Which is from 2019 with totally different surprise rules, and so completely inapplicable. Can you cite the SAC or designers for 2024? No.
No SAC required now that the surprised rules were revised. The ability to attack before combat Initiative has never been part of 5E core rules so the 5E24 revision didn't add or modify it.
I've already demonstrated you can make attacks outside of combat, which necessarily means you can make an attack before initiative. So that's provably false.
Which is from 2019 with totally different surprise rules, and so completely inapplicable. Can you cite the SAC or designers for 2024? No.
No SAC required now that the surprised rules were revised. The ability to attack before combat Initiative has never been part of 5E core rules so the 5E24 revision didn't add or modify it.
I've already demonstrated you can make attacks outside of combat, which necessarily means you can make an attack before initiative. So that's provably false.
Doors and archery target aren't participants in combat rolling Initiative. We're discussing beginning of combat when everyone rolls Initiative so your examples within different non-combat context don't really apply here.
Which is from 2019 with totally different surprise rules, and so completely inapplicable. Can you cite the SAC or designers for 2024? No.
No SAC required now that the surprised rules were revised. The ability to attack before combat Initiative has never been part of 5E core rules so the 5E24 revision didn't add or modify it.
I've already demonstrated you can make attacks outside of combat, which necessarily means you can make an attack before initiative. So that's provably false.
Doors and archery target aren't participants in combat rolling Initiative. We're discussing beginning of combat when everyone rolls Initiative so your examples within different non-combat context don't really apply here.
It's still an attack. The only thing that makes an attack against a potential combatant different is that it will cause combat to start afterwards (if they aren't aware of the attacker) or before (if they are aware of the attacker).
And attacking an object can start combat if there's someone willing to fight you over having attacked it (or making as if you're going to attack it), with the same before/after the attack based on their awareness of the attack/attacker.
There's even circumstances where attacks against living creatures do not cause combats. An execution (eg, a beheading) is an attack which doesn't start a combat. If you're throwing knives (as in a circus act) against someone on a rotating board, and 'miss' missing them (and thus hit them), it's an attack, it even did damage, but it probably isn't starting combat. Probably. (They're likely mad at you, or at least disappointed, but unlikely to attack you right then and there).
It's still an attack. The only thing that makes an attack against a potential combatant different is that it will cause combat to start afterwards (if they aren't aware of the attacker) or before (if they are aware of the attacker).
This interpretation isn't supported by the rules whatsoever.
It's still an attack. The only thing that makes an attack against a potential combatant different is that it will cause combat to start afterwards
Nope. Attacking against a potential combatant is combat. You cannot engage in combat outside of combat.
And you can't be surprised (and don't roll initiative) until combat has already started, which means some perceptible hostile action has taken place. The mere unobserved intention to engage in hostile action does not start combat.
I refer people back to my question earlier, which almost no one answered. A wizard starts casting a spell. No one declares any hostile response to the casting. When does combat start? Same, but a Sorceror using subtle spell?
A - immediately: Roll initiative
B - After the spell resolves: Roll initiative.
C - Maybe after the spell resolves. Maybe not at all.
And you can't be surprised (and don't roll initiative) until combat has already started,
Not what the rules say
When combat starts, every participant rolls Initiative.
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.
And you can't be surprised (and don't roll initiative) until combat has already started,
Not what the rules say
When combat starts, every participant rolls Initiative.
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.
I literally just analyzed the grammar of that on the last page. "If a combatant is surprised by combat starting" - 'starting' is the present participle, and 'combat starting' is the object of 'by', which is an event that has happened before the thing it causes (the combatant presently being surprised). You are presently surprised by something that already happened. It's not future surprise, not "If a combatant will be surprised by combat starting".
The surprise is current. The thing which triggered the surprise is the cause of it, and therefore must have already happened (since the surprise is current and not future).
Compare "I am surprised by people running". I have already seen the people running. I am currently surprised because of it. Same structure.
So yes, it's exactly what the rules say.
Still refusing to answer the question about a wizard casting a spell, I see.
The surprise is current. The thing which triggered the surprise is the cause of it, and therefore must have already happened (since the surprise is current and not future).
'Combat starting' means 'initiative is rolled', not 'someone took an aggressive action'.
The surprise is current. The thing which triggered the surprise is the cause of it, and therefore must have already happened (since the surprise is current and not future).
