I do think an FAQ will be done eventually. They may even issue errata, but it won't be to the extent that the blog would have changed the rules.
Part of the FAQ might be explaining when to separate side based perception from sound based perception, which I see as a future issue.
--------------------------------------------------
Poster 1:I went invisible in a room with stone walls so is it more difficult to hear me for an enemy on the other side. The rules only say being invisible gives me a +20 to my stealth check, but my PFS GM said that did not make sense.
Poster 2: He can't see you anyway so going invisible would not help. Being invisible does not make you harder to hear.
Poster 1:Well I am in PFS and we have to go by RAW not RAI, and until I see a dev statement I don't care what you say.
The change to Stealth rules was cancelled, so FAQ is the only thing left, until Pathfinder 2.0 rolls out.I think that's kind of where they started. And it just kept growing until it was to big for a FAQ or errata.
There isn't a simple answer.
If anybody is using Stealth at all in their games, they must be ruling on these questions SOMEHOW.
These questions are not more complicated to answer than many other FAQ entries.The Blog Playtest approach was clearly the more elegant way to improve the system,
but it's not like every FAQ is deriving from RAW, if they give some rulings based on RAI, that's OK.
Overhauling the RAW to a more clear and elegant set-up may have been too involved, but that was largely because of updating many areas of the rules to use the new 'Hidden' Condition, without that, FAQs can be directly answered as they would be ruled on per RAW/RAI by Paizo's Rules Team.
Are Concealment effects besides Dim Lighting/Darkness useless as enablers of Stealth because of the Lighting rules?
For regular Concealment? For total Concealment/Blindness on part of observer?
How often do you need to make a stealth check, e.g. in the course of movement thru multiple squares, or multiple actions taken?
How are changing modifiers during the course of an action/turn/round handled (e.g. distance modifiers to Perception)?
If you have valid conditions to make initial Stealth check, how long can you benefit from Stealth increase to Perception DC, i.e. when conditions no longer allow usage of Stealth/a Stealth check?
The FAQ answer doesn't have to be the ideal function as they would have implemented in a re-write,
it just needs to be their ruling on RAW/RAI of the current rule-set, with RAI meaning they aren't constrained to literal RAW.
Wraithstrike's question could be summarized as:
Are there modifiers to stealth/perception that shouldn't apply in specific situations?
e.g. Invisibility's bonus to Stealth when trying to Stealth behind Total Cover which blocks line of sight completely... or similar situations for other senses.
Anybody with other questions should try to boil them down to be consise, and post them here.
I might then post a thread with them all at the top (maybe split into distinct posts for each question) for bringing to attention for FAQ.
I think it's best to keep focused on the core functions of Stealth as much as possible, not trying to cover the weirdest corner cases.
Since it has been stated by Paizo staff that a re-write is not in the works, why not post this to PFS and get Brock to comment. PFS is the source of the issue. Clearly stealth rules can be cleaned up for home games.
because a re-write is not the only option?
The entirety of the FAQ could be obviated if the rules were re-written for clarity.But in lieu of doing that, they issued the FAQ entries.
This is about functionality of core rules, not areas intentionally left to GM ruling, or something that isn't reasonable to expect a clear standard ruling on.
Lighting Conditions are once again the issue of what "use" means. (Which also ties in to the question of stealth + denied dex/sneak attack + inability to use stealth while attacking in combat question that has been discussed recently).
You can explicitly use stealth in bright light as long as you have cover, the question is whether leaving cover automatically "ends" the 'duration' of the stealth check.
How I play it, which i think there is wiggle room to say applies within the rules, would be as follows:
A Stealth Check replaces the base 0 perception DC for the duration of the movement. To use stealth you only have to meet the conditions for using stealth only at the time of the initial stealth check.
Take a rogue and a pair of guards in the courtyard of a building.
So if a Rogue is behind a pillar and there is another pillar 10 feet away he can enter Stealth while behind the pillar (say he rolls a 25) and try to dart to the cover of the other pillar. The guards would get their initial perception check, then when he stepped from behind cover the Perception DC would decrease by 2 for favorable conditions and the guards would get another check, but the rogue would not be rolling a new stealth check as the changes apply only to Perception DC, not to the actual stealth roll.
That is not true Ninja.
I can see the open area the character has to pass through. He is out in the open with nothing to hide behind. He would have to be invisible in order to not be seen if there is nothing blocking line of sight. That is what the hidden condition in the stealth blog was going to change. Since that condition is not official there is no way to not be seen.
I even quoted the blog.
You can see the open area that doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to notice someone moving through it if they're stealthy enough.
I use a version of the blog rule.
It's great!
