D&D 5.5e Rules — Hiding and Cover and Surprise and Initiative

Some clearer rules on this would be great. Alas, things are fuzzier than ideal.

This post is just focusing on D&D 5.5e (2024) rules. This general category is so messy, I don’t dare try to simultaneously describe the 5e (2014) variants.

Some of this material is already covered (so to speak) in my posts on Cover and Surprise. At some point in time I should probably integrate it together, but, until then …

Surprise

5.5e significantly changed the Surprise rules. Gone is the “you’re frozen until your first turn, then you’re still gimped until your next turn” stuff, in exchange for being at Disadvantage on Initiative. 5.5e also tried to normalize the Hiding / Cover aspects of Surprise, in part by making being Hidden the functional equivalent (and called it by the name) of being Invisible (i.e., having the Invisible condition). Which sometimes makes for odd situations, but …

After a session where things got a bit complicated, I did a re-read of the 5.5e rules (links for all this are down below). The rules, as always, look straightforward, a framework that should make sense, whether it does or not. The devil, as always, is in applying it to an actual combat situation.

I’ve linked to some of the rules at the bottom of the post, and [footnoted] to them in what I’ve collected below.

At any rate, fundamentally Surprise happens under a combination of two conditions:

when a combatant is “caught unawares by the start of combat” [3] or, as phrased in the 5e rules, “doesn’t notice a threat.”
in a case where being covert (in movement / positioning (Stealth), or in behavior (Deception)) is better than a target’s awareness (spotting someone (Perception), or being aware of their motivation (Insight); this is likely a Passive check, since you only Actively try to perceive such things when you are already aware of the risk/threat of the situation, and so aren’t prone to Surprise because of the first condition).

That second condition is mechanical — dueling skills of various sorts. The first is a bit more subjective and narrative, and requires some adjudication. Can a guard who is watching for an attack be caught unawares? If you’re creeping down a dungeon corridor, looking for an ambush, are you aware that there is a threat (even if you don’t know it specifically)? How long can you be actively alert for such stuff (that guard might be flagging by the end of the third watch)? What if the type of combat or threat is itself unexpected (the goblins drop down through the illusory ceiling)?

That’s all why they pay DMs the big bucks.

Something that may tie into both of these aspects is Travel Pace[7]. This often comes up in overland travel from Point A to Point B, but can be applicable within a dungeon — and both affects some of the rolls above as well as the attitude: e.g., if the players say they are walking at a fast pace to get to the dungeon ahead, there are mechanical effect on their senses, but it’s also an implication they aren’t expecting an attack.

Walking Pace	Feet/min	MPH	Miles / day	Notes
Fast	400	4	30	DISadvantage on Percept, Survival, Stealth
Normal	300	3	24	DISadvantage on Stealth
Slow	200	2	18	ADVantage on Percept, Survival

Surprise is also individual — the Surprise status of each creature on one side or the other can vary depending on the above factors.

Our focus here is mostly on the Surprise that comes from an Attacker being physically Hidden, but bear in mind that it can be broader than that is useful.

Hiding = Invisibility

A potential Attacker can use the Hide action, making DC 15 Stealth check while out of the Opponent’s line of sight, and while[2] …

Heavily Obscured
behind Three-Quarter Cover
behind Total Cover

… to effectively become Invisible.[2] (The D20 check rolled by the person Hiding is the DC for someone to Perceive them[2]).

This can be for teeing up an ambush, or mid-battle sneaking about. To get all the advantages of being Hidden, though, you have to have explicitly taken the Hide action; otherwise you’re just getting protection from cover.

Rolling Initiative

First off, Initiative is rolled when combat starts.[4] Not after someone gets in the first blow or their sneaky alpha strike from cover, but when attack dice are about to be rolled.

If an Attacker is initiating the combat (“Okay, team, I’m going to be in front and cast Fireball!”), the Attacker gets (DM’s discretion) Advantage on their Initiative roll.[6] (This one is hidden in the DMG as an option, and is the sop to the “But nobody is supposed to move until I cast my spell” issue.) This rule holds regardless of being Hidden or Surprised or not (yes, the guy who throws the first punch in the bar brawl rolls Initiative on Advantage to do it), but often comes up in context of an ambush or bursting into the enemy’s room.
If an Attacker is Invisible (Hidden and unknown to be there by the target), the Attacker gets Advantage on their Initiative roll.[1]
If the Opponents are Surprised (they didn’t know the Attacker was there and weren’t in “expecting combat” mode), they roll Initiative with Disadvantage.[3,4]

So let’s say Bob wants to get the drop on an Orc heading off to sleep. He positions himself around a corner (in Total Cover), and explicitly Hides himself (makes sure nothing is showing, tries to stay quiet, etc.). The Orc figures the hallways is safe and isn’t expecting any surprises, and their Passive Perception isn’t enough to meet the Stealth roll Bob made when he Hid.

