D&D 5E Grindy D&D Next Combat

[Li Shenron]

I wonder if surprise could mean "you go first", or maybe "you get two actions in the first round".

"You go first" is basically how it went in early 5e playtest packets. Surprised creatures got a -20 penalty. WotC said that players didn't like it because of the calculation needed, but I think the problem was more that "it doesn't look nice to have negative Init" rather than the calculation itself, which is trivial and needs to be done only once per combat.

To be precise, it was a little bit less than "you go first" because the penalty could still occasionally result in some high-Dex monster with a lucky roll to go before an ambusher with low-Dex and poor roll.

 

[keterys]

Yeah, that's the problem... of course in 4e, if it's true that combats are so long, 1 extra round is minimal.

Mileage varies. I'm used to 2-round combats in 4e and if anything I'd be happier if things tended to run a round longer than that, but PC damage is pretty exceptional.

The DDN I've been running tends to be pretty similar. PCs burn through monster hp very quickly, such that initiative (and surprise) are almost the most important roll of the combat. Only ran up through 6th level so far, though.

 

[Zustiur]

One way to make surprise more effective is to remember that surprised people won't have their weapons drawn. Particularly if drawing a weapon is more than a minor action.

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[Li Shenron]

One way to make surprise more effective is to remember that surprised people won't have their weapons drawn. Particularly if drawing a weapon is more than a minor action.

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This is a good point...

However I don't think there are many instances in the game where something depends on having a weapon drawn. Maybe some specific feats or similar, granting e.g. an AC bonus from parrying or 2WF, but probably most characters will have just the same defenses with or without a weapon (and monsters with natural weapons are always armed).

Nevertheless there is some potential in this idea.

 

[Viking Bastard]

"You go first" is basically how it went in early 5e playtest packets. Surprised creatures got a -20 penalty. WotC said that players didn't like it because of the calculation needed, but I think the problem was more that "it doesn't look nice to have negative Init" rather than the calculation itself, which is trivial and needs to be done only once per combat.

I liked the -20 on Surprise, but my players didn't like it one bit. Mostly, they just thought the benefit of surprising someone should be greater. (They did seem to mind it less when they were the ones being surprised.)

 

[Zustiur]

However I don't think there are many instances in the game where something depends on having a weapon drawn. Maybe some specific feats or similar, granting e.g. an AC bonus from parrying or 2WF, but probably most characters will have just the same defenses with or without a weapon (and monsters with natural weapons are always armed).

It's not about their defenses. The point is if drawing a weapon takes enough of an action, it can prevent the surprised combatant from performing properly in the first round.
I imagine it like this:
Party waits in ambush.
Orcs walk into target area.
Orcs are surprised. Roll for initiative. Assume for the example that the orcs roll better than the party
Round 0:
Party fires arrows
Round 1:
Orcs first action - draw weapons. Now they can either move, or shoot from where they are. They cannot draw, move AND attack.
Party fires arrows or charges.

This effectively prolongs the surprise round, without being a rediculous as just saying 'surprise rounds last for X rounds'.

However, to your point, on the defense side, I'd say flat footed (advantage for attackers?) + no shield bonuses to AC.

 

[Li Shenron]

It's not about their defenses. The point is if drawing a weapon takes enough of an action, it can prevent the surprised combatant from performing properly in the first round.

Yes, sure! I was only working on the ground that in 5e it takes no action to draw.

 

[Dausuul]

One way to make surprise more effective is to remember that surprised people won't have their weapons drawn. Particularly if drawing a weapon is more than a minor action.

Why would surprised people not have their weapons drawn? In my experience, PCs exploring a dungeon keep their weapons drawn at all times, for obvious reasons. If you start leaning heavily on this rule as a way to make surprise more effective, they'll extend that policy to wilderness travel, to campsites... pretty much anywhere they can get away with it. Only when they're in town will they sheathe their blades, and then only if you make a point of noting how townspeople react to a gang of desperadoes wandering around with drawn swords.

Now, such a rule could make monsters more vulnerable to surprise, but that still only affects monsters that a) use weapons and b) keep them in sheaths. A dragon doesn't have to draw its claws, a wizard doesn't have to draw her spells, and weapons like spears and halberds are likely to be carried in hand.

 

[erachima]

I'm a big fan of surprise being a powerful factor in combat. One of the things that's bugged me about recent editions of D&D, especially 4E, is that ambushes aren't effective enough. So often I've seen the PCs carefully plan out an ambush, coming up with lots of clever ideas to ensure that they get the drop on their foes, and the end result is... you get one free attack in a 10-round combat. Woo.

This is so flabbergastingly wrong that I felt the need to register specifically to tell you that.

A surprise round for the PCs in 4e is the difference between a normal fight and completely curbstomping the enemy to the point that you may well have taken no damage. It only takes a good controller one standard action to ensure that most of the enemy loses their first real turn. Add that the controller also gets a real turn on top of that, and now everyone on the enemy side lost their first turn, and the combat is simply a massacre.

Between this and the fact that surprise rounds also exacerbate the internal balance issues that the initiative scaling has, the solution is to go the other direction with this: Surprise just means you automatically win initiative over everyone that was surprised.

 

[Dausuul]

This is so flabbergastingly wrong that I felt the need to register specifically to tell you that.

A surprise round for the PCs in 4e is the difference between a normal fight and completely curbstomping the enemy to the point that you may well have taken no damage. It only takes a good controller one standard action to ensure that most of the enemy loses their first real turn. Add that the controller also gets a real turn on top of that, and now everyone on the enemy side lost their first turn, and the combat is simply a massacre.

Between this and the fact that surprise rounds also exacerbate the internal balance issues that the initiative scaling has, the solution is to go the other direction with this: Surprise just means you automatically win initiative over everyone that was surprised.

I ran and played 4E for a solid four years, so do me a favor and don't tell me my experience wasn't what it was. It may have worked one way for you, but that doesn't make it the same for everybody.

I don't think I ever saw an ambush turn a serious fight into a curbstomp. What I found was that surprise just made a curbstomp faster that was going to happen anyhow. Sure, maybe it saved the party a healing surge or two, but that was it. A tough fight was a little less tough if you got surprise, but it wasn't easy.