Teleportation, Perception, Sleep and the Surprise Round

[Renvale987]

So, we had an issue come up last night and I wanted to get people's opinion on it.

Situation: Party is sleeping, except for the lone person who is awake and keeping watch.

POOF!

A party of bad guys teleport into the location where the PC's are. They did not know the PC's were going to be there but they were looking for the PC's specifically.

Rules Arguments commence.

First, if you teleport into a location, not knowing if the people you are looking for are going to be there, but finding them there, are you considered surprised?

Second, is the person keeping watch, who was not expecting teleportation magic, is he/she surprised?

Third, the people who are sleeping, what is there Perception DC to wake up if someone teleports into the room? Does teleporting into a room make sound?

Yay for dumb situations.

Anybody know the actual rules for this?

[Adamantine Dragon]

Would be surprised if you find actual rules for this specific situation.

My take:

Dude on watch is totally surprised.

Teleporting party is totally surprised.

Assuming the dude on watch says "Hey!" or something, then the party should get a chance to wake up. Even if not, as a GM I would assume that the teleporting party made some unusual noise that would likely disturb slumber, and as such would give the party a chance to wake up, probably a perception check with a low DC.

Then I'd roll initiative.

[Fayteri]

I agree with Adamantine Dragon, but would explicitly add that as a DM, I'd still have a surprise round, even though everyone is surprised.

This would account for everyone figuring out what's going on, and stop the baddies from doing coup-de-gras on round 1. That would suck.

[Charender]

Another thing to know, the bad guys teleporting in are not sneaking.

That means that right off the bat, the sleeping PCs get a
DC 10(hear a creature walking), +10(Creature making the check is asleep) = DC 20 check to hear their arrival. Anyone shouting would quickly drop the DC to 0(-10 sound of battle, +10 asleep).

I would rule both sides surprised.

[Charender]

Fayteri wrote:

I agree with Adamantine Dragon, but would explicitly add that as a DM, I'd still have a surprise round, even though everyone is surprised.

This would account for everyone figuring out what's going on, and stop the baddies from doing coup-de-gras on round 1. That would suck.

Depending on the character, they may still get to act. *cough, cough* foresight diviner*cough*

[Oladon]

Combat wrote:

If no one or everyone is surprised, no surprise round occurs.

[SlimGauge]

Does teleporting make noise ? Does it go *BAMPF* like it does certain comics ?

[Adamantine Dragon]

SlimGauge wrote:

Does teleporting make noise ? Does it go *BAMPF* like it does certain comics ?

Heh, I like "BAMF!" I don't want no p in my teleporting...

The spell does not seem to mention any audible result.

[EWHM]

Pretty much every GM, including myself, develops a set of house rules regarding teleportation---even the gamists who don't give a damn about simulation do after a few teleport/scry ambushes. I'd suggest those teleporting in are automatically surprised during the round they are arriving and orienting, even the diviners. Those already there may or may not be surprised, but I suggest making teleportation noisy, at least as much as shouting.

[Ravingdork]

As far as the rules are concerned, there is absolutely no difference between teleporting into an area full of hostiles, or walking around a corner into an area full of hostiles.

You check for awareness, and move from there, as normal. If one group (or individual members of a group) was expecting the others, than one group gets a surprise round.

In the example provided by the OP, I suspect everyone would be surprised (and thus no surprise round occurs) unless the teleporters knew that there was the possibility of enemy forces being present.

[DeltaOneG]

At the very least I would think they don't teleport exactly on whatever ground surface there is and would make a sound at least as loud as walking dropping an inch or so.

And yeah, unless they're hoping to catch said PCs at the teleport target they are surprised. If they are looking for them I'd expect them to be sneaky but potentially disoriented.

[ZZTRaider]

House rules in the group I play in are that
1) Teleporting is loud due to sudden air pressure changes in the area. People nearby are going to notice.
2) Teleporting is disorienting enough that anyone nearby has a chance to react about the same time you've regained your bearings.

So, no surprise round.

[EWHM]

ZZTRaider's rules are about the median in my experience for GMs with experience with teleportation tactics.
Most of the games I run use approximately those rules. In settings where I want to disadvantage the scry-buff-teleport tactic further I make any non-line of sight teleport eat 6 hours of buff duration as well, with the fluff reasoning being that travel through the astral plane messes with the spell durations--the meta reasoning behind it being that a world where offense is much stronger than defense is really hard to believably simulate, thus removing the 'buff' from scry-buff-teleport is frequently necessary so that the defender typically has the advantage. Otherwise you get a lot of turtling among higher level pcs and bbegs, which a lot of groups really dislike.

[Mystic Lemur]

Both sides were unaware of the other, so there is no surprise round. Roll initiative normally and everyone is considered flat-footed until they act. The Foresight Diviner doesn't get to act in the surprise round because there isn't one.