An extra layer to this (that your rogue will certainly appreciate) is I would say that just because a character or monster doesn't have the surprised condition doesn't mean they can't be "surprised" in terms of availability of information. In your four stealthing gnolls example, if only one gnoll fails the stealth check then the PCs aren't surprised and can act on the first turn. But that doesn't mean you have to tell them about the other three gnolls! Similarly if your clanking Paladin draws attention, that doesn't mean the enemy knows the rogue is creeping round the side, which means although they can act normally they won't be targeting her or otherwise reacting to her presence until she's revealed.
The reminder about low light and disadvantage is a good one. I know this rule, but it's good to be reminded of it when it comes to surprise. I feel like "surprise is rare" might not necessarily be true in the case of a dungeon crawl situation where the party has light and the monsters don't, just due to that -5 penalty. That said, I think it's a common (incorrect) assumption that creatures with darkvision live their lives in darkness. Even back in 3rd it was pointed out that, though Drow had darkvision, they still preferred having light around. I think the same holds true for most intelligent creatures living underground. Being in the equivalent of dim light all the time would be annoying at the least, and most creatures would still prefer some type of light source. But I could see patrols in dungeons (where LOS is often 60' or less) using no light to gain the stealth advantage.
Exactly. Darkvision has limited distance. Darkvision doesn't show color. Creatures with darkvision would certainly live in areas which have much more darkness - no reason to light a torch just to walk down a hall. But creatures with darkvision will also still sometimes have light sources, and certainly things like cooking fires and the like will be present. Primarily, creatures with darkvision will understand that light can be seen from a DISTANCE, often a long distance. Light tells you that someone is coming, long before that light sheds any illumination on you. So guards will be placed where they can see long distances for approaching light sources, while also having some kind of partial concealment/cover to protect them if an aggressor using darkvision suddenly pops up at 60 feet. But inside their controlled territory, light discipline would be much more lax, with campfires and lights for doing crafting work etc. where better light makes a difference, or in a casual living space where the comfort of full color is wanted.
Hey Mike, a bit off topic, but my DnD group needed a new DM so I ran the first Grendleroot adventure for them and it went great! I've since bought the book, and am really enjoying running the adventures in it. I really appreciate all of the work you put into your content and products!
I had to go back to reading about Group Checks when Mike mentioned the word "average". To my thinking, technically it is not. As read "To make a group ability check, everyone in the group makes the ability check. If at least half the group succeeds, the whole group succeeds. Otherwise, the group fails." So if a group of 4 characters needs to roll a 10 to be undetected, three could roll a 9, and 1 could roll a 19. The average would be 11.5 (and would win), but RAW says they fail because 3 rolled lower. Not a criticism, just a clarification.
I really enjoy your video's like this! At my table I let surprise happen individually. I feel it's too powerful to give a whole group surprise base on average rolls but, I still want to give my stealthy players a chance to surprise the enemies. As well as a couple of my monsters being hidden away from the main group getting surprise on the players.
I don't use group stealth checks on the micro scale, only on the macro scale. An example of a macro scale could be a party trying to sneak through an enemy city for example. The players can roll a group stealth check to avoid detection, but if that group check fails, we'll move into the micro scale, where individual rolls matter. The further they get with their group checks, the more ground they can cover before the game switches to the micro scale, sometimes bypassing multiple encounters. An important note is that there is no combat on the macro scale. In the micro scale, someone has noticed the party's presence and is looking for them, and the party now moves on a smaller map where they explore the city like a dungeon. The individual stealth checks determine if anybody is surprised, though it is super rare. Same goes for the monsters, a large group of monsters almost never surprises a party. It makes sense that it's easier for individual characters to achieve surprise, and almost impossible for large groups.
I believe you miss understand group checks. It’s not the average check score of the group. It’s the notion that most of the group met or passed the DC of the challenge.PHB p175
This is great! Thanks for putting this together. My group was just having a conversation about this yesterday. We're going to be starting a new campaign and one of the players wants to play a rogue assassin.
I think the biggest thing about your last example of a “free hit” by the ooze ignores that someone gains their reactions once their turn has passed. There is a chance that they could be higher in initiative and still do something say an attack of opportunity or a fighter maneuver reaction
Great video Mike! I tried to do a personal deep dive on stealth vs perception a while ago, and failed to find a simple way to define the complexities of what on the surface seemed to be simple. If you (anyone reading this) know of an article that has managed to sort it out, I'd be glad to see it.
