D&D 5E Toll the Chest

[Imaculata]

I think we can all agree that there's a grey area here that leaves room for interpretation. If a pc expects a chest to be a mimic, and uses a spell on it. Then when the mimic reveals itself, it seems unlikely that pc could be surprised by it.

On the other hand, players state they are ready for threats all the time. If my pc stands watch at a campsite, ready for an ambush, couldn't I still be surprised by one? In a dungeon, players are ready for threats around every corner. Doesn't stop them from being surprised, I think.

It can be complicated. Where do you draw that line?

 

[Maxperson]

I think we can all agree that there's a grey area here that leaves room for interpretation. If a pc expects a chest to be a mimic, and uses a spell on it. Then when the mimic reveals itself, it seems unlikely that pc could be surprised by it.

On the other hand, players state they are ready for threats all the time. If my pc stands watch at a campsite, ready for an ambush, couldn't I still be surprised by one? In a dungeon, players are ready for threats around every corner. Doesn't stop them from being surprised, I think.

It can be complicated. Where do you draw that line?

For me it's in specificity. Watching that chest that I can see for danger = no surprise possible. Even if alert, standing at a campfire unable to see out past the light = possible surprise as you can't be watching in all direction at once, except that that shadowy lump I can barely make out and am staring at. That lump might be a tree stump, or a squatting orc, but it's not surprising me!!

 

[Hussar]

I think there's a significant difference between these two statements:

1. I see something that I think is very suspicious. I am going to carefully investigate it, being wary for danger. I am focusing all my attention on that thing which I have declared that I think is suspicious.

and

2. I'm standing on guard for two hours for the third night in a row. Yes, I'm alert, but, I don't see anything that looks suspicious currently, so, it's entirely possible for me to be surprised.

Again, in the Mimic example, if the floor in front of the box was actually the mimic (a la a Trapper) then, sure, surprise away. But, when you're specifically calling something out as being suspicious and, not only that, but you are actually expecting exactly the right thing - a mimic, then I'm going to find a new DM if he claims that I'm surprised by the mimic when it attacks.

 

[iserith]

I think we can all agree that there's a grey area here that leaves room for interpretation. If a pc expects a chest to be a mimic, and uses a spell on it. Then when the mimic reveals itself, it seems unlikely that pc could be surprised by it.

On the other hand, players state they are ready for threats all the time. If my pc stands watch at a campsite, ready for an ambush, couldn't I still be surprised by one? In a dungeon, players are ready for threats around every corner. Doesn't stop them from being surprised, I think.

It can be complicated. Where do you draw that line?

Most of the time it's pretty cut and dry in my experience. Some of the PCs are alert to dangers, some are performing other tasks that distract from being alert. The PCs who remain alert have a chance to avoid surprise if a stealthy monster comes calling and that's going to be a roll, one that I'm likely to fail because that's how it goes when I DM. The PCs doing other tasks are automatically surprised. That's the trade-off for the potential benefits of whatever it is they are doing, unless they're a ranger in favored terrain.

In a case like the one I posted, False Appearance plus the context of the situation creates what I would consider an exception to the regular calculation. I would therefore say the ruling is that surprise is off the table. Sorry, mimic - next time, bud. But I wouldn't be upset about if the DM considered surprise uncertain and rolled.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

It's usually simple to tell if a PC is treating something as a potential threat because they will mention it when the describe what their character is doing.

If the player doesn't mention something the DM included in their description, or they mention it in a way that suggests they are treating it as a normal object of its kind (as in the "I take cover behind the pillar" example I cited earlier) then they are not treating it as a potential threat and will be surprised if it attacks them.

 

[Hriston]

Let's unpack that.

1. The party notices a peaceful troll. It is not a threat since it is not likely to cause harm to the party.
2. The party declares an action to attack the troll, forcing it to become a threat in that moment that combat begins.
3. The DM has to determine surprise. Per the rules, the party has to have already noticed a threat in order to not be surprised surprised by it. There was no threat to notice prior to the beginning of combat, so the party is surprised by the now threatening troll.

This is what happens if we follow your set-up and only use threat as the criteria for surprise. In order for the surprise rules to function, threat has to include potential threats like the peaceful troll above.

No, that isn't at all what happens if you run surprise like I do. I've already told you what happens many times, exhaustively and in detail, so at this point I can only assume you're arguing in bad faith.

