So I came across a situation while DMing last night and I’m now sat trying to decide if I was too harsh on the players.
The characters had just come out of a tough battle and were looting the area when an NPC they were travelling with turned against them and attacked. As I was describing the NPC’s behaviour and words, the players all started yelling “I drink my healing potion!!” as they had recently purchased a few. I told them that they couldn’t, they needed to roll initiative and then they could use an action to drink on their turn.
Is this too harsh? I felt like they were essentially interrupting my description, and the next thing I was going to say was that initiative needed to be rolled. Responding to an enemy revealing itself and approaching in any way feels like it should happen after initiative to me?
I get the feeling that the primary reason why your players wanted to drink those potions before combat was to free up their first round's actions for other tasks. While I myself am divided on whether or not you were too harsh, I do think you followed the rules. But I do have a suggestion:
I recommend implementing a house rule: Drinking a potion takes a bonus action. Administering a potion takes an action. But you cannot interact with more than one potion on a turn.
It's totally fair, I mean it's just the same as abruptly attacking the enemy, would you allow everyone to draw weapons and attack the new enemy? The moment they start using their action, hands going towards their weapons and similar, it's combat.
IF however a player would have said "I slowly try to drink a healing potion while he's distracted by talking to us" I'd allow a stealth check to drink one before the battle.
I'd even allow it if they actively had one character try to distract them by engaging in the conversation, by rolling a deception to make sure they looked at their character instead of the others
You were not too harsh, if you intended to have initiative rolled after you finished the description, wether they try to interrupt you to drink potions is irrelevant. PCs don't normally get to act while you read alout texts.
If you throw another combat encounter right after one, without any short rest in between, the challenge is greater and i asusme they wanted to try to get some heal and save their action before any turn order started. If they do this again, what you could do in the future is ask for initiative and then start describing what they see before anyone takes a turn.
You were not too harsh, if you intended to have initiative rolled after you finished the description, wether they try to interrupt you to drink potions is irrelevant. PCs don't normally get to act while you read alout texts.
If you throw another combat encounter right after one, without any short rest in between, the challenge is greater and i asusme they wanted to try to get some heal and save their action before any turn order started. If they do this again, what you could do in the future is ask for initiative and then start describing what they see before anyone takes a turn.
Having them roll initiative first is also just a good way to ramp up tension, although you don't want to use it too often.
"OK, we've searched all the bodies. I head into that side room to see what loot I can find."
"Before you get there... everyone roll initiative."
"What???? OMGOMGOMG"
"As you pass by NPC, you notice...
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Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
I’d say you played it fairly, assuming that everyone had a chance to say what they were doing, not just one or two folks saying they were looting before the others could get a word in edgewise. Presumably the party will also learn a lesson about making sure they are taking care of themselves before getting grabby with the loot, and making assumptions about when they are safe or not.
You were perfectly within the rules and the spirit of the encounter.
If I may suggest a good practice, that isn't even really a house rule to enhance play: have PCs roll initiative at the beginning of the session and at the end of an encounter. Then when an encounter starts, you simply ask the first player "what do you do?"
This does a couple of good things: 1) it disguises the "start of combat" so players don't autopilot into battle mode and can still try negotiation, etc. 2) Makes surprise attacks much more narratively satisfying. 3) Is also good for time sensitive traps/puzzles. And more.
1. Determine surprise. The DM determines whether anyone involved in the combat encounter is surprised. 2. Establish positions. The DM decides where all the characters and monsters are located. Given the adventurers' marching order or their stated positions in the room or other location, the DM figures out where the adversaries are — how far away and in what direction. 3. Roll initiative. Everyone involved in the combat encounter rolls initiative, determining the order of combatants' turns. 4. Take turns. Each participant in the battle takes a turn in initiative order. 5. Begin the next round. When everyone involved in the combat has had a turn, the round ends. Repeat step 4 until the fighting stops.
They were surprised. They knew right where the NPC was. That's when they needed to roll for initiative, at step 3. You did everything correctly so far as I can tell. The only thing I see that might be called "harsh" was that they were traveling with an npc, presumably one who was friendly, or why would they be traveling with them, who turned coat and attacked them out of nowhere. That's harsh. They were obviously at low hit points after that tough battle, or why else would they be so desperate to down some healing potions?