Bob gets Advantage on Initiative for starting things, and would also get Advantage on Initiative because he is (until he attacks) Invisible. Advantage only adds once, of course.

The Orc doesn’t know Bob is there, and has no reason to be worried, so they get Disadvantage on Initiative. If the Orc knew that Bob had run away in this direction, and were watching out for him, they would roll Initiative normally. Ditto if they heard a noise from ahead and advanced cautiously.

Results of Initiative

If, after Initiative is rolled, there are allies who go before the Attacker initiating combat, then if they want the Attacker to get that first strike off, they need to Dodge or Help (if that applies) or, more likely, Ready an action. (This seems counter-intuitive, as it seems to penalize quick-reflexes folks; a Readied action isn’t as robust or useful as one normally taken. But that’s how it goes; the alternative is to blow the plan for that initiating Attacker to actually initiate the attack.)

If, after Initiative is rolled, any of the Opponents (even Surprised ones) still get a better Initiative than the hidden Attacker, they are (on the honor system) aware something is about to happen and can, within limits, respond first. Effectively, they are reacting to the Attacker popping out of hiding, even if they can’t directly do anything about it this turn. Faster Opponents can Dodge, try to Perceive the hidden attackers, warn their fellows, throw up magical defenses, etc.

In other words, those Opponents are still reacting faster than the Attacker, even if they can’t see them or directly attack them (yet).

The faster Opponents could, theoretically, Ready an action to shoot anyone who shows up “where I heard that noise.” If the Attacker is effectively Hidden / “Invisible,” that Readied action would not go off until after the Attacker did their thing, because that attack (see below) is what technically drops the “Invisibility” they have.[2]

Okay, so that handles Initiative … how about actual attacks (and counter-attacks)?

Attacks from Hiding

If the Attacker is Invisible (Hidden and unknown to be there by the Opponent):

the Attacker gets Advantage on their Attack (this can be any time in the battle, not just on the first round)[1]
their Opponent attacks a still-Invisible target with (at best) Disadvantage.[1,5] If where the Opponent says they are attacking is not where their target is, the attack automatically misses.[5]

Note that if the “Invisibility” only comes from being behind Total Cover (the Attacker has not taken a Hide action, too):

the Attacker will not get Advantage for their attack
the Opponent can’t see them to target them in turn

The Attacker’s “Invisible” condition from Hiding ends immediately after an Attack roll (or a Verbal spell, or making a sound, or if the Opponent finds them).[2] (In other places it says after an “attack hits or misses,” but I think that’s effectively the same thing.[5])

Which, as written, implies that an Attacker with multiple attacks (e.g., Fighters at 5th Level) only get that Advantage to hit on their first attack roll, not on subsequent ones. The condition ends after an Attack roll, not an Attack action.
If the Attacker wants to get “Invisible” again, they must duck behind cover and do another Hide to regain that “Invisible” condition.[2] Just moving back behind Total Cover would give them physical protection, but the Opponent still knows they are there, so the Attacker won’t get Advantage on their next attack (“I know he’s behind that tree so I’m keeping an eye on that”).

Certain spell effects, like Greater Invisibility, can cause the Invisible condition to be instantly restored, or never actually lost, without having to Hide; these are a really annoying complications, just saying.

Net-Net

Is all this complex? Yeah, especially given player and DM cleverness and the wide variety of spaces and situations to which it could apply. Could it be simplified? Maybe, but only by handwaving more and more things that “should” be considered important in a combat.

I’ve tried to tie the material above to actual rules, but there is some DM interpretation going on. If you aren’t sure, discuss it with your DM first; they may have different interpretations than I do.

Would you like to know more?

Here are the rule links for the [footnotes] above.

D&D 5e/5.5e Rules – Initiative and Cunning Plans!

Not surprisingly, a bunch of heroes clustered in a corridor are not quite as coordinated as you might think.

Know the Rules Part of an ongoing series of 5e (2014) Rules notes. See the end of the post for notes on 5.5e (2024) rules.

So something happened in the game the night before I wrote this up that, at the time, I kind of blew through, but I wanted to give it some thought. This is, of course, just the sort of thing I have sometimes taken justified criticism for overthinking. But it’s a situation we’ve run into more than once, and I’d like to have figure out a rubric for myself to adjudicate against.

