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When to Roll Initiative
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<blockquote data-quote="Hriston" data-source="post: 6695297" data-attributes="member: 6787503"><p>Yeah, that's what I was reading too. To me, this means that you only make a surprise roll in the situation that one side or both are unaware of the other, the situation that in 5E we call 'surprise'. The roll then tells you which side is more surprised or if they are both equally surprised, or if they both recover quickly and are not effectively surprised at all. A lack of awareness, in the 1E system, is the prerequisite for surprise. The surprising party's attempt at stealth is thus implied to have succeeded before the surprise roll is made.</p><p></p><p>In 5E, what most folks seem to think of as the surprise roll, is actually the stealth vs perception check. This is made simply because someone is <em>trying</em> to be stealthy. If they succeed, and the creature is 'surprised', that gets us up to the point in time where in 1E we would have then rolled for surprise to find out how many segments of beat-down the creature could expect to receive. In 5E this is accomplished by initiative, which in 1E, I'm sure you remember, you didn't roll until after the surprise round was over.</p><p></p><p>So to sum things up, the way I see it, in 1E you had two systems: the surprise roll, to be used when one side or the other was unaware of its enemies, and initiative, for use under all other conditions in which combat begins, including upon the conclusion of the surprise round. Whereas in 5E you only have one system: initiative, to be used under all circumstances including surprise. This seems like an improvement to me.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Hriston, post: 6695297, member: 6787503"] Yeah, that's what I was reading too. To me, this means that you only make a surprise roll in the situation that one side or both are unaware of the other, the situation that in 5E we call 'surprise'. The roll then tells you which side is more surprised or if they are both equally surprised, or if they both recover quickly and are not effectively surprised at all. A lack of awareness, in the 1E system, is the prerequisite for surprise. The surprising party's attempt at stealth is thus implied to have succeeded before the surprise roll is made. In 5E, what most folks seem to think of as the surprise roll, is actually the stealth vs perception check. This is made simply because someone is [I]trying[/I] to be stealthy. If they succeed, and the creature is 'surprised', that gets us up to the point in time where in 1E we would have then rolled for surprise to find out how many segments of beat-down the creature could expect to receive. In 5E this is accomplished by initiative, which in 1E, I'm sure you remember, you didn't roll until after the surprise round was over. So to sum things up, the way I see it, in 1E you had two systems: the surprise roll, to be used when one side or the other was unaware of its enemies, and initiative, for use under all other conditions in which combat begins, including upon the conclusion of the surprise round. Whereas in 5E you only have one system: initiative, to be used under all circumstances including surprise. This seems like an improvement to me. [/QUOTE]
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