I think you did things the right way. My players know that after a combat, healing comes first, then looting, since I've been known to send enemies in waves based on noise/actions of the PCs during the first combat. If they were out of initiative, and the NPC initiated combat, if they hadn't already tried to heal, then they would then have to do so in initiative order.
I do use a house rule that drinking a potion on your turn is a bonus action (feeding one to another creature is still an action), but that would still be in the combat portion if the events transpired as you described.
In general, my players generally come to the understanding of "initiative is over = current threat is gone". With that said, if I ever wanted to do something similar to this (NPC turning on the group) I would have maybe (and I stress maybe) have allowed for an insight check... either rolled or passive. The result of that check would have continued the previous initiative. Something along the lines of "The battle is done, but ______ PC notices a change in your traveling companion's face. It seems as though they are about to turn on you... it's your turn in initiative, what do you do?"
Essentially, even if a couple of "turns" had happened, I would have kept track of initiative from the previous encounter. The players that have a "heal first" mentality would have had their place to do so, the players that wanted to "explore first" would have had their chance, etc. When the NPC double-cross happens, no one should feel skipped or left out. (Hopefully, at least)
There is a lot of flexibility when it comes to encounters. The impact of the environment, initiative, surprise, and all kinds of features between the players and creatures can make the game difficult to balance.
the system takes all of this into account, but there is one thing that the game is designed around that isn’t in the books as far as I can tell. The DnD 5e combat system is designed such that the party is expected to have full health. Not full resources, but full health. A caster could be entirely out of spell slots, a fighter could be out of actio surges or second winds, a barbarian could be out of rages, a monk out of ki, and etc. but that party is expected to somehow have full hitpoints when initiative is rolled.
I heard this from mike mearls on one of his YouTube videos before the sexual assault stuff happened, and WOTC tried to protect him from the mob.
... The characters had just come out of a tough battle and were looting the area when an NPC they were travelling with turned against them and attacked. As I was describing the NPC’s behaviour and words, the players all started yelling “I drink my healing potion!!” as they had recently purchased a few. I told them that they couldn’t, they needed to roll initiative and then they could use an action to drink on their turn.
Is this too harsh? I felt like they were essentially interrupting my description, and the next thing I was going to say was that initiative needed to be rolled. Responding to an enemy revealing itself and approaching in any way feels like it should happen after initiative to me?
Thanks!
I agree with everyone above, that you were not unusually harsh. The players do not have the power to interrupt the DM ever at all. The players have the power to describe the actions their character takes (or wants to take) then the DM will tell them the effect of those actions. Hurriedly trying to do a thing because you are about to be attacked by surprise is the exact sort of thing that it is very correct for a DM to place inside the initiative structure.
The only note of caution I would make is that this situation came about during "looting". Players very seldom actually describe this process, but rather assume that after they win a fight they will immediately be presented with the spoils as the glowing loot magically pops out of the quickly fading corpses out their defeated video game enemies. Everyone gets a bit bored saying "I rummage through the goblins' pockets" a bunch of times. With that being the case, it would be up to you if you thought the *characters* were actually likely to drink their healing potions straight after the battle, and were only delayed by the *players'* lazy greed for loot. A veteran warrior would surely quickly tend their wounds after a fight, before they started pulling jewellery off corpses.
So if the characters were likely to drink their potions before/during looting, then the betraying NPC's timing could be important. Was the NPC just waiting for the fight to be over, or waiting for some specific piece of loot to be found? If the NPC was waiting for the loot, then I would allow some subset of the party to be assumed to have drunk their potions - probably based on a roll. A Wisdom (Insight) would be good, measured against the NPC's deception skill. Those characters are wise enough to take care of their health before getting distracted by the cash, or insightful enough to suspect something was amiss and heal up accordingly. I always like to allow the Insight skill to give some minor protection against sudden betrayal.
If, however, you suspected that the players were likely to take a rest or use some other method of slow healing after the battle and after the looting, and in fact had no intention of using the healing potions before that, then it is right to put their reactions to the sudden betrayal into initiative.
