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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hriston" data-source="post: 6479854" data-attributes="member: 6787503">This isn't an encounter I'm preparing. I brought this up as an example to counter some of the other examples, and to show how limiting the conditions where Surprise applies to only those situations where every possible threat has gone unnoticed can lead to equally absurd results. Maybe I missed the mark with this, but I would like to answer your questions. First, no the kobold isn't stalling. He is taunting the characters because he knows what they don't know, that the dragon has his back. He's there to deny access to anyone attempting to gain an audience with the dragon. To me it's not a question of whether I want the dragon to surprise the characters, but is more of a question of what the dragon does that's in her own interests and then what the rules say about it, so if what she does fits within Surprise, and I think it does, then she would "have" surprise in the first round. That's my premise. She doesn't wait for them to kill the kobold because he is her loyal servant. If your suggesting that she wait until she's alone with the adventurers so that she "gets" surprise, that would just be metagaming. Why would she actually do that?I feel like the surprise rule works just fine for me the way I interpret it and won't be house-ruling it any time soon. At least not until playing the way I think it is proves there's something that needs adjustment. I only asked my question because I found reasonable the suggestions about adjudicating whether something was a threat or not relative to other threats that may be present. If your going to take an absolutist stance towards Surprise, as I think I'm inclined to, then you probably won't need to make such rulings.One more thing, the unseen attacker bonus doesn't apply in my example because the dragon reveals herself by using her movement to fly up above the treasure pile before discharging her breath weapon, and so is not attacking from a hidden position.</blockquote>

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