Alert, Stealth, and Initiative

[Talakeal]

Spun off of a much longer thread on the general forum.

Simple question with what I feel will be a not so simple answer;

I have the Alert feat. A hidden character declares their intention to attack me from hiding.

Normally, this would result in me being surprised, but I am immune.

So, I roll initiative, and because I have a +4 bonus, I win.

However, they haven't acted yet, and they are still hidden. AFAICT, I don't know where they are, or that they are there at all, let alone intending to attack me.

So what can I do on my turn?

If I could delay or had lost initiative, this would be simple, but because I am going first, I need to take action against something I am unaware of.

Help?

[Keltest]

My personal take on it is that Alert is a 6th sense. If you have Alert, somebody is ambushing you, and they get surprise and such, you don't know where they are or what theyre doing, but you know Something Is About To Happen, and you can take that chance to get into position for a fight, make a perception check, or otherwise prepare for the attack you feel on the back of your neck is coming.

It would hardly be the most unrealistic outcome produced by a feat. Looking at you, crossbow expert's 8 potential attacks in 6 seconds.

[GloatingSwine]

My personal take on it is that Alert is a 6th sense. If you have Alert, somebody is ambushing you, and they get surprise and such, you don't know where they are or what theyre doing, but you know Something Is About To Happen, and you can take that chance to get into position for a fight, make a perception check, or otherwise prepare for the attack you feel on the back of your neck is coming.

It would hardly be the most unrealistic outcome produced by a feat. Looking at you, crossbow expert's 8 potential attacks in 6 seconds.

IMO that's represented by the feat denying them Advantage, which they would get if you didn't have it. You should be required to use your action as if you didn't know you had just rolled initiative.

[Unoriginal]

Spun off of a much longer thread on the general forum.

Simple question with what I feel will be a not so simple answer;

I have the Alert feat. A hidden character declares their intention to attack me from hiding.

Normally, this would result in me being surprised, but I am immune.

So, I roll initiative, and because I have a +4 bonus, I win.

However, they haven't acted yet, and they are still hidden. AFAICT, I don't know where they are, or that they are there at all, let alone intending to attack me.

So what can I do on my turn?

If I could delay or had lost initiative, this would be simple, but because I am going first, I need to take action against something I am unaware of.

Help?

You are aware that something is trying to do something hostile-related, even if you don't know where they are or what they are yet.

You could do one or several of those things (among others):

- Warn everyone

- Cast a buffing/protection spell or use an action to buff/protect the person(s) you deem would benefit the most from it (also healing those who need it).

- Use an item

- Move around to protect teammates/get out of what seems like a dangerous spot/ get away from the group so you wouldn't be caught in an AoE/ get in the most advantageous spot available for a fight/ rush toward the group's goal before the enemy makes their move.

- Attack/rush where you think it's the most likely for the enemy to be hidden

- Cast an illusion to make identifying who is who harder or even hide everyone in fog/darkness

- Cast a spell or use an action to try revealing where the enemy is hidden

- Ready an action to use when the enemy reveal themselves.

[NichG]

Lets make this simpler. Lets say a character is in a 1v1 fight against an enemy, initiative has already been rolled, and then in the middle of the fight they suddenly disappear (whether they've teleported away, went invisible, etc is not known to the character as perhaps they failed the associated check). It's now their action. Then, following that action whatever it might be, the hidden enemy makes an attack against them.

I think this is equivalent to your scenario with the Alert feat. Someone can know 'hey I'm in combat!' without knowing where specifically attacks are coming from - think someone who heard a bullet impact near them but hasn't pinpointed the sniper. A system with these elements should work coherently across those different cases.

But I would say, if you have a feat that makes you immune to being surprised, the character would definitively know 'a hostile action was about to be taken against me' but not definitively know what that action would have been or where it would have come from. How you want to explain that state is tied up in what made you think to offer that feat as a system option - an explicit sixth sense, putting together lots of little non-definitive clues like noticing that animal sounds in nature have stopped or that an alleyway is particularly deserted, etc.

[Darth Credence]

Initiative is rolled when the thing starts. If the enemy remains hidden, then there was no reason to start initiative, so the question is moot. You are forming ideas about how initiative works that are just wrong.

Once the hidden character says that they are attacking, they are making a move that starts initiative and stops them from being unknown. At that point, initiative happens, the character with Alert is aware that there is someone nearby who has made a move towards them, and they can take a normal turn.

I would rule that the person attacking is no longer still hidden, as they have declared an intention to stop hiding and attack (not being hidden does not mean being visible here). They began to stand up, or take a step forward, or whatever fiction you want, but they were making a move to do something. The player with alert immediately notices, and have preternatural reflexes that allow them to not only avoid being surprised, but turn things around and get the jump on the attacker. The initiator does not have to attack once they get to their turn, of course, but that is the situation where one springs out of the shadows, the ambushee is ready for it, and the ambusher diverts from what they are doing. The ambusher could use their action to hide again if they have cover to do so, with all that entails.

If the DM decides to rule they are still hidden, which I believe is a mistake and not the way things should run, then the fiction would be that the person with alert heard, something, felt a weird breeze, smelled something, whatever, that means they know someone with ill intent is nearby. They can still take an action, in the same way they would if they were in the middle of a fight against a rogue who just went behind a wall, hid, then sneaked somewhere while remaining hidden. The player could cast an AOE, they could ready an action for when the person comes out of hiding, they can run, dodge, use a potion, buff themselves, whatever.

[Amnestic]

I'd concur with Unoriginal - you're aware something, somewhere, is threatening you, and can take actions accordingly, whether that be an active perception check, Dodging, dropping a hail mary AoE, or buffing yourself.

[Lord Ruby34]

I'm the interest of establishing consensus I'll note that I also agree with Unorginal. I'd also make the same ruling for a Barbarian that negates surprise by raging.

[GloatingSwine]

I would rule that the person attacking is no longer still hidden,

What if they were intending to make their attack from their concealed position via a tool which will make no sound until it is activated like a loaded crossbow? What has happened to make them not hidden before they act?

Did they shout "Sneak Attack"?

Did the dice bounce off them when they rolled initiative?

Should they not get a check to remain hidden? There are systems in the game which are supposed to determine who can see or hear who and Alert does not interact with them.

The Alert feat has rules for what happens when an Alert character is attacked by someone they can't see, and they aren't "you gain Truesight and X-ray vision like Superman".



I think this is equivalent to your scenario with the Alert feat. Someone can know 'hey I'm in combat!' without knowing where specifically attacks are coming from - think someone who heard a bullet impact near them but hasn't pinpointed the sniper. A system with these elements should work coherently across those different cases.


If you beat the sniper's initiative they haven't fired yet. How are you hearing the bullet thump nearby before it is fired?

This is the consequence of rolling initiative at the point of the attack being declared. You have to confabulate a reason for people to be able to react to something (or be surprised by something) that hasn't actually happened yet.

[Kane0]

Agreed with Keltest and Unoriginal.

If you go before the attacker and are not suprised then you know something is about to happen and can take your actions accordingly (ready, dodge, cast a spell, use an item, etc)

[Dr.Samurai]

Agreed with Keltest and Unoriginal.

If you go before the attacker and are not suprised then you know something is about to happen and can take your actions accordingly (ready, dodge, cast a spell, use an item, etc)
I agree with this as well.

[JackPhoenix]

Agreed with Keltest and Unoriginal.

If you go before the attacker and are not suprised then you know something is about to happen and can take your actions accordingly (ready, dodge, cast a spell, use an item, etc)

I mostly agree. Essentially, by winning the initiative, you get the mythical "readied action outside combat".

[Darth Credence]

What if they were intending to make their attack from their concealed position via a tool which will make no sound until it is activated like a loaded crossbow? What has happened to make them not hidden before they act?

Did they shout "Sneak Attack"?

Did the dice bounce off them when they rolled initiative?

Should they not get a check to remain hidden? There are systems in the game which are supposed to determine who can see or hear who and Alert does not interact with them.

The Alert feat has rules for what happens when an Alert character is attacked by someone they can't see, and they aren't "you gain Truesight and X-ray vision like Superman".



If you beat the sniper's initiative they haven't fired yet. How are you hearing the bullet thump nearby before it is fired?

This is the consequence of rolling initiative at the point of the attack being declared. You have to confabulate a reason for people to be able to react to something (or be surprised by something) that hasn't actually happened yet.
Why do you think a crossbow makes "no sound" before it is fired? Raising the weapon into firing position will make a sound, the question is whether or not someone hears it.

No, they should not get a check to remain hidden, because they are starting to do something that will necessarily make them not hidden. They want to remain hidden, then perhaps they should not be the one initiating the combat - as a DM, if they were all hidden, and one person said they were initiating combat, I would still have all initiative start, but allow everyone else to remain hidden until such time as they start to do something. And as I said before, not being hidden doesn't mean being seen - it just means they aren't hiding. If they are behind a wall when they say they will start, as a DM I would rule that the one who says they start initiative is no longer hidden, but also can't be seen, while the rest are still hidden. The alert player would know that a hostile action was starting against them, but would not know where it was coming from. So they could certainly do other actions besides targeting the enemy, they could use an AOE spell guessing where the enemy might be (if there is a hedgerow on one side of the road and miles of empty fields on the other, guessing behind the hedgerow is a reasonable place to drop a fireball), or even attempt to target someone they know is around but not exactly where, or they could dodge, buff, hide, whatever.

Nothing about that has a thing to do with truesight and x-ray vision, because we have a large number of other senses that can come into play. The person with alert can hear the attacker move, they can feel the change in air currents when they move, they can smell the adrenaline riddled sweat of the attacker - whatever the particular fiction is, the person with alert knows that an attack is imminent. Arguing that the person has not actually attacked yet and thus have done nothing to break cover is arguing that initiative is a way to break up things into discrete chunks of time where one person acts then the next, rather than attempting to simulate everyone acting at the same time and determining what happens first. It would probably be better for verisimilitude that way to have everyone declare every action at the top of the round and have to abide by it, but that causes other problems, and this is still a game that needs to have mechanics to allow it to be played.

I get your argument. I get the idea that you really, really want to be able to get an action off before anyone from the opposing side can do anything about it regardless of the initiative rolls. But that's not how 5e is designed. It is designed that when combat is about to start, because a human playing the game says that someone is starting combat, initiative is rolled and the results flow from there. If there were nothing in the game that allowed for people to not be surprised even when ambushed, then maybe this discussion would have some merit. But as alert exists, and as it means that a person gets advantage on initiative and cannot be surprised, it is absolutely clear that the intention of the game is that you roll the dice before anyone gets an attack, and someone can invest resources in ensuring that they are never surprised and usually near the top of the order.

[gbaji]

I mostly agree. Essentially, by winning the initiative, you get the mythical "readied action outside combat".

Just a question here. How specific do the ready action's trigger and action declarations need to be? So, in a case of an alert character rolling higher on initiative than the person ambushing him or his group, does said player/character basically have to guess what might be happening, and hope they are correct ("I'm waiting until someone shoots at me, and then running off to engage them in melee"... "oops. They ran over and lit the barn on fire instead")? Or can it be really broad like "I'm waiting for something to happen, and will then do something in response" (ie: more like a delay action from earlier editions)?

The question came up because, assuming the readied action has to be fairly specific, it would seem as though the character with the alert feat would be better off (in the first round at least) actually rolling lower on initiative, rather than higher. If he normally goes after the person/people attacking, he can take a full set of actions in specific and direct response in the first round since he's immune to surprise. If he normally goes before the attackers, he can still only go after the attacks happen but has to hope to guess properly what form those attacks may take. Otherwise he's just sitting there doing nothing in the first round (though still not surprised, so that's something).

Or am I missing sometihng in the 5e rules?

[GloatingSwine]

Why do you think a crossbow makes "no sound" before it is fired? Raising the weapon into firing position will make a sound, the question is whether or not someone hears it.


Yes, and there's a whole set of skills and systems in the game for deciding that, and Alert doesn't interact with them.

"Did you notice the thing" is governed by perception, Alert does not interact with or give you a bonus to perception.

What you've done is add the text "Character automatically passes perception checks, all stealth(dexterity) checks near this character fail but the player is told they have succeeded".

EDIT: This also deletes the effect of the Skulker feat, which means that if you make a ranged attack from concealment and miss you are not revealed. In your ruling Alert completely overrides Skulker by revealing the character before they've even made an attack.

[Darth Credence]

Yes, and there's a whole set of skills and systems in the game for deciding that, and Alert doesn't interact with them.

"Did you notice the thing" is governed by perception, Alert does not interact with or give you a bonus to perception.

What you've done is add the text "Character automatically passes perception checks, all stealth(dexterity) checks near this character fail but the player is told they have succeeded".

No longer hiding once you decide to start a fight has not a single thing to do with alert. It would be the same for a character without alert. If the person declares they are going to attack, initiative starts, if they lose initiative to a player without alert, that player still goes first. They just may very well be surprised enough that they cannot react quickly with an action, and are just getting their reaction back.

Edit for your edit: It does nothing to the skulker feat, either. the skulker feat means your location is not revealed when you make an attack. As I have clearly said multiple times, the person is not revealed just because they start initiative - if they can't be seen, they can't be seen and are not revealed. If you don't have skulker, once you actually shoot and miss, they still know where you are.

So, for a skulker trying to ambush a character with alert. Skulker waits until alert is in position. Says to DM, "I am going to shoot alert." DM says, "Roll initiative." Alert gets a 20, skulker gets a 10. Alert knows someone is coming for them, but not where they are coming from. Not knowing, they take the dodge action as they head for cover themselves. Skulker shoots, but because of dodge, they end up missing. Arrow whizzes by, but alert was not able to pick out where it came from - they were bobbing and weaving so they weren't looking clearly and just know that they felt a breeze as it went by. Next turn, still not knowing where the threat is, they keep dodging and seeking cover.

Alert feat, done per rules. Skulker feat, done per rules. Initiative, done per rules.

[Keltest]

No longer hiding once you decide to start a fight has not a single thing to do with alert. It would be the same for a character without alert. If the person declares they are going to attack, initiative starts, if they lose initiative to a player without alert, that player still goes first. They just may very well be surprised enough that they cannot react quickly with an action, and are just getting their reaction back.

So if a rogue, for example, were to attack a target from hiding to start combat, you would rule that they can't get sneak attack because they don't have advantage due to not being hidden when their turn comes around?

[Mastikator]

Spun off of a much longer thread on the general forum.

Simple question with what I feel will be a not so simple answer;

I have the Alert feat. A hidden character declares their intention to attack me from hiding.

Normally, this would result in me being surprised, but I am immune.

So, I roll initiative, and because I have a +4 bonus, I win.

However, they haven't acted yet, and they are still hidden. AFAICT, I don't know where they are, or that they are there at all, let alone intending to attack me.

So what can I do on my turn?

If I could delay or had lost initiative, this would be simple, but because I am going first, I need to take action against something I am unaware of.

Help?

The DM tells you that you are about to be ambushed but your preternatural reflexes allows you to act first. So you warn your allies (perhaps breaking their surprise? perhaps not?) and use either the dodge action or the ready action.

[Darth Credence]

So if a rogue, for example, were to attack a target from hiding to start combat, you would rule that they can't get sneak attack because they don't have advantage due to not being hidden when their turn comes around?

It doesn't matter. They get advantage if they are unseen, so if they are attacking from somewhere that they cannot be seen, they have advantage and can get sneak attack. If they start from hiding, but proceed to charge across the battlefield and stab with their sword, I would not give them advantage because they wouldn't be unseen, even though they started the action hiding.

Rogue is hidden in a bush. They want to shoot someone with their crossbow from hiding to get a sneak attack. They declare this, I decide the enemies are all surprised except for Alert, we roll initiative. Alert wins, Rogue goes second. Alert knows they are about to be attacked - heard a branch break when they raised the crossbow or something. Still can't see the person covered by the bush, but the alert feat means the enemy does not have advantage just from being unseen. If Rogue attacks Alert, they do not have advantage, and they cannot sneak attack. If Rogue attacks Other Guy, who hasn't even figured out they are in combat yet, they do get advantage from not being seen and can sneak attack.

[GloatingSwine]

No longer hiding once you decide to start a fight has not a single thing to do with alert. It would be the same for a character without alert. If the person declares they are going to attack, initiative starts, if they lose initiative to a player without alert, that player still goes first. They just may very well be surprised enough that they cannot react quickly with an action, and are just getting their reaction back.

Edit for your edit: It does nothing to the skulker feat, either. the skulker feat means your location is not revealed when you make an attack. As I have clearly said multiple times, the person is not revealed just because they start initiative - if they can't be seen, they can't be seen and are not revealed. If you don't have skulker, once you actually shoot and miss, they still know where you are.

So, for a skulker trying to ambush a character with alert. Skulker waits until alert is in position. Says to DM, "I am going to shoot alert." DM says, "Roll initiative." Alert gets a 20, skulker gets a 10. Alert knows someone is coming for them, but not where they are coming from. Not knowing, they take the dodge action as they head for cover themselves. Skulker shoots, but because of dodge, they end up missing. Arrow whizzes by, but alert was not able to pick out where it came from - they were bobbing and weaving so they weren't looking clearly and just know that they felt a breeze as it went by. Next turn, still not knowing where the threat is, they keep dodging and seeking cover.

Alert feat, done per rules. Skulker feat, done per rules. Initiative, done per rules.


You literally said in your first post:


I would rule that the person attacking is no longer still hidden, as they have declared an intention to stop hiding and attack (not being hidden does not mean being visible here).

By the normal rules they are hidden until they attack. Not declare the intention to, but actually do it. If they have Skulker they are still hidden even if they attack and miss.

You're also still adding extra power to the Alert feat by giving the Alert character a reaction to something that hasn't happened yet. The Alert feat already cancels out Advantage for a hidden attacker, but you're giving it specific foreknowledge of the attack which the feat is not supposed to do.

Alert is not supposed to be Jedi precognition, it does not tell you about future events, it's just that you're always on the lookout and so when something does happen you're not surprised by it.

The character with Alert does not know they are being attacked until they are attacked, but even if they are attacked from stealth the stealthed character does not get their usual Advantage.

[Keltest]

It doesn't matter. They get advantage if they are unseen, so if they are attacking from somewhere that they cannot be seen, they have advantage and can get sneak attack. If they start from hiding, but proceed to charge across the battlefield and stab with their sword, I would not give them advantage because they wouldn't be unseen, even though they started the action hiding.

Rogue is hidden in a bush. They want to shoot someone with their crossbow from hiding to get a sneak attack. They declare this, I decide the enemies are all surprised except for Alert, we roll initiative. Alert wins, Rogue goes second. Alert knows they are about to be attacked - heard a branch break when they raised the crossbow or something. Still can't see the person covered by the bush, but the alert feat means the enemy does not have advantage just from being unseen. If Rogue attacks Alert, they do not have advantage, and they cannot sneak attack. If Rogue attacks Other Guy, who hasn't even figured out they are in combat yet, they do get advantage from not being seen and can sneak attack.

But you said that once you decide to start a fight, you aren't hiding anymore. So which is it?

[Darth Credence]

You literally said in your first post:



By the normal rules they are hidden until they attack. Not declare the intention to, but actually do it. If they have Skulker they are still hidden even if they attack and miss.

You're also still adding extra power to the Alert feat by giving the Alert character a reaction to something that hasn't happened yet. The Alert feat already cancels out Advantage for a hidden attacker, but you're giving it specific foreknowledge of the attack which the feat is not supposed to do.

Alert is not supposed to be Jedi precognition, it does not tell you about future events, it's just that you're always on the lookout and so when something does happen you're not surprised by it.

The character with Alert does not know they are being attacked until they are attacked, but even if they are attacked from stealth the stealthed character does not get their usual Advantage.

Yes, I literally said that in my first post, including the parenthetical that not being hidden does not mean being visible. I have been consistent about this.

This is a game mechanic issue. As I have also said before, it would be better for all of this if everyone declared what they would do during their turn before the turn starts, and they have to stick by it. But since we don't want someone who has declared they are going to shoot someone to be forced to take an action they don't want to do once they've seen what everyone else does, we have to use some game mechanics to make it work. Part of that is to say that initiating the fight locks you into the opening moves of the action you state when you start the fight so that things can actually happen.

There are other ways this could be done. The person to start a fight could get an action first - whatever they declare is the first thing that happens, and it happens before we even do initiative. If we do this, we have made a game that is only good for murderhobos - the advantage to being the person who says they start a fight first is so big that not attacking any NPCs on sight is a terrible idea.

Or, the person who starts the fight could be locked into their move, because that is what they have said they are doing to start the fight, and it happens when their turn starts. That's a touch better, IMO, but it just creates the opposite incentive. You never want to start a fight, because it could mean you go last and are stuck with whatever came out of your mouth that has been completely invalidated by the fight so far.

So I split the difference, and run the game with everyone able to take their own action as they choose on their turn, but if you start the fight, you are actually starting a fight, not establishing initiative that everyone on the other side will just have to ignore until you decide to go. From everything I can tell, this is RAI.

And I am not buffing the alert feat at all. I am doing exactly what it says - you have +5 on initiative (I may have mistakenly said advantage in an earlier comment, but it's +5), you can't be surprised, and others don't get advantage against you if unseen. Can't be surprised means when initiative starts, you will not have the surprised condition, so you get your full action.

I believe that your actual complaint is not about how I'm ruling alert, but how I'm ruling initiative in general. If you rule that there is no such thing as a combat action outside of initiative, which I am confident is RAI and I think is RAW, then in order for any type of attack to happen, initiative must be rolled. Once initiative is rolled, everyone knows they are in combat, some may be surprised, and things go in initiative order regardless of who said they wanted to go first. I know several DMs who rule that combat actions can be taken outside of combat - if they don't know you're there, you can ready an action, one person can start the attack, and everyone's readied action goes off immediately, granting them an effective free action before combat starts. To me, these games are a completely different thing - the players are always attempting to either ambush or just attack first in social situations. I sat in on a group that had that. Got a text saying ready an attack while talking to guards. The DM was speaking in character, and every player said, "I ready an attack for when Bob attacks" (including me, I didn't know back then). Bob then attacked. Everyone got one free attack in the middle of a conversation, then initiative was rolled, and the guards were dead before their turn came up. That was apparently the way all of their conversations tended to go, and it didn't seem fun to me, so I didn't play.

So, finally back around - the game requires certain things to function as a game, that includes combat happening in initiative, the way that initiative and alert work means that yes, the person with alert absolutely knows that they are in combat when combat starts, even if they have no idea where the enemy is, meaning they can take actions before anyone they got a better initiative roll than. Anything other than that has much weirder outcomes than a person who has spent a feat making sure they can't be surprised by combat knowing that they are in combat before someone finishes their move. Everything is supposed to be happening at once, remember. If you start combat, but the people on the other side don't know combat is happening so you wait until their turns are done before you make your move, you are either waiting until the next round, and that round was pointless, or you are specifically saying that everything is not happening at once. The function might be, Ambusher declares they want to shoot their bow from hiding to start the fight, initiative is rolled, Alert wins and goes first, takes a dodge action, Ambusher decides to not attack, and now everything is screwed up because what Alert had been reacting to, Ambusher didn't do. But the fiction takes care of it - Ambusher nocks an arrow and begins to draw the bow, but Alert hears/smells/feels/sees something and starts zig-zagging on their way to cover, so Ambusher eases back on the bow and doesn't fire. There was something they reacted to, but Ambusher saw that someone had reacted quickly, and they changed their action.

[Darth Credence]

But you said that once you decide to start a fight, you aren't hiding anymore. So which is it?

Once they start doing something, they are no longer hiding. (You are with me that if they charge across the battlefield to try to stab someone, they aren't hiding and wouldn't have advantage, right?)

I'm not sure where the disconnect is. Not hiding does not equal being visible. You can be behind cover or under the effect of invisibility and not be visible, but if you haven't hidden you're not hidden. And it is whether or not the person you are attacking can see you that determines if you have advantage, not whether or not you are hidden. If you're behind a wall with an arrow slit and can always step away from it, you can be unseen every time you attack, even without hiding every time. So if they start hiding somewhere that they are not visible, and start combat to sneak attack someone, they will still be not visible and still have advantage for sneak attack.

[NichG]

If you beat the sniper's initiative they haven't fired yet. How are you hearing the bullet thump nearby before it is fired?

This is the consequence of rolling initiative at the point of the attack being declared. You have to confabulate a reason for people to be able to react to something (or be surprised by something) that hasn't actually happened yet.

Well, when you use or write a system with that contains something that makes an abstract promise like 'you are never surprised', its the wrong kind of thinking to go looking for a reason why in this situation it might not work. Because of the level of abstraction of 'cannot be surprised', your job is to find the explanation that you can live with or just don't bother explaining it - the sniper lines up the shot, the target ducks around a corner at that very moment and casts Shield, neither can actually say why it happened that way.

If that kind of metagame thinking is unappealing, you just shouldn't use (or write) abilities that operate at that level of abstraction in the first place.

[GloatingSwine]

Well, when you use or write a system with that contains something that makes an abstract promise like 'you are never surprised', its the wrong kind of thinking to go looking for a reason why in this situation it might not work. Because of the level of abstraction of 'cannot be surprised', your job is to find the explanation that you can live with or just don't bother explaining it - the sniper lines up the shot, the target ducks around a corner at that very moment and casts Shield, neither can actually say why it happened that way.

If that kind of metagame thinking is unappealing, you just shouldn't use (or write) abilities that operate at that level of abstraction in the first place.

Surprised is a specific rule with a specific effect. That's what the Alert feat says, you cannot have the mechanical condition "Surprised".

There are two elegant ways to resolve this:

1. Resolve the first attack, then roll initiative and apply Surprise or not as usual.
2. Roll initiative but insist that anyone who goes before the first attack must spend their turn doing what they would have if no initiative had been rolled.

(The first one is a lot more consistent because it closely simulates the effects as the characters would experience them.)33


Once they start doing something, they are no longer hiding. (You are with me that if they charge across the battlefield to try to stab someone, they aren't hiding and wouldn't have advantage, right?)


If they make a ranged attack with Skulker they are still hiding even once they have attacked and missed. It is clearly not the intent that once you start doing something you are no longer hiding, because it is possible to fully complete the thing and still be hiding.

[Keltest]

Surprised is a specific rule with a specific effect. That's what the Alert feat says, you cannot have the mechanical condition "Surprised".

There are two elegant ways to resolve this:

1. Resolve the first attack, then roll initiative and apply Surprise or not as usual.
2. Roll initiative but insist that anyone who goes before the first attack must spend their turn doing what they would have if no initiative had been rolled.

(The first one is a lot more consistent because it closely simulates the effects as the characters would experience them.)33



If they make a ranged attack with Skulker they are still hiding even once they have attacked and missed. It is clearly not the intent that once you start doing something you are no longer hiding, because it is possible to fully complete the thing and still be hiding.

Jedi Danger Sense, I would argue, is just as elegant as either of those. Its the fantasy of what the Alert feat does in that case which is the problem, not the mechanical outcome.

An elegant ruling, for a more civilized game, one might say.

[Darth Credence]

Surprised is a specific rule with a specific effect. That's what the Alert feat says, you cannot have the mechanical condition "Surprised".

There are two elegant ways to resolve this:

1. Resolve the first attack, then roll initiative and apply Surprise or not as usual.
2. Roll initiative but insist that anyone who goes before the first attack must spend their turn doing what they would have if no initiative had been rolled.

(The first one is a lot more consistent because it closely simulates the effects as the characters would experience them.)33



If they make a ranged attack with Skulker they are still hiding even once they have attacked and missed. It is clearly not the intent that once you start doing something you are no longer hiding, because it is possible to fully complete the thing and still be hiding.

They are still unseen. They have not been revealed. The skulker feat says that when you make an attack while hiding, you are not revealed on a miss. Having them continue to be not seen meets the requirements of skulker.

Again - it's a game. In order for things to work in game, some compromises must be made. Allowing an attack to happen outside of initiative so that there is never a question of someone being alerted before something happens is one way that could be done, which breaks a substantial amount of balance and rewards murderhobos. Having the person who starts the fight do so by starting to move which is enough for others to begin to react and possibly go first which may cause the original attacker to not end up taking that action, and therefore being forced to come up with some fiction that accounts for it is another way, and IMO does not break the balance and does not have perverse incentives.

[Keltest]

They are still unseen. They have not been revealed. The skulker feat says that when you make an attack while hiding, you are not revealed on a miss. Having them continue to be not seen meets the requirements of skulker.

Again - it's a game. In order for things to work in game, some compromises must be made. Allowing an attack to happen outside of initiative so that there is never a question of someone being alerted before something happens is one way that could be done, which breaks a substantial amount of balance and rewards murderhobos. Having the person who starts the fight do so by starting to move which is enough for others to begin to react and possibly go first which may cause the original attacker to not end up taking that action, and therefore being forced to come up with some fiction that accounts for it is another way, and IMO does not break the balance and does not have perverse incentives.

Ok, but if they arent hidden, then by the rules you still know where they are now. Hidden is the difference between just ducking behind a wall for cover and actually having your location be unknown.

[Xetheral]

If there's no uncertainty as to who goes first in the initiative order, why do you need a game mechanic to tell you who goes first? In such situations, as a houserule, I put the character initiating combat at the top of the initiative order. Everyone else whose character would want to participate in the combat after it's initiated rolls normally and takes their turns in order.

(Please note that simply shouting "I attack!" before anyone else does is not sufficient to to trigger my house rule--there has to genuinely be no one other character that wants to be the one to initiate combat at that time. It mostly comes up when attacking unaware opponents.)

[JackPhoenix]

Just a question here. How specific do the ready action's trigger and action declarations need to be? So, in a case of an alert character rolling higher on initiative than the person ambushing him or his group, does said player/character basically have to guess what might be happening, and hope they are correct ("I'm waiting until someone shoots at me, and then running off to engage them in melee"... "oops. They ran over and lit the barn on fire instead")? Or can it be really broad like "I'm waiting for something to happen, and will then do something in response" (ie: more like a delay action from earlier editions)?

Up to the GM.


The question came up because, assuming the readied action has to be fairly specific, it would seem as though the character with the alert feat would be better off (in the first round at least) actually rolling lower on initiative, rather than higher. If he normally goes after the person/people attacking, he can take a full set of actions in specific and direct response in the first round since he's immune to surprise. If he normally goes before the attackers, he can still only go after the attacks happen but has to hope to guess properly what form those attacks may take. Otherwise he's just sitting there doing nothing in the first round (though still not surprised, so that's something).

Or am I missing sometihng in the 5e rules?

How would be better off rolling lower on initiative? The enemy would act first without any possibility of (non-reaction) defense against that. He can Dodge, Ready an attack on the first enemy that will reveal himself, move away (or towards!) the possible enemy position, drop to the ground or find some cover if he expects randed attacks, cast defensive spells... there's a ton of options. Due to the cyclic nature of initiative, he's not missing anything and certainly not forced to "do nothing". Which round it is is mostly irrelevant (with few rare exceptions). Even if he "did nothing", the order of actions would be:
"Character does nothing (because player didn't think of doing anything)" > "enemy acts" > "character acts" > repeat previous two steps until the combat is resolved one way or another.
If he lost initiative, the order of actions would be:
"Character does nothing (because it's not his turn yet)" > "enemy acts" > "character acts" > repeat previous two steps until the combat is resolved one way or another"
Notice how the end results are essentially identical? It's always better to be able to do *something*, even if you have to take a guess and aren't sure what's the best course of action.

[Darth Credence]

Ok, but if they arent hidden, then by the rules you still know where they are now. Hidden is the difference between just ducking behind a wall for cover and actually having your location be unknown.

I feel like I'm just repeating myself over and over, and maybe I should accept that we're not able to communicate here, but I'll try again - it's a game. In order for all of this to work, we make compromises so that a game can actually be played. Do you want to say they are still hidden? Sure, whatever, call them still hidden instead of unseen. There is no condition for "hidden", so calling it hidden or unseen doesn't matter much to me, I'm just categorizing it for myself. (Yes, you get a specific thing for hiding - unseen and unheard, so they cannot pinpoint you.) As long as in either case, as soon as someone says they want to attack, ambush, start a fight, begin combat, shoot that guy, whatever term they settle on, initiative starts, it goes in initiative order, and people with alert can't see people still behind cover but also are not surprised. Do you have to be "hidden" to not have people know where you are? If a character is outside of a building, and no one inside is actively hidden, does that mean everyone outside knows how many people are in there and their current positions? I certainly don't play it that way, so for me, not being hidden does not mean that everyone knows your location, it just means that you don't have a stealth score to compare if someone is looking for you. But if someone else plays that if you are in a battle and not "hidden" then everyone knows your exact location, I'm fine with it being called hidden, but the alert people still know you are there somewhere.

The entire thing I have about "hidden" and "not visible" is simply a way to try to get the idea across that if you start to attack, you are kicking off initiative. "Ah, but I'm hidden, and no one knows I'm doing this until I've completed my action, so I get a free action before we start initiative!" Well, that's not how the game is designed, it craps all over the alert feat and spending resources to make your initiative likely higher, and it has the perverse incentive of making people much more likely to attack out of nowhere than to attempt to role play. So my answer as a DM, and I believe supported by RAW and RAI, is that anyone can decide they are going to do something to kick off the fight, but it doesn't have any specific benefit for them. It just means, "hey, they are where we want them to be for an ambush, so lets get it on!" or "this was a boring conversation anyway - Chewie, we're gonna have company!" is how the players tell me "let's start initiative and begin the combat". Once that statement has been given, then we roll initiative with the fiction being that that person started something - grabbed for their sword, drew an arrow, clasped their holy symbol, whatever - with clear intent to fight, and the opposing party has picked up on it. The opposing party may be startled enough that they are surprised, or they may have seen it coming and are ready for it. Who gets to go first comes down to each participants ability to react quickly.

