Reacting from sleep?

[Man in the Funny Hat]

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.

The problem there is that the remainder of the party "spoils" the more effective chances of surprise when they are spotted/heard. Surprise only still exists because the two advance PC's are still hidden.

D&D rules are written to provide for ONE surprise round - and then a tossup to determine order in the first and all subsequent rounds. You don't get 6 surprise rounds of activity to move in close and set things up. You move in close OUTSIDE of combat. AFTER you're in position you initiate your attack, get your one surprise round, and then proceed normally. In this case only 2 PC's were in position before the rest of the party was spotted. At that point BOTH sides are aware that the other exists - except that there are still the two hidden PC's. That is all that enables the PC's to still get their one surprise round, otherwise the surprise round would have been lost entirely.

Attempting to ambush by stealth in D&D always carries these restrictions. If just one PC gives themselves away the combat begins and any further time for obtaining optimum positioning or preparations is lost unless it can be done DURING the surprise round. Otherwise, all the approach and setup work is done outside of combat and the surprise round is used to TAKE those "outside-of-combat-readied-actions".

 

[akbearfoot]

Even if combat was already considered to have been started....you said your readied action was to shoot him when he -spotted- someone.....Hearing them isnt spotting them. If you had said 'attack if he appears to notice the party' then that would be different. But I agree that readying outside of combat isn't possible, and that combat doesen't start until you have 2 opposing sides that are aware of each other....also, talking is a -FREE- action that can be done when its not even your turn...so the bad guy should have gotten out a warning yell before you could shoot him even if you beat him on initiative.

Also, the NPCs had to be full of dummies if they were all sleeping in a nice neat row to be lightning bolted.


If I wanted to spoil this tactic, I would have just had the NPC wizard's owl familiar notice the approaching party and let out a nice warning screech and let that be the end of the issue.

You got your free shots in with a supremely placed lightning bolt, and an ideal group formation setup. Did you just want a free CDG on everyone? You probably wouldn't get any exp for that.

 

[eamon]

I have no problem with allowing the sentry a yell during the surprise round when we got our readied actions to attack

That's not possible. You can't have an action readied out of initiative, and you couldn't have readied an action which "goes off" in the surprise round. Of course, you might roll higher on initiative, and then it comes down to the same thing, but even if you're prepared for event (i.e. "readied"), your reaction speed (i.e. initiative) determines whether you're fast enough to act before the opponent.

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.

Yeah, you're definitely right that the sentry - barring magic or oddness - should have been surprised by you, allowing at least a surprise round, and if you win initiative, another full round before he can act - and that's much better than a readied action, since it's a standard action and a swift action, and possibly another full round, as opposed to a standard or swift action.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

Of course, you might roll higher on initiative, and then it comes down to the same thing, but even if you're prepared for event (i.e. "readied"), your reaction speed (i.e. initiative) determines whether you're fast enough to act before the opponent.

There is a hair to be split here. Initiative does not necessarily determine who is faster, or what actions are shorter/longer - initiative determines THE ORDER in which actions are resolved generally disregarding whether the characters taking the actions or the actions themselves are fast or slow (except at the very beginning of combat - surprise and first round determination of the init order). This hair is particularly necessary to split when discussing readied actions (which disregard initiative anyway and simply impose a new order of resolution) and in considering that cyclic initiative renders only the surprise and first round of combat of any particular importance FOR that order of resolution.

This can be a fine distinction - but it is a signficant distinction. References to "reaction speed" and "being fast enough" need to be kept in focus for specifically where they have an impact in the 3E rules.