Determining Awareness: The GM establishes whether any combatant is surprised when combat breaks out. PCs and NPCs usually attempt Perception checks to determine whether they are aware that a fight has started.
When the GM declares that combat has begun, but before initiative is rolled, you can spend 1 Resolve Point to attempt a Bluff check against a single creature that this ability can affect. The DC is equal to 15 + the target’s total Perception skill bonus, or 20 + 1-1/2 × the target’s CR, whichever is higher. If your check is successful, the target creature is considered unaware at the start of combat, allowing other creatures (including yourself) to act in a surprise round. Once you have attempted to use this ability on a creature, whether or not you succeed, it is immune to this ability for 24 hours.
This is a feat to do what half of NPCs pulling a gun on the PCs do to get a surprise round, bluff, pretend not to be a combatant , and determine who gets to act in the surprise round with a sense motive check instead of your usual perception check.
It doesn't make a huge amount of sense, no. And the DC seems way out of whack. I would be interested to see how it saw use in playtesting.
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Interesting... I interpret it differently from you. The way I've understood it, surprise is defined by whether or not you are aware of your opponent. If Ned the NPC's stealth check beats Eddy the Envoy's perception check, Ned gets a surprise round when he shoots Eddie from the bush he's hiding behind. However, Ned doesn't get a surprise round if he pulls a gun on Eddie mid-conversation, since Eddie was already aware of Ned. Instead you'd go straight to normal combat.
Conversely if Eddie had this feat and he nails the bluff check, Eddie, Sam the Solarian, Theodora the Technomancer and Olivia the Operative all get to wail on Ned for a free surprise round even though Ned was aware of them all well before combat started.
Hiding isn't the only way to surprise someone. You can blend in with the crowd, pretend to be someone the target trusts, or just appear to be joe schmoe. Otherwise the surprise round would always be a perception check.
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My point wasn't really that stealth is the only way to surprise someone, but that the key to surprise rounds is that the target is "unaware of you being an opponent". Normally you can create surprise rounds in two ways - if the opponent is unaware of you period (typically stealth) or if the opponent is unaware that you are hostile (typically bluff/disguise). Fast Talk lets you add a third option - if the opponent is willing to exchange words with you. Any time you can have a conversation with a person, including an openly antagonistic person, you have the potential to get a surprise round.
Scene 1: The party just flubbed a perception check to notice a pit trap, and have landed in the figurative villain's evil lair.
GM narrating Vince the Villain: Ahaha! I have you now! Nothing will stop me from performing my villainous plan.
*GM pulls out cue cards. There are a lot of them.*
Eddie: Wow, villain monologue!
Olivia, Sam, Theodora: *groans*
Vince the villain: It all started four score and seven years ago, after partaking a large helping of Kraft Cheese Mix Nr. 4 I realized I had become lactose intolerant... Society had failed me. Needless to say I needed to take revenge... If I couldn't partake in cheesy goodness then nobody should! It was child's play to infuse the water supply with lactose-intolerant bacteria bla bla bla...
Sam: This is literally the cheesiest thing I've heard in my life. Screw this, I call my starknife and activate Photon Mode.
GM: *Sighs and puts away notes* All right, roll initiative.
Eddie: Rightyo, one surprise round coming up.
GM: Wait, what? How is he surprised?
Eddie: *rolls bluff* LOUD NOISES
Vincent: Vuh, wha, what's going on?
Eddie: Shut up nerd.
*Party spends surprise round flying out of the comically oversized fondue pot the trapdoor had dropped them into*
It's been my experience that Starfinder humanoids tend to be at least mildly civilized compared to Pathfinder. A good portion of the time you should be able to initiate dialogue with an enemy, even if it starts off with some variation of: "Please don't shoot!". That certainly won't make them stop seeing you as a trespasser and opponent, but it has a good chance of making them hesitate long enough for you to strike up a conversation. And anyone who doesn't attack on sight is a viable target for Fast Talker.
Alternate scene: Party's infiltrating a secure facility, and have to sneak by a bored-looking guard in the lobby.
GM: All right, stealth checks please.
Eddie: 17.
Theodora: I got a 19.
Oscar: *whispers* 26.
