Surprise and Ghostly horseman

Willtell · Mar 5, 2002

Is this correct:

1) The ghostly horseman manifests 15ft away. The pcs know it patrolls the road they are travelling on but could not hear or see it before it manifest. Are they surprised?

2) The pcs have readied an action to attack the ghostly horseman when it appears. Are they allowed to attack before it takes any other action during the surprise rnd?.

3) It moans, panicking the rogue and the psychic warrior. Psychic warror had readied an action to attack the horseman with his sword when it appeared. Since it's a surprise rnd and its to far away has he spent his partical action for the surprise rnd?

StealthyMark · Mar 5, 2002

1) The ghostly horseman manifests 15ft away. The pcs know it patrolls the road they are travelling on but could not hear or see it before it manifest. Are they surprised?

The PCs are surprised, if they don't succeed at a Spot check (vs. the ghost's Hide check), at least IMO. Listen doesn't work.

2) The pcs have readied an action to attack the ghostly horseman when it appears. Are they allowed to attack before it takes any other action during the surprise rnd?.

According to the DMG, the Ready action can't be used outside of combat. The PCs can't ready any actions.

3) It moans, panicking the rogue and the psychic warrior. Psychic warror had readied an action to attack the horseman with his sword when it appeared. Since it's a surprise rnd and its to far away has he spent his partical action for the surprise rnd?

Since noone can ready this particular action, this scenario doesn't happen. If this were in combat, his readied action were lost.