Once you break cover you are in plain sight, and you can be observed. You can not use stealth while being observed. Perceptions checks are a non action, when dealing with observable stimuli. You are observable stimuli when you are out in the open.
It is a DC 0 perception check to notice someone within 5 feet. The DC increases by +1 for every 10 feet.
Even if you are 100 feet away the DC is only a 10. Before you get to with 5 feet you will be noticed barring a sleeping character.
No cover or concealment=no stealth.
Thanks for that summary. It sounds silly to me (so we'll continue doing it wrong :p). At least I know what the issue is though. Cheers.
...dude, did you ever tried pulling a wedgie over a lich's head? / no, did you?...
That would be more of a Dirty Trick combat maneuver thing. Still, I am SOOOOO going to do that to the next lich I encounter.
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
You can't make a rule about everything. If you do, at least one of your rules will be inconsistent and/or contradictory.
Just ask Mr. Kurt Godel. He proved that it was impossible to have a complete and consistent theory of arithmetic, a fairly simple (NOT)subject where they try from the very first rule to make the whole system complete and consistent.
Pathfinder is riddled with contradistions and inconsistencies. Half of the rules are specifically designed to allow you to do something that another rule says you can't. Why else have a Fast Stealth ability? How can you posisbly run and maintain cover the entire time? Why allow Rangers to "Hide in Plain Site"?, even in broad daylight? Can't everybody see them?
In general, you can't start Sneaking, or successfully hide, if someone is ALREADY watching you, but if they're not, you may be able to get past them without them noticing. At least 3 times in the last week I have passed someone that I know on the street, and had to catch their attention before they "saw" me, because they were not "looking" for me. Their attention was focused on something else, like the errand they were running, the traffic at the crosswalk, etc. In at least one case, the guy didn't see me because THE SUN WAS IN HIS EYES. Who says you can't be sneaky in broad daylight?
In terms of guards, if you try to sneak past a guard on watch, who is supposed to be on the look out for sneaky people, you had better have a really good disguise or a really big distraction handy.
For instance: A sorcerer with CHA 18 walks up to a guard and engages him in witty repartee replete with sexual innuendos, meanwhile a rogue sneaks across the brightly lit, open courtyard and stabs the guard in the back.
If your interpretation of the rules won't let you successfully engage in simple subterfuges like this, then you are mis-applying them. Use some common sense, and don't expect the rules to have an answer or only one answer for every conceivable situation.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
There are 'attention' rules, however (vague and incomplete though they may be). I find it odd that if the target is distracted you would allow the stealther to move to an unobserved spot, but not from one.No. I have GM'd more than one group of players who wanted to walk across a wide open area and stab someone, and hope to not be seen.
Their argument then tried to involve facing rules, which most of us, but not all of us, know do not exist.
QFT!
The change to Stealth rules was cancelled, so FAQ is the only thing left, until Pathfinder 2.0 rolls out.I think that's kind of where they started. And it just kept growing until it was to big for a FAQ or errata.
There isn't a simple answer.If anybody is using Stealth at all in their games, they must be ruling on these questions SOMEHOW.
These questions are not more complicated to answer than many other FAQ entries.
The Blog Playtest approach was clearly the more elegant way to improve the system,
but it's not like every FAQ is deriving from RAW, if they give some rulings based on RAI, that's OK.
Overhauling the RAW to a more clear and elegant set-up may have been too involved, but that was largely because of updating many areas of the rules to use the new 'Hidden' Condition, without that, FAQs can be directly answered as they would be ruled on per RAW/RAI by Paizo's Rules Team.Are Concealment effects besides Dim Lighting/Darkness useless as enablers of Stealth because of the Lighting rules?
For regular Concealment? For total Concealment/Blindness on part of observer?
How often do you need to make a stealth check, e.g. in the course of movement thru multiple squares, or multiple actions taken?
How are changing modifiers during the course of an action/turn/round handled (e.g. distance modifiers to Perception)?
If you have valid conditions to make initial Stealth check, how long can you benefit from Stealth increase to Perception DC, i.e. when conditions no longer allow usage of Stealth/a Stealth check?The FAQ answer doesn't have to be the ideal function as they would have implemented in a re-write,
it just needs to be their ruling on RAW/RAI of the current rule-set, with RAI meaning they aren't constrained to literal RAW.
I think what ninja in the rye said was even more elegant then the blog/re-write thingie
though.There are so many of us reading it that way and if you ask any of us you ll hear that it's working just fine.
Why not just give an official stamp of approval via faq and end the table variance at PFS games that way?
Take a rogue and a pair of guards in the courtyard of a building.
