Darkmantle

[goatmeal]

The Darkmantle entry in MM says it is indistinguishable from a stalactite if it is motionless, but it only has a hide of +2. Does False Appearance basically mean it always has surprise or does it mean nothing at all? Neither of those options seem great.

[BurgerBeast]

I consider it to always have surprise, unless the players are specifically calling out a reason to be wary. I think that's the best way to go until the first strike by one of them.

After the first attack by a dark mantle, the game runs the risk of degenerating into nonsense, so I would avoid the scenes which will ultimately turn into debates about what happens while reluctant players try to make distinctions between "indistinguishable things" and just determine what happens with common sense.

A 60-foot cavern with about 100 stalactites, two of which are darkmantles? I'd just use my judgment to get to the relevant point at which the attack occurs and initiative is rolled. "You guys have to traverse this cavern, fully aware that there may be dark mantles, but powerless to determine where they are. Unless you plan to look for an alternate route, you are in the hand of fate... are you going to risk it?" Yes? Okay, well you cautiously proceed, checking as you go, and every step you expect a dark mantle to drop form the ceiling... (rolls a few dice)...

(1) you manage to traverse the entire cavern without incident, but remain completely unaware whether there were any dark mantles in there.
(2) you are about a quarter of the way through, just barely starting to relax when one drops in a surprise attack on Ragnar.

[edit: the difference being that after the party has encountered their first dark mantle, I would always assume that they are on alert whenever they see stalactites, yet still powerless to detect the darkmantles.]

[NNescio]

The Darkmantle entry in MM says it is indistinguishable from a stalactite if it is motionless, but it only has a hide of +2. Does False Appearance basically mean it always has surprise or does it mean nothing at all? Neither of those options seem great.

The way I interpret False Appearance is that it can't be seen through by Passive Perception, since creatures with it are "indistinguishable from [some object or terrain feature]" Otherwise, well, it's quite useless.

Of course, this doesn't necessarily mean the creature with False Appearance will have Surprise. Adventurers past a certain point tend to wary (paranoid, even) of any objects or random terrain features that are too prominently-placed, even if they sort of belong in the environment (and if the objects aren't prominent, well, there's no reason for the adventurers to even come near it).

Note also that creatures with False Appearance tend to be 'localized' to some degree in a certain area. Darkmantles in caves, Ents in magical or 'strongly nature-aligned' forest areas, etc. Even the least wary of adventurers will generally only fall for the "Ha! That treasure chest/stalactite/tree is a Mimic/Darkmantle/Ent" trick once per dungeon, after which they get paranoid and will start poking at any of the aforementioned objects/terrain features with 10-foot poles or shot projectiles.

[Malifice]

They could either a) investigate the stalagmite.

Or declare they are wary of the stalagmite and approach with weapons drawn (Or similar).

Either of these approaches avoids them be surprised.

[NNescio]

They could either a) investigate the stalagmite.

Or declare they are wary of the stalagmite and approach with weapons drawn (Or similar).

Either of these approaches avoids them be surprised.

Or c) attack every (suspicious) stalactite with ranged attacks (preferably with infinite ammo cantrips). This turns the surprisee into the supriser.

(It does slow down the party though, making this tactic impractical when there's time pressure or if there's a lot of wandering monsters around. Unless the party has someone with Repelling Blast Eldritch Blast, that is, in which case spychecking mimic-checking False Appearance-checking becomes quite efficient.)

[goatmeal]

Thanks for the responses everyone.

[BurgerBeast]

They could either a) investigate the stalagmite.

Or declare they are wary of the stalagmite and approach with weapons drawn (Or similar).

Either of these approaches avoids them be surprised.

For me this makes sense, but is not necessarily workable. In a cave with three stalagmites, I think it makes perfect sense. In a massive (arena-sized) cave with hundreds of stalactites, however...

This problem is similar to the "my character is always ready..." dilemma. I think the surprise mechanics have to assume that the PCs are always as ready as they can sustainably be... and they do a pretty good job of that. No matter how much someone tries to "heighten his awareness," there are limits.

Beyond this, I would also argue that making oneself "ready for any surprises" doesn't always work ,and some people are better at it than others. So even though you are walking, weapons drawn, expecting an ambush, for me this shouldn't exclude surprise as a possibility.

This appears to be a particular area of rules adjudication that can be handled in a number of ways but needs to consider consistency and future situations. So I'm not really arguing that Malifice is wrong here, just saying I'd handle it differently.

I could imagine a PC literally inches away from a dark mantle, staring at it and examining it, and I would consider the investigation to be an auto-fail, because I take "indistinguishable" literally. It strikes me as human nature that you simply stop focussing. It's like the classic delay in a horror scene. At some point, you let your guard down and boom! You're surprised... even though you "knew it was coming."

[Biggstick]

For me this makes sense, but is not necessarily workable. In a cave with three stalagmites, I think it makes perfect sense. In a massive (arena-sized) cave with hundreds of stalactites, however...

This problem is similar to the "my character is always ready..." dilemma. I think the surprise mechanics have to assume that the PCs are always as ready as they can sustainably be... and they do a pretty good job of that. No matter how much someone tries to "heighten his awareness," there are limits.

Beyond this, I would also argue that making oneself "ready for any surprises" doesn't always work ,and some people are better at it than others. So even though you are walking, weapons drawn, expecting an ambush, for me this shouldn't exclude surprise as a possibility.

This appears to be a particular area of rules adjudication that can be handled in a number of ways but needs to consider consistency and future situations. So I'm not really arguing that Malifice is wrong here, just saying I'd handle it differently.

I could imagine a PC literally inches away from a dark mantle, staring at it and examining it, and I would consider the investigation to be an auto-fail, because I take "indistinguishable" literally. It strikes me as human nature that you simply stop focussing. It's like the classic delay in a horror scene. At some point, you let your guard down and boom! You're surprised... even though you "knew it was coming."

In response to the bolded section, I would argue that the Alert feat does a pretty good job of preventing surprise.

Now now, before you get up in arms over Alert, as I've seen other DM's do, I already have a "solution," to you the DM still wanting to surprise the group of PC's. As a DM, you don't have to show the players what you've rolled for Initiative. In fact, you can simply declare your creatures Initiative is 40 if you want. Once the Player with Alert is told this, an agreement can be reached in assuming that the Player with Alert gets to act during a surprise round, but after all of the enemies getting the surprise round get a turn. This allows the Player to still get value from the Alert feat regarding surprise, and allows the DM to still have surprise attacks in the repertoire.

Like I said in the previous paragraph, once the agreement is made between the Player with Alert and the DM, you don't even need to roll Initiative until the end of the surprise round. Once the "first" round of combat starts, then you can roll everyone's Initiative and combat can go about like normal.

[BurgerBeast]

In response to the bolded section, I would argue that the Alert feat does a pretty good job of preventing surprise.

I think we're in agreement here. That's what I mean to say. If you just say to the DM "I am acting very alert right now" that doesn't compare to someone who has taken the alert feat. I'm totally fine with the character that has spent resources on the alert feat to get the full benefit of that feat (i.e. never being surprised - not even by darkmantles). I would consider this a pretty textbook example of "specific beats general," because I was describing my general view of the situation, but the Alert feat specifically overrides my general view ("you can;t be surprised while you are conscious").