MrMagpie's page

Ok, I gotcha. I was just running down possible reasons this character is such a problem, so I just wanted to make sure you knew stealth can only get you from concealment to concealment. I guess you already know that though.

Yes, I've been double checking all the Stealth rules now that I have a character that relies so heavily on it. Actually, from what I understand - I'm not sure about this since I haven't studied 3.5 rules much - this ability to move from concealment to concealment is only available in Pathfinder. Apparently in 3.5, the moment you stepped out of cover or concealment you were considered to be in plain view and your Hide was spoiled.

As a side note, it's also possible to use Bluff to create a momentary diversion if you are in the open, and then duck into cover, if it's within reach. I'm sure this will be used in my campaign at some point.

This caught my eye.

Remember, stealth only lets you get from one point of concealment to the next undetected. Stealth checks are made as part of a move action, so if you have to go further then your move speed allows in one round to get to more concealment, you will be detected by anyone with line of sight, even if your stealth roll was 1,000,000.

If the entire approach to that fort has places to hide spaced every 20-40 ft leading right up to it's gates, that's a defensibility issue of the fort.

It was a dark night, and the guards are human so they don't have Darkvision or Low-Light Vision (it's the best they could get, what can I say). Darkness provides concealment, even dim light does.

It's what they call "under the cover of darkness".

"(plus he can use smoke generating items to gain concealment, etc)"

Nope.

All smoke-generating items replicate obscuring mist and fog cloud.

From the spell description:

"A creature within 5 feet has concealment (attacks have a 20% miss chance). Creatures farther away have total concealment (50% miss chance, and the attacker can't use sight to locate the target)."

So, if you are in the smoke cloud, everybody has total concealment from you.

From Sniper's eye:

"Foes with total concealment are still immune."

So, no. You can't use smoke sticks, smoke pellets, fog or anything else like that for sniping. Unless you decide to give him goggles of fog-cutting or something.

-Cross (Edit: disallow hellcat stealth and his opportunities to do this sort of sniping are really, really, really limited.)

He can't use it to snipe people inside the cloud (unless he discovers some crazy feat or item that allows him to do so) but he can certainly use it for a ninja disappearing trick... Most locations have some sort of cover, I assume this is for those "getting caught with your pants down" sort of situations.

It's not good to let new character's spend more then half the wealth by level on one item.

I did actually know that rule of thumb even at the time, and I specified it to the player (but it's possible that he didn't hear or understand me due to the noise and commotion in the area), however since the session was going on at time I didn't want to grind it to a halt to double check all his decisions so I assumed he'd play by the rules, he's usually relatively trustworthy (except when he's rules lawyering, when he might inadvertently "interpret" a rule in a way that suits him best) and has a lot more D&D experience than I do. Also, for some reason I thought that item was a lot cheaper than it actually is, probably because I mixed up the crafting price with the buying price.

Of course, I could take the item away now that I know he ignored my instructions (probably not on purpose though), but I'm generally poorly disposed towards "retcons" like that, and I fear the session might bog down in a lengthy and ultimately pointless argument concerning who said what and at what time. Lesson learned, I guess - next time, double check everything even if it takes extra time!

Frankly I do not see the problem .

Ok he has + 25 Stealth with all the skills .
He attacks and makes a new stealth check to see if his is still hidden afterwards
First check the type of bonus he has . They might not stack ....
Even they stack the new stealth check is normally at -20 ( I understand he has succeeded at putting it at -10 but still he will roll 1d20+15 , the enemies will roll 1d20+3 (many monsters and antagonists have a decent perception)
He will succeed for some times and then will roll a 4 while one of the enemy will roll a 17 and will move into contact with him . Once there , all people will be able to spot him
Once spotted, my interpretation is that he will not be able to reenter stealth .

AFAIK, he can re-enter Stealth as long as he has cover or concealment, and with the right feats (i.e. Hellcat Stealth) or class abilities, he might not even need that (plus he can use smoke generating items to gain concealment, etc). I'm mostly asking all these questions because I wasn't sure whether his build would become a problem later on, if he continues minmaxing his Stealth (and he almost certainly will). He only played one session with this character so far, in which he totally destroyed all opposition, but I'm mostly concerned about what he might do once he gains access to more items and levels. Thus far, enemies may detect him on a very good roll, but I'm somewhat worried it might get to a point where most enemies have very little chance to actually spot him. I'm obviously not convinced of this as I never even played a high level campaign before, let alone ran one... that's why I came here asking for advice.

With a 1L dip into another class, a L3 character can have a penalty of 0 restealthing after firing his bow at a target.

Oh, it may occur to him eventually, as he's been feverishly reading through the Pathfinder materials in the past few weeks... but there's no need to give him any more ideas. I already have my hands full as it is.

just because its an intelligent monster it still had no ranks in spellcraft so it had no idea how the spell worked in game terms as far as it knew the wizard teleported to safety and with a 5hr wait time for something that doesn't see halfling meat I would think it would wonder off... and why the halfling hate??? I have seen many players optimized for things like damage instead of stealth but I doubt you have an issue with people that can kill things with just 1 or 2 swipes using his 20 strength and 2 handed sword.... yet you find this guy OP?

Well, I'm not going be repeating myself on the subject of damage... suffice it to say, it's not necessarily about damage.

As for the Wisp thing, yes, that was somewhat suspect in retrospect, but not at all inconceivable. Will 'o Wisps are essentially immortal and they float around swamps most of the time on the off chance someone might wander in, they obviously have a good deal of patience. I rolled for everything, including how long the Wisp might stick around (i.e. how hungry and opportunistic it felt) and I certainly never planned it to be there past dawn, but unfortunately his spell ran out before dawn (or the rest of the party) came.

It's kinda silly to assume that just because a monster/NPC has no ranks in Spellcraft, it would be totally confounded by a simple Rope Trick spell. Like, say that you're fighting an army of orcs (who have no ranks in Spellcraft) and you open a Rope Trick portal in the middle of battle to climb into, would you really expect all the orcs to start scratching their heads and wander off just because they can't identify which spell it is? If so, Rope Trick becomes something like an extended flawless Sanctuary spell (vs anything that doesn't have ranks in Spellcraft)... But that's clearly not in the spell description. In fact, I believe Paizo nerfed this spell specifically because people used it for such purposes in 3.5, when you could actually bar entrance into the extra-dimensional space. It's pretty obviously supposed to be a useful camping spell, not an "instant perfect safety" spell.

I'm not sure I understand the problem here. It sounds like he's built a pretty cool character and put some thought into it. It doesn't sound very overpowering to me at all.

Personally I wouldn't be looking for ways to nerf him I would be looking for ways to set him up with situations he can shine in. That way he will have more fun and feel rewarded for his cool build.

It seems strange to me when a DM wants to nerf a PC thats pretty F'in cool.

He wont ruin your game unless you let him. Relax, take a deep breath and remember it just a game. Lets have some fun. You might learn something.

Oh dear. I really opened up a can of worms here. It seems that whenever I post something like "I have no intention of nerfing his character unless absolutely necessary" some people read it as though I said "I intend to cripple this character because he annoys me. How best to render him useless?"

