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!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Amaroq" data-source="post: 5108763" data-attributes="member: 15470">Wow, you clearly have a level in "Thread Necromancy" <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" />This is the House Rules forum; you probably want to ask your question(s) about the normal rules in the <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-4th-edition-rules/" target="_blank">4th Edition Rules</a> forum.RAW for this, I think, is using character's stealth vs monster's passive perception -> success = Surprise. Meanwhile, the monster makes Stealth vs the character's passive perception, with success = Surprise.So, if Joe McSneaky has a +5 Stealth and a +3 Perception (Passive: 13), and he's trying to sneak up on an Orc with +2 Stealth and +2 Perception (Passive: 12).Example 1:Joe rolls a 13 Stealth, +5 = 18, which is greater than the Orc's Passive Perception (12). The Orc will not participate in a Surprise round.The orc rolls 14 Stealth, +2 = 16, which beats Joe's Passive Perception (13). Joe doesn't get to participate in a Surprise round, either.Neither of them heard the other .. Advance to normal combat. ...Example 2:Joe rolls the same 13 Stealth, +5 = 18, which still beats that 12, so the Orc is surprised.The orc rolls a 4 Stealth, +2 = 6, which doesn't beat Joe's 13 Passive Perception. Joe is not surprised, and gets to participate in the Surprise round.Roll initiative.Run the Surprise round, with only Joe taking action.Run the normal round, with both Joe and the Orc taking action. ...Example 3:Okay, so far its been easy. Let's add two more combatants. Example 3:Joe's teammate Bob Clumsy (+0 Stealth, +2 Perception) comes along, but now there's a Dog in the room, too, (+2 Stealth and a +7 Perception).Joe rolls an 11 Stealth, +5 = 16, which beats that 12, so the Orc is surprised. However, it does not beat the Dog's 17 Passive Perception, so the Dog is not surprised.His teammate Bob rolls a 12. +0 is still 12, which barely beats the Orc's Passive Perception of 12. The orc is still surprised.The orc rolls an 11 Stealth, +2 = 13, which beats Bob's Passive Perception of 12, so Bob is surprised. 13 doesn't beat Joe's 13 Passive Perception. Joe is not surprised, and gets to participate in the Surprise round. The dog rolls a 20 Stealth, +2 = 22, so he's beaten Joe's Passive Perception .. Joe may not know the dog is there, but he still gets to participate in the Surprise round because he knows the orc is there.Roll initiative.Run the Surprise round, with Joe and Dog taking actions.Run the normal round, with Bob, Joe, Dog, and Orc all taking actions. ...That leads to the situation where one clumsy member of a party in heavy armor can mess up Surprise for the entire team. You'll find a good discussion of this, with an example of how I set up a Stealth situation while writing an encounter, in the thread <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-4th-edition-rules/272851-group-stealth-options.html" target="_blank">Group Stealth Options</a> over in that other forum.</blockquote>

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