How Sneaking up on someone works?

[The Kulak]

Hello PCRogue, I understand you want to sneak up on the goblin and put a knife in him? Excellent!

Naturally, we're currently in Exploration Mode [p. 316], and it sounds like you've chosen the Sneaking tactic! So let's have you roll a Stealth roll for the tactic, enabling you to move around the dimly lit (so you have the Concealed status) room. Good thing too, if it were a Brightly lit room, you wouldn't be able to Sneak around without cover.

I rolled a 15 Stealth for you (because Sneak has the Secret trait), beating the Perception DC of 14. You're able to sneak around the room, and are close to the Hobgoblin's back. He picks his nose.

According to the Sneaking tactic, when we start this encounter, you will roll Stealth for your initiative instead of a Perception check. This check will determine your initiative order, and to see if the enemies notice you.

You declare you're attacking, which (according to p. 331) is a creature on your side deciding to take an action against someone on the other side.

You roll a Stealth for Initiative, and you get a 17!
I roll a Perception for the Hobgoblin, and only get a 12.

He hasn't spotted you, and you're going first. He hasn't acted in this first round of combat, so the Rogue class feature Surprise Attack activates, and he is flat-footed to you.

It's your turn.

You take an action other than Stealth, and attack him. You lose the "Unseen" condition, and are now "Seen", before your action starts. Normally, this would make it so the Hobgoblin is no longer flat-footed, but because of Surprise Attack, he still is flat-footed. You hit with your attack and get Sneak Attack damage!

But what if initiative happened differently?

You roll a Stealth for Initiative, and you get a 15!
I roll a Perception for the Hobgoblin, and only get a 17.

Even though your Stealth was higher than the Hobgoblin's Perception DC of 14, he spots you as you move to attack, and is able to react. As far as I can tell, the Stealth initiative roll is the ONLY contested roll in the game. As you creep forward, you foot scatters some pebble on the ground, alerting the Hobgoblin to your presence!

It's the Hobgoblin's turn. He attacks you, and you don't get Sneak Attack damage for this fight.

What else can I do?

You can't use Deception to Create a Distraction, it follows the same rules as "Attacking ends the Sensed condition right before your attack."

You can use the Feint action (Deception Trained).

If you're not a Rogue, even if you go first in Initiative, the Hobgoblin is not flat-footed to your attacks. (But you don't have Sneak Attack either, so it would just be the -2 AC anyway).

I can't say I'm a fan of having a contested roll to determine Sneaking up on someone, especially after you already had to make a Stealth roll in Exploration mode. It's essentially 2 chances to be spotted, and the second is a lot more "Swingy" as odds go.

If anyone has rules/comments that would paint a different picture, I'd love it. Or if a Paizo staff wants to clarify something I missed?

[Luceon]

Although it is obvious, I would like to add.

Flat-Footed (CRB page 322)
You’re unable to focus your full attention on defense. You take a –2 circumstance penalty to AC.

So for example if my rogue is in a tree and I fire a bow at any target that I am treated as unseen, they are flat footed to me. So if my strike is a hit, I deal sneak attack damage. This could occur in any round of combat. The traditional concepts from all D&D versions, essentially are still in effect. Now replace tree and bow with numerous environments, and certain weapons.

# Sniping

[FLite]

I thought there was something similar for rogues, but I am having trouble finding it:

The Animal Companion Cat gets around this problem, at high levels, with a manuever:

CAT POUNCE
You Stride and then Strike. If you were unseen,
you remain unseen until after the attack.

[FLite]

Other options

CRUEL DECEIVER FEAT 7
Prerequisites master in Deception
You’ve mastered the art of distracting your foes
to leave them exposed to your attack. When you Create a
Diversion, if you use a Strike action, you remain unseen until
after the end of the action, instead of becoming seen before
the action.

I think it is pretty clear that sneak attack from stealth is meant to be a fairly high level tactic. It looks like you are supposed to use flanking and tactics to get your sneak attacks.

Though I rather like the idea of using the following as well:

YOU’RE NEXT FEAT 1
Trigger You kill an enemy.
After downing a foe, you menacingly remind another foe that you’re coming after them next. Attempt an Intimidation check with a +2 circumstance bonus to Demoralize a single creature that you can see and that can see you. If you are 10th level or higher, you can use this as a free action with the same trigger.

DREAD STRIKER FEAT 4
You capitalize on your enemies’ fear to slip past their defenses. Any creature that is frightened is also flat-footed against your attacks.

[Ramanujan]

Given that strike is an encounter mode action, can you even take it without entering encounter mode first?

Even if not, it’s your action that causes you to become seen. If the hobgoblin goes first, you are still unseen on his turn.

This doesn’t help you get sneak attack, but it would let you get a pseudo surprise round by having the party all delay their initiative to 0, before revealing their presence.

[Shinigami02]

Luceon wrote:

Although it is obvious, I would like to add.

Flat-Footed (CRB page 322)
You’re unable to focus your full attention on defense. You take a –2 circumstance penalty to AC.

