I just went back and read the whole thread again. I followed the link and read the Twitter posts. I could not find anything that says my reading of the Rules As Written is incorrect. Combat begins when opponents come within detection range of each other and you check for Surprise. Can you quote me where it says differently?
It does not say that the opponents need to be hostile to each other.
It can be difficult to take advantage of Surprise. If you gain Surprise but do not also gain Initiative on your opponent they get to use their Reaction abilities. As a DM I might give an ambusher Advantage on the Initiative roll if they have had time to prepare in advance. I might even give them Advantage on the Stealth roll if they have really gone the extra mile.
But read as written, your interpretation would also remove Surprise on the first round, regardless of how well prepared an assassin is because the chance to surprise came and left as the moment of potential for combat started initiative. By that ruling, an assassin has no chance to maneuver into position as he's going to need a round or four just to get properly set up.
Surprise fades in the first round of combat. If Round 1 begins at the first available opportunity for hostile action or chance for perceiving a threat (not actually perceiving, just the first chance one might have to do so), then Surprise is almost never going to come into play.
I just went back and read the whole thread again. I followed the link and read the Twitter posts. I could not find anything that says my reading of the Rules As Written is incorrect. Combat begins when opponents come within detection range of each other and you check for Surprise. Can you quote me where it says differently?
It does not say that the opponents need to be hostile to each other.
It can be difficult to take advantage of Surprise. If you gain Surprise but do not also gain Initiative on your opponent they get to use their Reaction abilities. As a DM I might give an ambusher Advantage on the Initiative roll if they have had time to prepare in advance. I might even give them Advantage on the Stealth roll if they have really gone the extra mile.
I think Lyxen stated it best, something along the lines of a Passive check against a Stealth roll might force Initiative rolls but, that doesn't necessarily start combat. Someone making an attack starts combat.
If you listen to JC's podcast about Stealth, he explains that Stealth mechanics were meant to be very open ended and directly in the domain of DM adjudication. This question is primarily a Stealth question. With that in mind, giving Advantage or Disadvantage on Passive Perception checks against Stealth, or imposing the same for the the Stealth roll is reasonable depending on circumstance. As I mentioned earlier, declaring Disadvantage to Initiative for a creature that is Surprised is also reasonable.
As for a specific example. Bow sniper rolls Stealth at 150ft from target. The DM declares the hiding spot is very ideal and grants Advantage. The target being at a distance, is distracted by their own activities and had Disadvantage on their Passive Perception(-5). The target fails to notice the attacker that is waiting to ambush and is(will be) Surprised, the DM declares Disadvantage to Initiative for the target.
This whole example could be turned around where the conditions to Stealth are more difficult and the target using Passive Perception might detect them more easily. Point being, there isn't a one size fits all, it is dependent on each separate scenario as laid out by the DM.
EDIT: I should clarify, the reason I'm making this argument is to say that I feel as though combat starts once both sides are aware of a conflict in progress. That way the Surprise Rules as they stand make sense, not to change surprise rules.
What you are stating is contradictory. Surprise is determined when combat starts, but obviously, if there can be surprise it's because one of the sides is NOT aware of the conflict in progress. It takes only one side and actually only one person to start a conflict.
In effect, I'm saying the opening attack of an ambush is where the combat starts, but initiative is rolled after it lands, with the intended victim still have a shot noticing his impending doom coming, but not because he just happened to have a high initiative, as a high initiative doesn't mean you magically become aware of danger that you failed to notice. Adventurers don't all come born with Spidey-Sense, unless they do, in which case that should be clearly stated by someone higher up. :)
You can do it that way, but it's not the way RAW works. As indicated by JC, the attack action is necessary to attack and it can only be taken in combat.
Hmm, that's a good point. So... I guess we just have to accept that initiative acts as a defensive measure for Surprise encounters regardless of awareness? That really does take the wind out of Surprise-Immunity, and I'm not saying that to be petulant or bitter. Yeah, it gives you your Standard/Move/Bonus during the surprise, but my primary attraction to Alert is that is that it allows me to protect myself from said surprise. But if I can shake surprise off by just having something like advantage on initiative, Alert becomes far less enticing.
Still, it's written the way it's written.
And after reading most reactions... Almost NONE of their triggers mention anything about awareness or being able to perceive their triggers.
This feels like an oversight regarding either Reactions, how combat starts, or simply just how stealth mechanics function.
AoO requires you to be able to see the creature leaving your reach.
I shouldn't have spoken so broadly, as you are correct, Opportunity Attacks and Counterspell require perception (as does Uncanny Dodge, what the hell?), and Readied Actions require perceivable triggers by their nature, but things like Shield, Defensive Duelist, Deflect Missiles, Sentinel Counterattack do not state that the require awareness, perception, etc as part of their requirements.
Sentinel Counterattack in particular... Well, you want to just say, "Obviously that only applies to enemies they can see..." But it doesn't say that. If you have Greater Invisibility on a rogue diving at your Cleric, RAW, this gives you the opportunity to attack that rogue even though you can't see him.
Still, I'm beating a dead horse here. I am working with a DM that is very much dedicated to avoiding anything Homebrew or even Playtest. And that's not me disparaging him for doing so, just that I have to make certain I have a clear and concise understanding of the rules by which to better operate within them.
I've been staying out of this because I am confused by the discussion. The answer should be fairly simple, but apparently it is not.
@Lyxen,
I don't understand what you mean by your last comment. If combat has started (which I understand to be the moment the DM calls for initiative rolls) and your stealthed character rolls a poor score, they can't choose not to attack in order to roll initiative again. Combat has started. Your character may choose to remain hidden, but combat goes on.
But why would you choose not to attack, regardless of how well or poorly you rolled? If you wish to remain hidden because you don't think you can't win the attack, then I understand, provided it looks like the encounter won't come to blows because your side chooses to remain hidden. If you attack in the first round, the enemy has to not move and not take any actions, only reactions after their turn in the initiative order has passed. If you attack in a later round, they can do anything their character has the power to do. Since you can't reroll initiative, what have you gained by waiting for a later round? I might believe the "monsters" charge your party so in a later round you might be able to attack them from behind, but the "monsters" are still able to take all normal actions.
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I've been staying out of this because I am confused by the discussion. The answer should be fairly simple, but apparently it is not.
@Lyxen,
I don't understand what you mean by your last comment. If combat has started (which I understand to be the moment the DM calls for initiative rolls) and your stealthed character rolls a poor score, they can't choose not to attack in order to roll initiative again. Combat has started. Your character may choose to remain hidden, but combat goes on.