What do you think of rolling initiative well in advance of any combat scene? While it requires a bit of bookkeeping, it would help resolve any attempts by people to do things before rolling initiative.
I’m a bigger fan of keeping a shuffled initiative deck i.e. a stack of note cards with character names and enemy numbers on them. Instead of rolling dice, you draw cards round by round as combat starts and lay them out on the table. That system has two major advantages. 1. Much like rolling ahead of time, it’s faster and doesn’t break the narrative flow. 2. The initiative gets physically laid out on the table so that everyone can see it which helps players be ready for their turns.
It's not really necessary. People often feel like this is counterintuitive when they want to initiate the combat and feel a dissonance when they don't act first as well. But if you think about it this makes perfect sense. If you're not hidden and you want to catch your enemy off guard with an attack you are basically in a quick draw situation. You aren't guaranteed to be able to act quicker then the enemy, hence you don't get surprise and you just roll initiative. If you are completely hidden, then you get the surprise. You still resolve enemy turns in initiative order, however, because the surprised condition ends at the end of their turn, allowing them to take reactions from that point.
10:13 you skip initiative, surprise means you can't use reactions, player rolling higer on initiative can use reaction. There are some abilities like Goliath's dmg resuction by 1d12 or Barbarian's Path of the Ancestral Guardian reducing the dmg or Fathomless Warlock using Tenticle if he had it up for some reason.
ב"ה I run it that every creature rolls by himself, if these are enemies that try to ambush the party I roll all of them as part of my preparation. I usually don't bother with a group of enemies unless that group have the Pass Without Trace spell on them (so their modifiers are potentially good enough for all of them to surprise the party). Even is the party isn't surprised because they spotted some of the creatures, some of the ambushers probably still rolled high enough to be hidden, and therefore they could get advantage on the first attack they make, so there are still advantages to try an ambush even if one of the ambushers rolls low and there is no surprise.
EDIT: I should have read through some of the comments before posting this, as others have brought it up. I am confused by Mike's description of how a group check works and his discussion of "average." AFAIK, group checks means everyone rolls and and if at least half the group makes the check everyone makes the check. Also the idea that surprise can only come into effect if one side if being intentionally steathy seems off to me.
RoW is not really that usable as soon as you have a big fight. I already have the feeling that rolling up iniative takes out a lot of momentum out of the start of a fight. Making that, and after that roll Stealth checks for like 8 different enemies just to maybe have a condition in the first round really takes all the tempo out of a scene that should feel quick and visceral. Might try the disadvantage-houserule.
Mostly the same except for modifiers to initiative (disadvantage if surprised, advantage if surprising). This results in initiative that more likely matches expectations.
What about the fact that the rule says that a would-be surpriser has to be hidden in order to even get a surprise roll? Does that mean that PC has to roll stealth twice, once to hide and then again to surprise?
Player say they wait silently and attack the first person to walk in. What happens Rules as Written? Is it initiative and the enemies are surprised? We always play that you can use Ready Action out of combat. Like if all I have to do is let go and the bow fires why do I have to wait 7 other people to go first 😂 and in this specific situation the players will wait 5 or so minutes so do we now roll 50 rounds? No! We say they get free attack and roll initiative 😅 I think we have never really used Surprise status and instead allow free attack from thos who said they were readying an attack.
That out of combat rule doesn't work; if in initiative you acted before the pudding, at the end of your turn you'd cease to be surprised and could react and, say, cast shield on the attack. Not rolling initiative means denying your player that option.
![Noob To Max With DRAGON REWORK In Blox Fruits [FULL MOVIE]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/LnBMOinoOvA/mqdefault.jpg)
An extra layer to this (that your rogue will certainly appreciate) is I would say that just because a character or monster doesn't have the surprised condition doesn't mean they can't be "surprised" in terms of availability of information. In your four stealthing gnolls example, if only one gnoll fails the stealth check then the PCs aren't surprised and can act on the first turn. But that doesn't mean you have to tell them about the other three gnolls! Similarly if your clanking Paladin draws attention, that doesn't mean the enemy knows the rogue is creeping round the side, which means although they can act normally they won't be targeting her or otherwise reacting to her presence until she's revealed.
