Ambush mechanic

[LastMinit]

I'm trying to avoid all spoilers but I need this mechanic clarified, or I need an idea about how to counteract it,

First off... how in the world does a successful perception check against ambushing enemies - one that reveals their presence, and shows them crouching in position - NOT then prevent my party from being surprised. How can I still be surprised if I've just spotted them? How?

Secondly... if I then stealth everyone into position, behind the enemies, where is my ambush mechanic? I have to manually engage each one of my party into the combat. Meanwhile the whole enemy group reacts as one and takes a turn while I'm doing that. How are people dealing with this?

[✙205🍉🐆→]

Just turn on turn-based mode before you enter combat and then you can have more control

But the combat isn’t really hard enough that you need to consistently be able to ambush or “pull” individual enemies

[hannibal_pjv]

The ambush is about die rolls and skill… If you are unlucky, you will be ambushed if your party did roll worse than the enemies. Aka there is difference what player ”see” and what you characters in the game see.

[Vheissu]

Hide and do a damage attack from out of view. The enemies will be "surprised" skipping one of their turns.

You have to be in stealth to do this. I've found that some attacks that don't do damage, such as casting faerie fire, don't work.

If you see an ambush and walk into it anyways, then you're going to get ambushed.

edit: oh yeah, if you do a sneak attack and only the attacking character is pulled into combat, then you lucked out. Party members that aren't in turn-based combat can move around as much as they want, letting you put them in the perfect position and use a free attack which then makes them join the battle.

If they are in turn-based mode but NOT in combat, get them to join the fight as soon as possible.