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If that many changes were made within a couple weeks of releasing the product, it almost feels as if the release was so "stealthy" that it stealthed past some of the internal QC protocols entirely... Like somebody pressed "post" when they meant to press "submit for final approval." Anyway, glad...

5e has no built-in mechanic for moving any faster than "Dash", other than possibly Rogues taking a second Dash action as part of Cunning Action. Not saying that it's not an appropriate thing to allow under some circumstances — but I'd rule it more individually. In the particular example you...

Zarl is very fast to have moved 120 feet in one round! If you rule that a character needs a full action to ready their bow (because they need to string it — makes sense, but most tables allow drawing a bow much like drawing a sword, which is to say, free object interaction) — and Zarl is not...

---EDIT--- Sorry Celtavian, I don't mean to pick a fight with you.

But you can still run it this way. In fact, if that's the only way that makes sense for you to run it, and your players are happy with that approach, than you should run it this way. It doesn't dramatically alter the game. A bunch of people are suggesting ways that they look at combat, surprise...

The distinction is mainly an issue of surprise. As I rule it, surprise, in game terms, is all about what is happening during the first round of combat. If a character is aware of you before combat begins, they aren't surprised (eg they can act on their turn). (Though, depending on what they were...

Yep, makes sense to me. If your party, in that situation, had decided to kick down the door (instead of open it stealthily), that would be an example of an Action that becomes a triggering event for combat. ie, party forms up stealthily aside the door. At a hand signal, the fighter kicks down...

Much better stated than what I tried to say. The only thing I would do differently is, if the triggering action is taken by a successfully hidden character (who remains hidden through til the completion of the action), it could constitute a full action. The main reason for this is to avoid...

Initiative is used to resolve the sequence of actions that are happening simultaneously. These actions could be happening over a span of time (6 seconds, in a standard combat turn,) but initiative determines which outcome gets resolved first. So, combat begins (with an initiative roll) whenever...

I never have, no, though I guess it could come up! In this case, initiative doesn't enter into it. If the Assassin is moving into careful position and the target is unaware, this is a matter of a Stealth roll, not an initiative roll. If the Assassin attacks an unaware target, the target doesn't...

Obviously, your game, your rules. If you and your players are fine, all's well. That being said, what you are describing seems like, well, Sneak Attack. The Surprise mechanic is all about whether or not you can act in the first round of combat, which doesn't really work if you are evaluating...

I believe we're assuming that the Bard/Assassin is invisible due to Improved Invisibility, so even though the Drow would know his position (since he has attacked and revealed it), he still wouldn't actually be able to see him. (Since it's a readied action, the Drow can attack after the trigger...

Hmm, wait so you are ruling that the Drow is surprised — by the Bard — but not by the Wizard? This issue came up in conversation, though never in practice, at my table when a player rolled up an Assassin. Can an Assassin "surprise" the target, even if other players have already entered combat...

Thanks for your thoughts! First of all, I should say that my reference to any fallacies or mistakes in the above recap are entirely references to my own fallacies and my own mistakes. What I wrote was in no way meant to be a critique of the adventure as written, and, while I imagine one could...

Actually curious, as I don't have my PHB with me. Is the Disadvantage on the save for Hold Person something particular to the Arcane Trickster? As I understand the rules, a situation that would yield Advantage on an attack roll does not necessarily yield Disadvantage on a saving throw. From my...

Wait, if the target has HOLD PERSON cast on them (or is on some other way held or incapacitated), that means that he's paralyzed, and that EVERYBODY gets advantage against said target. There's no need to worry about whether or not the target has "taken" his turn or not. Furthermore, anybody...

Yes, that answer was meant to include both "nothing happens" and "we play cards, watch basketball or go to the bar." When my current group first started meeting, on weeks that I couldn't DM due to work conflicts, they would still get together socially. I think mostly because they really wanted...

Haha, thanks. I think the point I was trying to make, before I got a bit carried away recapping the session to myself, was that, ironically, "short" adventures always seem to take the longest to run, and the more I trim down on the amount of "adventure" I plan, the more time it actually takes to...

I've been running some one-shots while our regular DM is on vacation. There's another thread going about a group that rotates DM's for the same group of characters. In the past, I've taken a little time off and given another player a small sand-box within our existing campaign to carve out a...

At several points in my relatively brief DM'ing career, I've tried to run characters through a very short, one-session adventure. When doing this, I generally pick a small, location-based adventure, and run it. Some of them I've built from scratch, and others have been published. I've noticed...