What I wanted to know is whether or not these Stealth based sniping tactics are likely to cause problems for the game and the party later on as they seemed suspicious to me, should I allow him to run with it and minmax his character further (which he undoubtedly plans to do), and if so, how should I go about dealing with this situation. That's all. I don't plan on causing rocks to fall or singling him out for punishment, unless he really gets insufferable.

Some of you think that I should employ various counter sniping tactics, burn the forest down or send similarly built NPCs after him. Others are convinced that this would be grossly unfair and cruel, and that I shouldn't wage war with my players like that. So no matter what I do, some of you will be convinced I'm just plain doing it wrong. All I can say is, I've read what everyone posted and I will take all this advice into consideration while running my next session, and the ones after that. I really am grateful to everyone that responded, and I hope I make the right decisions in the future.

Also, don't forget to have him making perception checks to pick out his targets. If he's staying at decent range the distance penalties alone can be crazy.

He's not going to be staying at range (usually, I imagine) because he needs to be within 30 ft to deal sneak attack damage with his bow. I'm grateful for this mechanic because otherwise I'd probably have to have a second map just to accommodate him, since he'd be loosing those arrows from as far away as possible. At least he has to stay in the general area.

If he's sniping while the others are in combat, then the problem is not that he won't be targeted, but that he won't be contributing enough.

Frankly if he were doing the level of damage with sniping that I am imagining, then I wouldn't target him over the others if he were completely visible... he's just not the threat that the others are.

-James

Well, by that token, Bards and other secondary combatants/support characters should also be pretty safe during battle, because they aren't dishing out enough damage... which, again, reminds me of WoW and the aggro mechanic. But from what I've seen (and experienced, in the small amount of time I've been playing Pathfinder), that's not at all the case, and monsters/NPCs don't necessarily prioritize targets based on "absolute damage potential". Sometimes, they really do go for the little guy, just because they figure he's an easier target than that armored knight. Or because they think he tastes better. Anyone can get attacked.

Well, anyone other than a sneaky halfling sniper hiding in the bushes and popping off arrows while his compatriots bleed, most of the time... In any case, he might be doing less damage than an optimized archer, but if he can get sneak attack damage every round, that's still nothing to sneeze at, according to my calculations at least. He's still a threat, especially in an extended battle, it's not like CR appropriate enemies can just shrug off his arrows like they were nothing. But he's rarely at risk of being retaliated against, because he's almost constantly hidden. That sounds like a pretty good trade to me, if it was a real life situation, I'd rather do mediocre damage and live, than do awesome damage and risk being smashed into bits in the 3rd combat round. Plus there's the added benefit of being able to slink away quietly in the unfortunate case that the rest of the party has snuffed it. It's really not a bad build, if you're into the whole survival angle, as long as you don't mind leaving the rest of the party out to dry if necessary. It's just that it requires me, as a GM, to jump through some hoops to figure out how to properly challenge him, and I was unsure of the exact mechanics involved and their legitimacy, hence this thread.

By the way, stealthy sniping can do wonders for you in real life as well! Read up on Simo Häyhä, arguably the most lethal soldier that ever lived, if you haven't already. Come to think of it, this fellow was pretty short too (as well as unstoppable)... I'm noticing a theme here!

Not all fights or obstacles will equally challenge each party member, nor should they.

This gives the opportunity for each to shine at different moments, and highlights their individuality. How they help each other overcome the problems of one or more party members helps highlight their group identity.

Obviously not, but when one player consistently gets away without a scratch while the others are in near constant danger (even if they don't always get attacked), it creates a problem. In most realistic encounters, foes won't go searching for a sniping halfling in the undergrowth when they have an armored Cavalier bearing down on them on his warhorse and a Wizard in plain view, blasting them with fire or whatever. Unless something particularly unusual (or contrived) happens, or the NPCs are there specifically to hunt down the halfling, they're unlikely to spend their turns digging around the bushes and trees with far more obvious and spectacular threats in sight... which is great for the sniper, but maybe not so great for the rest of them. I'm trying to think about these situations realistically, within the context of the Kingmaker campaign. Now you can list off as many exceptions and special situations that could happen (and probably will happen), but there's only so many times you can do such things before you begin straining credulity. I'm still going to try and incorporate his sniping tactics into my game, though.

TOH, if he's working with the party, the amount of damage he adds during a typical fight matters. In that case he can't just hide and do a few points a round and eventually win, because his friends will get slaughtered in the mean time. If he's not pulling his weight there, they'll take more damage and potentially lose more fights.

Yes, that's one of the things I'm worried about, that the party might eventually learn to resent the fact that they're getting mauled in every fight while this sneaky little halfling always gets away without a scratch. You can argue that this is their problem to solve, but I like it when everyone is equally challenged and equally at risk (generally speaking). It might send the wrong message - "If you want to live in my campaign, minmax your Stealth and shoot people in the back".

It's not a war game, but a roleplaying game. Don't seek to 'win', but rather to represent the NPCs.

-James

I appreciate your advice, and while it's certainly well worded, you're kind of barking up the wrong tree here. I've stated a number of times that I have no intentions of waging war on my players or using contrived retaliatory tactics to punish them just because they threw me a curveball. Maybe you should talk to the "send dragons and elementals to murder him" crowd, instead...

A phalanx/testudo formation may well come into play at some point, though, but only because the campaign supports such a thing!

At issue is not the damage output, it's the mitigation of retaliation. As long as he is able to do even 1 point of damage, and yet not loose any HP doing this, he will win. He has chosen to use sniping tactics to achieve this, and the OP wanted help on the subject of countering this tactic.

Thank you for elaborating on that. I'm not sure why so many people get so hung up on damage. So many arguments basically boil down to "His damage output is lower than class so and so, therefore everything is kosher". As though damage output is the only facet that can make a character powerful or OP. Check out the God Wizard optimized build suggestions by Treantmonk and you'll find out that you can be extremely effective without ever dealing even 1 point of damage directly! It's just not as simple as "More damage = better/more OP character".

Bear in mind that flanking dual weapon rogues and two-handed weapon barbarians - while indeed powerful and very damaging, are out there in the thick of it with the fighters, and there is no guarantee that the BBEG won't simply turn around and cleave the guy that just excavated his spleen with a pair of rusty knives! D&D isn't WoW and there's no "threat level" that guarantees you won't be attacked unless you pull aggro on yourself. On the other hand, a stealthy sniper Rogue can just keep plinking away at that same BBEG until he either dies or retreats because he can't find the little bugger, his behind now resembling a pin cushion, adding insult to injury.

And that's not even taking into account that the sniper Rogue could take something like the Crippling Strike talent, which lets him do 2 Strength damage with each sneak attack. Most enemies don't have all that much Strength - especially the non-physical types, and even a dragon could be whittled down to nothing in this manner, as long as even 1 point of damage gets through per attack.

Neat discussion.

To the original poster:
Thank you! I'm very pleased at your attitude in this, even though you seem to be taking some flak for it. I like a GM who regards players with respect and doesn't want to just shut them down or mistreat them, but ALSO isn't willing to be walked all over.

