D&D 5E Non-stealth surprise

[Hriston]

Incorrect. The party are not "hostile" before the barbarian attacks, and therefore the guards haven't noticed a hostile.

Hostile is a character's attitude in a social interaction in which the character opposes the goals of the other party and has nada to do with determining surprise. The question is whether a noticed creature poses a threat, which is a state of potentially being capable of causing harm and applies to most creatures, and certainly to all PCs.

 

[Yunru]

Hostile is a character's attitude in a social interaction in which the character opposes the goals of the other party and has nada to do with determining surprise. The question is whether a noticed creature poses a threat, which is a state of potentially being capable of causing harm and applies to most creatures, and certainly to all PCs.

Codswallop. By that logic the party can't be surprised as long as they can see the rest of the party.

Regardless, you're just nitpicking. Hostile or a threat, whichever you want to use the guards are stated to have not considered the party it.

 

[Caliban]

Say the party is being escorted by neutral guards to the throne room and they do not suspect the party to be hostile, but on the way there, the impatient barbarian attacks a guard. Is that a surprise round?

Does the DM think it makes sense for a surprise round to happen? If the DM does, then yes. The DM may require a skill roll (deception, stealth, etc), or they may just say the guards are surprised (because the DM knows the kingdom is peaceful and these guards are bored and not paying attention.)

If the DM doesn't think it makes sense, then no. The DM may have decided that the King is paranoid about assassins and the Royal Honor Guards are always expecting trouble when strangers approach the king (even strangers that are ostensibly non-hostile, because that is what assassins want you to think!).

 

[Jacob Schmidt]

I agree that a guard escort would certainly have a readied action to anyone drawing a weapon, so unless the barbarian goes for some sort of improvised attack or wants to shove one of the guards prone to start combat, I probably wouldn't give a surprise round.

 

[BoldItalic]

Say the party is being escorted by neutral guards to the throne room and they do not suspect the party to be hostile, but on the way there, the impatient barbarian attacks a guard. Is that a surprise round?

No. Partly because in 5e there is no such thing as a "surprise round" and partly because the guards were not asleep, distracted or otherwise inattentive. They would be aware of a threat as soon as the barbarian readied his weapon and it's at that point that you roll for initiative normally.

 

[fil512]

Thanks to everyone for the very helpful replies. I'd like to broaden my question now. The RAW only refer to surprise in the case where the attacker is hidden. Can surprise EVER happen without the attacker hiding?

 

[Satyrn]

Thanks to everyone for the very helpful replies. I'd like to broaden my question now. The RAW only refer to surprise in the case where the attacker is hidden. Can surprise EVER happen without the attacker hiding?

Yes. surprise can happen whenever the situation is such that the DM thinks "it makes sense to use surprise here,"

And that can include times when the players ask "hey, is he surprised?"

 

[Kobold Stew]

Thanks to everyone for the very helpful replies. I'd like to broaden my question now. The RAW only refer to surprise in the case where the attacker is hidden. Can surprise EVER happen without the attacker hiding?

Yes, and you are misremembering the RAW.

Hiding in fact isn't mentioned, and being "hidden" isn't a game-defined condition. Stealth is mentioned: "If neither side tries to be stealthy, they automatically notice one another."

 

[Caliban]

Thanks to everyone for the very helpful replies. I'd like to broaden my question now. The RAW only refer to surprise in the case where the attacker is hidden. Can surprise EVER happen without the attacker hiding?

RAW? Probably not. The rules are almost all expecting "group of 3-6 heavily armed individuals either sneaking up on or being ambushed by another group of heavily armed individuals". They really don't go into corner cases such as "social engineering" to lower their guard, or elaborate disguises, or illusions, or major distracting events, etc. The rules leave that up to the DM to adjudicate.

This is very much an area where the "rulings over rules" comes into play, as players can be pretty creative in coming up with things that can reasonably cause enough of a distraction to allow for a surprise round...or just make them look silly when it fails. That's what the DM is for - to adjudicate all the edge cases and out-of-the box ploys thought up by the players.

 

[cooperjer]

Thanks to everyone for the very helpful replies. I'd like to broaden my question now. The RAW only refer to surprise in the case where the attacker is hidden. Can surprise EVER happen without the attacker hiding?

Matt Coville has an interesting commentary on the DMs control of time. In the scene you gave initially there is a question about the guards noticing the barbarian reaching for it's weapon. With the control of time, the DM may say something like "As you reach for your weapon the guards ready themselves for the attack. Roll initiative." The same could be said to the players. On the other hand the DM could say "You quickly reach for your weapon and in the same motion bring it up into the guards face. Roll for initiative. All the NPCs and PC are surprised." The DM has control of the timing and can break the motions down as they see fit prior to initiative.

With regards to an assassin attacking from a hidden position and losing initiative, the player declared their action to attack the target. The DM may say something like, "You pull your short bow up and aim carefully. You release the arrow. Roll initiative. The guard is surprised." If the guard has higher initiative than the assassin, then the guard gets their reaction prior to the declared action of the assassin. On the assassin's initiative the arrow is released and the attack roll is made. Another way to think about this is, there are no action declared take backs by the assassin.