A situation came up in the game I GM last week where the PCs believed they were sneaking up on a monster. One of my PCs made a stealth check to peer around the edge of a wall and see into the room beyond. In this room, there was one monster. I made a hidden perception check against his stealth roll and succeeded.
I told the player that he saw the monster (a stone golem). The stone golem did not react to perceiving the player, so at this point the player believes he is undetected. I secretly added the golem to the end of initiative order.
My players thought they were getting a surprise round because they thought their presence was still unknown. This means they only took move or standard actions, no full rounds. When I had the golem act at the end of the same round, the player who made the stealth check exploded on me because he thought it was a surprise round. That moment single-handedly ruined the entire evening for me.
What is the "correct" approach to this situation? On one hand, letting them think it's a surprise round and then having the monster act during the same round is disingenuous. Then again, if I tell them there is no surprise round then that might give away that they have been detected when maybe the monster doesn't want them to know it is aware of them.
EDIT: On the other hand, I told them they were acting in initiative, and the entire dungeon was in initiative. That being the case, should there be no surprise round anyway? The thinking behind that being, if they happen to get the drop on a monster that monster goes at the end of the round, otherwise the monster goes where he falls in the initiative order based on what I (the golem) rolled for his init.
I think you did the right thing and its how i run things in the games I DM. If they b+!$+ at you about it, make the creature roll a bluff check maybe? He has to act nonchalantly and not give away that he has seen the party, the party gets to roll sense motive and perception to notice
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Personally as a GM...
I would have secretly rolled the golem's initiative, and allowed the players to "sneak"/move/act as standard full round actions. The moment someone does something to act against the golem, then it's initiatives for everyone.
The person that initiated combat, the golem, and any players that succeeded against the golem's bluff check, gets to act in the surprise round.
This would end up as "players sneak in to surprise the golem, but oh crap the golem was bluffing and surprised us!"
Thanks for the input, I added more information to my original post. Does the fact they were already in initiative make a difference, in your eyes? I told them from the beginning they were in initiative so they at least had awareness of that.
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i would still allow surprise rounds even if all is run in initiative order. Meaning that if the golem is surprised he rolls for initiative and acts on his init on the round after he was surprised. If he sees them he rolls init but delays action until he wants to act (using bluff or some such).
Your example, not surprised so rolls and is added to order, but hey he goes before the rogue so he delays action to attack the rogue when the rogue tries to attack him, and before the rogue actually gets his attacks in.
If he doesnt see them, doesnt roll init until he does see them or they interact with him, and then only acts next round
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I'd tell the players if it was a surprise round or normal round. I'd be super upset if we limited our actions to a surprise round worth and the GM didn't say that we could do more.
Do you also tell your players when they have been detected when using stealth? Because that is just the other side of this discussion
i would still allow surprise rounds even if all is run in initiative order. Meaning that if the golem is surprised he rolls for initiative and acts on his init on the round after he was surprised. If he sees them he rolls init but delays action until he wants to act (using bluff or some such).
Your example, not surprised so rolls and is added to order, but hey he goes before the rogue so he delays action to attack the rogue when the rogue tries to attack him, and before the rogue actually gets his attacks in.
If he doesnt see them, doesnt roll init until he does see them or they interact with him, and then only acts next round
That makes sense and is how I tried to play it out, but of course I got an earful. I guess my problem isn't so much with the rules but with my players. Or maybe it's just me.
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Not telling someone what kind of round it is is a bad idea. Due to the way the rules work, a Surprise round and a normal round are two VERY different things.
Letting the players limit themselves in their available actions only serves as a "Gotcha!" moment, same with not telling them they've been detected.
The best thing to do is just tell them, straight up: The golem sees you but you don't know that. Roll Initiative.
Do you also tell your players when they have been detected when using stealth? Because that is just the other side of this discussion
I tell my players to roll initiative when it's time for initiative and I let them know if there's a surprise round or not. Some people have special abilities for surprise rounds and the like so they need to know. I don't tell them if they are spotted, but I let them know if they can take a full turn or are limited. And who can do things.