I power-game often, and I've GM'd a few times. I've seen abuse (and sadly been an abuser) on both sides in the past, and learned from it. It's important to have a GM who is willing to work with you and treat you right. If you overstep a line or cause problems, some GMs will cause rocks to fall and kill your character outright. On the first infraction. You can guess how fun that is for the player. On the other extreme, some GMs don't lay down fair ground rules, and the game just doesn't work right when the players are not challenged or kept under a basic level of threat.

What I'm hearing from you and other posters is this:
1) Player died, didn't like it, and wants to not die again. Stealth is his new silver bullet against this threat.

2) He has min-maxed his stealth to an insane degree. Nothing is able to beat his stealth roll. He's sneaking and sniping with impunity.

3) He's getting fairly cocky (and maybe condescending to you and/or the campaign?) about how "invincible" he now is. This is not healthy. It's disrupting the storytelling, the other players (?), and you. It feels abusive to the GM, players and rules.

4) You want to resolve the abuse, but without mistreating the player. Rocks falling and killing him is unfair, as is using encounters specifically designed to outright invalidate his build.

5) There's some discussion of how stealth works, but that is being resolved. You have some new tools now, and if you've been too lenient on the rules you can fix that.

6) You can modify encounters to challenge him better, but without invalidating him (or increasing difficulty for the other players). The occasional enemy that can smell him out, see past his stealth, etc will mix it...

Thank you for being so supportive! I've definitely learned some things in recent days, now that I've been exposed to the various methods through which people deal with these situations. Some of them I don't necessarily think are applicable to the game I'm running, but it's good to have them in mind for any future games. Others have gotten me to reconsider my approach to DM-ing, which really must be tailored to your specific group. Some people may enjoy competing with the DM, others would likely resent such tactics.

I'm honestly still not sure how to go about this Stealth and Sneak Attack issue, as people seem to have radically different opinions as to how it should work. My player created his sniper halfling with the assumption that he'll be getting in sneak attacks virtually every round, and being a new DM, I assumed these rules were much clearer than they actually are. People seem to speak from experience here when they say that this character won't be a problem forever, so I'm going to bank on this, since I really don't want to yank the rug from under my player unless I absolutely have to. I may well need to alter some encounters to challenge him better, because as it stands not much can actually spot him unless he rolls particularly poorly AND the BBEG has a great Perception modifier (or spells etc.)

This guy actually isn't that bad. I've heard some horror stories from my current group about a 3.5 game they recently played in and in which an uber-munchkin essentially bullied his overly submissive GM into letting him take some crazy combination of broken feats (ruled to work precisely how he needed them to work, of course) and such until he could do 700+ damage in a single attack (that's how they told it to me, anyway). Some people just have no shame, apparently. They joked that when his Rogue stabbed people in the back, he literally turned them into fine red mist with his daggers!

Ultimately, what I want to run is a game where there is a definite sense of challenge, but that challenge should be fair and the players should feel like they fought through some difficult battles, overcame adversity and ultimately triumphed. I'm not proud of that Wisp encounter (it went a lot worse than I intended) but the main reason I even had the Wisp go after the group in the first place was to scare them a bit, because up until that point they steamrolled virtually every encounter and slaughtered minor BBEG's in 2 or 3 rounds tops (often by doing something as unceremonious as stabbing a sleeping baddie in the throat, etc.), so they were getting somewhat bored with it. I figured the Wisp might remind them they're not yet the undisputed lords of the forest... it's kinda early for them to feel invincible, after all. But now we all have to deal with the fallout.

Anyway, I'd like to thank everyone for contributing and giving much appreciated advice. I may well return later on with more questions, but for now, I have a campaign to run!

I concede you could be right that that is the official RAW and RAI way to run sniping, although I do it differently in my game. But for the purposes of this discussion it's a moot point either way, because it isn't the condition of Concealment per se that allows the rogue to remove Dexterity bonuses. You can have the condition of Concealment, even total Concealment, while singing a merry tune or shouting at the top of your voice. Would anyone argue that in such a case a PC should be able to deprive an enemy of Dexterity modifiers? When a concealed PC attacks from range within distance of 30 feat or less, even if the enemy cannot exactly pinpoint location, direction is certainly...

D&D, even Pathfinder, definitely seems to be a game that takes liberty with realism in general. For example, here is a situation that I believe is completely legitimate (which I came across on a different board):

You mount up on a horse as a Ride 20 free action, have the horse take a double move or even full round run action (free action for you), dismount as a Ride 20 free action, then charge a target whilst simultaneously drawing your weapon and attack at the end of your move... all this somehow takes place in 6 seconds of game time, which is how long a turn lasts in Pathfinder.

So just because something totally makes sense in real life doesn't necessarily mean it applies to the game... I'd REALLY like to have a definitive ruling on how Stealth and Sneak Attacks are supposed to work, though.

I been playing D&D for a long time, best advice I give any new DM is start with just the core book allowed at table, master, then add in small chunks from advanced players master it. and keep going. I been playing pathfinder for little over a year now, and I just now added the whole advanced players. I started with just the core rule book, about half way into the game, I allowed a few feats from advanced players, all weapons from ultimate combat. Then I added few feats from ultimate combat and I let my players single class player retrain build there characters to archtypes if they wanted with no peanlty, I also let them retrain feats as I added new feats allowed. This allows for player to enjoy new stuff and master the rules as well as the dm.

Well, I actually tried restricting them to the Core rulebook to begin with... but they whined until I caved and allowed them access to supplemental books (the APG, UC, UM etc.). It does kind of suck when players all have years of D&D experience and the DM is new to the game. I get corrected on the rules all the time, which is somewhat humiliating, but everyone's gotta start somewhere!

OP, most of your responses seem to be defending his tactics then complaining that there is no "fixing" the "problem". Plenty of posters have posted well reasoned and reasonable counters/rules interpretations.

I'm not defending his tactics, I'm trying to determine A) whether or not they're legitimate (opinions differ) and B) if so, how best to deal with them. I'm not really satisfied with "counters" that require me to engage in what Vivianne calls "a DM/player power struggle", which is what I've been implicitly advised to do by several people on this board. It's not something that either myself or my players signed up for. I'm sure many people are used to playing like that - in fact, I know several gaming groups in which the DM and the players are constantly trying to "one up" each another (complete with "revenge characters" and such), and that's fine if they enjoy such gameplay - but I'm not running such a game at the moment. If I do at some point in the future, it will be after I have more experience and with due warning to my players.

It sounds like he made some pretty bad decisions. I mean, his decisions were so bad and it seems he was so was incapable of dealing with the Will O' Wisp (did he not have something like Web or Fog Cloud memorized?) that he doesn't sound very munchkiny. I'd expect a munchkin to build a better prepared character than that. He certainly appears to lack system mastery.

That said, I still think that punishing him for reacting to this isn't a good decision. His character died due to a combination of bad player decisions, unfortunate dice rolls (including the roll on the random encounter table), and questionable monster behavior. It's understandable why he would build his new character to not die if a random Will O' Wisp rolls a 20 on perception. The chest-thumping, show-him-who's-boss approach that some people in this thread have recommended won't solve the problem. I've been involved in DM/player "power struggles" from all three positions (DM, player in conflict with the DM, and spectator player) and it's never been a productive thing.

