Recently I’ve been involved in several discussions regarding skills in D&D.

There’s an attitude I’ve never been able to understand when it comes to roleplaying games (or anything else for that matter): “I have too many options.”

For example, lots of people complain that there are “too many supplements” for their game. In fact, a lot of people are looking forward to 4th Edition precisely because it will strip away all of those supplements. Ignoring for the moment that 4th Edition will have supplements released for it several months before the game itself is actually available, these complaints and this glee simply leave me scratching my head.

If you don’t want them, don’t buy them.

It’s not like someone is coming round to your house, holding a gun to your head, and forcing you to buy a supplement. If you don’t want them, then don’t buy them. Nothing could be easier. Your “problem” can be solved by doing, literally, nothing at all.

On the other hand, if you need them or want them… well, there they are. And the more of them there are, the better it is (because that drastically increases the odds that whatever supplement you need at this particular moment in time will, in fact, exist).

I bring this up because I see the same complaint leveled at 3rd Edition’s skill system.

The sentiment is perhaps most eloquently put by Vinicus Zoio on WotC’s messageboards: “God, I hope they get rid of skill points!”

“GOD, I HOPE THEY GET RID OF SKILL POINTS!”

I really couldn’t disagree more.

The existing skill point system is the best of both worlds.

(1) If you want to quickly generate a character’s skills, select a number of class skills equal to # + Int modifier and give them skill ranks equal to 3 + your level, where # is based on your class. (Multiclass Characters: For each class, select a number of class skills equal to # + Int modifier and give them skill ranks equal to their class level. Add +3 skill ranks to the class skills selected for whatever class was taken at 3rd level.)

(2) If you want to customize your character’s skills, on the other hand, you have complete flexibility to do that.

The only thing I’d tweak is the rules for handling increases in Intelligence so that they retroactively grant you skill points (the same way that Con increases retroactively boost your hit points). You can argue the “realism” of this (I don’t have a problem with it), but it removes the only mechanical hiccup getting in the way of the fast-and-easy creation method of scenario #1.

The Star Wars Saga Edition method of doing things (which appears to also be the way that 4th Edition is going), on the other hand, is remarkably inferior: It gives you scenario #1… and only scenario #1.

And here’s the trick: It doesn’t make scenario #1 any faster or easier. So by adopting the SWSE method of doing things, you’re sacrificing flexibility and customization, and you’re gaining… absolutely nothing.

SKILLED vs. UNSKILLED

To be fair, there is another argument for adopting the SWSE system for handling skills: It eliminates the disparity between skilled and unskilled characters.

The argument goes something like this: A character who specializes in the Hide skill will eventually become so skilled at hiding that a person who hasn’t invested any skill points into Spot will never be able to spot them. (This happens when there is a 20-point difference between the Hide skill bonus and the Spot skill bonus — the 1d20 roll can no longer span that difference.)

SWSE solves this “problem” by turning every character into a renaissance man: Your trained skills are set to:

1d20 + 5 + character level + attribute modifier + miscellaneous modifiers

Your untrained skills are set to:

1d20 + character level + attribute modifier + miscellaneous modifiers

As you can see, this means that all characters become skilled in all things (with the exception of some trained-only skills). A 10th level characters is as a good at every single skill as a trained 1st level character.

This does eliminate the disparity between the skill bonuses of various characters… but it also means that every single character in SWSE is Doc Savage.

FIXING A FALSE PROBLEM

But the real problem with SWSE’s “fix” is that this disparity isn’t actually a problem.

This type of disparity is a problem when it comes to attack bonuses and saving throws, because those are target numbers which are fundamental to a wide array of common challenges in the game: If you’ve reached a point where the rogue will automatically succeed (barring a natural 1) on any saving throw the fighter has any chance of making, then it becomes increasingly difficult to design challenges for the group.

But skills, in general, don’t suffer from these problems. Any problems created by disparities between skilled and non-skilled characters can be simply addressed by:

(1) Rewriting the skill rules to remove a handful of truly problematic skill uses. (Diplomacy and Tumble, I’m looking at you.) These are areas that need to be addressed any way.