'Combat starting' means 'initiative is rolled', not 'someone took an aggressive action'.
It can't possibly mean that, because if you're surprised by combat starting, the combat has already started. And you determine surprise before you roll initiative. Ergo, combat starts, then you determine surprise, then you roll initiative.
This situation of an unseen attacker is a thorny one which I think the rules didn't quite anticipate.
The PC's didn't roll high enough perception to beat the Garotter's Stealth check. As specified here, Cloak magically makes the Garotter invisible and their footsteps silent, and the Cloak effect only ends if the attack hits - not if they miss. Imagine that the PC's are moving in a line and this Orc Garotter wants to attack the back one in the line. Rules as written, initiative would be rolled as the Garotter targets a person in the back. Because the PC's would be rolling at disadvantage, normally the Orc would go first. In this case, though, the person in the front beats the Garotter in Initiative.
Now what? Because the Garotter's turn in Initiative has not yet come up, they have not yet made their attack roll, and so they are still magically invisible and silent. They don't become visible if their attack misses, so they can't become visible before the result of the attack roll (either miss or hit) is resolved. According to at least one person in this discussion, the PC in front would somehow be able to know that the person in the back is being attacked before the attack took place. To me, that position is self-contradictory. You can't say that initiative order must be strictly followed, and also say that the PC in front gets a turn to react to an event which hasn't happened yet.
***
Here's something else to think about. What if the shoe is on the other foot?
Say an enemy caravan is on a road and the PC's are planning an ambush. The PC's roll well on their Stealth checks, the people in the caravan don't roll Peception well enough to pass. The PC's agree that the intended trigger for combat is, say, an Assassin Rogue shooting the enemy mage with an arrow. Initiative is rolled before the attack happens. Let's say the Rogue rolls very badly, and the enemy mage beats them. The enemy mage could then fireball the bushes where the party is even though the Rogue's turn in Initiative has not come up yet, therefore the Rogue has not attacked, and the party is still undetected.
Most players would be pretty annoyed if that happened and complain that doesn't make sense, and yet according to some, that's the proper way to resolve someone getting ambushed having a higher initiative than that of an unseen attacker whose actions start the combat off.
It can't possibly mean that, because if you're surprised by combat starting, the combat has already started. And you determine surprise before you roll initiative. Ergo, combat starts, then you determine surprise, then you roll initiative.
You determine surprise, roll initiative, and then people take combat actions, including the one that triggered combat. Yes, you can declare an action that starts combat and, if you roll badly and your opponents roll well, wind up with multiple people acting before you.
I don't much like the 2024 surprise rules, so I house rule them, but I recognize that I'm house ruling.
"Combat" is the set of rules that D&D uses to adjudicate what happens when creatures attack other creatures. To say that combat doesn't start until after an attack has happened, is... certainly an opinion. But there's certainly no mandate that any of the creatures have to be aware -- it's entirely possible to run a combat where only one of the creatures involved is ever aware there's a fight going on. "Starting combat" is just engaging the combat rules, no more, no less. And step one in 5e is rolling initiative.
Well, if you roll initiative and the outcome leads to the stealthy would-be attacker just deciding to leave, no creatures have attacked other creatures, so combat never happened. So why did we roll surprise?
Because the situation was such that the combat rules needed to be engaged, in order to adjudicate what happens.
In practice, this is a non-problem. In the truly out-of-the-blue situations, players and GMs can reasonably be expected to act appropriately to the information their characters have.
I disagree on a fundamental level. Combat is when two or more groups engage in hostile actions against each other. Combat only starts at the moment when all participants become aware there are hostiles. The rules for combat are a formalization to represent that conflict. They don't define combat, they simulate combat.
This is perhaps your fundamental problem. You are conflating the colloquial meaning with the game rules' term of art, and attempting to interpret the rules as if the colloquial term is the operative one. Unsurprisingly, this creates friction with what the rules say.
I start casting a spell - no one knows what it is yet. (If you take a reaction to make an Arcana check, you can't do anything else until the spell has resolved anyway). It could be prestidigitation. It could be charm person. It could be fireball. No one can (usefully) know which until i finish and the spell resolves.
