In Scenario 1: Why is Goblin Booyagh in a new state of mind as nothing at all has changed? Why does the event of nothing taking place cause him to suddenly be ready for combat?
That is my issue with RAW Surprise. Either combat should start at the person's turn who initiated combat (in Surprise scenarios only). Or they should be unable to take reactions until the after the first attack is made or their turn is over, whichever comes last. I think it would be a lot simpler to do it the former way. Just declare that combat doesn't start until the first attack is made, and then the normal Surprise rules can take over from there.
The reason the Goblin Booyagh recovered from its surprise is up to the DM, but it should not at all be related to the upcoming combat or the unnoticed PCs sneaking up on it, in my opinion.
Below is a list of possible explanations I think makes sense.
Experience a. Maybe the Booyagh is simply physically quicker than rest and adapts faster to the changing circumstances. b. Perhaps the Booyagh has plenty of combat experience and recovers from surprise quicker than the rest.
Luck a. Maybe the Booyagh was napping and woke up from a nightmare, already in a mental state of fight-or-flight. b. Perhaps the Booyagh was mentally practicing combat encounters at the moment of the attack, thus allowing it to react appropriately to actual combat. c. Or perhaps it was simply practicing magic and the timing of its shield spell was one of pure luck.
A surprised creature's initiative turn order also has a considerable impact in combat, going last means the ambusher will act twice before it can act even once.
Let's say that you told the DM that you wanted to wanted to cut the rope by you to drop the chandelier on the target that can 100% see you. As this is the start of combat, the DM asks for initiative rolls, and the target rolls higher. Now the target charges at you and swing his sword, thankfully missing. Now, how would you feel about the DM saying, "Well, you started the encounter by saying you were going to cut the rope, so now you have to spend your action doing that." You wouldn't like that nor agree with it. Circumstances changed since the start of combat. What you are saying is that if you declare something that starts combat, you must do that no matter what. If circumstances change, tough cookies. Would you rule the same way in the chandelier case?
If you say you're doing something, in my games you might get a little leeway on changing your mind, and you certainly get to choose how you spend your action. So maybe what you're saying is that "I cut the rope" isn't a valid way to start a combat (because you don't get to do it until your turn).
That is the crux of the whole issue. How would you start the combat? A player cannot call for an initiative roll. A player cannot just say "I start combat".
So if combat doesn't start until combat starts, how can the starting action of combat happen after combat has started? RAW Surprise introduces a paradox. The Surprise rules should be rewritten to make them actually make sense, and until WotC does that, homebrew/houserule is the order of the day.
You start combat by signaling intent, perhaps the character started to aim for the rope, but he did not cut it yet, the scene pauses as the narrative transition to violence, at this point we rely on initiative to determine turn order and resolve action during combat.
When its turn comes up, the character can continue to proceed cutting the rope or do a different action as it wasn't cut yet.
This goes for any combat wether they cause surprise or not.
Something changed to make what so? What is there that the would be attacker sees differently?
Something must have changed if they are no longer "surprised" otherwise the rule doesn't represent anything. I have already given you a bunch of examples every other time you've repeated the exact same question; why keep asking it if you don't want the answer?
What "surprise" actually represents for each defender will vary in each situation; maybe they're half asleep, maybe they're facing the wrong way, maybe they're busy doing something else, maybe they're literally surprised by something. Doesn't matter what it is, what matters is that this is the opening the attacker(s) could have exploited, and that moment has passed, and the loss of whatever that "surprise" was in that moment is going to be (at least potentially) recognisable to the attacker because whatever that opening was is now gone; maybe they've woken up, they're about to turn around, they've paused to listen etc.
There is plenty of precedent for this; maybe you're an assassin sneaking up behind a dignitary in a corridor about to stab them in the back, but then they remember something and are about to turn around, so you decide to just walk past whistling nonchalantly instead?
I personally find nonsensical that you'd be suddenly unable to move or perform the action you were doing and not be aware if it
Characters are not aware of game mechanics, only what those game mechanics are representing in that moment; it's wrong to think of surprise as "the defender is frozen in place like a statue unable to do anything" when really what they're trying to go for is "the defender cannot act… yet". Another way to think about it is that they cannot take combat actions, if they were doing something prior to being surprised then it's safest to assume they keep doing it.
