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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hypersmurf" data-source="post: 46424" data-attributes="member: 1656">Well, there are a lot of House Rules going on in the scenario you described.  Which is fine, as long as everybody's happy with the way the DM's ruling, and as long as anyone new to your game understands what the House Rules are <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />By the rules, though :A defender who is surprised or flat-footed loses his Dex bonus to AC, but there is no special bonus to attack them.You might be confusing it for the rule about "Helpless Defenders".  You get a +4 bonus to attack someone who is "at your mercy" - bound, asleep, paralysed, unconscious, etc.  Just not knowing you're there doesn't qualify you for this.  As well at the bonus to attack, you get to treat a Helpless Defender as if he had a Dex score of 0 : that is, he gets no Dex bonus, and a -5 Dex penalty to his AC.  A Helpless Defender is the only situation in which an attacker can perform a Coup de Grace.What the DM might consider is allowing you the +2 bonus to attack granted to invisible attackers in certain situations.  I would consider this in the case of a completely unseen rogue taking a sniper-shot at a guard, but not in the case of a rogue with the advantage of surprise taking a shot at a flat-footed guard who has seen him.Secondly - Quick Draw has no effect on bows.  It's useful if you throw daggers, because drawing a dagger is normally a Move-Equivalent Action, restricting you to one thrown dagger in any round.  Quick Draw lets you draw a dagger as a free action, so you can throw as many daggers as you have ranged attacks, with a full attack action.  But note that with a BAB of less than 6, and without the Rapid Shot feat, you can still only throw one dagger in a round, even with Quick Draw.The reason QD doesn't affect bows is because drawing ammunition (as opposed to weapons, like daggers) is already a free action.  You can take as many shots with a bow, or a sling, or a repeating crossbow, as you have attacks.So if your archers have Rapid Shot, they can take two shots in any round they can take a full attack action.  Note that this does not include surprise rounds, because you can't make a full attack with a partial action.The last thing you're not doing by the rules is that any attack against an opponent denied his Dex bonus (such as flat-footed, as in the case of surprise), or against a flanked opponent, is considered a sneak attack.  Obviously some creatures are immune to sneak attacks, and you can't use them from more than 30' away, and certain abilities (like Uncanny Dodge) can negate the required conditions.  But if you can make four attacks in a round, and you win initiative, and you have surprise, then you can make one attack in the surprise round, and four in "round one" of combat, and get the extra sneak attack damage on all of them.Like I say, if everyone's happy with the way you're doing it now, there's no problem.  But if you want to do things by the rules, draw the DM's attention to pages 132-133 in the PHB in particular.-Hyp.</blockquote>

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