And no, the surprise rules function just fine without defining threat that way. It's not a term of game jargon and, in the context of the surprise rules, should be understood to refer to a creature that participates in combat on the opposite side from the creature for whom surprise is being determined.

Because it doesn't work. I run my games so that a threat you don't notice can surprise you, like RAW states. Even if you are expecting the wall to attack you, the cloaker on the ceiling that you didn't notice will surprise you.

This implies the wall is not a threat even though the player expects it to be one?

In addition to RAW, I also allow a threat you don't notice when combat begins to surprise you, even if there are other threats that you do notice.

Okay, so you're fixing the problem caused by your "potential threat" houserule by having another houserule.

How could I not take an issue with someone conflating everything with one specific thing? They are vastly different things.

Something does not mean everything.

Yes there is. It's called being aware of the threat or potential threat.

Yeah, this "potential threat rule" you've identified here. That's what's not in the rules.

What isn't in the rules is the requirement you are adding to know exactly what the threat is. You have yet to show that you have to know that the chest is a mimic in order to not be surprised by your awareness of the potential threat that a chest poses.

I haven't added any such requirement, and I've been explicit about that more than once in this thread. Awareness of the presence of a creature is sufficient.

That's silly. They get things wrong all the time. It's indisputable that a mimic that is unnoticed and gains surprise is a greater challenge than one you know about well before you get to it due to a successful perception check. You should look at reality yourself and make your own determinations of what reality is, not rely on game designers to tell you what it is.

That's true of any creature that manages to surprise the party. False Appearance just allows the mimic an additional circumstance where it can try to do that. This is backed up by the fact that the feature doesn't affect the mimic's CR.

 

[Hriston]

Serious answer.

"I'm on the lookout for danger" should make you harder to surprise. If someone is deliberately being careful and cautious, then, sure, they shouldn't be surprised as easily. But, D&D doesn't really have rules for that.

Actually, it does. They're in the Activity While Traveling section on pages 182 and 183 of the PHB. Basically, if you're "on the lookout", then your passive Perception score is used to determine if you notice a hidden threat and avoid being surprised. If your attention is otherwise occupied and not focused on watching for danger, then stealthy creatures will surprise you automatically.

It's like a lot of things in the game, all or nothing. So, the party is surprised, or they aren't.

Actually, individual members of the party can be surprised even if the other members aren't.

So, a cautious party, proceeding cautiously, in a dangerous situation, should very rarely be surprised unless the bad guys are being particularly stealthy and setting up the ambush.

That's pretty much how it works, especially with groups of bad guys. It's not easy to get surprise.

Standing in the middle of an empty room, pretending to be a box is not particularly stealthy.

I agree. It's similar to the person-hiding-behind-a-five-foot-wide-box-in-the-middle-of-the-room problem. Where I come down on this is if observers see the person go behind the box, and the person stays behind the box once out of sight, then the person cannot be hidden because such circumstances are inappropriate for hiding. However, if the person is already behind the box when observers arrive on the scene, I would allow an attempt at hiding because the observers don't know the person is there. I think the mimic resembles the latter rather than the former.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

They haven't noticed an ORDINARY chest. They have no way of knowing that the chest is ordinary.

From the Mimic entry in the MM:

------
False Appearance (Object Form Only).
While the mimic remains motionless, it is indistinguishable from an ordinary object.
------

so, yeah, ORDINARY chest.

 

[James Gasik]

From the Mimic entry in the MM:

------
False Appearance (Object Form Only).
While the mimic remains motionless, it is indistinguishable from an ordinary object.
------

so, yeah, ORDINARY chest.

So does that mean that all Mimics take the appearance of the same kind of chest? What is an ordinary chest anyways?

Does that mean they can't appear to be an opulent chest made of cedar and gold, encrusted with jewels?

(Ordinary, adj.:
"with no special or distinctive features; normal.").

 

[Swarmkeeper]

So does that mean that all Mimics take the appearance of the same kind of chest? What is an ordinary chest anyways?

Does that mean they can't appear to be an opulent chest made of cedar and gold, encrusted with jewels?

You tell me. You're the DM at your table. It's your job to describe the environment.

In any case, I see nothing in the stat block that says all mimics must appear as the same object.

(Ordinary, adj.:
"with no special or distinctive features; normal.").

I think we can deduce that "ordinary object" in the mimic stat block is being used to indicate an "object that is not a mimic".