Handling any sort of surprise?

[Barnabas Eckleworth III]

(standard apologies if I missed a thread that discussed this)

Okay. So I know there is no longer an official term called "surprise" or "surprise round."

Here is what I'm wondering about. So, I'm assuming it's possible for PCs to get the drop on a monster (or group of monsters). And for a monster to get the drop on the PCs. One group didn't see the other.
So, if, say, the PCs spot a monster from hiding, and the creature doesn't see them... They would get, what.. a regular round of attacks against him, simultaneously? At which point the creature would then know they were there and roll initiative? And he'd be flat-footed, because he didn't see the oncoming attacks?
Or how does that work.

The other situation is "kick in the door" type situations. The party knows there are orcs behind the door. They draw weapons and ready spells, and kick in the door. The orcs behind the door just roll initiative and attack like normal? Neither group surprises the other? Even if one group knew the other was there, and not vice versa?

I'm a bit confused because of my old assumptions of how the game worked. And I know the new game doesn't work that way. I'm just... not sure how to handle it now.

[shroudb]

In the first case, in order to spot them, you have rolled higher "perception" than their "stealth".

Those also are your respective initiative rolls.

So, you naturally go first. You don't get an extra round and then "roll initiative", you've already rolled that when you spot them.

(it is slightly different than that due to rolling vs DCs, there's a whole thread on ambushes, but it generally works very close to that)

Also, you're no longer "flat footed till you act", that's a rogue specific ability now. But you would be flat footed vs a stealth attack.

For the second case, I'd use the Athletics roll of the one breaking the door be his initiative roll.

Assuming he rolls high, higher than orc perception, he breaks the door and storms in before the orbs react.
Assuming he rolls lower than the orc perception, they've heard him kicking the door, maybe he even needed a second kick to burst it open!
Ofc, even if they go first, they still don't have line of sight/effect (the door is still in place), but they can use their actions to get ready, ready actions, draw weapons, buff, etc

[Ubertron_X]

Well there is a lengthy discussion about this topic and the outcome was not at all clear.

Some ideas revolved around using ready actions (=reactions) in surprise situations.

The big stealth mess...

From my perspective the CRB does not do a good job when explaining these kind of situations, so I will wait for an official FAQ or reprint.

[Barnabas Eckleworth III]

The way shroudb has put it together is easy to understand. Thank you very much. And I will look up about ambushes (I kept trying to find "surprise" and couldn't find it).
I appreciate you typing that out.

I know D20 system backwards in my sleep. Which is.. kind of a drawback. Haha. I keep having to stop and think if something is that way because I actually read it in the book, or if I'm making an assumption with no basis (or with a 3rd edition basis).