D&D 5E 5e Surprise and Hiding Rules Interpretation

[doctorbadwolf]

No, this isn't a house rule - it's an interpretation of RAW based on the text of the rulebooks and what the designers have to say about it. You haven't added any argument from a source here - you've just decided to resolve your cognitive dissonance by arguing your case by simply reasserting it. Surprise is determined via Stealth versus passive Perception, in a procedure described mechanically in the PHB, and determining surprise in any other way is a house rule. Disguises are therefore not relevant to surprise unless the DM decides they're relevant to being hidden, and anything other than that is also a house rule. Both of those things are well supported by the source material, and I've provided detailed references to all of them above.

• Can I initiate surprise by deceiving an adjacent opponent into believing I'm actually an ally and then suddenly attacking? Not unless you are also hidden, since surprise requires hiding. Even if your opponent believes you are an ally, they still remain alert for signs of danger, and unless the DM decides they would be sufficiently visually or mentally distracted, the movement of your attack would be noticed as you began it. The initiative roll would determine who acts first, but if your opponent who had been successfully deceived previously (Insight vs Deception check) wins initiative, they may choose to do nothing to counter your attack on their turn if they momentarily believe the initiation of your action is due to something else other than commencing an attack. If the DM decides all of your opponents for the coming combat are somehow sufficiently distracted by your deception that they wouldn't notice an attack coming, and if the DM decides that all circumstances are otherwise also appropriate for hiding, only then could you attempt to hide in plain sight to them and initiate surprise (and only as long as all of the other members of your side of the combat are also able to hide, in plain sight via distracted opponents or otherwise).
• Can I initiate surprise by deceiving an adjacent opponent into believing I'm actually an ally and concealing my dagger thrust as I attack? No, because you would have to be hidden to initiate surprise, and if you were able to conceal your attack this way for surprise purposes, you would in effect be hiding in plain sight, which is a special ability of 10th level rangers. Per the rules, most creatures stay alert for signs of danger all around, and without any special ability or trait indicating otherwise, any concealment of your thrust during attack is included in your bonuses and modifiers on your to hit roll. Note that even the Assassin rogue archetype's "Assassinate" ability doesn't automatically assume you have surprised a creature (since it provides an additional benefit if that is the case), and it doesn't require a Stealth check. Similarly, the rogue's "Sneak Attack" ability doesn't presume you have surprised the target, only that you have advantage on the attack roll.
• Can a ranger with the Hide in Plain Sight ability attack at advantage using the Unseen Attackers and Targets rule? Yes. Rangers with this ability are in plain sight, but they are hidden and may not be seen because their presence may not be perceived. Camouflage disrupts the visual processing of the eye, in effect giving the ranger a very limited kind of invisibility. When using this ability, opponents with passive Perceptions lower than the ranger's Stealth check not only do not notice their presence and position, they cannot see them without actively searching.
• Can my character who is not a ranger hide in plain sight by camouflaging themselves? Maybe, since there is the ranger's ability, Hide in Plain Sight, as precedence, although doing so would not provide the other bonuses associated with the ranger ability and would carry all the limitations. The DM would decide if this is possible given the circumstances, how long it might take to set up the camouflage, and what penalty to the Stealth check might apply given the character's amateurish attempt and the difficulty of remaining motionless.
• Can my character hide for surprise by disguising themselves as a rock? Yes, but only under similar prescriptions as if you tried to hide in plain sight by camouflaging yourself, and the DM decides whether this is possible given the circumstances. The DM could optionally consider the results of some skill check in crafting the disguise (maybe a Nature check would be appropriate) when deciding if the circumstances were appropriate for hiding. If the disguise were poorly enough constructed, it might alert opponents to your position rather than distracting them from your presence.
• Can I hide in a crowd of people and then initiate surprise by attacking opponents even if they would see me approach from the crowd? The DM would decide based on the circumstances. The DM can choose to allow a character to continue to be hidden as they approach a creature if circumstances would have that creature being distracted, as by a crowd (PHB p. 177, Hiding side box).

