| 8 people marked this as FAQ candidate. Staff response: no reply required. |
So, the ambush skill reads:
Ambush (Ex): At 4th level, a bandit becomes fully practiced in the art of ambushing. When she acts in the surprise round, she can take a move action, standard action, and swift action during the surprise round, not just a move or standard action.
This ability replaces uncanny dodge.
So, a few questions:
1. Can I take a full round action in the surprise round?
2. If not, what happens if I want to withdraw or charge? Can I simply not do this since I can't take a full round action but am not restricted to a standard action?
I have included Lookout below as a reference since it has a similar mechanic (emphasis mine):
Lookout (Combat, Teamwork): Whenever you are adjacent to an ally who also has this feat, you may act in the surprise round as long as your ally would normally be able to act in the surprise round. If you would normally be denied the ability to act in the surprise round, your initiative is equal to your initiative roll or the roll of your ally –1, whichever is lower. If both you and your ally would be able to act in the surprise round without the aid of this feat, you may take both a standard and a move action (or a full-round action) during the surprise round.
To me, it looks like more like an omission on the ambush ability than anything else, either that or the full round action is implied to be there, since it's in parentheses in the Lookout feat.
1. Can I take a full round action in the surprise round?No. You can make any combination of one Standard, one Move and/or one Swift action, but that does not add up to one Full Round action.
2. If not, what happens if I want to withdraw or charge? Can I simply not do this since I can't take a full round action but am not restricted to a standard action?
Exactly. Otherwise the ability would simply give you a blanket freedom to act, but instead it's specific in what you can do. And any Full Round actions are right out.
The ability lets you do only what it says it lets you do and not what might be similar, or logical.| 2 people marked this as FAQ candidate. |
I think the second part of Yiroep's question is in regard to a Restricted Withdraw, and a restricted Charge (restricted charge is not an official game term).
Restricted Withdraw: If you are limited to taking only a
standard action each round you can withdraw as a standard
action. In this case, you may move up to your speed.
If you are able to take only a standard action on your turn,
you can still charge, but you are only allowed to move up
to your speed (instead of up to double your speed) and you
cannot draw a weapon unless you possess the Quick Draw
feat. You can’t use this option unless you are restricted to
taking only a standard action on your turn.
Yiroep has a strange corner case with the Ambush ability. Such a character is not 'limited to taking only a standard action' and thus cannot perform a Restricted Withdraw. However, such a character also does not have a Full-round action and cannot perform a normal Withdraw either.
Legally, it looks like it would not be allowed. However, I believe the intent is not for an ability such as Ambush to make you unable to perform Withdraws or restricted Charges. The standard rules here are blind of the Ambush ability, and probably drawn up that way to prevent abuses such as using a Move to get within line of sight of an enemy then Readying a Charge (to ignore the rule about 'no obstacles').
The intent is very obviously that one WOULD be able to use a full round action. Any partially sane writer intending otherwise would have specified that you can take a standard, move, and swift action BUT NOT a full round action.
On the other hand, they ARE being very specific with how the Ambush ability is worded. If a bunch of NPC rogues with this archetype ambushed a party, each one of them getting a full-round of sneak attacks against the party could easily spell TPK. If they had intended a full-round action to be possible with this archetype, they probably would have phrased it as "can act normally" instead of "can take a move action, standard action, and swift action during the surprise round".
This probably needs to be FAQed.
The aregument could be made either way, RAI is unknown with nothing similar to base any arguments on. I have pressed the FAQ buttons on this. One thing that the Ambush (RAW) would be great for is an archer type Rogue. They would be able to Snipe (see stealth) during a surprise round where before they could not. That MAY be part of the true intent and RAI of the ability. Either way, it is a huge advantage to be able to move AND attack in a surprise round.
FAQ'd as well
My current assassin used the Bandit Archetype...so far I've just gone with just straight RAW...however being able to do a full-round action wouldn't be "un"welcome :)
The intent is very obviously that one WOULD be able to use a full round action. Any partially sane writer intending otherwise would have specified that you can take a standard, move, and swift action BUT NOT a full round action.
Oddly enough, I thought the exact opposite for the same reason. Any competent writer would state you can take a Full Round action if that was the intent...
"No reply required," which I assume means my original assessment was correct of not being able to do a full-round action, so no charging or withdrawing RAW for a bandit in the surprise round.
Uhh.....K.
| 1 person marked this as FAQ candidate. |
It seems this message board is old but I am gonna throw in one item that I feel has been overlooked. In the description of 'Actions types' it states
In a normal round, you can perform a standard action and a move action, or you can perform a full-round action. You can also perform one swift action and one or more free actions. You can always take a move action in place of a standard action.
Based on this, considering that the statement of 'or' allows two things to be used interchangeably, it seems to me that RAW states that in place of a Full-round action you can take a Move and Standard action and in place of a Move and Standard action you can take a Full-round action. Furthermore it very clearly states that the total actions normally available to you in a round is a Move & Standard (or Full) plus a swift. Which, as it happens is exactly what the Ambush ability allows.
As to concerns of NPC's getting a full attack action against the party in the surprise round, to be fair it would have to be an exceptional set of circumstances to allow that to happen since they would have to begin the surprise round within 5 feet of the character...if they are that close without you noticiing...well...I think there are bigger problems with your party not having any perception bonuses worth speaking of or your GM just has it out for you.