But this is what I hate so much about the current rules, because really what "surprise" seems to want to be is some form of delayed initiative, except they've confused everything by still rolling for initiative normally and rendering the whole process more complicated and less useful to resolve at all, as you've now got three sets of rolls (Stealth, Perception and Initiative) but initiative can still basically override the other two, so what was the point of all that extra rolling? And this is usually on top of some Stealth and Perception checks to get into position in the first place, it's a lot of rolling.
This is why I much prefer to just decide surprise based on stealth checks leading up to the combat, and then delay a surprised creature's first turn to the second round, as it makes so much more sense mechanically, though you do have to do some accounting for any "target creature's turn" effects like saves and such, but it's usually fine to either just resolve them immediately if it's extra damage (as in Vitriolic Sphere) or throw them to the end of the round for things like end of turn saves.
Initiative and combat doesn't trigger off a violent action taken prior to it, but on signaling intentions, so that every combat actions can take place within combat following an initiative order. Its not necessarily sensical when gamist trump realism.
That doesn't mean that surprised defenders would become aware they were surprised, as that makes no sense either mechanically or realistically; the DM might decide to initiate combat because the party expressed an intention to attack, or to draw close enough to an enemy to do so etc., but players are under no obligation to do anything on their turn that they haven't been forced into doing; they can otherwise do as they please, so long as they can justify why they're doing it.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
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Characters are not aware of game mechanics, only what those game mechanics are representing in that moment; it's wrong to think of surprise as "the defender is frozen in place like a statue unable to do anything" when really what they're trying to go for is "the defender cannot act… yet". Another way to think about it is that they cannot take combat actions, if they were doing something prior to being surprised then it's safest to assume they keep doing it.
The surprises rules don't say you can take non combat action. You can't use any feature or item requiring an action to use, nor interact with object or move at all while surprised.
Characters are not aware of game mechanics, only what those game mechanics are representing in that moment; it's wrong to think of surprise as "the defender is frozen in place like a statue unable to do anything" when really what they're trying to go for is "the defender cannot act… yet". Another way to think about it is that they cannot take combat actions, if they were doing something prior to being surprised then it's safest to assume they keep doing it.
The surprises rules don't say you can take non combat action. You can't use any feature or item requiring an action to use, nor interact with object or move at all while surprised.
While this may be true, I would tend not to allow surprise to drop flying unawares creatures out of the sky. I would treat all flying surprised creatures as if they have hover for that first turn.
Characters are not aware of game mechanics, only what those game mechanics are representing in that moment; it's wrong to think of surprise as "the defender is frozen in place like a statue unable to do anything" when really what they're trying to go for is "the defender cannot act… yet". Another way to think about it is that they cannot take combat actions, if they were doing something prior to being surprised then it's safest to assume they keep doing it.
The surprises rules don't say you can take non combat action. You can't use any feature or item requiring an action to use, nor interact with object or move at all while surprised.
While this may be true, I would tend not to allow surprise to drop flying unawares creatures out of the sky. I would treat all flying surprised creatures as if they have hover for that first turn.
While this may be true, I would tend not to allow surprise to drop flying unawares creatures out of the sky. I would treat all flying surprised creatures as if they have hover for that first turn.
Not needed. Flying creatures fall if their speed is reduced to 0 or they're prone; if neither is the case, not moving does not result in falling.
While this may be true, I would tend not to allow surprise to drop flying unawares creatures out of the sky. I would treat all flying surprised creatures as if they have hover for that first turn.
Not needed. Flying creatures fall if their speed is reduced to 0 or they're prone; if neither is the case, not moving does not result in falling.
Flying creatures enjoy many benefits of mobility, but they must also deal with the danger of falling. If a flying creature is knocked prone, has its speed reduced to 0, or is otherwise deprived of the ability to move, the creature falls, unless it has the ability to hover or it is being held aloft by magic, such as by the fly spell.
Their movement isn't technically reduced to zero, but I think the average person would say that they're deprived of the ability to move.
Their movement isn't technically reduced to zero, but I think the average person would say that they're deprived of the ability to move.
