Q: Surprise rules work for two opposing sides. What happens with surprise when a third group of combatants sneaks up, hidden from the melee, and ambushes?
A: The surprise rule is relevant only when a combat is starting. Any ambushes during the fight use the rules for Dexterity (Stealth) checks.
If two spellcasters are fighting one another in a tower, and spellcaster 1 dimension doors down into town square, and spellcaster 2 does the same on his turn... there is now a 3rd party, the townfolk, that needs to join this combat and they would be very surprised. How is this handled? Sage Advice says to resolve it with stealth but that's not helpful.
That scenario is pretty contrived and the townsfolk are probably too weak, scared and confused to act as combatants.
Most of the time all combatants are present and accounted for at the start of combat and the purpose of surprise is to account for the delay in reaction time when unsuspecting creatures are attacked. And when creatures join combat on later rounds, it's usually because they heard or saw combat from a distance, so they're aware they're joining a fight by the time they get in range.
The rules are written for the situations that are going to come up again and again. It's easy to poke holes in the rules by thinking up examples that are unlikely to ever come up in real gameplay. If you're the DM and find yourself in one of those rare situations, do whatever you want. That's what you're there for.
Q: Surprise rules work for two opposing sides. What happens with surprise when a third group of combatants sneaks up, hidden from the melee, and ambushes?
A: The surprise rule is relevant only when a combat is starting. Any ambushes during the fight use the rules for Dexterity (Stealth) checks.
If two spellcasters are fighting one another in a tower, and spellcaster 1 dimension doors down into town square, and spellcaster 2 does the same on his turn... there is now a 3rd party, the townfolk, that needs to join this combat and they would be very surprised. How is this handled? Sage Advice says to resolve it with stealth but that's not helpful.
Your scenario and the scenario in the sage advice question are not the same scenario (almost entirely reversed actually), so the answer would not apply.
Your scenario just follows the normal rules of surprise including "If neither side tries to be stealthy, they automatically notice each other." So if two opposing parties stop fighting to sneak into town and suddenly jump out and resume fighting, the townsfolk might be surprised.
If you decide that the townfolk are surprised then you can rule that they can not take any actions in their first turn. Normal surprise.
If two groups are already fighting then they, by definition, cannot be surprised by the start of combat when a third group arrives. However, if the third group arrives in secret then stealth rules will have them unseen and unheard and thus getting advantage and being untargetable until discovered.
If the townfolk were unaware of the battle, you'd technically be starting a new combat by virtue of having to roll initiative for those townfolk who were just caught up in the fight that weren't required to roll before. The context of what you quoted is surely referring to combatants that have already rolled initiative, which can no longer be caught by surprise.
So it'd work how you think it'd work.
COMBAT STEP-BY-STEP
1. Determine surprise. The DM determines whether anyone involved in the combat encounter is surprised. 2. Establish positions. The DM decides where all the characters and monsters are located. Given the adventurers' marching order or their stated positions in the room or other location, the DM figures out where the adversaries are--how far away and in what direction. 3. Roll initiative. Everyone involved in the combat encounter rolls initiative, determining the order of combatants' turns. 4. Take turns. Each participant in the battle takes a turn in initiative order. 5. Begin the next round. When everyone involved in the combat has had a turn, the round ends. Repeat step 4 until the fighting stops.
To clarify, you have to redo steps 2 and 3 for the citizens that weren't a part of the battle already, so I see no reason why you wouldn't redo step 1 for those citizens.
If the townfolk were unaware of the battle, you'd technically be starting a new combat by virtue of having to roll initiative for those townfolk who were just caught up in the fight that weren't required to roll before. ... To clarify, you have to redo steps 2 and 3 for the citizens that weren't a part of the battle already, so I see no reason why you wouldn't redo step 1 for those citizens.
The DM could do that, but since there's no rule that explicitly requires it they don't have to, and I'd argue most of the time they shouldn't. There's class features that only work at the start of combat. You wouldn't want to reset those and shuffle everyone's turns around on top of that over something as trivial as a new combatant showing up. Just handle the situation the exact same way you would if someone casts a spell that conjures, creates, or revives creatures: roll initiative for them and move on.
