D&D 5E Alertness & initative Query

[Hriston]

Actually, in most Situations I would start with: I attack and roll initiative. There are situations however where anything other than: Ok, use your readied action makes no sense.

Example: I am hidden and ready an action to snipe the enemy mage as soon as I see him wiggling his hands.
I do assume that I know I am in combat and the mage does not. He thinks he is there speaking to his next victims. I may have my other players roll deception and the one hiding stealth.

So this is your example of a situation that will only make sense if you begin combat with an out-of-initiative readied attack? Let me see if I've got this right. Some of the party are conversing with a wizard, deceiving him into thinking they are his next victims. Meanwhile, another party member is hidden nearby and is planning to begin combat by shooting the wizard. I don't understand why the hidden PC thinks he's in combat since no one is fighting yet. I also don't see how this situation doesn't make sense if the DM simply asks everyone to make an initiative check when the hidden PC decides to shoot the wizard.

But I would not deny them the chance to hit first when they planned that well.

But they do have a chance to hit first, by rolling well on initiative, and it still makes sense if the wizard rolls higher. That would just mean he could take some sort of action in response, like dropping prone to impose disadvantage on your ranged attack.

Even if the enemy wizard has a trident of warning or alert. His benefit will be that he may cast shield and act immediately afterwards.

If I was playing this wizard, I wouldn't consider it an even trade for having an attack made on me without getting to roll initiative.

 

[FrogReaver]

So this is your example of a situation that will only make sense if you begin combat with an out-of-initiative readied attack? Let me see if I've got this right. Some of the party are conversing with a wizard, deceiving him into thinking they are his next victims. Meanwhile, another party member is hidden nearby and is planning to begin combat by shooting the wizard. I don't understand why the hidden PC thinks he's in combat since no one is fighting yet. I also don't see how this situation doesn't make sense if the DM simply asks everyone to make an initiative check when the hidden PC decides to shoot the wizard.



But they do have a chance to hit first, by rolling well on initiative, and it still makes sense if the wizard rolls higher. That would just mean he could take some sort of action in response, like dropping prone to impose disadvantage on your ranged attack.



If I was playing this wizard, I wouldn't consider it an even trade for having an attack made on me without getting to roll initiative.

Yep normal combat rules and surprise rounds would work great to resolve that situation. Thus even if the wizard wins initiative he is surprised and still doesn't act.

Maybe the only thing I would want to houserule into such a situation would be that any character who could not see the character that is about to initiate combat is also surprised by the attack (even if they are his allies).

 

[TheLoneRanger1979]

How would you resolve the paradox if a caster in the party managed to land a Hold Person on the sniper before the sniper's initiative count? Either the sniper isn't able to make the attack that alerted the party to the sniper's presence, or you negate the value of the caster's action by ruling the attack still takes place despite the successful Hold.

I see no inherent paradox here (well of course it will depend on the interpretation). But IF it's a party on party encounter, then it's the party with the sniper that surprises the party with the mage, not the sniper itself. So the the 1st round proceeds as RAW, everyone rolls initiative, everyone that is surprised, loses their action, everyone that rolls higher initiative and is still surprised, gets to react. The alert ones, get to act as they come into initiative order.

IF the sniper is a solo, there still isn't a paradox. The mage is alert to his opponent's presence, but he still can't effectively attack, as the sniper is hidden.

 

[Noctem]

Sweet. In your games I would always be the one screamin I ATTACK first.

It's the players prerogative to attack anything and everything if they want to. There's just in game consequences to attacking everything that moves.

It gets me a whole extra round of combat. Good chance it surprises the enemy too, so (assuming I roll well for initiative) thats three whole turns in a row for me (The 'special' round 'outside' combat for being the one that triggered combat by announcing it, then the surprise round, AND then go first on round 2).

It's not a round, it's a single attack if that is what causes combat to begin. Surprise is handled the way it's written in the book: if someone fails to notice a threat before combat starts, they may be ruled as surprised. Again, you're not getting a full turn should you attack to prompt combat, you're getting a single attack. Then if I rule the person you attacked had not noticed you as a threat, they would be surprised. They would not get to take actions until the end of their first turn at which point they would get a reaction if they can use one. Btw, there's no such thing as a surprise round in 5e, I never said I gave a special round outside of combat... maybe you should read instead of having this kind of knee jerk reaction.

That should be enough for me to drop at least three of my highest level spells on the enemy before they can react.

That's a bit vague for a scenario. Vocal and/or somatic component spells would tip off the people around you that you may be a threat if you suddenly start casting, so no surprise. This is of course scenario dependent, but as a general rule if someone starts randomly casting a spell it's cause for concern at the very least. But anyway I get it, you don't like my houserule. That's ok

Any reason why youre doing it this way, and not using the rules?

