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Message: <blockquote data-quote="clearstream" data-source="post: 6699014" data-attributes="member: 71699">Arial's surprise (what we're calling surprise version 1) adds words to RAW and ignores RAW in several places, but I will focus first on one example. Specifically, it adds the words "surprise ends on noticing a threat" to RAW. Those words do not appear in RAW. And in adding those words, surprise version 1 ignores other RAW that makes it clear that surprise confers to individual combatants. It instead necessitates that surprise is tracked to pairs of combatants. (Working through multi-way combats demonstrates that. Multiple assassins can lose surprise at various times to various targets.)Surprise version 1 benefits ranged-assassins and increases the power of the Skulker feat, while penalising melee-assassins who will need to close without being noticed. The streamlined base rules of 5th edition don't include facing, so a DM might decide to adopt the optional Facing rules from the DMG to mitigate that. Albeit any melee-using creature closing from behind will then get advantage, making the first part of Assassinate meaningless for melee-assassins.A possible defence for adding "surprise ends on noticing a threat" to RAW is if we decide that the first-turn effects of surprise expressed on PHB189 are not synonymous with being surprised. If so, then RAW does not tell us when surprise ends so we require additional words. Whatever words we choose can't be justified by our wanting surprise to continue past its first turn effects in order to serve as a handshake for features such as Rogue Assassinate and Kenku Ambusher. Because that commits the fallacy of begging the question (our premises directly or indirectly include the claim that the conclusion is true). Additionally, ending surprise on noticing a threat can result in surprise ending prior to its first turn effects completing, necessitating that we launch those effects before participants start taking turns! A baroque addition to the mechanic that falls afoul of Occam's Razor.Conversely, if we decide that the first-turn effects of surprise are synonymous with being surprised, then all of RAW is sustained without added complexity.</blockquote>

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