When people say, "but what if I don't end up attacking? How could they have reacted quickly?", the obvious response to me is that they are almost certainly metagaming. If they won initiative all around, they would probably come out strong, bursting from the ambush point, ready to do some massive damage. It's only when they lose initiative that it becomes a thing. And that thing is that what is supposed to be happening simultaneously is now something that should happen sequentially. If someone going before you in initiative means you haven't done anything they could react to to know you are there, then the game is turn based rather than a simulation of simultaneous action. That's fine, but it's not D&D.

This used to come up with some players. I had a player who was a murderhobo at heart, and he always wanted to abruptly start a fight, thinking it would give him a free attack before anyone else. After it went this way a few times, he saw there was no advantage to doing that, and we got a lot more role playing in, and combats ran a lot smoother.


If there's no uncertainty as to who goes first in the initiative order, why do you need a game mechanic to tell you who goes first? In such situations, as a houserule, I put the character initiating combat at the top of the initiative order. Everyone else whose character would want to participate in the combat after it's initiated rolls normally and takes their turns in order.

(Please note that simply shouting "I attack!" before anyone else does is not sufficient to to trigger my house rule--there has to genuinely be no one other character that wants to be the one to initiate combat at that time. It mostly comes up when attacking unaware opponents.)

This is, to me, one of the worst ways to run initiative, because of the perverse incentive. You say that simply shouting "I attack" doesn't work, because there has to be no one else wanting to start a fight. Well, the other characters will quickly learn that claiming they don't want to start it helps them let the person who tends to suck at initiative go first. So it is pure DM fiat to decide whether the NPCs want to start a fight or not, and therefore whether someone gets a special initiative rule that round. If that works for your game, great, but not how I would play it.

[Edenbeast]

You're overthinking it imho. First of all the creature roll stealth vs. PCs passive perception, unless it passed that and that's what you mean with stealth. If it remains hidden after the check, and attacks, combat starts. DM determines who is surprised. Everyone rolls initiative. PHB page 189 top right block answers your question. Everyone is surprised, but your character is not because it has Alert. Since your initiative is higher, you go first, but you can't see monster, so you ready your action. Maybe you shoot an arrow as soon as something attacks, or you hit the monster when it passes. Or instead, you dive for cover because you know something is wrong but you have no clue how big it is. You can move, take actions, and use a reaction normally, that's all, no supernatural tracking device, no attacking the darkness...

[NichG]

Surprised is a specific rule with a specific effect. That's what the Alert feat says, you cannot have the mechanical condition "Surprised".

There are two elegant ways to resolve this:

1. Resolve the first attack, then roll initiative and apply Surprise or not as usual.
2. Roll initiative but insist that anyone who goes before the first attack must spend their turn doing what they would have if no initiative had been rolled.

(The first one is a lot more consistent because it closely simulates the effects as the characters would experience them.)33


If you don't like the occasional, as another poster put it 'Jedi danger sense', just rewrite the feat.

[Theodoxus]

I've been running combat / initiative differently than most here, apparently. But it solves this Alert problem.

Anyone attacking from a hidden position, or even just initiating a fight against otherwise neutral subjects, just rolls their attack (at advantage, if hidden). Once that is resolved, initiative is rolled. The initiator also rolls, but doesn't get any actions in the ensuing initial round - they took their action already.

One or more combatants might end up surprised by the initiator. Alert overrides that, but doesn't give any advantages to supernatural knowledge of an impending attack - so Mr. Alert automatically gets to act in the first round, potentially attacking and killing the initiator before they can take a second action in the following round.

Is it RAW? Meh. It works, and that's what matters to me far more than something Mearls wrote 10 years ago.

[Xetheral]

This is, to me, one of the worst ways to run initiative, because of the perverse incentive. You say that simply shouting "I attack" doesn't work, because there has to be no one else wanting to start a fight. Well, the other characters will quickly learn that claiming they don't want to start it helps them let the person who tends to suck at initiative go first. So it is pure DM fiat to decide whether the NPCs want to start a fight or not, and therefore whether someone gets a special initiative rule that round. If that works for your game, great, but not how I would play it.

I will concede that I may be creating an incentive for players to hide their character's true intentions in certain situations. However, that is not behavior that I consider to be at all likely from my players, so I don't consider it to be a notable disadvantage. On the plus side, my houserule completely sidesteps the OP's issue, ties the abstraction of turn order more closely to the narrative, and makes combat more likely overall (because actions higher up the initiative order can't pre-empt combat from starting), all of which my players and I consider to be advantages.

[Pex]

Spun off of a much longer thread on the general forum.

Simple question with what I feel will be a not so simple answer;

I have the Alert feat. A hidden character declares their intention to attack me from hiding.

Normally, this would result in me being surprised, but I am immune.

So, I roll initiative, and because I have a +4 bonus, I win.

However, they haven't acted yet, and they are still hidden. AFAICT, I don't know where they are, or that they are there at all, let alone intending to attack me.

So what can I do on my turn?

If I could delay or had lost initiative, this would be simple, but because I am going first, I need to take action against something I am unaware of.

Help?

Move to cover if you can and take the Dodge action. The feat did its job giving you this ability to take a defensive posture. You're not losing out on anything just because you didn't attack.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Jedi Danger Sense, I would argue, is just as elegant as either of those. Its the fantasy of what the Alert feat does in that case which is the problem, not the mechanical outcome.

An elegant ruling, for a more civilized game, one might say.

100% agree. And in a fantastic world, having this kind of thing is totally in keeping.

And note, everyone, that hiding does not mean imperceptible. It just means not perceived enough to register as a person/threat at that location.

They may be triggering on a change in the animal noises. Or a movement of air as you aim. Or just preturnaturally sensing the hostile intent.

Edit: and for me, this whole issue is meaningless.

Only PCs have feats. And monsters don't metagame--they're committed to the ambush. By the time the first action happens (theirs or anyones'), it's too late. There's no 'slink back out of sight'--the gig's up and the quarry is alerted. And even if they did do that...I wouldn't have called for initiative! I'd just say "you feel on edge, as if you're being watched with hostile intent <Alert feat triggers>. What do you do?" and play it from there.

From the flip side, if the players are ambushing, one of a few things is true:

1. They all agree to wait until player X goes, and keep to that agreement, whether because X won initiative or not. Great. Player X triggers the fight. No issues here.
2. They all agree to wait until player X goes, and don't keep to that agreement, with someone doing something hostile to start combat. Great. Someone else triggers the fight instead. Player X gets irritated because the others didn't wait like they said they would. This is not a stealth/hiding/rules problem, it's a people problem.
3. They don't agree to anything, and whoever goes first starts things off. No problem.
4. No one decides to trigger the ambush. Great. The enemies pass by without intiative.

In no case was there a problem. The only way problems can arise is if a player wants to gain unfair advantage by jumping ahead of everyone else. And that's on me to resolve stated actions in the order I see fit, including re-ordering them as long as no other actions have been resolved!

Player X says "I shoot him out of the blue" and player Y says "wait, don't do that yet". I say "ok you two, figure it out. Once we decide OOC what's going to happen, we resolve it.

Alternatively, they can't agree. In that case, initiative is real, and player X starting to do something but player Y beating them on initiative has meaning--they successfully intervene. Which may or may not make initiative end right there, if no further hostile actions happen.

[Kane0]

Just a question here. How specific do the ready action's trigger and action declarations need to be?


Whatever the player and DM agree on. I've been in games where "I'm going to ready, if someone attacks us I shoot them" was fine, and also games where it wasn't.

As a general rule of thumb I try to keep to one specific triggering creature ("that guy specifically tries something stupid") or action ("any of these goons make a move for the door") and what I plan to do about it ("casting Ray of Frost", "blocking the doorway", etc). Broader things like "If we are ambushed" or "I'll use one of my wands" would be a bit to vague to be an actionable cause > response without extra decision-making so is much less likely to fly at the table.
Also when you ready you do have to specify the action you are going to take, and in the case of casting a spell you'd need to concentrate on it even if it doesn't normally need concentration. So it's generally not a great idea to ready a spell, or an attack if you have extra attack for that matter, since you only get one.



I've been running combat / initiative differently than most here, apparently. But it solves this Alert problem.

Anyone attacking from a hidden position, or even just initiating a fight against otherwise neutral subjects, just rolls their attack (at advantage, if hidden). Once that is resolved, initiative is rolled. The initiator also rolls, but doesn't get any actions in the ensuing initial round - they took their action already.


A perfectly cromulent houserule.

[Sorinth]

Spun off of a much longer thread on the general forum.

Simple question with what I feel will be a not so simple answer;

I have the Alert feat. A hidden character declares their intention to attack me from hiding.

Normally, this would result in me being surprised, but I am immune.

So, I roll initiative, and because I have a +4 bonus, I win.

However, they haven't acted yet, and they are still hidden. AFAICT, I don't know where they are, or that they are there at all, let alone intending to attack me.

So what can I do on my turn?

If I could delay or had lost initiative, this would be simple, but because I am going first, I need to take action against something I am unaware of.

Help?

There's an argument that creatures know they are in combat even if it hasn't officially kicked off yet, especially with a feat like Alert. But it's probably something to talk to the DM about because there will be times when your the ones doing the ambush so it's just a matter of being consistent.

Assuming you are "free" to do whatever you want I'd say your options are take the Dodge action to defend yourself better, take the Ready action to attack back (Will usually require a ranged attack), or do some sort of buff type action such as casting a spell or drinking a potion. It's also worth noting that you should probably move in an attempt to reveal any hidden enemies. If you guess right you might be able to do a more normal turn and target them with spells/attacks.

[da newt]

The PC w/ ALERT is not surprised -

so if the PC rolls a better initiative than the attacker, they get to act first - they know an attack is imminent, but that doesn't mean they know the location of the attacker. The ALERT PC can yell out to their party and take an action (dodge, ready, etc) and move, but if they don't perceive the enemy it is very difficult to attack them.

If the ALERT PC does not win initiative the foe gets to act first, but the ALERT PC has their reaction from the beginning and acts normally on their turn.

That's it.

[Kane0]

Also worth mentioning, there's a few things that can let you ignore being surprised. The is the Alert feat of course, but there's also being a level 7 Barbarian (Feral Instinct), a level 10 Artificer (Helm of Awareness) and the Weapon of Warning, an Uncommon magic item. There's likely some subclasses that do it too, but I can't call any to mind right now.

Edit: And technically, it's not really a capital C Condition even though it functions exactly like one.

[Dr.Samurai]

However, they haven't acted yet, and they are still hidden. AFAICT, I don't know where they are, or that they are there at all, let alone intending to attack me.

So what can I do on my turn?

If I could delay or had lost initiative, this would be simple, but because I am going first, I need to take action against something I am unaware of.

Help?
I think the thing is that you're no longer unaware of immediate threats. That's the point of the Alert feat.

Think of it this way... before the Alert feat, it would be just exactly as you have said here "I don't know where they are, or that they are there at all, let alone intending to attack me".

This is akin to the conditions necessary for being Surprised in the first place. You are describing why you would be surprised in this instance.

Except now, you have the Alert feat, which says you can no longer be surprised.

As such, you *must* be aware of the threat in some form or another because you aren't Surprised by it. In other words, you may not know where they are, but you know something's amiss, and it intends to harm you.


With regards to whether the creature is still hidden or not, I am inclined to agree with the poster that says they'd have revealed themselves. The rules say: If you are hidden–both unseen and unheard–when you make an attack, you give away your location when the attack hits or misses.

Now, rolling initiative happens when someone "declares" what they are doing. This is kind of goofy. The way I see it is the initiation is not the vocal declaration at the table, but rather an in-game action that is resolved in the initiative order. So that hidden goblin has revealed themselves to ambush you, and initiative is rolled. And under normal circumstances, you'd be surprised. But you're immune to that, so the goblin thinks they're getting the jump on you, but instead you react more quickly and get to attack first.

If it's just the vocal declaration of initiative... the goblin says "I'm going to attack from hiding and gain Surprise!" and the DM says "Ok, everyone roll initiative. Ah, the OP rolls higher and gets to go first, you can tell he can't be surprised or ambushed and he's looking around." The goblin says "In that case, I'll remain hidden and avoid attacking for now, need to come up with some other plan then."

Initiative has started because... of a mental determination to attack someone that is somehow sensed by the potential target? And since the target is alert to this, the attacker thinks twice and nothing happens. The target just gets a bad feeling and moves on.

That's... weird.

Also, think about how it happens when a DM does this to players. Monsters leap out and everyone rolls initiative. Monsters get to act on Round 1, while players are surprised. In my experience, monsters reveal themselves before we roll and the DM declares Surprise. It doesn't happen that the DM says "roll initiative" then tells us we're Surprised, then reveals the monsters.

In this case for the OP, the player is walking down a corridor and the DM says "A goblin leaps out from hiding, stabbing down with a dagger, everyone roll Initiative, and the Goblin Surprised you." The player says "I have Alert and can't be Surprised". DM says "Ok, you beat the goblin's initiative so you get to go first". "Ok, that's the goblin right there?" "Yes, he was hiding behind this barrel before he went for the attack".

[Kane0]

Funny thing is, Alert also gives a +5 to initiative and Feral Instinct gives Advantage on Initiative, so you are that much more likely to have your turn before the ambusher. As JackPhoenix put it, like the elusive 'ready outside of initiative'

[Aimeryan]

I've been running combat / initiative differently than most here, apparently. But it solves this Alert problem.

Anyone attacking from a hidden position, or even just initiating a fight against otherwise neutral subjects, just rolls their attack (at advantage, if hidden). Once that is resolved, initiative is rolled. The initiator also rolls, but doesn't get any actions in the ensuing initial round - they took their action already.

One or more combatants might end up surprised by the initiator. Alert overrides that, but doesn't give any advantages to supernatural knowledge of an impending attack - so Mr. Alert automatically gets to act in the first round, potentially attacking and killing the initiator before they can take a second action in the following round.

Is it RAW? Meh. It works, and that's what matters to me far more than something Mearls wrote 10 years ago.

Honestly, this is the answer pretty much. Just set the initiating attacker to have the highest initiative, since they are literally the one taking the first action to start it in the first place. This is how BG3 runs it, and its the most sensible result.

[RSP]

I've been running combat / initiative differently than most here, apparently. But it solves this Alert problem.

Anyone attacking from a hidden position, or even just initiating a fight against otherwise neutral subjects, just rolls their attack (at advantage, if hidden). Once that is resolved, initiative is rolled. The initiator also rolls, but doesn't get any actions in the ensuing initial round - they took their action already.


I’ve always liked this idea, situationally, as there’s definitely situations where it makes no sense that the initiating character isn’t going first.

Other times, I’m fine with “danger sense”, or “everyone is acting over the same ~6 second time frame” so you don’t have to necessarily resolve one character’s actions before others can react to them.

[KorvinStarmast]

So what can I do on my turn?

If I could delay or had lost initiative, this would be simple, but because I am going first, I need to take action against something I am unaware of.

Help? If it is D&D 5e, you can take the dodge action so that their attacks, when they happen, are at disadvantage. If in another system, not sure how to answer this as it's too general of a question.

You can also Ready an action such that when they attack you 'do something' "whatever you ready: an attack, a spell, a maneuver, what have you.

[da newt]

Just in case it hasn't already been mentioned, along with not being surprised, the PC w/ ALERT prohibits the ambushers from gaining ADV on their attacks against the ALERT PC even if they are hidden/unseen.




"However, they haven't acted yet, and they are still hidden. AFAICT, I don't know where they are, or that they are there at all, let alone intending to attack me."

For my head canon, PCs w/ ALERT may not know who is attacking or where they are hidden, but they do know someone is about to attack them. You can rationalize this anyway you like (spiderman's spider sense, magic, hyper-vigilance bordering on paranoia, superior reflexes that allow reactions that appear to happen before the triggering event, foresight, etc ...) but they know its about to go down - they CAN tell.

[Keravath]

You are aware that something is trying to do something hostile-related, even if you don't know where they are or what they are yet.

You could do one or several of those things (among others):

- Warn everyone

- Cast a buffing/protection spell or use an action to buff/protect the person(s) you deem would benefit the most from it (also healing those who need it).

- Use an item

- Move around to protect teammates/get out of what seems like a dangerous spot/ get away from the group so you wouldn't be caught in an AoE/ get in the most advantageous spot available for a fight/ rush toward the group's goal before the enemy makes their move.

- Attack/rush where you think it's the most likely for the enemy to be hidden

- Cast an illusion to make identifying who is who harder or even hide everyone in fog/darkness

- Cast a spell or use an action to try revealing where the enemy is hidden

- Ready an action to use when the enemy reveal themselves.

I agree with those options except the "Warn Everyone". The character is free to say whatever they like but it will have no effect on whether the other characters are surprised or not.

Alert is not a feat that the character can use to prevent everyone else in the party from also being surprised - at least that is my take on it. RAW, creatures that do not notice a threat at the start of combat are surprised and the actions taken by any creatures either allies or enemies ahead of them in the initiative order will not change that.

Also, keep in mind that the attacker may change their mind after seeing whatever the character with Alert decides to do - then everyone can stare at the Alert character and wonder if they are losing their mind when no attack develops. :)


P.S.

As a house rule I usually just run situations like this with the hidden creature that is taking the action that starts the sequence going first. This could either be by placing them at the top of the initiative order or by starting with the initiative of the creature initiating the encounter. Both house rules but I find it gets around some of the continuity issues involved in another creature having a chance to take an action before anything has actually happened.

For example, a sorcerer casts a subtle spell to begin a combat. However, they roll last in initiative. None of the other creatures involved, neither allies nor enemies are aware that there even IS a combat until the sorcerer takes their action. However, RAW, if no one is surprised and you start at the top of the order then everyone else involved in the combat could potentially attack and cast spells and when things get down to the sorcerer, it doesn't make sense to cast a subtle spell anymore so they just firebolt someone. I just find that entire sequence of events non-sensical ... so I house rule the start of the initiative order in hidden or surprised situations depending on the circumstances. The DM could rule in such a situation that everyone is surprised but then you run into feats and abilities like Alert that break that paradigm.

[Morgaln]

I've been running combat / initiative differently than most here, apparently. But it solves this Alert problem.

Anyone attacking from a hidden position, or even just initiating a fight against otherwise neutral subjects, just rolls their attack (at advantage, if hidden). Once that is resolved, initiative is rolled. The initiator also rolls, but doesn't get any actions in the ensuing initial round - they took their action already.

One or more combatants might end up surprised by the initiator. Alert overrides that, but doesn't give any advantages to supernatural knowledge of an impending attack - so Mr. Alert automatically gets to act in the first round, potentially attacking and killing the initiator before they can take a second action in the following round.

Is it RAW? Meh. It works, and that's what matters to me far more than something Mearls wrote 10 years ago.

For the record, this is how I would also run the situation. It's simple, it solves the main issue and it makes narrative sense (to me at least)


If a GM wants to run Alert as some kind of Jedi Danger Sense, I wouldn't have an issue with that either. It puts Alert firmly into the supernatural, but that's fine by me. Also, someone paid the cost to get that advantage so I'm fine with them getting an effect out of that.


However, considering the thread this spun off of, I'm interested in everyone's opinion on the following house rules:

1. NPCs all act at the highest initiative rolled among them instead of their individual initiatives.
2. Everyone (PC and NPC) gets the benefit of the Alert feat (except the initiative bonus) if they have a higher initiative than at least one ambusher.


Also assume that this is played under the Jedi Danger Sense rules, where you can perform actions before any attacker has shown themselves. Would you consider this fair and/or balanced? Would you still consider an ambush a viable tactic? How useful would you consider being stealthed before combat in this environment?

[GloatingSwine]

Also, keep in mind that the attacker may change their mind after seeing whatever the character with Alert decides to do - then everyone can stare at the Alert character and wonder if they are losing their mind when no attack develops. :)


This is also the other perverse incentive if you run Alert as precognition.

If you lose initiative to the Alert character on declaring your ambush, don't ambush. Disengage stealthily, wait, come back and try again. Made based on metagame information (but then that's also the source of what precognitive Alert characters are making their decisions, so it's fair game).


However, considering the thread this spun off of, I'm interested in everyone's opinion on the following house rules:

1. NPCs all act at the highest initiative rolled among them instead of their individual initiatives.
2. Everyone (PC and NPC) gets the benefit of the Alert feat (except the initiative bonus) if they have a higher initiative than at least one ambusher.


Also assume that this is played under the Jedi Danger Sense rules, where you can perform actions before any attacker has shown themselves. Would you consider this fair and/or balanced? Would you still consider an ambush a viable tactic? How useful would you consider being stealthed before combat in this environment?

Sounds like a recipe for an initiative arms race to me. It makes the consequences of being beaten on initiative considerably worse.

[NichG]

This is also the other perverse incentive if you run Alert as precognition.

If you lose initiative to the Alert character on declaring your ambush, don't ambush. Disengage stealthily, wait, come back and try again. Made based on metagame information (but then that's also the source of what precognitive Alert characters are making their decisions, so it's fair game).


If you run Alert as precognition, it's not metagame information, it's in character information.

Ambusher: I attack from hiding
Alert: Notices something, wins initiative, takes the Dodge action but otherwise doesn't react.

Unless the Ambusher notices that the Alert character noticed, it would be metagaming to call off the attack. But, let's say they do notice and call it off. Then, next round its still combat and still in initiative order but now there is no surprise even for the rest of the party. So now everyone can take their action trying to actively search out the hidden Ambusher. That may mean 'we get Perception checks' or it might require active attempts to flush them out like tossing out some AoEs or maneuvering to a spot where there's less cover to hide behind.

So even then, it wouldn't usually be a good idea for the Ambusher to not attack. In the cases where it would still make sense like if the Ambusher can teleport away, then i wouldn't even call that perverse incentives, just a more complex tactical byplay. It would be no different than, as I said at the start, a combat with an enemy who can re-hide themselves and who is waiting for an opening or distraction to strike.

[Talakeal]

However, considering the thread this spun off of, I'm interested in everyone's opinion on the following house rules:

1. NPCs all act at the highest initiative rolled among them instead of their individual initiatives.
2. Everyone (PC and NPC) gets the benefit of the Alert feat (except the initiative bonus) if they have a higher initiative than at least one ambusher.

Also assume that this is played under the Jedi Danger Sense rules, where you can perform actions before any attacker has shown themselves. Would you consider this fair and/or balanced? Would you still consider an ambush a viable tactic? How useful would you consider being stealthed before combat in this environment?

This is just a hypothetical system you are coming up with, right? Because it is nothing like either D&D 5E or my system in the original thread, and so I am not sure what you are getting at.


I didn't really want to discuss my system here as there is already a long thread on it and I am trying to see how D&D does handle the issue rather than how I should handle it.

For the record, in my system:

NPCs act as a group and take a 10 on their initiative. I am not clear on how this is relevant to a discussion about beating a hidden character in initiative though.
Surprise does not prevent you from acting entirely, instead it imposes an initiative penalty.
If a character who is surprised still manages to go before someone who is hidden, they may choose to either complete what they were already doing, or wait to take their turn until after their ambusher has revealed themself. It is not danger sense, they do not know that an attack is imminent, let alone who or what is threatening them.

[GloatingSwine]

If you run Alert as precognition, it's not metagame information, it's in character information.

Ambusher: I attack from hiding
Alert: Notices something, wins initiative, takes the Dodge action but otherwise doesn't react.


You missed the third step:

Ambusher: I'll attack from hiding
Alert: Notices something, wins initiative, takes the Dodge action.
Ambusher: I do nothing.

Now what did the Alert character notice? There was nothing in the world in which they exist for them to notice. The only thing that happened was some dice being rolled.

Also: How did the Alert character notice anything without invoking the parts of the rules which are specifically designed to decide whether a character has noticed something.

[Amnestic]

Now what did the Alert character notice?

Hostile intent. It's an extremely common trope. There was even a psionic power in 3.5 for exactly that.

https://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/detectHostileIntent.htm

[NichG]

You missed the third step:

Ambusher: I'll attack from hiding
Alert: Notices something, wins initiative, takes the Dodge action.
Ambusher: I do nothing.


I explicitly covered this sequence. It continues though. Everyone is already in initiative at this point, and it isn't the ambusher's choice as to whether to drop everyone out of initiative. It's just like if you had a character capable of hiding during combat and they were picking off an enemy camp one by one, the fact that you re-hide doesn't force everyone in the camp to drop out of initiative and go back to what they were doing.

Think of it like someone had a nonspecific ward or alarm spell that says 'there is an enemy within the perimeter' but that enemy is hidden and no one succeeded on the Perception check to pinpoint them. Everyone gets to take actions to deal with that particular combat situation - the hidden character might bide their time until they can take out a single straggler in one blow so they don't get discovered, everyone else might change their positions or level of wariness. Someone really good at hiding could repeatedly trigger the alarm and then do nothing and stay hidden to get everyone in the camp to lose their wariness. That's a valid tactic - spam the detectors until they're considered a false alarm. It's not a perverse incentive or an exploit, but it also may not work out in the attacker's favor since every time they go to poke the alarm button there's a risk that their targets change their behavior in an inconvenient way, or that someone makes the perception check to detect them.


Now what did the Alert character notice? There was nothing in the world in which they exist for them to notice. The only thing that happened was some dice being rolled.

We already took this as the Jedi Danger Sense reading for this part of the conversation, so they notice the threat of danger. There doesn't have to be a specific physical event that is always 'how Alert works'. The feat doesn't entitle you to know why you felt a sense of danger, it only entitles you to be aware of danger sufficiently before it happens so as not to be surprised. If on top of that your initiative is better than your attacker, you react so quickly to that instinct that it happens before they finish committing to the attack.


Also: How did the Alert character notice anything without invoking the parts of the rules which are specifically designed to decide whether a character has noticed something.

You don't get any specific information that would be gated behind a check like where the attack is going to come from, so it doesn't interact with those rules at all. A Perception check can be used to detect things, but specific trumps general - if you have a feat that says you aren't surprised, then that means you don't need to make a Perception check successfully in order to not be surprised.

Again: If you don't like the implications of an ability that says 'you cannot be surprised' without saying how, then rewrite the ability to be more specific. Don't put something that makes a broad and abstract promise like 'you can't be surprised' in front of players if you aren't willing to commit to the level of abstraction implied by writing rules text that way. You could instead write a feat, for example, 'Alert: During a surprise round in which a character would normally be surprised, they may instead act at the end of the round with initiative breaking ties between multiple Alert characters'.

[Unoriginal]

Ambusher: I'll attack from hiding
Alert: Notices something, wins initiative, takes the Dodge action.
Ambusher: I do nothing.


In order to trigger initiative, *something* needs to be done to start the hostilities.

It's technically possible (but very rare) that combat start with every single enemy still hidden, but even then for initiative to be rolled they need to initiate something.

Let's imagine a situation where the PCs are to protect a king against any kind of threat.

If an assassin approaches while looking and acting perfectly similar to the king's brother and trusted advisor, the initiative won't be rolled until the assassin does something hostility-triggering.

The Alert feat means that the Alert PC won't be surprised if the assassin pulls a poisoned dagger and let their hostile intent against the king be known. It may means the assassin decides to change tactics, but that doesn't change how the assassin showed their hostile intent. If the Alert PC rolls high initiative, it may be that the PC is able to defeat the assassin before they even get to act, but even then that doesn't mean the assassin didn't initiate the combat.

[tokek]

So if a rogue, for example, were to attack a target from hiding to start combat, you would rule that they can't get sneak attack because they don't have advantage due to not being hidden when their turn comes around?

Alert specifically negates the advantage from unseen attacker. So yes it removes that source of advantage and may remove sneak attack as a result

[tokek]

You missed the third step:

Ambusher: I'll attack from hiding
Alert: Notices something, wins initiative, takes the Dodge action.
Ambusher: I do nothing.

Now what did the Alert character notice? There was nothing in the world in which they exist for them to notice. The only thing that happened was some dice being rolled.

Also: How did the Alert character notice anything without invoking the parts of the rules which are specifically designed to decide whether a character has noticed something.

Doesn’t matter.

They had a bad feeling. Their guardian spirit whispered for them to watch out. They had a precognitive flash of danger.

Flavour the feat how you like. The rules say what it does and are very clear

[Keltest]

Alert specifically negates the advantage from unseen attacker. So yes it removes that source of advantage and may remove sneak attack as a result

I didn't say an alert target. As described, the act of declaring an action which starts initiative would break stealth, before they even got to actually take an action.

[Unoriginal]

I didn't say an alert target. As described, the act of declaring an action which starts initiative would break stealth, before they even got to actually take an action.

What starts initiative happens before initiative is rolled.

[Mastikator]

You missed the third step:

Ambusher: I'll attack from hiding
Alert: Notices something, wins initiative, takes the Dodge action.
Ambusher: I do nothing.

Now what did the Alert character notice? There was nothing in the world in which they exist for them to notice. The only thing that happened was some dice being rolled.

Also: How did the Alert character notice anything without invoking the parts of the rules which are specifically designed to decide whether a character has noticed something.

When you initiate combat you get locked into your action. I may forgive players if they choose a different action than originally stated on the off-chance that they roll poorly on initiative, but NPCs should never ever metagame. If an NPC intends to ambush a PC with the alert feat then they follow through.

[Keltest]

What starts initiative happens before initiative is rolled.

Right, so you have your rogue losing their stealth by declaring an attack, initiative being rolled, and then when the rogue's turn comes around they don't get advantage when they actually get to do the attack now because the declaration of the attack back at the start of initiative broke their stealth.

[tokek]

Right, so you have your rogue losing their stealth by declaring an attack, initiative being rolled, and then when the rogue's turn comes around they don't get advantage when they actually get to do the attack now because the declaration of the attack back at the start of initiative broke their stealth.

I'm pretty sure it does not work that way. Stealth could have been rolled 10 minutes earlier and the roll does not change - if it beat the passive perception of everyone then that rogue is still hidden (unseen and unheard) until they do something to negate that or someone else does something to negate it.

Its an often misunderstood part of the rules. They did quite a good podcast on it a while back but I think I lost the link, that or they moved it.

[Keltest]

I'm pretty sure it does not work that way. Stealth could have been rolled 10 minutes earlier and the roll does not change - if it beat the passive perception of everyone then that rogue is still hidden (unseen and unheard) until they do something to negate that or someone else does something to negate it.

Its an often misunderstood part of the rules. They did quite a good podcast on it a while back but I think I lost the link, that or they moved it.

I know it doesnt work that way, thats the point.

[NichG]

Right, so you have your rogue losing their stealth by declaring an attack, initiative being rolled, and then when the rogue's turn comes around they don't get advantage when they actually get to do the attack now because the declaration of the attack back at the start of initiative broke their stealth.

The specific text is that you lose unseen status 'when your attack hits or misses'.



When a creature can’t see you, you have advantage on attack rolls against it. If you are hidden—both unseen and unheard—when you make an attack, you give away your location when the attack hits or misses.


Causing initiative is not in of itself enough to lose unseen status against participants in the combat, though it does explicitly make it harder (in a DM-adjudicate-this way) to approach to melee range while retaining that status.



In combat, most creatures stay alert for signs of danger all around, so if you come out of hiding and approach a creature, it usually sees you. However, under certain circumstances, the GM might allow you to stay hidden as you approach a creature that is distracted, allowing you to gain advantage on an attack roll before you are seen.


Elsewhere, specific examples of those 'certain circumstances' are given in the form of darkness, invisibility, and cover.

[Morgaln]

This is just a hypothetical system you are coming up with, right? Because it is nothing like either D&D 5E or my system in the original thread, and so I am not sure what you are getting at.


I didn't really want to discuss my system here as there is already a long thread on it and I am trying to see how D&D does handle the issue rather than how I should handle it.

For the record, in my system:

NPCs act as a group and take a 10 on their initiative. I am not clear on how this is relevant to a discussion about beating a hidden character in initiative though.
Surprise does not prevent you from acting entirely, instead it imposes an initiative penalty.
If a character who is surprised still manages to go before someone who is hidden, they may choose to either complete what they were already doing, or wait to take their turn until after their ambusher has revealed themself. It is not danger sense, they do not know that an attack is imminent, let alone who or what is threatening them.

No, this is an approximation of your system in D&D terms. The NPCs acting as a group is relevant because a single NPC beating a PC in initiative negates the option for surprise on any NPC completey for that PC.

[Aimeryan]

In order to trigger initiative, *something* needs to be done to start the hostilities.

I agree with this, with the assassin pulling the poisoned dagger out to strike the king being a good example.
However, the situation where the Alert feat using gets discussed with confusion is when the attack is coming from a hidden attacker, such that there is nothing to react to because they are literally hidden as per the rules.

Consider the crossbow trigger being pulled - up to that point no one had any idea the hidden attacker was there. Now, the attack has been made; other creatures turns do not interweave in 5e, with the exception of Reactions. If the person with the Alert feat has a Reaction then they could use it (they are not surprised), but they wouldn't have a whole turn during the attacker's attack completing.

The most sensible thing to do is just resolving a hidden attacker's attack before rolling for initiative. In this sense, Alert isn't interacting with this scenario in any additional way; instead it just gets the bullets points of +5 on the initiative roll, not being surprised, and not conferring Advantage to hidden attackers - exactly as the Feat says. It doesn't gain precognition which is very powerful to have without the Feat saying so.

[JNAProductions]

Why is battle-level precognition verboten?

It’s certainly not more outlandish than a lot of other things in D&D.

[Aimeryan]

Why is battle-level precognition verboten?

It’s certainly not more outlandish than a lot of other things in D&D.

It would be perfectly fine. It is just Alert doesn't give that benefit, at least not explicitly. It only does that if the DM rolls initiative before the action that actually causes the effect.

In the case of an assassin pulling out a poisoned dagger to kill the king, the action that causes initiative to be rolled is pulling out the dagger - the assassin gets to do that first (the cause), then initiative is called (the effect) - followed by Alert person who isn't surprised possibly being able to go before the assassin get their turn and attack. Alert doesn't cause the person to act before the dagger is even drawn, since they have no reason at that point TO act.