So if a Rogue is behind a pillar and there is another pillar 10 feet away he can enter Stealth while behind the pillar (say he rolls a 25) and try to dart to the cover of the other pillar. The guards would get their initial perception check, then when he stepped from behind cover the Perception DC would decrease by 2 for favorable conditions and the guards would get another check, but the rogue would not be rolling a new stealth check as the changes apply only to Perception DC, not to the actual stealth roll.
What if the guards are looking directly at the pillars and the area immediately around them?
What if the pillars are 60' apart - can the rogue use Fast Stealth to full-move the full 60' with the guards looking right at him, without having to resort to bad lighting, invisibility, or some other effect to give him concealment? Just having a little pillar to start from makes him virtually undetectable for the whole 60' even when the guards are watching?
What if that is an empty, well-lit, 10' wide hallway directly from the pillar to the vigilant guard who is alertly watching the hallway? Now can the rogue make his Stealth check behind the pillar and then Quick-Stealth all the way right up to the guard without any chance for the guard to detect him along that route?
If your answer is yes to any of those questions, then I ask how that narrow little pillar somehow manages to "hide" the rogue all the way across that wide-open, well-lit space?
If you say no, the guards should get a chance to see the rogue, then I ask what is the difference between 60' and 10'? Why can they see him for one of those moves but not the other? Where do you draw the line?
The RAW answer is that it doesn't draw the line. It simply says that you cannot do any of these, including the 10' gap.
Pathfinder is riddled with contradistions and inconsistencies. Half of the rules are specifically designed to allow you to do something that another rule says you can't. Why else have a Fast Stealth ability? How can you posisbly run and maintain cover the entire time?
Because everyone who has not practiced that ability must move slowly and carefully (half speed) or risk a greater chance of detection. The ability grants someone who has practiced enough (represented by the investment in class levels and the focus on the specific Rogue Talent in favor of focusing on something else) to be able to move faster than anyone else could, without increasing the risk.
Why allow Rangers to "Hide in Plain Site"?, even in broad daylight? Can't everybody see them?
Because rangers have practiced and trained and perfected the ability to do something that almost nobody else can do - find a way to hide in conditions that would be impossible for almost everyone else.
Your two examples here illustrate the opposite of the point you seem to be trying to make. General rules say what the general population can and cannot do while some specific cases have the ability to something specific that the general population cannot.
Rather than being inconsistent, these examples illustrate the consistency of the Core Rulebook - They wanted a rogue to be able to move faster with the right talent and they wanted a ranger to be better at hiding than most people, so they created class abilities that are consistent with the general rules by overriding specific parts of the general rules with these new class abilities.
In general, you can't start Sneaking, or successfully hide, if someone is ALREADY watching you,
Correct
but if they're not, you may be able to get past them without them noticing.
As long as you have cover or concealment for the entirety of your movement.
At least 3 times in the last week I have passed someone that I know on the street, and had to catch their attention before they "saw" me, because they were not "looking" for me. Their attention was focused on something else, like the errand they were running, the traffic at the crosswalk, etc. In at least one case, the guy didn't see me because THE SUN WAS IN HIS EYES. Who says you can't be sneaky in broad daylight?
That's great.
In Pathfinder terms, you were in plain sight so they had a DC 0 to perceive you. They were distracted (up to a +5 on the DC), traffic on the street could count as +2 DC for Unfavorable conditions and in at least one case, the bright sun in his eyes would count as +5 DC for Terrible conditions. Needing a DC of 7 or 12, with no ranks (I assume commoners with average WIS) means there was about a 30% or 55% chance for this to happen, and how many times did other people see you walking past and waved or nodded or greeted you - if at least 7 did, then you are right on the statistical average.
Or look at it another way - if you were stealthing and even just taking 10, assuming you care enough to put just one rank into Stealth, those DCs suddenly become an 18 and 23 - heck, in that last case, your interpretation of Pathfinder rules means a level 1 rogue can practically move around invisible in the streets in broad daylight since almost no ordinary person is going to beat his DC 27 (counting just a DEX of 12 and +3 for class skill) as long as he can keep the sun behind him and start and end his turn behind anything at least knee-high for him - nobody would ever ever ever see him, except for the odd mid-level adventurer walking by.
In terms of guards, if you try to sneak past a guard on watch, who is supposed to be on the look out for sneaky people, you had better have a really good disguise or a really big distraction handy.
I agree.
For instance: A sorcerer with CHA 18 walks up to a guard and engages him in witty repartee replete with sexual innuendos, meanwhile a rogue sneaks across the brightly lit, open courtyard and stabs the guard in the back.
Pathfinder accounts for this. DC 0 (stealth does not apply). +5 for Distraction and any DM could easily give the Unfavorable conditions if the charming sorceress is seductive enough. Not a great chance, but you did say the guard was "on the lookout for sneaky people".
