Alert feat and surprise rounds

[Bellberith]

DM is trying to say that the alert feat doesn't allow you to act during the surprise round.... Is this true?

Alert says you aren't surprised as long as you are conscious, and reading the rules of combat on page 189 it says determine surprise (surpisers and people with alert are not suprised, but all others are). Establish positions (i guess a step for non-board users). Roll initiative. Take turns. Begin the next round.

Basically does the person with alert get to act during the surprise round on his normal initiative he rolled?

[Gritmonger]

DM is trying to say that the alert feat doesn't allow you to act during the surprise round.... Is this true?

Alert says you aren't surprised as long as you are conscious, and reading the rules of combat on page 189 it says determine surprise (surpisers and people with alert are not suprised, but all others are). Establish positions (i guess a step for non-board users). Roll initiative. Take turns. Begin the next round.

Basically does the person with alert get to act during the surprise round on his normal initiative he rolled?

Yes. Absolutely, you can act as normal. There is no "surprise" round anymore - there is the status of being "surprised" which keeps you from acting.

Normally, you have to roll for surprise: perception versus stealth - so some can be and some can not be surprised during a "Surprise" round (in reality, they are stuck in "surprised" status at the start of combat) - those who are not surprised behave as if it was the normal start of an encounter - those who are surprised "can't move or take an action on [their] first turn of combat, and [they] can't take a reaction until that turn ends" (PHB p.189) - if you are not surprised, this restriction does not apply.

Alert is immunity: Surprise. If the DM is not cool with that, they should have banned Alert.

And it sounds like, the way they are trying to do it, having Alert would be worse - you'd act surprised even if you made your perception-versus-stealth check, the way they're reading it...

[Daishain]

What Gritmonger said. Always being able to act in the first round is half of the point of the Alert feat.

P.S. In case he's not doing this, the would be victims of an ambush, whether PC or NPC, pretty much always get a perception check to recognize what's going down in the instant before the enemy strikes. The DC may be quite high depending on the nature of the attack, and characters that can be described as slow on the uptake may even get a penalty to their roll. But they do get the chance. If they pass the check, they aren't surprised either, and can act along with you and the attackers.

[rollingForInit]

He gets to act.

The rest of the party, however, does not. So a surprise round is still very useful, since your character cannot act or coordinate with the other party members during the round.

And if the entire party has Alert, there are plenty of other great ways to set up ambushes without a surprise round. It does not, after all, make you immune to a non-mechanical surprise, traps or enemies attacking from very advantageous positions.