Yes, I'm not really sure why he decided to climb into that Rope Trick but he did, even after he was warned that it probably won't protect him. He didn't have a lot of utility spells memorized because he was decked out for war, they intended to clear out some bandits when they were waylaid by that Will 'O Wisp, so most of his spells were offensive (the Wisp is immune to most magic, though).

As for "questionable monster behavior", that's a matter of opinion. The Will 'O Wisp is an intelligent creature and certainly capable of puzzling some things out, if anything I went as easy on him as I could manage without it seeming totally contrived... maybe I made some bad calls but I'm not very experienced, what can I say. A less lenient GM would have just had the Wisp float up into his little hidey-hole and eat him then and there... in fact I know some GMs that would find that totally hilarious.

You may not believe this, but this guy actually didn't mind dying much because it let him roll up a new character. By his own admission, he has no less than 15 character concepts at the ready at any time... Although I'm sure that after his Wizard died, he decided that it just got real, so he pulled out this "invisible halfling" build he had stewing for a while!

I think there is a story behind this which explains a lot about why this player is acting the way he is. From what you've told us, it sounds like the death of his character may not have been the most fair resolution of the random encounter. It sounds like he made his new character specifically to avoid the same circumstances.

The main difference in Rope Trick from 3.5 versus Pathfinder is that Pathfinder doesn't let you pull the rope into the extradimensional space:

He's always been partial to Stealth, even with his Wizard character, this Rogue character is merely taking that tendency to extremes. Anyway, his Wizard was killed when his party was surprised by a (randomly rolled) Will 'O Wisp at night. This is a pretty fierce opponent even for their level (they were around level 5 at that time) so I fully intended to let them all escape if they so chose and have the Wisp go after their horses instead. The other players did make a run for it, but he decided he'd cast Rope Trick and retreat into it for a more "graceful" escape option. Knowing about his tendency to assume that spells and such work in Pathfinder exactly the same way as they worked in 3.5, I notified him that this will probably not be helpful since he can't pull the rope up and the Wisp could just follow him up anyway as he climbed up that rope while the thing was looking at him. But for some reason he decided to climb up the rope anyway, instead of booking it. He made a great Knowledge (Dungeoneering) roll so he knew exactly what the Wisp was capable of. At this point I felt like it would be cheap to just have the Wisp float up there to murder him, so I had it go after the "easier" targets, the horses, hinting that he should probably flee while he has the chance. He didn't. Then I rolled some dice to randomly determine whether the Wisp would stick around till dawn or just leave. It's an intelligent monster (Int 15, if I'm not mistaken) and it knew there was a tasty Halfling snack up there in that extradimensional space, as it saw him climb up into it (but I didn't have the Wisp follow him inside). So the spell expired and he was forced out, and since the Wisp decided to stick around after all, I decided to give him some head start hoping that he'd just flee for his life (he used Expeditious Retreat). But instead he decided to try and hide from the Wisp, and I rolled a 20 on the Perception check... and the rest is history... I'm not very proud of that particular encounter.

Honestly, they could be clearer. As it is, they are not unambiguous. However, this is my take on them:

d20pfsrd on Stealth wrote:

Creatures that fail to beat your Stealth check are not aware of you and treat you as if you had concealment.

As to the second part of that, we see that a successful Stealth check grants you concealment. Now, Invisibility also grants concealment, but the +2 bonus to hit and the ability to deprive defenders of Dex is listed under the Invisibility condition, not the concealment description. So the truly relevant part for the purposes of this discussion is the first part: "are not aware of you". That's fine, for the very first attack, if said Stealth check is made before a combat starts and the defender(s) has no reason to suspect the stealthy PCs presence (i.e., is completely oblivious). In that case, the PC is going to automatically get to treat the defender(s) as flat-footed. However, after that, Stealth or no, the defender is going to be "aware" of the PC's presence. Now, if the PC snipes and then successfully stealths to a completely different location, I believe they could manage to deprive the defender(s) of DEX again in a future round of combat, as the defender(s) would have their defenses up vs. attacks from the wrong direction. However, the PC would be giving up iterative attacks in doing so, as he'd be taking an attack and a move action.

Your interpretation of Sneak Attacks does look sensible, but the "you have to move to continue depriving your targets of DEX" ruling, while certainly reminiscent of tactics used by real snipers, would have to be a house rule... as there's nothing in the RAW that indicates such a thing is necessary. D&D doesn't always play by real life rules.

Would it have killed them to have spared a line for "concealment denies DEX to AC for target" somewhere offical, preferably with concealment rules or stealth rules? That's kind of a big deal.

In any case, MrMagpie, good luck tracking down Rambo Frodo. I recommend a Watcher in the Water and a half dozen Ring Wraiths.

Yep, now I know what Gollum meant when he kept going on about "sneaky little hobbitses" and "those filthy hobbitses"! (I'm feeling a lot of sympathy for him right now lol)

This player is also causing me to develop racist prejudice against Halflings in general, because that's his favorite race and he's always up to something with them!

Stealth and Sneak Attack rules could use some more clearing up as well. This much confusion is an indicator of that, at least.

So what constitutes failure, or the threat there of? Does he often go off alone, and thus the rest of his party is not getting beat on while he does his stealth shoot once, stealth trick? I would think given you say they arent optimized, the lack of the rogue being a target as well as the relatively low damage he's capable of with one shot per round would mean the party would take a real licking in difficult encounters. Do you not consider party members going down to be an adequate chance of failure? Does it have to be a threat personal to the rogue?

Yes, ideally each player should feel as though his character is at risk, not only because of a personal sense of danger, but so the other players don't feel like this one character is always "invincible" simply due to his Stealth tricks, while they're risking their neck in every encounter. It might eventually make them feel... somewhat resentful.

Also, have you tried talking to the player? Like as a person, explaining that his optimization of stealth while not 'broken' is disruptive and making things difficult for you? Explain that because of the extremes his stealth has reached, you would be forced to either deliberately counter it with encounters or simply ignore his character entirely and attack the other party members, then have monsters leave when the rest of the party was dead or incapacitated. A stealthing halfing isnt going to keep up with the walking pace of most other creatures. In fact a simple tactic you could employ consistently, is when enemies cant find him, they withdraw from the battle to a new location, having been frightened by the attacks from unseen enemies.

Oh, I do intend to discuss this with him, and the others (if necessary). The purpose of asking for advice on this forum was to have as much factual information available when I reach my final decision, so I'm not simply getting up in his grill and crippling his character (or forcing him to make alterations) with no better explanation than "I don't like it".

thejeff wrote:

It was explicitly stated by Jason Bulmahn in discussion of the recent Stealth Errata that successful stealth does deny Dex and thus make sneak attack possible.

Um, maybe I'm not reading things correctly but he then goes on to say:

"This does allow you to move from cover, use Stealth to approach a target, and make a single attack, at which point, Stealth is broken, regardless of the outcome. Now, if you slay that target with one hit, and still could maintain Stealth from all other foes in the area (if say, it is dark and they cannot see you), a GM might reasonably interpret that you could maintain Stealth from other foes, but that requires GM interpretation and is not really the point of this particular situation."

