Reacting from sleep?

MithrasRahl · Feb 2, 2008

Here is the scenario, tell me what, if anything, you find wrong with this picture:

The Archer and the Rogue sneak up on a party that is camped on top of a hill. It is the middle of the night, and the fire has been stated to only illuminate 50 feet out. The lone watchman is also carrying a torch. The watchman spots the rest of the PCs, triggering the archer and rogue's held actions. The archer shoots the watchman, and the rogue uses UMD to fire a wand of lightning bolt on the sleeping members of camp. In the same surprise round, the watchman casts Divine Fire (or something like that) on the Archer that is 150 feet away in the darkness.

On the next round of initiative (aka, first round of combat), the NPC mage wakes up, stands up, and casts an orb of cold on the archer, who is still 150 feet out in the darkness. The NPC archer and other caster also wake up, get up, and attack.

What, if anything, do you find wrong with the previous?

Kahuna Burger · Feb 2, 2008

MithrasRahl said:
What, if anything, do you find wrong with the previous?

Well, pretty much everything.

Lacking 150 foot darkvision, the targeting of the sniping member of the party by the npcs simply shouldn't have been able to happen. If the readied actions were triggered by the watchman reacting to the other party members, he shouldn't have gotten a chance to attack the sniping members in the same round. He took whatever reaction to seeing the non sneaky party members, the snipers' readied actions activated just before his, but he doesn't get to change his action based on them. I don't know any precise rules for waking up, but the mage's attack on someone out in the darkness who hadn't acted since he woke up could only be justified if he was only faking sleep.... and he couldn't use a targeted spell without the afore mentioned 150 foot darkvision anyway.

This isn't a true story, right? *hope hope*

MithrasRahl · Feb 2, 2008

Ok, a slightly more detailed version, and yes, true story.

We're following the tracks of what seems to be 5 or so humanoid creatures and a horse. We track the entire day, and into the night. At some point we see a fire in the distance, and our rogue scouts it out. He sees a full armored man on watch, and 5 people sleeping with the horse being tethered. The rogue comes back and reports.

The Archer (myself) and the Rogue then sneak back to the 6 enemy. My range inc. is 185 feet, and the fire only goes out 50 feet, so I stand 150 feet away. The Rogue goes to the otherside of the camp and readies his wand of lightning.

The rest of the party comes forward, and when they're at 250 feet the DM calls for a move silent check. The Dwarf Crusader rolls lows, and the sentry hears him. As he opens his mouth to call out, our readied actions happen. I shoot the sentry, and the Rogue lightning bolts the sleeping people. After both our readied actions go off, I'm somehow hit by his readied action of Divine something-or-rather, which hits me for 30ish points. We then roll initiative, and the NPCs get ridiculous ones, like 22, 20, 20 for the first 3. Those rolls were for all sleepers; the first gets up and casts Orb of Cold on me (still standing 150 out in the darkness). The second gets up and draws his great sword, and the third gets up and casts an offensive spell on the Rogue, who is just outside the 50 foot fire light.

krupintupple · Feb 2, 2008

hmm.

you know, i'm not entire sure, but i don't believe you can 'ready' actions outside of combat, otherwise instead of being ambushed you'd automatically activate the readied action to retreat or something. i'm foggy on the rules as it's nearly five am here, but i'm almost certain you can't ready outside of battle. although this would've ruined your preemptive attack upon the sentry, it also would've ruined his divine sanction? or whatever he laid upon you.

however, unless he had superior darkvision or a spell that neither requires sight nor specific targetting or something along those lines, i fail to see how he was able to flawlessly target and then attack you.

i also don't understand how most of the group was able to go from sleeping to fully active and combat ready, instantly knowing where your positions were, and flawlessly targeting you with spells. the only way i could think of this realistically happening, without the DM railroading you, would be if they knew you were coming and laid a trap, and were merely pretending to be sleeping. perhaps their mage was tracking you via scrying or something else, or had magic so as to allow the party to easily pierce the darkness of the night and attack so effectively.

failing that, your DM might've just been railroading you. at this point, i'd honestly like to know what the explanation was for such interesting NPC actions.

MithrasRahl · Feb 2, 2008

Readying an Action

You can ready a standard action, a move action, or a free action. To do so, specify the action you will take and the conditions under which you will take it. Then, any time before your next action, you may take the readied action in response to that condition. The action occurs just before the action that triggers it. If the triggered action is part of another character’s activities, you interrupt the other character. Assuming he is still capable of doing so, he continues his actions once you complete your readied action. Your initiative result changes. For the rest of the encounter, your initiative result is the count on which you took the readied action, and you act immediately ahead of the character whose action triggered your readied action.

I would say that when we started to get into place for our assault, combat had started. Once we were in place, we were holding our actions until his move triggered us.

In a real world sense, I find it kind of ridiculous that this sentry was standing there with a readied action that as soon as he was hit with something, he automatically locates it and casts that spell on it, all in the surprise round. Best sentry ever?

Arkhandus · Feb 2, 2008

Yeah, the DM probably just didn't want to give you guys any of the normal advantages of a night-time surprise attack. Especially since the sentry acted during the surprise round despite probably not noticing you guys before your attack. And was apparently unhindered by the distance and darkness.

The DM had to have been railroading you into a slugfest with his pet NPCs.

250 feet of distance is a +25 to the Listen check DC, so the sentry must've had an awesome Listen check (especially for what sounds like a cleric, druid, or similar; rangers are the only divine casters I can think of that have Listen as a class skill) to hear your party from 250 feet away.

