Surprise round question

[KahlessNestor]

If your character's life is on the line, you should get a roll. Wheaton's Law applies.

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[Maxperson]

I have found some definitions in a cursory online search that have used the word "unconscious" or "loss of consciousness" or "suspension of consciousness" at least partially to describe the state of sleep. So it would seem that textbook definitions are implying that there is at least some level of unconsciousness with sleep that renders one unaware of it's surroundings though most stop short of declaring total loss of consciousness.

Of course, as a DM, one can absolutely feel free to apply the mechanic in question any way they feel best suits their game and/or fits their own interpretation of the rule.

Sleep doesn't render you unaware, though. It just renders you LESS aware.

 

[Hriston]

My post was relevant to the discussion. Your post responded to mine in a completely irrelevant way. You posted rhetoric and Strawman, and nothing else.

You said adventurers are hyper-aware while asleep, so I asked why elves would use trance since it makes them semiconscious, which I assume is less than hyper-aware. It doesn't seem like too much of a stretch to me and certainly isn't lacking in either relevance or content. I don't know what you have against rhetoric, since it's what we all engage in when we form arguments, but when I said my question was rhetorical, I didn't mean that it employed rhetoric. I meant I wasn't particularly interested in your reply and asked it to make a point of my own. Conveniently, though, you seem to have responded to the content of my post in your post below.

Basically, how I see myself and my wife in relation to this thread is like this. Sleeping gives a -4 penalty. My feat of light sleeper gives me a -2. My wife's flaw of deep sleeper, combined with the flaw loud snoring gives her a -8. An elf would also be -2 without the need for a feat since they are semiconscious.

This seems horribly fiddly to me. Do we really need more states of consciousness than the three I have proposed: conscious, semiconscious, and unconscious? The books are clear that even a fully conscious creature only uses its WIS to notice hidden threats when not using it for some other task of exploration. How much less of a chance does a semiconscious or unconscious creature have of becoming aware of a threat? Since the normal rules for noticing threats clearly apply to fully conscious creatures that are keeping watch, I'd give the trancing elf disadvantage as long as it wasn't otherwise preoccupied, and a sleeping non-elf would have no chance at all.

And we are saying sleeping isn't unconscious and unaware, and have given plenty of evidence in RL to prove that. Do we need to bring in medical opinion too?

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Real life annecdotal evidence and medical opinion have no bearing on a discussion about how a game treats varying states of awareness. What makes for an enjoyable game does, and for me the game is more enjoyable when there's a meaningful trade off between having a chance of noticing hidden threats and doing other things with your awareness like mapping, navigating, foraging, and tracking. I don't think a sleeping person is going to have a better chance of noticing threats than someone who's doing one of those things.

 

[Arial Black]

I simply disagree that what we're talking about is a situation in which those skills are in play. The Unconscious condition tells me that an unconscious creature is unaware of its surroundings, so it doesn't matter how skilled in Perception that creature is. It is still unaware. And it doesn't matter how skilled in Stealth an assassin sneaking up on the creature is, because the unconscious creature won't notice the assassin until it regains consciousness.

All of which is denied by....YOU! You have posted that sleeping creatures are woken by loud noises (the gun fired next to the ear) AND soft noises (like when just after you rule that a sneaking assassin auto succeeds in being undetected, that the sleeping victim auto wakes when the assassin quietly draws his dagger)!

Previously, you justified this (and I agreed) that it's not that the sleeping creatures are 'aware' per se, but that certain things can wake them up! While we agree here, the difference is that I (and I believe most of us and encouraged by the 5E rules set) roll to find out if the sleeper awakens (contesting Stealth which represents how quiet the noise and Perception which represents how sensitive the hearing) while you just 'decide', which renders skill proficiency (and the choice to waste one of your limited proficiencies at character creation) pointless.

