I have an interesting situation and wanted to get the community's opinion. The party is about to enter a fight with the BBEG of this arc, who is holed up in an abandoned lab in Waterdeep Undermountain. So the party is outside a wide door (10') wide and is about to open it, which will trigger a fight. There's no way for surprise to happen - the party knows there are enemies in the room, the enemy knows the party is about to open the door.
So my question is, are either side allowed pre-combat actions? When should I ask everyone to roll for initiative - as soon as the door starts to open, after it’s fully open, or some time in between?
Some more context:
Every combatant will notice the door when it starts to lift open - it's similar to portcullis. So there's no dramatic moment of busting through the door to begin combat. The door takes about 2-3 seconds to fully open and is loud when doing so.
If initiative represents when one or both sides engage in hostile actions, then initiative could technically start as soon as the door begins to open. That means that combatants could technically take their actions BEFORE they can see any enemies to target.
If we say initiative starts after the door is fully open, great, but then could combatants take a pre-combat action? (ie., "I cast haste on the fighter, before our artificer activates the door", “The evil wizard orders the front-line evil knight to get into a defensive stance and brace for combat, ie, dodge)?
Things I could see monsters/characters take as pre-combat actions include: ready spells/attacks, take the dodging action, or hide.
One of my players has feats that give him a few 1st turn boosts (ie, extra attack), and he’ll be pissed if his first round of combat has no enemies for him to shoot.
So the way I see it, I have 3 options:
Combat (roll initiative) begins after the door fully opens, no pre-combat actions. I don’t like this system, think it OP’s magic users who can cast buff spells right before combat. I mean, if a wizard can say I want to cast Haste before the door opens, why can’t a fighter on the other side of the door just keep dodging until the door is opens.
Everyone gets 1 pre-combat action: cast a spell, ready a spell or attack, dodge or hide. No bonus actions, not movement. Once everyone is set, the door opens and we roll initiative. Prefer this way.
Party activates the door, roll initiative, and the door gets a turn (ie, on initiative 20) to fully open, allowing everyone to see each other. OK system, but it penalizes those with super fast initiative who might go before the door is fully open. They could ready an attack, but then loose multi-attack.
Anywho, let me know what you think and thanks in advance for your input.
Sticky situation and I, personally, think I would handle it as follows. Again, this is only MY idea for how to offer an option for what everyone wants to do as the door opens/is opened.
I would advise the party of 2 possibilities. 1. Everyone can ready an action, and they will all trigger, in initiative order (point out that if the party has ideas for "when that door opens, I'm gonna...." then the guys on the other side do, too.) THEN a proper initiative, with full turns can occur. The opening sequence would all go off, spells, attacks, in an initiative order I would call for now, before anyone touches the door. We ALL know the ball is about to go up, so let's see who is quickest on the draw now to get it over with. Enemies on the room may have readied actions to cast a spell at the doorway, or fire an arrow out it, or maybe they need a trigger of someone coming in to activate their readied action. Both sides rectify their readied actions, tokens are placed to show where everyone is (if you use them) and we are in combat, Player2 you are first in initiative. 2. Regular initiative, begins when the door fully opens. This means no shenanigans from party OR NPC's inside until the door is ajar and initiative begins. Safer, maybe than option 1, as you can only ready a basic attack or spell, not a movement and attack (well, we don't allow both anyway) and if your party is planning to go NOVA and drop a fireball into the room, they should realize one MAY come out the door from inside, too.
I always try to remind my players that anything they can do the enemies can do, so if you're sure you want to employ a tactic, be sure it can't be reflected to bigger effect. If they'd snuck up on the door and the guys inside didn't know they were there, I'd be game for giving them an edge in readied actions maybe, but with all involved parties ready and waiting for the ball to go up, as it were....
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Option 1 is definitely the best. Once you start getting into combat actions, you should be rolling initiative and doing them in turn order and keeping track of spell durations, etc. The enemies should be rolling initiative and taking their turns too, though. If you don’t want to give your PCs that much time to prepare, have the enemies open the door.
[EDIT] I actually misread your post; option 1 is bad for the reason that you’re waiting until the door he opened to start combat. Roll initiative NOW. The door opens whenever someone opens it on their turn.
