At last nights game I had something come up and I am really not sure of the correct way to handle this. will try to be as general as possible to avoid spoilers.
So we find someone in need of rescue (who had been messed up physically and mentally by the bad guy) and we are escorting him to the surface.
We get to the last room before heading up to the surface an the 'voice' declares it is time to end it all.
At this point my paladin is very angry after what has been done to the guy we are rescuing and charges towards the voice, sword drawn ready for combat.
So the question is as follows:
My paladin has heard the bad guy, but cant see him (he is invisible). He decides to charge towards the 'voice' to attack.
At this point initiative has not been rolled.
As soon as he is in an adjacent square to the bad guy, the GM unleashes an attack on my paladin (unclear on whether this was meant to be a readied action or an AoO, but I think readied action).
I felt that at this point my paladin should be able to complete his charge and attack the bad guy, but my GM ruled that this was a surprise round and I was surprised, and therefore could not complete my action (or more accurately ruled that my movement was my whole action for this 'round').
The surprise rules are fairly vague, stating only that you need to be aware of your enemy and I am honestly not sure of what was correct here.
Also, after all this occurred we then rolled initiative and proceeded with the battle.
Please help me :)
You charging probably should have started initiative.
Charging can't be done without a target, so you were either running somewhere OR walking, and walking is better for you.
You weren't sure the badguy was there or where he was, so I would have had you all try to make the perception to see him. Fail, and he'd get a surprise round.
I think the GM should have made it clearer to you that you weren't actually doing a charge attack but just moving aggressively towards the voice. But other than that I think he ran it mechanically fine.
Cool - and Thankyou.
I can live with that, though I would have preferred to just roll initiative before I started charging, which to my thinking was the moment when combat actually started.
I would have taken the readied attack on my paladin, but then could at least have done something useful in that round.
Just seems a little counter intuitive to begin fighting only to be told I cant actually attack when I know the guy is somewhere up ahead even if i cant see him.
So to my thinking it would have been a normal combat round (not surprise):
1) Me charge
2) Bad guy delivers readied attack from invisibility once I am in range
3) I resolve my charge attack normally, once I can see him, or roll miss chance if he stays invisible etc.
I also think I should have at least have got a perception check to detect he is there, perhaps with a bonus because I actually heard his voice in the room ahead and already knew he had utilised invisibility previously.
Thems the breaks though and the GMs rules as he sees fit.
you can't actually "charge" if you don't have a target. You can either move or run.
Your charge began initiative.
He can ready an action only if he beats your initiative.
He can AoO, if he has reach and is not flat footed or has a suitable class feature [like rogues do] allowing it.
You can charge in a surprise round. PRD under Full Round action is Charge[4]. The note is "4 May be taken as a standard action if you are limited to taking only a single action in a round." Full details on charge here.
You, however, cannot charge an invisible creature because "If you don't have line of sight to the opponent at the start of your turn, you can't charge that opponent."
To make this work, you need to succeed at a perception check to locate the bad guy. That gives you LoS. Now you can charge, and it is a surprise round. However, if his initiative is better than yours, he could do something to avoid your charge, or ready an action for it.
/cevah
Good point.
That being the case, my guy would have taken a full move action forward prepared for combat.
Yes, he wanted combat to begin, but no, he wouldn't be stupid enough to put himself at risk by 'charging'/running without a clear target.
The centre of the room we were heading too was perhaps 60 feet away, so there would be no value to actually charging without a target knowing I could not resolve an attack at the end anyway, and I wasn't trying to get to any specific point in the room (which means additional movement was not a priority or needed in this case).
The only thing that then would have changed is that I wouldn't have had the AC penalties from charging when the bad guy made is readied attack on me (I think).
Your charge began initiative.
He can ready an action only if he beats your initiative.
He can AoO, if he has reach and is not flat footed or has a suitable class feature [like rogues do] allowing it.
You can charge in a surprise round. PRD under Full Round action is Charge[4]. The note is "4 May be taken as a standard action if you are limited to taking only a single action in a round." Full details on charge here.You, however, cannot charge an invisible creature because "If you don't have line of sight to the opponent at the start of your turn, you can't charge that opponent."
To make this work, you need to succeed at a perception check to locate the bad guy. That gives you LoS. Now you can charge, and it is a surprise round. However, if his initiative is better than yours, he could do something to avoid your charge, or ready an action for it.