I find it helpful in situations like this to just ask "so what do you do after the fight?" and let the players start listing their activities. When they are mostly done you can interrupt with "before you manage to do all that, the NPC yells out... Etc". Some of the players might describe healing up as a priority during their listing, and you can then make a snap ruling about what would have happened when. I use the same principle when there is a trap in a room or corridor. I allow the players to narrate their action including intended actions that would come after the triggering of the trap, then I interrupt and ask for the Perception roll to detect and avoid the trap if part of their described actions would have triggered it. Just calling for a perception check when the players enter a room containing a trap is likely to have them yelling out "I cast Find Traps!"...
I definitely want to get into the habit of initiative being part of an entire interaction and not just combat. The issue is that my players hear initiative and think “fight!” but tbh that’s a separate issue.
The npc attacking is part of a WotC adventure (Rime of the Frostmaiden) and I ran the encounter exactly as written. I actually made her act a little bit suspiciously before they set off on their journey, and while one player did watch to see if anyone was being followed, nobody asked to dig deeper into her intentions (insight check) or anything of the sort, so I felt the surprise was warranted. They won the battle anyhow, and I think a battle won by the skin of the teeth is always the most fun. Next time they get to explore the treasure vault, and I can rest assured I wasn’t being too mean to them!
I definitely want to get into the habit of initiative being part of an entire interaction and not just combat. The issue is that my players hear initiative and think “fight!” but tbh that’s a separate issue.
That is why I mentioned rolling initiative at the start of the session, then don't even tell them they are in initiative, just ask the turn player what they want to do.
It is actually a tip from a video about how to remove the "initiative means fight" mentality specifically.
I don't think you were too harsh, and I'm a person that usually takes the "player's side" in these things. You were clearly narrating and time was in stop/slow motion. They didn't have time to register a thread and drink potions.
As everyone else says, you were not too harsh. Healing potions simply often feel useless because of 1 of 2 things: (1) they take up a whole action in combat and barely heals you enough to make up for an incoming attack, i.e. making the whole thing seemingly pointless. This feeling of uselessness can be circumvented by making the usage of healing potions require a bonus action instead of an action as others have suggested; (2) Players believe they are only to be used in combat, as it'd be a waste to use a consumable resource when you can simply take a short rest and achieve a much greater effect at no cost. This notion is partially the DM's fault and can be mitigated by interrupting rests with encounters such as the example you describe.
Personally I would (1) ask my players to make a perception check to see whether they are surprised or not; (2) describe the attack; (3) roll initiative. If someone rolled a high enough perception check I'd do step 3 before step 2, as they might prevent the attack.
If I may suggest a good practice, that isn't even really a house rule to enhance play: have PCs roll initiative at the beginning of the session and at the end of an encounter. Then when an encounter starts, you simply ask the first player "what do you do?"
This does a couple of good things: 1) it disguises the "start of combat" so players don't autopilot into battle mode and can still try negotiation, etc. 2) Makes surprise attacks much more narratively satisfying. 3) Is also good for time sensitive traps/puzzles. And more.
Wouldn't the first round of combat then not really be determined by the initiative rolls but instead who speaks up faster? Unless you ask everyone what they do of course, but if you do so you might as well roll initiative at the beginning of combat, no?
On the topic of healing potions. They are almost never worth drinking in combat. They are only worth bringing someone up from 0 hitpoints in my opinion.
The response was fair, but make sure you apply the same restriction to NPCs. BBEG wants to monologue and cast a spell, they have to roll initiative before they cast.
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Hey!
So I came across a situation while DMing last night and I’m now sat trying to decide if I was too harsh on the players.
The characters had just come out of a tough battle and were looting the area when an NPC they were travelling with turned against them and attacked. As I was describing the NPC’s behaviour and words, the players all started yelling “I drink my healing potion!!” as they had recently purchased a few. I told them that they couldn’t, they needed to roll initiative and then they could use an action to drink on their turn.
Is this too harsh? I felt like they were essentially interrupting my description, and the next thing I was going to say was that initiative needed to be rolled. Responding to an enemy revealing itself and approaching in any way feels like it should happen after initiative to me?
Thanks!
I get the feeling that the primary reason why your players wanted to drink those potions before combat was to free up their first round's actions for other tasks. While I myself am divided on whether or not you were too harsh, I do think you followed the rules. But I do have a suggestion:
I recommend implementing a house rule: Drinking a potion takes a bonus action. Administering a potion takes an action. But you cannot interact with more than one potion on a turn.
