How do these interact?
Forewarned (Su): You can always act in the surprise round even if you fail to make a Perception roll to notice a foe, but you are still considered flat-footed until you take an action. In addition, you receive a bonus on initiative checks equal to 1/2 your wizard level (minimum +1). At 20th level, anytime you roll initiative, assume the roll resulted in a natural 20.
and
At the beginning of combat, after initiative is rolled but before the first round of combat begins, you can attempt a Bluff check as a free action. Each opponent who is aware of you must succeed at a Sense Motive check (DC equal to the result of your Bluff check). Failure means that an opponent is treated as if it were not aware of you when determining whether it is aware combat has begun. If none of your opponents are aware of you, you may act during the surprise round. If an opponent is effectively unaware of any foes, it cannot act during the surprise round.
I'm mainly curious about the fact that Forewarned mentions, even if you fail a Perception roll, interacting with the fact that Surprising Combatant forces a Sense Motive check.
I'm not leaning either way it just seems to me to be that both force an absolute effect on the Surprise Round.
So which one takes precedent since they are both "specific"?
How do these interact?
Forewarned (Su): You can always act in the surprise round even if you fail to make a Perception roll to notice a foe, but you are still considered flat-footed until you take an action. In addition, you receive a bonus on initiative checks equal to 1/2 your wizard level (minimum +1). At 20th level, anytime you roll initiative, assume the roll resulted in a natural 20.and
At the beginning of combat, after initiative is rolled but before the first round of combat begins, you can attempt a Bluff check as a free action. Each opponent who is aware of you must succeed at a Sense Motive check (DC equal to the result of your Bluff check). Failure means that an opponent is treated as if it were not aware of you when determining whether it is aware combat has begun. If none of your opponents are aware of you, you may act during the surprise round. If an opponent is effectively unaware of any foes, it cannot act during the surprise round.I'm mainly curious about the fact that Forewarned mentions, even if you fail a Perception roll, interacting with the fact that Surprising Combatant forces a Sense Motive check.
I'm not leaning either way it just seems to me to be that both force an absolute effect on the Surprise Round.
So which one takes precedent since they are both "specific"?
You are right, they are both very specific. But the bold part is what give us help. The wizard could even see our lucky guy, but he would not recognize him as a threat and thus he could not act in any way capable of directly including our friend in any effect the wizard produces. During the surprise round.
I see that in this way: roll initiative, assume the wizard is the winner but fails the check:"*Battle starts*, Oh my Nethys, it looks like I'm under attack! But here I see nothing, there's just a guy who isn't clearly hostile. It must come from another plane! *readies Banishment, triggered a moment after any casting of plane shift or similiar spell*"
As I read it, surprising combatant trumps forewarned, and is one of the few ways that a character with that or a similar ability could be denied the chance to act in a surprise round.
It doesn't prevent the forewarned from acting -- it just means he doesn't know why he's reacting.
Basically his spidey sense tingles but he doesn't know who/what causes it. So he could cast a defensive spell (mirror image) for example.
Please note that this is after initiative is rolled, so combat is joined already. It's just a matter if the wizard knows what his target is.
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The two abilities don't "interact" in any way at all.
Forewarned means you always get to act in the surprise round. It doesn't give you information.
Surprising Combatant withholds information about whether or not you're going to participate in the coming fight.
These two abilities don't intersect. I think a mistake a lot of people make is thinking that Forewarned gives you everything that a successful Perception check would have given you (both an action in the surprise round, AND an idea of what's going on so that you know what to DO with that action). But it doesn't. It just lets you act even if you're surprised. If your diviner is surprised but wins initiative, then he has to take an action blindly (a good time for shield or something). Happened to my diviner a lot, actually.
If you get rid of that (potential) misconception about Forewarned actually telling you anything, then you can see that Surprising Combatant isn't an issue. The diviner's situation goes from "Combat's about to happen, but I don't see anyone" to "Combat's about to happen, but all I see is this noncombatant". That's practically the same situation.
So really, no issue. Just do what the abilities say and you're fine.
The last sentence of surprising combatant should probably be read as a reminder of normal rules, not a new effect created by the feat.