first dead before they finish. The way you propose running it the second character wouldn't be allowed to act until the first has already finished shooting.
While I agree that the turns in Pathfinder are not static and everything is happening simultaneously and all that, I will say that I am a firm believer in the old adage: Action beats reaction every time.
In Star Wars, Han was preparing to shoot Greedo for the entire scene. He unsnaps the thumb catch on his blaster while gesturing with his other hand to keep Greedo's attention away from his gun hand. Han in that scene is the Barbarian in the hypothetical from above: The conversation goes south, Han intuited that Greedo was going to try to shoot him and so he drew and shot first. (Well, so long as you disregard all of Lucas' attempts at making that go the other way. Silly special editions.)
This is why I'm a proponent of running so many situations already in encounter mode. After all, while in theory everything is happening simultaneously, in practice we resolve actions in a one by one manner. If we didn't every entity would get to end their turn no matter what else happened during a round sort of like Battletech. For those who've never played it, basically a common occurrence was a dead unit firing every weapon they have despite that being a generally bad idea due to heat generation because they already knew they were dead.
Read the Social Encounters section of Game Mastering in the Core Rulebook:
...Most conversations play best as free-form roleplaying,
with maybe one or two checks for social skills involved.
Sometimes, though, a tense situation or crucial parlay
requires a social encounter that uses initiative, much like
a combat encounter. As with any other encounter, the
stakes of a social encounter need to be high! A failed social
encounter could mean a character is imprisoned or put to
death, a major rival becomes a political powerhouse, or a
key ally is disgraced and ostracized.
Using the structure of an encounter is helpful because
it makes the timing clearer than in free-form play, and
each character feels like they’re contributing.
Yeah but in the scenario where the wizard wins initiative, he's Han and the barbarian is Greedo. Actually the Han/Greedo example would be a scene I'd call for both to use deception for initiative and Han rolled higher. There's a similar scenario in Inglorious Bastards.
How does a conversation play out for you in initiative? I'm curious.
Thus far we've only had a handful, so can't really give an honest review. But they didn't feel bogged down. And there was an impetus for more than a single party face to do all the talking, which was a nice change from the standard. I can see even non-face characters contributing by using intimidation or other skills to put the party overall in a better situation instead of just standing there fiddling with their belly buttons. Even just maneuvering around the room the conversation is taking place in can set up more interesting interactions. If the rogue starts poking through shelves in the mayors office, someone is going to react to that after all. Being in initiative order allows you to easily keep track of the amount of poking about the rogue can do, and helps keep the reaction to that poking limited to the number of actions that person may have.
Honestly, whether you start in initiative order or call for initiative whenever someone wants to kick the beehive doesn't matter too much. But it could end up with a sore Barbarian player who ends up losing an action, or even getting the party fireballed, with no recourse. Hence why to me, action would beat reaction. I tend to not "ready actions" outside of combat with adversaries in my games to avoid a "gotcha" feeling. The PC's are the heroes after all.
I have also run other situations, like searching a strange location, already in encounter mode and it definitely helps keep the entire party engaged, rather than one or two players doing all the heavy lifting. Being in initiative order makes players who would normally stay out of a situation realize that their character should really be doing something.
I would love to set up a "presentation" boss battle at some point. Where other players have to choreograph slides and demonstrations to go with a main presenter's spiel. No idea how to fit that into a campaign yet, but it's an interesting idea.
Sometimes reaction beats action. That's a very old trope that your method prevents.
Heck, even in PF1 you could fail to get a surprise round action if the enemy detected you and had higher init.
The only way you could really guarantee taking an action first is to use a readied action, which was super meta.
Sometimes reaction beats action. That's a very old trope that your method prevents.
Heck, even in PF1 you could fail to get a surprise round action if the enemy detected you and had higher init.
The only way you could really guarantee taking an action first is to use a readied action, which was super meta.
