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When you declare that you are going to use Stealth the circumstances change. If I am actively trying to hide then it is your job to try and find me by either actively looking for me or by just happening to see me because my Stealth wasn't good enough.
Either way you still get to make a Perception check. Now you couldn't say you were actively looking for me if you never knew I was there to begin with but you could be on the look out for anything out of the ordinary or you just happen to notice me creeping around.
Just actively walking up behind someone doesn't call for Perception from them if you aren't making a Stealth roll.
And, if the RAW was clear that one could get a Sneak from merely stealthing, then they wouldn’t have needed to Stealth blog. Of what use is adding the ‘hidden” condition, when the rules already give you that.
Note to mention the rules for Stealth which state clearly "It's impossible to use Stealth while attacking, running, or charging." Thus, when you attack, you are no longer stealthed.
There is no such thing as "stealthing". The thing that is clear is the "IF" statement, and the consequences of not completing it. I never said all of stealth was clear. I had to cite 3 or 4 sections of the book just to explain it.
Once again you are not attacking while using stealth. You use stealth and then you attack. That means it is sequential, not simultaneous. Once you get into place the stealth part is done. Even sniping references a sequential order.
PS:I also don't think the word surprise is only referring to the surprise round. That is a stretch.
Why then, did the writers and Devs try to add to the rules so that Stealth would make you “hidden’ thus you could sneak attack? Why did James Jacobs more or less say that making the RAW conform to the RAI would require a major rewrite, which they aren’t going to do right now? If the RAW sez so, all they’d have to do is FAQ it.
Why would they spend days and pages trying to get the RAW to conform to the RAI if it already did?
Yes, you can’t just take out the word “and’ and paste in ‘such as” which is exactly my point. The Devs used “and’. That means if you fail your perception check you do not avoid being surprised, which means you cannot react.
Which is what's required to be able to use your DEX with your AC, whether you are dealing with a surprise round or not.
Example: The feint maneuver denies your opponent his DEX to AC because you feint like you're going to slash, and instead actually stab - but the target can't react to the stab because he thinks he's going to get slashed.
The “the most common of which is an opposed check versus an opponent's Stealth check to notice the opponent AND avoid being surprised. If you are successful, you notice the opponent and can react accordingly" refers ONLY to being surprised. That's why the word "and' is in there. Insert "such as' which is what you guys are arguing and it makes no sense at all.
You are arguing that "surprised" in this instance is equivalent to "surprise round". I am not doing anything of the kind. I am taking "surprised" in a general sense of "you are not expecting it". Which, humorously, means you could not react to it, thereby denying you your DEX.
Thus why I was confused by your statement on "such as", because I'm not attempting to say anything related to "surprise round".
As you said earlier, the Stealth blog makes that very clear. Otherwise, why do it?
I answered that question in my prior post: As it stands, there are differing interpretation of RAW, all of which are 'valid' depending on the portions of the rules to which you refer. A sentence can have two or more completely correct meanings, in which case RAW = RAI1 = RAI2. Thus the play test\blog was necessary, because their wordings left it somewhat ambiguous.
I'd propose they did avoided an errata on it not because RAW and RAI disagree, but because adding in all of the specific mechanics, like new conditions, to make it clear that the common RAI is actually RAW, would be too complex.
Invisibility breaks upon completing an attack. Stealth upon starting.
Citation please; that's actually assumption. DM_blake suggested that to be the case, but nowhere in the RAW does it state that; it simply says it breaks when you attack, not that it waits until the attack is resolved.
Let me ask this: If a character with Invisibility on them attacks a foe, but fails to do damage due to DR, does Invisibility break? What if the invisible character attacks the foe but misses? In fact, based on RAW it says it breaks when you attack - which would indicate that in both of the above instances it would break.
And that supports the idea that in order to react to an attack, and have your DEX bonus to AC, you must be aware of the attacker before the attack is initiated.
Why then, did the writers and Devs try to add to the rules so that Stealth would make you “hidden’ thus you could sneak attack? Why did James Jacobs more or less say that making the RAW conform to the RAI would require a major rewrite, which they aren’t going to do right now? If the RAW sez so, all they’d have to do is FAQ it.
Why would they spend days and pages trying to get the RAW to conform to the RAI if it already did?
You could sneak attack while hidden anyway. During the blog they created a "hidden" condition, and they had to explain it. They were not saying it was impossible to attack from a position of hiding before that, and make someone lose dex to AC.
James did not say making the RAW conform to RAI would be the issue. The point of the blog was not to make the RAW match RAI. The point of the blog was to make stealth more useful, not just better understood, but for the most point it was making it better.