I occasionally let them do stuff like draw weapons/foci, ready actions, stuff like that. Anything more than that should happen after initiative has been rolled.
What if you roll initiative for everyone (both sides) before the door opens. 2-3 seconds is well within one character’s turn. Then the players can choose, do they want their highest initiative to open the door and kick things off right away, or wait and get the potential boost of readying some actions, or casting buff spells, knowing the enemy will then have more time to ready actions and cast buff spells of their own. But they won’t know the enemy’s initiative rolls, so what’s the risk/reward for them to wait vs. going in.
And of course, the enemies would be making the same calculations, and could decide to open the door on their own time. Or barricade it.
Its one of those puzzles where I could easily see some groups spend a half hour deciding who will actually open the door and on which initiative count.
And now I realize most of this is pretty much a more long-winded version of what saga said, sigh.
I have an interesting situation and wanted to get the community's opinion. The party is about to enter a fight with the BBEG of this arc, who is holed up in an abandoned lab in Waterdeep Undermountain. So the party is outside a wide door (10') wide and is about to open it, which will trigger a fight. There's no way for surprise to happen - the party knows there are enemies in the room, the enemy knows the party is about to open the door.
That last sentence sounds awfully impossible in the general case, which means there are specific and probably magical reasons both sides are aware of each other. Not telling us what those reasons are make this harder. I will proceed under the assumption the door is transparent, as that is one example of myriad explanations for your situation. Other explanations may lead to other answers.
So my question is, are either side allowed pre-combat actions?
No. You specified that both sides are aware of each other, and I'm assuming that's been accomplished by them seeing each other. That means initiative has already been rolled and combat is already happening.
When should I ask everyone to roll for initiative - as soon as the door starts to open, after it’s fully open, or some time in between?
As soon as either party becomes aware of the other party.
If initiative represents when one or both sides engage in hostile actions, then initiative could technically start as soon as the door begins to open. That means that combatants could technically take their actions BEFORE they can see any enemies to target.
Correct.
If we say initiative starts after the door is fully open, great, but then could combatants take a pre-combat action? (ie., "I cast haste on the fighter, before our artificer activates the door", “The evil wizard orders the front-line evil knight to get into a defensive stance and brace for combat, ie, dodge)?
Incorrect, it should have been rolled before the door opened.
Things I could see monsters/characters take as pre-combat actions include: ready spells/attacks, take the dodging action, or hide.
One of my players has feats that give him a few 1st turn boosts (ie, extra attack), and he’ll be pissed if his first round of combat has no enemies for him to shoot.
First-turn benefits are, in general, not written to be compatible with how the game actually works. I strongly recommend that you house-rule first-turn benefits to work once-per-combat on the first turn they can actually apply, so in circumstances like the one you described, where you're having the party roll initiative before anyone can possibly be targeted with anything, the game functions as everyone reasonably expects.
So the way I see it, I have 3 options:
Combat (roll initiative) begins after the door fully opens, no pre-combat actions. I don’t like this system, think it OP’s magic users who can cast buff spells right before combat. I mean, if a wizard can say I want to cast Haste before the door opens, why can’t a fighter on the other side of the door just keep dodging until the door is opens.
Everyone gets 1 pre-combat action: cast a spell, ready a spell or attack, dodge or hide. No bonus actions, not movement. Once everyone is set, the door opens and we roll initiative. Prefer this way.
Party activates the door, roll initiative, and the door gets a turn (ie, on initiative 20) to fully open, allowing everyone to see each other. OK system, but it penalizes those with super fast initiative who might go before the door is fully open. They could ready an attack, but then loose multi-attack.
No, none of these.
As soon as the 2 parties become aware of each other (or rather, as soon as either becomes aware of the other), it becomes necessary to track the order in which things happen, which is what initiative is for. That's when you should roll it. You said they were aware of each other before the door opens, so initiative should be rolled before the door opens.
The game isn't really written for pre-combat actions that occur immediately before combat; generally one side or the other (but usually the PCs) get an upper hand if this is allowed (source...a campaign where I allowed this and had to stop it midway due to it being very OP for the characters).
If the door was opening on it's own, and no one had surprise, I'd say the door opens on a certain initiative count and anyone who beats it gets to ready actions, etc. But in this case, since a PC is going to open the door, I'd have them roll initiative, then when the PC who is opening the door goes, they open the door as part of their turn. Anyone who beats that PC gets the chance to ready something.