It's a trope that I don't subscribe to. If a player wanted to use a readied action to react to unexpected NPC actions, I'm not against it generally. As long as their trigger is something fairly specific that is. "If they pull a weapon I'm attacking," as opposed to "If they take a hostile action,". I tend to require more specific triggers for readied actions and never allow a trigger as vague as, "Their turn begins,".
The thing is, as long as you are talking about 2 different people acting, mechanically we resolve them one at a time despite the idea that everything is happening "simultaneously". I tend to allow for a pseudo surprise round, because I feel like it does make sense in most situations. The easiest way to do that is to begin already in Initiative order, then begin the combat at the person who is initiating's initiative.
Does this open it up to some abuse? Potentially. But that is where you have to step in as a GM and call shenanigans. And it has worked for my group up to this point. I'll let ya'll know if anything changes on that front.
Personally I think your method of doing everything in init order is pretty awful.
Because then it's just whoever decides to attack first (in a situation that isn't explicitly combat) get's the advantage of going first. Which is what initiative is supposed to decide when combat happens.
I'm not saying your way is incorrect, but I don't think its supported by the rules and completely prevents the possibility of acting faster than your enemy if they decide to attack first.
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Also, page 498 is pretty explicit that you go straight to initiative. There's even an example involving a PC negotiating and deciding to launch a surprise attack.
And hey, if you want to house rule, more power to you, but it is IS a house rule.
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This seems reasonable to me to give the barbarian a slight perk for starting the fight when others were likely not ready.
I guess my problem with that suggestion is that seeing how ready everyone else is is literally what initiative exists to codify.
PF2 even specifically lets you roll different checks for initiative, the Barbarian could roll Athletics to represent trying to spring into action faster than anyone can react, Deception to hide their intent until it's too late, Intimidate to represent catching the enemies off guard with their fury or so on.This whole conversation feels like it's searching for a way to handle something that the existing mechanics are already built to accommodate.
The 'free action' solution turns initiative into whichever player declares they go first gets to go first, which feels super gamey to me and has low versimilitude and makes it impossibly to react to other people trying to do things.
Running conversations in combat mode likewise seems really clunky and more or less has the same problem as the above issue, while also kind of breaking the way PF2 handles initiative by depriving players the ability to start combat in alternate fashions.
It just seems so much easier and more logically consistent to just use the initiative system to figure out what the initiative order is when combat starts. But that's just me.
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Also, page 498 is pretty explicit that you go straight to initiative. There's even an example involving a PC negotiating and deciding to launch a surprise attack.
Hmm, yes, that example seems to pretty much cover my question, though I find it odd to consider a negotiation as happening in exploration mode. But still, apparently that's how it's intended to be.
Thank you for pointing out the rule!
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The logical issue I have with that order of events is that that would require the barbarian to announce his "triggering" action before it's even his turn and then stick to his decision regardless of the actions of everyone else. Because without the sudden charge, we would not have entered combat at all, so anything but having that action as the first action in combat doesn't really work. Instead of having an advantage by rushing the enemy by surprise, he quite possibly gets a major disadvantage that noone else in initiative order normally gets.
Imagine being Irving, the 142nd fastest gun in the West. You draw thinking you're drawing on number 143 and it turns out to be 141... and he draws faster than you... (props to "The Ballad of Irving")
That is the situation anybody would be in if they want to start hostilities without either catching their enemies by surprise or suckering them some other way. There are plenty of examples in appropriate media of someone trying to start a fight but being outdrawn. Well, in game terms, they tried to start the fight... and rolled poorly on their initiatives. They basically started making their move but got beat by a fast reaction (everybody who rolled better initiative).
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Eh, to each their own. I never said my way was superior in any way, I simply put out the way that works for my group. Most combats that we end up in, whether I'm gming or not, tend to start without any dialogue whatsoever, so this usually doesn't come up as a rule.
But it does feel odd for the Barbarian to state their intention to attack, then potentially go last in initiative order and have the battle space change so wildly.
