Yesterday in a game of STA, we wondered whether one could keep the initiative at the end of a round.
Example: Only 1 player and 1 NPC left to act in a round. NPCs take their turn, ending the round for the NPCs. Initiative changes to players, this player now takes their turn. The round is finished, now… Can the players keep the initiative so that in the next round any player can take a turn, before initiative is given back to the NPCs?
We ruled that this would be possible as it would not interrupt the normal flow of initiative back and forth between the adversaries.
Yet, I’m now wondering whether this is possible, as, in theory, it would give the player taking the last turn of a round in combat the opportunity to subsequently take the first turn of the next round. They would in essence act twice with no interruption.
Once all characters on both sides have taken a Turn, then the action goes to a character on whichever side did not take the last Turn, and the whole process begins again for the next Round.
So I think the end of the Round specifically and intentionally switches initiative to the other “side”. The quoted passage is from a paragraph that comes after the one that explains Keep the Initiative, so I believe that means you can’t keep the initiative into the next Round, only during a Turn.
In any case, I don’t think it’s gamebreaking to allow it though since you still need to spend Momentum or add Threat to Keep the Initiative. The only issue is as it allows a character to take two Turns in a row which can cause problems in certain encounters, such as chases. So maybe you should disallow the same character to act first in the next round if they were the one to Keep the Initiative.
I always thought that Initiative always started with the players, unless the GM has a very good reason to have an npc act first. In my head, this would be true for every round of combat, meaning that the players will almost always go first on round 2, even if they took the last turn in round 1.
the GM picks the obvious PC that will go first in the new round. Or if not obvious the PC with the highest Daring.
If obvious and with clear justification the GM picks the NPC that will start the turn.
the GM can spend Threat to allow an NPC to go first instead of a PC
Later as Shran noted it says
“Once all characters on both sides have taken a Turn, then the action goes to a character on whichever side did not take the last Turn, and the whole process begins again for the next Round.”
The game leans heavily toward the the players as is and this would prevent players from intentionally “stacking the deck” even more.
The Klingon Empire book no longer seems to include the rule that you have to begin the next round with the oder side.
In any case, Keep the Initiative specifically states that you have to pass the turn to another character, so can’t take to successive turns even if you would keep initiative at the end of the round.
Oh, I didn’t mean to imply a right or wrong. It’s why I said if you are playing RAW.
I routinely deviate from RAW in RPG’s. I and many of the people I have played with have been gaming since the late 70’s and it is not unusual for us to decide to change something in the middle of a session. As long as everyone is aware of the “change” we usually don’t have any issues. Changing something only to change it back after a couple sessions is also not unknown.
Don’t worry, I didn’t think you were. Some parts of the book I’ve re-read many times, and others (such as combat) far fewer. Particularly if a set of mechanics has little importance in the sessions I tend to run, such as with combat.
It’s always nice to be pointed to the RAW occasionally to highlight what you might be doing a little differently!