Assurance and Initiative...

[MaxAstro]

The Rogue player in my Age of Ashes campaign has asked about using Assurance (Stealth) when rolling initiative.

As far as I can tell from looking over the rules, this seems like it should be legal.

Any rules experts out there see any reason this wouldn't work?

[Ravingdork]

Seems fine to me.

[Phntm888]

I don't see any reason Stealth couldn't apply, but I would make sure the Rogue player understands that they don't get to add their Dex bonus when they use Assurance for Initiative, or any other bonuses they may have. I'm pretty sure that includes the Incredible Initiative feat, if they have it.

Level 1 (Trained) Assurance = 13 Initiative
Level 5 (Expert) Assurance = 19 Initiative
Level 10 (Master) Assurance = 26 Initiative
Level 15 (Legendary) Assurance = 33 Initiative
Level 20 (Legendary) Assurance = 38 Initiative

It's a quick way to figure out the Rogue's initiative, sure, but assuming a starting Dex of 18 and ability boosts into Dex every 5 levels, it's equal to rolling a 6 on the die at levels 1 and 5, a 5 on the die at levels 10 and 15, and a 3 on the die at level 20, assuming an apex item for Dex. I'm not counting any possible Item bonuses to Stealth, either.

Unless they're in a situation where they're taking a lot of penalties to Stealth, I think they'd be better off taking their chances with rolling the die.

[MaxAstro]

Yeah, the Rogue is aware of that. He has terrible, terrible dice luck, though. He brought it up after rolling a 3 or less on initiative three fights in a row. :)

And really, he doesn't care if he goes first, he just wants to go before at least one enemy, so that he has someone to snipe.

[Phntm888]

Well, I can't fault him wanting to use Assurance when rolling Stealth for Initiative. Dice luck that bad has to get frustrating after a while.

[thorin001]

Phntm888 wrote:

Well, I can't fault him wanting to use Assurance when rolling Stealth for Initiative. Dice luck that bad has to get frustrating after a while.

Your dice must really suck for assurance to be useful. As was pointed out above you do better rolling a 7 at level 1-9, a 6 at levels 10-14, a 5 at levels 15-19, and a 4 at level 20. If you have incredible initiative drop those numbers by 2. And if you have any item bonuses to stealth drop your numbers by that amount.

So at level 10 with a cloak of elvenkind and incredible initiative you need to roll a 3 to do better with assurance. 5% to do better, 5% to break even, and 90% to do worse does not look like a good investment.

[The Raven Black]

I wonder what are the penalties to Stealth you could ignore in such a case?

I enjoy creating characters that go against conventional wisdom, like a speedster clad in Heavy Armor.

[Alchemic_Genius]

Given that assurance is actually somewhat worse than rolling statistically, I'd say go for it. Nothing in the rules forbids it