Same initiative causes effects to drop off sooner than expected

[Malosar]

We've noticed this with our Bard for awhile now but only realized tonight what's likely causing the problem. If the character has the same initiative as a monster and the monster is above the character in the initiative order, that character's 1 round effects (like the Bard's Inspire song) will drop off when it's the start of the monster's turn instead of the character's.

[Trenloe]

Which ruleset?

[Zacchaeus]

If you are talking about 5e then this is correct. There's no functionality in 5e that will end an effect at the end of a turn. Pathfinder 2 does this and maybe the 2e one as well but I'm not sure about the latter. For 5e I think there is an extension that will end effects at the end of the turn but it's on the DMsGuild and so is likely to be withdrawn, if it hasn't already been.

You can change the number in the initiative to end on in the CT for any effect. To get an effect to remain until the end of the turn change the initiative to end on to a number after the initiative of the caster. So if the initiative to end on is 10 change it to 9.9 and the effect will remain until thhe end of the turn.

[Malosar]

Sorry, ruleset would be useful! It's Pathfinder 2.

I'm not referring to having an effect end at the end of a turn. The effect is set to 1 round and activated by the Bard. If there is an enemy with the same initiative as the Bard and above the Bard in the combat tracker order, the effect will end at the start of the enemy's turn, not the Bard's like it is supposed to.

[Zacchaeus]

I don't think there's a way to avoid that since the effects 'timer' works on the initiative order- so if two characters have the same initiative then it could cause an issue. I'd suggest changing the initiative so that the Bard's is slightly below the other character (so if they are both on 10 make the bard 9.9).

[Trenloe]

Sorry, ruleset would be useful! It's Pathfinder 2.
Thanks for indicating which ruleset you're using.

As Zacchaeus mentioned, the underlying FG effects engine that is present in most rulesets tracks the duration based off an initiative value. If two creatures are on the same initiative, then effects that reduce at the beginning of a turn will be reduced on the turn of the first creature with that initiative. There's not much that can be done about this (other than the work arounds mentioned by Zacchaeus) without a re-write of how FG tracks effect durations - which I'm wary of doing as the base effects code provides a lot of good functionality (with more coming in future) and so I don't want to effectively remove a lot of the PF2 code from that core effects code structure. It's not ideal, I know, what I haven't come across a good way of doing this while still keeping the standard effects subsystem and also making it usable.

[DCrumb]

What I did when I was running on an actual tabletop was find out what each actor's initiative mod was, and then the higher would get a .1 added on to their initiative. If the mod was tied, then looked at Dex. If that was tied, looked at Int. If that was tied, roll off occurred.

[Trenloe]

What I did when I was running on an actual tabletop was find out what each actor's initiative mod was, and then the higher would get a .1 added on to their initiative. If the mod was tied, then looked at Dex. If that was tied, looked at Int. If that was tied, roll off occurred.
It can be a good idea to do this minor initiative changes.

Note that rules as written for PF2 are if there's a tie NPCs go first, if PCs tie they decide on the first round. Text from the Core Rules, page 468: "If your result is tied with a foe’s result, the adversary goes first. If your result is tied with another PC’s, you can decide between yourselves who goes first when you reach that place in the initiative order. After that, your places in the initiative order usually don’t change during the encounter."

[DCrumb]

Since I haven't run PF2, I didn't realize that they changed how to break ties. PF1 Core Rules 178 has it as initiative mod then roll off (we added the dex and int).

[Malosar]

It can be a good idea to do this minor initiative changes.

Note that rules as written for PF2 are if there's a tie NPCs go first, if PCs tie they decide on the first round. Text from the Core Rules, page 468: "If your result is tied with a foe’s result, the adversary goes first. If your result is tied with another PC’s, you can decide between yourselves who goes first when you reach that place in the initiative order. After that, your places in the initiative order usually don’t change during the encounter."

Does Fantasy Grounds automate this rule?

[Trenloe]

Does Fantasy Grounds automate this rule?
It puts the NPCs before PCs on the same initiative. For PCs on the same initiative, the GM would have to change to init values (e.g. use fractions) when the players decide the order when it reaches the PCs on the same initiative in the first round.