Reacting from sleep?

[ElectricDragon]

Actually the first post said "the fire has been stated to only illuminate 50 feet out." Whether this was a poorly built fire or one that they had tried badly to hide, your assessment conflicts with the DM's info given, so cannot justify the targeting. Illumination was 50 ft, the only question is whether thats bright out to 25 and shadowy to 50 or bright to 50 and shadowy to 100 - either way, it's not shadowy to 200.

IF the whole PC party is without low-light vision, 50 ft. is as far as the bright light would illuminate. No mention of shadows in the original post. Given low-light vision in the NPCs, this would extend bright to 100 ft. making the PCs easily seen at 51 to 100 ft. and 20% miss chance from 101 ft. to 200 ft.

Characters with low-light vision (elves, gnomes, and half-elves) can see objects twice as far away as the given radius. Double the effective radius of bright light and of shadowy illumination for such characters.

No DM has to describe lighting for people not in the party. If your opponents can see further than your party members, and your party does not take this into account, you deserve to be splatted.

Even just the guard's torch would enable a creature with low-light vision to see up to 80 ft. away. Different creatures have different vision types. Night attacks with light sources outside or underground/indoors with light sources allow for 3 distinct ranges that must be accounted for. If the party doesn't realize this, they could very well die quickly. The rogue in the OP's post could have been spotted with darkvision or low-light vision easily.

Creatures with low-light vision benefit most from light sources.

Ciao
Dave

Dragons are even more deadly. A torch would enable a dragon to see 80 ft. away in bright light and 160 ft. away in shadowy illumination. A campfire like in the OP, would light up 200 ft. brightly and up to 400 ft. away shadowy.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

That is the sticky point in the debate.

And to make it stickier, I run it either way depending on how its set up.

In the case of bashing down the door to ambush the guards on the other side, I start combat prior to the door bashing occurs. This allows one PC to open the door and the others to charge in.

In the case in the OP, I would go the other way and start combat when the Guard noticed the Dwarf. Both the Guard and the PC's would act in the surprise round, and the rest of the NPCs would have the chance to wake up and act in the first round of combat.

Why the difference? well...

Mainly because I don't want ambushing sleeping characters to be extremely effective. THe Ranger/Rogue's readied action could negate the guards ability to warn the others and a couple of coup-de-gras later.. it would be over. This may be a cool way for the PC's to be victorious...but the same rules would apply to them. I don't have to imagine the outcry after a sleep = TPK encounter
Been there, done that...

For the door, it makes no sense for a single character to not be able to rush through a door and ambiush the guards. Using the surprise round the character would be better off knocking on the door and attacking whatever guard opened it.

But honestly, either method works by RAW. Its a personal preference deal.

In answer to your question "If I'm in combat and I run away and go a round without fighting or being attacked, does that negate any readied actions held by the enemy?"
A round? no. Because the enemy has a reasonable idea of where you are.
A couple rounds, possibly.
A minute? definately.

If combat 'ended' and they don't have readied actions, you could still walk into a surprise round attack if they are alert and waiting.

Basically the 'end of combat' is as up to each DM as the 'start of combat'. The neat thing about the surprise round is that it is mechanically similar to readied actions.

 

[MithrasRahl]

They were Human

 

[ElectricDragon]

In which case, I suggest either a new DM or having a talk with said DM about equality in combat.

Ciao
Dave

 

[irdeggman]

So at what point does combat start and stop? If I'm in combat and I run away and go a round without fighting or being attacked, does that negate any readied actions held by the enemy? I would argue for my case above, combat began when the Archer and Rogue moved in.

Combat starts and ends when the the DM determines that it does.

Per the PHB (pg 133) the DM determines which characters are aware of their opponents at the start of the battle.

This means that the DM has to determine both awareness and when the battle starts.

Not a player call for either item.

 

[MithrasRahl]

So why were you calling out the fact that we couldn't do readied actions outside of combat when clearly the DM had decided that combat had started, and allowed the readied actions?

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

So why were you calling out the fact that we couldn't do readied actions outside of combat when clearly the DM had decided that combat had started, and allowed the readied actions?

The problem with these kind of scenarios is twofold. First that players try to use readied actions outside of combat when the rules for combat use the surprise round actions for "readied actions outside of combat". Second, DM's compound the problem by letting the PC's attempt this and then having to come up with ad hoc means to deal with the issues that then arise since the rules aren't written to cover it.

The DM has two things he needs to do to cover these situations. 1) determine just when combat starts if events are not already moving in combat rounds, and 2) when combat IS determined to have started to first determine if surprise exists.

In the OP scenario there are two UNSPOTTED party members in position to attack when the watchman spots the OTHER party members.

1. combat begins at this point
2. Surprise exists not because the watchman has spotted (heard) the rest of the party, but because combat has begun yet the watchman is NOT aware of the two hidden members of the party.
3. The two hidden PC's take their surprise actions firing bow and lightning bolt
4. iniative is rolled and the first regular round begins.
5. since the two hidden PC's have taken attacks either the watchman opponent is now aware of both of them, or at the least should get a new check
6. There aren't any well-known rules for waking up from sleep and starting to act in the middle of combat (at least not that I'm aware of) but it sure does seem that the DM is being overly generous to his NPCs to allow them to wake up, stand up, become aware of where their opponents are and assess the threat, and attack before everyone else unless there is some SERIOUS juju involved.

Now that last delves into the realm of house rules as to what is required to wake up and how fast you can then come to act but the rest of it should NOT be that difficult to adhere to.

 

[eamon]

The DM may have forgotten the darkness. It happens. It does sound like he had a particular sequence of events in mind and wasn't too bothered with mechanics. That can be a good thing, but when it's arbitrary and unfair as the above story seems to indicate, well...

You definitely can't ready outside of combat - it breaks the game. For instance, it would allow "permananent" readies such as "as soon as someone attacks me" which could trigger even during a surprise round or during any moment the character is flatfooted. That, of course, makes no sense.

Readying should represent acting later but at a more opportune time - not circumventing the surprise round.

This story reminds my to be a little more strict with my players concerning readies actions. They really are hairy to adjudicate well.

Edit: and I second that man in the funny hat

 

[MithrasRahl]

I understand the logic as well as rules for not allowing readied actions outside of a combat situation. However, in my mind, we had already engaged and were waiting for the rest of the party to get as close as they could before the 2 advance people attacked. I have no problem with allowing the sentry a yell during the surprise round when we got our readied actions to attack, but it seems kind of silly to make the two people in place, weapons ready, looking for the first sign of notice to loose act on the same "readiness" as the sentry, party and sleeping npcs.

 

[irdeggman]

Note that I didn't say that your DM acted properly rules-wise, only that you couldn't ready outside of combat and that once combat starts there is 1 "surprise" round followed by initiative for all involved.

I don't think that your DM followed the rules properly by the way.