your rolling of surprise is to see the threat, if you are surprise you do not see the threat. Until you action to come out of hiding, you are not a threat.
This is incorrect. If you declare that you wish to attack stealthily, that starts combat, which causes initiative to be rolled, and you get to attack when your turn comes up.
The timeline of the game does not exactly follow the timeline of what you say you wish to do, for that reason. I think this is the part that you're lost on.
A players actions are not set in stone in advance. You seem to be implying that they are. This assassin could simply choose not to come out of hiding when his turn comes and he'd remain hidden, completely undetected. Your entire breakdown falls apart in this scenario.
What threat did the other 'surprised' creature see that surprised him? His own shadow?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
"But until their initiative, barring an opponent with the Alert feat, there is nothing to see. All turns before their initiative are eaten by surprise. So again, how does the attacker suddenly know the situation seems unfavourable?"
The Attack that is creating the Surprise has not happened yet. It happens in Initiative, no attack or threat of Attack that triggers surprise happens outside of initiative. I intend to set up an ambush and roll my Stealth, I arrange what the plan is in-game with my group, in secret or no Surprise. They do not know we are here until an attack is made to create a threat to make them surprised.
...
There is no attack that creates surprise. Surprise as a game mechanic, is a result of the way that one side attempts to begin combat.
You're still talking about the timeline issue for a game that doesn't necessarily try to represent time as linear, especially for combat. I really don't understand. If you want to change it, homebrew it.
Adventure league and other DMs cannot apply surprise as i see it.
I should hope not, they have to use the rules as written, and you don't see the rules as they are written.
So your fix for homebrew is not able to work.
?! I can't even.
Combat like a game flows in a straight line, difference is at what point one thing leads into another.
No. Combat flows in initiative order, but that is not time order.
Rolling iniatitive does not happen in game, basically pausing rolling and resulting, starting time back up and you act.
No. Turns all technically occur concurrently in a round.
last thing done was to setup for the surprise and next is to do it.
Not if intervening events occur, like other turns from creatures with better initiatives.
However if surprise is removed before its added.
?! What does this even mean?! Any creature that is surprised cannot act in the first round and that cannot be removed by any game feature that I'm aware of.
Its unfair for them and if surprise drops early, its unfair for the others.
Surprise drops as soon as the rules says it does. It never drops early because there is no mechanism for that.
"No. Combat flows in initiative order, but that is not time order."
it actually is time order. Or initiative means nothing. No point to roll to see who acts first if time is not needed.
Initiative order is not time order. Rounds each last 6 seconds. Each turn that makes up a round occurs in that round, and their order is determined by initiative, but their timing is not.
"?! What does this even mean?! Any creature that is surprised cannot act in the first round and that cannot be removed by any game feature that I'm aware of."
Last until the end of you first turn. So going first lets you drop surprise.
So the creature was surprised until it wasn't (according to the rules). You didn't remove surprise before it was added: A creature was surprised, and surprise did it's job. Surprise prevented an action and movement of that creature during the first round of combat.
Why do you keep removing context from your posts? It makes it VERY difficult to follow (not to mention other issues with your posts).
There is a (rather long) video out, where Jeremy Crawford explains the design intent behind the rules for initiative and surprise:
There is a lot of really great advice in that video. I think one important element for DMs to remember is that a player who rolls low maybe isn't being a baffoon. A low stealth roll isn't necessarily the players making a tonne of noise, it could be that at a critical moment, the PC steps on a twig or accidentally kicks a stone. Flubbing it is fine once in a while, but there are many more interesting things to happen.
this is surprise, pay attention to the wording of the last section.
The DM determines who might be surprised. If neither side tries to be stealthy, they automatically notice each other. Otherwise, the DM compares the Dexterity (Stealth) checks of anyone hiding with the passive Wisdom (Perception) score of each creature on the opposing side.
"Any character or monster that doesn’t notice a threat is surprised at the start of the encounter."
as i said what threat.
This is from sage advice.