/cevah
Cool. But I would definitely get a perception check to grant me awareness of the bad guy and therefore negate the surprise round, right?
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I'm pretty sure the "awareness" for surprise rounds is covered by the Ultimate Intrigue rules on Skills in conflict. Since the baddie is invisible but the good guys are aware of his presence due to his voice and announcing himself, he wouldn't get a surprise round. If the baddie had attacked without announcing it, the good guys would get their perception vs. stealth for the surprise round.
I'm pretty sure the "awareness" for surprise rounds is covered by the Ultimate Intrigue rules on Skills in conflict. Since the baddie is invisible but the good guys are aware of his presence due to his voice and announcing himself, he wouldn't get a surprise round. If the baddie had attacked without announcing it, the good guys would get their perception vs. stealth for the surprise round.
Just found the 4 states of awareness thing from UI. Was not aware of these rules and they are very interesting, not just the perception ones!
So going by these rules I would have fallen in to:
A perceiving creature that becomes aware of a hidden creature's presence will still be aware of its presence at least until the danger of the situation continues, if not longer (though memory-altering magic can change this).
and the surprise round would have been negated, unless I am reading that wrong.
the problem is there's no way of knowing that an enemy was there. He could have been using ghost sounds or various other spells to speak while not in the room. You guessed he was where his voice was, and happened to be correct. But I wouldn't have let you say you knew he was there without more evidence he was physically there.
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the problem is there's no way of knowing that an enemy was there. He could have been using ghost sounds or various other spells to speak while not in the room. You guessed he was where his voice was, and happened to be correct. But I wouldn't have let you say you knew he was there without more evidence he was physically there.
The PCs are aware of the voice and are reacting to it, that's what has them on guard and not surprised. The voice warned them, they are of aware that something is up. The bad guy could wait a few minutes and surprise them later if he wanted a surprise round, after he PCs think he left the room and drop their guard.
The voice could be a programmed image or a magic mouth or ... lots of stuff that doesn't mean anyone is in the room. Nothing about hearing speaking means someone is in the room. Thus to know there was actually a guy in the room speaking and not any of the various magic options speaking would require the perception check to know something invisible is there to get into the surprise round. As it is the player thinks he's there but the character has no idea anyone is there by the rules. The character moves to the voice, hoping that maybe this will draw out some bad guy. so even though the player thinks the guy is there the character wouldn't if he doesn't make the check.
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The bad guy isn't using those options. He could have gone out of his way to maybe use them, but by using his own voice he has announced his presence and the PC's are reacting to that voice, initiating combat. However, my interpretation requires that the bad guy declared himself and waited, but that may not be the case.
If the bad guy was declaring himself during his first hostile action, say an offensive spell, he'd still benefit from surprise. Surprise should be determined before the declaration/attack by using perception vs. stealth. I think Chess Pwn and I were perhaps having a disconnect on the amount of time between the announcement and the bad guy acting.
If the invisible bad guy is all like, "You fool, I am speaking to you while invisible and in this room." If none of the players succeed the perception check then they don't know he's actually in the room and would be surprised if he started combat.
The player may think/know he's in the room, but the characters don't, because none of their abilities were able to locate him.
From memory we were taking the guard to the surface to get him help, then the bad guy says something along the lines of:
'leaving so soon? I'm afraid it is time to end this'
at which point my Paladin charges (moves) toward the voice.
We were situated in the second last room of the dungeon and it was a straight line to the stairs heading up to the surface. The voice came from in front of us though the space between the 2 last rooms had fog in between.
I guess my thoughts were that to be surprised you had to be in a state of unpreparedness, not prepared and charging in to combat (or at least a situation where you were prepared to start combat). Kinda think that is all built in to the term 'surprise'.
The way it was put to me was this was like a horror movie, where you have the victim in a dark room who knows the bad guys is out there, but he creeps up from behind anyway and takes the victim by surprise, but I think this analogy works better for a rogue using stealth and sneak attack more than surprise mechanics.
nope, surpize round doesn't work like that. heck, even if you know combat is going to happen if you do bad at initiative you're still flat footed. there is no prepared or expecting combat state
You can't charge a creature you don't have LOS to.
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You can't charge a creature you don't have LOS to.
I would argue that you do have line of sight to the creature. Having line of sight means nothing is blocking your vision between you and something else. Even if you can't see that something else there's still nothing else blocking your vision.