(2) Not worrying about it. If the wizard can cast improved invisibility, why are you fretting about the fact that the uber-specialized Hider finds it trivial to sneak past the unskilled Spotter? If the spellcaster can whip off a dominate person, why is it a problem that the relatively naive guy who has never spent a rank in Sense Motive is consistently getting the wool pulled over his eyes by the legendary Bluff specialist?

LACK OF FLEXIBILITY

But an unnecessary lack of flexibility increasingly seems to be the design methodology for 4th Edition. For example, Andy Collins recently discussed the fact that, in 4th Edition, abilities which were once feats and available to any character will now be class-specific abilities. This is one giant leap backwards for the game.

Similarly, it now appears that monsters and PCs will be built on mutually incompatible frameworks.

All of these things are major strikes against 4th Edition, in my opinion. Combined with decisions like removing saving throws from the game (fundamentally altering something that has been a core component of D&D gameplay for more than three decades), focusing the game exclusively on miniature-based tactical play (both in terms of removing real-world measurements from the rules and in terms of designing monsters so that they have no function outside of combat), and changes to the meta-setting of the game (something roughly akin to changing the property names in Monopoly) the prospects for 4th Edition looker bleaker and bleaker for me.

It seems increasingly likely that the game is heading in the wrong direction. I’m still holding out some hope, but my suspicions are growing that I will not be making the transition from 3rd Edition to 4th Edition.

DEATH THRESHOLD: Your death threshold is a negative number equal to your maximum hit points or your Constitution score (whichever is greater). For example, if you have a maximum of 23 hit points, then your death threshold is -23.

ALIVE: You are alive as long as your current hit points are above your death threshold.

DEAD: You are dead if your current hit points are below your death threshold. Dead characters automatically lose 1 hp per round.

DISABLED

Once you reach 0 hit points you are considered disabled. A disabled character move at half speed and may only take a partial action each round. Disabled characters who perform a standard action (or any other strenuous action, such as casting a quickened spell) take 1 hp of damage after the action.

While you’re disabled, you must make a Fortitude save (DC 10 + the number of hit points below zero) each time you take damage (including the damage which resulted in you becoming disabled).  If you fail this save you fall unconscious.

Unless you have stabilized (see below), you take 1 hp of damage per round while disabled.

STABILIZED

TENDED CHARACTERS: A disabled character can be helped with a first aid check (Heal, DC 15). On a success, the character stabilizes and begins healing naturally.

UNTENDED CHARACTERS: A disabled character without assistance who takes no action in a round has a 10% chance of stabilizing. Even after stabilizing they may still take additional damage, however: Each day they must make a 10% roll to start healing naturally. If they fail this check, they instead suffer 1 hp of damage and must check again the next day

WAKING UP: Once an unconscious disabled character has been stabilized, they have a 10% chance of waking up each hour. An untended character (who has not benefited from a first aid check) who fails to wake up also takes 1 hp of damage with each failed check.

HEALING

NATURAL HEALING: After a full night’s rest (8 hours of sleep or more), you recover 1 hit point per character level. Any significant interruption during your rest prevents you from healing that night. If you undergo complete bed rest for an entire day and night, you recover twice your character level in hit points.

MAGICAL HEALING: Magical healing spells are maximized (they always restore the maximum possible number of hit points). Any magical healing automatically stabilizes a character. A character unconscious as a result of their injuries also wakes up as a result of magical healing.

RESURRECTION

There are no spells which return the dead to life (raise dead, etc.). However, even dead characters can benefit from magical healing and are returned to life if their hit point total is raised above the death threshold. After 24 hours of death, however, a character is lost forever and cannot be returned to life.

GENTLE REPOSE: A gentle repose spell temporarily stops the loss of hit points a dead character suffers. It also extends the period of time in which a character can be revived.