Being innocuous in a disguise isn’t camouflage, it instead represents not being perceivable by any reasonable person as a threat. The Ranger’s Hide In Plain Sight ability is wholly irrelevant.
The actual rules text states only that In combat, most creatures are alert to threats. It doesn’t state at all that one must be unaware of the creature entirely to be surprised by it.

You are over-interpreting the text, and trying to apply legalese pedantry to text meant to be read in plain language.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Using the "stand next to you" scenario, IMHO, if the person was disguised well enough or acting non hostile enough, the THREAT is hidden, and they could attack and potentially surprise.

edit: spelling

That’s the only rational reading.

 

[Maxperson]

That’s the only rational reading.

I think it's a mix of both. Depending on the circumstances, it may not matter how harmless you appear to be. The person you want to attack is going to be on guard anyway and therefore aware of the threat. Other times you could get away with it.

 

[Jon Gilliam]

Right, but someone who is invisible and silent with a silence spell, meets that more strict criteria and is also hidden. At no point is he ever visible and at no point is he ever heard. There could be other circumstances such as the flour which MIGHT allow detection, but absent those unusual circumstances the invisible and silent creature is hidden and get the advantages of such.

Jeremy Crawford (lead designer for 5e) in the Sage Advice video on beginning combat and in the Sage Advice podcast on hiding does draw special attention to that scenario (how an invisible person could be unhidden due to the "signs of their passage" such as knocking over bottles on a table, tracks in dust, etc.), and gives the impression that those circumstances aren't intended to be so unusual. Since he explicitly gives that example in those sources, and since my group has already decided that anything published as Sage Advice is an official addendum to the rules, I feel confident saying the designers definitely intended allowing detection in these cases. In those sources, he mentions that an invisible character still has the big bonus in not being targetable by spells requiring sight, even if "signs of passage" can often leave them unhidden.

 

[Maxperson]

Jeremy Crawford (lead designer for 5e) in the Sage Advice video on beginning combat and in the Sage Advice podcast on hiding does draw special attention to that scenario (how an invisible person could be unhidden due to the "signs of their passage" such as knocking over bottles on a table, tracks in dust, etc.), and gives the impression that those circumstances aren't intended to be so unusual. Since he explicitly gives that example in those sources, and since my group has already decided that anything published as Sage Advice is an official addendum to the rules, I feel confident saying the designers definitely intended allowing detection in these cases. In those sources, he mentions that an invisible character still has the big bonus in not being targetable by spells requiring sight, even if "signs of passage" can often leave them unhidden.

Dude. You have to have A) have those sorts of things present, and B) have a clutz walking into them. They are not always going to be present and the target will not always notice them. There is NOTHING about what he said that indicates that detection is automatic or common. Some examples of possible ways to detect invisible creatures =/= common or automatic.

 

[Jon Gilliam]

Bein innocuous in a disguise isn’t camouflage, it instead represents not being perceivable by any reasonable person as a threat. The Ranger’s Hide In Plain Sight ability is wholly irrelevant.

The actual rules text states only that In combat, most creatures are alert to threats. It doesn’t state at all that one must be unaware of the creature entirely to be surprised by it.

You are over-interpreting the text, and trying to apply legalese pedantry to text meant to be read in plain language.

Since you state this so assertively, have you watched the he Sage Advice video on beginning combat and listened to the Sage Advice podcast on hiding? And have you also read through the answers to the two questions on surprise in the Sage Advice Compendium? If not, go invest the time in listening to the designer of 5e discuss these topics, and see if you come away with the same opinion.

All of these cases confirm that surprise is determined through the mechanic of Stealth versus passive Perception. The Sage Advice Compendium has this to say:

To be surprised, you must be caught off guard, usually because you failed to notice foes being stealthy or you were startled by an enemy with a special ability, such as the gelatinous cube’s Transparent trait, that makes it exceptionally surprising. You can be surprised even if your companions aren’t, and you aren’t surprised if even one of your foes fails to catch you unawares.

