I'm running a game where the PCs are exploring a temple. One PC is presently in a room with doors to the North and the South. The PC is in the open North doorway, distracted and looking North. Four temple rogues are hiding in the room to the south. All four try to sneak across the room to sneak attack the PC. Three beat the PC's perception, and one fails. Which of the following is the right result?
(1) The 3 that succeeded sneak across the room and get a surprise attack (sneak attack) on the PC. The 1 that failed moves across the room but does not get to act in the surprise round.
(2) There is no surprise round because 1 of the 4 failed and thus alerted the PC. All 4 only get sneak attacks only if they beat the PC's initiative and catch her flat-footed.
Is one of those right, or is there yet another result?
First, moving while stealthed means moving slowly - if they have to move more than 15' they have to hurry and the Stealth check takes a -5 penalty.
While the temple guards are in the middle of the room approaching the rogue, they are in plain sight, so unless they have Hide In Plain Sight or Invisibility or some such advantage, they cannot use stealth there, unless the room is so cluttered that they have cover or concealment from the rogue while they're crossing the room.
There is no "Facing" in Pathfinder, so the rogue is not "facing" north. You used the word "looking" north which is fine, but the rogue is also still fully able to see anyone walking around the room to the south, as long as they're in plain sight, so those temple guards cannot use stealth in that room unless they have cover or concealment.
However, recent clarifications on Stealth state that if they begin hidden, they can move and attack as long as it's the same round, even if they have to move through plain sight - they simply start hidden, then quickly move forward and attack.
Note, however, that the temple guards cannot move and attack in a surprise round unless they charge which requires clear lines of easy terrain and no obstacles between them and the rogue which could be hard if they begin the round "hiding" behind objects that give them cover.
Someone standing in a normal-sized doorway can probably only be attacked by 3 enemies, one directly next to him and two who are standing to the sides of the first enemy (diagonal to the rogue) - the door frame itself will give cover against the two guys on the side and he might even have full cover from one of them if the door opens into the room and blocks that guy from attacking. Cover does not prevent Sneak Attacks (but Concealment does) so this is not really a problem, just remember the extra AC the rogue gets against these attacks.
A surprise round begins when combat starts and one side is unaware of the other side. Once a surprise round begins, the actions that happen in that surprise round don't end the surprise round. For example, if these guards had crossbows, when the first one shoots the rogue, the rogue will figure out that combat has begun, but that doesn't mean he can ignore the surprise round for the three other guards shooting at him too. Likewise, one guard failing a stealth check does not end the surprise round
Now to your questions:
1) I'm assuming they charged since you state that this is a surprise round. The first three to reach him can all attack him and use sneak attack even if they blew their stealth check since the rogue is flatfooted anyway, unless he has Uncanny Dodge in which case he might not be flatfooted and only the ones who succeeded at stealth can sneak attack him. But they all 4 can act in the surprise round.
2) The failed check doesn't end the surprise round.
Side note:
The above assumes the sneaking and the attacking all happens in the same surprise round. If what you meant to say was that the temple guards sneak across the room before combat until they are immediately next to the oblivious rogue and then 3 of them whack him with melee weapons so that the attack is the only thing happening in the surprise round, then my first question is what did they use for cover/concealment while they were standing right next to the rogue? If they are using invisibility or darkness or whatever, then it should work. In that case, I would say that when the one temple guard failed his pre-combat stealth check, the rogue would hear/see him and initiatives should be rolled right then with no surprise round.
Thanks for all this. We ended the last session with the attacks unresolved, so I may just want to revise their action to say that they charge and sneak attack the PC (or at least 3 of them do). But can a charge and attack happen in a surprise round, which is just supposed to be one standard OR move action? A charge attack is usually a full round action.
But can a charge and attack happen in a surprise round, which is just supposed to be one standard OR move action? A charge attack is usually a full round action.
Yes you can:
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
Thanks. I guess I'll just do that, which seems a lot more straightforward.