CONSTITUTION SCORE DAMAGE

Characters reduced to 0 Constitution are dead, but still have whatever hit points were left to them. They still lose 1 hit point per round until their Constitution is raised to at least 1. If their hit points drop below their death threshold, it will be necessary to raise both their Constitution and their hit points in order to return them to life.

Note: Clerics may spontaneously cast lesser restoration, restoration, and greater restoration spells as if they were cure spells.

DEATH EFFECTS

Any special ability or spell that results in death instead causes 4d6 points of Constitution damage. On a successful save, the special ability or spell causes 2 points of Constitution damage (instead of whatever effect a save would normally have).

MASSIVE DAMAGE THRESHOLD

There is no massive damage threshold.

DESIGN NOTES

These are my personal house rules for death and dying in 3rd Edition. They weren’t conceived all at once, nor were they designed to overcome any kind of serious mechanical flaw in the system. Rather, they’re a slow accretion of various tweaks which I use to change the flavor of death in the game.

THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY

The first set of changes I put into place was the removal of raise dead, resurrection, and similar spells. The motivation here was relatively simple: I don’t like the revolving door of death. Death is a powerful and dramatic event… unless, of course, it happens at the gaming table. At the gaming table it’s usually a joke. Or, at worst, a minor inconvenience.

This problem of flavor goes beyond de-valuing the meaning of death. With even a modicum of logical thought, it completely changes the nature of the game world. At the most obvious level, you will never have a story which begins “when the old king died in the Battle of Batok’s Pass”. You also have to realize that assassination becomes almost pointless: In such a world, the country doesn’t go into mourning when JFK is shot in Dallas… it criticizes him for being a narcissistic slacker when he refuses to respond to the raise dead spell.

It gets more severe (and more bizarre) from there.

These kinds of thought experiments and what-if games can certainly have interesting results. But I’ll confess that I’m generally looking for something that looks a bit more like Middle Earth and a lot less like transhumanist fantasy (which sounds like a fascinating, albeit largely untapped, sub-genre).

So I got rid of raise dead.

But this creates a new problem: It’s a lethal game. And I like combat to be risky. Combining risky combat with an absolute barrier between life and death will result in a lot of new characters being rolled up. The revolving door may be gone, but death still becomes de-valued because players stop investing themselves in characters they know have the life expectancy of tissue paper in a blast furnace.

More precisely, I didn’t want to increase the actual lethality of the game (measured in characters permanently removed from gameplay). Nor did I want to decrease the challenges of the game. I needed to shift the flavor without shifting the gameplay.

The solution was to re-imagine what the -10 hit point barrier meant: It was still a death of the body, but not a departure of the soul. Thus, clerics could use their divine healing to bring back even those whose bodies had been punished beyond the point of natural healing.

The result is a mechanic that looks a bit more like an emergency room resuscitation than Jesus rising from the dead.

This is a subtle change, but one that removes the flavor problems that come from a hero’s spirit constantly yo-yoing between this world and the next.

LOW-LEVEL LETHALITY

For many years, this was the only change I made to the death and dying rules. Playtesting did reveal a few problem areas that needed to be dealt with, but for the most part these rules worked and worked well.

One early discovery was that Constitution damage had suddenly become much more horrible. In the standard game, the difference between dying from Constitution damage and dying from hit point damage was non-existent: In either case, you needed a raise dead spell to bring you back. But, under the new rules, hit point damage could simply be healed through spontaneous casting whereas Constitution damage would frequently require a prepared restoration spell… at which point the character’s moldering corpse would have accrued a huge tally of negative hit points.

This led to the simple expedient of allowing clerics to also spontaneously cast restoration spells.

The other effect of this rule change was to smooth out the differences between low- and mid-level play. Using the standard rules, low-level characters have a practical barrier between life-and-death. While they might theoretically be raised from the dead, in practice the party lacks the resources to afford a raise dead spell. Plus, given the low-levels involved, there’s a minimal investment in the existing character and a minimal time commitment required to roll up a new character.

And then, for a few levels, coming back from the dead becomes a possibility, but an expensive one: The cost of getting the spell cast will seriously deplete the party’s resources.