Alternately (and simply), the door opens, combat begins based on initiative, with no readied actions or other preparatory actions prior.
If they're waiting for some kind of thing to happen before they react, leave it up to initiative. Initiative measures how quickly you can react.
They can pre-cast Haste, if they're confident the duration isn't an issue.
Why would the bad guys delay? If it's not in their interest to wait, they should open the door themselves. Otherwise they should cast their own buffs or whatever.
Normally I hate this type of answer but dm adjucation is the answer. Combat starts when the dm says.
However, I believe in rewarding features and smart choices. Preparing 1 min spells (or hour) ahead sounds fine and if enemies can roughly estimate the same they should do it too. Too much time micro-management can be bad. Only focus on Combat start when it's important.
If you have a player with a first round feature consider giving it to them because they made a choice for it. (Unless it's a specfic scenario to show its weakness)
If you do start Combat beforehand .... remember ready actions often loose features. Extra attack almost never works on ready. Several other features say "on your turn". ready is someone else's turn.
Some players try to get extra free attacks/actions but alot are just trying to play smart. Try to be fair to the rules and fun and it will be fine. If it works great if you need to change stance let your players know before the next similar situation comes up.
Initiative is for any situation where timing matters, not just for "combat". There isn't any concept of "pre-combat" actions. When timing matters, use intiative; when timing doesn't matter, just resolve the actions.
I would roll initiative, assign a initiative value for the door, and resolve actions on initiative numbers. I'd also remind everyone that Ready exists.
Initiative is for any situation where timing matters, not just for "combat". There isn't any concept of "pre-combat" actions. When timing matters, use intiative; when timing doesn't matter, just resolve the actions.
I would roll initiative, assign a initiative value for the door, and resolve actions on initiative numbers. I'd also remind everyone that Ready exists.
This is how I tend to actually resolve it, i.e- enter initiative order early, and treat these as "pre combat turns", so when I decide that combat has actually started then that is the first turn, surprise may happen etc. as normal (just delayed).
However, for every "pre combat turn" the enemies get to roll Perception checks to see if they notice something, rather than just using their passive perception as I normally would, so things are more tense.
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Personally, I don't follow any of your suggestions, I roll initiative before the action to open the door occurs.
At this point everything can be resolved in initiative order with each character taking whatever actions they like and the opponents doing the same. (The opponents could be watching via a scrying spell and if the opponents know the party is outside the door they might very well open the door themselves to avoid giving them time to prepare - opponents should be played intelligently and there is no reason why the opponents would give the party the time to set up if they know they are doing so ...)
Anyway, defenders and opponents can take actions on their initiatives (assuming that both sides know the attack is imminent - if the defenders don't know the precise timing - then they will probably have held attacks or cantrips rather than spells). Then when the door is opened by a character or opponent using their object interaction on their turn then everything proceeds from there.
Initiative is a tool for resolving actions in order. I will usually roll initiative when the order of players saying things or taking actions begins to matter - i.e. combat might happen. It helps avoid arguments at the table when two players want to do different things - if it is in initiative order then actions are resolved as they happen and folks aren't saying "but I said I was doing something else first!".
The game isn't really written for pre-combat actions that occur immediately before combat; generally one side or the other (but usually the PCs) get an upper hand if this is allowed (source...a campaign where I allowed this and had to stop it midway due to it being very OP for the characters).
I mean in a case where one side is at a door and the other side is passively waiting on the other side, shouldn't the side that decides when the battle starts have the upper hand? Very occasionally it can be really satisfying for players to have the chance to cast/use setup features that often aren't very good in combat because they take your entire turn and concentration can potentially be lost before they even come into play.
To me this is more an issue of encounter setup than combat rules. If you make a dungeon where every room is its own little world and no enemies ever run for help or sound the alarm and complete lack of stealth has no consequences and enemies just sit frozen in time until the PCs see them, then yeah you need to deal with this situation often. But if you play it realistically, a situation like OP's shouldn't happen most of the time.