In the case that the attacker is hidden, unless that changes then anything and everything they do is not perceived - that is why they are hidden; they passed the roll to keep their activities unnoticed. The only thing in the rules that changes that is going out into the open, something that would call for another check, or an explicit action that drops stealth (which happens AFTER the action). However, that de facto makes the attack go first (the cause), then initiative being rolled (the effect).

The thing is, the DM calls initiative - the books never give an explicit call for it. IN fact, there is a passage that outright examples the attack happening before the other side notices:
A gelatinous cube glides down a dungeon passage, unnoticed by the adventurers until the cube engulfs one of them.


Even the Alert feat wouldn't change this situation because they didn't notice the cube - they would, however, not be surprised in the combat that followed.

[NichG]

The thing is, the DM calls initiative - the books never give an explicit call for it. IN fact, there is a passage that outright examples the attack happening before the other side notices:
A gelatinous cube glides down a dungeon passage, unnoticed by the adventurers until the cube engulfs one of them.


Even the Alert feat wouldn't change this situation because they didn't notice the cube - they would, however, not be surprised in the combat that followed.

The gelatinous cube example is given as an establishing instance of the surprise rules though, and suggests that the reason that events go that way is modeled by the character being surprised. Since the Alert feat explicitly makes you immune to being surprised, this example isn't really the best one for you to make a case with...

[Talakeal]

No, this is an approximation of your system in D&D terms. The NPCs acting as a group is relevant because a single NPC beating a PC in initiative negates the option for surprise on any NPC completely for that PC.

You are using "approximation" very generously.

In my system, all NPCs act on their side's most common initiative value + ten, so it is literally impossible for a "single NPC" to beat a PC in initiative. Either all of them do, or none of them do.

Likewise, surprise is a modifier to initiative which is determined before the fight starts or initiative is even rolled, so how can an NPC beating a PC on initiative retroactively remove surprise?

What are you even talking about?

[Aimeryan]

The gelatinous cube example is given as an establishing instance of the surprise rules though, and suggests that the reason that events go that way is modeled by the character being surprised. Since the Alert feat explicitly makes you immune to being surprised, this example isn't really the best one for you to make a case with...

Except, the example doesn't say anything about surprise - it explicitly talks about not noticing the cube until after the character is engulfed, which means that initiative was never rolled.

The fact that the book doesn't say when initiative is rolled gives complete domain over that decision with the DM. Essentially, any and all times for initiative to be rolled are neither endorsed or ruled against by RAW. Which means the best play is usually the most sensible one for the situation, and I can't think of anything more sensible than a hidden attacker's attack occurring before initiative is rolled because it stops the silliness of non-precognition precognition.

[glass]

Initiative is rolled when the thing starts. If the enemy remains hidden, then there was no reason to start initiative, so the question is moot. You are forming ideas about how initiative works that are just wrong.Anyone who has been following the thread this spun off from will not be surprised to learn that I agree with Darth Credence here.

[GooeyChewie]

Personally, I hate the houserule of resolving a declared attack prior to rolling initiative. It encourages players to declare attacks on potential enemies early and often, and depending on the player sometimes without verifying that the target is an enemy. I know the surprise rules can be confusing at first, but enforcing them well does help cut down on that sort of murderhoboing.

As for the situation at hand, the rules are mechanically clear. If a creature was hidden or not visible when initiative was rolled, nothing about rolling initiative makes them cease to be hidden or become visible. The Alert feat prevents surprise, which means if you beat the opponent in initiative you get to take your turn normally, but you do not automatically know where the enemy's location. You still have several options - Dodge, readying an action, casting buffs, an active search to get a chance to roll Perception to find the enemy, casting an AoE spell at a suspected location and hoping to get lucky, moving into what you hope will be a better position or to defend a squishier ally, etc..

Narratively, things get murkier. Alert doesn't specify how you know avoided surprise, only that you do. It's up to the table to decide how to narrate everything surrounding initiative. In cases like this, I'll often say something to the effect of the hairs on the back of a character's neck standing up, or that you "feel like something is watching you," or something similar. I treat initiative as part of the metagame. That is to say, we enter initiative because I as the DM determined it was an appropriate time to do so. The characters are not aware of the concept of initiative, and it happens when I the DM says it does, not after whatever action caused me to make that determination.

If the player wins initiative and takes defensive action, I don't think it is metagaming for the enemy to choose not to attack. That said, choosing not to attack does not drop the enemy out of combat, so there's little reason for them to do so anyway. A more likely scenario would be that the enemy chooses to attack a player who did not take an obvious defensive measure, which again I wouldn't consider metagaming because the enemy can see the character who Dodged/readied an action/etc..

Sometimes it can feel like a waste to win initiative in this type of circumstance, but actually you're still better off beating them in initiative than losing. The reason becomes clear if you think about it as a 1-on-1 situation. Effectively, you are alternating turns. If you win initiative, you basically get an extra turn, which is an advantage even if that turn is only taking the Dodge action.

[tokek]

It would be perfectly fine. It is just Alert doesn't give that benefit, at least not explicitly. It only does that if the DM rolls initiative before the action that actually causes the effect.



Alert does what it does - which is stop anything getting the drop on you with surprise attacks or hidden advantage. Alert explicitly protects a character from that.

I think you have a mental model of Alert that does not fit with its rules very well from which you then interpret the initiative rules a very particular way to fit with your personal vision of Alert feat. But nothing in Alert feat says its as limited as you want it to be.

Giving an assassin a free attack outside of initiative seems to me trying to construct something that does the same thing as surprise but not call it surprise.

Also when your players start trying to pull pre-combat attacks ALL the time in response its going to get incredibly tiresome. But you bring it on yourself by having this concept of out of combat attacks as an extension to the core way that combat is run. In a game like that I'd play a sorcerer with Subtle metamagic and abuse the hell out of your mechanic (until you abandon it for the bad idea that it is)

[Xetheral]

In order to trigger initiative, *something* needs to be done to start the hostilities.

It's technically possible (but very rare) that combat start with every single enemy still hidden, but even then for initiative to be rolled they need to initiate something.

Let's imagine a situation where the PCs are to protect a king against any kind of threat.

If an assassin approaches while looking and acting perfectly similar to the king's brother and trusted advisor, the initiative won't be rolled until the assassin does something hostility-triggering.

The Alert feat means that the Alert PC won't be surprised if the assassin pulls a poisoned dagger and let their hostile intent against the king be known. It may means the assassin decides to change tactics, but that doesn't change how the assassin showed their hostile intent. If the Alert PC rolls high initiative, it may be that the PC is able to defeat the assassin before they even get to act, but even then that doesn't mean the assassin didn't initiate the combat.

I entirely agree that "to trigger initiative *something* needs to be done to start the hostilities." But I don't think that principle is sufficient to resolve all questions of surprise and turn order because of the posibility of initiating actions that have no noticable prep. If the assassin in your example tries to use Subtle Spell metamgaic to cast Tasha's Mind Whip against the king, that creates a pickle if the assassin doesn't act first. How do you address that pickle at your table? Do you resolve the spell before rolling initiative? Ensure the assassin goes first in initiative? Or roll initiative prior to resolving the spell, and accept the weirdness that comes if other characters act before the assassin (which could include invalidating the Mind Whip by, e.g., making the king no longer a valid target).

Also, in my experience it isn't at all rare for combat to start with one side completely hidden from the other. PCs who are good at long-range ambush tactics pull it off pretty regularly in my campaigns. If they're out of line of sight (or heavily obscured) and out of effective hearing range, for example, they're unseen and unheard (and thus hidden) without even needing to make a stealth check.

[tokek]

I entirely agree that "to trigger initiative *something* needs to be done to start the hostilities." But I don't think that principle is sufficient to resolve all questions of surprise and turn order because of the posibility of initiating actions that have no noticable prep. If the assassin in your example tries to use Subtle Spell metamgaic to cast Tasha's Mind Whip against the king, that creates a pickle if the assassin doesn't act first. How do you address that pickle at your table? Do you resolve the spell before rolling initiative? Ensure the assassin goes first in initiative? Or roll initiative prior to resolving the spell, and accept the weirdness that comes if other characters act before the assassin (which could include invalidating the Mind Whip by, e.g., making the king no longer a valid target).



The surprise mechanic handles this just fine

But Alert creates an exception. Narrate it how you like the rule is clear - the Alert character is not surprised.

I roll initiative. Everyone but the Alert character is surprised. The Alert character somehow (and I would hope they have given some flavour to this very tasty feat) is not surprised.

Let the player feel awesome because this is the exact situation in which that feat is designed to be awesome.

[crayonshinchuck]

The surprise mechanic handles this just fine

But Alert creates an exception. Narrate it how you like the rule is clear - the Alert character is not surprised.

I roll initiative. Everyone but the Alert character is surprised. The Alert character somehow (and I would hope they have given some flavour to this very tasty feat) is not surprised.

Let the player feel awesome because this is the exact situation in which that feat is designed to be awesome.

Well stated. My DM in the game I am currently in recently ran an encounter where the party was surprised (except for our Rune Knight Fighter, who has the rune that makes it so he can't be surprised). The DM changed the rules slightly and while on the surface it may have seemed to be more "logical" it made understanding the first round of combat much more difficult.

The basic premise of the question comes from people thinking that it is a specific action that causes initiative to be rolled. The (possibly hidden) character initiating the combat may describe the hostile act they plan to do as shooting someone from their hidden position, but it is not the specific act (shooting) that calls for initiative to be rolled, but the abstract act (intent to make a combat action) that does. While the assassin with the poisoned blade, the person shooting a bow from a hidden position, or the Sorcerer intending to cast a subtle spell describe what action they intend to take, it is really just this intent that is key. If they then land up not going ahead of a suprise-proof opponent, and the battlefield situation has changed, they can certainly change their mind about what action they want to take depending on what has occurred prior to their turn in initiative, just like in every other case of combat.

As others have stated someone with an ability that prevents them from being surprised somehow has a sense of this intent even before any actual hostile combat action has taken place.

[sithlordnergal]

When you initiate combat you get locked into your action. I may forgive players if they choose a different action than originally stated on the off-chance that they roll poorly on initiative, but NPCs should never ever metagame. If an NPC intends to ambush a PC with the alert feat then they follow through.

Why would you be locked into an action? You declare your intent to attack, initative is rolled, target takes the dodge action, and you choose to do something else instead. Do you require a person to be locked into actions before their turn starts for the rest of combat?

[GloatingSwine]

The surprise mechanic handles this just fine

But Alert creates an exception. Narrate it how you like the rule is clear - the Alert character is not surprised.

I roll initiative. Everyone but the Alert character is surprised. The Alert character somehow (and I would hope they have given some flavour to this very tasty feat) is not surprised.

Let the player feel awesome because this is the exact situation in which that feat is designed to be awesome.

What are they surprised by?

In the given scenario the first perceptible event is the spell going off as mind whip has no material component and subtle spell removes the others.

Alert and Surprise need an event that’s real in the world the characters inhabit not to produce dumb outcomes.

[Kish]

Because a lot of the replies strike me as coming from "the DM shouldn't be adversarial to PCs," which I wholly agree with, I think I should mention that in the original long thread, the specific case being referenced, a PC is the one ambushing, an NPC the one who, completely unaware of the presence of the ambusher, nevertheless rolls higher on initiative. Just in case that changes any answers.

[OvisCaedo]

In terms of the "undetectable mind whip against an NPC" example, I'm not sure initiative should actually be rolled at all. Even with the spell going off, you'd have, what, the king suddenly clutching at his head in pain? That might be more of a prompt for investigation than leaping to combat.

...Of course, initiative and structured turn order aren't necessarily only for combat.

I think the edge cases with Alert are easier to resolve without metagaming than, say, the rogue's assassinate ability expiring if they lose the initiative roll from their own hidden ambush.

[Talakeal]

Because a lot of the replies strike me as coming from "the DM shouldn't be adversarial to PCs," which I wholly agree with, I think I should mention that in the original long thread, the specific case being referenced, a PC is the one ambushing, an NPC the one who, completely unaware of the presence of the ambusher, nevertheless rolls higher on initiative. Just in case that changes any answers.

It was also a hypothetical that never actually came up in game.

Rules wise, it doesn't matter whether the rogue is a PC and their target an NPC, the target a PC and the rogue an NPC, both PCs, or both NPCs.

[Aimeryan]

Giving an assassin a free attack outside of initiative seems to me trying to construct something that does the same thing as surprise but not call it surprise.

A free attack outside of combat... hmm, kind of like the whole point of an ambush? Of an assassination? Like, who would figure that a stealth attack from a hidden attacker would somehow get to attack first? Mind-boggling.

Yeah, attacking first is great - thats why being stealthy is great. Alert means you get to act without a delay after the attack, but it doesn't say anything about you getting to act before a stealth attack. The counter to a stealth attack is good passive Perception - that is what the Feat Observant does.

Seriously, you guys are taking a part of the rules that are completely freeform for the DM to handle, then suggesting the DM goes for a pre-cognitive interpretation rather than the straight-forward one. If your players are able to make stealth attacks, great. If it is happening all the time then maybe your dungeons need some redesign to stop it being so easy.

---

EDIT: For clarity's sake, my preferred option is to change the initiative rules to simply include the initiating attacker as the highest on the initiative order, meaning they don't get an attack before the 'surprise round' (yes, we all know that technically thats not a thing anymore, and we all know exactly what is meant when someone uses it as shorthand).

[GooeyChewie]

A free attack outside of combat... hmm, kind of like the whole point of an ambush? Of an assassination? Like, who would figure that a stealth attack from a hidden attacker would somehow get to attack first? Mind-boggling.

Yeah, attacking first is great - thats why being stealthy is great. Alert means you get to act without a delay after the attack, but it doesn't say anything about you getting to act before a stealth attack. The counter to a stealth attack is good passive Perception - that is what the Feat Observant does.

Seriously, you guys are taking a part of the rules that are completely freeform for the DM to handle, then suggesting the DM goes for a pre-cognitive interpretation rather than the straight-forward one. If your players are able to make stealth attacks, great. If it is happening all the time then maybe your dungeons need some redesign to stop it being so easy.
The point of surprise in 5e is to allow an ambusher/assassin to pull off an attack before anybody else gets a chance to react. The point of the Alert feat is to allow a character to react and potentially take defensive measures (if they win initiative) prior to an ambush/assassination attempt. Observant reducing the chances of you being in the situation of being surprised in the first place. Both are defenses against ambushes, with their own advantages and disadvantages.

The straight-forward way to interpret the rules is to do exactly what they say. Roll initiative, determine who is surprised and who isn't, with the Alert feat causing that character not to be surprised. Explain it however you want at the table, but rules-wise that's what happens.



EDIT: For clarity's sake, my preferred option is to change the initiative rules to simply include the initiating attacker as the highest on the initiative order, meaning they don't get an attack before the 'surprise round' (yes, we all know that technically thats not a thing anymore, and we all know exactly what is meant when someone uses it as shorthand).

This change screws over the player who took Alert as a feat. The attack is supposed to happen during the 'surprise round,' and the Alert feat is supposed to give the player the potential to take defensive measures before that happens. If you have the attacker automatically win initiative, you are effectively taking a turn away from the player who took Alert precisely to get turns in these situations.

[rel]

For those looking for consensus to inform their own rulings, these posters are arguing that the alert character can act as though they know combat has started even though they cannot specifically see the ambushing attackers:
keltest
unoriginal
NichG
Amnestic
Lord Ruby34
Kane0
Dr.Samurai
JackPhoenix
Mastikator
Edenbeast
Pex
PhoenixPhyre
Sorinth
da newt
KorvinStarmast
GooeyChewie
crayonshinchuck
tokek
OvisCaedo
Darth Credence
glass


While these posters are arguing for variations on initiative not being rolled until after the hidden attacker has resolved an attack:

Xetheral
Theodoxus
Aimeryan
Morgaln


And a few others have put forward other options or said that it should depend on the specific situation.

[Aimeryan]

The point of surprise in 5e is to allow an ambusher/assassin to pull off an attack before anybody else gets a chance to react. The point of the Alert feat is to allow a character to react and potentially take defensive measures (if they win initiative) prior to an ambush/assassination attempt. Observant reducing the chances of you being in the situation of being surprised in the first place. Both are defenses against ambushes, with their own advantages and disadvantages.

The straight-forward way to interpret the rules is to do exactly what they say. Roll initiative, determine who is surprised and who isn't, with the Alert feat causing that character not to be surprised. Explain it however you want at the table, but rules-wise that's what happens.

You are welcome to give more power to Alert than the three bullet points it already has if you like.

The rules don't need interpreting regarding when initiative is rolled - there aren't any. The rules simply say what to do when it is. Feel free to look them up yourself. This leaves it in the DMs hands as to when to call for initiative - the straight-forward approach is to make the call after resolving the attack, since the attack occurred within the narrative instead of being subject to combat (since the other side doesn't even know there is combat to be had).

The only problem I have with this is balance, since the attacker could have [Attack][Attack against surprised target][Attack against target before turn]. Alert can remove two of those in such a scenario since it resolves down to [Attack] OR [Attack][Attack against target before turn] - with the former being more likely due to the initiative roll bonus.




Attacker first within initiative homerule

This change screws over the player who took Alert as a feat. The attack is supposed to happen during the 'surprise round,' and the Alert feat is supposed to give the player the potential to take defensive measures before that happens. If you have the attacker automatically win initiative, you are effectively taking a turn away from the player who took Alert precisely to get turns in these situations.

Alert still does exactly what it says in this scenario - they are not surprised so they get an extra turn over those that are, they roll with an initiative bonus potentially beating out other enemies than the initiating attacker, and the enemy doesn't get Advantage against them if not seen. Alert never made you automatically win initiative.

[GloatingSwine]

This change screws over the player who took Alert as a feat. The attack is supposed to happen during the 'surprise round,' and the Alert feat is supposed to give the player the potential to take defensive measures before that happens. If you have the attacker automatically win initiative, you are effectively taking a turn away from the player who took Alert precisely to get turns in these situations.

The attack is also the thing that happens that surprised everyone.

Because considering the situation without Alert also produces silly outcomes if the hidden attacker doesn't go first, because it means that characters are surprised by something that hasn't happened yet.

It doesn't actually imply that Alert is precognition, but that everyone and everything can see six seconds into the future all the time but only some people aren't surprised by what happens there.

[Aimeryan]

The attack is also the thing that happens that surprised everyone.

Because considering the situation without Alert also produces silly outcomes if the hidden attacker doesn't go first, because it means that characters are surprised by something that hasn't happened yet.

It doesn't actually imply that Alert is precognition, but that everyone and everything can see six seconds into the future all the time but only some people aren't surprised by what happens there.

That is a good point. I guess it seems less unintuitive when those without Alert do nothing for that turn - although, technically if they were in the process of moving from A to B it would seem like ALL of them just suddenly stopped moving or doing anything of note for six seconds, during which at some point they got attacked by a hidden attacker.

If the DM rules that initiative starts before the hidden attack occurs, and the hidden attacker rolls low on the initiative roll, then from a narrative perspective EVERYONE on the enemy team reacts immediately to the attack as they all go immediately after with no loss of time or function. This is even weirder when you add in other attackers on the hidden attacker's side as they either forgo their turn in the 'surprise round' or they go BEFORE the person on their team who was meant to initiate the attack.

If the DM rules that initiative starts after the hidden attack occurs, and the hidden attacker rolls low on the initiative roll, then from a narrative perspective everyone from the enemy team is surprised and the attacker manages to get a turn in before they act - which is quite sensible. Other attackers on the same team as the hidden attacker also get to act after the initiating attack but before the enemy team reacts.

The more you think about it, the more and more sensible it becomes to have initiative be called after the hidden attack that starts the combat encounter, rather than before.

[GloatingSwine]

Yeah, it's the only way of doing it that represents what happens in the world the characters live in.

A thing happens, people are surprised by it or not. But they're not pre-surprised by it going to have happened.

The only balance concern can be avoided by simply counting the initiating character as already having acted in the first round and then having them resume their rolled initiative from the second round onwards. (If you're feeling generous, given that they already got guaranteed first turn, you might let them have any bonus actions on their rolled initiative on the first turn but that might get fiddly and easily forgotten about)

[Mastikator]

The attack is also the thing that happens that surprised everyone.

Because considering the situation without Alert also produces silly outcomes if the hidden attacker doesn't go first, because it means that characters are surprised by something that hasn't happened yet.

It doesn't actually imply that Alert is precognition, but that everyone and everything can see six seconds into the future all the time but only some people aren't surprised by what happens there.

IMO I don't think letting an Alerter go before the ambusher is silly if you think of Alert as a form of spidey sense. Using Dodge or Ready action to trigger an attack after the ambusher has broken stealth but before their attack has landed is very in line with superhero-ish action style of D&D5e. It may be silly like Kung Fu Hustle, but it's also awesome like Kung Fu Hustle.

[GooeyChewie]

You are welcome to give more power to Alert than the three bullet points it already has if you like.

The rules don't need interpreting regarding when initiative is rolled - there aren't any. The rules simply say what to do when it is. Feel free to look them up yourself. This leaves it in the DMs hands as to when to call for initiative - the straight-forward approach is to make the call after resolving the attack, since the attack occurred within the narrative instead of being subject to combat (since the other side doesn't even know there is combat to be had).

The only problem I have with this is balance, since the attacker could have [Attack][Attack against surprised target][Attack against target before turn]. Alert can remove two of those in such a scenario since it resolves down to [Attack] OR [Attack][Attack against target before turn] - with the former being more likely due to the initiative roll bonus.
I'm not giving Alert more power than the three bullet points it already has. I'm just also not allowing attacks prior to initiative to occur in an effort to impose surprise on a character who took a feat that says they can't be surprised.


Alert still does exactly what it says in this scenario - they are not surprised so they get an extra turn over those that are, they roll with an initiative bonus potentially beating out other enemies than the initiating attacker, and the enemy doesn't get Advantage against them if not seen. Alert never made you automatically win initiative.
I'm not saying that Alert makes you automatically win initiative. I'm saying that if you have Alert and do happen to win initiative, you aren't surprised and can act normally (albeit not necessarily with information regarding the enemy's location) on your turn. And if you don't win initiative, you can still use your reaction prior to your first turn. In your scenario, you are essentially applying an additional surprise on the entire party, including on the player who has a feat that says they can't be surprised.


That is a good point. I guess it seems less unintuitive when those without Alert do nothing for that turn - although, technically if they were in the process of moving from A to B it would seem like ALL of them just suddenly stopped moving or doing anything of note for six seconds, during which at some point they got attacked by a hidden attacker.

If the DM rules that initiative starts before the hidden attack occurs, and the hidden attacker rolls low, then from a narrative perspective EVERYONE on the enemy team reacts immediately to the attack as they all go immediately after with no loss of time or function. This is even weirder when you add in other attackers on the hidden attacker's side as they either forgo their turn in the 'surprise round' or they go BEFORE the person on their team who was meant to initiate the attack.

If the DM rules that initiative starts after the hidden attack occurs, and the hidden attack rolls low, then from a narrative perspective everyone from the enemy team is surprised and the attacker manages to get a turn in before they act - which is quite sensible. Other attackers on the same team as the hidden attacker also get to act after the initiating attack but before the enemy team reacts.

The more you think about it, the more and more sensible it becomes to have initiative be called after the hidden attack that starts the combat encounter, rather than before.
That's what the RAW surprise rules do. If everybody on the enemy team is surprised, then they get to make the attack roll before anybody on the enemy team can take actions (and possibly before they can take reactions, depending on who rolled what on initiative). Allowing the attacker to resolve the attack prior to initiative being rolled only serves to impose an additional surprise on top of the RAW surprise, including on the players who have features that say they cannot be surprised. It also adds a weird quirk where players can react to the initial attack, but then lose their ability to react right afterwards, as the RAW surprise does not occur until initiative is rolled.

[GloatingSwine]

IMO I don't think letting an Alerter go before the ambusher is silly if you think of Alert as a form of spidey sense. Using Dodge or Ready action to trigger an attack after the ambusher has broken stealth but before their attack has landed is very in line with superhero-ish action style of D&D5e. It may be silly like Kung Fu Hustle, but it's also awesome like Kung Fu Hustle.

But again, that implies that everyone has that spidey sense but some of them are surprised by it sometimes. Because if someone without Alert who isn't paying attention rolls higher than the ambusher they exhaust the Surprised condition before anything surprising happens. They're surprised by something that hasn't happened yet.

It requires every single entity which can possibly roll initiative to know the next six seconds of the future at all times but most of them are surprised by what it's going to be.

[Aimeryan]

Allowing the attacker to resolve the attack prior to initiative being rolled only serves to impose an additional surprise on top of the RAW surprise, including on the players who have features that say they cannot be surprised. It also adds a weird quirk where players can react to the initial attack, but then lose their ability to react right afterwards, as the RAW surprise does not occur until initiative is rolled.

They are not getting an additional surprise round - they get a single attack. Also, determining surprise occurs before initiative is rolled:



Combat Step by Step
1. Determine surprise. The DM determines whether anyone involved in the combat encounter is surprised.
...


3. Roll initiative. Everyone involved in the combat encounter rolls initiative, determining the order of combatants' turns.
...



The initiating attack would occur after determining surprise but before the initiative roll is called.

[tokek]

What are they surprised by?

In the given scenario the first perceptible event is the spell going off as mind whip has no material component and subtle spell removes the others.

Alert and Surprise need an event that’s real in the world the characters inhabit not to produce dumb outcomes.

There is nothing in the feat that says Alert only works on things you can see with normal senses. Its not in the text at all, that is something you are inserting into the text.

Its not a dumb outcome. Or not in a game where gigantic dragons somehow fly and all sorts of fantasy stuff goes on all the time. If you consider all that other stuff dumb then sure its dumb - but I see it as a fantasy thing in a fantasy game.

No moreso than Storm Rune or a Weapon of Warning. It does what its rules say it does. The only difference I see with Alert is that it gives the player and DM more freedom to flavour it how they like.

[tokek]

They are not getting an additional surprise round - they get a single attack. Also, determining surprise occurs before initiative is rolled:



The initiating attack would occur after determining surprise but before the initiative roll is called.

So they make their attack without taking a turn. How? They have not had an attack action nor will they until they take their turn.

Its just making Alert, Storm Rune, Vigilant Steel Defender, Weapon of Warning all effectively useless by creating "Surprise that is not Surprise so ha ha your ability does not work". Honestly I hate the whole idea.

[Mastikator]

But again, that implies that everyone has that spidey sense but some of them are surprised by it sometimes. Because if someone without Alert who isn't paying attention rolls higher than the ambusher they exhaust the Surprised condition before anything surprising happens. They're surprised by something that hasn't happened yet.

It requires every single entity which can possibly roll initiative to know the next six seconds of the future at all times but most of them are surprised by what it's going to be.

Does it? If we consider a combat scenario with or without surprise, and with surprise + alert then I think surprise isn't wasted.

=

Team 1 has Bob and Bill. Bob initiates combat by attacking Joe. Bob rolls 5 initiative, Bill 15.
Team 2 has Joe and John. Joe rolls 3 initiative, John 18.

Scenario 1 - no surprise. Everyone sees Bob initiating combat. We follow PHB chapter 9: DM determines surprise, nobody is surprised, establish positions, DM puts down minis. Roll initiative, John, then Bill, then Bob, then Joe. John and Bill go before Bob (the attacker) because they see Bob begin to attack but act faster than Bob. Bobs attack isn't an instantaneous event, in fact it's going to take him 6 seconds to move and attack, that gives John and Bill plenty of wiggle room.

Scenario 2 - Same as before except that Bob and Bill both rolled nat 20s on their stealth checks, when bob goes to attack John, Joe and John will be surprised.
So again but slightly different. First turn is John who is surprised, then Bill who is not and can get in an attack before Bob, then Joe who is surprised, then Bob. Next round John and Joe are no longer surprised.
Notice how Bob and Bill basically got a free turn each, only on round 2 does combat proceed "normally".

Scenario 3 - Same as scenario 2 except this time we give John the Alert feat which incidentally bumps his initiative to 23. What happens now?
On round 1 we start with John, who knows he's in combat, his enemies are hidden. He can dodge or ready action, or cast Mirror Image. He decides to ready an action to attack anyone who attacks him. Then it's Bill's turn, he moves up to John and takes the Attack action, this triggers John's ready action and John gets an attack on Bill before Bill completes. John rolls natural 20 and uses 5 finger exploding heart technique divine smite, dealing enough damage to kill Bill, thus preventing Bill from completing his attack.

I think this is where it can seem weird. How can John react to Bill's action if John's action prevents Bill's action, this seems like a paradox. But only if you think of an attack as an instantaneous event rather than as a sequence of events over a period of time. See, to attack someone you have to perform a number of steps in sequence, and any of these steps can be interrupted or serve as a trigger point for another entire action to take place.
1) First Bill declares that he takes the attack action.
2) Then he rolls a d20
3) Then he reads the result.
4) Then he adds his bonus to hit and asks John if it hits.
5) Then he rolls damage.

In this case John's ready attack happened after Bill declared his attack and before he rolled the d20. Other feats, spells and class features can trigger on other points in the sequence. You add a divine smite between 4 and 5. You trigger sentinel after step 5. You trigger precision strike between 2 and 3.
It's only paradoxical if an attack is an instantaneous event, and in my opinion I don't think they should be. It's narratively more flexible and cooler if it's a sequence.

Edit- I know I'm rolling initiative before determining surprise, but just pretend I'm not, and just structuring the post as a way of making the post more legible.

[Keltest]

I feel like people are getting too caught up in the idea of surprise being them standing there giving a big dramatic gasp or something as soon as combat starts rather than an abstraction saying "they got the drop on you, lose a turn."

[tokek]

But again, that implies that everyone has that spidey sense but some of them are surprised by it sometimes. Because if someone without Alert who isn't paying attention rolls higher than the ambusher they exhaust the Surprised condition before anything surprising happens. They're surprised by something that hasn't happened yet.

It requires every single entity which can possibly roll initiative to know the next six seconds of the future at all times but most of them are surprised by what it's going to be.

People with good reflexes get to take their reaction sometimes even when surprised. They still don't get to act

Those with poorer reflexes won't even get their reaction.

Seems like a reasonable benefit for having good reflexes or just rolling well. It has nothing to do with spidey senses, a reaction always has a trigger condition that must be met for it to be applicable.

As for the person with a Weapon of Warning, Alert feat, Storm Rune etc - yes they are special. Super special. Its a fantasy game.

[GloatingSwine]

There is nothing in the feat that says Alert only works on things you can see with normal senses. Its not in the text at all, that is something you are inserting into the text.


No, because, and this is the key thing here, Alert doesn't interact with perceptions at all.

Alert does not allow you to see things you wouldn't have otherwise, it doesn't allow you to know the future, what it does is mean that when combat starts you aren't surprised by it no matter what else you happened to be doing at the time, you're a bit faster off the mark than most, and you don't act in ways that make it easy for people you aren't aware of to target you.


Its just making Alert, Storm Rune, Vigilant Steel Defender, Weapon of Warning all effectively useless by creating "Surprise that is not Surprise so ha ha your ability does not work". Honestly I hate the whole idea.

Anything that prevents surprise is irrelevant until something surprising happens. That still remains unaddressed. The ruling where you roll initiative before the hidden attack can produce people who are surprised by something before it happens.

Storm Rune doesn't interact with a hidden attacker. You need to be able to see the attacker to invoke Storm Rune to give them Disadvantage.


So by all means, please explain how people are being surprised by something that hasn't happened yet. (NB: No, the round does not simulate everything happening at once, D&D does not do simultaneous resolution of actions where two entities can, for instance, both kill each other with their attacks because they are processed in order and the slower is taken as having happened later and therefore cancelled out)

[Aimeryan]

So they make their attack without taking a turn. How? They have not had an attack action nor will they until they take their turn.

Narratively. Consider that instead of pulling the trigger on a crossbow they unwrap a rope that causes a hidden grand piano/anvil/boulder to fall directly down on top of the enemy party - are they also somehow incapable of this action before initiative is rolled?


Its just making Alert, Storm Rune, Vigilant Steel Defender, Weapon of Warning all effectively useless by creating "Surprise that is not Surprise so ha ha your ability does not work". Honestly I hate the whole idea.

Honestly, I can only say that is because you are completely misunderstanding what occurs. Briefly:

Hidden attacker's single attack before initiative is rolled.
'Surprise round' - those surprised do nothing, those not surprised get to act.
'Normal round' - everyone gets to act.

Alert makes you act in the 'surprise round' - that doesn't change at all regardless of what the DM does in this respect. The three bullet points of Alert describe what it do, nothing less, nothing more. Those still occur.

[da newt]

I think folks are getting all wrapped around the axle wrt what Initiative really is - it's just the switch from a general narrative 'what are y'all doing' vague rule set to a more formal turn based what does PC #1 do with their allowed action, bonus action, movement, on their turn rule set.

Although this shift is often triggered by the start of combat, this is not the only reason to go to Initiative order. Traps, escapes, chases, red herring, puzzles, timed events, etc are all perfectly good reasons for the DM to decide to enter Initiative.

Sometimes it is appropriate for some of the characters involved to be caught off guard and not be ready/able to act/react to a sudden change in circumstance - this is what the surprised guidelines are for, and some PCs may choose to invest in the feat that allows them to always be ready to act = Alert. It's that simple.

[GooeyChewie]

But again, that implies that everyone has that spidey sense but some of them are surprised by it sometimes. Because if someone without Alert who isn't paying attention rolls higher than the ambusher they exhaust the Surprised condition before anything surprising happens. They're surprised by something that hasn't happened yet.

It requires every single entity which can possibly roll initiative to know the next six seconds of the future at all times but most of them are surprised by what it's going to be.
In 5e, creatures are not surprised, mechanically speaking, by individual actions. They are surprised when combat starts and they were unaware of the other side of combat (and did not have a feature that prevents surprise).