They're deprived of the ability to take an action, which is not the same thing. Confusion also doesn't cause flying creatures to fall on a roll of 2-6.
Their movement isn't technically reduced to zero, but I think the average person would say that they're deprived of the ability to move.
They're deprived of the ability to take an action, which is not the same thing. Confusion also doesn't cause flying creatures to fall on a roll of 2-6.
If you're surprised, you can't move or take an action on your first turn of the combat, and you can't take a reaction until that turn ends. A member of a group can be surprised even if the other members aren't.
“What are you talking about? Characters can't sense any mechanics, including combat starting.”
If there is a threat to them, they start combat by ordering an attack. Not by attacking, if they see no attack or threat or think they are alone in the room. How can they know to be ready for an attack unless they roll perception to actively look instead of passively look. To not use my passive perception to look i have to say to the DM i am actively looking for threats and roll. That is determined before surprise because surprise is determined by no one trying to look. Why you need to roll to see the gelatinous cube and not use passive because it requires an extra bit of effort.
A character isn’t rolling what are you talking about? Players do mechanics, not characters. The only time a character rolls dice when they’re using gaming set tools.
Hmm, I don't think you properly read my post, especially the assumptions tied to each scenario.
Scenerio one the rogue would not attack the one who can cast shield since it has a reaction. Rogue gets assasinate and death strike and rolls with advantage if he attacks someone who is surprised. Knowing which one went first in iniative is meta gaming. Plus combat started on the Rogue’s turn and you are reacting to something you do not know is coming.
In scenario 1, the Rogue would neither know which monster can cast shield, nor which monster has a reaction. The key assumption for the scenarios is that the players do not know what the monsters' final initiative score is (Assumption: "Monster initiative is hidden from the players").
As for why a character can recover from being surprised fast enough to react to an attack, see my response to an earlier post (copypasted) below:
The reason the Goblin Booyagh recovered from its surprise is up to the DM, but it should not at all be related to the upcoming combat or the unnoticed PCs sneaking up on it, in my opinion.
Below is a list of possible explanations I think makes sense.
Experience a. Maybe the Booyagh is simply physically quicker than rest and adapts faster to the changing circumstances. b. Perhaps the Booyagh has plenty of combat experience and recovers from surprise quicker than the rest.
Luck a. Maybe the Booyagh was napping and woke up from a nightmare, already in a mental state of fight-or-flight. b. Perhaps the Booyagh was mentally practicing combat encounters at the moment of the attack, thus allowing it to react appropriately to actual combat. c. Or perhaps it was simply practicing magic and the timing of its shield spell was one of pure luck.
Scenerio 2 there is nothing or no reason to not tell the players it is not a surprise round. Also you roll all same monsters on the same turn. This should have been added to the first one as well. Not surprised and a visible threat are not the same thing. For surprise to work you have to be unseen or notice trying to attack.
Again, the reason not to tell the players whether creatures are surprised or not, is because it creates a more realistic interaction, as it prevents metagaming to a degree. The same goes for hiding the Goblins' initiative score.
Perhaps I should have been more specific regarding the type of Goblins in my scenarios. There are two types: The Goblin Booyagh (spellcaster), and the rest of the Goblins (normal Goblins). They are not the same.
In Scenario 2, the Goblins' Perception checks beat the PCs' Stealth checks, and therefore the Goblins weren't Surprised.
Scenerio 3 no one can make ready attacks outside of iniative. You can tell the DM you want to ready an action for this trigger. However being as the Goblins are the monster, them readying an action is pointless, i can place and order them in any order i want since i roll once for them. They go second in iniative. You cannot move if you are surprised until your first turn of combat. So turning on the PCs and making a ready action to attack shows no surprise and goes against combat since iniative has to roll first before combat actions are made.
In scenario 3, no one took the Ready action outside of initiative, and no one was surprised. Perhaps the misunderstanding is due to my wording, so let me rephrase:
The PCs decide to ambush a group of Goblins. The DM asks the players to make Stealth checks (determining Surprise).
The Goblins look towards the PCs and show clear intent of aggression. The DM asks everyone to roll Initiative.
Combat ensues.
Again, just to make it clear, there are 2 types of enemies in my scenarios: The Goblin Booyagh (only 1), and the rest of the Goblins (many).
