D&D 5E Assassinate

[Athinar]

he gives his intent away somehow, e.g. a glint of sunlight off the arrowhead, target hears the creak of the bow, whoosh of the arrow, or anything else you can imagine.

So what you are saying is that the Assassin failed his Stealth, but he did not fail the Stealth Roll

The Victim does not see the glint off the darkened Arrowhead nor the creak of the bow, nor the whoosh the arrow, etc. The Victim failed his stealth - Surprised

The Rules for Surprise is so wrong, so broken, unless your assassin has a Intelligence of 3 and tries to surprise from behind a rock that is 100 yds(meters) from the victim

 

[Arial Black]

So what you are saying is that the Assassin failed his Stealth, but he did not fail the Stealth Roll

The Victim does not see the glint off the darkened Arrowhead nor the creak of the bow, nor the whoosh the arrow, etc. The Victim failed his stealth - Surprised

The Rules for Surprise is so wrong, so broken, unless your assassin has a Intelligence of 3 and tries to surprise from behind a rock that is 100 yds(meters) from the victim

The 'rules of surprise' with which you so vehemently disagree are but one way of interpreting the wording. I and others interpret another way. Mine is better (but I would say that, wouldn't I?).

For me, the thing that causes surprise (not noticing a threat) means that when you do notice a threat, then you are not surprised any more. This is implied rather than stated, but it at least has that implication as support, whereas the idea that 'you become unsurprised when you can take reactions' is not in the rules either, nor does it make sense.

However, trying to remain objective, this disagreement is precisely what this thread is about now. Look at both arguments, then see which makes most sense to you.

The root of this discussion is that there is actually no written rule which tells us when surprise ends; if there was then this thread would have been much shorter.

 

[Hriston]

If that's how you interpret what the word "Surprise" means in relationship to the intent of the Surprise rules, knock yourself out. I'm going to now put a fake smile on my face and slowly back away towards the doorway...

The word "surprise" itself has a number of meanings. It can be a noun or a verb. As a noun, it has the meaning of "an unexpected or astonishing event, fact, or thing." In my interpretation, what's unexpected is the attack itself, because it comes as a surprise. However, the word as a noun can also have the meaning of "a feeling of mild astonishment or shock caused by something unexpected." In this case, "surprise" refers to the state of shock experienced by the surprised creature because of an unexpected "surprise attack". In any case, using both meanings, you feel surprise because of a surprise.

As a verb, "surprise" means to "cause (someone) to feel mild astonishment or shock", something unexpected (a surprise) being the thing that does the actual surprising. So a surprise can surprise someone, thus causing that person to feel surprise. My interpretation of how the use of "surprise" informs the intent of the rules is that the initial, unexpected attack surprises a creature who is then surprised.

Er... am I missing something or reading something incorrectly? To me it sounds like folks are saying "During a Surprise round, roll Initiative to see when people go during that Surprise round". In other words, there is no such thing as Surprise, because even if you successfully sneak up on someone who is completely unaware of you, as soon as you 'act', you roll initiative. I could "surprise" someone, then loose initiative, meaning I never surprised that someone in the first place. Why even roll stealth, perception, etc checks when it's all coming down to an Initiative roll? ... I must be missing something here... Can someone fill me in?

Yes, I think you're missing something. As I pointed out in my previous reply, there's no "surprise round". This does not mean, however, that a surprised creature is able to act and/or move on its turn. In fact, quite the opposite is very clearly spelled out in the rules. A surprised creature always looses the ability to act and move on its turn no matter what its initiative is. If you loose initiative to a surprised creature, that means that its turn, in which it is unable to act or move, comes before your turn in the initiative order. You have still surprised the creature. If you hadn't, because it was aware of your presence, then it would have been able to attack you first. Because it is surprised, you get the first attack due to it being surprised on its turn and even though it beat your initiative. I hope this clears things up.

 

[pming]

Hiya!
[MENTION=6787503]Hriston[/MENTION] ...yes, that helps clear things up immensely. I can definitely work with that definition for 5e. I'm not sure if I'm sold on the "conscious and deliberate use of Reaction", such as casting a Shield spell, but your description helps a lot. I mean, I don't let surprised creatures get use of their Dexterity or Shield (actual, shield, not the spell), so I don't think a wizard should get use of a spell. I mean, if you can't "Dodge", because it's a full fledged action, nor can you "Move/Dash/Disengage", because they are actions, I can't see casting a spell either. The natural reaction to something coming at you head is to either move out of the way or put something between your head and the object; if being Surprised still allowed for "defensive actions only, as long as you won initiative", maybe I'd be OK with that. Hmmm.... y'know, I might be on to something there. Have to chew on it a while.

