D&D 5E How does Surprise work in 5e?

[Ridley's Cohort]

Wait a minute!

If one PC happens to be invisible/hiding and hanging in the back undetected, doesn't that mean the rest of the party can bust down the front door, and then declare they all get a free Surprise Round by virtue of their one party member who is an undetected threat?

The logic has to work both ways.

Let's use some common sense, please.

If a group or groups are making a coordinated attack, detection of even a single member of that group(s) spoils the surprise round for everyone. Otherwise the PCs are going to surprise the bad guys all day. It has to be a two way street.

I say the archers get Advantage for being effectively invisible. Or they simply get nothing if their Stealth is too poor to beat the Passive Perception.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

One of the cultists was magically controlling the wyverns. Once again, watch the video.

Then they should have magically controlled those wyverns to attack from surprise. Too bad they spoiled the ambush by bumbling forward and tipping off the PCs.

 

[Hriston]

Without some kind of means to coordinate the attack, the cultists are surprised as well.

This idea that a group of monsters can be surprised by another group with which they are allied and who are not attacking them completely ignores the rules. The wyverns are not a threat to the cultists. But please, before commenting on the PAX East 2014 game, watch the video.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

Okay then, I will not comment on that game.

I will make a blanket statement that if even a single member of the ambushing party tips off their intended victims, then the ambush is spoiled, and there is no Surprise. Any other kind of ruling is simply idiotic.

You can divide your would be ambushers into any number of groups, and it does not matter.

You have to actually think through what it would mean if the PCs were allowed to employ similar tactics.

 

[Hriston]

Wait a minute!

If one PC happens to be invisible/hiding and hanging in the back undetected, doesn't that mean the rest of the party can bust down the front door, and then declare they all get a free Surprise Round by virtue of their one party member who is an undetected threat?

The logic has to work both ways.

Let's use some common sense, please.

I agree common sense is a good thing.

Now if your PC is still hiding out in the hall while the rest of her party busts into the room, I don't see how her successful stealth check is going to give them any kind of advantage whatsoever. I wouldn't even know how to check a stealth roll against the perception score of a monster behind a closed door. What would be the point of that?

If, on the other hand, she made herself a threat to the monsters, by successfully hiding within striking distance (possibly by sneaking into the room before hand?), and surprised them before their initiative came up, yeah I think PCs could use that tactic, but it wouldn't be as easy as you make it out to be.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Here's a quote from the Basic Rules: "The DM determines who might be surprised. If neither side tries to be stealthy, they automatically notice each other. Otherwise, the DM compares the Dexterity (Stealth) checks of anyone hiding with the passive Wisdom (Perception) score of each creature on the opposing side. Any character or monster that doesn’t notice a threat is surprised at the start of the encounter."

I haven't read all 10 pages of this thread, but it seems to me that everyone is mis-reading this sentence. You are surprised only if you don't notice any threats. In the OP's scenario, because the PCs knew there was a threat in front of them, they are not "surprised" in game turns when more threats reveal themselves. However, the archers do have advantage to attack due to being hidden, and furthermore the PCs have no chance to pick off squishy archers before they can fire (e.g. with a Fireball) because they don't know yet that the archers are there. Thus there is still value in the ambush, although if it were me setting the ambush, instead of keeping 80% of my forces visible and 20% hidden, I'd have 20% in the open and 80% hidden.

Anyway, (some) people are reading the above rule as if it said, "Any character or monster that doesn't notice every threat is surprised," but that's not what it says. If you notice a threat, you are on guard, and you cannot be surprised.

 

[Quickleaf]

I think the rules language for Surprise is really open to interpretation. And given the design ethos of 5e, I suspect that is how it is meant to be. It's entirely possible (as was suggested by several folks) that in my OP scenario, surprise doesn't come into play at all.

My OP scenario has evolved to the following:

• The PCs and the main group of pirates are aware of each other.
• Two of the pirates (snipers) are in a different area and very well hidden from the rest of the PCs. However, they've coordinated their tactics in advance with the main group of pirates.
• One of the PCs is hidden from all the pirates (and other PCs for that matter) and is very close to the two pirate snipers who he is aware of. Nobody knows he is even in the area, thinking him to be somewhere back in town. He was apart from the rest of the party when he overheard the pirates planning their ambush, and has tracked the pirates for a while without their awareness.

