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It looks like mobs, or at least goblins, get the jump on an attack.. even if supprised:


A goblin sentry is standing guard here.

Hidden/sneaking: Kill goblin

With a sickening sound a goblin sentry's pierce deeply perforates your abdomen.
A goblin sentry quickly turns to avoid your sneak attack!
Your pierce nearly bisects a goblin sentry's right arm.
A goblin sentry's pierce tears open your right leg.
Your pierce nearly bisects a goblin sentry's left arm.
Your pierce minces a goblin sentry's left leg.
Your pierce tears wounds into a goblin sentry's chest.

Backstab is not automatic, and if you fail your skill check, your opponent will not be caught flat-footed (and I believe in that case normal initiative rules apply).

So, if you attack this sentry when successfully hidden, one of two things will occur:

>Successful backstab attempt:
A goblin sentry makes a strange sound as you land a sneak attack with an elven crafted cold iron longsword!
A crude wooden spear spills out onto the ground.
A goblin sentry's severed left arm falls to the ground!
(OUCH!)

>Failed check against skill with backstab:
A goblin sentry quickly turns to avoid your sneak attack!
(Sneak attack round ends, and normal combat ensues, the first attack going to whomever gains/has initiative in the first round of combat.)

I believe this is working as it should...but I'm no rogue! Speak up if there's still something dubious afoot (but assume you will have to explain it to me in words of not more than three syllables)!

From what I've seen, mobs will always always always win initiative. In the case of this example, the goblin even got a successful hit in before having to avoid the attempted sneak attack. I'm pretty sure it's just impossible to get in the first hit short of attacking at range (even then, they somehow hit you back before entering melee).

I tend to agree with the 'mob always wins' mindset. Doesn't really bother old Gilain when he gets attacked by a bandit but now and then I see a kick echo as the mob enters the room, its funny.

Something like...
---------------
You dodge a kick.
A bandit walks in from the north.
Bandit dies from Gilain's awesomeness.
----------------

I always marked up mob-first events to system lag. I may enter my commands fast, but the system gets the mob commands first, since it comes from the system itself, and goes in the order commands are received. Maybe I am wrong...

Raona wrote:Backstab is not automatic, and if you fail your skill check, your opponent will not be caught flat-footed (and I believe in that case normal initiative rules apply).

A sneak attack will fail or succeed. If you fail the attack initiative will be rolled. If they win initiative after a failed attack they are not longer flat footed. The goblin, in this case, has Darkvision - lighting does not matter. I would not get another sneak attack on him. With a successful sneak attack Initiative should still be rolled to see who gets the next move. Perhaps me. Where I should no longer be getting a sneak attack.

So perhaps the bug here is: rogues are getting a 2nd chance at a sneak attack in combat after a failed attempt against a mob that is no longer considered flat footed, surprised, or flanked.

Hmmm. Something has changed with the code on this, because I can not reproduce the sentry attacking before the sneak attack echo...but I never get the failure echo, even when I fail. So it looks like we are iterating toward perfection (the ghost in the machine [= Mask] is working on this even before I can put in a bug report), but aren't quite there yet.

Put in Bugzilla report on echo problem, entry 934.

Could I ask someone to start a separate bug post, with an example, of the initiative problem?

The success-echo-on-failure issue has now been fixed. Are we still having initiative problems? I saw no sign thereof in my brief testing.

It'd be nice if initiative worked anytime the kill/murder/cast/etc command is used.

All too often fights vs mobs are WAY harder simply because that slow Giant you're fighting with only a +1 to his initiative is taking his full first round out against you before you get to retaliate.

Selveem, is this a joke I don't get, or a veritable bug report I don't understand?

It seems to me a hostile mob should get a full round on you when you enter its turf, unless you attack first from a distance. It looks to me like if you type kill XXX, then initiative is correctly handled.

Turf doesn't matter. Initiative is rolled at the time one side attacks. Right now, initiative may be rolled after the attack, but that doesn't stop the mob from always getting a surprise round and attacking first.

Here's how initiative works: D20srd.org

I had thought I responded to this.. But a convo with Enig reminded me and I looked at it today to see it has no response from me yet:

Raona, that's not how initiative works. It doesn't matter whose 'turf' it is. Unless you're entering their actual space (like when trying to grapple), they aren't permitted a guaranteed first strike. Even still, if you do, they only get _one_ attack of opportunity on you unless they have feats like combat reflexes which doesn't exist on FK.

From what I understand, unless you get to actually type kill/murder, coded initiative doesn't even come into play. For instance, if a wizard casts an offensive spell at a PC, the PC will not automatically attack until after the wizard has cast at them. If a fighter initiates a fight with punch, he's already gotten the first strike like a sucker punch. If you walk into a room with an aggressive mob, I've only ever seen it get it's full round first. I have never seen myself get a full round on an aggressive mob before it attacks back (obviously without the aid of spells such as sanctuary or invisibility).

Here's how initiative is supposed to work: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/initiative.htm.

Here's how a combat is supposed to work: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/howCombatWorks.htm.

If you move into a zone occupied by a hostile creature and immediately attack them, you can get the first strike. Your chance of doing so does seem to be almost nil for some creatures, but not for all. That would suggest it is by design, but I can't find the differentiator thereof.

(Examples: Hill giants always seem to get a surprise round, the wandering kobolds do not.)