And then death becomes a speed bump.

This is one of the things that leads to the perception that low-level play is so much more difficult and lethal than high-level play: Not only do you have a smaller pool of hit points and a smaller margin for error, but the barrier between life-and-death still exists — so death is death and you’re not coming back.

Under these house rules, on the other hand, this continuum is made a little less extreme: Low-level characters can hit -10 and still be brought back.

HIGH-LEVEL LETHALITY

Speaking of that -10 barrier, we come to a widely-recognized shortcoming in mid- and high-level play: The tougher you become, the more likely you are to die than you are to fall unconscious.

Why? Because, as the average damage inflicted by any given blow increases, the chance that any given blow will catapult you directly from positive hit points to negative hit points and death increases. For example, if you suffer a blow for 5 hp there is no chance that you’ll be immediately killed by it. If you’re suffering blows doing an average of 25 hp, on the other hand, the odds drastically increase for such an opportunity.

The solution for this is to increase the number of negative hit points a higher level character can suffer before actually dying. And the simplest solution for this is to give everyone the same number of hit points below 0 as they do above 0.

DECOUPLING DYING

Finally, I had a desire to decouple unconsciousness and dying. There are a couple of reasons for this:

First, one of the shortcomings of the game has always been its inability to handle a person’s “dying words” or “final effort”. It’s a literary classic: The dying man exerts just enough energy to whisper, “Your mother yet lives!” or “Rosebud!” or “From hell’s teeth I spit at you!” Or perhaps the dying heroine manages to hold onto the detonation device until her companions have escaped. But, in the game, a dying character is always unconscious — and thus unable of uttering dying words, making a final heroic gesture, or anything else. They can’t even bandage their own wounds.

Second, I’ve always liked the mechanics for being disabled: There’s something dramatic about a wound so severe that taking any strenuous action is literally making your wounds worse. It forces a desperate, bleeding retreat; or it offers the hero a chance to grit their teeth and achieve something remarkable; or it leaves the villain staggering as the hero surges forward for their triumph.

But, unfortunately, the disabled condition only happens when a character lands precisely at 0 hit points. And then it only lasts for, at most, a single round before they keel over into unconsciousness.

Both of these problems can be solved by decoupling dying and unconsciousness, as shown in the house rules.

And, as ancillary benefit, this mechanic also allows the dying condition to serve as a “warning track” of sorts. Instead of just plugging away at full power until, suddenly, the character is completely out of it, now a PC is more likely to enter the dying state and be able to do something about it: Bind their wounds. Call out for the cleric. Gulp down a healing potion.

THE PROBLEM OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS

One problem I haven’t solved yet is the problem of unconsciousness. More specifically, the problem of waking someone up who has been unconscious.

In real life, if someone gets knocked unconscious you can frequently (but not always) wake them up again by slapping them, throwing water in their face, or waving smelling salts under their nose. In the game, however, this doesn’t work. If you’ve hurt someone enough to knock them unconscious, the only thing you can do is either (a) magically heal them or (b) wait a very long time for them to naturally heal some damage.

This is a shortcoming, as my players frequently want to model that narrative conceit of slapping a prisoner awake so that they can question them. (Ironically, this can only drive them deeper into unconsciousness using the rules.) Unfortunately, I haven’t figured out any particularly good way (and a simple way) to overcome this shortcoming.

Anyone have thoughts on the matter?

Turn Check

A turning attempt is a burst effect with a radius of 60 feet. The cleric sets the DC of a turning by making a turn check:

d20 + cleric turning level + Charisma modifier

Saving Throw

Undead in the range of a turning must make a Will save against the DC set by the cleric’s turn check. An undead can Take 10 on this saving throw. Turn resistance is added as a bonus to this roll.

Effects of Turning

Even if an undead succeeds at their saving throw, they are still shaken as long as they remain within 60 feet of the cleric (-2 penalty on attack rolls, saving throws, skill checks, and ability checks) for the duration of the turning attempt.

