| jhuns |
I would like some clarification on a scenario that affected our party a few weeks ago. Our group has hashed it out internally to a solution that works for us, but I'd love to hear some wider feedback on the situation.
As background to the scenario in question, our party was attempting to sneak up on a potential enemy in a cave. We rolled initiative with our stealth. A couple of characters rolled well and beat the enemy perception DC, but several others did not. And to complicate it further, the enemy rolled their initiative well and went before any of the player characters.
Having been alerted to our party's presence, it is the first enemy's turn. It knows there are at least some enemies outside the cave entrance. So it uses its first two actions to stride just outside the entrance of the cave.
Here is where things got contentious in our group. The enemy used its third action to strike the Wayang Thaumaturge that had been one of the few to remain undetected at the start of combat. The GM argued (and several of us supported) that since there was no reasonable cover or concealment for the Thaumaturge, the Thaumaturge should be Observed, and therefore attackable. The Thaumaturge assented but also asked for a deeper dive post session.
At first, I too believed that since there was no longer cover between the undetected Thaum and the enemy, they should no longer be Undetected and instead be Observed. But on closer inspection of the rules, that does not seem to be the case.
First, the rules for Undetected condition itself don't list any scenarios for removing Undetected other than the Seek action.
We were using Avoid Notice, whose rules seem to be sparse, but do seem to point to Sneak action as a way to adjudicate here:
If you're Avoiding Notice at the start of an encounter, you usually roll a Stealth check instead of a Perception check both to determine your initiative and to see if the enemies notice you (based on their Perception DCs, as normal for Sneak, regardless of their initiative check results).
And while the Hide action has a bit of text that clearly addresses this:
If you successfully become hidden to a creature but then cease to have cover or greater cover against it or be concealed from it, you become observed again.
The correlated rule in the Sneak is not so symmetrical, only automatically becoming observed as a result of Sneak action, not just for losing Cover/Concealment
You don't get to roll against a creature if, at the end of your movement, you neither are concealed from it nor have cover or greater cover against it. You automatically become observed by such a creature.
Success You're undetected by the creature during your movement and remain undetected by the creature at the end of it.
You become observed as soon as you do anything other than Hide, Sneak, or Step. If you attempt to Strike a creature, the creature remains off-guard against that attack, and you then become observed. If you do anything else, you become observed just before you act unless the GM determines otherwise. The GM might allow you to perform a particularly unobtrusive action without being noticed, possibly requiring another Stealth check. If you speak or make a deliberate loud noise, you become hidden instead of undetected.
If a creature uses Seek and you become hidden to it as a result, you must Sneak if you want to become undetected by that creature again.
All these ways of becoming Observed require actions by the Undetected character, other than Seek for a potential observer.
This caused a bit of stir in our group as we debated things like 20 Orcs avoiding notice in a room behind a closed door that no one can see once you open the door. Ultimately, we came to a compromise that an Undetected character would become Observed if they lose their cover/concealment and have no reasonable way to say they are still "hiding". It's not really RAW, but at least makes us happy and allows some verisimilitude we think.
But I'm also curious what the broader community thinks here. I did a lot of research before I wrote this, and I couldn't find any community discussions on this particular scenario. Lots of great discussions on how to use the various stealth rules, but nothing from the perspective of a potential Observer who uses Stride to a position where an Undetected Creature no longer has Cover or Concealment.