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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Deset Gled" data-source="post: 7385962" data-attributes="member: 7808">That's just, like, you know, your opinion, man.  It's actually very ambiguous.  There are some odd things that can only happen in rounds, and there are things that can only happen outside of combat rounds, too.  And determining when an encounter actually starts is definitively a gray area, designed to be left up to the DM.  There's even a RotG article that goes into it:  <a href="http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/rg/20051129a" target="_blank">http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/rg/20051129a</a>What's relevant to this discussion, though, are two main things.  First, an assassin must observe for 3 rounds, both because the rules text measures time this way and because (unfortunately) observation also "runs out" after 3 more rounds.  It is critical to know how many actions the assassin can perform within these times, so this process must be handled within the round system.Second, there are no specific rules on how to handle one character being aware of an encounter and another not for an extended period of time.  There are rules for surprise, but that explicitly only covers one round, and so isn't particularly applicable to a hiding assassin.  As a result of these two things, adjudicating the Death Attack ability is always going to end up walking a fuzzy line that borders on house rules.Unlike the above ambiguous case, this one is entirely a house rule.  There simply are no rules for facing in 3.x, in or out of combat.  That why your 3e miniatures walk in a line all facing the same way, instead of the 2e method where the guy at the end always walked backwards to protect against backstabbers.  You can always add circumstance and cover modifiers as necessary to describe sneaking in situations with a blind spot, but that's not the same thing as adding facing rules.</blockquote>

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