So a weird situation has come up in my games a couple of times and I'm wondering how anyone else has handled it in the past.
The party confronts a powerful enemy, and they make an attempt to talk them into surrendering (or whatever), but at some point, somebody attacks. Now, nobody is surprised, so "surprise round" rules don't apply here (do they?), but if there's one character in particular who triggers the switch from "standoff" to "combat" ... how does initiative work? I haven't been able to find a clear answer to that in the rules.
At the time, I had everyone roll initiative, and then just declared that the person who started combat, is where initiative starts for that first round. Then, all rounds afterward proceed as normal, first-to-last in initiative order. I wonder if that's not totally fair to the characters who rolled higher, on that first round... but on the other hand, going totally in initiative order doesn't really make sense if the character who "started the fight" is second-to-last or something like that.
I had also considered that the other characters might have "readied actions," but in this case nobody actually declared that so I didn't try to guess what they might have been thinking.
So I'm wondering how any other DMs have ruled in similar situations. Would you maybe give the "fight starter" an action alone, and then start with normal rounds afterward? I just can't help but feel that there might be a more elegant solution to that kind of thing.
The way you did it is fine. Having everyone roll initiative and having the instigator go out-of-order in the first round is also viable. (Or raise their initiative so they go first in every subsequent round.)
Giving the one who kicked things off a free round on the theory that everyone else on both sides is surprised works well when nobody was expecting the fight to break out yet.
So a weird situation has come up in my games a couple of times and I'm wondering how anyone else has handled it in the past.
The party confronts a powerful enemy, and they make an attempt to talk them into surrendering (or whatever), but at some point, somebody attacks. Now, nobody is surprised, so "surprise round" rules don't apply here (do they?), but if there's one character in particular who triggers the switch from "standoff" to "combat" ... how does initiative work? I haven't been able to find a clear answer to that in the rules.
You roll initiative normally and quite possibly the person who initiated combat goes last -- basically, you go for your sword (or otherwise take a hostile action) and everyone else also acts, because everyone was just waiting for combat to break out (not that it's mechanically a wait). I do, however, allow using deception to achieve surprise.
I would agree that your way wasn't fair to characters with higher initiative rolls, and it also sets a bit of a dangerous precedent where players are incentivized to ignore conversations and just attack as soon as possible.
If you felt like your character really deserved the first action because of a really slick distraction or something similar, I would just roll initiative, then move that single player's initiative value to the top. Or give them advantage on the roll.
But in general, I advise rolling normal, which sometimes means that the person who attempted the 'first shot' goes later in the round. You used the word 'standoff', which is a good analogy. In a western standoff, the person who reaches for their gun first isn't always the person who shoots first. That's the whole point of the initiative roll.
These have actually been really helpful replies, because it's clear to me now that there's at least a few factors that can go into determining what happens. Are weapons drawn? Aimed? Does the "attack first" character need to close the distance before they can swing?
Maybe it's just a matter of preference or DM style, but I don't care for the idea of moving the character to the top or bottom of the initiative order. I don't think I want to tell a player, "even though nobody was trying to act before you did, they still get to go first anyway," because even a readied action doesn't give you the chance to act before whatever it is you're reacting to. (PHB: "when the trigger occurs, you can either take your reaction right after the trigger finishes or ignore the trigger.") And if they couldn't do it with a readied action, I don't want to let them do it by not readying an action.
All the PHB says about starting combat is, "the order of turns is determined at the beginning of a combat encounter, when everyone rolls initiative." So maybe it's fair to say that the "combat encounter" hasn't actually started yet, during the standoff? If that's true, characters aren't taking full combat turns yet, they're just taking single actions... until one of those actions (such as drawing a weapon) triggers the start of the combat encounter and we start rolling initiative. That way, the "first attacker" doesn't have a whole turn to work with-- not an action plus a bonus action plus a move plus an object interaction, but instead just ONE of those things at a time.
I think that solves my problem: the trigger-happy character doesn't have people "cutting in line" in front of them, and if they're clever about it then they might get a single attack before initiative is rolled (but since it's not "on their turn" they don't get things like Extra Attack for it). At the same time, they don't actually get to jump ahead of everybody else's initiative either.
Is that a reasonable interpretation of RAW? Or would that be considered a house rule?
All the PHB says about starting combat is, "the order of turns is determined at the beginning of a combat encounter, when everyone rolls initiative." So maybe it's fair to say that the "combat encounter" hasn't actually started yet, during the standoff? If that's true, characters aren't taking full combat turns yet, they're just taking single actions... until one of those actions (such as drawing a weapon) triggers the start of the combat encounter and we start rolling initiative. That way, the "first attacker" doesn't have a whole turn to work with-- not an action plus a bonus action plus a move plus an object interaction, but instead just ONE of those things at a time.
I think that solves my problem: the trigger-happy character doesn't have people "cutting in line" in front of them, and if they're clever about it then they might get a single attack before initiative is rolled (but since it's not "on their turn" they don't get things like Extra Attack for it). At the same time, they don't actually get to jump ahead of everybody else's initiative either.
Is that a reasonable interpretation of RAW? Or would that be considered a house rule?
This is house rule territory. Ultimately, remember that players don't make attacks directly - they declare their intent, and the DM plays out the scenario. Generally, once the intent is 'combat', the very first thing you do is roll initiative before any actions are taken. Surprise is the mechanic used to play out characters who 'get the jump', which doesn't really work in this scenario.
If you feel this approach works best for your game, then go for it.
One thing to keep in mind - Do you think your players would be ok with you doing the same thing to them? I personally would feel that it was a bit unfair if I had my weapon at the ready during a standoff and my DM just had the enemy get a free action against me, no initiative or anything. It would encourage me to just yell "I attack!" at the start of any standoff to avoid this sort of penalty, which I don't think would make for enjoyable gameplay.
One thing to keep in mind - Do you think your players would be ok with you doing the same thing to them? I personally would feel that it was a bit unfair if I had my weapon at the ready during a standoff and my DM just had the enemy get a free action against me, no initiative or anything. It would encourage me to just yell "I attack!" at the start of any standoff to avoid this sort of penalty, which I don't think would make for enjoyable gameplay.
That's kind of the point, though. If either side had already committed to fighting, the standoff wouldn't even happen- you'd just roll initiative on sight.
The reason this comes up in my games, is because my players like to try other strategies: negotiation, bribery, bargaining, trickery, intimidation, or just "it's not worth it, nobody do anything stupid and we all walk away." There's a tense moment where two groups of people stare each other down - everybody has to split their attention between multiple possible targets, and they don't know whether this will actually be a fight or not. And sometimes everybody does actually just walk away in the end- the monsters aren't always mindless killing machines.
Please don't take it as an insult, but your reply kind of reinforced what I was going for: at any moment, anybody - PC or NPC - could decide, "screw it, I'm pulling the trigger." Then, the players have to decide whether they're ready to skip right to the fight so they can take that 1 extra attack at the start, or if they want to push their luck and risk giving it to one of the enemies instead. And if they run out of ideas, or everybody's just waiting to attack, then it's time for initiative and we have normal combat with normal rules.
So, house rule it is, I guess. But thank you to everyone for all the input. It's really helped me work out exactly what this kind of moment should be trying to accomplish, and when it's not appropriate to do.
I would treat it as if everyone is holding their action, for the trigger being anyone attacking. So the character who initiates gets their held action, then go ahead and roll initiative, and let everyone else use their held actions in Initiative order (because they all have the same trigger), at the end of which, proceed with full turns in initiative order starting at the top.
The benefit of having a full round of readied actions from all participants is that it better reflects the high-tension situation, because everyone has just enough time for the one action, which means everyone will get their chance to act in the opening salvo before everything turns to chaos.
If it was just a face off and no one had readied actions I would give the initiator/instigator advantage for his initiative roll.
Just to liven things up you could also give everyone who rolled less than 10 disadvantage of their attack rolls for the first turn. One round like this will not be so bad.
Just knowing this is how things will go in the future could make all their future encounters a bit more cautious and realistic.
If it doesn't work just change things back. Your the DM.
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So a weird situation has come up in my games a couple of times and I'm wondering how anyone else has handled it in the past.
The party confronts a powerful enemy, and they make an attempt to talk them into surrendering (or whatever), but at some point, somebody attacks. Now, nobody is surprised, so "surprise round" rules don't apply here (do they?), but if there's one character in particular who triggers the switch from "standoff" to "combat" ... how does initiative work? I haven't been able to find a clear answer to that in the rules.
At the time, I had everyone roll initiative, and then just declared that the person who started combat, is where initiative starts for that first round. Then, all rounds afterward proceed as normal, first-to-last in initiative order. I wonder if that's not totally fair to the characters who rolled higher, on that first round... but on the other hand, going totally in initiative order doesn't really make sense if the character who "started the fight" is second-to-last or something like that.
I had also considered that the other characters might have "readied actions," but in this case nobody actually declared that so I didn't try to guess what they might have been thinking.
So I'm wondering how any other DMs have ruled in similar situations. Would you maybe give the "fight starter" an action alone, and then start with normal rounds afterward? I just can't help but feel that there might be a more elegant solution to that kind of thing.
The way you did it is fine. Having everyone roll initiative and having the instigator go out-of-order in the first round is also viable. (Or raise their initiative so they go first in every subsequent round.)
Giving the one who kicked things off a free round on the theory that everyone else on both sides is surprised works well when nobody was expecting the fight to break out yet.
You roll initiative normally and quite possibly the person who initiated combat goes last -- basically, you go for your sword (or otherwise take a hostile action) and everyone else also acts, because everyone was just waiting for combat to break out (not that it's mechanically a wait). I do, however, allow using deception to achieve surprise.
I would agree that your way wasn't fair to characters with higher initiative rolls, and it also sets a bit of a dangerous precedent where players are incentivized to ignore conversations and just attack as soon as possible.
If you felt like your character really deserved the first action because of a really slick distraction or something similar, I would just roll initiative, then move that single player's initiative value to the top. Or give them advantage on the roll.
But in general, I advise rolling normal, which sometimes means that the person who attempted the 'first shot' goes later in the round. You used the word 'standoff', which is a good analogy. In a western standoff, the person who reaches for their gun first isn't always the person who shoots first. That's the whole point of the initiative roll.
Sometimes I let the initiator go first other times I have regular initiative rolls.
The instigator not going first because of initiative is just like every quick draw western/samurai movie ever made.
It is very situation dependent.
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These have actually been really helpful replies, because it's clear to me now that there's at least a few factors that can go into determining what happens. Are weapons drawn? Aimed? Does the "attack first" character need to close the distance before they can swing?
Maybe it's just a matter of preference or DM style, but I don't care for the idea of moving the character to the top or bottom of the initiative order. I don't think I want to tell a player, "even though nobody was trying to act before you did, they still get to go first anyway," because even a readied action doesn't give you the chance to act before whatever it is you're reacting to. (PHB: "when the trigger occurs, you can either take your reaction right after the trigger finishes or ignore the trigger.") And if they couldn't do it with a readied action, I don't want to let them do it by not readying an action.
All the PHB says about starting combat is, "the order of turns is determined at the beginning of a combat encounter, when everyone rolls initiative." So maybe it's fair to say that the "combat encounter" hasn't actually started yet, during the standoff? If that's true, characters aren't taking full combat turns yet, they're just taking single actions... until one of those actions (such as drawing a weapon) triggers the start of the combat encounter and we start rolling initiative. That way, the "first attacker" doesn't have a whole turn to work with-- not an action plus a bonus action plus a move plus an object interaction, but instead just ONE of those things at a time.
I think that solves my problem: the trigger-happy character doesn't have people "cutting in line" in front of them, and if they're clever about it then they might get a single attack before initiative is rolled (but since it's not "on their turn" they don't get things like Extra Attack for it). At the same time, they don't actually get to jump ahead of everybody else's initiative either.
Is that a reasonable interpretation of RAW? Or would that be considered a house rule?
This might be worth a view as it talks about some initiative situations you may run across to start combat, surprised or otherwise.
This is house rule territory. Ultimately, remember that players don't make attacks directly - they declare their intent, and the DM plays out the scenario. Generally, once the intent is 'combat', the very first thing you do is roll initiative before any actions are taken. Surprise is the mechanic used to play out characters who 'get the jump', which doesn't really work in this scenario.
If you feel this approach works best for your game, then go for it.
One thing to keep in mind - Do you think your players would be ok with you doing the same thing to them? I personally would feel that it was a bit unfair if I had my weapon at the ready during a standoff and my DM just had the enemy get a free action against me, no initiative or anything. It would encourage me to just yell "I attack!" at the start of any standoff to avoid this sort of penalty, which I don't think would make for enjoyable gameplay.
YMMV for different tables.
That's kind of the point, though. If either side had already committed to fighting, the standoff wouldn't even happen- you'd just roll initiative on sight.
The reason this comes up in my games, is because my players like to try other strategies: negotiation, bribery, bargaining, trickery, intimidation, or just "it's not worth it, nobody do anything stupid and we all walk away." There's a tense moment where two groups of people stare each other down - everybody has to split their attention between multiple possible targets, and they don't know whether this will actually be a fight or not. And sometimes everybody does actually just walk away in the end- the monsters aren't always mindless killing machines.
Please don't take it as an insult, but your reply kind of reinforced what I was going for: at any moment, anybody - PC or NPC - could decide, "screw it, I'm pulling the trigger." Then, the players have to decide whether they're ready to skip right to the fight so they can take that 1 extra attack at the start, or if they want to push their luck and risk giving it to one of the enemies instead. And if they run out of ideas, or everybody's just waiting to attack, then it's time for initiative and we have normal combat with normal rules.
So, house rule it is, I guess. But thank you to everyone for all the input. It's really helped me work out exactly what this kind of moment should be trying to accomplish, and when it's not appropriate to do.
I would treat it as if everyone is holding their action, for the trigger being anyone attacking. So the character who initiates gets their held action, then go ahead and roll initiative, and let everyone else use their held actions in Initiative order (because they all have the same trigger), at the end of which, proceed with full turns in initiative order starting at the top.
The benefit of having a full round of readied actions from all participants is that it better reflects the high-tension situation, because everyone has just enough time for the one action, which means everyone will get their chance to act in the opening salvo before everything turns to chaos.
If it was just a face off and no one had readied actions I would give the initiator/instigator advantage for his initiative roll.
Just to liven things up you could also give everyone who rolled less than 10 disadvantage of their attack rolls for the first turn. One round like this will not be so bad.
Just knowing this is how things will go in the future could make all their future encounters a bit more cautious and realistic.
If it doesn't work just change things back. Your the DM.