By your interpretation, an average city guard has no chance, none, IMPOSSIBLE, even if that is a level 1 rogue with 12 DEX. Taking 10, + 5 distraction, + 2 unfavorable conditions, +5 Stealth skill - unless that "average" guard is a fountain of wisdom, he cannot make that DC even on a natural 20.
If your interpretation of the rules won't let you successfully engage in simple subterfuges like this, then you are mis-applying them. Use some common sense, and don't expect the rules to have an answer or only one answer for every conceivable situation.
I suggest that if your interpretation of the rules makes it impossible for a simple subterfuge like this to fail, then you are misinterpreting them. Use some common sense, and don't expect the rules to have basic rules that trivialize basic game play into DCs that are impossible for common situations to fail.
What if the guards are looking directly at the pillars and the area immediately around them?
There are really no rules that I'm aware of for focusing your perception on just one particular spot/area, so it's kind of moot in a RAW sense. I'd rule it a large circumstance bonus to their perception check for something in the area of the pillars, and an equal penalty for something anywhere else.
What if the pillars are 60' apart - can the rogue use Fast Stealth to full-move the full 60' with the guards looking right at him, without having to resort to bad lighting, invisibility, or some other effect to give him concealment? Just having a little pillar to start from makes him virtually undetectable for the whole 60' even when the guards are watching?
As I'm interpreting the rules here, no. There is no "full-move" there is a double move, but that is literally using two move actions back to back and each one would have to be covered by its own stealth check, so once his first move action ended in an open space without cover the rogue would not be able to use stealth, the check would then be DC 0 + appropriate distance/circumstance mods. If the two pillars were 30 feet apart or the rogue somehow had an enhanced enough speed to cover 60' in one move action, then, yes they could.
What if that is an empty, well-lit, 10' wide hallway directly from the pillar to the vigilant guard who is alertly watching the hallway? Now can the rogue make his Stealth check behind the pillar and then Quick-Stealth all the way right up to the guard without any chance for the guard to detect him along that route?
Again, as far as I'm aware there are no hard rules for focusing your Perception on only one particular area, so it's kind of moot by RAW. Again I'd rule it a super sized bonus to the perception roll in a game I was running.
Each time the Rogue closed distance by 10 feet the Perception DC would decrease by 1 and the guard would get a new check against that new DC.
As to "how" the pillar hides the rogue, I assume that the perception check is a creature attempting to perceive something anywhere and everywhere around him. A high enough stealth roll in this instance represents the rogue having picked the right moment to dart out from cover as the Guard was scanning another section of the area, or glancing up to make sure no flying enemies were coming in over head, making sure that nothing was burrowing below, or that some magic creature might not pop right out of the wall behind him.
So, 30 feet, in broad daylight, in plain sight. No obstacles, no cover, no concealment, just strutting out there for the world to see, and he's practically invisible because he started his turn behind a pillar that doesn't help him hide at all for those other 30 feet?
I'm not saying "focus". I'm only clarifying that he's looking that direction, not turning his back, not playing poker with a friend, not doing anything other than standing his post and watching where he's supposed to be watching.
I don't have a problem with the stealth rules or difficulties in using or running a game that uses them.
I've never had trouble with any sneaking or stealth rules in any version of D&D.
We don't even house rule it. It isn't that complicated.
Hide/Move Silently worked fine in 3E. Stop trying to blame 3E for pathfinder's problems.
Considering most of the same topics of debate over stealth came up in 3e, I'm going to have to disagree. It took WotC until, what, Complete Scoundrel to come up with an answer - that the target was flatfooted with respect to the stealthy character. THis of course meant that the target could be flatfooted and not flatfooted at the same time depending on circumstances. Not exactly a tidy fix.
I think you're right that you can push blame onto 3e only so far. I expected, given the bickering on the message boards about stealth in 3e, that Paizo would take the opportunity to clarify the rules. They did not. I think combining hide and move silently into a single skill was a step forward, but they fell well short of issuing clear rules on the matter.
Fortunately, I think there are plenty of ways to handle stealth that enable it to be used even without cover for the entirety of a move and for handling sneak attack from a stealthy position. But they do require a GM's use of the spirit of the rules and making a ruling rather than strict adherence to the letter of the rules.
I don't have a problem with the stealth rules or difficulties in using or running a game that uses them.
I've never had trouble with any sneaking or stealth rules in any version of D&D.
We don't even house rule it. It isn't that complicated.
Granted I'm new to the whole stealth controversy, but it seems to me that a large number of people say this whilst advocating mutually exclusive interpretations. I think that's the issue.
So, 30 feet, in broad daylight, in plain sight. No obstacles, no cover, no concealment, just strutting out there for the world to see, and he's practically invisible because he started his turn behind a pillar that doesn't help him hide at all for those other 30 feet?