I am using the rules. I've only modified how I resolve the triggering event which prompts combat. If it's an attack, I resolve that single attack. If it's movement, I resolve the movement. If it's throwing something, I resolve the throw and so on. I wish you would have just posted this question instead of all the above, you're misinformed and seem content to have a knee jerk reaction.

 

[Noctem]

I dislike out of combat attack resolution.

Simple solution is for players to state intent to attack enemies then roll initiative and then resolve attacks in actual combat.

No one should be saying I attack the Goblin is adventure mode D&D. They should be saying I want to attack the Goblin. DM roll initiative. Combat progresses as normal.

That's one way to do it sure.

Likewise when an enemy is going to ambush a player. Before the enemy appears the players should be asked to roll initiative. Assuming they do not have the alert feat they are all surprised and can't attack. The enemy then attacks on his initiative turn.

Why is the player rolling initiative when nothing has happened to prompt initiative? Should they roll higher than the attacking enemy, won't the player be confused about why initiative was called? What should they do during their first turn? Take the Dodge Action? Or are they not allowed to do that because it would be metagaming in your view? OR do you just place the enemy at the top of the initiative order arbitrarily in order to keep it simple? Isn't that a houserule in of itself to fix the problem caused by making everyone roll initiative when nothing has happened? The amount of potential problems created here are very high, the houserule I use prevents these problems.

Regular combat rules work just fine as long as all combat begins sometime after combat intent is declared but before the first attack is made.

I haven't seen any rules failing to work just because I resolve the triggering attack (or rather the triggering event whatever it may be) before initiative is rolled and surprise is assigned. If anything it makes it more consistent and clear for everyone involved.

The only issue is when DM's or players want to start combat by a narrative attack instead of letting combat rules handle combat. That's where this whole thing comes from.

Agree to disagree on this point.

Responses in bold.

 

[Hriston]

Yep normal combat rules and surprise rounds would work great to resolve that situation. Thus even if the wizard wins initiative he is surprised and still doesn't act.

Well the situation isn't entirely clear to me, but I think the problem [MENTION=59057]UngeheuerLich[/MENTION] is trying to solve by houseruling an out-of-combat attack is that surprise isn't available as an option in this situation by the book because the wizard is aware of the hidden PC's allies.

Maybe the only thing I would want to houserule into such a situation would be that any character who could not see the character that is about to initiate combat is also surprised by the attack (even if they are his allies).

Just my opinion, but making this houserule is unnecessary if you don't use surprise in situations where some threats are noticed and some aren't. I believe it's been clarified that the intent of the surprise rules is for a creature to be surprised only if it notices no threats whatsoever.

 

[Hriston]

How would you resolve the paradox if a caster in the party managed to land a Hold Person on the sniper before the sniper's initiative count? Either the sniper isn't able to make the attack that alerted the party to the sniper's presence, or you negate the value of the caster's action by ruling the attack still takes place despite the successful Hold.

Something that escaped my, er.... notice the first time I read this is the idea that the attack alerts the party to the presence of the sniper. I would say that the party is alerted to the fact they are being attacked, but I wouldn't say the sniper's location is revealed until the attack hits or misses, or, in the case of the Skulker feat, if it hits. So I'm not suggesting that a hidden attacker is automatically noticed at the beginning of combat, but rather that some telltale sign that an attack's in progress is noticed. Although Alert gives immunity to surprise, it doesn't grant an ability to automatically notice hidden creatures even if they're attacking you.

 

[FrogReaver]

Well the situation isn't entirely clear to me, but I think the problem [MENTION=59057]UngeheuerLich[/MENTION] is trying to solve by houseruling an out-of-combat attack is that surprise isn't available as an option in this situation by the book because the wizard is aware of the hidden PC's allies.



Just my opinion, but making this houserule is unnecessary if you don't use surprise in situations where some threats are noticed and some aren't. I believe it's been clarified that the intent of the surprise rules is for a creature to be surprised only if it notices no threats whatsoever.

The wizard has to be aware of a threat to not get surprised. Does he view the PC's he can see as threats?

 

[FrogReaver]

Responses in bold.

For your questions: if a player does not have alert then he will be surprised and can't take any action before the surprising enemies. I think that situation clearly works.

So your question must be about what a PC with alert does if initiative is called and there is not visible sign of a threat. I treat alert as spiderman's spidey sense. Thus the PC with alert knows as soon as initiative is called that something is about to happen but he doesn't necessarily know what. So yes, he can dodge. He can run away as fast as he can. He can cast darkness on the party to help prevent them from being seen. Anything he wants to do. But just because he has alert doesn't mean he knows immediately where the hidden enemy is at.

 

[Hriston]

The wizard has to be aware of a threat to not get surprised. Does he view the PC's he can see as threats?

IMO, it doesn't matter what the wizard thinks. I realize there's a variety of interpretations on this, but if you take a literal reading the appropriate question is, "Do any of the creatures the wizard has noticed mean to do him harm?" If they are members of the same party as the sniper, then I would say they most certainly pose a threat to the wizard.