Surprise Attacks

[Vegepygmy]

But surely - in real life - there is the possibility for someone you see to quickly pull a weapon out and stab or shoot you. Just because you didn't EXPECT that he'll do that.

That can be modeled quite sufficiently by rolling for initiative. If he wins, he catches you off-guard.

This is not to say you're wrong about anything else you wrote, but sometimes the obvious is so obvious that people forget about it. We don't have to have "surprise despite awareness" to model reality fairly well.

 

[radmod]

oops, forgot about this thread.

Aside from the cited rules violation? Because that is the single most fun-destroying interpretation you could have.

On the contrary, it can add to the fun.

The OP asked what do we do? So, even though veg had already posted the RAW, I am, obviously, expressing my opinion.

IMO, this is one of those situations where the DMG should be treated as a guide if the DM can handle it.

Which means that NPCs (or PCs) are always prepared and surprise never happens. Which is unrealistic, shatters the willing suspension of disbelief, and continually interrupts whatever the PCs or NPCs were doing. Nothing gets accomplished and tension is higher than in a game of Paranoia.

That would be because you would be playing unrealistically. I play a realistic game. Reality says that PCs must face the consequences of their actions.

Way back in 1e, before quick draw and the like, you could not attack unless you had a weapon drawn (an action). Ironically, I believe it was called readying a weapon. So players would start to say "I always have a weapon drawn." It was completely legal. I, and other DMS, rather than say you can't do that, would say "fine, but you suffer the consequences." So approaching potential friendlies with weapons bare might mean they would have an unfriendly attitude or even simply attack. Also, constantly carrying a weapon drawn is fatiguing so players might suffer some sort of penalty.

Likewise, in 3.5, it is completely legal for a player walking through a dungeon to declare "I'm constantly making spot and listen checks." This means that in every 'round' they have the potential of discovering hidden monsters, e.g. at the earliest possible opportunities. Yet, constantly being on the alert would realistically mean the player becomes edgy, paranoid, and doesn't notice things that are there, or starts seeing things that aren't there (which, BTW, can be a lot of fun for the DM!). The player must suffer the consequences of his actions.

So, in the examples you mentioned, the player(s) must suffer the consequences:

At worst you get the following:
"I move down the street and ready to fireball the first person that acts hostile. I do this every round."

Fine, I employ the OK_You're_Being_Silly Rule.
"After walking by several doors, a door opens and you think you see someone with a weapon coming out. You fireball. Oops it was a baker!"
Or, "oops, it was nothing but you just wasted a spell."
Or, "oops, you thought that someone was attacking, oh, and too bad the door was only 15 feet away. What's the area of effect of fireball again?"

"The monster Readies to pounce the first person through the door."

Hopefully, no DM is that ridiculous, so it wouldn't apply. Another way to think of it is that monsters aren't as stupid as PCs.

As I mentioned, I'm of the opinion that DM's allow readied actions all the time whether they realize it or not.
1) You tell the PCs that they have to cross a rickety bridge above a lava pool. If a PC blithely walks across the bridge, it may collapse and the player gets a reflex save to either jump forward or catch ahold of something and not die. Now a player who's paying attention says "if I think the bridge is about to collapse I'm going to jump forward." Essentially, a readied action. How do you adjudicate it? Hopefully, you would reward the player paying attention. You might give him a circumstance bonus to the save when the bridge collapses. I prefer to give him a perception check to notice that the bridge is about to collapse and let him take the readied action. If he fails the check, then he has to make the normal save. (So he essentially gets two chances)
2) The PCs hear some orcs. They burst into the room and get, per RAW, a surprise round on the unaware orcs.
Now, let's reverse it slightly. The PCs have killed the orcs and suspect, but are not aware of, that reinforcements might be on the way. Combat is over. A couple of PCs wisely declare (as it indicates in the PHB) that they will cover the door and attack anything that comes through - a readied action (note: outside of combat). Now the reinforcements are aware so you should give them a surprise round per RAW. You could, of course, give the PCs a listen check to become aware, but if they fail the orcs would still get a surprise round. Now I prefer simply to give them the readied action so when the orcs burst through the readied PCs get to act. (The thief searching the bodies, however, would be surprised.)
3) The PCs have some mechanical device they have to solve (not a combat). The only way to solve it is for PC1 to do this and PC2 to do that immediately. The answer? PC2 readies his action for when PC1 is finished with his action.

