Initiative & Spellcasting

[Ska]

The PHB or DMG indicate that surprise occurs before actual initiative is rolled.
The gnome is not surprised and therefore should not be subject to any attack during the surprise segments. The lizard men will not get free attacks on him or her while the surprised PCs are attacked. The gnome though is still bound by the initiative roll which will occur after the surprise segments.
I am not aware of any rule which would allow to gnome to move outside of regular initiative and begin an attack--- the gnome did not win surprise and will still need to wait for regular initiative after surprise ends to determine when his spell casting will begin.
This avoids Axe your spot on gamesmanship problem of a 18 dex MU hoping the group is surprised so he can cast sleep in the surprise rounds. The gnome illusionist in your example did not win initiative or surprise and does not have an ability as far as I know to begin casting during the lizard men's surprise segments.
The gnomes superior dex allows him to avoid multiple attacks but dos not allow him to cast during the lizarmens attack.
If one of the lizard men attacks the gnome I would finish the surprised PCs being attacked surprise segments and then roll initiative.

[garhkal]

If DMing, I would have allowed it. But the DM ruled no, the PC didn't win surprise against the lizard men and so had to wait until normal initiative to do any action. But thats 12 seconds of being what....in a quasi-surprise state (can't be attacked, but can't do "anything" but watch?). Lets say the illusionist instead wanted to run away from the battle while the party was being attacked for 2 segments (perhaps to leave the combat zone) would you allow it (again, the PCs are surprised for 2 segments, but this individual has an 18 dex)?

I'd have let him do something other than casting something offensive. So his use of change self, to appear like a LM should have worked. BUT was he spotted by the opposing LM? If so, his changing to appear like them, shouldn't have done much, other than make them momentarily go "HU"?

[AxeMental]

Yeah, I get that Negora, in your system it would work that way. But for my understanding d6+1, the 2 segments of surprise have to come before the first round/minute (10 segments) of combat, for it to make sense.

Yeah, but in the context of the gnome and the lizard men there is no surprise - they're having a normal first round of combat, no matter what way you run initiative generally, so whatever way you look at it the gnome should have been able to act normally, no matter what your definition of "normal" is. .

This is a good point. What if one of the lizard men that won surprise was a shaman and while the other 3 lizard men attack with their claws and bite, this guy casts sleep on the party of 1st level PCs (amongst those is the party illusionist with 18 dex who wasn't surprised).

I think the way this would work would be that since the illusionist is in the area effect the shaman would loose his chance of surprise (and have to go to normal initiative role). If the shaman targeted only part of the PC party (not including the illusionist with 18 dex) then he could get off the spell during surprise. So basically as long as the magic isn’t targeting in any way the high dex guy who wasn’t surprised the shaman is going to keep his surprise.

[Ratbreath]

Upon further consideration I'm not sure initiative may even be relevant for the odd party member who's surprise is negated by his high dexterity. Let's go back to the original example in this thread of the illusionist with an 18 dexterity versus the lizard men. Against the rest of the party the lizard men get 2 segments to act. They can't direct their attacks at the illusionist during the surprise round but they can against everyone else. So this gives the illusionist 2 segments. What can he do? Well, he doesn't have a whole round. He can only execute purely time-dependent actions of 2 segments or less. Normal melee requires a whole round so that's out. If you believe (as Nagora) that spell casting begins on segment 1 then he can cast a spell. He might could charge since charging is timed and not initiative-dependent. Really anything that can't be started instantly is out of the question. It just depends on what you define as purely timed.

This was something I tried to get across in the other thread when I was saying that in mixed-surprise cases like this, it's better to treat surprise as part of the first round of combat

I'm seeing a couple of problems with this. The first is that it could lead to 2 spells in the same round for the surprising party which is against the rules. The second is that the potential number of surprise segments can really be quite high--most of the round in fact. It makes no sense that everyone could melee and act like it's a normal round in a remaining 2 or 3 segments. Combat rounds are supposed to be a minute long with dodges and parries and all that. This is specified in many places. Even if surprise is only 1 segment that would still make the remainder of the round less than a minute.

[AxeMental]

... They can't direct their attacks at the illusionist during the surprise round but they can against everyone else. So this gives the illusionist 2 segments. What can he do? Well, he doesn't have a whole round. He can only execute purely time-dependent actions of 2 segments or less. Normal melee requires a whole round so that's out. If you believe (as Nagora) that spell casting begins on segment 1 then he can cast a spell. He might could charge since charging is timed and not initiative-dependent. Really anything that can't be started instantly is out of the question. It just depends on what you define as purely timed.