 

[Maxperson]

All of which is denied by....YOU! You have posted that sleeping creatures are woken by loud noises (the gun fired next to the ear) AND soft noises (like when just after you rule that a sneaking assassin auto succeeds in being undetected, that the sleeping victim auto wakes when the assassin quietly draws his dagger)!

Previously, you justified this (and I agreed) that it's not that the sleeping creatures are 'aware' per se, but that certain things can wake them up! While we agree here, the difference is that I (and I believe most of us and encouraged by the 5E rules set) roll to find out if the sleeper awakens (contesting Stealth which represents how quiet the noise and Perception which represents how sensitive the hearing) while you just 'decide', which renders skill proficiency (and the choice to waste one of your limited proficiencies at character creation) pointless.

Not only that, but it awareness of the noise that wakes a sleeper up. If the sleeper is unaware of a noise, impact or whatever, it cannot wake the sleeper up. He has just argued that sleepers have at least some degree of awareness.

 

[Ovinomancer]

The extent to which different DMs use the dice is covered under "The Role of Dice" on pp 236-37 of the DMG. You seem to be advocating for the approach known as "Rolling with It". One of that approach's drawbacks, according to the DMG, is that it can lessen roleplaying if players' die rolls always determine success or failure, rather than their decisions.

I'm not averse to rolling dice. I'm not a proponent of "Ignoring the Dice", as you seem to be making me out to be. But I do think, for me, fun is heightened when game-play is punctuated with fewer, more dramatic die rolls, rather than when die rolls become more routine. Again IMO, this is best supported by what's described as "The Middle Path", which takes a healthy dose of DM adjudication and is summed up with the quote, "Remember that dice don't run your game -- you do." I believe this is the playstyle the game is best set up to support.

My "middle path" isn't going to look just like anyone else's, however. What it means to me is that I'm only going to engage the fortune mechanic in situations where there is enough uncertainty about the outcome, in my view, that it could go either way. And I'm not an arbitrary or capricious DM by any means. I simply have some guidelines I follow about what sort of circumstances will make the outcome of certain actions uncertain.

Is a ninja, or anyone else for that matter, stealthy enough to escape the notice of a sleeping creature that by dint of being unconscious is unaware of its surroundings? Yes! All it has to do is declare that it's being stealthy and the sleeping creature won't notice it. And even if the ninja doesn't try to be stealthy, the sleeping creature won't wake up unless a loud noise, or some other disturbance wakes it up, so all the ninja has to do is not make a loud noise to avoid waking the creature. So unless the ninja's player tells me they are making a loud noise or trying to wake the creature, it stays asleep.

Does the sleeping creature wake up in time to defend itself? I'm not sure how Wisdom (Perception) applies to the situation. For me, it usually comes into play when there is an actual attempt to detect something. Sleeping creatures aren't trying to detect anything. Perception "measures your general awareness of your surroundings", but we already know how aware the sleeping creature is of its surroundings. It's unconscious and therefore completely unaware of its surroundings. To me, whether the creature wakes up in time is better measured with a DEX check. When combat begins, roll initiative. If the sleeping creature wins, it wakes up in time to take action. If it loses, the ninja attacks first.



Why? If appropriate conditions prevail, you can very easily gain surprise over your victim and strike the first blow. If they don't, then your particular talents aren't coming into play. Stealth doesn't keep people asleep while you're attacking them after all.



Unaware of surroundings is unaware of surroundings. You can't keep watch while you're asleep. Even the Alert feat requires you to be conscious to avoid surprise.



A more apt analogy would be if an enemy was about to attack you, and you told me you were going to make no attempt to avoid the attack. In that case, I would rule it an auto-hit. A sleeping creature is making no attempt to notice things around it, so its Wisdom check is irrelevant in answering whether it notices something.

I'm confused. You say you don't roll stealth against sleeping targets because you don't like to make that dependant on the dice. Fair enough, but then you set the noticing your being attacked by a stealthy enemy in your sleep up as an initiative test. Why is it against your philosophy to not roll when it's stealth vs perception, but in it when it's initiative vs initiative? How does being quick model suddenly noticing someone is attacking you while you're asleep?

