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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Flamestrike" data-source="post: 8605493" data-attributes="member: 6788736">And this sentence explains nicely why you're in error here.No-one is standing there for six seconds, frozen in time, while other creatures act. around them, one at a time.The round by round, turn based, cyclical nature of combat rounds are an abstraction, and not a reflection of some in game objective reality.Assume an Orc and PC are standing off in melee combat. On the Orcs turn he takes the Withdraw action, and heads towards an open doorway at the other end of the room, ending his turn 30' away from the PC. On the PCs turn he then moves 30' towards that Orc, finishing that move adjacent to that Orc, and then makes an attack against the Orc.While to us (at the table) it looks like the PC is frozen in time, while the Orc moves 30' away (ending his turn 30' away from the PC), from the perspective of the PC all in game observers of that combat, the PC and the Orc both (at the same time) raced towards the open doorway, the Orc backing off and with the PC in hot pursuit, swinging away as he does so, and never more than a few feet away from the Orc.All the actions taken in a combat round, are all happening more or less simultaneously, over the space of approximately 6 seconds. Your 'initiative' check simply determines when your action gets to be resolved.'Surprise' in 5E (or an attack 'outside of combat') is effectively rendering a creature deaf, mute and dumb, and unable to move or react for an entire 6 seconds worth of actions by an attacker.  It is only appropriate when you literally catch your opponent with their pants down (such as attacking them from hiding, when they're asleep, or totally and completely off guard such as a Doppelganger, posing as a trusted loved one, stabbing you in the back, following on from a successful Deception vs Insight check.As soon as there are imminent hostilities (such as a declared attack) the DM stops narrative time, provides a quick explanation why ('Suddenly as you talk to the King, the King reaches for a concealed knife, with murder in his eyes') and asks everyone to roll initiative, transitioning to combat time, to see what they do over the next six whole seconds.The problem is not with the rules here; it's with your inability to see the abstraction of combat and turns for what it is.</blockquote>

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