If a BBEG is holed up in a room, they shouldn't be waiting passively for the party to open the door. That door should be barricaded if not trapped. Unless surprised, the defensive party should be playing active defense. Dungeons and fortresses and outposts should be designed to put invaders at a disadvantage. I think having the party always be the instigators in a situation like this is really missing an opportunity to make the opposition look competent and threatening. Rather than just staring helplessly at the door like a nervous teenager waiting for their crush to text them back.
Roll initiative and people can do whatever they want to INCLUDING open the door. Or not opening the door.
If no one on both sides opens the door, start the next round.
Not that hard to do.
The question becomes is opening the door helpful or is it better to let the enemy open the door. It could go either way, you won't know until the door opens up.
Combat (roll initiative) begins after the door fully opens, no pre-combat actions. I don’t like this system, think it OP’s magic users who can cast buff spells right before combat. I mean, if a wizard can say I want to cast Haste before the door opens, why can’t a fighter on the other side of the door just keep dodging until the door is opens.
You can buff, hide and take cover out of combat. You can even do several rounds of buffing if desired. D&D combat is an abstraction: you don't really Ready actions outside of combat... if you could, everyone would in situations like (and you'd probably need to resolve them in initiative order)... which is effectively what the first combat round is . For the same reason you don't really dodge outside of combat (since everyone would instead do that if they aren't allowed to ready actions). Your #2 and #3 options seem outside of the D&D rules and could cause issues.
If you still want to house rule, probably best you have everyone (that is not dodging) to have readied actions (resolved in initiative order when they are simultaneous). But assuming there is no time pressure, Buff spells and hiding can certainly be accomplished well before opening the door (i.e. outside of combat) .
If you want to follow the D&D rules while still acknowledging the fighter's desire to dodge: you could give him a circumstance bonus to defense (i.e. disadvantage on enemy attacks), but also disadvantage on his initiative check (since he's not "readying" to attack). Or maybe instead he could just take cover before someone opens the door.
Option 1, you roll initiative to determine turn order for everyone to act on in any encounter where it's necessary. Both PCs and monsters/NPCs should be able to have a turn to act based on order. Even Surprise doesn't allow pre-combat actions. Allowing actions before initiative usually leads to a race call where people try to do all sorts of things like move, buff, debuff or attack etc..
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Hello esteemed players!
I have an interesting situation and wanted to get the community's opinion. The party is about to enter a fight with the BBEG of this arc, who is holed up in an abandoned lab in Waterdeep Undermountain. So the party is outside a wide door (10') wide and is about to open it, which will trigger a fight. There's no way for surprise to happen - the party knows there are enemies in the room, the enemy knows the party is about to open the door.
So my question is, are either side allowed pre-combat actions? When should I ask everyone to roll for initiative - as soon as the door starts to open, after it’s fully open, or some time in between?
Some more context:
So the way I see it, I have 3 options:
Anywho, let me know what you think and thanks in advance for your input.
Thanks,
-Julio
Sticky situation and I, personally, think I would handle it as follows. Again, this is only MY idea for how to offer an option for what everyone wants to do as the door opens/is opened.
I would advise the party of 2 possibilities.
1. Everyone can ready an action, and they will all trigger, in initiative order (point out that if the party has ideas for "when that door opens, I'm gonna...." then the guys on the other side do, too.) THEN a proper initiative, with full turns can occur. The opening sequence would all go off, spells, attacks, in an initiative order I would call for now, before anyone touches the door. We ALL know the ball is about to go up, so let's see who is quickest on the draw now to get it over with. Enemies on the room may have readied actions to cast a spell at the doorway, or fire an arrow out it, or maybe they need a trigger of someone coming in to activate their readied action. Both sides rectify their readied actions, tokens are placed to show where everyone is (if you use them) and we are in combat, Player2 you are first in initiative.
2. Regular initiative, begins when the door fully opens. This means no shenanigans from party OR NPC's inside until the door is ajar and initiative begins. Safer, maybe than option 1, as you can only ready a basic attack or spell, not a movement and attack (well, we don't allow both anyway) and if your party is planning to go NOVA and drop a fireball into the room, they should realize one MAY come out the door from inside, too.
I always try to remind my players that anything they can do the enemies can do, so if you're sure you want to employ a tactic, be sure it can't be reflected to bigger effect. If they'd snuck up on the door and the guys inside didn't know they were there, I'd be game for giving them an edge in readied actions maybe, but with all involved parties ready and waiting for the ball to go up, as it were....