If the townfolk were unaware of the battle, you'd technically be starting a new combat by virtue of having to roll initiative for those townfolk who were just caught up in the fight that weren't required to roll before. ... To clarify, you have to redo steps 2 and 3 for the citizens that weren't a part of the battle already, so I see no reason why you wouldn't redo step 1 for those citizens.
The DM could do that, but since there's no rule that explicitly requires it they don't have to, and I'd argue most of the time they shouldn't. There's class features that only work at the start of combat. You wouldn't want to reset those and shuffle everyone's turns around on top of that over something as trivial as a new combatant showing up. Just handle the situation the exact same way you would if someone casts a spell that conjures, creates, or revives creatures: roll initiative for them and move on.
My take is that if a participant to the battle is trying to get there, they would have rolled initiative already, as they are actively trying to get to the battlefield and wouldn't be affected. Really it would only affect those who were not part of the combat or actively trying to get to where the combat was, but truly those caught unaware.
I also wouldn't make things that already rolled initiative again, because that would turn into a mess...but in the specific example provided, a bunch of citizens caught between two wizards would completely be surprised, as they are truly new entrants to the combat not just ones late to it.
That scenario is pretty contrived and the townsfolk are probably too weak, scared and confused to act as combatants.
Yeah just any time there is a 3rd party that combat lands on. The example was just to highlight that the new combatants were unaware. But there are other scenarios were something like this could happen, and the new potential combatants would be thrust into an ongoing combat that they were unaware of. And sometimes those combatants could be legitimate combat contributors as well.
Just think of any action movie where combat is mobile, and people are ducking into new rooms or blasting through doors and ducking into houses and etc. There are tons of scenarios were an unaware 3rd party finds themselves suddenly in a combat that had already started.This is really only a hedge-case if you always have duke-em-out style murder-fest combat where both sides stay put and just kill one another.
Fleeing after a botched robbery and firing back while attempting to escape the building, you round the corner into... the guard break room, a dozen guards are in here, armed and getting ready for their shift... For a split second you think it is all over, but there is an an open window at the end of the room. Can you run past them and jump out the window... or do they get reactions?
These situations were easy to adjudicate in earlier editions, and the rules were clear. In 5e I've had to just wing it and make stuff up outta thin air. So was wondering if there was any actual rules for it or not, but I guess not.
Don't think there is a specific rule. I would have the townspeople in the square check for surprise and then roll an initiative score. The two wizards would carry on at their same initiative and would not be surprised.
Don't think there is a specific rule. I would have the townspeople in the square check for surprise and then roll an initiative score. The two wizards would carry on at their same initiative and would not be surprised.
Yeah that's my instinct as well but I've had people tell me I'm wrong and that that there simply cannot be any surprised parties after combat has started under any circumstance, and that the townsfolk in that example aren't surprised because combat is already ongoing, despite it being new to them.
I guess though you'd have to check for surprise mid-round, because that's when they get pulled into the combat. So if their initiative is higher than the event that pulled them into combat they're not surprised... and if they have a lower initiative they are surprised? Otherwise they'd be outside combat, while being in combat, until the round ended... which doesn't seem to work either.
While they will probably be surprised in a non-mechanical sense, I don't think there's any reason to think that they wouldn't notice the two wizards appearing in town. If they notice them, they aren't mechanically surprised.
Fleeing after a botched robbery and firing back while attempting to escape the building, you round the corner into... the guard break room, a dozen guards are in here, armed and getting ready for their shift... For a split second you think it is all over, but there is an an open window at the end of the room. Can you run past them and jump out the window... or do they get reactions?
What you're describing is a chase. There's some rules for that in DMG chapter 8 (Running the Game) because the combat rules in the PH aren't particularly good at modeling encounters where one side's goal mainly involves running away.
While they will probably be surprised in a non-mechanical sense, I don't think there's any reason to think that they wouldn't notice the two wizards appearing in town. If they notice them, they aren't mechanically surprised.
This is RAI, but it is clear that the intent is that you can't make someone surprised who is actively engaged in combat...because then you could simply make combatants lose turns by 'surprising' them, and it'd make assassination rogue's basically get to assassinate everything. It is mainly so that things that know there is danger can't get surprised because they are effectively more alert to possible threats.