And, as a caveat, it’s always worth noting up front that time and combat in D&D are abstractions designed to turn the chaos of real-life combat into something manageable. While a level of verisimilitude is the goal, manageability always trumps that. Just as D&D is not a physics simulator, it’s not a great combat simulator (falling somewhere between an FPS and Chess).

When the slow guy is supposed to lead off the attack

So, here was the sitch: as the party crept up two different sets of stairs to the upper floor where the local BBEG had their throne room, the plan was that Theren the Sorcerer was going to begin combat by lobbing his Vitriolic Sphere into the center of the bad guys.

How should the combat have been sequenced? Even handwaving aside the question of whether anyone knew that Theren was going first (there was probably an excess of allowable coordination between the two subgroups, since they were going up two different sets of stairs and not using any sort of communication magic) …

Did Theren’s action take place outside of the Initiative order? Did his executing the attack start the combat so that’s when everyone rolls Init?
- (Short answer: no.)
Did Theren’s Init get changed to the top of the Initiative order? Since he’s the one initiating the combat?
- (Short answer: still no.)
Did everyone with Init rolls before Theren sort of get skipped over? (That’s what I did, but it effectively means that those higher Init rolls become low Init rolls, which is “unfair”.)
- (Short answer: it should have been “voluntary”)
Did everyone before Theren in the Initiative order (ally and enemy) actually get to go in some fashion before Theren did?
- (Short answer: it should have been that way, yes.)
And did it matter if the bad guys were surprised or not?
- (Short answer: Yes and No. But in this case they were not — the Baroness had perceived you coming up the stairs and called for you to come in and play.)

Warriors! Come out to play!

In 5e, combat takes place with the Order of Combat:

Determine Surprise.
Establish positions.
Roll Initiative.
Take turns in rounds of combat.

In short: Initiative is rolled when combat begins. You can not make an attack outside of Initiative.

So, no, Theren doesn’t get to bypass the Initiative roll, or have his Init moved to the top of the order, or whatever. (Some folk have house rules for this, but that creates its own problems.)

So let’s simplify the situation a bit and say that the top Initiative order, when rolled, was (leaving out other players and bad guy mooks):

20 – William
15 – Baroness BBEG (the enemy)
10 – Theren

The first question is: is there Surprise? This is determined before Initiative is rolled, technically, though I don’t think it makes a difference.

If you’re surprised, you can’t move or take an action on your first turn of the combat, and you can’t take a reaction until that turn ends. A member of a group can be surprised even if the other members aren’t.

So if Baroness BBEG were surprised by this attack out of nowhere in her throne room (ignoring the previous sounds of the battles below), it counters her Initiative to a large degree. The beginning of the combat can be handled this way:

William says he is choosing to Ready an attack if anyone runs up to the top of the stairwell before his next turn. He’s doing this to let Theren get that shot off as agreed, rather than running into the middle of the room and spoil the AoE plans. It’s essentially giving up his turn, but there you go.
Baroness BBEG is Surprised — she’ll effectively see Theren coming, but will be unable to act on her turn. After her turn occurs, she would be able to take a Reaction (if she had Counterspell, she could then use it against Theren’s impending attack), and she will be able to act normally at the beginning of her next turn.
Theren pops up and acid bombs everyone’s ass.

So Surprise mechanics make things simple(r), because they provide for higher-Init enemies to be locked in place (but ready to go next time).

But in the case of the game that triggered this discussion, there was no Surprise (the party simply wasn’t stealthy climbing those stairs). Which means that there is a disconnect between Intent (lob an Vitriolic Sphere before they can act) and Execution (oh, they acted before I could lob my Vitriolic Sphere, because they had better rolls on Initiative). Or, as one site I saw put it:

“If your player wants to stab the bandit in the face before he has time to act, that’s what a high Initiative roll is for, not a Surprise round.”

Without Surprise, it’s Theren starting to move for his guns first, but the other folk outdrawing him.

“But Dave,” you may say, “she couldn’t see Theren before he came up the stairs.” That’s true, but because she isn’t Surprised (i.e., she was aware of a threat, and so ready to act/react), she still is able to act first as she chooses, because her Initiative is higher.

This gets into the whole idea that 6-second Rounds are themselves an abstraction — if there are six people in the room it’s not that Person 1 literally goes in the first second, Person 2 in the second second, etc. It means that within that six second timeframe, Person 1 acts before Person 2, who acts before Person 3, etc. That doesn’t completely match reality, because not everyone is declaring their actions before they happen as in some games (so that higher Initiative folk know what is coming), but it is essentially how 5e abstracts “People running around and into each other with intent to do mayhem.”