I'm not saying "focus". I'm only clarifying that he's looking that direction, not turning his back, not playing poker with a friend, not doing anything other than standing his post and watching where he's supposed to be watching.
What you're describing is facing, I'm not aware of anything in the rules that allow for it by RAW (outside of, perhaps, gaze attacks). If we're allowing for the guard facing a certain direction, then a lot of intuitive uses of stealth would become much easier to visualize and adjudicate.
Instead we have a much more abstracted system where it is assumed that the character is moving around checking all directions to be equally difficult to sneak up on/past from the front, back, side, or above.
As I explained in my previous post, the guard is trying to watch everywhere at once, that's how 360 degree perception works. The Rogue behind the pillar picks the right moment to move between cover while the guard is not looking where he specifically is.
But they do require a GM's use of the spirit of the rules and making a ruling rather than strict adherence to the letter of the rules.
I'm OK with this too. But the vast range of what people expect is sooooo very different from person to person.
At the one end, you get people who think that stealth is a purely natural, non-mystical skill that requires tools, including hiding places, at all times or it can't be used - nobody can stand, move, run, dash, creep, or crawl in plain sight of observers no matter how well hidden they were before they stepped out into plain sight.
At the other end, you get people who think that stealth is some mystical video game button click that makes the user invisible to everyone and free to roam about the world unseen by all, up to and including the entire time that they are standing directly in front of an observer, in plain sight, plunging a sword through their unobservant observer's belly.
I think this wide spectrum derives mostly from the realist vs. gamist mentality - realists want the world to work just like real life, where people with eyes and ears can see rogues tiptoeing around the streets in broad daylight, while gamists want invisible deadly super ninjas undetectable by the mere mortals whom they slaughter at a whim.
You would think that the bell curve would plop most people near the middle, but that's not my experience. Sit down at a gaming table with 5 new faces I don't know, and survey them, and I'll get about 4 different ways it should work, scattered all over that spectrum.
OK, all hyperbole aside, the point is that having wonky unclear rules scattered all over the core rulebook, requiring anyone to use these rules to read at least a half dozen different and sometimes unrelated sections (why do I need to study the "Blind" condition to figure out what I can do with Stealth - why couldn't those bits of the process be in the Stealth rules?), and then still being unclear enough that each DM has to figure out how they want it to work, well, that seems counterintuitive for a Core "Rulebook" - I would want more rule, less guesswork about the "spirit" of the rules.
Which is why I FAQed this, and have requested rulings and FAQs on this, forever and a day.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Don't forget the narrativists who just want it to work simply and not get in the way of the story :D
What you're describing is facing, I'm not aware of anything in the rules that allow for it by RAW (outside of, perhaps, gaze attacks). If we're allowing for the guard facing a certain direction, then a lot of intuitive uses of stealth would become much easier to visualize and adjudicate.
Thanks, that's exactly my point.
If we allow the rogue to stealthily run right up to the guard who (because we have no facing) MUST be looking in the rogue's direction, then we're employing facing there too.
It's a two-way sword. If we cannot assume the guard is looking toward the rogue because there is no facing, then we also cannot assume the guard is looking away because there is no facing.
Instead we have a much more abstracted system where it is assumed that the character is moving around checking all directions to be equally difficult to sneak up on/past from the front, back, side, or above.
As I explained in my previous post, the guard is trying to watch everywhere at once, that's how 360 degree perception works. The Rogue behind the pillar picks the right moment to move between cover while the guard is not looking where he specifically is.
How can that be possible when there is no facing and the guard's 360 degree perception is always looking the right way?
Are you suggesting we retroactively assume he looked away long enough for the rogue to sneak past? What about someone with no ranks in stealth and a guard with Alertness - this poor guy can wait forever and the guard never turns away, but the rogue walks up and says "lemme show you how it's done" and immediately steps out, right when the guard miraculously turns away? What if they both go at the same time - the rogue makes the roll and the other guy blows it, they're both moving together, does the guard only see one of them?
No matter which way we look at it, the rules have gaps. But the RAW eliminates most of those gaps by just saying it can't be done. You cannot use stealth while being observed, and anyone in "Line of Sight" can observe you if they want to, so you cannot use stealth without breaking that line of sight without at least having cover or concealment while you use stealth.
Is that realistic? Sometimes, but not always. Are there gaps? Sure. Does that work for every player? Obviously not. Does it make everyone happy? Obviously not. Is it RAW? Yes, it is.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
As I explained in my previous post, the guard is trying to watch everywhere at once, that's how 360 degree perception works. The Rogue behind the pillar picks the right moment to move between cover while the guard is not looking where he specifically is.
