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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jon Gilliam" data-source="post: 8042293" data-attributes="member: 6920404">It's funny that people a few posts back are wanting to parse the word "usually" in the Sage Advice Compendium as if it were an unearthed scrap of the original gospels, and now it's "extra-textual support."The rules as they're written are clear :  there's a rule printed that specifies how surprise should be determined with Stealth versus passive Perceptions checks, there is no alternative rule given anywhere in the rules, no module published by WOTC that ever sets up a surprise ambush meant to be ran on anything other than on a Stealth basis, and no argument that doesn't try to pluck words or sentences out of context that supports any other meaning.It is not the case that all interpretations of the rules are equal, and it is not the case that the Sage Advice Compendium supports any other interpretation of that rule.  Here's the intro to that Compendium..Sage Advice Compendium:In other words, you can interpret things however you want at your table, but Sage Advice offers the official guidance on how to interpret the rules.  It offers no alternative procedure to determine surprise, and it's clear that it presumes that any creature surprising you is hidden:Sage Advice Compendium:And it also makes it clear that you're "usually" surprised by failing to notice foes being stealthy, although you can also be surprised by foes with an "especially surprising trait" such as with the gelatinous cube, which is a case of a specific trait over-riding the general rule:Monster Manual entry for Gelatinous Cube's "Transparent" trait:Note that the cube doesn't get some advantage to a Deception check - a creature is just automatically surprised.  This fits exactly into the modular rule structure envisioned by 5e : the general Stealth-based rule applies unless and only unless some more specific trait indicates otherwise.Sage Advice Compendium:You would have to reach so far you'd have to stand on your tippy toes to imagine any of that means anything else.  I think some people who struggled with interpreting the text of the rule before the Sage Advice Compendium came out  established an early  <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Id%C3%A9e_fixe_(psychology)" target="_blank">idée fixe</a>  about what the rules meant, and having envisioned a square hole, they're now determined to stuff the round peg into it.  But no matter how much you squint, it still doesn't fit.If you intend to extend the core rules by replacing the surprise mechanic by something of your own creation or by some community content, that also fits into the 5e modular system - but, it's no longer running Rules as Written, even though the rules allow for it.  If you intentionally make a one-off determination that you allow something as a one-off in play that determines surprise some other way, that's fine : you're running Rules as Written by default, and you've let your players know you may depart from that for one-offs.But, none of that changes the rules or how the game intends for them to be used.</blockquote>

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