Which seems to indicate that once you make your attack vs an enemy from Stealth, you are no longer Stealthed regardless of whether you hit or miss, unless you kill the target outright - subject to GM decision. So you can't attack the same enemy from Stealth over and over again and get Sneak Attacks every time, unless you are flanking them - but regardless, after that first attack, Stealth is broken.

Note that in that first post he also said "It was our intent that if you are unaware of a threat, you cannot react to a blow". One could certainly argue that once you have an arrow lodged in your back, you are, shall we say... aware of the threat of arrows flying at your back lol.

Now I'm just quoting myself, but it occurred to me that the purpose of sniping is to *maintain* Stealth following a ranged attack... Jason Bulmahn apparently referred to melee attacks. So I'm still not sure how it's supposed to work!

Using blind fighting does not enable sneak attack, because the target has concealment.

Another way let others shine... monsters with DR 5-ish.
If the initial damage does not penetrate the DR the sneak attack damage does nothing.

Sniper's Eye does negate normal concealment for the purpose on sneak attacking, however Improved Blind-Fight and Greater Blind-Fight (which lets you treat full concealment as regular concealment) seem to refer specifically to MELEE attacks. He either didn't notice this or he has something else in plan.

It was explicitly stated by Jason Bulmahn in discussion of the recent Stealth Errata that successful stealth does deny Dex and thus make sneak attack possible.

Um, maybe I'm not reading things correctly but he then goes on to say:

"This does allow you to move from cover, use Stealth to approach a target, and make a single attack, at which point, Stealth is broken, regardless of the outcome. Now, if you slay that target with one hit, and still could maintain Stealth from all other foes in the area (if say, it is dark and they cannot see you), a GM might reasonably interpret that you could maintain Stealth from other foes, but that requires GM interpretation and is not really the point of this particular situation."

Which seems to indicate that once you make your attack vs an enemy from Stealth, you are no longer Stealthed regardless of whether you hit or miss, unless you kill the target outright - subject to GM decision. So you can't attack the same enemy from Stealth over and over again and get Sneak Attacks every time, unless you are flanking them - but regardless, after that first attack, Stealth is broken.

Note that in that first post he also said "It was our intent that if you are unaware of a threat, you cannot react to a blow". One could certainly argue that once you have an arrow lodged in your back, you are, shall we say... aware of the threat of arrows flying at your back lol.

What your player appears to be arguing is that a successful Stealth roll automatically grants the Invisibility condition. If it does, then yes, the PC would not only gain a +2 bonus to hit but his opponents would lose their Dexterity bonuses, each and every time. However, except for a boss in ** spoiler omitted ** I don't recall ever seeing anything official in any of the Pathfinder books or material that says that a successful stealth check = Invisibility condition. And that one boss in the game I played in may or may not have been played correctly by my GM; we haven't gotten all the way through that AP and I have...

So how would you say Stealth and Sneak Attack rules ACTUALLY work? Spell it out for me like I'm a total noob... which, come to think of it, isn't all that far from the truth... lol.

OP, first, let me say I understand this is your first time behind the DM seat. Let's school you up on a few things you need to know:

This situation is not munchkin. It is optimization, it is powergaming, etc...the difference? Munchkins do it at others' expense. So far, you've included nothing about him impacting the fun of other players, only your own frustration in not wanting to alter the content to cater to him.

There is nothing "WIN" about Super Stealth. There's two pages of suggestions here as to how to combat his one-trick pony. I won't repeat their advice, but I will recommend that you heed it.

Secondly, I respect that you want to stick to the printed Adventure Path (in your case, Kingmaker). However, a good DM tweaks everything to his players. If he's using a strategy that makes it harder for the monsters, it's your job to increase the CR to compensate. Give the monsters more hp, let the "lieutenants and above" see invis, give them deeper darkvision, etc...

Don't just stick to the printed Adventure Path and complain about optimized players being too OP for it. Part of what you owe to your players is to make everything "risky". Otherwise it's just not fun. Even for Super Stealth Halfling Boy. If there's no risk of death, there's no satisfaction of winning a scenario.

I am glad you've discussed progression with him, and his designs to take Hellcat Stealth and other stealth-centric stuff. Make sure he knows your concerns and limitations, and don't worry about him being a rules-lawyer.

The easiest way to combat rules lawyer players is to remind them of Rule 0 and Rule 1. Rule 0 is that all rules are optional if you say so. Rule 1 is that you, and only you, are the final rulebook interpretation authority for your campaign.

I don't say that he's an outright munchkin, but he does have some munchkiny tendencies, obviously you don't know him so I can't persuade you of this, nor do I intend to. His tactics may well end up hurting the other players, however, especially if I follow your suggestions (and the suggestions of some others on this board) and beef up the encounters to compensate. The other players haven't optimized their characters, knowing that the AP isn't really meant for that kind of thing, so if I up the ante just to deal with this one player, I'm likely gonna be screwing over my other players which in no way deserved such treatment. And as I said before, I really dislike the idea of the GM and the players being locked in a war like that, especially an UNDECLARED war that you just spring on them in response to one optimizer. Maybe that's how you prefer to run/play your games, but it wasn't on the table for this game. At no point did I tell them "I intend to have no mercy on you guys, so you better optimize the crap out of your PCs to have a fighting chance", or anything like that. Quite the opposite, they knew it's a published adventure and that I'm a first time GM, and they knew what I was going to be running - primarily a role-playing game and not, as I said before, an escalating character meatgrinder.

I do agree with you that there has to be an element of risk and the threat of failure, and death should never be that far away - there's no reward without risk, after all... but I'm not going to be punishing my other players just to keep up with this one optimized Halfling Rogue.

I'm not sure about the ability to use SA like that. Is there a source that states firing from concealment removes the target's DEX bonus? I'm looking for one and I'm not finding it.

I'm not sure about this myself, but the rules allow one to use concealment to enter Stealth, and he argues that as long as enemies don't know where he is and he's within 30 ft, he should get his Sneak Attack because enemies are denied their DEX bonus. If that's not how it works then his whole strategy is suspect because in that case he shouldn't be able to Sneak Attack at all except during the surprise round or something.

However, few people have called this into question here, so I assume that his interpretation of the rules is indeed correct. Zog argues that as long as enemies know ROUGHLY where you are (perhaps because they smell you, or perhaps because they have one of your arrows sticking out of their ass and pointing in your general direction), they shouldn't be denied DEX bonus against your attacks and therefore you can't Sneak Attack them anymore. I'm really not sure if that's how it's supposed to work, it does make sense... but Sneak Attack itself is such an abstract mechanic that it's hard to determine when it does or does not apply, common sense doesn't necessarily cut it.

I apologize if you felt like my combat suggestions were designed to specifically counter the player while not being able to challenge the rest of the group. I would also like to apologize if you felt like the suggested encounters seemed out of place in the wilderness.