The reminder about low light and disadvantage is a good one. I know this rule, but it's good to be reminded of it when it comes to surprise. I feel like "surprise is rare" might not necessarily be true in the case of a dungeon crawl situation where the party has light and the monsters don't, just due to that -5 penalty. That said, I think it's a common (incorrect) assumption that creatures with darkvision live their lives in darkness. Even back in 3rd it was pointed out that, though Drow had darkvision, they still preferred having light around. I think the same holds true for most intelligent creatures living underground. Being in the equivalent of dim light all the time would be annoying at the least, and most creatures would still prefer some type of light source. But I could see patrols in dungeons (where LOS is often 60' or less) using no light to gain the stealth advantage.
Exactly. Darkvision has limited distance. Darkvision doesn't show color. Creatures with darkvision would certainly live in areas which have much more darkness - no reason to light a torch just to walk down a hall. But creatures with darkvision will also still sometimes have light sources, and certainly things like cooking fires and the like will be present.
Primarily, creatures with darkvision will understand that light can be seen from a DISTANCE, often a long distance. Light tells you that someone is coming, long before that light sheds any illumination on you. So guards will be placed where they can see long distances for approaching light sources, while also having some kind of partial concealment/cover to protect them if an aggressor using darkvision suddenly pops up at 60 feet.
But inside their controlled territory, light discipline would be much more lax, with campfires and lights for doing crafting work etc. where better light makes a difference, or in a casual living space where the comfort of full color is wanted.
Hey Mike, a bit off topic, but my DnD group needed a new DM so I ran the first Grendleroot adventure for them and it went great! I've since bought the book, and am really enjoying running the adventures in it.
I really appreciate all of the work you put into your content and products!
Awesome!
I had to go back to reading about Group Checks when Mike mentioned the word "average". To my thinking, technically it is not. As read "To make a group ability check, everyone in the group makes the ability check. If at least half the group succeeds, the whole group succeeds. Otherwise, the group fails." So if a group of 4 characters needs to roll a 10 to be undetected, three could roll a 9, and 1 could roll a 19. The average would be 11.5 (and would win), but RAW says they fail because 3 rolled lower. Not a criticism, just a clarification.
Thank you! I'm a newbie and was really confused by this!
I really enjoy your video's like this! At my table I let surprise happen individually. I feel it's too powerful to give a whole group surprise base on average rolls but, I still want to give my stealthy players a chance to surprise the enemies. As well as a couple of my monsters being hidden away from the main group getting surprise on the players.
Great video! Have you ever thought about doing a quick video with Chris, over at Treantmonk’s temple?
I was reading AD&D 1e surprise rules literally 10min ago, thinking they were too wierd. And then I got notified about this video
I don't use group stealth checks on the micro scale, only on the macro scale.
An example of a macro scale could be a party trying to sneak through an enemy city for example. The players can roll a group stealth check to avoid detection, but if that group check fails, we'll move into the micro scale, where individual rolls matter. The further they get with their group checks, the more ground they can cover before the game switches to the micro scale, sometimes bypassing multiple encounters. An important note is that there is no combat on the macro scale.
In the micro scale, someone has noticed the party's presence and is looking for them, and the party now moves on a smaller map where they explore the city like a dungeon. The individual stealth checks determine if anybody is surprised, though it is super rare. Same goes for the monsters, a large group of monsters almost never surprises a party. It makes sense that it's easier for individual characters to achieve surprise, and almost impossible for large groups.
I believe you miss understand group checks. It’s not the average check score of the group. It’s the notion that most of the group met or passed the DC of the challenge.PHB p175
Agreed. I was going to post the same thing.
This is great! Thanks for putting this together.
My group was just having a conversation about this yesterday. We're going to be starting a new campaign and one of the players wants to play a rogue assassin.
Great advice. Thank you, Mike!
Great video. Valuable summary
I think the biggest thing about your last example of a “free hit” by the ooze ignores that someone gains their reactions once their turn has passed. There is a chance that they could be higher in initiative and still do something say an attack of opportunity or a fighter maneuver reaction
Great video Mike! I tried to do a personal deep dive on stealth vs perception a while ago, and failed to find a simple way to define the complexities of what on the surface seemed to be simple. If you (anyone reading this) know of an article that has managed to sort it out, I'd be glad to see it.
This was helpful. Thanks! Next, do "How Does Stealth in Combat Work?" So many people get this wrong.
