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D&D 5e 'Surprise' Rules Explained 😲
7K views
Oct 2, 2022
It's ultimately up to your DM to interpret surprise rules. I merely seek to explain how it works by RAW. The rules for setting up an ambush to 'surprise' enemies in #DND5e have proven to be one of the most complicated concepts of the game. I want to lend a hand to anyone who may be scratching their head about how it works or who may unknowingly be running their #DND game contrary to the rules. As I explain in this video, I'm all for using rules as guidelines, but it's important to learn the rules before breaking them. #DNDSurprise Read along with the accompanying article here: https://www.flutesloot.com/surprise-rules-dnd5e/?utm_source=youtube ⏰Time Stamps: 00:00 Intro and article link 00:33 There is technically no "surprise round" 00:58 Reliance on being hidden 01:44 Initiative's role in surprising creatures 02:08 What happens to a creature that is surprised? 03:12 You want high initiative 03:41 Nuances 06:25 How do you run surprises in your game? --------- 🎈 Shop our loot on Redbubble: flutesloot.redbubble.com 🎈
View Video Transcript
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Hey, Lutters. Flutes here. Today I want to talk about surprise rules in D&D 5th edition
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and just clarify how it works for anyone who still feels iffy about it. So let's check it out
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Before I get into the surprise rules, know that there is a link in the description down below for an article that I've written about this very topic
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I'm basically narrating a few points from that article in this video. The article is on flutesloot.com
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which I flutes and my wife Opel run and write for. So let me get this out of the way first
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There is technically not a surprise round in D&D 5th edition. That may be an antiquated term from a different edition
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or it might just be how people have been trying to make sense and refer to the first round of combat when someone is surprised
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The combat rules for 5th edition say that the DM should, when setting up combat
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during a whole step, figure out if anyone is surprised. If a creature is surprised, it's a combination of a few things
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By the rules, you should only be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be to get a surprise on someone if you are hidden from them, and they did not know that a threat was
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imminent. This doesn't gel with me if you're like in a social situation and you successfully
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spring a trap on someone, because they knew you were there, but they didn't know a threat was there
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but you weren't an unseen attacker, and so technically you couldn't do that by the rules. I'm sure
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a lot of DMs might rule differently. Just throwing that out there, though, by Raw, you need to be a
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hidden attacker. And by the way, being hidden is the part that actually gives you advantage to attack a
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surprised creature. Being surprised does not mean a creature you have advantage to attack it. It's being
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hidden. You are an unseen attacker by the rules that makes you have advantage on the attack. That's what
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does it. The next part is if they did not notice you coming or even a few people in their group
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didn notice you coming you attack And your DM says roll initiative And so you set up initiative just as normal for any combat But the difference is any creature that was surprised until their first turn in combat
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they cannot do any reactions. And then after their turn passes, they can use their reactions again
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During that first round of combat when their turn comes up, they cannot do anything on their
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turn essentially. They won't be moving. They won't be using bonus actions or actions
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They basically get skipped. But then after that, they become a normal combatant
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They're no longer surprised. You might still be hidden from them, so you might still get an attack with advantage, but they're not technically surprised
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So assassins will be very sad that they don't get that surprise automatic crit
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This is why it's important for an assassin rogue who wants to get a surprise specifically on someone to have a high initiative role
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If they still roll lower initiative, they go through all the work of sneaking into a castle and sneaking up on the king, getting past his guard
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If that king still rolls a higher initiative, then the assassinate is just going to be with advantage
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and you don't get an auto-crit. That's also one reason the assassinate isn't great
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is sometimes when you don't surprise a creature, no surprise they're going on
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you can get advantage if they haven't moved yet. But you still need to have a higher initiative than they do. But I digress. Let's get back to it
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So if you do not roll higher initiatives than someone, then by the time your turn comes around in the first round of combat
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they won't be surprised anymore. You might still be hidden, but they will not be surprised anymore
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Surprise just means they lost their ability to do anything really on their first round of combat, first turn
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But if you wanted to surprise them, they might have a reaction like a shield spell
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to try to block your attack from coming. So keep that in mind. It's so important to have a high initiative role
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if you're someone who's trying to get surprise off on enemies. So there's a few sub questions that come with this
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Like, when do you roll initiative in fifth edition? If you cast a charm spell do you roll initiative Are you in a fight like if the charm succeeded then they just they your friend You not going to be fighting them you know And so it kind of a weird one where DMs need to be careful of like what they consider a hostile action that triggers combat I think it needs to do something that perceptible and like known to be a hostile action And that why I say like you could be in a social situation where you might get a surprise on someone by slipping a dagger from under your royal cloak as you in disguise as a noble And you go in and you go in and you you
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you stab someone on the side in the middle of a party and you'd like pull away and you get out
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before anyone even knows who stabbed the king, you know, that sort of thing in the commotion
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Assuming the king is amongst a bunch of people, which maybe that wouldn't happen. That's up to you
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But to me, you could surprise someone if that was like a slide of hand. So it was an unseen dagger that you had
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So you weren't an unseen attacker technically, but your incoming attack was unseen
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That's like you deceived them, maybe a deception, a slide of hand. That's how I think of it, at least, and as a DM, how I would rule it
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I would grant surprise, essentially, to some players for being creative, even though it wasn't technically, like, we stealthed on their camp in the forest and attacked
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There's other situations where I might personally rule that a surprise was warranted
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This also goes into a common question with my character build for the rogue assassin plus grave cleric, where you can channel divinity just by pointing at someone and cursing them that they will take vulnerable
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damage on the next damage instance they take, so you can deal a lot
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of damages in an assassin with death blow to them. Some DMs
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would rule that as soon as you point and do channel divinity that you roll initiative. Even if
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no one saw you do it, even if you're not actually attacking
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that that hostile action would trigger initiative, and so you lose your first round of combat, which
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would have been the surprise time, or you could call it the surprise round
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technically. But you do not get the assassinate death blow and all that stuff as an assassin in that second round of combat And so it kind of muddy waters of like whether your DM would allow you to do something
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You just point at someone. You just point. And they don't feel any different
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The channel divinity says that's like nothing perceivable other than you point
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And so how would you rule that? Would you say that that starts initiative
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Or would you say that it's only when something like really? hostile and noticeable happens that you start. There's no right or wrong answer as far as I am concerned
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because the rules are kind of muddy about it. So tell me what you think. And while you're telling me
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what you think of how you'd handle some of these situations, do you have any questions about
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surprise rounds? I kind of gave just a quick overview and it can come up a lot. And so it's important
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to learn as a player or a DM. So I want to help you figure it out if you're having a hard time
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because it's like a combination of like five different rules technically, and they're in different places
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and I think that's what makes it so difficult to understand. I think Fifth Edition should have been designed to say
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this is a condition called surprised, and it ends after a turn in combat or something like that
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Like, they just could have made it clearer, and so that's why everyone's always talking about trying to clarify
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I'm not convinced a single player that I've DM'd for has understood surprise rules
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Even the most veteran players, I think they kind of skirt, by without learning what surprise is. And a lot of DMs might be running it not by raw as well
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and that's fine. Just so you know, this is how it works by the rules. Let's see what topic I
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surprise you with in the next video. There's going to be a few videos pop it up here in a second
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to suggest what you might want to watch next from Flutes Loots, and I hope you'll check something out
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But go ahead and subscribe and I'll see you in the next video. I'll see you until then. Bye
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