Does surprise even work?

[Grumpy Old Guy]

I've consistently been attacking from stealth and half the time the enemies just don't get the surprise condition and even when they do they just sort of ignore it, it just goes away, and then they get their full turn anyway for some reason?

What gives?

[inosk0pedjfk]

yes

[Sugarwolf]

Had it happen once, so rare it surprised me lol.

[Morgian]

I haven't had a surprise round yet. The enemy does.

[Kashra Fall]

Surprise definitely works. Are you sure you aren't being seen and attacking after that?

[Powercrank]

are you entering turn based mode before starting the fight?

[LArc7thHeaven]

You strike from hiding position outside their detection cone and use ranged option, it will trigger surprise round. Always hide and check your surrounding before attacking,

[Sugarwolf]

Seriously though, you would think when you and your buddies are just sitting around and the whole room explodes and y'all are laying on the floor on fire, that you'd be surprised by this.

Not the enemies in this game lol.

[Grumpy Old Guy]

Originally posted by LArc7thHeaven:

You strike from hiding position outside their detection cone and use ranged option, it will trigger surprise round. Always hide and check your surrounding before attacking,

It absolutely does not do that. I've done that almost every fight and it almost never works. I've literally done this several dozen times today alone it almost never triggers the condition to pop up even when I know for a fact that I shot from stealth.

Originally posted by Kashra Fall:

Surprise definitely works. Are you sure you aren't being seen and attacking after that?

Positive. I literally just walked right up behind a gnoll and pushed him off a cliff and the "surprise" round triggered but the enemies all just acted normally even having the surprise condition they still took full turns. The only time it worked properly was the rare occasion when attacking triggered my entire team going into combat. If one person is left out of the initiative and joins the fight later the surprise seems to just bug out and not trigger.

Originally posted by Powercrank:

are you entering turn based mode before starting the fight?

I have not ever done that but I'll try it as so far the mechanics have not worked in the slightest.

The other major bug I've noticed is that IF you have someone not in combat and IF that person can sneak up behind an enemy that IS in combat and kill them in one hit, even if that hit is something really crazy like a greatsword paladin smite, as long as they die in one hit that character won't be added to the combat and can just chain kill enemies till someone sees him or he fails the one hit kill.

[Soul]

Good Perception on your point character can help you spot ambushers and ambush them before they can ambush you.

[Delta Centauri]

Yea, sneaking and surprise rounds is a bit of a mess; I might just avoid being a Rogue now that I'm entering Act 2. My Stealth modifier is fairly high so enemies don't pick up that I'm shooting at them and big enemies like that Spider will autoheal even. I also used Call Lightning on a Cleric without them stealthing and if they 'one shot' enemies for some reason enemies won't pick up where you're casting from so you can be just as effective.

[Quadsword]

Assassin is completely worthless because the surprise condition just never triggers. I changed to Thief because the extra bonus action is insanely busted.

[TheBlueFox]

Surprise works in this way.


Whenever you attack from stealth, against an unaware enemy. A stealth roll is made vs Enemy Perception rolls.

This roll is made for EVERY pc, and EVERY Enemy.

EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOUR PCs within range needs to PASS vs EVERY SINGLE ENEMY NPC.

This means that Laezel in medium armor with disadvantage in stealth is screwing things up for you.


To make surprise work, break the party up. Use ONLY your sneaky character, Have him engage combat. THEN when everyone is locked into combat and surprised, swap over to your characters that are NOT in combat, and move them in

[LArc7thHeaven]

Originally posted by TheBlueFox:

Surprise works in this way.


Whenever you attack from stealth, against an unaware enemy. A stealth roll is made vs Enemy Perception rolls.

This roll is made for EVERY pc, and EVERY Enemy.

EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOUR PCs within range needs to PASS vs EVERY SINGLE ENEMY NPC.

This means that Laezel in medium armor with disadvantage in stealth is screwing things up for you.


To make surprise work, break the party up. Use ONLY your sneaky character, Have him engage combat. THEN when everyone is locked into combat and surprised, swap over to your characters that are NOT in combat, and move them in

Yeah i forget you need to use the most sneaky character to pass perception check, and sometimes if it's bugged your attack won't trigger combat and you can shoot another arrow again

[Hari]

Originally posted by TheBlueFox:

To make surprise work, break the party up. Use ONLY your sneaky character, Have him engage combat. THEN when everyone is locked into combat and surprised, swap over to your characters that are NOT in combat, and move them in

So what you're saying is, spend 3/4 of the first turn and maybe the second turn just switching to your not-yet-engaged party members and walking them forward so they become engaged for the next turn. Got it.

[Grumpy Old Guy]

Originally posted by TheBlueFox:

Surprise works in this way.


Whenever you attack from stealth, against an unaware enemy. A stealth roll is made vs Enemy Perception rolls.

This roll is made for EVERY pc, and EVERY Enemy.

EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOUR PCs within range needs to PASS vs EVERY SINGLE ENEMY NPC.

This means that Laezel in medium armor with disadvantage in stealth is screwing things up for you.


To make surprise work, break the party up. Use ONLY your sneaky character, Have him engage combat. THEN when everyone is locked into combat and surprised, swap over to your characters that are NOT in combat, and move them in

That triggers the surprised condition, the problem is the enemy doesn't respect it once you join in with the rest of the party. Seems the condition is supposed to go away at the END of the enemy turn and from what I've seen it goes away at the START of the enemy turn so instead of missing a turn they just act normally despite the condition. I've seen it do that at least three times now, something bugged with adding party members to the combat seems to remove the condition before it's supposed to be.