Surprise round and Mythic Powers that use Immediate Actions


Mythic Adventures Playtest General Discussion


This situation just came up for me as a GM.

A monster and a PC had a surprise round. The monster performed a touch attack on the Monk/Guardian, who was surprised and did not have a turn in the surprise round, and he chose to use his Sudden Block. Excellent call on the player's part and I'm allowing it, but I'd like to know if it's RAW.

prd wrote:


Surprise
When a combat starts, if you are not aware of your opponents and they are aware of you, you're surprised.

Sometimes all the combatants on a side are aware of their opponents, sometimes none are, and sometimes only some of them are. Sometimes a few combatants on each side are aware and the other combatants on each side are unaware.

Determining awareness may call for Perception checks or other checks.

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.

Unaware Combatants: Combatants who are unaware at the start of battle don't get to act in the surprise round. Unaware combatants are flat-footed because they have not acted yet, so they lose any Dexterity bonus to AC.

Bolding mine.

Mythic Playtest wrote:


Sudden Block (Su): You can expend one use of mythic
power as an immediate action whenever a melee attack
is declared against you to force the creature making the
attack to roll twice and take the worse result.
You also
add your guardian tier as an insight bonus to your AC
against this attack. Once the attack is resolved, you may
make one melee attack against the creature that made the
attack. The damage from this attack is treated as epic for
the purposes of overcoming damage reduction.

Bolding mine.

So, since they don't act in the surprise round, can he use Sudden Block per RAW? I allowed it because...its cool and mythic.

Sovereign Court

Well, an immediate action can happen at any time.

Here is the url

Paizo Employee

You cannot use immediate actions while flat-footed. So, by RAW, you wouldn't be able to use it during the surprise round or even during the first round before your initiative came up.

That's not to say that you couldn't allow it because it's Mythic :)

SRD

Cheers!
Landon

RPG Superstar 2009 Top 16, 2012 Top 32

Consulting the PRD...

The PRD wrote:
You also cannot use an immediate action if you are flat-footed.

So, per the PRD, no sudden block in the surprise round unless you've already acted in the surprise round. (Also, no spending mythic power to increase your initiative roll.)

EDIT: Ninja'd!


That was my concern Hama and Landon (and you too Epic Meepo!). Surprise round kinda fudges things up...but like I said, it's badass for a Mythic character to do this and that's why I allowed it.

If it is not allowable as per the rules, then I think the ability should have some wording that DOES allow it on a surprise round. It IS called Sudden and it IS mythic. :)

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