Hey all,

I'm a new GM (ever) and I recently ran the EotE beginner game with my friends and they managed to do some stuff I wasn't 100% sure on how to handle (over course). So I have a probably pretty noobish question on initiative now.

Here is the situation:

My PC's kind of split up at the spaceport control facility; one of them was able to sneak past the droids, while the other two picked the side door. Anyway, upon sneaking into the spaceport the player freaked out when he saw there were two more droids and Overseer Brynn inside and decided to throw a stun grenade since he was worried they'd see the other two once they got inside and attack them.

My questions are:

• Should I have rolled for initiative right then and there or do I allow the Gunslinger to throw the stun grenade and then roll for initiative?
• And, if he is allowed to throw the grenade first, should that take the first PC spot of that first round?

If they were face to face and the player decided to attack I would most definitely done the initiative check, but since he was unseen and nobody had a clue he was in there I was unsure of what to do.

Just to keep things flowing, and after I stated that I may not be handling this correctly and things might change once I get answers, I let him throw the stun grenade and then made the initiative check after. I also did not have it take up any PC spots afterwards in the first round. This ended up knocking out the two droids and getting Brynn down to 2 wounds (although the droids outside came rushing in after hearing the explosion), and then, of course, they all had great rolls and were able to snag the first 3 spots of the initiative order, take Brynn out, and release the docking clamps in the first round and then booked it during the second round.

You did it "right" if it worked out for you.

The book does specify that in situations where someone is being surprised they are suppose to roll for initiative using their Vigilance skill.

Likewise when someone is doing the surprising they are suppose to roll their Cool skill.

Otherwise the system doesn't have a great deal of granularity regarding surprise attacks. You could decide that the acting player should get a boost or an upgrade to their initiative check to represent their good planning and surprise. Additionally, if a character ever gets a Triumph on their initiative check that character gets to take one action before combat starts. Not a full turn, just a single action (that could be sacrificed for a maneuver if so desired) You could say that good planning on the surprise attack meant the character got a free triumph on the roll.

I know it is a little disjointed rolling for initiative normally but weird results can still be explained. In your example, if the bad guys had had a chance to act first, You could have decided that they split up. (Used maneuvers to move away from each other along their normal inspection paths). In the time it took the nervous sneak to pull out and arm his grenade they had already split apart.

I always prefer for the player to take their surprising action first before rolling initiative as the action is the "initiating act" - then they get slotted in to the initiative order after the fact. But their action happens then the combat swoosh. Of course their action might take out all the NPCs so there's no need for initiative at all in that case.

So roll initiative once combat actually starts not before. If the NPCs get high in the order then they have a chance to react to the unexpected attack by taking cover or whatever. But let your PCs have a chance to stir things up

I handle it by having whoever is being surprised roll their initiative against an appropriate Difficulty and the surpriser roll their Cool check as normal.

This results in the surpriser likely 'winning' and in fact surprising the surprisees. However, if someone is all Peter Parker-ed out with a great Vigilance and supporting Talents, it puts them in a position to shine.

In addition if it is a situation at some amount of range and/or in circumstances where the attackers might be hard to see, anyone rolling against the Difficulty who 'succeeds', even if they do have a crummy spot in the initiative order, sees where the attack is coming from and is able to respond. Anyone who has no success results showing on the initiative check, has no clue where the attack is coming from and they can either try and find it with a Perception check for their first Action, or just duck for cover. pop defensive Talents, help those that do, etc.

For a surprise attack, I believe the core rules state that the person doing the surprising rolls a Cool check for Initiative, while the surprised person rolls Vigilance. Essentially, what they're trying to simulate is someone with a level head and steel nerves versus someone's overall sense of alertness. Think a sniper versus Spider-Man.

Having said that, there are some things you can do to modify the rolls. I might have had the gunslinger make a Stealth check with the difficulty being Brynn's Perception. If the gunslinger succeeds, he could add Boost dice to his Cool roll equal to the amount of successes, or even an upgrade to his Cool dice pool if. Triumph is rolled. Advantages might be used to give Brynn one or two Setback dice to his Vigilance roll.