That's easily enough simulated with the opposed roll. If the sneaker succeeds, obviously he picked the right moment to dash from pillar to pillar. If he fails, the implication there is clear as well.
I think what may be a reasonable remedy, aside from including moving through some open terrain as being within stealth's purview (though perhaps with a penalty to the sneaker), is to relegate all issues about facing to combat positioning only. Most people don't really want to deal with some directions not adding Dex bonus to AC, some not being covered by shields, like we did in 1e and 2e. So most don't really want to deal with facing in combat. What we need to do is divorce the idea of facing-less combat from a character making a stealthy approach.
The really big fundamental problem is the insistence on not implementing facing rules. Fix that and everything comes together.
That's mostly true, but the fix is a really big one.
How much of an action is it to turn around?
To only turn halfway around?
Can you do this when it's not your turn?
Can you attack enemies on your left with a dagger in your right hand without turning?
Can you make AoOs on your non-armed side without turning?
Do facing rules mean your shield bonus to AC only applies on your left side?
What about the shield spell?
Does a breastplate offer better AC from the front than from the back?
Can you dodge enemies behind you?
Do enemies behind you get bonuses to attack?
Are those bonuses bigger or smaller than the flanking bonus?
Just what penalty do you get for looking the wrong way when a rogue sneaks up behind you?
Auto-fail?
A +10 to the Perception DC?
Does Invisibility help that rogue when you're not looking his way anyway?
Should we split Stealth back into Hide and Move Silently so a clumsy rogue might still make noise behind you even if he's invisible?
Etc., etc.
That's what I came up with in a minute. Give the forums a few weeks and that list will grow 100x longer.
That's what you're proposing to fix. It's a daunting task.
The real question is, would adding facing create more problems than it fixes and/or would the added benefit outweigh the added complexity?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Or you could just say that "facing" is really a matter of a perception check, and people who roll poorly are facing their navels.
Or you could just say that "facing" is really a matter of a perception check, and people who roll poorly are facing their navals.
3.5's Unearthed Arcana implemented facing fairly effectively, in my opinion.
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/combatFacing.htm
Adapting this system requires very little work.
That is not true Ninja.
I can see the open area the character has to pass through. He is out in the open with nothing to hide behind. He would have to be invisible in order to not be seen if there is nothing blocking line of sight. That is what the hidden condition in the stealth blog was going to change. Since that condition is not official there is no way to not be seen.
I even quoted the blog.
Is that explicitly "new" as in definitively not how it worked before or is it a new, more formalized and clearer description of what was always the intent?
I could draw other differences between the current rules and the playtest versions where the playtest states more clearly what was the intent all along.
New as in "a change to current rule".
And in PF you if you have line of sight you can see someone, Ninja in the Rye. To hide you need something hide behind. That is why stealth sucks and they want to improve on it. If it worked like you said it worked then it would be fine.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Or you could just say that "facing" is really a matter of a perception check, and people who roll poorly are facing their navals.
There's huge danger there.
For example, in my current group, I have a wizard with +2 on his Perception rolls and a druid with +24. One of them will always be inspecting his navel and could easily die from that, while the other one pretty much will never be caught day dreaming (at level 6, nothing has eluded his amazing perception so far except a couple invisible critters with high stealth checks.
What does this mean? Perception becomes the absolute most essential skill in the game. It becomes the only one skill that repeatedly determines life or death for everyone, the difference between seeing a danger and getting gorked by it. Everyone will maximize it. Alertness becomes a mandatory feat. People will spend money on goggles to enhance their vision before they spend money on magical armor and weapons.
Next, the Stealth skill becomes the second absolute most essential skill - anything that can beat your enemies perception to give you frequent and often decisive combat advantages would become mandatory. Nobody would ever explore dungeons with clunky low-DEX paladins with huge armor check penalties to Stealth because he'd blow those combat advantages for every member of the party and that would spell disaster every time in every even marginally close fight.
I'm not sure the gaming experience would be enhanced by this.
If Facing needs to be inserted, it must be up to the PCs to decide their own facing, not live or die by the vicarious luck of a d20 modified by the "God-skill" Perception, and NPCs should get the same treatment whenever possible.
I don't think Gaze is an example of facing in the rules, it may seem that way at first glance, but it's really just an AoE 'aura' and an independent targetted effect... It affects a given target, not triggering a facing effect in that angular sector, which even if that were true, would not truly invoke facing any more than a cone of cold does... i.e. it would not mean there is a persistent facing which determines the outcome of outside actions upon the creature.
There are still a few cases of facing:
Some effects specify they apply to a 45* or 90* angular sector, or similar, per round, which is basically persistent facing /for that effect/. Detection spells and some defensive focused Archetypes/PrCs work like that I believe. But you can have an arbitrary number of such effects all pointing in different directions.
