D&D 5E Not liking these surprise rules

[Libramarian]

The surprise rules seem so clunky that I can't see them being used often.

Coming from 1e, I'm used to rolling for surprise for both sides almost every encounter. I like how it adds some variance to the initial encounter state, instead of it always being "you seem monsters about 30' ahead, roll initiative!". Sometimes the monsters get the jump on you and you have no time for ranged attacks, sometimes they come up from behind. Sometimes you see the monsters but it's clear they haven't noticed you yet. Surprise adds a nice spice to a simple combat system.

In 1e you roll a d6 for both sides and if it comes up 1 or 2, that side is surprised for that many segments. If both sides are surprised, you subtract the lower number from the higher and the side that rolled higher is surprised for the remainder. In 5e you have to roll a Dex vs. Wis check for every creature, against every other creature, with a creature being surprised only if it fails every check. That's 8 rolls for 4 vs. 4, and assuming a 50/50 chance to notice an enemy, only a 6.25% chance that an individual character will be surprised. It seems pointless to use this procedure unless it's just one PC scouting ahead, or one monster trying to surprise just one or two PCs.

Am I missing something or are the rules for surprise just not meant to be used outside of special situations?

I think side-based surprise should have been default for 5e since it's only pseudo-individual surprise anyways, ie if you make a great Dex check against an enemy's Wis, this doesn't mean anything until we check how everyone else did on your side, because your surprise on that enemy is nullified if they notice anyone else.

 

[Nagol]

The surprise rules seem so clunky that I can't see them being used often.

Coming from 1e, I'm used to rolling for surprise for both sides almost every encounter. I like how it adds some variance to the initial encounter state, instead of it always being "you seem monsters about 30' ahead, roll initiative!". Sometimes the monsters get the jump on you and you have no time for ranged attacks, sometimes they come up from behind. Sometimes you see the monsters but it's clear they haven't noticed you yet. Surprise adds a nice spice to a simple combat system.

In 1e you roll a d6 for both sides and if it comes up 1 or 2, that side is surprised for that many segments. If both sides are surprised, you subtract the lower number from the higher and the side that rolled higher is surprised for the remainder. In 5e you have to roll a Dex vs. Wis check for every creature, against every other creature, with a creature being surprised only if it fails every check. That's 8 rolls for 4 vs. 4, and assuming a 50/50 chance to notice an enemy, only a 6.25% chance that an individual character will be surprised. It seems pointless to use this procedure unless it's just one PC scouting ahead, or one monster trying to surprise just one or two PCs.

Am I missing something or are the rules for surprise just not meant to be used outside of special situations?

I think side-based surprise should have been default for 5e since it's only pseudo-individual surprise anyways, ie if you make a great Dex check against an enemy's Wis, this doesn't mean anything until we check how everyone else did on your side, because your surprise on that enemy is nullified if they notice anyone else.

I think your missing something. The perception is a passive check -- no die rolls needed so roll the Stealth checks, take the lowest one and compare to passive perception to determine if surprised.

 

[Agamon]

In 5e you have to roll a Dex vs. Wis check for every creature, against every other creature, with a creature being surprised only if it fails every check. That's 8 rolls for 4 vs. 4, and assuming a 50/50 chance to notice an enemy, only a 6.25% chance that an individual character will be surprised. It seems pointless to use this procedure unless it's just one PC scouting ahead, or one monster trying to surprise just one or two PCs.

The members of the side that has a chance to surprise each roll Dex (Stealth) and try to beat the other side's passive Wis (Perception). That's one roll for each member of the side with surprise potential, even if one side has different passive scores, the one roll determines who you surprise. Pretty intuitive, actually.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

AFAIK the 5e rules for surprise is "The DM determines if either side is surprised".

What you list up there is the rules for hiding from someone, done with both sides hiding. Which I suppose could result in surprise...

I think the idea is that 9 times out of 10 it should be pretty easy to work out if one side is surprised or not, based on the story being told. Possibly you can roll all that stuff if you want to check to see just how well a given ambush goes down.

 

[Agamon]

I think your missing something. The perception is a passive check -- no die rolls needed so roll the Stealth checks, take the lowest one and compare to passive perception to determine if surprised.

Yeah, come to think of it, the group check rule applies if the whole group is sneaking. Everyone checks against the DC (passive Perception score) and if the majority succeed, they whole group surprises; if the majority fail, they don't.

 

[Nagol]

Yeah, come to think of it, the group check rule applies if the whole group is sneaking. Everyone checks against the DC (passive Perception score) and if the majority succeed, they whole group surprises; if the majority fail, they don't.

Surprise is definitely a individual check "A member of a group can be surprised even if the other members aren’t." (pg 69).

 

[Nagol]

AFAIK the 5e rules for surprise is "The DM determines if either side is surprised".

What you list up there is the rules for hiding from someone, done with both sides hiding. Which I suppose could result in surprise...

I think the idea is that 9 times out of 10 it should be pretty easy to work out if one side is surprised or not, based on the story being told. Possibly you can roll all that stuff if you want to check to see just how well a given ambush goes down.

Pg 69 has the Surprise rules. Although the first line is "The DM decides" it then goes on to detail individual Stealth checks vs. passive Perception for the group(s) trying to be stealthy.

 

[Libramarian]

I think your missing something. The perception is a passive check -- no die rolls needed so roll the Stealth checks, take the lowest one and compare to passive perception to determine if surprised.

I took that into account. I'm considering a situation where both parties are trying to be sneaky, so 1 Dex roll for everyone, then take the worst Dex result from each side, and compare to everyone's passive Wis on the other side. So 8 rolls (assuming 4 vs 4) , find lowest on each side, and make 8 comparisons. Still very convoluted compared to simple side-based surprise.

This is the type of situation where I check surprise in 1e, but I guess in 5e you're not meant to check surprise outside of special situations (scouting and ambushes).

 

[Agamon]

Surprise is definitely a individual check "A member of a group can be surprised even if the other members aren’t." (pg 69).

"Can be surprised" relates to the passive score, not the surprisers. This means if you have a group with a bunch of monsters that have a passive score of 11 and a leader with a score of 15, not all of them will necessarily be surprised.

But yeah, I can see the rolling being group or individual, depending on what the group is doing (maybe all of them aren't being sneaky).

 

[Mouseferatu]

I took that into account. I'm considering a situation where both parties are trying to be sneaky, so 1 Dex roll for everyone, then take the worst Dex result from each side, and compare to everyone's passive Wis on the other side. So 8 rolls (assuming 4 vs 4) , find lowest on each side, and make 8 comparisons. Still very convoluted compared to simple side-based surprise.

This is the type of situation where I check surprise in 1e, but I guess in 5e you're not meant to check surprise outside of special situations (scouting and ambushes).

You could record a "passive Stealth," too, for situations where nobody's deliberately sneaking. 10 + Dex mod + proficiency (if applicable) -5 if wearing Stealth-disadvantage armor.

Then just keep a record behind the screen and compare passives to passives. Still a lot of comparing, but no huge bunch of dice.

If you still want some randomness, roll 1d20 for each group. Whichever group rolls higher gets the difference in rolls as a bonus to their passive baseline for that encounter.

Just a thought off the top of my head; I haven't studied it for effectiveness.