As I stated before, while it is true that all actions during a round happen simultaneously, in practice that is simply not true. We resolve turns on a turn for turn basis, and what happens as a result of each characters turn changes the decisions for every other character who goes after.
Definitely just the way my table operates, but it makes sense to us and is the way we do things. I've found that running important dialogues in initiative order does streamline the conversation quite a bit, and gets more players engaged in that dialogue.
And if the party is already in initiative order, there is no reason to call for a new initiative order, now is there? The example on 498 is definitely from the perspective of an exploration mode dialogue, which my group usually doesn't do if the stakes are high enough, or if potential enemies are involved.
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Barbarian declares action.
Foes roll perception to see how quickly they catch on.
Barbarian rolls athletics to see how fast they move (not distance, but how long it takes for them to get there before the foes react)
Other party members roll perception to see how fast they react to the situation.
Situation:
- Barbarian rolls low
- Foes roll high
- Party rolls medium
Resolution:
Foes see the hostile actions/behavior of the babarian and ready weapons or call for them to stand down or be put down.
Party gets to act in turn
Barbarian gets to act because despite their attitude everyone else is reacting faster
Putting this in a real world example, I may charge at someone with a desire to fight but that doesn't mean I necessarily get them them before they threat assess the situation and know how to respond.
Everything is happening within that 6 second window.
Deception or Athletics check for Barbarian's initiative, let others use Diplomacy/Deception/Intimidate if they want to try and talk the Barbarian down (i.e. go first and use their turn to de-escalate) or Perception as normal, and let the villain roll Perception for initiative
And just because you started encounter mode doesn't mean you can hop back out immediately if someone manages to dissuade the Barbarian or use some good roleplaying to keep things from getting out of hand
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As to the OP. You might be able to allow the barbarian to move up for free as close as the adversaries would allow before considering the barbarian's actions hostile and sparking the initiative.
@beowulf99 it sounds like you want to give the 'surprise' Initiator an advantage, which seems reasonable, although overall I tend to agree more with the others on that being the purpose of initiative to determine, and it not being something that should be hard known they get a full turn of their own before everyone else, just for being the declared initiator. However, I think there are ways that might keep some randomness, but may give your initiator the feeling they have been given a reasonable advantage in such a circumstance.
A few options for you to consider (if you are interested in pursuing options utilizing initiative more)
One: roll initiative similar to the official method (barbarian getting the option to roll athletics, intimidation, or deception for initiative), but if none of the other participants were anticipating the start of hostilities yet, any individuals with higher initiative order are allowed to use reactions or a single readied action as their reaction. They potentially might be allowed to declare their action as being a delay allowing them to move their full turn to after the barbarian, if they don't otherwise use a reaction during the barbarian's turn.
Individuals rolling lower than the barbarian may be considered surprised and won't be able to have any sort of readied reaction in place in anticipation to their action.
Another: Allow an individual considering hostilities to roll for initiative in place of their other exploration activities during the negotiations. Use of skills such as Athletics/Intimidation for this initiative check might of course have impact on the negotiations however. Passive checks like perception would presumably not. They get to roll, and don't have to start hostilities after seeing the roll unless they want to. (or if the choice of skill used, and result gotten prompts the other side to start hostilities) This allows a barbarian, even with a low modifier on perception or other initiative skill the option to wait until they feel good about their roll before they spring. However, it still leaves a chance that the other side, if they have someone with really high initiative bonuses may beat out the barbarian. [this could be combined with the above, if you want to limit their 'reaction' to the start of combat]
Note, if two groups are negotiating, and both the bodyguards are itching to get to the fight, hoping for negotiations to fail and get to the bloodbath, the one with the quicker reflexes should probably go first in most circumstances, even if the slower one was technically the instigator. (at least my take on it)
Alternately rather than rolling every minute or so for initiate until potential instigators decide to act. You could simply allow the declared instigator the bonus of getting to roll twice and taking the better result, presuming that they waited until they felt like they had an advantage, before the sprung into action.
