Reconcile This - A DM Question

[Man in the Funny Hat]

Firstly, there is no surprise round. By the book in 3.0/3.5 surprise is nothing more than "awareness of" an opponent. The fighter and ranger are busily engaged in verbal confrontation. Each is aware of the other - therefore there is no surprise round. Yeah, you can really stretch it and say that there's a difference between knowing that the person in front of you is actually there and knowing that he's a danger to you; to say that "aware of" doesn't just mean presence but constituting an actual threat. Frankly the rules do not care and do not address that as a possibility necessitating special rules.

Now, IMO, a DM is free to decide that using a surprise round is a swift, efficient way of handling the situation, and maybe a sense motive/bluff check is a good way to determine if surprise is achieved, but that's not by-the-book.

By the book the ranger player says, "I am going to attack," and the DM responds with, "Roll initiative," and play then proceeds with all that that entails. That means that by the book even though it seems that the ranger should be the first to act because the player was the first to state that combat action was indeed being taken the rules simply do not take steps to prioritize actions IN combat based on declaration outside of combat. In fact, the game goes out of its way to make that clear by specifically disallowing the use of the Ready action outside of combat.

By the book the ranger simply CANNOT guarantee himself the ability to strike first in the given scenario. He HAS to win initiative.

This IS a DM's call because the rules specifically do not cover this sort of thing. It is assumed that the DM wishes to guarantee to the ranger the ability to strike first which the rules make no allowance for and indeed go out of their way to prevent. But you're really making this more complicated than it needs to be. The simplest thing to do is to roll initiative but place the ranger at the top of the initiative queue. This requires no twisting interpretations of the rules, no piling on of additional procedures. If the DM believes that circumstances should allow the ranger to attack first despite the limitations inherent in the rules, then it is no more complicated than simply stating, "the ranger attacks first."

 

[JustinAlexander]

Remember, though, this is not always true under the 3.5 rules. This is an area where the 3E/3.5E differ from the older versions of D&D. Combat begins and initiative is thrown when opponents become aware of each other--not necessarily when the first attack roll is made.

This interpretation of the rules -- in which everyone walking down a busy street is "in combat" with each other -- fails the common sense test.

The DMG pretty explicitly gives broad, discretionary powers to the DM in terms of determining when encounters start and how awareness/surprise is determined. Use them.

Firstly, there is no surprise round. By the book in 3.0/3.5 surprise is nothing more than "awareness of" an opponent.

Whenever somebody treats guidelines that are explicitly described as guidelines as if they were ironclad rules with no exceptions, a fairy dies.

Please stop killing fairies.

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

If the discussion had been heated and came to blows, I'd allow bother ftr & rgr to roll init. If rgr wanted to throw a sucker punch out of proportion to the volume of the discussion I'd give them the chance to win surprise.

Rogue otoh would need to give some reason to the DM to be included in the surprise/1st rd. 25' is not so far, but they're not paying attention and don't have telepathic connection.

 

[CroBob]

Firstly, there is no surprise round.

It does specify that you must be aware of your opponents. "Opponents". Choice word, there, that. If a heated verbal debate made someone an opponent, they'd have already been in initiative order, but they weren't.

 

[pemerton]

Surprise.

Lots of responses mention this. But, by the rules, Surprise does not apply because all combatants are aware of each other at the start of the round. Surprise only occurs when a combatant is not aware of a foe at the start of the round.

This is an interesting take--one that I've thought about myself but haven't shared in a post.

<snip>

As controversial as it might be, it is a damned interesting look at the rules: The three characters are not combatants at first, but there is a point at which they do become combatants.

<snip>

I think that's the answer I'm looking for, unless anyone here disagrees with the definition on combatants and awareness of them for the use of Surprise.

Thoughts on this?

Just FYI, what you canvass here is exactly how it works in 4e (PHB p 267; "Insight" in 4e is equivalent to "Sense Motive" in 3E):

Some battles begin with a surprise round. A surprise round occurs if any combatants are unaware of enemy combatants’ presence or hostile intentions. For example, if you fail your Perception check to notice concealed enemies, you’re surprised. Or if supposed allies spring an attack and you failed your Insight check to notice the attackers’ traitorous intentions, you’re surprised. But if any of your allies made their Perception or Insight checks, they’re not surprised.​

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

This interpretation of the rules -- in which everyone walking down a busy street is "in combat" with each other -- fails the common sense test.

So it's a good thing then that the rules don't work that way.

The DMG pretty explicitly gives broad, discretionary powers to the DM in terms of determining when encounters start and how awareness/surprise is determined. Use them.

My 3.5 DMG says explicitly:

STARTING AN ENCOUNTER
An encounter can begin in one of three situations:

• One side becomes aware of the other and thus can act first.
• Both sides become aware of each other at the same time.
• Some, but not all, creatures on one or both sides become aware of the other side.

Do you have references for these contrary explicit, broad, discretionary powers that DM's are to use instead of the above quote? I'm not asserting they're not there (yet) but I sure don't remember reading them and didn't stumble across them when looking up the rules in the PH and DMG again before writing my post.