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Option 1 is definitely the best. Once you start getting into combat actions, you should be rolling initiative and doing them in turn order and keeping track of spell durations, etc. The enemies should be rolling initiative and taking their turns too, though. If you don’t want to give your PCs that much time to prepare, have the enemies open the door.
[EDIT] I actually misread your post; option 1 is bad for the reason that you’re waiting until the door he opened to start combat. Roll initiative NOW. The door opens whenever someone opens it on their turn.
I occasionally let them do stuff like draw weapons/foci, ready actions, stuff like that. Anything more than that should happen after initiative has been rolled.
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What if you roll initiative for everyone (both sides) before the door opens. 2-3 seconds is well within one character’s turn.
Then the players can choose, do they want their highest initiative to open the door and kick things off right away, or wait and get the potential boost of readying some actions, or casting buff spells, knowing the enemy will then have more time to ready actions and cast buff spells of their own. But they won’t know the enemy’s initiative rolls, so what’s the risk/reward for them to wait vs. going in.
And of course, the enemies would be making the same calculations, and could decide to open the door on their own time. Or barricade it.
Its one of those puzzles where I could easily see some groups spend a half hour deciding who will actually open the door and on which initiative count.
And now I realize most of this is pretty much a more long-winded version of what saga said, sigh.
That last sentence sounds awfully impossible in the general case, which means there are specific and probably magical reasons both sides are aware of each other. Not telling us what those reasons are make this harder. I will proceed under the assumption the door is transparent, as that is one example of myriad explanations for your situation. Other explanations may lead to other answers.
No. You specified that both sides are aware of each other, and I'm assuming that's been accomplished by them seeing each other. That means initiative has already been rolled and combat is already happening.
As soon as either party becomes aware of the other party.
Correct.
Incorrect, it should have been rolled before the door opened.
First-turn benefits are, in general, not written to be compatible with how the game actually works. I strongly recommend that you house-rule first-turn benefits to work once-per-combat on the first turn they can actually apply, so in circumstances like the one you described, where you're having the party roll initiative before anyone can possibly be targeted with anything, the game functions as everyone reasonably expects.
No, none of these.
As soon as the 2 parties become aware of each other (or rather, as soon as either becomes aware of the other), it becomes necessary to track the order in which things happen, which is what initiative is for. That's when you should roll it. You said they were aware of each other before the door opens, so initiative should be rolled before the door opens.
The game isn't really written for pre-combat actions that occur immediately before combat; generally one side or the other (but usually the PCs) get an upper hand if this is allowed (source...a campaign where I allowed this and had to stop it midway due to it being very OP for the characters).
If the door was opening on it's own, and no one had surprise, I'd say the door opens on a certain initiative count and anyone who beats it gets to ready actions, etc. But in this case, since a PC is going to open the door, I'd have them roll initiative, then when the PC who is opening the door goes, they open the door as part of their turn. Anyone who beats that PC gets the chance to ready something.
Alternately (and simply), the door opens, combat begins based on initiative, with no readied actions or other preparatory actions prior.
If they're waiting for some kind of thing to happen before they react, leave it up to initiative. Initiative measures how quickly you can react.
They can pre-cast Haste, if they're confident the duration isn't an issue.
Why would the bad guys delay? If it's not in their interest to wait, they should open the door themselves. Otherwise they should cast their own buffs or whatever.
Normally I hate this type of answer but dm adjucation is the answer. Combat starts when the dm says.
However, I believe in rewarding features and smart choices. Preparing 1 min spells (or hour) ahead sounds fine and if enemies can roughly estimate the same they should do it too. Too much time micro-management can be bad. Only focus on Combat start when it's important.
If you have a player with a first round feature consider giving it to them because they made a choice for it. (Unless it's a specfic scenario to show its weakness)
If you do start Combat beforehand .... remember ready actions often loose features. Extra attack almost never works on ready. Several other features say "on your turn". ready is someone else's turn.
Some players try to get extra free attacks/actions but alot are just trying to play smart. Try to be fair to the rules and fun and it will be fine. If it works great if you need to change stance let your players know before the next similar situation comes up.
Initiative is for any situation where timing matters, not just for "combat". There isn't any concept of "pre-combat" actions. When timing matters, use intiative; when timing doesn't matter, just resolve the actions.