You don't need to apologize, I'm not looking to antagonize anyone here, and in spite of how it may seem, my only goal is to run a game that will actually be enjoyable and memorable for all my players. I'm not out to take vengeance against Halfling Rogue, I just want him to be suitably challenged instead of having his optimized stats ruining what would otherwise have been memorable boss encounters and epic fights. I've already had to adapt the AP to deal with some of their tactics which the Kingmaker designers didn't anticipate (but this is to be expected, as nobody can plan for everything), but I'm loath to do so unless it's absolutely necessary, as I don't feel I have the required experience to rewrite large sections of the AP to better challenge the party without either going overboard, messing up the rules or looking like I'm out for their blood.

At 3rd level full attack isn't that necessary, unless he's also taken Rapid Shot/Manyshot.

If I'm following correctly he's got Stealthy and SKill Focus, then Sniper's Eye for a Rogue talent, right?
So yes, there's no room there for any of the other archery boosting feats. -4 to anyone in melee. Another -4 for soft cover if anyone is in the way.

Yes, that's his current choice of feats and talent. He does plan on adding Precise Shot later so he can negate that -4 to melee engaged targets, though.

In fact, I have his planned-out selection of feats right here... He might change them later, but here they are regardless:

Dodge, Disorienting Maneuver, Deadly Aim, Extra Rogue Talent, Point Blank Shot, Rapid Shot, Precise Shot, Improved Precise Shot, Blind-Fight, Improved Blind-Fight, Greater Blind-Fight and Weapon Focus

Now, I'm sure he won't be able to take ALL of those feats, but that's what he indicated on his sheet as likely choices. He also seems to intend to craft smoke sticks, smoke pellets and such. I suspect he intends to use these to provide concealment to himself in the open while using the Blind Fight feats to Sneak Attack enemies.

As for those grass related rules, I know that real life snipers use tall grass for concealment all the time, so if the RAW indicate that you can't use it for that purpose, it kind of doesn't make sense. Especially if you're a small Halfling. As far as I know, concealment isn't the same as cover anyway, and it doesn't give you penalties to hit, only makes you roll a percentile die if you land a hit to see if you missed due to not being able to see your target well (or at all).

A few points:

1st, you said you're playing Kingmaker. A lot of animal opponents in Kingmaker.

This is precisely why he spends so much time in trees. If that wolf/grizzly/whatever can't reach you, he can't attack you, right?

2nd, some creatures just can't be sneak attacked: elementals, things with tremorsense (I remember at least a couple nastybads with tremorsense in that AP.

True, there are some creatures like that, but there's even more NPCs which *would* be scary if only they could spot him... Too bad they can't.

3rd, when you're on the plains, unless the grass is pretty high, there's nowhere to hide.

I guess it's a good thing he's a Halfling, then... they can hide in knee-high grass no problem! And of course, that's why he wants Hellcat Stealth and such.

4th, what's he going to do at night? He can't sneak attack farther than 30', but creatures with darkvision are not so limited. Even worse, he cannot sneak attack creatures that have ANY level of concealment, such as from poor lighting, which means unless he is attacking something within a light source, no sneak attack for him.

He's gonna be making alchemical items to mitigate some of those problems, and he also has a Rogue talent that lets him ignore regular concealment for the purpose of sneak attacking (Sniper's Eye).

5th, even if none of the above were true, he's just not that scary. A fighter or ranger or barbarian will easily out-damage him. And this guy isn't providing flanking bonuses and won't get attacks of opportunity. He's a one-trick pony whose trick is kinda cute for him, but weakens the defense of the group as a whole unless there are no squishy wizards or sorcerers to divert enemy attacks from.

But it's not really about absolute damage, even though a lot of people here get hung up on it ("A well specced out Fighter deals way more damage" etc.). It's about challenge, on a personal level. Right now he's comfortable knowing that no matter what happens, the rest of the group will probably snuff it long before anyone manages to find him, so he can afford to be arrogant and unreasonably confident. I don't like it when my players feel that comfortable just because they've minmaxed their character with metagaming knowledge of the Bestiary books in mind and the knowledge that I probably won't resort to similarly "cheap" tactics to deal with them. We have an unspoken agreement in place - you don't screw with me and my game, and I won't screw with you and your characters. But he's getting perilously close to breaking that agreement, if you ask me.

Stealth wise, I am assuming 20 Dex:

3 (points) + 3 (Class Skill) + 5 (DEX) + 3(skill focus) + 1 (Size) + 5(cloak) = 20

Not sure what his feats are. But he only has 2 at that level, so it would have to be Skill focus + Point Blank Shot? Does he have Precise Shot? If not, he takes a -4 for firing into melee. Later on he could take Stealthy for another +2.

Actually, being Small he gets a +4 to Stealth, not +1... His Stealth at this level breaks down like so:

3 (ranks) + 3 (class skill) + 5 (Dex) + 3 (Skill Focus) + 4 (Small Size) + 2 (Stealthy feat) + 5 (Cloak) = 25

This will only increase because at level 10 his Skill Focus bonus will be +6 and his Stealthy focus +4, and I'm sure he'll find other ways to increase it to insane proportions.

Most creatures and NPCs in the Kingmaker adventure path aren't really equipped to spot him, with some exceptions (Glitterdust equipped Wizards etc.)

And yes, he spends most of his time stealthed, usually in trees, especially while the party is camping at night (probably because his Wizard character died during a random night encounter... which was partially his fault because he assumed Rope Trick works the same way in Pathfinder as it did in 3.5 - most of his experience is with 3.5). In fact, he introduced his new character to the party by sneaking up to the fort where they were staying... the guards had no chance of spotting him, and neither did the players. Which leads me to believe that a CR appropriate encounter with NPC Rogues built like his character would be exceptionally unfair unless the players were specifically prepared for them.

There's been a lot of advice given on how to counter his character by designing NPCs and encounters with him in mind. If you ask me, this is tantamount to declaring war on the player - it's like if you made a fire specialized Sorcerer or whatever and suddenly monsters with fire resistance and immunity started springing up left and right for no good reason other than to disable you. You can do it a few times, sure, but after the 6th encounter with "Rogue hunter" NPCs it really will look like I have it in for him. You can argue that he started it by creating a character too optimized to be fair for the adventure as written, and thereby escalating the game, but I'm running a friendly adventure with a fair element of risk - not an old school no-holds-barred character meatgrinder in which players and GMs compete to outdo each other in rules lawyering and minmaxing.

The usual defense against sniping and kiting is via held actions. You can also use area effects like glitterdust and the like to paint your targets. If he's trying the sniper's game alone without the rest of the party around, I suggest pulling no punches.

Yes, I've decided to discuss the nature of the game with my players, while trying not to break too much immersion, I am inclined to let him have his fun and see how he responds. He's gotten a bit arrogant now that he thinks he's on to a winning ticket but if he goes so far as to exclude the other players and tries making it a one man show, he's dead (to say the least). I don't really think it will get to that point since he's a team player at heart, but he might definitely try some crazy tactics (those are his hallmark) as they make him feel extra clever. I definitely get the feeling he already lost respect for the combat encounters of the campaign (including the Big Bad), which is what probably worries me the most, as he might infect the others with this attitude.

