NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Maxperson" data-source="post: 8546272" data-attributes="member: 23751">Step back from what? My saying that they are irrelevant to your claim isn't a step back from anything.Yes.  Yes there is.  ALL ability checks(surprise being one of them) have three states.  Auto success.  Auto failure.  And roll if the outcome is in doubt. This is in the ability check section of the PHB.Assuming the outcome is in doubt, the surprise rules use passive perception to figure out what the roll is.  The travel rules give you a rule whereby you don't get your passive perception to notice threats if you are distracted.  Since your passive perception doesn't apply to the surprise check, you are automatically surprised. You do know that individual checks also apply to every single person in the group, right?  Everyone rolling is not any kind of proof of it being a group check.No.  The surprise rules have no rules for a group surprise check. You can house rule that if you like, but they are in fact individual checks.  We already have.  Dozens of times at this point.  Sticking your head in the sand and yelling, "Lalalalala!" doesn't change the rules we've shown you into what you wish they were saying.There is no group surprise check.  Your insistence on misinterpreting that statement isn't going to alter how the game functions.  That same section tells you that it uses chapter 9 for surprise.  Only the individual specific exceptions of, "Distracted PCs don't get to use their passive perception." is different.No passive perception = no notice of threat.  No notice of threat = surprise according to surprise rules.  They automatically fail.  This is really easy peasy stuff to understand.Right here where you don't get passive perception."These characters don't contribute their passive Wisdom (Perception) scores to the group's chance of noticing hidden threats."  And yes, I know you're going to say, "But I'm totally misinterpreting what "the group's" means in this context, so it doesn't really say that."</blockquote>

Verification