Resolution, Initiative, and Reactions

Tick order doctrine

Within each tick, a fixed deterministic order:

Deterministic, seeded, logged. This is what makes fights replayable for debugging and tuning.

Rolled at combat start (Perception or Stealth style, as in Pathfinder), fixed for the whole fight.
Used as priority for same-tick, world-affecting resolutions only (exec effects, reactions, movement events) - not for internal phase transitions.
Tiebreakers: dex, then level, then PCs-over-monsters, then a coin flip pre-rolled once per combat (so identical actors stay consistent all fight).
Initiative as a speed stat: a small random jitter is added to PER cycles; initiative reduces prep and recover time (never exec - exec durations stay consistent so active windows remain readable). High initiative therefore produces more actions over a fight. The jitter is seeded per combat so replays reproduce.

Reactions are windowed by phase (exec is the locked state):

Phase	Reactions?	Cost
Exec	No	Committed - this is the point
Prep	Yes	Cancels or delays prep, per the cancellation policy
Recover	Yes	Allowed; the reaction imposes a small PER tax (e.g. 0/1/2) that pushes back the next cycle

The reaction tax is the budget: "one reaction per round" has no meaning in a tick world, so reactions throttle themselves by eating timing.
Baiting is a core player skill: a monster that has already spent its reaction window has no answer to a maneuver.
Movement-adjacent reactions resolve in a fixed order: "leaving" reactions before "entering" reactions, initiative breaking ties.