Any undead affected by a turning attempt cannot approach within 60 feet of the cleric, nor can they take any action (direct or indirect) against the cleric or anyone within 60 feet of the cleric. Any undead affected within 60 feet of the cleric must immediately back away to a minimum of 60 feet. If the cleric approaches affected undead, the undead must back away as soon as possible.

If an undead fails their saving throw by 10 or more, they are frightened and must flee for 1 minute (as per the normal turning rules).

If an undead fails their saving throw by 20 or more, they are controlled or destroyed (as per the normal turning rules).

Duration

As long as the cleric concentrates, a turning attempt lasts for 1 minute (10 rounds) per turning level of the cleric. Any new undead coming within 60 feet of the cleric during this time are affected by the turning unless they make the Will saving throw.

A cleric can use additional turning attempts to force new saving throws for undead previously unaffected, or to extend the duration of the turning. As long as no lapse in concentration takes place, these additional turning attempts do not allow a new save for any undead already affected by the turning.

DESIGN NOTES

In my experience, the by-the-book turning rules are broken. When it works, it either makes an encounter too easy or its completely useless. Worse yet, this tends to shift with level: At low levels, turning generally makes undead encounters too easy and anti-climactic. At high levels, it’s useless for anything except cleaning up mooks who are almost incapable of touching the PCs. And there’s no meaningful “sweet spot” in the middle because any given turn attempt is binary: Either its completely meaningless or it ends the encounter.

The problem, as I see it, arises from the twice decisions to (a) make turning dependent on the undead’s Hit Dice; and (b) have no Constitution score for undead. Without a Constitution score, designers need to pump up an undead’s HD in order to give them enough hit points to survive against the increasingly powerful attacks of the fighters and arcanists. But, as a result of these extra HD, the higher-CR undead simply outstrip the cleric’s turning ability.

These optional rules try to address these problems in three ways:

First, by having the cleric’s check set a Will save DC for the undead. This not only causes the ability to scale better against undead with higher CRs, it also creates a varied reaction: Some undead will make their saves, others will not.

Second, by having a range of possible reactions (depending on the margin of success for the check), it makes turning more dynamic and (again) helps to scale the ability with level: A high-level cleric taking on mook skeletons will unleash a wave of divine force strong enough to turn their undead bones to dust. But when that same cleric faces off against a lich with a CR equal to his level, he’ll still be able to have some success (even if may need to struggle for that success).

Third, by designing the default level of success into an ability which allows the cleric to control a battlefield, but not instantly end an encounter. (The goal here was to create something that looked more like the bog-standard Hollywood version of turning: The vampire must avoid the holy symbol, but is not driven into a mindless panic by it.)

The disadvantage of this system is the variability of results: By having both the cleric and the undead roll 1d20 with opposed results, you’re introducing a 40-point range of possible results. Even with these results on a bell curve, this wide range causes some problems (particularly because the range of effects only covers a 20-point difference).

This high variability is combated in two ways:

First, the undead is allowed to Take 10 on its Will save. This is a non-standard exception to the normal rules, but it means that a powerful undead will never be forced to tuck its tail between its legs or be turned into a dust by a much-less powerful priest due to the random capriciousness of the dice.

Second, the cleric is allowed to bolster his previous turn attempts by burning another turn attempt. Clerics typically get a lot more turn attempts than they will use in a day anyway, and this gives a practical use for those “wasted” resources.

Obviously one of these reduces the variability of the undead’s results and the other reduces the variability of the cleric’s results, so overall balance is maintained.

I’ve been using these rules with great success in my campaigns for more than half a decade now.

INTERESTING VARIATION: Have the turn apply as a 180-degree cone, so that it only affects undead in the direction the cleric is facing. Allow the cleric to switch the direction of this cone as a free action (on their turn) or an immediate action (when it’s not their turn).

TURNING FEATS: Many official sourcebooks for the game now have feats that allow a cleric to use their turning attempts to produce other effects besides repelling undead. These are another great way for clerics to use their turn attempts as a valuable resource.