But, since those townsfolk weren't engaged in the battle, but rather were drawn into it from Wizard's teleporting in, you'd have them roll initiative which is out of the combat loop created in steps 4 and 5 of what I linked above. Because you have to have them roll initiative as they are now participants to the combat by following steps 2 and 3, it'd only make sense that you'd start back at step 1 for those who were totally unaware that some combat was occurring and renter the combat loop after determining everything.
Just handle the situation the exact same way you would if someone casts a spell that conjures, creates, or revives creatures: roll initiative for them and move on.
That's a good way to deal with it. After all, you don't apply surprise to summoned and conjured creatures when they arrive into an already-running combat.
Well, I guess you could, but that would really annoy the summoner…
GM: You summon a planar being. He was in the middle of reading a book when you summoned him, so he's surprised by suddenly appearing in a fight. He doesn't do anything for the first round. Player: What the?
But, since those townsfolk weren't engaged in the battle, but rather were drawn into it from Wizard's teleporting in, you'd have them roll initiative which is out of the combat loop created in steps 4 and 5 of what I linked above. Because you have to have them roll initiative as they are now participants to the combat by following steps 2 and 3, it'd only make sense that you'd start back at step 1 for those who were totally unaware that some combat was occurring and renter the combat loop after determining everything.
While it might be reasonable to determine surprise, the wizards aren't using stealth so there's little chance of the people failing perception checks to notice them so it doesn't really matter if you do. If the wizards were trying to teleport in without being noticed, there's a good chance they don't know where the other one is hiding and the combat might not immediately continue.
Just handle the situation the exact same way you would if someone casts a spell that conjures, creates, or revives creatures: roll initiative for them and move on.
That's a good way to deal with it. After all, you don't apply surprise to summoned and conjured creatures when they arrive into an already-running combat.
Well, I guess you could, but that would really annoy the summoner…
GM: You summon a planar being. He was in the middle of reading a book when you summoned him, so he's surprised by suddenly appearing in a fight. He doesn't do anything for the first round. Player: What the?
I'd argue that if you control the summoned creature, it is summoned knowing to expect combat. But by RAW there is nothing saying that you do what I suggested to begin with, so there is that.
To me this feels very much like a case-by-case issue, where there can't be an effective blanket ruling that will adequately cover all possible permutations of the concept.
For the scenario of the wizards appearing in town, now finding themselves surrounded by townspeople going about their day, logically you'd complete that round for all existing combatants. After all remaining turns in that round have been completed, you either roll Initiative for the townspeople, or you discount them as having ducked for cover and fleeing from combat. Perhaps make it a dice roll to decide which group the townspeople fall into. Either way, my assumption would be that any actual townspeople would be trying to get away from the mage conflict, while city guards or the like might try to intervene, or help other people get out.
In the case of fleeing the botched robbery, I tend to agree with InquisitiveCoder, that would fall under the rules for a Chase. How you'd process weaving through a room full of guards to reach a window would depend on the layout of the room, the positioning of the window, and the guards. Since you are already in motion, and trying to get away as it is, perhaps making Athletics checks to avoid Opportunity Attacks as the need arises. The implication is that the guards in the room are not "at the ready", and as such it would depend on their reaction time to determine whether or not they can control space in a combat sense.
I haven't read the previous comments or looked at RAW before writing this answer, but my impression of the Surprise rules is that the mechanic is only used at the start of combat, i.e. when you go from no combat to combat. I'd say that it makes sense not to grant Surprise again if a new enemy shows up during combat, as your adrenaline is probably already way up at that point (which is also why it makes sense to grant Surprise at the beginning of combat when your level of adrenaline goes from low to high).
That's a good way to deal with it. After all, you don't apply surprise to summoned and conjured creatures when they arrive into an already-running combat.
Well, I guess you could, but that would really annoy the summoner…
GM: You summon a planar being. He was in the middle of reading a book when you summoned him, so he's surprised by suddenly appearing in a fight. He doesn't do anything for the first round. Player: What the?
That's not too far from what happens when you create/summon a creature and its initiative ends up being higher than you. If your initiative is 10 and you cast Animate Objects and your constructs roll 11, you're going to have to wait a bit for them to do anything.
