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'.
That's why I said "formerly sleeping". Once combat begins, they are aware and alert, and thus awake. Also, we seem to have very different ideas of what surprise actually represents. To me, and consistent with the natural language meaning of
surprise, it is caused by the sudden revelation of something unexpected, in this case of an unexpected attack. You aren't surprised until that attack commences and you know you are under attack, because that's what surprises you. At that point you are alert to danger. In fact, I would say that surprise is a state of sensory overload in which you are frozen because you are taking in information about your situation that was formerly hidden from you, i.e. that you are now under attack. Other creatures are not surprised because for them the attack was anticipated.
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!
Why not? Battle cries, the beating of spears on shields, and the thunderous charge of heavily armored foes into melee all occur before the landing of the first blow. The fact that these foes were hidden before combat does nothing to keep the fact that they are attacking a secret once combat has begun. The landing of the first blow most certainly happens after that, because it happens on a creature's turn. In the case of say, a brightly lit room, where circumstances are inappropriate for hiding, the first blow may be that of the formerly sleeping creature striking the assassin.
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.
No, I'm ruling the sleeping creature awakens simultaneously with the beginning of combat, which would be simultaneous with any noise of battle occurring.
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.).
Right, so if "finishing a sleep" under normal circumstances, I just inform the players that after a night's sleep or whatever they wake up. It's involuntary.
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!
My point exactly! This too is involuntary, so as DM I treat it the same way. I inform the players that, "X noise wakes you up."
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.
I disagree that such stimuli are
detected or
perceived in the sense that the game gives those terms. A WIS (Perception) check reflects an
effort to detect the presence of something. A sleeping creature is making no such effort.
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.
It doesn't sound like you were
trying to hear that sound, but it woke you up anyway. Also, for clarity, when I refer to noise level, it's the noise level of the sound at it's point of origin, not at the hearer's ear. Each level has its own audible range of distance.
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.
When I say "declare an action", I don't mean "use an action" in the combat turn sense. I just mean the player is telling me what their character is trying to do in the game. I don't get players telling me their characters are trying to wake up in response to something they hear while asleep, probably because I don't tell them what their characters hear in their sleep unless it also wakes them up.
When you ask a player to "roll Perception", considering that the DM asks for an ability check when a creature (character/monster)
attempts to do something, what is their sleeping character trying to do? For me, it's clear that a sleeping creature is incapable of initiating such action.
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.
But it is! We already know that foraging, mapping, tracking, and navigating are activities that guarantee that awake creatures doing those activities auto-fail Perception checks to notice hidden creatures. Surely a sleeping creature doesn't have a better chance of noticing a hidden creature than an awake creature does! That would be ridiculous!
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).
That isn't why we invest in Perception. We invest in Perception to improve our characters' chances of noticing things about their surroundings
when our characters attempt to do so. Sleeping characters aren't trying to do that. They're trying to sleep so they can get the benefits of a long rest. Their players told me so when they declared they were going to sleep.
The idea that there is never any uncertainty is a very strange one, both in real life and in adventure games!
I'm not arguing that there is never any uncertainty. On the contrary, you seem to be arguing that there is always uncertainty, which is the approach the DMG calls "Rolling With It". I prefer "The Middle Path". You seem to have skipped over where I brought up this difference in our respective approaches up-thread. It's on page 236-37 of the DMG. You should read it.
And while you're there, check out what the DMG has to say about ability checks on page 237. "An ability check is a test to see whether a character succeeds
at a task that he or she has decided to attempt." (Bolding added for emphasis.) A character who has gone to sleep has not decided to attempt to notice hidden creatures, or to attempt much of anything except sleeping.
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.
No, passive Perception requires that a character is keeping watch for hidden threats, the same action for which the DM might call for an active roll. "Passive" just means you aren't rolling the dice. It's still an ability check, "a test to see whether a character succeeds at a task that he or she has decided to attempt", in this case, an attempt to notice hidden threats. If a character has decided to do something else with its awareness, or has no awareness of its surroundings, it doesn't contribute its passive Perception score to noticing hidden threats.
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?
Do I really need to explain the difference between a saving throw and an ability check? I think that may be beyond the scope of this conversation.
Exactly! That's what we've been saying all along!
No, you and others have been saying that hearing does equal awareness. It does not. Sleeping creatures are not aware of, and do not perceive, what they hear in their sleep.
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!
No, they wake up simultaneously, which means 'at the same time', with the commencement of the attack which marks the beginning of combat. It's a concept you seem to have trouble with, but which, to me, is essential to understanding the abstract nature of D&D combat.
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.
What if you aren't asleep but are engaged in an activity like foraging, mapping, tracking, or navigating? In your games, do you still have
some chance to notice stealthy enemies? In my games, I just follow what the book says, and you do not.
It would be unfair and unrealistic to say the sleeper auto fails OR auto succeeds.
"Unfair" suggests an adversarial relationship between players and DM. I assure you, I apply the rules equally to PC and NPC alike.
"Unrealistic" is in the eye of the beholder. To me, it is unrealistic to treat sleeping creatures as if they are aware of everything their ears pick up and can choose to wake up if they hear something they find alarming, which is as close as I can make out your approach to be.
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.
So you check Perception to see if the sleeper is aware of the noise, or the presence of another creature, or whatever. Is that right?
If so, how do you determine what sorts of noises or other events warrant such a check, and what sorts of things can happen that allow sleep to continue without a check?
Personally, I've established some consistent guidelines for myself that help me in adjudicating the conditions under which sleep will continue and those under which sleep is interrupted, and since, in my games, ability checks are only called for when a character is consciously attempting to do something, I don't ask for ability checks from sleeping creatures. Some variability is introduced on the DM's side of the screen, however, in the form of a roll to determine audible distance.
Also, for the sake of discussion, I think we need to better define what constitutes
awareness. It's my impression that the game books use
aware interchangeably with
conscious, meaning the perception of those elements of the environment that are known to the character (and therefore, the player), and upon which the character is then able to base decisions about what actions to take. I don't see sleeping characters as making those sorts of decisions.
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.
My problem with this would be that characters engaged in tracking, foraging, navigation, and mapping are not able to contribute their passive Perception to noticing hidden threats. Why do sleeping creatures have a better chance? Trancing elves, on the other hand, remain semiconscious, so I allow elves to use their partial awareness to keep watch for hidden threats at disadvantage while they trance.
Is the target still unconscious for the first blow, though?
If by "first blow" you mean the actual landing of the blow and dealing of damage, then no, the target is awakened by the initiation of the attack that begins combat. Before the attack is resolved, the target is awake.
Generally, the only unconscious creatures in combat are those that have been reduced to 0 HP or put into a magical sleep, and notice that those affected by the
sleep spell, for example,
do, in fact, become unconscious.
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.
I would choose option (2) in both cases, with the caveat that the target is not awakened by the die roll, per se, but by the revelation of the impending attack in progress, i.e. "You're under attack! Roll initiative!"