But why would you choose not to attack, regardless of how well or poorly you rolled? If you wish to remain hidden because you don't think you can't win the attack, then I understand, provided it looks like the encounter won't come to blows because your side chooses to remain hidden. If you attack in the first round, the enemy has to not move and not take any actions, only reactions after their turn in the initiative order has passed. If you attack in a later round, they can do anything their character has the power to do. Since you can't reroll initiative, what have you gained by waiting for a later round? I might believe the "monsters" charge your party so in a later round you might be able to attack them from behind, but the "monsters" are still able to take all normal actions.
I think that saying rolling Initiative means that combat has or will start is a bad way to look at it. If two groups encounter each other and the DM says roll Initiative, it simply means that turn order and time frame is now important.
Two groups encounter each other. Roll Initiative. The Bard acts first and calls out to the pitchfork wielding villagers in the darkness: "Hail good folk, just some trail worn adventurers looking for food and rest". "Thank the Gods! Your arrival is well met but, almost untimely, we are about searchin' some evil creature lurkin' near". The villagers lower their weapons with relief. No combat.
Two groups encounter each other. Roll Initiative. The Bard acts first and calls out to the pitchfork wielding villagers in the darkness: "Hail good folk, just some trail worn adventurers looking for food and rest". "We don't like visitors here and we can't have ya runnin' yer yap about us so, it's gunna be the end of ya here"!
To me, at least, any interpretation other than "Initiative starts when two opposed entities are each aware of the other, or at least a threat" denies the ambusher any advantage from successfully ambushing their target, typically in an attempt to deny Assassins the use of their Assassinate feature. Gloom Stalkers get their first-turn nova no matter their position in the turn order, so any attempt to insist that defenders get ample time to react to attackers regardless of surprise strikes me as mostly an attempt to ensure Assassins never work and that all fights are essentially 'even' - that is, no one derives benefit from having struck first.
Allowing Surprise to fade before the individual who achieved surprise can make use of it seems miserly to me. As Card stated, one poor initiative roll essentially destroys your entire ambush, denying you any opportunity to capitalize on your opening move. I know that as a player I'd be pretty disappointed if I successfully maneuvered into a perfect position to ambush a high-value target and gain an edge in a difficult combat only to roll a 2 for Initiative and completely lose that edge.
It's why I tend to stick with the idea that successful Stealth forestalls initiative. One does not get to magically deploy their defenses against a threat they didn't realize existed until the arrow impacted their knee - only once a potential party is aware that hostilities are commencing do they get an initiative roll. Elsewise what's the point of even bothering with a stealthy skirmisher, and why let the Assassin subclass of the rogue even exist?
I'm with you on this one. A succesfull ambush with Stealth absolutely grants a free shot at my table.
It also helps setting ambushes against the players. I mean, narratively it works better for me to roll for an attack in secret and then declare that an arrow hit one of the players seemingly from nowhere rather than suddenly out of nowhere ask them to roll initative and then tell them that they are surprised.
To me, at least, any interpretation other than "Initiative starts when two opposed entities are each aware of the other, or at least a threat" denies the ambusher any advantage from successfully ambushing their target, typically in an attempt to deny Assassins the use of their Assassinate feature. Gloom Stalkers get their first-turn nova no matter their position in the turn order, so any attempt to insist that defenders get ample time to react to attackers regardless of surprise strikes me as mostly an attempt to ensure Assassins never work and that all fights are essentially 'even' - that is, no one derives benefit from having struck first.
Allowing Surprise to fade before the individual who achieved surprise can make use of it seems miserly to me. As Card stated, one poor initiative roll essentially destroys your entire ambush, denying you any opportunity to capitalize on your opening move. I know that as a player I'd be pretty disappointed if I successfully maneuvered into a perfect position to ambush a high-value target and gain an edge in a difficult combat only to roll a 2 for Initiative and completely lose that edge.
It's why I tend to stick with the idea that successful Stealth forestalls initiative. One does not get to magically deploy their defenses against a threat they didn't realize existed until the arrow impacted their knee - only once a potential party is aware that hostilities are commencing do they get an initiative roll. Elsewise what's the point of even bothering with a stealthy skirmisher, and why let the Assassin subclass of the rogue even exist?
I'm with you on this one. A succesfull ambush with Stealth absolutely grants a free shot at my table.
It also helps setting ambushes against the players. I mean, narratively it works better for me to roll for an attack in secret and then declare that an arrow hit one of the players seemingly from nowhere rather than suddenly out of nowhere ask them to roll initative and then tell them that they are surprised.
Up to you, of course, that's not what RAW says, in particular because the intent of the game is not for stealth to trump everything and in particular a number of very specific powers and spells of various classes. That being said, the RAW gimps "realism" quite a bit in that instance, and as mentioned above, there are various ways to go around this. I just believe that this way to do it is simply too much of an easy mode for some characters.
We can speculate about the intent of the game but I'd venture a careful prediction that it wasn't an intention for an assassin to lose his class feature simply by rolling low on initiative after he succesfully ambushed his mark.
It's one of those situations where I feel like every DM has to adjudicate at their own respective table, considering the challenges and the classes that are at play. I am quite chill about it because well, none of my players are assassins but if I had one and his main class feature got cancelled few times in a row despite establishing a well prepared ambush, I wouldn't blame that player for feeling shafted.
A homebrew compromise would be to give the unaware target a disadvantage on initiative roll which, honestly, is pretty semi-RAW as it is clearly within DM's rights to apply advantage/disadvantage to every situation considering ingame circumstances.
I recognize what RAW says and you don't really have to keep reminding me that I can do this or that at my table even if it's against the RAW.
This is not why I posted. I posted because I strictly disagree with the RAW interpretaion and no other mechanism presented in this thread (particularly not a "wuxia-like out of body sense") are convincing to me.
Sure, 3.5 had a fort save. Coincidentally, Assassin in 3.5 had the feature of being a very weak prestige class so...yeah, maybe replicating that isn't the way to go?
Disadvantage on initiative has everything to do with quickness of action. It is indicative of something that everyone knows: that someone surprised by something reacts slower than someone who is fully aware of something.
And of course turnabout is only fair. But here is the thing - if someone has an assassin player at the table, then obviously the feature is going to be used more frequently by players than by the DM because the DM has a whole Monster Manual to throw in the campaign to make it interesting while the assassin player has only the assassin to play.
I wouldn't give the target disadvantage on initiative roll because that impacts his initiative against all opponents. It would seem that the assassin should get advantage, and possibly his whole party if they had set up an ambush.
But I agree with the idea Lyxen is sharing that "what goes around, comes around." Always remember to consider how you would feel if the "monsters" were dishing it out. That will help us all keep our perspective.
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I wouldn't give the target disadvantage on initiative roll because that impacts his initiative against all opponents. It would seem that the assassin should get advantage, and possibly his whole party if they had set up an ambush.
And again I would not go that way, because as you point out it alters the whole initiative order and in particular maybe newcomers (who should not act later than the assassin or his party), ot specific mechanism that occur on specific initiative counts, etc. I agree that these are fairly rare, but tampering with the initiative is nor for me a good solution, especially when there are other solutions.
