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Template:Up to date Initiative determines the order of turns during combat.
Rolling Initiative
When combat begins, every participating combatant rolls 
D4 + Dexterity Modifier to determine their position in the initiative order. The participant with the highest roll goes first and the participant with the lowest roll goes last. If two participants roll the same Initiative result, the one with a higher Dexterity Score goes first.
External sources of Initiative
There are multiple external sources which can be utilized to grant a character a numeric bonus to their Initiative roll. These sources may affect NPCs.
Surprised
is a special Condition that overrides the Initiative roll made by a Creature for the first round of combat. When one side of a combat encounter is unaware of the other side, they may be Surprised. A Surprised creature cannot take any Actions or Reactions for one combat round. Characters with the Alert feat cannot be Surprised.
Surprise can be achieved when initiating combat by attacking an unaware enemy while Hidden.
- Some creatures, even when Surprised themselves, may call out to nearby allies to prevent them from being Surprised.
- Certain combat encounters are rigged to always Surprise either the player's party or the enemy party when the proper conditions are met. For example:
- The first encounter with the Lesser Imps during the Prologue always grants the player a Surprise round.
- A Mimic will always Surprise the player's party when interacting with the object it's disguised as, attacking it from range will provoke the battle without surprising.
- In the Underdark Beach, a Duergar will spot you, talk to you and call their leader, if you wait for their leader your party is surprised, if you choose to attack all of the enemies in the beach get surprised.