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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lyxen" data-source="post: 8547422" data-attributes="member: 7032025">Who was talking about surprise ? I was just about noticing hidden threats, which is the entire section called "noticing threats" in the "Activity for Travelling".Where is the rule for this ? The section about noticing threats does not talk about distance. It just says "Use the passive Wisdom (<a href="https://www.dndbeyond.com/compendium/rules/basic-rules/using-ability-scores#Perception" target="_blank">Perception</a>) scores of the characters to determine whether anyone in the group notices a hidden threat."It's about "anyone in the group", but this is precisely where people doing other activities "don’t contribute their passive Wisdom (Perception) scores to the group’s chance of noticing hidden threats."This is what ties it together, it has nothing to do with surprise and initiative, just about noticing the threats in advance. Now, if it's twisting corridors, the threat might be so close and so aggressive that combat starts immediately, but if it's travelling along a road and someone in the party notices orcs badly hidden at the forest edge a few hundred meters away, there might not even be a fight.That is if combat starts, because the threat is noticed too close to the party, but once more, the rules cover many situations besides this one.Exactly, and it's the same benefit while travelling on a road, someone alert enough to see threats in advance. And again, this is where characters don't contribute if they are doing something else. For example, even if the ranger had a high PP but is foraging instead of watching for threats, he will not spot hidden things in advance.Are you kidding me ? The context is exactly in the paragraph about Noticing hidden threats and Other Activities. Here it is in its entirety, I've just highlighted the relevant sentences, they are in proper order in the text.[ATTACH=full]151925[/ATTACH]This is really what pisses me off, honestly. There is exactly the same wording in the first sentence and the second one. To the letter. And people want somehow to relate the second on to depriving people of PP for surprise ? When these sentences are so general that they can cover anything hidden, whether a monster, a trap, quicksand, etc. ?Come on:<ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Check if anyone in the group notices a hidden threat, whatever it is.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">If people are otherwise engaged, they don't contribute to the group's change to notice the threat.</li> </ol>How more straightforward can this be ? The words are exactly the same, "noticing a hidden threat", "anyone in the group", some people not contributing to the group's chance ?Once more, I'm sorry, but NOTHING in the section above mentions depriving ANYONE of their PP for surprise. The only thing that is said in this section is:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Use PP to determine if anyone IN THE GROUP (it's written all over the place in that section, do you really need me to highlight all the occurences of GROUP in these sections ?) notice a hidden threat. And that is a process in itself, with an exception FOR NOTICING HIDDEN THREATS, the sentence cannot be more clear.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">"Surprising Foes. If the adventurers encounter a hostile creature or group, the DM determines whether the adventurers or their foes might be surprised when combat erupts.  See chapter 9 for more about surprise." AND THAT IS ALL ABOUT SURPRISE, no modifiers, no conditions, NOTHING.</li> </ul></blockquote>

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