The rules for how to handle the beginning of combat, awareness, surprise, initiative order, and flat-footedness are some of the sloppiest and most poorly written rules I’ve ever seen in an RPG. A recent forum discussion at Giant in the Playground got me thinking about these rules again, and so I went through the muddle mess of the Dungeon Master’s Guide and tried to pull out all the actual rules for starting combat.

STARTING COMBAT – BY THE BOOK

Combat can start in one of three scenarios:

Scenario 1. Only one side is aware of the other.
Scenario 2. Both sides become aware of the other at the same time.
Scenario 3. Some, but not all, creatures on one or both sides become aware of the other side.

Determining Awareness: Use sight ranges, Spot checks, Listen checks, and so on to determine when combatants become aware of each other.

This is one of the places where the rules are vague: A multitude of sins can be covered by the phrase “and so on”. I would argue that the phrase is specifically there in order to allow for things like Mexican stand-offs, unexpected assaults during social events, and the like. If you walk up to a guy with a big smile on your face and then punch him in the gut, he may be aware of your presence but he is not aware of the combat. I would argue that a Sense Motive check, rather than a Spot check, is the appropriate way to determine awareness in this scenario.

Preparing for Combat: If one side is unaware of the other, the side that is aware may make preparations before combat begins. The DM may track this time in rounds to determine how much the aware side can accomplish before the unaware combatants become aware of them. If the unaware side becomes aware, combat begins normally. If the unaware side remains unaware, the aware combatants still gain a surprise round (see below).

So when, exactly, does combat start? Basically, there are four scenarios: (1) If both sides are aware, combat starts immediately without a surprise round. (2) If only some creatures on both sides are aware, combat starts immediately with a surprise round for the aware creatures. (3) If one side is completely unaware, then the aware side can choose when to start combat. And they can either choose to start it with a surprise round or they can all delay their actions and start it with a normal round in which they all get to go first. (4) If one side is completely unaware and only some creatures on the other side are aware, then the aware creatures make the choice of when to start combat (and they can wait to start combat while they make other creatures on their side aware).

Surprise Round: If only some creatures are aware at the beginning of combat, the aware creatures roll initiative and can take a single standard action during the surprise round. The unaware combatants are considered flat-footed during the surprise round. Once the surprise round is completed, everyone else rolls initiative and combat continues normally.

Couple of notes here: First, the rule that unaware combatants don’t roll initiative until after the surprise round is completed is an unnecessary rule. You can roll initiative for everyone at once and it won’t make the slightest difference in how combat plays out. In fact, I roll initiative for the PCs at the end of combat and use those initiative results for the next combat — this speeds up the beginning of combat, instead of immediately deflating tension by having everyone roll their initiatives.

Similarly, the rule that initiative is rolled at a different time depending on whether the two sides can immediately interact with each other or not — the only distinction drawn between these scenarios — is a waste of paper.

Second, the rules on being flat-footed are contradictory. The rules for the flat-footed condition in the DMG reads “a character who has not yet acted during a combat is flat-footed”. Following this rule, once a character has taken an action during the surprise round they are no longer flat-footed.

But the PHB says you’re flat-footed “before your first regular turn in the initiative order”, which means that EVERYONE is flat-footed during the surprise round.

According to the rules for errata, the PHB rule supercedes the DMG rule in this respect. But, of course, the PHB rule doesn’t make a lick of sense. It also makes it so that the last person to take action in the surprise round is highly motivated to simply delay so that they can take the first action in the regular round of combat — a decision which only makes sense at a metagame level.

This also points out another disparity in the rules: If the PCs completely surprise another group, they CAN’T delay their actions into regular combat because they haven’t rolled initiative yet. But if one of their opponents is aware of them and can take an action during the surprise round, they can now delay their actions and act first in the regular combat. So, literally, you are MORE capable of taking a full round action before your opponents do if one of your opponents is capable of shouting a warning to their friends.

Newcomers – Aware: If new combatants join the combat, and they are aware of the combat when they join it, they take their actions before everyone else in the round. The order in which they take their actions is determined by their Dexterity scores.

