Hi,

Do you enter encounter mode if enemies have not yet seen PCs? I mean, should you allow players to organize their tactics and possibly fire a first arrow before rolling initiative?

stanmons said:

I think it's a GM call. When you start to use the minis or stands, that the start of encounter mode for me.

That's how I organized it - it seemed rather unnecessary to roll initiative for enemies while they would not do anything yet. Successful stealth should allow PCs to have a free shot.

That is a good way to handle it. Give the players a round to act, possibly with fortune dice thrown in depending on how stealthy they were, before rolling for initiative for the enemies. However, I wouldn't allow them to exchange out a bunch of tactics, move around, and then fire off a shot. If they are going to take more than one turn to do what they want to then possibly make them take multiple stealth checks at an increasing difficulty, one hard check, or make them use fatigue as usual.

I'd stay in story mode as long as the opponent's are not aware of the PCs. Assuming the NPCs are distracted, if the PCs want to sneak up on them and there is sufficient cover for them to possibly do this, I'd let them try. If any of them fail, roll Initiative as the NPCs are now aware of them. Unless the PCs have set up an ambush and are luring the NPCs into it, they can't all get off a shot before the NPCs have a chance to react though, so as soon as any PCs fires on the enemy, the jig is up and I'd have them roll initiative.

The rulebook does say that being ambushed just means you have an extra challenge die on your initiative roll (p57). A round full of free actions is a pretty lethal precedent to set for when the NPCs at some point ambush the players...

Here's a quick and dirty method you could use: The players make a stealth vs. observation check. For every success they receive, they receive a [W] bonus to their initiative check. If they get two banes, add a <P> penalty to their initiative check as they get caught up on something while sneaking around.

Chipacabra said:

This is precisely why I like this new system; it's so easy to come up with a reasonable solution on the fly. Good solution too!