D&D 5E Non-stealth surprise

Flamestrike · May 16, 2017

If you are disguised with an alter self as someone's loved one, and then stabbed them, then yes that would be surprise as far as I'm concerned.

But guards escorting a potentially hostile threat? Absolutely not. That would be initiative. Same deal if two groups are negotiating parlay.

Surprise should only trigger when the party being surprised is caught completely and utterly unaware. Even mild suspicion would make surprise impossible.

If I was escorting some enemy orc prisoners and the DM declared that they attacked me and got a surprise round, I'd be furious.

Flamestrike · May 16, 2017

shidaku said:
I would agree, even the party planned to kill the guards a few steps away, the impatient Barbarian would take even the party by surprise.

And frankly, I'm okay giving one player one surprise attack on one guard....and then rolling initiative.

Even if you were going to declare the barbarian had surprise, you don't resolve the attack before rolling initiative.

You roll initiative and then, in initiative order, everyone has a turn. Creatures in the combat that are surprised cannot take actions or move on their first turn. Once their first turn ends, they can take reactions.

This is particularly important in this example. If the heroes were escorted by enemy knights for example. Knights can parry as a reaction. So a surprised knight who rolled well enough on his dexterity check might be able to react in time to parry an incoming attack from the barbarian.

A surprised wizard might be able to react in time in order to cast a shield or a counterspell in reaction to something that occurs.

It's also important if your barbarian has levels in say, assassin. He would need to not only attack with surprise, but also to roll higher on his dexterity initiative check then the person he wanted to assassinate.

So many Dungeon Masters get this completely wrong. It infuriates the hell out of me, because it is an incredibly simple and elegant system.

To the point I refuse to play in games with DMs who screw this up.

Harzel · May 16, 2017

fil512 said:
Say the party is being escorted by neutral guards to the throne room and they do not suspect the party to be hostile, but on the way there, the impatient barbarian attacks a guard. Is that a surprise round?

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transtemporal said:
No. If they guard the King, they treat everyone as a potential hostile.

Rya.Reisender said:
If you are a guard, you consider the people you are escorting as potential threat, so you already noticed the threat.

Warmaster Horus said:
So a heavily armed man is granted an audience with the president. He seems nice enough. The Secret Service would be caught completely off-guard if he suddenly attacked.

Surrrrre.

guachi said:
Guards guard things by being on guard. In the absence of some special circumstances it'd be impossible to surprise the guards.

Also, any competent guards would have disarmed all the PCs and suspected spellcasters would have their foci and spell components taken. A Detect Magic spell would be cast and all magic items removed. If the PCs wished to keep a magic item an identify spell would be cast to ensure the item was not harmful.

Flamestrike said:
But guards escorting a potentially hostile threat? Absolutely not. That would be initiative. Same deal if two groups are negotiating parlay.

Huh. It struck me as odd the number of responses that appear to me to redefine the guards' mental state from that posited by the OP. I didn't think he was asking about how we thought guards "ought" to act. I thought he was asking whether/how a particular game mechanic would apply to a situation he had already defined. I guess people read things differently. Interesting.

Harzel · May 16, 2017

Hriston said:
Yeah, my point is that it doesn't matter whether the guards consider the party to be a threat. The barbarian's actions prove that the party is objectively a threat, and it is a threat that the guards have already noticed.

That is an interesting take on the semantics of the phrase "notice a threat". My understanding of the usual semantics is that, in order to be said to have noticed a threat at a particular point in time, the guards would have to be aware at that time that the entity that they have "noticed" is a threat. In this scenario, this seems to me to be in question, barring further information about the scenario. That is, from what we know, it might be certainly true, certainly false, or uncertain and therefore, as others have suggested, subject to some kind of check or contest.

However, the way you word your comment says to me that for you it is sufficient that the guards are aware of the party and that they would know the party are a threat if they (the guards) were omniscient. Is that it, or are you saying that without any doubt the guards become aware of the threat so quickly that surprise is precluded? If the latter, then I don't understand how anyone is ever surprised under any circumstances.

BoldItalic · May 16, 2017

Ask your DM. If you are the DM, decide what makes the narrative most fun. If you think it's fun to declare that, in the first round of combat the attacked guard just dies at the hands of the barbarian and then everyone else (guards and adventurers) starts acting in initiative order, then go ahead, do that. If you want to give the guard a fighting chance to defend himself with a reaction because it makes it more challenging for the barbarian then do that. But remember to be fair. If you allow the barbarian to act with everyone else surprised, you must also allow situations where a guard can just suddenly slaughter a party member before anyone can react. The players might not like that.