Other options could include having other party members rolling deception for their initiative, and if they beat the others initiate, they grant a +2 bonus to the instigator's initiative. [basically, providing cover or distractions for the initiator to leverage in their initial attack]
Anyway, if you are already in combat mode, with initiative already calculated, then technically, everyone prior to the instigator who hasn't expressed doing more than one action, should have a readied action already in place, meaning they all should get to go with their readied actions before the instigator finishes their turn.
Calling for initiative (or even simply a fresh initiative roll) at the time of instigation gives the feel of uncertainty that combat seems like it should have. It gives you a chance to determine who might have viable actions readied. [if their initiative was rolled low, they were likely prepared for something other than what happened, or simply weren't prepared]
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As to my original question, the example quoted by Captain Morgan has pretty much clarified the CRB's stance on that. While it's not my preferred solution, I can work with that for "official" games like PFS and may have to consider a home rule for inofficial games.
The greater issue apparently is the ambiguity of actions during an encounter round supposedly happening all at the same time yet still very often decidedly consecutively.
We don't have an issue with
- the fighter running to open a door with his last action through which the ranger then shoots an arrow on his first action.
- the wizard casting a touch range spell on the fighter's weapon who then charges across the room at the monsters with said now enchanted weapon.
- the rogue doing sneak attack damage on his first action against an opponent who was only just flanked by the fighter's move on their last action.
- the cleric running up and casting a heal spell on a friend who was just downed this turn
- heck, there's even a "delay action" to purposefully wait until any or all other actions have resolved and THEN go yourself (in the same 6 seconds that you just waited out, of course...).
In many cases it is logically or even physically impossible to have these and many other actions all happen simultaneously. They are quite obviously handled as sequential events.
Hence my expectation that the barbarian's actions to initiate combat would also happen in sequence with his charge being the logical precursor to combat much like the fighter opening the door is the precursor to an arrow flying through said doorway in my first example above.
Pretending that the barbarian somehow broadcasts his intention to charge ahead of time might work for that particular example, but does it also work for an invisible wizard or stealthed undetected rogue?
Oh well, I guess we just have to accept that as a design decision...
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Pretending that the barbarian somehow broadcasts his intention to charge ahead of time might work for that particular example
You keep phrasing it as though "noticing the guy with the giant axe is lunging at you" is some completely contrived or arcane concept. Is it really that strange to you that someone might see someone else starting to do something and try to react to it?
but does it also work for an invisible wizard or stealthed undetected rogue?
As stated upthread by others, you might handle it differently if one side is completely unaware of the other, so no. The whole point so far though has been that both sides are aware of each other, so it doesn't make sense to think about surprise or handing out free attacks.
As stated upthread by others, you might handle it differently if one side is completely unaware of the other, so no. The whole point so far though has been that both sides are aware of each other, so it doesn't make sense to think about surprise or handing out free attacks.
I like just running the situation where one side is unaware of the other in the same way as if both sides are aware.
The unaware side uses perception for init and to detect their opponent, and the other group is using stealth. If the perception roll is better than the stealth roll they detect and react to their opponent before, and if it's lower they don't notice and act after wards.
Technically I think they're supposed to be separate rolls of perception to detect and init, but I think it makes more sense to make them one.
Specifically because you could have a weird situation where you fail to perceive the enemy but beat them in init.
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Pretending that the barbarian somehow broadcasts his intention to charge ahead of time might work for that particular exampleYou keep phrasing it as though "noticing the guy with the giant axe is lunging at you" is some completely contrived or arcane concept. Is it really that strange to you that someone might see someone else starting to do something and try to react to it?
The thing is that the barbarian hasn't done anything yet, and might not do it when it's his turn to decide on his actions. Maybe, when he's up, he decides to slowly back away, without ever touching his axe. The others are reacting to the drawing of a weapon that wasn't even drawn in the first place...
