D&D 5E Is my DM being fair?

[jaelis]

Then the rogue would be standing in the same spot because readying an action doesnt allow a move. This would be for a preset ambush and in actual play works fine. Almost think of it as walking into a living trap.

Why doesn't readying an action allow a move?

 

[Valetudo]

Why doesn't readying an action allow a move?

you can move as the ready action, but a ready action is not a full turn.

 

[JonnyP71]

This whole "rolling initiative, but having zero stimuli to indicate combat has started" thing, sorta smacks to me of the same kind of playstyle where the DM "rolls dice behind a screen for no reason just to keep the players on their toes". Like the DM enjoys toying with the players as much as with their characters. Likes to watch them squirm a bit in confusion and maybe fear.

Nothing wrong with that - all part of the fun of gaming! I enjoy that style of play both as a DM and as a player.

 

[schnee]

This whole "rolling initiative, but having zero stimuli to indicate combat has started" thing, sorta smacks to me of the same kind of playstyle where the DM "rolls dice behind a screen for no reason just to keep the players on their toes". Like the DM enjoys toying with the players as much as with their characters. Likes to watch them squirm a bit in confusion and maybe fear.

I dunno, I've been thinking this one over a lot, and the 'no reason' thing is really rare.

People are naturally aware of danger. If you've ever hiked in unfamiliar areas far from civilization, the reality hits you that you're all alone, and you get very very aware of every tiny noise. It soon gets pretty easy to tell when a rustling sound is coming from a breeze, or an animal in the underbrush.

I did paintball for a few years. It was easy to hear a newbie trying to ambush you. They would tense up when you came by, so you'd hear a familiar, tense rustling sound and you could pop them before they shot. Even with experienced players, if the underbrush was dense enough to hide them, adjusting their aim created noise. If they had to turn a significant arc to aim, that gave you enough information to drop and start blasting in that general direction. I know because that's how I always got shot even after I got pretty good - always by one of the same three ex-military guys.

So, I could see a character that has a Heroic level of alertness totally doing that and more.

--

So, for the worst case: The PCs all blew their Perception rolls to see the ambushers, the Alert PC is not surprised, and rolls well enough to go first, then I tell them the believable stimulus that would have tipped them off. I keep it necessarily vague - they did blow Perception - but enough to know something is about to go down.

Let's say it's an invisible Rogue in the woods. "You have a sudden sinking feeling of danger, and hear the slight sound of leaves crunch nearby."

It's a spellcaster casting Hold Person from a window in town. "You see a bit of aggressively circular motion in a window two stories up to the right."

It's a spellcaster casting Fireball from a castle 100' away. "You glance over to see a candle flame sized dot of light suddenly appear in of the arrow slits to the left."

If the Alert PC blew their Perception by a lot, I try to make it more vague. If they blew it by only a little, I make it more specific.

This has a bunch of house-rule like thinking, so it's just an 'at my table' thing that works for us.

--

The really super-rare scenarios, like an invisible, silenced Mind Flayer blasting away with psionics, I'm totally fine having that go down as the thing that happens before initiative, and then resolving everything from there. That situation should be VERY VERY rare, and all the dice rolls should scrupulously happen first. I also try to telegraph those in the plot, make it available via character knowledge, etc. so they don't feel screwed over.

If that ever does go down, if they don't say 'Oh, we knew what they were capable of, we should have seen this coming!' then I feel like I kinda blew it as a DM.

 

[jaelis]

you can move as the ready action, but a ready action is not a full turn.

Right but you can move on your turn still.

 

[Arial Black]

It's not really 'no information' though.

You don't get the information that is gated behind a successful Perception check if you failed that check, but there are still things you do know:-

* Alert means you are never surprised (as a game mechanic), and the consequence of that is that the player knows that initiative is being rolled and surprise determined, therefore combat is starting; and the character knows that his danger sense/hair on his neck/bad feeling about this is warning him that combat is starting and he has learned to trust those instincts

* knowing that combat is starting does not mean that you know what is starting it or where the danger is coming from, but you do know where you are and have just been, can see the terrain around you, and may be aware of the kind of enemy that is extant. For example, if the party is travelling down a really long tunnel with no side tunnels when Alert pings, then even though you don't know for a fact that the danger comes from in front of you, it's a pretty educated guess. You might go first and try a 'reconnaissance by fireball' ahead in the tunnel. You may be wrong, but it's a good bet.

You can combine the things that you already know with the new knowledge that combat is starting, to get an educated guess at what the danger is and where it comes from. It's not really 'no information' at all.

 

[Valetudo]

I dunno, I've been thinking this one over a lot, and the 'no reason' thing is really rare.

People are naturally aware of danger. If you've ever hiked in unfamiliar areas far from civilization, the reality hits you that you're all alone, and you get very very aware of every tiny noise. It soon gets pretty easy to tell when a rustling sound is coming from a breeze, or an animal in the underbrush.

I did paintball for a few years. It was easy to hear a newbie trying to ambush you. They would tense up when you came by, so you'd hear a familiar, tense rustling sound and you could pop them before they shot. Even with experienced players, if the underbrush was dense enough to hide them, adjusting their aim created noise. If they had to turn a significant arc to aim, that gave you enough information to drop and start blasting in that general direction. I know because that's how I always got shot even after I got pretty good - always by one of the same three ex-military guys.

So, I could see a character that has a Heroic level of alertness totally doing that and more.

--

So, for the worst case: The PCs all blew their Perception rolls to see the ambushers, the Alert PC is not surprised, and rolls well enough to go first, then I tell them the believable stimulus that would have tipped them off. I keep it necessarily vague - they did blow Perception - but enough to know something is about to go down.

