Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="William_2" data-source="post: 2202179" data-attributes="member: 13925">Well, perhaps it is worth suggesting that being aware of someone is NOT the same as being in combat with them.  I think the relevant rule is that “When a combat starts, if you are not aware of your opponents and they are aware of you, you’re surprised. “  Or maybe “If some but not all of the combatants are aware of their opponents, a surprise round happens before regular rounds begin.”At any rate, the point is that a surprise round is something that occasionally occurs just before the first round of conventional combat.  It is preceded by the aware combatants rolling initiative, and followed immediately by the remaining combatants doing so.  In situations where combat is not initiated, it is not relevant.  A long way of saying what Thanee just did in a quarter of the space, but we don’t all have that gift. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":-)" title="Smile    :-)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":-)" />Combat may begin with surprise.  It NEVER begins with a surprise round that one side is not even involved in, followed by several rounds of them, still uninvolved, wandering down a hall and opening a door (what if they take lunch then? Still surprised hours later when they open the door?).  Call it an encounter by all means, but it is not combat.  While the Spectre and Golems may have done many things, they could not ready actions outside of combat.  They wait, and when the heroes arrive, they initiate combat.  If they are quick, they strike first, and if not, not.  Initiative is a nice effective system for portraying this both with drama and some realism.The villain who waits behind the door with a club sometimes hits the hero- and sometimes the hero springs by and strikes the villain instead.  Exactly the situation everyone should want- what would be the motive for wanting every attempted ambush to succeed without fail?The Spectre being aware that people are approaching is a staple.  If it attacks, it will get a surprise round, followed by a regular combat round.  If it chooses to stay in another room and do nothing, it gets the appropriate award as well.  It can chat up the Golems all it wants, it won’t make them any faster...</blockquote>

Verification