If a surprised character rolls higher than a hidden character in initiative, those rolls represent that the character was paying enough attention to react to the attacker as they attack. It caught them mostly off guard instead of completely off guard.


They are not getting an additional surprise round - they get a single attack. Also, determining surprise occurs before initiative is rolled:



The initiating attack would occur after determining surprise but before the initiative roll is called.

I took your change to mean they got the attack prior to that whole process. So you’re giving them this attack at step 2.5? After positions are determined but before initiative is rolled? And characters are still surprised until they have a turn in the first round? Perhaps you are not giving the attacker a whole extra surprise round, but you are giving them a free attack on top of the round in which characters are surprised. The surprise mechanics already allow the attacker to take a turn before surprised characters can act. And if you are giving the attack because a player has a feature that negates surprise, then you are actively nerfing one of their features and punishing the rest of the party.

[Aimeryan]

If a surprised character rolls higher than a hidden character in initiative, those rolls represent that the character was paying enough attention to react to the attacker as they attack.

That is the issue at hand; the attacker was hidden - there was nothing to react to. Otherwise, you are now saying Alert beats stealth too. Alert does not interact with Perception in any way. The only way this instead makes sense is precognition, which goes well beyond what the Feat says and the bonuses it explicitly gives.



And if you are giving the attack because a player has a feature that negates surprise, then you are actively nerfing one of their features and punishing the rest of the party.

This has already been discussed; feel free to reply to the points made before. The issue is independent of the Alert Feat, it merely exacerbates the issue.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I have to say, this is entirely theoretical as far as I'm concerned. In 10 years DMing multiple games per week and hundreds, if not thousands of encounters, I've had these conditions (perfectly stealthy party, with only one person doing anything to start combat, and then losing initiative badly) come up exactly zero times

[Keltest]

That is the issue at hand; the attacker was hidden - there was nothing to react to. Otherwise, you are now saying Alert beats stealth too. Alert does not interact with Perception in any way. The only way this instead makes sense is pre-cognition, which goes well beyond what the Feat says and the bonuses it explicitly gives.


I don't understand this train of thought. If the bonuses the feat explicitly gives manifest as precognition sometimes, then saying that it's beyond what the feat does just seems incorrect, because you have just identified how it gives precognition.

[Aimeryan]

I don't understand this train of thought. If the bonuses the feat explicitly gives manifest as precognition sometimes, then saying that it's beyond what the feat does just seems incorrect, because you have just identified how it gives precognition.

They do not explicitly manifest as precognition without an additional step being taken by the DM - thats the whole discussion. Its like saying "If we presume B, then I don't get why you would say A!" - yeah, the point is I'm not presuming B.

[Keltest]

They do not explicitly manifest as precognition without an additional step being taken by the DM - thats the whole discussion. Its like saying "If we presume B, then I don't get why you would say A!" - yeah, the point is I'm not presuming B.

What additional step though? The additional steps are taken to make it not work like precognition. Jedi Sense is the out of the box default setting, without any other modifications to anything else.

[Theodoxus]

Well stated. My DM in the game I am currently in recently ran an encounter where the party was surprised (except for our Rune Knight Fighter, who has the rune that makes it so he can't be surprised). The DM changed the rules slightly and while on the surface it may have seemed to be more "logical" it made understanding the first round of combat much more difficult.

The basic premise of the question comes from people thinking that it is a specific action that causes initiative to be rolled. The (possibly hidden) character initiating the combat may describe the hostile act they plan to do as shooting someone from their hidden position, but it is not the specific act (shooting) that calls for initiative to be rolled, but the abstract act (intent to make a combat action) that does. While the assassin with the poisoned blade, the person shooting a bow from a hidden position, or the Sorcerer intending to cast a subtle spell describe what action they intend to take, it is really just this intent that is key. If they then land up not going ahead of a surprise-proof opponent, and the battlefield situation has changed, they can certainly change their mind about what action they want to take depending on what has occurred prior to their turn in initiative, just like in every other case of combat.

As others have stated someone with an ability that prevents them from being surprised somehow has a sense of this intent even before any actual hostile combat action has taken place.

Mens Rea is the worst possible reason to roll for initiative. While yes, it's easier in a game to determine intent, it makes it nigh impossible to have a clear cut dividing line between combat and not combat.

Bob: "I think about attacking the guard, so I'm calling for initiative."
Bill: "Wait, *I* was going to attack the guard, I'm calling for initiative!"
Guard 1: "Hey, I have Alert, so I know what these hooligans are thinking of, it's written on their face, so I'm calling for initiative!"

Occam's Razor needs to be liberally applied here. Or, and this is probably an unpopular opinion, go back to 3x style Surprise Rounds, and it's in every combat (just conveniently ignored if every one is or isn't surprised.


This change screws over the player who took Alert as a feat. The attack is supposed to happen during the 'surprise round,' and the Alert feat is supposed to give the player the potential to take defensive measures before that happens. If you have the attacker automatically win initiative, you are effectively taking a turn away from the player who took Alert precisely to get turns in these situations.

There is no such thing as a 'surprise round' in 5E. Maybe that's the issue with this weird argument that a 'surprise attack' can't initiate combat? But it's also why I don't adopt the 'combat initiator automatically goes first every round'. Sure, they started combat, which opens up the first round. But they roll for initiative too; they just get a drop and go first, for the first round. When their actual spot in initiative comes up in that first round, they can't take any additional actions, bonus or otherwise, nor move. They had that chance at the top of the 1st round. Subsequent rounds, they act on their actual initiative.

If their opening salvo is ruled to cause surprise, then the Alert folks get to take their actions, on their initiative, in that first round. This stops the precog aspect that isn't in the Alert feat, while not negating the benefit of Alert. (It also negates the advantage from a hidden attack, which is quite useful against potential assassination attempts; and the +5 bonus to init means they're probably getting 2 attacks (round 1 and round 2) on the initiator before the would be assassin gets to act again.)

[Kane0]

Now i want to see a whole party that can ignore surprise in their own different way each, just to see what happens.

DM: While you're feeding the rust monster, you notice a faint ozone in the air for a split second. Derren appears behind you with a pop and flush of green mist. He's already used Time Stop to prepare then teleported in to ambush you, roll initiative but you're surprised
Fighter: 12 with Storm Rune active
Artificer: I got my helmet on dude, 8
Monk: 18, kama of warning
Druid: 13 plus 5 from Alert
Barbarian: 7 and 13, going straight into Rage
DM: well crap, Derren only got an 11. He's still going to try and Maze you, Barb.
Party (in sync): We knew this day would come!

[Aimeryan]

What additional step though? The additional steps are taken to make it not work like precognition. Jedi Sense is the out of the box default setting, without any other modifications to anything else.

The additional step of calling for initiative - this whole debate is about when to do that and the result of doing so. Calling it before the attack/other-narrative-action has narrative disjunction and allows Alert to act as precognition, calling it after the attack/other-narrative-action allows for a precombat single attack/other-narrative-action.

My preference is to houserule in that the hidden attacker gets to go first within initiative, as this fulfils everything neatly. However, as the way rolling initiative is explicitly ruled in the book this wouldn't be RAW, while choosing when to call the roll in the first place is left completely up to the DM. That is sometimes the futility of RAW arguments - the only options are dumb ones, with the obvious option being not RAW.

[GooeyChewie]

That is the issue at hand; the attacker was hidden - there was nothing to react to. Otherwise, you are now saying Alert beats stealth too. Alert does not interact with Perception in any way. The only way this instead makes sense is precognition, which goes well beyond what the Feat says and the bonuses it explicitly gives.
I was discussing a character who was surprised but beat the attacker in initiative, not a character with Alert (who would never have been surprised). Either way, having access to your reactions does not mean you beat stealth. You still need a valid trigger to take a reaction, which means if your reaction requires you to see the attacker and they are still hidden you cannot take that specific reaction. For example, you could use Shield because it only requires you to be hit or be targeted by Magic Missiles, but you could not use Silvery Barbs because it requires you to see the target.





This has already been discussed; feel free to reply to the points made before. The issue is independent of the Alert Feat, it merely exacerbates the issue.

I think (but am not 100% sure) you are referring to this:



Honestly, I can only say that is because you are completely misunderstanding what occurs. Briefly:

Hidden attacker's single attack before initiative is rolled.
'Surprise round' - those surprised do nothing, those not surprised get to act.
'Normal round' - everyone gets to act.

Alert makes you act in the 'surprise round' - that doesn't change at all regardless of what the DM does in this respect. The three bullet points of Alert describe what it do, nothing less, nothing more. Those still occur.

If so, the only difference I see between this sequence and RAW is that you are giving the attacker a free additional attack before initiative. And then they still get to act normally in the round where their enemies are surprised, essentially getting double benefit. If the players don’t have anything to prevent surprise, the attacker will get the free attack, their first round turn, and potentially a second round turn before the players can act. And if you are giving them that double benefit only in response to your players having features that prevent surprise, you are nerfing those features by adding a hidden downside.

Even just bumping the attacker up to the top of the initiative is a nerf to Alert. Surprise is the mechanic by which hidden attackers get to take their turn first despite losing initiative. Alert specifically prevents surprise, which means it is intended to possibly give the player a turn prior to the attacker even when they would normally be surprised. Pre-cognitive powers is one way to fluff it, but realistically it’s probably just that the character is good at subconsciously recognizing dangerous situations before they consciously know exactly what the danger is.

[tokek]

OK so why do really dislike these outside-init surprise variants?

Let me ask their proponents - if being hidden means that anti-surprise mechanics should not work then when will they work? The only given mechanic for surprise is successful stealth that means we would consider the attacker hidden. So in 100% of the cases where we follow the rules as laid out the attacker who might gain the benefit of surprise is effectively hidden and you then do not follow the remaining steps laid out i the rules because they are hidden.

In 100% of cases all of these abilities to be immune to surprise are ineffective and useless if you do not continue with the rest of the process and instead roll surprise attacks before you roll init.

So for those who want it to work this way - please explain what exactly you think Alert / Storm Rune / Weapon of Warning etc actually do in your game? If they don't work when the attacker rolled stealth when can they actually do anything?

[OvisCaedo]

While these posters are arguing for variations on initiative not being rolled until after the hidden attacker has resolved an attack:
...
OvisCaedo

And a few others have put forward other options or said that it should depend on the specific situation.

Oh, no, not quite. I think in the overwhelming majority of situations, it's fine for Alert to just be a vague precognition/danger sense, and the "surprise" mechanic works fine with the opening attack being after initiative is rolled. I think the Assassin's ability specifically gets potentially screwed over by this, but maybe IT should just be better written.

it is amusing, though, that 5e's attempt to rewrite the "surprise round" into being something I'm sure was meant to be simpler just seems to cause even more hang-ups in people when they really look at it. I think "surprised" being a condition is giving people the wrong idea of what it means; it's not acting surprised, it's acting normally because nothing has happened yet.

[Talakeal]

Thanks to everyone for all the responses!

Its really nice to see a wide range of opinions; in the thread that spawned this, its just me arguing against the same four people, and it just seems like I am the lone voice of defiance against the world, but in this thread I actually appear to have a more moderate viewpoint that the majority of posters (I have the ambusher automatically go first in the round they ambush, but then drop to their normal place in initiative in subsequent rounds btw).


I have to say, this is entirely theoretical as far as I'm concerned. In 10 years DMing multiple games per week and hundreds, if not thousands of encounters, I've had these conditions (perfectly stealthy party, with only one person doing anything to start combat, and then losing initiative badly) come up exactly zero times

That's pretty much my opinion.

Its a weird edge case that is extremely unlikely to ever actually come up in game (I certainly can't recall it ever having been brought up!), but I have multiple people insisting that it is indeed a big problem with the game rules if it isn't addressed.

The problem is, I can't think of any way to resolve it that doesn't result in something really clunky, unrealistic, and or unfair.


I feel like people are getting too caught up in the idea of surprise being them standing there giving a big dramatic gasp or something as soon as combat starts rather than an abstraction saying "they got the drop on you, lose a turn."

Yeah. The idea that surprised necessarily equals startled is, imo, both unrealistic and silly, and brings to mind Randy in South Park.

If you recover from surprise before the enemy acts, to me that represents them getting the drop on you, but your reflexes were so fast you were able to react to them almost immediately.

But a lot of people apparently don't see it that way, and I had someone tell me yesterday that being too startled to act is literally the dictionary definition of surprise, so of course that's what it represents in game (as if RPG jargon has ever been beholden to the dictionary).

[tokek]

I feel like people are getting too caught up in the idea of surprise being them standing there giving a big dramatic gasp or something as soon as combat starts rather than an abstraction saying "they got the drop on you, lose a turn."

I agree, there seems to be in implied requirement that if you are not doing a shocked pikachu face then the rules do not reflect surprise and must be changed. But then if you are doing a shocked pikachu face that does not make sense - and so on.

To me "You are caught unawares, skip your turn" is what surprise does. No shocked expression required or even implied.

[Morgaln]

OK so why do really dislike these outside-init surprise variants?

Let me ask their proponents - if being hidden means that anti-surprise mechanics should not work then when will they work? The only given mechanic for surprise is successful stealth that means we would consider the attacker hidden. So in 100% of the cases where we follow the rules as laid out the attacker who might gain the benefit of surprise is effectively hidden and you then do not follow the remaining steps laid out i the rules because they are hidden.

In 100% of cases all of these abilities to be immune to surprise are ineffective and useless if you do not continue with the rest of the process and instead roll surprise attacks before you roll init.

So for those who want it to work this way - please explain what exactly you think Alert / Storm Rune / Weapon of Warning etc actually do in your game? If they don't work when the attacker rolled stealth when can they actually do anything?

But the anti-surprise mechanics do work. The hidden character gets to attack first, yes. But if they attack a character with an anti-surprise mechanic, they don't get advantage, they don't get sneak attack and the attacked character can still use a react. And the character(s) with anti-surprise mechanic still get to act during the first round (as opposed to those who are surprised), they just don't get to act before the hidden character.

This prevents all the negatives of surprise for characters with Alert but doesn't give them precognition. They will react to an attack that has been made but not to an attack that might or might not be made in the future. To me, this makes perfect narrative sense and provides both sides the advantages their respective abilities should give them.

[tokek]

But the anti-surprise mechanics do work. The hidden character gets to attack first, yes. But if they attack a character with an anti-surprise mechanic, they don't get advantage, they don't get sneak attack and the attacked character can still use a react. And the character(s) with anti-surprise mechanic still get to act during the first round (as opposed to those who are surprised), they just don't get to act before the hidden character.


Only Alert would stop advantage and sneak attack

Storm rune does literally nothing. Its worthless.

Except of course if you just follow the rules its really good and makes Rune Knights really good.

So back to my question - in what circumstances would you just use the surprise mechanics by the book? When would these abilities be actually worth having. Or is Stealth basically just a win button in these games?

[GooeyChewie]

But the anti-surprise mechanics do work. The hidden character gets to attack first, yes. But if they attack a character with an anti-surprise mechanic, they don't get advantage, they don't get sneak attack and the attacked character can still use a react. And the character(s) with anti-surprise mechanic still get to act during the first round (as opposed to those who are surprised), they just don't get to act before the hidden character.
Anti-surprise mechanics are supposed to allow the character to potentially act prior to the hidden character attacking, so taking away that possibility means the anti-surprise mechanics are only half working. The lack of advantage is a separate benefit of Alert and does not apply to other anti-surprise mechanics. The lack of sneak attack is a result of the lack of advantage, which means it also is not tied to the surprise itself. Pushing the hidden attacker’s attack to the start of round 1 does not negate all of the advantages of anti-surprise features, but it does negate a big part of it.


This prevents all the negatives of surprise for characters with Alert but doesn't give them precognition. They will react to an attack that has been made but not to an attack that might or might not be made in the future. To me, this makes perfect narrative sense and provides both sides the advantages their respective abilities should give them.

Alert isn’t really precognition. Or at least you don’t have to play it as though it is. The Alert character doesn’t know exactly what’s going to happen, or where the hidden enemies are. They just know they are in a potentially dangerous situation.

In a real game, I’d probably introduce it similar to this: “Player A, you notice that it’s suddenly quiet. A little too quiet. Everybody else, you don’t notice that. Roll initiative, Player A has Alert, the rest of you are surprised.”

No pre-cognition. The character is simply alert enough to notice something is off before everybody else does. And of course given my players we’ll have to suffer the usual “It’s Raph… yeah, a little too Raph” joke.

[Aimeryan]

Thanks to everyone for all the responses!

Its really nice to see a wide range of opinions; in the thread that spawned this, its just me arguing against the same four people, and it just seems like I am the lone voice of defiance against the world, but in this thread I actually appear to have a more moderate viewpoint that the majority of posters (I have the ambusher automatically go first in the round they ambush, but then drop to their normal place in initiative in subsequent rounds btw).

That is likely the best way to run it, you have my thumbs up. The only issue is that it is definitely in houserule territory because it directly modifies the initiative system as written - which isn't an issue for any reasonable group, but it does make it difficult to proceed as a community of different groups.

The RAW here is, however, incomplete - there are no written rules for when to launch the initiative roll, and there are no written rules about attacking (directly or indirectly) outside of combat. Since all DMs are forced to confront this to proceed, all DMs are operating in a foggy area anyway. Neither deciding whether to roll initiative before or after the cause is against RAW, but neither have RAW support either.

In the end, everyone discussing this here is useful for readers who want to decide based on the merits of each - houseruling, ruling to roll initiative before the cause, or ruling to roll initiative after the cause. Its important, at least to myself, that people do come away with a good understanding of each - which is why frequent misrepresentation or misunderstanding even once already discussed is unfortunate.

[Xetheral]

I have to say, this is entirely theoretical as far as I'm concerned. In 10 years DMing multiple games per week and hundreds, if not thousands of encounters, I've had these conditions (perfectly stealthy party, with only one person doing anything to start combat, and then losing initiative badly) come up exactly zero times

I'm sure there's a lot of variation from table to table! I would note, however, the conditions under which this type of issue can come up aren't quite that narrow. The context in which it originally showed up (repeatedly) at my table was a party very prone to talking to potential antagonists--they were great at defusing potential combats. One of the PCs, however, was intemperate and on multiple occasions lost patience and decided to attack. Unfortunately the character wasn't dex-focused, and it was a very large party, virtually ensuring that the character never went first. Other PCs would take their first action in "combat" to go over and rest their hand on the initiating character's shoulder or otherwise try to defuse the situation before they actually attacked anyone. The intemperate character, not one to openly defy an appeal from a teammate, would abide and not attack when their turn came up, and we'd drop out of initiative.

This wasn't satisfying for anyone. The player of the intemperate character was getting frustrated, and some of the other players thought it would be more fun if the game had more combat in general (even though in any particular instance they preferred a nonviolent option). There were multiple possible solutions, such as having the enemies react violently to the almost-attack from the intemperate character (which did happen on occasion), but rather than having me put my thumb on the scale via changing how I RP'd the NPCs, we decided to go for a mechanical fix: our houserule that if only one person wants to initaite combat, they go at the top of the initiative order. It worked great! Tense social scenes became even more tense, as combat now (realistically) hinged on whomever was the least patient rather than allowing potentially combat-negating actions to abort a nascent combat before it could start in the narrative.

Other examples where combat-initiating oddities can come up include:

a designated PC sneaking up to and starting combat with a sleeping monster (how does the monster get over their surprise if they spend their first turn asleep?)
combat initiated by casting a subtle spell with no material component (how much do unsurprisable characters get to know if they act before the spell, and what happens if the spell they're reacting to isn't or can't be cast when the initator's turn comes up?)
someone hidden wants to ready a combat action with a trigger that doesn't come up on the first turn (what does everyone else do, just keep doing what they were doing, but now they're in initiative?)
a hidden character, hoping to disrupt the spellcasting, wants to attack a spellcaster who is in the process of casting a spell with a casting time of more than 1 action (if the spellcaster goes first they are surprised and can't take the required action to cast the spell, thus losing it, making the hidden character's attack unnecessary?)
It's great that you haven't had to deal with these sorts of issues at your table. But they definitely come up at other tables regularly enough to make the topic one worth discussing.

[Aimeryan]

I think (but am not 100% sure) you are referring to this:

Nah, its about the narrative dissonance of having entities be surprised about something that has yet to occur, then getting over it before it occurs, then reacting and not suffering from surprise when the hidden attack finally comes. It is around post #89 (id 25911146).

[GooeyChewie]

Nah, its about the narrative dissonance of having entities be surprised about something that has yet to occur, then getting over it before it occurs, then reacting and not suffering from surprise when the hidden attack finally comes. It is around post #89 (id 25911146).

Oh, in that case I responded in the same post you just quoted. In 5e, creatures are not surprised, mechanically speaking, by individual actions. They are surprised when combat starts and they were unaware of the other side of combat (and did not have a feature that prevents surprise). It’s a state of being unprepared for combat, not a reaction to any particular unexpected thing happening. Losing surprise is simply getting your guard up. The guy who is always on high alert (Alert or other surprise-canceling features) had his guard up anyway, the guy who always notices things (passive perception beat hide check) put his guard up when he saw the baddies, and the guy who isn’t on alert and didn’t notice the baddies might get to pull off some sort of defense if their reactions are fast enough (high initiative).

[Morgaln]

Only Alert would stop advantage and sneak attack

Storm rune does literally nothing. Its worthless.

Except of course if you just follow the rules its really good and makes Rune Knights really good.

So back to my question - in what circumstances would you just use the surprise mechanics by the book? When would these abilities be actually worth having. Or is Stealth basically just a win button in these games?


Storm rune still allows you to act in the first round of combat and it still allows you to perform your react. That is not nothing and it is not worthless. Unless you are claiming the "you can't be surprised " part of Alert also does nothing and is worthless.

Also, getting to act first in the first round of combat instead of your normal initiative order is nowhere near a win button.

[tokek]

Storm rune still allows you to act in the first round of combat and it still allows you to perform your react. That is not nothing and it is not worthless. Unless you are claiming the "you can't be surprised " part of Alert also does nothing and is worthless.

Also, getting to act first in the first round of combat instead of your normal initiative order is nowhere near a win button.

Its literally free sneak attack with no counter if you make the stealth check. Totally bypassing a feature that is supposed to make the character immune to being subject to surprise attacks.

Its too powerful and you have crippled its counters.

House rules are 100% fine but if you declared that one in session zero I would either switch character concept to abuse the hell out of it or just walk away and find a better game.

[Morgaln]

Its literally free sneak attack with no counter if you make the stealth check. Totally bypassing a feature that is supposed to make the character immune to being subject to surprise attacks.

Its too powerful and you have crippled its counters.

House rules are 100% fine but if you declared that one in session zero I would either switch character concept to abuse the hell out of it or just walk away and find a better game.

How does it prevent sneak attack if the ambusher rolls the highest initiative in the first place?

[Theodoxus]

OK so why do really dislike these outside-init surprise variants?

Let me ask their proponents - if being hidden means that anti-surprise mechanics should not work then when will they work? The only given mechanic for surprise is successful stealth that means we would consider the attacker hidden. So in 100% of the cases where we follow the rules as laid out the attacker who might gain the benefit of surprise is effectively hidden and you then do not follow the remaining steps laid out i the rules because they are hidden.

In 100% of cases all of these abilities to be immune to surprise are ineffective and useless if you do not continue with the rest of the process and instead roll surprise attacks before you roll init.

So for those who want it to work this way - please explain what exactly you think Alert / Storm Rune / Weapon of Warning etc actually do in your game? If they don't work when the attacker rolled stealth when can they actually do anything?

I'm going to use my variant (first strike outside combat, misses out on first round), because, well, I've run it this way for years.

I've noted how Alert isn't screwed by the first attack. At worst, you're missing out on what, Dodge and/or Hide? So, completely ineffective outside of saving your own skin?
Rune/Warning: Same as Alert, only the benefactors don't get a bonus to initiative (so potentially less likely to get two turns between the assassins 1st and 2nd turns), and don't negate advantage, so outside of other potentialities, they could get sneak attacked (if the assassin is a Rogue of some flavor). In either case, they're still immune to Surprise and will be able to act in the first round (provided they survived the initial attack).

Not sure where the disconnect is though.


How does it prevent sneak attack if the ambusher rolls the highest initiative in the first place?

Alert, I'm assuming? It negates advantage. If somehow the ambusher managed to get an ally into your group, so you're within 5' of an enemy, the sneak would still trigger... but otherwise, not so much.

The other ways to avoid surprise apparently don't have that provision (I'm AFB, so I can't corroborate the veracity of the statement).

[Morgaln]

Alert, I'm assuming? It negates advantage. If somehow the ambusher managed to get an ally into your group, so you're within 5' of an enemy, the sneak would still trigger... but otherwise, not so much.

The other ways to avoid surprise apparently don't have that provision (I'm AFB, so I can't corroborate the veracity of the statement).

I was referring to storm rune; because that one never negates sneak attack, according to my reading. The sneak attack comes from the attacker being hidden, not from the attacked being surprised, so storm rune does nothing against that by either way of playing.

[tokek]

I'm going to use my variant (first strike outside combat, misses out on first round), because, well, I've run it this way for years.

I've noted how Alert isn't screwed by the first attack. At worst, you're missing out on what, Dodge and/or Hide? So, completely ineffective outside of saving your own skin?


You are missing out on having a chance of doing anything. What that is depends on the character, what items they have and so on. But none of that matters if the attack absolutely always happens before you can act with no dice roll saying so and no abilities that can possibly counter it.

Those abilities become ribbon abilities really.

Meanwhile high Stealth becomes super-powered to an insane degree. Free attack. Just make sure it delivers a solid de-buff or control effect and its a rapid win with basically no dice involved at all (because getting your stealth bonus higher than a typical passive perception is far from hard).

That's a hard pass from me. The rules as written work far better.

[GooeyChewie]

I've noted how Alert isn't screwed by the first attack. At worst, you're missing out on what, Dodge and/or Hide? So, completely ineffective outside of saving your own skin?

Saving your own skin can be a pretty big deal. Also, there are other options. In addition to Dodge and Hide, you could:

Run away (dash)
Cast an AoE spell and hope to get lucky
Cast a defensive spell or a concentration spell
Ready an action to attack after an enemy reveals itself before it has a chance to hide again
Move to a location you expect would be more favorable
Shove an ally into a position you feel would be more favorable
Make an active Perception check to locate the enemy
Quaff a potion
Bluff in the hopes of scaring the attackers off

Probably a whole lot more that’s not coming to mind right off.

[Theodoxus]

You are missing out on having a chance of doing anything. What that is depends on the character, what items they have and so on. But none of that matters if the attack absolutely always happens before you can act with no dice roll saying so and no abilities that can possibly counter it.

Those abilities become ribbon abilities really.

Meanwhile high Stealth becomes super-powered to an insane degree. Free attack. Just make sure it delivers a solid de-buff or control effect and its a rapid win with basically no dice involved at all (because getting your stealth bonus higher than a typical passive perception is far from hard).

That's a hard pass from me. The rules as written work far better.

Why does it need to be stealth (high or otherwise). You're in a packed market square. You spot your bounty on the far side and decide to get the drop on them. Your target is in mid-haggle with a merchant, but has Alert. You're saying, boogaty-boogaty-boo, magic! the feat should allow the target to 1) know you're about to attack him from across the quad, 2) be able to roll initiative and possibly beat you, and 3) if they do, be able to attack you instead (or run away or whatever). And 4) you think that's working far better? That's not ever remotely realistic. And is on par (if not better) than a 9th level spell.


Saving your own skin can be a pretty big deal. Also, there are other options. In addition to Dodge and Hide, you could:

Run away (dash)
Cast an AoE spell and hope to get lucky
Cast a defensive spell or a concentration spell
Ready an action to attack after an enemy reveals itself before it has a chance to hide again
Move to a location you expect would be more favorable
Shove an ally into a position you feel would be more favorable
Make an active Perception check to locate the enemy
Quaff a potion
Bluff in the hopes of scaring the attackers off

Probably a whole lot more that’s not coming to mind right off.

And outside a potential hit with an AOE or readying to maybe attack, none of those are better than watching the attack proceed, and then getting a round (or easily 2) to pound the snot out of the assailant. YMMV, and I respect wanting to play it RAW (or at least closer to the mess that is RAW), but IMX, the dozen or so players who've used my modification have never expressed a desire to move away from it. The fact that both of the most modern 5E CRPGs use the same method at least shows the idea works.

[crayonshinchuck]

Mens Rea is the worst possible reason to roll for initiative. While yes, it's easier in a game to determine intent, it makes it nigh impossible to have a clear cut dividing line between combat and not combat.

Bob: "I think about attacking the guard, so I'm calling for initiative."
Bill: "Wait, *I* was going to attack the guard, I'm calling for initiative!"
Guard 1: "Hey, I have Alert, so I know what these hooligans are thinking of, it's written on their face, so I'm calling for initiative!"

Occam's Razor needs to be liberally applied here. Or, and this is probably an unpopular opinion, go back to 3x style Surprise Rounds, and it's in every combat (just conveniently ignored if every one is or isn't surprised.



There is no such thing as a 'surprise round' in 5E. Maybe that's the issue with this weird argument that a 'surprise attack' can't initiate combat? But it's also why I don't adopt the 'combat initiator automatically goes first every round'. Sure, they started combat, which opens up the first round. But they roll for initiative too; they just get a drop and go first, for the first round. When their actual spot in initiative comes up in that first round, they can't take any additional actions, bonus or otherwise, nor move. They had that chance at the top of the 1st round. Subsequent rounds, they act on their actual initiative.

If their opening salvo is ruled to cause surprise, then the Alert folks get to take their actions, on their initiative, in that first round. This stops the precog aspect that isn't in the Alert feat, while not negating the benefit of Alert. (It also negates the advantage from a hidden attack, which is quite useful against potential assassination attempts; and the +5 bonus to init means they're probably getting 2 attacks (round 1 and round 2) on the initiator before the would be assassin gets to act again.)

The main problem with your Bill, Bob, and Guard Scenario, is that you for some reason think that the player character calls for initiative. Bob's player would signal their intent to attack to the DM, who would then call for initiative, and whatever Bill's player thought about doing without stating their intentions to the DM is entirely irrelevant. You are acting like initiative is a real thing that the characters understand in their world, while it is actually just a way of abstracting the situation to provide the best representation of how a scene might play out in the game.

As has been stated elsewhere, an attack doesn't happen instantaneously. Bob's character would start their action, but the Alert guard would possibly be able to do something before Bob's character acts, due to the heightened reaction ability provided by the feat. Just because for game reasons each character gets their distinct turns to act, the imagined reality is that everyone is constantly acting throughout a round, with certain characters being able to get their actions in before or after others.

[tokek]

And is on par (if not better) than a 9th level spell.


Its on a par with an uncommon magic item, or a 10th level artificer infusion, or a 7th level Fighter subclass feature. Where on Toril do you get the idea that this is somehow on a par with 9th level spells?

Ambush must be the most dominant and busted thing in the game for an ability that counters it to be considered that powerful. I have never played in a game like that and I rather hope I never do.

[GooeyChewie]

Why does it need to be stealth (high or otherwise). You're in a packed market square. You spot your bounty on the far side and decide to get the drop on them. Your target is in mid-haggle with a merchant, but has Alert. You're saying, boogaty-boogaty-boo, magic! the feat should allow the target to 1) know you're about to attack him from across the quad, 2) be able to roll initiative and possibly beat you, and 3) if they do, be able to attack you instead (or run away or whatever). And 4) you think that's working far better? That's not ever remotely realistic. And is on par (if not better) than a 9th level spell.
1) They took a feat for the express purpose of being alert to such attacks. The target does not necessarily know that I am the one who is going to attack or how I am going to attack, only that they need to keep their guard up and be ready for combat.
2) They roll initiative and could possibly beat my initiative regardless of the feat. Normally beating me in initiative only means the target could use a reaction.
3) The whole point of taking the feat is to avoid letting people get the drop on you, so yes they should have a chance to do something to avoid me getting the drop on them.
4) Yes, this does work better than telling players who took a feat that prevents surprise that they can still be caught by surprise.

And no, this is nowhere close to a 9th level spell in power.


And outside a potential hit with an AOE or readying to maybe attack, none of those are better than watching the attack proceed, and then getting a round (or easily 2) to pound the snot out of the assailant. YMMV, and I respect wanting to play it RAW (or at least closer to the mess that is RAW), but IMX, the dozen or so players who've used my modification have never expressed a desire to move away from it. The fact that both of the most modern 5E CRPGs use the same method at least shows the idea works.

It depends on a lot of circumstances. For example, if that attack could drop you to 0 hit points then pretty much anything I listed is better than getting knocked out. Or if the attacker has the ability to hide as a bonus action (which is common among enemies who want to ambush), I would much rather be able to take some defensive measure on my turn before they attack than to get to my turn and ready an attack only to realize it’ll be my turn again before that trigger comes.

Granted, moving the attacker’s turn to the start of the round for the first round isn’t as bad as giving them a whole free attack. But it also doesn’t really help anything. If everybody was surprised, then the attacker was going to get the first turn anyway with RAW surprise, and all you’ve done is made it to where characters who beat the attacker in initiative can’t use reactions when the attacker attacks. In the case of characters with surprise-prevention features, you’re basically telling them they can still be surprised, just not as surprised as others. And then in the event that some characters see the attacker prior to rolling initiative and others don’t, it just creates a mess. Do they still go to the start of the round? If so, why do they get the jump on characters who saw them? If not, what do you do with the characters who didn’t see them but rolled well on initiative?

[Keltest]

Why does it need to be stealth (high or otherwise). You're in a packed market square. You spot your bounty on the far side and decide to get the drop on them. Your target is in mid-haggle with a merchant, but has Alert. You're saying, boogaty-boogaty-boo, magic! the feat should allow the target to 1) know you're about to attack him from across the quad, 2) be able to roll initiative and possibly beat you, and 3) if they do, be able to attack you instead (or run away or whatever). And 4) you think that's working far better? That's not ever remotely realistic. And is on par (if not better) than a 9th level spell.