Scenerio one the rogue would not attack the one who can cast shield since it has a reaction. Rogue gets assasinate and death strike and rolls with advantage if he attacks someone who is surprised. Knowing which one went first in iniative is meta gaming. Plus combat started on the Rogue’s turn and you are reacting to something you do not know is coming.
Scenerio 2 there is nothing or no reason to not tell the players it is not a surprise round. Also you roll all same monsters on the same turn. This should have been added to the first one as well. Not surprised and a visible threat are not the same thing. For surprise to work you have to be unseen or notice trying to attack.
Scenerio 3 no one can make ready attacks outside of iniative. You can tell the DM you want to ready an action for this trigger. However being as the Goblins are the monster, them readying an action is pointless, i can place and order them in any order i want since i roll once for them. They go second in iniative. You cannot move if you are surprised until your first turn of combat. So turning on the PCs and making a ready action to attack shows no surprise and goes against combat since iniative has to roll first before combat actions are made.
Scenario 3: I am still waiting for you to point out an actual rule somewhere that there is only one roll for all NPC initiative, or even only one roll by NPC type. That you as a DM might only be doing one roll is on you, not on the rules... if you are the DM at all.
I believe he is referring to the first paragraph in the Initiative rules, and rightly so.
Initiative
Initiative determines the order of turns during combat. When combat starts, every participant makes a Dexterity check to determine their place in the initiative order. The DM makes one roll for an entire group of identical creatures, so each member of the group acts at the same time.
“The rogue has no method, other than attacking, of figuring that out.“
All npcs that are the same go at the same time.
Which is (a) not relevant, since he doesn't know when any of the NPCs go, and (b) not as significant as you think, since the DM defines what 'the same' is. "Bandits Adam, Bob, and Charlie have different initiatives because they have different names" is totally legit if the DM wants to do it that way.
Scenerio one the rogue would not attack the one who can cast shield since it has a reaction. Rogue gets assasinate and death strike and rolls with advantage if he attacks someone who is surprised. Knowing which one went first in iniative is meta gaming. Plus combat started on the Rogue’s turn and you are reacting to something you do not know is coming.
No the person is NOT reacting to something you do not know is coming. The person is reacting to something that just happened (being hit) - that is the absolute definition of a Reaction action.
Scenerio 2 there is nothing or no reason to not tell the players it is not a surprise round. Also you roll all same monsters on the same turn. This should have been added to the first one as well. Not surprised and a visible threat are not the same thing. For surprise to work you have to be unseen or notice trying to attack.
There is no rule that says that the DM must show the full initiative order to the players. By hiding the initiative scores on the first round it would definitely prevent meta-gaming the decision as to which target an assassin chooses.
Characters are not aware of game mechanics, only what those game mechanics are representing in that moment; it's wrong to think of surprise as "the defender is frozen in place like a statue unable to do anything" when really what they're trying to go for is "the defender cannot act… yet". Another way to think about it is that they cannot take combat actions, if they were doing something prior to being surprised then it's safest to assume they keep doing it.
The surprises rules don't say you can take non combat action. You can't use any feature or item requiring an action to use, nor interact with object or move at all while surprised.
They also don't say "you are paralyzed and 100% aware of it the entire time as you inwardly scream at a cruel twist of fate you cannot fail to ignore". There is also no such thing as non-combat actions; strictly speaking there is no such thing as an action outside of combat, even though your DM is free to let you perform them outside of initiative.
Once again, you become surprised by NOT noticing something, yet you're insisting that surprised creatures must be aware that they didn't notice? You are literally trying to argue that a creature should notice that it failed to notice something. It's absurd. And also again, what surprise is representing is a slowness or unreadiness to act, what it does is delays your first combat actions until the second round.
But I'm seriously sick of going round in circles on this. While the surprise rules are clunky as hell, and could definitely be improved, their biggest problem is that people seem to want to render the rules basically pointless with a bunch of really weird rulings with no basis whatsoever in RAW. I'm unsubscribing from this thread because as it's never going to go anywhere.
