D&D 5E Is my DM being fair?

Due to concerns of that kind, the alternative we're playtesting is simply moving the instigator to the top of the initiative order.

Then you've created another problem.

For example, your alternative method results in gunfights/fast draw situations where the guy who goes for his gun first ALWAYS shoots first. Yet the trope, AND the RAW, give the other guy a fair chance to notice and react faster.

Your method artificially takes away one of the advantages of being immune to surprise by denying a chance for the Alert guy to act first.

It also takes away the totally normal guy's chance to succeed in a fair check (Perception/Insight/whatever) to notice the threat, and his fair chance to act as fast as his initiative says it does: faster than the coward who's drawing his knife.

Worst of all, your method means that the PLAYER who first shouts "I shoot him with my crossbow!" ALWAYS has their PC act first, no matter how bad his Stealth, Deception, reflexes, and everything else that should result in him being slower than the others. It makes the actual rules about resolving the order in which creatures act meaningless.

It is a really, really poor idea.
 

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True. I feel like it is genuine bug in 5e. Several times now we've had awkward starts to combats. And I've read plenty of comments on these boards of other DMs experiencing likewise. 3e handled it by giving ambushers a free round. That meant the surprised party didn't even need to make initiative checks until the first non-surprise round and narrative oddness was averted. Maybe that is in fact better?

I'll report back after trying the "move instigator to top of initiative order" rule.

3E also allowed anyone who was 'not surprised' to act in that surprise round.

In 5E, those who are surprised cannot act, therefore those who are 'not surprised' get an entire round to do something without the surprised creatures doing anything. The two systems aren't very different here, the only significant difference that 3E's surprise round only allows move OR standard actions when a full round lets you do both (or a full round action).

The danger of trying to combine the two is that DMs of 5E may try to import the 'surprise round' concept, and do it really badly! Resulting in some attacks being resolved before initiative has been rolled, before surprise is even determined, taking away any chance creatures have of being 'not surprised' at the start of hostilities, whether by successful opposed skill checks or by being immune to surprise.
 

What I will be trying in my campaign is that when a specific actor is clearly starting the action, everyone rolls initiative and I start the count on that actor. So in your example, the cleric can't cast Bless because we start on initiative 12. What do you think?

In my game we usually just hold action until after the spellcaster goes.

I always imagine it like an Officer telling his men to hold fire until the natives get closer.
 

It is a really, really poor idea.
Maybe really poor, but certainly not really, really poor. I definitely need a fix to 5e combat though. The initiative system with/without surprise in the mix, frequently causes narrative glitches. Still, your words are persuasive. Maybe it becomes a case of "You start to swing, but the other guy turns out to be faster" except that ends with "and gets to move 10', swing, move 5', bonus swing, move 15' back past his ally".
 

Looks like you have already made a ruling for that situation.

Of course, the creature you target with the Scry spell gets a Wisdom save to negate the spell, which bring up the question of "do you know when you are the target of a spell and have to make a save?"

Plus, unless the enemy is scrying on them while they are in a place the caster is personally familiar with, the Teleport spell will probably be using the "Viewed once - with magic" miss chance and is quite likely to land nowhere close to the party...


So if it was me, I'd probably roll initiative only if I determine that the teleporting bad guy will actually be landing on target - i.e. after the teleport spell is cast.

Thus the scry and teleport would be before combat, the surprise round would be AFTER the bad guy arrives, giving the bad guy a full turn after casting teleport...except that the PC's have magic that negates the surprise, so no surprise round and combat starts with everyone taking actions normally on their initiative.

I'm fairly sure that it works thus:

The enemy ambushes the party. The AMBUSH happens regardless of any feats. The only way to avoid it is to notice the enemies laying in wait.

1 member of the party has a way to negate surprise. No one else does.

The enemy attacks, initiating combat. Roll initiative. The enemies are visible now, because they are attacking because combat happens simultaneously.

5e has no surprise round, and rounds happen simultaneously.

The unsurprisable guy, and one other party member, go before the ambushers. What does this mean? It means they react instantly to the sight of the first attacker moving to attack, before the attack mechanically happens. Thematically, the ambushers are just starting to move at this point.

Mr. No Surprise gets to act as normal, because his reflexes are that good. He suffers no ill effect from being ambushed. He can't be subjected to the psuedo-paralysis known as Surprise.

Mr. Good Initiative gets...to use a bonus action, draw a weapon, and that's it. His reflexes are good, but not good enough to avoid the psuedo paralysis of Surprise.

Attackers go, getting full turns. Other party members go, getting their abbreviated turns. Next round, combat runs as normal.


There is no reason that declaring the teleportation would be what triggers initiative. It would be the moment the attackers begin to attack. WHich would mean they are already in the space, spells being intoned, arrows being drawn, whatever. If Dary the Rogue is Alert, and beats everyone else's init, he is so Alert and fast, that the moment the enemy begins intoning that attack spell, or pulling back that bow string, he is able to throw his daggerdaggerdagger, entirely unaffected by the ambush.
 

There is no reason that declaring the teleportation would be what triggers initiative. It would be the moment the attackers begin to attack. WHich would mean they are already in the space, spells being intoned, arrows being drawn, whatever. If Dary the Rogue is Alert, and beats everyone else's init, he is so Alert and fast, that the moment the enemy begins intoning that attack spell, or pulling back that bow string, he is able to throw his daggerdaggerdagger, entirely unaffected by the ambush.

So...almost exactly what I said, except you replaced the Weapon of Warning with the Alertness feat.
 




I wasn't actually sure what you were getting at. We seem to be in agreement though.

Seems that way.

The discussion kept going in circles about the particulars of timing, so I went step by step to see if any part of it rubbed anyone wrong, and see if we could then collectively find what the exact point of disagreement is, because it seems 100% clear to me, but since others disagree, it can't be quite as obvious as t seems to me.
 

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