Okay, you know what, you are a fucking idiot.
You can't have both parties acting without going into combat time and having one act first.
It is literally impossible.
If you say, "You spot a Dragon in the distance, how do you react?" and they answer with literally anything at all, then it immediately becomes necessary to roll init and enter combat time. If the dragon moves 200ft a round, and they are doing something each round, then it fucking matters whether the dragon is 1000ft away or 800ft away. And if you can't answer that question because you are not in combat time, then you are failing as a DM.
And also, stop being a lying [EDITED] about magical knowledge. They know the distance. They have to know the distance because if they don't know the distance then the world ceases to make sense. I never at any point claimed they need to know anything else, other than that could make a knowlege check to know the speed of an average Black Dragon.
Once again, I am saying that as a DM you should say "There is a Dragon, it is Black, it is 1000ft away."
Then, the PCs can make decisions about if it comes towards them how fast it can get there based on knowledge checks about the possible type of Dragon, and take actions under whatever assumptions they want to make.
Lokathor wrote:Stop. Here is where you're getting it wrong. K is saying that you still don't roll init even after Fireball gets cast. You don't roll init until the parties are actually in range of each other and capable of both taking an action against the other.
Um... are you an idiot? Do you not understand that they are casting fireball on the Dragon?
I was taking Ks statement about interrupting generally, because I sure fucking hope he's not stupid enough to have entire combats without rolling init because so far people have only been attacking their enemies, and not readying an action to interrupt.
Obviously when fireball is cast, it matters how far away the Dragon actually is, and fireballing the dragon is an attempt to "interrupt" his move because it works at some places and not at others.