Quote from: Moracai;856026What is Fog of War initiative?

Somehow I am presuming that you as a GM keep the monster's scores secret until their turn comes up. What about the next rounds? Do you roll for initiative every round?

If one was to take this concept further, one could force their players to roll for initiative in secret each round and play from there. Of course this would lenghten the combat considerably, but at this point I am just confused by your terminology.

It's as you say, roll every round. It can be done per group or per individual. For midsize to large combats I would use group. For small skirmishes you can get away with individual. People often burned out on individual initiative because they played that as the lone default from 2e and carried it over to 3e (which added more mod fun with feats and tricks and the like).

It's pretty easy, GM decides NPC action, next ask each player to declare their action, then you roll off dice, and finally resolve in order. Creates a useful sense of chaos and time tension, because any player dithering on declaring their actions can end up being passed. Speeds up combat immensely.

You can keep initiatives hidden. But for the most part since it randomizes per round, and the players are theoretically a team, there is little to metagame with that oh-so-fleeting knowledge. Often plans to "game the board state" tend to collapse with open sequential declaration and random timing — those traffic jam situations are team enlightening.

When you start to hear players talk in-character on their downtime about how to create team tactics versus common battle situations, because there's little time to chat or ponder during combat, it warms your heart good.

Quote from: Opaopajr;856049It's as you say, roll every round. It can be done per group or per individual. For midsize to large combats I would use group. For small skirmishes you can get away with individual. People often burned out on individual initiative because they played that as the lone default from 2e and carried it over to 3e (which added more mod fun with feats and tricks and the like).

It's pretty easy, GM decides NPC action, next ask each player to declare their action, then you roll off dice, and finally resolve in order. Creates a useful sense of chaos and time tension, because any player dithering on declaring their actions can end up being passed. Speeds up combat immensely.

You can keep initiatives hidden. But for the most part since it randomizes per round, and the players are theoretically a team, there is little to metagame with that oh-so-fleeting knowledge. Often plans to "game the board state" tend to collapse with open sequential declaration and random timing — those traffic jam situations are team enlightening.

When you start to hear players talk in-character on their downtime about how to create team tactics versus common battle situations, because there's little time to chat or ponder during combat, it warms your heart good.

How do you handle movement? Do you use a grid? Like, if I want to move my guy 6 squares, do I spell out where I'm moving and what I'm doing beforehand as if it was my initiative?

What if I'm going to run into someone else while moving or staying in a path that gets blocked once initiative shakes out?

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;856078How do you handle movement? Do you use a grid? Like, if I want to move my guy 6 squares, do I spell out where I'm moving and what I'm doing beforehand as if it was my initiative?

What if I'm going to run into someone else while moving or staying in a path that gets blocked once initiative shakes out?

I'll be interested to hear how Opa does it, but we basically use the Speed Factor option from the DMG, but without the Speed Factors.

The players declare their Action (cast firebolt at the goblin, attack the mad wizard), but take their Move (grid for us) and any Bonus action as normal so there is latitude for adjusting to position changes.

Alright, thanks for the clarification Opaopajr.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;856078How do you handle movement? Do you use a grid? Like, if I want to move my guy 6 squares, do I spell out where I'm moving and what I'm doing beforehand as if it was my initiative?

What if I'm going to run into someone else while moving or staying in a path that gets blocked once initiative shakes out?

I won't lie, grids make things significantly more complicated because which squares you choose will eventually matter. I generally use theater of the mind or direct measurement (tape measure) upon the table. For the most part we assume logically walking around others, so that group movement and individual movement saves the most amount of movement through difficult terrain, allies, etc.

However bottlenecks will occur in tighter spaces. Rank and file starts to make excellent sense after awhile in such environs. This is a good thing, as it emphasizes coordinating as a team with imperfect knowledge under stress.

Since it is group or individual movement, with logical assumptions like "walk around others" or "avoid unnecessary engagements and Opportunity Attacks," for the most part grids work roughly the same. Which square you move on becomes more important in tighter spaces again, naturally, so you'll get into situations where taking a few OAs is necessary to finish your declared movement. However this becomes a descriptive opportunity for players to describe other logical movement behavior.

For example, perhaps the fighter wants to close in on the mage, and wants to close in as fast as possible regardless of the danger. They would say "I move towards that mage, heedless of other opponents, and willing to break formation." Then regardless of going before or after the mage the fighter will beeline for that mage, willing to take OAs, and willing to break off from the party main.

Now that can end up seriously differently depending on who goes first in initiative. With Fog of War who knows what OAs the board state's will end up present when the fighter finally makes their move. Further, who knows whether the fighter will beeline in the past expected direction, or end up deviating due to the mage going elsewhere first by their planned prerogative.

