My Fighter NPC has a Cape of Mountebank and she can expend 2 actions to activate the effect: dimension door. Can she teleport herself at back of some PC like wizard or cleric (she can see that space) and attack with her last action, ok? My question is... is the PC flat-footed to my NPC with that "surprise attack"?
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Not by any general rule. PF2 does not use facing, so "from behind" isn't a concept built into the combat system, exactly.
The ability to have a target be flat-footed if you Strike right after teleporting would be a perfectly reasonable ability to build an NPC with, though.
The ability to have a target be flat-footed if you Strike right after teleporting would be a perfectly reasonable ability to build an NPC with, though.
Yes. I might have it paired with a skill check of some sort as part of the teleport action. Create a Diversion or Stealth probably.
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Yeah as a player the advantage is basically, you don't have to worry about traps/walls/enemies blocking your path, you're looming over that caster with your fighter who's specialized in harassing casters.
There's very little "surprise attack" mechanics. Rogues have an ability (with that name) but even that's pretty precisely defined what it can and can't do.
In PF1 on a surprise attack you'd get like a 60% size first round in which only you could act. In PF2 that doesn't really work smoothly so they just got rid of it.
The closes you come to having surprise attack mechanics is:
- If you surprise enemies, the GM might rule they can't use reactions until they've had a turn.
- You might use Stealth for initiative, and that could be better than your Perception bonus.
- You might start out with weapons drawn, saving you an action compared to the enemies.
- You might start out from a better position on the map than the enemy.
I'll add a couple more advantages.
-You can use cover bonuses to your initiative, which can be +2-4 more.
-You will almost certainly begin the fight hidden or unobserved, and therefore have a flatfooted foe if you make a range strike, and be harder to hit if someone acts before you. Your stealth initiative roll needs to be a critical failure for you to start a fight observed, basically.
I'll add a couple more advantages.
-You can use cover bonuses to your initiative, which can be +2-4 more.
-You will almost certainly begin the fight hidden or unobserved, and therefore have a flatfooted foe if you make a range strike, and be harder to hit if someone acts before you. Your stealth initiative roll needs to be a critical failure for you to start a fight observed, basically.
The cover bonus to initiative is a house rule.
And there's no critical failure to initiative. If you roll under the enemies' Perception you are Observed.You are making a weird mix between Avoid Notice and Sneak.
Also, I daresay one might notice a portal opening next to oneself, not being surprised very much by someone stepping through it afterwards.
I'll add a couple more advantages.
-You can use cover bonuses to your initiative, which can be +2-4 more.
-You will almost certainly begin the fight hidden or unobserved, and therefore have a flatfooted foe if you make a range strike, and be harder to hit if someone acts before you. Your stealth initiative roll needs to be a critical failure for you to start a fight observed, basically.The cover bonus to initiative is a house rule.
And there's no critical failure to initiative. If you roll under the enemies' Perception you are Observed.You are making a weird mix between Avoid Notice and Sneak.
The cover bonus to initiative is not a house rule. It's how Cover and Stealth works
Standard cover gives you a +2 circumstance bonus to AC, to Reflex saves against area effects, and to Stealth checks to Hide, Sneak, or otherwise avoid detection. You can increase this to greater cover using the Take Cover basic action, increasing the circumstance bonus to +4. If cover is especially light, typically when it's provided by a creature, you have lesser cover, which grants a +1 circumstance bonus to AC. A creature with standard cover or greater cover can attempt to use Stealth to Hide, but lesser cover isn't sufficient.Avoid Notice is already "a weird mix" of Initiative and Sneak
If you’re Avoiding Notice at the start of an encounter, you usually roll a Stealth check instead of a Perception check both to determine your initiative and to see if the enemies notice you (based on their Perception DCs, as normal for Sneak, regardless of their initiative check results).One roll does both duties. Cover provides bonuses to Stealth checks "to Hide, Sneak, or otherwise avoid detection," which this Initiative roll is, and Avoid Notice uses the Sneak rules to determine if you're noticed
An Initiative check is not a check to avoid detection.
If you start combining both of them you have issues as you can have a different level of cover depending on the enemy and as such multiple initiatives. Also, total cover doesn't grant a bonus per RAW as you are not supposed to be detectable but if you follow this rule it's worse than normal cover.I can see the GM adding the bonus only to determine if enemies detect you but keep the Initiative bonus unchanged. I even think you have to for all Stealth checks, as Cover is calculated toward a single enemy and not to a whole group.
Ok, sorry about that, then.
I'm sure we've had this exchange before in another thread.
I really can't wrap my head around this rule, then. The whole "the more cover you have the higher the bonus until at some point the bonus goes back to 0" is so ridiculous.
The ability to have a target be flat-footed if you Strike right after teleporting would be a perfectly reasonable ability to build an NPC with, though.Yes. I might have it paired with a skill check of some sort as part of the teleport action. Create a Diversion or Stealth probably.
I will take this, seems pretty reasonable. I'll request some Perception to my players, vs NPC Deception DC . Simple and good, thanks.
I think the multiple levels of cover thing will never happen, practically speaking. If you DON'T have cover against someone then you're already observed, and the fight will have already kicked off.
Also not really sure what the confusion around total cover is. I don't think that term exists in PF2.
I think the multiple levels of cover thing will never happen, practically speaking. If you DON'T have cover against someone then you're already observed, and the fight will have already kicked off.
No, not really. Avoid Notice is not Sneak, you can do it without Cover (unless there's something in the GMG as I have never read it).
Also, if you open a door, you can have cover against some enemies and not against others.Also not really sure what the confusion around total cover is.
By total cover, I mean that the enemies don't have line of sight to you. In that case, you no more have a bonus to initiative.
Yup. I don't see anything suggesting you can't detect a creature just because there's an object fully covering their body. You still use stealth rules mechanically, and in fiction you can hear the other person. The +4 bonus applies either way.