So here’s what should happen (should have happened in this simplification of last night):

William does whatever he’s doing — Dodging, Readying an action, casting Spike Growth in the middle of the room to make sure that nobody runs away before Theren can act, whatever. He’s choosing to back Theren’s play, but still moves faster/before Theren does, because he has higher Initiative.
Baroness BBEG “Readies an action.” Because I’m the GM, you don’t get to know what it is (“Chuck my magic spear at the first person atop the stairs over there”). Neener-neener. But she declares this (whispering in the GM’s head) before Theren because she isn’t Surprised and has higher Initiative.
Theren reaches the top of the stairs and turns to cast his spell …
… and Baroness BBEG executes her Readied action (throwing her spear at the first person atop the stairs, Theren, which hits) …
… and, if still alive, Theren throws his Vitriolic Sphere.

(Note: one of the players reminded me afterwards that Theren was Invisible. This gets into Perception checks, Active vs Passive, etc., to deal with his footsteps and verbal components, etc. In which case she might have been Surprised or she might have been aware something screwing was going on and still chucked her spear with Disadvantage against an Invisible foe before Theren could cast his spell (which would then drop his Invis).

Note that Theren could have said, “Well, heck, they aren’t Surprised so someone might plan to attack me” and change his plans from what had been intended. Or maybe, despite his intent and the team’s plans, William might have taken their Action to attack or distract the Baroness, which might have led to another change of plans by Theren. While Initiative lets people act first, the structure of the game from that point means that people are aware of the actions taken previously by people with better Init, allowing them to revise their plans accordingly.

(In the Action Economy, there’s a significant advantage in going first … but after that, Initiative is like Time: just a way to keep everything from happening at once.)

The bottom line is

You can’t easily plan your way into something that is the equivalent of Surprise (“I go before anyone else does”) if there is no Surprise present and you roll a low Initiative. That’s what Initiative is kind of for — if you roll poorly, you go later in the round.
If the other players who would have gone first want to effectively skip/delay their turn (do a Dodge or a Ready or maybe even a Help), that’s their prerogative for the tactical situation.
The enemy is under no such obligation, and if any of them have higher Init than the “this is how I am starting this combat” attacker, they get to do their thing first (which may be standing there in Surprise, or may be shooting you under the table).

Han rolled higher initiative — Even if Greedo intended to fire first.

Here are some articles that touch on this — which, given the volume, shows this is something a lot of GMs fret about, though most of the scenarios here involve Surprise, which, as noted, simplifies the question a lot.

“We get ready to enter the room”

So there’s one more area where this kind of thing has come frequently into play, the “We arrange ourselves at the door and charge in” scenario, when the Doughty Fighters at front roll crap Init (because they used DEX as a dump stat) and everyone queued up behind them rolls better Init than them and basically have to:

Move through the Doughty Fighters (as Difficult Terrain, and potentially exposing themselves to attack, which is kind of why you wanted the Doughty Fighters to run in first).
Ready an Action to move in when the Doughty Fighters have and the space is clear (but not then being able to attack or anything, because Ready only lets you take a single Action or a Move).
Fire ranged attacks past the Doughty Fighters (if the angle through the door cooperates).
Waste their turn.

The bottom line there is: yup, those are kind of your choices when everyone in front of you is slower. Hopefully the bad guys inside the room are Surprised!

So what’s different in 5.5e?

The new 5.5e (2024) rules are fundamentally the same, but with a few differences that can affect the above conversation.

First, Surprise is handled differently. Rather than the sort of complex (and deadly) “Everyone rolls Initiative, but Surprised folk don’t get any sort of actions until their first turn, and then they only get Reaction(s) until their second turn,” instead, it’s “Everyone rolls Initiative, but Surprised folk do so at Disadvantage.”

Much simpler, and it still means Surprised folk may get badly hurt unless they have a very high Init modifier or roll really well. Especially if the folk on the Surprising side have managed their Stealth, successfully Hidden, and therefore get Advantage on their Init rolls.

5.5e also addresses the question discussed above: “How do we let the guy who’s going to initiative combat actually do so?” While still insisting on keeping everything inside the Initiative framework for combat, the new PHB and Basic Rules favor the combat initiator by allowing the DM to give them Advantage on their Initiative roll. The problem can still happen, especially if the party wants to give the first shot to someone who used DEX as a dump stat, but it doesn’t hurt.

Second, squares containing Allies/Friendlies on a grid map are no longer considered Difficult Terrain. That makes clearing the corridor into the room a lot easier, even if folk are not lined up by Initiative (which, technically, they can’t be anyway).