In the OP's example I'd start initiative when the scout and the golem saw each other, and those two would have a surprise round.
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Do you also tell your players when they have been detected when using stealth? Because that is just the other side of this discussion
Usually yes. After all, when someone sees you they usually don't try to pretend they didn't. I think Rynjin has the right idea, that you should trust your players to roleplay their characters lack of knowledge.
Rynjin, i dont believe you can trust anyone to not metagame in that situation. Oh, he saw me so when i walk up to him to sneak attack he will full round attack me, let me not do that then...
In this situation with the golem pretending to not notice, the type of round actually doesnt matter, Surprise round only starts
once the attack is decided upon.
Moving up and preparing to sneak attack all occur outside of combat anyway
Rynjin, i dont believe you can trust anyone to not metagame in that situation. Oh, he saw me so when i walk up to him to sneak attack he will full round attack me, let me not do that then...
It's worked well for me so far.
Regardless, that specific example is a mite off. That would happen in a normal round anyway (In a Surprise round, you move forward and that's your turn. In a normal round you move forward and attack once. Either way you eat a full attack next turn).
Do you also tell your players when they have been detected when using stealth? Because that is just the other side of this discussionUsually yes. After all, when someone sees you they usually don't try to pretend they didn't. I think Rynjin has the right idea, that you should trust your players to roleplay their characters lack of knowledge.
I disagree with you. If i know you are going to walk up behind me and stab me, im not going to turn around and go "hey you, i can see you", instead i will turn the situation to my advantage and surprise you instead when you think i am unawares. I think any "intelligent creature" would do the same. Animals no, oozes, probably not, skeletons, no. etc
I will say you all have a lot better class of player than i do. I am almost forced to keep apposed roll results to myself to prevent meta gaming.
Or just use the normal rules.
The Golem suceeded a perception check, it also acts in the surprise round.
It doesn't get a full round action, though.
See my previous post, combat doesnt start until a hostile action is taken
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I disagree with you. If i know you are going to walk up behind me and stab me...
I do not agree that most guards and random passerbys know that the PC is going to go up behind them and stab. Most of them are going to be surprised to see someone and call for help. No need for silly "I CAN SEE YOU" games, as most characters will have an involuntary reaction to unexpected foes. If they are expecting trouble I could see putting up a bluff to lure the enemy in, but a golem is certainly not intelligent enough for such a ploy.
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See my previous post, combat doesnt start until a hostile action is takenOr just use the normal rules.
The Golem suceeded a perception check, it also acts in the surprise round.
It doesn't get a full round action, though.
This idea causes more problems. If your players want to set up an ambush, get them into initiative before combat starts.
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Not telling your players whether it's a surprise round or a regular round is kinda like making them guess which Knowledge to roll to ID the monster. It's (presumably) a well-intentioned hedge against metagaming, but it actually harms the narrative by having the characters do nonsensical things because they're controlled by players who don't know which sets of mechanics to use. The GM's effort to preserve roleplay actually damages it instead.
Look at the in-character narrative of what happened: for about six seconds, the PCs suddenly all slowed down to about half speed for no (in-universe) reason, then sped back up to normal. That's complete nonsense.
If you want to preserve the narrative/roleplay, you've got to tell the players which sets of mechanics are appropriate for interacting with the current scene of the narrative.
surprise rounds work if you're aware of them or not, so if both are aware there's no surprise round, whenever "combat" actually starts.
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How is the golem pretending anything? It has no INT. Sure, Bluff is a CHA skill but first you need an INT to even make a decision about whether to bluff or act. Mindless golems just do what they're "programmed" to do. Did it's creator actually instruct it to pretend to ignore potential threats?
