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

[Hriston]

... the scope ambiguity in "a threat" - does it mean "fails to notice at least one threat" or "fails to notice all of the threats"? - strikes me as a silly place for "rulings not rules". It's just bad drafting.

As I said upthread, the issue here isn't about the interpretation of "if" but rather the interpretation of "a" in the phrase "a threat". Does "a threat" mean "at least one threat" or "all the threats"? Both readings are acceptable in English, but obviously it makes a big difference which way you interpret it.

Maybe it is time for Wizards to clarify just what was meant by this one phrase. Were they so pressed for space that they needed to express the conditions for surprise in as few words as humanly possible? I don't believe that rulebooks should require one to be a grammarian to comprehend their meaning, but given the sheer numbers of people that, to me, are misinterpreting the language in question, perhaps it may be useful to delve a little further into what is meant in English by the indefinite article.

The use of the indefinite article "a" with the word "threat" indicates that the threat is one that is unspecified, meaning it is no particular threat. It is not necessarily the threat that is standing obviously in front of you. It may, in fact, be some other threat altogether. This was why I, rather clumsily, posted up-thread that I read this to mean "any threat." I did not mean that the word "any" should be substituted for the word "a", which leads to an entirely different reading, but rather that this could be any threat we're talking about here, not just the one threat that has already been noticed.

With regard to the interpretation that "a threat" could mean "all threats" or "every threat," I'd like to remind everyone that the indefinite article can be semantically regarded to mean "one." Thus, "a character who doesn't notice one threat is surprised," should be equivalent to the present language, although I suppose that would be just as open to misinterpretation. To my mind, however, this indicates that if there is a single threat that goes unnoticed, then that threat is capable of causing surprise.

Which leads me to the question, couldn't Wizards have clarified this by simply substituting the word "every" or by using the plural "threats" if that was what was meant? They certainly could have expressed the idea, that one who has noticed a threat is somehow immune to being surprised, without taking up any more space than they did. So why then did they choose to use the indefinite article, given the natural interpretation that an unnoticed threat causes surprise in the first round, if what they really meant was to restrict surprise to situations in which absolutely no threat has been detected?

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Many have given examples of absurdities that could result from an interpretation of the rules that would allow a creature that is aware of a large threat, but not aware of a smaller threat, to be surprised by the threat that wasn't noticed. Others, and I'll admit to not having been one of them, have made the case that this is the place for the DM to adjudicate what constitutes a hidden threat relative to any threats which are not hidden. The relativistic approach may be beneficial when one considers the absurdity of a party of adventurers not being surprised by an ancient red dragon that had gone undetected behind a pile of treasure because they were being verbally threatened by one of her kobold servitors. When the great worm leaps into the air, unleashing a torrent of fire onto the unsuspecting travelers, the resolve they had felt, just seconds before, to quickly put an end to the kobold's impertinence, might dissolve into panic and disorder if it wasn't for the, to my mind, rather heavy-handed ruling that the detection of a single adversary makes all surprise impossible.

You're confusing surprise and Frightful Presence. Surprise causes action-denial. The situation you describe here causes fright. That's what Frightful Presence is for.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

With regard to the interpretation that "a threat" could mean "all threats" or "every threat," I'd like to remind everyone that the indefinite article can be semantically regarded to mean "one." Thus, "a character who doesn't notice one threat is surprised," should be equivalent to the present language, although I suppose that would be just as open to misinterpretation. To my mind, however, this indicates that if there is a single threat that goes unnoticed, then that threat is capable of causing surprise.

Which leads me to the question, couldn't Wizards have clarified this by simply substituting the word "every" or by using the plural "threats" if that was what was meant? They certainly could have expressed the idea, that one who has noticed a threat is somehow immune to being surprised, without taking up any more space than they did. So why then did they choose to use the indefinite article, given the natural interpretation that an unnoticed threat causes surprise in the first round, if what they really meant was to restrict surprise to situations in which absolutely no threat has been detected?

This is what I don't get about your reading. If it were actually intended that missing a single threat causes you to be surprised, the designers could simply have written, "Any creature which does not notice every threat is surprised," or equivalently, "Any threat which is not noticed by a creature causes that creature to be surprised." But if noticing a single threat is sufficient to prevent surprise, then the current wording, "Any creature which does not notice a threat is surprised," is maximally-parsimonious and straightforward. Do you notice a threat? If yes, then you are not surprised. Simple and easy.

Forall(creature): not exists(threat) s.t. notices(creature, threat) -> surprised(creature)

 

[Hriston]

Rereading Basic, p 69:

Any character or monster that doesn’t notice a threat is surprised at the start of the encounter.

If you’re surprised, you can’t move or take an action on your first turn of the combat, and you can’t take a reaction until that turn ends.​

So the constraint on surprise seems stricter than "1st turn only". It's "start of encounter" only.

