Surprise (-20 Init) the penalty that won’t go away

[Kzach]

I much (vehemently) prefer the way it's done in 4e. Decide who is surprised. Everyone else gets a free 'action' in initiative order. Once the next round starts, everyone is on normal initiative.

"-20" is so arbitrary and incredibly clunky that I want it taken out the back and shot. Put it out of all our miseries.

 

[mlund]

This rule is much, much better than other implementations of initiative where monsters that roll high initiatives get two rounds worth of actions against flat-footed players.

- Marty Lund

 

[rjdafoe]

I much (vehemently) prefer the way it's done in 4e. Decide who is surprised. Everyone else gets a free 'action' in initiative order. Once the next round starts, everyone is on normal initiative.

"-20" is so arbitrary and incredibly clunky that I want it taken out the back and shot. Put it out of all our miseries.

Except that it isn't. It is simple and guarantees what surprise is supposed to do for the most part.

 

[howandwhy99]

I foresee this going the way of the dodo.

1st. It's subtraction. A -20 penalty is about as odd a duck as I've seen in d20.
2nd. It doesn't actually create a surprise benefit (like a surprise round).
3rd. It perpetuates the belief that going first is always better.
4th. It continues the mental block of individual initiative rather than possible shared initiative.
5th. It increases an already huge, unwieldy (20 segments every round!?) tracking scale.
6th...

Well, that's enough for now, but there's more I'm sure.

 

[Agamon]

"-20" is so arbitrary and incredibly clunky that I want it taken out the back and shot. Put it out of all our miseries.

-20 isn't arbitrary. You roll a d20 for initiative. You have -20 for surprise. This means you are almost always going to be ambushed by the aware guys, but sometimes someone that is surprised will be quick enough to act before a slow aware dude (3-1=2) v (19+4-20=3).

The -20 eliminates the d20 completely. So not arbitrary. Clunky is subjective, so I can deny that for myself at least, it seems pretty simple to me. Appears it would be more clunky trying to figure out who gets to act in a special round or not instead of just going down the list.

 

[keterys]

I much (vehemently) prefer the way it's done in 4e. Decide who is surprised. Everyone else gets a free 'action' in initiative order. Once the next round starts, everyone is on normal initiative.

Surprise rounds are so broken in 4e (and 3e) that whenever an author proposes having one in an adventure I'm editing I have to tell them not to do it - basically, that if the PCs do exceptional things to get a surprise round, then great, that's fine. But just building in things to easily have one side or the other surprised? Works awfully.

Being able to act twice before someone goes in systems where combats are decided in two rounds works if you don't want to actually do a combat (just narrate how the PCs win)... but it makes them _really_ suck for the PCs when they get surprised (so a lot of PCs just become immune to surprise - there's even an epic destiny that makes you have extra actions when you get surprised). It's also not at all balanced for melee vs ranged, since melee basically moves or charges, and ranged does as much as it wants to do.

 

[hafrogman]

Now my question is: Why is the Fighter and Wizard still being punished for a bad Wisdom check?

In your example, the fighter and wizard are actually at an advantage, being the first characters able to react to the sudden appearance of new monsters on the board. Unless you have them appear (Move) at the top of the round, and then act on 7 . . . which is breaking the initiative cycle, and not really a fault of the system.

You've fallen trap to

3rd. It perpetuates the belief that going first is always better..

Once past the first round, initiative number doesn't actually matter. It's just cyclical.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I would just put the incoming rats on whatever initiative I seem appropriate...

(in 3.0, it was assumed that they enter combat at a chosen turn before anyone else)

 

[CM]

Why not give characters who are surprised "disadvantage" and characters who surprise "advantage" on their initiative checks.

Doesn't mess with the order of adding new combatants later.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I like CM's advantage/disadvantage idea for a tighter, more elaborate check.

For a more streamlined, somewhat less killer version of the current rule, instead of giving a -20, simply do not allow surprised creatures to roll the d20 at all. They get their Dex mod as their initiative result. Most of the time, they are still going last. Yet the chance that they will go before a particularly slow, unsurprised creature is now reasonably possible.