So for example if my rogue is in a tree and I fire a bow at any target that I am treated as unseen, they are flat footed to me. So if my strike is a hit, I deal sneak attack damage. This could occur in any round of combat. The traditional concepts from all D&D versions, essentially are still in effect. Now replace tree and bow with numerous environments, and certain weapons.

# Sniping

Sadly not accurate anymore.

Sneaking action, Stealth rules, page 158 wrote:

If you do anything else, you become seen just before you act. For instance, if you attack a creature you’re unseen by, that creature is not flatfooted against that attack.

Sniping flat out does not work anymore unless you are invisible or the target is blinded, and it doesn't matter if you're right next to them or 840 feet away with a crossbow and Ranger's Hunt Target.

[Almarane]

It seems like you can no longer ambush or sneak attack your ennemy if you are not a rogue and you have not the best initiative, since you become seen before your attack. While, in PF1, you became seen after your attack and could have the flat-footed bonus even if you are a barbarian as long as you were stealthy enough. It seems counter-intuitive that stealthy manoeuvers do not grant you tactical advantages anymore.

[The Kulak]

Ramanujan wrote:

Given that strike is an encounter mode action, can you even take it without entering encounter mode first?

Even if not, it’s your action that causes you to become seen. If the hobgoblin goes first, you are still unseen on his turn.

This doesn’t help you get sneak attack, but it would let you get a pseudo surprise round by having the party all delay their initiative to 0, before revealing their presence.

I'm assuming that it's a contested roll to be spotted. It doesn't really make sense that the enemy would roll a really good Perception, higher than your Stealth, and not see you.

I would really like clarification from a Paizo member on that though.

[Angel Hunter D]

Shinigami02 wrote:

Luceon wrote:

Although it is obvious, I would like to add.

Flat-Footed (CRB page 322)
You’re unable to focus your full attention on defense. You take a –2 circumstance penalty to AC.

So for example if my rogue is in a tree and I fire a bow at any target that I am treated as unseen, they are flat footed to me. So if my strike is a hit, I deal sneak attack damage. This could occur in any round of combat. The traditional concepts from all D&D versions, essentially are still in effect. Now replace tree and bow with numerous environments, and certain weapons.

# Sniping

Sadly not accurate anymore.

Sneaking action, Stealth rules, page 158 wrote:

If you do anything else, you become seen just before you act. For instance, if you attack a creature you’re unseen by, that creature is not flatfooted against that attack.

Sniping flat out does not work anymore unless you are invisible or the target is blinded, and it doesn't matter if you're right next to them or 840 feet away with a crossbow and Ranger's Hunt Target.

that's...terrible. why would anyone even bother?

[Ikusias]

really this section of the rules is confusing as hell, also if this is the kind of changes they are gunning for at Paizo, I really don't understand what they are aiming for... they made pretty much impossible for a party or a scout to sneak on sentries and silence them or to succeed at any form of ambush...

[Insight]

How to ambush (pseudo surprise round):

Sneak into the goblin hall. Assuming you are not seen and the GM doesn’t have you roll initiative immediately, ready an action to shoot the goblin when he picks his nose (ready is an action that only has the concentrate trait, so it shouldn’t break stealth unless the GM decides focusing in this manner is particularly noisy). When the goblin picks his nose, you shoot (he immediately sees you and is not flat-footed, but initiative is not rolled until after the reaction is resolved per the rule on page 331). After you hit the goblin (hopefully), roll initiative as normal. If you win initiative, you can shoot three more times!

If the GM insists that the above is not possible outside of initiative, here is what you do: Assuming your Stealth initiative beats the goblin’s Perception initiative, don’t immediately attack and give away your position. Instead use your actions to continue sneaking and get into a better position (depending on whether or not you are in a position where the goblin has any possible chance to see you, you may get an automatic natural 20 on your sneak roll versus his Perception defense). On his turn, since he is unaware of your presence, he presumably won’t be using his actions to Seek and try to sense you. Even if he is (say he is on watch and explicitly using the action once per turn), he still may not succeed. Even if he succeeds, he still wasted one or more actions just to sense you. Once you are ready to act, sneak into a good sniping position and ready an action to shoot the goblin (trigger: he ends his turn. If you don’t think you can get away with that, choose a more concrete action - like he walks past a certain point - that doesn’t leave him a lot of actions to respond to your shot. Since readying doesn’t change your initiative in PF2, you immediately get to follow up your ambush shot with three more actions.

[Death_Blinder]

Not to pile on here, but can we also point out that the Rogue's ability to do extra damage to flat-footed creatures is called SNEAK attack? For an ability so named, you would think one could activate it by using the Sneak Stealth action...

[FLite]

Insight wrote:

How to ambush (pseudo surprise round):

Sneak into the goblin hall. Assuming you are not seen and the GM doesn’t have you roll initiative immediately, ready an action

"Call for initiative once a trap is triggered or a creature on either side decides to take action against someone on the other side, or as soon as the two sides come into contact."

starting to ready to shoot the goblin sentry definitely constitutes taking action against the goblin sentry.

So what is the first step of combat?

Roll initiative, your stealth vs his perception.

