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<blockquote data-quote="Mercule" data-source="post: 6677676" data-attributes="member: 5100">The Rogue's stealth isn't an issue -- it's barely worth him rolling for most things. I don't think the door was locked, in my example. Even if it was, I'd allow it to be outside combat because there was nothing for the guard to observe so long as the rogue maintains his stealth. An attack or casting a spell that could be construed as a combat action is different in its effect on an observer and goes back to what I said about knowledge and whether they'd know to roll initiative. By the time an attack is resolved, everyone knows it's time to roll initiative, therefore the only question for a surprise round was whether the participants knew before or after the attack. If it's before (say, an obvious drawing of steel), then there is no surprise. If it's after (e.g. open and shut stealth) then there is surprise. When they don't even know there might be cause to roll initiative after the action is completed, then there isn't any initiative to roll and the single knowledgeable side can continue to act. There isn't any formal order of actions or track of rounds, but the everyone should have a heightened awareness of time and pseudo-rounds.There are some corner cases where you could have cascading rounds of surprise. If multiple guards are around the corner from one another, but an assassin knows about all of them and picks them off one at a time, Dishonored style, for example. Those are such outliers that I wouldn't even bother with too much guidance on them. The goal is to have enough of a framework for making rulings to foster consistency on my part and set expectations for planning on the part of the players.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Mercule, post: 6677676, member: 5100"] The Rogue's stealth isn't an issue -- it's barely worth him rolling for most things. I don't think the door was locked, in my example. Even if it was, I'd allow it to be outside combat because there was nothing for the guard to observe so long as the rogue maintains his stealth. An attack or casting a spell that could be construed as a combat action is different in its effect on an observer and goes back to what I said about knowledge and whether they'd know to roll initiative. By the time an attack is resolved, [U]everyone[/U] knows it's time to roll initiative, therefore the only question for a surprise round was whether the participants knew before or after the attack. If it's before (say, an obvious drawing of steel), then there is no surprise. If it's after (e.g. open and shut stealth) then there is surprise. When they don't even know there might be cause to roll initiative after the action is completed, then there isn't any initiative to roll and the single knowledgeable side can continue to act. There isn't any formal order of actions or track of rounds, but the everyone should have a heightened awareness of time and pseudo-rounds. There are some corner cases where you could have cascading rounds of surprise. If multiple guards are around the corner from one another, but an assassin knows about all of them and picks them off one at a time, Dishonored style, for example. Those are such outliers that I wouldn't even bother with too much guidance on them. The goal is to have enough of a framework for making rulings to foster consistency on my part and set expectations for planning on the part of the players. [/QUOTE]

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