I think RAW may be Can't be seen means No Line of Sight, but RAI is there's Fog between us so I have no clue what I have to run THROUGH to get to where I want to go so I can't charge.
You could charge up to someone normally roll a Natural 1 and attack nothing but Air. How is that mechanically any different from running up to nothing Attacking and rolling a Nat 20 and hitting nothing but air because you fail the 50% miss change or simple attacked an empty 5' square?
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But if the GM house ruled that the paladin could charge, he should have allowed the attack. Otherwise, it just just a normal move action in the surprise round, no AC penalty.
I think either way it was definitely done wrong. To apply the penalty to AC you have to allow the charge, if you allow the charge, you have to allow the attack.
Because you can't ready an action outside of initiative the wizard would have to be in combat to ready an attack. If the GM didn't call for initiative before this charge/readied attack went off, then that was done wrong as well.
I would argue that you do have line of sight to the creature. Having line of sight means nothing is blocking your vision between you and something else. Even if you can't see that something else there's still nothing else blocking your vision.
Total Concealment: If you have line of effect to a target but not line of sight, he is considered to have total concealment from you. You can't attack an opponent that has total concealment, though you can attack into a square that you think he occupies. A successful attack into a square occupied by an enemy with total concealment has a 50% miss chance (instead of the normal 20% miss chance for an opponent with concealment).
The definition of total concealment is that you do not have line of sight. You cannot charge creatures with total concealment.
Because you can't ready an action outside of initiative the wizard would have to be in combat to ready an attack. If the GM didn't call for initiative before this charge/readied attack went off, then that was done wrong as well.
If you can't ready an action before initiative, then you can't charge before initiative, or take any other initiative action.
I am fairly sure the GM did NOT give me a penalty to AC, so lets assume it was a move action rather than a charge (and perhaps the term 'charge' was used in a descriptive sense, rather than a mechanical one).
I still feel like a surprise round issue remains and the vague description of 'awareness' doesn't help. The Ultimate Intrigue rules do seem to read like errata for this issue however.
I guess the voice could have been a magical effect, but I don't think it is unreasonable for my character to assume the actual person was in the room ahead...he has seen invisibility before (and knows the bad guy can use this spell) and therefore would have assumed the bad guy was invisible/obscured and up ahead somewhere. At this point he was ready for combat though.
It may seem like a small issue, but it made the difference between only me acting vs the whole party getting a turn in that first round, plus I lost any ability to complete an attack myself.
So how would I handle this in the future to avoid this happening again?
- Hide and wait for the bad guy to act, in which the bad guys always get a surprise round (my perception skill is not high enough to reliably detect an invisible enemy)?
- Move forward and still incur the readied action in the 'surprise round' without being able to retaliate myself?
- Something else???
Is there a way to trigger initiative, knowing combat is imminent (both me as a player and my character are prepared for this), without incurring a surprise round?
Surprise rounds are for when some characters are unaware of others. If the enemy is hiding before combat, generally combat starts in one of two ways.
1) One of the PC party wins on their perception check, making them aware of the opponent. They want to take an action, which prompts for the surprise round allowing those aware to act.
2) No one detects the ambusher. They want to take an action against the PCs. This calls for the surprise round and none of the PCs would get to act.
Personally, if the bad guy was verbally taunting you from invisibility, I would rule that the party was aware of him, and thus there would be no surprise round. There would be initiative, and you would still be flat-footed until after your first turn in the round.
Combat starts when the GM decides. If no one in your party can beat the DC to notice presence of invisible person then your character has no idea an invisible person is there, because the character has no knowledge he is.
1)So assuming you can't tell. Your character might think that there's a chance the guy could be invisible and talking and walk towards the voice hoping to get attacked. Once the invisible guy wants to attack initiative would be rolled and the invis guy would get a surprise round.
OR
Hide and wait.
The effects of both is you'd need him to reveal himself and he'd get the surprise round no matter what anyone is doing.
OR
Have someone do AoE attacks and hope you pick the right spot to not be wasting your abilities.
2)If one person had see invis, he'd probably start combat with the invis guy that only he can see. There'd be a surprise round where those two could act.
3)Someone beats the DC20 check to know that something invisible is ahead and then you proceed to options 1 or 2.
