Random Encounters

Random encounters are manageable by and large but they could use some refinement.

I don't know how surprise is determined but my party is starting off the majority of their encounters surprised. And that is with perception values of 4, 5, 7, and 9 respectively traveling at either normal or slow speeds. From the travel description it seems that my party should be doing better. In fact, I actually had better outcomes with fast travel.

Worse yet is nighttime surprise, with three party members asleep while one stands guard. Not only has the guard been surprised in every single such encounter but the guard had to use a major action to wake each party member up individually. This makes absolutely no sense and with bad initiative rolls it is likely to have unreasonably harsh outcomes if the encountered group is a difficult one. In one instance three orcs and two ogres immediately surrounded my party and two of my party members lay dying before I even got to act. In another such encounter, two party members slept through the entire life or death struggle even with the clash including the detonation of two fireballs occurring immediately next to where they lay. Another odd feature of the nighttime ambush is that the same character was pulling guard duty every single time. I cannot imagine that guard duty is not rotated and that trained adventurers sleep so soundly while camping that they have to be either hurt or vigorously shaken to awaken.

I am not certain what type of algorithm is used for random encounters but it seems to me that the implementation is in need of some improvement.