To be surprised, you must be caught off guard, usually because you failed to notice foes being stealthy or you were startled by an enemy with a special ability, such as the gelatinous cube’s Transparent trait, that makes it ex- ceptionally surprising. You can be surprised even if your companions aren’t, and you aren’t surprised if even one of your foes fails to catch you unawares. ""If anyone is surprised, no actions are taken yet. First, initiative is rolled as normal. Then, the first round of com- bat starts, and the unsurprised combatants act in initiative order. A surprised creature can’t move or take an action or a reaction until its first turn ends (remember that being unable to take an action also means you can’t take a bonus action). In effect, a surprised creature skips its first turn in a fight. Once that turn ends, the creature is no longer surprised."" In short, activity in a combat is always ordered by initia- tive, whether or not someone is surprised, and after the first round of combat has passed, surprise is no longer a factor. You can still try to hide from your foes and gain the benefits conferred by being hidden, but you don’t deprive your foes of their turns when you do so.
I put "" around the important parts, however you can read it all. Surprise was not fully posted.
Right. This says exactly what I've been describing. I still don't understand your disconnect. Are you confused by what "any character that doesn't notice a threat" actually means? You seem to imply that you are confused that not noticing a threat means not being surprised. That is the opposite. "Anyone who doesn't notice a threat" coming is surprised when the combat starts by the threat.
Remember the default is that everyone knows about everyone else:
The DM determines who might be surprised. If neither side tries to be stealthy, they automatically notice each other.
When someone *fails* to see it coming (rolls a lower perception than all the stealth rolls of the other side) is when they don't get to notice the other party. That is what makes them lose their first action and movement. I could see how that might be confusing if you are thinking of being surprised by noticing something surprising. And you might be able to describe that, but that noticing doesn't occur at the start of combat, that noticing occurs later on in the combat. (Again, surprise is an abstraction for a slow reaction to the start of combat, not for, like, the feeling of being surprised by an event).
I think that you must have a different definition of threat than the rules. Unfortunately, until you get on the same page with word usage as the rules, you'll never be able to make any sense of the rules.
I'm not saying there are rules on threat. I'm saying that you don't understand the way the rules use the language that they do. Surprise is not a response to a surprising attack, it is an abstraction for starting combat where some combatants are caught unawares.
Yeah, I don't think you're going to come to an understanding on this.
Again, you are not using the language the way the rules do. Of course the rules won't make sense if you don't use the words like the books do.
You ARE caught unawares if you don't notice the start of combat (even if you go first). You lose your action and movement. That is the effect of the surprise rules as they're written.
The problem is no one is caught unwares, this is the whole point of my argument, the rule allows something to happen before the thing actually happen. Surprise says you do not see or know there is a threat so when i attack you are affected by it. You are surprised. Losimg surprise before the ambush means its not a surprise, you saw the threat. So if you are allowed to see the threat why are you losing your actions and movement. You are no more or less suprised going first or last.
You're missing the point that something really does happen to give the surprised creatures a chance to have a reaction. Let's say the attackers successfully get surprise on another group. One of the attackers declares they want to spring the ambush. They start the combat by making some sort of noticeable movement. For example, a ranger moves out of full cover to use their bow or a spellcaster gesturing to cast a spell. They are no longer hiding. The event has occurred. Cause and effect. Now the DM says roll for initiative. The targets are still surprised but some of them might be quick enough to get a reaction because they spotted the attacker, but too late to take actions or move.
The attacker on their turn can decide what they want to do based on how the targets are acting. Maybe shoot someone who is still oblivious to the ambush to avoid possible reactions. Maybe take a chance on a spellcaster who can react because they're a high value target. Whatever the rules allow. The worst thing to do would be to take the hide action and hope no one notices because it's too late for that. They've already given their position away.
In a real life fight everyone is moving at the same time. D&D combat is turn based so we can actually play the game.
You should be surprised until the last unsurprised person makes his attack or at least until the first one attacks. Getting or dropping surprise because you are having a turn before the ambush is not good. Since the ambush does not have to happen since no actions in combat are claimed outside of your turn. DM calling for initiative is based on the intent it might happen and not that it does happen.
surprise requires the ambush to happen and to happen asap. Combat needs a trigger or it is just people in iniatitive and not in combat. If i roll lin a known threat combat, anyone can go first an. But the surpise version claims the threat happens while you are determining surprise. That is against combat rules.