It's totally fair, I mean it's just the same as abruptly attacking the enemy, would you allow everyone to draw weapons and attack the new enemy? The moment they start using their action, hands going towards their weapons and similar, it's combat.
IF however a player would have said "I slowly try to drink a healing potion while he's distracted by talking to us" I'd allow a stealth check to drink one before the battle.
I'd even allow it if they actively had one character try to distract them by engaging in the conversation, by rolling a deception to make sure they looked at their character instead of the others
You were not too harsh, if you intended to have initiative rolled after you finished the description, wether they try to interrupt you to drink potions is irrelevant. PCs don't normally get to act while you read alout texts.
If you throw another combat encounter right after one, without any short rest in between, the challenge is greater and i asusme they wanted to try to get some heal and save their action before any turn order started. If they do this again, what you could do in the future is ask for initiative and then start describing what they see before anyone takes a turn.
Having them roll initiative first is also just a good way to ramp up tension, although you don't want to use it too often.
"OK, we've searched all the bodies. I head into that side room to see what loot I can find."
"Before you get there... everyone roll initiative."
"What???? OMGOMGOMG"
"As you pass by NPC, you notice...
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
I’d say you played it fairly, assuming that everyone had a chance to say what they were doing, not just one or two folks saying they were looting before the others could get a word in edgewise. Presumably the party will also learn a lesson about making sure they are taking care of themselves before getting grabby with the loot, and making assumptions about when they are safe or not.
You were perfectly within the rules and the spirit of the encounter.
If I may suggest a good practice, that isn't even really a house rule to enhance play: have PCs roll initiative at the beginning of the session and at the end of an encounter. Then when an encounter starts, you simply ask the first player "what do you do?"
This does a couple of good things: 1) it disguises the "start of combat" so players don't autopilot into battle mode and can still try negotiation, etc. 2) Makes surprise attacks much more narratively satisfying. 3) Is also good for time sensitive traps/puzzles. And more.
They were surprised. They knew right where the NPC was. That's when they needed to roll for initiative, at step 3. You did everything correctly so far as I can tell. The only thing I see that might be called "harsh" was that they were traveling with an npc, presumably one who was friendly, or why would they be traveling with them, who turned coat and attacked them out of nowhere. That's harsh. They were obviously at low hit points after that tough battle, or why else would they be so desperate to down some healing potions?
<Insert clever signature here>
I think you did things the right way. My players know that after a combat, healing comes first, then looting, since I've been known to send enemies in waves based on noise/actions of the PCs during the first combat. If they were out of initiative, and the NPC initiated combat, if they hadn't already tried to heal, then they would then have to do so in initiative order.
I do use a house rule that drinking a potion on your turn is a bonus action (feeding one to another creature is still an action), but that would still be in the combat portion if the events transpired as you described.
In general, my players generally come to the understanding of "initiative is over = current threat is gone". With that said, if I ever wanted to do something similar to this (NPC turning on the group) I would have maybe (and I stress maybe) have allowed for an insight check... either rolled or passive. The result of that check would have continued the previous initiative. Something along the lines of "The battle is done, but ______ PC notices a change in your traveling companion's face. It seems as though they are about to turn on you... it's your turn in initiative, what do you do?"
Essentially, even if a couple of "turns" had happened, I would have kept track of initiative from the previous encounter. The players that have a "heal first" mentality would have had their place to do so, the players that wanted to "explore first" would have had their chance, etc. When the NPC double-cross happens, no one should feel skipped or left out. (Hopefully, at least)
You did the right thing.
"I drink my potion!" "Too late! As you go to reach for your potion, [NPC] strikes! Everyone roll initiative!"
Not always, but occasionally, if something like things comes up, I considered the PCs Surprised by the action.
I would go with this maybe with the players using insight instead of peception to determine if the players are surprised.
There is a lot of flexibility when it comes to encounters. The impact of the environment, initiative, surprise, and all kinds of features between the players and creatures can make the game difficult to balance.
the system takes all of this into account, but there is one thing that the game is designed around that isn’t in the books as far as I can tell. The DnD 5e combat system is designed such that the party is expected to have full health. Not full resources, but full health. A caster could be entirely out of spell slots, a fighter could be out of actio surges or second winds, a barbarian could be out of rages, a monk out of ki, and etc. but that party is expected to somehow have full hitpoints when initiative is rolled.
