Surprise Round and effects that are, "On the beginning of your turn"


Rules Questions

Shadow Lodge

In a surprise round, if a character or NPC doesn't act (due to missing their perception check and being unaware), do effects that happen "on the beginning of your turn" still happen to that combatant during the round?

Examples would be if someone is poisoned, and that is still being resolved when the party is ambushed, you were swallowed whole earlier in the surprise round via "fast swallow", you have life link on from a friendly oracle, bleed damage is applied earlier in the surprise round or many other "on the beginning of your turn" actions.

This came up at a PFS lodge with quite a few GMs about, and we were surprised at the amount of disagreement and confusion on this particular issue. Some of the GMs felt that the surprise round still represents time passing and thus non-acting combatants would suffer/benefit from these kinds of buffs/penalties, while others indicated that they felt that, since combatants only get a move or standard action in the surprise round, that it isn't really a full round and thus "on the beginning of your turn" effects don't take place.

Thoughts?


In my opinion the initiative order is always the same.

You have 4 players with 0-5-10-20 Initiative.

If they're fighting against 1 big bad boss with initiate 10, they fight as usual.

Let's say another enemy joins the fight and no one notices it. So, he would've to roll initiative, let's say he get's an 18.

Since no one saw him, imo, he would've a standard action (which would cover the surprise round) where he acts unnoticed by the players, and this would happen during the players turn as normal.

So, let's say

Initiative 20 plays
Surprise round for 18 enemy, but all the other players would be flat footed against him because no one noticed him
Initiative 10 plays
Initiative 5 plays
Initiative 0 plays

Then normal initiative where everyone is aware of enemy. I think it would be this way.

The enemy got a free standard action where no one can retaliate against him

Shadow Lodge

Thanks for the response, Letric. In your example, Enemy with initiative 18 would get a standard or move action, while everyone else (except maybe the big bad boss, who knows his ally is in the bushes) doesn't act. My questions is this, in your example: If the combatant with initiative 5 is life linked and takes bleed damage from initiative 18, is he healed 5 and takes bleed on Initiative 5 of the surprise round, or does Initiative 5 never really happen as it is a surprise round.


mogmismo wrote:
Thanks for the response, Letric. In your example, Enemy with initiative 18 would get a standard or move action, while everyone else (except maybe the big bad boss, who knows his ally is in the bushes) doesn't act. My questions is this, in your example: If the combatant with initiative 5 is life linked and takes bleed damage from initiative 18, is he healed 5 and takes bleed on Initiative 5 of the surprise round, or does Initiative 5 never really happen as it is a surprise round.

No, I wasn't clear on that. I believe the enemy 18 would once for *free* and then when it's his turn. Basically from a player perspective point, that enemy would be acting twice in a turn.

Once because of the surprise round and the other on its normal initiative order.

Imo the life linked guy would take the damage on its turn. The only thing that changed with Enemy 18 is that he got a free action so to speak.

Usually those things trigger on your turn. It does seems confusing because we're looking at time as a continuous stream, while I'd say ingame happens the following:

Turn 1 ends
Enemy 18 gets to Act
Turn 2 begins, including Enemy 18 order in the initiative

Grand Lodge

Letric, your example isn't really relevant to the question mogmismo asked.

Quote:


Examples would be if someone is poisoned, and that is still being resolved when the party is ambushed, you were swallowed whole earlier in the surprise round via "fast swallow", you have life link on from a friendly oracle, bleed damage is applied earlier in the surprise round or many other "on the beginning of your turn" actions.

For some reason when I read that I thought that was all one example, and I was like, "dang, I want to be at that table, that sounds like fun!"

mogmismo, I have no answer, but I think it is an interesting question.


mogmismo wrote:

In a surprise round, if a character or NPC doesn't act (due to missing their perception check and being unaware), do effects that happen "on the beginning of your turn" still happen to that combatant during the round?

Examples would be if someone is poisoned, and that is still being resolved when the party is ambushed, you were swallowed whole earlier in the surprise round via "fast swallow", you have life link on from a friendly oracle, bleed damage is applied earlier in the surprise round or many other "on the beginning of your turn" actions.

This came up at a PFS lodge with quite a few GMs about, and we were surprised at the amount of disagreement and confusion on this particular issue. Some of the GMs felt that the surprise round still represents time passing and thus non-acting combatants would suffer/benefit from these kinds of buffs/penalties, while others indicated that they felt that, since combatants only get a move or standard action in the surprise round, that it isn't really a full round and thus "on the beginning of your turn" effects don't take place.

Thoughts?

I don't see how the number of actions the character can take could possible change what happens at the beginning of the character's turn. If you start with that assumption, then it's logical to argue that since a flat-footed character (say, a sleeping character who missed his perception check and still can't enter combat) can't take any actions, that character can't take any continuous damage. Clearly, that is not correct, so that challenges the original premise.

Generally, you won't end up with continuous effects in the surprise round because you can't start them before combat starts, so I can see why this doesn't come up very often. It seems pretty obvious that any effect that was in place before the combat started (e.g., from a previous combat) will happen every 6 seconds, no matter what. This is certainly true of poisons and bleed damage, so it must also be true in the case of life link and buffs.

I think there are actually two questions here:
First, when a character gets hit with a continuous effect, does it effect him the same round or does it go into effect the following round? For example, if a character gets hit with a bleed attack on initiative 10 and his initiative is 9, does he take bleed damage immediately or does it wait until the following round? (I thought there was an FAQ on this, but I can't find it.) If it doesn't go into effect until the following round anyway, then the surprise round question becomes moot.

Second, in the case of Life Link in particular, does Life Link require an action on the healer's part or is it an automatic effect? The text doesn't say it requires an action, but breaking the link does take an action, so I would say it's automatic: the healer will absorb the damage even they don't get any actions that round for whatever reason. (Note that this means a stunned, paralyzed, or otherwise incapacitated healer can continue to absorb damage until they die.)

In general, I will always rule that anytime negative effects (such as bleed or poison damage) would go off, then any positive effects (such as life link) must also go off (assuming there is no action required, of course).

Grand Lodge

Are you thinking of the poison FAQ blog?

Sovereign Court

OK, my take on this from when the question was posited by Mogmismo on Saturday. Just because it is a surprise round does not mean that time stops. If there are ongoing effects, my first instinct is that yes, they would apply during a surprise round.

While a surprise round is not a regular round, it is still a time for all PCs and NPCs to experience effects (damage from attacks, effects of spells, etc.). As PCs can be required to make saves (and suffer effects) in a surprise round for actions that trigger during the surprise round, I do not see why effects that are in effect prior to the surprise round would be ignored.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Answered in the very first section of the combat chapter:

Quote:

1. When combat begins, all combatants roll initiative.

2. Determine which characters are aware of their opponents. These characters can act during a surprise round. If all the characters are aware of their opponents, proceed with normal rounds. See the surprise section for more information.

3. After the surprise round (if any), all combatants are ready to being the first normal round of combat.

4. Combatants act in initiative order (highest to lowest).

5. When everyone has had a turn, the next round begins with the combatant with the highest initiative, and steps 4 and 5 repeat until combat ends.

In the surprise round you still have an initiative score, and it is still tracked, you just don't get to act if you are surprised.


"The Surprise Round: If some but not all of the combatants are aware of their opponents, a surprise round happens before regular rounds begin. In initiative order (highest to lowest), combatants who started the battle aware of their opponents each take a standard or move action during the surprise round. You can also take free actions during the surprise round. If no one or everyone is surprised, no surprise round occurs."

Going on to "see the surprise section for more information" (above), it sounds to me like the surprise round is a separate thing that occurs prior to normal rounds of combat beginning, as is stated. The fact that you have an initiative result is simply because that is the first thing you do, in the order presented by Paizo in the combat section, and to streamline the dice rolling and book-keeping.

I interpret the description from the rulebook as [SUPRISE]->[NORMAL]->[NORMAL]-> etc., whereas the alternative somehow overlaps the two so you have [SURNORPRISEMAL]->[NORMAL]-> etc.

If one side gets the jump AND acts very swiftly, there wouldn't thematically be a gap of 6 seconds before they hit you in the face again, such that the life link would not trigger (if the oracle was surprised and slow), but neither would the second round of bleed, or the poison, etc.

A similar tangential question - does life link trigger if the Oracle in question delays/holds or does it wait until they choose to come back into initiative?


Surprise should only be happening before combat starts. Once combat has started, normal combat rounds would be happening every 6-seconds until it is over. If there is some sort of continuous effect happening, you would continue counting normal rounds until it is over.

If a new enemy shows up, they would not be getting a surprise round. Instead, they should be using stealth, or whatever, to get a surprise attack within the normal rounds.

Shadow Lodge

Thanks for all the feedback here. It seems that most of the responses are still about evenly split on if continuous, "On the beginning of your turn", effects happen to non-acting combatants on the surprise round or don't. This is roughly the same split we saw in person at our lodge when the question came up in a real game (and a character death was on the line).

Another related question that may help orient us: If a combatant acts in the surprise round, and is life linked, poisoned, etc... does the effect happen to them, since they are acting? If so, I can't imagine it wouldn't happen to non-acting combatants.


(Note: the following is not RAW)
Honestly? I have always hated the negative effect "on the beginning of your turn" rule.

It often unfairly penalizes PCs/creatures by hitting them twice before they can do anything about it.

It makes more sense that an effect (such as poison) takes effect on the initiative count it was applied and that is how my group runs it (as a house rule).

That way there is never a doubling up and there are no question as to when it happens in a case where the persons initiative has changed or when they don't even have a turn yet (due to a surprise round).


mogmismo wrote:

In a surprise round, if a character or NPC doesn't act (due to missing their perception check and being unaware), do effects that happen "on the beginning of your turn" still happen to that combatant during the round?

Examples would be if someone is poisoned, and that is still being resolved when the party is ambushed, you were swallowed whole earlier in the surprise round via "fast swallow", you have life link on from a friendly oracle, bleed damage is applied earlier in the surprise round or many other "on the beginning of your turn" actions.

This came up at a PFS lodge with quite a few GMs about, and we were surprised at the amount of disagreement and confusion on this particular issue. Some of the GMs felt that the surprise round still represents time passing and thus non-acting combatants would suffer/benefit from these kinds of buffs/penalties, while others indicated that they felt that, since combatants only get a move or standard action in the surprise round, that it isn't really a full round and thus "on the beginning of your turn" effects don't take place.

Thoughts?

Surprised characters do not get to act in the surprise round, not that they do not have actions. There is a big difference. In effect they have the dazed condition. So you adjudicate it just as you would for a dazed character.


Actually, my response was that your question is moot, because there is no surprise round. If you have one character who is under a continuous effect, such as poison, then the old "regular" combat rounds are still being resolved.

Shadow Lodge

Brf wrote:
Actually, my response was that your question is moot, because there is no surprise round. If you have one character who is under a continuous effect, such as poison, then the old "regular" combat rounds are still being resolved.

But I don't imagine that people under the a positive continuous effect (Life Link) are treated as continuously in regular combat rounds out of initiative. Also, you can be poisoned by a combatant earlier in the surprise round. Do you settle that on your turn in the surprise round, or in your first round of action?

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