Let's say it's an invisible Rogue in the woods. "You have a sudden sinking feeling of danger, and hear the slight sound of leaves crunch nearby."

It's a spellcaster casting Hold Person from a window in town. "You see a bit of aggressively circular motion in a window two stories up to the right."

It's a spellcaster casting Fireball from a castle 100' away. "You glance over to see a candle flame sized dot of light suddenly appear in of the arrow slits to the left."

If the Alert PC blew their Perception by a lot, I try to make it more vague. If they blew it by only a little, I make it more specific.

This has a bunch of house-rule like thinking, so it's just an 'at my table' thing that works for us.

--

The really super-rare scenarios, like an invisible, silenced Mind Flayer blasting away with psionics, I'm totally fine having that go down as the thing that happens before initiative, and then resolving everything from there. That situation should be VERY VERY rare, and all the dice rolls should scrupulously happen first. I also try to telegraph those in the plot, make it available via character knowledge, etc. so they don't feel screwed over.

If that ever does go down, if they don't say 'Oh, we knew what they were capable of, we should have seen this coming!' then I feel like I kinda blew it as a DM.

Yes, Ive seen the super combat prowess of paintballers. They are indeed mighty.

 

[Ovinomancer]

The Alert guy does know something; he know's that combat is about to start!

Meta-game, the player legitimately knows that combat is about to start. In game, the PC gets that tingle, hairs-on-the-back-of-the-neck, "I've got a bad feeling about this!" sense that it's about to kick off. They have the advantage (with a high initiative) to get to take actions that surprised PCs could not or that they could not if they rolled lower initiative. So, yes, it's usually an advantage. Still, going first has never guaranteed to be 'better' than going later in the round. Plenty of friendly-fireballed fighters can testify to that!

But even though the Alert guy knows things are about to kick off, if he failed his Perception check then he simply has failed to perceive what the threat actually is, even though he knows there is one.



The correct point to enter initiative is when a hostile action needs to be resolved. If the hidden enemy wizard was about to cast prestidigitation to make his snack taste better then this does not start the combat process. But if the enemy wizard is about to cast a fireball to engulf the party then the process kicks in: DM determines surprise (using whatever method he likes, but in this situation Perception vs. Stealth) and initiative is rolled. It may follow that the Alert guy goes before the wizard gets his fireball off, but his Perception fail means he didn't perceive the wizard. The Alert guy knows there is danger, but he simply doesn't know about the wizard specifically. Them's the breaks.



They are aware that something is wrong, but they failed the check which would give them information based on perceiving the danger itself. Tingle of danger? Yep. From the right? No. They have no mechanism to know the vector of the danger. They failed their roll to hear the spellcasting or see the glint in the darkness. Those are the things that the DM would reveal on a successful Perception check.



You're wrong here. There is a need for initiative as soon as the wizard attempts a hostile act, whether or not he is perceived. The whole relationship between surprise and initiative is built on this premise!



Both of those are 'unsat'. 'Sat' would be:-

DM: I need Perception checks AND Initiative checks from everyone.
Bob: I got a 12 Perception and 22 Initiative.
DM: You're surprised, and you're first to act. Because you're surprised you cannot move or act this turn.
Bob: Wait, I have the Alert feat so I'm immune to surprise.
DM: Okay, you can move/act; what do you do?
Bob: About what? I failed my Perception check so I don't know about the enemy.
DM: True, but you do know it's about to kick off big-style! You sense danger, you get a very bad feeling about this! Based on that uncanny gut instinct, what do you do? Stand around and look gormless just like the poor saps who are surprised and can't do anything?
Bob: No! I move behind the paladin, draw my bow and Ready an action to shoot the first enemy I see!
DM: Better then being surprised, eh?

So, then, to circle back, there's a problem with letting the guy that failed his perception check know that there's a bad guy over there at the start of combat, but there's no problem in letting the guy that failed his perception check know that a combat has started, just without any actual clues or information, yeah? So, then, your problem isn't that you can't see a way to provide information to the Alert player, it's just some strange idea that the game is made better by making that player jump through hoops blindly for your amusement for daring to roll a higher initiative than you?

Because, and let be honest, if the initial attack of the hidden bad guy can kill the player, the blind fumbling of acting without information will be highly unlikely to change that outcome. So, acting first with no information becomes that guessing game where you hope you picked the right thing before the DM kills you. Poor play. So, then, if the attack can't outright kill the player, then they are actually more effective going second, especially if their attack can kill or significantly impede the enemy. So the usual outcome is that forcing the player to go first isn't actually helping the player, it's just ensuring that you get your ambush off as you scripted it. And that's the problem, you're forcing the game into a pretzel so that you can have your moment. As a DM, that's a tempting trap, but, here's the thing, you don't need to do this. You don't need to abuse the player and make them dance arbitrarily because you will get your moments. It might not be this one, because of the dice, but it will come and be sweeter because you haven't had to play the screw-u game with your players. If you really need the thrill of your players not being able to be effective because of their build choices, just narrate at them. Don't waste their time pretending to have a game.

 

[Warmaster Horus]

I am not a fan of DMs who unilaterally fiat things they find 'broken'. IMHO it's an easy cop out for a lazy DM to deal with minor challenges of a play style they don't want to deal with. Find a new game.

 

[cmad1977]

I am not a fan of DMs who unilaterally fiat things they find 'broken'. IMHO it's an easy cop out for a lazy DM to deal with minor challenges of a play style they don't want to deal with. Find a new game.

Yup. See also things like
'Ranged combat is OP'
'Sharpshooter is broken'
'Great Weapon Master is broken'
'Dex is king'
Among other things.


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