If two spellcasters are fighting one another in a tower, and spellcaster 1 dimension doors down into town square, and spellcaster 2 does the same on his turn... there is now a 3rd party, the townfolk, that needs to join this combat and they would be very surprised. How is this handled? Sage Advice says to resolve it with stealth but that's not helpful.
I got quotes!
That scenario is pretty contrived and the townsfolk are probably too weak, scared and confused to act as combatants.
Most of the time all combatants are present and accounted for at the start of combat and the purpose of surprise is to account for the delay in reaction time when unsuspecting creatures are attacked. And when creatures join combat on later rounds, it's usually because they heard or saw combat from a distance, so they're aware they're joining a fight by the time they get in range.
The rules are written for the situations that are going to come up again and again. It's easy to poke holes in the rules by thinking up examples that are unlikely to ever come up in real gameplay. If you're the DM and find yourself in one of those rare situations, do whatever you want. That's what you're there for.
Your scenario and the scenario in the sage advice question are not the same scenario (almost entirely reversed actually), so the answer would not apply.
Your scenario just follows the normal rules of surprise including "If neither side tries to be stealthy, they automatically notice each other." So if two opposing parties stop fighting to sneak into town and suddenly jump out and resume fighting, the townsfolk might be surprised.
If you decide that the townfolk are surprised then you can rule that they can not take any actions in their first turn. Normal surprise.
If two groups are already fighting then they, by definition, cannot be surprised by the start of combat when a third group arrives. However, if the third group arrives in secret then stealth rules will have them unseen and unheard and thus getting advantage and being untargetable until discovered.
If the townfolk were unaware of the battle, you'd technically be starting a new combat by virtue of having to roll initiative for those townfolk who were just caught up in the fight that weren't required to roll before. The context of what you quoted is surely referring to combatants that have already rolled initiative, which can no longer be caught by surprise.
So it'd work how you think it'd work.
To clarify, you have to redo steps 2 and 3 for the citizens that weren't a part of the battle already, so I see no reason why you wouldn't redo step 1 for those citizens.
The DM could do that, but since there's no rule that explicitly requires it they don't have to, and I'd argue most of the time they shouldn't. There's class features that only work at the start of combat. You wouldn't want to reset those and shuffle everyone's turns around on top of that over something as trivial as a new combatant showing up. Just handle the situation the exact same way you would if someone casts a spell that conjures, creates, or revives creatures: roll initiative for them and move on.
My take is that if a participant to the battle is trying to get there, they would have rolled initiative already, as they are actively trying to get to the battlefield and wouldn't be affected. Really it would only affect those who were not part of the combat or actively trying to get to where the combat was, but truly those caught unaware.
I also wouldn't make things that already rolled initiative again, because that would turn into a mess...but in the specific example provided, a bunch of citizens caught between two wizards would completely be surprised, as they are truly new entrants to the combat not just ones late to it.
Yeah just any time there is a 3rd party that combat lands on. The example was just to highlight that the new combatants were unaware. But there are other scenarios were something like this could happen, and the new potential combatants would be thrust into an ongoing combat that they were unaware of. And sometimes those combatants could be legitimate combat contributors as well.
Just think of any action movie where combat is mobile, and people are ducking into new rooms or blasting through doors and ducking into houses and etc. There are tons of scenarios were an unaware 3rd party finds themselves suddenly in a combat that had already started.This is really only a hedge-case if you always have duke-em-out style murder-fest combat where both sides stay put and just kill one another.
Fleeing after a botched robbery and firing back while attempting to escape the building, you round the corner into... the guard break room, a dozen guards are in here, armed and getting ready for their shift... For a split second you think it is all over, but there is an an open window at the end of the room. Can you run past them and jump out the window... or do they get reactions?
These situations were easy to adjudicate in earlier editions, and the rules were clear. In 5e I've had to just wing it and make stuff up outta thin air. So was wondering if there was any actual rules for it or not, but I guess not.
I got quotes!
Don't think there is a specific rule. I would have the townspeople in the square check for surprise and then roll an initiative score. The two wizards would carry on at their same initiative and would not be surprised.