Rya.Reisender · May 16, 2017

Harzel said:
That is an interesting take on the semantics of the phrase "notice a threat". My understanding of the usual semantics is that, in order to be said to have noticed a threat at a particular point in time, the guards would have to be aware at that time that the entity that they have "noticed" is a threat. In this scenario, this seems to me to be in question, barring further information about the scenario. That is, from what we know, it might be certainly true, certainly false, or uncertain and therefore, as others have suggested, subject to some kind of check or contest.

However, the way you word your comment says to me that for you it is sufficient that the guards are aware of the party and that they would know the party are a threat if they (the guards) were omniscient. Is that it, or are you saying that without any doubt the guards become aware of the threat so quickly that surprise is precluded? If the latter, then I don't understand how anyone is ever surprised under any circumstances.

Going by how I read RAW, notice a threat refers to the moment combat begins. If a creature in plain sight starts attacking, then the threat is instantly noticed, even if it was not noticed as a threat before the attack was declared.

After all the rules clearly state "If neither side tries to be stealthy, they automatically notice each other."

Even going strictly by RAW, it does not make surprise impossible. It just means that everybody wanting to participate in combat and is on the attacking side has to try to be stealthy and all Stealth rolls needs to be higher than the target's passive perception.

The surprise rules do not actually refer to "I suddenly do something unexpected" at all. That's not stealthy, that's not surprise, that's just a check who can act faster, so it is already resolved via initiative.

Of course if you don't see the paragraph on how to determine surprise as one single explanation but rather see each single sentence individually, you could just pick "The DM determines who might be surprised." and throw the rest away.

Sunseeker · May 16, 2017

Flamestrike said:
Even if you were going to declare the barbarian had surprise, you don't resolve the attack before rolling initiative.

You roll initiative and then, in initiative order, everyone has a turn. Creatures in the combat that are surprised cannot take actions or move on their first turn. Once their first turn ends, they can take reactions.

This is particularly important in this example. If the heroes were escorted by enemy knights for example. Knights can parry as a reaction. So a surprised knight who rolled well enough on his dexterity check might be able to react in time to parry an incoming attack from the barbarian.

A surprised wizard might be able to react in time in order to cast a shield or a counterspell in reaction to something that occurs.

It's also important if your barbarian has levels in say, assassin. He would need to not only attack with surprise, but also to roll higher on his dexterity initiative check then the person he wanted to assassinate.

So many Dungeon Masters get this completely wrong. It infuriates the hell out of me, because it is an incredibly simple and elegant system.

To the point I refuse to play in games with DMs who screw this up.

I don't see how it makes a lick of difference. If anyone rolls higher than the Barbarian, they still can't act before the Barbarian (or whatever element is surprising the group), they may have their reactions available, as opposed to those who rolled lower than the Barbarian, but I'm just not seeing that as a meaningful distinction.

jasper · May 16, 2017

fil512 said:
Say the party is being escorted by neutral guards to the throne room and they do not suspect the party to be hostile, but on the way there, the impatient barbarian attacks a guard. Is that a surprise round?

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I used to be a guard in King Morrus' court until evil barbarian"fil512" took us by surprise and I took an axe to the knee. Would you fries with that?
This is up to the dm. Too me I would have know what went on before hand to see if I give the barbarian a surprise round. But I do like giving advantage to the player or giving him the highest initiative too.

Satyrn · May 16, 2017

BoldItalic said:
If you allow the barbarian to act with everyone else surprised, you must also allow situations where a guard can just suddenly slaughter a party member before anyone can react. The players might not like that.

Meh.

Unless you mean allow it, but never actually do it.

Barolo · May 16, 2017

I would not let these guards surprised just because I do think they should be ready for trouble in the given circumstances, and the trouble expected is likely to come from the escorted party, considering the amount of detail shared.

But after reading the thread, I feel I am very liberal when ruling surprise in my games. My players have been able to surprise (and be surprised by) enemies doing all kinds of subterfuge, bluff, deception and guile, hiding being only a fraction of their tactics. This does have the nice side-effect of countering the common overreliance, that leads to an overvaluation of stealth, and subsequently, of dexterity and perception.

I even allow surprise to happen after a threat has been identified, depending on the setup of the scene, for instance, when a trusted bodyguard stabs his commander right when their unit was getting to engage with enemies.

D&D 5E Non-stealth surprise

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