Who cares if it's realistic? Preternatural senses are as much a fantasy trope as elves, for example. Let fantastic characters be fantastic.

[greenstone]

I think a lot of confusion goes away if we don't consider intiative to be "the order that things happen" but instead "the order that things are resolved."

If a hidden figure attacks but the player (or GM) rolls low, that doesn't indicate that the target gets to act before the attack starts; it means that the target gets to react before the attack finishes. The attacker has already started, already done something, otherwise the GM would not have moved the game into turn-based mode. The player doesn't get to walk it back if they roll badly on initiative, because their character has already kicked the situation off.

In the case of attacking a target across a crowded marketplace, the target percieves someone on the other side of the market telegraphing purposeful action, perhaps moving quickly, drawing a weapon, focusing their attention, whatever. The target doesn't know if it affects them or not, just that something serious just started, something that requires a response right now.

We should also consider it from a monster vs character persepctive. Would a player be happy if a GM says to them, "Your character just got hit, take 45 points of damage."?
"But don't I get to react or defend or do anything?" Nope.
"Don't I get to roll initiative?" Nope.

Most players are going to respond, "That's not fair!"

[tokek]

We should also consider it from a monster vs character persepctive. Would a player be happy if a GM says to them, "Your character just got hit, take 45 points of damage."?
"But don't I get to react or defend or do anything?" Nope.
"Don't I get to roll initiative?" Nope.

Most players are going to respond, "That's not fair!"

Exactly this - and if they have built their character specifically around the fantasy of being alert to danger and not vulnerable to being surprised they are going to be justifiably upset with a DM who does that. If they roll the dice and lose the roll that's part of the game, if you take the dice out of their hands and disregard the abilities they wanted their character to have then as a DM I think you are straying towards writing a book more than running a game.

If a player invests in not being vulnerable to ambush then when you run an ambush that's their chance to shine, to feel awesome. Why would a DM systematically take that away from their players?

[Kane0]

And it's even worse if it's not just a chunk of damage but a save against a spell or effect that would just remove you from the fight, or a spell or effect that would just remove you from the fight without a save.

[Theodoxus]

1) They took a feat for the express purpose of being alert to such attacks. The target does not necessarily know that I am the one who is going to attack or how I am going to attack, only that they need to keep their guard up and be ready for combat.
2) They roll initiative and could possibly beat my initiative regardless of the feat. Normally beating me in initiative only means the target could use a reaction.
3) The whole point of taking the feat is to avoid letting people get the drop on you, so yes they should have a chance to do something to avoid me getting the drop on them.
4) Yes, this does work better than telling players who took a feat that prevents surprise that they can still be caught by surprise.

And no, this is nowhere close to a 9th level spell in power.

Making it precognitive is on par with Foresight. So yes, it is exactly as powerful as a 9th level spell. The only real difference between the feat and the spell is advantage on rolls for the character, and having more than one disadvantage for the attacker.


We should also consider it from a monster vs character persepctive. Would a player be happy if a GM says to them, "Your character just got hit, take 45 points of damage."?
"But don't I get to react or defend or do anything?" Nope.
"Don't I get to roll initiative?" Nope.

Most players are going to respond, "That's not fair!"

So don't run monsters that way? But as a DM, I don't scream out 'that's not fair!' when a player decides to go full Corbin Dallas on some bugbear looking fool. I say 'cool, roll to hit' and then roll initiative.

I personally don't run ambushes on my players. At least not purposefully.

[starwolf]

Initiator starts combat, going first, every one else roll initiative.
Initiator is top init+1.
Nothing fiddly or complex and solves the surprise/ambush scenario.

[tokek]

Making it precognitive is on par with Foresight. So yes, it is exactly as powerful as a 9th level spell. The only real difference between the feat and the spell is advantage on rolls for the character, and having more than one disadvantage for the attacker.

That rather hyperbolic.

Storm Rune is described as glimpsing the future and precognitive but nobody thinks its as powerful as Foresight spell. Its a 7th level fighter feature, yes it is precognitive - that's exactly what its rules call it but claiming that all precognitive powers must therefore be equal or better than 9th level spells makes no sense.

But nor should it be almost worthless in an ambush situation because its specifically supposed to be useful in that situation.

[Aimeryan]

That's a hard pass from me. The rules as written work far better.

Yeah, this is several pages and posts now that you still don't understand that neither are the rules as written, because they are literally not written. When the DM calls for the initiative roll is completely DM fiat. There is no RAW on this.

[Morgaln]

Let's compare two different ways of playing out the same situation:

Number 1:

GM: You're walking along the road. Roll perception.

Jill: 11
Jack: 7
John: 14

GM: Nope, none of those beat the stealth roll of 16. Roll for initiative

Jill: 19. Nice!
Jack: 10. That's 15 with Alert
John: Oh crap, 3
Gm *notes a 12 for the hidden attacker*

GM. Alright, Jill, you're first. But you're surprised, so you can't do anything
Jill: Surprised by what? What happened?
GM: Nothing yet, you're first in initiative.
Jill: But I am surprised=
GM: Yes
Jill: Okay, I do nothing in the face of the nothing that surprised me.
GM. Alright, your turn is over, you are no longer surprised.
Jill: So I have now processed the thing that hasn't happened yet and therefore am no longer suprised by nothing?
GM. Yes
Jill. If you say so...

GM: Jack, you're up. You're not surprised because you have the alert feat
Jack: Okay, great. What can I do? What's happening?
GM: Nothing yet, the thing that is happening is later in initiative
Jack: So I can't do anything, really? I guess I take a martial arts stance and ready an attack in case anyone comes near me.

GM: Fair enough. The hidden attacker can attack now. at initiative 12. He's shooting his crossbow at John, because he's still flat-footed.
John: That sucks. And I won't even be able to attack on my turn because I'm still surprised, right?
GM: Correct
Jack: So my attack is wasted because he doesn't move, I guess? But I could have moved and attacked them if Alert hadn't given me that +5 to initiative?
GM: Yup. Since John is surprised, he can't do anything. So onward to round two.

---

Number 2:

GM: You're walking along the road. Roll perception.

Jill: 11
Jack: 7
John: 14

GM: Nope, none of those beat the stealth roll of 16. The first thing you notice of a hidden attacker is a crossbow bolt flying towards *rolls die* Jack. Since you're surprised, you take...
Jack: Hold on, I've got the Alert feat, I can't be surprised.
GM: Right you are. So you're not flat-footed.
Jack. I've got the deflect arrwos feat, can I use that?
GM: You can, it will count as your reaction for the first combat round.
Jack. Neat, I'll do that.

GM: Now that the attacker has revealed themselves, you can see him as an indistinct shadow in the bushes. Roll initiative.
Jill: 19. Nice!
Jack: 10. That's 15 with Alert
John: Oh crap, 3
GM: The attacker has a 12, but his attack just now counts as his attack for the first round. So he'll not act again until round two.
GM: Jill, you're up, but you are surprised.
Jill: I guess it takes a moment for me to process what just flew past my face.

GM: Jack, your turn.
Jack: I raise my fist with the arrow I caught and snap it in half. Then I charge the butthole before he can shoot again.

---

I know which one of these I would prefer, which of these feels more fluid and natural. But everyone needs to decide that for themselves.

[NichG]

With regards to the comparison to Foresight, that's part of the reason why as written I'd have Alert effectively give 'Jedi danger sense', because that particular game mechanical idea of 'this character cannot be surprised' is itself a very powerful thing. It's also one of the signature transformative abilities in Exalted, for that matter. Not to mention various fantasy media outside of tabletop RPGs. Being immune to being surprised is a Big Deal.

So rather than 'a feat should not be as powerful as a 9th level spell', I'd instead say 'if you write a feat carrying the same text as a 9th level spell, you're saying as a designer that's the level of power you want that feat to have'. Running Foresight differently than Alert would, IMO, be weird because they have the same text describing what it is they do. If you don't want a feat to have that level of power, don't write a feat that gives blanket abstract immunity to 'being surprised' in the first place. I don't think there's anything wrong with having a system where the abstract ability 'immune to surprise' is simply not available to characters. Remove that line from Alert and call it done. Or rewrite the line to say 'if they would otherwise not receive an action during a surprise round due to being caught by surprise, the character may instead act at the end of the surprise round and then on their normal initiative on subsequent rounds'. Or explicitly write the initiative system differently.

To put it another way, if the OP had asked 'how do you run Foresight in this case?' versus 'how do you run Alert in this case?', would we be having the same debate?

[Kish]

I know which one of these I would prefer, which of these feels more fluid and natural. But everyone needs to decide that for themselves.
How about these three scenarios?

Scenario 1:
Sam: I sneak into the room.
GM: Your stealth roll is successful. No one knows you're there.
The three other PCs: We wait to hear Sam make his move to open the door and charge in.
GM *rolls dice*: None of the enemies hear you positioning yourselves outside the door.
Sam: I attack the hobgoblin leader!
GM: Everyone roll initiative....Okay, Sam rolled lower than all the other PCs, the hobgoblin leader, and half the hobgoblins. Kate, you can attack now if you want.
Kate: I already said I'm not.
GM: Luke?
Luke: Also already said I'm not.
GM: Sarah?
Sarah: Also already said I'm not.
GM: Okay, the hobgoblin leader is next. He sees no enemy so he readies his action.
Sam: Hang on, what?
GM: That's what everyone does when they don't have something in-combat to do. You're up, Sam.
Sam: I attack the hobgoblin leader.
GM: Okay, he's damaged but still standing. He takes his readied action and attacks Sam, doing slightly over half Sam's hit points in damage. Kate, you're up next.
Kate: I kick in the door and attack.
GM: You down that hobgoblin. Two others take their readied actions and move to take his place at the doorway and attack you. Luke?
Luke: I attack.
GM: You down another hobgoblin. Sarah?
Sarah: I attack.
GM: Missed. The other hobgoblins attack...Next round. The hobgoblin chief goes first, attacking Sam again. He again does slightly over half Sam's hit points in damage.
Sam: I'm dead.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Scenario 2:
Sam: I sneak into the room.
GM: Your stealth roll is successful. No one knows you're there.
The three other PCs: We wait to hear Sam make his move to open the door and charge in.
GM *rolls dice*: None of the enemies hear you positioning yourselves outside the door.
Sam: I attack the hobgoblin leader!
GM: Okay, he's damaged but still standing. Everyone roll initiative. Okay, the hobgoblin leader acts first and attacks Sam back, doing slightly over half Sam's hit points in damage. Kate, you're up.
Kate: I kick in the door and attack.
GM: You down that hobgoblin. Two others take their readied actions and move to take his place at the doorway and attack you. Luke?
Luke: I attack.
GM: You down another hobgoblin. Sarah?
Sarah: I attack.
GM: Missed. Sam, you're up.
Sam: I five-foot over to...here *points at battle map*, out of hobgoblin reach, and drink a healing potion.
GM: Okay. The other hobgoblins attack...

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Scenario 3:
Sam: I sneak into the room.
GM: Your stealth roll is successful. No one knows you're there.
The three other PCs: We wait to hear Sam make his move to open the door and charge in.
GM *rolls dice*: None of the enemies hear you positioning yourselves outside the door.
Sam: I attack the hobgoblin leader!
GM: Okay, he's damaged but still standing. Everyone roll initiative. Okay, Sam, you rolled highest so you're up again.
Sam: I attack him again.
GM: Okay, he's down. Two other hobgoblins move next, they both attack you. Then it's you, Sarah.
Sarah: I kick open the door and attack!
GM: You down that hobgoblin.

Which, if any, of those scenarios presents an unacceptable situation? And if any do, why is it unacceptable?

[OvisCaedo]

It is... quite an interesting take to claim that "immune to surprised" is in any way the main benefit of the Foresight spell, and therefore indicative of the power of the Alert feat.

[rel]

Oh, no, not quite. I think in the overwhelming majority of situations, it's fine for Alert to just be a vague precognition/danger sense, and the "surprise" mechanic works fine with the opening attack being after initiative is rolled. I think the Assassin's ability specifically gets potentially screwed over by this, but maybe IT should just be better written.

Apologies, I've modified my original post to reflect this.

For completeness, I don't use the optional feat rules, so I didn't venture an opinion of my own. However I do have an initiative houserule which might be relevant;

'A surprised character cannot be at the top of the initiative. If after determining initiative, a surprised character is at the top of the queue, increase the initiative of the unsurprised character with the highest initiative until they are at the top of the queue.'

[Salmon343]

Wading into this discussion. I'll say that although it isn't explicit, in its natural language style the PHB is fairly clear on initiative for surprising attacks - it's governed by the combat rules. The book tells us to run combat via the combat rules, essentially.

The combat rules tell us the order of events:
1) Determine Surprise
2) Establish Positions
3) Roll Initiative
4) Take Turns
5) Begin the Next Round

So if you'd consider what you're running to be "combat" - and I feel like any encounter with an assassin or the like falls under that - then these rules govern how it works. Yep there's no explicit link of attack or damaging action = combat, but I feel like it's reasonably clear under a natural language interpretation.
________________________
There are a few arguments on how silly it is to have initiative running when you haven't been attacked yet and are unaware of the attacker. But this is just a quirk of the combat system, and does not reasonably affect the outcome.

A surprised creature cannot take actions or move on their first turn, and cannot take reactions until after their first turn. Essentially, you lose your first turn.

Let's work with one enemy. You can either be surprised and win initiative, or surprised and lose it. If you win initiative, then you still cannot act on your first turn. However, you can react later in the round. This could be casting Shield if you're attacked, or Intercepting an attack against an adjacent ally. If you lose initiative, you still cannot act on your first turn, nor can you react until afterwards - which is after the enemy has attacked.

What's the difference? Well if you win initiative, you can react to changing circumstances - if you lose initiative, you can't. All this condition is telling us is that the initiative roll governs whether you are quick enough to react to a surprising attack, even if you were not aware enough to act fully. We're talking about reflexive action versus considered action. Reflexive is much faster and intuitive, hence being able to get that off before you can even mentally register the threat. I admit that the language is tricky - being surprised before the triggering event - but this is just a language problem. If you just call surprised a state of "unreadiness to the inciting event", then you can use the word "surprise" however you like but the rules stay the same.
________________________
The Alert feat grants three benefits. You cannot be surprised while conscious, you have a permanent +5 to initiative, and unseen targets don't gain advantage against you. Amending the surprise rules nerfs the first two benefits.

Under the normal rules, an Alert character cannot be surprised - thus they always get a turn while others may be surprised, and never lose their reaction to surprise. Making a hidden attacker (don't want to use the word surprise in multiple contexts at once, blame natural language) automatically go first removes the chance of the Alert character going first and being able to make preparations. More subtly, it also removes the chance of them getting an additional attack compared to their colleagues. If an Alert character rolls below the inciting event and everyone else is surprised then we have: Attacker -> Alert -> Next Round. If not, we have Attacker -> Next Round. (Even if the Alert character goes first we have, Alert -> Attacker -> Next Round, versus Attacker -> Next Round. They've lost a turn.)

I see no conceptual issue in an Alert character not being surprised. Firstly, it can be considered supernatural. Job done. Dragons breathe fire, Alert characters have a sixth-sense. Or you can be creative with the tells. An Alert character notices a slight shift in movement as the assassin prepares their attack, or the subtle facial changes of the enchanter before they unleash their Subtle Spell. Always on edge, they pick up these tells as a prelude to violence.
________________________
So what do we do if an Alert character wins the initiative roll? Well combat has still begun, but the inciting event hasn't gone yet. However, the inciting event has begun. Initiative just determines the order of events.

Consider two duelists facing one another, in a free-form battle system. Duelist A charges with his weapon, but Duelist B is quick enough and is able to parry - and get off a counter-attack. There is an element of simultaneity here that D&D can find hard to model. What we understand here is that attacks are not instantaneous - A must move then strike, giving B time to process this and parry.

Combat began when you decided that the assassin was going to strike. Under a precognitive Alert, this could be them steeling their resolve. Under a hyper competent Alert, this could be them shifting their stance as they prepare to leap from the bushes. The enchanter narrows his eyes as he casts his spell, the devil appears before the party then goes in to strike.

Additionally, consider how you're using turns and the initiative system. Under my devil example, I've not had them teleport in and strike on the same turn. They've teleported, then combat has begun. After all, its not a battle of two sides until the devil is actually there - and loosely speaking the turn system doesn't really exist until combat has begun (if you were considering a special bonus action teleport into movement and action strike).
________________________
Edit contents
The initiative system does have its quirks. But don't mistake those for issues with surprise. Under normal initiative rules, you'll always have some turns you would've spent differently had your opponent acted first. And my players having turns sandwiched between monster actions and healing often led to them yo-yoing, never having the turn to fully heal themselves (I've learnt from that mistake - avoid the boss with incessant actions!)

I think the solution here isn't to chuck surprise out of the window, but just import the Delay action into 5e. Drop your initiative, either for the entire encounter or just the round. And I'd make that a meta action - you don't have to justify it as a player. This way, initiative becomes a measure of reflexes not just a sorting tool. An Alert character always gets their counterattack, and aren't punished by winning initiative. But if they do win initiative, then they can bolster defenses, or strike first.

Edit 2
Although this might not be as beneficial as you think - if you import Delay as normal (an encounter permanent change), then you still get no more attacks in between enemy attacks - you just shift the turn number it happened in.

Say we have enemy X and Alert character A. If X can only take 2 attacks before going down, then in a world with only A and X, if A wins initiative we have:

(Round 1) A (no attack) -> X
(Round 2) A -> X
(Round 3) A -> FINISH

If A loses initiative we have:
(Round 1) X -> A
(Round 2) X -> A -> FINISH

Although we have 1 fewer round, we have the same number of X actions, and A has a prep turn in round 1 if they win initiative. So winning initiative isn't as bad as it looks - it just gives you a prep turn. Delaying would still be important for general turn order manipulation, however.

[GooeyChewie]

Let's compare two different ways of playing out the same situation:

...

I know which one of these I would prefer, which of these feels more fluid and natural. But everyone needs to decide that for themselves.

The fluidity of the scenarios you presented was determined largely by how you presented Jill, Jack and John each time, as well as how you had the GM explain (or fail to explain) things, rather than by the mechanics involved. If the DM explained that surprise just means you were not prepared for combat and not a reaction to a specific event, and Jack took a more sensible readied action of throwing a dart instead of one which required the opponent to approach him, the first scenario would have been much more fluid. If Jack complained about the attacker getting to attack despite him not being surprised, and Jill complained about how they were still surprised even though the event that supposedly surprised them was over and done, then the second scenario would have seemed a lot less fluid.

[tokek]

How about these three scenarios?

Scenario 1:
Sam: I sneak into the room.
GM: Your stealth roll is successful. No one knows you're there.
The three other PCs: We wait to hear Sam make his move to open the door and charge in.
GM *rolls dice*: None of the enemies hear you positioning yourselves outside the door.
Sam: I attack the hobgoblin leader!
GM: Everyone roll initiative....Okay, Sam rolled lower than all the other PCs, the hobgoblin leader, and half the hobgoblins. Kate, you can attack now if you want.
Kate: I already said I'm not.
GM: Luke?
Luke: Also already said I'm not.
GM: Sarah?
Sarah: Also already said I'm not.
GM: Okay, the hobgoblin leader is next. He sees no enemy so he readies his action.
Sam: Hang on, what?
GM: That's what everyone does when they don't have something in-combat to do. You're up, Sam.
Sam: I attack the hobgoblin leader.
GM: Okay, he's damaged but still standing. He takes his readied action and attacks Sam, doing slightly over half Sam's hit points in damage. Kate, you're up next.
Kate: I kick in the door and attack.
GM: You down that hobgoblin. Two others take their readied actions and move to take his place at the doorway and attack you. Luke?
Luke: I attack.
GM: You down another hobgoblin. Sarah?
Sarah: I attack.
GM: Missed. The other hobgoblins attack...Next round. The hobgoblin chief goes first, attacking Sam again. He again does slightly over half Sam's hit points in damage.
Sam: I'm dead.


This goes wrong because the GM got it horribly wrong unless this is a unique Hobgoblin NPC that has a special anti-surprise feature.

When the hobgoblin turns come up they don't get an action because they are subject to the surprise rules. They miss their turn. All that happens is that after that they would have a reaction, but regular hobgoblins don't have a very meaningful reaction

Basically the GM didn't read the the rules or was house-ruling a unique set of hobgoblins that are immune to being surprised.

Also the other players should have been readying actions or buffing or doing something useful on their turns. But that's just a normal level of players making mistakes. The GM having hobgoblins take any action at all after leading the players to believe they have the advantage of surprise is basically just shocking GM behaviour.

[tokek]

Yeah, this is several pages and posts now that you still don't understand that neither are the rules as written, because they are literally not written. When the DM calls for the initiative roll is completely DM fiat. There is no RAW on this.

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.

Just do that. It works

Every special rule suggested that does not follow that is looking far worse - I'll take a hard pass on all the poorly thought out house-rule alternatives I've seen in this discussion.

If you don't do step 3 don't proceed to step 4. If you don't proceed to step 4 nobody takes any attacks of any kind because step 4 is when that happens

If you try to create from scratch a combat system that is outside of having rounds, turns and initiative then you will mess everything up. There is no such rule in the book for a reason - there are too many rules in combat which rely on that structure existing.

[GloatingSwine]

So rather than 'a feat should not be as powerful as a 9th level spell', I'd instead say 'if you write a feat carrying the same text as a 9th level spell, you're saying as a designer that's the level of power you want that feat to have'. Running Foresight differently than Alert would, IMO, be weird because they have the same text describing what it is they do.

They don't though.

Alert simply says that you're "always on the lookout for danger". Not that you have additional senses, spidey sense, future sight, the Force as your ally, or anything else. You're just paying more attention to your surroundings than most people.

Anyone who is implying that Alert gives any foreknowledge of an attack even from a hidden attacker is wrong. It doesn't. A hidden attacker can't target you in a distracted state (get Advantage) because you're always paying attention, but you still don't know that things are going to happen until they happen.

[Morgaln]

The fluidity of the scenarios you presented was determined largely by how you presented Jill, Jack and John each time, as well as how you had the GM explain (or fail to explain) things, rather than by the mechanics involved. If the DM explained that surprise just means you were not prepared for combat and not a reaction to a specific event, and Jack took a more sensible readied action of throwing a dart instead of one which required the opponent to approach him, the first scenario would have been much more fluid. If Jack complained about the attacker getting to attack despite him not being surprised, and Jill complained about how they were still surprised even though the event that supposedly surprised them was over and done, then the second scenario would have seemed a lot less fluid.

I'll be honest, I have trouble presenting the first scenario any other way because it is just nonsensical to me. I'll be happy to read through someone else presenting it differently, maybe that will help.


On another note, sleeping over the whole thing made me realise where one disconnect between me and other posters might lie. It is the definition of "surprise."

For me, "not being suprised" equals "not getting the surprised condition." If a character with alert, or storm rune, or any similar power walks into an ambush, I still think they can fail to notice that ambush. That's a matter of perception, and these powers don't grant perception. But once the ambush starts, the character is immediately ready to fight and can react and take combat actions.

I think other people equate "walking into an ambush without noticing it" as "being suprised by the ambush." And as alert et al prevents you from being surprised, their interpretation is that the character has to notice the ambush before it happens.

I'd say that my interpretation is more suprised as game term, whereas the other one is more of a colloquial understanding of surprise but one might disagree with that.

To those who disagree with me, let me know if my reading of your interpretation of surprise is correct. If so, I do understand better where you are coming from.

[Morgaln]

This goes wrong because the GM got it horribly wrong unless this is a unique Hobgoblin NPC that has a special anti-surprise feature.

When the hobgoblin turns come up they don't get an action because they are subject to the surprise rules. They miss their turn. All that happens is that after that they would have a reaction, but regular hobgoblins don't have a very meaningful reaction

Basically the GM didn't read the the rules or was house-ruling a unique set of hobgoblins that are immune to being surprised.

Also the other players should have been readying actions or buffing or doing something useful on their turns. But that's just a normal level of players making mistakes. The GM having hobgoblins take any action at all after leading the players to believe they have the advantage of surprise is basically just shocking GM behaviour.

In all fairness, Kish was presenting a scenario referenceing the other thread here, one that doesn't play it in D&D but in a system that doesn't have the kind of surprise condition/round D&D has. I still agree with your last sentence, though. Allowing the hobgoblins to delay instead of just skipping their turn when they're not yet aware there even are enemies around is not appropriate.

[tokek]

In all fairness, Kish was presenting a scenario referenceing the other thread here, one that doesn't play it in D&D but in a system that doesn't have the kind of surprise condition/round D&D has. I still agree with your last sentence, though. Allowing the hobgoblins to delay instead of just skipping their turn when they're not yet aware there even are enemies around is not appropriate.

My real issue with it is that it portrays the players as clearly believing they have a surprise mechanic in place and have the advantage of surprise - but then having the hobgoblins take ready actions. That's a sign of a terrible GM and is entirely the cause of the outcome.

But in the context of a 5e discussion that scenario was just wrong - which sort of needs to be stated as this is in a 5e forum.

[Aimeryan]

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.

Just do that. It works

We are doing that - that doesn't change. When doing narrative action/attack before initiative it doesn't really matter if we say we specifically:

Determine surprise, establish positions, do narrative action/attack, roll initiative

or

Determine surprise, establish positions, do narrative action/attack, determine surprise, establish positions, roll initiative


The result remains the same. In fact, the establish positions will almost certainly have been done even before that sequence if playing on a grid - it is not something that only happens in a combat setup sequence, although that may indeed be the case if you have say a random encounter while travelling or are using theatre of the mind or some other setup.

What is changing is purely if the narrative action/attack occurs before or after rolling initiative. If we setup a trap ahead of time, we may expect that if the Perception check is failed then the trap activates without rolling initiative first - even if the trap dealt damage and released a monster. This is a narrative action/attack, no different than the hidden attacker's narrative attack. It is within the DM's perview to rule this falls outside of the combat sequence; it doesn't go against RAW in any way - in fact, having the narrative action/attack occur within the combat sequence is no more RAW and it is just an alternative DM ruling.

The gameplay counter to traps and hidden attacks is Perception, not initiative.

[GloatingSwine]

Yeah, "determine surprise" and "establish positions" should be emergent from the play that brought everyone to the point where the combat started. (And where people are positioned could well be relevant to whether they're surprised, in eg. a social situation gone wrong someone who was distracted or doing something that occupied their attention might be surprised even if they knew where everyone else was.)

[Amnestic]

I don't particularly like the idea of either side getting attacks outside of initiative. I think it encourages poor habits on the part of players, and leaves a poor taste in their mouth when it happens to them.

I know I'd be pretty peeved with "The enemy ambush you - they get two rounds of attacks, because you're Surprised, before you can do anything". Like, great! Love sitting there watching the DM roll a bunch of dice I can't do anything about. If even one of these turns into a TPK due to lucky crits, it amounts to 'rock falls, everyone dies'. Not exactly exciting. Perception is already a super important skill in general - making it even more important isn't my idea of a good time.

And on the other side, it's trivial for the party to boost their Stealth scores (Pass without Trace is obscene for it) to do the reverse, which is both no fun for the DM and can swiftly wreck encounter balance.

[GloatingSwine]

I know I'd be pretty peeved with "The enemy ambush you - they get two rounds of attacks, because you're Surprised, before you can do anything". Like, great! Love sitting there watching the DM roll a bunch of dice I can't do anything about. If even one of these turns into a TPK due to lucky crits, it amounts to 'rock falls, everyone dies'. Not exactly exciting. Perception is already a super important skill in general - making it even more important isn't my idea of a good time.

Nobody's actually suggesting "two rounds of attacks" though.

The most common way people suggest this should happen is that if made from concealment then the very first attack in the first round always goes first, even if that character drops to a later position in initiative in subsequent rounds.

Also, on ambusing players what's the difference between an ambush they didn't spot and a trap they didn't spot which damages them and releases a monster? "Bob, your foot sinks awkwardly on the pressure plate in the next flagstone, a dart shoots out of the wall into your side doing 1d4 damage and a false wall in front of you drops away to reveal a flesh construct. Everyone roll initiative, and Bob give me a CON save or take 1D6 more poison damage from that dart" is not actually meaningfully different from "Bob, an arrow loosed from a shortbow flies out of the bushes and into your flank, you take 1D6 damage, everyone roll initiative".

They both could have been avoided with better Perception, you get the full applicable power of Alert in both cases if you have it (Not Surprised, +5 on the Inititaive, the hidden attacker in the second case wasn't rolling with Advantage.)

[tokek]

The gameplay counter to traps and hidden attacks is Perception, not initiative.

The game has rules for making ability checks outside of initiative - it does not have rules for resolving attacks outside initiative.

And really once you start doing that you immediately have to make a bunch of stuff up. How many reactions does the target get against multiple assassins? How long does their shield spell last when there are no rounds to measure its duration? There are so many things where the combat rules are only designed to work within initiative and by ignoring that simple fact the DM is going to have to improvise a whole load of stuff - essentially you will have to re-invent initiative so why didn't you just roll initiative?

Its a terrible idea. Hard pass.

[Amnestic]

Nobody's actually suggesting "two rounds of attacks" though.

Very clearly, they are, right here:

Determine surprise, establish positions, do narrative action/attack, roll initiative

Surprise is effectively a skipped round. If you get an wave of non-initiative attacks and then roll initiative and you're Surprised, that's two rounds of attacks.





The most common way people suggest this should happen is that if made from concealment then the very first attack in the first round always goes first, even if that character drops to a later position in initiative in subsequent rounds.

If I'm part of a team that's doing a volley of shots, then why would only one attack happen instead of all of them at once? How does that make "narrative" sense? Why is it just one attack instead of extra/multiattack?

How does it work for spellcasting? Do they get a full spell (takes an action) but the fighter doesn't get four attacks (takes an action)? Why? They take up the same amount of time to accomplish.

[GooeyChewie]

I'll be honest, I have trouble presenting the first scenario any other way because it is just nonsensical to me. I'll be happy to read through someone else presenting it differently, maybe that will help.
Okay:

Number 1:

GM: You're walking along the road. Roll perception.

Jill: 11
Jack: 7
John: 14

GM, noting that none of those beat the stealth roll of 16: Oof... well, roll for initiative

Jill: 19. Nice!
Jack: 10. That's 15 with Alert
John: Oh crap, 3
GM *notes a 12 for the hidden attacker*

GM: Jack, since you are alert, you realize something is amiss. The surrounding area has gone quiet... too quiet. Jill, John, you two are surprised.
Jill: Surprised by what? What happened?
GM: You aren't sure; that's why it's a surprise. But you won initiative, so at the end of your turn you also realize something is amiss. Jack, you're up.
Jack: Okay, great. If there are enemies around, I'll need to be on my guard. I'll ready an action to throw a dart if an enemy attacks us. I'll also spend a Ki to Dodge as a bonus action.
GM: Excellent job being alert! Speaking of the enemy attacking, he does that now. A crossbow bolt comes flying towards *rolls die* Jack. Good thing you Dodged! He misses! John, with your 3 initiative you've been a bit slow on the uptake, but now we've come to you and you're no longer surprised. On to round 2.
John: Man, rolling low on initiative and being surprised at the same time sucks.
GM: Yeah, that's part of the reason they have a feat that stops surprise.

---

Number 2, but presented as you presented the first scenario:

GM: You're walking along the road. Roll perception.

Jill: 11
Jack: 7
John: 14

GM, noting that none of those beat the stealth roll of 16: Oof... well, the first thing you notice of a hidden attacker is a crossbow bolt flying towards...
Jack: Hold on, I've got the Alert feat, I can't be surprised.
GM: Right you are. So you aren't surprised during this attack.
Jack: But they're still surprising me with an attack?
GM: Correct.
Jack: So I'm surprised by this thing that can't surprise me?
GM: Yes.
Jack: If you say so...

GM: He's shooting his crossbow at John, because he's still flat-footed.
John: That sucks. And I won't even be able to attack on my turn because I'm still surprised, right?
GM: Correct.
Jill: Surprised by what? We haven't rolled initiative yet and we obviously now know the attacker is there.
GM: Yes, but I've already determined that you will be surprised.
Jill: I thought you were having surprise play out as the attacker getting to attack before we roll initiative?
GM: Yes.
Jill: So I have now processed the thing that has already happened, and yet I'm still surprised?
GM: Yes.
Jill: If you say so...
Jack: At least I'll be able to attack it round 1, since I'm Alert and it reveals itself on the attack.
GM: The bandit hides as a bonus action. Oh, by the way, roll initiative. Jill and John, you're surprised.
Jill and John: Not really...


On another note, sleeping over the whole thing made me realise where one disconnect between me and other posters might lie. It is the definition of "surprise."

For me, "not being suprised" equals "not getting the surprised condition." If a character with alert, or storm rune, or any similar power walks into an ambush, I still think they can fail to notice that ambush. That's a matter of perception, and these powers don't grant perception. But once the ambush starts, the character is immediately ready to fight and can react and take combat actions.

I think other people equate "walking into an ambush without noticing it" as "being suprised by the ambush." And as alert et al prevents you from being surprised, their interpretation is that the character has to notice the ambush before it happens.

I'd say that my interpretation is more suprised as game term, whereas the other one is more of a colloquial understanding of surprise but one might disagree with that.

To those who disagree with me, let me know if my reading of your interpretation of surprise is correct. If so, I do understand better where you are coming from.