What solutions? On one hand you seem pretty set on the idea of implementing RAW as is in your game, on the other it seems like you have something in mind that softens the blow?
I wouldn't give the target disadvantage on initiative roll because that impacts his initiative against all opponents. It would seem that the assassin should get advantage, and possibly his whole party if they had set up an ambush.
But I agree with the idea Lyxen is sharing that "what goes around, comes around." Always remember to consider how you would feel if the "monsters" were dishing it out. That will help us all keep our perspective.
Agree with the advantage. I like the advantage here because:
1. Per RAW as a DM I have every right to give a player advantage based on the circumstances
2. It still follows RAW in the sense that Initiative is rolled by surprised creatures, meaning that the assassin has a better chance to surprise but it won't be 100% every time.
For me personally, it's either that or free shot.
Not many monsters (if any) have assassinate feature so we are only talking about NPC with specific class in which case, like I mentioned, the ruling that allows a single free shot against an unsuspecting enemy mostly benefits the players.
I wouldn't give the target disadvantage on initiative roll because that impacts his initiative against all opponents. It would seem that the assassin should get advantage, and possibly his whole party if they had set up an ambush.
And again I would not go that way, because as you point out it alters the whole initiative order and in particular maybe newcomers (who should not act later than the assassin or his party), ot specific mechanism that occur on specific initiative counts, etc. I agree that these are fairly rare, but tampering with the initiative is nor for me a good solution, especially when there are other solutions.
What solutions? On one hand you seem pretty set on the idea of implementing RAW as is in your game, on the other it seems like you have something in mind that softens the blow?
It's not because I explain what the RAW is that I implement it all the way in my game. For example, I allow players to ready actions in specific cases, that will carry into combat, because for me it's a limitation of the RAW that you cannot really prepare yourself for combat. And this works fine in many cases for assassination, I have described this here.
My answers to you come from the fact that people either ignore the RAW (and I agree that it does not seem to be your case) or think that maybe the designers did not think about something, and this is why I sent you the references of the tweets, that proves that it is absolutely RAI as well.
So you have at least another solution than the (dis)advantage to initiative above, and there is even another solution which I have described in several posts and that is completely in line with RAW, here.
I wouldn't give the target disadvantage on initiative roll because that impacts his initiative against all opponents. It would seem that the assassin should get advantage, and possibly his whole party if they had set up an ambush.
But I agree with the idea Lyxen is sharing that "what goes around, comes around." Always remember to consider how you would feel if the "monsters" were dishing it out. That will help us all keep our perspective.
Agree with the advantage. I like the advantage here because:
1. Per RAW as a DM I have every right to give a player advantage based on the circumstances
2. It still follows RAW in the sense that Initiative is rolled by surprised creatures, meaning that the assassin has a better chance to surprise but it won't be 100% every time.
For me personally, it's either that or free shot.
Not many monsters (if any) have assassinate feature so we are only talking about NPC with specific class in which case, like I mentioned, the ruling that allows a single free shot against an unsuspecting enemy mostly benefits the players.
And this is what I dispute, I see no reason to implement further rules that benefits the player. Why would you do this ? If you explain to the player that assassination by surprise is never guaranteed, there should not be any complaints if he picks that sub-class. And this is what RAW intends. If you want to go beyond that it's fine, see above.
And, see above, there are multiple solutions, but I tend to prefer those that reward actual planning and roleplaying rather than the purely mechanistic thing of "I rolled for stealth therefore I can assassinate all I want", that's all, because, let's face it, it's not that difficult to get a high stealth skill and players are always metagaming if they know how high their stealth roll is (which brings me back to wtfndad's opinion and mine that it's utlimately a stealth problem, not a surprise or assassination one).
As for tweets and RAW vs. RAI - as far as I know Crawford rarely comments on RAI and his tweets usually consider only RAW. So when he says that the initative has to be rolled he is not really saying that they intended to be that way but rather that this is what the rules say. Essentially he is saying "it is so because we wrote it so" but not every time "we wrote it so" equals "we wanted this outcome", as multiple erratas and possible exploits still present in the system indicate.
Even then some of his RAW rulings go clearly against commons sense even though they are perfectly in line with RAW (mostly). His ruling against counterspelling a counterspell if you first cast a bonus action spell is a clear example. Perfectly RAW and yet nonsensical. His ruling against twinning Dragon Breath spell is another. Very controversial.
Anyway - it seems to me that the "free shot" rule rewards careful planning and execution as well. Even better, in fact because it rewards good positioning, being able to stay hidden etc. While RAW says basically "**** you, rolled lower".
As for your solutions:
RAW: You can use the "I am hidden, but lost the initiative, so I let the turn of surprise of my would-be victim pass, and I do nothing on my turn (or just move and hide), hoping that my would-be victim will think it was just an odd sound/smell sensation, and go back to whatever it was doing before, stopping combat so that I will get another chance at having a better initiative". This one is absolutely RAW as far as I can see, it just costs a bit of time to the assassin and might have some roleplaying consequences which is always a good thing.
Not RAW, but just local ruling: You can grant advantage on initiative to the hidden assassin because he has prepared so well, my advice would be not to make this too repeatable.
Not RAW: You can allow creatures to ready actions out of combat, in particular to prepare an ambush, but not only.
Ad1
Note that Crawford said that RAW the initative is rolled as soon as you declare an attack therefore you can't apply your solution that you wait for better initative because you can't undeclare it when it caused the initiative in the first place. Sorry, your attack went off, better hope you missed.
Ad2
Isn't that the thing you are now arguing against?
Ad3
Sure, why not, I allow this regardless of this discussion.
Funny how Crawford's "RAW ruling" disproved the only RAW solution you had there ;-)
I wouldn't give the target disadvantage on initiative roll because that impacts his initiative against all opponents. It would seem that the assassin should get advantage, and possibly his whole party if they had set up an ambush.
But I agree with the idea Lyxen is sharing that "what goes around, comes around." Always remember to consider how you would feel if the "monsters" were dishing it out. That will help us all keep our perspective.
I personally am perfectly comfortable with whatever the final answer is, I just need to know so that I can actually depend on reliable mechanics.
If it's a situation where the DM needs to make a judgement call, then I need to prep defenses and ambushes and couch them in a way that make him feel my situation is favorable. If it's merely a case of initiative grants a measure of defense against surprise, then I need to stack initiative and reactions. If it's a case that the ambusher gets a free shot, then I need to obtain surprise immunity via alert or a class feature. If it's a case where the first ambusher gets to go first no matter what, then I need to give myself angles to better enhance my character's awareness.