There are two types of rules in the game for surprise: not in combat and in combat.

The not in combat rules grant a "round" of free action and the in combat rules grant advantage + special damage (rogues).

The rules that grant these benefits are essentially the same - not noticed; the benefits are different. Without this differentiation then not noticed becomes de facto action denial, and I don't belive that is the intent.

Assuming that no one is taking actions before the first round of a combat encounter, can anyone explain the difference between the first round and the start of an encounter? It seems to me that they are the same thing.

Also, a lot of people keep referring to the unseen attacker rules as some kind of alternative to surprise, even calling it surprise. I think this confuses the issue. The difference is that an unseen attacker can attack with advantage on any round as long as they remain unseen (and of course making that attack will give away their position), while surprise can only happen at the beginning of the encounter, affecting only the first round. These two are not mutually exclusive, and an unseen attacker can cause surprise at same time as they attack with advantage. Both have to do with combat. I haven't seen any second set of surprise rules that don't apply to combat.

 

[Hriston]

This is what I don't get about your reading. If it were actually intended that missing a single threat causes you to be surprised, the designers could simply have written, "Any creature which does not notice every threat is surprised," or equivalently, "Any threat which is not noticed by a creature causes that creature to be surprised." But if noticing a single threat is sufficient to prevent surprise, then the current wording, "Any creature which does not notice a threat is surprised," is maximally-parsimonious and straightforward. Do you notice a threat? If yes, then you are not surprised. Simple and easy.

Forall(creature): not exists(threat) s.t. notices(creature, threat) -> surprised(creature)

The problem here is that you can both notice a threat and not notice a threat at the same time. The two are not mutually exclusive. So the question should be, "Do you not notice a threat?" If yes, then you are surprised.

 

[Cyberen]

In 5e parlance, not previously noticed is "unseen". If you rule that a not previously noticed foe who gets the jump on its victim gets Advantage (for being unseen) and also the considerable tactical benefit of acting first, you have a very robust "surprise system", which works whatever the number of involved parties and the way you split them, that rewards ambushes but don't make them "I win" buttons, that doesn't over reward the DEX build, that avoids the cheese of people acting twice in a row in the stop motion action economy, and works as written when there are two parties involved.
Of course, if you want to win an argument on the internet, or want to complain about the legendary sloppiness of the designers, go ahead, and argue till kingdom comes.

 

[Hriston]

You're confusing surprise and Frightful Presence. Surprise causes action-denial. The situation you describe here causes fright. That's what Frightful Presence is for.

No I'm not. You don't have to be hidden to use Frightful Presence.

edit- See the discussion of the morale component of surprise up-thread.

 

[Azrothan]

Also, a lot of people keep referring to the unseen attacker rules as some kind of alternative to surprise, even calling it surprise. I think this confuses the issue.

Because a lot of people seem to be forgetting that you can already get a bonus for being an unseen attacker:
Yes, one of your goblins managed to go undetected - but the other 4 were spotted. That goblin will still get a benefit for not having been spotted (unseen attacker), although not the Surprise the 5 of them were hoping to get when they hid in the bushes.
This is why it helps the issue to mention it, so that people don't get stuck in the mindset that surprise is the only bonus to be gained/lost by trying to be sneaky.

It was an eye opener for me for when I first started thinking about this whole issue, as I had to call in a house rule directly in the first encounter because the players refused the logic that one goblin would make them all freeze in place while his detected friends were going to get a free round.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

The problem here is that you can both notice a threat and not notice a threat at the same time. The two are not mutually exclusive. So the question should be, "Do you not notice a threat?" If yes, then you are surprised.

No you cannot. To repeat the formula:

Forall(creature): not exists(threat) s.t. notices(creature, threat) -> surprised(creature)

The bolded condition cannot be both true and false.

It's true that you can notice one threat without noticing another, but in this case it cannot be said (to an native English speaker) that you have not noticed a threat.

 

[Hriston]

I believe I'm the only one who has referred to "regular old surprise" in this thread, and even though I do believe in Gygax type #1 surprise, when I said "regular old surprise" I was referring to something quite different (partial information/deceptive tactics leading to bad decisions on the part of the surprised party). By using scare-quoted "plain old surprise" to refer to Gygaxian type #1 surprise I think you are conflating two separate kinds of surprise.

Yeah... I don't think I did that on purpose. Since this is a thread about the rule called Surprise, I guess I'm inclined to push back on the use of the word "surprise" for things that aren't covered by the rule. It seems to confuse the issue. What you were talking about was the players readjusting their tactics because the situation in the game changed. I think it's important to remember that the players have the benefit of sitting at a table, away from the stress of battle, and probably have a lot more time to consider their options. This is why a rule like Surprise exists that imposes a mechanical constraint on the characters when they are caught off guard by something at the beginning of a fight. You can't count on the players to role play that they have been "surprised."