That's funny, because I would have said that I was interpreting it as the game term and you were interpreting it as the colloquial term. I figured that why you were treating it as though surprise was the result of one particular action (the enemy attacking) rather than the start of combat (as per the game term). I would agree that not being surprised means that when an ambush starts, the character is immediately ready to fight and can react and take combat actions. So in scenarios where the attacker would normally get to attack before anybody can take actions (and maybe before anybody can take reactions, depending on their reflexes as represented by initiative), the player who is Alert or has other surprise-preventing features will still get to act. You're right that Alert does not grant the character perception; it's not some magic thing that automatically tells the player the best course of action.

Yes, sometimes that means a player ends up taking a turn where they aren't sure what to do, and maybe they just dodge. But it's still better to get to dodge before the opponent attacks in round 1 and take a more informed turn in round 2 before the enemy's turn, than it is to be attacked without having dodged, get an informed turn in round 1, and have the enemy go before you in round 2. In other words, it's still better to win initiative than lose it.


We are doing that - that doesn't change. When doing narrative action/attack before initiative it doesn't really matter if we say we specifically:

Determine surprise, establish positions, do narrative action/attack, roll initiative

or

Determine surprise, establish positions, do narrative action/attack, determine surprise, establish positions, roll initiative

The list does not include "do a narrative action/attack," so you are adding something to it.


The gameplay counter to traps and hidden attacks is Perception, not initiative.
You're right. That's why Alert doesn't tell the player were the enemies are, or how they're going to attack, or anything like that. A player who passes their Perception check and doesn't have Alert is in a better position than a player who fails their Perception check and has Alert. Alert is the back-up plan to make failing that Perception check less bad.

[Beelzebub1111]

I like PF2's rule for initiative and stealth.
1) People who are not hiding roll perception for initiative.
2) People who are hiding roll stealth for initiative
3) If the stealth roll is higher than their PASSIVE perception, they are hidden form the target even if their initiative roll is higher. Telling them that someone is there, and they can spend your actions to seek them out and point them out to others

You can also do things like roll deception or intimidation for initiative if you decide to initiate combat in the middle of a conversation, which can make them demoralized or put off guard.

[da newt]

A reminder: One round of combat takes 6 seconds, everyone involved gets a turn during this 6 seconds, but the turns all overlap in real time. So when an ALERT PC has their turn 'before' the ambusher, that just mean that they get to take their actions first but it's all during the same time period. The ambusher starts ambushing but the ALERT PC is sooo quick/ready they get to complete their actions before the ambusher complete's theirs.

[Morgaln]

Okay:

Number 1:

GM: You're walking along the road. Roll perception.

Jill: 11
Jack: 7
John: 14

GM, noting that none of those beat the stealth roll of 16: Oof... well, roll for initiative

Jill: 19. Nice!
Jack: 10. That's 15 with Alert
John: Oh crap, 3
GM *notes a 12 for the hidden attacker*

GM: Jack, since you are alert, you realize something is amiss. The surrounding area has gone quiet... too quiet. Jill, John, you two are surprised.
Jill: Surprised by what? What happened?
GM: You aren't sure; that's why it's a surprise. But you won initiative, so at the end of your turn you also realize something is amiss. Jack, you're up.
Jack: Okay, great. If there are enemies around, I'll need to be on my guard. I'll ready an action to throw a dart if an enemy attacks us. I'll also spend a Ki to Dodge as a bonus action.
GM: Excellent job being alert! Speaking of the enemy attacking, he does that now. A crossbow bolt comes flying towards *rolls die* Jack. Good thing you Dodged! He misses! John, with your 3 initiative you've been a bit slow on the uptake, but now we've come to you and you're no longer surprised. On to round 2.
John: Man, rolling low on initiative and being surprised at the same time sucks.
GM: Yeah, that's part of the reason they have a feat that stops surprise.

---

Number 2, but presented as you presented the first scenario:

GM: You're walking along the road. Roll perception.

Jill: 11
Jack: 7
John: 14

GM, noting that none of those beat the stealth roll of 16: Oof... well, the first thing you notice of a hidden attacker is a crossbow bolt flying towards...
Jack: Hold on, I've got the Alert feat, I can't be surprised.
GM: Right you are. So you aren't surprised during this attack.
Jack: But they're still surprising me with an attack?
GM: Correct.
Jack: So I'm surprised by this thing that can't surprise me?
GM: Yes.
Jack: If you say so...

GM: He's shooting his crossbow at John, because he's still flat-footed.
John: That sucks. And I won't even be able to attack on my turn because I'm still surprised, right?
GM: Correct.
Jill: Surprised by what? We haven't rolled initiative yet and we obviously now know the attacker is there.
GM: Yes, but I've already determined that you will be surprised.
Jill: I thought you were having surprise play out as the attacker getting to attack before we roll initiative?
GM: Yes.
Jill: So I have now processed the thing that has already happened, and yet I'm still surprised?
GM: Yes.
Jill: If you say so...
Jack: At least I'll be able to attack it round 1, since I'm Alert and it reveals itself on the attack.
GM: The bandit hides as a bonus action. Oh, by the way, roll initiative. Jill and John, you're surprised.
Jill and John: Not really...



That's funny, because I would have said that I was interpreting it as the game term and you were interpreting it as the colloquial term. I figured that why you were treating it as though surprise was the result of one particular action (the enemy attacking) rather than the start of combat (as per the game term). I would agree that not being surprised means that when an ambush starts, the character is immediately ready to fight and can react and take combat actions. So in scenarios where the attacker would normally get to attack before anybody can take actions (and maybe before anybody can take reactions, depending on their reflexes as represented by initiative), the player who is Alert or has other surprise-preventing features will still get to act. You're right that Alert does not grant the character perception; it's not some magic thing that automatically tells the player the best course of action.

Yes, sometimes that means a player ends up taking a turn where they aren't sure what to do, and maybe they just dodge. But it's still better to get to dodge before the opponent attacks in round 1 and take a more informed turn in round 2 before the enemy's turn, than it is to be attacked without having dodged, get an informed turn in round 1, and have the enemy go before you in round 2. In other words, it's still better to win initiative than lose it.



I don't have time to comment on everything right now, I'll do that later. I'll just point out real quick that as far as I remember (and you can absolutely correct me if I'm wrong), you can only use dodge against attackers you can see. So taking the dodge action would be useless in this situation.

[tokek]

I don't have time to comment on everything right now, I'll do that later. I'll just point out real quick that as far as I remember (and you can absolutely correct me if I'm wrong), you can only use dodge against attackers you can see. So taking the dodge action would be useless in this situation.

You can dodge and it will work against all but the first attack if they make multiple attacks.

Diving prone probably works better but does have its own drawbacks.

[Aimeryan]

The list does not include "do a narrative action/attack," so you are adding something to it.

Which is why I listed the second point, which is functionally do one and then do the other, with parts that are shared and have the same result. When you take out the shared parts you end up with the first point, which is just a shortcut. If you wanted to insist on the second point, fine, it doesn't change anything except add extra steps.



You're right. That's why Alert doesn't tell the player were the enemies are, or how they're going to attack, or anything like that. A player who passes their Perception check and doesn't have Alert is in a better position than a player who fails their Perception check and has Alert. Alert is the back-up plan to make failing that Perception check less bad.

How does Alert affect traps for you? Alert already helps against a hidden attack by removing Advantage - this is already an extra benefit over a trap damaging you and releasing a monster, yet is fundementally the same narrative result. You failed the Perception check, you take damage from what was hidden, then you have combat.

---


The game has rules for making ability checks outside of initiative - it does not have rules for resolving attacks outside initiative.

I'm sorry tokek; I feel like I'm consistently pointing out that you don't have RAW knowledge here. Once more:


When you describe an action not detailed elsewhere in the rules, the DM tells you whether that action is possible and what kind of roll you need to make, if any, to determine success or failure.

Furthermore, there is no written rule that says you cannot use the Attack action outside of combat. In fact, many people in this thread have likely attacked a door or lock to break it. Do they enter combat with the door/lock?

If you wish to make such confident statements in future, could I please request you post a quote from the books to back your argument up? Refuting these takes far more effort on my part than it appears it does to just make things up on yours.

---


I don't have time to comment on everything right now, I'll do that later. I'll just point out real quick that as far as I remember (and you can absolutely correct me if I'm wrong), you can only use dodge against attackers you can see. So taking the dodge action would be useless in this situation.

You are correct, at least in effect:


...Until the start of your next turn, any attack roll made against you has disadvantage if you can see the attacker...

---


Very clearly, they are, right here:


Surprise is effectively a skipped round. If you get an wave of non-initiative attacks and then roll initiative and you're Surprised, that's two rounds of attacks.

Since you quoted me, I can say this is incorrect. Not that you couldn't do this, but it is incorrect in my case. IF sticking to RAW (I have already pointed out I prefer to modify initiative rather than work around it) I would have one narrative attack occur before initiative, not an entire round. This is no different to having a trap go off before the combat starts, which the hidden attack narratively serves.

[Amnestic]

Since you quoted me, I can say this is incorrect. Not that you couldn't do this, but it is incorrect in my case. IF sticking to RAW (I have already pointed out I prefer to modify initiative rather than work around it) I would have one narrative attack occur before initiative, not an entire round. This is no different to having a trap go off before the combat starts, which the hidden attack narratively serves.

If I can take an action to make an attack, can I take an action to cast a spell (and if not, why not?) If I can take an action to cast a spell, why can't I take an action to attack multiple times? Why are my allies and I not able to coordinate our out-of-initiative attacks to all take place at the same time?

[Keltest]

If I can take an action to make an attack, can I take an action to cast a spell (and if not, why not?) If I can take an action to cast a spell, why can't I take an action to attack multiple times? Why are my allies and I not able to coordinate our out-of-initiative attacks to all take place at the same time?

On top of this, if the attacker is a rogue/are rogues, one attack IS an entire turn's worth of attacks, and has the potential for a lot of damage.

[Xetheral]

And on the other side, it's trivial for the party to boost their Stealth scores (Pass without Trace is obscene for it) to do the reverse, which is both no fun for the DM and can swiftly wreck encounter balance.

As a DM, I love it when my players successfully ambush the enemy! It leads to awesome and memorable encounters.


A reminder: One round of combat takes 6 seconds, everyone involved gets a turn during this 6 seconds, but the turns all overlap in real time. So when an ALERT PC has their turn 'before' the ambusher, that just mean that they get to take their actions first but it's all during the same time period. The ambusher starts ambushing but the ALERT PC is sooo quick/ready they get to complete their actions before the ambusher complete's theirs.

To make that work, the initiating action the Alert character is preemptively reacting to must be locked in. As a DM, I'm not willing to make a houserule that would force the character (ostensibly) initiating combat into following through on their intended action if the circumstances have changed by the time their turn comes up. And even if I was willing to do so, that doesn't address situations where the intended action is made outright illegal by an Alert character's intervening action.

For example, if a hidden PC announces that they're going to shoot an NPC, but that NPC has Alert (or equivalent) and Dashes out of long range (or into full cover) before the PC's turn comes up, the PC literally can't follow through and shoot--the rules don't permit it. And so the action the NPC was responding to never happens in the first place, and we're right back to square one. Sure, I could force the PC to instead attack the ground at the edge of long range or attack the full cover itself, but that's (a) extremely heavy handed, (b) strongly disincentives initiating combat, and (c) narratively jarring by implying that the Alert NPC ran 60 feet while an arrow was in flight. Personally I find it much easier to just avoid the whole issue by putting the PC at the top of the initiative order. Alert is still an extremely powerful feat, even without the occasional chance of getting the dubious honor of an uninformed first action.

[Unoriginal]

To make that work, the initiating action the Alert character is preemptively reacting to must be locked in. As a DM, I'm not willing to make a houserule that would force the character (ostensibly) initiating combat into following through on their intended action if the circumstances have changed by the time their turn comes up. And even if I was willing to do so, that doesn't address situations where the intended action is made outright illegal by an Alert character's intervening action.

For example, if a hidden PC announces that they're going to shoot an NPC, but that NPC has Alert (or equivalent) and Dashes out of long range (or into full cover) before the PC's turn comes up, the PC literally can't follow through and shoot--the rules don't permit it. And so the action the NPC was responding to never happens in the first place, and we're right back to square one. Sure, I could force the PC to instead attack the ground at the edge of long range or attack the full cover itself, but that's (a) extremely heavy handed, (b) strongly disincentives initiating combat, and (c) narratively jarring by implying that the Alert NPC ran 60 feet while an arrow was in flight. Personally I find it much easier to just avoid the whole issue by putting the PC at the top of the initiative order. Alert is still an extremely powerful feat, even without the occasional chance of getting the dubious honor of an uninformed first action.

The initiative-creating choice is not the same as the action-taken-during-the-turn.

The Alert character is reacting to the initiative-creating choice.

Same way that a surprised character is not surprised by the actions the hostile person does during their turn, they're surprised by the hostility itself.

[GooeyChewie]

I don't have time to comment on everything right now, I'll do that later. I'll just point out real quick that as far as I remember (and you can absolutely correct me if I'm wrong), you can only use dodge against attackers you can see. So taking the dodge action would be useless in this situation.
I looked it up, and fair enough that Dodge would not be as useful as normal in this scenario. (Though you would still get advantage on Dex saves.) Still, the point remains that the fluidity of each scenario has more to do with how the players act than the actual mechanics involved. Honestly, your version of the second scenario and my first of the first scenario are the versions more likely to play out with reasonable players.


Which is why I listed the second point, which is functionally do one and then do the other, with parts that are shared and have the same result. When you take out the shared parts you end up with the first point, which is just a shortcut. If you wanted to insist on the second point, fine, it doesn't change anything except add extra steps.
Adding extra steps means you aren’t following RAW. Just because the RAW leaves it up to the DM to determine exactly when to roll for initiative, doesn’t mean that there isn’t RAW for how the process works or that adding steps is RAW. If you want to play it that way at your table, and your players are okay with it, go ahead. But don’t pretend you aren’t adding something that isn’t there by RAW.





How does Alert affect traps for you? Alert already helps against a hidden attack by removing Advantage - this is already an extra benefit over a trap damaging you and releasing a monster, yet is fundementally the same narrative result. You failed the Perception check, you take damage from what was hidden, then you have combat.
Alert doesn’t affect traps at all. Traps don’t roll for initiative, so neither the +5 initiative nor the surprise apply. Even if the trap made an attack roll, it wouldn’t be from an unseen creature, so the lack of advantage on the attack doesn’t apply either. Rolling initiative to fight the monster is a separate process from the trap itself.

Let’s consider how an ambush plays out when nobody has Alert and everybody on one side is surprised. Everybody rolls initiative. Since surprised characters take no action, you can fast forward straight to the attacker’s turn. You tell the players who did not beat the attacker’s initiative that they are surprised and can’t take reactions, process the turn, and then fast forward to the next round. Narratively, it’s exactly what you want. The hidden attacker attacks, then combat starts as normal, except we’re calling it round 2. There’s no need to add an additional “narrative attack” to the process; that’s what the normal surprise rules do. Alert and other surprise-prevention features are meant to give the players a chance to interfere with that process.

[Aimeryan]

If I can take an action to make an attack, can I take an action to cast a spell (and if not, why not?) If I can take an action to cast a spell, why can't I take an action to attack multiple times? Why are my allies and I not able to coordinate our out-of-initiative attacks to all take place at the same time?

If you can do so while remaining hidden, sure. I presume you have laid trap spells before, correct? Glyph of Warding, Mordenkainen's Faithful Hound, etc. Even Web or Entangle. These are essentially pre-combat attacks/actions if used correctly. Buff spells similarly so. There are many ways to effect a combat before initiative is rolled.

---


Adding extra steps means you aren’t following RAW.

I apologise; I am finding it difficult to pinpoint the problem here. There is a proceedure for combat, written in the books. Technically, nothing written stops you from putting things in between, but for agreement sake we'll say that the sequence is atomic. You have narrative before combat, correct? I mean, unless this is a standalone combat sequence devoid of a campaign. So, you slot the narrative action/attack before combat.

It would go something like this, if you absolutely don't wish to take a shortcut:


Determine surprise.
Establish positions.
Narrative action/attack.
Now start again with determining surprise.
Establish positions.
Roll Initiative.


Note how nothing has been slotted in; step 4 onwards is the combat sequence you are familiar with. Steps 1 to 3 are the pre-combat narrative, which if you count narrative as 'extra steps' to the combat then I don't even know how to try to address that pretty much all campaigns have narrative before combat.

The shortcut version is simply:

Determine surprise.
Establish positions.
Narrative action/attack.
Roll Initiative.

This does technically add 'an extra step' to the combat sequence, but it should be readily obvious that this is just a time saving exercise over the above and is consquently no different to the above in respects other than time saving.

[Xetheral]

The initiative-creating choice is not the same as the action-taken-during-the-turn.

The Alert character is reacting to the initiative-creating choice.

Same way that a surprised character is not surprised by the actions the hostile person does during their turn, they're surprised by the hostility itself.

That helps in many instances, but it can't help in all instances because of the possibility of initiating actions that have no noticable prep. In my previous response to you I discussed Subtle spells. For a more mundane example, if the PC archer above is attacking from natural darkness at near the edge of longbow range against the (illuminated) Alert NPC, the first thing that could possibly be detectable by the Alert PC is the incoming arrow, which will not happen until the PCs' turn. In this example, and many others, the "initiative-creating choice" the Alert character is reacting to is necessarily the same as the "action-taken-during-the-turn". And the cases where they necessarily are the same are plentiful: invisible attackers who succeed at stealth checks, hidden characters who want to ready a combat action, hidden archers with Skulker, spellcasters who one falsely believes to be casting a non-combat spell... and the list goes on. So while I agree that usually the initiative-creating choice is not the same as the action-taken-during-the-turn, I can't agree that it will always be the case. And it is those cases where they aren't the same where the issues arise.

[crayonshinchuck]

The initiative-creating choice is not the same as the action-taken-during-the-turn.

The Alert character is reacting to the initiative-creating choice.

Same way that a surprised character is not surprised by the actions the hostile person does during their turn, they're surprised by the hostility itself.

Quite true. It seems everyone arguing for some kind of homebrewed solution seem to think that either the person initiating an attack from a hidden position does so in such an instantaneous manner that nothing could possibly happen while they are going through the motions to make the attack. Avoiding being surprised because of the Alert feat lies somewhere in between noticing the hidden attacker with their perception (which would essentially let them perform their action with a greater deal of knowledge - where the person readying to attack them is) and being caught completely unawares.

[glass]

While these posters are arguing for variations on initiative not being rolled until after the hidden attacker has resolved an attack:
Darth Credence
Xetheral
Theodoxus
Aimeryan
Morgaln
glass


And a few others have put forward other options or said that it should depend on the specific situation.Why am I on that list? Am I really that bad a communicator? That is not what I was arguing for at all!

I was arguing that somehow (the rules do not define how) the attacker beginning their attack mean their targets are no longer completely oblivious to them. Against non-Alert targets, the ambusher gets the first attack regardless of initiative because of the surprised pseudo-condition. But against against targets with the Alert feat they better hope they win initiative, because if they don't the target can respond to their starting the attack by completing one of theirs.

(Starting the attack does not mean they must complete it if circumstances have changed by the time their turn actually comes up, just that they must have done something towards it to have triggered the initiative roll and caused their targets to trade "unaware" for "surprised" in the first place.)

[Aimeryan]

Quite true. It seems everyone arguing for some kind of homebrewed solution seem to think that either the person initiating an attack from a hidden position does so in such an instantaneous manner that nothing could possibly happen while they are going through the motions to make the attack. Avoiding being surprised because of the Alert feat lies somewhere in between noticing the hidden attacker with their perception (which would essentially let them perform their action with a greater deal of knowledge - where the person readying to attack them is) and being caught completely unawares.

This has already been discussed at length; the target and the attack is hidden until AFTER the attack. There is literally nothing to react to until after the attack, otherwise the attacker wouldn't be hidden at the time of the attack.

Alert does not give any bonus to Perception. It does not notice hidden attackers. Narratively a hidden attacker cannot be reacted to, as that would indicate they are not hidden. This is why the attack occuring after people have been surprised and then gotten over that makes no narrative sense. As there are no rules as to when initiative is rolled there is no forced reason to go through such a narratively dissonant chain of events.

[Darth Credence]

For those looking for consensus to inform their own rulings, these posters are arguing that the alert character can act as though they know combat has started even though they cannot specifically see the ambushing attackers:
keltest
unoriginal
NichG
Amnestic
Lord Ruby34
Kane0
Dr.Samurai
JackPhoenix
Mastikator
Edenbeast
Pex
PhoenixPhyre
Sorinth
da newt
KorvinStarmast
GooeyChewie
crayonshinchuck
tokek
OvisCaedo

While these posters are arguing for variations on initiative not being rolled until after the hidden attacker has resolved an attack:
Darth Credence
Xetheral
Theodoxus
Aimeryan
Morgaln
glass


And a few others have put forward other options or said that it should depend on the specific situation.

I should definitely be on the upper list. I absolutely think that once an attack starts, like by the ambusher saying that they are going to attack, then you roll initiative, including any bonus from alert or other feats, and resolve in initiative order. Those that are surprised get no actions, and only get a reaction after their first turn; those that are not get their normal turn, but they may or may not know where anyone is to take an action against.

[Keltest]

This has already been discussed at length; the target and the attack is hidden until AFTER the attack. There is literally nothing to react to until after the attack, otherwise the attacker wouldn't be hidden at the time of the attack.

Alert does not give any bonus to Perception. It does not notice hidden attackers. Narratively a hidden attacker cannot be reacted to, as that would indicate they are not hidden. This is why the attack occuring after people have been surprised and then gotten over that makes no narrative sense. As there are no rules as to when initiative is rolled there is no forced reason to go through such a narratively dissonant chain of events.

You're trying to change the rules to suit the narrative outcome you want. No shade for playing by narrative feel rather than the rules, but at that point youre just writing a book, not playing a game. But its especially offputting here because the rules youre trying to change are there specifically to prevent this exact situation that you want to come about.

For a lot of people, including most of us in this thread, D&D is a game first and a story second. The story serves the game, not the other way around, and I personally believe that trying the reverse just ruins things for everyone but the DM if there wasnt specific buy-in to just write a story in session 0.

[Aimeryan]

You're trying to change the rules to suit the narrative outcome you want.

Prove it. I and others have put in more than enough effort on our side to at least have someone on the other side try to actually show how this goes against RAW rather than just go "Nuh-uh!"

[tokek]

Prove it. I and others have put in more than enough effort on our side to at least have someone on the other side try to actually show how this goes against RAW rather than just go "Nuh-uh!"

Your own words say it


Narratively a hidden attacker cannot be reacted to

Yet there are a number of specific rules in the game which grant exactly that ability to react.

Also there are reactions that do not require the slightest sight of the attacker.

You clearly have a narrative in mind that is rather at odds with the rules of the game. That's fine if you want to play that way but don't fool yourself that what you are playing is the same game as what is in the printed rules.

[Darth Credence]

Prove it. I and others have put in more than enough effort on our side to at least have someone on the other side try to actually show how this goes against RAW rather than just go "Nuh-uh!"

The other side has been explained very thoroughly. Pretending that it hasn't is getting us nowhere.

But, here is my take, again. This is all about game mechanics, and an attempt to make a game work. D&D is not a reality simulator, it is a game that has to have some things work in particular manners for it to function as a game.

One of those things is how initiative and combat rounds work. A round is six seconds, but it's the same six seconds for everyone. Everyone is attempting to act at the same time. But to simulate that, the game would basically need to break everything down into chunks of a fraction of a second, where each step took a chunk, and setting up to make an attack took a chunk - or, it can be a game, and everyone can take turns, while remembering that everything is supposed to happen at once. So we have combat rounds where people take turns.

It would also be closer to a simulation if everyone committed to an action before any actions were resolved, so that if someone says, "I'm shooting that guy from ambush", then they roll crappy and the other side rolls better and the guy with the alert feat creates a dome of force to protect them, that first guy still shoots so that the fiction can still work and show that they reacted to that person starting to shoot. But it's a game, and it isn't fun for the players to get locked in like that, so we allow people to change when it gets to their turn, even if it makes the fiction a little wonky. It's better for the game to function and the fiction to get a little wonky here than the fiction to work but the game to become a mess. We can suspend our disbelief on the fiction and get past it, but when you have to keep layering on rules that make the game not work, everything falls apart.

So, we have a game where the rules have been established that combat turns take place after initiative has been rolled. The rules are as such because it is how they decided the game would work - there may be better ways, but this is the way this game has decided to run it. And they have introduced features that interact with the way this works - alert being the most significant to this discussion, but there are others. Weapon of warning is close to a party wide alert feat, and feral rage gives a barbarian instincts that would indicate someone is there and they can rage and act their first turn even if surprised. So we have feats, magic weapons, and class features that all rely on the idea that combat occurs within the initiative system, and that it is possible to avoid or temper surprise during that round. If the DM rules it that there is an attack before initiative because they like the way that works narratively, they can do that, but it would absolutely change the value of all of those things.

[NichG]

This has already been discussed at length; the target and the attack is hidden until AFTER the attack. There is literally nothing to react to until after the attack, otherwise the attacker wouldn't be hidden at the time of the attack.

Alert does not give any bonus to Perception. It does not notice hidden attackers. Narratively a hidden attacker cannot be reacted to, as that would indicate they are not hidden. This is why the attack occuring after people have been surprised and then gotten over that makes no narrative sense. As there are no rules as to when initiative is rolled there is no forced reason to go through such a narratively dissonant chain of events.

I disagree that a hidden attacker cannot be reacted to. Lets put aside the ambush/surprise scenario for the time being and instead consider e.g.:

The party is fighting a rogue. On the rogue's action, they do a bonus action Hide and beat the party's collective Perception checks. The rogue is now Hidden. The party can react to the fact that they are aware 'there is an enemy attacking us', even though they cannot pinpoint the enemy's location.

Foresight has the same rules text about surprise as Alert does. If we were instead talking about 'my wizard had Foresight cast, and someone fired an arrow at me from outside of my visual range while stealthed to start a fight, what should happen if I beat their initiative during the surprise round', then it'd map to roughly this. Even though Foresight narratively is precognition, it does not mechanically beat stealth on someone who is about to leave stealth. The character with Foresight explicitly narratively gets to know 'I am about to be attacked' (whereas the character with Alert gains the same mechanical benefits, but without any explicit narrative explanation of how). That does not require them to remove the Hidden condition from their future attacker in order to react to the fact of that attack. They could for example teleport away, which is independent of the would-be attacker's position, and would not necessarily indicate that the attacker was not hidden with respect to that character.

'There is a hidden attacker' is a state of knowledge a character can have consistently with the fact that 'the attacker is hidden'.

Anyhow, my stance remains - rewrite the feat if it pushes your suspension of disbelief that a character could detect killing intent or 'their own imminent potential to be harmed' or that the world itself might grow quiet the moment before an attack.

Or, the easiest thing, just accepting that 99% of the time you can creatively come up with a satisfying explanation of what the clue was that is specific to each case: the hiding attacker already scared all of the birds and the Alert character notices the birds go quiet; the sniper's scope glints in a way that the Alert character sees from the corner of their eye but not precisely enough to pinpoint; the parting leaves of a bush that someone is about to fire a crossbow from make a noise that the Alert character can't pinpoint; the ambush site happened to be the perfect site for an ambush within the last 3 miles and the Alert character thinks 'I would set up an ambush here if I were a bandit... oh ****, scatter!'; the Alert character is just randomly sometimes stopping and readying actions and this time happened to get lucky; etc. And then recognize that no abstraction will always hold up 100% of the time when you zoom into it, and just don't do that. We'd have the same problem talking about HP being luck vs meat and what that means for poison, why the world seems to synchronize into 6 second blocks and how no one has noticed that yet, etc.

Or you know, just rewrite the feat to not have identical rules text to a 9th level spell that explicitly does let a character see the future. "Alert: A character with this feat can ready actions outside of combat and does not suffer Disadvantage when surprised." There, done.

[Xetheral]

...feral rage gives a barbarian instincts that would indicate someone is there and they can rage and act their first turn even if surprised...

Just a quick note that using Feral Instinct is extremely costly if the Barbarian happens to win initiative. They spent a daily use of Rage to be able to take an action, but (short of deliberately damaging themselves) with no visible targets there is nothing they can do with that action to keep Rage going after the end of their turn. So they go first, Rage, blindly Dodge (or Ready), and then immediately drop out of Rage since they've neither attacked nor taken damage.

My houserule (letting the initiator automatically win initiative if there is only a single initiator) at least gives Feral Instinct a reliable use. That's a lot better than spending a precious daily resource to get a single blind use of the Dodge or Ready actions.

[Kane0]

The issue is primarily the timing around initiation vs resolution. You could go full tactical wargame and split rounds into phases so the results are split from the actions creatures take, and the lowest initiative takes their turn first. But that would be a fairly radical reworking of the system and slow things down significantly.

[Talakeal]

The most common way people suggest this should happen is that if made from concealment then the very first attack in the first round always goes first, even if that character drops to a later position in initiative in subsequent rounds.

That also seems like the most reasonable resolution to me. But man, am I getting roasted over in the parent thread for deciding that is how it will work in my system!


How about these three scenarios?

Scenario 1:
Sam: I sneak into the room.
GM: Your stealth roll is successful. No one knows you're there.
The three other PCs: We wait to hear Sam make his move to open the door and charge in.
GM *rolls dice*: None of the enemies hear you positioning yourselves outside the door.
Sam: I attack the hobgoblin leader!
GM: Everyone roll initiative....Okay, Sam rolled lower than all the other PCs, the hobgoblin leader, and half the hobgoblins. Kate, you can attack now if you want.
Kate: I already said I'm not.
GM: Luke?
Luke: Also already said I'm not.
GM: Sarah?
Sarah: Also already said I'm not.
GM: Okay, the hobgoblin leader is next. He sees no enemy so he readies his action.
Sam: Hang on, what?
GM: That's what everyone does when they don't have something in-combat to do. You're up, Sam.
Sam: I attack the hobgoblin leader.
GM: Okay, he's damaged but still standing. He takes his readied action and attacks Sam, doing slightly over half Sam's hit points in damage. Kate, you're up next.
Kate: I kick in the door and attack.
GM: You down that hobgoblin. Two others take their readied actions and move to take his place at the doorway and attack you. Luke?
Luke: I attack.
GM: You down another hobgoblin. Sarah?
Sarah: I attack.
GM: Missed. The other hobgoblins attack...Next round. The hobgoblin chief goes first, attacking Sam again. He again does slightly over half Sam's hit points in damage.
Sam: I'm dead.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Scenario 2:
Sam: I sneak into the room.
GM: Your stealth roll is successful. No one knows you're there.
The three other PCs: We wait to hear Sam make his move to open the door and charge in.
GM *rolls dice*: None of the enemies hear you positioning yourselves outside the door.
Sam: I attack the hobgoblin leader!
GM: Okay, he's damaged but still standing. Everyone roll initiative. Okay, the hobgoblin leader acts first and attacks Sam back, doing slightly over half Sam's hit points in damage. Kate, you're up.
Kate: I kick in the door and attack.
GM: You down that hobgoblin. Two others take their readied actions and move to take his place at the doorway and attack you. Luke?
Luke: I attack.
GM: You down another hobgoblin. Sarah?
Sarah: I attack.
GM: Missed. Sam, you're up.
Sam: I five-foot over to...here *points at battle map*, out of hobgoblin reach, and drink a healing potion.
GM: Okay. The other hobgoblins attack...

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Scenario 3:
Sam: I sneak into the room.
GM: Your stealth roll is successful. No one knows you're there.
The three other PCs: We wait to hear Sam make his move to open the door and charge in.
GM *rolls dice*: None of the enemies hear you positioning yourselves outside the door.
Sam: I attack the hobgoblin leader!
GM: Okay, he's damaged but still standing. Everyone roll initiative. Okay, Sam, you rolled highest so you're up again.
Sam: I attack him again.
GM: Okay, he's down. Two other hobgoblins move next, they both attack you. Then it's you, Sarah.
Sarah: I kick open the door and attack!
GM: You down that hobgoblin.

Which, if any, of those scenarios presents an unacceptable situation? And if any do, why is it unacceptable?

These scenarios all read as the players not quite understanding the rules and the GM not being very helpful about it. They are essentially trying to game the system for an advantage that doesn't exist in the rules they are using, and doing weird sub-optimal plans as a result. Also, they seem pretty outmatched. If the hobgoblins had gotten the drop on the PCs instead of the other way around, they wouldn't have a chance!

[crayonshinchuck]

This has already been discussed at length; the target and the attack is hidden until AFTER the attack. There is literally nothing to react to until after the attack, otherwise the attacker wouldn't be hidden at the time of the attack.

Alert does not give any bonus to Perception. It does not notice hidden attackers. Narratively a hidden attacker cannot be reacted to, as that would indicate they are not hidden. This is why the attack occuring after people have been surprised and then gotten over that makes no narrative sense. As there are no rules as to when initiative is rolled there is no forced reason to go through such a narratively dissonant chain of events.

The Alert feat has to mean that the character has some amazing ability to sense danger around them. A character's awareness cannot be entirely encompassed by their in-game Perception ability. A highly aware person could pick up subtle clues that something is about to happen (through seeing a shadow move, hearing something, smelling something, or some unconscious combination of their senses) without necessarily knowing precisely where the danger lies since it is so well hidden and their conscious senses (Perception) cannot locate it. This is how I can imagine the situation at least.

You seem to be saying that that is entirely unrealistic and the only realistic way to play a scenario like this is an absolute black-and-white competition between Stealth and Perception. In most cases in the game that is essentially true, but there are several magical or non-magical abilities that allow for a situation that lies in-between the two absolutes of full detection and non-detection. I have to imagine that just about every human being in the real world has had a situation where they sensed something was amiss, but were not able to gain enough information to pinpoint its source, but did have an opportunity to act in some way before whatever was about to happen.