Edit: Or, to use one of my examples above, the fighter declares "Screw it, I'm opening that door". Then you roll initiative and the ranger, who won initiative now decides to shoot an arrow through that door. Even though the fighter hasn't acted yet. /edit
Maybe the better way to handle this as the barbarian player is not to say "Screw this, I charge!", but rather "Hey, GM, can we take this to Encounter Mode? Depending on what everyone else does, I might want to make a split-second decision to act; I don't know yet if it's going to be combat, but it's going to be one of those cases when every individual action counts (as described in the introduction to Encounter Mode on p.468 of the CRB)."
Thereby, you don't have to give away your plans ahead of time any more than anyone else in the encounter. And since the GM is not aware of the players plans from reading this thread, why would he say no? Upon rereading that page in the CRB, it quite clearly states that Encounter Mode is not limited to combat.
As stated upthread by others, you might handle it differently if one side is completely unaware of the other, so no. The whole point so far though has been that both sides are aware of each other, so it doesn't make sense to think about surprise or handing out free attacks.I like just running the situation where one side is unaware of the other in the same way as if both sides are aware.
The unaware side uses perception for init and to detect their opponent, and the other group is using stealth. If the perception roll is better than the stealth roll they detect and react to their opponent before, and if it's lower they don't notice and act after wards.
Technically I think they're supposed to be separate rolls of perception to detect and init, but I think it makes more sense to make them one.
Specifically because you could have a weird situation where you fail to perceive the enemy but beat them in init.
It is just supposed to be one roll, but the perception check doesn't spot the stealth person if the stealth person beat their perception DC. So that weird situation you describe is a thing, and we have had some big conversations about it. My favorite default solution is telling my players that their Spidey sense is tingling but they don't see a threat yet. They can decide if they want to Seek, Ready, Delay, prebuff, ow what have you from there.
But it is a weird situation where you sort of need to play it by ear.
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The others are reacting to the drawing of a weapon that wasn't even drawn in the first place...
They're reacting to him reaching for his weapon, tensing himself up, starting to lunge forward. If he's not quick enough, yeah, he might change his plans after the fact... none of that really seems at all logically inconsistent to me.
Again, it's that scene from the western. I reach for my gun, but the enemy sees me and draws faster. Just because he went first doesn't mean I didn't reach for my gun and, assuming he doesn't kill me, deciding to dive for cover instead of finishing drawing and shooting doesn't create some weird time paradox.
Maybe the better way to handle this as the barbarian player is not to say "Screw this, I charge!", but rather "Hey, GM, can we take this to Encounter Mode? Depending on what everyone else does, I might want to make a split-second decision to act; I don't know yet if it's going to be combat, but it's going to be one of those cases when every individual action counts (as described in the introduction to Encounter Mode on p.468 of the CRB)."
I feel like trying to trick the GM into letting you go first in combat by intentionally being vague is something that might be frowned upon, but if it works at your table that's fine I guess.
Because ultimately that's what this is about. The rules are pretty clear, but if the "I call dibs on going first" method of initiative is what works for your table, then just go for it.
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As stated upthread by others, you might handle it differently if one side is completely unaware of the other, so no. The whole point so far though has been that both sides are aware of each other, so it doesn't make sense to think about surprise or handing out free attacks.I like just running the situation where one side is unaware of the other in the same way as if both sides are aware.
The unaware side uses perception for init and to detect their opponent, and the other group is using stealth. If the perception roll is better than the stealth roll they detect and react to their opponent before, and if it's lower they don't notice and act after wards.
Technically I think they're supposed to be separate rolls of perception to detect and init, but I think it makes more sense to make them one.
Specifically because you could have a weird situation where you fail to perceive the enemy but beat them in init.