Here are two quotes from the blogs. One is form the dev that hosted the blog. The other is from James.
Some of the greatest challenges come when dealing with the rules of our game that don't work as well as we would like. For a number of weeks we have been talking about the issues concerning the Stealth skill. Over the course of those conversations we have come up with many ideas to improve this skill and make its use both [b]clearer more playable.
This is the extent of it for now. We have no plans at this point to put it into the PRD or do much else with it at this point—feel free to use the variant rules of this playtest in your games as you wish... but it's not going to be something we officially adopt into the game, since that type of change goes from errata to re-design. And the time for re-design is not now.
-->link
He did say that attacking from stealth would deny dex.
As far as I know that was not taken out deliberately. Rogues can still sneak attack creatures that haven't noticed the rogue, be it due to their blindness, the rogue being invisible, the rogue making a successful Stealth check, and so on.
-->Link to post
Explaining RAI is not the issue. The issue they faced was rewriting the stealth rules without having to touch other area of the game such as invisibility, perception, blindsense, and so on.
Wow. Normally I love a good logic debate about wording, but this is the most absurd thing I've seen on the forums personally. The number of logical fallacies being used is staggering.
Some of you have amazing patience. Every time I wanted to post something I saw a clear headed individual already post it down the line. I therefore have nothing else to add but my awe.
(I also purposefully left a social experiment by not commenting on my stance to see if everybody immediately believed I was referring to the "other" side. If you did, please consider if your stance is held by ego or logic)
I cannot help but notice that you are inconsistent about what "use Stealth" means.
Consider:
When you attack you are not using stealth. It has already been used. The shiping rules show that.
You hide and then attack. You are not in stealth mode while you are attacking.
And from the FAQ request thread
Once you break cover you are in plain sight, and you can be observed. You can not use stealth while being observed.
With regards to attacking, you seem to assume that "using stealth" means making a Stealth check which you claim cannot be done while attacking, but yet, your earlier check still holds for the whole duration of your attack. However, with regards to being observed, you seem to claim exactly the opposite.
Or to put it another way, you're saying that swinging a weapon DOES NOT make you lose Stealth because you already rolled it, perhaps even in a previous round, but stepping out of cover/concealment DOES make you lose Stealth even though you previously rolled it, perhaps even in this very same move action.
I'm not trying to attack you with this, I'm just trying to figure out why you see these two situations so differently.
Shouldn't your claim that previously rolling Stealth applies or does not apply to actions that break Stealth be applied equally to these two situations?
Why then, did the writers and Devs try to add to the rules so that Stealth would make you “hidden’ thus you could sneak attack? Why did James Jacobs more or less say that making the RAW conform to the RAI would require a major rewrite, which they aren’t going to do right now? If the RAW sez so, all they’d have to do is FAQ it.
Why would they spend days and pages trying to get the RAW to conform to the RAI if it already did?
You could sneak attack while hidden anyway. During the blog they created a "hidden" condition, and they had to explain it. They were not saying it was impossible to attack from a position of hiding before that, and make someone lose dex to AC.
James did not say making the RAW conform to RAI would be the issue. The point of the blog was not to make the RAW match RAI. The point of the blog was to make stealth more useful, not just better understood, but for the most point it was making it better.
Here are two quotes from the blogs. One is form the dev that hosted the blog. The other is from James.
Some of the greatest challenges come when dealing with the rules of our game that don't work as well as we would like. For a number of weeks we have been talking about the issues concerning the Stealth skill. Over the course of those conversations we have come up with many ideas to improve this skill and make its use both [b]clearer more playable.This is the extent of it for now. We have no plans at this point to put it into the PRD or do much else with it at this point—feel free to use the variant rules of this playtest in your games as you wish... but it's not going to be something we officially adopt into the game, since that type of change goes from errata to re-design. And the time for re-design is not now.-->link
He did say that attacking from stealth would deny dex.[/b]...
Indeed, he did, but he was talking RAI, and the way he plays in his game. Which is what I have said all along. The RAI is very clear, there’s no problem with that. The RAW is not clear but it appears to state that stealth does not give you sneak attack, usually.
Why would they spend days and pages trying to get the RAW to conform to the RAI if it already did?
Because the devs are more than simply 'devs' but writers of the rules of the game.
And rules for a game should be clear.
It should be patently obvious that the rules around stealth are NOT clear, and Paizo's change to a catch all perception skill did not further clarify things.
But Wraithstrike sez that they are clear, no? That the RAW clearly states Stealth allows Sneak attack at all times, no? That's the point he has been making over and over, despite what the staffers here have said.