I heard this from mike mearls on one of his YouTube videos before the sexual assault stuff happened, and WOTC tried to protect him from the mob.
I agree with everyone above, that you were not unusually harsh. The players do not have the power to interrupt the DM ever at all. The players have the power to describe the actions their character takes (or wants to take) then the DM will tell them the effect of those actions. Hurriedly trying to do a thing because you are about to be attacked by surprise is the exact sort of thing that it is very correct for a DM to place inside the initiative structure.
The only note of caution I would make is that this situation came about during "looting". Players very seldom actually describe this process, but rather assume that after they win a fight they will immediately be presented with the spoils as the glowing loot magically pops out of the quickly fading corpses out their defeated video game enemies. Everyone gets a bit bored saying "I rummage through the goblins' pockets" a bunch of times. With that being the case, it would be up to you if you thought the *characters* were actually likely to drink their healing potions straight after the battle, and were only delayed by the *players'* lazy greed for loot. A veteran warrior would surely quickly tend their wounds after a fight, before they started pulling jewellery off corpses.
So if the characters were likely to drink their potions before/during looting, then the betraying NPC's timing could be important. Was the NPC just waiting for the fight to be over, or waiting for some specific piece of loot to be found? If the NPC was waiting for the loot, then I would allow some subset of the party to be assumed to have drunk their potions - probably based on a roll. A Wisdom (Insight) would be good, measured against the NPC's deception skill. Those characters are wise enough to take care of their health before getting distracted by the cash, or insightful enough to suspect something was amiss and heal up accordingly. I always like to allow the Insight skill to give some minor protection against sudden betrayal.
If, however, you suspected that the players were likely to take a rest or use some other method of slow healing after the battle and after the looting, and in fact had no intention of using the healing potions before that, then it is right to put their reactions to the sudden betrayal into initiative.
I find it helpful in situations like this to just ask "so what do you do after the fight?" and let the players start listing their activities. When they are mostly done you can interrupt with "before you manage to do all that, the NPC yells out... Etc". Some of the players might describe healing up as a priority during their listing, and you can then make a snap ruling about what would have happened when. I use the same principle when there is a trap in a room or corridor. I allow the players to narrate their action including intended actions that would come after the triggering of the trap, then I interrupt and ask for the Perception roll to detect and avoid the trap if part of their described actions would have triggered it. Just calling for a perception check when the players enter a room containing a trap is likely to have them yelling out "I cast Find Traps!"...
Thanks everyone.
I definitely want to get into the habit of initiative being part of an entire interaction and not just combat. The issue is that my players hear initiative and think “fight!” but tbh that’s a separate issue.
The npc attacking is part of a WotC adventure (Rime of the Frostmaiden) and I ran the encounter exactly as written. I actually made her act a little bit suspiciously before they set off on their journey, and while one player did watch to see if anyone was being followed, nobody asked to dig deeper into her intentions (insight check) or anything of the sort, so I felt the surprise was warranted. They won the battle anyhow, and I think a battle won by the skin of the teeth is always the most fun. Next time they get to explore the treasure vault, and I can rest assured I wasn’t being too mean to them!
That is why I mentioned rolling initiative at the start of the session, then don't even tell them they are in initiative, just ask the turn player what they want to do.
It is actually a tip from a video about how to remove the "initiative means fight" mentality specifically.
I don't think you were too harsh, and I'm a person that usually takes the "player's side" in these things. You were clearly narrating and time was in stop/slow motion. They didn't have time to register a thread and drink potions.
Altrazin Aghanes - Wizard/Fighter
Varpulis Windhowl - Fighter
Skolson Demjon - Cleric/Fighter
Wouldn't the first round of combat then not really be determined by the initiative rolls but instead who speaks up faster? Unless you ask everyone what they do of course, but if you do so you might as well roll initiative at the beginning of combat, no?
On the topic of healing potions. They are almost never worth drinking in combat. They are only worth bringing someone up from 0 hitpoints in my opinion.
Altrazin Aghanes - Wizard/Fighter
Varpulis Windhowl - Fighter
Skolson Demjon - Cleric/Fighter
The response was fair, but make sure you apply the same restriction to NPCs. BBEG wants to monologue and cast a spell, they have to roll initiative before they cast.