You're also conflating the fiction with the mechanics here. If you, the player, say "I'm casting a spell", I, the GM, should be told what the spell is. If it's fireball, I'm going to break out the combat rules (especially if we use battle maps). If it's not, it depends on the situation whether or not I do. If I do, I roll initiative, and the characters who act before you will act appropriately to the situation. (Don't forget that spells are not an instantaneous thing, and that D&D combat is a simplifying abstraction of a lot of simultaneous action.)
In practice, what's likely to happen in a tense situation when you start casting is the other side hold actions of the sort: "If I don't like that spell, I stab him". Or everybody draws down as soon as you start waving your hands around.
I disagree on a fundamental level. Combat is when two or more groups engage in hostile actions against each other. Combat only starts at the moment when all participants become aware there are hostiles. The rules for combat are a formalization to represent that conflict. They don't define combat, they simulate combat.
This is perhaps your fundamental problem. You are conflating the colloquial meaning with the game rules' term of art, and attempting to interpret the rules as if the colloquial term is the operative one. Unsurprisingly, this creates friction with what the rules say.
No, my problem is that I don't believe the rules give everyone a personal time machine, and I don't believe in Heisenberg-esque uncertainty of combat causality where the initiating event could never actually happen and so combat starts for no discernable reason whatsoever. And anyone who think the rules command such things is not following the instruction to read the rules with a good faith interpretation, because those things are fundamentally unreasonable.
The surprise rules grammar is quite specific. Combat starts -> determine surprise -> roll initiative. That has reasonable causality. There is no time machine and no causality misfires.
I start casting a spell - no one knows what it is yet. (If you take a reaction to make an Arcana check, you can't do anything else until the spell has resolved anyway). It could be prestidigitation. It could be charm person. It could be fireball. No one can (usefully) know which until i finish and the spell resolves.
You're also conflating the fiction with the mechanics here. If you, the player, say "I'm casting a spell", I, the GM, should be told what the spell is. If it's fireball, I'm going to break out the combat rules (especially if we use battle maps). If it's not, it depends on the situation whether or not I do. If I do, I roll initiative, and the characters who act before you will act appropriately to the situation. (Don't forget that spells are not an instantaneous thing, and that D&D combat is a simplifying abstraction of a lot of simultaneous action.)
In practice, what's likely to happen in a tense situation when you start casting is the other side hold actions of the sort: "If I don't like that spell, I stab him". Or everybody draws down as soon as you start waving your hands around.
I cannot disagree more. The answer cannot depend on what spell is being cast. No time machines. The GM should be able to decide what happens without being told what spell it is. (That is, yeah, he should be told, but his decision shouldn't change based on what he's told. The world needs to be consistent and causality linear barring prophecy, divination, or other explicit means of accessing the future).
Indeed, my preference as a DM would be for players to come up with what the components of each of their spells are, and narrate the components when they cast instead of declaring what spell they're casting. The somatic components for many classic spells that go back to 1st edition are actually fairly well specified or implied, like lightning bolt involving rubbing a glass rod with cat fur as the somatic component (i don't know how it became a 'crystal rod' by 5e, someone obviously didn't get it), or image illusions requiring the 'bit of fleece' to be pulled downward - pulling the wool over their eyes. They're largely puns, jokes, or other wordplay. Regardless, I have no need to know what spell it is until it resolves.
FWIW, 1 action spells are cast in ~1-2 seconds (it's no more than ~1/3 of your turn, and your turn is less than 6s, since there's a clear 'not your turn' part of that 6s, as you can do things like sneak attack a 2nd time in a round if and only if its a different turn). That's not 'instantaneous', but it's pretty close to it. I don't think people appreciate just how fast spellcasting in modern D+D editions is. And the rules fully contemplate spells which affect a target being cast outside of combat and not starting combat just by the act of casting. Friends, Charm Person, etc...
For friends to even work as a spell, it needs to be castable on creatures who aren't friendly without starting combat.
I fully grant that if someone says "He's casting a spell? I stab him." then combat should start before the spell is cast, no matter what spell it is. (I would also require the spellcaster to actually cast whatever spell he declared - so if he was just pulling a rabbit out of his hat, well, too bad, should have shown his audience he had nothing up his sleeve). But the thing initiating combat is the guy drawing his sword, not the spellcasting.
Of course, even that reaction requires that guy to recognize spellcasting is occurring.
