Rules Updates: Surprise, and Negative Energy Fortitude

The skill Negative Energy Fortitude has been revised as follows:

This skill offers the character a degree of protection from the attacks of Negative Energy beings. The character must concentrate for five seconds before using this skill, which can be the same five seconds of concentration required to charge the skill Positive Energy Concentration, if the character wishes. When active, this skill grants the character a soak of five against all attacks from Negative Energy beings. In addition, the character is immune to all innate claw or bite effects that the being might possess, such as a paralyzing strike or the ability to inflict Direct Body damage. These protections have a duration of ten minutes.

The rules for Surprise have been updated, as follows:

A character can make a surprise attack if she has not been directly acting in combat for at least one minute prior to making the attack. A character is considered to be directly acting in combat if she makes an attack other than a surprise attack or if she is struck by or defends against the attack of another by any means.

As a note - this allows you to call multiple waylays on a single victim, provided you are not hit by someone before you get them all out or you use another non-surprise attack.  The important thing to note here is that using ANY tag skill on a target (conscious or otherwise)  uses up the skill, unless it is actively blocked by a weapon or shield.  (i.e. - if you blow 4 waylays on a victim, you used all 4 uses, even if she goes down with the first one.)

Re: Surprise

I can chain my surprise attacks if I can get them off fast enough, but does this still knock someone out of a hiding skill or spell?

If I defend against it, and turn, seeing the target as they reach for another surprise attack, can they?

If they go into hiding, you cannot attack them.  They would need to defend against any attacks that landed before they hid within 5 seconds, but once they are in hiding, you can't keep attacking them.  (This is no different than non-surprise attacks, such as break limb or even normal damage.)

If you defend, and do not attack, they still have Surprise.  They're not in combat until you attack them (and hit, or cause them to defend - A miss on your part doesn't put them in combat).  In other words, don't ignore a rogue that just hit you from behind - deal with him.  Turning so your back is not facing him is usually a good start...

But if one is invisible, does any kind of attack, they still drop out of invisibility, right?

Ah, yes - if you're invisible, as soon as you perform any attack - surprise or not - it drops.  (I thought if the target called it in the middle of a flurry of attacks.)

Would the Negative Energy Soak stack with those offered by:

1 - armor
2- Prayer (Holy Vestments)
3- Ceremony (Divine Vestments)

I think you have 2 and 3 switched Charlie.  The Prayer is Divine Vestments, the Ceremony is Holy Vestments.  But we get the point :)

No, the soak cannot be stacked with other soaks. In addition, the Prayer: Divine Vestements does NOT grant a soak, it grants a Threshold.

To add onto what Jason said,  no soaks stack unless the soak specifically says it does.

Would wearing armor while NEF'd help in soaking damage? (I believe, one can have one physical and one magical soak active at any time.)

As a note - this allows you to call multiple waylays on a single victim, provided you are not hit by someone before you get them all out or you use another non-surprise attack. 

SINGLE victim?

So we still can't, say, move down a line of (let's assume for this example "incredibly oblivious") people calling "waylay" until someone notices what's going on and does something about it?

Oh, no, you totally can.

The thing about a single victim was a clarification because the surprise rules were originally changed to keep me... erm... rogues from getting behind someone and waylaying them a whole bunch of times in a row until they ate it.

Tom: Wearing armor while NEF'd would not increase the effectiveness of NEF, however it would allow you to have a soak against non-undead attacks.

The thing about a single victim was a clarification because the surprise rules were originally changed to keep me... erm... rogues from getting behind someone and waylaying them a whole bunch of times in a row until they ate it.

You and Luke.  Crasis had HOW many Waylays?  4 was a conservative salvo from him.

But yeah, the intent is that you can now launch surprise attacks up until someone manages to engage you, rather than the first attack ending the surprise, including for other nearby targets.

holy un-nerf batman... now I can finally be effective in melee combat again