D&D 5E (2024) How do you handle surprised but won initiative?

[doctorbadwolf]

Add in the Alert feat to the conversation and how does on swap their initiative with another PC. My PC is not surprised, but the fighter is so I'll swap my initiative and he is now going first and I'm once again surprised, although I'm constantly on alert for danger. I'll just say that my PC tripped and pushed the fighter into the front- you know somehow.

Trading initiative doesnt give you the surprised condition, it just means you go later.

 

[BigMac75]

If the attacker is hidden, he does have advantage on the initiative roll.
Plus, they will have advantage on their attack, and anyone who tries to attack them will have disadvantage:

(While you have the Invisible condition, you experience the following effects.
Surprise. If you're Invisible when you roll Initiative, you have Advantage on the roll. [...]
Attacks Affected. Attack rolls against you have Disadvantage, and your attack rolls have Advantage. If a creature can somehow see you, you don't gain this benefit against that creature.)


All in all, I'm quite happy with this rule, even for an ambush. Combining advantage for the ambushers with disadvantage for the ambushees, the majority of the ambushers will act before their preys, with advantage. The couple of defenders who will get to act first wil have disadvantage on their attacks and won't even know where/who to attack. Still quite deadly, but not "you lose two turns, bam you're dead" deadly.

For me a big part of this issue is the convolution of invisible with hidden - I know RAW they are considered the same but it's much easier for me to imagine someone noticing a slime on the ceiling as it drops, or a leopard in a tree as it jumps, or a bandit hidden in the grass as they pull back their bow. Harder when something is actually invisible with a ready action silently waiting to swing their invisible greatsword as a party member comes within reach. I know that they might still make a sound or otherwise give away their position but it seems that there is hidden and there is HIDDEN when it comes to surprise.

 

[Reynard]

I kinda like how Solasta does it, too, and i think it works even better with the 2024 rules. The person who takes that hidden shot simply goes first. That is it. They do not roll initiative, because they just go first regardless. That way, that initialising attack pops off, the attacker has the rest of their turn, and then initiative rolls on from there.

Yes. As I said upthread, that is how I do it.

 

[Lanefan]

My answer is because the game as played today is not meant to be a simulation of skirmish warfare or tactics. Maybe in the past it was acceptable to consistently try to set up surprise attacks, but in the modern D&D game that’s just no longer the case for possibly most tables. I think more tables want to have a satisfying encounter that allows the players to use multiple abilities and actively be challenged by the encounter, and see how the story unfolds.

So full-on Combat As Sport, then; done mostly as an opportunity for the PCs to strike dramatic poses?

Sad.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

So full-on Combat As Sport, then; done mostly as an opportunity for the PCs to strike dramatic poses?

Sad.

No.

The game as cooperative storytelling. with an expectation that every combat (or at least most) will be challenging and interesting.

 

[Artamo]

So full-on Combat As Sport, then; done mostly as an opportunity for the PCs to strike dramatic poses?

Sad.

Full-on combat as sport?

You are aware this is a game played at a table with dice, right?

 

[Lanefan]

And it's not even just that. I can have a non-surprised PC walk 10 feet into a room and see 10 orcs who are 60 feet in. Initiative is rolled and the orcs win. All 10 of them can move and dash past the PC and cut him off from being able to get 10 feet back to the door.

In a simultaneous round that would be pretty much impossible.

In reality it would be pretty much impossible too.

The PC would see the orcs start to move towards him and would turn and get the hell out of dodge. Depending on speeds and reaction time he might get out with some of the orcs right on his rear, but he'd make it out.

Exactly. This is a clear example of when the rules - in several ways - need to take a seat in favour of what makes sense.

Rolling group init for the Orcs is dumb. They don't operate in lockstep any more than the PCs do. Individual inits all the way, thanks, and tell the rules to pound sand.

Allowing the Orcs (or anyone) to move without that movement taking some time within the round, almost like a mini-teleport, is also dumb. Sure they can shoot or throw things from where they are, and fair play to that, but there's no way in hell any of 'em can cover 50 feet before the unsurprised intruder can turn and flee,

On the one hand D&D rounds are supposed to be simultaneous, but on the other hand with situations similar to the above being fairly common, D&D rounds cannot be simultaneous.

I think a better term might be "fluid", where it's understood that combatants aren't acting in robotic sequence while everyone else stands still. The current rules suck at this, as did 3e.

The best solution in my opinion is to hold your nose and just not try to make sense of it.

The best solution is to bloody fix it, even if it means chucking some of WotC's rules in the lake.

 

[Savage Wombat]

Full-on combat as sport?

You are aware this is a game played at a table with dice, right?

Nobody tell him - let him enjoy his blissful innocence.

 

[aco175]

Trading initiative doesnt give you the surprised condition, it just means you go later.

No, it goes with the theme of the thread and how the rules do not make sense and trying to be too literal with them does not work for every situation.

 

[Lanefan]

The game as cooperative storytelling. with an expectation that every combat (or at least most) will be challenging and interesting.

Why on earth would a group of PCs with any sense of self-preservation want to make a combat the least bit more challenging (i.e. dangerous) than they have to?

"Hey, I know, let's walk out of our hiding place and challenge those 20 Orcs to a fair fight! I mean, sure, they could easily kill two of us in the process, but that'd be way more fun than shooting most of them down from here and not taking a scratch, right?" Players who run PCs who think like that really do deserve to have those PCs die. Over and over again, if necessary.

Co-operative storytelling means you're co-operating to tell a story, but says nothing about what that story might consist of.

Full-on combat as sport?

You are aware this is a game played at a table with dice, right?

Yes, but that game is simulating what, in terms of the characters' reality?

Combat as war, where blood flows, survival is job one, and characters (and opponents) die in messy fashion?

Or combat as sport, where dramatic poses are struck, the foes die cleanly, and nobody else comes to any real harm?