This is a bad rule. The reasons for having them act first in the round make sense — they can, after all, choose the moment when they enter combat if they’re aware of it. But the order in which they take those actions should either be determined by opposed initiative checks or, failing that, their initiative bonuses. Bypassing both of those mechanics and going straight to their Dexterity scores doesn’t make any sense.

Newcomers – Unaware: If new combatants join the combat,and they are unaware of the combat when they join it (e.g., opening a door and unexpectedly finding people fighting behind it), they roll initiative checks and take their actions normally during the initiative sequence.

I would argue that these rules should be scrapped entirely. The proper way to handle this is for ALL new combatants to roll initiative checks normally. (With a “new combatant” being defined as either someone who is aware of the combat or someone who the other combatants are aware of.) New combatants who are unaware, however, cannot take any action during the first round.

This rule neatly models all scenarios: When new combatants and old combatants become aware of each other at the same time, their ability to react to each other depends on their initiative checks. When new combatants are aware of the combat before they join it, they can choose when to join in at a time of their choosing (and will not be flat-footed when they do). And when the existing combatants become aware of the new combatants before the new combatants become aware of them, they have a chance to react to them before the new combatants can take an action against them.

Simultaneous Action: The DM can attempt to cope with the consequences of simultaneous action in a completely ad hoc fashion if it seems appropriate (e.g., having a trap triggered by a character during the round not take effect until the end of the round).

And that’s it. As you can see, my snide comments aside, the actual rules for handling this scenario only comprise about seven paragraphs of text.

STARTING COMBAT – THE WAY IT SHOULD BE

BEGINNING COMBAT

The way in which a combat begins depends on the awareness of the participants. If only some of the combatants have awareness, then combat begins with a surprise round (see below). There are four basic ways in which a combat can begin:

(1) If everyone on both sides are aware of the other side, combat starts immediately without a surprise round.

(2) If only some creatures on both sides are aware of the other side, combat starts immediately with a surprise round for the aware combatants.

(3) If one side is completely unaware, then the aware side can choose when to start combat. They can also choose whether to start it with a surprise round or they can all delay their actions and start it with a normal round in which they get to take the first actions.

(4) If one side is completely unaware and only some combatants on the other side are aware, then the aware combatants make a choice of when to start combat (and they can wait to start combat while they make other combatants on their side aware).

DETERMINING AWARENESS

A combatant has awareness if they know that combat is about to begin. At a bare minimum, this requires that the combatant be aware of the presence of their opponents. In most cases, therefore, awareness can be determined by using Spot check and Listen checks. In some cases, a Sense Motive check may be appropriate.

Spot Checks: A simple Spot check

Concealment: Even if a Spot check is successful, if the opponent has concealment the percentage concealment chance applies each round. (For example, if a party of orcs is approaching the party through a foggy forest, there is a 20% chance that — even if the Spot check would normally succeed — the orcs will not be seen.)

Cover: If a creature has total cover, it cannot be seen. (For example, if a party of orcs is on the other side of a solid wall, a Spot check cannot be used to become aware of the orcs.)

Sight Ranges: Use the tables below to determine the maximum range of sight in different terrains.

Listen Checks: If an opponent is not detected through a Spot check, it may still be possible to become aware of them with a Listen check. (Whether this results in an awareness that combat is about to begin will depend on how accurately the character identifies what they’re hearing and what action they take in response to it.)

Sense Motive: If a non-hostile encounters suddenly becomes a violent one, a Sense Motive check opposed by the Bluff check of the person initiating hostilities is the most appropriate way to determine if a character is aware that combat is about to begin. (The character initiating hostilities, of course, is automatically aware.)

INITIATIVE

Once combat has begun, all combatants roll an initiative check (1d20 + Dexterity modifier + initiative modifiers). Characters act in order, counting down from highest result to lowest. In every round that follows, the characters act in the same order (unless a character takes an action that results in his or her initiative changing. If two or more combatants have the same initiative check result, the combatants who are tied act in order of total initiative modifier (highest first). If there is still a tie, the tied characters should roll again to determine which one of them goes before the other.