If I have in my head that this character of mine is highly alert, possibly to the point of skittishness, I want to be able to represent that as best I can. If I am playing an assassin, I want to know how to circumvent my targets defenses to the best of my ability.
I feel like I've opened a can of worms. Honestly, it's just so bloody ambiguous, I just wish the rules stated, "Combat starts at the DM's judgement," so as to avoid this.
Combat begins at declaring an attack, yet surprise can fade before defenders are aware of an attack, which makes no sense in a thematic, nor a mechanical nature. ... Reactions not requiring awareness, but some do? How does one react to actions that cannot be perceived? And why wouldn't something like Uncanny Dodge work against surprise attacks, which would be by its very nature... Uncanny?
Surely I'm not the first person that has asked these questions?
Consider the following two scenarios, from the DM's perspective.
Scenario 1: "You all are on the road, traveling to the capital city of Queston via ox-drawn cart. The day is cloudy but not overcast, bright and sunshiny without being overbearing. There's a beautiful breeze blowing southwesterly, and the road is dry and well-packed given the lack of rain for the last week. This is a well-traveled road; the going is level and easy. It looks like it's going to be an idyllic day's journey, only four more before you reach Queston. Alice."
Alice: "Yes'm?"
"You feel a sudden, horrific tearing in your side, awful in its familiarity. You look down, and see an arrow in your ribs that wasn't there just a second ago. You suffer sixteen points of piercing damage, and I need a DC 12 Constitution saving throw against poison. After that, everyone please roll initiative."
Scenario 2: "You all are on the road, traveling to the capital city of Queston via ox-drawn cart. The day is cloudy but not overcast, bright and sunshiny without being overbearing. There's a beautiful breeze blowing southwesterly, and the road is dry and well-packed given the lack of rain for the last week. This is a well-traveled road; the going is level and easy. It looks like it's going to be an idyllic day's journey, only four more before you reach Queston. Unfortunately, none of your passive Perception scores was high enough to notice the orc war party's ambush on the way. I need everyone to please roll initiative."
* * * *
Which of these two is punchier? Which of these two is likely to get the players in the same "wait WHAT?! Alice!" panicked headspace as the characters? Which is going to make for the cooler, more memorable scene?
Insisting that initiative must be rolled prior to any sort of aggressive action and everyone involved must be fully aware of every battle not only robs stealth-centric PCs of their investment in stealth, it also robs the DM of the ability to utilize stealth and ambush tactics herself. One of the more memorable scenes in Critical Role was the party amiably chatting with their favorite shopkeeper in a safe, well-protected town, only for the party's primary healer to suffer over fifty damage from an unseen assassin's devastating first strike. Ambushing the players, i.e. the IRL people at the table, is just as critical for a truly effective surprise attack as is ambushing the characters. That's not hosing your players unless you do it all the time and bend the game's rules to do so; it's simply effective storytelling.
Can a player invest in an extraordinarily high Perception score to try and forestall such ambushes? Of course, and if a player does the DM should respect that investment and allow them to perceive such attacks coming. At that point, rolling Initiative before a first strike makes sense, as the Perception score beat the Stealth check. The same should apply to the inverse - if a player invests in extraordinarily high Stealth, they should be permitted to easily get the drop on all but the luckiest or most perceptive of enemies. Forcing that player to roll initiative and give away her attack before she even makes it is denying the player her investment just as surely as is forcing an NPC ambush to defeat a player who's invested in an extraordinarily high Perception score specifically to forestall such things.
Again - if one is over-concerned with the power of the Assassin subclass for the rogue, then disallow this subclass at one's table. Though I will note, the Assassin does not actually deal any more damage than any other rogue can. All rogues deal catastrophic damage on a critical hit; Assassins merely have an opportunity to do so more reliably. It doesn't break encounter dynamics any more than rogue crits already do.
Consider the following two scenarios, from the DM's perspective.
Scenario 1: "You all are on the road, traveling to the capital city of Queston via ox-drawn cart. The day is cloudy but not overcast, bright and sunshiny without being overbearing. There's a beautiful breeze blowing southwesterly, and the road is dry and well-packed given the lack of rain for the last week. This is a well-traveled road; the going is level and easy. It looks like it's going to be an idyllic day's journey, only four more before you reach Queston. Alice."
Alice: "Yes'm?"
"You feel a sudden, horrific tearing in your side, awful in its familiarity. You look down, and see an arrow in your ribs that wasn't there just a second ago. You suffer sixteen points of piercing damage, and I need a DC 12 Constitution saving throw against poison. After that, everyone please roll initiative."
Scenario 2: "You all are on the road, traveling to the capital city of Queston via ox-drawn cart. The day is cloudy but not overcast, bright and sunshiny without being overbearing. There's a beautiful breeze blowing southwesterly, and the road is dry and well-packed given the lack of rain for the last week. This is a well-traveled road; the going is level and easy. It looks like it's going to be an idyllic day's journey, only four more before you reach Queston. Unfortunately, none of your passive Perception scores was high enough to notice the orc war party's ambush on the way. I need everyone to please roll initiative."
* * * *
Which of these two is punchier? Which of these two is likely to get the players in the same "wait WHAT?! Alice!" panicked headspace as the characters? Which is going to make for the cooler, more memorable scene?
The one that the DM wants to be more engaging and is into. I think you deliberately narrated the second one less punchier than the second, irrespective of the mechanics.
Alternate comparison!
Scenario 1: "You all are on the road, traveling to the capital city of Queston via ox-drawn cart. The day is cloudy but not overcast, bright and sunshiny without being overbearing. There's a beautiful breeze blowing southwesterly, and the road is dry and well-packed given the lack of rain for the last week. This is a well-traveled road; the going is level and easy. It looks like it's going to be an idyllic day's journey, only four more before you reach Queston. Unfortunately, none of your passive perception scores was high enough to notice the orc war party's ambush on the way. They shoot first; Alice, take 16 points of piercing damage from their first attack and make a DC12 Constitution saving throw against poison, and everyone please roll initiative."
Scenario 2: "You all are on the road, traveling to the capital city of Queston via ox-drawn cart. The day is cloudy but not overcast, bright and sunshiny without being overbearing. There's a beautiful breeze blowing southwesterly, and the road is dry and well-packed given the lack of rain for the last week. This is a well-traveled road; the going is level and easy. It looks like it's going to be an idyllic day's journey, only four more before you reach Queston. ...oh, and everyone please roll for initiative."
Everyone: (rolls) (oh shit oh shit we can't even see who we're about to fight)
"Alice, you feel a sudden, horrific tearing in your side, awful in its familiarity. You look down, and see an arrow in your ribs that wasn't there just a second ago. You suffer sixteen points of piercing damage, and make a Constitution saving throw."