[Morgaln]

That's funny, because I would have said that I was interpreting it as the game term and you were interpreting it as the colloquial term. I figured that why you were treating it as though surprise was the result of one particular action (the enemy attacking) rather than the start of combat (as per the game term). I would agree that not being surprised means that when an ambush starts, the character is immediately ready to fight and can react and take combat actions. So in scenarios where the attacker would normally get to attack before anybody can take actions (and maybe before anybody can take reactions, depending on their reflexes as represented by initiative), the player who is Alert or has other surprise-preventing features will still get to act. You're right that Alert does not grant the character perception; it's not some magic thing that automatically tells the player the best course of action.

Yes, sometimes that means a player ends up taking a turn where they aren't sure what to do, and maybe they just dodge. But it's still better to get to dodge before the opponent attacks in round 1 and take a more informed turn in round 2 before the enemy's turn, than it is to be attacked without having dodged, get an informed turn in round 1, and have the enemy go before you in round 2. In other words, it's still better to win initiative than lose it.


On the other hand, it is better to get an informed turn on turn 1 and then go before the enemy on turn 2, thus having two informed turns. Which is what I (and a few others) have been arguing for. Remember, in our narrative-guided version the first attacker only gets to go first in the first round. On all subsequent rounds, they get slotted in their rolled initiative spot. So it's entirely possible the character with Alert gets to go twice before the attacker gets their second turn. Which is actually benefical to them. And if the attacker had the highest initiative to begin with, it plays out exactly the same as your version, as the attacker would be the first to act anyway.


That also seems like the most reasonable resolution to me. But man, am I getting roasted over in the parent thread for deciding that is how it will work in my system!


Lol, the other thread is 20 pages long specifically because that is not how you play it in your system. See the Alice wins initative, Bob loses initiative example that we've gone in circles on for several pages.


The Alert feat has to mean that the character has some amazing ability to sense danger around them. A character's awareness cannot be entirely encompassed by their in-game Perception ability. A highly aware person could pick up subtle clues that something is about to happen (through seeing a shadow move, hearing something, smelling something, or some unconscious combination of their senses) without necessarily knowing precisely where the danger lies since it is so well hidden and their conscious senses (Perception) cannot locate it. This is how I can imagine the situation at least.

You seem to be saying that that is entirely unrealistic and the only realistic way to play a scenario like this is an absolute black-and-white competition between Stealth and Perception. In most cases in the game that is essentially true, but there are several magical or non-magical abilities that allow for a situation that lies in-between the two absolutes of full detection and non-detection. I have to imagine that just about every human being in the real world has had a situation where they sensed something was amiss, but were not able to gain enough information to pinpoint its source, but did have an opportunity to act in some way before whatever was about to happen.

I really think this comes down to the definition of surprise, or rather, the definition of "cannot be surprised".
The rulebook says the following about surprise:


A band of adventurers sneaks up on a bandit camp, springing from the trees to attack them. A gelatinous cube glides down a dungeon passage, unnoticed by the adventurers until the cube engulfs one of them. In these situations, one side of the battle gains surprise over the other.

The GM determines who might be surprised. If neither side tries to be stealthy, they automatically notice each other. Otherwise, the GM compares the Dexterity (Stealth) checks of anyone hiding with the passive Wisdom (Perception) score of each creature on the opposing side. Any character or monster that doesn't notice a threat is surprised at the start of the encounter.

If you're surprised, you can't move or take an action on your first turn of the combat, and you can't take a reaction until that turn ends. A member of a group can be surprised even if the other members aren't.

I'd say there are roughly three definitions of "cannot be surprised" running around in the thread.


1. "Cannot be surprised" only means you can't suffer the negative consequences of surprise as detailed by the rules. Meaning, a character can move and/or take actions, as well as use reactions even if they didn't notice a threat. "Cannot be surprised" has no bearing on whether the character notices a threat or not.

2. "Cannot be surprised" ignores all the negative consequences of being surprised, but it also gives the character a kind of danger sense. They know when there is a threat around and can prepare for said threat without knowing what exactly it is.

3. "Cannot be surprised" means the character can't even fulfil the prerequisite of being surprised. Which is to say, they will automatically succeed at their Perception check to see a hidden enemy and thus will never be caught unaware by any opponent.

I think most people in the thread go by definition 2, but those who disagree with them tend to lean more towards definition 1. I know I do, at least.

[Talakeal]

Lol, the other thread is 20 pages long specifically because that is not how you play it in your system. See the Alice wins initative, Bob loses initiative example that we've gone in circles on for several pages.

The heck you talking about?

Originally the issue was that I allowed unaware characters to roll initiative at all because the knowledge of initiative being rolled could inspire them to metagame. At that point, I wasn't sure if people who outrolled a hidden character had their turn skipped, or delayed until after the hidden character revealed themselves.

When I finally decided on the latter because I felt like it was unfair to punish someone for rolling well on initiative, the focus has almost entirely turned to how unrealistic and unfair it is that someone who "shouldn't have a turn at all" gets to delay said turn until later in the round, and about how them resuming their normal place in future rounds could result in them getting two turns in a row.

This post made yesterday evening is almost entirely about how unreasonable I am to resolve the situation as "hidden character goes first even if they lost initiative, but they will drop to their normal place in the initiative rotation in future turns."

https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25911673&postcount=572

[crayonshinchuck]

I'd say there are roughly three definitions of "cannot be surprised" running around in the thread.


1. "Cannot be surprised" only means you can't suffer the negative consequences of surprise as detailed by the rules. Meaning, a character can move and/or take actions, as well as use reactions even if they didn't notice a threat. "Cannot be surprised" has no bearing on whether the character notices a threat or not.

2. "Cannot be surprised" ignores all the negative consequences of being surprised, but it also gives the character a kind of danger sense. They know when there is a threat around and can prepare for said threat without knowing what exactly it is.

3. "Cannot be surprised" means the character can't even fulfil the prerequisite of being surprised. Which is to say, they will automatically succeed at their Perception check to see a hidden enemy and thus will never be caught unaware by any opponent.

I think most people in the thread go by definition 2, but those who disagree with them tend to lean more towards definition 1. I know I do, at least.

You claim that you (and those that go by definition 1) are playing "as detailed by the rules", but then, if I am not mistaken, to make the situation make sense, you homebrew some way to have the ambushing character act first. I do not see how this makes sense.
I think that definition 3 is merely a strawman argument posited by folks who want the ambushing character to absolutely go first. They seem to believe that it is the logical conclusion to the view of folks like me arguing for definition 2 (that is, they cannot accept that there is some way for a character to be between knowing exactly where their threat lies and being completely oblivious to any threat).

[Aimeryan]

Yet there are a number of specific rules in the game which grant exactly that ability to react.

This is my bad for not seeing how the context would be missed - it was in relation to initiative being rolled before the attacker attacks. I'll rephrase: A hidden attacker who has yet to do anything cannot be reacted to.



You clearly have a narrative in mind that is rather at odds with the rules of the game. That's fine if you want to play that way but don't fool yourself that what you are playing is the same game as what is in the printed rules.

Once again, as do all the following replies, PEOPLE ARE STATING WHAT IS THE RAW WITHOUT SHOWING THE RAW.
I am asking, not for a "I feel this way" not for a "You can change the rules for your way", I am asking for you to show me how it is not RAW. With actual text that is written, and with an explanation of why this written text makes calling for initiative not the DM's call.

Without that, we are just go in circles. I've shown the RAW, I've pointed out what is not the RAW (obviously cannot show this except to point to the book itself). It is your turn.

[Talakeal]

You claim that you (and those that go by definition 1) are playing "as detailed by the rules", but then, if I am not mistaken, to make the situation make sense, you homebrew some way to have the ambushing character act first. I do not see how this makes sense.
I think that definition 3 is merely a strawman argument posited by folks who want the ambushing character to absolutely go first. They seem to believe that it is the logical conclusion to the view of folks like me arguing for definition 2 (that is, they cannot accept that there is some way for a character to be between knowing exactly where their threat lies and being completely oblivious to any threat).

I feel like some people do think that declaring an attack automatically reveals you from stealth, and that this occurs before initiative is rolled.


Once again, as do all the following replies, PEOPLE ARE STATING WHAT IS THE RAW WITHOUT SHOWING THE RAW.
I am asking, not for a "I feel this way" not for a "You can change the rules for your way", I am asking for you to show me how it is not RAW. With actual text that is written, and with an explanation of why this written text makes calling for initiative not the DM's call.

Without that, we are just go in circles. I've shown the RAW, I've pointed out what is not the RAW (obviously cannot show this except to point to the book itself). It is your turn.

While I normally agree with this line of thinking, you can't prove a negative.

Its impossible to prove what the rules don't say, so the burden of proof kind of has to lie with the person making the claim.

AFAICT the combat rules are all we have in 5E, all of the stuff about attacks made before / out of combat is pure GM style as there is nothing in the rulebook to support or deny it.

[Morgaln]

You claim that you (and those that go by definition 1) are playing "as detailed by the rules", but then, if I am not mistaken, to make the situation make sense, you homebrew some way to have the ambushing character act first. I do not see how this makes sense.
I think that definition 3 is merely a strawman argument posited by folks who want the ambushing character to absolutely go first. They seem to believe that it is the logical conclusion to the view of folks like me arguing for definition 2 (that is, they cannot accept that there is some way for a character to be between knowing exactly where their threat lies and being completely oblivious to any threat).

I think you somewhat misunderstood what I was trying to say. The "detailed by the rules" part is referring to the negative consequences of suprise, not the "cannot be surprised" part. The rules don't specify what "cannot be surprised" means at all, so it is up to the table to decide. I consider both definition 1 and definition 2 valid interpretations, and would accept a GM playing it by 2 even if I would go for 1. I will also freely admit that having the ambusher go first is a house rule. There's nothing in the rules about that. I still maintain that it makes more narrative sense that way, though.

Definition 3 is not a strawman. There have been posts stating that since initiative has been rolled, the hidden character must be visible now and the character with Alert can attack them before they can even do the ambush.

[Aimeryan]

While I normally agree with this line of thinking, you can't prove a negative.

Its impossible to prove what the rules don't say, so the burden of proof kind of has to lie with the person making the claim.

AFAICT the combat rules are all we have in 5E, all of the stuff about attacks made before / out of combat is pure GM style as there is nothing in the rulebook to support or deny it.

That is the point though; they are asserting it is one way and that there are rules written to this effect. I am asserting no such rules exist and that thus it is up to the DM, leaving the possibility we are suggesting open.

I have even pointed to examplar text that suggests proceeding as we have suggested. It is not explicit, so I wont push it. The only thing left that matters is that the side asserting there is one way by the rules as written to do play this needs to show that. The burden is on them.


To be clear, since there are three suggestions here:

Modify initiative to have the attacker go first in the first round, then to whatever they rolled afterwards.
Have the attack be part of the narrative, going before combat begins.
Have the attack be part of the attackers first turn in combat, after initiative has been rolled.

Number 1 is a houserule - the initiative rules are written and this would be changing them. It is the better suggestion, nevertheless.
Number 2 is neither RAW or against RAW. It is a DM ruling. There are no written rules on when initiative is called, nor are hidden narrative attacks forbade. It essentially plays out like a controlled trap where Perception is the key to stopping this occurring. I see this as being narratively stronger than number 3, but weaker than number 1 - but number 1 is a houserule.
Number 3 is neither RAW or against RAW. It is a DM ruling. There are no written rules on when initiative is called, nor are there written rules to say that hidden narrative attacks need to play out under initiative. This leads to a strong cognitive dissonance when the the hidden attacker rolls low on initiative due to the enemy party 'reacting' to nothing and getting over being surprised by that nothing, then not being surprised when a hidden attacker suddenly strikes.

[Darth Credence]

This is my bad for not seeing how the context would be missed - it was in relation to initiative being rolled before the attacker attacks. I'll rephrase: A hidden attacker who has yet to do anything cannot be reacted to.

There's your problem - you seem to think that a hidden character goes from "yet to do anything" to "complete their entire attack" instantaneously, leaving no way for them to start to do something and be noticed before they complete the attack. The way the game works, everything happens all at once, so an attack is not instantaneous, and someone else can get their entire turn in between one person starting to move and finishing what they were doing.


Once again, as do all the following replies, PEOPLE ARE STATING WHAT IS THE RAW WITHOUT SHOWING THE RAW.
I am asking, not for a "I feel this way" not for a "You can change the rules for your way", I am asking for you to show me how it is not RAW. With actual text that is written, and with an explanation of why this written text makes calling for initiative not the DM's call.

Without that, we are just go in circles. I've shown the RAW, I've pointed out what is not the RAW (obviously cannot show this except to point to the book itself). It is your turn.

It's been shown. Repeatedly. It's section 9 of the PHB, under the Order of Combat. The DM determines surprise, the DM determines positions, initiative is rolled, then turns are taken. It is quite explicit that initiative is rolled before turns are taken. In addition, the section under "initiative" specifically says "Initiative determines the order of turns during combat. When combat starts, every participant makes a Dexterity check to determine their place in the initiative order." You have not shown "the RAW", as what you are arguing is not RAW. RAW is that when combat starts, every participant rolls initiative to determine when they get to take their turn.

[GloatingSwine]

When combat starts

Yes, the point is that there is not a black letter rule for when that is. Combat starts when the DM says it does.

[Darth Credence]

Yes, the point is that there is not a black letter rule for when that is. Combat starts when the DM says it does.
Sure. But what is absolutely clear, because it is flat out stated there, is that combat starts after initiative, and that turns are taken in initiative order. That some are interpreting that to mean that that's when things happen in combat but people can still take combat actions outside of combat is crazy to me. Attacking someone is a combat action. That takes place after initiative. The only way to get to taking attack actions outside of initiative is to say that attacking someone is not, in fact, a combat action, but just a general action that can happen whenever. Which, come on, it's called the attack action, that makes it a combat action.

ETA - and a search for "sage advice attacking outside of combat" gets this result from Chris Perkins: "The PH states that initiative is rolled "when combat starts," which I take to mean before any attack is resolved." So at least one person on their staff is coming down where the majority here does.
In addition, the Sage Advice compendium on dndbeyond has a section about it. it has this:
"If anyone is surprised, no actions are taken yet. First, initiative is rolled as normal. Then, the first round of combat starts, and the unsurprised combatants act in initiative order. A surprised creature can’t move or take an action or a reaction until its first turn ends (remember that being unable to take an action also means you can’t take a bonus action). In effect, a surprised creature skips its first turn in a fight. Once that turn ends, the creature is no longer surprised."

[Morgaln]

Sure. But what is absolutely clear, because it is flat out stated there, is that combat starts after initiative, and that turns are taken in initiative order. That some are interpreting that to mean that that's when things happen in combat but people can still take combat actions outside of combat is crazy to me. Attacking someone is a combat action. That takes place after initiative. The only way to get to taking attack actions outside of initiative is to say that attacking someone is not, in fact, a combat action, but just a general action that can happen whenever. Which, come on, it's called the attack action, that makes it a combat action.

Is an archery competition combat? If not, how do you model shooting at a wooden target when you can't shoot an arrow outside combat? Is hunting combat? Or can you not shoot an arrow at a deer? Do you need to enter combat in order to swing your sword at a rope? Or is it impossible to cut through a rope outside combat?
It's perfectly possible to use attack actions outside combat if the situation calls for it.

[Darth Credence]

Is an archery competition combat? If not, how do you model shooting at a wooden target when you can't shoot an arrow outside combat? Is hunting combat? Or can you not shoot an arrow at a deer? Do you need to enter combat in order to swing your sword at a rope? Or is it impossible to cut through a rope outside combat?
It's perfectly possible to use attack actions outside combat if the situation calls for it.

Archery competition is not combat, and combat rules would not work for deciding the winner. Home brew is necessary regardless, since a hit is a hit, and doesn't explain how close to the bullseye.

Hunting is combat.

You don't need to take an attack action to swing your sword at a rope at all. It can be handled by simply saying that you will use your sword to cut that rope. If time is a major factor, then you should probably be in initiative.

See there, you didn't need a single attack action outside of combat.

[Theodoxus]

All I can say is thankfully we all don't play at each others' tables. I don't think we'd ever find consensus.

I still go by Occam's Razor. I go by what I've seen work at my table, and I go by what works when initiating combat in Baldur's Gate 3. I suppose it's beneficial that Alert doesn't exist in it. Heck, it might be exactly because for it to work, anytime you initiated combat, a check would need to be made to see if the initiator was attacking into a mob where one or more NPCs had Alert, and then it retroactively had to reorganize the initiative to take their precognition into account and by then, the AI probably tried to nuke Iceland.

It would help if 'Cannot be surprised' was defined. It would help if Surprised was either officially a Condition or considered Round 0 of combat.

I think it's fairly safe to say there are pretty much two camps, neither will concede, but I suspect outside of a couple very vocal opponents to 'attacking outside of combat', if any of us were sitting at a game where the DM declared they were running Surprise one way or the other, we'd probably be ok playing it that way even if it wasn't how we'd run it. (maybe building into it - super stealthers! or away from it - Alert Observers!)

Maybe some folks who never thought about this subject will read and pick a side, so some use might come out of it. But I think we've exhausted the arguments... doesn't mean this won't draw out for another 15 pages though.

[tokek]

Is an archery competition combat? If not, how do you model shooting at a wooden target when you can't shoot an arrow outside combat? Is hunting combat? Or can you not shoot an arrow at a deer? Do you need to enter combat in order to swing your sword at a rope? Or is it impossible to cut through a rope outside combat?
It's perfectly possible to use attack actions outside combat if the situation calls for it.

I shoot archery every week, it’s definitely not combat. If I were running an archery contest in-game I would make it a modified ability check contest where the applicable proficiency is with the bow. Sort of using bow in an equivalent manner to a tool proficiency for that purpose. None of the Nat 1 /Nat 20 stuff - that doesn’t fit very well at all.

I wouldn’t roll for every arrow either. Even a short archery contest is 36 arrows. That would be very tedious

[NichG]

I still go by Occam's Razor. I go by what I've seen work at my table, and I go by what works when initiating combat in Baldur's Gate 3. I suppose it's beneficial that Alert doesn't exist in it. Heck, it might be exactly because for it to work, anytime you initiated combat, a check would need to be made to see if the initiator was attacking into a mob where one or more NPCs had Alert, and then it retroactively had to reorganize the initiative to take their precognition into account and by then, the AI probably tried to nuke Iceland.

It would help if 'Cannot be surprised' was defined. It would help if Surprised was either officially a Condition or considered Round 0 of combat.


The Alert feat does exist in BG3, and it does give immunity to the surprised condition (which is implemented as just, if your turn comes up and you're surprised, skip your turn and lose the condition). If you wanted to test how it handles corner cases like this, get an Alert character to trigger an encounter with a Mimic a couple of times and see if they ever get to go first (mimics seem to be the main consistent source of enemies surprising PCs in BG3 outside of scripted dialogue stuff).

BG3 also certainly has something like those 'narrative attacks', but you can get them even with an on-going combat as long as you keep your other party members far enough away to not get caught in the combat radius. So basically you *could* exploit that to have each character in your party make their first attack/take their first action at the initiative of the character who triggers the fight (at the cost of that character not making a narrative attack of their own, since I think that does count as their action for the first round and all the enemies will get to go if they were not surprised before time freezes again and you can have your other characters join in). Anyhow, BG3 is trying to do something very difficult in having both a realtime responsive component and a turn-based component coexist.

[rel]

Why am I on that list? Am I really that bad a communicator? That is not what I was arguing for at all!

I was arguing that somehow (the rules do not define how) the attacker beginning their attack mean their targets are no longer completely oblivious to them. Against non-Alert targets, the ambusher gets the first attack regardless of initiative because of the surprised pseudo-condition. But against against targets with the Alert feat they better hope they win initiative, because if they don't the target can respond to their starting the attack by completing one of theirs.

(Starting the attack does not mean they must complete it if circumstances have changed by the time their turn actually comes up, just that they must have done something towards it to have triggered the initiative roll and caused their targets to trade "unaware" for "surprised" in the first place.)


I should definitely be on the upper list. I absolutely think that once an attack starts, like by the ambusher saying that they are going to attack, then you roll initiative, including any bonus from alert or other feats, and resolve in initiative order. Those that are surprised get no actions, and only get a reaction after their first turn; those that are not get their normal turn, but they may or may not know where anyone is to take an action against.

apologies to you both, my original post (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25911107&postcount=86) has been updated.

[Shoreward]

Can I just say, as a casual observer of this thread, that I find the notion that “sensing danger before its source presents itself is nonsensical” is itself... strange? People do that all the time in real life – daily, in some cases, though on smaller scales than sensing the threat of goblins preparing to leap out of the cupboards, and often simply due to high nerves. It also presents a fictional world in which no hidden assassin can ever be dodged by sudden reflex before his blade sinks into his target or before the king is even consciously aware of his attacker, which neither matches any fiction I know nor any reality.

You don’t have to be a Jedi or Spider-Man to sense a threat before it occurs and react without complete information.

[ciopo]

Big thread, whew, I've only read the first page or so.

I'd like to chime in, and forgive me if it's been already pointed out, that if the ambusher character as presented lost initiative, and so the alert character "does something" in response to whatver the ambusher would do but hasnt done yet.... I would totally change my action as the ambusher from "I attack" to something congruent in response to whatever the ambushed does before me.

I.e, I as the hidden character, I see my target suddenly assume a defensive posture, is ready to strike at the air, or whatever.... I would not attack, either to "wait for a better opportunity", or to do a something else, like idk, drink a buff potion.

Most likely I would finagle some way to have initiative rerolled, because while the alert one has won initiative, they don't have "the" initiative.

Ambusher: now that Alertdude is in the ravine, I shoot him with my crossbow

DM calls for initiative, and as presented in the first page *this is before the declaration is resolved*

Alertdude gets to act first, and does whatever is allowed to him, be it dodge/ready/active perception check

It's now ambusher turn.... which has no reason to do what he said he would do because the situation changed.

If I'm to put it in rules term, the declaration of "I shoot him with my crossbow" is prempted by the initiative roll, it is an invalid declaration, the DM answer to that declaration is "no, you don't, because it's not your turn"

Unless you want to resolve it as a readied action i guess, but then.... that means it happens before whatever alertdude would want to do, because supposedly whatever he does is what would trigger?

[Aimeryan]

There's your problem - you seem to think that a hidden character goes from "yet to do anything" to "complete their entire attack" instantaneously, leaving no way for them to start to do something and be noticed before they complete the attack. The way the game works, everything happens all at once, so an attack is not instantaneous, and someone else can get their entire turn in between one person starting to move and finishing what they were doing.

The RAW point was answered by GloatingSwine, so I'll just answer this other part of the post.

There are two problems with your assertion here:

Attacks are near-atomic from a rules point of view, with only Reactions getting to interject. Other turns never get to go while an attack is occurring. Either the attack has started and finishes (barring Reactions), or the attack has yet to start.
Hidden attackers cannot be noticed without a successful Perception check. That is pure RAW. The attacker is exposed AFTER the attack, not before, not during.

[Amnestic]

It's now ambusher turn.... which has no reason to do what he said he would do because the situation changed.


If someone declares they're going to attack and then decides not to after losing initiative that seems fine to me. They'll lose their surprise round, and either have to retreat or risk being found once the active perception checks start rolling. An assassin having to call off a hit at the last second isn't exactly unheard of in fiction.

Alternatively, you could lock them into it if you wanted to. "You said you were going to attack, so attack." I'm not against this, necessarily, and it's almost certainly how I'd play an NPC assassin if I were DMing it.

[ciopo]

Having read further (catching up takes time!), I find myself mostly aligned with Darth Credence position, at least as of first two pages :)

I generally abhor out-of-initiative ready actions

[tokek]

If someone declares they're going to attack and then decides not to after losing initiative that seems fine to me. They'll lose their surprise round, and either have to retreat or risk being found once the active perception checks start rolling. An assassin having to call off a hit at the last second isn't exactly unheard of in fiction.

Alternatively, you could lock them into it if you wanted to. "You said you were going to attack, so attack." I'm not against this, necessarily, and it's almost certainly how I'd play an NPC assassin if I were DMing it.

Some games emphasise declaring your action ahead of time - typically at the start of each round. That is an option in D&D and if you take that option it opens up things like modifying your initiative depending on your action - but so far as I see its not a very popular option for play.

If you generally play that you don't declare your action until its your turn then I don't see any reason to modify that style of play here.

As for locking-in we actually had a discussion about this between the coaches at our archery club last week. How its psychologically really hard to lower the bow without loosing and start over even when you know you have held too long and it won't be a good shot. Logically we all know we should do it, in practice we all know there is such a tendency to want to complete the action that we started that actually getting people to be willing to stop and start again is one of the hardest things to coach

Also the idea that you didn't start the attack some time before you loose the arrow is plainly silly. Even for crossbows its quite silly but for bows its ludicrous. The action to make the attack starts noticeably before you loose the arrow.

[Theodoxus]

Can I just say, as a casual observer of this thread, that I find the notion that “sensing danger before its source presents itself is nonsensical” is itself... strange? People do that all the time in real life – daily, in some cases, though on smaller scales than sensing the threat of goblins preparing to leap out of the cupboards, and often simply due to high nerves. It also presents a fictional world in which no hidden assassin can ever be dodged by sudden reflex before his blade sinks into his target or before the king is even consciously aware of his attacker, which neither matches any fiction I know nor any reality.

You don’t have to be a Jedi or Spider-Man to sense a threat before it occurs and react without complete information.

Because rolling to hit isn't a thing?

There's a reason royalty hid behind guards. Remember, surprise requires an attack from the Hidden status. It's pretty hard to sneak up on someone without being seen (outside of magic, generally - but that brings up a whole host of other issues that makes Earth-style medieval life not really relevant to fictionalized magical worlds... but we work with what we have, right?)

Armor is a thing too. Don't want to get killed in an ambush, utilize armor. Works to this day. It's why there was so much discussion on personal and vehicle armor during the Iraq war.

Arguing about fairness in a contested fight where someone is trying to kill you seems... strange.


Also the idea that you didn't start the attack some time before you loose the arrow is plainly silly. Even for crossbows its quite silly but for bows its ludicrous. The action to make the attack starts noticeably before you loose the arrow.

Sure, but if you're readying your bow while standing in a copse of trees or behind a wide column, or other obstacle that keeps you Hidden from your target, is that still noticeable?

While a lot of fiction (especially post Drizzt) is about assassins with hand crossbows, any assassin worth their salt would be closer to modern snipers. Taking Sharpshooter (not for the damage bonus, but the removal of the range and cover penalties). 100 - 120 feet, depending on environmental factors (busy street; nighttime shooting from tree cover into a firelit camp; rooftop; etc.) might make it nigh impossible to spot the attacker.

To be sure, we're talking about highly trained assassins who use every advantage at their disposal. Probably not something commonly seen in a D&D game. I wouldn't have your average Podunk goblin acting that way.

[GooeyChewie]

On the other hand, it is better to get an informed turn on turn 1 and then go before the enemy on turn 2, thus having two informed turns. Which is what I (and a few others) have been arguing for. Remember, in our narrative-guided version the first attacker only gets to go first in the first round. On all subsequent rounds, they get slotted in their rolled initiative spot. So it's entirely possible the character with Alert gets to go twice before the attacker gets their second turn. Which is actually benefical to them. And if the attacker had the highest initiative to begin with, it plays out exactly the same as your version, as the attacker would be the first to act anyway.

True, your method can provide an additional benefit to the Alert character. But it's a benefit Alert is not meant to give, and it isn't one that I find narratively sensical. Somehow the fact that I didn't notice the enemy allows me to take back-to-back turns relative to them? Even if you do find it narratively sensical, I don't think that narrative benefit is worth the narrative detriment of not letting characters with enough reflexes react to things happening around them. That is to say, the RAW treats surprised characters who rolled well enough on initiative to have the reflexes to get in a reaction, and your houserule takes away that possibility.



I'd say there are roughly three definitions of "cannot be surprised" running around in the thread.


1. "Cannot be surprised" only means you can't suffer the negative consequences of surprise as detailed by the rules. Meaning, a character can move and/or take actions, as well as use reactions even if they didn't notice a threat. "Cannot be surprised" has no bearing on whether the character notices a threat or not.

2. "Cannot be surprised" ignores all the negative consequences of being surprised, but it also gives the character a kind of danger sense. They know when there is a threat around and can prepare for said threat without knowing what exactly it is.

3. "Cannot be surprised" means the character can't even fulfil the prerequisite of being surprised. Which is to say, they will automatically succeed at their Perception check to see a hidden enemy and thus will never be caught unaware by any opponent.

I think most people in the thread go by definition 2, but those who disagree with them tend to lean more towards definition 1. I know I do, at least.

The only actual difference between 1 and 2 is that option 2 uses "danger sense" as the fluff for why the character cannot suffer the negative consequences of surprise as detailed by the rules. The fluff for Alert is that the character is always on the lookout for danger. One could call that a "danger sense," but personally I would fluff it as the character being alert (it's even in the name!).



That is the point though; they are asserting it is one way and that there are rules written to this effect. I am asserting no such rules exist and that thus it is up to the DM, leaving the possibility we are suggesting open.

I have even pointed to examplar text that suggests proceeding as we have suggested. It is not explicit, so I wont push it. The only thing left that matters is that the side asserting there is one way by the rules as written to do play this needs to show that. The burden is on them.


To be clear, since there are three suggestions here:

Modify initiative to have the attacker go first in the first round, then to whatever they rolled afterwards.
Have the attack be part of the narrative, going before combat begins.
Have the attack be part of the attackers first turn in combat, after initiative has been rolled.

Number 1 is a houserule - the initiative rules are written and this would be changing them. It is the better suggestion, nevertheless.
Number 2 is neither RAW or against RAW. It is a DM ruling. There are no written rules on when initiative is called, nor are hidden narrative attacks forbade. It essentially plays out like a controlled trap where Perception is the key to stopping this occurring. I see this as being narratively stronger than number 3, but weaker than number 1 - but number 1 is a houserule.
Number 3 is neither RAW or against RAW. It is a DM ruling. There are no written rules on when initiative is called, nor are there written rules to say that hidden narrative attacks need to play out under initiative. This leads to a strong cognitive dissonance when the the hidden attacker rolls low on initiative due to the enemy party 'reacting' to nothing and getting over being surprised by that nothing, then not being surprised when a hidden attacker suddenly strikes.

Number 1 is a houserule, I agree. It's not the worst houesrule in the world, but I think it is trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist and has the potential to raise more questions than it answers.
Number 2 is not RAW. The DM is granting the attacker an additional attack on the justification that the rules don't explicitly forbid it. There's an infinite number of things the rules don't explicitly forbid, but that doesn't make them RAW. I like to call this type of justification the 'Air Bud' defense. Also, having the attack occur "before combat begins" creates issues. Surprise is not determined until you begin combat. If this attack actually occurs before combat, nobody should be surprised because they were all aware of the attacker by the time you begin combat. But if you interweave it into the start of combat, after surprise is determined but before turns are taken, then you're explicitly adding that attack to the RAW process of combat and can no longer justify it by pointing out that the DM determines when combat starts. It's also unclear how this method works when part of the party passes their Perception check.
Number 3 is RAW, and only creates cognitive dissonance if you treat surprise as being startled by something happening rather than how the rules treat it, as a state of being unready to take actions or reactions. Combat starts, the party is surprised because they do not notice the threat. The hidden attacker rolls low on initiative, not because the enemy party is 'reacting' to nothing but because their ambush was effective enough to prevent the party from taking overt actions but not effective enough to prevent them from reacting to the ambush.


I think it's fairly safe to say there are pretty much two camps, neither will concede, but I suspect outside of a couple very vocal opponents to 'attacking outside of combat', if any of us were sitting at a game where the DM declared they were running Surprise one way or the other, we'd probably be ok playing it that way even if it wasn't how we'd run it. (maybe building into it - super stealthers! or away from it - Alert Observers!)
True, I would be okay playing at a table using the houserule that ambushers go to the front of the initiative line in round 1. It wouldn't be my preference, and I would have questions about how it resolves in less straightforward situations where not everybody on one side is surprised, but it's not a big enough deal to quit the campaign.

I wouldn't want to play at a table that gave ambushers a free extra attack, though. I've DMed for players who thought it should work that way before. That's why I'm as familiar with the surprise rules as I am, because that behavior led to the players trying to attack anything that could possibly be an enemy before I declared combat, which of course led to them attacking some friendly (but as of yet unknown) NPCs.


Remember, surprise requires an attack from the Hidden status.
No it doesn't. Surprise requires that combat starts while a character has not noticed anybody on the opposing side. Usually that means the opposing side is hidden, but it could mean that one side cannot be noticed by some other means. Usually the side that was not noticed will attack, but nothing about the surprise rules require that they do. The round in which the other side is surprised could also be used to call for reinforcements, or to escape, etc..

[Aimeryan]

Number 2 is not RAW.


I know - I said as much. To be RAW it literally has to be written as a rule. Similarly, to be against RAW there needs to be rules written. In this case, there is neither - as I said.



Number 3 is RAW...[snip, no justification of it being RAW]


This is where we fundamentally disagree, like hard disagree. There are no rules written that says when initiative is called. There are no rule written saying all attacks must present in combat. Without these rules being written it cannot be said that it is the RAW to have the attack occur after initiative is rolled. Similarly, there are no rules written against this either.

Without anything being offered to establish your case, it is simply mutterings in a breeze.

You can use either DM ruling, both are valid and neither more so from a rules point of view. However, narratively it does not make sense to have an attack that by all intents and purposes occurs within the narrative to lose itself to a combat sequence that shreds the narrative preperation to bits. It creates the equivalence of continuity errors, or plain bad writing. It forces cause and effect to potentially reverse upon themself.

I think everything I have to say has been said at this point on this matter, so I'll simply summarise that if you want to stay within RAW but have the narrative make sense try having the attack occur within the narrative and leave combat for after. Otherwise, if you are happy to homebrew just do that and put the attacker as first on initiative (and if you want to move them to another initiative afterwards do that too).

