nevinera's page

The Marksman archetype 'shroud' has a "Hide in Plain Sight" feature (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/psionics-unleashed/classes/marksman/archetypes/dre amscarred-press/shroud)

Hide in Plain Sight

A shroud of 7th level or higher can use the Stealth skill even when being observed by expending her psionic focus when making her Stealth skill check.

This ability replaces Disengage.

But I'm having trouble understanding how it works exactly. It says that to 'expend your psionic focus' when making the check.. but in any situation where HiPS would be useful, you need to make at least one stealth check per round (one for staying stealthed and then one for any extra action you perform, like opening a door, or regaining focus with meditation).

It looks to me like you cannot Hide in Plain Sight for more than one round, unlike every other incarnation of the ability - you can't regain your focus while stealthed as a move action without making another stealth check, can you? Am I misunderstanding the ability, misunderstanding its intent, or is it just very weak compared to other sources of HiPS?

We're also using modified stealth rules (http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2oxkx?New-Stealth-Rules), so I'm more interested in the functional intent than in the rules as written - is it supposed to allow longer-term HiPS, or just one round?

I'm GMing a run through Rise of the Runelords that will just have two players, one a serious munchkin/optimizer, and one who just likes to play. We tried a session with multi-character play once, and it absolutely crushed our ability to role-play, but gestalt rules turn the game into 'what abilities are absolutely broken together?'

My hopeful solution is to houserule in some extra power and a few safeguards to allow my players to have a shot at living through it, without having to modify all of the encounters in the whole path. Here are the mods:

1. only one class (no original summoner), with one free variant multiclass (don't lose the feats for it)
2. gain the spellcasting ability of one other class, as CL - 1 (no class features etc).
2b. Alternatively, gain the animal companion and wild empathy class features as a druid of CL - 1.
3. 25 point-buy
4. Free skill unlocks for class skills (unchained rogue gets extra bonus feats to replace edge)
5. staggered advancement (two phases instead of four - we will be levelling as expected, rather than by xp)
6. Automatic bonus progression (any replaced loot found will be instantly sold for half value)
7. Save points before each dungeon/major adventure (roughly each session) - once per chapter (rolling over), you can restore after a tpk. If one of them was still alive and escaped, it only costs half of a save point.

I cannot tell if I am under-powering or over-powering them - I suspect it depends on what kind of characters they build. If I had to guess what they will build:

1. An unchained monk (rogue) with an animal companion
2. An unchained summoner (gunslinger) with oracle spell

What do you think? Part of the goal is to make characters that are gestalt-ey, but not as munchkinable, and part of the goal is to make my players feel like they are really working for their success. Also, I just got unchained, so a lot of that won't make sense to people that haven't. Sorry about that >.<