Another hiding scenario

[Dmdork]

It's night time in the swamp. The party stealths up to the castle with an open gate, there are bullywugs inside that do not see the party, as their passives just aren't good enough. One of the casters wants to cast a silence spell in the room so their attack does not wake the whole castle.

The party wants to make sure the silence gets casted first, followed by the rest of the party getting their actions off while the bullywugs are surprised. How does that play out?

Initiative gets rolled with bullywugs surprised, which means in round one the party gets to act and bullywugs are surprised. So far so good. Now, if a player rolls a better initiative than the caster casting the silence, then they will not get to 'act' within the silence. So, in game terms, how does the caster go first and the players then get to do what they want, while the silence is up? It seems like they would have all the time in the world to make this go in the order they want, but in game terms it seems like players who roll better than the caster lose their chance to act without making noise. Am I interpreting this correctly?

[JackPhoenix]

The players who have better initiative may use Ready action to act after the spell is cast.

[imanidiot]

It's night time in the swamp. The party stealths up to the castle with an open gate, there are bullywugs inside that do not see the party, as their passives just aren't good enough. One of the casters wants to cast a silence spell in the room so their attack does not wake the whole castle.

The party wants to make sure the silence gets casted first, followed by the rest of the party getting their actions off while the bullywugs are surprised. How does that play out?

Initiative gets rolled with bullywugs surprised, which means in round one the party gets to act and bullywugs are surprised. So far so good. Now, if a player rolls a better initiative than the caster casting the silence, then they will not get to 'act' within the silence. So, in game terms, how does the caster go first and the players then get to do what they want, while the silence is up? It seems like they would have all the time in the world to make this go in the order they want, but in game terms it seems like players who roll better than the caster lose their chance to act without making noise. Am I interpreting this correctly?

The players that rolled higher initiative can use their action to "Ready An Action" to do whatever they want to do after the Silence is cast.

[SiCK_Boy]

In this case, since you established surprise even before rolling for initiative, and it looks like the party has full control of events until they are ready to "trigger" the fight, I would let the players determine their acting order for the surprise round (so they all take one turn), and then roll initiative for the first regular round. Only roll the initiative after the whole party has taken its free turn during the surprise round, so as to avoid any abusive combo from whoever would end up "wheeling" (acting last in the surprise round and then first in the regular round).

[JackPhoenix]

In this case, since you established surprise even before rolling for initiative, and it looks like the party has full control of events until they are ready to "trigger" the fight, I would let the players determine their acting order for the surprise round (so they all take one turn), and then roll initiative for the first regular round. Only roll the initiative after the whole party has taken its free turn during the surprise round, so as to avoid any abusive combo from whoever would end up "wheeling" (acting last in the surprise round and then first in the regular round).

That would, however, deny the opponent the reactions they would get after their initiative pass even in surprise round, though. They propaby don't have any use for them, but if some are spellcasters with Shield, or if the PCs move in a way that would give them OA...

[Malifice]

Roll initiative and then the PCs who go first use the ready action (if they want) readying an action to go after the spell is cast.

[mephnick]

In this case, since you established surprise even before rolling for initiative, and it looks like the party has full control of events until they are ready to "trigger" the fight, I would let the players determine their acting order for the surprise round (so they all take one turn), and then roll initiative for the first regular round. Only roll the initiative after the whole party has taken its free turn during the surprise round, so as to avoid any abusive combo from whoever would end up "wheeling" (acting last in the surprise round and then first in the regular round).

Please, please don't use surprise rounds in 5e. That's not how it works.

[Dmdork]

Ready action sounds like the best way to handle it. However, those with higher initiative rolls/higher dex would be the ones that would kinda get stiffed as they only get a ready, while those with low initiative rolls/low dex would get a whole round to do something, which kinda bothers me, but not that much.

[mephnick]

That's why I don't sweat my initiatives score that much. People always use it as proof of the Dex GODSTAT but other than a few builds it's not even that important to go first or can even harm you.