I should know this but this was where things broke down yesterday.
Party is not known yet. They approach temple. Temple has 4 trolls & troll king in it. Initiative has been rolled prior with rogue using his stealth roll which is 24. Party is Champion, Fighter, Cleric, Rogue, Wizard and another Fighter.
Troll king is in 'middle of initiative with a 30, above him are another troll, the Cleric with a 31 and Champion with 36.
Rogue goes scouting but moves in sight of Troll King TK has a perception of 29 wand rogues stealth roll was 24. TK sees him.
I thought the TK gets to act and that is where round 1 starts at the TK and go down from there and back up to the Champion and Cleric who were above him in initiative.
I must be forgetting something or doing it wrong. If possible please help me on how to start this.
What about surprise encounters?
There are no such thing as surprise encounters. The encounter started as soon as you rolled Initiative. The Troll King saw the Rogue from the get go, because his 30 Perception based Initiative was higher than the Rogues 24 Stealth based Initiative.
Thank you,
So I would start at the top with the Champion who had 36.
I had thought we could have surprise encounters in P2.
The party was not visible to the regular trolls which the party did see. The TK was out of LOS and the rogue wanted to scout around the building to see what else was in it.
So it should have been the champion 'delay' as well as the cleric?
If it was not possible for the Troll King to see the Rogue, then he would have been Hidden. The fact that his Stealth Roll was lower than the Troll King's Perception check means that the Troll King knows he is there*, but if it's impossible to see him, then he is Hidden. On his turn he could use the Sneak Action to roll a new Stealth Check to attempt to become Undetected.
Yes, Initiative would start at the top, so if the Champion didn't want to go first, he would Delay. If the Trolls were not fully aware of the party, they could delay as well, essentially going "what was that?" and being on edge, or you could have them skip their turns entirely (do nothing. their turns still occur), if you feel that the party is Unnoticed by them.
You don't typically roll Initiative in a situation where one side is Unnoticed though.
Pg. 14 of the CRB gives a pretty good example of Stealth for Initiative.
I think this example on Pg. 498 most closely matches your situation though.
Merisiel and Kyra are negotiating with the kobold
king. Things aren’t going well, so Merisiel decides
to launch a surprise attack. As soon as she says
this is her plan, you call for initiative.
*Just a note, this is how my table plays it. We treat Perception Based Initiative Checks as Seek checks, vs Stealth Based Initiative Checks as Sneak Checks, so if Seek > Sneak, the Sneak fails.
Comparing the Stealth Based Initiative Check to the Troll King's Perception DC to determine the Rogue's initial detection state is perfectly valid too, and in this case would have the exact same result.
But, this can lead to weird situations where a creature goes first, but the thing that caused it to roll Initiative is Undetected, which just doesn't make much sense.
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*Just a note, this is how my table plays it. We treat Perception Based Initiative Checks as Seek checks, vs Stealth Based Initiative Checks as Sneak Checks, so if Seek > Sneak, the Sneak fails.
Comparing the Stealth Based Initiative Check to the Troll King's Perception DC to determine the Rogue's initial detection state is perfectly valid too, and in this case would have the exact same result.
To be clear, what you are doing is a house rule. You may already be aware of this, but the way your post is phrases makes doesn't make that clear to someone who doesn't know the rule.
But, this can lead to weird situations where a creature goes first, but the thing that caused it to roll Initiative is Undetected, which just doesn't make much sense.
This is how you are intended to run it, even if it is weird. To quote page 11 of the GMG: To determine whether someone is undetected by other participants in the encounter, you still compare their Stealth check for initiative to the Perception DC of their enemies. They’re undetected by anyone whose DC they meet or exceed. So what do you do if someone rolls better than everyone else on initiative, but all their foes beat their Perception DC? Well, all the enemies are undetected, but not unnoticed. That means the participant who rolled high still knows someone is around, and can start moving about, Seeking, and otherwise preparing to fight. The characters Avoiding Notice still have a significant advantage, since that character needs to spend actions and attempt additional checks in order to find them.
*Just a note, this is how my table plays it. We treat Perception Based Initiative Checks as Seek checks, vs Stealth Based Initiative Checks as Sneak Checks, so if Seek > Sneak, the Sneak fails.
Comparing the Stealth Based Initiative Check to the Troll King's Perception DC to determine the Rogue's initial detection state is perfectly valid too, and in this case would have the exact same result.
To be clear, what you are doing is a house rule. You may already be aware of this, but the way your post is phrases makes doesn't make that clear to someone who doesn't know the rule.
This is how you are intended to run it, even if it is weird. To quote page 11 of the GMG: To determine whether someone is undetected by other participants in the encounter, you still compare their Stealth check for initiative to the Perception DC of their enemies. They’re undetected by anyone whose DC they meet or exceed. So what do you do if someone rolls better than everyone else on initiative, but all their foes beat their Perception DC? Well, all the enemies are undetected, but not unnoticed. That means the participant who rolled high still knows someone is around, and can start moving about, Seeking, and otherwise preparing to fight. The characters Avoiding Notice still have a significant advantage, since that character needs to spend actions and attempt additional checks in order to find them.But, this can lead to weird situations where a creature goes first, but the thing that caused it to roll Initiative is Undetected, which just doesn't make much sense.
I was not aware of that segment in the GMG. Reading every book cover to cover is quite the task, and I have not completed it yet. I was under the impression that the way we were playing it was a valid interpretation, based on the CRB Initiative Rules. The passage you quoted makes it clear that our interpretation is wrong, and we will adjust.
