Surprise round, multiple opponents, partial awareness?

[Kudaku]

I had a situation come up in a recent session that left me puzzled. It went like this:

Two PCs, a rogue and an inquisitor, are exploring a cult's hideout when they hear voices - a cultist is shouting at a bearded devil to "seek out and kill the intruders" while the devil is (rather smugly) explaining in Infernal why that task is not covered under the legal liability of his current contract, but he'd be more than willing to renegotiate... For a price.

They quickly decide to sneak closer and ambush the couple, hoping to get a surprise round and end the fight as quickly as possible. The rogue rolls well on his stealth check and is unobserved as he sneaks down the hallway, but the inquisitor rolls poorly and despite being distracted, both the cultist and the devil succeed on their opposed perception checks to notice him approaching. At this point I call for initiative rolls.

Here's where the question comes up - should the rogue get a surprise round?

I can state with confidence that Team Devil are aware of the presence of "opponents", but not the full number of opponents. I believe this means that while they're unaware of the rogue's location they are not surprised by the party's approach, and so there's no surprise round. However I'm less than confident in that ruling. What do you think?

For convenience, I included the D20PFSRD rules text on surprise rounds below.

D20PFSRD, rules on surprise rounds:

Surprise

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

Determining Awareness

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.

[wraithstrike]

I would have the rogue join in on the surprise round if he chose because his situation seems to trump everyone else's.

[Rub-Eta]

I wouldn't call for a surprise round, since everyone is aware of at least one opponent. Nobody's really surprised.

However, the Rogue is still in stealth and can use that to gain an initial SA.

[wraithstrike]

I completely misread the comment. If the rogue intended to attack then maybe he could have gotten a surprise rounds, but he seemed to be in observation mode so I would say nobody gets a surprise round, and everyone gets to fight.

[ShieldLawrence]

I would 100% give the rogue a surprise round. His opponents aren't aware of him, so they are surprised by him.

[Chemlak]

I'm with the "yes, surprise round" crew. This is a prime example of "some aware, but not all".

Here's how it plays out to me:

Rogue stealthily moves up toward team devil. Remains unnoticed.
Inquisitor tries to move stealthily up towards team devil, but gets spotted.
GM calls for initiative, knowing that the combat mechanics are most useful from this point on.
GM checks for awareness. Team devil not aware of rogue, are aware of inquisitor, inquisitor and rogue both aware of team devil.
Surprise round for rogue.
Normal round sequence begins.

And this is where people fall down: awareness is checked after initiative is rolled. Anyone that the opposing side is unaware of gets to act in the surprise round.

[Rub-Eta]

The only problem about giving the Rogue a surprise round is that he's not necessarily the first one to act in combat.

[anthonydido]

In this case, it doesn't matter where the rogue's initiative falls as he is the only one who would get the surprise round.

So, surprise round for rogue...then start normal rounds with initiative.

If one of the bad guys had been aware of the rogue then those two would go in the surprise round in initiative order before normal rounds started.

[Jack of Dust]

You're probably going to see a lot of table variation on this. Personally, I would say "no" since everyone is aware of at least one opponent and there isn't really any legitimate reason I can think of that would allow the Rogue to automatically act before everyone else after the Inquisitor got spotted. Initiative would be rolled and everyone would act in that order as normal but the Rogue would remain in stealth until something breaks it.

[Greymist]

I agree with the OP's ruling.

RAW: "If some but not all of the combatants are aware of their opponents, a surprise round happens." As described, everyone is aware of their opponents, although not all of their opponents. Both parties can be expected to be looking in the direction of the other and it does not appear that they would have a surprise round. I would certainly have the Rogue start in stealth.

[CampinCarl9127]

What determines surprise is left up to GM discretion. You would probably get more constructive responses in the advice forum, not the rules forum.

Personally my decision would be thus: If the rest of the party started combat, the rogue does not get a free surprise round. However he is still unnoticed and as such the enemies won't target him and he can most likely still get a good sneak attack off.

[anthonydido]

There are certainly enough variables that this would probably fall in the table variation category. I can see reasons for and against a surprise round.