This was something I tried to get across in the other thread when I was saying that in mixed-surprise cases like this, it's better to treat surprise as part of the first round of combat

Right, I believe that’s the point SKA was also making. There is no rule allowing a spell to be cast in the pre-round segments except for those spell casters that won initiative. If both sides won surprise perhaps? I don’t have my books with me. Do they cancel each other out?

Negora if you allowed that would you allow two spells to be cast in a single round ? I think the rules at least insinuate segments of surprise come before the 10 segment combat round.

[Nagora]

This was something I tried to get across in the other thread when I was saying that in mixed-surprise cases like this, it's better to treat surprise as part of the first round of combat

I'm seeing a couple of problems with this. The first is that it could lead to 2 spells in the same round for the surprising party which is against the rules.

I don't quite see where you get that from: I'm saying that from the PoV of the surprising party there is one round of combat with an unsurprised gnome while some other clowns try to work out which end of their swords are the pointy ones in the background. 1rnd = 1 spell max.

The second is that the potential number of surprise segments can really be quite high--most of the round in fact. It makes no sense that everyone could melee and act like it's a normal round in a remaining 2 or 3 segments. Combat rounds are supposed to be a minute long with dodges and parries and all that. This is specified in many places. Even if surprise is only 1 segment that would still make the remainder of the round less than a minute.

I think this is a much stronger point but there's nothing in the abstract parts of the combat rules that says that the attacks can't come in the last segment of the round, so I think we can blur over that part. That leaves attacks on people doing timed actions like movement and spell casting. I think you can probably just do the normal calculation and then add the number of segments of surprise as a penalty to that and if the final segment is >10 then they don't get their attack.

Another objection is that with unmixed surprise (when the surprised party are all surprised to the same degree), the unsurprised party can in fact get two spells off quickly: one in the surprise portion, and another potentially in the next segment (which I've never liked). With this idea of mixed surprise being treated as a full round then the surprising casters must wait the full minute before casting again. Maybe you can wave that off as a delay caused by the gnome's activity forcing them to be more cautious but that explanation opens a can of worms in itself ("I want to throw caution to the wind and cast three short spells this round" etc.).

[T. Foster]

If you use initiative roll = segment of action, that works very well with considering surprise segments as the first segments of the first combat round: the surprising party gets actions each segment during surprise and then rolls initiative normally for their one action in the remainder of the round; the surprised party gets no actions during the surprise segments and the rolls normally for the remaining partial round. If there are up to 4 segments of surprise, then it all works out - with 4 surprise segments the 1d6 initiative roll puts "round one" actions in segments 5-10. In those rare cases where there are 5 or more surprise segments, a roll of 11+ means no action in the partial first round - no big loss for the surprising party who will have already had 5+ actions that round, unfortunate for the surprised party, but then they're already in enough trouble that this is hardly the worst of it.

House rule/judgment #1: Someone who casts a spell during surprise can't also cast a spell during the shortened first round (though they could cast a second cantrip) - and of course no more than one spell/two cantrips can be cast during surprise. The bonus of spell-casting during surprise is that there's no (or, depending on the casting time of the spell vs number of surprise segments, less) chance of being interrupted, and you don't have to declare the spell you're casting before knowing how the enemy will react (because you know they won't react).

House rule/judgment #2: An unsurprised member of a surprised party rolls their first round initiative normally (i.e. their action takes place on segment 1-6), which means they may get to act while the rest of their party is still surprised. Even if they don't get to act yet, they still can't be targeted by "bonus" surprise attacks - if an enemy attempts to target or engage an unsurprised character during the surprise segments, they must roll normal initiative against that character.

As in normal combat, spellcasting or charge movement that begins but doesn't finish during the surprise segments will carry over into the "regular" first round independent of the initiative roll, but those characters do not gain a further action (other than the usual post-charge melee exchange) during that round.

[Philotomy Jurament]

Even though I don't (necessarily/by default) use the initiative die result as the segment of action, my approach is similar to what T. Foster describes.

I don't allow multiple spells to be cast in surprise segments (i.e., if a MU surprises a group of enemies for 2 segments, he can't cast magic missile in segment 1 and sleep in segment 2).

