D&D 5E Question on Alert

[Plaguescarred]

Trying to surprise a character that can't be is overstepping it i believe Jaelis' suggestion is the best option to get to a good compromise result; assure initiative winning will let the enemy go before the PC while not leaving him feel his feat was houseruled to uselessness.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Gotta go with the majority so far. The feat doesn't say "You can't be surprised unless the opponent is silent." It says you can't be surprised while conscious.

And a feat is a pretty big expense for a PC. If they took it, it's because they wanted it. Don't fiat your way around it, and don't add exceptions where there explicitly aren't any. If you don't like it, tell your players it's unavailable.

 

[Arial Black]

Using your specific example, the Alert Character would immediately notice the loss of sound when the attacker moved into range. There is always ambient noise about, even if we tune it out, and a sudden silence would be startling.

"It's quiet....too quiet!"

As a player I would find it seriously un-fun if the DM suddenly decided by fiat that one of my extremely limited ASIs just didn't work.

Don't do it. Instead, take the opprtunity to describe the Alert PC turning around at just the right moment and realising that the girl was strangely silent, but your combat-honed reflexes kick in as per usual. Make the player feel good about choosing the feat; don't make him feel like a mug for taking it when he could've increased his stats like everyone else.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

As a player I would find it seriously un-fun if the DM suddenly decided by fiat that one of my extremely limited ASIs just didn't work.

Other feats can be negated, though. If you have the feat that makes you awesome with hand crossbows, you can still be locked in a cell with no weapons. If you increase your Dex by +2, you can still find yourself in a situation where you have disadvantage on Dex checks. So while the wording certainly suggests that the feat is unbeatable, it would be exceptional if that actually held true in all circumstances, since equivalent features can be negated.

Given the way that 5E deals with initiative - specifically, that you have to roll initiative to start combat before you can snipe someone - I'm not at all comfortable with the idea that the Alert character can potentially out-roll the distant assassin and kill them before they fire that warning shot that would draw their attention in the first place. Even less would I be comfortable with saying that they just happen to turn around, in that instant; the feat is Alert, not Lucky. In that circumstance, it would make way more sense to move the assassin to the top of the initiative order, since it's their action which actually initiates combat.

 

[MechaTarrasque]

The alert feat is really the first psychic feat, so the PC just esp's the sneaky enemy is coming for him/her.

 

[jaelis]

The alert feat is really the first psychic feat, so the PC just esp's the sneaky enemy is coming for him/her.

Mind blank

 

[RCanine]

It's important not to treat alert as being psychic. Surprise has a very specific meaning:

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.​

That's not to say things can't be surprising. Instead, treat alert as if the character is more quickly able to recover from surprise, such that it doesn't impair their first turn of combat.

 

[Shiroiken]

Mind blank

All my PCs would be master assassins then

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Would you rule that certain circumstances bypass the Alert feat? specifically, a person in the equivalent of a Silence Spell walking up behind the person with Alert?

Or, do you think this is overstepping a bit, since one of the main benefits of the feat is "Never get surprised"?

No, I wouldn't bypass it. And there's no need to. If as they say, "surprise is an event which occurs in the mind of the commander," then an Alert person is simply not psychologically vulnerable to that moment of surprise. They can kill on a hair trigger. That doesn't mean the other person won't get the drop on them and act first--but it does mean that the Alert person will never fail to act when they have an opportunity to act. They will never be "surprised" from a 5E technical perspective.

 

[Arial Black]

Given the way that 5E deals with initiative - specifically, that you have to roll initiative to start combat before you can snipe someone - I'm not at all comfortable with the idea that the Alert character can potentially out-roll the distant assassin and kill them before they fire that warning shot that would draw their attention in the first place. Even less would I be comfortable with saying that they just happen to turn around, in that instant; the feat is Alert, not Lucky. In that circumstance, it would make way more sense to move the assassin to the top of the initiative order, since it's their action which actually initiates combat.

Being 'immune to surprise' does not equal 'your Perception rolls always succeed'!

In your example, the distant assassin rolled lower than the Alert PC. The assassin has a good hiding place (and a good Stealth roll) but while the Alert guy is not surprised (in game terms) he failed to spot the assassin (Perception roll was lower than the assassin's Stealth).

What does the Alert feat mean here? (Or a Weapon of Warning, or whatever makes you immune to surprise) Does it mean that the Alert guy actually detects the assassin despite failing the Perception check?

No, it just means that the Alert guy 'gets a bad feeling about this!' and is ready for anything.

So the DM counts down initiative, and the first to act is the Alert guy; since he's not surprised, he can move and act normally.

Can he shoot the assassin?

No. He hasn't detected the assassin!

So what's the benefit of going first then?

Although the Alert guy cannot shoot a guy he hasn't detected, his 'spider sense' has warned him of danger. It hasn't told him what the danger is, although he can look around for clues.

The Alert guy can move into cover, cast a self buff, take the Dodge action, anything he could normally do using the knowledge he has.

He has knowledge that it's about to hit the fan, but (unless he succeeded on his Perception) he has no knowledge what the specific danger is, where the enemy is, that there is an assassin, anything like that.