Oh the irony!
It all started with Mr yak fiercely accusing yours truly of making up rules just for the sake of it.
But now, after this passionate discourse spreaded like wildfire, it became even the more apparent, that yes, someone was indeed making up rules and advocating its own malicious interpretation of the sacred texts!
But it wasn't humble yours truly, nor the other gentle souls partaking in polite confrontation. It was the Yak itself!
O
M
G
What a plot twist!
I'd never saw that one coming!
But seriously, man, this is getting comical.
First of all,
I came here to be salty about a table top game and happily complain with strangers. Because i'm a nerd and because complaining about the rules is part of the game itself.
Evil mr Crawford made his evil rules too confusing, I misunderstood them, my favorite PC is screwed and now I'm so mad I want everyone to know. Seriously Yak, have a laugh. You're picking up keyboard fights with grown ass adults who use their free time to play make believe... We love what we do, we know it's as meaningful as it is silly and, overall, a mean to have a good time. Taking it seriously takes all the fun out of it, for you more than the rest of us, I think.
Especially because you are 100% wrong.
You're not wrong about how you want to play the game, I hope this is crystal clear. The way you interpret 5e surprise mechanics is very similar to how i used to think it worked. You're right in ruling it that way at your table. full support from me, really!
But you are comically wrong in insisting you are the only one who gets the rules as written.
Look, I'll re-write what i already posted, but this time i'll try to be annoyingly precise, just for this one time. Rules lawyering is super boring, but your constant whining made it fun for a short while.
FIRST
Game systems employ some precise common use words as keywords. This means that in the context of explaining game effects this words
are to be read as a specific game mechanic, not as what they originally mean in English. EG: in magic the gathering, "spell" has a very specific meaning: it stands for any non land card in the moment it's played and before it resolves or enters play. It doesn't indicate actual "spell like cards", like "lightning bolt" or whatever. It's counterintuitive, but it's a fundamental difference players are required to know to play.
Surprise is used in the PHB
AS A KEYWORD. If you insist in reading it in its proper english meaning, you'll never get how it works. It doesn't refer to "not expecting something to happen and be all like whoa dude what was that", it refers to a exact set of conditions to fulfill in order for the mechainc to trigger.
The explaining of the surprise mechanic is especially confusing in the phb, i totally agree. But It's also very precise, once you remember to read it as a formula and not as narrative, because, again, those are rules, not literature.
SECOND
Look, from chapter 9, page 189, of the 10th reprint of the player handbook:
"The DM determines who might be surprised. If neither side tries to be stealthy, they automatically notice each other. Otherwise, t
he DM compares the Dexterity (Stealth) checks of anyone hiding with the passive Wisdom (Perception) score of each creature on the opposing side. Any character or monster that doesn't notice a threat is surprised at the start of the encounter.
If you're surprised, you can't move or take an action on your first TURN of the combat, and you can't take a reaction until that turn ends. A member of a group can be surprised even if the other members aren't".
This paragraph says a lot more than it seems,
which is terrible! This whole part should take its time to explain in detail how surprise works, not test your knowledge of the system... Bad boy, Jeremy, bad!
so, SURPRISE IS:
-something that can affects creatures and pcs on the first round of combat, and on the first round only
- determined by the dm, who HAS to use a precise process: the dm checks the stealth rolls of the ambushers and compares them to the ambushed's perception rolls. No sneaking, no surprise. Period. (at least RAW, which can't possibly solve every scenario)
- preventing creature who rolled lower perception than its ambusher's stealth to move, take actions and reactions.
- Surprise only lasts for one TURN, then it ends
(you see why it feels natural to me to call it a "status"? it uses the same wording of the incapacitated condition!)
ROUND ≠ TURN ---> THEY ARE NOT SYNONIMS, THEY ARE DIFFERENT KEYWORDS.
Same page of the phb:
"
A round represents about 6 seconds in the game world.
During a round, each participant in a battle takes a
turn. The order of turns is determined at the beginning
of a combat encounter, when everyone rolls initiative.
Once everyone has taken a turn, the fight continues to
the next round if neither side has defeated the other.
So to be offensively clear:
a round is the sum of all turns
a turn is what a single creature can do for that round (excluding reaction)
If surprise lasts for one turn, it clearly means that after you spend your turn doing nothing, you are no longer surprised.
I hope it's crystal clear now. This has been endlessly repeated on this thread and all over the internet.
Surprise is actually very similar to a status, since it's something you gain, affects you by giving you modifiers (sets speed and number of actions to 0), expires when certain conditions are met.
It's purpose is to reward forward thinking, by giving you extra actions. it doesn't improve your chance to hit nor your damage nor gives you extra backstabs. But it's ok, giving you free actions is extremely powerful.
The initiative order shouldn't matter too much, because surprised creatures can't act anway during the first turn (they only get reactions if they have higher initiative than you). The devs tried to make a universal formula to solve all combat scenario, that's part of why it's spelled like
AFAIK the only situation in the game in which this is actually a real issue is the assassinate ability, because is worded in a way that forces the assassin to roll high on initiative or be totally useless. This makes the assassin too unreliable to even consider using, so many people, including me, are really annoyed by this design choice and won't stop complaining about it over the internet.
To conclude:
I, as I suppose many other here, like to passionately argue about my make believe experiences and share ways to improve them.
This is the reason I exhumed a dead thread (whose topic is still super hot, it seems). I wanted to know what others thought about my thoughts. I don't care about hardcore rule lawyering and i care even less to win arguments over the internet with edgy yaks.
But the situation got so hilarious I couldn't resist to point out how much you're making a fool of yourself.
Now, since we made clear that acting superior makes you look super dumb,
let's actually be friends, mr yak (or mrs, not sure),
I mean it!
I would be happy to hear your opinion about how and why the assassin could be improved or how you think surprise could be handled.
I personally think I'll talk with my friends and propose to just go back to the old surprise round, since I just like it more.