Total- and Partial Surprise (B393), who uses it?

[Ultraviolet]

Total- and Partial Surprise (B393), who uses it?
Does someone do something else?

Even though I've played for a looong time, we tend to forget this or gloss it over.

I play in a Cliffhangers campaign with changing GMs, and not all are as rules savvy as me, but we help each other.

Several characters have Combat Reflexes, and the "you never freeze" phrase throws people off, and they ask how it helps them.

Recently I've been trying to implement the rules. Oddities arise from the definition of "leader" since a party of adventurers is a bunch of invividuals.

We tend to use Partial Surprise most, because trouble is expected. The "leader" is the person who spots the trouble first, is in front etc.

Total Surprise is for the rare occasions when trouble really is unexpected. Or when the camp is attacked at night. The guard is Partially Surprised, the rest are 'frozen' for a time.

And once things get going characters act in order of Basic Speed. We're sometimes puzzled by the fact that Combat Reflexes does not affect this. SO we think it's important to run the Surprise mechanics for the advantage to come into it's right.

What do you other people do?

[Gnome]

When surprise occurs in my games, I rarely use the rules as written in Basic. I find them both confusing and unwieldy, for some of the reasons you stated. It's hard to model some members of a party being surprised while others are not, for example. And it's very unclear about how to determine whether surprise has occurred (Perception isn't even mentioned on the page, and it seems to me whether you've perceived the threat is the most important determiner of surprise!).

I think the initiative rules might make sense for military games where the leader is obvious, and the coordination of the group by the leader is the focus. I've literally never rolled 1d for initiative in many, many years and probably over a thousand sessions.

DF 16 Wilderness Adventures has some more playable rules for ambushes, though it's still quite group-based, using the "party" Perception rather than individual, which precludes the chance that one member of the party is a step behind the rest.

I would love to have some rules for "social surprise," when someone decides to turn a social encounter into combat. If you and I are having a conversation that turns to blows, and I'm the one who decides to go there, you might still have a chance to see me tense up and strike first, for example. Or I might catch you totally by surprise. Or I might strike first, but you're ready for it. And so on.

[AlexanderHowl]

I used them all of the time, it was a great help when PCs were ambushing their own enemies (and one of the reasons why most of my players have played PCs with Combat Reflexes). The fact that Combat Reflexes mean that you are never totally surprised, even when woken from sleep, can mean the difference between life and death.

In the case of a group of individuals, I have it being the individual with the higher Leadership Skill (defaults count). If only one person is awake though, they become the leader by default, since they can act before anyone else. If everyone is asleep, they need to make a IQ roll to wake up before they can act (Deep Sleeper is a great perk for this sort of thing because you automatically succeed if you also have Combat Reflexes).

[ericthered]

These rules usually come up when I run test combats rather than play, though they occasionally come up. They can be brutal on the surprised party.



On picking a leader, it depends on the game and the group. I had one group that usually maintained an in-game leader, so they would roll. Other times I'd just use the highest PC skill if the game was essentially all about combat. Other times I might tell them "Tough Luck, You aren't organized enough to have a leader roll for you".



Note that combat reflexes gives a +6 to all of the surprise rolls. Thats what the "You never freeze" phrase is talking about.

[AlexanderHowl]

You are also immune to total surprise (Basic, p. 393), the +6 is for situations of partial surprise, so you easily snap out of the mental stun that occurs due to partial surprise.

[khorboth]

I use this all the time. Both Combat Reflexes and Danger Sense help a lot. One person with Danger Sense can take the whole party from total to partial surprise and level the playing field.

Likewise, my NPCs suffer penalties when the party is clever. It all works out.

[Gnome]

Originally Posted by khorboth

I use this all the time. Both Combat Reflexes and Danger Sense help a lot. One person with Danger Sense can take the whole party from total to partial surprise and level the playing field.

Likewise, my NPCs suffer penalties when the party is clever. It all works out.

I’m having trouble locating anything in the rules about Danger Sense and surprise/initiative. Are you using a house rule that DS takes the whole party from total to partial surprise? I’m not saying it’s unreasonable, I’m just curious where you got this.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by Gnome

Are you using a house rule that DS takes the whole party from total to partial surprise?

B393 defines total surprise heavily emphasizing the word "completely" in italics. It's an extreme enough situation that it rarely affects "adventurers" unless they're unaware to the equivalent of being asleep. Danger Sense pretty much by definition would warn the character of a total surprise situation (in time to do something about it, no less). The remaining piece that's implicit in khorboth's post is that the Danger Senser actually bothers to warn the rest of the party or perhaps even simply reacts in a noticeable way so that the rest of the party knows some danger is imminent. The party isn't asleep at the wheel, so just partial surprise rather than total. You might work through that in detail a few times, but most groups I've been in would wind up abbreviating it to a SOP convention. "Joe has Danger Sense, so anyone in the party that's totally surprised just treats it as partial", rather than have the GM look significantly at Joe each time and say "and do you warn the rest of the party, or let them walk into the ambush?"

[Stormcrow]

Originally Posted by Gnome

I’m having trouble locating anything in the rules about Danger Sense and surprise/initiative.

Partial surprise may occur when the party is expecting trouble. Danger Sense alerts you to the presence of trouble. Hence, if you would otherwise experience total surprise, a successful Perception roll from Danger Sense can reduce it to partial surprise.

[AlexanderHowl]

Danger Sense plus Combat Reflexes should pretty much allow a character to never suffer even partial surprise if they make the IQ roll. Since they know something bad is coming, they are prepared for it (other characters with Combat Reflexes would need to make a Per roll to notice that the character with Danger Sense is already reacting to something bad and therefore not suffer surprise). In this way, a character with Danger Sense is an amazing party asset.