Thanks again for the clarification. Makes more sense to me now. (you know...I think the old "old dog, new tricks" thing is at play here.... I'm getting old!)

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[MG.0]

Hiya!

[MENTION=6787503]Hriston[/MENTION] ...yes, that helps clear things up immensely. I can definitely work with that definition for 5e. I'm not sure if I'm sold on the "conscious and deliberate use of Reaction", such as casting a Shield spell, but your description helps a lot. I mean, I don't let surprised creatures get use of their Dexterity or Shield (actual, shield, not the spell), so I don't think a wizard should get use of a spell. I mean, if you can't "Dodge", because it's a full fledged action, nor can you "Move/Dash/Disengage", because they are actions, I can't see casting a spell either. The natural reaction to something coming at you head is to either move out of the way or put something between your head and the object; if being Surprised still allowed for "defensive actions only, as long as you won initiative", maybe I'd be OK with that. Hmmm.... y'know, I might be on to something there. Have to chew on it a while.

Thanks again for the clarification. Makes more sense to me now. (you know...I think the old "old dog, new tricks" thing is at play here.... I'm getting old!)

^_^

Paul L. Ming

Because the casting time of Shield is a reaction and not a full action that means it is extremely fast. As in a mere flick of the the fingers and a single spoken syllable.

 

[Hriston]

[MENTION=45197]pming[/MENTION], again just for the sake of clarity, when we're talking about a wizard casting Shield as a reaction to a surprise attack, we're only talking about that happening after the wizard's turn has passed. I agree with you that before and during the time that the surprised wizard is unable to move or take actions, i.e. during its turn, it is also unable to take reactions, such as the Shield spell. That's why I and certain others interpret the rules to say that this is the period of surprise. What the rules for surprise expressly allow, however, is for the surprised creature to take reactions after its turn has passed. Because it was surprised, "full-round actions" such as Dodge/Dash/Disengage are denied to it, because you need to take those actions on your turn. An "instant" reaction like Shield, however, is permissible as long as the triggering attack occurs after the surprised creature's turn has passed. To me, at least, the idea is that the wizard is surprised by the initial attack, and so denied the use of actions and movement, but because of a high initiative check, the wizard recovers from the shock fast enough to cast Shield as a response.

 

[MG.0]

So what you are saying is that the Assassin failed his Stealth, but he did not fail the Stealth Roll The Victim does not see the glint off the darkened Arrowhead nor the creak of the bow, nor the whoosh the arrow, etc. The Victim failed his stealth - Surprised The Rules for Surprise is so wrong, so broken, unless your assassin has a Intelligence of 3 and tries to surprise from behind a rock that is 100 yds(meters) from the victim

No, that's not what I'm saying at all.

I'm saying the stealth no longer applies once the assassin attempts to attack, i.e. combat starts. The assassin is no longer being stealthy at this point, he's attacking. The victim is surprised, but he can recover in time to prevent the assassin from taking full advantage if he can react fast enough.

 

[Athinar]

combat starts at the point the arrow hits or misses not one second before, no glint of the arrow head or a leaf blown in the wind
The time to recover is zero
unless the assassin is running from behind a rock 100 yards away (this is a screen from "The Holy Grail") The Knight keeps running screen after screen

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I have yet to hear a reason to let an assassinate target react with an initiative roll unless they have a reason to believe they are in danger... last night I talked with most of my group, and we still see surprise as surprise and only roll initiative after a target knows a fight will break out...

this goes for PC targets or Assassin.

by the way my newest NPC villain is an Imp with 5 levels of warlock and 10 levels of assassin grafted on...Invisible shape shifted assassins. I promise you there will come a day when I assassinate multi targets with an eldritch blast (no sneak attack since it isn't a dex attack) and there will be a day I will follow my PCs looking for a hurt PC to kill at there weakest moment... and sooner or later someone will kill Katarish...the imp assassin warlock

 

[MG.0]

I have yet to hear a reason to let an assassinate target react with an initiative roll unless they have a reason to believe they are in danger... last night I talked with most of my group, and we still see surprise as surprise and only roll initiative after a target knows a fight will break out...

The thread is full of them. Ignoring the fact the rules say it is so, consider this: Assassination in almost all cases would require speed as well as stealth. Let's say an assassin is hidden in the target's bedroom closet 10 feet away. Just because he was completely hidden before attempting to kill the target is no guarantee he can reach the target and stab him without the target reacting. That is exactly what initiative is meant to model. Surprise prevents the target from moving or acting, but may or may not prevent him from reacting.