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<blockquote data-quote="KarinsDad" data-source="post: 6584441" data-attributes="member: 2011">In addition to initiative being rolled before the surprise round, I also often have the sneaking party do a group stealth check and find out the &quot;midpoint&quot; roll (actually, we have 6 PCs, so I use the average between the 3rd best and the 4th best if the PCs are the ones trying to be sneaky). I then roll perception for each member of the non-surprised group so that typically some of them are surprised and some are not surprised. Any creature who rolls perception equal or above the midpoint is not surprised.This is a house rule, but then again, the rules for stealth and surprise tend to be a bit sparse as is.Surprise is extremely powerful. It's easily the equivalent (or more) of dropping a deadly encounter to tough, or a medium encounter to easy. So I prefer that some creatures in the surprised group are not necessarily surprised (and by rolling, I make sure that it is not always the BBEG, but sometimes the mooks instead). The concept of everyone on one side being surprised seems extremely artificial.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="KarinsDad, post: 6584441, member: 2011"] In addition to initiative being rolled before the surprise round, I also often have the sneaking party do a group stealth check and find out the "midpoint" roll (actually, we have 6 PCs, so I use the average between the 3rd best and the 4th best if the PCs are the ones trying to be sneaky). I then roll perception for each member of the non-surprised group so that typically some of them are surprised and some are not surprised. Any creature who rolls perception equal or above the midpoint is not surprised. This is a house rule, but then again, the rules for stealth and surprise tend to be a bit sparse as is. Surprise is extremely powerful. It's easily the equivalent (or more) of dropping a deadly encounter to tough, or a medium encounter to easy. So I prefer that some creatures in the surprised group are not necessarily surprised (and by rolling, I make sure that it is not always the BBEG, but sometimes the mooks instead). The concept of everyone on one side being surprised seems extremely artificial. [/QUOTE]

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