Me, I would define what that golem is doing. Is it guarding a room? It will attack anyone who enters. If people are standing (sneaking) out in the hall, the golem proably will ignore them if it sees them. It won't turn its head and look at them. It's made of stone. It will stand there motionless, not breathing, not readying weapons, not following them with its eyes - motionless and emotionless with not even a hint of a spark of intelligence on its stony face.
As far as I'm concerned, there is nothing the PCs would or could notice to discern whether they were detected or not. Until someone stepped into the room and the Golem attacked, as it was "programmed" to do.
As for surprise rounds, I wouldn't take the fun out of it for the players. I'd let them make their surprise round actions and then let the golem act in the surprise round too. It probably breaks the RAW, but this situation is not covered under normal RAW circumstances. Normally, by RAW, if everyone is aware of each other there is no surprise round, but I think that assumes everyone KNOWS that everyone is aware. Since this case is different, I would have made a FIAT call and let everyone have a surprise round. That way nobody ignores full rounds of actions they could have taken an the golem gains no real metagame advantage from this.
I disagree with you. If i know you are going to walk up behind me and stab me...I do not agree that most guards and random passerbys know that the PC is going to go up behind them and stab. Most of them are going to be surprised to see someone and call for help. No need for silly "I CAN SEE YOU" games, as most characters will have an involuntary reaction to unexpected foes. If they are expecting trouble I could see putting up a bluff to lure the enemy in, but a golem is certainly not intelligent enough for such a ploy.
It also depends on the golems orders, if the golem has been ordered to attack anything it sees, combat starts the second he sees the party. If he has been ordered to defend this mc guffin, he wont do anything until a threat occurs. I dont think a person peaking round a corner is a threat
I think this whole thing actually boils down to "when does combat start"... reading SKR's post to me suggests that the combat only starts once a threat occurs. Once combat has started you can say whether it is surprise or not.
Player 1: i sneak into the room and attempt to stab the target
GM: you sneak up behind the golem, but oh no, he saw you "roll initiative"
OR
same as above but golem doesnt see party
GM: Please roll for init, you stab the golem (bam surprise round done), you rolled higher init than golem so what do you do?
I'd probably include the Golem on the surprise round (also restricted to surprise round actions). The whole concept of a surprise round gets muddled a bit if you are already in initiative.
Alternatively, as soon as any monster/trap/encounter is seen you might consider rolling their initiative whether or not they are doing anything. In that case instead of dealing with surprise rounds just handle rounds of inaction as rounds of being unaware (flat-footed) or rounds of total defense. In general I'd recommend using bluff vs sense motive to tell the difference, but in general since combat rounds are really nigh-simultaneous actions separated by a split second of faster decision-making, I'd make reactions a little more obvious unless the creature you are attempting to ambush is in fact deliberately setting up an ambush itself.
I'd tell the players if it was a surprise round or normal round. I'd be super upset if we limited our actions to a surprise round worth and the GM didn't say that we could do more.
I didn't; I mean I made it clear from the start of the dungeon they were in initiative. They approached, saw a monster they thought was unaware of them, and assumed there was a surprise round. I'll admit fault there -- I could have communicated the situation better to my players. Compounding the issue is that my players don't quite understand how surprise works. It's been a problem in a few sessions, to say the least.
Do you also tell your players when they have been detected when using stealth? Because that is just the other side of this discussion
Not generally; they don't know they've been spotted until someone acts on that information. Unlike other GMs, I am not blessed with a party who understand the R part of RPG. It's metagamers galore at my house on Saturdays.
The players should definitely know if they are in a surprise round or not. If you need to conceal that surprise didn't actually happen for some reason, you should make everyone take a surprise round, even if no one is actually surprised.
Among other things, the GM is the conduit between what a character sees and hears and what the player is able to imagine. While misdirecting them can at times be fine, that should be used sparingly. If a player can't trust the GM to relay what is happening in the world accurately, a crucial bond of trust disappears.