In both cases, the way to make the scene punchier is:
1) The secrecy where stuff happens and the players don't know what their fighting. If you go right out and say "orc band" (like you did in scenario 2, and like I did in scenario 1) then it's less exciting, since the players don't have to face the mystery that they don't know who they're about to fight.
2) Not mentioning unnecessary mechanics and keeping it on a narrative level. Specifically discussion of "your passive perception scores weren't high enough" (like you did in scenario 2, and like I did in scenario 1) decreases the punchiness. There's no reason to explicitly mention them here.
3) The added description of the arrow wound is of course cool; you omitted that in scenario 2 and I omitted it in scenario 1.
4) The lack of build-up - the rapid switch from "everything is fine" to "oh no oh no" is punchy. In Scenario 1, you went straight from "everything is fine" to "take damage", whereas in Scenario 2 you had a build-up going there, where you first narrate the bad passive perception to give the players an indication that's something's wrong, then mention what the bad thing is that they didn't see (the orc war party ambush) and only then tell them to do something and let them react. You can just as easily flip that around - I had Scenario 2 have the jarring shift from "everything's fine" to "roll for initiative to fight unknown/unseen attackers" whereas Scenario 1 has the narration of the bad perception check, the description of the enemies and what they're doing, and finally the consequence, which makes it less punchy.
(slight bonus comment - I think it's punchier if you DON'T give Alice the DC of the saving throw, and just ask her to make a Con save.)
The punchiness of the scene does not have to do with whether, when the players are surprised, their first instruction is "roll for initiative" or "take 16 points of piercing damage and make a constititution save."
..and of course, in *both cases*, the damage and the initiative roll both happen before the players have a chance to take any actions.
This is not what the tweet says, read it again. You can declare that you want to attack, is not the same thing as actually rolling an attack, it just says "you take action on your turn". In particular, even in standard fights with no surprise, you might declare that you want to attack but because your adversaries are more ready than you are, and./or quicker, you possibly end up not rolling for attack because they have moved or maybe because you are already dead.
Outside combat, you roll initiative if you declare an attack against a foe. You then take action on your turn
Please explain to me how you can undeclare an action that caused the initiative roll in the first place. You declare an attack, the DM says ok roll initative then you see the result and say "sry, no attack"? What the hell is this?
This is not what the tweet says, read it again. You can declare that you want to attack, is not the same thing as actually rolling an attack, it just says "you take action on your turn". In particular, even in standard fights with no surprise, you might declare that you want to attack but because your adversaries are more ready than you are, and./or quicker, you possibly end up not rolling for attack because they have moved or maybe because you are already dead.
Outside combat, you roll initiative if you declare an attack against a foe. You then take action on your turn
Please explain to me how you can undeclare an action that caused the initiative roll in the first place. You declare an attack, the DM says ok roll initative then you see the result and say "sry, no attack"? What the hell is this?
You are not "undeclaring an action", you declared that you wanted to attack. Initiative is rolled, you then take any action you want on your turn, attacking, casting a spell, whatever you want. The circumstances might have changed to that you cannot even roll for an attack anyway.
So you consider losing an initiative a circumstance that has changed? Initiative is a behind-the-scenes element of crunch, the characters are not aware that they have won or lost initiative.
When a player loses an arrow from 100ft against an unsuspecting target, he has no way of telling that the target has won initiative against him. How do you even narrate that?
Hell, if you want to get technical, players are not supposed to even know whether the enemy rolled higher or lower initiative than them until after they see them act. In which case, again, it's too late to change your mind.
So you consider losing an initiative a circumstance that has changed? Initiative is a behind-the-scenes element of crunch, the characters are not aware that they have won or lost initiative.
Look at it this way. The assassination needs complete surprise on the part of the target. Just as you were readying your shot, obviously, something alerted the target, it's looking around, or it has raised his head, maybe sniffing the air. But he is no longer completely the totally defenseless target that you expected. He has not taken any action yet, but he is obviously jumpy, and ready to react to a threat.
So you slink back to the shadows and wait for another opportunity.
When a player loses an arrow from 100ft against an unsuspecting target, he has no way of telling that the target has won initiative against him. How do you even narrate that?
The thing is that you have not loosed the arrow yet, because if you had, you would have rolled an attack. You were just shifting slightly to prepare for the shot and, bad luck, a chance gust of wind made the bush you were hiding behind move slightly. The target has raised his head and is looking around, not still enough for the perfect shot that you need from that distance to exactly hit him in the neck.
Hell, if you want to get technical, players are not supposed to even know whether the enemy rolled higher or lower initiative than them until after they see them act. In which case, again, it's too late to change your mind.
They don't, but again this is a roleplaying, where the DM describes what is happening. I have given you two examples above of things that are perceivable by the assassin, because for me someone becoming alert is probably going to be noticed by an assassin about to pounce.
To each their own, as you like to say here - do whatever you want. At my table Initiative is not something that can cause the target to be "alerted by something". That is the role of Passive Perception vs. Stealth.
It is incredibly vexing to waste what few posts I can make these days on issues such as this. I will have to bow out of the 'discussion' after this point, apologies. Nevertheless, one final try.
I do not see how assassins, or ambushes in general, are actually dangerous at all at your table, Lyxen. The rules that you and those aligned with your views seem to be espousing is that an entity which is about to take damage from a theoretically 'hidden' attacker must be informed exactly what is attacking them via what method and from which position, so they may know exactly the correct way to respond to this "Ambush" attack. Stealth is meaningless, and 'Surprise' doesn't truly exist save as a mechanical condition extremely unlikely to occur. Your primary argument seems to be that players will complain if they suffer damage without any opportunity to make a roll of some sort to reduce or avoid that damage. I question how such a player is able to accomplish anything in this game, if he requires full and complete knowledge of why everything around him is happening before he feels he was treated fairly.
I, myself, have taken a high-damage assassin's opening hit from a character I had no idea was an assassin, with absolutely no means of 'Winning Initiative' and forestalling that damage. The only save I got was against poison, which succeeded and reduced the damage to "still enough to reduce you to zero HP from full in a single strike". Far from being upset that the DM didn't say 'this NPC is actually an assassin about to try and stab you in the gut with a poisoned dagger; I need you to roll initiative to see if you can BS a reason to avoid his completely unforeseen surprise attack', I was deeply invested in the story unfolding before me and watching the rest of my party try to pin down the fleeing assassin before I bled out. It was an excellent story beat that your rules would've completely denied me, forcing as they do extremely clumsy storytelling in that a player has to effectively give consent to allowing themselves to be subjected to an opening strike and play out, during initiative, the actions they would have taken had they not been made aware that they were being 'Ambushed'.
