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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Chris_Nightwing" data-source="post: 5984995" data-attributes="member: 882">Great questions, I'll have a go!1. I think that the assassin getting an instant kill should be a function of the class/ability, whatever assassin ends up as. So long as the assassin attacks an unaware opponent, they get to use this super power.2. They should definitely act first and get some benefit for the party being unaware.3. Not sure - sounds like both parties are unaware to me.4. They should act first, like the kobolds, and get a benefit for doing so.5. Poor gelatinous cube. This should probably be handled by the cube's description, so it acts as a trap, then everyone is aware, then combat begins. Or perhaps again, it goes first, gets advantage.6. Assuming the Rogue stealthed or bluffed in some way to make the wizard/npc unaware, they get sneak attack.I'm starting to resolve how I want surprise to work in my head. I don't want a bonus round/action, whatever it is, I want initiative to work slightly differently. As I said at the top, it's ordinal, so it only matters what your number is compared to others. Let's consider an absurdly complex scenario with four groups:Innocent koboldsAdventurers sneaking up on themFurther kobolds who have snuck up on the adventurersAssassins who want to kill everything and take the macguffinGoing down the list, each group is unaware of every group below it (though perhaps the innocent kobolds know their friends are trying to help them, but they still don't know where they are or when they will act).At the trigger of combat, whatever that is, each combatant rolls initiative and is ordered with it's own group. The assassin group then goes first, moving up the list. Any combatant gets advantage to do anything against an opponent unaware of it (ie: all groups above it). After a round of combat is complete, everyone who has acted is aware of each other and the initiative collapses to a single group, but keeping the same order as before (essentially advantage is lost, but you otherwise still 'go first' in the round).If someone doesn't act, they can jump in later and be placed in a separate initiative group at the start of the round, gaining advantage on the main group. If for some ungodly reason there are four groups all sneaking up on each other in a crazy circle, then you'd need to let the trigger group go first, but advantage would still be passed around the circle so that the trigger group can be sneak attacked by the group acting last.</blockquote>

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