Stealth and Blur, help me understand how this work

[eleclipse]

I'm trying to have a better understanding of the stealth rules.

Let's suppose a rogue, with blur casted on him (so with concealment), is in a corridor that end in a fork, at the left of the fork there is another small corridor, at the end of which there is a man.

Having concealment "always on" can the rogue stealh himself before being watched by the man and go trought the corridor with the man without being noticed (perception aside)?

Will your answer apply even to a ranger with camouflage?

Thanks in advice for any help!

[james maissen]

eleclipse wrote:

I'm trying to have a better understanding of the stealth rules.

Okay, the first step is to define 'stealth'.

Stealth: a skill to allow one to remain unseen when otherwise they would be automatically noticed.

To have a chance (opposed rolls) to remain unseen, someone must maintain at least some degree of cover and concealment to the potential observer at all times.

The blur spell grants the target of the spell concealment. This will suffice for the requirement just as much as a light fog, dim light, and the like would relative to the potential observer.

People don't tend to feel that this is 'right', though it plainly is in the rules. Moreover, watch the movie 'predator' and think of his ability as the blur spell. Once you've picked him out, you can follow his movements until you lose sight of him. Then you need to 'find Waldo' again so to speak.

Hope this helps,

James

[slingerbult]

I think James' answer is entirely solid and the Predator example makes for a good rationale. However, here's a blog post where Paizo tries to simplify the Stealth skill a bit:

http://paizo.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/Store.woa/wa/browse?path=paizo%2Fblog%2 Fv5748dyo5lckz

Basically, it makes it so that being unobserved by a target = having cover or concealment from that target = being able to use the Stealth skill against that target.

The only difference as compared to the Predator example by James above, is that the act of "finding Waldo" is precisely the opposed Perception vs. Stealth check - nothing more, nothing less. Having concealment (from Blur, being the Predator or whatever) is enough to get to actually roll Stealth, but your opponent gets to roll Perception to blank your Hidden condition if he knows you're there. He'll keep trying to perceive and you'll keep trying to stealth and some rounds he'll find waldo and some rounds he won't. That's assuming you don't take an action that would break an Invisibility spell, because that would also break your Hidden condition. More details in the blog post!

(Btw, if somebody knows if this playtest actually resulted in an official FAQ update etc, I'd be much obliged for a link. I've only read sporadic albeit positive reviews of it so far).

[thejeff]

slingerbult wrote:

(Btw, if somebody knows if this playtest actually resulted in an official FAQ update etc, I'd be much obliged for a link. I've only read sporadic albeit positive reviews of it so far).

It has not. It was decided it was too big an update for a FAQ. It's not official.

[eleclipse]

Thanks to all for the asnwer, it's really clear now!

@slingerbult: The link don't work :(

[Matthew Downie]

eleclipse wrote:

@slingerbult: The link don't work :(

It does if you remove the space from it.

Try it from here.

[Matthew Downie]

Here is a more up to date stealth rule set.

[eleclipse]

Thank you very much!