Hi,
I'am new too dnd (5th edition). Just bought the starters set and played up too the first cave. Iam playing the DM.
As the title explaines, my question governs 'surprise', one of the first steps of starting combat.
I have seen many threads about this subject but it still hurts my head thinking about all the possible outcomes.. 
The following situation for example:
The party is out of combat. The rogue moves up ahead in the shadows to scout ahead. The path she takes is a narrow cave path and 20 feet in there is entrance too the east. She explaines too me that she wants too scout/move too that entrance.
The entrance too the east is a chamber with .. 3 goblins.. I make the rogue do an Stealth check. She is succesfull (she has an stealth check of 14 + 7 = 20 , the goblins have 9 passive perception). Untill this point, we are still out of combat, right?!.. 
The rogue decides too attack the goblins..
1.Do the players, outside, out of sight, influence the outcome of the suprise?
1.1 If all players decide too stay outside, out of sight, does the rogue basicly get a free attack?
2. What happens when a player, from outside, has innifatief before the goblins and moves in and attack a the goblins? Do all goblins lose the surprise penalty? Or are the goblins still surprised?
I just .. can't get a clear set of steps and rules for surprise ! If needed I can further explain the 'situation' in case it is unclear..
Thanks!
I haven't read up on the stealth and surprise rules yet, so take this with a grain of salt. I'd rule that the rogue starts the surprise round. Roll initiative with just the goblin and the rogue with the rogue getting a surprise round on the goblin. The other players are told that it will take them X turns to catch up. At the end of turn X, they at the entrance and roll initiative and drop into the next round on their rolled initiative. For example
(Assuming rogue beats goblin on initiative)
R1 Rogue then gobln(surprised). 2 rounds for the others to arrive.
R2 Rogue then goblin. Others are running up.
R3 Rogue then goblin. Others arrive and roll initiative.
(totally made up order)
R4 P1, Rogue, P2, Goblin, P3, etc
Basically that ^ except the only thing a "surprise round" is in 5e is a round in which creatures are surprised :P
The second a character makes an attack (or WOULD make an attack if no one is surpised) initiative is rolled. Anyone who is the supriser gets to go in the first round. Anyone who is surprised then goes in round 2 (and if no one is surprised, you can simplify this and say everyone goes in round 1).
Initiative is rolled whenever anyone initiates combat. So if the rogue wants to attack, initiative is rolled, and then the goblins are surprised because they aren't aware of the threat, and the non-rogue PCs are surprised because they aren't aware of the threat. So the rogue acts, and then we go to whoever rolled highest in initiative b/c we are in round 2. If the rogue manages to signal to the others that there are goblins without alerting the goblins to his presence, and then attacks, then all the PCs can act in the surprise round. If the rogue alerts the PCs, and then they want to do something like move into a better position stealthily, they will need to roll stealth checks. In the meantime, the PCs and goblins can do whatever they want--initiative only gets rolled when we arrive at a 6 second increment of time in which two or more parties are engaging in combat.
Often, I've found that monster traits sometimes tweak things a bit in a way that suggest plausible ways to houserule player traits (like how NPCs with potent cantrip can apply that to cantrips with an attack roll). Monsters with the 'surprise attack' trait get an advantage when they a) surprise a creature and b) hit them in the first round of combat. So that might be a good way to adjudicate things like some of the assassin traits that apply to a surprised opponent (I know that isn't precisely the question here, but it is related and I just came across that trait last night in my game).
paulstrait wrote:
Yes, if the rogue manages to inform the players and the goblins aren't alerted, then they get to act in the surprise round. It isn't so much that the PCs are getting a free round as the goblins are caught off guard and so lose a round as they are trying to understand what is happening. The other PCs know that there are goblins and are coordinating their actions with the rogue, so they get to act, while the goblins spend 6 seconds thinking "oh crap, what is happening, we are being attacked! who is attacking us? from where? why?" etc.
Now, should P2, P3, and P4 make a stealth roll? Only if they have done something that the goblins had a chance of perceiving. Whether or not they have to make that roll is independent of whether the rogue tells them about the goblins (and manages to do so without alerting the goblins, which may or may not require some sort of check depending on how the rogue signals this). So if the other PCs are right behind the rogue, and within hearing range of the goblins, they will need to make stealth checks to avoid detection. If they are hanging out far enough back and aren't moving, then no. It is often a DM judgment call to determine where the line is between those two situations.
paulstrait wrote:
Buddydutch wrote:
lawrencehoy wrote:
Lot of opnions 
..
I think the point here is: the rules imply that, if the other PCs are hanging out far enough back, they are not close enough to act in the first round either; or, if the other PCs are close enough to act in the first round, their Stealth checks must also be used to determine the goblin's Surprise.
lawrencehoy, what is your opnion about 'PC that are close enough' but are out of sight of the enemy's .. if you catch my drift
Stealth check vs. Perception (smell hearing) check?
Buddydutch wrote:
Buddydutch wrote:
paulstrait wrote:
Buddydutch wrote:
paulstrait wrote:
I see, I just misunderstood what you were saying then. I still think "close enough to enter combat" is a bit imprecise since, after all, they could teleport in from miles away potentially, but I see what you are getting at. I don't think "close enough to enter combat" precisely tracks with "the range within which goblins are capable of noticing opponents," but I can see it being a good enough approximation most of the time. Some PCs can move quite far in a turn. If the PCS are three rooms away behind 20 feet of stone, it seems sort of silly to say that they need to be stealthy in order to evade the notice of goblins -- surely I'm not informing the PCs that there are goblins two rooms away behind 20 feet of stone even if they are trying as hard as they can to be perceptive. So it is situational.
As for the initiative bit -- suppose you don't roll for them. Are they going to act during the first round? Presumably they have to act at some point if they are going to get to the combat. How do you measure how far they can move and how long it takes? If you are taking into account how fast they move per round, how are they not in initiative? What practical difference does it make to roll initiative when combat starts (or delay rolling until they are within the range of perception) if they are acting during those initiative rounds and if it is important to keep track of the amount of time those actions take relative to the amount of time it takes other combatants to complete their actions? I don't get it. It seems to me like whether you roll at the beginning or roll when they get within the range of perception, the game consequences are identical. I agree that everyone involved in the combat rolls for initiative, but it doesn't define what "involved in combat" means, and if you try to take a very narrow interpretation of that, what do you do about the goblin that no one noticed and who ran away to get other goblins to come? Is he "involved in combat?" No one is fighting him, and he isn't fighting anyone.
But, as I said, since it doesn't make a bit of difference when you roll in terms of the mechanical outcome, as long as you don't give anyone more than one turn per round, it won't hurt to do it that way.
paulstrait wrote:
You know, I think I actually am more likely to run things the way you describe, regardless of my arguments here. At least, this situation has come up a couple times that I can recall so far in playing 5e, and I'm pretty sure that's how I ended up handling it.
So much of the minutia of how things work or ought to work really don't end up making much of a difference in actual play.
paulstrait wrote:
Buddydutch wrote:
JohnnyBlaise wrote:
paulstrait wrote:
The book is pretty clear that if neither group is trying to be stealthy then suprise doesn't happen.
paulstrait wrote:
FrogReaver wrote:
JohnnyBlaise wrote: