I spent a few hours reading every single thread about stealth and I am still confused. My main question is this:
1) if someone goes behind cover and successfully stealths. Then someone else moves to be in direct line of sight to them, or even right next to them. Are they still stealthed? Or is it broken once anyone can see their square?
2) how do you handle a surprise when someone is aware of some, but not all of their attackers.
Here is a simplified example from the game I just DM'd of enemies trying to stealth to ambush the players, and I'm not really sure how all the rules work for this situation..
2 monsters: Monster A and Monster B hear the players being loud in the next room so decide to ambush them when they come inside. They hide behind columns and use stealth.
Two players finish the loud combat in the next room and carefully open the door to the ambush room. Player A and Player B enter..
First initiative is rolled. Order: Player A, Player B, Monster A, Monster B.
Next, the players roll perception. Player B perceives nobody. Player A perceives just ONE monster (Monster A), but nobody perceives monster B.
So surprise round, what happens?
-Both monsters get to go because they knew the players were coming.
-Player B perceived nobody so he definitely is surprised and doesn't go.
-However what about player a? Who perceived SOME of the threats ?
-I ruled that he was not surprised, but I did not place the stealthed Monster B that he didn't seek onto the map..
So surprise round begins... Player A goes first.. Seeing only one threat he moves and moves to the *exact* spot that the stealthed Monster B was
What happens?
-Is the player told "something is in your way" ? And the monster gets an AoO?
-Is the monster revealed as soon as he enters LoS?
- should this never have happened and the stealthed monster should have been the only thing acting in the surprise round?