Not reacting to perceiving something isn't clearly defined in the rules. It should probably be a bluff check, although I might give a bonus to something like a golem do to its innate ability to not display a reaction. At the same time though, it might be argued that a golem wouldn't even have the ability to try to deceive.
The big thing though is the concealing this from the players in this situation would in the best case scenario only very slightly increase the fun, while in the worst case...well that is pretty much what actually happened. Fairly clearly in this instance it was a bad call, although that is easier to see in hindsight.
As for the entire dungeon is 'in initiative' I'm not sure what that means, and how it would work with the rules, especially with surprise. The rules assume the game goes in and out of combat mode and changing that is pretty radical.
It sounds like the golem surprised them, so there should have been a surprise round with everyone aware of the other side triggered when the golem took his action. Right?
That's generally how I play it for people playing dead and what not. Usually there's some skill check involved to determine if you've been spotted, a sense motive or disguise sort of thing. I don't know that a golem could use a ruse like that really.
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It also depends on the golems orders, if the golem has been ordered to attack anything it sees, combat starts the second he sees the party. If he has been ordered to defend this mc guffin, he wont do anything until a threat occurs. I dont think a person peaking round a corner is a threat
I don't think the orders have anything to do with it. Both sides of the battle are aware of each other. If the rogue goes forward without alerting his party, then they are unaware of the combat and don't get to act in the surprise round. If all parties are aware of the combat, then I would have everyone act in the surprise round, with the party being unaware that the golem would act until it did so. Which may be unfortunate if the golem wins initiative and delays until someone enters the room.
The entire dungeon being in initiative means they can explore it round by round in initiative order using full or standard actions to interact with the dungeon. This is pretty common from what I understand. I like it because it ensures that players obey the rules of the game and enforces more tactical thinking about dungeon exploration. I hate hand-waving, "battle's over okay we all regroup and heal up there's my channel positive okay done." In other words, by putting them in initiative throughout the whole of the dungeon and forcing move/standard/full actions on a round by round basis, it ensures their spell duration and ranges are always in full effect. It also removes the need for guessing where the PCs are when they enter an encounter and all the other stuff that needs to be fudged when you skip the hallways connecting the rooms of a dungeon.
As for what the golem was programmed to do, well, I suppose that's relevant to the specific case but not really applicable as a whole. In my case, the golem was programmed to attack those who attempted to pass through the room. He saw the PCs in the hall outside of the room. When the first PC entered the room (since the golem was aware of them outside of the room) I had him move to attack at the end of the round (which my players thought was a surprise round). I guess the fact that golems don't really have what you could call "awareness" should come into play, but I don't feel that I was entirely wrong in how I ran the scenario.
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I would have run it like you did mostly, but I would have allowed a sense motive roll and also given every player who hadn't taken a standard action a free move action as soon as the golem moved(being that they would have still had that action available as a readied action during the round since it wasn't a surprise round)
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What exactly would be the 'downside' of telling the players that it was a full round rather than a surprise round? They know the target is not surprised? Ok, and that's a problem WHY?
Are they going to not attack it if it isn't surprised? Can they really not tell that it isn't surprised while they are hacking at it? What is it doing, standing there completely impassively? If so... flat footed all the way up to its turn. If not, then the characters can see how it is reacting and should be able to tell whether they have a full round or just a surprise round.
At that, given the fact that you can start out with a standard action like single attack and switch it to a full round action, wouldn't some of the players have been able to make additional attacks? How could the characters logically NOT know that they can hit the implausibly motionless thing again? 'I will just stand here and wait a few seconds while I could have been acting'.
If the characters would know something relevant about the environment it is the GM's job to tell the players that information. In this case, the way you are applying a game mechanic is causing the characters to behave in a way which makes no logical sense... because you have with-held information from their players which the characters would have.
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Generally I have the creature react immediately.
Either that, or after they see the first PC, will use the surprise round to prepare a readied action to attack the first PC they see.