0) be glad he didn't just summon stuff over and over never breaking his invis.
rules for surprise round is to determine who knows the enemy is there, since you couldn't mechanically tell the guy was there you're going to be surprised.
Surprise rounds are for when some characters are unaware of others. If the enemy is hiding before combat, generally combat starts in one of two ways.
1) One of the PC party wins on their perception check, making them aware of the opponent. They want to take an action, which prompts for the surprise round allowing those aware to act.
2) No one detects the ambusher. They want to take an action against the PCs. This calls for the surprise round and none of the PCs would get to act.
Personally, if the bad guy was verbally taunting you from invisibility, I would rule that the party was aware of him, and thus there would be no surprise round. There would be initiative, and you would still be flat-footed until after your first turn in the round.
If no one can perceive he's there then no one actually knows he's there. There are tons of ways for sounds to be heard that don't involve the caster even being there.
If no one can perceive he's there then no one actually knows he's there. There are tons of ways for sounds to be heard that don't involve the caster even being there.Surprise rounds are for when some characters are unaware of others. If the enemy is hiding before combat, generally combat starts in one of two ways.
1) One of the PC party wins on their perception check, making them aware of the opponent. They want to take an action, which prompts for the surprise round allowing those aware to act.
2) No one detects the ambusher. They want to take an action against the PCs. This calls for the surprise round and none of the PCs would get to act.
Personally, if the bad guy was verbally taunting you from invisibility, I would rule that the party was aware of him, and thus there would be no surprise round. There would be initiative, and you would still be flat-footed until after your first turn in the round.
A creature can generally notice the presence of an active invisible creature within 30 feet with a DC 20 Perception check.
Invisible creature is... Perception DC Modifier
In combat or speaking –20
So, he is invisible, within 30 feet, and speaking (taunting them), that nets him a DC: 0 perception checks to get a "hunch" that an invisible creature is in the area.
If he did use stealth, its just the opposed stealth vs perception check.
There might be a lot of ways to make it sound like someone is there, but characters can notice the presence of an invisible creature with a perception check, and if the creature is taunting you, it makes it pretty easy to figure out.
Yes, that's partly why I'm so surprised that 1, this guy is sure he couldn't get high enough with his perception, and that apparently no one in the party could?
OR
2 No one thought to attempt a roll to actually check if an enemy was there. And the GM runs a game where if you don't say it you don't do it and so no free perception checks.
Like what I'd do was start having everyone attempt a perception to check if he was present, hopefully at least 1 beats that DC 0 check, then have everyone start trying to pin down his location. Sure that would probably trigger the bad guy popping a surprise round as soon as he sees we're searching for him, before we find him and maybe some of us wouldn't have found him to act in the surprise round with him, but I bet some would have.
Yes, that's partly why I'm so surprised that 1, this guy is sure he couldn't get high enough with his perception, and that apparently no one in the party could?
OR
2 No one thought to attempt a roll to actually check if an enemy was there. And the GM runs a game where if you don't say it you don't do it and so no free perception checks.Like what I'd do was start having everyone attempt a perception to check if he was present, hopefully at least 1 beats that DC 0 check, then have everyone start trying to pin down his location. Sure that would probably trigger the bad guy popping a surprise round as soon as he sees we're searching for him, before we find him and maybe some of us wouldn't have found him to act in the surprise round with him, but I bet some would have.
In the actual words of my GM in a private response to one of the statements above):
I rolled this (perception) for the other Paladin that was nearby while the BBEG moved to his final position. He did not succeed, I didn’t roll this when the rest of the party moved closer as the BBEG was immobile and hence had +40 to his stealth check from being invisible and immobile. No-one in the party could have perceived him at this point.
For something like this we usually DO get perception checks
Just to point out, if he was talking, its -20 which makes it very possible to get a hunch.
If immobile and silent then he is at +40 from invis, and very unlikely to be found.
If you fail your perception check, you don't get to act in the surprise round, that's how it works.
Well, he was literally just talking to us, and that was what triggered my to move towards him, sword in hand.
I guess this brings up another issue...if he literally just spoke, but stopped when I started moving, does he get the bonus for being silent?
Also, for clarity, my perception is +0 (yeah, I know), but the whole party was together during this and others have a MUCH higher perception than me (we are all lvl 12), so should they have all got perception rolls for the chance to act in the surprise round too?
