About Initiative

[Legacy_diagnull]

               Coming back to NWN after not playing for a while and remember som questions I had:

How important is initiative?

I can see that going sooner is better than later, so you get a chance to take out foes before taking damage, but how necessary are feats that improve intiative?

-D 
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Shadooow]

               Its basically useless as you will attack in most situation as first anyway cos delay in NPC reactions or because you are hidden/invisible.

It could have a small reason if you would be melee char without AC that rely on devastating critical hit, but thats really possible only 1vs1 that is pvp where such char has hardly any chance with this tactic.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_kalbaern]

               Being able to strike first in a round may seem like little gain, but ... it does have a long term affect on a character's progression. It aids in disrupting "casters". It gives a better chance to kill a foe before they hit back and that's one less hit to dodge or absorb meaning less spent on healing over the long haul. If you participate in PvP often, initiative can be a deciding factor at times too.

I don't count initiative as a make or break statistic myself, but ... it can play a fairly big part in the success of some builds.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Shadooow]

               

kalbaern wrote...

Being able to strike first in a round may seem like little gain, but ... it does have a long term affect on a character's progression. It aids in disrupting "casters". It gives a better chance to kill a foe before they hit back and that's one less hit to dodge or absorb meaning less spent on healing over the long haul. If you participate in PvP often, initiative can be a deciding factor at times too.

I don't count initiative as a make or break statistic myself, but ... it can play a fairly big part in the success of some builds.

Initiative has no effect on spellcasters, they cast spells, not attacking. And also initiative works only once per combat, not each round thus making it really useless.

The main thing however is that if you fight with npc you can start first even if you dont win initiative cos the AI delay in attack. The npc will just wander/stay and will check for an enemy only once per 6seconds. So if you are hidden behind corner or placeable and you attack in the right time, then you can strike first blow no matter of initiative. If the npc dont have true seeing then stealth/invisibility have same result. So only pvp remains but there is so much more usefull feats available for pvp so really noone takes the initiative at all.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MrZork]

               If I understand combat correctly, initiative is effectively of very little value, but I would like to double-check the thinking here. All attacks in a flurry are resolved at once, no matter who had higher initiative. So, consider a case where character A's high initiative allows him to attack "first" and he hits and does enough damage to kill opponent B. If B also rolled a hit in that flurry, then A will still take damage from B's attack. Is that correct?
               
               

               

                     Modifié par MrZork, 23 juin 2011 - 12:48 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_avado]

               

MrZork wrote...

If I understand combat correctly, initiative is effectively of very little value, but I would like to double-check the thinking here. All attacks in a flurry are resolved at once, no matter who had higher initiative. So, consider a case where character A's high initiative allows him to attack "first" and he hits and does enough damage to kill opponent B. If B also rolled a hit in that flurry, then A will still take damage from B's attack. Is that correct?

Not sure about what you are asking, but, if what you were to say is true, then the monk class, as a melee class, would RULE ALL (Especially str based monk/clerics which could boost the ab through the roof to not miss vs AC).  The nwnwiki says that Flurry adds an extra attack at -2, so if normal attack was 15/10/5 (lv 20 monk), a flurry would be 15/10/5/3, vs AC, which means the likelihood of hitting goes down with each attack.  Also, because the game is TURN based, the enemy will have a chance to roll (unless stunned or something). 

Now, if that first strike is DEV CRIT.. well  '>   There is a reason to LOVE str based clerics!  Esp CLeric/10RDDs!
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Magical Master]

               Level 20 monk has 15/12/9/6/3.  Flurry makes it 13/10/7/4/1/13 (non-hasted).
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_jmlzemaggo]

               I love it. I don't even know if it works or not. I play mostly "attack" characters, so the faster the better.
Now to me it "seems" working effectively enough. Probably in my imagination only. Fine, that's why I'm playing.
And it makes me feel I don't benefit of the technical weaknes of the AI delay.
That's said, I had the chance to choose it maybe 3 times in my NWN career, and I'm surely wrong on a strictly technical point of view anyway... which wouldn't be very surprising. 
               
               

               

                     Modifié par jmlzemaggo, 24 juin 2011 - 04:57 .