There are things like Dimension Door or Teleport, which let you transport yourself and creatures you can touch, retaining the physical relationship between all passengers. Imagine that yields a shape of creatures in the form of a 'Y' on the grid. The same spatial relationship can be retained by rotating the 'Y' on the grid, which yields a form of facing in the orientation of the 'Y', even though 'rotation' is meaningless for the individual creatures themselves who individually have no facing.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
If anybody has any concrete questions, please post them.
I also thought of clarifying how Scent works, automatic/just enabling a check/etc,
I personally have a clear understanding of it, but it seems FAQ-worthy IMHO.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
If we allow the rogue to stealthily run right up to the guard who (because we have no facing) MUST be looking in the rogue's direction, then we're employing facing there too.
No, we are not, we are employing an abstract system that incorporates the uses of senses vs the ability to avoid detection by those senses.
It's a two-way sword. If we cannot assume the guard is looking toward the rogue because there is no facing, then we also cannot assume the guard is looking away because there is no facing.
No, we can assume the guard was looking away because he failed his perception check.
How can that be possible when there is no facing and the guard's 360 degree perception is always looking the right way?
Rules answer: The rogue is not seen because the guard did not get a high enough perception check result.
Anything else is just arguing fluff.
Are you suggesting we retroactively assume he looked away long enough for the rogue to sneak past?
If that's how you want to think of it.
What about someone with no ranks in stealth and a guard with Alertness - this poor guy can wait forever and the guard never turns away, but the rogue walks up and says "lemme show you how it's done" and immediately steps out, right when the guard miraculously turns away? What if they both go at the same time - the rogue makes the roll and the other guy blows it, they're both moving together, does the guard only see one of them?
Yes. Fluff it however you wish. Clanky Nostealth is seen, Mr. Rogue is not. The guard must have failed the old selective attention test.
No matter which way we look at it, the rules have gaps. But the RAW eliminates most of those gaps by just saying it can't be done. You cannot use stealth while being observed, and anyone in "Line of Sight" can observe you if they want to, so you cannot use stealth without breaking that line of sight without at least having cover or concealment while you use stealth.
That's certainly your interpretation of the abstract rules system, it's certainly a valid one. I believe that mine is also a valid, if more generous interpretation of the rules.
Or you could just say that "facing" is really a matter of a perception check, and people who roll poorly are facing their navals.There's huge danger there.
For example, in my current group, I have a wizard with +2 on his Perception rolls and a druid with +24. One of them will always be inspecting his navel and could easily die from that, while the other one pretty much will never be caught day dreaming (at level 6, nothing has eluded his amazing perception so far except a couple invisible critters with high stealth checks.
What does this mean? Perception becomes the absolute most essential skill in the game. It becomes the only one skill that repeatedly determines life or death for everyone, the difference between seeing a danger and getting gorked by it. Everyone will maximize it. Alertness becomes a mandatory feat. People will spend money on goggles to enhance their vision before they spend money on magical armor and weapons.
Next, the Stealth skill becomes the second absolute most essential skill - anything that can beat your enemies perception to give you frequent and often decisive combat advantages would become mandatory. Nobody would ever explore dungeons with clunky low-DEX paladins with huge armor check penalties to Stealth because he'd blow those combat advantages for every member of the party and that would spell disaster every time in every even marginally close fight.
I'm not sure the gaming experience would be enhanced by this.
To be clear, I would not advocate this as general facing roll every round or some such, just that when someone tries to sneak across an open space to cover on the other side (or up to the poor wizard's bent back) that a perception roll takes place, rather than the DnD assumption that everyone has perfect 360 vision in combat.
Edited- I know you are talking about what is RAW vs what most people do regardless, and that we both probably favor the RAI or playtest or just using common sense. I was just trying to clarify my comment. Posting about stealth makes me tired :(
Dotting. I need to go over the blog ruling when I get home.
So, 30 feet, in broad daylight, in plain sight. No obstacles, no cover, no concealment, just strutting out there for the world to see, and he's practically invisible because he started his turn behind a pillar that doesn't help him hide at all for those other 30 feet?
I'm not saying "focus". I'm only clarifying that he's looking that direction, not turning his back, not playing poker with a friend, not doing anything other than standing his post and watching where he's supposed to be watching.
What you're describing is facing, I'm not aware of anything in the rules that allow for it by RAW (outside of, perhaps, gaze attacks). If we're allowing for the guard facing a certain direction, then a lot of intuitive uses of stealth would become much easier to visualize and adjudicate.
