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<blockquote data-quote="Hriston" data-source="post: 6695804" data-attributes="member: 6787503">Right, and I'm not saying that anyone who plays 1E differently is doing it &quot;wrong&quot;, but I don't see how someone can read the passage you quoted from the DMG and think the intent was for the surprise roll to determine awareness. A lack of awareness is clearly being presented as a prerequisite to the roll. EGG straight up says that perception of a threat makes surprise impossible, but if one side is unaware of the other, then they might be surprised. The roll determines whether the sudden appearance of something that they were formerly unaware of catches them off-guard sufficiently for them to be considered surprised compared to their opponents, so it's a different definition of surprise than we're working with in 5E.I've never played 3rd or 4th either. Taking a quick look at the SRD v3.5 tells me that in 3E, you are surprised when you begin combat unaware of your opponents, so in that way it's the same as 5E. The main difference is that the consequence is invariable and not tied to initiative. There is a Surprise Round in which surprised creatures do not roll initiative, and can do nothing. This &quot;round&quot;, however, is not a full round. The unsurprised participants can either move or act by taking either a &quot;standard action&quot; or a &quot;move action&quot;, but not both, and they cannot take any &quot;full-round&quot; actions which would be necessary to make more than a single attack. So while not mitigated by an initiative roll, surprise in 3.5E isn't nearly as punitive as giving the surprising party a full round of actions.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Hriston, post: 6695804, member: 6787503"] Right, and I'm not saying that anyone who plays 1E differently is doing it "wrong", but I don't see how someone can read the passage you quoted from the DMG and think the [I]intent[/I] was for the surprise roll to determine awareness. A lack of awareness is clearly being presented as a prerequisite to the roll. EGG straight up says that perception of a threat makes surprise impossible, but if one side is unaware of the other, then they [I]might[/I] be surprised. The roll determines whether the sudden appearance of something that they were formerly unaware of catches them off-guard sufficiently for them to be considered surprised compared to their opponents, so it's a different definition of surprise than we're working with in 5E. I've never played 3rd or 4th either. Taking a quick look at the SRD v3.5 tells me that in 3E, you are surprised when you begin combat unaware of your opponents, so in that way it's the same as 5E. The main difference is that the consequence is invariable and not tied to initiative. There is a Surprise Round in which surprised creatures do not roll initiative, and can do nothing. This "round", however, is not a full round. The unsurprised participants can either move or act by taking either a "standard action" or a "move action", but not both, and they cannot take any "full-round" actions which would be necessary to make more than a single attack. So while not mitigated by an initiative roll, surprise in 3.5E isn't nearly as punitive as giving the surprising party a full round of actions. [/QUOTE]

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