[Gimli]

> IMO, snake speed is tremendously overrated. It is definitely NOT a reason to max speed. All it does is give you a tiny boost to initiative (at 100 snake speed, your iniative goes up by 10), but putting points in senses gives you a much better boost to initiative, AND it gives you a number of other bonuses to boot.

Well imagine the choice for a pure caster who you want to be able to cast before any enemy attacks to get up defensive magic (say soul or element shield, something like that). You're going to want to max INT for sure, so then you have to decide which other stat it will be to max early, and let's say the choices are SEN vs SPD. If you max SEN, you get the .2 per point bonus to initiative, and you get bonuses to hit with ranged and melee weapons, and you open up eagle eye. Only the initiative part is of any use to a pure caster - I mean for me it's going to be a bishop who will almost never use a ranged or melee weapon. Now if I max speed, I get the same .2 per point bonus to initiative; I also get .04 per point in AC which is very useful for a caster limited in what armor they can use (also why I don't want a faerie bishop b/c they can use so little armor); plus it opens up snake speed which can then give me more initiative bonus points, over and above what I'd have gotten from senses alone.

The only weak point I see in choosing speed is that it's the one stat that can be radically raised for the whole party with a spell, haste. I think haste adds 75 (?) points of speed to every character and can max them to 125. So if you had 100 senses and put up haste, you'd have a higher inititive bonus than with 100 speed/100 snake speed, or even 125 speed/(via haste)100 snake speed. Haste makes me ignore the speed stat pretty much altogether when I spend points because this one spell takes care of it if you cast it in every fight.

So this brings up one more question: when in a round is initiative determined? Is it dynamic? Let's say I develop one caster who gets 100 speed, 100 snake speed, and he can cast from the Psionic realm and knows haste. A fight breaks out, his initiative is best, he goes first, and he casts haste. No one else has acted yet. After that spell, does the order the characters/monsters go in get recalculated based on the huge leap in speed everyone just got? For example say I have another caster who took the 100 senses but has a 50 speed. Well now he has 100 senses and 125 speed - does he act initiative-wise with those stats in round 1, or does the speed bonus he got from haste not kick in till round 2? If it works in round 1 then if he's the one I want to cast defensive magic he should go next because his inititive score would be extremely high; and the implication would be that you really only need to develop one character with snakespeed who would cast haste on the party. If it doesn't kick in until the next round (when in certain fights it's too late) then I think he's better off having maxed speed and snakespeed. And some other, slower character (for me might be my monk who I'll have go for str/dex first) would cast haste, wouldn't matter when in the round as much because it wouldn't help until round 2.

But I am not sure how inititive gets done, how the order of actions goes when haste is cast - does anyone know??