In all honesty Rogue is my least favorite of all the classes, 2nd only to Magus. I prefer Paladin over all other classes, primarily because i enjoy the limitations and rp situations that paladins get them selves in. The reason i am "championing" rogue is because it is one of the least powerful classes in game and they get no love from the community.

As I said, I have nothing against Rogues per se, if one of my players showed up with a Fighter that somehow had such high AC that nothing short of a Tarrasque could realistically hit him without getting a natural 20, I'd be wondering whether or not that character is abusively powerful as well. Fortunately this hasn't happened yet, but if I start escalating matters to bring the game up to powergamer levels, then I fully expect my other players to decide that all bets are off and they have to optimize as well to have a fighting chance. So far everyone has been more interested in roleplaying value than absolute effectiveness, but this sniper Rogue is bucking the system, so to speak, hence my apprehension.

I follow the rules wherever possible as well, but rules aren't always perfect, nor do they account for every situation. I would certainly never impose any rules on PCs that didn't also apply to my NPCs. I think a discussion concerning what kind of a game we're actually playing is definitely in order. Thank you for your advice.

Then do you ban all full spell progression classes like Wizard. After all once a wizard learns the Invis spell he becomes more so untouchable than the Rogue were discussing about. Any wizard for example can cast Invis then proceed to use his/her turns to cast summon monsters to...

If I'm not mistaken, that precisely why Wizards are limited through spells per day in the first place. So you can do that once or maybe twice per day, but once you're out of tricks, you're done. Now, there's a lot to be said about Pearls of Power and staves and whatnot, but Wizards generally have to ration out their spells and power carefully to avoid getting caught with their pants down, and you can't afford to be making assumptions. A Rogue with +50 to Stealth can be effectively invisible and effective as long as he has some cover and with the right feats, maybe even without it, in and out of combat. Plus he can have the friendly party Wizard cast Greater Invisibility on him for even greater hilarity.

There's always a flip side, isn't there?

One of the reasons why Rogues are so underpowered in retrospect to other classes is because it is one of the few classes the require actual tactics. Positioning and feats is key to use any of the Rogue's offensive abilities unlike other classes like fighter. On top of that other classes like fighter do far more damage than a Rogue with less optimization. A Rogue to be good for his party in in combat situations has to seriously optimize for it even then he is meh in comparison with lower bab, health, and armor than any other class designed to be in melee. For the Rogues built to fight at range they do far less damage than casters, with less utility mind you, and are usually forced only to 1 attack that round, typical sniper builds, and even further limited in how far they can be from the target to get there SA, sniper goggles being exception.

I may not be a D&D expert, but I know enough to know that any class can be OP if minmaxed and optimized right. You seem to be championing the Rogue class in general here, perhaps because it's your favorite core class and you know a lot about the peculiarities and drawbacks of playing a Rogue, but I don't have a problem with Rogues as such, only exploitative gaming. To illustrate matters further, his earlier Wizard character was also a bit munchkiny because he tried to persuade me to let him have some crazy breaks on crafting prices (70-80% or more, by taking a bunch of crafting limitations based on alignment, class etc, which don't really reduce the usefulness of the item and therefore aren't limitations in my book, just free price breaks). Furthermore, I consider myself a lenient GM - I let my players have better than average stats (they rolled 2d6+6) and I interpret most situations in their favor if it makes sense at all. What I want to avoid here is the situation where a player forces me into either arbitrarily limiting his enjoyment of the character and his build, or otherwise ending up in an escalating GM-player war where I have to up the ante just to keep the game somewhat challenging.

I don't really know if what he's currently doing is really overpowered, but you need to be in control of the game if you're the GM, if you don't like a Feat, you don't allow it, you don't allow players to be using a broader array of crunch than you can understand. Having NPCs use similar builds is totally fine and normal, I mean, ultimately there isn't a reason you shouldn't use similar tactics if he WASN'T doing this already. I would not target him directly in ways that aren't justified by the setting, but these are just normal feats useful to Rogues, he's not actually that special... otherwise you're dealing with out of game problems with in game measures.

Besides the details of the game itself, you should be in communication with him so you are both on the same page, if you don't want him using every trick in the book or the library, tell him that's how you're running the game and it goes for every PC and NPC, so that he can better play the game in a way enjoyable for everybody involved. Stock AP NPCs are not very optimized usually, so if you need to change that to match his playstyle, that is extra work for you, which you can accept or not accept. If the game you're running is all about a girl gang of dwarven run-aways, that's the game you're playing, and everybody should be on the same page. If you're not playing a game where characters have minmaxed abilities to the yinyang using multiple obscure sources, make that clear: otherwise you're not being upfront with him. If you're OK with limited usage of non-core material, but want to approve it on a case by case basis, tell him that. If you've lost control of the game, you can't put the responsibility for that wholly on others just because they had different assumptions than you.

I would like to remind you, this is my 1st time DMing D&D. I did it essentially as a favor to the players and I'm not about to engage in a power war with any of them. I guess I assumed they'd curtail their munchkin tendencies without my input, which the other players managed pretty well, except this one player. He knew better than me that this AP isn't built with powergaming in mind, but I guess he couldn't resist this time, and I let him get away with it because of an incomplete understanding of the rules.

1d4 arrows and 2d6 Sneak attack is imbalancing your game?

Not everything is about pure damage output, you know. But when you can do sneak attacks every round and nobody can realistically find you, you may be a little OP, yes.

Well 1st of before you do any thing why not ask the players about his character in question. Personally i find it fun when i, and my party for the most pat, live through encounters. If they have no quarrels whit his character and there having fun then why impede on his fun. As the DM you need to remember its not you job to win its you job to referee and tell a decent story. If you want to win dont be a dm.

I would also like to note that even though he is some what untouchable that does not mean his allies are untouchable. It also does not stop the more intelligent enemies from trying to run away and relay info to there allies.

I'm not in it to "win", I'm in it to tell an exciting story, where players fight and triumph in a game that is - to quote the Spoony one, "harsh but fair". However, munchkins are in it to win, and they're certainly not beholden to such quaint notions as "fairness" or "cinematic value". I'm not saying this player of mine is an outright munchkin, but compared to everyone else in the group he's certainly the one that did the most optimizing, and the adventure as written is just not designed to support that.

I enjoy it when my players live through encounters and complete adventures as well, but I'm not about to hand them their victory on a silver platter, especially if they achieved it by exploiting the game rules (granted, there's a lot of grey area here, as Rogues in general tend to be underhanded, that's what they do). There has to be some element of risk involved, if you know the whole thing is stacked in your favor to a ridiculous extent, you WILL get bored very soon (I played in such games before, so I know what I'm talking about).

His character is 100% legit and no he will not be over powered. If you want over powered then check out some of the builds on this forum and know true fear.

Oh, I know Pathfinder allows for some insane munchkinry, as does D&D in general. That's actually one of the primary reasons why I stayed away from D&D for so long. It comes down to what I'm willing to tolerate, really, and I'm definitely not willing to tolerate a powergamer literally laughing in my face while taunting me with his "invincible" character. That's a "rocks fall, everyone dies" kind of situation. But I'd rather if everyone had fun, not just the munchkins in the group (until they realized the game is totally boring because nothing can challenge them anymore).

