D&D 5E (2014) Assassinate

[Inglorin]

Does this interpretation mean, that an incapacitated wizard doesn't end his "at the end of your next turn" features, because he doesn't get to take a turn?

 

[garnuk]

Does this interpretation mean, that an incapacitated wizard doesn't end his "at the end of your next turn" features, because he doesn't get to take a turn?

No. You do not have to take a turn for the turn you had to end.
Take a turn = act during your turn.
Have a turn = a turn that you can call yours.

It does mean that anything that happens when you "take your turn" may not happen if you are unable to take it.

 

[Celtavian]

Does this interpretation mean, that an incapacitated wizard doesn't end his "at the end of your next turn" features, because he doesn't get to take a turn?

He didn't get to take a turn if he's incapacitated. The end of his turn is a point in time determined by his initiative that occurs regardless of whether he took a turn or not for purposes of spell duration.

It's not real hard to determine how this should work if you're not focused on RAW and instead focused on the fiction of what is occurring.

 

[Celtavian]

Except *every single rule* agrees with his interpretation.

If surprised, you take a turn first round, and just can't do anything. The rules say this... all of the rules say this, and they all work with this. There is no rule that says you don't take a turn if surprised... you are making that up.


And yes, even the fiction works. It happens all of the time where someone is taken by surprise, but can still react to the attack.

Standing in front of someone and punch him....
He does nothing, I hit him in the face. (He was surprised, I won init so he could not react.
He tries to move his head, I glance off of his cheek. (He was surprised, I lost init so he could still react.)
He realizes what I am doing, and punches me first. (He was not surprised, I lost init so he acted first.)

No longer applicable. Someone was reading the Assassinate ability incorrectly in this thread. We were wasting our time with this discussion when it doesn't even apply to the auto-critical ability of Assassinate.

 

[Celtavian]

Assassinate: Starting at 3rd level, you are at your deadliest when you get the drop on your enemies. You have advantage on attack rolls against any creature that hasn’t taken a turn in the combat yet. In addition, any hit you score against a creature that is surprised is a critical hit.

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

If you’re surprised, you can’t move or take an action on your first turn o f the combat, and you can’t take a reaction until that turn ends. A member of a group can be surprised even if the other members aren’t.

We were arguing over nothing this whole time. The rule is quite clear. If you get hit with Assassinate in the surprise round, you get auto-critted. Whether you acted or not is irrelevant. The critical ability is separate from the gaining advantage if a person hasn't acted on their turn. All this indicates is that the assassin will never get advantage on his attacks on his next turn because the individual will have taken a turn on his surprise round.

Just because you get a turn doesn't change the fact you are surprised until that entire round is over. If you roll a higher initiative than the Assassin, all that means is he won't get advantage on you for beating you on initiative. Likely he'll still get advantage for being hidden using Stealth. He'll still get his auto-crit for surprising you.

The only benefit provided by winning Assassinate is advantage on attack rolls if you haven't acted. Whether or not that is intended to carry over to the next round is up to the table until I see further clarification from Crawford. The auto-critical will occur during the surprise round regardless of the initiative rolled if the target is hidden.

I've seen multiple Assassins played. Getting that auto-critical is not hard. I knew something had to be wrong with what was being said in this thread. Now it is quite clear that someone was mixing what Assassinate does. Surprise auto-crit and advantage on attack rolls for target not taking actions on turn independent of each other.

 

[Paraxis]

We were arguing over nothing this whole time. The rule is quite clear. If you get hit with Assassinate in the surprise round, you get auto-critted. Whether you acted or not is irrelevant. The critical ability is separate from the gaining advantage if a person hasn't acted on their turn. All this indicates is that the assassin will never get advantage on his attacks on his next turn because the individual will have taken a turn on his surprise round.

Just because you get a turn doesn't change the fact you are surprised until that entire round is over. If you roll a higher initiative than the Assassin, all that means is he won't get advantage on you for beating you on initiative. Likely he'll still get advantage for being hidden using Stealth. He'll still get his auto-crit for surprising you.

The only benefit provided by winning Assassinate is advantage on attack rolls if you haven't acted. Whether or not that is intended to carry over to the next round is up to the table until I see further clarification from Crawford. The auto-critical will occur during the surprise round regardless of the initiative rolled if the target is hidden.