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I've already demonstrated you can make attacks outside of combat, which necessarily means you can make an attack before initiative. So that's provably false.
Doors and archery target aren't participants in combat rolling Initiative. We're discussing beginning of combat when everyone rolls Initiative so your examples within different non-combat context don't really apply here.
It's still an attack. The only thing that makes an attack against a potential combatant different is that it will cause combat to start afterwards (if they aren't aware of the attacker) or before (if they are aware of the attacker).
And attacking an object can start combat if there's someone willing to fight you over having attacked it (or making as if you're going to attack it), with the same before/after the attack based on their awareness of the attack/attacker.
There's even circumstances where attacks against living creatures do not cause combats. An execution (eg, a beheading) is an attack which doesn't start a combat. If you're throwing knives (as in a circus act) against someone on a rotating board, and 'miss' missing them (and thus hit them), it's an attack, it even did damage, but it probably isn't starting combat. Probably. (They're likely mad at you, or at least disappointed, but unlikely to attack you right then and there).
Nope. Attacking against a potential combatant is combat. You cannot engage in combat outside of combat.
This interpretation isn't supported by the rules whatsoever.
And you can't be surprised (and don't roll initiative) until combat has already started, which means some perceptible hostile action has taken place. The mere unobserved intention to engage in hostile action does not start combat.
I refer people back to my question earlier, which almost no one answered. A wizard starts casting a spell. No one declares any hostile response to the casting. When does combat start? Same, but a Sorceror using subtle spell?
A - immediately: Roll initiative
B - After the spell resolves: Roll initiative.
C - Maybe after the spell resolves. Maybe not at all.
Not what the rules say
I literally just analyzed the grammar of that on the last page. "If a combatant is surprised by combat starting" - 'starting' is the present participle, and 'combat starting' is the object of 'by', which is an event that has happened before the thing it causes (the combatant presently being surprised). You are presently surprised by something that already happened. It's not future surprise, not "If a combatant will be surprised by combat starting".
The surprise is current. The thing which triggered the surprise is the cause of it, and therefore must have already happened (since the surprise is current and not future).
Compare "I am surprised by people running". I have already seen the people running. I am currently surprised because of it. Same structure.
So yes, it's exactly what the rules say.
Still refusing to answer the question about a wizard casting a spell, I see.
'Combat starting' means 'initiative is rolled', not 'someone took an aggressive action'.
It can't possibly mean that, because if you're surprised by combat starting, the combat has already started. And you determine surprise before you roll initiative. Ergo, combat starts, then you determine surprise, then you roll initiative.
Seriously, answer these questions:
1. A wizard starts casting a spell. No one declares any hostile response to the act of casting. When does combat start?
A - immediately: Roll initiative
B - After the spell resolves: Roll initiative.
C - Maybe after the spell resolves. Maybe not at all.
2. A Sorceror starts casting with subtle spell. When does combat start? (Same answer choices)
This situation of an unseen attacker is a thorny one which I think the rules didn't quite anticipate.
The PC's didn't roll high enough perception to beat the Garotter's Stealth check. As specified here, Cloak magically makes the Garotter invisible and their footsteps silent, and the Cloak effect only ends if the attack hits - not if they miss. Imagine that the PC's are moving in a line and this Orc Garotter wants to attack the back one in the line. Rules as written, initiative would be rolled as the Garotter targets a person in the back. Because the PC's would be rolling at disadvantage, normally the Orc would go first. In this case, though, the person in the front beats the Garotter in Initiative.
Now what? Because the Garotter's turn in Initiative has not yet come up, they have not yet made their attack roll, and so they are still magically invisible and silent. They don't become visible if their attack misses, so they can't become visible before the result of the attack roll (either miss or hit) is resolved. According to at least one person in this discussion, the PC in front would somehow be able to know that the person in the back is being attacked before the attack took place. To me, that position is self-contradictory. You can't say that initiative order must be strictly followed, and also say that the PC in front gets a turn to react to an event which hasn't happened yet.
***
Here's something else to think about. What if the shoe is on the other foot?