Not to mention that he shouldn't have been able to see you at all.

The sleeping people must've certainly auto-failed their Reflex saves (I'm not sure from your description, but they should've, being helpless and unconscious) against the Lightning Bolt.

I'm not sure what the range is on those spells the enemies were casting, as I don't have the books to look it up.

For some wierd, wierd reason, the rules don't seem to have anything on handling an attack on sleeping enemies, with regards to how soon the suddenly-awakened creatures can act normally. But the DM really should use some common sense in handling the grogginess or surprise of people just waking up in the middle of an attack.

At the very least, the sleepers shouldn't have been able to see anyone in your group yet, same as the sentry. Can't zap someone with a spell when you have no idea where they are, except for "somewhere vaguely in that direction, I think". At best the enemy mage could've tried throwing a fireball somewhere with a blind guess as to how far out he wants it to travel before exploding.

Klaus · Feb 2, 2008

Here's how it should've happened by the rules:

1. Archer and Rogue are on opposite sides of the camp, with total concealment. Both ready actions based on "enemy notices party".

2. Party blows Move Silently check, sentry hears them. He is about to shout for his comrades (not a guaranteed way of rousing his party).

3. Readied actions go. Archer fires at sentry, Rogue blasts sleeping enemies. Enemies that take damage wake up (most probably without weapons or armor). Enemies that took no damage make Listen checks to be roused.

4. Sentry takes his free action to shout for help. Then (IMHO), he should've tosses his torch into the ground, blowing it out, and would've moved his speed into the woods, drawing his weapon of choice.

5. Initiative rolled for all involved. If NPCs go first, they can't target anyone, since they don't have line of sight against the PCs. So one of them takes time to put out the fire, while others draw weapons and components and holy symbols (move actions). Some cast buff spells, others take a second move action to spread out of camp.

6. Now everyone without darkvision must guess a square and has a 50% miss chance.

Primitive Screwhead · Feb 2, 2008

Klaus, I disagree.. and there are probably a number of threads about this:

Option 1:
- Do not 'start the encounter' until the sentry notices the group... roll for surprise and initiative. No readied actions can occur but the PCs all act in the surprise round.

Option 2:
- start the encounter when the group is aware of the NPCs, allows for readying actions but there is no surprise round. Run the PCs in initiative order until the Sentry notices them, in which case the alerted NPCs join the fight and roll initiative. This gives the PCs most of a round to act before the sleeping characters are alerted.

Other issue, which there are also a number of threads on, sleeping. There are no good rules for waking up from sleep. My HR is that waking up is a Move action, which means ambushing sleeping characters often grants the ambushers almost 2 rounds of actions before the poor targets can effectively react {unless they fight from prone and have all thier gear ready while sleeping}

Last issue.. is the targetting beings outside of the light of a campfire. Thats probably the DM forgetting environmental effects of night

Done that a couple times myself... otherwise both Archer and Rogue would have complete concealment and could not be targeted.
Which, of course, would make for dead bad guys pretty quick. Just remember... it also makes for dead PC's when the situation is reversed

irdeggman · Feb 2, 2008

MithrasRahl said:
I would say that when we started to get into place for our assault, combat had started. Once we were in place, we were holding our actions until his move triggered us.

You only get 1 surprise round and then you can only do a standard or a move action but not both.

So moving was your surprise round action and then it was time for everyone involved needs to roll initiative checks, including the watchman.

A rules quirk but one that exists none the less. Technically you are also flat-footed until you first act in a combat round (so everyone is flat-footed outside of combat).

I'm not saying it makes a lot of sense but it is the RAW.

Also anyone entering combat after it starts (like the sleeping foes) get to enter at what ever initiative they wish too.

irdeggman · Feb 2, 2008

Primitive Screwhead said:
Klaus, I disagree.. and there are probably a number of threads about this:

Option 1:
- Do not 'start the encounter' until the sentry notices the group... roll for surprise and initiative. No readied actions can occur but the PCs all act in the surprise round.

Option 2:
- start the encounter when the group is aware of the NPCs, allows for readying actions but there is no surprise round. Run the PCs in initiative order until the Sentry notices them, in which case the alerted NPCs join the fight and roll initiative. This gives the PCs most of a round to act before the sleeping characters are alerted.

Other issue, which there are also a number of threads on, sleeping. There are no good rules for waking up from sleep. My HR is that waking up is a Move action, which means ambushing sleeping characters often grants the ambushers almost 2 rounds of actions before the poor targets can effectively react {unless they fight from prone and have all thier gear ready while sleeping}

Last issue.. is the targetting beings outside of the light of a campfire. Thats probably the DM forgetting environmental effects of night
Done that a couple times myself... otherwise both Archer and Rogue would have complete concealment and could not be targeted.
Which, of course, would make for dead bad guys pretty quick. Just remember... it also makes for dead PC's when the situation is reversed

Agree on just about everything here.

Question to the OP:

You said "held actions" did you mean delayed or actually readied actions.

It looks like you meant readied actions - what was the specific "trigger" for that readied action?

"Enemy spots us"?

Far too vague since you really can't interupt a spot check.

Your readied action which technically can't be done outside of combat (or at least not before the single surprise round) would then "interupt" the action that triggered it and possible prevent it from happening at all. Spot is not a real action in this case it is a "reflexive" action, that is "not even a free action".