I don't allow a caster to cast a spell during surprise segments and also cast a spell in the "unsurprised" part of the round. If you start casting in surprise, that's your spell for the round, regardless of whether it finishes during surprise, finishes during the regular round, or doesn't finish due to interruption.

I don't usually use cantrips (although I haven't formally excluded them), but if cantrips were in use I'd handle them as T. Foster describes.

For the "mixed surprise" situation, I believe my approach and T. Foster's are pretty much the same when mixed surprise occurs within melee engagement range. It sounds like they differ when mixed surprise occurs outside of melee engagement range. (That's consistent with the main difference in our two approaches in the other threads that have touched on initiative, recently.)

[AxeMental]

So in your best understanding of bbt rules pj and foster believe that surprise segments are actually the first 1-4 segments of the first combat round rather then 1-4 segments before the first round? Is there any written evidence of this in any of the rule books or perhaps an early module or Dragon? Also how does 2e handle surprise in the case of the segments being part of or separate from the first 10 segments of the first combat round ? I realize that’s 2e and has nothing to do with 1e. Just curious and have never owned or played 2e.

[AxeMental]

To me this would be a net loss to the spell caster as he looses a spell despite winning surprise (the one he gets after the initiative role) Leaving him to chuck daggers I suppose after the initiative role. To Foster’s point, the caster would get those spell circumstances anyway (no interruption and not having to declare before surprise is rolled. I see bundling up surprise into round 1 as a big loss to spell casters.

[EOTB]

I'm a "surprise segments are not part of round 1" guy.

But this also is something that it is far better to run what seems right with your DM flow than it is to suss out exact intent.

[T. Foster]

Also how does 2e handle surprise in the case of the segments being part of or separate from the first 10 segments of the first combat round ? I realize that’s 2e and has nothing to do with 1e. Just curious and have never owned or played 2e.

2E doesn't use segments (in either surprise or regular combat) so it's not relevant. Surprise in 2E is a boolean value - if one party is surprised the other party gets one round of free actions against them, if both parties are surprised it cancels out exactly - just like Basic D&D. Much simpler to adjudicate, but also less flavorful and tactically complex.

[T. Foster]

So in your best understanding of bbt rules pj and foster believe that surprise segments are actually the first 1-4 segments of the first combat round rather then 1-4 segments before the first round? Is there any written evidence of this in any of the rule books or perhaps an early module or Dragon?

There are a couple of vague references to surprise giving the surprising party initiative (e.g. DMG p. 61: "A surprised party is caught unawares or unprepared. In such circumstances the non-surprised (or less-surprised) party has an immediate advantage which is reflected in the granting of 1 or more segments of initiative, during which the active (non-or less surprised) party can take actions"), which suggests not only that the surprise segments are part of the first round but even possibly that the surprising party doesn't get an additional action in the remainder of the round after the surprise segments - that their actions in the surprise segments ARE their actions for the first round (though admittedly the combat examples on PH p. 105 and DMG p. 71 both contradict this - both giving the surprising party actions in "round one" following the surprise segments, and in the latter even allowing a character to cast a spell during the surprise segments and then cast another one in "round one" - but then again there are several documented rules-errors in both of those examples, so perhaps they should be taken with a grain of salt).

Going further afield, in OD&D Supplement III (where "segments" were first introduced into D&D combat) surprise is explicitly part of the first combat round, with the note (p. 6): "If surprised lose the 1st segment on a die roll of 1 and the 1st and 2nd segments on a die roll of 2."

As with many other things, you can kind of see how AD&D evolved out of two disparate systems here. OD&D Vol. III (1974) had said that surprise allows the surprising party 1 or 2 free actions. Then Supplement III (1976) said that surprise means the surprised party loses the first 1 or 2 segments of the round. AD&D (1978-79) combines both, so that the surprised party loses the first 1+ segments and the surprising party gets free actions during those segments.

[EOTB]

I disagree here, I think people are failing to distinguish between Initiative the game rule and initiative as a common word. (Just like it's possible for the word "surprise" to occur in the ruleset without referring to segments of free action by one party.)

[Philotomy Jurament]

There's also this:

Surprise gives initiative to the non- or less-surprised party. It is otherwise determined when an encounter occurs and at the start of each combat round.

And yeah, that probably raises other questions. I think the DMG editing was such that it presents various versions of the rules that aren't always in perfect harmony. There are grey areas. Ultimately, it's up to the DM to determine how to handle these situations.