The moment you divorce the rules from what they're supposed to be representing in the moment, you're no longer discussing the rules of D&D at all.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
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The reason the Goblin Booyagh recovered from its surprise is up to the DM, but it should not at all be related to the upcoming combat or the unnoticed PCs sneaking up on it, in my opinion.
Below is a list of possible explanations I think makes sense.
a. Maybe the Booyagh is simply physically quicker than rest and adapts faster to the changing circumstances.
b. Perhaps the Booyagh has plenty of combat experience and recovers from surprise quicker than the rest.
a. Maybe the Booyagh was napping and woke up from a nightmare, already in a mental state of fight-or-flight.
b. Perhaps the Booyagh was mentally practicing combat encounters at the moment of the attack, thus allowing it to react appropriately to actual combat.
c. Or perhaps it was simply practicing magic and the timing of its shield spell was one of pure luck.
A surprised creature's initiative turn order also has a considerable impact in combat, going last means the ambusher will act twice before it can act even once.
If you say you're doing something, in my games you might get a little leeway on changing your mind, and you certainly get to choose how you spend your action. So maybe what you're saying is that "I cut the rope" isn't a valid way to start a combat (because you don't get to do it until your turn).
You start combat by signaling intent, perhaps the character started to aim for the rope, but he did not cut it yet, the scene pauses as the narrative transition to violence, at this point we rely on initiative to determine turn order and resolve action during combat.
When its turn comes up, the character can continue to proceed cutting the rope or do a different action as it wasn't cut yet.
This goes for any combat wether they cause surprise or not.
Something must have changed if they are no longer "surprised" otherwise the rule doesn't represent anything. I have already given you a bunch of examples every other time you've repeated the exact same question; why keep asking it if you don't want the answer?
What "surprise" actually represents for each defender will vary in each situation; maybe they're half asleep, maybe they're facing the wrong way, maybe they're busy doing something else, maybe they're literally surprised by something. Doesn't matter what it is, what matters is that this is the opening the attacker(s) could have exploited, and that moment has passed, and the loss of whatever that "surprise" was in that moment is going to be (at least potentially) recognisable to the attacker because whatever that opening was is now gone; maybe they've woken up, they're about to turn around, they've paused to listen etc.
There is plenty of precedent for this; maybe you're an assassin sneaking up behind a dignitary in a corridor about to stab them in the back, but then they remember something and are about to turn around, so you decide to just walk past whistling nonchalantly instead?
Characters are not aware of game mechanics, only what those game mechanics are representing in that moment; it's wrong to think of surprise as "the defender is frozen in place like a statue unable to do anything" when really what they're trying to go for is "the defender cannot act… yet". Another way to think about it is that they cannot take combat actions, if they were doing something prior to being surprised then it's safest to assume they keep doing it.
But this is what I hate so much about the current rules, because really what "surprise" seems to want to be is some form of delayed initiative, except they've confused everything by still rolling for initiative normally and rendering the whole process more complicated and less useful to resolve at all, as you've now got three sets of rolls (Stealth, Perception and Initiative) but initiative can still basically override the other two, so what was the point of all that extra rolling? And this is usually on top of some Stealth and Perception checks to get into position in the first place, it's a lot of rolling.
This is why I much prefer to just decide surprise based on stealth checks leading up to the combat, and then delay a surprised creature's first turn to the second round, as it makes so much more sense mechanically, though you do have to do some accounting for any "target creature's turn" effects like saves and such, but it's usually fine to either just resolve them immediately if it's extra damage (as in Vitriolic Sphere) or throw them to the end of the round for things like end of turn saves.
That doesn't mean that surprised defenders would become aware they were surprised, as that makes no sense either mechanically or realistically; the DM might decide to initiate combat because the party expressed an intention to attack, or to draw close enough to an enemy to do so etc., but players are under no obligation to do anything on their turn that they haven't been forced into doing; they can otherwise do as they please, so long as they can justify why they're doing it.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
What are you talking about? Characters can't sense any mechanics, including combat starting.
The surprises rules don't say you can take non combat action. You can't use any feature or item requiring an action to use, nor interact with object or move at all while surprised.
While this may be true, I would tend not to allow surprise to drop flying unawares creatures out of the sky. I would treat all flying surprised creatures as if they have hover for that first turn.
