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Certain combat encounters, especially ones that occur after an in-game cutscene, are set to always {{cond|Surprised|Surprise}} the party. These can usually be countered by utilizing conditions such as {{cond|Invisible}} or hiding in heavily obscured areas with spells such as {{SAI|Darkness}} before triggering them. | Certain combat encounters, especially ones that occur after an in-game cutscene, are set to always {{cond|Surprised|Surprise}} the party. These can usually be countered by utilizing conditions such as {{cond|Invisible}} or hiding in heavily obscured areas with spells such as {{SAI|Darkness}} before triggering them. | ||
Surprising a group of enemies can be challenging and kind of unintuitive. To simplify it: | |||
* First, put the ENTIRE party in stealth including pets. If a member pulls before you and is noticed, your entire party maybe noticed. | |||
* Second, break up the party, including pets, and move the surpriser into position, make sure your pets don't follow you. | |||
* Third, with your party and pets behind, your surpriser needs to first approach the enemy while [[Stealthy]] and while outside enemy vision cones. Fire a ranged attack while you are within sight of them but not within the vision cone. Apparently, the game does a [[Stealth]] check vs [[Perception]] the enemy: if you are successful, the enemies will not notice you and start panicking and running around until they find you, if they do, you will NOT trigger [[Surprised (Condition)]]. If you fail the check, the enemy will notice you and trigger surprised (assuming they don't have the alert feature). If you manage this in melee range, it seems it will always trigger surprised (not tested). | |||
This means that if your [[Stealth]] is way too high, you may fail to trigger [[Surprised (Condition)]]. However, this opens some ranged builds where, if you manage to stay hidden from the enemy, you can get several shots before being pulled into combat, even allowing you to assassinate a creature without retaliation. This can be achieved by having a high [[Dexterity]] score, having [[Proficiency]] and [[Expertise]] in stealth, [[Advantage]] in dexterity or stealth checks, and, if you have it in your party, using the spell [[Pass Without Trace]]. | |||
Other observations with the stealth and surprised mechanics are that they will also apply to some spells. If you cast from enough distance from outside the vision cones of the creature and your [[Stealth]] is high enough, you may get either get a surprise round or even a free cast without being pulled into combat (by way of the [[Stealth]] vs [[Perception]] check), particularly useful with Area of Effect spells, whether damage or control. | |||
If you really, really want to trigger surprise and don't want to build a high [[Stealth]] character, you can always use [[Invisibility]] to open the fight, weather by using potions, the spell, or items (like [[Shadow of Menzoberranzan]]) and surprise will always trigger. Invisibility from the [[Quasit]] and [[Imp]] pet will also work, but be advised that, if a creature has [[Alert]], they will react to your pet and most likely kill it before you can benefit from surprised. The druid [[Wild Shape: Panther]] will also help, but in the same vein, you will need to make sure your druid survives the retaliation from the creatures with alert. | |||
Once surprised is trigger, you can start moving up your group, one by one, into the fray. Be wary of vision cones: once a member of your party is within the vision cone of creature, if they fail the [[Stealth]] check, they will be pull into combat. This can be used to your advantage, before entering a vision cone, you can use jump, fly or teleportation ([[Misty Step]] effects) to start combat wherever you want your unit to be. If you avoided detection altogether, you could even cast a spell or attack before being pulled into the initiative order. This will aid you to kill an enemy even before the surprise round is over. Moreover, you can even cut vision of the enemy by using [[Fog Cloud]], [[Darkness]], [[Arrow of Darkness]] and [[Blinded (Condition)]] (from many sources), allowing free passage to reach priority targets. Remember you can stop concentrating in spells whenever you want, so once everyone is in position you can release concentration on Fog and Darkness, and if you avoided detections casting it may have even not costed you an action. | |||
== List of Surprise encounters == | == List of Surprise encounters == | ||