Sam: I GOT A FOUR
GM: The facility is cold, and sterile, with bare whitewashed walls that give off a strong scent of ammonia. Clearly it has been furnished with minimal clutter to keep it tidy and clean. It's therefore quite surprising when Sam finds and then accidentally kicks over a wind chime stand. It crashes to the floor with a deafening, well, chime. The security guard spins around, bringing his laser rifle up. He flicks off the safety.
Security Guard: Hey! Stop right there!
Eddie: Don't shoot! We surrender! We were just looking for the bathroom!
Security Guard: In the secure wing of the Eoxian National Archive? Not bloody likely, now get on the floor!
Theodora: We ain't got time for this. I cast Magic Missile!
GM: Right, roll initiative please.
Eddie: *rolls bluff* I DONT KNOW WHAT WE'RE YELLING ABOUT
Security Guard: Bluh?
*Party dismembers security guard before he can raise the alarm*
GM: *Sighs*
Being able to strike up a conversation and then subsequently ambush people mid-conversation is actually a pretty useful tool. That said, I'm not loving the DC scaling (Feint's 15+ 1.5 CR is hard enough, 20 is overkill) and I think it's a shame it's limited to a single target.
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I think it's the DC scaling that makes it kind of questionable. By the time you're at a level where it's a feasible roll, you can still only reliably use it on pretty weak mooks well below your level, which makes it considerably less attractive than it might otherwise be.
I guess that there is what the Peepoe call "situational." It would need a pretty specific sort of situation to be useful, and the GM would have to anticipate those situations and provide them. I'm all about this in terms of adventure design, but there's a certain limit.
Except edie's not meeting the requirements of the feat , and the villian is probably evil ranting as part of HIS susprise round actions.
Wouldn't work on the second one either.
I would never give PCs surprise round for attacking enemy during middle of their monologue because most villains aren't stupid enough to let their guard down during monologing <_< So that feat would give rule reason to do that.
For the feat to work you have to monologue at the NPC.
I would never give PCs surprise round for attacking enemy during middle of their monologue because most villains aren't stupid enough to let their guard down during monologing <_< So that feat would give rule reason to do that.For the feat to work you have to monologue at the NPC.
This may be why we value the feat differently. The feat reads (paraphrasing slightly): "you must be able to converse with the target and you must continue to converse with it until combat begins". I read this to mean that you need to be able to have, and engage in, a conversation - a constant barrage of nonsensical language is not necessary. That conversation could take the form of mostly careful listening and the occasional phrase like "interesting, go on" or "lactose you say, fascinating" (example 1) or stating minimal replies someone else's terse demands (example 2).
The fast talk aspect comes in when Eddie rolls his bluff check to obfuscate the start of combat. Granted, my examples earlier probably weren't the best since I was trying to keep it short and somewhat amusing - feel free to replace "LOUD NOISES" in example 1 with this: "Well Vince, it's funny you mentioned lactose intolerance since we're actually here as representatives of the church of Cheesus Crust, our Lard and Savoury. Have you heard of us?"
And in example 2 replace "WHY ARE WE YELLING" with: "Well done officer Jenkins, you've passed the annual guard review exam with flying colors! Now put away the gun, it maybe tempting it won't look good on your peer report if you shoot up middle management!"
I definitely think it's a situational feat and the high DC is less than ideal, but I don't think it's a dead feat.
(...)the villian is probably evil ranting as part of HIS susprise round actions.
Slightly off-topic, but if your GM is getting away with an entire villain monologue in half a 6-second round then you're being way too generous. Great villain monologues like There Will Be Blood's milkshake talk or Batman's 'you know how I got these scars?' tend to run well over 30 seconds. Moreover, while a villain monologue is frequently the start of the encounter it is not necessarily the start of combat, the conversation can go anywhere from that point. In my example the PCs could try to goad Vince into revealing more details of his plan to find out exactly which water treatment plants have been infiltrated, or even join him on his crusade against deep-crust pizza, or any of a dozen other things. Once you ask for initiative you lock your PCs into the action economy and the players tend to tunnel vision into combat - I try to delay it until the onset of actual hostilities.
Edit: I'll be going away for the weekend so I won't be around to reply for a few days, but I should be back by Monday. :)
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Your posts are phenomally fun to read, Kudaku.
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Your posts are phenomally fun to read, Kudaku.
Thanks! I just hope you're enjoying the (mis)adventures of Eddie the Envoy and not just finding my argument ridiculous! :D