The easiest way to handle players being silly is to allow them to be silly.
"I cover that door!"
"Okay, nothing comes out in the first round. Now what are you doing."
"Umm, I cover that door until someone comes out."
For the next ten minutes, you bore the hell out of the players by describing each and every leaf on each and every tree while making them make listen/spot checks on anything that moves. That usually fixes them.

So basically, I make the players suffer the consequences of their actions, especially unreasonable ones. Now if you want to ready an arrow at the door the thief is trying to unlock, sounds fine to me. If a particular part of the dungeon looks like a good ambush spot and you want to make a few spot checks, fine with me. If it's reasonable, fine with me.

 

[radmod]

Because the whole point of a readied action is that it allows you to interrupt another character's turn. Allowing readied actions outside of combat thus allows characters to circumvent the initiative check entirely.

No, it simply changes the initiative which is why it's a special initiative action. If you allow a reasonable readied action outside of combat it simply means you treat the readied PC as having the highest initiative. If the readied action is used in a surprise round then regular initiative is rolled.

(And at which point, since everyone is readied, you have a tie, which you'll have to break by resorting to some fair method like rolling off against each other, maybe with a modifier based on their respective reaction speeds...ohhhhhhh!)

See above post in response to Valhalla. And to the other, one could always follow RAW (tie = highest mod goes first then roll off)

As to new DMs making the mistake of rolling checks for encounters at the earliest possible opportunity:

DM makes the roll secretly. Problem solved.

Problem definitely not solved. The point is that if one allows the check at the earliest opportunity then the DM sets up the encounter. While the players are unaware, they would invariably take actions to attempt to become aware. Which is why you're supposed to roll the check(s) and determine from there what actions the aware were able to perform while the other side is unaware.

you're just using the wrong terminology.

Yes, you're right. It's just a bad habit of mine to fall into older terminology like back when you would get multiple surprise rounds, so since then anytime you get to act and the other doesn't we called it surprise rounds. However, the effect is essentially the same (except that technically a surprise round allows only a single action).

Greedo walks in and Spots Han; Han fails his Spot check. Greedo decides not to initiate combat, so we don't need to track rounds.

I definitely can't agree here and, in fact, the DMG says exactly the opposite: "you should track time in rounds at this point". The problem is that the example we're discussing has a predetermined outcome. Now, of course, if you made a single spot/listen check, the DM could say this is what happened.
However, in the case of Greedo the PC: what if

Greedo slips into a shadowy corner (move action)

by saying he's moving silently and then rolls miserably. The DM could say "well, you didn't see the barmaid behind you and you walked right into her. Her tray of drinks crashes to floor - loudly." Then the situation may be entirely changed. Once a PC takes an action that makes the other side aware, then you roll initiative. In the mean, you must track rounds.
BTW, unfortunately, DMs often fail to do the same for monsters. That is, the PC's initial check is poor so the DM gives the monsters several rounds of preparatory actions, yet some of these actions could conceivably make the PC's aware, yet the DM ignores that. It's a case where a DM allows monsters to do things that PCs aren't allowed to do.
For example, the PCs roll really badly. The DM determines he should get 4 rounds of actions before the PCs could become potentially aware. However, in that four rounds, he has the monsters crank up a noisy, noisy ballista. NO! NO! NO! If the monsters do something really noisy then they should suffer a new listen check for the PCs.

As to the middle part, let's remember that Greedo chose not to use his surprise round to attack (let's presume Han was worth more alive than dead).

If Han and Greedo both Delay indefinitely, they should drop out of combat entirely, and neither could Ready anything against the other; if one of them eventually decides to attack, they would need to roll initiative.

This is where I don't understand you because this is not how delaying works and you certainly don't drop out of combat entirely (btw, Greedo isn't delaying). (In fact, your next section essentially says the same thing.) Both delay and ready allow you to change your order in initiative. If you choose not to act in a round, you gain the highest initiative in the following round. So if both sides are delaying, then the first side actually to act has higher initiative. Since you can't interrupt with a delay, then all other actions occur at a lower initiative. However, if you have a ready action then you can interrupt and your initiative is technically higher.

So Han delays, but Greedo's ready action will give him automatic initiative. Yet Greedo's trigger for the ready action requires Han to take a noticeable action. Eventually, in round 3,4,whatever, Han decides to take a Hide/Bluff/Feint/something action. Greedo fails to notice it, so his ready action fails and he becomes unaware, allowing Han a surprise round.

Really, as a bounty hunter, Greedo sucked. Or maybe he just rolled bad.