Ssalarn wrote:
Just out of curiosity, why would you think you need to make a Stealth check every round to stay hidden? You're generally not required to reroll unless you take some action that would cause you to break stealth, such as attacking, running, or charging, or if an enemy takes a move action to actively search for you. Regaining psionic focus wouldn't cause you to break stealth, so that shouldn't be an issue.
*Edit*
Just saw that you're using the modified stealth rules, so I'm not sure how that changes things.
It is supposed to be more costly and less efficient than Hide in Plain Sight normally is though; it comes online 5-10 levels earlier than most any other class accesses it, and it's intended to be a stealthy replacement for the Disengage class ability, essentially allowing you to break away from a combat that's gotten too personal and find some cover.
The stealth rules are incredibly underspecified. From the description of the skill, it appears that you can (without HiPS) move around staying *entirely* within concealment during a turn without prompting another stealth check, but it is unclear what other actions during a turn might prompt a new check. Picking a lock? Opening a chest? Tickling a guard's bum? The skill's description doesn't indicate that anything besides attacking or stepping out of concealment breaks stealth.
Most of that stuff is fairly obvious, and gets handled via GM fiat just fine. But once you toss HiPS into the mix, everything gets much stranger - now you can leave concealment without prompting a stealth check, which means that you pretty much can just walk around inside the room with the guard as he makes his tea. There's no obvious edge to where you *ought* to require a new stealth check, but only the most insanely supernatural ideas of stealth would allow that to make sense - even the most unrealistically skilled ninjas of fiction would have to run some risks to silently stay in the guy's blind spot as he putters around the break room (Break Rooms being my favored terrain). It breaks the narrative to indicate that you can walk a slow circle around the guard while he's watching, and not get seen.
The looser rules we had been playing by handled HiPS by letting you end your turn still not in concealment, but you still needed to make a stealth roll to not get noticed during the movement (vs normal stealth, in which you cannot end your turn unconcealed and remain hidden). This gave a convenient place for the GM to pull a penalty number out of his rear indicating how hard it would be to go unnoticed while you did whatever you were doing. The modified ones I linked to earlier clean that up quite a bit, but still function in a similar way - each round during which the other party could perceive you, you have to roll your stealth. If you know of a writeup of how HiPS ought to play out with the stealth approach you must be playing with, can you link it to me?
Your explanation of the intent of Shroud's HiPS makes sense - it functions less as a cloak-and-dagger infiltration tool, and more as an escape tool. Not what I was hoping for, but such is life. There really should just be a feat chain that gives the ability (maybe I'll brew one) - I hate having to build all my infiltrator characters with combat reflexes, dodge, and mobility to dip Shadowdancer..
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