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For specificity, my decision to 'like' this post should not be construed as an endorsement of your opinion on ice cream flavors. ;)

I wasn't thinking of PVP, no. I used "character" for both sides just because I meant the example to be generic regardless of whether PCs or NPCs are doing the ambushing. To revise my question to better fit your approach to action declaration... how do you personally choose to narrate a...

Interesting! For me it's the opposite: when my character concept may change as a result of mechanics, my character feels disjointed, superficial, and artificial.

Out of curiosity, how do you personally handle the situation where the Alert character taking cover renders the the action declaration that triggered initiative impossible or unwise? Do you allow the ambushing character to change or abort their action in response to the changed circumstances? If...

This part appears to be speculation, rather than an inference from the text. The text itself is silent concerning the situation where a threat is unnoticed because a visible creature isn't recognized as a threat--it only specifically addresses the situation where the threat is hidden. Since the...

To clarify, I certainly don't think that a GM making decisions on the fly in any way results in a better or purer representation of a character. I do think that making a quick in-character decision for a sketched out NPC is easier than making a quick in-character decision for an established...

I think we are each meaning fundamentally different things by the phrase "understanding the character". But that disagreement is unrelated to my original point that making IC decisions for an NPC on the fly is easier than portraying an established character on a stage for an audience. I stand...

As I see it, at the point where you've made up Bob the Bartender and decided on some mannerisms you haven't yet reached the point of having to make an IC decision for Bob. When that point comes (presumably in response to something the PCs do, or in response to a follow-on consequence of what the...

That's fair. Thanks for explaining your viewpoint! From my standpoint it's easier to understand a character if you are simultaneously creating that character (or significantly adding to that character), but I can understand why you disagree.

I interpreted @Campbell as questioning how GMs could be so confident in their ability to make IC decisions on the fly for any given NPC when acting as a character on stage is so difficult. My response was intended to point how the scope/difficulty of those two tasks are sufficiently different to...

To clarify, I was exclusively talking about the comparison @Campbell made between the task facing posters who have said it's easy for them as a GM to make IC choices for NPCs without formalized social rules, and the task facing actors on stage performing a play.

I suspect that part of this difference in perspective is explainable by differenences in when the authorship is taking place. Making IC choices on-the-fly for a partially developed NPC is a simpler task than doing justice to a fully-fledged character in a pre-written work. The improvising GM...

Dissonant Whispers and fear effects are the main ways one can get a War Caster reaction spell on one's turn, although they don't involve PAM. For PAM to enter the picture the situation would probably need to involve readied actions, as @clearstream noted above.

No you can't. If you can any Bonus Action spell on your turn--even if it is a cantrip--the only other spells you can cast that turn are cantrips with a casting time one action. So no casting leveled spells as an action, and no casting reaction spells at all. Edit: here's the text from the PHB:

(Emphasis added.) I have to ask--is the Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy reference deliberate or accidental? Intentional or not, it's much appreciated! :)

There isn't actually a limit like that. Instead, the only limit on the number of spells you can cast in a round comes into play if (and only if) you cast a spell (leveled or cantrip) as a bonus action. If you do cast a spell as a bonus action, the only other spells you can cast that turn are...

I think the problem being encountered is that the word "performance" has an unusually wide range of meanings and connotations. Some posters appear to be interpreting the statement "Critical Role is a performance" as implying that Critical Role is not a game of D&D, and is instead a performance...

Given the wide disparity between the sorts of activities given as examples of Light Activity and the sorts of examples given of Strenuous Activity, I don't see it as quibbling. If I wanted rests to effectively only be six hours, I'd just change the length of the rest outright rather than keeping...

Then on that point we don't agree in substance. (Edited to remove mistake. Trying to say we do agree!) What you treat as something between sleep and light activity I simply treat as light activity. At the end of the day we're both counting it as downtime. Where we seem to still disagree is on...

I think we might still be looking at different versions. In the errata document I'm looking at the phrase "does nothing more strenuous than" doesn't appear anywhere. Here's what I understand to be the most-current version (as of the 12th printing of the PHB): A long rest is a period of extended...