UngeheuerLich
Legend
It has taken a while for me to wrap my head around this. Especially whe alert feat also is in the mix.
My solution is just adjucating the situation as is. If the combat breaks out surprisingly. Everyone is surprised except for the initiator . Initiative dictates if you can brace yourself for an attack on time.
Sometimes there has to be a stealth or deception roll to deermine if you can surprise the enemy at all. Sometimes the attacker gets advantage on initiative. Sometimes I would just set his initiatove on 20. In very rare cases on 0 (you just barely surprise everyone who can them act before you take another action.)
In very rare cases I would just allow you to take a readied action before combat starts assuming you have readied an action to do a certain thing that noone can reasonably interrupt.
That seems especially uswful in a situation where everyone knows that combat will eventually happen bit noone knows excactly when. You can't be surprised if you enter an enemy guatdpost with drawn weapons. defenders might still get a jump on you. I assume your actions are used to dodge or also readied for a certain trigger.
Edit:it might also occur that enemies threaten you directly with a dagger on your throat or a crossbow pointed at your heart whem you still habe to draw a weapon. In that case you can just fire first before something happens except when you lose an opposed stealth vs perception or deception vs insight check. Then the readied action would be skipped.
My solution is just adjucating the situation as is. If the combat breaks out surprisingly. Everyone is surprised except for the initiator . Initiative dictates if you can brace yourself for an attack on time.
Sometimes there has to be a stealth or deception roll to deermine if you can surprise the enemy at all. Sometimes the attacker gets advantage on initiative. Sometimes I would just set his initiatove on 20. In very rare cases on 0 (you just barely surprise everyone who can them act before you take another action.)
In very rare cases I would just allow you to take a readied action before combat starts assuming you have readied an action to do a certain thing that noone can reasonably interrupt.
That seems especially uswful in a situation where everyone knows that combat will eventually happen bit noone knows excactly when. You can't be surprised if you enter an enemy guatdpost with drawn weapons. defenders might still get a jump on you. I assume your actions are used to dodge or also readied for a certain trigger.
Edit:it might also occur that enemies threaten you directly with a dagger on your throat or a crossbow pointed at your heart whem you still habe to draw a weapon. In that case you can just fire first before something happens except when you lose an opposed stealth vs perception or deception vs insight check. Then the readied action would be skipped.
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