I would roll initiative, assign a initiative value for the door, and resolve actions on initiative numbers. I'd also remind everyone that Ready exists.
This is how I tend to actually resolve it, i.e- enter initiative order early, and treat these as "pre combat turns", so when I decide that combat has actually started then that is the first turn, surprise may happen etc. as normal (just delayed).
However, for every "pre combat turn" the enemies get to roll Perception checks to see if they notice something, rather than just using their passive perception as I normally would, so things are more tense.
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If you give the party a chance to essentially manufacture surprise, they are going to take it.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
Personally, I don't follow any of your suggestions, I roll initiative before the action to open the door occurs.
At this point everything can be resolved in initiative order with each character taking whatever actions they like and the opponents doing the same. (The opponents could be watching via a scrying spell and if the opponents know the party is outside the door they might very well open the door themselves to avoid giving them time to prepare - opponents should be played intelligently and there is no reason why the opponents would give the party the time to set up if they know they are doing so ...)
Anyway, defenders and opponents can take actions on their initiatives (assuming that both sides know the attack is imminent - if the defenders don't know the precise timing - then they will probably have held attacks or cantrips rather than spells). Then when the door is opened by a character or opponent using their object interaction on their turn then everything proceeds from there.
Initiative is a tool for resolving actions in order. I will usually roll initiative when the order of players saying things or taking actions begins to matter - i.e. combat might happen. It helps avoid arguments at the table when two players want to do different things - if it is in initiative order then actions are resolved as they happen and folks aren't saying "but I said I was doing something else first!".
I mean in a case where one side is at a door and the other side is passively waiting on the other side, shouldn't the side that decides when the battle starts have the upper hand? Very occasionally it can be really satisfying for players to have the chance to cast/use setup features that often aren't very good in combat because they take your entire turn and concentration can potentially be lost before they even come into play.
To me this is more an issue of encounter setup than combat rules. If you make a dungeon where every room is its own little world and no enemies ever run for help or sound the alarm and complete lack of stealth has no consequences and enemies just sit frozen in time until the PCs see them, then yeah you need to deal with this situation often. But if you play it realistically, a situation like OP's shouldn't happen most of the time.
If a BBEG is holed up in a room, they shouldn't be waiting passively for the party to open the door. That door should be barricaded if not trapped. Unless surprised, the defensive party should be playing active defense. Dungeons and fortresses and outposts should be designed to put invaders at a disadvantage. I think having the party always be the instigators in a situation like this is really missing an opportunity to make the opposition look competent and threatening. Rather than just staring helplessly at the door like a nervous teenager waiting for their crush to text them back.
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I am with xalthu.
Roll initiative and people can do whatever they want to INCLUDING open the door. Or not opening the door.
If no one on both sides opens the door, start the next round.
Not that hard to do.
The question becomes is opening the door helpful or is it better to let the enemy open the door. It could go either way, you won't know until the door opens up.
You can buff, hide and take cover out of combat. You can even do several rounds of buffing if desired. D&D combat is an abstraction: you don't really Ready actions outside of combat... if you could, everyone would in situations like (and you'd probably need to resolve them in initiative order)... which is effectively what the first combat round is . For the same reason you don't really dodge outside of combat (since everyone would instead do that if they aren't allowed to ready actions). Your #2 and #3 options seem outside of the D&D rules and could cause issues.
If you still want to house rule, probably best you have everyone (that is not dodging) to have readied actions (resolved in initiative order when they are simultaneous). But assuming there is no time pressure, Buff spells and hiding can certainly be accomplished well before opening the door (i.e. outside of combat) .
If you want to follow the D&D rules while still acknowledging the fighter's desire to dodge: you could give him a circumstance bonus to defense (i.e. disadvantage on enemy attacks), but also disadvantage on his initiative check (since he's not "readying" to attack). Or maybe instead he could just take cover before someone opens the door.
Option 1, you roll initiative to determine turn order for everyone to act on in any encounter where it's necessary. Both PCs and monsters/NPCs should be able to have a turn to act based on order. Even Surprise doesn't allow pre-combat actions. Allowing actions before initiative usually leads to a race call where people try to do all sorts of things like move, buff, debuff or attack etc..