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<blockquote data-quote="FormerlyHemlock" data-source="post: 7179280" data-attributes="member: 6787650">Well then, either you are abusing 5E jargon by using some special meaning of &quot;surprise&quot; (in 5E, surprise = cannot act during the first round, cannot take reactions until after your first turn has passed), or you misunderstand me after all. Why muddy the issue by using 5E jargon wrong? It only obscures your actual opinion.In any case, the thing you say you suspect ought to happen, doesn't. Far from players being eager to end conversation in favor of starting combat, sometimes they will in fact initiate conversations in combat instead of striking. (Especially if they are losing. : ) )No, you should not presume readied actions which the players have not declared. For one thing, you might presume a different action or trigger than that which the player wishes to occur. For another thing, on the NPC's part, it tends to aggravate the other party to no real gain when they see you're obviously on hair-trigger to cut their heads off or turn them into newts.It's not like being the first one to deal 4d8 damage to the other side on the first round buys you any permanent advantage. Under cyclic initiative, yes, it would buy you an extra action, which is like a free Action Surge--but that's just one of the odious properties of cyclic initiative. It doesn't happen that way in a concurrent initiative variant.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="FormerlyHemlock, post: 7179280, member: 6787650"] Well then, either you are abusing 5E jargon by using some special meaning of "surprise" (in 5E, surprise = cannot act during the first round, cannot take reactions until after your first turn has passed), or you misunderstand me after all. Why muddy the issue by using 5E jargon wrong? It only obscures your actual opinion. In any case, the thing you say you suspect ought to happen, doesn't. Far from players being eager to end conversation in favor of starting combat, sometimes they will in fact [I]initiate[/I] conversations in combat instead of striking. (Especially if they are losing. : ) ) No, you should not presume readied actions which the players have not declared. For one thing, you might presume a different action or trigger than that which the player wishes to occur. For another thing, on the NPC's part, it tends to aggravate the other party to no real gain when they see you're obviously on hair-trigger to cut their heads off or turn them into newts. It's not like being the first one to deal 4d8 damage to the other side on the first round buys you any permanent advantage. Under cyclic initiative, yes, it would buy you an extra action, which is like a free Action Surge--but that's just one of the odious properties of cyclic initiative. It doesn't happen that way in a concurrent initiative variant. [/QUOTE]

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