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[Hriston]

All of which is denied by....YOU! You have posted that sleeping creatures are woken by loud noises (the gun fired next to the ear) AND soft noises (like when just after you rule that a sneaking assassin auto succeeds in being undetected, that the sleeping victim auto wakes when the assassin quietly draws his dagger)!

The thing about the dagger being drawn that causes the sleeping creature to wake up is that it's being done as part of an attack, commencing combat. I generally consider combat to make a loud noise that is audible and would awaken any sleeping creatures usually within around 350 feet, but noise level isn't really the instrumental factor in this case. It's that combat has started and, as a participant in the combat, the formerly sleeping creature is now "alert for signs of danger all around".

Now, the creature is also surprised because the room is dark or somesuch, giving the assassin player the opportunity to declare efforts to avoid notice. He (auto)succeeds and will attack first, the initiative roll deciding only if the creature is still surprised when the attack is resolved. I suppose one could easily consider the creature to remain asleep until that moment. My only problem with that, however, is that surprised is not asleep.

Previously, you justified this (and I agreed) that it's not that the sleeping creatures are 'aware' per se, but that certain things can wake them up! While we agree here, the difference is that I (and I believe most of us and encouraged by the 5E rules set) roll to find out if the sleeper awakens (contesting Stealth which represents how quiet the noise and Perception which represents how sensitive the hearing) while you just 'decide', which renders skill proficiency (and the choice to waste one of your limited proficiencies at character creation) pointless.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that for most people, except for the rare moment of lucidity, the experience of waking from sleep is something which happens involuntarily. People, and again I'm generalizing, aren't using sensory information to decide consciously that it's a good time to wake up or not. Your experience may differ, but when most people wake up, I would think they simply find themselves awake without having made any particular effort. At least, that's how it always seems to me when I wake up, even when I've decided beforehand that I would wake up at a particular time.

In my games, the players tell me when their characters attempt to go to sleep. They usually succeed unless there's some factor preventing them from so doing. They can also tell me when they plan to wake up which I also usually abide by unless their sleep is somehow interrupted. A period of sleep nearly always ends, however, with me, the DM, informing the players that their characters have awoken and how they find things when they do. I have yet to have a player declare an action for his or her character to "wake up". Nor have I called for a roll when the outcome of such a declaration has been uncertain.

Here's a non-exhaustive list of circumstances under which I would rule a sleeping character awakes:
1. Eight hours, or some other pre-determined interval of time, has elapsed since the character fell asleep.
2. Someone "uses an action" to awaken the sleeping character.
3. A loud noise occurs within 2d6 x 50 feet.
4. The character is in combat.

What I would like to ask is, in your games, what action is the sleeping character attempting when you call for a WIS (Perception) check or consult the character's passive WIS (Perception) score? Why does the character wake up as a result of succeeding with that action?

Not only that, but it awareness of the noise that wakes a sleeper up. If the sleeper is unaware of a noise, impact or whatever, it cannot wake the sleeper up. He has just argued that sleepers have at least some degree of awareness.

I'm right here, you know!

Hearing is not awareness. Sleeping people can hear everything around them exactly the same as if they had been awake. Sleep does nothing to change how your ears work! It changes your awareness of what you are hearing. In my games, I've identified loud noise within hearing range as something that will bring you into full awareness of your surroundings. YMMV.

I'm confused. You say you don't roll stealth against sleeping targets because you don't like to make that dependant on the dice. Fair enough, but then you set the noticing your being attacked by a stealthy enemy in your sleep up as an initiative test. Why is it against your philosophy to not roll when it's stealth vs perception, but in it when it's initiative vs initiative? How does being quick model suddenly noticing someone is attacking you while you're asleep?

