When should you say "Roll initiative"?

[tussock]

@Godfoot, are you thinking of the rules where bursts start at a specified grid intersection, or the rules where you have to state a distance and height for your fireball spell and hit any narrow gaps on the way, or some other rule you're making up where people always exactly know the distances required to place them perfectly, or something else.

Because when you tell us we can only talk about the rules, it'd be nice if you mentioned which actual rules it is you think people aren't using. Page numbers even. Arrows totally "fall short" (or go long) when you miss AC 5 with range penalties, BTW, as that's the AC of individual squares. You might even use that to "aim" your fireball, though that doesn't appear to be what it's for.


NB: trying to find the rules for how you state the distance for your fireball is a wormhole that leads all the way back to Chainmail and the old rules for trebuchets (with a guess and scatter die like most wargames). Later designers (and most players) seem to have treated it as flavour text of course.

[K]

D&D positioning is wargame-based. Invoking some sort of indeterminate positioning system where you don't know exactly how far away the dragon miniature is on the battle mat is the Oberoni fallacy.

In D&D, arrows don't fall short, because every shot has the same maximum distance. And you never accidentally hit a visible ally with a fireball, because the blast radius is always exactly 20'. These are just given aspects of the game. I'm not saying they're good. Just that you shouldn't pretend that you're talking about D&D if you aren't following its basic assumptions.

Knowing the ranges on things has nothing to do with them getting an accurate prediction of the future of the next three turns.

[Kaelik]

I think K's point is that you can enter combat time without rolling initiative. Sure, once they see the dragon you can start counting in rounds. But you don't need to roll initiative until it actually matters who goes first.

If that's K's point, then he's a fucking idiot.

The Dragon is either 1000ft or 800ft away. And which one depends on who "goes first."

If he is 800ft away, a 10th level Wizard can fireball him. If he is 1000ft away, he can't.

If he is an indeterminate distance between 800ft and 1000ft because you haven't decided who goes first, then the game literally becomes unplayable because all actions have the answer, "Yes/No."

If you want to play a game with synchronous actions, then play that game, but when you agreed to play a game with asynchronous actions, you can't then declare actions to be happening at the same time, because the game fucking breaks.

D&D positioning is wargame-based. Invoking some sort of indeterminate positioning system where you don't know exactly how far away the dragon miniature is on the battle mat is the Oberoni fallacy.

In D&D, arrows don't fall short, because every shot has the same maximum distance. And you never accidentally hit a visible ally with a fireball, because the blast radius is always exactly 20'. These are just given aspects of the game. I'm not saying they're good. Just that you shouldn't pretend that you're talking about D&D if you aren't following its basic assumptions.

Knowing the ranges on things has nothing to do with them getting an accurate prediction of the future of the next three turns.

No one is saying that they should have an accurate prediction of the future except you.

I am saying that we should run the events in combat time one round at a time. You are saying that they should state their next three rounds of actions while the dragon takes his three rounds of actions at the same indeterminate time.

You are the one arguing for predictive powers.

I am arguing that the DM should say:

"The Dragon flies 200ft towards you. What do you do?"
or "The Dragon disappears (because he cast Dimension Door, and if you make the listen/spot check and spellcraft check you know that). What do you do?"
or "The Dragon keeps flying perpendicular to you 200ft without changing direction. What do you do?"

You are the one arguing the DM should say:

DM: "There is a Dragon, it's flying towards you, what do you do?"
PC: "I guess I cast Resist Energy."
DM: "Okay, now what?"
PC: "Well since I can't ready an action since we haven't entered Init, I guess I just wait until he gets close enough to do something else."
DM: "The Dragon breathes Acid on you."

[tussock]

The Dragon is either 1000ft or 800ft away.

Wow. Quantum dragons. Here was me thinking combat rounds take about six seconds and the iterative resolution is just an abstraction of constantly overlapping time-frames.

Also, what dragon doesn't run, if it wants to close distance? How long have you people been playing this game?


[EDIT] Oh, and that bit where you wanted to hit the dragon before he breathed, and he wanted to breathe before you hit him: initiative. Handy thing about not being all fussy with the quantum abstraction yet is longer range can just win that one automatically.

[Voss]

D&D positioning is wargame-based. Invoking some sort of indeterminate positioning system where you don't know exactly how far away the dragon miniature is on the battle mat is the Oberoni fallacy.