@FTL: Similarly, having players roll initiative for a road ambush they were not aware was happening destroys the ambush scene. Players who roll initiative above their enemies are told "Okay, take your turn, but remember - you have no idea what's happening, where your enemies are, or that anything is wrong." This is extremely clumsy and deeply frustrating to players and turns what might have been a very effective ambush scene in your night's tale into a vexing exercise in the DM playing your characters for you until he gives you permission to play them yourself again. Simply taking damage outside of initiative and then being able to act freely within initiative is a much better solution than "Okay, you're all fighting now, but none of you know you're fighting, except you kinda do because your characters' Initiative Sense tingled, but you're not allowed to act like you know you're about to be attacked, so just sit there and please let me wail on you for this first round, okay?"
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But read as written, your interpretation would also remove Surprise on the first round, regardless of how well prepared an assassin is because the chance to surprise came and left as the moment of potential for combat started initiative. By that ruling, an assassin has no chance to maneuver into position as he's going to need a round or four just to get properly set up.
Surprise fades in the first round of combat. If Round 1 begins at the first available opportunity for hostile action or chance for perceiving a threat (not actually perceiving, just the first chance one might have to do so), then Surprise is almost never going to come into play.
Or am I misunderstanding you?
I think Lyxen stated it best, something along the lines of a Passive check against a Stealth roll might force Initiative rolls but, that doesn't necessarily start combat. Someone making an attack starts combat.
If you listen to JC's podcast about Stealth, he explains that Stealth mechanics were meant to be very open ended and directly in the domain of DM adjudication. This question is primarily a Stealth question. With that in mind, giving Advantage or Disadvantage on Passive Perception checks against Stealth, or imposing the same for the the Stealth roll is reasonable depending on circumstance. As I mentioned earlier, declaring Disadvantage to Initiative for a creature that is Surprised is also reasonable.
As for a specific example. Bow sniper rolls Stealth at 150ft from target. The DM declares the hiding spot is very ideal and grants Advantage. The target being at a distance, is distracted by their own activities and had Disadvantage on their Passive Perception(-5). The target fails to notice the attacker that is waiting to ambush and is(will be) Surprised, the DM declares Disadvantage to Initiative for the target.
This whole example could be turned around where the conditions to Stealth are more difficult and the target using Passive Perception might detect them more easily. Point being, there isn't a one size fits all, it is dependent on each separate scenario as laid out by the DM.
Hmm, that's a good point. So... I guess we just have to accept that initiative acts as a defensive measure for Surprise encounters regardless of awareness? That really does take the wind out of Surprise-Immunity, and I'm not saying that to be petulant or bitter. Yeah, it gives you your Standard/Move/Bonus during the surprise, but my primary attraction to Alert is that is that it allows me to protect myself from said surprise. But if I can shake surprise off by just having something like advantage on initiative, Alert becomes far less enticing.
Still, it's written the way it's written.
And after reading most reactions... Almost NONE of their triggers mention anything about awareness or being able to perceive their triggers.
This feels like an oversight regarding either Reactions, how combat starts, or simply just how stealth mechanics function.
I shouldn't have spoken so broadly, as you are correct, Opportunity Attacks and Counterspell require perception (as does Uncanny Dodge, what the hell?), and Readied Actions require perceivable triggers by their nature, but things like Shield, Defensive Duelist, Deflect Missiles, Sentinel Counterattack do not state that the require awareness, perception, etc as part of their requirements.
Sentinel Counterattack in particular... Well, you want to just say, "Obviously that only applies to enemies they can see..." But it doesn't say that. If you have Greater Invisibility on a rogue diving at your Cleric, RAW, this gives you the opportunity to attack that rogue even though you can't see him.
Still, I'm beating a dead horse here. I am working with a DM that is very much dedicated to avoiding anything Homebrew or even Playtest. And that's not me disparaging him for doing so, just that I have to make certain I have a clear and concise understanding of the rules by which to better operate within them.
I've been staying out of this because I am confused by the discussion. The answer should be fairly simple, but apparently it is not.
@Lyxen,
I don't understand what you mean by your last comment. If combat has started (which I understand to be the moment the DM calls for initiative rolls) and your stealthed character rolls a poor score, they can't choose not to attack in order to roll initiative again. Combat has started. Your character may choose to remain hidden, but combat goes on.
But why would you choose not to attack, regardless of how well or poorly you rolled? If you wish to remain hidden because you don't think you can't win the attack, then I understand, provided it looks like the encounter won't come to blows because your side chooses to remain hidden. If you attack in the first round, the enemy has to not move and not take any actions, only reactions after their turn in the initiative order has passed. If you attack in a later round, they can do anything their character has the power to do. Since you can't reroll initiative, what have you gained by waiting for a later round? I might believe the "monsters" charge your party so in a later round you might be able to attack them from behind, but the "monsters" are still able to take all normal actions.
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
I think that saying rolling Initiative means that combat has or will start is a bad way to look at it. If two groups encounter each other and the DM says roll Initiative, it simply means that turn order and time frame is now important.
Two groups encounter each other. Roll Initiative. The Bard acts first and calls out to the pitchfork wielding villagers in the darkness: "Hail good folk, just some trail worn adventurers looking for food and rest". "Thank the Gods! Your arrival is well met but, almost untimely, we are about searchin' some evil creature lurkin' near". The villagers lower their weapons with relief. No combat.
Two groups encounter each other. Roll Initiative. The Bard acts first and calls out to the pitchfork wielding villagers in the darkness: "Hail good folk, just some trail worn adventurers looking for food and rest". "We don't like visitors here and we can't have ya runnin' yer yap about us so, it's gunna be the end of ya here"!
I'm with you on this one. A succesfull ambush with Stealth absolutely grants a free shot at my table.
It also helps setting ambushes against the players. I mean, narratively it works better for me to roll for an attack in secret and then declare that an arrow hit one of the players seemingly from nowhere rather than suddenly out of nowhere ask them to roll initative and then tell them that they are surprised.
We can speculate about the intent of the game but I'd venture a careful prediction that it wasn't an intention for an assassin to lose his class feature simply by rolling low on initiative after he succesfully ambushed his mark.
It's one of those situations where I feel like every DM has to adjudicate at their own respective table, considering the challenges and the classes that are at play. I am quite chill about it because well, none of my players are assassins but if I had one and his main class feature got cancelled few times in a row despite establishing a well prepared ambush, I wouldn't blame that player for feeling shafted.
A homebrew compromise would be to give the unaware target a disadvantage on initiative roll which, honestly, is pretty semi-RAW as it is clearly within DM's rights to apply advantage/disadvantage to every situation considering ingame circumstances.
I recognize what RAW says and you don't really have to keep reminding me that I can do this or that at my table even if it's against the RAW.
This is not why I posted. I posted because I strictly disagree with the RAW interpretaion and no other mechanism presented in this thread (particularly not a "wuxia-like out of body sense") are convincing to me.
Sure, 3.5 had a fort save. Coincidentally, Assassin in 3.5 had the feature of being a very weak prestige class so...yeah, maybe replicating that isn't the way to go?
