Question About Initiative in Surprise Situations

Quote from wagnarokkr >>

It may be worth mentioning that the 2024 version of the "Alert" feat allows you to swap positions in the initiative order with a willing ally right after the initiative roll. It's a lot more limited than the old Delay action, but it can be handy in situations where you've rolled high on initiative but don't know what you want to do yet.

And to really get the most from the feat, combine it with Find Familiar. Since your familiar rolls its own initiative, you always have two results to choose from without putting a party member in an awkward position.

Quote from Realityhackphotos >>

Quote from Plaguescarred >>

5E24 surprise and Initiative rules between the Player's Handbook and Dungeon Master Guide offers me enought guidelines to come up with various options;

Surprise. If a combatant is surprised by combat starting, that combatant has Disadvantage on their Initiative roll. For example, if an ambusher starts combat while hidden from a foe who is unaware that combat is starting, that foe is surprised.

Surprise. If you’re Invisible when you roll Initiative, you have Advantage on the roll.

Rolling Initiative. In any situation where a character’s actions initiate combat, you can give the acting character Advantage on their Initiative roll.

Advantage and Disadvantage. If a creature has Advantage on Initiative rolls, increase its Initiative score by 5. If it has Disadvantage on those rolls, decrease that score by 5.

Initiative Scores for Characters. You can get to the action of combat more quickly by using Initiative scores instead of rolling. You might decide to use Initiative scores just for characters, just for monsters, or for both. A character’s Initiative score is typically 10 plus all modifiers to the character’s Initiative roll (including their Dexterity modifier and any special modifiers).

Ties. If a tie occurs, the DM decides the order among tied monsters, and the players decide the order among tied characters. The DM decides the order if the tie is between a monster and a player character.

 

 

 Absolutely none of what you posted in any way addresses the issues raised in the OP or in the discussion we have been having. Did you not read anything but the title before posting? We know what the rules say. I was asking what the expected implementation of those rules looks like and we were discussing wither that expected implementation is good/reasonable. 

Are you asking this seriously or just to come off as rude? I addressed it in post #18 like 3 days ago which you replied if you remember. This post is in response to the one above with rules put in context and which answer OP questions such as How do you handle surprise in your games?

I think the high initiative players would get a sense somthing dangerous is happening, and have a chance to cast defensive spells, seek cover, make an active perception check, push a low HP character out of room, or otherwise make a last second effort to defend from an unknown threat.