Whenever somebody treats guidelines that are explicitly described as guidelines as if they were ironclad rules with no exceptions, a fairy dies.

Please stop killing fairies.

Death to the fairies then I guess. The DMG goes to lengths to delineate the 3 limited methods in its rules for beginning an encounter based strictly on "awareness", but no more than that. While I didn't re-read the whole DMG the only bit I could find that I can see might be confused with "broad, discretionary, powers" is the 3-sentence paragraph on DMG p.25 under the heading of "Adjudicating Actions Not Covered" which says that the rules can't cover everything, the DM will have to make up rules on the spot to cover what the rules don't, and that the rules for combat actions should be used as guidelines for making those rules.

So, in repeating the DMG I said that the situation was not covered by the rules, that in the given situation the DM needs to make his own rule, and I suggested the simplest and IMO most sensible thing to do is to otherwise follow all normal rules for combat and simply declare that the ranger goes first in initiative order without rolling.

And another fairie skull is crushed under the heel of my iron boot.

 

[N'raac]

Based on the encounter having started when the Fighter, Ranger and Rogue became aware of each other, shouldn't they already have rolled initiative?

That would mean they are already acting in action order. The first to act must, then, be the one who did not delay, so he acts immediately, after which those that delayed can act, revising their place in the initiative order.

Of course, the Rogue and/or the Fighter may have expected hostility and Readied to act if the Ranger throws a punch. Opposed Perception rolls for the Fighter and Rogue now seem reasonable. I'd give it to the Fighter absent some Bluff on the part of the Ranger - he's right there. The Rogue is further away and should take a penalty on his check, combining both the greater difficulty in perceiving the hostilities commencing, and the 25' he has to cover to get in ahead of the Ranger's attack.

I don't like an automatic surprise round. It SHOULD be possible for the Ranger to tense up, and the fighter (or rogue) to perceive that and get the jump on him. Like most actions, it's better to say "you can try" and impose a level of difficulty than to say "Impossible!"

 

[Water Bob]

I don't like an automatic surprise round. It SHOULD be possible for the Ranger to tense up, and the fighter (or rogue) to perceive that and get the jump on him. Like most actions, it's better to say "you can try" and impose a level of difficulty than to say "Impossible!"

I don't think that any one character benefitted from the surprise round except the Fighter who initiatied combat. The Ranger would get a check to see if he could act in the Surprise round, and the Thief would get a harder check to see if that character was surprised.

 

[Water Bob]

DMG goes to lengths to delineate the 3 limited methods in its rules for beginning an encounter based strictly on "awareness", but no more than that.

I agree with Justin. His logic is sound, and the rules back him up.

We agree on the awareness requirement of Surprise, but where we differ is that the rules use the words "opponents" and "combatants".

If your PC is walking down a street in a crowded bazaar, and there are guards standing around, you wouldn't play this out in combat rounds. Always playing in combat rounds would slow the game down considerably, making it quite boring. As Justin says, this would fail the Test of Common Sense.

Instead, Combat is reserved for combat situations. And, when you're in combat, you have someone to fight--an "opponent" or "combatant", as the rules say.

Thus, the rules say, in regard to Surprise rounds, that Surprise can happen at the start of a combat round where some combatants are aware of foes and some opponents are not.

Thus, playing the game in that bazaar, you stay in "scenes" unless a combat situation occurs. For a combat situation to occur, a threat has to appear. This means that an obvious foe appears at the start of combat, or one of the NPC characters in the bazaar that were previously not recoginized as opponents change status so that they are considered combatants.

We're in the bazaar scene. A merchant steps out of his stall behind you, into the street with his hands in the air, yelling, "THIEF! THIEF!". Pointing at you.

You know that you've done nothing, but that hardly helps you in this situation.

Combat between you and the guards, begins.

Now, the guards, who were not combatants or opponents a moment ago now become your foe.

Therefore, in the miniscule detail of combat, we determine at which point you recognized the guards as your opponents. We determine who, in the combat round, is surprised.

We do this with appropriate Spot and Listen and Sense Motive checks.

When we're done, we play out the combat encounter, with the Surprise round first, if any of the combatants are surprised.

That's straight by the book, and that's what Justin is saying. And, I agree with his take.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

First, I just want to say, Welcome back ENWORLD!

I agree with Justin. His logic is sound, and the rules back him up.

Again, I'm willing to concede that the rules back him up if I find any of these "broad, discretionary DM powers" being referred to are actually there. I AGREE that there should be no issue with the DM handling such a surprise situation with spot, listen, sense motive, or other checks but that would be well outside of the rules which I have not found to state that the DM should do anything to determine surprise except arbitrarily declare who is "aware" of whom. To defer that decision to dice rolls, ability checks or whatever is, I believe, in the DM's overarching job description, but it is NOT "in the rules" asI've read them.

Really, it's OKAY to admit that the rules just don't cover everything and that DM's even in the day and age of 3.5 and later still have to occasionally step in to fill the gaps which the rules FAILED to cover whether by choice or happenstance. All I'm saying is that they don't and I'm STILL wiling to be proven wrong by citations.