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I should know this but this was where things broke down yesterday.
Party is not known yet. They approach temple. Temple has 4 trolls & troll king in it. Initiative has been rolled prior with rogue using his stealth roll which is 24. Party is Champion, Fighter, Cleric, Rogue, Wizard and another Fighter.Troll king is in 'middle of initiative with a 30, above him are another troll, the Cleric with a 31 and Champion with 36.
Rogue goes scouting but moves in sight of Troll King TK has a perception of 29 wand rogues stealth roll was 24. TK sees him.
I thought the TK gets to act and that is where round 1 starts at the TK and go down from there and back up to the Champion and Cleric who were above him in initiative.
I must be forgetting something or doing it wrong. If possible please help me on how to start this.
What about surprise encounters?
So I have my own house rule for situations like this, where the party hangs back while their rogue scouts ahead: have everyone use stealth for initiative, where the stealth roll is an abstraction of how far back the party members start, thereby determining how quickly they can arrive "on the scene."
The rules for how distance effects perception are pretty vague this edition, and even more so once you start to factor in terrain. How far back does a champion on horseback need to hang to avoid needing to make a stealth check? It is pretty unclear, probably because calculating the practical answer would be banal. But it has pretty huge implications for how many rounds or actions it takes to reach the battlefield if the scout gets spotted and needs your help.
So instead, my house rule assumes the characters can judge those factors for themselves, and place themselves at a reasonable distance based on the terrain. The lower your stealth roll, further back you started, and therefore the longer it takes you to get "On the scene." The scene, in this case, basically being the edge of your flip mat or first point where you have line of sight with an enemy. This means that while everyone gets to act on the first round of combat, in a big map with little cover you'll wind up still needing to close a lot of distance.
It works especially well if the party already knows there are going to be enemies up ahead, which has been the case a lot in my games thanks to Terrain Stalker and Divination spells. I'm still kind of ironing things out. But it means, for example, that your characters with poor stealth hiding behind the building are much less likely to go first. What is your champion even perceiving on their turn to let them act first?
If your champion HAD managed to get a 36 on their stealth roll for initiative, I'd have treated it as the champion managing to sneak up to the edge of the clearing and realizing the rogue had been spotted before the rogue did, giving the champion an opportunity to try and snipe the Troll King or whatever.
All this sort of calls for molding the choices the characters made around the result of the dice roll, rather than what the players said they were doing beforehand, but I think that's something we need to get used to when it comes to using skills for initiative.
I was not aware of that segment in the GMG. Reading every book cover to cover is quite the task, and I have not completed it yet. I was under the impression that the way we were playing it was a valid interpretation, based on the CRB Initiative Rules. The passage you quoted makes it clear that our interpretation is wrong, and we will adjust.*Just a note, this is how my table plays it. We treat Perception Based Initiative Checks as Seek checks, vs Stealth Based Initiative Checks as Sneak Checks, so if Seek > Sneak, the Sneak fails.
Comparing the Stealth Based Initiative Check to the Troll King's Perception DC to determine the Rogue's initial detection state is perfectly valid too, and in this case would have the exact same result.
To be clear, what you are doing is a house rule. You may already be aware of this, but the way your post is phrases makes doesn't make that clear to someone who doesn't know the rule.
This is how you are intended to run it, even if it is weird. To quote page 11 of the GMG: To determine whether someone is undetected by other participants in the encounter, you still compare their Stealth check for initiative to the Perception DC of their enemies. They’re undetected by anyone whose DC they meet or exceed. So what do you do if someone rolls better than everyone else on initiative, but all their foes beat their Perception DC? Well, all the enemies are undetected, but not unnoticed. That means the participant who rolled high still knows someone is around, and can start moving about, Seeking, and otherwise preparing to fight. The characters Avoiding Notice still have a significant advantage, since that character needs to spend actions and attempt additional checks in order to find them.But, this can lead to weird situations where a creature goes first, but the thing that caused it to roll Initiative is Undetected, which just doesn't make much sense.
That's all fair, and honestly your way is a reasonable approach and perfectly valid. I just wanted to make clear it was a house rule. House rules are great. I have plenty of them-- see above.
Also, don't feel too bad. I haven't read the entire GMG cover to cover either. But the board has been scratching its head over exactly the situation you describe for a long time, so myself and others were on the lookout for official guidance. The spider sense solution, as I call it, works pretty well for me but still rubs some folks the wrong way.
These answers are very helpful. I like Capn Morgans solution as well. Per the GMG you can roll perception at the start of the game and keep that roll for the first encounter. Which is what i did. The Rogue always rolls his stealth for this and the fighters tend to have high perception which lends to a higher initiative roll. We had 6 players so the fight was a TK and 4 trolls, about 120 on the threat level (severe). Party was 7th lvl.
Arotins solution is also very good.
Thanks again.
I don't let people roll initiative until they are capable of being involved in the encounter. If the rogue scouts ahead out of sight of the rest of the party, then his stealth roll converts to his initiative roll if he is spotted. The rest of the party would not roll initiative until they somehow get word the encounter is starting either by seeing the enemies start to move or by the rogue using his actions to signal them or run back to them. If the party is in visual range of the monsters, then the monsters can see them. So they would need to use stealth checks to stay out of sight and for initiative to not give the rogue away. So they tend to let the rogue and ranger stealth ahead, then trust them to get back in time to start the encounter before getting killed.
Yeah, surprise rounds and opposed rolls (where you compare the sum of two rolled checks) no longer exist.
Excepting initiative, pretty much all non-damage rols oppose a static DC.