Strangely people can and do play the fucking game without a playmat and toys. Also, there is a fundamental difference between the DM tracking things accurately and character knowledge. No is Oberoni involved in a non-4e game that doesn't involve presenting the characters with all information.

[quote="Maj]I would just like to point out that this is an incredibly dickish and asinine thing to say.

Seriously, how many drivers sit in their cars and do frickin' math in order to determine whether or not they can turn a corner without getting plowed by an oncoming vehicle? Knowing the make and model of the oncoming car doesn't even help you. [/quote]
This is... exactly what I'm saying to Kaelik. Without sitting down and doing the actual math, the wizard isn't going to come up with a precise result of the dragon's arrival time. He's going to have to estimate the distance and the amount of time it will take the dragon to get there, in exactly the same way you have to approximate that corner.

So, since we agree, welcome to the land of the dickish and asinine.

If you're a wizard and you see something up there in the sky heading for you, it makes absolutely perfect sense to say, "Shit. At the rate it's going, I'm only going to be able to cast a couple spells!" If you happen to recognize what the large flying object is, the only real difference that makes is in the appropriateness of the spells cast.

The idea that there's "magical" knowledge here is utterly retarded. It's just instinctive. People do it every bloody day - without radar guns, speedometers, trigonometry, and calculators.

And without knowing exact distances involved, which is my point. As you say, the wizard can eyeball it and get a couple spells off. But I'm saying he's not going to eyeball it and _know_ that he has exactly enough time to get precisely three spells off.

You are the one arguing the DM should say:

DM: "There is a Dragon, it's flying towards you, what do you do?"
PC: "I guess I cast Resist Energy."
DM: "Okay, now what?"
PC: "Well since I can't ready an action since we haven't entered Init, I guess I just wait until he gets close enough to do something else."
DM: "The Dragon breathes Acid on you."

That is probably the most idiotic misrepresentation of someone else's argument that I've ever seen. Waiting for an opportune moment out of combat time does not equal 'I forfeit all actions'. If that is all you can come up with, kindly shut the fuck up.

[MGuy]

You are the one arguing the DM should say:

DM: "There is a Dragon, it's flying towards you, what do you do?"
PC: "I guess I cast Resist Energy."
DM: "Okay, now what?"
PC: "Well since I can't ready an action since we haven't entered Init, I guess I just wait until he gets close enough to do something else."
DM: "The Dragon breathes Acid on you."

That is probably the most idiotic misrepresentation of someone else's argument that I've ever seen. Waiting for an opportune moment out of combat time does not equal 'I forfeit all actions'. If that is all you can come up with, kindly shut the fuck up.

Pretty much. If you hit up your energy resistance you probably have a plan for what happens if you can get another spell off if you can without the dragon breathing acid on you. If you simply forfeit all your actions then that is your fault.

You example ONLY works if te PC is being an ass hat and has some unspecified plan. Had you made the PC in your example actually say what his plan was for WHEN the dragon came in range anybody could've kindly pointed out that THEN initiative would've been rolled because its the PC's action vs the Dragon spitting acid on him.

[Voss]

I'd actually say it only works if the DM is being a dick. There is a huge intermediate period between approaching/resist energy and acid in your face; plenty of time for the player to interrupt with a valid action. One that might even require initiative to be rolled.

[K]

Yes, Kaelik's example only works if the DM is dick and the PCs are all asshats.

Since everyone else seems to understand, I'll leave it at that.

[Kaelik]

You example ONLY works if te PC is being an ass hat and has some unspecified plan. Had you made the PC in your example actually say what his plan was for WHEN the dragon came in range anybody could've kindly pointed out that THEN initiative would've been rolled because its the PC's action vs the Dragon spitting acid on him.

Um... Yes.

I agree that if the PC had stated his next three rounds worth of actions in advance based on magic knowledge of what the Dragon was going to do he would not have had a problem under K's system.

And that is specifically the problem. K's system prevents the PCs from waiting until the Dragon is within range of their attacks and then doing something different based on reacting to how the Dragon gets there.

That's because any time you switch to synchronous movement in D&D, the game breaks and everyone enters quantum indeterminate locations.

Which is why the Dragon needs to take his turn, and then after the Dragon stops taking his turn, the PCs get to take their turns.

Or you know, combat time, asynchronous actions, Initiative.