I agree. The RAW is not clear. It would be nice if it was, but if you read the Stealth Blog II, it is very clear that the rules can NOT be “made clear” by a quick-fix or a FAQ. It requires a major re-write which they aren’t going to do now. And, I can’t blame them.
They have told us how the RAI works, and that’s good enough. No matter how tortuous anyone dissecting of the RAW is on this issue- it’s not clear. Go with the RAI and use a little common sense- that’s clear.
I cannot help but notice that you are inconsistent about what "use Stealth" means.
Consider:
When you attack you are not using stealth. It has already been used. The shiping rules show that.
You hide and then attack. You are not in stealth mode while you are attacking.
And from the FAQ request thread
Once you break cover you are in plain sight, and you can be observed. You can not use stealth while being observed.With regards to attacking, you seem to assume that "using stealth" means making a Stealth check which you claim cannot be done while attacking, but yet, your earlier check still holds for the whole duration of your attack. However, with regards to being observed, you seem to claim exactly the opposite.
Or to put it another way, you're saying that swinging a weapon DOES NOT make you lose Stealth because you already rolled it, perhaps even in a previous round, but stepping out of cover/concealment DOES make you lose Stealth even though you previously rolled it, perhaps even in this very same move action.
I'm not trying to attack you with this, I'm just trying to figure out why you see these two situations so differently.
Shouldn't your claim that previously rolling Stealth applies or does not apply to actions that break Stealth be applied equally to these two situations?
I wish I had seen this earlier.
When you are moving(and stealth is said to be using while moving) stealth is still being used so if you leave cover or concealment stealth can no longer be used without a distraction.
If you just hide in place you have made the check, and you are are still behind cover or concealment so you are not continuing an ongoing action. The hide attempt is complete.
That is why it is different.
I agree. The RAW is not clear. It would be nice if it was, but if you read the Stealth Blog II, it is very clear that the rules can NOT be “made clear” by a quick-fix or a FAQ. It requires a major re-write which they aren’t going to do now. And, I can’t blame them.
Actually, it can.
In the stealth skill :Check: Your Stealth check is opposed by the Perception check of anyone who might notice you. Succeeding at this check makes the characters that failed lose their DEX bonus against the next attack you make against them until the end of your turn. You can move up to half your normal speed and use Stealth at no penalty. When moving at a speed greater than half but less than your normal speed, you take a –5 penalty. It's impossible to make a stealth check while attacking, running, or charging.
If people are observing you using any of their senses (but typically sight), you can't make a Stealth check. Against most creatures, finding cover or concealment allows you to make a Stealth check. If your observers are momentarily distracted (such as by a Bluff check), you can attempt to make a Stealth check. While the others turn their attention from you, you can attempt a Stealth check if you can get to an unobserved place of some kind. This check, however, is made at a –10 penalty because you have to move fast.
Note : the first modification allow the stealthed character to make ONE sneak attack if he succeeded to sneak at the beginning of his turn. The second forbid to make stealth check while attacking, but does not break existing stealth if you're attacking. However, if you're not fulfilling conditions for using stealth later, or fail your stealth check if you fulfill conditions, you will not be stealthed. The second paragraph's modifications changes the "use stealth" for "make Stealth check", for similar reasons.
It will make the stealth skill similar to the bluff skill for sneak attack, and still be intuitive (and similar to the way people handle it in their games).
A question on your proposed change to stealth: does the skill user become observed after their turn?
The turn, as it happen with RAW rules by now :
1/ the rogue uses Stealth, and move to a favorable position.2/ The rogue attacks. As Stealth is not usabled attacking, his target does not lose its DEX bonus.
3/ Being next to an enemy, and without cover/concealment, he can't hide. Moreover, as he does not have actions left, he can't hide.
The turn, as it happen with my proposition of modification :
1/ The rogue uses Stealth, and move next to his target.
2/ The target lose its DEX bonus for the next attack made by the rogue.
3/ The rogue attacks. He can't make the Stealth check during the attack, but it don't affect it.
4/ Being next to an enemy, and without cover/concealment, he can't hide. Moreover, as he does not have actions left, he can't hide.
It also allows for ranged sneak attacks via Sniping, because by RAW, it doesn't work.
Nothing prevent the creation of a new feat that allows that to be combined with Spring attack (and allowing to use Stealth at the end of the spring attack, with a malus, the same way Sniping works).
1/ the rogue uses Stealth, and move to a favorable position.
2/ The rogue attacks. As Stealth is not usabled attacking, his target does not lose its DEX bonus.