So the way to get a sneak attack on him is to go first, i.e. your stealth beats his perception....

[Lavieh]

Shouldn't the initiative use the original stealth/ perception roles? The one were you beat him?

I took the changes as a means to reduce some rolling and you have already decided that you have gone unseen and are going to make the first attack.

Why would you roll again?

[ChibiNyan]

Yeah, Insight, readying an action outside of combat would immediately call for Initiative before you can do that. There are no surprise rounds either, so you can't guarantee going first no matter what.

I don't see the point of those Stealth rules, they went extremely overboard in nerfing that skill and surprise attacks.

In PF1, there was, I GUESS, something the developers might have considered to be a problem:

Rogue sneaks up on guy. He attacks from stealth and enemy is flat-footed. This initiates a surprise round. Rogue gets sneka attack. Normal round begins and Rogue has higher initiative, so he full attacks now for all sneak attacks and downs the enemy instantly. Awesome, right?
But that could be very powerful when multiple characters ambushed and got high initiative, killing all enemies before they even got a chance to act.

Personally, I thought that was realistic and rewarded intelligent tactics. Apparently the developers disagree since the nerf seems to specifically target this by removing both methods of easy flat-footed (Well, one is Rogue-only now). There is actually no way to atually ambush and surprise attack enemies anymore, which has been a staple since the Original D&D which has almost no rules (but sure as hell has a lot of surprise-based mechanics, half the bestiary in TSR editions has surprise bonuses). I feel this takes a lot from the game... That Sacred Cow had done no wrong.

I would have kept the Surprise Round mechanic but made Flat-footed apply only to the first attack someone takes, after which everyone becomes aware (Except Rogue with Surprise Attack, making him special).

[FLite]

ChibiNyan wrote:

In PF1, there was, I GUESS, something the developers might have considered to be a problem:

Rogue sneaks up on guy. He attacks from stealth and enemy is flat-footed. This initiates a surprise round. Rogue gets sneka attack. Normal round begins and Rogue has higher initiative, so he full attacks now for all sneak attacks and downs the enemy instantly. Awesome, right?
But that could be very powerful when multiple characters ambushed and got high initiative, killing all enemies before they even got a chance to act.

The problem with this is much more evident if you reverse the nouns.

Quote:

NPC rogue sneaks up on PC. He attacks from stealth and PC is flat-footed. This initiates a surprise round. NPC Rogue gets sneak attack. Normal round begins and NPC Rogue has higher initiative, so he full attacks now for all sneak attacks and downs the PC instantly. Awesome, right?

It was even better if the NPC had pounce, or some other method of getting a full action in the surprise round.

With the PCs, there is usually only one, or at most two rogues in the party. In an encounter, it is often *all* rogues.

[FLite]

Lavieh wrote:

Shouldn't the initiative use the original stealth/ perception roles? The one were you beat him?

I took the changes as a means to reduce some rolling and you have already decided that you have gone unseen and are going to make the first attack.

Why would you roll again?

The initial stealth roll, to get in position, is not opposed, it is a secret roll the GM makes against a flat DC (in effect, you roll against their take ten.)

[Joana]

Is the "Stealth" roll for Initiative an actual Stealth roll? I mean, I remember in the Crypt of the Everflame playtest, Erik Mona (I think?) talked the GM letting him use Arcana for his initiative because his wizard was practicing his spellcasting as they walked through the forest during Exploration mode. The Arcana roll was solely to slot him into initiative order, not to recall any actual knowledge.

That is, does the Stealth roll for initiative determine how well you are sneaking or only where you go in order?

EDIT: Huh, there is specific wording that the Stealth initiative roll does determine "if the enemies notice you." Seems weird for it to serve double duty like that, when it doesn't seem like the other initiative rolls do.

[sherlock1701]

FLite wrote:

The problem with this is much more evident if you reverse the nouns. PC rogue sneaks up on PC. He attacks from stealth and PC is flat-footed. This initiates a surprise round. NPC Rogue gets sneak attack. Normal round begins and NPC Rogue has higher initiative, so he full attacks now for all sneak attacks and downs the PC instantly. Awesome, right?

It is awesome. I've used this as a plot hook. The party had to fight their way out of the Netherworld Kratos-style after a rogue killed them all from stealth.

After all, you don't disappear from existence when you die; you go to another plane. Dead characters are not normally played because you can't interact with the party.

When the whole party dies, on the other hand, you can invent some pretty cool scenarios. I view a TPK as the start of a new adventure, not the abrupt end of a campaign.

[Insight]

Even if the initial Stealth roll is your initiative roll, as I explained in the second example, nothing says you have to engage the enemy if you win initiative. You can just continue to sneak around on each of your turns until you get into position to ready your action and make 4 attacks in a row (two of which are at full bonus). The target may not be flat-footed to you, but I think it is a fine trade-off, especially if you are a fighter or ranger rather than a rogue (presumably, the ranger would have even spent one of his pre-engagement actions on hunt target).

Unfortunately, this does mean that rogues are the worst of the classes at ambushes and surprise attacks.