Disadvantage on initiative has everything to do with quickness of action. It is indicative of something that everyone knows: that someone surprised by something reacts slower than someone who is fully aware of something.
And of course turnabout is only fair. But here is the thing - if someone has an assassin player at the table, then obviously the feature is going to be used more frequently by players than by the DM because the DM has a whole Monster Manual to throw in the campaign to make it interesting while the assassin player has only the assassin to play.
I wouldn't give the target disadvantage on initiative roll because that impacts his initiative against all opponents. It would seem that the assassin should get advantage, and possibly his whole party if they had set up an ambush.
But I agree with the idea Lyxen is sharing that "what goes around, comes around." Always remember to consider how you would feel if the "monsters" were dishing it out. That will help us all keep our perspective.
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
What solutions? On one hand you seem pretty set on the idea of implementing RAW as is in your game, on the other it seems like you have something in mind that softens the blow?
Agree with the advantage. I like the advantage here because:
1. Per RAW as a DM I have every right to give a player advantage based on the circumstances
2. It still follows RAW in the sense that Initiative is rolled by surprised creatures, meaning that the assassin has a better chance to surprise but it won't be 100% every time.
For me personally, it's either that or free shot.
Not many monsters (if any) have assassinate feature so we are only talking about NPC with specific class in which case, like I mentioned, the ruling that allows a single free shot against an unsuspecting enemy mostly benefits the players.
As for tweets and RAW vs. RAI - as far as I know Crawford rarely comments on RAI and his tweets usually consider only RAW. So when he says that the initative has to be rolled he is not really saying that they intended to be that way but rather that this is what the rules say. Essentially he is saying "it is so because we wrote it so" but not every time "we wrote it so" equals "we wanted this outcome", as multiple erratas and possible exploits still present in the system indicate.
Even then some of his RAW rulings go clearly against commons sense even though they are perfectly in line with RAW (mostly). His ruling against counterspelling a counterspell if you first cast a bonus action spell is a clear example. Perfectly RAW and yet nonsensical. His ruling against twinning Dragon Breath spell is another. Very controversial.
Anyway - it seems to me that the "free shot" rule rewards careful planning and execution as well. Even better, in fact because it rewards good positioning, being able to stay hidden etc. While RAW says basically "**** you, rolled lower".
As for your solutions:
Ad1
Note that Crawford said that RAW the initative is rolled as soon as you declare an attack therefore you can't apply your solution that you wait for better initative because you can't undeclare it when it caused the initiative in the first place. Sorry, your attack went off, better hope you missed.
Ad2
Isn't that the thing you are now arguing against?
Ad3
Sure, why not, I allow this regardless of this discussion.
Funny how Crawford's "RAW ruling" disproved the only RAW solution you had there ;-)
I personally am perfectly comfortable with whatever the final answer is, I just need to know so that I can actually depend on reliable mechanics.
If it's a situation where the DM needs to make a judgement call, then I need to prep defenses and ambushes and couch them in a way that make him feel my situation is favorable. If it's merely a case of initiative grants a measure of defense against surprise, then I need to stack initiative and reactions. If it's a case that the ambusher gets a free shot, then I need to obtain surprise immunity via alert or a class feature. If it's a case where the first ambusher gets to go first no matter what, then I need to give myself angles to better enhance my character's awareness.
If I have in my head that this character of mine is highly alert, possibly to the point of skittishness, I want to be able to represent that as best I can. If I am playing an assassin, I want to know how to circumvent my targets defenses to the best of my ability.
I feel like I've opened a can of worms. Honestly, it's just so bloody ambiguous, I just wish the rules stated, "Combat starts at the DM's judgement," so as to avoid this.
Combat begins at declaring an attack, yet surprise can fade before defenders are aware of an attack, which makes no sense in a thematic, nor a mechanical nature. ... Reactions not requiring awareness, but some do? How does one react to actions that cannot be perceived? And why wouldn't something like Uncanny Dodge work against surprise attacks, which would be by its very nature... Uncanny?
Surely I'm not the first person that has asked these questions?
Consider the following two scenarios, from the DM's perspective.
Scenario 1:
"You all are on the road, traveling to the capital city of Queston via ox-drawn cart. The day is cloudy but not overcast, bright and sunshiny without being overbearing. There's a beautiful breeze blowing southwesterly, and the road is dry and well-packed given the lack of rain for the last week. This is a well-traveled road; the going is level and easy. It looks like it's going to be an idyllic day's journey, only four more before you reach Queston. Alice."
Alice: "Yes'm?"
"You feel a sudden, horrific tearing in your side, awful in its familiarity. You look down, and see an arrow in your ribs that wasn't there just a second ago. You suffer sixteen points of piercing damage, and I need a DC 12 Constitution saving throw against poison. After that, everyone please roll initiative."
Scenario 2:
"You all are on the road, traveling to the capital city of Queston via ox-drawn cart. The day is cloudy but not overcast, bright and sunshiny without being overbearing. There's a beautiful breeze blowing southwesterly, and the road is dry and well-packed given the lack of rain for the last week. This is a well-traveled road; the going is level and easy. It looks like it's going to be an idyllic day's journey, only four more before you reach Queston. Unfortunately, none of your passive Perception scores was high enough to notice the orc war party's ambush on the way. I need everyone to please roll initiative."
* * * *
Which of these two is punchier? Which of these two is likely to get the players in the same "wait WHAT?! Alice!" panicked headspace as the characters? Which is going to make for the cooler, more memorable scene?
Insisting that initiative must be rolled prior to any sort of aggressive action and everyone involved must be fully aware of every battle not only robs stealth-centric PCs of their investment in stealth, it also robs the DM of the ability to utilize stealth and ambush tactics herself. One of the more memorable scenes in Critical Role was the party amiably chatting with their favorite shopkeeper in a safe, well-protected town, only for the party's primary healer to suffer over fifty damage from an unseen assassin's devastating first strike. Ambushing the players, i.e. the IRL people at the table, is just as critical for a truly effective surprise attack as is ambushing the characters. That's not hosing your players unless you do it all the time and bend the game's rules to do so; it's simply effective storytelling.
Can a player invest in an extraordinarily high Perception score to try and forestall such ambushes? Of course, and if a player does the DM should respect that investment and allow them to perceive such attacks coming. At that point, rolling Initiative before a first strike makes sense, as the Perception score beat the Stealth check. The same should apply to the inverse - if a player invests in extraordinarily high Stealth, they should be permitted to easily get the drop on all but the luckiest or most perceptive of enemies. Forcing that player to roll initiative and give away her attack before she even makes it is denying the player her investment just as surely as is forcing an NPC ambush to defeat a player who's invested in an extraordinarily high Perception score specifically to forestall such things.
