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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Voadam" data-source="post: 2179083" data-attributes="member: 2209">All right, in my game I have a cleric with a special meld with stone and stonewalking ability who comes to the wall of a cavern chamber. Simultaneously the arcane trickster is coming in ethereally but cannot see much because of the solid stone until he gets to the chamber. The rest of the party is coming in through the main entrance to the demon infested cavern complex to cause chaos with a planned surprise assault.The cleric and trickster expect a possessed warrior and succubus to be in the chamber and a bug demon on the ethereal plane with blindsense, scent, etc that extends across to the prime as well. The cleric can hear normally (per meld with stone) as he earth walks through the mountain and goes to the place the ethereal scouting trickster checked out before.Unfortunately for the party the demons figured out one of their sentries were missing and that the party is coming and gave a general alert throughout the complex and planned an ambush at the entrance.So instead of the possessed fighter being caught with his pants down engaged with the succubus when the dwarf cleric comes out of the stone and the trickster enters the chamber ethereally the succubus has just finished helping him on with his plate armor and he is expecting magical enemies who can possibly teleport but expecting them at the entrance. The dwarf did not stop to listen first before going in, but was expecting the human and demon. He was planning on popping out and using a banishment on anybody he could see and target.So how should this run for surprise as the trickster and cleric enter the chamber? Who should be considered "aware" of who at the beginning of the combat for surprise purposes? The dwarf cannot see the ethereal bug demon who can see him and could free action come back to the prime plane to attack him but won't because of the ethereal trickster. The bug has a blindsense that should pick up the trickster and the cleric. The fighter and succubus are gearing up for trouble but not exactly from the wall of their chamber. The cleric did not stop to listen for them and came out pretty much blind but expecting them.From the srd combat section2. Determine which characters are aware of their opponents at the start of the battle. If some but not all of the combatants are aware of their opponents, a surprise round happens before regular rounds of combat begin. The combatants who are aware of the opponents can act in the surprise round, so they roll for initiative. In initiative order (highest to lowest), combatants who started the battle aware of their opponents each take one action (either a standard action or a move action) during the surprise round. Combatants who were unaware do not get to act in the surprise round. If no one or everyone starts the battle aware, there is no surprise round.</blockquote>

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