[K]

Kaelik, do you honestly think that PCs can't say "I'm doing X until the dragon gets in range, and then doing Y."

[Kaelik]

Kaelik, do you honestly think that PCs can't say "I'm doing X until the dragon gets in range, and then doing Y."

How do they know the Dragon is ever going to come in range? Maybe he turns around and flies away. Maybe he flies out of sight and they don't know if he's in range. Maybe he teleports into range, and that changes what they want to do.

What I don't get is why you want Players to explain complex decision trees several rounds in advance to avoid going round by round.

Round by round is a good thing. The only reason we don't always go round by round is because it takes too long when it doesn't matter.

So at any point where it could matter, you should be happy to go round by round, not contorting yourself into knots justifying multi round complex decision trees to avoid it.

[K]

What's so hard about "roll initiative when the dragon is in range and people want to do combat"?

FYI games don't have to get bogged down every time someone wants to do an action. Your example of "and maybe the dragon flies away" sounds like the perfect reason why slowing down to combat time, rolling initiative, and doing a person-by-person action rollcall would be a complete waste of time.

You could easily lose a half hour with three or four rounds of a dragon circling and action rollcalls instead of three or four minutes of general discussion.

[CatharzGodfoot]

What's so hard about "roll initiative when the dragon is in range and people want to do combat"?

FYI games don't have to get bogged down every time someone wants to do an action. Your example of "and maybe the dragon flies away" sounds like the perfect reason why slowing down to combat time, rolling initiative, and doing a person-by-person action rollcall would be a complete waste of time.

You could easily lose a half hour with three or four rounds of a dragon circling and action rollcalls instead of three or four minutes of general discussion.

And so you say 'I'm not going to act in combat time until the dragon is within range'. No time wasted.

Or if you want to go with Voss's method, 'I ready an action to cast fireball when the dragon gets close enough that I'm reasonably certain that it will be within range, but still far enough away that the blast probably won't hit my allies. My distance estimation check is 15 for the dragon, 8 for Krusk, and 12 for Teffendar. My attack roll to hit the 5' square that I estimate is at the right point is 19.'

[Desdan_Mervolam]

Kaelik, do you honestly think that PCs can't say "I'm doing X until the dragon gets in range, and then doing Y."

How do they know the Dragon is ever going to come in range? Maybe he turns around and flies away. Maybe he flies out of sight and they don't know if he's in range. Maybe he teleports into range, and that changes what they want to do.

DM: You see a dragon off in the distance, he seems to be flying this way
Player: I'm going to get ready to cast Fireball at it as soon as it gets into range.
DM:At about a thousand feet out, something seems to catch the dragon's eye, it banks left and heads off to the north, away from you. Your spell never gets cast.
Player: Okay, whew.

There, why the fuck was that so goddamned hard? I swear, people around her love to think way too fucking hard about shit.

[Kaelik]

DM: You see a dragon off in the distance, he seems to be flying this way
Player: I'm going to get ready to cast Fireball at it as soon as it gets into range.
DM:At about a thousand feet out, something seems to catch the dragon's eye, it banks left and heads off to the north, away from you. Your spell never gets cast.
Player: Okay, whew.

There, why the fuck was that so goddamned hard? I swear, people around her love to think way too fucking hard about shit.

PC: Oh wait, I would have wanted to cast sending if he started to turn away!

or

DM: He teleports right next to you and you Fireball him.
PC: Wait, that changed everything.

If nothing the Player says is actually controlling, then what was the point of having him say it? Why is that somehow a better result than resolving round by round? Especially when it relies on a concept like readied actions, which you aren't even allowed to take until after you roll init?

[Zaranthan]

PC: Oh wait, I would have wanted to cast sending if he started to turn away!

DM: Okay. You cast sending when the dragon turns away.

Seeing as the readied action expires at the end of the turn, this works just fine. You're the DM. You can retcon a few seconds of inactivity.

DM: He teleports right next to you and you Fireball him.
PC: Wait, that changed everything.

Teleporting next to the PC is not flying into range. His readied action did not trigger. DM is wrong.

If nothing the Player says is actually controlling, then what was the point of having him say it? Why is that somehow a better result than resolving round by round? Especially when it relies on a concept like readied actions, which you aren't even allowed to take until after you roll init?