Still struggling with a way to avoid this in future. At the very minimum I can admit when I am wrong, but characters should learn from their mistakes (though my paladin is low Wisdom, so maybe he didnt?) :)
You'd be at DC 20 to know someone was there. 20+20-20 at the very worse case before distance.
And I also would rule that "not moving" is in the strictest sense in this case and means ANY movement, drawing weapon, reaching for an item, moving his hands when he talks, which is different from "standing there" but that's nor a required interpretation.
Depends on if he was moving or not.
Invis is +20
Not moving is +20
Talking is -20.
Sum those up for the conditions at the time.
you'd be making a "retroactive" check, meaning rolling for the check you made while he was speaking to see if you noticed him while he was speaking.
yes, everyone should have been making or having the GM make perception checks to notice the invis guy.
and at lv12 a scroll of see invis should be had on everyone that can cast it at the very least.
Thankyou all for your help - just trying to puzzle out the whole scenario :)
So to summarise, based on what I have described (Bad guy speaks, I immediately charge move assuming he is up ahead, the whole party is in the same location and close to each other):
- There should have been a surprise round
- There should have been Perception checks all around with a DC of 20 (so everyone had the chance to become 'aware' of the bad guy, even if it required a natural 20 as it did in my case. This would only have made us aware of his presence, not his specific location
- My guy was legitimately hit by a readied action and it was correct for my GM to NOT apply the charge penalty
Still no way to avoid this in future though...bummer.
If you will indulge me with 1 last theoretical question?
The party gets word of an ambush waiting for them whilst they are travelling. The messenger advises the location of the ambush and other key details.
If the party are fully prepared for the ambush, but don't roll high enough perception to see the stealthed enemy I am assuming a surprise round would still occur based on the responses here?
correct.
As a GM I would give them a circumstance bonus to the perception check based on the quality of the info they received. Highly detailed "One guy will be in the barrel, another behind that box, and a third invisible just inside the door" would be something like +10. "They're going to jump you in the square" might be a +4.
If you don't make the perception check, you are surprised.
A different example.
When you enter a dungeon, you expect to find some creatures inside it that you will have to fight, but each encounter will be a new initiative, and potential to be surprised.
So Numarak, what is the DC to know that someone invisible is talking to you and not a magic spell doing talking with no actual person in the room?
Until the players can mechanically know there's an enemy they don't know there's an enemy. If they don't know there's an enemy and he starts combat he'll get a surprise round. If anyone doesn't know there's an enemy, then everyone that does is also in the surprise round.
Knowing that someone invisible is talking to you is not DC 20. Sorry, someone had to say this. The moment you hear what that creature says and you understand what it says, there is no surprise round.
You enter combat and your problem is that you can not see your foe, but your problem is not that you are not in combat and surprised.
And this was the argument I originally made. It appears from the comments above people are saying it could have been some other magical effect (magic mouth or ventriloquism for example), and thus I could not actually be aware of his presence (and thus satisfy the conditions for acting in the surprise round).
At this point Initiative had not been rolled despite my character initiating an aggressive action
A different example.
When you enter a dungeon, you expect to find some creatures inside it that you will have to fight, but each encounter will be a new initiative, and potential to be surprised.
Excellent point - thankyou :)
The situation mechanically worked as this.
Paladin walked next to badguy before combat so not and action.
Badguy attacks in surprise round using standard action.
Everyone now rolls initiative for normal round.
Sure the initiative maybe should have been rolled before the surprise attack, but if the GM had already rolled perceptions for everyone and saw that they failed it's not really different doing it after the surprise round.
Now if the GM did more than described above. AkA did a readied attack and then still got a surprise round, did a full attack in surprise round, or the like then that's a separate issue and probably a different rule to fix.
The situation mechanically worked as this.
Paladin walked next to badguy before combat so not and action.
Badguy attacks in surprise round using standard action.
Everyone now rolls initiative for normal round.Sure the initiative maybe should have been rolled before the surprise attack, but if the GM had already rolled perceptions for everyone and saw that they failed it's not really different doing it after the surprise round.
Now if the GM did more than described above. AkA did a readied attack and then still got a surprise round, did a full attack in surprise round, or the like then that's a separate issue and probably a different rule to fix.
I will second this. I also agree that the invis guy gets his normal surprise round action (1 standard or move) and then everyone gets to act in round 1 after the surprise is over according to their initiatives.