In the combat routine; is the initiative hardcoded to keep the numbers from the first round? My preference from other games ( and one of the 3rd edition options IIRC) is to re-roll initiative at the beginning of each combat round - makes it more chaotic and less predictable. Anyone come across this already; or is it worth looking into?
This is hardcoded, but that doesn't mean it can't be changed. Almost everything is hardcoded, the trick is finding a way to manipulate the engine to do what you want. Just because something is hardcoded doesn't mean that it can't be done, rather it just means it will take more thought and perhaps a clever smoke and mirrors sollution. Inititive can be changed, so with cleaver scripting you could find a way to rearange the inititive. Though there are probably limitiations. I haven't worked with it much, but there are definitely commands to manipulate initiative. - Livonya
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/initiative.htm#initiativeChecks You roll once at the start of the battle. It stays the same thereafter. Rolling every round of combat is a good way to screw players who have taken precautions to be prepared, or otherwise have the upper hand due to skills or abilities. Initiative, once achieved, does not change until you give it away. The rules account for this with attacks of opportunity. You basically screw yourself if you consume a potion or try casting a spell with an armed attacker in your face.
We are aware of how Initiative works in standard 3rd & 3.5 edition ... We are also aware of the OPTION mentioned in the DMG to re-roll intiative at the beginning of every round - which I personally like but find too bulky for PnP play. Please note I was not asking anyone else to do this my way or to ad it to any Co8 mods.
If this isn't a modding discussion but just thinking out loud, it belongs elsewhere, either the ToEE forum (to answer your question) or the General Discussion forum. Or possibly on a blog.
Like the several other threads by myself and that much more famous person; this IS a modding question - but not a request to put it in anyone ELSE's mods. feasibility is always a concern in any attempt of modification. If such questions of feasibility are unwelcome; i shall refrain from asking them - I felt free to ask as most modding communities are glad to give pointers whether or not the modder is working on the same Mod. * its also worth pointing out the Question was answered on the first reply.
Well, if you seriously want to mod this for yourself, try searching for game.encounter_queue.append( ) in your .py files. It turns up in summoning spells to put the summoned creature in the combat and set its initiative to match its summoner. Re-rolling initiative would probably fairly straightforward, if fiddly. If you make it work, please post your results. Be aware though that we don't use house rules in Co8 mods, for obvious reasons: we stick to the rules as far as we possibly can and we see variants from the rules as bugs to be fixed wherever possible.
Good lead Ted thanks... What I am thinking (admitted based on other games; so we'll see..) Is that there will be an "end of round" state check; execution, and 'clean-up' step possibly in this i can call a re-roll of initiatives using the 'poke' you showed me - of course as you well know; often trying to go around the intent can "break" more things than it fixes; but if i make any progress I will let you know.