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It doesn't, and I don't. In my games, when you're asleep, you have no chance to notice a stealthy enemy. When your enemy attacks, you are surprised because you hadn't noticed her before. You certainly notice her once she's attacking, however. That's why you're surprised. You were having this nice dream and now all of a sudden you're being attacked. Initiative is rolled to determine not whether you noticed your enemy in your sleep, before the attack, but how quickly you shake off your surprise once the attack has awakened you and whether you'll be able to counterattack before your enemy strikes again.

 

[Arial Black]

The thing about the dagger being drawn that causes the sleeping creature to wake up is that it's being done as part of an attack, commencing combat. I generally consider combat to make a loud noise that is audible and would awaken any sleeping creatures usually within around 350 feet, but noise level isn't really the instrumental factor in this case. It's that combat has started and, as a participant in the combat, the formerly sleeping creature is now "alert for signs of danger all around".

Creatures are only 'alert for danger all around' if they are not surprised or after their surprise has worn off. They must be 'aware' that they are in combat and, as both you and the book tells us, sleeping creatures are not 'aware'.

You're putting the cart before the horse. Before combat all is quiet because sneaky assassin. Once combat has begun then loud noise may well result, caused by shouting, steel on steel, furniture being knocked over, whatever. But those sounds do not occur before the first blow! Those noise cannot awaken a sleeping creature simply because those noises have not occurred yet! You are ruling that those noises awaken the creature before those noises even exist.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that for most people, except for the rare moment of lucidity, the experience of waking from sleep is something which happens involuntarily. People, and again I'm generalizing, aren't using sensory information to decide consciously that it's a good time to wake up or not. Your experience may differ, but when most people wake up, I would think they simply find themselves awake without having made any particular effort. At least, that's how it always seems to me when I wake up, even when I've decided beforehand that I would wake up at a particular time.

In real life people can finish their sleep without any outside stimulus. It's just that the sleep is over. There is no conscious action to wake up (although I've actually deliberately woken myself up out of a bad dream a couple of times! Weird, I know.).

However, outside stimulus can and often does wake you up early. A knock on your door, a workman drilling next door, a baby crying. None of those things required a conscious thought from you to 'decide' to wake up; the stimulus just woke you up, like it or not!

Those stimuli that wake you have been, without exception, detected by your senses. You have perceived them (with your 'Perception'), even while unconscious in sleep. You might not be 'aware' of the details of a conversation that your sleeping hearing detects, but that talking can be enough to wake you and then you can start to be 'aware' enough to follow that conversation from that point on.

We can also be awoken by certain sounds, not based on volume alone. I used to be 'knocked up' by my landlady knocking her broom handle onto the kitchen ceiling which was directly below my bedroom. That sound was not as loud as the constant traffic outside, but I slept through the traffic and always instantly woke when my sleeping ears heard that knock.

In my games, the players tell me when their characters attempt to go to sleep. They usually succeed unless there's some factor preventing them from so doing. They can also tell me when they plan to wake up which I also usually abide by unless their sleep is somehow interrupted. A period of sleep nearly always ends, however, with me, the DM, informing the players that their characters have awoken and how they find things when they do. I have yet to have a player declare an action for his or her character to "wake up". Nor have I called for a roll when the outcome of such a declaration has been uncertain.

You do not need to 'use an action' in order to hear something, or to be woken up by some stimulus. You just roll Perception.

It is reasonable to say that sleeping characters are less able to perceive, so go ahead and impose disadvantage. But it cannot be an auto fail nor an auto success unless it would also be for a creature who is already awake.

Here's a non-exhaustive list of circumstances under which I would rule a sleeping character awakes:
1. Eight hours, or some other pre-determined interval of time, has elapsed since the character fell asleep.
2. Someone "uses an action" to awaken the sleeping character.
3. A loud noise occurs within 2d6 x 50 feet.
4. The character is in combat.