That might be a valid complaint about the rules, but it isn't a valid description of the rules.
NPCs do not get the same outcome, they are either passing or failing being surprised. Only players have the right to be split between surprised and not surprised.
NPCs have the same rules for surprise as PCs. Frequently they have less variance in passive perception scores than PCs and thus tend to all be the same, but that's not because they're NPCs.
It is because you roll all the same creatures at the same time. They have all the same stat block. None of them have alert and all have to pass or its a fail, where PC can be split because they do not share the same passive.
There is no rule that says you roll the same stealth for all similar creatures. There is one for initiative, but that doesn't affect whether they are surprised (it can mean they all recovered from surprise before you got an action... but that doesn't mean they weren't surprised. If they weren't surprised they would have all attempted to beat your brains out before you got an action).
I know the threat, they do not know, until i open the door they have no clue there is a threat. If i open the door first and roll initative the person going first knows a door open for them last round. Why are you claiming they are surprised.
The triggering event to start combat was opening the door. There was no "last round" because that was before rolling for initiative. The people in the room are surprised.
You don't have players act out six second rounds as they explore a dungeon or have a drink at the pub. You only drop into six second rounds in combat after rolling initiative.
"i was pointing out that it is not normally that easy to achieve surprise through a closed door"
yeah it is since not combat iniative is required before you are surprised.
The DM determines who has surprise when a combat starts.
If the combat starts because a door is opened, then the DM can decide that the non-opening party are not surprised because they've heard/seen the door open.
"The triggering event to start combat was opening the door. There was no "last round" because that was before rolling for initiative. The people in the room are surprised."
Which means the door not opened until i have my turn. If the group inside go first in initiative, they have reactions for attack of opportunities.
the threat surprise is making unseen is your presence. You know there is a threat because you are sneaking around. However its meta gaming to tell the others who get a reaction back for initiative you cannot do anything now, you are scared, let us see if the other group attacks.
why did i decide to do this, well technically you lose surprise at the end of your first turn of combat, no combat no turn of combat. You are frozen. No where in the rules says i have to trigger combat.
In this example the door is opened before combat starts.
You need to go back and read the rules. Note the important "The game organizes the chaos of combat into a cycle of rounds and turns." There are no rounds before combat. I'm sorry if you don't understand the that things happen outside of combat.
A players actions are not set in stone in advance. You seem to be implying that they are. This assassin could simply choose not to come out of hiding when his turn comes and he'd remain hidden, completely undetected. Your entire breakdown falls apart in this scenario.
What threat did the other 'surprised' creature see that surprised him? His own shadow?
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
There is no attack that creates surprise. Surprise as a game mechanic, is a result of the way that one side attempts to begin combat.
You're still talking about the timeline issue for a game that doesn't necessarily try to represent time as linear, especially for combat. I really don't understand. If you want to change it, homebrew it.
You're using some combination of your misunderstanding and yelling about AL to claim something (??) about the rules that doesn't fit with them at all.
I should hope not, they have to use the rules as written, and you don't see the rules as they are written.
?! I can't even.
No. Combat flows in initiative order, but that is not time order.
No. Turns all technically occur concurrently in a round.
Not if intervening events occur, like other turns from creatures with better initiatives.
?! What does this even mean?! Any creature that is surprised cannot act in the first round and that cannot be removed by any game feature that I'm aware of.
Surprise drops as soon as the rules says it does. It never drops early because there is no mechanism for that.
What are you talking about?
Nope. I can't find that anywhere in the rules or the sage advice compendium. Do you have a reference or did you make that up?
Initiative order is not time order. Rounds each last 6 seconds. Each turn that makes up a round occurs in that round, and their order is determined by initiative, but their timing is not.
So the creature was surprised until it wasn't (according to the rules). You didn't remove surprise before it was added: A creature was surprised, and surprise did it's job. Surprise prevented an action and movement of that creature during the first round of combat.