In this scenario, if we take the broad interpretation of Threat to be "awareness of any threat at all" then neither the PCs nor the pirates should be surprised. However, the sniper pirates will have advantage on their shots against the main party of PCs. The hidden PC will have advantage for being hidden and I'll also grant him a 'surprise round' during which no one else (PCs or pirates) can act, ensuring that he shoots first.

Does that sound like a reasonable ruling?

 

[Azrothan]

Does that sound like a reasonable ruling?

Since I interpret the rules as having noticed any part of the opposing side as not being surprised, I wouldn't rule it like the hidden PC getting a surprise round. At the same time, it doesn't sound unreasonable if you wanted to go with that.

For me, this situation sounds like it's basically time to roll for initiative at any moment. Everyone is just standing there, waiting for any kind of signal to start the combat. Do they really care if it's the sound of the guns going off, the sudden shriek from a man being stabbed in the back, seeing that one guy that make the first move or the parrot asking for a cracker?

 

[Hriston]

I think Quickleaf's ruling is reasonable, keeping in mind that the present rules don't support a "surprise round" as something other than a first round of combat in which a creature is prohibited from acting because it is surprised. I also agree that the rules are open for interpretation. There's simply more than one way to parse the statement, "Any character or monster that doesn’t notice a threat is surprised at the start of the encounter." It can be interpreted to mean that if a creature does notice a threat then they cannot be surprised, even by a different threat that was unnoticed, or it can mean that if there is an unnoticed threat, that threat may cause surprise, even if the surprised creature is fully aware of another threat. I would go with the latter interpretation because IMO the rule doesn't seem to talk about an immunity to surprise in the first round due to a creature noticing a threat. Many examples have been given on this thread of seemingly ridiculous situations that would be allowed to incur surprise if my interpretation is followed, so please bear with me while I provide an example of my own:

A party of adventurers is facing-off with a band of goblins. Both sides are fully aware of the other and are about to come to blows. Meanwhile, several large, hungry trolls have crept up behind a nearby rock outcropping. Their plan is to take advantage of this divided group and eat as many of them as possible. They leap out at just the right moment, surprising both the adventurers and the goblins... Sounds reasonable, right?

Now imagine the same situation, except that the goblins and the trolls are working together. The goblins have agreed, before hand, to distract the adventurers while the trolls get into position, and in return they will get a cut of the treasure and the trolls won't eat them too. They even know exactly where the trolls are hiding. Now given that the goblins haven't given the trolls' position away somehow, and that all the rolls are the same, allowing the trolls to remain hidden, when the trolls jump out, would the party of adventurers still be surprised?

I think they would be.

 

[fjw70]

I think Quickleaf's ruling is reasonable, keeping in mind that the present rules don't support a "surprise round" as something other than a first round of combat in which a creature is prohibited from acting because it is surprised. I also agree that the rules are open for interpretation. There's simply more than one way to parse the statement, "Any character or monster that doesn’t notice a threat is surprised at the start of the encounter." It can be interpreted to mean that if a creature does notice a threat then they cannot be surprised, even by a different threat that was unnoticed, or it can mean that if there is an unnoticed threat, that threat may cause surprise, even if the surprised creature is fully aware of another threat. I would go with the latter interpretation because IMO the rule doesn't seem to talk about an immunity to surprise in the first round due to a creature noticing a threat. Many examples have been given on this thread of seemingly ridiculous situations that would be allowed to incur surprise if my interpretation is followed, so please bear with me while I provide an example of my own:

A party of adventurers is facing-off with a band of goblins. Both sides are fully aware of the other and are about to come to blows. Meanwhile, several large, hungry trolls have crept up behind a nearby rock outcropping. Their plan is to take advantage of this divided group and eat as many of them as possible. They leap out at just the right moment, surprising both the adventurers and the goblins... Sounds reasonable, right?

Now imagine the same situation, except that the goblins and the trolls are working together. The goblins have agreed, before hand, to distract the adventurers while the trolls get into position, and in return they will get a cut of the treasure and the trolls won't eat them too. They even know exactly where the trolls are hiding. Now given that the goblins haven't given the trolls' position away somehow, and that all the rolls are the same, allowing the trolls to remain hidden, when the trolls jump out, would the party of adventurers still be surprised?

I think they would be.

I would say the PCs are Surprized by the trolls only and if the goblins attack at the same time as the trolls then that ruins the surprise. So the goblins would have to sit out the first round to avoid giving the surprise away.