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Surprise and Sneak Attack
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<blockquote data-quote="Ovinomancer" data-source="post: 8081472" data-attributes="member: 16814"><p>This is a good set of questions, and a good ruling, but it's not a necessary one. We need to take a look at what Surprise does in the rules. Surprise is not a condition (which would make things easier) and, to compound this, it doesn't have clear exit criteria. As such, Surprise sits in a weird little place in the rules -- it's not really one thing or the other; it's its own thing. So, then, let's look at what it actually <em>does</em>.</p><p></p><p>Surprise really only does two things. It (1) prevents a Surprised creature from taking actions on its first turn in initiative; and (b) prevents a Surprised creature from being able to use reactions until after it has completed its first turn in initiative. So, it really only affects what a creature does on it's first turn with the exception of the reaction prohibition prior to it's first turn. After it's first turn, Surprise does nothing at all. A rule not doing anything can be considered to not be applying. This is the basis of saying that Surprise ends at the end of the Surprised creature's first turn -- Surprise stops doing anything at that point, so it would appear to have ended.</p><p></p><p>And, absent the Assassin subclass, this really wouldn't be any kind of issue. However, the designers decided to rest a subclass' signature ability on an ill-defined state in the rules. And, this is where your ruling comes in that Surprise lasts until the end of the first round. This certainly isn't contradicted by the rules (Sage Advice notwithstanding), so it's a fine thing to rule. And, it aids the Assassin, in that it removes one of the three existing gates on its signature ability (the first being gaining surprise, the second being winning initiative, and the third being hitting the target successfully). I think that's dandy, and have toyed with implementing that ruling myself (currently, the Assassin/Gloomstalker PC in my game has a ridiculous bonus to initiative and advantage on initiative checks, so it's not a pressing need). It doesn't hurt anything to rule so. The only thing it does is add a touch more artificialness (made up word alert) to Surprise, which is already suffering over unclear exit criteria, limited effects, and being poorly named. Still, it's not like adding that ruling makes it worse -- arguably it makes it a bit clearer to use with regards to Assassinate.</p><p></p><p>Finally, if you have an Assassin that can roll a 3 on initiative -- perhaps that's the exact outcome that player was courting with that particular build?</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Ovinomancer, post: 8081472, member: 16814"] This is a good set of questions, and a good ruling, but it's not a necessary one. We need to take a look at what Surprise does in the rules. Surprise is not a condition (which would make things easier) and, to compound this, it doesn't have clear exit criteria. As such, Surprise sits in a weird little place in the rules -- it's not really one thing or the other; it's its own thing. So, then, let's look at what it actually [I]does[/I]. Surprise really only does two things. It (1) prevents a Surprised creature from taking actions on its first turn in initiative; and (b) prevents a Surprised creature from being able to use reactions until after it has completed its first turn in initiative. So, it really only affects what a creature does on it's first turn with the exception of the reaction prohibition prior to it's first turn. After it's first turn, Surprise does nothing at all. A rule not doing anything can be considered to not be applying. This is the basis of saying that Surprise ends at the end of the Surprised creature's first turn -- Surprise stops doing anything at that point, so it would appear to have ended. And, absent the Assassin subclass, this really wouldn't be any kind of issue. However, the designers decided to rest a subclass' signature ability on an ill-defined state in the rules. And, this is where your ruling comes in that Surprise lasts until the end of the first round. This certainly isn't contradicted by the rules (Sage Advice notwithstanding), so it's a fine thing to rule. And, it aids the Assassin, in that it removes one of the three existing gates on its signature ability (the first being gaining surprise, the second being winning initiative, and the third being hitting the target successfully). I think that's dandy, and have toyed with implementing that ruling myself (currently, the Assassin/Gloomstalker PC in my game has a ridiculous bonus to initiative and advantage on initiative checks, so it's not a pressing need). It doesn't hurt anything to rule so. The only thing it does is add a touch more artificialness (made up word alert) to Surprise, which is already suffering over unclear exit criteria, limited effects, and being poorly named. Still, it's not like adding that ruling makes it worse -- arguably it makes it a bit clearer to use with regards to Assassinate. Finally, if you have an Assassin that can roll a 3 on initiative -- perhaps that's the exact outcome that player was courting with that particular build? [/QUOTE]
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