I've seen multiple Assassins played. Getting that auto-critical is not hard. I knew something had to be wrong with what was being said in this thread. Now it is quite clear that someone was mixing what Assassinate does. Surprise auto-crit and advantage on attack rolls for target not taking actions on turn independent of each other.

There is no such thing as a surprise round, there is just being surprised. The term surprise round is never once used in the books.

Surprise lasts until the creature can do something, that is at the end of it's first turn when it can take reactions.

Since it can take reactions like cast the spell Shield, it is obviously not surprised anymore.

If you don't believe me here is Mike Mearls saying the exact same thing. http://www.sageadvice.eu/2015/07/30/how-long-surprise-last/

 

[Celtavian]

There is no such thing as a surprise round, there is just being surprised. The term surprise round is never once used in the books.

Surprise lasts until the creature can do something, that is at the end of it's first turn when it can take reactions.

Since it can take reactions like cast the spell Shield, it is obviously not surprised anymore.

If you don't believe me here is Mike Mearls saying the exact same thing. http://www.sageadvice.eu/2015/07/30/how-long-surprise-last/

Where does it say surprise lasts until the character can do something? It can normally do something at the start of its turn. If it is surprised, even if it wins the target does not get to do something during its turn. So that assumption is false.

That's not what the book indicates. This is clarification from the designers, though I'd prefer to hear from Crawford. That is not how the book reads. It is not obviously not surprised once it can take reactions. Nowhere does it say that in the book. That is Mearls making a new rule that was not written in the PHB.

It is another one of those rules situations that makes very little sense in the context of the fiction. If you surprise someone because they do not detect you, there is zero reason they should be not surprised until you act.

I'm starting to see little screw ups like this in rule clarifications from The Sage that are altering what the book says. They should have spelled it out clearer because it makes no sense that a target that does not see the attacker would somehow get to avoid surprise before the attacker acts.

Now a random lucky die roll can defeat a class's key class ability. Mearls is coming up with rule adjustments on the fly.

It would have been so easy to include a sentence that stated, "You are surprised until the end of your first turn." So easy. Yet they didn't include that sentence anywhere. I'm going to run it in the way I think makes the most sense. I hope I get too many these cases of the RAW creating a fiction that doesn't make sense.

 

[Hriston]

So you think the game designers should have to write, "They can't even talk" to account for Other Activity on your Turn and include Surprise in their step by step combat to follow the intent of the rule?

No, I think what they wrote is just fine. It's the intent of the rule we disagree on, not that these other rules prevent its intent from being followed. The way I interpret it the rules all interact just fine.

A person casually conversing is "taking an turn" as they walk?

Is this person in combat? If so, then yes. Walking and talking are explicitly called out as things you normally only do on your turn, the exception being any reaction you take that involves talking. Normally, I would expect this would only be the verbal component of a spell cast as a reaction.

If not in combat then I don't know what sort of turn you mean.

You're basically saying that any time an NPC is casually talking, or for that matter walking down the street or moving in any way, they aren't surprised? You really going that far? Basically saying no one can be surprised unless they're standing still and are completely silent? Is that your interpretation?

Surprise prohibits movement, so a person who is surprised would not be able to walk down the street while surprised. It does not prohibit speech, since speech is not tied to either movement or action the way an object interaction is, so a person can still talk on their turn even when surprised.

You don't at all take into account that not being able to see your attacker before he acts would preclude that individual from acting? That the way the rule is written is an alternate way of saying, "they don't get to take a turn"? You're pulling stuff like they get to communicate even though they don't know the target is there from Other Activity clearly not in anyway intended to be used in the situation you are applying it to.

As a general rule I would expect it to apply to any situation where communication is not expressly forbidden. Since the ability to communicate is in a separate category from movement and action it is not ruled out when you are surprised.

Explain to me how they can be surprised because they don't know the target is there because the target has not yet attacked, yet somehow communicate as though they are aware? How can you have it both ways?

I'm not sure why you think communicating is dependent on being aware of the presence of an attacker.

How can a character act if he can't take actions and doesn't know the enemy is there?

Communication doesn't count as taking an action.