So the first PC that tries to sneak in will get attacked, which would tell the PCs they are in regular initiative.
This would also move it up in the initiative order.
What exactly would be the 'downside' of telling the players that it was a full round rather than a surprise round? They know the target is not surprised? Ok, and that's a problem WHY?
Are they going to not attack it if it isn't surprised? Can they really not tell that it isn't surprised while they are hacking at it? What is it doing, standing there completely impassively? If so... flat footed all the way up to its turn. If not, then the characters can see how it is reacting and should be able to tell whether they have a full round or just a surprise round.
At that, given the fact that you can start out with a standard action like single attack and switch it to a full round action, wouldn't some of the players have been able to make additional attacks? How could the characters logically NOT know that they can hit the implausibly motionless thing again? 'I will just stand here and wait a few seconds while I could have been acting'.
If the characters would know something relevant about the environment it is the GM's job to tell the players that information. In this case, the way you are applying a game mechanic is causing the characters to behave in a way which makes no logical sense... because you have with-held information from their players which the characters would have.
The only information I withheld was that the golem was aware of their presence. Like I said, I accept some fault for communicating poorly with my players but this is not as cut and dry as you make it out to be. The players (and the PCs) did not know the golem was aware of their presence. By making it a full round instead of a surprise, the golem's action advantage goes away and the players know the golem is aware of their presence, which changes their behavior towards said golem. As I mentioned earlier, I am not blessed with perfect players who never metagame.
but I don't feel that I was entirely wrong in how I ran the scenario.
When I had the golem act at the end of the same round, the player who made the stealth check exploded on me because he thought it was a surprise round. That moment single-handedly ruined the entire evening for me.
At the end of the day, if an evening is ruined you failed.
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...and the players know the golem is aware of their presence, which changes their behavior towards said golem. As I mentioned earlier, I am not blessed with perfect players who never metagame.
Then teach them to do better.
It is okay to say "...but your character wouldn't know that."
It is okay to say "Why would your character be doing that?"
It is okay to say "Is that really what your character would do when he doesn't know X?"
Those are all preferable to the experience you had.
Well, to be fair, "exploding" at another person is not a good form of expression, especially between friends. This was, at the least, definitely a double fail.
The OP already admitted that he should have communicated what kinds of actions the players could take. The player should have behaved more maturely rather than exploding.
Nobody had to have a ruined evening over it. Just learn and move on.
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The only information I withheld was that the golem was aware of their presence. Like I said, I accept some fault for communicating poorly with my players but this is not as cut and dry as you make it out to be. The players (and the PCs) did not know the golem was aware of their presence. By making it a full round instead of a surprise, the golem's action advantage goes away and the players know the golem is aware of their presence, which changes their behavior towards said golem. As I mentioned earlier, I am not blessed with perfect players who never metagame.
It sounds like you are imagining some situation where the entity with the highest initiative moves while everyone else is completely motionless... then that character freezes and the next highest initiative moves... et cetera. Such that no one can be sure that someone lower on the initiative scale is even capable of moving until they do so. That may be how the mechanics run, but it isn't how the scene would actually unfold and is not the intent of the game... just a method of organizing activity. If that golem is aware of the players then it begins moving as soon as the programmed conditions for it to do so are met... which is also the time that the characters are rushing in to attack it. Thus, they can SEE it moving. They KNOW it is aware of them. They aren't metagaming... YOU are. To give the golem an "action advantage" which logically it could not have. The characters would not hold their attacks and twiddle their thumbs for several seconds if they had more time before the golem reacted. That is an artificial situation you created by with-holding information from the players which their characters WOULD know.
