Reacting from sleep?

[irdeggman]

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.

Not necessarily.

Rules Compendium pg 113

"You can make a Reflex save whenever one is called for, but your Dexterity or whether you can apply its modifier might be altered by the situation."

So no autofail saving throws.

 

[Klaus]

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

Combat starts when time slows down to a round-by-round timeline. Party is aware, NPCs are not. Archer and Rogue get two rounds worth of movement to get in position, with the agreement to target the NPCs as soon as they notice the party.

Note that the sentry didn't spot the party, he just heard something. So I'd say that round of attacks (on the sentry and the sleeping NPCs) count as the surprise round. The sentry had already failed to notice the (much closer) Archer and Rogue.

As for sleeping characters, one could House Rule it that sleeping characters are dazed for 1 round after they wake up (and, of course, are prone). A DC 15 Concentration check negates the daze.

 

[irdeggman]

Combat starts when time slows down to a round-by-round timeline. Party is aware, NPCs are not. Archer and Rogue get two rounds worth of movement to get in position, with the agreement to target the NPCs as soon as they notice the party.

Not per the RAW, although this is a common house-rule.

See pg 133 of the PHB under "HOW COMBAT WORKS"

The sequence of Combat is laid out from 1 to 5.

Note that the sentry didn't spot the party, he just heard something. So I'd say that round of attacks (on the sentry and the sleeping NPCs) count as the surprise round. The sentry had already failed to notice the (much closer) Archer and Rogue.

Then what was the "trigger" for the readied actions? The OP said they he had "The watchman spots the rest of the PCs, triggering the archer and rogue's held actions."

 

[MithrasRahl]

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.

For the rest of the party, sure. The Archer and Rogue were already in position at this point, ready to attack.

The readied action was to attack when it became clear that the sentry had spoted someone. The sentry stood there til he heard the rest of the party at 250 feet away, his head jerked toward them and he opened his mouth to shout out at them. I have no problem with the sentry yelling out as we launch our readied actions, it's more my problem with his readied action being able to auto-target me in the dark 150 feet away, and the enemy party waking up and attacking into the dark on their first turn.

 

[Klaus]

Not per the RAW, although this is a common house-rule.

See pg 133 of the PHB under "HOW COMBAT WORKS"

The sequence of Combat is laid out from 1 to 5.



Then what was the "trigger" for the readied actions? The OP said they he had "The watchman spots the rest of the PCs, triggering the archer and rogue's held actions."

The PHB gives an example of readying an action to shoot at the first ghoul that entered the door (and then went on to say that "shooting the first unwounded ghoul" was a bit too specific). That's readying outside of combat.

 

[ElectricDragon]

Did any of the NPC's have low-light vision? If so, then the rogue could be clearly seen (he wasn't hiding, just outside the light in "shadowy illumination"; but with low-light vision, this would have been the normal light conditions: the campfire light stretched out to 100 feet and "shadowy illumination" out to 200 feet. It is possible that the archer could have even been seen. Again, no hide checks.

A creature in an area of shadowy illumination can make a Hide check to conceal itself.

If both the guard and the mage had low-light vision, this scenario becomes right except for the auto-awakens.

Ciao
Dave

 

[MithrasRahl]

Is there a ratio anywhere for firelight? Aka, if the fire provides perfect light up to X distance, then shadowy illumination exists up to Y(X) distance, and darkness is at Y(X)+1

 

[Kahuna Burger]

Did any of the NPC's have low-light vision? If so, then the rogue could be clearly seen (he wasn't hiding, just outside the light in "shadowy illumination"; but with low-light vision, this would have been the normal light conditions: the campfire light stretched out to 100 feet and "shadowy illumination" out to 200 feet.

Actually the first post said "the fire has been stated to only illuminate 50 feet out." Whether this was a poorly built fire or one that they had tried badly to hide, your assessment conflicts with the DM's info given, so cannot justify the targeting. Illumination was 50 ft, the only question is whether thats bright out to 25 and shadowy to 50 or bright to 50 and shadowy to 100 - either way, it's not shadowy to 200.

 

[irdeggman]

The PHB gives an example of readying an action to shoot at the first ghoul that entered the door (and then went on to say that "shooting the first unwounded ghoul" was a bit too specific). That's readying outside of combat.

No. From 3.5 PHB and DMG

The example I found on pg 160

"For example, you might specify that you will shoot an arrow at anyone coming through a nearby doorway."

No mention of this happening before combat - that is it could be that during combat someone readies an action to shoot the first foe coming through the door, like protecting the party already in combat from others joining in.

To further clarify this. . . .

DMG pg 26 "Don't allow players to use the ready action outside of combat.

While the above examples are all acceptable in the middle of an encounter, a player cannot use the ready action to cover a door with his crossbow outside of combat. It's okay for a player to state that he's covering the door, but what that means is that if something comes through the door he's unlikely to be caught unaware."

 

[MithrasRahl]

So at what point does combat start and stop? If I'm in combat and I run away and go a round without fighting or being attacked, does that negate any readied actions held by the enemy? I would argue for my case above, combat began when the Archer and Rogue moved in.