[GloatingSwine]

I shoot archery every week, it’s definitely not combat. If I were running an archery contest in-game I would make it a modified ability check contest where the applicable proficiency is with the bow. Sort of using bow in an equivalent manner to a tool proficiency for that purpose. None of the Nat 1 /Nat 20 stuff - that doesn’t fit very well at all.

I wouldn’t roll for every arrow either. Even a short archery contest is 36 arrows. That would be very tedious

The downside here is that a level 20 character who has invested pretty much every class feature he can into archery is probably only 5% better than a level 1 character who picked the Archery fighting style last week. (20 dex vs 18)

Which isn't a very good representation of how good those two should be at archery.

Because all the class features that should be relevant model around attack rolls and bonuses to them.

So if you want an archery contest where the character who has built themself to be the world's best archer is actually the world's best archer you have to base it on attack rolls.

[GooeyChewie]

This is where we fundamentally disagree, like hard disagree. There are no rules written that says when initiative is called. There are no rule written saying all attacks must present in combat. Without these rules being written it cannot be said that it is the RAW to have the attack occur after initiative is rolled. Similarly, there are no rules written against this either.

Without anything being offered to establish your case, it is simply mutterings in a breeze.

There are rules written that says when initiative is called. It's immediately after the "determine positions" step, per the PHB, page 189, the Combat Step by Step block. There are not rules that dictate when the DM decides to go into combat, but there most definitely are rules for what happens when they do. So there are two possibilities:

One, you are granting this attack prior to going into combat altogether. In this case, the attacker is no longer trying to be sneaky when combat begins, and nobody should be surprised. You have said before that your method does not negate the "cannot be surprised" portion of Alert, so it sounds like you are processing the attack and then still applying surprise, which goes against RAW.

Two, you are granting this attack as an additional step during combat, after determining surprise and before rolling initiative. Adding steps to a step-by-step process goes against RAW every bit as much as bumping the attacker up to the start of the initiative does.

In other words, the additional attack goes against RAW regardless of when the DM decides combat starts. If you want to play it that way when you are the DM, you can do so. But you are using a houserule if you do.


You can use either DM ruling, both are valid and neither more so from a rules point of view. However, narratively it does not make sense to have an attack that by all intents and purposes occurs within the narrative to lose itself to a combat sequence that shreds the narrative preperation to bits. It creates the equivalence of continuity errors, or plain bad writing. It forces cause and effect to potentially reverse upon themself.

I think everything I have to say has been said at this point on this matter, so I'll simply summarise that if you want to stay within RAW but have the narrative make sense try having the attack occur within the narrative and leave combat for after. Otherwise, if you are happy to homebrew just do that and put the attacker as first on initiative (and if you want to move them to another initiative afterwards do that too).

Narratively, the surprise rules as written do exactly what you intend to accomplish with your additional attack. They allow the surpriser to do something (usually an attack, but not always) before the surprised get a chance to overtly act. They represent the party being caught by surprise and not being ready to do something about what is about to happen or is currently happening, not the party being shocked that something has happened.

Let's look at an example of how the surprise rules as written work in a normal situation, with no Alert or other surprise-preventing features.

Mechanically what happens is:

The party (Jill, Jack and John) are travelling. Along the road there are three hidden bandits. John has a high enough passive perception to notice the bandits, but Jill and Jack do not. The DM begins combat. They determine Jill and Jack are surprised and John is not, and determines the positions of both the party (by virtue of the location of their miniatures) and the bandits (hiding behind some bushes). Everybody rolls initiative. Jill rolls 19, the bandits roll 12, Jack rolls 10 and John rolls 3. The first round starts. Jill takes no action on her turn, then loses surprise. The bandits attack, each one firing at a different party member. The attack against Jill has advantage, because she does not see the attacker, but she casts Shield to prevent the hit. The attack against Jack also has advantage, and he wants to use Deflect Missiles, but cannot because he is still surprised. The attack against John does not have advantage, but he has no relevant reactions. Next up, Jack takes no actions on his turn and loses surprise. Then John attacks the attackers, because he can see them and is not surprised.

Narratively what happens is:

The party (Jill, Jack and John) are travelling. John notices some bandits right before they fire at each member of the party. Jill's reflexes are just fast enough to let her cast Shield, but Jack got caught off-guard and John's reflexes were too slow to let him do something about the attackers before they fired.


If the party has surprise-prevention features, then those features would need to be woven into the narrative based on how the feature presents itself. If Jack had Alert, it would add to the narrative that because he was on the lookout for danger (wording lifted straight from the feat), he subconsciously realized the party was in a dangerous situation as it was about to happen, which is why he had the wherewithal to jump into the bushes and hide before the ambushers got off their attack (since he would then be at initiative 15 with the +5 bonus).

[Morgaln]

Narratively, the surprise rules as written do exactly what you intend to accomplish with your additional attack. They allow the surpriser to do something (usually an attack, but not always) before the surprised get a chance to overtly act. They represent the party being caught by surprise and not being ready to do something about what is about to happen or is currently happening, not the party being shocked that something has happened.

Let's look at an example of how the surprise rules as written work in a normal situation, with no Alert or other surprise-preventing features.

Mechanically what happens is:

The party (Jill, Jack and John) are travelling. Along the road there are three hidden bandits. John has a high enough passive perception to notice the bandits, but Jill and Jack do not. The DM begins combat. They determine Jill and Jack are surprised and John is not, and determines the positions of both the party (by virtue of the location of their miniatures) and the bandits (hiding behind some bushes). Everybody rolls initiative. Jill rolls 19, the bandits roll 12, Jack rolls 10 and John rolls 3. The first round starts. Jill takes no action on her turn, then loses surprise. The bandits attack, each one firing at a different party member. The attack against Jill has advantage, because she does not see the attacker, but she casts Shield to prevent the hit. The attack against Jack also has advantage, and he wants to use Deflect Missiles, but cannot because he is still surprised. The attack against John does not have advantage, but he has no relevant reactions. Next up, Jack takes no actions on his turn and loses surprise. Then John attacks the attackers, because he can see them and is not surprised.

Narratively what happens is:

The party (Jill, Jack and John) are travelling. John notices some bandits right before they fire at each member of the party. Jill's reflexes are just fast enough to let her cast Shield, but Jack got caught off-guard and John's reflexes were too slow to let him do something about the attackers before they fired.


If the party has surprise-prevention features, then those features would need to be woven into the narrative based on how the feature presents itself. If Jack had Alert, it would add to the narrative that because he was on the lookout for danger (wording lifted straight from the feat), he subconsciously realized the party was in a dangerous situation as it was about to happen, which is why he had the wherewithal to jump into the bushes and hide before the ambushers got off their attack (since he would then be at initiative 15 with the +5 bonus).

I agree that this scene would play out like that. I would play it like that myself. But there is a key difference between your scenario and the scenarios we have discussed so far: In this case, John has high enough perception to notice the ambush before it occurs. The event that triggers combat is John seeing the enemy and (presumably) warning his allies, thus forcing the ambushers to act at a time that isn't completely of their own choosing.

However, if no one has high enough passive perception, the triggering event can only come from the ambushing party. Unless the ambushers act, no combat occurs. So in reverse, how can combat start when the ambushers haven't made a move yet? What if the ambushers never make a move? Even if we assume Jack has the Alert feat and somehow senses there is something wrong: how long can he stand there, sword ready, waiting for something to happen? What's preventing the ambushers from just waiting until the party decides Jack was wrong, puts away their weapons and moves on? If the ambushers attack at that point, we're right back to square one and the whole thing starts again, with new surprise. Repeat until an ambusher rolls the highest initiative and goes first anyway.
The only way to prevent that is either to have an ambusher do the first attack of the first round, or to force the ambushers to act in a way that reveals them when their turn comes around. Which, if the ambushers are the PCs, would go against player agency.

[GloatingSwine]

There are rules written that says when initiative is called. It's immediately after the "determine positions" step, per the PHB, page 189, the Combat Step by Step block. There are not rules that dictate when the DM decides to go into combat, but there most definitely are rules for what happens when they do. So there are two possibilities:


Only in relation to the other steps of setting up a combat.

There is no written rule as to when that happens, it happens when the DM says it does.

[tokek]

The downside here is that a level 20 character who has invested pretty much every class feature he can into archery is probably only 5% better than a level 1 character who picked the Archery fighting style last week. (20 dex vs 18)

Which isn't a very good representation of how good those two should be at archery.

Because all the class features that should be relevant model around attack rolls and bonuses to them.

So if you want an archery contest where the character who has built themself to be the world's best archer is actually the world's best archer you have to base it on attack rolls.

I said I would include proficiency bonus.

You don't need attack rolls at all. In fact the auto miss on 1 and auto crit on 20 makes little to no sense for shooting an end in an archery contest. Even if your string breaks you just restring your bow and continue.

[GloatingSwine]

I said I would include proficiency bonus.

You don't need attack rolls at all. In fact the auto miss on 1 and auto crit on 20 makes little to no sense for shooting an end in an archery contest. Even if your string breaks you just restring your bow and continue.

You don't need attack rolls, but they're the best place to start when you want to have a situation close enough to combat that logically combat feats and class features should apply to it.

[Keltest]

Honestly, doing something like 30 attack rolls with a range of like 1-9 = Miss, 10-15 1 point, 15-20 2 points, 20-25 = 3 points, 26+ is 4 points, could be a feasible way to do an archery contest. Maybe give a point bonus for emptying your quiver first, represented by an initiative roll.

[GooeyChewie]

Only in relation to the other steps of setting up a combat.

There is no written rule as to when that happens, it happens when the DM says it does.

That’s a red herring. I’m not arguing that the DM doesn’t decide when to start the combat process. I’m pointing out that allowing the “before combat” attack and also applying surprise goes against RAW no matter when the DM decides that combat starts.

•If the DM decides to allow the additional attack before determining surprise, then nobody should be surprised because neither side is being sneaky when surprise is determined.
•If they decide to determine surprise, then combat has started. Allowing the additional attack at this point is an addition to RAW.
•If they decide not to begin combat at all, surprise is irrelevant, because it doesn’t happen unless combat starts.

[GloatingSwine]

That’s a red herring. I’m not arguing that the DM doesn’t decide when to start the combat process. I’m pointing out that allowing the “before combat” attack and also applying surprise goes against RAW no matter when the DM decides that combat starts.

But, and this is the important thing, the rules you quoted say nothing of the sort.


•If the DM decides to allow the additional attack before determining surprise, then nobody should be surprised because neither side is being sneaky when surprise is determined.

Surprise does not require anyone to be being sneaky. It simply requires at least one entity to not be expecting combat right now. A social situation gone hot where everyone can see everyone else could surprise a participant if they were distracted by something.

[Keltest]

But, and this is the important thing, the rules you quoted say nothing of the sort.



Surprise does not require anyone to be being sneaky. It simply requires at least one entity to not be expecting combat right now. A social situation gone hot where everyone can see everyone else could surprise a participant if they were distracted by something.

I believe the point being made is that people should be expecting combat after somebody gets shot with an arrow.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I believe the point being made is that people should be expecting combat after somebody gets shot with an arrow.

Yeah. at that point, you've noticed a threat--there's an arrow sticking out of [someone|something] that wasn't there before. Thus, no surprise.

[GloatingSwine]

I believe the point being made is that people should be expecting combat after somebody gets shot with an arrow.

But if they haven’t taken the Alert feat they spend the first round of it going “what was that, where did that arrow come from, oh hell we’re under attack!”. Which D&D calls “Surprised”

[Keltest]

But if they haven’t taken the Alert feat they spend the first round of it going “what was that, where did that arrow come from, oh hell we’re under attack!”. Which D&D calls “Surprised”

Right. And if youre doing that, then the arrow's shot should be resolved in the first round of combat, not before initiative has been rolled.

[GloatingSwine]

Right. And if youre doing that, then the arrow's shot should be resolved in the first round of combat, not before initiative has been rolled.

And if the initiative falls out wrong that leads to people being surprised by something before it happens and no longer being surprised by it once it does.

Because D&D initiative is an order of events which can preempt and prevent each other, not a series of things that all start together but complete at different times or happen simultaneously but are calculated sequentially for the sake of human comprehension.

[PhoenixPhyre]

And if the initiative falls out wrong that leads to people being surprised by something before it happens and no longer being surprised by it once it does.

Because D&D initiative is an order of events which can preempt and prevent each other, not a series of things that all start together but complete at different times or happen simultaneously but are calculated sequentially for the sake of human comprehension.

Except...it really is the latter. Initiative is not sequential in universe at all, except maybe by milliseconds. Trying to go more in depth than "it all happens roughly at the same time, within the same ~6 second window" shatters the entire combat abstraction entirely. That's the whole problem here--people are treating the game as if it's a bunch of sequential things that happen instantaneously instead of a bunch of extended actions that all happen roughly at the same time.

Edit: IMO, it's incumbent upon all parties (DM or player) to uphold the combat abstraction. That means that if you say that your ambush start was shooting an arrow, you darn well better shoot that arrow, no matter what. No dipping out. And then find some way of justifying it all. Yes, that might not be optimal. But when you're talking about someone recovering from their surprise (in fiction) within milliseconds of that bow twanging and the arrow already being in flight, or someone with supernatural (colloquial meaning) alertness who sensed your hostility and wasn't surprised, the whole "well, I see them react and then do something else that violates the established fiction" issue becomes entirely metagaming, in the bad sense. You're using the player's knowledge of the turn order and interior workings of the rules (information the character cannot have access to) to make in-character decisions. And that's a bad thing in my book.

[GloatingSwine]

Except...it really is the latter. Initiative is not sequential in universe at all, except maybe by milliseconds.

It is though.

Because the default assumption for the amount of information a character is guaranteed to have when they choose their action includes everything that has happened in the current turn.

Even beings that are noticably dull-witted and unobservant (like eg. a Gelatinous Cube) get that.

If it was supposed to be "everything happens at once" then all actions would be declared and locked in at the start of the round and executed in order with the possibility for them to be wasted due to becoming invalid (Brian and Bob both target Dave, Brian's attack kills Dave but Bob must still make his and cannot choose a new target or action).

If it was really supposed to be everything at once then there would be no "initiative" all declared actions would be executed faithfully and things like casualty resolution wouldn't happen until after they were all completed, making things like two characters mutually killing each other on the same turn possible. D&D does not even allow initiative ties.

[PhoenixPhyre]

It is though.

Because the default assumption for the amount of information a character is guaranteed to have when they choose their action includes everything that has happened in the current turn.

Even beings that are noticably dull-witted and unobservant (like eg. a Gelatinous Cube) get that.

If it was supposed to be "everything happens at once" then all actions would be declared and locked in at the start of the round and executed in order with the possibility for them to be wasted due to becoming invalid (Brian and Bob both target Dave, Brian's attack kills Dave but Bob must still make his and cannot choose a new target or action).

If it was really supposed to be everything at once then there would be no "initiative" all declared actions would be executed faithfully and things like casualty resolution wouldn't happen until after they were all completed, making things like two characters mutually killing each other on the same turn possible. D&D does not even allow initiative ties.
Then how are both a round and a turn described as 6 seconds long? In fact, if things are really sequential, then the time per action must scale inversely with the number of combatants. In a 1:1 fight, you run 30 ft in 3 seconds. In a 15:15 fight, you run 30 feet in 0.1 seconds. Wat?

No, you're mistaking the combat abstraction for the in universe fiction. The d&D universe does not run the rules as its laws of nature, those are very lossy abstractions added to make it a game. That's entirely game ui you're seeing, not the underlying fiction.

[GloatingSwine]

Then how are both a round and a turn described as 6 seconds long? In fact, if things are really sequential, then the time per action must scale inversely with the number of combatants. In a 1:1 fight, you run 30 ft in 3 seconds. In a 15:15 fight, you run 30 feet in 0.1 seconds. Wat?

No, you're mistaking the combat abstraction for the in universe fiction. The d&D universe does not run the rules as its laws of nature, those are very lossy abstractions added to make it a game. That's entirely game ui you're seeing, not the underlying fiction.

Except, as pointed out, there are things which the underlying fiction cannot contain because the game cannot produce them.

A D&D combat turn cannot have two characters simultaneously inflict fatal wounds on each other, because initiative cannot be tied and the second character does not get to make his attack if the first incapacitates him. The fiction is constrained by the abstraction. Unavoidably.

D&D combat is abstraction, there are other abstractions which would be what you want to say it models and it chose not to use them (because they're fiddlier to resolve).

[PhoenixPhyre]

Except, as pointed out, there are things which the underlying fiction cannot contain because the game cannot produce them.

A D&D combat turn cannot have two characters simultaneously inflict fatal wounds on each other, because initiative cannot be tied and the second character does not get to make his attack if the first incapacitates him. The fiction is constrained by the abstraction. Unavoidably.

D&D combat is abstraction, there are other abstractions which would be what you want to say it models and it chose not to use them (because they're fiddlier to resolve).

You've got causality back to front. The game does not restrict the fiction, the fiction restricts the game. The set of things the fiction can produce that the game cannot represent is infinite--that's the nature of an abstraction.

And you didn't actually refute my point that if you take everything as sequential, you have really weird effects due to the number of combatants influencing the in-universe speed of actions. If there's a hidden sniper who hasn't acted yet (for whatever reason), suddenly your 1:1 duel speeds up? And you're saying that it's really stop-motion--there's no possibility of, say, parrying without an explicit reaction ability. Or dodging, or anything else. You're frozen in place until your turn in initiative. Sorry, that causes way worse problems than any issues with boundary conditions (such as the ambusher losing initiative).

[Xetheral]

Edit: IMO, it's incumbent upon all parties (DM or player) to uphold the combat abstraction. That means that if you say that your ambush start was shooting an arrow, you darn well better shoot that arrow, no matter what. No dipping out. And then find some way of justifying it all. Yes, that might not be optimal.

That's a totally valid approach. Not my preference, but it's definitely a good way to address some of the issues that the abstraction of initiative can produce.

To better understand how you implement that approach, I have a question: what would you do at your table if the action starting initiative would be rules-illegal when the initator's turn comes up? In your arrow example, for instance, what if the target is now out of maximum range or behind full cover? In such a case, how would you ensure that the arrow gets shot "no matter what" if it would be against the rules to shoot the arrow? Would you just bend the rules and allow the shot anyway? If so, would it be an auto-miss, or potentially be able to hit the target? There are a few different ways to handle this, and I'm curious which one you'd choose.

[PhoenixPhyre]

That's a totally valid approach. Not my preference, but it's definitely a good way to address some of the issues that the abstraction of initiative can produce.

To better understand how you implement that approach, I have a question: what would you do at your table if the action starting initiative would be rules-illegal when the initator's turn comes up? In your arrow example, for instance, what if the target is now out of maximum range or behind full cover? In such a case, how would you ensure that the arrow gets shot "no matter what" if it would be against the rules to shoot the arrow? Would you just bend the rules and allow the shot anyway? If so, would it be an auto-miss, or potentially be able to hit the target? There are a few different ways to handle this, and I'm curious which one you'd choose.

Are there no legal targets? Then you attack, but the shot falls short/hits cover/whatever. If there's another legal target, I don't care if you retarget. The action necessary is just preserving the narrative by any relevant means. I'm generally fairly relaxed about it--any hostile action, including breaking cover or swearing loudly would work for me. I don't hold people to the exact action, but the general intent (ie to trigger an ambush).

[GooeyChewie]

But, and this is the important thing, the rules you quoted say nothing of the sort.



Surprise does not require anyone to be being sneaky. It simply requires at least one entity to not be expecting combat right now. A social situation gone hot where everyone can see everyone else could surprise a participant if they were distracted by something.

The rules for determining surprise say:

“The DM determines who might be surprised. If neither side tries to be stealthy, they automatically notice each other. Otherwise, the DM compares the Dexterity (Stealth) checks of anyone hiding with the passive Wisdom (Perception) score of each creature on the opposing side. Any character or monster that doesn't notice a threat is surprised at the start of the encounter.”

Using surprise in a social situation gone hot is a common houserule, but by RAW it should not result in anybody being surprised. Likewise, if the DM waits until the stealthy side makes an attack before beginning combat, then by RAW nobody qualifies for surprise during the “determine surprise” step of beginning combat.

[Talakeal]

Surprise does not require anyone to be being sneaky. It simply requires at least one entity to not be expecting combat right now. A social situation gone hot where everyone can see everyone else could surprise a participant if they were distracted by something.

You might be able to argue that in 3E, but I am pretty sure in 5E that would be a house rule.

[Keltest]

You might be able to argue that in 3E, but I am pretty sure in 5E that would be a house rule.

Taken literally, surprise just requires the DM to declare someone surprised in 5e. Its as effective a strategy as you can talk your DM into.

[Xetheral]

Are there no legal targets? Then you attack, but the shot falls short/hits cover/whatever. If there's another legal target, I don't care if you retarget. The action necessary is just preserving the narrative by any relevant means. I'm generally fairly relaxed about it--any hostile action, including breaking cover or swearing loudly would work for me. I don't hold people to the exact action, but the general intent (ie to trigger an ambush).

Thanks for explaining!

[Sindeloke]

I wouldn't want to play at a table that gave ambushers a free extra attack, though. I've DMed for players who thought it should work that way before. That's why I'm as familiar with the surprise rules as I am, because that behavior led to the players trying to attack anything that could possibly be an enemy before I declared combat, which of course led to them attacking some friendly (but as of yet unknown) NPCs.

This is a communication problem, not a mechanics problem. You didn't want to run a murderhobo campaign, but your players either did want to run that sort of campaign, didn't realise not all encounters were automatically meant to be combat encounters, or didn't understand that their behavior was murderhobo behavior to begin with because they weren't viewing "stab the other guy without provocation" from a sufficiently in-universe perspective.

Or, to put it another way, killing an NPC store owner gives you access to all their stuff, far more efficiently than having to purchase only what you can afford, but we probably wouldn't suggest that the solution to players taking advantage of that fact was to introduce video-game like mechanics where dead characters only "drop" some small portion of what they possessed in life. I'm completely neutral on the wider discussion here of the RAW function of an ambush, but "if X mechanic is implemented, players will take advantage" isn't related to whether X mechanic is RAW.

[GooeyChewie]

This is a communication problem, not a mechanics problem. You didn't want to run a murderhobo campaign, but your players either did want to run that sort of campaign, didn't realise not all encounters were automatically meant to be combat encounters, or didn't understand that their behavior was murderhobo behavior to begin with because they weren't viewing "stab the other guy without provocation" from a sufficiently in-universe perspective.

Or, to put it another way, killing an NPC store owner gives you access to all their stuff, far more efficiently than having to purchase only what you can afford, but we probably wouldn't suggest that the solution to players taking advantage of that fact was to introduce video-game like mechanics where dead characters only "drop" some small portion of what they possessed in life. I'm completely neutral on the wider discussion here of the RAW function of an ambush, but "if X mechanic is implemented, players will take advantage" isn't related to whether X mechanic is RAW.

They were not attacking NPCs which were definitely not enemies, like store owners. Also, this behavior did not change when I pointed out that they were risking attacking friendly NPCs, and did change once I familiarized myself with the actual surprise rules and enforced them. I'm not going to deny that we could not have communicated better, but the lack of understanding of how the surprise rules are supposed to work (on both my part and theirs) was the root of the problem. They were expressly trying both to get a free attack and avoid letting potential enemies getting free attacks on them.

[greenstone]

But there is a key difference between your scenario and the scenarios we have discussed so far: In this case, John has high enough perception to notice the ambush before it occurs.

I disagree, and would phrase it as ''John has high enough perception to notice the ambush as it is happening."

The ambish must have already started, otherwise the GM would not have determined surprise, noted position, and called for initiative.

[schm0]

There are so, so many bad rulings in this thread. Might as well add my own.




Simple question with what I feel will be a not so simple answer;

I have the Alert feat. A hidden character declares their intention to attack me from hiding.

Normally, this would result in me being surprised, but I am immune.

So, I roll initiative, and because I have a +4 bonus, I win.

However, they haven't acted yet, and they are still hidden. AFAICT, I don't know where they are, or that they are there at all, let alone intending to attack me.

So what can I do on my turn?

If I could delay or had lost initiative, this would be simple, but because I am going first, I need to take action against something I am unaware of.

Help?

First, a few assumed facts before we begin.

1. Your DM rolled Stealth, likely in secret, or used passive Stealth of the creature.
2. Your DM used your passive Perception score to compare in a contested check.
3. The hostile creature's Stealth roll was greater than your Perception, and the creature successfully hides (becomes unseen and unheard).

Your character is not aware that it is about to be attacked. Your character also does not know where the creature is, because their Stealth roll was higher than your Perception. They are unseen and unheard.

The Alert feat removes the mechanics involved with surprise. You have a regular turn, while everyone else in the party does not (assuming they failed their Perception checks like you did).

What you can do depends on the table and how they handle metagaming. Some DMs might let you metagame, but a DM like myself would probably tell you no. Metagaming, in this sense, means acting on information that the player knows, but the character doesn't. In this case, you know that you are in combat, because your DM called for initiative, but your character does not. So realistically, your character does not gain much benefit at all from the Alert feat. So if it were me, you don't know that you're in combat, and as far as your character knows it's just another day in the dungeon.

However, if your DM does allow you to metagame here, then the best thing you can do is either Dodge an incoming attack, Ready an Action in case they do (their position will be revealed once they do), or Search for the creature by making a Perception check. I think the last item here is a happy middle ground that lets you take advantage of your Alert feature and reducing the metagaming to a level that could reasonably be explained (i.e. "spidey-sense").

Anyways, there's my terrible ruling. Have at it!

[Kane0]

Anyways, there's my terrible ruling. Have at it!

Much like a level 13 monk can read and speak in subtitles, a character with the alert feat can hear when the DM turns on the battle scene music.

[Talakeal]

There are so, so many bad rulings in this thread. Might as well add my own.



First, a few assumed facts before we begin.

1. Your DM rolled Stealth, likely in secret, or used passive Stealth of the creature.
2. Your DM used your passive Perception score to compare in a contested check.
3. The hostile creature's Stealth roll was greater than your Perception, and the creature successfully hides (becomes unseen and unheard).

Your character is not aware that it is about to be attacked. Your character also does not know where the creature is, because their Stealth roll was higher than your Perception. They are unseen and unheard.

The Alert feat removes the mechanics involved with surprise. You have a regular turn, while everyone else in the party does not (assuming they failed their Perception checks like you did).

What you can do depends on the table and how they handle metagaming. Some DMs might let you metagame, but a DM like myself would probably tell you no. Metagaming, in this sense, means acting on information that the player knows, but the character doesn't. In this case, you know that you are in combat, because your DM called for initiative, but your character does not. So realistically, your character does not gain much benefit at all from the Alert feat. So if it were me, you don't know that you're in combat, and as far as your character knows it's just another day in the dungeon.

However, if your DM does allow you to metagame here, then the best thing you can do is either Dodge an incoming attack, Ready an Action in case they do (their position will be revealed once they do), or Search for the creature by making a Perception check. I think the last item here is a happy middle ground that lets you take advantage of your Alert feature and reducing the metagaming to a level that could reasonably be explained (i.e. "spidey-sense").

Anyways, there's my terrible ruling. Have at it!

Doesn't that mean that the alert character is better off rolling poorly on initiative so they can act normally after their ambusher is revealed?

[GooeyChewie]

Doesn't that mean that the alert character is better off rolling poorly on initiative so they can act normally after their ambusher is revealed?

No, it does not. By rolling higher than the enemy, they get to go before the enemy in round 2. Regardless of how initiative falls out, you end up with the enemy effectively going first, followed by alternating turns.

[tokek]

The Alert feat removes the mechanics involved with surprise. You have a regular turn, while everyone else in the party does not (assuming they failed their Perception checks like you did).

What you can do depends on the table and how they handle metagaming.

Its only metagaming if you as DM decide that there is no character knowledge associated with it. Same goes for Weapon of Warning and even other abilities like Storm Rune.

Now some of those really should give clear warning as they have a given flavor that would do that. Alert leaves it very much more up the player and DM to work out flavor.

[schm0]

Doesn't that mean that the alert character is better off rolling poorly on initiative so they can act normally after their ambusher is revealed?

An alternative way to look at it is the Alert feat only helps when you roll poorly during initiative and surprise actually matters. But to answer your question in a word, yes.


Its only metagaming if you as DM decide that there is no character knowledge associated with it. Same goes for Weapon of Warning and even other abilities like Storm Rune.

Now some of those really should give clear warning as they have a given flavor that would do that. Alert leaves it very much more up the player and DM to work out flavor.

There are no rules that state the character is aware of what "initiative" or a "turn" is, or any other out-of-character mechanic for that matter. There are also no rules that grant any sort of omniscience that would allow the character to act in some way that they knew they were in combat, or that someone was about to attack. The only benefits the Alert feat adds are written within the text of the feat. (Similarly, the only benefits those items or features might add are written there as well. There is no "clear warning" granted by any of them, otherwise it would cite a mechanical benefit in addition to the flavor text.)

[GooeyChewie]

There are no rules that state the character is aware of what "initiative" or a "turn" is, or any other out-of-character mechanic for that matter. There are also no rules that grant any sort of omniscience that would allow the character to act in some way that they knew they were in combat, or that someone was about to attack. The only benefits the Alert feat adds are written within the text of the feat. (Similarly, the only benefits those items or features might add are written there as well. There is no "clear warning" granted by any of them, otherwise it would cite a mechanical benefit in addition to the flavor text.)

"You can't be surprised while you are conscious" is that mechanical benefit. The flavor used for why they cannot be surprised is that they are "always on the lookout for danger." You are right that it is not omniscience; they don't get to know what or where the enemy is or what they are going to do, which does limit the Alert character significantly in what they can do. But the fact that they are not surprised means that they can do something.

[tokek]

There are no rules that state the character is aware of what "initiative" or a "turn" is, or any other out-of-character mechanic for that matter. There are also no rules that grant any sort of omniscience that would allow the character to act in some way that they knew they were in combat, or that someone was about to attack. The only benefits the Alert feat adds are written within the text of the feat. (Similarly, the only benefits those items or features might add are written there as well. There is no "clear warning" granted by any of them, otherwise it would cite a mechanical benefit in addition to the flavor text.)

I'm going to completely disagree with you on Storm Rune. It flat out says you are glimpsing the future so you absolutely should RP that the character has forewarning which they can act upon. As does Foresight spell. Similarly the Weapon of Warning states that it warns you and your companions - this is clearly an in-character and in-game warning. i really don't know what clear warning could be clearer than


This magic weapon warns you of danger.

The idea that there is no way for the character to know that they are in combat is simply wrong - there are several rules that clearly state that they have precognition or warning of what is going down.

You can take the lack of a specific supernatural or magical statement in Alert to make it worse than the others. I wouldn't but you can if you choose. It feels to me like picking on this one case for no really good reason but you can rule that way if you like.

[Theodoxus]

No, it does not. By rolling higher than the enemy, they get to go before the enemy in round 2. Regardless of how initiative falls out, you end up with the enemy effectively going first, followed by alternating turns.

Which begs the question, why is it so bothersome to have 'first strike' out of initiative if there's no mechanical difference.


"You can't be surprised while you are conscious" is that mechanical benefit. The flavor used for why they cannot be surprised is that they are "always on the lookout for danger." You are right that it is not omniscience; they don't get to know what or where the enemy is or what they are going to do, which does limit the Alert character significantly in what they can do. But the fact that they are not surprised means that they can do something.

But in practicality, especially if you're rightly ruling that the PC has no perception based information on who or what is triggering their Alert state, the only thing Alert is giving them is a reaction. Sure, they could fire off a fireball in a random direction, I suppose... play 'Battleship' that first round. Yippie! But as discussed prior, the better options are all survival based (taking the Dodge action, try to Hide, cast a buff, etc.) It's a tiny benefit, that, due to the +5 Initiative bonus from the feat, happens quite a bit ( and then forces the reality altering situations where the triggering effect is negated because of an action the Alert PC took, and you're deep into paradox territory).

Which thus again, begs the question, why is it so bothersome to have 'first strike' out of initiative if there's no mechanical difference, and it prevents paradoxical shenanigans.

[GooeyChewie]

Which begs the question, why is it so bothersome to have 'first strike' out of initiative if there's no mechanical difference.
I’m confused by your question. Resolving a ’first strike’ out of initiative has major mechanical differences compared to resolving things in the proper turn order. The point I was making was that resolving surprise in such a way that the player does not get to do much on their first turn does not create a situation where the player would get any real advantage from rolling lower on initiative.



But in practicality, especially if you're rightly ruling that the PC has no perception based information on who or what is triggering their Alert state, the only thing Alert is giving them is a reaction. Sure, they could fire off a fireball in a random direction, I suppose... play 'Battleship' that first round. Yippie! But as discussed prior, the better options are all survival based (taking the Dodge action, try to Hide, cast a buff, etc.) It's a tiny benefit, that, due to the +5 Initiative bonus from the feat, happens quite a bit ( and then forces the reality altering situations where the triggering effect is negated because of an action the Alert PC took, and you're deep into paradox territory).
Yes, being able to dodge/hide/move/cast a buff/etc. when you would otherwise be surprised is a benefit that Alert’s “you cannot be surprised” feature provides.

No, having that action change what the hidden side plans to do does not create a paradox. “Surprise” is the state of not being ready for combat when it starts, not a reaction to something happening. You are not surprised by the fact that a goblin shot an arrow at you; you are surprised that there is an enemy side at all, even if they use that surprise to run away, call for reinforcements, buff themselves, or do something else other than attack.


Which thus again, begs the question, why is it so bothersome to have 'first strike' out of initiative if there's no mechanical difference, and it prevents paradoxical shenanigans.

Why is it so bothersome to resolve things within the normal turn structure, if there would be a mechanic difference to do otherwise and there isn’t actually a paradox to prevent?