Let's see what we have there... surprise is being

• Caught off guard
• Failing to notice foes being stealthy
• Being startled by an enemy with a special ability
• All of your foes catching you unaware

Even if you could be "caught off guard" by an opponent in a disguise, you still wouldn't be surprised if "even one of your foes fails to catch you unawares." What the language "notice a threat" intends in the PHB p. 189 when it says

"Any character or monster that doesn't notice a threat is surprised at the start of the encounter."

is to mean "failing to notice an opponent in hiding." That's apparent because that sentence comes immediately after the sentence describing how surprise is determined by comparing Stealth to passive Perception. To make "notice a threat" mean anything else, you have to pluck that second sentence out and read it in isolation, but that second sentence is even part of the same paragraph. You're stretching the rules and reading sentences out of context to give them the possibility of saying what you want them to say.

 

[Jon Gilliam]

Using the "stand next to you" scenario, IMHO, if the person was disguised well enough or acting non hostile enough, the THREAT is hidden, and they could attack and potentially surprise.

edit: spelling

How do you give a hidden threat a Stealth score? Hiding a threat (pretending to be an ally) is Insight vs Deception, not Stealth versus passive Perception, and the mechanism the PHB tells the DM they should use for determining surprise is Stealth versus passive Perception, p. 189:

The DM determines who might be surprised. If
neither side tries to be stealthy, they automatically notice
each other. Otherwise, the DM compares the Dexterity
(Stealth) checks of anyone hiding with the passive
Wisdom (Perception) score of each creature on the
opposing side. Any character or monster that doesn't
notice a threat is surprised at the start of the encounter.

The Sage Advice Compendium provides the following response by the 5e designers to clarify what that meant:

To be surprised, you must be caught off guard, usually because you failed to notice foes being stealthy or you were startled by an enemy with a special ability, such as the gelatinous cube’s Transparent trait, that makes it exceptionally surprising. You can be surprised even if your companions aren’t, and you aren’t surprised if even one of your foes fails to catch you unawares.

Surprise is:

• Being caught off guard
• Failing to notice foes being stealthy
• Being startled by an enemy with a special ability
• All of your foes catching you unaware

And see my replies to others above. The designers didn't intend "threat" to read as anything other than "an opponent on the other side of combat," and surprise was intended to represent an ambush where all of one or both sides are hiding with Stealth to catch the other side unaware and startle them.

 

[Jon Gilliam]

To give another reason why "threat" cannot be read so expansively and in isolation in the sentence "Any character or monster that doesn't notice a threat is surprised at the start of the encounter." : a trap is certainly "a threat", but disarming a trap as they approach an ambush doesn't inoculate the party from the possibility of surprise, even though they've noticed "a threat."

 

[Jon Gilliam]

"Hidden" -- you are hidden if the DM says so. Being hidden does nothing except permit surprise. Those with bonus action hide features can stuff it, as it has no use whatsoever. The hide action does nothing; the text that says "you gain the benefit of the unseen attackers rules" is a null, because everyone has the benefit of those rules when they are unseen, and hiding never ever helps you be unseen.

Each of us deals with cognitive dissonance in our own way. I guess you mock those you disagree with to deal with yours?

 

[Jon Gilliam]

"Hidden" -- you are hidden if the DM says so. Being hidden does nothing except permit surprise. Those with bonus action hide features can stuff it, as it has no use whatsoever. The hide action does nothing; the text that says "you gain the benefit of the unseen attackers rules" is a null, because everyone has the benefit of those rules when they are unseen, and hiding never ever helps you be unseen.

And yes, you're hidden if the DM says so, because the rules say so here :

“The DM decides when circumstances are appropriate for hiding.”

And if you watch the Sage Advice video on beginning combat and listen to the Sage Advice podcast on hiding, the head designer of 5e says that that's what they explicitly intended.