There are also some circumstances where they might or might not be woken, such as 'a quiet noise within the room' or 'an acrid smell of cyanide' or even 'it's quiet....too quiet!' This is what rolling is for! It resolves that uncertainty. It is why we invest skill proficiencies into Perception (and Stealth, for the assassins).

The idea that there is never any uncertainty is a very strange one, both in real life and in adventure games!

What I would like to ask is, in your games, what action is the sleeping character attempting when you call for a WIS (Perception) check or consult the character's passive WIS (Perception) score? Why does the character wake up as a result of succeeding with that action?

No action required. They just roll. The game is full of things that do not require an action, passive perception being a well-known example. What kind of 'action' is it to make a Dex save to take half damage from a fireball? What kind of 'action' is it to fall down a pit?

Hearing is not awareness. Sleeping people can hear everything around them exactly the same as if they had been awake. Sleep does nothing to change how your ears work! It changes your awareness of what you are hearing. In my games, I've identified loud noise within hearing range as something that will bring you into full awareness of your surroundings. YMMV.

Exactly! That's what we've been saying all along!

Yet, in spite of that, you rule that sleeping PCs auto fail Perception checks. AND you rule that sleeping creatures auto wake up when they are about to be attacked, even before the noise of combat has occurred!

It doesn't, and I don't. In my games, when you're asleep, you have no chance to notice a stealthy enemy. When your enemy attacks, you are surprised because you hadn't noticed her before. You certainly notice her once she's attacking, however. That's why you're surprised. You were having this nice dream and now all of a sudden you're being attacked. Initiative is rolled to determine not whether you noticed your enemy in your sleep, before the attack, but how quickly you shake off your surprise once the attack has awakened you and whether you'll be able to counterattack before your enemy strikes again.

In my games you have some chance of being awoken by a stealthy enemy. This is resolved by contesting the Stealth of the attacker against the Perception of the sleeper, although the sleeper has disadvantage.

It would be unfair and unrealistic to say the sleeper auto fails OR auto succeeds.

 

[Maxperson]

Hearing is not awareness. Sleeping people can hear everything around them exactly the same as if they had been awake. Sleep does nothing to change how your ears work! It changes your awareness of what you are hearing. In my games, I've identified loud noise within hearing range as something that will bring you into full awareness of your surroundings.

There must be some amount of awareness of that loud noise while asleep in order to wake up. If you are fully unaware of it, it cannot wake you. I see nothing wrong with modeling that partial awareness with a -4 to passive perception for sleeping PCs and a -2 for elves in their trance.

 

[Ovinomancer]

It doesn't, and I don't. In my games, when you're asleep, you have no chance to notice a stealthy enemy. When your enemy attacks, you are surprised because you hadn't noticed her before. You certainly notice her once she's attacking, however. That's why you're surprised. You were having this nice dream and now all of a sudden you're being attacked. Initiative is rolled to determine not whether you noticed your enemy in your sleep, before the attack, but how quickly you shake off your surprise once the attack has awakened you and whether you'll be able to counterattack before your enemy strikes again.

Is the target still unconscious for the first blow, though?

Example: Stealthy enemy has approached within melee reach of a sleeping target. Enemy declares an attack. Initiative is rolled.

A(1): The sleeping target wins initiative, goes first, but is unconscious. Enemy attacks with all bonuses and results against unconscious target. Target now awakens, and may act first in second round of combat.

A(2): The sleeping target is awakened by the roll of the initiative dice*, but is surprised. Target wins initiative. Target may react to the enemy attack. Enemy attack gains no benefit (as target is no longer surprised) except again presumably prone target.

B(1): Sleeping target loses initiative. Is unconscious for first attack. Wakes up after attack. Goes second in second round, leading to bad things.

B(2): Sleeping target is awakened by clatter of initiative dice*. Loses initiative. Enemy gets bonuses for attacking surprised and presumably prone target. Target goes second in second round.

Or some C(x)?

*tongue firmly in cheek, here, as I'm still not sure how rolling initiative makes someone wake up.