Surprise when the bad guys are faking it

[d12]

So lets say the PCs enter a room and in this room there are badly decayed bodies on he ground. These "corpses" are actually undead skeletons who have been given the command to lay perfectly still until someone comes within reach and then attack. Here's how I want to resolve surprise and combat - tell me if I'm right.

No spots checks are called for because the PC's *see* the skeletons. If the PCs were trying to hide as they entered the room then it might call for spot checks on the skeletons' part. Otherwise, the skeltons gain the advantage of a surpirse round
since they are aware of the PCs and the PCs are not *aware* of the skeletons. The Skeletons use the surpirse round to ready an action to attack with their claws as soon as a PC is in reach.

Am I right here? Am I completely off?

What happens if a player says "I want to see if these are undead, I run up and hack at one of them."

 

[hong]

So lets say the PCs enter a room and in this room there are badly decayed bodies on he ground. These "corpses" are actually undead skeletons who have been given the command to lay perfectly still until someone comes within reach and then attack. Here's how I want to resolve surprise and combat - tell me if I'm right.

No spots checks are called for because the PC's *see* the skeletons. If the PCs were trying to hide as they entered the room then it might call for spot checks on the skeletons' part. Otherwise, the skeltons gain the advantage of a surpirse round
since they are aware of the PCs and the PCs are not *aware* of the skeletons. The Skeletons use the surpirse round to ready an action to attack with their claws as soon as a PC is in reach.

Am I right here? Am I completely off?

A Spot check might still be called for, to see if the PCs notice that these aren't just regular dead skeletons.

What happens if a player says "I want to see if these are undead, I run up and hack at one of them."

Roll initiative.

 

[heirodule]

Interesting question. Essentially, the skelletons are "feinting", using thei bluff skill (HAH!) to gain an advantage.

I wonder if skeletons (held together by magic) that are "playing dead" look slightly different from jumbles of bones (loose)

 

[Skinwalker]

...undead skeletons who have been given the command to lay perfectly still until someone comes within reach and then attack.

If you actually tell the PCs there are corpses laying around the room and they don't seem concerned (e.g., state any kind of precaution or cautionary activity), your method sounds reasonable.

What happens if a player says "I want to see if these are undead, I run up and hack at one of them."

If he has a reach weapon, he could do so before the skeleton's triggering instructions kick in (surprise round for the PC). Otherwise, the PC is trying to attack the skeleton and the skeleton is trying to attack the PC - roll for initiative and start the combat in earnest.

 

[Murrdox]

I'd say the party all get to make spot checks upon seeing the skeletons, opposed by the bluff checks of all the skeletons.

The skeletons should get at least a +10 on their bluff check for pretending to be what they already are... DEAD, and also because as undead, they are CAPABLE of lying perfectly still, so a party member can't notice one breathing.

If one of the party members says he's going to go over to the nearest skeleton and hack at it to make sure it's dead, roll initiative. The skeleton is aware of the party, and the party is trying to attack the skeleton. Neither group gets a surprise action.

 

[d12]

Okay, so I'll give the PCs a sense motive check against the Skeletons' bluff check at +10 or +15. Otherwise, at leasts one PC will get hacked at (surprised) as they walk by the skeletons.

 

[Camarath]

IMO Disguise would be the best skill to use. Hide seems wrong because the undead are in plain view. Bluff does not seem right to me because the is no dynamic interaction so I think that Sense Motive would not be the right skill too use to dectect the undead. Disguise uses the Spot skill, which I think is appropriate skill to use to dectect the resting undead's undead state. It also allows the characters to be aware of the "bodies" and still draw thier own conclusions. I think the Undead should get a +20 to Disguise, +10 competence bonus for the Undead impersonating a dead creature and a +10 circumstance bonus for the unnatural stillness and posture.

 

[Murrdox]

The skeletons aren't "disguising" themselves as anything. They're just pretending to be dead. If it's not a Bluff check, it's a Perform check. However, since skeletons are clearly incapable of "Performing" in the traditional sense, Bluff works well enough.

 

[Mike Sullivan]

This is how I'd do it:

In my opinion, the skeletons aren't DOING anything. They're lying there perfectly still, and their skills don't enter into it.

If I decided (as I probably would) that undead skeletons tend to look more cohesive than dry bones that are just lying there, I'd assign a static DC for noticing the difference between cohesive skeletons and natural skeletons. I'd roll the PC's spot skills against that static DC to determine whether or not they noticed that the skeletons aren't lying in a natural way. If they did succeed, I'd tell them, "That skeleton seems not to have settled. None of the joins have a large gap between them, and it seems like some of the bones aren't falling over to one side or the other when they 'ought' to."

That would, in this case, be because these are undead skeletons. The exact same roll could be used in a hypothetical future when someone just uses a bit of magic to make a skeleton stick together for display purposes (but it's not undead or animate), or when Joe Illusionist creates an illusion of a skeleton based on his knowledge of anatomy and not what a settled skeleton actually looks like.

There might be a supplemental spot roll, or a bonus to the spot roll, if, for example, the skeletons "ought" to be dusty, but aren't.

 

[ZSutherland]

I hate to be the stickler, but remember that you can only ready an action for so many initiative counts (which implies that initiative has already been rolled) and that your initiative score drops to that count when your readied action takes place. If your trigger condition doesn't occur within the alloted # of counts, your initiative score still drops to that point and you lose your action.

If you're just trying to scare the crap out of your players, you could roll initiative before the game for the skeletons and do it this way, but it's tactically unsound as it's likely to cause several of the badguys to loose a good deal of their initiative and throw away the tactical element of suprise.

Z