Initiative Dilemma?

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Longman
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Re: Initiative Dilemma?

Post by Longman »

gorkowskij wrote:Wow! Thanks for all the feedback. The fact that there are so many perspectives on how to deal with this (and most of them are essentially house rules) underscores that there is an issue here. I still think the cleanest and simplest solution is to not allow players to act on an initiative number lower than the one they rolled. In other words, when it's your turn you act, or pass until next round.
The game system pretty much invites house-rules. There's no way you could cover every aspect of fantasy RP combat in 150 odd pages. I don't think having different opinions reveals an issue, necessarily.

If I am a magic user and I lose initiative, most monsters and many villains would simply attack me immediately. Which is bad considering my terribly low hit points. Even if some of them were smart enough to 'delay' until I tried to cast, how would I know they were going to do that?

The GM might say: "Your opponent takes a small pause, readying for a huge attack on you. In this brief pause, you think there is just enough time to cast the spell you were preparing!"

Then I'd try to cast and the guy would clobber me and try to ruin my spell.

Or, if I did work out the trick, I'd delay my spell again, and then he'd clobber me anyway.

Either way it sucks to be a magic user in melee and lose the initiative.

If this kind of thing were a major concern for me I'd work out a house-rule about "casting in melee" and make the magic-user have to make a concentration roll of some kind, to cast spells in a round in which they had been hit.

That way, the rule would only come up when the thing actually happened, rather than having a constant tactical aspect of initiative for everyone to worry about.

But really, if I wanted that style of play at all, I'd go for Warhammer, not BF.
Tree Ant
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Re: Initiative Dilemma?

Post by Tree Ant »

Interesting, by this logic, if you have a magic-user duel and both players follow that strategy, you will basically stalemate until both of you get a spell of at the same time and then they obliterate each other.

For the duel case, they could probably guess what the other caster is going to do, after a few rounds of stalemate, the caster who wins initiative will just fire off their spell. Going first, they have the advantage which they would spoil by trying to disrupt the other MU's spell.

For a group battle, the player could use that strategy if they guess what the other MU is trying to do. The player should not know what specific action the other MU is holding for. In that case, both MU's lose a turn due to the first MU trying to disrupt the second's spell. That may or may not be a good strategy for magic-user 1. A disruption would only occur if the second MU doesn't guess what the first MU is trying to do.

Overall, I don't see a major issue. It creates some interesting tactical considerations, but doesn't seem game-breaking to me.

P.S. I just realized that I have never had a MU duel in BFRPG. I might have to make that happen in a game sometime.
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Solomoriah
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Re: Initiative Dilemma?

Post by Solomoriah »

If both sides choose to delay, they do nothing for the round and must re-roll for the next round. (Not in the rules, but how I intended it to work.)

Also note, you do not necessarily know what the other guy is doing. The person "holding" Initiative is not always obvious to the guy he's waiting on, especially if the person holding is not close to his intended target. A strictly one-on-one duel is one thing, but a multi-character/multi-monster battle is entirely another.
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Longman
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Re: Initiative Dilemma?

Post by Longman »

For what it's worth, I don't generally employ any "interruption" rules for spell-casters at all.

I don't see why they should apply only to spell-casting, and not other actions.

For example, if someone is trying to fire a longbow over 90 yards and then he gets blasted with a lightning bolt just as he is about to release the arrow, that's going to throw his aim out, right? So why should those rules only apply to spell-casters?

In my view, either you have interrupted actions applying to many things, or none. And it's much easier to say they don't apply to anything, and just let everyone take their turn.

Like I said above, if I did want to have some special deal for magic users only, it wouldn't be based on initiative. It would be some way of testing to see if the MU could concentrate while in combat, or just after having been hit. But it's never really come up in my games.

Interesting question, though.
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The Angry Monk
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Re: Initiative Dilemma?

Post by The Angry Monk »

Good point, Longman!
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gorkowskij
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Re: Initiative Dilemma?

Post by gorkowskij »

The initiative dilemma poses a larger problem. With the rules as written, a semi-intelligent (or smarter) foe can almost always shut down spell casters. You don’t need dueling spell casters, and the problem persists even when large groups engage each other. Only two things are required: 1) a foe smart enough to recognize a spell caster, and 2) an initiative die roll greater than the spell caster’s. Condition one is quite common. A good many creatures (starting with goblins) are smart enough to recognize that they guy with no armor and a walking stick could be a spell caster. Condition two actually becomes more likely as the number of combatants involved increases. That is, every foe that rolls a die for initiative gets a chance to roll better than the spell caster. Even if the spell caster gets a 5, someone else could get a 6. In fact, if there are six foes, one of them probably will get a six! Here’s a slimmed down, generic example.

If my group of three or more PCs engages an opposing group of three or more semi-intelligent monsters so long as any one of them gets better initiative than my PC spell caster (quite likely) then they can shut down my PC spell caster via the I-attack-on-his-number procedure already described. Keep in mind, my spell caster has to beat every semi intelligent foe or else the one that beats him can shut him down. Remember, one need only attack, not actually score a hit, to foil the spell. And, there’s no penalty for keying on the spell caster. He’s on the other team anyway, so the foes want to strike him. They just take the time to strike-on-his-number to suppress his spells.

Yes, there are numerous house rule fixes. But, shouldn’t we also consider a simple fix to the base line rules to remedy this? Or, is this OK? If I play by the rules as written, then thinking foes, quite common in BFRPG, can almost always shut down the spell caster.
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Rhialto
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Re: Initiative Dilemma?

