November's SAGE ADVICE Is Here!

November's Sage Advice column by WotC's Jeremy Crawford is up. This month deals with lightfoot halfing and wood elf hiding racial traits, some class features, backgrounds (you can have only one!), muticlassing, surprise rounds in combat, and more. Check out this month's Sage Advice here. The advice here has been added to the Sage Advice Compendium.

 

[jodyjohnson]

Public Service Reminder:
https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/667543754622959616

Jeremy Crawford ‏@JeremyECrawford 11h11 hours ago
Reminder: Sage Advice answers questions I receive about #DnD rules. My answers are meant to inform, not dictate. Play as you like!

 

[abirdcall]

This is supported by the rules.None of this says when surprise ends. You can assume that it ends on a character's turn. However you can also assume it ends after the first round of combat.

You could also then say that surprise never ends, which would have more support for that interpretation because there are no surprise rounds.

I think it is much more reasonable to say that surprise ends when the consequences of the surprise have ended - that being not taking a turn and not being able to take reactions. If you are not affected by surprise, why are you still surprised?

There are really 2 things that we are talking about. The anatomy of a round and the assassin subclass.

Maybe this will help you to think of the assassin differently, I picture the design of the subclass to go something like this:

Jim: Assassins are a popular trope so we should include them.
Bob: Yeah, and we could use a subclass that works with attacking/sneak attacking. That sounds good for the assassin
Jim: What do rogues like to do? They like winning initiative.
Bob: Advantage would be a great reward for a rogue.
Jim: Okay great, if they win initiative then they get advantage.
Bob: Well wait a minute Jim, rogues like to hide and get the drop on enemies. Having an ability that gives advantage will make it so they don't care about doing that.
Jim: Okay, so they get auto-crits when they win initiative and their opponent is surprised. This will be the most common form of them having advantage in the first round.
Bob: Well autocrit is both very powerful, esp. for a rogue, and it devalues the fun of rolling a crit, but I suppose it will happen rarely and make that roll for initiative have more tension. Sounds good.

The key here is that both parts of the assassinate ability rely on winning initiative. That is what the ability is keyed to. Not to surprise. That is why both parts are in the same ability. Because they are both about winning initiative.

I thought it was quite a clever and elegant way to make an ability when I first read it. It works with advantage and sidesteps the issue of it not stacking by having a bonus for surprise.

The key is that the assassin must win initiative for assassinate to work.

 

[abirdcall]

If the circumstances have already established that the victim is completely unaware of the assassin as he's about to attack, a generous (sensible?) DM can rule that the assailant auto-wins initiative or at least let him "Take 20" on his initiative roll.

I think this is one of the worst ways to handle it and sets a bad precedent for other opposed rolls.

If you really want to buff the assassin a more sensible option would be to have the autocrit trigger in the first round regardless of initiative. This would be complete overkill (quite literally in most cases).

 

[Athinar]

Not the Assassin - Initiative - Surprise BS again

 

[JohnLynch]

You could also then say that surprise never ends, which would have more support for that interpretation because there are no surprise rounds.

Sure.

I think it is much more reasonable to say that surprise ends when the consequences of the surprise have ended - that being not taking a turn and not being able to take reactions. If you are not affected by surprise, why are you still surprised?

Sure. But then one really good roll on the DM's part and the whole efforts of the party on trying to get surprise are significantly reduced.

The key is that the assassin must win initiative for assassinate to work.

The key is the assassin must:

• Win a Dexterity check vs DC
• Win an opposed Dexterity check.
• Win a Dexterity check vs DC

Depending on the type of check determines what bonuses the assassin gets to apply.

At the end of the day: If the assassin's abilities are so powerful that the above is required, then WotC (IMO) made a mistake in making the ability so powerful to begin with and should have toned it down significantly. I'm not denying the assassin requires surprise work in the above way (although I'd love to see the math behind that), I'm just saying this is not the way my group has been running surprise and would require a lot less fun in the group if we did run it this way (that said, no-one in my group is actually an assassin).

 

[Hriston]

So you would make the assassin pre-declare their action before initiative is rolled? Do you do this with all rounds, just the first round or just with surprise rounds? What if the action the assassin had pre-declared was no longer suitable (e.g. someone else kills the target)? Would their turn be wasted or do they get to do something else (such as, flee the area while stealthing)? Do you do this to all PCs or just assassins? Do you do this with NPCs as well?

"Pre-declare" is an odd way to put it. If an Assassin's player says s/he takes a shot at someone when combat is not yet in progress, i.e. when initiative hasn't been rolled, then s/he is telling the DM that s/he is initiating combat. This corresponds to part two of the basic pattern for game-play: The players describe what they want to do. To narrate the result of the player's declared action, the DM needs to call for initiative so the player's declared action can be resolved in initiative order along with the actions of the other participants. If the Assassin isn't first, the DM needs to resolve the turns of any participants that have a higher initiative, which includes those players declaring actions for their characters and the DM describing the results. In a case where the Assassin is attacking with surprise, the surprised NPCs won't have any actions to resolve, and members of the Assassin's party can ready their actions to let the Assassin strike first if they happen to have a higher initiative. Now, when it comes to the Assassin's turn, I don't believe the rules require the Assassin to follow through on the attack. The player could choose to do something else, and if no one uses their turn to take hostile action, then there is no need to continue to observe combat rounds.