Instead we have a much more abstracted system where it is assumed that the character is moving around checking all directions to be equally difficult to sneak up on/past from the front, back, side, or above.
As I explained in my previous post, the guard is trying to watch everywhere at once, that's how 360 degree perception works. The Rogue behind the pillar picks the right moment to move between cover while the guard is not looking where he specifically is.
Ah yes, pardon me. We do facing, because as we are in a role playing game that has sneaking and shivving and in which people move in realistic ways in our games. Long sentence whew, now you need to know which way there are facing for stealth. You can't very well approach them from behind if they have no behind and everyone is some sort of all-seeing swivel gun. A humanoid target will always face a direction, be watching an area, but you can stealth from behind (monsters can be a bit tricky). Otherwise it is rules as is for us. Percep tries to beat stealth and pick it up, distance factors in.
Now a truly paranoid guard may be turning this way and that, but that is what distractions are for (get them looking in a direction and then your buddy comes in for the shiv).
If the situation is not described, if it doesn't seem at all real or make sense, the rules will not work and there will be trouble.
So generally I let the dice tell, with player input and description. A master of stealth is going to be able to cross the room most of the time, just go with the dice.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I think my major problem is that everyone is talking about using stealth in broad daylight across clear ground. Most rogues I've had to deal with prefer to sneak up on a target in darkness (or at least dim light, which grants concealment and merrily allows stealth to work until you're close enough to partial charge in many circumstances).
As far as the "broad daylight" situation is concerned, I'm inclined to say that as long as you start and end your movement with cover or concealment, you can make a stealth check to cross an open space unobserved. Out of combat, you might be waiting a while for the attentive guard to become distracted, but at that point time doesn't matter. In combat, there are enough distractions (fireballs going off, that big guy with a huge axe trying to chop you in half, and so forth) that you're certainly not going to be looking carefully for someone sneaking around the periphery of the fight. The only problem comes from when the rogue breaks cover to stab you - the rules clearly say that since he no longer has cover or concealment, he cannot use stealth. Fortunately, the simultaneity of the rules actually helps here:
Rogue uses stealth while in cover (succeeds).
Target is denied Dex bonus to AC against the rogue.
Rogue breaks cover, moves adjacent to his target, and stabs him.
This all happens on a single count of initiative. For that count and that count only (and only for the first attack), the target is denied Dex to AC because the rogue wasn't observed.
This is actually pretty darn close to RAW (with the only modification being that if the target has not noticed the rogue at the start of the rogue's turn, the target is denied Dex to AC for the rogue's first attack that turn regardless of whether the environment allows stealth or not), and considering the Stealth blog, seems pretty tight to RAI, too.
Trying to tidy that up a little: "An unobserved character that starts and ends its movement with cover or concealment may make a stealth check to remain unobserved throughout the movement. An unobserved character may leave their cover or concealment and make single attack that turn against which the target is denied their Dex bonus to AC."
[Edited to add clarity to stealthily moving across "open ground"]
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The blog rules make it work like Tenchu. You have one round to "sneak up" on someone if you started from concealment. That makes rogues and ninjas way more fun to play.
You and me both, man. The fact that there hasn't been a new tenchu game on the PS3 is a crying shame. There was even an internet petition, I believe.
Failing a perception check does allow for sneak attacks, but stealth does not allow you to sneak in a wide open area with no cover or concealment.This is how it works.
How hard is this?
Isn't this how everyone plays?
But what does that mean?
If I can't sneak without cover or concealment can I cross any open space to sneak attack? Or can I only sneak attack if I'm in cover or concealment within reach of my enemy?
Am I detected the moment I break cover? At the end of my action? My turn? Can I move from cover to cover if I can do it in a single action?
It means do it in poor light, or a fog bank, or when the target is dazzled by lights, or invisibility, or blur, or any other effect that might grant you partial concealment, and it might work. Or just flank like everyone else does. Or shoot them with a bow from behind concealment and then take another move action to hide again.
That's how we do it, how we've done it for years, and it works fine.
If some NPC hit me with a sneak attack backstab in a wide open field of short grass at noon, I think I'd chew the GM out and quit playing that game. That's just dumb, unless the guy was invisible.
The "sneak out from cover and stab someone" thing is covered in initiative and surprise, under "flat footed." Once a fight is happening, you can't really sneak up behind someone like that anyway.
I think a lot of tabletop gamers would benefit quite a bit by spending some of the time they spend on MMOs out at a LARP instead. It will change your perspective on combat, that's for sure.
|
I dont think that stealthing in the open should allow sneak attack either. But i do think there should be a manouver for the stealth skill (like a feint, but with stealth) that allows a fast run from cover to the target and you could do actions to lower the DC outside of combat, but have to beat CMD inside of the combat.