It really wasn't even a readied action. More like a declaration that the PC's default action was as such:

PC's turn:
If (dragon in range) Then
fireball
Else
refocus
End If


We're not computers. We can make decisions like this without explicit mechanical instructions. Fucking handle it or let someone else DM.

[TOZ]

I've heard it suggested that you should roll initiative at the end of the combat. Then when the next combat starts, be it five minutes later or the next session, instead of wasting time rolling dice you just point to the guy with the highest initiative and ask what he's doing.

[infected slut princess]

Do I understand this discussion up to this point?

K is saying, "Roll initiative when people are trying to interrupt each other." Okay.

Kaelik is saying, "Roll initiative whenever you need precise accounting of actions." Okay.

They disagree because K says you can just have people acting without rolling initiative because it's easier up to where it REALLY matters, and Kaelik this is bad because it matters RIGHT AWAY, and people's choices are partly determined by the order in which actions are taken. Is this right?

But Kaelik's argument almost seems to imply you need to roll initiative any time you encounter any creature at all, even if early estimations suggest combat is not necessarily going to happen? And is K's rule of "do initiative when people want to interrupt people" too limited?

Is there a decisive rule that can emerge from this argument?

[Zaranthan]

Do I understand this discussion up to this point?

You've got the short of it, yes.

Is there a decisive rule that can emerge from this argument?

Sure. K is right. Kaelik's argument hinges on a tyrannical interpretation of the Principle of Narrative Truth, in which restating a casual statement of intent to better suit the course of events is a cardinal sin rather than simply a means of moving the game along when two actors got their imaginations crossed.

[Kaelik]

Is there a decisive rule that can emerge from this argument?

Of course not, because what's decisive is dependent on personal preferences.

Which is why I wanted to get K to state his "taking actions round by round is the devil" position in the open, so that people who don't hate and fear turn based resolution of relevant actions can just see that they disagree with K.

[K]

I don't think that that turn-by-turn actions are the devil.

I think initiative counts force people into combat because the penalty for not doing combat actions on your initiative count is so high that people heavily default to combat.

Personally, I "prefer" the appearance of NPCs to not automatically be combat encounters. You start combat time when someone starts combat-like actions and other people would like that to not happen.

In Kaelik's model, "I shoot the darkness with my magic missile" is the way that encounters have to be run because people become afraid of not getting all their combat actions. You can see it in every one one of Kaelik's examples where the big injustice in each one is that someone missed a single round of combat actions.

The very idea that maybe someone missed out on a social encounter or flavor text doesn't even enter his mind.

[Kaelik]

The very idea that maybe someone missed out on a social encounter or flavor text doesn't even enter his mind.

That's because no one misses a social encounter or flavor text.

[K]

The very idea that maybe someone missed out on a social encounter or flavor text doesn't even enter his mind.

That's because no one misses a social encounter or flavor text.

They really do.

There is a reason that we've been using the shorthand "combat time." Turn-by turn accounting of actions is only appropriate in combat or in contested combat-like situations like chases and everyone plays that way. "Roll initiative" is as close to an iconic RPG battlecry as they come.

Unless you are saying that you tell the PCs ahead of time that combat will be taking place. I mean, saying something like "the dragon roars a challenge and banks toward you, claws at an attack angle, and he's 1000 ft away" is totally different from "there is a dragon 1000 ft away and he's flying toward you." One is a clear indication that battle is coming and the other could be a combat encounter as the dragon attacks, a social encounter as it lands and begins talking, or a flavor encounter as the dragon passes harmlessly over their heads.

Sufficient telegraphing makes immediate initiative make more sense. It's boring as shit as a means of running an RPG, but that's a different issue.

[Kaelik]

Once again, nothing about entering combat time actually requires fighting to the death. I have PCs enter round by round adjudication all the time in situations where they run into PCs who may or may not be friendly.

And through the magic of not being dumbasses, they don't fight to the death every NPC they encounter like that.

Because they know that round by round adjudication is just the best way to handle actions where time matters, and they know that I use it when time might matter if one side decides to start a fight but no one has yet.

On the one hand, you argue that your system works perfectly as long as no one is a dumb asshole. On the other, you argue that my system fails if the PCs are all dumb assholes.

Well duh. Neither system works with dumb assholes, and both systems work with no dumb assholes.

With the more common mediocre player, all you have to do in either system is explain how the system works.