To present (again) a counterpoint to this:
Invisibility allows you to deny an opponent his DEX. Invisibility 'breaks' upon attacking. The RAW does not state that invisibility breaks once the attack resolves - only that it breaks. I've seen posed by others that the reason it denies DEX is because it doesn't break until the attack resolves, but I'd ask where in the RAW or designer notes it states this? To me, it seems like interpreting equivalent wording in different places in two different ways to support an argument.
I pose the counter-argument that what is required is not to be invisible or using stealth while attacking, but that you be invisible or using stealth up to the point where your attack is initiated - in other words, if your opponent does not know that you are there at the moment you begin to swing your blade\loose your arrow, then he is unable to react, and therefore is denied his DEX to AC.
In other words, I believe that your "proposed change" is in fact how the system must already function, and that the only wording changes needed are to clarify.
Invisibility allows you to deny an opponent his DEX
Yes, but Stealth do not.
With my modification, stealth allow for sneak attack.
In other words, I believe that your "proposed change" is in fact how the system must already function, and that the only wording changes needed are to clarify.
That was my intent when I posted my modification.
The RAW is that sneak attack can occur when an unobserved character attacks a target.
This is, however, not clearly written.
And by that I mean that it is the actual case and RAW, but the rules are not written in a clear and nice fashion.
The stealth skill itself should be rewritten, and a simple concise statement would reaffirm the rules in that targets are denied their DEX scores against attacks they do not perceive coming.
This is highly and constantly disputed. I disagree, and apparently so does the Paizo staff.
And again, all you have to do is read the Stealth Blog II, the scads of comments after it, these threads and/or James Jacobs comments to see that there’s no such thing as a simple concise statement. And a rules rewrite is not on the horizon, they say.
Yes, but Stealth do not.
With my modification, stealth allow for sneak attack.
To restate: Yes, stealth does. Both stealth and invisibility break upon initiating an attack against the target; neither allow you to be unnoticed by the target while attacking, but both allow you to initiate your first attack while undetected.
Which indicates, to me, that the necessary condition to deny a target its DEX bonus is to be undetected when you initiate your first attack, not to remain undetected until the attack resolves.
Nowhere in the rules does it say, "You can't deny a target its DEX bonus by using stealth." The wording of the stealth skill, specifically the phrase "while attacking" is being interpreted to do so. My argument is that being undetected through the resolution of the attack is completely and totally irrelevant; the target is denied its DEX as long as the attack is initiated while you are undetected.
Otherwise, you are getting into the realm of "intelligent invisibility", where somehow it knows not to break until after you've struck an enemy (which opens up numerous cans of worms like, "If I'm invisible and swing at an enemy and miss, or fail to do damage, my invisibility shouldn't break because I haven't actually 'attacked'."
Even if you could stay stealthed during the first attack, in the rule your target do not lose its DEX bonus if you're hidden.
You could say that its not stated otherwise, or that some sentence in the DEX or Perception paragraphs suggest it otherwise, but its not true. Even the developpers affirm it does not work, while it is intended it should work.
That's why the RAW need to be rewriten, in order to make it work by the rules, and not by common sense/RAI/house rule.
This is highly and constantly disputed. I disagree, and apparently so does the Paizo staff.
I must have missed it, but could you please post a link or quote that shows that the Paizo staff disagree with the responsive statement: that sneak attack cannot occur when an unobserved character attacks a target?
The only Paizo quotes I've seen is that they wish to clarify rules. They did this in such a way that I never saw them state the actual ruling.
This is highly and constantly disputed. I disagree, and apparently so does the Paizo staff.I must have missed it, but could you please post a link or quote that shows that the Paizo staff disagree with the responsive statement: that sneak attack cannot occur when an unobserved character attacks a target?
The only Paizo quotes I've seen is that they wish to clarify rules. They did this in such a way that I never saw them state the actual ruling.
I'd be interested in this as well.
As I (and others) have pointed out, stating they want to clarify the rules doesn't indicate that the rules don't already say X; it means it says X, but can be misconstrued to say Y.
The RAW is that sneak attack can occur when an unobserved character attacks a target.
This is, however, not clearly written.
And by that I mean that it is the actual case and RAW, but the rules are not written in a clear and nice fashion.
The stealth skill itself should be rewritten, and a simple concise statement would reaffirm the rules in that targets are denied their DEX scores against attacks they do not perceive coming.
This is highly and constantly disputed. I disagree, and apparently so does the Paizo staff.
Quote please.
Everyone keeps telling me about this statement, but nobody can provide a quote.