I probablly would as well
Not needed. Flying creatures fall if their speed is reduced to 0 or they're prone; if neither is the case, not moving does not result in falling.
From the Flying Movement rules (emphasis mine):
Their movement isn't technically reduced to zero, but I think the average person would say that they're deprived of the ability to move.
They're deprived of the ability to take an action, which is not the same thing. Confusion also doesn't cause flying creatures to fall on a roll of 2-6.
Huh?
From Surprise:
The rogue has no method, other than attacking, of figuring that out.
A character isn’t rolling what are you talking about? Players do mechanics, not characters. The only time a character rolls dice when they’re using gaming set tools.
Hmm, I don't think you properly read my post, especially the assumptions tied to each scenario.
In scenario 1, the Rogue would neither know which monster can cast shield, nor which monster has a reaction. The key assumption for the scenarios is that the players do not know what the monsters' final initiative score is (Assumption: "Monster initiative is hidden from the players").
As for why a character can recover from being surprised fast enough to react to an attack, see my response to an earlier post (copypasted) below:
The reason the Goblin Booyagh recovered from its surprise is up to the DM, but it should not at all be related to the upcoming combat or the unnoticed PCs sneaking up on it, in my opinion.
Below is a list of possible explanations I think makes sense.
a. Maybe the Booyagh is simply physically quicker than rest and adapts faster to the changing circumstances.
b. Perhaps the Booyagh has plenty of combat experience and recovers from surprise quicker than the rest.
a. Maybe the Booyagh was napping and woke up from a nightmare, already in a mental state of fight-or-flight.
b. Perhaps the Booyagh was mentally practicing combat encounters at the moment of the attack, thus allowing it to react appropriately to actual combat.
c. Or perhaps it was simply practicing magic and the timing of its shield spell was one of pure luck.
Again, the reason not to tell the players whether creatures are surprised or not, is because it creates a more realistic interaction, as it prevents metagaming to a degree. The same goes for hiding the Goblins' initiative score.
Perhaps I should have been more specific regarding the type of Goblins in my scenarios. There are two types: The Goblin Booyagh (spellcaster), and the rest of the Goblins (normal Goblins). They are not the same.
In Scenario 2, the Goblins' Perception checks beat the PCs' Stealth checks, and therefore the Goblins weren't Surprised.
In scenario 3, no one took the Ready action outside of initiative, and no one was surprised. Perhaps the misunderstanding is due to my wording, so let me rephrase:
Again, just to make it clear, there are 2 types of enemies in my scenarios: The Goblin Booyagh (only 1), and the rest of the Goblins (many).
I believe he is referring to the first paragraph in the Initiative rules, and rightly so.
Which is (a) not relevant, since he doesn't know when any of the NPCs go, and (b) not as significant as you think, since the DM defines what 'the same' is. "Bandits Adam, Bob, and Charlie have different initiatives because they have different names" is totally legit if the DM wants to do it that way.
No the person is NOT reacting to something you do not know is coming. The person is reacting to something that just happened (being hit) - that is the absolute definition of a Reaction action.
There is no rule that says that the DM must show the full initiative order to the players. By hiding the initiative scores on the first round it would definitely prevent meta-gaming the decision as to which target an assassin chooses.
They also don't say "you are paralyzed and 100% aware of it the entire time as you inwardly scream at a cruel twist of fate you cannot fail to ignore". There is also no such thing as non-combat actions; strictly speaking there is no such thing as an action outside of combat, even though your DM is free to let you perform them outside of initiative.
Once again, you become surprised by NOT noticing something, yet you're insisting that surprised creatures must be aware that they didn't notice? You are literally trying to argue that a creature should notice that it failed to notice something. It's absurd. And also again, what surprise is representing is a slowness or unreadiness to act, what it does is delays your first combat actions until the second round.
But I'm seriously sick of going round in circles on this. While the surprise rules are clunky as hell, and could definitely be improved, their biggest problem is that people seem to want to render the rules basically pointless with a bunch of really weird rulings with no basis whatsoever in RAW. I'm unsubscribing from this thread because as it's never going to go anywhere.
The moment you divorce the rules from what they're supposed to be representing in the moment, you're no longer discussing the rules of D&D at all.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.