Yeah that's my instinct as well but I've had people tell me I'm wrong and that that there simply cannot be any surprised parties after combat has started under any circumstance, and that the townsfolk in that example aren't surprised because combat is already ongoing, despite it being new to them.
I guess though you'd have to check for surprise mid-round, because that's when they get pulled into the combat. So if their initiative is higher than the event that pulled them into combat they're not surprised... and if they have a lower initiative they are surprised? Otherwise they'd be outside combat, while being in combat, until the round ended... which doesn't seem to work either.
I got quotes!
While they will probably be surprised in a non-mechanical sense, I don't think there's any reason to think that they wouldn't notice the two wizards appearing in town. If they notice them, they aren't mechanically surprised.
What you're describing is a chase. There's some rules for that in DMG chapter 8 (Running the Game) because the combat rules in the PH aren't particularly good at modeling encounters where one side's goal mainly involves running away.
This is RAI, but it is clear that the intent is that you can't make someone surprised who is actively engaged in combat...because then you could simply make combatants lose turns by 'surprising' them, and it'd make assassination rogue's basically get to assassinate everything. It is mainly so that things that know there is danger can't get surprised because they are effectively more alert to possible threats.
But, since those townsfolk weren't engaged in the battle, but rather were drawn into it from Wizard's teleporting in, you'd have them roll initiative which is out of the combat loop created in steps 4 and 5 of what I linked above. Because you have to have them roll initiative as they are now participants to the combat by following steps 2 and 3, it'd only make sense that you'd start back at step 1 for those who were totally unaware that some combat was occurring and renter the combat loop after determining everything.
That's a good way to deal with it. After all, you don't apply surprise to summoned and conjured creatures when they arrive into an already-running combat.
Well, I guess you could, but that would really annoy the summoner…
GM: You summon a planar being. He was in the middle of reading a book when you summoned him, so he's surprised by suddenly appearing in a fight. He doesn't do anything for the first round.
Player: What the?
While it might be reasonable to determine surprise, the wizards aren't using stealth so there's little chance of the people failing perception checks to notice them so it doesn't really matter if you do. If the wizards were trying to teleport in without being noticed, there's a good chance they don't know where the other one is hiding and the combat might not immediately continue.
I'd argue that if you control the summoned creature, it is summoned knowing to expect combat. But by RAW there is nothing saying that you do what I suggested to begin with, so there is that.
To me this feels very much like a case-by-case issue, where there can't be an effective blanket ruling that will adequately cover all possible permutations of the concept.
For the scenario of the wizards appearing in town, now finding themselves surrounded by townspeople going about their day, logically you'd complete that round for all existing combatants. After all remaining turns in that round have been completed, you either roll Initiative for the townspeople, or you discount them as having ducked for cover and fleeing from combat. Perhaps make it a dice roll to decide which group the townspeople fall into. Either way, my assumption would be that any actual townspeople would be trying to get away from the mage conflict, while city guards or the like might try to intervene, or help other people get out.
In the case of fleeing the botched robbery, I tend to agree with InquisitiveCoder, that would fall under the rules for a Chase. How you'd process weaving through a room full of guards to reach a window would depend on the layout of the room, the positioning of the window, and the guards. Since you are already in motion, and trying to get away as it is, perhaps making Athletics checks to avoid Opportunity Attacks as the need arises. The implication is that the guards in the room are not "at the ready", and as such it would depend on their reaction time to determine whether or not they can control space in a combat sense.
I haven't read the previous comments or looked at RAW before writing this answer, but my impression of the Surprise rules is that the mechanic is only used at the start of combat, i.e. when you go from no combat to combat. I'd say that it makes sense not to grant Surprise again if a new enemy shows up during combat, as your adrenaline is probably already way up at that point (which is also why it makes sense to grant Surprise at the beginning of combat when your level of adrenaline goes from low to high).
That's not too far from what happens when you create/summon a creature and its initiative ends up being higher than you. If your initiative is 10 and you cast Animate Objects and your constructs roll 11, you're going to have to wait a bit for them to do anything.
Perhaps this might work:
1. Perception check for the townsfolk close enough to notice the arriving combatants.
2. Insight check for those that pass perception to determine whether they realize that there's a fight.
3. Any townsfolk who fail both checks are surprised until the end of the round in which they noticed the fight.