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Message: <blockquote data-quote="clearstream" data-source="post: 6699584" data-attributes="member: 71699">Unfortunately that is a retreat to a preconceived fluff-based objection, rather than resisting any of the arguments about the mechanics arising from RAW. Let's instead - for the sake of argument - say that being surprised by an expert assassin who beats your initiative means she is able to treat you as being partly paralysed. Conversely, if you beat her initiative then that indicates that you are able to react to her hit sufficiently well to mitigate an auto-crit. You fold over her knife, jerk away from her arrow, whatever. The Basilisk creature description, and the Incapacitated and Paralyzed conditions support that narrative. And the Shield spell demonstrates that given the ability to react a hit can be turned into a miss. Given the ability to react, an auto-crit becomes a normal hit. With that narrative we're done, right? Not at all - we need to address any substantive points about the RAW.Note BTW that "he is as hard a target as a fully-aware combatant, and immune to auto-crits" is a red herring. You might as well say "why does my roll of 8 miss this hide-armoured combatant just as if he were plate-armoured!?"..."why is he immune to my attack!?". The wizard isn't immune. He just happens not to be susceptible on this occasion. In particular the example commits the fallacy of finishing the narrative before rolling the dice. You've decided that no matter what he rolls, the wizard is just as fully oblivious and engrossed. But if we adjust our narrative to our dice rolls as we should, then we can describe that if his initiative roll is low he's engrossed, nodding off, clearly not going to react, while if it is high he looks fidgety, alert, less engrossed, clearly capable of reacting.This contains a convenient omission. "the wizard doesn't see or hear him AND is caught utterly flat-footed" i.e. the rogue beat his passive Perception and beat his initiative.This contains another omission. It should go on to say that - according to RAW - once in combat even if the wizard notices the assassin prior to his first turn, he remains "surprised". The only time noticing is checked is before the combat begins. That is unambiguously stated in the call-out box on PHB189. RAW does not say that being surprised can be alleviated by noticing the threat once in combat.According to RAW winning initiative is enough. Being on this occasion reactive enough compared with the assassin mitigates the auto-crit. But for the sake of argument let's say your version of surprise is correct. Why is winning initiative good enough to get rid of Assassinate's advantage effect but not the auto-crit? How is it that our perfectly unnoticed assassin, beaten by the wizard's initiative roll, somehow loses advantage? Our totally oblivious wizard is somehow just sufficiently aware to avoid giving up advantage, yet just sufficiently unaware to avoid the auto-crit!?</blockquote>

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