D&D 5E Non-stealth surprise

[jaelis]

I'll put out my own favorite way to handle this kind of thing.

IF you are in a situation where two groups are aware of each other, but neither is expecting a fight to break out, then if one person is in a position to attack without warning and decides to, just let them go first in initiative. (Whether that describes the situation in the OP, I'm not totally sure.)

The whole point of initiative (or any other dice roll in the game) is to resolve random outcomes in an unbiased way. If the DM doesn't think a particular situation should have a random outcome (ie, there's no plausible way the guard should be able to react prior to the attack being made), then don't roll dice.

At the same time, the point of surprise is to reflect what happen when you are attacked when you weren't aware of a threat. Certainly the guards were aware of the party, so they shouldn't be surprised.

(If you were successfully disguised as a guard and decided to attack the other guards, that would make more sense for surprise to happen. Obviously the other guards were still aware of your presence, but they presumably would not consider you a potential threat.)

 

[fil512]

@cooperjer Can you link to the Mike Coville commentary about this? It sounds helpful.

 

[Sunseeker]

If the guards are surprised, then so is everyone else in the party.

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.

 

[jaelis]

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

Remember if you want to play it by the book using surprise, then everyone rolls initiative first, and then only the barbarian is able to act in the first round if everyone else is surprised.

 

[Staccat0]

Yeah I would probably give the Barbarian surprise and then it goes off of initiative. Combat is so so fast that initiative is easy for me to think of as simply the time it takes for someone to draw their weapon when trouble erupts.

Unless... well... There might be fun in rolling a contested check to see if someone notices the Barbarian reaching for his weapon but that kinda comes down to the scene.

 

[cooperjer]

@cooperjer Can you link to the Mike Coville commentary about this? It sounds helpful.

The video is on Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6MLI30n7Ak

Enjoy.

 

[Sunseeker]

Remember if you want to play it by the book using surprise, then everyone rolls initiative first, and then only the barbarian is able to act in the first round if everyone else is surprised.

I'll surmise my opinion by saying: there's a lot of rules in 5E that IMO, just don't make good sense.

 

[jaelis]

I'll surmise my opinion by saying: there's a lot of rules in 5E that IMO, just don't make good sense.

The book rule seems the logical way to do it to me, but that's neither here nor there since I might be crazy

But I think it also works best with the game, in particular effects that happen on a creature's turn. For instance if a wizard surprises a foe and casts Cloud of Daggers on them, I think it would be messed up if they "skipped" their first turn and thus avoided taking damage. On the other hand, I think the book method keeps the Assassinate ability from being too good, since otherwise a rogue would often get to use it twice.

 

[robus]

As the scenario suggests the guards are being lax, so I might very well make them surprised, either automatically or with a successful Charisma (Deception) or Dexterity (Deception) check depending on what the player describes.

Regardless of whether they are surprised, I'd give the barbarian advantage on the initiative check for being the only one truly expecting this fight.

For some reason the possibility of giving advantage on initiative never occurred to me. Thanks!

 

[Hriston]

Codswallop. By that logic the party can't be surprised as long as they can see the rest of the party.

LOL, you're right. I should have said for a creature to be a threat it also needs to actually attempt to harm the potentially surprised party, which, since we're already determining surprise, is a certainty. So yes, if the party is being attacked by the rest of the party, it can't be surprised if it has noticed the rest of the party.

Regardless, you're just nitpicking. Hostile or a threat, whichever you want to use the guards are stated to have not considered the party it.

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.