Say an enemy caravan is on a road and the PC's are planning an ambush. The PC's roll well on their Stealth checks, the people in the caravan don't roll Peception well enough to pass. The PC's agree that the intended trigger for combat is, say, an Assassin Rogue shooting the enemy mage with an arrow. Initiative is rolled before the attack happens. Let's say the Rogue rolls very badly, and the enemy mage beats them. The enemy mage could then fireball the bushes where the party is even though the Rogue's turn in Initiative has not come up yet, therefore the Rogue has not attacked, and the party is still undetected.
Most players would be pretty annoyed if that happened and complain that doesn't make sense, and yet according to some, that's the proper way to resolve someone getting ambushed having a higher initiative than that of an unseen attacker whose actions start the combat off.
You determine surprise, roll initiative, and then people take combat actions, including the one that triggered combat. Yes, you can declare an action that starts combat and, if you roll badly and your opponents roll well, wind up with multiple people acting before you.
I don't much like the 2024 surprise rules, so I house rule them, but I recognize that I'm house ruling.
Because the situation was such that the combat rules needed to be engaged, in order to adjudicate what happens.
In practice, this is a non-problem. In the truly out-of-the-blue situations, players and GMs can reasonably be expected to act appropriately to the information their characters have.
This is perhaps your fundamental problem. You are conflating the colloquial meaning with the game rules' term of art, and attempting to interpret the rules as if the colloquial term is the operative one. Unsurprisingly, this creates friction with what the rules say.
You're also conflating the fiction with the mechanics here. If you, the player, say "I'm casting a spell", I, the GM, should be told what the spell is. If it's fireball, I'm going to break out the combat rules (especially if we use battle maps). If it's not, it depends on the situation whether or not I do. If I do, I roll initiative, and the characters who act before you will act appropriately to the situation. (Don't forget that spells are not an instantaneous thing, and that D&D combat is a simplifying abstraction of a lot of simultaneous action.)
In practice, what's likely to happen in a tense situation when you start casting is the other side hold actions of the sort: "If I don't like that spell, I stab him". Or everybody draws down as soon as you start waving your hands around.
No, my problem is that I don't believe the rules give everyone a personal time machine, and I don't believe in Heisenberg-esque uncertainty of combat causality where the initiating event could never actually happen and so combat starts for no discernable reason whatsoever. And anyone who think the rules command such things is not following the instruction to read the rules with a good faith interpretation, because those things are fundamentally unreasonable.
The surprise rules grammar is quite specific. Combat starts -> determine surprise -> roll initiative. That has reasonable causality. There is no time machine and no causality misfires.
I cannot disagree more. The answer cannot depend on what spell is being cast. No time machines. The GM should be able to decide what happens without being told what spell it is. (That is, yeah, he should be told, but his decision shouldn't change based on what he's told. The world needs to be consistent and causality linear barring prophecy, divination, or other explicit means of accessing the future).
Indeed, my preference as a DM would be for players to come up with what the components of each of their spells are, and narrate the components when they cast instead of declaring what spell they're casting. The somatic components for many classic spells that go back to 1st edition are actually fairly well specified or implied, like lightning bolt involving rubbing a glass rod with cat fur as the somatic component (i don't know how it became a 'crystal rod' by 5e, someone obviously didn't get it), or image illusions requiring the 'bit of fleece' to be pulled downward - pulling the wool over their eyes. They're largely puns, jokes, or other wordplay. Regardless, I have no need to know what spell it is until it resolves.
FWIW, 1 action spells are cast in ~1-2 seconds (it's no more than ~1/3 of your turn, and your turn is less than 6s, since there's a clear 'not your turn' part of that 6s, as you can do things like sneak attack a 2nd time in a round if and only if its a different turn). That's not 'instantaneous', but it's pretty close to it. I don't think people appreciate just how fast spellcasting in modern D+D editions is. And the rules fully contemplate spells which affect a target being cast outside of combat and not starting combat just by the act of casting. Friends, Charm Person, etc...
For friends to even work as a spell, it needs to be castable on creatures who aren't friendly without starting combat.
I fully grant that if someone says "He's casting a spell? I stab him." then combat should start before the spell is cast, no matter what spell it is. (I would also require the spellcaster to actually cast whatever spell he declared - so if he was just pulling a rabbit out of his hat, well, too bad, should have shown his audience he had nothing up his sleeve). But the thing initiating combat is the guy drawing his sword, not the spellcasting.
Of course, even that reaction requires that guy to recognize spellcasting is occurring.