What do you think of rolling initiative well in advance of any combat scene? While it requires a bit of bookkeeping, it would help resolve any attempts by people to do things before rolling initiative.
I’m a bigger fan of keeping a shuffled initiative deck i.e. a stack of note cards with character names and enemy numbers on them.
Instead of rolling dice, you draw cards round by round as combat starts and lay them out on the table. That system has two major advantages.
1. Much like rolling ahead of time, it’s faster and doesn’t break the narrative flow.
2. The initiative gets physically laid out on the table so that everyone can see it which helps players be ready for their turns.
It's not really necessary. People often feel like this is counterintuitive when they want to initiate the combat and feel a dissonance when they don't act first as well. But if you think about it this makes perfect sense. If you're not hidden and you want to catch your enemy off guard with an attack you are basically in a quick draw situation. You aren't guaranteed to be able to act quicker then the enemy, hence you don't get surprise and you just roll initiative. If you are completely hidden, then you get the surprise. You still resolve enemy turns in initiative order, however, because the surprised condition ends at the end of their turn, allowing them to take reactions from that point.
10:13 you skip initiative, surprise means you can't use reactions, player rolling higer on initiative can use reaction. There are some abilities like Goliath's dmg resuction by 1d12 or Barbarian's Path of the Ancestral Guardian reducing the dmg or Fathomless Warlock using Tenticle if he had it up for some reason.
Great Vid!
I do like surprise rounds from older editions
ב"ה
I run it that every creature rolls by himself, if these are enemies that try to ambush the party I roll all of them as part of my preparation. I usually don't bother with a group of enemies unless that group have the Pass Without Trace spell on them (so their modifiers are potentially good enough for all of them to surprise the party).
Even is the party isn't surprised because they spotted some of the creatures, some of the ambushers probably still rolled high enough to be hidden, and therefore they could get advantage on the first attack they make, so there are still advantages to try an ambush even if one of the ambushers rolls low and there is no surprise.
Read title as sunrise for some reason. Piqued my curiosity... Like, the sun just rises on the horizon, no? Had to find out what I was missing.
Very helpful!!
EDIT: I should have read through some of the comments before posting this, as others have brought it up.
I am confused by Mike's description of how a group check works and his discussion of "average." AFAIK, group checks means everyone rolls and and if at least half the group makes the check everyone makes the check.
Also the idea that surprise can only come into effect if one side if being intentionally steathy seems off to me.
Thats a great piece of art! Who did it/where did you find it?
Larry Elmore is the artist. His watermark is over the painting.
It’s from the AD&D boxed set: Cities of Mystery. One of my favorite Elmore paintings.
It's a really lovely piece of oldschool art, I like it a lot. I don't know why but it feels more evoking to me than modern art.
Dorhum dwarf warrior from eye of the beholder OOFT
RoW is not really that usable as soon as you have a big fight. I already have the feeling that rolling up iniative takes out a lot of momentum out of the start of a fight. Making that, and after that roll Stealth checks for like 8 different enemies just to maybe have a condition in the first round really takes all the tempo out of a scene that should feel quick and visceral. Might try the disadvantage-houserule.
What is your prediction for how Surprise works in One-D&D?
Mostly the same except for modifiers to initiative (disadvantage if surprised, advantage if surprising). This results in initiative that more likely matches expectations.
What about the fact that the rule says that a would-be surpriser has to be hidden in order to even get a surprise roll? Does that mean that PC has to roll stealth twice, once to hide and then again to surprise?
This needs to be simpler!
Player say they wait silently and attack the first person to walk in. What happens Rules as Written?
Is it initiative and the enemies are surprised? We always play that you can use Ready Action out of combat. Like if all I have to do is let go and the bow fires why do I have to wait 7 other people to go first 😂 and in this specific situation the players will wait 5 or so minutes so do we now roll 50 rounds? No! We say they get free attack and roll initiative 😅 I think we have never really used Surprise status and instead allow free attack from thos who said they were readying an attack.
The second a character or NPC attacks someone else, initiative is rolled.
That out of combat rule doesn't work; if in initiative you acted before the pudding, at the end of your turn you'd cease to be surprised and could react and, say, cast shield on the attack. Not rolling initiative means denying your player that option.
I often wonder if anyone is playing this game “the right” way. Even WOTC hosted game streams handled surprise differently.
The stealth and surprise rules are clunky no matter how you go about it.
This seems way too complicated. I prefer old school riles.