It is just supposed to be one roll, but the perception check doesn't spot the stealth person if the stealth person beat their perception DC. So that weird situation you describe is a thing, and we have had some big conversations about it. My favorite default solution is telling my players that their Spidey sense is tingling but they don't see a threat yet. They can decide if they want to Seek, Ready, Delay, prebuff, ow what have you from there.
But it is a weird situation where you sort of need to play it by ear.
If you only use one roll of perception vs stealth then you don't have that weird scenario. If you roll only once, if perception is higher than stealth you both see them and act before them. If you roll only once and perception is lower than stealth then you fail to see them and fail to act before them.
Edit: I guess the change is more that I eschew the perception DC and roll instead and use one roll for both perception and init.
I know PF2 was aiming to get rid of opposed rolls, but I feel like in this circumstance it makes more sense.
I guess it's because I played systems like WoD that the reacting to the first guy don't bother me. While I don't think it works for pathfinder I do kind of like old Worlds system of Roll Initiative and the declare actions in reverse order meaning the faster guy knows what the slower guys are starting to try to do and can react accordingly.
The only situation that I don't like with losing surprise rounds is the ambush now being tied to who wins initiative even if there is little to no chance of the ambusher being noticed.
As stated upthread by others, you might handle it differently if one side is completely unaware of the other, so no. The whole point so far though has been that both sides are aware of each other, so it doesn't make sense to think about surprise or handing out free attacks.I like just running the situation where one side is unaware of the other in the same way as if both sides are aware.
The unaware side uses perception for init and to detect their opponent, and the other group is using stealth. If the perception roll is better than the stealth roll they detect and react to their opponent before, and if it's lower they don't notice and act after wards.
Technically I think they're supposed to be separate rolls of perception to detect and init, but I think it makes more sense to make them one.
Specifically because you could have a weird situation where you fail to perceive the enemy but beat them in init.
It is just supposed to be one roll, but the perception check doesn't spot the stealth person if the stealth person beat their perception DC. So that weird situation you describe is a thing, and we have had some big conversations about it. My favorite default solution is telling my players that their Spidey sense is tingling but they don't see a threat yet. They can decide if they want to Seek, Ready, Delay, prebuff, ow what have you from there.
But it is a weird situation where you sort of need to play it by ear.
If you only use one roll of perception vs stealth then you don't have that weird scenario. If you roll only once, if perception is higher than stealth you both see them and act before them. If you roll only once and perception is lower than stealth then you fail to see them and fail to act before them.
Edit: I guess the change is more that I eschew the perception DC and roll instead and use one roll for both perception and init.
I know PF2 was aiming to get rid of opposed rolls,...
I'm not saying it doesn't make sense, but I'm just clarifying what the actual rules say. And based on dev comments they are working as intended.
Yeah, that's fair.
I was simply trying to explain how I think my group's house rule is a more sensible method.
I think the perception DC thing works great for encounter mode stuff.
Player rolls stealth to avoid enemies and walk by, Gm doesn't need to roll for NPC he just knows the player either succeeded or failed after their roll. Works great.
I just think my way is better when it comes to turning stealth into combat, though I imagine Paizo didn't want to have a "Well usually you just compare to perception DC, but in this one scenario you roll" situation.
Edit: I do have a bad habit of saying rolls when you actually don't roll anymore (mostly GMs) and just have DCs you (as players) go against.
Okay. So how do you resolve a Surprise attack from a creature that is Undetected?
Let's say the party enters negotiations with the Big Bad. The party Rogue elected to climb a nearby tree and succeeded in his Stealth checks to remain undetected to every one else, even the party.
The rogue gets antsy and decides that he's had enough. So he shoots the big bad with a bow.
How do you resolve this using your interpretation?
Do you have initiative be rolled, then just enter combat regardless of whether the Rogue has acted yet or not with everyone just assuming they are already fighting?
Or do you roll initiative then have anybody who acts before the rogue just... do nothing until the arrow is loosed?
If your answer is #2, then that is essentially the same as my method.
If it is #1 well. That sounds "pretty awful" to me.