Why do you keep removing context from your posts? It makes it VERY difficult to follow (not to mention other issues with your posts).
Are you still confused on the idea of abstraction of surprise?
i really don’t understand what the problem is with surprise except that you don’t like/understand the rules on it.
There is a lot of really great advice in that video. I think one important element for DMs to remember is that a player who rolls low maybe isn't being a baffoon. A low stealth roll isn't necessarily the players making a tonne of noise, it could be that at a critical moment, the PC steps on a twig or accidentally kicks a stone. Flubbing it is fine once in a while, but there are many more interesting things to happen.
Right. This says exactly what I've been describing. I still don't understand your disconnect. Are you confused by what "any character that doesn't notice a threat" actually means? You seem to imply that you are confused that not noticing a threat means not being surprised. That is the opposite. "Anyone who doesn't notice a threat" coming is surprised when the combat starts by the threat.
Remember the default is that everyone knows about everyone else:
When someone *fails* to see it coming (rolls a lower perception than all the stealth rolls of the other side) is when they don't get to notice the other party. That is what makes them lose their first action and movement. I could see how that might be confusing if you are thinking of being surprised by noticing something surprising. And you might be able to describe that, but that noticing doesn't occur at the start of combat, that noticing occurs later on in the combat. (Again, surprise is an abstraction for a slow reaction to the start of combat, not for, like, the feeling of being surprised by an event).
I think that you must have a different definition of threat than the rules. Unfortunately, until you get on the same page with word usage as the rules, you'll never be able to make any sense of the rules.
See post #199
I'm not saying there are rules on threat. I'm saying that you don't understand the way the rules use the language that they do. Surprise is not a response to a surprising attack, it is an abstraction for starting combat where some combatants are caught unawares.
Yeah, I don't think you're going to come to an understanding on this.
Again, you are not using the language the way the rules do. Of course the rules won't make sense if you don't use the words like the books do.
You ARE caught unawares if you don't notice the start of combat (even if you go first). You lose your action and movement. That is the effect of the surprise rules as they're written.
You're missing the point that something really does happen to give the surprised creatures a chance to have a reaction. Let's say the attackers successfully get surprise on another group. One of the attackers declares they want to spring the ambush. They start the combat by making some sort of noticeable movement. For example, a ranger moves out of full cover to use their bow or a spellcaster gesturing to cast a spell. They are no longer hiding. The event has occurred. Cause and effect. Now the DM says roll for initiative. The targets are still surprised but some of them might be quick enough to get a reaction because they spotted the attacker, but too late to take actions or move.
The attacker on their turn can decide what they want to do based on how the targets are acting. Maybe shoot someone who is still oblivious to the ambush to avoid possible reactions. Maybe take a chance on a spellcaster who can react because they're a high value target. Whatever the rules allow. The worst thing to do would be to take the hide action and hope no one notices because it's too late for that. They've already given their position away.
In a real life fight everyone is moving at the same time. D&D combat is turn based so we can actually play the game.
That might be a valid complaint about the rules, but it isn't a valid description of the rules.
NPCs have the same rules for surprise as PCs. Frequently they have less variance in passive perception scores than PCs and thus tend to all be the same, but that's not because they're NPCs.
There is no rule that says you roll the same stealth for all similar creatures. There is one for initiative, but that doesn't affect whether they are surprised (it can mean they all recovered from surprise before you got an action... but that doesn't mean they weren't surprised. If they weren't surprised they would have all attempted to beat your brains out before you got an action).
The triggering event to start combat was opening the door. There was no "last round" because that was before rolling for initiative. The people in the room are surprised.
You don't have players act out six second rounds as they explore a dungeon or have a drink at the pub. You only drop into six second rounds in combat after rolling initiative.
The DM determines who has surprise when a combat starts.
If the combat starts because a door is opened, then the DM can decide that the non-opening party are not surprised because they've heard/seen the door open.
In this example the door is opened before combat starts.
You need to go back and read the rules. Note the important "The game organizes the chaos of combat into a cycle of rounds and turns." There are no rounds before combat. I'm sorry if you don't understand the that things happen outside of combat.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/phb/combat#TheOrderofCombat