You pulling RAW out of the books means nothing to me, especially when you're pulling out rules like Other Activity out of nowhere because this game doesn't have free actions. It is very much implied that you don't get to talk in a manner that makes it seem as though you are aware of the attack on your turn.

Where is it implied that being surprised stops you from communicating on your turn?

I want to know how you justify it in the fiction. 5E seems very intent on focusing on playing in a fashion that does not break the fiction. You seem stuck on RAW interpretations of rules read in a very narrow, anal manner regardless of the fiction behind the rule.

To the contrary my reading is expansive, drawing on the ruleset as a whole to make my conclusions, whereas your interpretation of Assassinate relies on a narrow reading of the rule based on your own preconceived notions of how it should work without regard to how things as basic as combat are clearly meant to work.

 

[Hriston]

This means that when you take your turn, while doing other things, you can also communicate. Presumably, a surprised creature is shocked into silence. (Which is pretty important if an Assassin is to be able to assassinate somebody without a shout being let out to alert guards)

It doesn't say you need to be doing other things to be able to communicate on your turn. It doesn't say a surprised creature is shocked into silence. Once again, you're just making stuff up that has no bearing on the rules as written.

Regarding the ready an action ability. I have not had a chance to look at the rules and see if you take the ready action, or if readying an action is just something you are able to do. So it's possible that readying an action is something you do as part of taking your action, and it was a bad example.

Ready is an action.

And as I said further up the thread, moving is part of taking your turn.

As is communicating "through brief utterances and gestures".

Incase there is still confusion... Each player always has a turn. Each turn always has a beginning middle and end.

Please don't mistake my asking questions for confusion on my part, but why do you feel it's necessary to divide the turn into three parts? I don't see that anywhere in the rules.

The shortest turn possible is one in which a player chooses, or is not able to actually take their turn and nothing happens.

Where is it written that if a participant chooses to do nothing on their turn then they are to be considered to have not taken their turn? I think such a citation is needed, especially considering that what it does say is, "During a round, each participant in a battle takes a turn."

It's perfectly reasonable to hear from the DM, "Up next.. Oh sorry, you are surprised, you can't take your turn. Are there any saving throws you need to roll at the end of your turn? No, ok great ... next."

Colloquial use of the phrase "take your turn" aside, it's absolutely unreasonable for the DM to deprive my character from communicating on my turn, since surprise does not prevent my character from doing so.

I would double check that. I'm pretty sure that taking turns in exploration is mentioned as an option.

Maybe you should check it while you're reviewing the Ready action. I, myself, have found no such option for exploration, nor do I see what it would add to the game.

 

[Celtavian]

I much prefer how 3E handled surprise. 5E surprise makes little sense. I really hope Pathfinder puts out a new streamlined edition of their game at some point. Some of things in 5E are annoying such as their version of surprise not really being surprise unless you win initiative even though they don't know you're there...except somehow they do know you're there before you attack because they won initiative. Yet you get advantage for using stealth because Unseen Attacker, but not in the surprise round because they know you're there and shouldn't give you advantage. And the ridiculousness of this ruling and how it interacts with Stealth just continues on. This is definitely one of those things Mearls and company did not imagine very well and it disrupts a key class ability that is hard to use in a party environment to begin with.

The fiction this ruling encourages just makes my head hurt.

1. Roll Stealth.

2. Target fails to beat your stealth. He does not know you're there.

3. You attack. Surprise occurs.

4. You and target roll initiative. Target beats on you initiative.

5. Target takes his turn doing nothing but talking about the unseen person that surprised him that he still can't see, but he got to take a turn because that is what the RAW says.

6. Assassin shoots with advantage because Unseen Attacker from using Stealth. Or does he get this? I don't know. The target won initiative, so he must know you're there. But the RAW says unseen attacker from Stealthing. But he won initiative.

7. Target uses reaction to cast a spell if he's a caster, but do nothing if he isn't. Gets hit with advantage for sneak attack damage, but not crit. Sneak attack because rogue gained advantage because target was unaware of his location, but somehow avoided Assassinate because he already acted allowing him to avoid the worst of the blow, even though he didn't know he was there.

It's just ridiculous. It's like having your cake and eating it too. You get to know the Assassin was there if you win initiative, but the Assassin still gets advantage form you not knowing he is there, but you still get to act after your turn as though you know he is there. It's making my head hurt.