He built his character for a specific reason and task. Let him enjoy him self, especially since its a rogue one of the must under powered classes. Also if you create encounters specifically to counter him over and over it will look like you are picking on him, which it is. Also he would have more reason to get hide in plain sight abilities, like i did on my rogue, were he could stealth, with out penalty, in bright, normal, and dim light with out cover and fly in the air.

Yes, I am certainly reluctant to design contrived encounters and scenarios to deal with him specifically, but neither will I let him walk all over my game by making Stealth his personal invincibility power. The Kingmaker adventure path simply wasn't designed with powergamers like him in mind and he's already gotten pretty smug about it. It's one thing to create an effective character, and another to exploit the rules in such a way that all encounters which aren't specifically designed with you in mind become nothing more than boring cakewalks. Because then everyone is just gonna yawn their way through the game and that's no fun for anyone involved.

Counter snipe him. After he makes his attack and before he hides again, he is visible. Have held actions targeting the sniper. Its the same tactics you use for fighting phase spiders and quicklings.

This is an interesting strategy... I certainly thought about using some of his own tricks against him, and I could incorporate this into my tactics later (assuming this really works as you say it does). He will no doubt eventually decide that I'm bringing in monsters and NPCs specifically designed and equipped to kill HIM... but that may well become necessary.

Items? At level 3?

He still has to be in range for sneak attack.

He's gonna be good for a bit, then fall off. Let him have a little fun.

Yes, he started his new character at level 3 after his Wizard got killed, and I foolishly let him spend his 3000 gold on a Cloak of Elvenkind (+5 to Stealth) because I didn't want to bog down the session, so I trusted his greater experience. But even if I didn't let him have it to begin with he'd probably have gotten it later anyway. In retrospect, I should have known better because his earlier character was a munchkiny crafter Wizard.

I hope what you're saying is true, and he won't be OP later on. So far he's been pretty unstoppable.

Anyway, nobody seems to be disputing his interpretation of the rules, so does that mean his character is 100% legit?

I think you also have to consider how the enemies will react. Granted they can't see the sniper but they know the general area he's operating in. They would either swarm the area or take cover themselves. Maybe they fall back to a more open area, throw some alchemist fire or call in help. Even if they just attack the party members they can see they'll get cover/in combat protection from ranged (depending on his feats).

He spent a lot of time designing this character... He has the Sniper's Eye talent that lets him ignore concealment for sneak attacks, and I'm concerned he may pick the Crippling Strike talent or something (so he can kill targets by reducing their Strength to 0 with sneak attacks). I could, of course, think of ways to counter his tactics to some degree, but as I said, it would probably require designing contrived situations and redesigning encounters specifically to deal with him...

The Big Bad can have AOE spells or Improved Blind Fight.

True, but then I'd probably have to redesign the encounters specifically to counter his tactics (it's a published adventure module, Kingmaker)... And don't get me wrong, but I don't think any roleplaying game other than maybe Munchkin should be about the players and the GM waging a war and constantly trying to counter one contrived strategy with another!

At one sneak attack a round, I wouldn't consider him anything close to OP.

True, one sneak attack per round may not be that fearsome, but I fear that he may eventually get his Stealth so high that he can afford to take on the Big Bad himself, nickel & diming him to death because neither he nor his minions can spot him. These fears may be unfounded, but I really wouldn't like to backed into a corner like that and have the story take a decidedly ridiculous turn. Plus, he might dig up some crazy feat or item or whatever that lets him get multiple ranged sneak attacks per round as well... He has ALL the rulebooks and isn't afraid to use them.

Greetings, all.

I've been a lurker on this forum for a while, but now I have a situation that I need advice on, and I'd be most grateful if one of your Pathfinder/D&D veterans can supply said advice.

I am DM-ing a Pathfinder game and one of my experienced players - with some pronounced munchkin/rules lawyer-ish tendencies - has created a character which, in my opinion, is rather overpowered. Specifically, he created a Halfling Rogue with optimized levels of Stealth (over +20 to Stealth at level 3, from various feats, items, the Small size bonus etc. and this is only likely to rise even more once he gets access to more gold and feats). He created this character after his Halfling Wizard was killed, ostensibly to ensure that it doesn't happen again. Now, being a newbie at DM-ing D&D in general, I allowed him to roll up this Rogue, which I'm beginning to regret.

His typical strategy with this character involves either beginning every encounter already in Stealth, or stealthing as soon as the opportunity presents itself - he's never far from cover, and he prefers to spend as much time as possible in trees or bushes (the campaign features a lot of forest terrain, so he's rarely wanting for cover). He then starts sniping every enemy in range, repositioning himself through cover as necessary. He took the alternate Racial trait that Halflings have available, "Swift as Shadows", which lets him reduce the penalty for using Stealth while moving by 5, and the Stealth check penalty for sniping by 10 (so it's now -10, instead of -20... there's also a Rogue talent that does this, but it's available much later). Thanks to his optimized Stealth skill, CR appropriate enemies have little chance to detect him even as he pokes them full of arrows (he essentially has to roll close to a 1 for enemies to spot him), and he argues that since the enemies haven't spotted him, they shouldn't get their Dex bonus to AC versus his attacks, and therefore he should also be able to get his Sneak Attack bonus every round. The other experienced players haven't contradicted him on this, or anything else Stealth related for that matter, and the opinions on how Stealth and Sneak Attack ought to work seem to be sharply divided even on this forum - I may be stirring up the hornet's nest again, but that can't be helped...

To make matters worse, he's also taunting with his intentions to take even more Stealth related items and feats - for example, he plans on taking "Hellcat Stealth" - or a level of Shadowdancer - so he can enter Stealth even while directly observed, and he plans on making use of Invisibility spells and effects as well to make himself even harder to detect.

I'm doing my best to be reasonable and understanding, but I fear his powergaming tactics are taking a lot out of the game, as the player of a character that virtually can't be detected is unlikely to be threatened by anything short of some rather contrived situations, such as having every enemy spellcaster come equipped with Glitterdust, or having a dragon burn half the forest down to get him out of his hidey-hole (and even then, he has Evasion!).

Am I misinterpreting the rules and letting him get away with murder (usually literally)? Or is he right in apparently believing that Stealth at extreme levels really does equal near invincibility? I told him that I need to take his character under advisement, but I can't seem to be able to find a satisfactory, and fair, solution thus far. Or am I merely blowing things way out of proportion, and a nigh-undetectable Rogue isn't really that big of a deal in the long run? I don't want to have to resort to house rules unless it's absolutely necessary, especially not to nerf someone's legitimate character - but if he ends up ruining the game for everyone, I may just have to do so.

I've also considered letting him have a taste of his own poison if nothing else solves this problem, and having some Rogue snipers/Assassins built using the same rules ambush the party (the plot definitely allows for this eventuality), and see how they like being the target of undetectable attackers that get sneak attack damage every round - but this is another one of those "last resort" type of situations, as I don't want to end up being vindictive over this.

Any sage advice will be most appreciated, and I would like to thank you all for reading through this post and taking the time to answer!