The only information I withheld was that the golem was aware of their presence. Like I said, I accept some fault for communicating poorly with my players but this is not as cut and dry as you make it out to be. The players (and the PCs) did not know the golem was aware of their presence. By making it a full round instead of a surprise, the golem's action advantage goes away and the players know the golem is aware of their presence, which changes their behavior towards said golem. As I mentioned earlier, I am not blessed with perfect players who never metagame.It sounds like you are imagining some situation where the entity with the highest initiative moves while everyone else is completely motionless... then that character freezes and the next highest initiative moves... et cetera. Such that no one can be sure that someone lower on the initiative scale is even capable of moving until they do so. That may be how the mechanics run, but it isn't how the scene would actually unfold and is not the intent of the game... just a method of organizing activity. If that golem is aware of the players then it begins moving as soon as the programmed conditions for it to do so are met... which is also the time that the characters are rushing in to attack it. Thus, they can SEE it moving. They KNOW it is aware of them. They aren't metagaming... YOU are. To give the golem an "action advantage" which logically it could not have. The characters would not hold their attacks and twiddle their thumbs for several seconds if they had more time before the golem reacted. That is an artificial situation you created by with-holding information from the players which their characters WOULD know.
They did not know the golem was aware of them when they began moving in. The golem does not move because it's a golem and the conditions for it to act were not met (the players were not yet in the room). I don't know how else I can say that.
Beyond the facts I have already mentioned, this is a casual game amongst friends that I've been running for a long time now. I don't expect everything to be perfect, we're there to have fun, not argue about the rules. That my evening was ruined was a result of my friend raising his voice against me, not because he argued with my admittedly poor decision regarding the surprise round/not surprise round. Had he brought up the subject in a less confrontational manner I probably wouldn't even have posted this today. But as it is, it's been bugging me and I wanted to see how other GMs would handle the situation (of the surprise round, not the player), since it's not exactly clear how to run a surprise round when there's no real element of surprise. Every character involved was aware of every other character involved. RAW, that's not a surprise round. So how do you maintain the ruse in that situation? I've got a couple opinions on that from this thread, which I will use to inform my own opinion in the future.
Thanks everyone.
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@Rub-Eta, I don't think it is that difficult to maintain both 'in character' and 'out of character' awareness, but I also don't think it is necessary in this case. Even 'out of character' the game rules cover this... the entire concept of "flat footed". If the golem was surprised it would have been flat-footed... not reacting to the characters. Since it wasn't surprised it was not flat-footed, did not lose its (non-existent in this case) dex bonus, was not vulnerable to sneak attacks from a rogue, and WAS reacting to the characters... which they would be able to see.
The flat footed determination is made at the start of the round. It impacts actions all through the round. Ergo, even by the artificial action sequence... the golem was moving (i.e. not flat footed) right from the start, and the characters would have seen that.
Put another way... in this example the >characters< were not surprised. They made the roll. Rather, the players were effectively 'surprised'... by information their characters knew.
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They did not know the golem was aware of them when they began moving in. The golem does not move because it's a golem and the conditions for it to act were not met (the players were not yet in the room). I don't know how else I can say that.
I don't disagree that the characters would not know the golem was aware of them until it started moving. I disagree that it wouldn't start moving until after they had completed all of their actions. That would only be the case if it was flat-footed the entire round until its turn. There aren't really rules for a target voluntarily remaining flat-footed... and even if there were I wouldn't rule that this somehow allowed it to trick people into inexplicably moving more slowly / doing less than the available time allowed.
@CBDunkerson: You can't run combat and try to keep in mind that everything happens at the same time. Otherwise you need to retroactively change a lot of things. All of a sudden someone casts create pit and then the charging character loses the attack retroactively and is stuck in a pit.
Not everything happens at the same time, but everything happens fairly close together. Remember, a round takes place in the same 6 second period for everyone, not 6 seconds for one character, then 6 for another, and so on.
EX: Bob the Wizard (Init 23) begins casting Create Pit, the pit appearing in the middle of the battlefield. Jim and Snagglefrex the Orcs are caught unable to react, and fall into the pit, with Frank the Bard (Init 24) leaping over the space mere milliseconds before the pit appears