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stenver
2010-06-18, 04:11 PM
What can low level PC do against monsters, that can suprise every single round, like phase spiders, come, hit, go, before anyones seen them. Repeat the next round behind the back.

If 4 level 4 PC are pitted against it, or any other similar animal, what can they do, to NOT die?

KillianHawkeye
2010-06-18, 04:12 PM
Use readied actions!

stenver
2010-06-18, 04:18 PM
So you "ready for any attack against me"

Next round, you are surprised, because something just hit you in the back and by the time you turn around its gone!

Or how does that exactly work mechanically?

Escheton
2010-06-18, 04:18 PM
Trap the area with spells?
also: stand back to back
there are some excellent druid spells for this. Summoning briars and such

Milskidasith
2010-06-18, 04:20 PM
So you "ready for any attack against me"

Next round, you are surprised, because something just hit you in the back and by the time you turn around its gone!

Or how does that exactly work mechanically?

Mechanically, combat is still going on. They'd only get one surprise round, and there's no such thing as facing in D&D, so being surprised by an attack from behind wouldn't work, and *even if* the creature was invisible and used sneak attacks, a readied action to the square it attacked from would still work, although, being invisible, there would be a 50% miss chance.

lsfreak
2010-06-18, 04:24 PM
Next round, you are surprised, because something just hit you in the back and by the time you turn around its gone!


That's not how it works. You're on initiative and not flat-footed/denied Dex against the attack, unless invisibility or something else is going on as well.

awa
2010-06-18, 05:44 PM
if your taking readied actions then that means your already in combat so no suprise round at all.
If it is using invisibility then theirs a 50% miss chance but if its say a burrower with spring attack it works like normal. as had been mentioned in 3.5 you have no rear

Devils_Advocate
2010-06-19, 03:09 PM
Characters are only surprised by foes they are unaware of. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/initiative.htm#surprise) Once adventurers are aware that a hostile monster is there, its attacks are no longer come as a surprise. This is one of those cases where the RAW actually agree with common sense.

If using the variant facing rules (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/combatFacing.htm), the characters should stand with walls and/or allies at their backs so that the monster can't attack them from behind. This is good general practice when expecting attacks to come from any direction. ("Form an orderly pentagon! Wait, we have a spellcaster. A square! Obey the orderly geometry!")

Even under the house rule that readied actions resolve immediately after actions that trigger them instead of immediately before (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/specialInitiativeActions.htm#ready), readying an action against an attack still lets you act before a phase spider shifts back to the Ethereal Plane. (Whether you can out-react someone really should be handled by opposed Initiative checks, unless I'm missing something, but oh well.) Heck, just ready an action against the monster showing up instead of against it attacking.