I will reiterate this: Decide NPC actions first, then ask PCs their declarations. This is good practice to avoid metagaming and maintain a sense of GM impartiality.

What do you base making OAs on? Usually since it's one move at a time, the other enemies are stationary while one character moves past them. You can clearly see when the OA occurs. But if they're all moving at the same time when does that happen.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;856078How do you handle movement? Do you use a grid? Like, if I want to move my guy 6 squares, do I spell out where I'm moving and what I'm doing beforehand as if it was my initiative?

What if I'm going to run into someone else while moving or staying in a path that gets blocked once initiative shakes out?

I have used it.

What I did was to keep movement abstract. Rather than "I move to grid 4F to attack the orc at 5F" its "I move to get up close and flank on the left the orc with the horned helmet." and another player might say "And I wait until the warrior is in place to move up to flank the orc in the horned helmet from the right."

But one of my absolute best was an adventure with total fog of war. No one knew what anyone else was doing. A few tried to co-ordinate. But overall it was a free-for-all of about a dozen PCs and more NPCs vs a slaver ship crew and an unexpected visitor. On one side were adventurers PCs who had been in the slave hold and just escaped. On the other was a military liberation force of PCs adventurers.
 
At the climax one of the PCs sees a big woman in plant armour strangling a smaller boy in simmilar armour and opts to help by focusing hir magic into speed and strength then grabbing a broken mast piece to lay into the larger assailant. Meanwhile the knight, who trying to co-ordinate ranged fire on an obviously mostly melee type, ordered everyone to let fly on his command. This included a pair of twin archers, and a little mage who also used strength focus to swing around a ballistia to fire.

So at the same time he said "Fire!" the enchanced PC whips in and lands a great hit on the foe which bats her out into the ocean. And then finds hirself at ground zero of a hail of arrows, a dagger, a spell, and a ballistia bolt. Some of which landed too.

Everyone loved it.

Thus ends todays anecdote.

Back on topic. I agree that having the summons pop in and act even if their initiative was allready over is not what I'd want. But others will have their own ideas or just save time and have the summons act on the casters initiative or the one right after for example. Or something else.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;856098What do you base making OAs on? Usually since it's one move at a time, the other enemies are stationary while one character moves past them. You can clearly see when the OA occurs. But if they're all moving at the same time when does that happen.

Spacing amid board state matters.

Board state changes during movement, yes? So if the monsters went first, their position would no longer be what it was. Doesn't matter much on a wide open plaza, matters immensely amid difficult terrain, hazards, and walls.

If there is a defendable area, like a rock and a hard place, it would make sense to cover as much of it as you can. And monsters with any sort of cunning would react similarly. Thus if the monster's took better defensive positions, such as front line tries to threat as much territory (if they cannot otherwise create a defensive wall) while squishy ranged uses distance and cover, between the mage and the fighter will be OAs (or ideally a defensive wall formation, if possible).

This is where coordinated reach weapons really shine, by the way. You threat more squares and really screw with easy mobility.

e.g. Fifteen foot hallway exits a larger room. An opposing mage and a fighter were met in this larger room, and combat begins. Mob mage plans to use distance as defense while safely lobbing spells yet maintaining line of sight. Mob fighter plans to move to the hallway mouth and plant himself at the center. Both plan to take ranged attacks while they can.

Party fighter inside room wants to beeline to the mage, not caring about OAs or formation. Party mages inside room want to use distance as defense while also retaining line of sight. Both want to take ranged attacks while they can.

One mage wants to choose a corner of the room for greatest room visibility, another wants to align themselves to cover the hallway just in case. This way if the enemy stays in the room they have two mages spread out and threatening. If the enemy leaves the room at least one mage threatens hallway, while other holds the room for positioning. This would be ideal if party wins initiative.

Declarations done, roll initiative. Party loses initiative.

Mob mage lobs spell inside room and then moves deeper into hallway. Mob fighter moves into position and lobs javelin inside room as well, readying melee weapon with their 'free interact'. Party's turn in initiative order.

Now there is a mob fighter OA in between mob mage and party fighter. Due to the hallway's walls there is no way to circle around mob fighter's OA. Further, due to declarations, the party fighter will likely have to dash to try to close with the mage, thus sacrificing an action. Also, due to declarations, one of the mages will be deep in the room's corner while another gets to cover the hallway.

Suddenly this 'easy' scenario got more complicated due to having to declare first. Without such foreknowledge within the round of what others do it becomes harder to micromanage the board state. And thus, if the party survives this, there may be a talk amongst themselves about how and when to prioritize targets versus taking advantage of spacial positions.