Post by Rhialto »

You forgot condition 3: the opponent(s) must be in a position to attack the spell caster.
So it is not quite as bad, unless there are a lot of enemies with missile weapons (which also need an actual hit to disrupt).

What I don't like about the RAW is that it means a single melee fighter up against a spellcaster has an incentive not to attack if he wins initiative.
That is counter-intuitive to me.
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Re: Initiative Dilemma?

Post by gorkowskij »

Note, there is no requirement to actually "hit" to spoil the spell. Here's the rule...

Page 15, Paragraph 2

If a spellcaster is attacked (even if not hit) or must make a saving throw (whether successful or not) on the Initiative number on which he or she is casting a spell, the spell is spoiled and lost.

And, given that one can move and then attack with a melee weapon it's not that hard to make an attack. Yes, one could be blocked by defenders who deliberately arrange themselves as barriers, but that's where simple missile weapons like slings, or even darts come in handy. And if you have some bows, watch out.
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Rhialto
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Re: Initiative Dilemma?

Post by Rhialto »

Sorry, been reading too many retroclone rules lately.
Don't know where I got the idea that missile and melee attacks work differently.

But my other point still stands: fighters screening the wizards from melee attacks is standard tactics. Unless there is a large number of opponents coming from multiple directions, I would assume that it is possible.
Otherwise, no wizard would ever make 2nd level.
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Clever_Munkey
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Re: Initiative Dilemma?

Post by Clever_Munkey »

Rhialto wrote:You forgot condition 3: the opponent(s) must be in a position to attack the spell caster.
So it is not quite as bad, unless there are a lot of enemies with missile weapons (which also need an actual hit to disrupt).

What I don't like about the RAW is that it means a single melee fighter up against a spellcaster has an incentive not to attack if he wins initiative.
That is counter-intuitive to me.
Technically, in the rules as written a ranged attack does not need to hit.
gorkowskij wrote:The initiative dilemma poses a larger problem. With the rules as written, a semi-intelligent (or smarter) foe can almost always shut down spell casters. You don’t need dueling spell casters, and the problem persists even when large groups engage each other. Only two things are required: 1) a foe smart enough to recognize a spell caster, and 2) an initiative die roll greater than the spell caster’s. Condition one is quite common. A good many creatures (starting with goblins) are smart enough to recognize that they guy with no armor and a walking stick could be a spell caster. Condition two actually becomes more likely as the number of combatants involved increases. That is, every foe that rolls a die for initiative gets a chance to roll better than the spell caster. Even if the spell caster gets a 5, someone else could get a 6. In fact, if there are six foes, one of them probably will get a six! Here’s a slimmed down, generic example.

If my group of three or more PCs engages an opposing group of three or more semi-intelligent monsters so long as any one of them gets better initiative than my PC spell caster (quite likely) then they can shut down my PC spell caster via the I-attack-on-his-number procedure already described. Keep in mind, my spell caster has to beat every semi intelligent foe or else the one that beats him can shut him down. Remember, one need only attack, not actually score a hit, to foil the spell. And, there’s no penalty for keying on the spell caster. He’s on the other team anyway, so the foes want to strike him. They just take the time to strike-on-his-number to suppress his spells.

Yes, there are numerous house rule fixes. But, shouldn’t we also consider a simple fix to the base line rules to remedy this? Or, is this OK? If I play by the rules as written, then thinking foes, quite common in BFRPG, can almost always shut down the spell caster.
This also assumes that the GM is not ever rolling group initiative, and that the enemies are ignoring at least two other players.

I think I'm repeating things here, but to address the greater problem:

1) If the goal is to prevent a spell from being cast, then it succeeds, even if it does not remove the spell from memory.
2) When someone waits in combat they don't tell the enemy what they are waiting for, so the GM probably shouldn't either. In the rules a combatant can delay until a specific number, or until another combatant acts. If the spell caster doesn't want to cast simply because an enemy is holding their action then let them, but the party might need that spell ASAP.
3) There are usually multiple targets and goals (e.g. kill an opponent) in combat. The price for delaying is that you might give a different opponent an opportunity to achieve a goal, meanwhile not necessarily completing anything themselves .

My solution: The GM should keep enemies initiatives secret. The rules simply say that the GM counts down the numbers, and everyone acts on their number, or they can choose to wait until a later number. This basically works the same as declaring actions before rolling because the order combatants act in isn't precisely known. It also technically fits in the rules as written, in that there was no rule preventing it. :lol:

I think this also works in one-on-one fights. The spell caster(s) won't act until they are reasonably sure they have the initiative (which may or may not be true). If both sides delay, then nothing happens in that round.

If the player is constantly waiting to disrupt the spell, and nothing is happening, even when they have the highest possible initiative, then maybe making them delay until a number might work (still keeping GM initiatives hidden). Caster A wins initiative, and decides to delay to a number. A would be able to disrupt Caster B if B casts on that number (+/-1?), otherwise A casts on that number. If Both A and B delay to the same number then A disrupts B. If B delays to a higher number than A, then B casts normally, followed by A casting normally. Now there is a higher risk for the reward of disrupting spells.

Anyway: I house rule a d12 instead of d6 for initiative because it gives a slightly larger spread, (fewer simultaneous actions) and gives the d12 some attention.
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