Again - if one is over-concerned with the power of the Assassin subclass for the rogue, then disallow this subclass at one's table. Though I will note, the Assassin does not actually deal any more damage than any other rogue can. All rogues deal catastrophic damage on a critical hit; Assassins merely have an opportunity to do so more reliably. It doesn't break encounter dynamics any more than rogue crits already do.
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The one that the DM wants to be more engaging and is into. I think you deliberately narrated the second one less punchier than the second, irrespective of the mechanics.
Alternate comparison!
Scenario 1:
"You all are on the road, traveling to the capital city of Queston via ox-drawn cart. The day is cloudy but not overcast, bright and sunshiny without being overbearing. There's a beautiful breeze blowing southwesterly, and the road is dry and well-packed given the lack of rain for the last week. This is a well-traveled road; the going is level and easy. It looks like it's going to be an idyllic day's journey, only four more before you reach Queston. Unfortunately, none of your passive perception scores was high enough to notice the orc war party's ambush on the way. They shoot first; Alice, take 16 points of piercing damage from their first attack and make a DC12 Constitution saving throw against poison, and everyone please roll initiative."
Scenario 2:
"You all are on the road, traveling to the capital city of Queston via ox-drawn cart. The day is cloudy but not overcast, bright and sunshiny without being overbearing. There's a beautiful breeze blowing southwesterly, and the road is dry and well-packed given the lack of rain for the last week. This is a well-traveled road; the going is level and easy. It looks like it's going to be an idyllic day's journey, only four more before you reach Queston. ...oh, and everyone please roll for initiative."
Everyone: (rolls) (oh shit oh shit we can't even see who we're about to fight)
"Alice, you feel a sudden, horrific tearing in your side, awful in its familiarity. You look down, and see an arrow in your ribs that wasn't there just a second ago. You suffer sixteen points of piercing damage, and make a Constitution saving throw."
In both cases, the way to make the scene punchier is:
1) The secrecy where stuff happens and the players don't know what their fighting. If you go right out and say "orc band" (like you did in scenario 2, and like I did in scenario 1) then it's less exciting, since the players don't have to face the mystery that they don't know who they're about to fight.
2) Not mentioning unnecessary mechanics and keeping it on a narrative level. Specifically discussion of "your passive perception scores weren't high enough" (like you did in scenario 2, and like I did in scenario 1) decreases the punchiness. There's no reason to explicitly mention them here.
3) The added description of the arrow wound is of course cool; you omitted that in scenario 2 and I omitted it in scenario 1.
4) The lack of build-up - the rapid switch from "everything is fine" to "oh no oh no" is punchy. In Scenario 1, you went straight from "everything is fine" to "take damage", whereas in Scenario 2 you had a build-up going there, where you first narrate the bad passive perception to give the players an indication that's something's wrong, then mention what the bad thing is that they didn't see (the orc war party ambush) and only then tell them to do something and let them react. You can just as easily flip that around - I had Scenario 2 have the jarring shift from "everything's fine" to "roll for initiative to fight unknown/unseen attackers" whereas Scenario 1 has the narration of the bad perception check, the description of the enemies and what they're doing, and finally the consequence, which makes it less punchy.
(slight bonus comment - I think it's punchier if you DON'T give Alice the DC of the saving throw, and just ask her to make a Con save.)
The punchiness of the scene does not have to do with whether, when the players are surprised, their first instruction is "roll for initiative" or "take 16 points of piercing damage and make a constititution save."
..and of course, in *both cases*, the damage and the initiative roll both happen before the players have a chance to take any actions.
Here is the tweet:
https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/672597459105808384?ref_src=twsrc^tfw
Please explain to me how you can undeclare an action that caused the initiative roll in the first place. You declare an attack, the DM says ok roll initative then you see the result and say "sry, no attack"? What the hell is this?
So you consider losing an initiative a circumstance that has changed? Initiative is a behind-the-scenes element of crunch, the characters are not aware that they have won or lost initiative.
When a player loses an arrow from 100ft against an unsuspecting target, he has no way of telling that the target has won initiative against him. How do you even narrate that?
Hell, if you want to get technical, players are not supposed to even know whether the enemy rolled higher or lower initiative than them until after they see them act. In which case, again, it's too late to change your mind.
To each their own, as you like to say here - do whatever you want. At my table Initiative is not something that can cause the target to be "alerted by something". That is the role of Passive Perception vs. Stealth.
It is incredibly vexing to waste what few posts I can make these days on issues such as this. I will have to bow out of the 'discussion' after this point, apologies. Nevertheless, one final try.
I do not see how assassins, or ambushes in general, are actually dangerous at all at your table, Lyxen. The rules that you and those aligned with your views seem to be espousing is that an entity which is about to take damage from a theoretically 'hidden' attacker must be informed exactly what is attacking them via what method and from which position, so they may know exactly the correct way to respond to this "Ambush" attack. Stealth is meaningless, and 'Surprise' doesn't truly exist save as a mechanical condition extremely unlikely to occur. Your primary argument seems to be that players will complain if they suffer damage without any opportunity to make a roll of some sort to reduce or avoid that damage. I question how such a player is able to accomplish anything in this game, if he requires full and complete knowledge of why everything around him is happening before he feels he was treated fairly.
I, myself, have taken a high-damage assassin's opening hit from a character I had no idea was an assassin, with absolutely no means of 'Winning Initiative' and forestalling that damage. The only save I got was against poison, which succeeded and reduced the damage to "still enough to reduce you to zero HP from full in a single strike". Far from being upset that the DM didn't say 'this NPC is actually an assassin about to try and stab you in the gut with a poisoned dagger; I need you to roll initiative to see if you can BS a reason to avoid his completely unforeseen surprise attack', I was deeply invested in the story unfolding before me and watching the rest of my party try to pin down the fleeing assassin before I bled out. It was an excellent story beat that your rules would've completely denied me, forcing as they do extremely clumsy storytelling in that a player has to effectively give consent to allowing themselves to be subjected to an opening strike and play out, during initiative, the actions they would have taken had they not been made aware that they were being 'Ambushed'.
@FTL: Similarly, having players roll initiative for a road ambush they were not aware was happening destroys the ambush scene. Players who roll initiative above their enemies are told "Okay, take your turn, but remember - you have no idea what's happening, where your enemies are, or that anything is wrong." This is extremely clumsy and deeply frustrating to players and turns what might have been a very effective ambush scene in your night's tale into a vexing exercise in the DM playing your characters for you until he gives you permission to play them yourself again. Simply taking damage outside of initiative and then being able to act freely within initiative is a much better solution than "Okay, you're all fighting now, but none of you know you're fighting, except you kinda do because your characters' Initiative Sense tingled, but you're not allowed to act like you know you're about to be attacked, so just sit there and please let me wail on you for this first round, okay?"
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