SURPRISE ROUND

If some but not all of the combatants are aware of their opponents, a surprise round happens before regular rounds begin. Any combatants aware of the opponents can act in the surprise round, so they roll for initiative. In initiative order (highest to lowest), combatants who started the battle aware of their opponents each take a standard action during the surprise round. You can also take free, immediate, and swift actions during the surprise round. If no one or everyone is surprised, no surprise round occurs.

FLAT-FOOTED COMBATANTS

Combatants are flat-footed until they take an action during combat (either during the surprise round or during regular rounds). A flat-footed combatant loses their Dexterity bonus to AC (if any), cannot make attacks of opportunity, and cannot take swift actions.

NEW COMBATANTS

If a new combatant becomes aware of the combat after it has begun, the new combatant immediately rolls an initiative check. The new combatant takes their turn normally in the initiative order, but cannot take any action during their first turn. (Note that a new combatant may become aware of the combat without the existing combatants becoming aware of them. If this happens, the new combatant may be able to safely “burn” their turn of inaction without revealing themselves.)

As part of the Ptolus campaign I’ve been running, my players have recently been running through Mini-Adventure 1: The Complex of Zombies. Basically the entire complex has become part of Ghul’s Labyrinth (specifically, it’s where the tunnels leading from the “Trouble With Goblins” adventure from the Ptolus sourcebook end up). As part of this I replaced the large iron door in area 10 of the complex with a door of blue steel and then put the password for opening the door safely on the other side (essentially creating a dead-end for the adventure).

But, because I like to be prepared, I did make a decision regarding what the password would be. In my notes for the dungeon I wrote:

PASSWORD: Athvor Krassek (the name of the head researcher, although there’s no way to know that)

LOCATION OF THE PASSWORD: The password is located in the relief work on the other side of the door. The goblins know it (which is how they accessed the compound).

I figured there was an outside chance that the goblins might get captured and, therefore, be available for interrogation. Since the goblins must know the password (since they came from the other side of the door), there was a chance (however slim) that the PCs might get the password out of them.

I didn’t think that particularly likely, though.

What I didn’t anticipate, however, was the unlikely synergy that would develop between area 11C and a particularly clever player. In the adventure, this area is described like this:

Stasis Box (C): There is a chest in this room with a false botoom (Search check, DC 16, to find). Inside the false bottom there are two items:

First, a packet of badly baded love letters written by a woman named Athaya and addressed to a man named Oliss.

Second, a small and perfectly preserved box of cherry wood with a mosaic design of inlaid jade. This is, in fact, a stasis box (see sidebar). Inside the stasis box there is a manuscript entitled Observations of Alchemical Reductions and the Deductions Thereof by Master Alchemist Tirnet Kal. A Craft (alchemy) or Knowledge (arcana) (DC 22) reveals that this was once a well-known alchemical text, but that the last copy of it was thought lost several centuries ago. The book would be worth 3,000 gp to the proper collector.

So the PCs encounter the blue steel door and they make a few Knowledge (local) checks to determine the properties of the door — including the need for a password in order for the door to open. They shout out a couple of likely possibilities, and then one of the players says:

“I start reading the love letters out loud in front of the door.”

… son of a bitch.

I didn’t really want them to get past that door. So I figured that: (a) These letters might not even have been written when Athvor Krassek was the administrator here. (b) Even if they were, it’s quite possible that neither member of the couple would have mentioned their boss by name in their love letters.

I didn’t want to ignore the fact that this was a pretty nifty idea. But I did assign it a ridiculously low chance of happening, picked up the percentile dice, and rolled…

… 01.

So after 4d20 minutes of reading (which turned out to be about 22 minutes), the door of blue steel swung open.

I would never intentionally design an adventure with the expectation that the PCs would take a bundle of love letters from location A and use them to open a locked door at location B. But watching that kind of unexpected success materialize out of seemingly thin air is the reason I love roleplaying games: There is a magical creativity which only happens when people get together.