The issue I feel is at the root of your questions (correct me if I'm wrong about this) is the notion that by not taking the shot in the event of a low initiative roll and remaining hidden, the Assassin can re-declare the attack in the hope of getting a more favorable initiative score. Personally, I would regard such an action as merely a temporary cessation of hostilities in the same combat encounter and would continue to use the initiative order already established.

 

[abirdcall]

Sure.

Sure. But then one really good roll on the DM's part and the whole efforts of the party on trying to get surprise are significantly reduced.

They still nullify the actions of the enemies for a round even if they get reactions. The majority of the benefit of surprise is intact. That is huge in a game where combat is very quick.

The key is the assassin must:

• Win a Dexterity check vs DC
• Win an opposed Dexterity check.
• Win a Dexterity check vs DC

Depending on the type of check determines what bonuses the assassin gets to apply.

At the end of the day: If the assassin's abilities are so powerful that the above is required, then WotC (IMO) made a mistake in making the ability so powerful to begin with and should have toned it down significantly. I'm not denying the assassin requires surprise work in the above way (although I'd love to see the math behind that), I'm just saying this is not the way my group has been running surprise and would require a lot less fun in the group if we did run it this way (that said, no-one in my group is actually an assassin).

The main part of the assassin's ability is to gain advantage when they win initiative.

That is going to happen a lot.

In most games non-surprise combats are the vast majority.

One interesting thing is that the DM rolling 1 initiative check for all the enemies does nerf the assassin because on average at least 1 out of a group would have a lower initiative. That is where I would be focusing my attention.

The auto-crit is an extra thing they get because it would suck if they didn't get anything for assassinate when they successfully surprise their opponents.

This is part of what I meant by people looking at the assassin in the wrong way. The auto-crit is not the main ability.

 

[JohnLynch]

What's the difference between rolling a 20 on a surprise round and rolling a 1 on the normal combat? Absolutely nothing. As you note, surprise is hard to get. Often it's not worthwhile to bother trying. This is the first edition that I've played that doubles how difficult it is to get one that has any meaningful effect. And if the assassin's ability is so minor, why bother including it? It's a gotcha moment for any player who reads the rules and doesn't interpret them the sameway Jeremy Crawford has. I'm going to have to either change the rules or warn players not to play an assassin for that ability.

At this point I don't know what I'll do. My players are currently rolling up PCs so I might have to decide. I'm inclined to let a player keep it and continue with surprise as I've been applying it. But I'll have to warn the player that if their toy does turn out to be overpowered AND this impacts the group's enjoyment of the game I'll have to take it away or change the way we apply the rules so they are disincentivised to bother using surprise. A bit of a dampener on the game to start with, hopefully no-one tries to be an assassin until I've had time to look into the rules more deeply.

 

[abirdcall]

What's the difference between rolling a 20 on a surprise round and rolling a 1 on the normal combat? Absolutely nothing.

That is a fundamental error in thinking.

If I am playing Texas Hold 'Em and I get it in with AA against KK and the opponent spikes a K I might as well have had a bad hand.

That doesn't mean that it wasn't good to get AA.

Or to bring it back to D&D, even if you get a 20 on initiative and surprise your opponents and then roll nothing but 1s for all of your attacks, you are no better off either.

Over the long run, the party who gets surprise will be extremely better off than the one that doesn't. The average is still 1 more turn.

If that is what you have a problem with, that advantageous situations can be nullified by bad rolls, you are playing the wrong game.

The assassin's ability is also not minor. It's just that the main benefit is getting advantage on winning initiative not the auto-crit after winning initiative on surprise. The first part is quite good.

Still, they don't fit that well into a standard game because they are best being off sneaking and infiltrating on their own. You know, being assassins.

 

[Arial Black]

'Combat' takes place in 'combat rounds', in initiative order. The rules don't allow you to attack an enemy with a weapon outside of initiative.

In combat, all the participants are aware that they are in danger, and act/react in combat according to the rules. If you know you are in combat with anyone, then you cannot be 'surprised' in game terms because you are already bobbing and weaving and on the lookout.

'Surprise' represents the disadvantages you have by not realising you are in combat. You are not bobbing or weaving, ready for a sword swinging at your head. That's why you are vulnerable to assassins, who train to take advantage of this.

The DM determines surprise. He can just say that a creature is or is not surprised by fiat, but where there is doubt then he is expected to call for opposed ability checks, most commonly Stealth/Perception.

The Initiative roll at the start of combat represents how quickly you react. However, initiative (a Dex check, measuring reaction speed) does not make you aware of danger in the first place, only to react quickly when you do actually perceive danger, and that is not represented by a Dex check but by opposed Stealth/Perception checks.

If you have no idea that there is any danger (because the assassin's Stealth beat your Perception), then having a good reaction speed doesn't help you notice the attack, just to be able to react quickly once you do notice.

If you roll a higher initiative than the undetected assassin, this won't make you a harder target because you are still not aware of any danger. When your initiative comes up, nothing has happened; there is nothing to react to! It shouldn't make you suddenly impossible to auto-crit because you still haven't detected danger.